Hoopes says, "As far as these remarks apply to the superiority of spring over autumn planting, they have our decided approval, but we cannot coincide with the writer's views in advocating an early spring removal. Practice has fully proven to us the utility of performing the operation about the time the buds commence perceptibly to swell; at that period the trees, when transplanted, start immediately into action and perform their function in the new soil; on the other hand, the peculiar fleshy texture of the roots renders them remarkably impatient of being in a state of inactivity at such a period, and they will frequently perish from this cause, as is instanced in very early spring planting." Subsequent chapters treat of propagation; of pruning and after-management; of evergreen hedges; of diseases of conifers; of insects injurious to conifers; of situation and selection of varieties. With chapter ten begins the descriptive portion of the book. The word "illustrated" on the title-page is a very modest and even a very blunt statement of the fact that the book is really "illustrated" with admirably drawn, excellently engraved, and thoroughly well printed wood-cuts. Who drew them we are not informed, nor who engraved them, although they are so exceptionally good that we should be very glad to know the names of both artists. Next to the admirable wood-cuts which illustrate Professor Gray's Class-book on Botany, and the few but excellent cuts in Mr. Fearing Burr's Book of Vegetables, these illustrations in Mr. Hoopes' book are the best that have been produced in America. We should not be surprised to learn that they have been drawn by the same artist who illustrated both the work of Gray and that of Burr, whose name, owing to his own native modesty, and to Professor Gray's mere mention, has never emerged from its

CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY.

obscurity into more than local reputation. This is Mr. Isaac Sprague, whose talent, first recognized by Audubon, has ever since been exercised in the small circle of a few personal friends. But whether these illustrations in Mr. Hoopes' book are by him or not, we think another edition, which we hope will soon be called for, ought to give the name of artist and engraver. If they prove to be by another than Mr. Sprague, we shall then be gratified with the information that we have two first-rate botanical draughtsmen, when we thought ourselves happy in only one. If we are right in our conjecture that they are the work of Mr. Sprague, they will add still another to the few but great obligations we are already under to his close-observing eye and skilful hand.

Webster's Academic Dictionary. (New York: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co. 1868.) The "Academic Webster" is a model of what can be accomplished by well-directed labor. It is, in every respect, the juste milieu between the great Unabridged and the School dictionaries of the series. It is compact without superficiality or obscurity; its definitions are to the point, and its synonymy is all that can be expected in a work of the size. Without entering upon the questio vexata of Websterian orthography and pronunciation, we may say that the Academic Diction ary will meet the wants, not merely of the class to whom it is more especially directed, but of all such as cannot, for one reason or another, avail themselves of the Unabridged. Travellers, for instance, and those who need a work of the kind for their vacation library, will find the present one the best and the handiest. It is thoroughly accurate in its scholarship, practical, and will pack away very nicely in a corner of one's trunk or valise.

We are really sorry that Mr. Prang, who has given the public many excellent chromolithographs, should have fallen into the mistake of publishing the "Winter Landscape," after a painting by J. Morviller. It is simply bad, without a single redeeming quality. Really, "this will never do." Mr. Prang, as we have just said, has published many very fine chromo-lithographs. The Reading Magdalen, after Correggio, the Fringed Gentian, after Newman, Easter Morning, after a paint

ing by Mrs. James Hart, the Bare-footed Boy, after Eastman Johnson, and many others we could name, are really beautiful specimens of the art, and will carry pleasure into many humble homes. But the Winter Landscape, though one of the largest, is one of the poorest works he has ever published. It has neither beauty of color, nor excellence of composition, nor grace of sentiment, to commend it; and we cannot imagine why Mr. Prang should have chosen it, unless he was influenced by the fact that Morviller, a French artist, had selected the Hub as his American

residence. With the whole range of American art to choose from, Mr. Prang in this instance made a very bad selection.

It strikes us, too, that Mr. Prang claims too much credit for his enterprise and for himself. He wants to be regarded as a benefactor to the race, a sort of philanthropist in art; whereas he is certainly nothing of the sort. He is undoubtedly doing a service by introducing and perfecting a method for the cheap reproduction of pictures; he is entitled to no more credit than Mr. Schaus, or Mr. Knoedler, or any other picture-dealer who brings good stock into the market. So much credit Mr. Prang may justly claim, but no more. We have frequently commended his publications in these pages, and are ready to do so again, as often as he may give us the chance; but we cannot subscribe to his extravagant claims either in regard to himself or the character of his chromos. Chromo-lithography, though certainly a means for diffusing a love of pictures among the masses, is not in itself very high art. It is useful, because people like colored pictures better than engravings, as witness the rage for "Grecian painting," a few years ago, which proved such a godsend to picture-dealers with large stocks of unsaleable lithographs and mezzotints on hand. The public had no fancy for the plain prints, in black and white, but thought them lovely when daubed over with incongruous colors. Happily, the rage was short-lived, and "Grecian paintings are now to be met only occasionally in some farm-house parlors or country taverns. It would be hardly fair to class chromolithographs with "Grecian paintings," but we believe the taste for them will pass away in the same manner. People will outgrow them. They have no lasting attraction. As people advance in taste and appreciation of art, they begin to doubt the beauty of chromolithographs. As they feel the mysterious and undefinable loveliness of color in the works of true artists, they will scorn the mechanical sameness and dulness of the lithographic tints. The lack of variety of gradation, of harmony, will grow upon them, until they will no more think of admiring a counterfeit painting, than they would of passing a counterfeit bank-note. Mind, we do not wholly condemn these chromo-lithographs. We regard them, on the contrary, as a valuable means of art-education among the masses. They will find a place where other pictures would not, and will give harmless pleasure to thousands of people, who, as their taste becomes more re

