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give any fair account of his views would be to go too far into a very profitless discussion. This much, however, I must venture to say. Mr. Ruskin's polemics against the economists on their own ground appear to me to imply a series of misconceptions. He is, for example, very fond of attacking a doctrine, fully explained (as I should say, demonstrated) by Mr. Mill, that demand for commodities is not demand for labor. I confess that I am unable to understand the reasons of his indignation against this unfortunate theorem ; and the more so because it seems to me to be at once the most moral doctrine of political economy, and that which Mr. Ruskin should be most anxious to establish. It is simply the right answer to that most enduring fallacy that a rich man benefits his neighbors by profligate luxury.

Mandeville's sophistry reappears in Protean shapes to the present day. People still maintain in substance that a man supports the poor as well as pleases himself by spending money on his own personal enjoyment. In this form, indeed, Mr. Ruskin accepts the sound doctrine; but when clothed in the technical language of economists, it seems to act upon him like the proverbial red rag. He is always flying at it and denouncing the palpable blunders of men whose reputation for logical clearness is certainly as good as his own. His indignation seems to blind him, and is the source of a series of questionable statements, which I cannot here attempt to unravel. His attack upon the economists is thus diverted into an unfortunate direction. Political economy is, or ought to be, an accurate description of the actual phenomena of the industrial organization of society. It assumes that, as a matter of fact, the great moving force is competition; and traces amongst men the various consequences of that struggle for existence of which Mr. Darwin has described certain results amongst animals. The complex machinery of trade has been developed out of the savage simplicity by internal pressure, much as species on the Darwinian hypothesis have been developed out of more homogeneous races. Now, it is perfectly open for anybody to say that the conditions thus produced are unfavorable to morality at the present day, and that we should look forward to organizing society on different principles. If Mr. Ruskin had said so much, he would have found allies instead of enemies amongst the best political economists. Mr. Mill agrees, for instance, with Comte, and therefore with Mr. Ruskin, that in a perfectly satisfactory social state capitalists would consider themselves as trustees for public benefit of the wealth at their disposal. They would be captains in an industrial army, and be no more governed by the desire of profit than a general by a desire for prize-money. To bring about such a state of things requires a cultivation of the "altruistic" impulses, which must be the work of many generations to come.

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But Mr. Ruskin in his wrath attributes to all economists the vulgar interpretation of their doctrines. He calmly assumes that political economists regard their own science as a body of "directions for the gaining of wealth, irrespectively of the consideration of its moral sources." poses that they deny that wages can be regulated otherwise than by competition, because they assert that wages are so regulated at present; and that they consider all desires to be equally good because they begin by studying the phenomena of demand and supply without at the same moment considering the moral tendencies implied. He supposes that because for certain purposes, a thinker abstracts from moral considerations, he denies that moral considerations have any weight. He might as well say that physiology consists of directions for growing fat, or that it is wrong to study the laws of nutrition because they show how poisons may be assimilated as well as good food.

Mr. Ruskin's wrath, indeed, is not thrown away, for there are plenty of popular doctrines about political economy which deserve all that he can say against them. I never read a passage in which reference is made to the "inexorable laws of supply and demand," or to "economic science," without preparing myself to encounter a sophistry, and probably an immoral sophistry. To regard the existing order of things as final, and as imposed by irre

sistible and unalterable conditions, is foolish as well as wrong. The shrewder the blows which Mr. Ruskin can aim at the doctrines that life is to be always a selfish struggle, that adulteration is only a "form of competition," that the only remedy for dishonesty is to let people cheat each other till they are tired of it, the better; and I only regret the exaggeration which enables his antagonist to charge him with unfairness. But the misfortune is this. On that which I take to be the right theory of political economy, the supposed "inexorable laws" do not, indeed, describe the action of forces as eternal and unalterable as gravitation; but they do describe a certain stage of social development through which we must pass on our road to the millennium. To cast aside the whole existing organization as useless and corrupt is, in the first place, to attempt a Quixotic tilt against windmills. and, in the next place, to deny the existence of the good elements which exist, and are capable of healthy growth. The problem is not to do without all our machinery, whether of the material or of the human kind, but to assign to it its proper place. Mr. Ruskin once said to a minister, who was la menting the wickedness in our great cities, "Well, then, you must not have large cities." That,” replied his friend, "is an utterly unpractical saying," and I confess that I think the minister was in the right.

