iar to all who
are acquainted with it, and has been greatly admired by those who did
not feel impelled to condemn its many faults. But CLAUDE is now known to
have been no artist, but a mere pretender. There is reason to believe
that he had never read RUSKIN, and was hence necessarily ignorant of the
aim and method of landscape painting. Our young friend BROWN, the
_spirituel_ and fascinating assistant Rector of a fashionable uptown
church, has in this gallery a rendering of a similar subject. How
manifest is his superiority to CLAUDE! With what truth and fidelity to
nature; with what holy calm, and child-like faith, and lofty aspiration
has BROWN filled his glowing canvas! And withal, he does not lead us
back to the dead faith and traditions of the past, save to urge us
onward in the pathway of--in the pathway--in short, to urge us on more
or less. To those envious minds who affect to regard BROWN as a mere
amateur, an undertaker of more than he has the ability to execute, we
would deign but one reply, and that would be, "Look at his trees in the
picture called the 'Ruins of the Mill,' and then cower back into your
native insignificance."

[Illustration: RUINS OF A MILL.]

There are many other pictures which we would like to notice in this
article, but want of space will forbid us to do so this week. We have
merely room to mention, with warm approbation, the exceedingly dramatic
little _genre_ picture entitled "Shoo-fly," by the veteran Minstrel, Mr.
DANIEL BRYANT, whose recent translation of HOMER has given him so high a
rank among the best German scholars of the day.

[Illustration: SHOE FLY!]

* * * * *

RULES AND MAXIMS.

How they change! ESCULAPIUS now gives to us and our children, as
_medicine_, what he denounced to the last generation as "_pizen_." The
heresy of yesterday is the orthodoxy of to-day.

Thus the philosophy of those who are _under_ the turf is refuted by
those who are _on_ the turf. It used to be said in regard to horses:--

"One white foot, buy him,
"Two white feet, try him,
"Three white feet, deny him,
"Four white feet and a white nose,
"Take off his shoes and give him to the crows."

But the advent of DEXTER has changed the sinister rhyme to:--

One white foot, spy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, buy him,
Four white feet and a white nose,
And a mile in 2-17 he goes.

* *