an an

and certainly Tupper has the merit of intelligibility-and to agree with him so of ten; and till they were shamed out of it, they quoted him, as all Asiatics and most English agricultural laborers to this day quote proverbs. We think it is Mr. Hardy who describes the delight with which a rural postinan or carrier, or some such person, hears the sentence: "More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows." The postman had never heard it before; it was perfectly intelligible to him; he had thought the same thing often by himself, and he repeated the aphorism all day, and for weeks afterward, with a chuckle of what was genuine literary delight. He felt like a member of a suburban" Parliament when he finds his last opinion in the Times. That was the precise mental position of the devotees of Mr. Tupper, and though their standpoint has since been elevated, that will be their position when the next book arrives which shall "fetch' them, but seem to critics, whose standpoint has also risen, almost too inferior for comment. Fortunately, such books must always be rare, because they require too many combined conditions,thor who can write such a one in confident simplicity and without writing down to his audience, a publisher who is in the mental position of the ordinary buyer of such a book-now becoming a rarity, except perhaps in the religious-book world, and we feel no certainty even of that--and an accidental failure of all true critics to catch the ear of the critics who are near enough to the multitude to be rapidly effective. The author, we must add, must be as good as well as goody as Mr. Tupper, who never wrote an injurious sentence in his life. He may perhaps be a little more worldly wise, shrewdness being the quality first developed in cities, where more than half our people now live but he must not be cynical, must on no account be witty, and must heartily agree with the kind of creed--a compound of genuine Christianity and rampant respectability-which the mass of Englishmen and Americans still in their hearts think the only safe guide for human life. It is an excellent guide in the absence of a better, and it is not unpleasant to think that the author who disregards it, still more the author who derides it, will not have the success of Mr. Tupper in reaching the stratum of society to which alone he-of

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course quite involuntarily, for he wanted to enlighten all mankind-succeeded in appealing.

We wonder if there is any book which is to the educated what "Proverbial Philosophy" was to the half-educated of forty years ago. The question, of course, can never be answered, because to be in the position of an admirer of Mr. Tupper, one must be too incapable of criticism to give or even to think of an accurate reply. It requires, too, a little more audacity than the majority of reflective men possess, or, at any rate, will acknowledge. If we had such audacity, we would make clear our dim suspicion that there does exist in the higher regions of thought a philosopher whose position bears a close analogy to that of the deceased maker of aphorisms, who, in fact, instructs the educated as Mr. Tupper instructed the ignorant, and who will share his literary fate; but plainness on such a subject cannot be required of any man. We may, however, as he has joined the majority, be permitted to remark that Emerson in his flatter bits does sometimes suggest Tupper, and that men who now seem to us all very wise, but whom an advancing criticism will reject, must exist, and, indeed, must be common enough. If not, why do so many popular books of wisdom die? If the law of progress extends to the intellect, and "the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns, "much of the literature we now think great will seem to succeeding generations either inexpressibly commonplace or simply silly. We cannot fully prove that argument from books, because the books rejected retreat into holes and corners, and are gradually forgotten-the only one we can think of as sure to be familiar to our readers is the astonishing collection of pompous rubbish known as "Blair's Sermons"-but just let any critic who doubts our proposition turn to the old files of any newspaper which has stood the storms of two or three generations, and see what he thinks of the wit and wisdom of its early articles. He will often find himself unable even to comprehend the mental position of their writers, and compelled to doubt, in a fashion which is quite unreasonable, whether they ever did attract or guide the men of their generation. They did, nevertheless; it is only the standpoint which has altered; and we may all learn from them a little

humility, and a little tolerance, too, for the people, so curious and unintelligible to us, who honestly believed that Mr. Tupper had quite beaten Solomon, and had added perceptibly to the world's store of wisdom and experience. He had perhaps

added nothing, certainly we can point to no such addition; but he had done it no harm, and that, as the shoals of books incrcase, will be by and by much to say. Spectator.

THESE fine mornings the Arabs often come up with their packs on their backs, and open a little private shop of their own for our special benefit under the white piazza of this very villa.o

I will frankly admit, however, that herein I have followed to the extreme letter the Horatian precept, and dashed at once in medias res with what may, perhaps, be considered by formal minds undue precipitancy. Let me hark back once more and start over again from the beginning, by performing the function of the First and Second Gentlemen, who suc cinctly explain in a short dialogue to the attentive audience the state of affairs at the raising of the curtain.