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Mr. Ruskin, however, is too impatient or too thoroughgoing to accept any compromise with the evil thing. Covetousness, he thinks, is at the root of all modern evils; our current political economy is but the gospel of covetousness; our social forms are merely the external embodiment of our spirit; and our science the servant of our grovelling materialism. We have proved the sun to be a "a splendidly permanent railroad accident," and ourselves to be the descendants of monkeys; but we have become blind to the true light from heaven. Away with the whole of the detestable fabric founded in sin, and serving only to shelter misery and cruelty! Before Mr. Ruskin's imagination has risen a picture of a new society, which shall spring from the ashes of the old, and for which he will do his best to secure some partial realization. He has begun to raise a fund, chiefly by his own contributions, and has already bought a piece of land. These members of the St. George's Company that is to be the name of the future community will lead pure and simple lives. They will culti vate the land by manual labor, instead of "huzzing and mazing the blessed fields with the Devil's own team;" the workmen shall be paid fixed wages; the boys shall learn to ride and sail; the girls to spin, weave, sew, and "cook all ordinary food exquisitely;" they shall all know how to sing, and be taught mercy to brutes, courtesy to each other, rigid truth-speaking, and strict obedience. And they shall all learn Latin, and the history of five cities, Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, and London. Leading "contented lives, in pure air, out of the way of unsightly objects, and emancipated from unnecessary mechanical occupation," the little community will possess the first conditions for the cultivation of the great arts; for great art is the expression of a harmonious, noble, and simple society. Let us wish Mr. Ruskin all success; and yet the path he is taking is strewed with too many failures to suggest much hopefulness even, we fear, to himself. Utopia is not to be gained at a bound; and there will be some trouble in finding appropriate colonists, to say nothing of competent leaders. The ambition is honorable, but one who takes so melancholy a view of modern society as Mr. Ruskin must fear lest the sons of Belial should be too strong for him. We say that truth must prevail, and that all good work lasts. Some of us may believe it, but how an those believe it who see in all past history nothing but a record of dismal failures, of arts flourishing only to decay, and religions rising to be corrupted almost at their source?

What Mr. Ruskin thinks of such matters is perhaps given most forcibly in a singularly eloquent and pathetic lecture, delivered at Dublin, and republished in the first volume of his collected works. The subject is the "Mystery of Life and its Arts, and it is a comment on the melancholy text, "What is your life? It is even as a vapor

that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." | That truth which we all have to learn, has been taught to Mr. Ruskin as to others by bitter personal experience. He speaks a little too mournfully, as it may seem to his readers, of his own failures in life. For ten years he tried to make his countrymen understand Turner, and they will not even look at the pictures exhibited in the public galleries. He then labored more prudently at teaching architecture, and found much sympathy; but the luxury, the mechanism, and the squalid misery of English cities choked the impulse; and he turned from streets of iron and palaces of crystal to the carving of the mountains and the color of the flower. And still, he says, he could tell of repeated failure; for, indeed, who may not tell of failure who thinks that the seeds sown upon stubborn and weedchoked soil are at once to develop into perfect plants? The failure, however, whether exaggerated or real, made the mystery of life deeper.

