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bread-and-butter, and wine of Argenteuil probabilities, but from the ostrich-egg day soon grew into the staple bill of fare. Dur- probabilities were discarded. Eggs aping the Revolution the Longchamps nun- peared measuring a foot in diameter big nery vanished, but the Longchamps fair chocolate and sugar eggs filled with sweetcontinued, and it flourishes to this day, no meats, or monster eggs filled with toys; or, longer as a thing for booths and egg picnics, again, huge mahogany eggs, with brass but as a three days' drive to the Bois de mountings and feet, to stand up on end Boulogne, in which the new spring fashions and act as liqueur receptacles. Then are worn for the first time, and everybody people used the Easter egg as a medium possessed of a barouche and horses airs for giving presents which they would have them. As for the eggs, the yearly sale of had no good excuse for offering at other them never once flagged after the Long-times; and also for paying off arrears of champs revival, for, though no longer eaten étrennes. An august personage very graceat Longchamps itself, they were retailed fully sent one of his Ministers the insignia in annually increasing quantities for home and patent of the grand cross of the Legion consumption till time, human ingenuity, of Honor in an Easter egg; and the late and the Second Empire between them brought them as an institution to the pitch of prosperity where thrifty Parisians groan to see them now.

merry Duc de Caderousse-Gramont presented an actress with the most stupendous egg on record: it was a colossal wooden thing, painted white, and containing a brougham. They conveyed it along the boulevards in a cart to the delight of admiring crowds, and it was the nine days' wonder of that Easter.

There must have been people who hoped that the collapse of the Empire would have entailed that of the Easter egg; but they were mistaken. This year the confectioners, jewellers, and nick-nack shops are as full of eggs as ever, and the only difference between to-day and two years ago seems to be that the tradesmen have

inspiration in the way of egg contrivances, and have added about ten per cent. all round on the prices of former inventions. Thus, a Parisian bachelor who has dined

For there is no disguising that they have become to many persons a tax, a burden, and a source of bitterness. So long as no further innovation was attempted than selling sugar eggs in lieu of genuine ones it was well; for a sugar egg even when coloured pink and filled with carraway comfits is not much to be alarmed at. But one day there appeared an artificer of woe who set himself to blowing out all the yolk and white from an egg, cutting the shell neatly in two, lining the halves with white satin, adapted them to each other on the screw-drawn from their country's woes further top system, and then putting a gold or a silver thimble inside. This was the first auf à surprise. It looked like the real thing, and could be set by the donor in the donee's egg-cup without fear of detec-out this winter, and feels himself bound tion, until at the critical moment when the spoon was going to crash through the top everybody round the table would cry out affectionately "Gare!" and pleasantly mystify the recipient. Of course this ingenious invention cost from twenty to fifty francs and found numerous imitators. Ducks', geese's, and swans' eggs were pressed into service as capable of containing not only thimble, but small scissors, needle-case, &c., and of being sold at from five to ten guineas. Then somebody asked why one should not put earrings, sleevelinks, or brooches into the eggs instead of thimbles; and this led to an enterprising jeweller drawing ahead of every one else by fitting up ostrich's eggs as work-boxes, scent-bottle stands, or jewel cases. This jeweller, who deserved well of his kind, worked in the Easter-egg trade the same sort of revolution as Victor Hugo and the "Romantiques" wrought in the drama. Up to that time it had been considered essential to keep up some semblance of respect for

to give eggs, has only to set out on a ramble of inspection, and he may choose either a stuffed hen, life size, sitting on a nest of twelve eggs, each containing a silver eggcup; or a stuffed turkey, whose upper half comes off, and discloses a berceaunette with baby's layette complete; or an unpretending pheasant's egg with an emerald ring inside; or, more unpretending still, a little wren's egg with a set of studs; or, if he be bent on gratifying a lady whose tastes are authorlike, a smooth ebony egg that slips into the pocket like a darning ball, and houses inkstand, pens, sand-horn, stamps, wafers, and pencil. To be sure, he may choose nothing, argue that he is not rich, that eggs are an abuse, that he emptied his pockets to feed his friends with sweetmeats at Christmas tide. But in this case he had better go and admire the monuments of London for a fortnight, or proceed to Rome to see whether the Holy week festivities there have degenerated; and when he returns he must

plead that he was called away by urgent and commerce on a footing of perfect private affairs. Even then, however, let him not be surprised if society watches him for some time with a cool and guarded eye as one inclined to make light of those beneficial observances which raise man above dumb brutes.

