fore the Lowell Institute this winter. The freshest thing from the press of Novello, Ewer & Co., London, is a cantata entitled "The Light of Asia," composed by Dudley Buck. The book of this work, as might easily be surmised, is composed of extracts from Edwin Arnold's poem of the same name, and Mr. Buck has inscribed his work to the poet in token of his admiration of the poem and his appreciation of the courtesy shown by Mr. Arnold in permitting the extracts to be used. Col. Frank Burr, the newspaper correspondent and writer, is to have $6,000 for acting as business manager of the "Little Tycoon" Company for forty weeks. It is said that Henry Watterson, while in Europe, has written a play for Joe Jefferson, based on Fenimore Cooper's "Spy.” A brief sonata inscribed upon a little kite made by Gounod himself was that composer's recent gift to a little friend whom he met in Normandy during the summer. The premiums on the symphony rehearsal concerts in Boston have thus far amounted to more than $2,000. The average price being paid for seats is $25. Seats for Dixey's first night in Boston sold for $10 each. Charlotte Corday" is to be the titular subject for an opera ballet" " which is shortly to be produced at the Theater Bellini, Naples.

ART.

GENERAL BOULANGER has taken a step which the French people may well approve. He has ordered from eminent artists a number of pictures illustrating episodes in the military history of France, which he will distribute to the various regiments. It is a use of public funds quite foreign to American ideas but entirely in harmony with those prevailing in France, and it happens that France is as rich in military painters as she is in stirring subjects for their brushes. But it is to be remarked that if the artists go back of the last great war, in which French valor was helpless to avert defeat or to prevent dismemberment of the territory, they will have some embarrassment from the fact that the achievements they must celebrate belong to the periods when France was victorious under the First or Second Empire, under the hated Bourbons, or in Algiers under the house whose princes have just been driven across the frontier.-New York Times.

NOTES. The visitors to the Southern Exposition at Louisville, Ky., have been voting on the relative popularity of the pictures in the art gallery, most of which are from the studios of New York artists and from various private collections, notably the new collection of Mr. George I. Seney. Last week the boxes were opened, and it was found that "The Gossips," by Carl Marr, was the most popular picture in the exhibition-a verdict with which we are by no means disposed to quarrel. In the October Art Amateur the chief illustrations are a crayon study of a "French Peasant Girl," by Charles Sprague Pearce, a full-page pencil. drawing of a "Flower-Girl of Picardy," and a spirited sketch of a "Parisian Fencing-Master" by Jules L. Stewart. The prospectus of the art school of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, announces that during the season of 1886-'7 John Ward Stimson will have charge of the day class in color, composition, freehand drawing and drawing from the life, and Olin Warner of the sculpture modeling-class. Arthur Tuckerman is teacher of architectural draughtsmanship, Julien B. Ramar of chasing and repoussé work in metals, Lucas Baker of perspective, construction, and industrial design, Dr. Edward Ayers of anatomy, physiology, and expression, Mr. Stiepevich of window and wall decoration, Ernest J. Gilles of cabinet drawing and interior designing, A. Loeher of decorative clay-modeling, and W. E. Volz of mechanical glass. Miss Charlotte Adams has prepared

for George J. Coombes, with the author's special permission, a translation of Alfred Stevens' " Impressions of Painting." She will give a sketch of Mons. Stevens' life and work, and the artist himself will furnish an introduction. Important exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, and architectural illustrations, open to all the world, are to be held at Madrid. These salons are to be triennial, and Spanish and foreign artists are to have equal advantages. The chief art publications of this year are likely to be printed from phototypes rather than wood engravings. Wood engravings, pure and simple, is gradually being relegated to its own limited sphere. The process which is just now most popular for the finest reproduction is a sort of American photogravure which, however, it is needless to say, is quite different from the Goupil process. The plates are made and printed by what is known as the gelatine method and the effects are wonderfully faithful to the origA small Bacchus and a mutilated statue of Mercury have been found in Rome, near the Via Tasso. Mr. Henry Blackburn, the art critic, whom most American artists will remember to have met during his visits to this country, is about to publish Randolph Caldecott, a "Personal Memoir of His Early Art Career." The Lippincott's holiday book will be "The Book of American Figure Painters," a superb quarto, fifteen by twenty inches in size, and illustrated with photogravure reproductions of works of the character indicated by the title. It is now definitely settled that J. McNeill Whistler, the much-discussed artist, will visit America under the management of R. D'Oyly Carte. Mr. Whistler will probably arrive about the end of November, and will be heard in his "Ten o'clock" lecture shortly after his arrival.

inal.

LITERARY.