All enduring success, he says, arises from a faith in human nature or a belief in immortality; and his own failure was due to a want of sufficiently earnest effort to understand existence or of purpose to apply his knowledge. But the reflection suggested a stranger mystery. The arts prosper only when endeavoring to proclaim Divine truth; and yet they have always failed to proclaim it. Always at their very culminating point they have become "ministers to lust and pride." And we, the hearers, are as apathetic as the teachers. We listen as in a languid dream and care nothing for the revelation that comes. We profess to believe that men are dropping into hell before our faces or rising into heaven; and we don't much care about it, or quite make up our minds one way or the other. Go to the highest and most earnest of religious poets. Milton evidently does not believe his own fictions, consciously adapted from heathen writers; Dante sees a vision of far inore intensity; but it is still a vision only; a vision full of grotesque types and fancies, where the doctrines of the Christian Church become subordinate to the praise, and are only to be understood by the help of a Florentine maiden. Or take men still greater because raised above controversy and strife. What have Homer and Shakespeare to tell us of the meaning of the world? Both of them think of men as the playthings of a mad destiny, where the noblest passions are the means of bringing their heroes to helpless ruin. The Christian poet differs from the heathen chiefly in this, that he recognizes no gods nigh at hand, and that by a petty chance the strongest and most righteous perish without a word of hope. And meanwhile, the wise men of the earth, the statesmen and the merchants, can only tell us to cut each other's throats, or to spend our whole energies in heaping up useless wealth. Turn from the wise men to the humble workers, and we learn a lesson of a kind. The lesson is mainly the old and simple taught in various forms by many men who have felt the painful weight of the great riddle too much for them, that we are to work and hold our tongues. All art consists in the effort to bring a little more order out of chaos; and the sense of failure and imperfection is necessary to stimulate us to the work. Whatever happiness is to be obtained is found in the struggle against disorder. And yet what has been effected by all the past generations of man The first of human arts is agriculture, and yet there are unreclaimed deserts in the Alps, the very centre of Europe. which could be redeemed by a year's labor, and which still blast their inhabitants into idiocy. And in India (Mr. Ruskin was referring to the Orissa famine) half a million of people died of hunger, and we could not bring them a few grain of rice. Clothing is the next of the arts, and yet how many of us are even decently clad? And of building, the art which leaves the most enduring remains, nothing in left of the greatest part of all the skill and strength that have been employed but fallen stones to encumber the fields and the streams.

"Must it be always thus?" asks Mr. Ruskin; "is our life forever to be without profit, without possession?" The only answer to be given is a repetition of the old advice, to do what good work we can, and waste as little as possi

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ble. By all means let us preach or practice that doctrine, and take such comfort as we can in it; but the mystery remains and presses upon all sensitive minds. That Mr. Ruskin is inclined to deepen its shades, and indeed to take a rather bilious view of the universe, may be inferred from this brief account of his sentiments. Indeed, the common taunt against Calvinism often occurs in a rather different form. Why don't you go mad, it is said, if you really believe that nine tenths of mankind are destined to unutterable and never-ending torments? But no creed known amongst men can quite remove the burden. The futility of human effort, the rarity of excellence, the utter helplessness of reason to reduce to order the blindly struggling masses of mankind, the waste and decay and confusion which we see around us, are enough to make us hesitate before answering the question. What is the meaning of it all? A sensitive nature, tortured and thrust aside by pachydermatous and apathetic persons, may well be driven to rash revolt and hasty denunciations of society in general. At worst, and granting him to be entirely wrong, he has certainly more claims on our pity than on our contempt. And for a moral, if we must have a moral, we can only remark, that on the whole Mr. Ruskin supplies a fresh illustration of the truth, which has both a cynical and an elevating side to it, that it is amongst the greatest of all blessings to have a thick skin and a sound digestion.

SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS.1

WE now approach a subject which cannot be omitted in any impartial sketch of the evidences of Spiritualism, since demonstration it is possible to obtain, of the objective it is that which furnishes perhaps the most unassailable reality of spiritual forms, and also of the truthful nature of the evidence furnished by seers when they describe figures visible to themselves alone. It has been already indicated and it is a fact, of which the records of Spiritualism furnish ample proof-that different individuals possess the power of seeing such forms and figures in very variable degrees. Thus, it often happens at a séance, that some will see distinct lights of which they will describe nothing at all. If only one or two persons see the lights, the form, appearance, and position, while others will see the rest will naturally impute it to their imagination; but there are cases in which only one or two of those present are unable to see them. There are also cases in which all see them, but in very different degrees of distinctness; yet ing as to the position and the movement of the lights. that they see the same objects is proved by their all agreeAgain, what some see as merely luminous clouds, others In other cases all present see the form will see as distinct human forms, either partial or entire. whether hand, face, or entire figure with equal distinctness. Again, the objective reality of these appearances is sometimes proved by their being touched, or by their being seen to move objects, in some cases heard to speak, in others seen to write, by several persons at one and the same time; unmistakably recognizable as that of some deceased friend. the figure seen or the writing produced being sometimes A volume could easily be filled with records of this class of witnesses; and a considerable selection is to be found in appearances, authenticated by place, date, and names of

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the works of Mr. Robert Dale Owen.

