The subjects of these are drawn, some from mythology, more from history, a few from everyday life. The "Dragon's Cloak," for instance, describes the investiture by his armny of Chu Yuan-chang, the celebrated founder of the Ming Dynasty, in 1368; the "Jasper Terrace," the journeyings of the ancient emperor Mu (B. C. 985), and his visit to the Kunlun Mountains and the fairy Queen-mother of the West. The "Story of the Changed Sword" and the "Abuse of Ts'ao-Ts'ao' are both taken from the "Record of the Three Kingdoms" (A.D. 220-265), a wellknown work, which, though it exonerates the Chinese from a certain apparent want of idealism, hardly deserves to be called, as some would call it, the prose Iliad of China. "Visiting the Ten Fanes" depicts the passage through the Ten Hells of Kuan-yin, Goddess of Mercy, and Buddhist counterpart of the Regina Cœli. 66 ence"), a coined terin to represent our "public worship," has come to mean a week," and that no Chinese tradesman or, as a rule, foreign merchant in China, designates his "hong" or firm by his own or his partner's surname, but gives it some fanciful title, such as The Sign of the Lung-mao-"Opulence and Luxuriance." Nevertheless, it may be as well to adjoin the equivalent advertisement from the contemporary English paper : Auction. The undersigned will sell by auction on Wednesday, at 10 o'clock, at their salesroom, an assortment of whisky, beer, and porter in pint and quart bottles, gin of various brands, port wine, sherry, brandy, champagne kenzie & Co., auctioneers. (pints and half pints), rum, etc., etc.-Mac It would be unfair to deal in a few lines, or even paragraphs, with the lottery and medical advertisements, to say nothing of the various miscellaneous announcements. One class of the latter, that relating to fortune-telling, would deserve a chapter to itself. I will content myself, and end this ower lang but incomplete paper, by reproducing here two medical advertisements of considerable standing. The general style of the puff medical is well illus trated by the former of these, which recounts the discovery and properties of the "Fairy Receipt for Lengthening Life." The whole production is worthy of the genius who evolved Mother Seigel and her syrup : The auctioneers' notices, which come next in the advertisement-sheet, refer for the most part to the so-called auction sales of cargoes imported from Europe and disposed of piecemeal in Shanghai. Some few have relation to that more familiar domestic form which makes the auction a charm to young and a pain to old householders at home. In China we waste but little sympathy over a sale of our own or our neighbor's effects. Population is so fleeting that one has little time to become attached to a clock case or an armchair. Both are parted with with no more regret This receipt has come down to us from a -even to a Chinaman-than the inevita- physician of the Ming Dynasty. A certain ble depreciation in value must occasion. official was journeying in the hill country The only interest which the advertisements when he saw a woman passing southward over the mountains as if flying. In her hand she of these auction sales possess lies perhaps held a stick, and she was pursuing an old fel. in the quaint mixture of Chinese and low of a hundred years. The mandarin asked Chino-English which they exhibit. To To the woman, saying, "Why do you beat that old man?'' take one at random and submit it to the "He is my grandson," she answered; for I am 500 years old, and he somewhat unfair process of literal trans111; he will not purify himself or take his lation medicine, and so I am beating him." The mandarin alighted from his horse, and knelt down and did obeisance to her, saying, “Give me, I pray you, this drug, that I may hand it down to posterity for the salvation of mankind." Hence it got its name. Li pai 3 slap sale. A statement determined on li pai 3 ten stroke clock this hong slap sell wei ssa, kia large small bottle p'i liquor large small bottle pa te liquor every color chin liquor pa te hun she li po lan tien large small bottle hsiang ping lu mu such goods this divulged. Lung mao hong statement. I should observe, as some explanation of this, I fear, unintelligible jumble, that the Chinese possess a sufficient system of punctuation, but seldom condescend to use it; that li pai ("rites and rever It will cure all affections of the five intestines and derangement of the seven emotions, constitutional debility, feebleness of limb, dimness of vision, rheumatic pains in the loins and knees, and cramp in the feet. A dose is oz. Take it for five days, and the body will feel light; take it for ten days, and your spirits will become brisk; for twenty days, and the voice will be strong and clear, and the hands and feet supple; for one year, and white hairs become black again, and you move as though flying. Take it constantly, and all troubles will vanish, and