THE WESTERN LITERARY MOVEMENT.-Last summer a meeting, numbering over a hundred persons, chiefly residents of the West and South, and occupied in literary and journalistic pursuits, was convened at Indianapolis, and a permanent organization effected, to be known by the name of the American Association of Writers. The purpose of the association is to benefit, in every practical and proper way, the makers of American literature; or, in other words, to encourage

and help worthy American authors in their efforts to protect their literary interests and to create a truly American literature. It does not assume, in taking the title "American," that it has the right to speak for any writers save those who see fit to join its ranks; the name means simply that it is an American institution and open to the writers of the whole country. The founding of such an institution is one of the signs of the times. Doubtless there will be crudity and culture mixed together in so democratic a body of men and women; but we dare say good will come of it. We have our American association for the advancement of science which is doing a great work; why not our association to advance literature? Of course creative work can not be taught in a school, nor can genius be manufactured to order by any association; but in organization is strength, and authors, be they book-makers or journalists, can find benefit in fraternity. The second meeting of the body in question has been in session this week at Indianapolis. It remains to be seen what will be the outcome of such a venture. Quite a number of persons, more or less distinguished, have been enrolled among the members, and Mr. Maurice Thompson has been chosen as president for a year; Mr. J. C. Ochiltree, a journalist, as treasurer; and Mrs. M. L. Andrews as secretary.

One of the first resolutions passed by the society after its permanent organization had been completed, was a unanimous expression in favor of international copyright, which was supplemented by vigorous speeches on the subject by Maurice Thompson, ex-Governor Cumback, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Bolton, and others. Papers were read, historical and literary subjects discussed, poems recited and "a good time had generally." The evening of the last day of the meeting was given to a public entertainment in the auditorium of Plymouth church, at which music, recitations by J. W. Riley, Richard Lew Dawson, Mrs. M. H. Catherwood, and other popular readers and lecturers, were enjoyed by a large audience. Arrangements have been made to add largely to the effect of this closing feature at the coming meeting.

From the reports published in the Indianapolis papers we draw the conclusion that the enterprise, rather unpromising at first view, is likely to succeed in its main purpose, and become a permanent and pleasant feature of the growth of literary taste and effort in America. There is a certain picturesqueness in the idea, after all; suggesting, after a manner, the old French literary tourneys and poetical jousts in the days of Charles d'Orleans and earlier. It speaks, too, of a sort of popular underswell of literary taste, widespread and not without instructive significance. The South and West are probably destined to influence the future of American letters in no small degree. Some strong voices have arisen already in the provincial fields and by-ways-voices racy, as it were, of the fresh soil, and touched with a grateful zest of a wildness that the world is quick to appreciate. No matter what may be the shortcomings of the Association of American Writers, we wish it nothing but good, and hope that all its meetings may be as pleasant as its first.The Critic.

NEW YORK REVIEWERS.-George Parsons Lathrop, as the literary reviewer of the New York Star, is coming to be recognized out West as one of the brightest writers who have of late years settled down to newspaper work in the metroplis. His criticisms are generally just, always readable, and full of the sparkle and merriment characteristic of American journalism. It is evident that he could be turgid, if he would, but, fortunately, chooses to be readable instead. Julian Hawthorne is elegant, dignified, and earnest. He sees no amusement in being deceived into reading a watering-place romance which turns out to be an advertisement for a railway company, and under such exasperations he administers stinging, dignified rebukes. His department in the World is already attracting some attention on account of its masterful and discursive style. It will attract the popular attention just as soon as a strong breeze from the work-a-day world can reach it and blow away from it the atmosphere of the study, with which it is now too heavily surrounded. The literary reviewer of the Times is by no means a finished or an elegant writer. His English "wobbles" a bit occasionally, but it must be said of his judgment that it is unusually good. The reviewer of the Tribune has all the gloss and polish of Macaulay, with some of Macaulay's fierceness of rhetoric. There is just a trifle of the "big I" about the work, but nobody doubts its honesty, its elegance, or its correctness. The Sun reviewer is altogether too scholarly. He, like the reviewer of the Post, selects too many scientific, pedagogic, and other works of an abstruse, technical nature for review. As a consequence, they are only popular-if anywhere-in ultra scientific circles. Nevertheless, the reviewers of New York are holding their own against the world-and a pretty fierce world it is, sometimes.-St. Louis Republican.

PRESS CENSORSHIP IN RUSSIA.-No better illustration could be afforded of the autocratic sway of the Czar of all the Russias than that given by a copy of a leading London journal which was recently exhibited at the Liverpool Exchange News Room. The first leading article, which dealt with the question of Russia's policy, had been entirely obliterated by the Russian postal officials through whose hands it had passed; and so skillfully had the operation been performed that the adjoining columns had in no way been touched. Liberty of the press is evidently one of those blessings which Russian subjects have yet to enjoy. Of course, the national press is subject to a censorship which would at once detect the author of any article who dared to comment unfavorably on the action of the "Little Father" or of any of his ministers. When, however, it is found necessary to subject foreign newspapers arriving through the post to so close a scrutiny, leading to the obliteration of matter unfavorable to the principle of the Czar's government, we are apt to thank the fate that has cast our lot in a land where the public press is as free as public opinion, and where the suppressio veri is neither one of the necessary conditions of permission to publish a newspaper nor an indispensable qualification of a state official.-Scottish News.

AN INCREASED DEMAND FOR Books.-In the commercial sense, books are luxuries. People can live without buying books. Economy in them is no hardship to the majority. Consequently the book trade is one of the first to feel the effects of business depression and one of the last to recover from them. It is, therefore, an