Now, at this point, an inquirer, who had not pre-judged the question, and who did not believe his own knowledge of the universe to be so complete as to justify him in rejecting all evidence for facts which he had hitherto considered to be in the highest degree improbable, might fairly say, "Your evidence for the appearance of visible, tangible, spiritual forms, is very strong; but I should like to have them submitted to a crucial test, which would quite settle the question of the possibility of their being due to a coincident delusion of several senses of several 1 This chapter is taken from the second part of a long and curious paper entitled "A Defence of Modern Spiritualism," by A. R. Wallace. Fortnightly Review for May and June, 1874.

persons at the same time; and, if satisfactory, would demonstrate their objective reality in a way nothing else can do. If they really reflect or emit light which makes them visible to human eyes, they can be photographed. Photograph them, and you will have an unanswerable proof that your human witnesses are trustworthy." Two years ago we could only have replied to this very proper suggestion, that we believed it had been done and could be again done, but that we had no satisfactory evidences to offer. Now, however, we are in a position to state, not only that it has been frequently done, but that the evidence is of such a nature as to satisfy any one who will take the trouble carefully to examine it. This evidence we will now lay before our readers, and we venture to think they will acknowledge it to be most remarkable.

Before doing so it may be as well to clear away a popular misconception. Mr. Lewes advised the Dialectical Committee to distinguish carefully between "facts and inferences from facts." This is especially necessary in the case of what are called spirit-photographs. The figures which occur in these, when not produced by any human agency, may be of "spiritual" origin, without being figures "of spirits." There is much evidence to show that they are, in some cases, forms produced by invisible intelligences, but distinct from them. In other cases the intelligence appears to clothe itself with matter capable of being perceived by us; but even then it does not follow that the form produced is the actual image of the spiritual form. It may be but a reproduction of the former mortal form with its terrestrial accompaniments, for purposes of recognition.

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Most persons have heard of these "ghost-pictures," and how easily they can be made to order by any photographer, and are therefore disposed to think they can be of no use as evidence. But a little consideration will show them that the means by which sham ghosts can be manufactured being so well known to all photographers, it becomes easy to apply tests or arrange conditions so as to prevent imposition. The following are some of the more obvious: 1. If a person with a knowledge of photography takes his own glass plates, examines the camera used and all the accessories, and watches the whole process of taking a picture, then, if any definite form appears on the negative besides the sitter, it is a proof that some object was present capable of reflecting or emitting the actinic rays, although invisible to those present. 2. If an unmistakable likeness appears of a deceased person totally unknown to the photographer. 3. If figures appear on the negative having a definite relation to the figure of the sitter, who chooses his own position, attitude, and accompaniments, it is a proof that invisible figures were really there. 4. If a figure appears draped in white, and partly behind the dark body of the sitter without in the least showing through, it is a proof that the white figure was there at the same time, because the dark parts of the negative are transparent, and any white picture in any way superposed would show through. 5. Even should none of these tests be applied, yet if a medium, quite independent of the photographer, sees and describes a figure during the sitting, and an exactly corresponding figure appears on the plate, it is a proof that such a figure was there.

Every one of these tests have now been successfully applied in our own country, as the following outline of the facts will show.

