All that is associated with the delivery of such tidings becomes memorably painful to the listener; the very

-creaking of the door, years past,

Which let upon you such disabling news
You ever after have been graver.*

So, when Vidal tortures the Constable de Lacy by detailing to him the report of his bride's and nephew's disloyalty,-and the Constable's faithful adherent longs to strike Vidal to the earth. "Vidal," he cried,

"thou art a"A bearer of bad tidings," said Vidal, interrupting him, "therefore subject to the misconstruction of every fool who cannot distinguish between the author of harm, and him who unwillingly reports it."+

We read in Plato, that when the messenger from the eleven magistrates came in to the prison to Socrates, he said, as he stood near the old man eloquent: "I do not perceive that in you, Socrates, which I have taken notice of in others; I mean that they are angry with me, and curse me, when, being compelled by the magistrates, I announce to them that they must drink the poison." Having up to the present time found Socrates to be the most generous, mild, and best of all the men who ever came into this place," the nuncius adds, not deprecatingly but confidently, "I am now well convinced that you are not angry with me, but with the authors of your present condition." The man burst into tears. as he went out, turning away his face. The son of Sophroniscus retained his benignant calm.

The nature of bad news infects the teller, says the hesitating messenger, from whom Antony demands to know the worst, and who is fearful of what a knowledge of that worst may, from so hot a spirit as Antony's, bring upon himself, the teller of it. Antony admits the alleged infection, "only when it concerns the fool, or coward."§ But at a drearier crisis in the infatuated triumvir's career, when Mardian comes as messenger to declare Cleopatra dead, that nuncius is dismissed with the significant assurance,

That thou depart'st hence safe,
Does pay thy labours richly. Go!||

On the most prudential principles of self-preservation does another Shakspearian messenger, who has an ugly message from France to deliver to King Edward IV., preface his exposition of it by bargaining for a preliminary guarantee of personal immunity; the "few words" he has to announce being such, he says, as I, without your special pardon, dare not relate." Pisanio's reluctance to break to Imogen the ruthless designs of her deluded lord,** is most naturally and effectively suggested. With lingering steps and slow, Lodovico winds up the tragedy of the Moor of Venice by undertaking the narration of it to the senate:

So Messala, when starting to convey to Brutus the story of where and how Cassius fell:

-I go to meet

The noble Brutus, thrusting this report
Into his ears; I may say, thrusting it;
For piercing steel, and darts envenomèd,
Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus,
As tidings of this sight.*

So too, but with yet more strenuous emphasis, and in an effusion of wilder, stronger feeling, the cry of Troilus when the noblest of Priam's sons is slain in the field, and the thought, Who shall tell Priam of it? is fraught with perplexity and woe:

WITH the death of the Grand Monarch and the regency of Philip of Orleans, a marked change took place in the entire political and social life of France, and the same was the case with art. Hitherto an elevated

style had prevailed in the arts, especially in literature and painting, but now the period of the pleasing or beautiful style set in. Affected dignity was dethroned by coquettish grace. The predominant trait in the duke's personal character was at once transferred to the physiognomy of mental production. Philip was a great friend of the Muses, and did not consider himself too exalted to follow the example of King René, and enter the ranks of the followers of Apollo. Just as he liked to have his musical compositions applauded by the pit, although his talent was not very deep, so he found pleasure in occupying his leisure hours at Versailles or Marly with the brush and the palette. But an even greater effect was produced on the arts by the regent's zeal in collecting a large picture-gallery. He flattered himself with being an excellent connoisseur, and after a while collected such a number of pictures that his collection rivalled that of the king. From his liberal passion for art the living painters derived no slight advantage, for they managed to work on the duke's weak side. The fol lowing anecdote is characteristic of the man: "What do you think of Sainte Magdalene?" Cardinal Dubois asked him, one day. "Which one?" the duke remarked; "Corregio's, Guido Reni's, or Lebrun's ?" "The Magdalene of Our Lord," the cardinal remarked. "I do not know her. Is it La Vallière ?" "The wretched man!" Dubois exclaimed; "he will never know anything of history." "History?" was the duke's answer; "how many truths are there floating about on the ocean of lies ?"