fined, will learn to estimate them at their true value. No person of refined taste in art can look at these pictures, without feeling the utter impossibility of supplanting the master's hand by any mechanical contrivance. There is mind in every touch of the master's hand, and this cannot be imparted to lithographic stones.

Mr. Prang claims that his chromo-lithographs are the best in the market. This claim can hardly be allowed. We have seen many chromos from London and Berlin superior in workmanship to any thing he has yet published. Much of his work is well done, better, indeed, than most chromo-lithography; and we heartily acknowledge the zeal and enthusiasm with which he prosecuted his works. But it would be silly, because untrue, to assert that his chromos are "the best in the world." Sometime he may justly make this claim, and have it allowed, but not yet.

Still, it must be confessed that Mr. Prang has never published any thing so utterly and ludicrously bad as the Maude Muller recently sent forth to an astonished public by Mr. Schaus. How could this eminent picturedealer, whose publications generally show so much taste and judgment, suffer this wretched piece of work to go out under his name? We thought Maude Muller had suffered her worst at the hands of Mr. Constant Meyer; but it seems we were mistaken, and that the rivalry to produce the most wretched travesty of Whittier's beautiful creation had not yet exhausted itself. Will it still go on? hardly dare hope otherwise. As every thirdrate or fourth-rate artist once did his best (or his worst) to sicken people of Longfellow's Evangeline, so now the same class of " artists" endeavor to do the same disservice for Whittier's Maude Muller. Constant Meyer's Maude is being chromo-lithographed in Paris, for the American market, and will be inflicted on us sometime during the winter.

LEUTZE AND ELLIOTT.

We

WE Write these honored names with sadness. Only a few weeks ago both men were full of life and hope; both, in the prime of manhood, were looking forward to years of honorable work; and now both are dead. One, stricken down by heat in a Southern city, passed immediately from the activities of life through the doors of eternity, and was suddenly lost to sight; the other lingered awhile on a sick-bed, and took farewell of his art, his friends, and his life. There was little in common between the men thus made

acquainted with death,-nothing, in fact, if we except the robustness of temperament and hearty love of strength characteristic of both. Leutze was a German by birth, and his art-culture was derived from German sources alone; whereas Elliott was a genuine American, and received his education from American teachers. He was an artist from boyhood. When a mere child he attempted to paint the burning of Moscow. His shy ambition nearly cost him his life. It was winter, and in order to be undisturbed he shut himself up in a close room, warmed by an open charcoal fire, from the fumes of which he was nearly suffocated. He soon abandoned historical painting, and devoted his great genius to portraiture. His early masters were Trumbull and Quidor; but his great teacher was an admirable portrait by Gilbert Stuart which a fortunate circumstance threw in his way, and which he prized as his choicest possession. While he was still young and poor, a man who had got hold of a note of hand given by Elliott to pay a board-bill, tried to wrest the prize from him, through a forced sale of his effects; but the artist painted a clever copy, which was actually sold as the original. Under the circumstances the ruse was pardonable.

Elliott rejoiced in strength, and the quality most lacking in his portraits is delicacy. He loved to paint strong faces, full of expres sion and character, and with plenty of healthful color. Conventionality was his abhorrence. He worked with immense energy and will, and all his portraits exhibit a certain waywardness of power that was characteristic of the man. He was often thought capricious, because he chose to work in his own way; his method of studying character was often peculiar, especially when he took a personal interest in the sitter. When commissioned a few years since to paint the portrait of the late Matthew Vassar, founder of the Vassar Female College, Elliott paid the old gentleman a visit of several days, and though every one was impatient for him to begin working, his palette and brushes lay unused. Some one ventured to remonstrate with the artist, who good humoredly laughed, but said nothing, and it was agreed to let him take his time. One evening, while the whole party were sitting together on the balcony of Vassar's house, Elliott made some disparaging remark about the college and female education in general. This roused the old gentleman, and springing from his chair, he commenced talking in the most ani