The accounts of spirit-photography in several parts of the United States caused many spiritualists in this country to make experiments; but for a long time without success. Mr. and Mrs. Guppy, who are both amateur photographers, tried at their own house, and failed. In March, 1872, they went one day to Mr. Hudson's, a photographer living near them (not a spiritualist), to get some cartes de visite of Mrs. Guppy. After the sitting, the idea suddenly struck Mr. Guppy that he would try for a spirit-photograph. He sat down, told Mrs. Guppy to go behind the background, and had a picture taken. There came out behind him a large, indefinite, oval, white patch, somewhat resembling the outline of a draped figure. Mrs. Guppy, be

hind the background, was dressed in black. This is the first spirit-photograph taken in England, and it is perhaps more satisfactory on account of the suddenness of the impulse under which it was taken, and the great white patch which no impostor would have attempted to produce, and which taken by itself, utterly spoils the picture. A few days afterwards, Mr. and Mrs. Guppy and their little boy went without any notice. Mrs. Guppy sat on the ground holding the boy on a stool. Her husband stood behind, looking on. The picture thus produced is most remarkable. A tall female figure, finely draped in white, gauzy robes, stands directly behind and above the sitters, looking down on them and holding its open hands over their heads, as if giving a benediction. The face is somewhat Eastern, and, with the hands, is beautifully defined. The white robes pass behind the sitters' dark figures without in the least showing through. A second picture was then taken as soon as a plate could be prepared; and it was fortunate it was so, for it resulted in a most remarkable test. Mrs. Guppy again knelt with the boy; but this time she did not stoop so much, and her head was higher. The same white figure comes out equally well defined, but it has changed its position in a manner exactly corresponding to the slight change of Mrs. Guppy's position. The hands were before on a level; now one is raised considerably higher than the other so as to keep it about the same distance from Mrs. Guppy's head as it was before. The folds of the drapery all correspondingly differ, and the head is slightly turned. Here, then, one of two things is absolutely certain. Either there was a living, intelligent, but invisible being present, or Mr. and Mrs. Guppy, the photographer, and some fourth person, planned a wicked imposture, and have maintained it ever since. Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Guppy so well as I do, I feel an absolute conviction that they are as incapable of an imposture of this kind as any earnest inquirer after truth in the department of natural science.

The report of these pictures soon spread. Spiritualists in great numbers came to try for similar results, with varying degrees of success; till after a time rumor of imposture arose, and it is now firmly believed by many, from suspicious appearances on the pictures and from other circumstances, that a large number of shams have been produced. It is certainly not to be wondered at if it be so. The photographer, remember, was not a spiritualist, and was utterly puzzled at the pictures above described. Scores of persons came to him, and he saw that they were satisfied if they got a second figure with themselves, and dissatisfied if they did not. He may have made arrangements by which to satisfy everybody. One thing is clear; that if there has been imposture, it was at once detected by spiritualists themselves; if not, then spiritualists have been quick in noticing what appeared to indicate it. Those, however, who most strongly assert imposture allow that a large number of genuine pictures have been taken. But, true or not, the cry of imposture did good, since it showed the necessity for tests and for independent confirmation of the facts.

The test of clearly recognizable likenesses of deceased friends has often been obtained. Mr. William Howitt, who went without previous notice, obtained likenesses of two sons, many years dead, and of the very existence of one of which even the friend who accompanied Mr. Howitt was ignorant. The likenesses were instantly recognized by Mrs. Howitt; and Mr. Howitt declares them to be "perfect and unmistakable." (Spiritual Magazine, October, 1872.) Dr. Thompson of Clifton, obtained a photograph of himself, accompanied by that of a lady he did not know. He sent it to his uncle in Scotland, simply asking if he recognized a resemblance to any of the family deceased. The reply was that it was the likeness of Dr. Thompson's own mother, who died at his birth; and there being no picture of her in existence, he had no idea what she was like. The uncle very naturally remarked, that he "could not understand how it was done." (Spiritual Magazine, October, 1873.) Many other instances of recognition have occurred, but I will only add my personal testimony. A few weeks back I myself went to the same photographer's for the first time, and obtained a most unmistakable likeness of a deceased

relative. We will now pass to a better class of evidence, the private experiments of amateurs.

