who found him busy at the work. "Yes I am," he replied, "of laws; a tribute to my growing reputation from the university of Iona." "You have never been a mother," persisted the objector. "I think," said the lawyer after reflection, "I may admit that. I am free alike from medical pedantry and maternal weakness." The book was capitally edited, especially the chapter on baby management, and an evening paper was soon able to announce that no good middle-aged mother was without it; showing, as there are a million good middle-aged mothers in England, that its circulation must be something enormous. "We may observe, passim," as an excellent sporting author says, that the useful little work in question recommends, by anticipation, a Turkish bath for babies; they are to roll about in their bare innocence, on the rug, with a good fire burning, before ablution. This reminds one a little of the simple cold air bath used by, and called after, Franklin-on a feverish night to stand at the open window for ten minutes, and then return to the bedclothes-from which who has not found relief?

On the general subject of tubbing, it would be unpardonable to forget the various honourable societies of Philolutes, who do themselves so much credit, and go through so much rheumatism, in their determination to keep up the tradition of the daily swim throughout the year. We confess that, with all our full belief in the luxurious delights of Turkish bathers, we feel a satisfaction in getting back to the glad waters of the dark blue sea, or the shaded banks of the sunny river. Surely there also is delight, and health, and vigorous life, in the face of smiling nature, not of steaming art; and, for us, Dr. Currie's restorative swim in Tweed has more charms than Mr. Urquhart's no doubt still more re-invigorating perspiring bout in the Hamâm. The Philolutes, however, carry the maxim, Abondance de bien ne nuit pas, even to obliviousness of the better rule, Enough is a feast. A Philolutic club at Cambridge used to break the ice daily in winter, and their wonderful example, we believe, has been followed by many rival societies. But, in all the annals of natation, from Leander to Byron, from the "tremendous header" of Sappho to that of Mr. Boucicault, -from Diana and her nymphs surprised sporting in the cool Gargaphian fountain, or the fair vision of the Paphian sea, to

presence-of-mind Jackson" assuring his own safety by rapping the fingers of his drowning friend, or that less prudent dignitary, the gallant Dean Butler, jumping shovel-hatted into the canal and saving a child's life-no such feat has been performed as that of the marine philolutes, or philolutic marines. On an island shore, beautiful as Calypso's, but decidedly colder in winter, were heard a few years since, on wild nights in January, frighting the isle from its propriety, dismal cries from the neighbouring sea. These cries proceeded, not from shipwrecked mariners, but from the occasional cramps of a devoted society of bathers, who went down daily before break of dawn, in frost, snow, rain, or tempest—on nights when an author would scarcely turn from his door his reviewer's dog-lighted a fire on the beach, undressed round it, and bathed. Lear and Mad Tom in the storm were Sybarites at pic-nic, compared to these Spartans of the winter wave. Can any spectacle more lamentable be conceived than that of these unhappy, naked, misguided men, more or less cramped

"As they roar

On the shore,

While the stormy winds do blow?"

to answer with their uncovered bodies this extremity of the skies! βηδ' ἀκέων παρὰ εἶνα— ἀκέων or not, every member of the club, save one, was laid up with rheumatism the first winter; every member, save one, wrote from his bed to resign all his privileges; but that one, we believe, still perseveres. There on the wild shore, in the blackest night of winter, when Boreas himself must be blowing on his own fingers, and the very mermaids cowering over their seacoal fires, none there besides foul weather, that heroic man, reckless of agues, catarrhs, rheumatisms, and all the painful family of cramp, proceeds calmly and coldly (very coldly) to undress, divests himself of coat, waistcoat, trousers, and the very last bulwark which shields him from the storm, piles them up tidily-his fingers are dead, but his spirits are lively; his toes may freeze, but not his courage; he says with Henri Quatre, "Ha, teeth! do you chatter? I'll give you something to talk about!" and singing,

“Oh, never was heard of a bath so wild !"

dashes into the frosty foam, swims proudly his twenty strokes, and returns to dress, conscious of having nobly preserved the high position he has so incontestably won, of (to revert to our original phrase) the most tubbable man.

THE

FINE ART EXHIBITIONS.

HERE are some people who can put no trust in a state of progress, unless it be constantly producing for their admiration and amazement certain tangible and visible resultswho refuse belief in improvement, unaccompanied by striking and exciting changes. But, after all, growth in any case is not very immediately perceptible, and probably the most continual watchers and inquirers concerning it will be the least conscious of alteration. It is those who return after an absence who can best judge of improvements made in the interval. Healthy progress must signify, to a great extent, slowness and steadiness, rather than palpable exertion and spasm. Just as in the game of top-spinning, even children know very well that when the top seems most noiseless and motionless-and what they call "asleep ”—it is really whirling its fastest.

