but if the angel had said that the pictures should be attributed to - [naming a popular painter of commonplace sentiment], I don't think I could."

At all events, the nation is proud, not only of the artist, but of the man who has done so much to raise the level of artistic work and artistic endeavor. As I said before, he has had to wait for his reward. He did not take the public by storm. His reputation, as a portrait-painter even, was attained only by degrees, while his moral allegories and poetical dreams were

still longer in obtaining recognition. Now, however, there is scarcely anything he touches which is not received with something more than a common welcome, whether it be a portrait like that of Mr. Walter Crane, a landscape like the glorious vision of the light and color of a Scotch lake which is now on the walls of the New Gallery, or a vision of the flushed sleep of a rosy Cupid that lately hung on the walls of the Guildhall Gallery. Nor among his earlier pictures is it only the most obviously attractive which arrest the

interest of the visitor to the Tate Gallery. Not only the "Love and Death," the "Psyche," the "Faith," the "Hope," the "Love and Life," but the frantic "Jonah," the terrible" Minotaur," the solemn still life of "Sic Transit," and the amorphous confusion of "Chaos' hold the attention, for behind all these things are seen the eyes of a great, pure, simple soul recording its visions of human life in the past, the present, and the future.

Yet this is the artist of whom Palgrave wrote, in connection with a picture of a

girl's head ("Choosing ") in the Academy of 1864, that his genius really lay in the direction of refinement, grace, and fancy, "not force, thought, imagination;" adding that "It is his work in the latter manner which will, at any rate, be preferred by all the world to his attempts in the terribile via of life-size allegories." And of his portraits Ruskin wrote in 1875, "Mr. Watts's portraits are all conscientious and subtle, and of great present interest, yet not realistic enough to last." These criticisms were quoted as representing current

criticism in a "Dictionary of Artists of the Nineteenth Century," published in 1879, or when Watts was sixty-two years of age. Even his fellows in art do not seem to have been in a hurry to recognize Watts's real power, as it was not till 1867, when the artist was fifty years of age, that they elected him as an Associate of the Royal Academy.

It was only the other day that I saw the grand old artist-grand even in presence, despite his small stature and gentle ways. He was in his own charming garden at Little Holland House, and surrounded by admiring and loving friends. He said that they had spoiled him, and that he had always been spoilt; but perhaps he has had no better friend than Time, who has given him room to develop his powers and assure his reputation. Though eightythree years old, he still works on with the ardor almost of youth, now bringing a little nearer to completion one of those many pictures which are in progress and wait sometimes for years before they receive their finishing touches, now striking out some altogether fresh conception. He rises and commences his work early. Lately he has been much engaged in sculpture. When at Limner's Lease, his pleasant country house in a valley near Guildford, Surrey, where he retreats from the winter fogs of London, he has been working on a statue of Lord Tennyson; when in London recently, much of his time has been spent on that colossal equestrian statue of Physical Energy which was commenced I do not know how many years ago, and of the completion of which everybody has despaired except the artist himself.

It is the figure of a naked man upon a barebacked horse. The horse is a powerful beast with magnificent head and neck, still showing the fiery spirit which has been brought into subjection by its rider. He, leaning backward, is shading his eyes with one hand as if searching the horizon. "It is Physical Energy," insists the artist. "Physical, not Vital, Energy, as some writers have foolishly said [I am afraid I am one of these foolish persons], for all Energy is Vital. It is the great, irresistible, never-satisfied Force which conquers all. He has conquered the horse, but he is searching the world for something else to subdue."

"It is a magnificent creature, that horse," said I. "Oh," replied the artist, "the horse is nothing; the inan is everything. I thought first to model him on the Elgin Theseus; but when I got Theseus on the horse, I found he would not do at all. His legs were not long enough. It is not much like a horse, I am told; I am not sure that it is much like a man. But none of my things are quite like nature. They are dreams. But I think it is Greek."

It is much to the credit of the British Government that some little while ago they offered to give a splendid site for this noble work near the Serpentine, where its grand design would be seen to the greatest advantage. They offered also to pay for the casting of it. The latter suggestion was not, however, in accordance with the generous intentions of the artist, and the offer has remained in abeyance. The best that can be hoped is (and the work has lately been so much forwarded towards completion that the hope may be entertained with some confidence) that the statue will be completed and cast by its designer, and that the Government will renew its offer of the site. So a work which may be said to represent the essence of Watts's genius, and is of its kind unsurpassed, may yet prove a permanent record of that genius, and one of the noblest ornaments of the metropolis.