you will pass a long life without growing old. Price per bottle, 3s. 3d. Besides the numerous advertisements of cosmetics are some which deal with that other feminine vanity of China, the tiny feet. These "golden lilies," that will go into a shoe which a conscientious nurse at home would reject for a year-old baby, are not acquired without a certain inconvenience, not-as, however, the fair owner would most desire-to put too fine a point on it. Hence the justification of advertisements such as this: Medicine for Swathed Feet. Beware of Imitations. Our Lily-print Powder has been sold for many years, and may be described as miraculous in its effects. By its use the foot can be bound tight without any painful swelling, and I. THE STORY OF A VIOLIN. BY ERNEST DOWSON. Ar my dining place in old Soho,-I call it mine because there was a time when I became somewhat inveterate there, keep ing my napkin (changed once a week) in a ring recognizable by myself and the waiter, my bottle of Beaume (replenished more frequently), and my accustomed seat at this restaurant of mine, with its confusion of tongues, its various, foreign clients, amid all the coming and going, the nightly change of faces, there were some which remained the same; persons with whom, though one might never have spoken, one had nevertheless from the mere continuity of juxtaposition a certain sense of intimacy. There was one old gentleman in particular, as inveterate as myself, who especially aroused my interest. A courteous, punctual, mild old man he was, with an air which deprecated notice; who conversed each evening for a minute or two with the proprietor as he rolled, always at the same hour, a valedictory cigarette, in a language that arrested my ear by its strangeness, and which proved to be his own, Hungarian; who addressed a brief remark to me at times, half apologetically, in the precisest of English. We sat next each other at the same table, came and went at much the same hour; and for a long while our intercourse was restricted to formal courtesics, mutual inquiries after each other's health, a few urbane strictures on the climate. The little old gentleman, in spite of his aspect of shabby gentility, perhaps even because of this suggestion of fallen fortunes, bore himself with pathetic erectness, almost haughtily. He did not seem amenable to advances. It was a long time before I knew him well enough to rightly value this appearance, the timid defences, behind which a very shy and delicate nature took refuge from the world's coarse curiosity. I can smile now, with a certain sadness, when I remind myself that at one time I was somewhat in awe of M. Maurice Cristich and his little air of proud humility. Now that his place in that dim, foreign eatinghouse knows him no more, and his yellow napkin-ring, with its distinguishing number, has been passed on to some other customer, I have it in my mind to set down my impressions of him, the short history of our acquaintance. It began with an exchange of cards, a form to which he evidently attached a ceremonial value, for after that piece of ritual his manner underwent a sensible softening and he showed by many subtle, indefinable shades in his courteous address that he did me the honor of including me in his friendship. I have his card before me now; a large, oblong piece of pasteboard, with M. Maurice Cristich, Theatre Royal, inscribed upon it amid many florid flourishes. It enabled me to form my first definite notion of his calling, upon which 1 had previously wasted much conjecture; though I had all along, and rightly as it appeared, associated him in some manner with music. In time he was good enough to inform me farther. He was a musician, a violinist; and formerly, and in his own country, he had been a composer. But whether for some lack in him of original tacut, or of patience, whether for some grossness in the public taste, on which the nervous delicacy and refinement of his evocation was lost, he had not continued. He had been driven by poverty to London, bad given lessors, and then for many yours bad paved a second violin in the Archestra of the opers. "li is not wach, monsieur !” he observed deprecating), soothing his hat 28 frayed coat-Cleere, Sert, and I prefer it to doct, they are very charme * gits of your couns to care litte for Stat cen, and I am not in my place at the half-hour they fine me,-two shillings and sixpence! that is a good deal, you know, monsieur." In spite of his defeats, his long and ineffectual struggle with adversity, M. Cristich, I discovered, as our acquaintance ripened, had none of the spleen and little of the vanity of the unsuccessful artist. He seemed in his forlorn old age to bare accepted his discomfiture with touching resignation, having acquired neither cyncism nor indifference. He was simply an innocent old man, in love with his violin and with his art, who had acquiesced in