About 1855 she ceased to exhibit annually at the Salon. In 1855 Rosa Bonheur sent to the Exhibition Universelle a picture which she painted at the request of the state as a companion piece to "Labourage." It represented hay-making in Auvergne. This picture received a first-class medal and hung for some time in the Luxembourg. In 1857, influenced by Walter Scott's novels and anxious to see Sir Edwin Landseer's productions, she visited England. She was well known to the English people and was enthusiastically received in England and Scotland.

EXAMPLES OF HER WORK IN THE NEW YORK

MUSEUMS.

In 1855 in the Pyrenees and in 1857 in Scotland she made many studies. The canvas in the Metropolitan Museum entitled Weaning the Calves" is perhaps a souvenir of one of these localities. In this last-named canvas there is no attempt to make a tour de force; it is unpretentious а mere animal genre. In the midst of craggy highlands, in front of a chevauxde-frise fence made of pine trunks, are half a dozen tawny calves; on the other side of the fence is the ever-watchful mother cow; and beyond, the rest of the herd may be seen straggling down the mountain side. On the left is the cowherd's hut of rocks and sods. It is a most 'straightforward work.

In her "Deer in the Forest-Twilight," at the Metropolitan Museum, three deer are bivouacked in a forest, probably Fontainebleau; the bluish trees stand out in silhouette against the pink twi light sky; the green moss at the base of the trunks of the trees bespeaks their antiquity; and the ground carpeted with red leaves is significant of autumn. In the painting of the animals there is a delicacy of treatment well suited to the graceful creatures portrayed.

"A Study of a Limier-Briquet Hound" is also in the Wolfe collection. It is not a powerful study, and indeed the hind legs of the dog do not seem to belong to the fore legs. The background is little more than a scumbling of reddish-brown paint, against which the brownand-white dog stands out in cheap relief.

In her "Deer Drinking" in the Lenox Library the animals are very much alive, but there is fumbling in the background.

ROSA BONHEUR'S ART.

Rosa Bonheur's art is like that of Landseer's, he is stronger in telling the story than in the manner of telling it. It is difficult to explain to the lay reader what constitutes the style of Rosa Bonheur and of Landseer. If we visit the Metropolitan Museum we can get a better conception of their styles by examining the work of Auguste Bonheur than we can by studying his sister's work, the "Horse Fair," for though it is one of the most vigorous of her works, it is less representative of her prevailing methods than are her smaller canvases. The Auguste Bonheur at the museum is so large and so lacking in vigor that its faults are most salient. If this style is to be epitomized, I should say it is the technic of the scene painter: all his tricks, all his palpable methods, all his tawdry deceptions come out in this picture as though it were an elementary lesson in the making of a theatrical background. The objects in the foreground are relieved by an evident blurring in the middle distance, and the distance is made to recede by a hazy dimness as tangible as a London fog. There

is no subtlety, no impalpable suggestiveness, nothing spirituelle about it. In Rosa Bonheur's painting there is a trifle less of the scene painter's methods, but it cannot be ranked with the more imaginative art of Rousseau, M. let, and Courbet.

WORE than once have I in this magazine expressed my amazement at the sort of incapacity to understand European affairs that prevails in America; while a similar incapacity prevails in Europe with regard to American affairs. That the Atlantic Ocean should have remained so deep and so wide, in an intellectual sense, when the progress of civilization has made its crossing so short and the intercourse so frequent between both sides is indeed almost inexplicable.. Yet when one realizes how few Americans could sum up correctly the events that have happened in Europe within the last hundred years, while still fewer Europeans could tell what experiences the New World has gone through during the same period, it seems probable that this ignorance of the past can be made responsible for such an inability to master the present. Nor is there anything wonderful in the one resulting from the other, for it is quite as difficult to judge of a whole people from the moving point of view of the hour as it is to judge of a single man by what he does or says without knowing what he has been doing or saying before. Who will be able in the United States to follow the development of German imperialism, of French republicanism, of Swiss radicalism, of Norwegian secessionism, unless he is acquainted with the circumstances under which Germany was turned into an empire and France made a republic; unless he knows how Switzerland has been led to centralization and why Norway seeks absolute independence from Sweden? And again, who can follow the confusing phases of the so-called Eastern question" if he thinks of the Bulgarians, the Serfs, and the Roumanians as mingled in one big flock? It is true that America has been spared the trouble and danger of having to deal with these problems. Up to now she could stand aside and watch; but this she cannot do any longer.

COLUMBIA'S NEW BUSINESS.

The greatest and most unavoidable consequence of the Spanish war is that which Lord Salisbury, at the Guildhall banquet last November, pointed out in terms, strange to say, rather suspicious and disquieting. There is no good reason why the British premier should not welcome Columbia's entry on the international stage. Yet if he has no reason of being afraid, he is right in con

sidering this entry as an extremely important. event, perhaps the most important event since the completion, in 1870, of German and Italian unity, which has altered so profoundly the state of things in Europe. The weight of the fact lies in this, that from such a stage there is no possible withdrawal for a great power except a temporary one, such as Russia's or France's after the Crimean and Franco-German wars. Besides, the world at large is undergoing great changes.

