hich any social system has succeeded in ascertaining woman's proper
position, and in putting her into it, will be a very accurate test of the
progress it has made in civilization. And the very general and growing
conviction that our own social arrangements, as they exist at present,
have not attained any satisfactory measure of success in this respect,
would seem, therefore, to indicate that England in her nineteenth century
has not yet reached years of discretion after all."

Speaking of Elisabetta Sirani he says: "The humbly born artist, admirable
for her successful combination in perfect compatibility of all the duties
of home and studio." Of how many woman artists we can now say this.

Trollope's estimate of the position of women in England, which was not
unlike that in America, forty-five years ago, when contrasted with that
of the present day, affords another striking example of the expansion of
the nineteenth century.

* * * * *

Although no important changes occur without some preparation, this may be
so gradual and unobtrusive in its work that the result appears to have a
Minerva-like birth. Doubtless there were influences leading up to the
remarkable landscape painting of this century. The "Norwich School,"
which took shape in 1805, was founded by Crome, among whose associates
were Cotman, Stark, and Vincent. Crome exhibited his works at the Royal
Academy in 1806, and the twelve following years, and died in 1821 when
the pictures of Constable were attracting unusual attention; indeed, it
may be said that by his exhibitions at the Royal Academy, Constable
inaugurated modern landscape painting, which is a most important feature
of art in this century.

Not forgetting the splendid landscapes of the Dutch masters, of the early
Italians, of Claude and Wilson, the claim that landscape painting was
perfected only in the nineteenth century, and then largely as the result
of the works of English artists, seems to me to be well founded. To this
excellence Turner, contemporary with Constable, David Cox, De Wint,
Bonington, and numerous others gloriously contributed.

The English landscapes exhibited at the French Salon in the third decade
of the century produced a remarkable effect, and emphasized the interest
in landscape painting already growing in France, and later so splendidly
developed by Rousseau, Corot, Millet, and their celebrated
contemporaries. In Germany the Achenbachs, Les