Mr. Thomas Slater, an old-established optician in the Euston Road, and an amateur photographer, took with him to Mr. Hudson's a new camera of his own manufacture and his own glasses, saw everything done, and obtained a portrait with a second figure on it. He then began experimenting in his own private house, and during last summer obtained some remarkable results. The first of his successes contains two heads by the side of a portrait of his sister. One of these heads is unmistakably the late Lord Brougham's; the other, much less distinct, is recognized by Mr. Slater as that of Robert Owen, whom he knew intimately up to the time of his death. He has since obtained several excellent pictures of the same class. One in particular, shows a female in black and white flowing robes, standing by the side of Mr. Slater. In another the head and bust appears, leaning over his shoulder. The faces of these two are much alike, and other members of the family recognize them as likenesses of Mr. Slater's mother, who died when he was an infant. In another a pretty child figure, also draped, stands beside Mr. Slater's little boy. Now, whether these figures are correctly identified or not, is not the essential point. The fact that any figures, so clear and unmistakably human in appearance as these, should appear on plates taken in his own private studio by an experienced optician and amateur photographer, who makes all his apparatus himself, and with no one present but the members of his own family, is the real marvel. In one case a second figure appeared on a plate with himself, taken by Mr. Slater when he was absolutely alone, by the simple process of occupying the sitter's chair after uncapping the camera. He and his family being themselves mediums, they require no extraneous assistance; and this may, perhaps, be the reason why he has succeeded so well. One of the most extraordinary pictures obtained by Mr. Slater is a full-length portrait of his sister, in which there is no second figure, but the sitter appears covered all over with a kind of transparent lace drapery, which on examination is seen to be wholly made up of shaded circles of different sizes, quite unlike any material fabric I have seen or heard of.

Mr. Slater has himself shown me all these pictures and explained the conditions under which they were produced. That they are not impostures is certain; and as the first independent confirmations of what had been previously obtained only through professional photographers, their value is inestimable.

A less successful, but not perhaps on that account less satisfactory confirmation has been obtained by another amateur, who, after eighteen months of experiment, obtained a partial success. Mr. R. Williams, M. A., Ph. D., of Hayward's Heath, succeeded last summer in obtaining three photographs, each with part of a human form besides the sitter, one having the features distinctly marked. Subsequently another was obtained, with a well-formed figure of a man standing at the side of the sitter, but while being developed, this figure faded away entirely. Mr. Williams assures me (in a letter) that in these experiments there was "no room for trick or for the production of these figures by any known means.”

The editor of the British Journal of Photography has made experiments at Mr. Hudson's studio, taking his own collodion and new plates, and doing everything himself, yet there were "abnormal appearances on the pictures, although no distinct figures.

We now come to the valuable and conclusive experiments of Mr. John Beattie of Clifton, a retired photographer of twenty years' experience, and of whom the above-mentioned editor says: "Every one who knows Mr. Beattie will give him credit for being a thoughtful, skilful, and intelligent photographer, one of the last men in the world to be easily deceived, at least in matters relating to photography, and one quite incapable of deceiving others."

Mr. Beattie has been assisted in his researches by Dr. Thomson, an Edinburgh M. D., who has practised photog

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raphy, as an amateur, for twenty-five years. perimented at the studio of a friend, who was not a spiritualist (but who became a medium during the experiments), and had the services of a tradesman with whom they were well acquainted, as a medium. The whole of the photographic work was done by Messrs. Beattie and Thomson, the other two sitting at a small table. The pictures were taken in series of three, within a few seconds of each other, and several of these series were taken at each sitting. The figures produced are for the most part not human, but variously formed and shaded white patches, which in successive pictures change their form and develop as it were into a more perfect or complete type. Thus, one set of five begins with two white somewhat angular patches over the middle sitter, and ends with a rude but unmistakable white female figure, covering the larger part of the plate. The other three show intermediate states, indicating a continuous change of form from the first figure to the last. Another set (of four pictures) begins with a white vertical cylinder over the body of the medium, and a shorter one on his head. These change their form in the second and third, and in the last become laterally spread out into luminous masses resembling nebulæ. Another set of three is very curious. The first has an oblique flowing luminous patch from the table to the ground; in the second this has changed to a white serpentine column, ending in a point above the medium's head; in the third the column has become broader and somewhat double, with the curve in an opposite direction, and with a head-like termination. The change of the curvature may have some connection with a change in the position of the sitters, which is seen to have taken place between the second and the third of this set. There are two others, taken, like all the preceding, in 1872, but which the medium described during the exposure. The first, he said, was a thick white fog; and the picture came out all shaded white, with not a trace of any of the sitters. The other was described as a fog with a figure standing in it; and here a white human figure is alone seen in the almost uniform foggy surface. During the experiments made in 1873, the medium, in every case, minutely and correctly described the appearances which afterwards came out on the plate. In one there is a luminous rayed star of large size, with a human face faintly visible in the centre. This is the last of three in which the star developed, and the whole were accurately described by the medium. In another set of three, the medium first described, "a light behind him, coming from the floor." The next, "a light rising over another person's arms, coming from his own boot." The third, "there is the same light, but now a column comes up through the table, and it is hot to my hands." Then he suddenly exclaimed,

