they should be, there is a harmony and agreement with the solemn lines and hue of the surrounding architecture, which contrasts most strongly with the glaring transparencies of the opposite transept. The memorial windows in the nave, however, are weak in colour and bad in taste, and give evidence how much our appreciation of true art in glass-painting must have degenerated before we could allow such specimens as these to be placed in the magnificent nave of one of the finest of our sacred buildings.

The Exhibition of 1862 gave evidence of a marked improvement in design, and of the designs having been furnished by some of our first artists. The Museum at South Kensington has numerous specimens by celebrated glass manufacturers, many of a high type. A short time ago, a window designed by Harrison Weir, and destined to be placed in Brandcome Hall, near Bournemouth, was to be seen at a London glass manufactory. It was considered that, besides the artistic beauty of the design itself, its success was due to the extraordinary brilliancy, delicate adjustment observed in glazing. The centre light represented a stag under a canopy of wild convolvulus, shaped like a Gothic arch. The background consisted of a park view delicately coloured, the sky was remarkable for its softness and brilliancy. The side lights were canopied with wild dog-rose; in one light crouched the rabbit, in the other partridges. This window is a specimen of how accurately animals may be represented in glass-painting; the leading was introduced so as to form part of the design, and principally kept in the line of shade.

One beautiful and suggestive use to which glass-painting is applied, is that of memorial windows. A 'sweet and lasting monument' to the memory of parent or child, or popular benefactor. No monument can be

more happy or suggestive than such a window erected in the parish church where the departed had joined in prayer or praise, or the cathedral where he had exercised his genius, or devoted his life for the good of others. But unhappily this use, especially in the case of a public subscription, has been often misapplied; people are more intent on a good large gaudy window with plenty for their money, than on employing an artist for the design, and a glass-painter who will carry it out on true principles; this fault is becoming less, but still modern glass-painting has much to learn before we can congratulate ourselves on any real reform. There is, however, a decided diminution of the so-called 'Bogie work,' and a substitution of more natural figure-drawing without relapsing into a great degree of enamel colouring.

At the last examination and award of prizes at the Society of Arts, their mention of glass-painting was not satisfactory; little originality had been displayed, and real art had not been brought to bear upon the subject. But it is to be hoped that the true taste and appreciation which has certainly been revived, may in due time spread, and the art of glasspainting be looked on as a worthy field for our artists to enter upon.

95

OF TWO DOGS.

TO THOSE THAT LOVE THEM.

My old companions gone!

From the far past their eyes look wistfully,
Eyes deep and beautiful with love for me-
But the swift years roll on ;

And only in my thoughts they love me now,
And come about me still, as long ago,

While I sit here alone.

Oh, summer mornings bright,

With prime of foliage, and youth's happy laughter;
Oh, green woods, musical with falling water,
And fragrant rocky height,

Where Fruchie, Nep, and I, were young together;
How the old days come back, and sunny weather,
All traced in lines of light.

The old paths know us not;

The woods we rustled through, on moorlands high, Ringed with the purple hills and wealth of sky, Our presence is forgot;

But I remember well companions fleet,

The pattering music of the little feet,

When the gay chase was hot.

Still, though I'm far away,

That bright stream seems to murmur in my ear;
Still, in those ancient woods the rooks I hear,
And Fruchie's joyous bay,

And Neptune's rapturous bark of deepest tone;

For ever are you silent now, and gone,

My old companions gay.

Happy they lived, and died

Before decay could dim their constant glee.
At Neptune's head there grows an apple-tree,
A fir-tree by his side;

And somewhere in the spiritual worlds that fill
Immensity, their bright existence still,

And fond love, may abide.

E. J. O.

AUNT CECILY'S MUSIC LESSONS.

PART I.-MABEL'S MUSIC-BOOK.

LESSON XI. (continued.)

MR. ST. LEGER took possession of the fauteuil near Sophy Bright, with a view to offering her the sort of patronage which the generality of young officers think it becomes them to bestow on young ladies, especially on those who have been just set free from the school-room. But Sophy Bright had other matters on her mind. She had been examining the programme, and had found out that the pieces were all in a style that she had been accustomed to think fit only for philharmonic concerts and classical matinées; a style which she and a good many more of her school-fellows had resolved they would have nothing to do with. The resident musical governess had told them it was a mere whim, this revival of classical music; and that a few years would see the end of it. Sophy did not expect to find that fashionable young ladies like the Miss Mellanys, and young men of Clement Bowyer's sort, would be as much taken up with Mozart and Beethoven as Mr. Auriol himself, whom she looked on as a kind of patriarch devoted to antiquities. Sophy was a conscientious girl, fully aware that her father had made sacrifices in order to give her two years at a very expensive school, under the idea that she would do a great deal with music and drawing in that time-two things it was supposed by Mr. and Mrs. Bright could not be learnt properly at Ashton, or even at X. Sophy had come home full of dreams of the immense use she was to be of at home by helping to educate her sisters. She had talked the matter over with her mother already, and had persuaded her that the best possible plan would be to get a German governess who did not undertake accomplishments, and to let Sophy act as music mistress and drawing mistress to her sisters, going on herself with a course of English reading under her father's guidance, and keeping up the habit she had acquired at school of speaking French and German by conversing with the foreign governess. Mr. Bright, to whom the proposal had been submitted only about an hour before they arrived at Ashton that evening, had said it looked like a very reasonable plan, and that he would think about it. The foundation-stone of Sophy's Spanish castle was therefore laid, and in spite of the dinner-party and the concert she had been building very fast for the greater part of the evening. Mr. Auriol's criticism had given a great blow to the rising edifice; but Sophy was sanguine, and the idea of beginning a new course of musical study did not strike her as any hindrance to her pet project. She was casting up in her mind all the stray quarters of hours which she could get in the course of a week out of the time which she had already allotted to her various