The liberty of development which was granted to the arts, and, in fact, * Julius Cæsar, Act V. Sc. 3. † Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 11.

to the entire mental power of the nation, by the regency, and eventually by Louis XVI., may be regarded as a gift of doubtful value, because it was merely the liberty of enjoyment, the liberty to sin. Still it is indubitable that the sentence of death passed on the academic close borough introduced a large amount of fresh strength, recruited from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, into the arts and sciences, and that the lively rivalry which the national feeling for art commenced with the tradition which had grown in the course of time automatic, developed an entirely new school, which, however, we must confess, has been christened the masterpiece of bad taste.

The first, and undeniably the greatest, master who gave an artistic expression to the ideal of his age, idealised sensuality, was Antoine Watteau. Owing his first attempts at drawing to the performance of some strolling players who displayed their grotesque scenes in the open air, he afterwards went to Paris, where he became a scene-painter. Ere long, however, he resolved, instead of working for the theatre, to make the stage, with its masques and scenery, the subject of his brush, and resumed the artistic efforts of his early years. When he exposed for the first time these quickly drawn and sketchy performances, they appeared through their grace and grotesqueness something perfectly new, for in their entire manner they did not stand in the slightest relation with the hollow, pompous style of the Academicians, or with the Dutch comprehension of common-place existence. But it took a considerable time ere the learned connoisseurs were agreed as to Watteau being a painter. From theatrical farces our artist easily passed on to the farces of reality, which the well-born society of those days performed. With this step he first entered on the ground which rendered his name great. Paris quickly found a fitting appellation for the newly-created style, and Watteau, as peintre des fêtes galantes, was in a short time the man of the fashionable world, which he ruled for many years by painting fans, furniture, and even clothes. The elegant world dressed à la Watteau, it appointed its boudoirs and salons à la Watteau. The enchanter was everywhere visible in his works, but very rarely in person. Strangely enough, the artist, who was ever cheerful and playful in his sketches, was himself a misanthrope, one of those unfortunate creatures who, governed by constant unrest, can never establish his life on a permanent basis. For Watteau, existence was only half living without the theatre, the opera, and a gay variety of men and things. And yet the most painful reminiscence of his life was connected with the stage, if we may believe the story of his love for the celebrated danseuse, La Montagne. While engaged as scenepainter at the Grand Opera, he formed a passionate attachment for the girl with whose portrait he gained his first and happiest triumph in the circle of the theatrical Graces. But his ardent love met with no return, and, wretched and angry, he turned his back on the false beauty. What irony of fate! The despised lover, with the lethal arrow in his heart, became the apostle of amorous happiness, which he proclaimed with an eloquent brush. The dream of felicity, which rarely quitted him, constituted henceforth his happiness. His fancy summoned up the most exquisite pictures, in order to console him for the misfortune of his heart. Thus he created an ideal of happiness, which only bore the appearance of reality.

It is an honour to Charles de Lafosse, the director of the Académie

des Beaux Arts, that he was one of the first to appreciate the unusual talent of Watteau, which had ripened without any academic training. The latter was permitted to exhibit his pictures in the ante-room of the Académie. But his ambition desired to open the gates of the celebrated institution. As his circumstances at that hour were unfavourable, he hoped to obtain assistance for a journey to Italy. Lafosse, who noticed him and his paintings one day in the ante-room, addressed him in the kindest manner. He was of opinion that the painter of such pictures did not require a journey to Italy, but merely some visits of ceremony, in order to obtain the votes of the Academicians. Watteau obeyed the intimation, and on August 28, 1717, was received into the Académie by virtue of his presentation picture, "A Trip to the Island of Cythera." From this moment Watteau became a sort of fabulous animal for the world of fashion.