disappointment; and it was impossible to decide whether he even believed in his talent, or had not silently accredited the verdict of musical Vienna, which had condemned his opera in those days when he was ambitious. The precariousness of the London opera was the one fact which I ever knew to excite him to expressions of personal resentment. When its doors were closed, his hard poverty (it was the only occasion when he protested against it) drove him, with his dear instrument and his accomplished fingers, into the orchestras of agter houses, where he was compelled to play music which he de spisel. He grew silent and rueful daring these periods of irksome servitude, roiled innumerate elgarettes, which he smoked ith ferceness and great rapidity. When dinner was done he was citen velably indignant, in Hungarian, to the proprietor. Bat in the lennning of the season his good tiered He core himself more 28 leave me, to assist at Rorescatalca of Dem Gizezani or th a face which was almost I had known him a year before Dni sad ke to see him 17 28 profes80.71. SCRte. I told him a gente hand pen my A day 2 sit over our coffee, a desitating urbanity *ed what do me the honor to ae As a stall, and a *terer sied for one is ther are it to have few friends. Tod observe. I s an occasion The old gentleman's mild, dull eyes glistened. "Madame Romanoff!" he repeated. "The marvellous Leonora! Yes, yes! She has sung only once before, in London. Ah, when I remember-'' He broke off suddenly. As he rose, and prepared for departure, he held my hand a little longer than usual, giving it a more intimate pressure. "My dear young friend, will you think me a presumptuous old man, if I ask you to come and see me to-morrow in my apartment, when it is over? I will give you a whisky, and we will smoke pipes, and you shall tell me your impressions. And then I will tell you why to-morrow I shall be so proud, why I show this emotion." II. THE opera was Fidelio-that stately, splendid work, whose melody, if one may make a pictorial comparison, has something of that rich and sun-warm color which, certainly, on the canvases of Rubens, affects one as an almost musical quality. It offered brilliant opportunities, and the incomparable singer had wasted none of them. So that when, at last, I pushed my way out of the crowded house and joined M. Cristich at the stage door, where he waited with eyes full of expectancy, the music still lingered about me like the faint, past fragrance of incense, and I had no need to speak my thanks. He rested a light hand on my arm, and we walked toward his lodging silently, the musician carrying his instrument in its sombre case, and shivering from time to time, a tribute to the keen, spring night. He stooped as he walked, his eyes trailing the ground; and a certain listlessness in his manner struck me a little strangely, as though he came fresh from some solemn or hieratic experience, of which the reaction had already begun to set in tediously, leaving him at the last unstrung and jaded, a little weary of himself and the too strenuous occasion. It was not until we had crossed the threshold of a dingy, high house in a by-way of Bloomsbury, and he had ushered me, with apologies, into his shabby room near the sky, that the sense of his hospitable duties scemed to renovate him. He produced tumblers from an obscure recess behind his bed; set a kettle on the fire, which scarcely smouldered with flickers of depressing, sulphurous flaine, talking of indifferent subjects as he watched for it to boil. Only when we had settled ourselves in uneasy chairs opposite each other, and he had composed me what he termed "a grog"-himself preferring the more innocent mixture known as eau sucrée-did he allude to Fidelio. I praised heartily the discipline of the orchestra, the prima donna, whom report made his country-woman, with her strong, sweet voice and her extraordinary beauty, the magnificence of the music, the fine impression of the whole. M. Cristich, his glass in hand, nodded approval. He looked intently into the fire, which cast mocking shadows over his quaint, incongruous figure, his antiquated dress coat, his frost-bitten countenance, his cropped gray hair. "Yes," he said, "yes! So it pleased you, and you thought her beautiful? I am glad." He turned round to me abruptly, and laid a thin hand impressively on my knee. "You know I invented her, the Romanoff, discovered her, taught her all she learned. Yes, monsieur, I was proud tonight, very proud, to be there, playing for her, though she did not know. Ah! the beautiful creature! . . . and how badly I played! execrably! You could not notice that, monsieur, but they did, my confrères, and could not understand. How should they? How should they dream that I, Maurice Cristich, second violin in the orchestra of the opera, had to do with the Leonora; even I? Her voice thrilled them; ah, but it was I who taught her