The villa, then, stands on a bright Algerian hill-side, with a magnificent view across the ravine to the wine-press opposite, and a glimpse down the valley toward the distant peaks of the dim blue Atlas on the eastern horizon. It is white, and Moorish, and deliciously African, and it has horseshoe arches, and tiled façades, and a squat flat roof after a fashion to delight the most enthusiastic orientalist. In place of a porch, there is a covered piazza, open toward the sun; and here, when fitting weather permits such commercial ventures, Ben-Marabet the Arab unrolls his stock of Tlemcen prayer-rugs, or stately Abd-er-Rahman, from the recesses of the Djurjura, sets out his neat and unique collection of red and black hand-made Kabyle pottery. Then all the world of the villa turns out in force to chaffer, cheapen, and buy the curious wares; and, as business here is by no means conducted with punctuality and despatch, on the American pattern, the purchase of a few little tortoiseshell kons-kous spoons, or the acquisition of a pair of inlaid black-and-steel Moorish daggers, suffices to afford us, in the mod est language of a London newspaper ad

vertisement, "a complete morning's entertainment."

The merchants themselves--it would be sheer desecration to call those noble Orientals peddlars-are in their own persons delightful studies of eastern life, costume, and character. There is one fat Moor who often comes, round, sensuous, and chubbily smooth faced; a thrifty, oily, persuasive man, one that sleeps o' nights, and with vast command of shrugs and nods and insinuating glances; he seems to embody and personify in his own frame the ideal Turk, the long product of polygamy and harems, redolent of musk, garlic, and stale Latakia. Damascus embroideries are what he oftenest brings, relieved at times by carpets from Stamboul, and exquisite needlework from the villages of Crete or the Greek islands. He wears baggy white trousers, a green embroidered jacket, an oleaginous smile, and an ample muchwreathed yellow turban. Then there is the philosophic Kabyle, again, from the snow-clad mountains, own brother to Jacques in " As You Like It." He wears nothing in particular that I can remember except a corn-sack or a night-shirt--I am uncertain to which of the two species I ought to refer that one nondescript garment but his handsome, listless face, his big, dreamy blue eyes, his lithe figure, and his blond hair mark him out at once in dirt and rags as a descendant and representative of the old aboriginal Berber race, the primitive "white men" of antique North Africa. Jewelry and metal-work form his stock-in-trade. A melancholy smile is his best advertisement. there are the Arabs, once more, the real, unadulterated Semitic sons of the desert, magnificent fellows, with grand, stately forms and keen black eyes, true princes by birth, in long bernouses, but, unhappily, reduced by the pressure of adverse

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circumstances under infidel rule to gain an honest livelihood in the itinerant rug trade. I've no doubt they would greatly prefer robbery with violence but the present régime cruelly compels them, poor souls, to content themselves somehow with mere thieving.

Sometimes two or three of these wandering native tradesmen at once invade the villa, and open their shops side by side on the piazza, or even overflow into the paths of the garden. To see them install themselves is a comedy in miniature. Slowly, and with dignity, Mohammad Ali unfastens his manifold bags and packs and bundles, while Omar, his attendant, receives the knives and portières and brass lamps at his hands, and lays them out temptingly on the red-tiled floor beside him. One by one the ingenious boxes and rolls and rugs are taken from inside each other in endless confusion, till the entire stock is finally displayed. Then Mohammad Ali squats himself lazily in front, and waits with Oriental patience for custom to come in Allah's good time, while Omar sprawls his lean legs at full length in the sunshine, and dreams that Fatma, and Meriem, and the gazelle-eyed Mouni are leaning over him, obsequious, with coffee and kouskous.

By and by custom in due time arrives. Allah is great, and news spreads rapidly. The children of the villa rise all agog when tidings reach the school room that" The Arabs have come !" A mighty shout goes up to heaven. The polite manual of French conversation finds its dog-eared leaves turned face downward on the table, and the Latin grammar falls with its accidence unheeded on the African floor, while ingenuous British youth rushes out wildly to enjoy that ever-fresh excitement of the eastern merchants. Maturer age strolls slowlier afield, and conducts its negotiations with due hesitancy. Time in the East was made for slaves. A pipe on such occasions affords a most useful solace and refuge. You, select your goods with slow deliberation, pile them up together casually in a little heap, eye them askance with an inquiring glance, and take a contemplative pull or two at the inspiring weed in solemn silence. Mohammad Ali responds with a puff from his cigarette in grave concert. Then you walk once or twice up and down the piazza slowly, and, jerking your head with careless ease in the

direction of your selected pile, you inquire, as if for abstract reasons merely, in an off. hand tone, your Moslem friend's lowest cash quotation for the lot as it stands.

Two hundred francs is the smallest price. Mohammad Ali paid far more than that himself for them. He sells simply for occupation it would seem. Look at the work, monsieur. All graven brass, not mere repoussé metal; or real old chainstitch, alike on both sides-none of your wretched, commonplace, modern, machinemade embroidery.