mated strain about his project, and at last set Elliott down in a very decided manner. The artist watched him attentively, and when the old gentleman began to cool down a little, quietly remarked, "That will do, I've got what I wanted." The next morning he commenced working on the portrait, and made a very characteristic likeness. Though never rude to his sitters, Elliott had a very quiet and decided way of brushing aside pretensions, and silencing impertinent talk. An eminent clergyman once improved the occasion of a sitting to lecture the artist on his various short-comings. Elliott worked away for some time without replying, and the clergyman began to think his eloquence was not without effect, when in the middle of his discourse, the artist, in a short, dry, but perfectly courteous tone, said, "Turn your head a little to the right, and shut your mouth." The mouth was shut, to be opened no more in that sitting. This anecdote is told of other artists, but is characteristic enough of Elliott to stick to him.

Elliott was a rapid worker, and his portraits are to be found in every city of the Union. No other portrait-painter in America was ever in such request, and his order-book was always filled with commissions for months in advance. His last illness was aggravated by his working into the hot weather, when he should have been away in the mountains. Dying, he has left behind no man to take his place. Among all our portrait-painters, there is none who has his grasp of character and strength of delineation, none his wonderful insight into individuality and his power to give his conceptions life on the

canvas.

Socially, Elliott was one of the most genial and pleasant of men, and was esteemed no less as a friend than as an artist by all who knew him personally. Few artists have been followed to the grave with more sincere sorrow.

Regretted as the honored artist cut off in the prime of life, mourned for as the faithful friend and genial companion, he leaves such a memory as every man would wish to leave.

The high esteem in which his works are held would make a public exhibition of them a fitting tribute to his memory. Could not this be organized under the management of the National Academy of Design? As Mr. Elliott's family are in independent circumstances, the proceeds of the exhibition could be appropriated to the erection of a monument over his remains.

IN Salmagundi, during the last summer, the table-talk, for the most part, has run upon the subject of the railroad station and the drive thither and home. The whole season through, the gentlemen of the several families have risen with whatever American bird answers, for early rising, to the lark, and with commendable regularity have gone to the city every day, wet or dry, at the same hour. To breakfast with them, and to drive with them to the Station, the young ladies of the several families have risen at the same hour, and have entered the dining-room with clock-like punctuality, Stella always the least bit behind because of that magnificent hair of hers, giving each other the young-ladies'-kiss at the very moment when Harry and Fred. appeared at the threshold, Fred. always the least bit behind, as might have been expected, because of those magnificent whiskers. The young ladies are exquisitely and appropriately dressed for the drive; Stella having on a white muslin dress with delicate ruffles; a short sacque of cream-colored cloth, with gold frogs, gold epaulettes, gold buttons, gold chevrons, and loops of gold cord; on her head a little round hat of blue velvet, with a snow-white plume, and a gauze veil, and in each of her exquisite ears a solitaire diamond. She wears a glove on the hand that has the fewer rings, but the heat will not allow her to keep the one covered that bears the three diamond hoops, the emerald, and the onyx seal. This hand supports a parasol of white silk trimmed with lace, and with an ivory handle; and she is mistress of the charming art whereby this cobweb-toy is so employed as to serve many purposes besides the original one intended by its inventor. In Stella's hands, as in those of so many young ladies of the present day, the parasol is to her beauty what the windowscreens in a picture-gallery are to the pictures; she makes the light fall by means of it where it is most becoming; but then she does other things with it equally useful and necessary. She lifts it in time to see her partner in last night's German, if she wishes to see him; she lowers it in time to avoid seeing fat Mrs. B., or that poky Tom Darling, or gossiping Mrs. L. All that Stella can do with the parasol, Belinda can do, and as she reclines in the barouche beside her friend, she fairly divides the public eye with her. Her dress of black barége, with its multitude

of ruffles edged with green satin, equally sets off Stella's cloud of white, and is set off by it. Her jacket of scarlet is barred with black and gold, and buttoned and looped with gold. Her hands are both ungloved, and, for her father is a trifle richer than Stella's, outsparkle those of her slightly envious friend. Her chignon, or, as I am shocked to say, if Salmagundi were in New England, she and the other girls would call it-her “doughnut," is of raven black, and is wonderfully set off with a Louis XI. hat of black velvet; this style of hat is like a sugar-scoop without a handle, and with a small sugar-loaf in it— with a pigeon's wing dyed scarlet by way of plume. On the front seat of the barouche, opposite these beautiful creatures, sit Harry and Fred. They are both of them clerks, the one with a salary of eight hundred dollars, the other with a thousand dollars a-year. We need not, however, describe their dress minutely. Fred., who has the smaller income, is much more elegantly attired than Harry, partly as a matter of policy, lest he should be thought to have less money than his friend, but principally from taste, and to have every thing in keeping with his whiskers. The hats, coats, trousers, vests, and boots of both of them, however, cost all that such things cost in Broadway in this present year of grace; the shirts too are immaculate, and each of them has a diamond pin, an enormous seal-ring, Fred.'s an antique, if his jeweller may be trusted, and a gold watch and chain, with pendent lockets and charms. Fred., too, sports a gold-headed Malacca joint, but that is because of his diamond ring; Harry carries a silk umbrella.

