Free Exhibition held in the Portland Gal- | described a twelvemonth ago. The great lery, since named the German Bazaar, in painting which adorns the gallery at LivRegent Street a forlorn display which, erpool is truly an illustration of the death after many struggles, failed. We believe of Beatrice, but it projects, so to say, a drawing or two of Rossetti's were sent Rossetti even more than Dante on the to a collection in Russell Place, now Char- canvas. When he borrowed a verse from lotte Street, Fitzroy Square, and charita- " Philip van Artevelde," or chose a text ble exhibitions and quasi-private collec- from Shakespeare or Shelley, the verse tions, such as those of the first Hogarth and the text alike were but mottoes used to Club, to say nothing of Christie's auction bring the spectator face to face with the rooms, have seen a few works of his; but artist's motive, and make his asociations with the exception of "Dante's Dream," subserve the painter's will. which is now at Liverpool, "The Girlhood of the Virgin," his first oil painting, was the last he exhibited. In 1849-1850 was published the "Germ," which was intended to contain an etching of his, but never did so, the plate remaining unfinished, like another by Mr. Millais, which was begun for the same purpose. At this time every artist member of the P.R.B. was accustomed to prepare designs in pen and ink for chosen subjects. Rossetti and Mr. Millais, whose invention was superabundant, produced more such works than their fellows; and thus were made many designs of surpassing merit, few of which were carried out in oil or water; they remain to attest not only the genius of the inventors, but their technical skill and industry. They are thoroughly considered compositions, perfect in every respect but color. As examples of light and shade they equal fine etchings, which, indeed, in many respects they resemble. Rossetti was accustomed to choose at this time not only Scriptural incidents, but especially Dantesque, legendary, and romantic episodes, which permitted him to exercise his wonderful power of dramatic conception. At no time of his life was he content to produce mere illustrations of what he read; to the hints and half-hints of poets and historians he would give complete development, adding new imag. inings, complex imagery, and intensity of expression. The thought that lay at the bottom of his text he evolved and made his own. At other times, when his intellect had fully developed itself, he created his own subjects, and, even when Dante was in question, remade the motives of the story and worked them out again in noble pictures as well as in verse hardly less noble. No modern artist, not even Decamps himself, rejected more emphatically the foolish notion of British critics, that design must needs be the handmaid or illustrator of literature. The early compositions to which we now refer proved his recognition of the dignity of art as completely as the large pictures we The next development of our painter was in the direction of color. Of course, each step in his career was connected with that which preceded and that which followed. But one phase after the other was dominant. His progress was con stant. His attention was occupied for several years after 1850 by the production of a number of designs referring to Dante, to mediæval legends, especially those of the Arthurian cycle, and to ancient ballad poetry. In these designs he used brilliant hues, such as made his works glow with green, purple, and gold, and tints as vivid as those of fourteenth century illumina tions, and harmonized high notes of red and blue, as in "The Blue Closet" example which, like "The Tune of Seven Towers," refers to poetry of Mr. William Morris's "Fazio's Mistress,' "The Damosel of the Sancte Graal," and "The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere." These and other productions of the same class we described fully in "The Private Collections of England," No. IV., which deals with the gallery of Mr. Stevenson, of Tynemouth, and Nos. XVII. and XVIII., which criticise the collection of Rossetti's works belonging to Mr. George Rae, of Birkenhead. The vaguer, indeed, the more nebulous, the subject, the more solidity Rossetti gave to it. an Nearly ten years, 1850-1860, were devoted to these drawings and to similar studies, and at this time one or more pictures in oil, which, so far as we know, were never completed, were begun and in part executed. The legend of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, had a fascination for Rossetti at this period and ever after. wards. The fable of that luxurious and cruel witch, the tale of her haughtiness and transcendent beauty, suited his pencil, and the mysteriousness of the tradition charmed his imagination. While making studies larger than life for this and similar designs of singularly original character, he, not long after 1860, produced the earliest of a new class of his works, such as the "Sibylla Palmifera," "Monna Van- color as blush roses. The other damsels of this noble picture are only less beautiful than their mistress. The second pic This class comprises stately figures, ture is called "Proserpina," and the fig larger than life, instinct with fateful pas-ure of the bride of "gloomy Dis" epitsion or tragic languors, and personifying love in all its phases and degrees of desire or satiety. Among them are witchlike Astarte; Circe, at once cunning and cruel; "cool-fingered" Diana; the pure, wistful "Blessed Damozel," his own creation, who looked from heaven and, with ineffable tenderness, waited through centuries for the coming of her lover (it is a study of green and cerulean blue); Dante's Fiammetta, dying in a purple twilight; the beautiful " La Bella Mano," and the nameless "Lady of the Day-Dream," reclining under The thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore, Within the branching shade of Reverie. The greatest works of Rossetti are two. tomizes the highest qualities of Rossetti's Unto this wall, -one instant and no more Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey That chills me and afar, how far away, were. Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing Strange ways of thought, and listen for a sign: And still some heart unto some soul doth (Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to pine, bring, Continually together murmuring,) "Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!" From The Spectator. SLAVERY IN HONG KONG. THE Social questions which come up before the Colonial Office, as the ultimate referee from forty States in all degrees of civilization, are naturally endless; but few can be more perplexing than the one now coming up from Hong Kong. A system of slavery exists in that colony of the most disgusting character; it has been denounced both by the governor and the chief justice, and the Colonial Office must, therefore, under pain of Parliamentary opprobrium, put it down. They are not unwilling, and do not deny, though they extenuate, the facts; but to do it, evidently taxes all their experience in tentative legislation. About the facts, there is practically no dispute. Those who advise reform assert, and those who deprecate reform admit, that Chinese fathers and guardians do constantly sell their children, for money and by formal deed, into bondage, the boys to be hereditary domestic servants, and the girls to be prostitutes, in houses so poor and low that their inmates cannot be recruited from among women really free. The lads and girls thus sold are, as is natural, frequently ill-used, always robbed of their wages, and sometimes, there is the gravest reason to believe, seriously assaulted by their purchasers, who are supported in retaining their slaves by the public opinion, not only of their own class, but of respectable Chinese. The native traders of Hong Kong, for example, are alarmed to the utmost by the prospect of a local statute making the purchase of human beings an offence; and in their petition declare that the practice is in accordance with Chinese law, is indispensable to society, and is most useful in checking infanticide, which otherwise would attain even larger proportions than at present. In many cases, the girls sold profess the utmost unwillingness to enter on such a life, and in all there is reason to believe that they submit most unwillingly to some of the conditions of their slavery, as for example, the absorption of their wages by their employers. The chief justice, Sir John Smale, believes that their position is substantially that of slaves; and no one who reads the blue-book on the subject can doubt that he is in the right, though the word "slavery" is concealed under that of "adoption," and that an abuse exists which it is essential to the credit of Great Britain to suppress. So far all is clear; but when we come to the method of suppression, the perplexities are endless. That slavery exists in Hong Kong true slavery, the sale from hand to hand of unwilling British subjects, intended to labor for life without wages is past question, but it is also past question that the only sanction of the system is Chinese opinion. There is no law in the colony justifying slavery. Not only will no court take cognizance of it, but the chief justice is a determined and even enthusiastic opponent of the system, and will, whenever he gets the chance, even strain the law to punish avowed or convicted purchasers of slaves. The lads in service and the girls in the brothels are as absolutely by law free to depart or to complain as in England, and, moreover, it is specially admitted on all hands that they know this, and are quite aware of their own legal freedom. They are in bondage not to law, but to Chinese opinion, which holds, first, that the patria potestas is divine and absolute, and transferable by money; secondly, that a person so transferred may lawfully be compelled to obedience by pain; and thirdly, that it is infamous for a slave to enfranchise himself or herself, without repaying the whole purchase-money. No one who reads the most able summary by the American consul-general, Mr. Bailey, of the slave laws of China- laws almost as horrible as those formerly existing in the Southern States - - can doubt that these are fixed principles; and as the Chinese of Hong Kong take all their ideas from the Chinese within the empire, the whole weight of opinion, an opinion which is effective within their own minds also, operates to crush down the ten thousand slaves of Hong Kong. It is impossible. to convince the purchasers that they are wrong in obeying an immemorial system, strongly sanctioned by their own codewhich makes it death by the slow torture of gradual slicing into little pieces, to strike a master or his relations