I wonder how any one can, under such cir cumstances, claim that the United States ought to keep out of it all and look disinterestedly on the ambitious undertakings of others. So long as France, Germany, and Russia were busy fighting for some piece of European territory or quarreling over some question of a merely oldworld character, the Americans had no reason to interfere. What was wise then would be foolish to-day; and since the tricolor and the doubleheaded birds are carried all around the globe, so must the Stars and Stripes. Let us hope that war may, if not come to an end, at least be made rarer and rarer by way of arbitration; but peace never meant nor will ever mean no struggle. Struggle is life. No struggle is death. A man can give it up and rest; a nation cannot.

I must confess that as a friend of America I almost regret that her dropping into the international struggle should have been too sudden, too complete and-if I dare to say so-too glori ous. So great a revolution in the foreign policy is likely to disconcert public opinion and bring in a series of internal difficulties. However, we may count on the patriotism and wisdom of the people of the United States to set things in order again. Besides, it is useless to argue on what might have been in the presence of accomplished facts. Past is past, and the splendid victories of Manila and Santiago belong to it already, as surely as the noble fights of the independence and secession wars. They must, then, have their consequences according to the social laws of progress and evolution. I claim that one of these consequences is that Columbia must sit henceforth permanently in the council of nations and take part in every discussion, whether she cares to do it or not. This is what I call her new business, and I feel that truth and justice won't lose through her participation in the affairs of the world.

MODERN HISTORY-A SURE GUIDE.

Now, a new business supposes a new training. Old Europe seems to have caught a glimpse of that; for one can note since the Spanish war is over a considerable change in the style and color of her magazines and papers when they speak of what is going on on the other side of the water. America ceases to be the home of a people exclusively composed of money-makers, professional beauties, and black servants. Descriptions of the Chicago stockyards, trivial incidents in the lives of Newport. millionaires, and Fifth Avenue gossip are giv ing way to more serious studies, and, thank God, some of these are of an historical character. Thus people who did not know who Jackson was or how California entered the Union will little by little become acquainted with the sayings and doings of American statesmen during the present century. The United States of to-day will be intelligible to them, and they will even be able to foresee something of the Unit

ed States of to-morrow Americans must do the same. I insist once more on modern history as the surest way to a practical knowledge of the world. Statistics and travelers' diaries, political or philosophical essays won't give you

by fighting, eighty years ago, that cyclopean war that brought to death one-third, not of the soldiers, but of the whole population of Greece. You will find that altogether their career has been one of almost uninterrupted progress, and if you take into consideration the dreadful weight of the Turkish yoke, which for several centuries made slaves of them, you must come to the conclusion that either in war or in peace no people has ever shown himself more worthy of freedom. What is true of the Greeks may be true of

the idea that it is safe for them to write and more interesting for people to read about remote times. And it is true that those who write on recent periods are, as a rule, more strictly, not to say sharply, criticised. In English, with the excep tion of Sloane's beautiful work on Napoleon and perhaps one or two more, there are almost no books that can be trusted on modern France, not to speak of other countries.

A new school of history-writers is rising in France. We needed it immensely. Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Thiers had gone so far in their neglect of every kind of investigation

that there was for many years a general indulging in the worst of faults-the assimilation of history to novel-writing. Facts were carefully interweaved, dressed, and lightened up in such a manner that they could serve to prove the author's

ERNEST LAVISSE.

(Director of historical studies at the Sorbonne.)

preconceived views. Art was everywhere; sci ence nowhere. Mind that this can be done without insincerity. By thinking over and over again the extraordinary career of Napoleon, Thiers, who was an enthusiast, had gradually lost sight of its human character and stuck to the idea of some providential design, such as Virgil's or Homer's gods and goddesses would plot over in order to protect Eneas or Achilles. And by looking as a poet and dramatist into the impressive episodes of the French Revolution, Lamartine had been led to describe his typical but delusive Girondins, not at all as they were, but as he would have wished them to be. were self-conceited, as was also Chateaubriand. In fact, all artists are more or less self-conceited. Imagination sets their mind at work; reality does not. If reality is shown to contradict what they say they will refuse to yield, and sincerely believe that they are right and can see what other men are not allowed to see. Victor Hugo's name may be added to the list. His prestige

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has been so great that scientists as well as literary men were influenced by it. Besides, he treated at intervals historical subjects, which, sad to say, he falsified audaciously. It would be tiring and useless to look for the traces of such leadership among writers of smaller renown. Yet they could be easily discovered. The artis. tic theory of history-writing is not yet done with. Books, magazines, and daily papers show even now frequent tendencies to revive it. Either by some typical defect of character, as was the case with Renan, who felt at times unable to restrain his powerful imagination, or by some inclination to be carried away through patriotic enthusiasm, as happens with Lavisse, or even by some emphatic exaggeration of the importance of the French Revolution-a mistake by no means rare among Frenchmen-history-writers are still inclined not to follow closely enough the narrow path that leads to truth.