You smile incredulous, and remark with a wise nod that your Moslem friend must surely be in error. A mistake of the press. For two hundred francs, read fifty.

Mohammad Ali assumes an expressive attitude of virtuous indignation, and resumes his tobacco. Fifty francs for all that lot! Monsieur jests. He shows himself a very poor judge indeed of values.

Half an hour's debate, and ten successive abatements, reduce the lot at last to a fair average price of seventy. Mohammad Ali declares you have robbed him of his profit, and pockets his cash with inarticulate grumblings in the Arab tongue. Next day, you see in the Rue Bab-Azzoun that you have paid him at least twenty francs too much for your supposed bargain.

That, however, is a very small matter. I prefer the picturesque orientalism of the marchand chez soi to the mere Western commonplace of a shop counter, a cash railway, and a fixed price; and I am prepared to pay a trifle extra for the luxury of being waited upon by a descendant of the Prophet. It has such an Arabian Nights' flavor about it when the merchant unrolls his shining bales before my very eyes, that I agree with the children in their profound devotion to the peddling system. What matters a shilling or two more or less if the Bagdad of the Caliphs can still be with us at so low a rate for one brief half hour? I grudge not Hassan or Hamid his dishonest penny. It is worth all the money to see the rugs spread out beneath the shade of the palm-tree, and the glistening eyes of the shrewd old Arab gleaming keen and bright from under the many folds of his embroidered turban at the proffered coin.

Of all the work the merchants bring for sale the most interesting perhaps is the Kabyle jewelry and the Kabyle pottery. These Kabyles themselves are a romantic

people, the last relics of the old aboriginal Berber population, the leavings of Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Arab, and Ottoman. From the beginning of time, a light-haired, blue-eyed, European-looking race has inhabited the mountain country of North Africa. These are the Numidians and Mauritanians of Massinissa and Juba, the people whom the Phoenicians found as autochthones when Dido landed her first boat's crew at Carthage-a race as white as most Europeans, and a good deal whiter, if it comes to that, than Italians, Spaniards, or Provençal Frenchmen. They are the remnants of the old Christian population which produced Augustine and Symmachus, and so many confessors, martyrs, and heretics. The Arabs came and drove the white men up into the mountains; but there they remain unaltered in appearance to this very day, outwardly Islamized to be sure, yet in instinct and feeling the same primitive European whitefolk as ever. They still retain many habits and traditions of the old native and Phoenician art, and the things they make are more original and naïve, smack more of the soil, than anything produced in the coastwise towns by sophisticated Moorish or Arab workmen.

Our Kabyle often brings a lot of their metal-work for our approbation-pretty little black trays of hammered steel, adorned, by a rude but effective decorative art, with knobs and bosses of coral and lapis lazuli. These knobs or beads are first let into the black-enamelled background, and then surrounded by pretty coils of wire and steel spring, so as to produce altogether a most curious but beautiful barbaric tracery. I have never seen any of it for sale in New York or London. Equally quaint and antique in type are their brooches and buckles, and the clasps of their belts, sometimes in silver, and sometimes in the same effective combination of steel and coral, but always modelled on graceful and simple traditional patterns. The brooches in particular belong for the most part to that very primitive stone-age type which survives into the age of bronze and iron as the "Tara clasp," and which is common in all early Celtic remains, besides being diffused over the whole world in tumuli and urn burials. Its nltimate elements are a pin and ring, fastened over, buckle fashion, by a slit in the circle. We have wasted a small for

tune to our handsome Kabyle in exchange for these pretty, glittering red-and-blue baubles. As I raise my eyes from my paper, indeed, in search of hints, they fall upon an ostrich egg suspended lampwise from the Moorish arcade of the window in front of me a half ostrich-egg, hung by light silver chains from a beam of Atlas cedar, and decorated all round by pointed crescents and dangling pendants of black steel, and this simple coral-work. No prettier or more natural lamp-stand can possibly be imagined, and it is all African, egg and metal-work and coral and decoration.