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

equality. This, as regards all such pretensions, must be the beginning of the end; and in that, perhaps, lies its chief significance for Western Powers. With the Japanese it seems but the natural consequence of all the other startling innovations which have marked their national life during the past ten years. But it is different with China, which has neither accepted railroads, and telegraphs as necessary to the national progress and development, nor NEW JAPANESE AND CHINESE TREATIES. admitted in practice the nullity of their THE treaty recently entered into be- pretensions to supremacy in the governing tween China and Japan is significant as an hierarchy of the world. The settlement indication of policy in regard to both. of the audience question must soon, howThat two nations inhabiting countries so ever, tear away the last shred of this near to each other as China and Japan worn-out mantle of universal dominion; both of Asiatic race and with many fea- and it is a question the solution of which tures in common-should for more than cannot much longer be deferrred either in 2,000 years have maintained a policy of their interest or in ours, since delay tends isolation towards each other, and now to dan age the position of foreign Powers, suddenly enter into close alliance, signing and to falsify the policy of the Chinese a treaty of reciprocity and equality, is a Government to their own peril. A new striking demonstration of the irresistible Russo-Japanese Treaty has been announced influence of modern intercourse and civ-in the telegraphic notices from Berlin, and ilization in breaking down all barriers of race or religion. Since the days of the great Mongul conqueror, Kublai Khan who twice in the thirteenth century sent forth a great armada for its conquest, from which few ever lived to return the only intercouse between the two nations, after a long series of reprisals on the Corean coast from Japan, has been of the most restricted kind. A small colony of Chinese traders permitted to reside at Nagasaki, but carefully locked up every night within the wards of their settlement, and the admission of two or three Japanese junks at one, or sometimes two, ports in China, has been all the communication allowed for the last five centuries. And this is the more remarkable, since the Japanese a thousand years before had borrowed from the Chinese not only their written character, but their religion and philosophy, with such cultivation of their language and literature as Europe in the middle ages kept up with respect to the Greek and Roman classics. Now, each nation, abandoning its lofty pretensions of unapproachable dignity and isolation, has freely entered into relations of peace

appeared in the Times of the 20th inst. We have reason to believe, however, that the correspondent has simply blundered in his intelligence, and mistaken a treaty concluded between China and Japan for one which has no existence with Russia. It is bad enough for the Japanese to have entered into something very like an alliance offensive and defensive with China, in a clumsy attempt to transfer to their treaty the Chinese version of the article in the American treaty, by which it is stipulated that, in the event of a war with any third Power, the good offices of America should be accepted. As between two countries like China and Japan, such mediation of the one on behalf of the other would have no meaning when a Western Power was in the field. And if, as the apocryphal summary from Berlin would indicate, there is any engagement for China and Japan to close their ports respectively to any Western belligerent making war on either, it is pretty sure to involve the neutral so acting in the quarrel, without possible benefit to one or the other, but much and certain damage.

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4. OFF THE SKELLIGS. By Jean Ingelow. Part VII., Saint Pauls,

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Macmillan's Magazine,

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Saturday Review,

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Pall Mall Gazette,

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NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To cubscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

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FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for. warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club THE LIVING AGE with another periodical.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & ĜAY.

A THANKSGIVING FOR F. D. MAURICE.

THE veil hath lifted, and hath fallen; and him Who next it stood, before us, first so long, We see not; but, between the cherubim,

The light burns clearer; come, -a thankful song!

Lord, for thy prophet's calm, commanding voice;

For his majestic innocence and truth; For his unswerving purity of choice;

For all his tender wrath and plenteous ruth;

For his obedient, wise, clear-listening care

To hear for us what word The Word would say;

For all the trembling fervency of prayer, With which he led our souls the prayerful way;

For all the heavenly glory of his face

That caught thy white Transfiguration's shine, And cast on us the glimmer of thy grace,

Of all thy men late left, the most divine;

For all his learning, and the thought of power
That seized thy one Idea everywhere,
Brought the eternal down into the hour,
And taught the dead thy life to claim and
share;

For his humility, dove-clear of guile,

That, sin-denouncing, he, like thy great Paul, Still claimed of sin the greatest share, the while Our eyes, love-sharpened, saw him best of all;

For his high victories over sin and fear;

The captive hope his words of truth set free; For his abiding memory, holy, dear;

Last for his death, and hiding now in thee;

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A WIND IN THE STREET.

A COUNTRY wind is in the street;
"Tis blowing soft, 'tis blowing sweet;
How fresh it falls on cheek and eyes!
'Tis kissing us from Paradise.