her notes! They praised her diamonds; yes, but once I gave her that she wanted more than diamonds, bread, and lodging, and love. Beautiful they called her; she was beautiful too when I carried her in my arms through Vienna. I am an old man now, and good for very little; and there have been days, God forgive me, when I have been angry with her; but it was not to-night. To see her there, so beautiful and so great, and to feel that after all I had a hand in it-that I invented her. Yes, yes! I had my victory to-night, too, though it was so private; a secret between you and me, monsieur Is it not?" I assured him of my discretion, but he hardly seemed to hear. His sad eyes had wandered away to the live coals, and he considered them pensively as though he found them full of charming memories. I sat back respecting his remoteness; but my silence was charged with surprised conjecture, and indeed the quaint figure of the old musician, every line of his garments redolent of ill success, had become to me of a sudden strangely romantic. Destiny, so amorous of surprises, of pathetic or cynical contrasts, had in this instance excelled herself. My obscure acquaintance Maurice Cristich! The renowned Romanoff! Her name and acknowledged genius had been often in men's mouths of late, a certain luminous, scarcely sacred glamour attaching to it, in a hundred idle stories, due perhaps as much to the wonder of her sorrowful beauty, as to any justification in knowledge of her boundless extravagance, her magnificent fantasies, her various perversity, rumor pointing specially at those priceless diamonds, the favors (not altogether gratuitous it was said) of exalted personages. And with all deductions made, for malice, for the ingenuity of the curious, the im pression of her perversity was left; she remained enigmatical and notorious, a somewhat scandalous heroine ! Cristich had known her; he had as he declared--and his accent was not that of braggadocio-invented her. The conjuncture puzzled and fascinated me. did not make Cristich less interesting, nor the prima donna more perspicuous. neither was I very poor; I still had my little patrimony, and I lived in the Strasse, very economically; it is a quarter which many artists frequent. I husbanded my resources, that I might be able to work away at my art without the tedium of making it a means of livelihood. I refused many offers to play in public, that I might have more leisure. I should not do that now; but then I was very confident; I had great faith in me. And I worked very hard at my symphony, and I was full of desire to write an opera. It was a tall, dark house where I lived; there were many other lodgers; but I knew scarcely any of them. I went about with my head full of music, and I had my violin; I had no time to seek acquaintance. Only my neighbor at the other side of my passage I knew slightly, and bowed to him when we met on the stairs. He was a dark, lean man, of a very distinguished air; he must have lived very hard, he had death in his face. He was not an artist, like the rest of us: I suspect he was a great profligate and a gambler; but he had the manners of a gentleman. And when I came to talk to him he displayed the greatest knowledge of music that I have ever known. And it was the same with all; he talked divinely of everything in the world, but very wildly and bitterly. He seemed to have been every where, and done everything, and at last to be tired of it all, and of himself the most. From the people of the house I heard that he was a Pole, noble, and very poor; and, what surprised me, that he had a daughter with him, a little girl. I used to pity this child, who must have lived quite It alone. For the Count was always out, and the child never appeared with him; and for the rest, with his black spleen and tempers, he must have been but sorry company for a little girl. I wished much to see her; for you see, monsieur, I am fond of children, almost as much as of music; and one day it came about. I was at home with my violin; I had been playing all the evening some songs I had made, and once or twice I had seemed to be interrupted by little tedious sounds. At last I stopped and opened the door, and there, crouching down, I found the most beautiful little creature I had ever seen in my life. It was the child of my neighbor. Yes, monsieur ! you divine, you divine! That was the Leonora !" And By and by the violinist looked up at me; he smiled with a little dazed air, as though his thoughts bad been a far jour ney. 66 Pardon me, monsieur! I beg you to fill your glass. I seem a poor host; but to tell you the truth I was dreaming; I was quite away, quite away. He threw out his hands, with a vague, expansive gesture. Dear child!" he said to the flames, in French; "good little one! I do not forget thee." And he began to tell me. "It was when I was at Vienna, ah! a long while ago. I was not rich, but |