illustrate," if they may be so designated, and to make no mention of such men as Rochegrosse, Le Blant, Moreau, Cain (who writes of his contemporaries so delightfully), Rossi, Clairin, and a host of others, seems wellnigh impertinent. And though the subject is so inexhaustible, at least some mention must be made of one or two of the men who work especially in black and white-the main-stay of the best illustration printed month by month in France.

For the most part these artists have attached themselves in a pleasantly inconsequential way to some publication which often, fortunately for them, seems to be as inconsequential as themselves. Even so great a man as Vierge, it will be remembered, was connected with Le

J.-L. Forain is known by his contributions to those two journals impossible outside of Paris-Le Courrier français and Le Fifre. For a long time he did but one notable work in book illustration, his Croquis Parisiens; but about 1888 Quantin suggested to him a book on the cafés-concerts which contains some of his most characteristic drawings; and since then several collections have been made of his contributions to the journals-one of the most recent of which, "Les temps difficiles," deals with the Panama scandals. The admiration for Forain is likely to find almost its exclusive expression among the French themselves; to general readers his work is likely to appear a wild exaggeration of characters with which most people

are scarcely familiar. As one of his friends expresses it: "Forain's idea is to paint the woman who is seen at the theatre, the concert, the café, the shops; the contemporaneous girl, the sly glances of her wide-open eyes, the chignon trempé, the glorious piling up of her hair, etc."

Something of the same abandon distinguishes Maurice Bonvoisin, whose pictures signed "Mars" have for years been conspicuous in the pages of Le journal amusant and later in Charivari; and he supplies not only the pictures but the text which accompany them. Unlike most of his contemporaries "Mars has not confined himself to the Paris types of figure in the comic papers. He has been a great traveller, speaks nearly all the continental languages, and draws his inspirations from a widened vision. He is almost the only French artist in the field of the comic whose work has found general appreciation in England and America. Mars's Albums," as he calls his collected pictures grouped by subjects into occasional books, are a perpetually popular series and their publication is a regularly looked-for event in many quarters. Extraordinarily dexterous are some of these, especially where the artist touches off the characters of the good, the true, and the humorous of other nations as represented by their tourists.

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Louis Vallet, who has an individuality

Pigeon-shooting Stand at Monte Carlo. (From "Mars's Album.")

The Concert Singer.

(Drawn by J.-L. Forain for Revue Illustrée.)

in a field of work already full of clever artists, hit off his own best description when he wrote recently of himself: "I never care to draw anything but women (Parisian ones, of course) and horses and soldiers;" his gift of clear-cut, sharp, and accurate portrayal is the quality one most attaches to him. Vallet's pictures are seen more and more outside France; he follows the fashions with the devotion and enthusiasm of a Worth, and his drawings present the modern dress to the latest hour. His industry is extraordinary. Within a year he illustrated three volumes and wrote one -the later, "Chic à Cheval," is a book which contains some three hundred illustrations. His drawing of horse women, published originally in Les lettres et les arts, in colors, will be remembered as representing him at his best, a fact not surprising, as he says: "The things I love best are horses, cats (I have four), and the Parisians."

One illustrator who cannot be omitted from the briefest sketch is Paul Renouard, a man of broader powers and greater originality than almost any of

the working illustrators of to-day. Lepère is fortunate in being able to give expression to his own work by his own hand on wood, and Paul Renouard gains the same end, but less laboriously, through the etcher's needle, which is only one of the methods he is master of. A singular contrast is offered by his broad charcoal drawings, genuine studies of character, and the delicately etched lines he so often affects. Among the subjects of his plates, the theatre in general and the ballet in particular are perhaps the most frequent. His great folio book. "L'Opéra," with a preface by Ludovic Halévy, containing scores of pictures, pen-and-ink sketches, etchings and bright drawings of the ballet individually and collectively, is an extraordinary example of the skill of the artist in depicting so many sides of this life, which most artists would confuse in a single type. The corps de ballet as Renouard studied and set it forth shows us its personnel portrayed with the utmost fidelity. These young women, divinities of an outré fashion, are often

but touches of figures, carrying an uncommon spirit, lightness, and effervescent grace. In other plates we have dogs, chickens, ducks, etc., studies assuredly from life, representing a really marvellous amount of individuality in each small creature. With Renouard's book illustration he shows himself in a more serious light. The series of drawings for his volume, "Rome in Holy Week," is an example of spontaneity carried through a large number of pictures true to the original purpose, varied and illustrative.

Paul Renouard is one of the very few illustrators who have visited America and drawn pictures from its life. The American illustrator who does not visit Paris is practically unknown; and in these days when so many evidences are presented of the interest of American readers in French illustration, it is a pity that others like M. Renouard do not find a benefit in turning aside to the study of the life of a people who have shown themselves to be among the French artists' most discriminating patrons.

N

EVER to do to-day what can be put off till to-morrow is an excellent maxim of conduct for busy men, since, if carried into practice, it leaves you free to do to-day what cannot be put off till to-morrow, and thus you marshal your time on sound and equitable principles. None the less, and great as are the merits of procrastination, I am most genuinely sorry I did not several months ago comply with the editor's request and write this paper on that branch of our supreme and sovereign Legislature known as the House of Commons; for had I then done so, I should have both begun and ended my task with a light heart and an unstained memory. But now, try as hard as I may, there swims before my eye, nor can I banish from my mind, a hateful and horrid scene of men scuffling and fighting, striking one another, and swearing on the very floor of the House itself, though happily not under the Speaker's eye.

The violation of traditions which have been centuries in the making, which have borne the stress of revolution, is in all circumstances and under any conditions a terrible thing; and hence it was that no sooner was the miserable and vulgar scuffle over, than a deep sense of shame and degradation came over the whole assembly.

To discuss the origin of the brawl was a task fitly left to those newspapers which, though called "Evening," in reality cast a gloom over luncheon; for it is but to burrow in the dirt. It sprang from bad language, bad temper, and bad breeding; but the disgrace of it was not so much because it proved the presence in the House of Commons of braggarts and swashbucklers-for probably such men have always had a place there in small numbers-but that the traditions of centuries had become so relaxed as to give such creatures

VOL. XIV.-59

the opportunity of behaving after the manner of their kind on so august a theatre.

So great was the shock, so profound and genuine the disgust caused by this incident, at once so hateful and so squalid, that it is not too much to trust that no living Englishman will see the like again.

The House of Commons, regarded as a legislative assembly, is at present composed of 670 members, who are for the most part far gone in middle life. Of these, 461 come from England, 34 from wild Wales, 72 from Scotland, and 103 from the unhappy spot of earth mortals call Ireland, and sentimentalists "the Sister Isle." The 643 constituencies these gentlemen represent vary enormously in size and importance. Some of them have an elec torate of 17,000 voters; others fall below 3,000, and are remarkable for nothing except that they do return a member to Parliament and are ineradicably corrupt.

If the present distribution of seats, as constituencies are popularly called, were viewed as a device for giving each elector an equal share of Parliamentary power, it is little short of imbecile, as the following figures show. Ninety thousand men return 31 members for 31 different constituencies, while 180,000 men return only 16 members for 16 different constituencies. The fact is we are always outgrowing our Constitution, which still bears traces of the time when the House of Commons was not regarded as representing units, but districts; some of them remote and almost unknown, whose members came to Westminster to see, hear, and tell, and at the close of the session rode home again to report to their neighbors how well or ill their interests were served in London. In these days of County Councils, reformed municipalities, penny papers and postage, cheap trains and perpetual motion, a member of Parliament has small legiti