Of course, the present fashionable inquiry of, "Is it a good Exhibition this year?" may be safely answered in the negative. It is a mediocre exhibition-it has indeed fallen below the average merits of some few seasons past. But it must not be hastily concluded that British art is therefore retrograding. The spring is the harvest time of the country's art, and we have rather weakly crops this year; there is nothing more to be said, except that very valid excuses for this may be urged. Such as the absence from the catalogues of the season of some of the best names in art, and the fact that the great International Exhibition of Paintings, proposed to be held at Kensington in 1862, has already exercised an effect on the studios-painters are already yielding to its Maelstrom influences—and, provident of

their fame, are saving themselves for great exertions next year. We are, as it were, attending the first day of the races, when there is but a spare attendance on the course. But, to-morrow is cup-day, when there will be crowding and excitement and triumph enough. This season art has mortgaged her possessions, or is nursing her treasures to shine with greater glory in 1862; let us hope that she then may have riches enough and to spare, and will take a fair place among the nations. And, if the present exhibition in Trafalgar Square be studied not so much from its apex as from its base, there is really matter of congratulation to be drawn from it; for there will be found to be what is tantamount to advance, so far as art is considered generally. In no season have there been so few bad pictures as are now to be found in the rooms of the Academy. Readers may remember a time when a score or so of respectable works were starred upon walls tapestried with abominable paintings, and thus an Exhibition was constituted. But painting utterly bad, as one used to understand it, has now gone from the walls of the Academy. Nearly all the pictures now Exhibited reach a fair level of respectability, though, perhaps, only a few rise out of that to higher merits. The youth of the Exhibition is thus promising well for the future, while it helps to sustain the interest of the art-harvest of the present season.

The catalogue of the pictures of this year (the ninety-third Exhibition) bears the quotation from Reynolds's Fourth Discourse "The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it." The cognoscenti of the old school have been rather jubilant over this text, affecting to regard it as a protest by the council of the Academy against what it is the fashion to style pre-Raffaelite art, while they point to the works of the Exhibition to prove their statement, that the school of that art has declined almost to vanishing. It is hardly necessary to observe that the quotation, if it applies well one way, applies equally well the other, and holds out no saving clause, that we can perceive, for pictures painted with the heedlessness of what may be called anti-pre-Raffaelitism, or those in strict accordance with what have been hitherto recognised as Academic prescrip

tions; while it is only necessary to glance at the pictures hung, to appreciate how deeply the teaching and example of Mr. Holman Hunt and his colleagues have taken root in the English artmind, and are developed every where in increased care and painstaking in higher ambitions of colour, and greater love of honest manipulation. Of course, the wisdom of the original title of the young painters was questionable enough. Whether assumed by or awarded to them, the word pre-Raffaelite could hardly, even to themselves, bear the interpretation and embrace the significance it was intended to convey. That certain eccentricities have been abated, and the archaic severities of their early works been relinquished, says more for the maturing of their minds, and the natural tempering of their judgments by process of time, than for any fundamental abandonment or alteration of first principles. In art, as in politics, people who begin with a cry are quite content in the end with something rather less than they originally demanded. Certainly, however, it is rather early to be talking about the demise of pre-Raffaelite art, while the crowning work of that art-Mr. Hunt's "Christ in the Temple❞— is still drawing its daily crowds of admirers.

The advanced position which art has been earning for itself in this country-the influence it has been gradually and surely extending over the public mind-the crowds of followers it has now gathered round its standard, have not been bought however, as it seems to us, without very considerable sacrifices. At a time when painting was for only the few and the informed, it could afford to disregard the prejudices of the many; it was safe from the impeachments of an ill-educated taste and a fictitious purism. But an increase of supporters, who fail to bring with them the refined knowledge and mental culture requisite to give worth to sentiments they have no hesitation in avowing, has induced a demand for the lowering of art to a tone of idealess, middle-class respectability, that threatens to be seriously injurious in the future; for a respectability that cramps, and depresses, and deadens, is open to strenuous objection. Students of the Exhibitions of the last few years will readily comprehend our meaning. They will know, for instance, that the kind of art in which the late Mr. Etty so greatly distinguished himself, with a wealth and