employments, and she would much rather have been let alone by Mr. St. Leger at that moment. She could not bring herself to receive either his grand airs, or his persiflage, or his half mocking flattery, with the admiration or the gratitude they had obtained when bestowed on several other young ladies; and Mr. St. Leger soon voted her a stupid sulky girl; and throwing himself back in his chair, and crossing one leg over the other, he lent his attention to the music with an air of being bored, which was quite thrown away, as nobody looked at him except Mabel, who only wondered what had fatigued him so much, and thought he could hardly be strong enough for a soldier. As for Sophy, she pronounced him an empty-headed conceited cockscomb,' which, by the way, he was not, any more than she was 'a stupid sulky girl.' But these two young people had been accustomed to see things from a different point of view, and they were both given to judging their neighbours at first sight, a fault which it is to be hoped they will get cured of without paying so dearly for their experience as some folks do.

In the meantime the madrigal is going on. It was that very lovely and poetical one, 'Lay a garland on her hearse,' the words from Beaumont and Fletcher, and the music by a gentleman of whom Gloucestershire ought to be proud, the late Mr. de Pearsall. (of Willsbridge.) The eight parts went as true as a quartett of strings, and the audience was charmed.

When the last chord had died away, Lady Mary, without waiting to be conducted to her place, walked quickly towards Mr. Greene and Mr. Bright, who were shouting encore, and holding up her finger, she said, 'Not one more encore to-night. Our concert will come to an untimely end unless that rule is adhered to.'

Ah! Lady Mary, quite contrary,' said Mr. Greene; upon which there was a laugh.

Mrs. Auriol joined in it, but she whispered to her cousin, 'George, Mary's quite right. I see the Canon's getting his violoncello ready for action. He won't be happy till he's had his quartett.' Mrs. Auriol never called Mr. Auriol 'the Canon' except to her intimate friends, and then only when she was in very good spirits.

Mrs. Auriol was a very kind-hearted woman, but her temperament was not quite so equable as her husband's. We were going to say that her temper was not quite so even as his, but the other is a more polite way of stating the fact. Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Auriol had never got very fond of each other. In the early days of Mrs. Greene's reign at Ashton, Mr. Auriol and Mr. Greene had had their patience sorely tried by misunderstandings and coolnesses between their wives. However, as time went on, these two ladies got accustomed to one another's different modes of seeing things. Mabel Auriol's death made a great change in their manner towards each other for a year or two, and from that time they had become outwardly good friends; but they did not suit one VOL. 8.

7

PART 43.

another, and would certainly have come to a downright quarrel had they been obliged to live under the same roof.

But to return to our music. The quartett was the thing best worth hearing in the concert, but though the audience tried hard to think so, they did not succeed. However, it did not matter, as the players enjoyed it intensely, and so did Lady Mary and her daughters, and Miss Wells, and they were the persons present who had the best faculties (natural and acquired) for enjoying music. Miss Mellany came into the front drawing-room just before the quartett began, and took Mabel into the other room, in order to point out to her something that she had forgotten to explain to her in the morning, viz. that one of the violins was called the tenor, because it was used in the string quartett to play the part which a tenor voice takes in a vocal quartett. Miss Mellany seated herself near her uncle, and kept Mabel by her side, having told her to listen to Mr. Miller if she wanted to hear what sounds the tenor gave.

This quartett finished the first part of the concert, and then the performers joined the audience, and they discussed what they had heard, till some one glanced at the clock, and Miss Wells and Clement Bowyer, with Miss Mellany and Mabel, went to the orchestra to start the second part of the concert. Miss Mellany turned over the leaves, and Mabel was pleased to be allowed to stand by Aunt Cecily while she was playing. The duett was No. 2 of the three sonatas dedicated to the Emperor Alexander, by Beethoven. Mr. Auriol, Mr. Miller, Lady Mary, and the Miss Mellanys, listened with rapt and delighted attention. Mr. and Mrs. Greene, and Mr. and Mrs. Bright, liked some parts much, but thought others tiresome. Mr. Barry and Mr. St. Leger knew that it was fine music, but considered it too long for the occasion. Sophy Bright tried hard to persuade herself that she appreciated it, but secretly preferred Thalberg's 'Home, sweet Home,' which was her ideal of a musical composition. The sonata was followed by a solo by Clara from Der Freyschütz, which made Mr. Barry and Mr. St. Leger call out 'Brava! Bravissima!' which applause Clara acknowledged by the deepest and most theatrical of curtseys. She then sang with her cousins Mozart's lovely trio, 'Soave sia il vento,' accompanied by Miss Wells and Miss Mellany on the piano-forte and harmonium. This over, Miss Wells and Mr. Auriol played a duett of Mendelssohn's. Then Mr. Barry sang Schubert's Wanderer,' Miss Mellany accompanying him. As soon as he had ended, Mr. St. Leger appeared with white gloves, and his hair tossed about, and a manner assumed totally unlike his own. He bowed first to the audience, and then swung himself vehemently round, and bowed with his hand on his heart to the ladies and gentlemen who represented the orchestra just behind him. Mr. Greene and Charles Lyne clapped furiously to get another bow. Mr. and Mrs. Bright, the host and hostess, and young Lyne, appeared to be roused to enthusiasm by this bit of pantomime, and they rewarded the actor with bursts of