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"What a bright light up there! Can you not see it?" pointing to it with his hand. All this most accurately describes the three pictures, and in the last, the medium's hand is seen pointing to a white patch which appears overhead. There are other curious developments, the nature of which is already sufficiently indicated; but one very startling single picture must be mentioned. During the exposure one medium said he saw on the background a black figure, the other medium saw a light figure by the side of the black one. In the picture both these figures appear, the light one very faintly, the black one much more distinctly, of a gigantic size, with a massive coarsefeatured face and long hair. (Spiritual Magazine, January and August, 1873; Photographic News, June 28th, 1872.)

Mr. Beattie has been so good as to send me for examination a complete set of these most extraordinary photographs, thirty-two in number, and has furnished me with any particulars I desired. I have described them as correctly as I am able; and Dr. Thompson has authorized me to use his name as confirming Mr. Beattie's account of the conditions under which they appeared. These experiments were not made without labor and perseverance. Sometimes twenty consecutive pictures produced absolutely nothing unusual. Hundreds have been taken, and more than half have been complete failures. But the successes have been well worth

1874.]

MASTERS OF ETCHING.

the labor. They demonstrate the fact that what a medium or sensitive sees (even where no one else sees anything), may often have an objective existence. They each us whose that perhaps the bookseller, Nicolai, of Berlin "speccase has been quoted ad nauseam as the type of a tral illusion," saw real beings after all; and that, had photography been then discovered and properly applied, we might now have the portraits of the invisible men and They give us hints of a women who crowded his room. process by which the figures seen at séances may have to be gradually formed or developed, and enable us better to understand the statements repeatedly made by the commun;cating intelligences, that it is very difficult to produce d'efinite visible and tangible forms, and that it can only be done under a rare combination of favorable conditions.

We find, then, that three amateur photographers working independently in different parts of England, separately confirm the fact of spirit-photography, - already demonstrated to the satisfaction of many who have tested it through professional photographers. The experiments of Mr. Beattie and Dr. Thomson are alone absolutely conclusive; and, taken in connection with those of Mr. Slater and Dr. Williams, and the test photographs, like those of Mrs. Guppy, establish as a scientific fact the objective existence of invisible human forms, definite invisible actinic images. Before leaving the photographic phenomena, we have to notice two curious points in connection with them. The actinic action of the spirit-forms is peculiar, and much more rapid than that of the light reflected from ordinary material forms; for the figures start out the moment the developing fluid touches them, while the figure of the sitter appears much later. Mr. Beattie noticed this throughout his experiments, and I was myself much struck with it when watching the development of three pictures recently taken at Mr. Hudson's. The second figure, though by no means bright, always came out long before any other part of the picture. The other singular thing, is the copious drapery in which these forms are almost always enveloped, so as to show only just what is necessary for recognition, of the face and figure. The explanation given of this is, that the human form is more difficult to materialize than draThe conventional "white-sheeted ghost" was not pery. a fact, too, then all fancy, but had a foundation in fact, of deep significance, dependent on the laws of a yet unknown chemistry.

MASTERS OF ETCHING.

BY FREDERICK WEDMORE.

I.