Still, all the honours and intimations of applause which fell to his share were unable to banish the feeling of melancholy which occupied his mind. As a distraction, he spent some time at the palace of Chantilly, the property of the Prince de Condé, who had ordered of him a series of pictures relating to the passions of the regent-duke. Another time he went to Nogent-sur-Marne, to pay a visit to an old friend who was curé there. The honest churchman was obliged to sit to him for pierrots and pantaloons. From this period Watteau's jovial masquerade scenes are said to date. Though he did not feel at all cheered himself, he expected alleviation from lengthened travels. For this object he went to England, but returned to Paris sadder and paler than ever. Bearing the seeds of death in his breast, he again proceeded to Nogent, where Lefèvre, the intendant of the court festivals, lent him a country-house. Unfortunately, his old flame happened to be there too, and now that the excitement of youth had passed away, offered her heart to her formerly despised lover. They lived together peaceably at first, but the ill humour on both sides soon put an end to their felicity. They exchanged bitter language, and, according to the testimony of Madame de Lambert, even came to blows. The danseuse consequently preferred returning to Paris. Watteau remained behind to die presently. His death was of a tragicomical nature. One morning he made his will, and confessed for the last time. What grieved him most was, that he was obliged to die at a strange place; for it was bad, he remarked, to be buried in a society of whom he did not know a soul. He left all he possessed-namely, his debts-to four of his friends, and the friends furnished a worthy example by accepting the legacy. Among the sins he confessed was the awful crime of having employed the worthy priest as a model for his mountebanks. After receiving absolution for this, too, he fell asleep for ever, and was buried in the cemetery of Nogent.

One great merit of Watteau was the variety of his characters, in a style which, after all, was monotonous, and continually repeated itself. He produced a perfect series of young and old fops, fiery lovers, and irresistible or blasés beaux. Amid his feminine figures, with their pretty soubrette faces, we can easily distinguish the capricious and the tender, the yielding and the pining, the challenging and the reserved hearts. However ridiculous the conduct of this world turned topsy-turvy may appear, the artist himself accepted it with the most fortunate simplicity as a perfectly correct existence, and nowhere displayed a trace of irony

or a tendency to caricature. His pupils, however, strove to introduce refinement in the place of simple reproduction. Nicolas Lancret and Jean Baptiste Pater often played consciously into the hands of frivolity: the former as the petted artist of fashionable society, the latter as a manufacturer of pictures for the middle classes, who strove to imitate the luxury of the great at a cheap price.

Simeon Chardin forms a marked contrast with the peintres des fêtes galantes. With him we quit the sphere of noble passions, the circle of blasés loungers, and enter the house of the bourgeois. He is the first French painter who found a liking for the paltry life, the restricted activity, of the so-called third estate. He allows us to take a glance at the domestic circumstances and family history of the bourgeoisie. Although this glance informs us of the intrusion of the fashionable mode of life into the olden habits, we still see that the feelings of the bourgeoisie remain unaffected by the refined materialism and wretched nihilism of the higher classes. There is some of the easy and unpretending humour of a Metzu and a Dow in Chardin's manner. He does not seek for interesting and important motives in the quaint diversity of daily life. Some small incident, such as the sport of children, the occupation of the housewife in the kitchen and keeping-room, the evening meal of the family, suffices him to produce a pleasing picture. His compositions are always remarkably simple, at times even somewhat empty and poor, as the few figures stand out sketchily from the monotonous background. The opulence of Dutch housekeeping, the impression of wealth and comfort, are absent in these quiet life pictures. What we see is not a bourgeoisie which has attained political power by its own strength, which likes to place itself on a level with kings and princes as regards substantial luxury, but merely the tiers état to which the Revolution first granted a position in public life.

The work with which Chardin first made a name was the Benedicite

now in the Louvre. It represents a young mother in her simple housegarb, with a neat white morning-cap on her head, such as the Parisiennes used to wear with coquettish carelessness. She is just going to ladle out soup for her two little girls, but waits with maternal earnestness for the grace, which the younger child is about to repeat, while the elder, vacillating between hunger and devotion, casts a sly glance at the souptureen. The children are anything but Graces, and the mother herself hardly deserves the appellation of pretty, but the unpretending naturalness with which the little family scene is depicted produces a most soothing effect, which at that day must have been all the more powerful. Chardin's women suffer from a certain typical uniformity, and so do his children, and this may be ascribed to the fact that the artist, who had the reputation of being an excellent husband and father, obtained the models from his own family.

Genre painting attained greater importance and more general recognition through the productions of Jean Baptiste Greuze, who, born a quarter of a century after Chardin, was guided in his style by very different influences. If we desire to convey a cursory idea of the distinction between the two, we may say that Chardin was the representative of the simple, Greuze of the sentimental, genre. The former was pleased with reality as he found it, and all his motives are derived from direct observation; the latter is rarely contented with simple nature, he remodels it so that