Kabyle pottery, too, is quaint and pretty in its own wild way; but this you can seldom buy from Hassan or Ali at the villa door. You must go down for it as a rule to one of the dimly-lighted Moorishshops in the old town, where you will find large stocks of it stored away carelessly in an upper chamber, looking down into the arched and tile-covered courtyard. Com posed entirely of coarse friable clay, it is too fragile for the itinerant merchant to deal with largely. But the shapes -oh, endless! Rough big pots of simple red earth, daubed with yellow and black by ancestral pigments, in those bars and lines and geometrical forms, which alone the creed of Islam allows its faithful, to the exclusion of all graven images or other ́ representations of anything that is in heaven above or in earth beneath or in the waters that are under the earth. Some of them are tall and lean and lanky, coarse and hand-made, with a charming disregard of straightness or accuracy that would drive a Stoke Newington housewife fiantic. Some of them consist of three vases rolled into one, like Mrs. Malaprop's Cerberus, or bulge in the middle to form a clandestine union, a sort of fictile morganatic marriage, with some other pot of alien size and shape and pattern. Here are lamps of the old famiiar Roman sort, in forms handed down traditionally from the earliest Greek and Phoenician antiquity; here are funny little jars, like unsteady amphora; here are beakers a little one-sided or groggy on the legs; here are weak-kneed tazzas, and unsymmetrical mugs, and jugs that deviate most distinctly from the perpendicular. But al' are instinct with native art for all that no two alike, each one the product of 'a thinking brain and cunning hands, and

cheap withal, so that for a few francs you can lay in a small illustrative collection of North-African faïence. Even the four penny plates are all different in design and pattern. Not one but has some special little flight of fancy; not one but has given the clever designer individual pleasure in the work of her fingers-for it is the women of Kabylia, not their lords and masters, who make all these beautiful barbaric products.

Let us return once more to our friends in the piazza. See, Hassan holds up to us temptingly a musical instrument, the oldest and simplest ancestral form of harp, or lyre, or guitar, or fiddle. It is nothing but a tortoiseshell, the carapace of the common Greek tortoise that scours at will the neighboring dry hill-sides (why should a tortoise be debarred from scouring ?), covered with a bit of dried skin, and fitted with a handle and a couple of strings over a bridge in the centre. This is the true original and only genuine testudo, the father of all existing stringed instruments. But the turbaned negro from the extreme south will take one of these primitive and quaint looking violins, and, running over the notes rapidly with his dusky fingers, will grind out a rapid plantation melody in a way to excruciate the most savage ears. Every visitor to Algiers buys one of these tortoiseshells. I don't know why, but they somehow exert an inexplicable charm over the Western taste. All our people at the villa have invested in an instrument, and at every waking hour of the twenty-four you may listen and catch the sweet strains of some simple song laboriously twanged out in double-slow time from half a dozen rooms in bewildering discord.

There is another form of musical instrument on sale at the door, not quite so popular; it consists of a sort of early drum or ancestral tambourine, copiously adorned with semi-savage decorations in the shape of hanging strips of colored leather. Its chief claim to attention, however, is derived rather from the bloody hand which it bears as cognizance for a sign of good luck on its parchment face. This open red palm, with extended fingers -like the bloody hand of Ulster, still worn as part of the armorial bearings of English-baronets (for barbaric details cling to the barbaric aristocracy of England) figures everywhere for luck" on Arab

products. It replaces, in fact, as a harbinger of fortune, the familiar horseshoe of northern Europe. You may see it in houses, displayed upon the door; you may see it on tombs, on furniture, on ornaments, on stables. It serves to drive away the bad spirits, who object to red hands, and it averts the effects of that evil eye concerning whose influence the Arabs and Moors are so supremely nervous. So far as my own experience goes, in more civilized communities it is the evil tongue rather that does all the mischief. dark

One subfusk old fellow, a very M'zabite from the borders of the desert, who has sustained a severe injury to his left eye, and whom we all know, therefore, by the Arabian Nights' name of the oneeyed calender (in order, as Dick Swiveller remarked, to make it seem more real and agreeable), comes often up to our hill-side home, with a lordly store of fine old brasswork, and unfolds his stock beneath the cover of the piazza. Trays, big and small, engraved and repoussé, the one-eyed calender presses eagerly with oriental commendation upon our notice. Some of the best and oldest have the Arabic letters of their rich design inlaid in silver; and these are really extremely beautiful. They come for the most part nowadays from Tunis, that surviving home of Arab art, for real old Algerian work is at present getting almost priceless. But even the cheap and common trays of the country are exceedingly pretty in a humbler way: their design is always good and intricate, and their workmanship, though coarse, is honest and effective. The ornament invariably just fits itself to its object and its field. There are beautiful shops in Algiers town where Arab workmen still produce, under French masters, fine brass trays of adinirable design; and the English architect, who builds the big Mauresque villas that dot the hill-sides for rich runaways from our hateful wet northern winter, has a lovely collection of the real old article that is enough to make the poor amateur's mouth water. I postpone buying more than a single specimen or two of these, however, till after we have got American copyright, or say more succinctly till the Greek Calends. Such things at present are far too dear for mere authors.

The pierced-brass lamps for hanging in halls are also extremely graceful and decorative-indeed, everything here is full of