It was inevitable that they
should have done so, and Lady Dilke, with her keen historic sense and her
wonderful power of grouping facts, has told us the story of their
struggle and their victory. Her book is, from every point of view, a
most remarkable work. Her style is almost French in its clearness, its
sobriety, its fine and, at times, ascetic simplicity. The whole ground-
plan and intellectual-conception is admirable.

It is, of course, easy to see how much Art lost by having a new mission
forced upon her. The creation of a formal tradition upon classical lines
is never without its danger, and it is sad to find the provincial towns
of France, once so varied and individual in artistic expression, writing
to Paris for designs and advice. And yet, through Colbert's great
centralising scheme of State supervision and State aid, France was the
one country in Europe, and has remained the one country in Europe, where
the arts are not divorced from industry. The Academy of Painting and
Sculpture and the School of Architecture were not, to quote Lady Dilke's
words, called into being in order that royal palaces should be raised
surpassing all others in magnificence:

Bievrebache and the Savonnerie were not established only that such
palaces should be furnished more sumptuously than those of an Eastern
fairy-tale. Colbert did not care chiefly to inquire, when organising
art administration, what were the institutions best fitted to foster
the proper interests of art; he asked, in the first place, what would
most contribute to swell the national importance. Even so, in
surrounding the King with the treasures of luxury, his object was
twofold--their possession should, indeed, illustrate the Crown, but
should also be a unique source of advantage to the people.
Glass-workers were brought from Venice, and lace-makers from Flanders,
that they might yield to France the secrets of their skill. Palaces
and public buildings were to afford commissions for French artists,
and a means of technical and artistic education for all those employed
upon them. The royal collections were but a further instrument in
educating the taste and increasing the knowledge of the working
classes. The costly factories of the Savonnerie and the Gobelins were
practical schools, in which every detail of every branch of all those
industries which contribute to the furnishing and decoration of houses
were brought to perfection; whilst a band of chosen apprentices were
trained in the adjoining schools. To Colbert is due the honour of
having foreseen, not only that the interests of the modern State were
inseparably bound up with those of industry, but also that the
interests of industry could not, without prejudice, be divorced from
art.

Mr. Bret Harte has never written anything finer than Cressy. It is one
of his most brilliant and masterly productions, and will take rank with
the best of his Californian stories. Hawthorne re-created for us the
America of the past with the incomparable grace of a very perfect artist,
but Mr.