REMBRANDT, Ostade, Vandyke, and Claude- these are the four masters of the art of etching; and it is in virtue of their mastery of that art that they receive from many a more enthusiastic admiration than that which their But what painted pictures call forth from all the world. is the nature of that less popular art which they practised? To draw upon the varnished surface of a copper plate, with a steel point, the lines that are to give the form and light and shadow of your picture; to bite those lines by that, the application of a bath of acid, and finally to transfer your work to paper with ink and a printing-press as far as one rough sentence can explain it, is the process of etching. It is, in many ways, the complement of the art of mezzotinting. The mezzotinter works by spaces, the etcher by lines. And Turner, in the most interesting and most important of his serial works, the "Liber Studiorum," effected that marriage of the two arts which, strange to He etched the leading lines say, has never been repeated. of his studies, and mezzotint, executed sometimes under his own supervision and sometimes by his own hand, acYet one does not class him among complished the rest. the great etchers, because he only used etching to perform

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that which by the other process could not have been per-
the
formed at all. He etched with immense precision and power
all that he meant to etch; but he reserved his effects
for the other art. That alone
things for which he cared
clothed the skeleton, and visibly embodied the spirit of
each picture. But when one speaks of the great etchers,
one speaks of those who gave to their art a wider field,
and claimed from it a greater result. They too, like
Turner, worked by lines, but their lines were a thousand
to his one; for they were the end as well as the begin-
ning-they made the picture, and did not only prepare

for it.

engravers.

The work of the great etchers was usually speedy. On the one side there was quiet intelligence, Their minds had other qualities than those of the line patience, and leisurely attention to detail; on the other, rapid sympathy, instinctive recognition, and either a vehement passion for the thing beheld and to be drawn, or else, at the least, a keen delight in it. The patience and leisure were for Marc Antonio, the passion was for Rembrandt, the delight for Claude.

It is perhaps because Vandyke was by a few years the save Albert Dürer, whose greatearliest of the etchersthat one finds est achievements are all in a different art in many of his prints a poverty of means, never indeed to be confused with weakness or with failure, but tending now and then to lessen the effect and meaning of his work. He was a genuine etcher: there was never a more genuine. But if you think of him with Rembrandt and with Claude - the two great masters who in point of time were ever so little behind him-there comes perhaps to your mind some thought of the diligent schoolboy whose round-hand and whose large-hand are better than his teacher's, but who can write only between those rigid lines which for Or, if that simile aphimself the teacher would discard. pear offensive, think of the difference between certain musicians: think of the precision of Arabella Goddardthen of Joachim's artistic individuality: firmness at will, that faultless, measured, restrained interpretation — and a resolute self-control, minute exactness, and then, suddenly, and but for an instant, the divine indecision which is the last expression of supreme mastery, because it is the sign that creator and interpreter are fused into one. But there may be other causes than the one I have suggested for that which, define it how we will, seems lacking that process to Vandyke. Perhaps not in etching only without precedents-is he something less than he might have been. As a painter, the highest examples were before him. But did he fully profit by them?

the son of traders who are wealthy He is born in 1599 - and early showing signs of his particular ability, he has no difficulty in entering the studio of Rubens. That master much appreciates him. The youth gives still increasing promise; and he is well advised in early manhood to set out for Italy, so that he may study the treasures of Venice, Florence, and Rome. But he has not passed out of his native Flanders before he is enamored of a young country The love of her detains him many girl. He wavers. months. He is quite happy, painting the portraits of her kinsmen. He has forgotten Italy. Remonstrance on remonstrance comes from Rubens, and it is owing to this persistence that he finally sets forth. There is then a five years' absence. No absence so long was ever less fruitful in direct influence; and now he is busy at Antwerp. In 1632 he travels to England, hoping for greater gain than work in his native city affords; and he is early patronized by the king, by the Lords Strafford and Pembroke, and by Sir Kenelm Digby, whose wife's portrait (she was the Lady Venetia Stanley), he paints four times. He does not neglect his work, but he does not feed and enrich his faculty. He is amiable, no doubt; he is dashing and brilliant too. But it does not occur to any one to say that he is wise. He dresses lavishly. In the matter of display he attempts an unreasonable rivalry with the wealthiest of the nobles-runs that race which an artist rarely wins, and then wins only at the price of a fatal injury. Van- an open purse dyke keeps an open house for his friends

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