Oh, it has travelled sea and height,
On thymy flowers, the red and white,
O'er golden gorse, and rosy bells
That spread their splendour to the dells;
It slumbered all a perfumed night
On hundred hues of blossom bright;
And shooks its wings in glowing skies,
Where lost in blue the planet dies;
And sped away to farm and fold,
All touched with morning's early gold.
It leaped upon the sleeping lake,
And waked the fawns with waving brake;
It rustled through the leaf-hung deeps.
Where'er the shy-eyed squirrel leaps,
And out on grass and plough in line,
With song of birds and low of kine;
And now 'tis in the mist-blue street,
But newly thronged with passing feet!
Why blows it here so light and glad
On many a forehead dark and sad?
It is that God's immortal love,
From radiant plains in Heaven above,
Has suddenly, in pity, come
To visit Man's o'erwearied home,
And breathes a breath of hope and life
On scenes of sorrow, care, and strife.

Chambers' Journal

WHETHER thralled or exiled,
Whether poor or rich thou be,
Whether praised or reviled,
Not a rush it is to thee:

This nor that thy rest doth win thee,
But the mind that is within thee.

Wither, 1632.

SICK or healthful, slave or free, Wealthy or despised and poor, What is that to him or thee;

So his love to CHRIST endure? When the shore is won at last, Who will count the billows past?

Keble.

every illuminated point having been changed into a vertical line. The elonga

From Macmillan's Magazine.
TURNER AND MULREADY.

On the effect of certain faults of VISION ON tion is, generally speaking, in exact pro

PAINTING, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE ΤΟ
THEIR WORKS.*

portion to the brightness of the light; that is to say, the more intense the light

BY R. LIEBREICH, OPHTHALMIC SURGEON AND which diffuses itself from the illuminated LECTURER AT ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.

through the vertical streak of light, the line of the horizon, the demarcation of the land in the foreground, and the outline of the waves in a horizontal direction. In the pictures, however, of which I am now speaking, the tracing of any detail is perfectly effaced when it falls in the vertical

point in nature, the longer becomes the WHEN I arrived in England about line which represents it on the picture. eighteen months ago, little thinking that Thus, for instance, there proceeds from a short vacation tour would end in my the sun in the centre of a picture a vertipermanent residence here, I at once paid a cal yellow streak, dividing it into two envisit to the National Gallery. I was anx-tirely distinct halves, which are not conious to see Turner's pictures, which on the nected by any horizontal line. In Turner's Continent I had had no opportunity of do- earlier pictures, the disc of the sun is ing. How great was my astonishment clearly defined the light equally radiating when, after having admired his earlier to all parts; and even where through the works, I entered another room which con- reflection of water a vertical streak is protained his later painting's! Are these duced, there appears, distinctly marked really by the same hand? I asked myself on first inspecting them; or have they suffered in any way? On examining them, however, more closely, a question presented itself to my mind which was to me a subject of interesting diagnosis. Was the great change which made the painter of "Crossing the Brook" afterwards pro-streak of light. Even less illuminated obduce such pictures as "Shade and Dark- jects, like houses or figures, form considness," caused by an ocular or cerebral dis- erably elongated streaks of light. In this turbance? Researches into the life of manner, therefore, houses that stand near Turner could not afford an answer to this the water, or people in a boat, blend so question. All that I could learn was, that entirely with the reflection in the water, during the last five years of his life his that the horizontal line of demarcation bepower of vision as well as his intellect had tween house and water or boat and water suffered. In no way, however, did this ac- entirely disappears, and all becomes a con-count for the changes which began to glomeration of vertical lines. Everything manifest themselves about fifteen years that is abnormal in the shape of objects, before that time. The question could in the drawing, and even in the colouring therefore only be answered by a direct of the pictures of this period, can be exstudy of his pictures from a purely scien-plained by this vertical diffusion of light. tific, and not at all from an aesthetic or artistic point of view.

I chose for this purpose pictures belonging to the middle of the period which I consider pathological i.e., not quite healthy, and analyzed them in all their details, with regard to colour, drawing, and distribution of light and shade.

How and at what time did this anomaly develop itself?

Till the year 1830 all is normal. In 1831 a change in the colouring becomes for the first time perceptible, which gives to the works of Turner a peculiar character not found in any other master. Optically this is caused by an increased intenIt was particularly important to ascer- sity of the diffused light proceeding from tain if the anomaly of the whole picture the most illuminated parts of the landcould be deduced from a regularly recur- scape. This light forms a haze of a bluish ring fault in its details. This fault is a colour which contrasts too much with the vertical streakiness, which is caused by surrounding portion in shadow. From the A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on year 1833 this diffusion of light becomes

the 8th March, 1872.

more and more vertical. It gradually in

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