TAINE AND THE GERMANS.

It will be Taine's lasting glory to have started a movement of reaction against these evils, the elements of which he brought from Germany. Our grandsons, when looking back on the present century, will credit the Germans with the merit of having achieved a twofold progress-political and scientific. In politics they reached unity; for science they did even more. They created what may be deemed the finest and truest of investigating methods, a method that is based on a thorough analysis of each fact and allows no general deduction unless facts are proved to agree with one another. That such a method can be made use of by philosophers and moralists, as well as by mathematicians and naturalists, is obvious. Yet the Germans have not succeeded so far in that direction. Scientific investigation applied to philosophy does not seem to have made it much clearer or simpler. History, on the other hand, has been like a tool in the hands of the would-be-united Germans, and Truth had too often to give way before Germania, whose part in the past progress of the world was systematically enlarged and beautified by writers and lecturers, in order that a patriotic enthusiasm might be aroused among the young. Taine was engaged in no work of this sort. was entirely free, and when he began using the analytical method to investigate the revolutionary origin of modern France he believed very likely, as did the majority of his compatriots, in the greatness of the Revolution, the nobleness of its leaders, and the everlasting character of its work. His conclusions, however, were in another direction. A careful and conscientious study of his subject impressed upon him the conviction that

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whatever good the Revolution had achieved was owed to previous initiative, and that the haughtiness, debauchery, and cruelty of revolutionary men had made it drop into a succession of crimes leading to military despotism.

If you

It is superfluous to recall the great sensation that was created by the publication of Taine's historical works. No books can be said to have had a deeper or more general influence on contemporary literature. Many writers adopted unhesitatingly what was henceforth known as Taine's method, notwithstanding the fact that the principle of it had been borrowed from Germany; but Taine, it is true, had originated its adaptation to history. Now, what the powerful leader has been able to do his followers did not succeed so well in imitating. They went further than he and fell into exaggerations, the result of which, however, was not altogether useless. It pointed out the inconveniences of the method. Every system has its defects. Scientific investigation is the safest and, very likely, the shortest way to truth; but the facts you mean to investigate must be most carefully chosen. investigate at random any fact that comes beneath your reach, you run the risk of going astray and of being led into some kind of "scientific paradox." The argument may be sound, but the ground underneath is shifting sand. fair example of this is given by Henry Houssaye, one of the most praised among Taine's followers, and one who, while he has a conspicuous and brilliant style of his own, has taken great care to follow his model as closely as possible. Houssaye wrote concerning 1814 and 1815, two eventful years for France, and he has endeavored to trace up the windings of public opinion during that uncertain and agitated period. Every bit of information proves good to him. He quotes all kinds of documents and welcomes any testimony. Now, can an article published in a provincial paper be trusted on equal terms with a confidential report of some high-ranked public officer, and is it safe to oppose local littleness to general statistics? Houssaye's relation of Waterloo, drawn up after such principles, is perhaps no more correct and perhaps less lively than Thiers' description of Austerlitz. One must admit,

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then, that the man who wishes to study an historical subject taken from modern times ought first to use his critical powers in choosing carefully the facts he thinks worthy of investigation, as would a mineralogist in collecting the stones or dusts he means to carry back to his working den to be examined. That the facts thus picked out ought to be thoroughly and conscientiously investigated, all the more since there are fewer, admits of no doubt. But it is not necessary that

ALBERT SOREL.

(Author of "L'Europe et la Révolution.")

the reader should be made acquainted with the details of the author's work and asked to follow him backward and forward; as long as he is kept informed as to where he can look for supplementary information and general verifying he does not care for more. Otherwise he will get tired and confused. It is the great drawback of modern history d la Taine that it becomes easily dull and complicated and sets men and things on a level. The historians of whom I am about to speak seem to have successfully avoided these threatening difficulties.

ALBERT SOREL ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Albert Sorel, now a man over fifty and a member of the French Academy, belonged at first to the Foreign Office, and as such remained some years in Berlin toward the close of Napoleon III.'s reign, when Prussia had already passed her Austrian rival and taken the lead of the German race. Shortly afterward the great outburst of 1870 sent him back to Paris as a defender of his invaded country. That the sight of such a terrible tragedy should have turned his thoughtful and inquisitive mind toward history and its dramatic changes is by no means extraordinary. But Sorel was not only a thinker; he wished to be a man of action. And this fruitful combining of science and action remains even now the char

acteristic of his manly nature. While writing