Are our young friends alone in their glory on this enchanting morning? Oh, no, for this is the Corso, the Boulevard, the Regentstreet of Salmagundi. What were life in the country without a railroad station, and a long, dusty road leading to it, lined with Irish shanties, and mechanics' houses, and grocers' shops, with idle people staring at us as we pass, and dawdling people stopping their lazy work to look at us? The long procession winds down every morning, one grand procession with smaller and less splendid ones before and after, and winds back again every evening, and the barouche that carries Stella and Belinda, Harry and Fred., is only a unit in the luxurious, over-dressed parade. The

girls dress for the drive and the Station; returning home, without the men, they discuss the Station; all through the heat of the long day till lunch, they dawdle on beds and sofas, and read novels, with intermingled chat about the people they saw, going to the Station and returning; in the afternoon they drive, and call, and interchange ideas with their friends about the weather, the state of the roads, and the Station; who went to the city to-day, whom they met going and coming, who is coming up with the men to-night. Then comes the great event of the day, the going to the Station to fetch the men and whatever guests are expected. We were equal to the simple dresses of the ladies in the morning, so fresh and négligé, but we shall not attempt to describe the splendors of the afternoon toilettes. To say that they are appropriate, is to say nothing more than applies always to the dress of American ladies in public. Our ladies are always dressed appropriately-for something, but we too often find that it is not for the thing in hand. Still, the ladies of Salmagundi, and, no doubt, of other places, reason well, that the only use of dress is to make one conspicuous, and that since the only place in which they can be seen is in the shabby street that leads to the Station, they may as well waste their richness on the Irish air, as keep it locked up in their wardrobes and jewel-boxes.

WHAT a very unsatisfactory thing-from the common-sense point of view-is the life of the average American girl, in the country? How little amphibious she is. She knows, we may partly admit, what to do with herself in the winter, in town-has activities, occupations, resources there, such as they are, yet poor as they may be, such as keep her mind from utterly stagnating-but, in the country, she is an aimless, purposeless thing. It is not only the Stellas and Belindas that lead the doleful life we have sketched above; nor is it only in the mis-called country-places, near large cities, that such lives are led. In respect of resource and occupation, our American girls-rich and only well-to-do alike, in villas and in cottages-are far behind the English girls; much farther behind them than their brothers are behind the English boys. The American boy has games, sports, out-of-door pleasures enough. He has ball and cricket, swimming and nutting, riding and shooting, amusement and occupation for all the stages of his youth; but the American girl has only the mild excitement of croquet

at which, moreover, she is continually obliged, or thinks herself obliged, to appear in fulldress-or the occasional horse-back ride, or the still rarer opportunity to swim or skate. What then can she do in the country? What wonder if, away from Saratoga, Newport, Long Branch, Niagara, or such public places, with their "drives," and "hops," and "fancy balls," she finds the country a bore? She doesn't know what to do there. She has never been taught natural history, nor drawing; she cannot walk a mile, and does not choose to, if she could. She knows nothing about gardening-it breaks her back to weed; she does not even know some of the commonest flowers by name. She wonders why Eve was sorry to quit her country-home and go out into the world. To her that would have seemed no punishment at all. Is this dislike and unfitness for country-life in the majority of American girls the result of a deficient education, or of a want of physical health? We are inclined to trace it directly to the way in which they are educated, or, rather, not educated. What would be the success of a school in which girls should not merely be taught to learn, but to think; in which botany, geology, physical geography, should be taught by professors in the open air, in which, in short, the whole aim should be to make the girls sharers with their brothers in the use and enjoyment of the material world?

THE Coincidence seems a little striking, that within a month we should have lost an important bit out of our scanty information with regard to Shakespeare, and should have lighted upon a poem by Milton, written probably with his own hand, and never before published. The discovery that the entries relating to Shakespeare's plays contained in certain manuscript accounts of the Revels at Court in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First are forgeries by a later hand than that which wrote the original documents, seems, if we may judge by the journals, to have excited very little interest in England, although it deprives the world of one of the few items of knowledge it possessed about a man who was enough of a myth already without having his personal identity still further attenuated by this unhappy discovery. The existence of the documents in question was first made known to the English public by a volume printed in 1842 for the Shakespeare Society: "Extracts from Accounts of the Revels at Court in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James the First, from the original of