As I turned from this colossus, which, huge as it is, seemed capable of motion as light as air and as swift as flame, to the small human figure by my side with the kind, keen eyes and Titianesque head, I could not help thinking that there were other Energies more strong, more victorious, than the Physical. That fragile frame contained the maker of this great group, the composer of a hundred soulmoving pictures, the transmitter to posterity of the outward form and inward spirit of I know not how many of the greatest and noblest of his fellow-creatures, the supporter, not with his brush, but with his purse, of many schemes for the benefit of his race, the sustainer by a magnificent contribution of the Home Industries Movement in England, and, to say no more, the raiser of a shelter for the street workers in the city of London, on the walls of which are recorded the heroic deeds of the poor.

T

HE scientific etymologist, accustomed to read the true meaning of words by their derivation or to study out their corruptions, would have a sorry puzzle should he tackle our title noun. Such influence has the power of ridicule in France that it is from this source alone that the word silhouette has become attached to all sharply defined outlines of the round, with a flat, opaque surface; and consequently it is without a derivative root. It is a local slang that has fastened itself upon the tongue of civilized Europe, and although it had its birth only in the middle of the last century, it has been retroactive in its application, so that this form of art, the earliest extant type of pictoriology, that which we find

upon Etruscan pottery and Egyptian mummy-cases, is to-day generically described as silhouette.

It surely seems absurd, when seriously considered, that a mere slur upon a French Cabinet Minister should be permitted to dominate centuries and insinuate itself into current language as a good word. But for this circumstance, however, the name of Étienne de Silhouette, the economical financial Minister of Louis XV., would be hopelessly forgotten.

Madame Pompadour, when in the zenith of her power, introduced the rage for flat profile portraits in black upon a white ground. They were the fashion of the hour. Easily made by casting a shadow with a lamp, every one was engaged in

the operation, and soon they struck the popular taste and popular pocket, and profiles à la Pompadour flooded France. Her decline was followed by the ascendency of Monsieur de Silhouette, who became an object of derision and ridicule on account of his parsimony and rigid system of retrenchment, so that every thing cheap, mean, or shabby was dubbed à li Silhouette. The flat profiles, from their inexpensiveness, came under the ban; and thus they have served to keep alive the name of a Minister of Finance which otherwise would have gone down into deserved obscurity.

The earliest silhouettes that is, black profile likenesses on white ground-that were commercially made in this country, so far as I know, were the famous ones cut at Charles Willson Peale's museum in Philadelphia, more than a century ago. They were executed by an adroitly conceived machine, which traced the profile with mathematical accuracy, similar to the physiognotrace, and cut it about three inches long out of the center of a sheet of white paper. All the distinguished men and women of the day flocked to the museum to have their faces cut, and in "McClure's Magazine for February, 1897, will

He was under "management," and, although before the days of Barnum advertising, was very adroitly put forward in the newspapers. Wherever he went a "Hubard Gallery" was opened, where, for the admission of "fifty cents," the visitor was "entitled to see the exhibition, hear the concert, and obtain a correct likeness by Master Hubard, cut with common scissors in a few seconds, without the aid of drawing or machine." There

was also sold, for "six and a quarter cents," a memoir of Master Hubard, with a key to the cuttings. This chapbook, which makes Master Hubard three years more juvenile than he really was, tells us that he made his début at Ramsgate in September, 1822, and attracted the attention of the Duchess of Kent, who was at Townley House; that he took portraits of all the household, which, with "the little Princess Victoria, the future Queen of England, are in the gallery, and attract attention as the earliest productions of Master Hubard." He visited Glasgow just before coming to America, when the members of the Philosophical Society, at the instance of George Combe, the phrenologist, presented him with a silver palette,

likeness of General George Washington. Without intending to trace the history of the art in this country, mention must be made of two famous profile-cutters who followed their vocation here; one, William James Hubard, famous as a youthful prodigy, and the other, Augustin Edouart, famous for the skill he exhibited in his work.

Hubard was English born, and landed in New York, a youth of seventeen, within a few days of Lafayette's arrival, in 1824.

the Rev. John J. Lloyd, of Lynchburg, Va. It is inscribed: "Presented to Master James Hubard by admirers of his genius in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, February 14, 1824." This was accompanied by an address: "The lovers of the Fine Arts in Glasgow, recognizing in your productions the strong impress of genius, have the highest gratification in presenting you with this Palatte, which they trust will incite you to improve your powers so as ultimately to become a distinguished artist."