nearly impossible to convince the bought that they are right in declaring themselves free, an action, moreover, which would bring on them the terrorism by which the Chinese everywhere support their domestic system. The non-recognition of slavery by the law is therefore of no use, and the question before the colony and the Colonial Office is what further step to take. The sales are already invalid; the persons sold are already free; and yet so powerful is opinion, so rigid are Chinese ideas, and so effective, as we believe, is the secret terrorism, that slavery in a bad form un- | cannot be left in that position, if only be- From Belgravia. BOAR-HUNTING IN THE ARDENNES. A LOW whistle the appointed signal of the coming of our friends, lest any flurried sportsman should fire at a mere sound and tranquillity returns, with something of disappointment. Then the stalwart form of the justice of the peace heaves in sight. "Est-ce que vous n'avez rien vu?" he cried. "Ri- began the Parisian, but the last syllable died upon his tongue, and he threw his gun to his shoulder, and fired. There rose such a squeal as haunted the dreams of the butcher's daughter in Holmes's touching verse, and out from the undergrowth into the open dashed a great brown mass within ten yards of us, heading straight for the musical Frenchman. The brown mass was almost on him when he leaped nimbly on one side, and swinging round discharged the second barrel without "Mais, madame,” said the garde, "C'est effect. Piggy's rush, for he was here at last, had carried him twenty paces beyond his object when he turned again. Just as he turned, the judge and I fired together, and the great brute staggered and dashed on once more. Then came another shot, and the boar spun clean round like a teetotum and dropped. The gay Parisian ran forward, but the garde's voice cried, "Au large!" and the warning was not misplaced. The life was not out of our quarry yet. He rose and made another rush, but this time three shots met him, and when he fell again he was still enough in all conscience. We left him there, and marched forth from the wood and struck the road, along which we continued until we came to a little auberge, where we told our news, and secured bearers for the dead. A very sprightly old lady keeps this auberge, and while we sat sipping at Dinant beer and pulling at our pipes with a quite heroic air upon us all, the sprightly old lady told a story. Yesterday, said the sprightly old lady, she was cleaning her doorstep at about 5.30 in the morning, when she suddenly espied a sanglier walking leisurely up the road. He had evidently been out for a night's ramble in the cultivated fields, possibly in hope of a discovery of turnips or potatoes. Anyhow, there he was; and the old lady calling her husband and her son, the three armed themselves with pitchforks and intercepted his passage. And between them they slew him, and there was his body lying in a hut outside to prove the story, a body pierced with many wounds. du braconnage." But what, asked the sprightly old lady, were poor folks to do? If the nasty things were ringed in the nose like the domestic porker, there might be a chance for poor folks' gardens; but as it was - there an appealing shrug of the shoulders and a still more appealing extension of the hands ended the address. "Eh bien," said the justice of the peace, “n'en dis ricn." The garde shook his head with great gravity, and talked about the divine right of kings. The particular forests hereabout belong to Leopold II. The sprightly old lady urged that the sanglier had been found on the highroad, and not in the forest; surely he was anybody's property there! "Eh bien," said the justice of the peace again, “n'en dis rien; and eventually his advice was taken. Then a cart being brought up, and the bearers of our slain one arriving, the body of the boar was hoisted in and we set out in triumph. The scene at the hotel was one to be remembered. A crowd of at least a score of people surrounded the vehicle; the gendarme was under arms, and came out to look on. The cook brandished a rolling-pin about the prostrate giant of the forest, and prophesied rare dishes out of him, and the sportsmen's wives received the sportsmen as if they had just returned from the successful storming of a Malakoff. I thought of the sprightly old lady at the auberge, and her son and husband armed with pitchforks, but that was a thing to be silent over. THE Chinese authorities of Shanghai recently issued a quaint decree respecting the neglect of physicians to attend at once on their patients, and the high fees which they charge. They give notice that it is the duty of all physicians to use their knowledge for the benefit of the people; when people are sick they must be ready to attend upon them whenever they are sent for, without regarding the hour of the night or day, or the state of the weather. When people are ill, they long for the presence of the doctor as the grain of seed longs for the rains. Instead of doing this, however, the physicians now think that they possess great skill, and not only charge high fees, but insist on being paid full hire for their chair-coolies, and they do not care what becomes of the patient so that they get their fees. If these were only charged to the wealthy it would not so much matter; but the poor have to pay them also. An evil practice |