the orchestra on these occasions, while the Duke of Cumberland played the viola and the Duke of Gloucester the violin.

Though no hard and fast line can well be drawn, the earlier period of the history of concerts in the metropolis may be said to have already come to a close. Good music was no longer a luxury for the rich alone. With the increase of population, wealth had become more widely diffused, and a large middle class had grown up. In subsequent years the composers and musicians, who flocked to this country in ever-increasing numbers, found no audiences more appreciative than those of London, and in no capital were their efforts more handsomely rewarded. As Haydn remarked with regard to a concert given for his benefit during his second visit, "It is only in England that one can make 4,000 gulden (£400) in one evening." And in later years, Mendelssohn, even amid the genial surroundings of Naples, could write of his "smoky nest" in Great Portland Street with affection, "fated to be now and ever my favourite residence— my heart swells when I think of it." The love of concerted music had become as firmly established as had that of oratorio, and with the broadening of artistic sympathies this form of entertainment, started so tentatively by Banister, has been destined to win an ever greater measure of popular favour.

GERALD P. GORDON.

MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF.

Es giebt problematische Naturen, die keiner Lage gewachsen sind in der sie sich befinden, und denen keine genug thut. Daraus ensteht der ungeheure Widerstreit, der das Leben ohne Genuss verzehrt.-Goethe.

M

aunt.

ARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, like that wild horse which gave Mazeppa so rough a ride, was a "Tartar of the Ukraine breed." She was a thorough Russian, but upon her strong inborn and inherited qualities were superimposed French culture and intensely modern feeling. Born at Poltava, November 11, 1860, she died in Paris, October 31, 1884. Her father was a married Lothario a connubial Ranger. Her mother was beautiful, lazy, affectionate, kind; but had to separate from an unendurable husband, and to take refuge with her father, the grandfather of little Marie, who, all through her childhood and her youth-she had no more of life than youth-was spoiled and petted by grandparents, by mother, and by The child, softly beautiful and rarely gifted, grew up as a little despot over loving relations, who were her inferiors in talent, in charm, in force of will, and strength of character. That strange, complex character of hers unfolded itself in weakness and in force, and forms a subject well worthy of study and of analysis. From a very early age Marie commenced a diary, which contains, perhaps, more Dichtung than Wahrheit, but which, as it is possible to attain to a perception of the truth through conscious and unconscious perversion of fact, presents us with a strange bizarre record of a short, sad, many-sided life of singular complexity and of morbid interest. Her character is not admirable, or even lovable; but it is, nevertheless, highly interesting. The one key-note which dominates all the harmony and all the discord is a strain of diseased egotism and esurient vanity. Her whole life is overshadowed by a colossal dæmonic Ego, which prompts and warps action, which poisons and depraves feeling, which renders success abortive, love a purgatory, and religion a mockery. Her temperament was perfervid, violent Father than strong. She was passionate rather than petulant; and, while full of ardent impulse, was coldly calculating. Her tempera

ment created the dark shadows which fell so early and so deeply round her young and fevered life. She was self-torturing, selfconsuming. Self appears in every trait of character, but she wholly lacked self-control. She vibrated with emotions, sensations, ambitions, longings, dreams, but she was absolutely destitute of altruisms; she was not affectionate or tender, and felt but little love of or care for others. Her brother Paul would seem to have been a very commonplace individual. Marie was keen, eager, full of vitalism and desire, but had no patience, resignation, humility. She was so adorably clever that she could hardly be anything more than clever. Self so dominated her that her ways were not ways of pleasantness, or her paths paths, of peace. She cared for happiness rather than for blessedness; and the self-love which was her motor shut her out from the fruition of joy. She could not suffer and be strong. She was mutinous, unsatisfied, and had no conception of Entsagung. Her ideals and requirements were essentially vulgar, though veneered with delicacy and complected with luxury, elegance, fashion. Her self-love, if not her self-conceit, could be easily as painfully wounded; and, in this sense, she was sensitive.

She was always contented with herself, if not always with her lot. Defiant and rebellious from the very intensity of her self-esteem, and longing for distinction, her passionate, arrogant, eager, self-seeking nature impelled her by its own impulse, as the racehorses which run at the Roman carnival are urged forward by the spurs which they bear upon their backs, and apply by means of their own speed. She must, even in her early youth, have been a most bright, winning, capricious, whimsical, and exquisite dainty little lady, with a physical charm half voluptuous, half piquante; with gay, clever, daring talk, and with large grey eyes full of mischief and of meaning. A born coquette, she pushed flirtation to a fine art; and, in order to please herself, she delighted in pleasing-that is, in pleasing men, for she did not greatly care for women. She was elegant, graceful, delicately and fastidiously well dressed, and had the gift of witchery and power of irresistible attraction-though it may be doubted whether fuller and larger knowledge of her character would have deepened her attractions. There was no shyness, no embarrassment, no mauvaise honte in the self-possessed, dangerous young charmer. She had gifts of beauty and of charm which were fatal-to herself even more than to her lovers. Yet, when she pleased to be so, she must have been very pleasant. She could intoxicate and subdue, even if she could not hold her adorers. She took pains to "show off," and to be brilliant in conversation; and she understood well how best to display

her personal allurements. Her insincerity would not be perceptible to a too readily enslaved admirer; and she had such self-command that she would never go further than her calculation desired to go. She lived in a whirlpool of sham passions, but never caught either a noble man or a nobleman by rank. Her tentatives of ambition, as of love, remained futile. Beatrix Esmond had the same fate.

Mademoiselle Marie has left a diary, published since her early death, which, alike through genuineness and falsity of feeling, is a singularly interesting self-record. Through her truth and her affectation we can form to our minds a tolerably complete picture of her eccentric and unhappy nature. She expresses herself even better through writing than through painting. The diary starts with grandiloquent professions of exact and absolute truth; but this was a quality which the young lady did not really possess. She is fond, she says, of analysis, and tends to be introspective; but she herself is a problem to herself, and her introspection remains shallow, because she cannot dig far down without striking upon the adamantine rock of her selfish self. She cannot see very much of herself, because there is so much in her that is not real, and she has not the single eye. She is capable of exaggeration, but not of comic exaggeration, because, like most heartless and self-absorbed persons, she has but little humour, and therefore never sees life in large relations.

Let us let her speak for herself through extracts. "I think myself too admirable for censure." "I am pretty as an angel, or a woman." "This journal is the most useful and instructive of all books that have been, are, or ever will be written." "I consider myself a treasure of whom no one is worthy; and those who dare to aspire to this treasure are looked upon by me as hardly worthy of pity. I consider myself a divinity, and can't conceive how a man like G can dream of pleasing me. I would hardly treat a king as an equal, and it is well.. I consider men as a cat would a mouse." "I would rather be in society than be the first among the world's celebrities. A great lady, a duchess!" Surely no greedy little soul was ever more inflated with vanity, or more inspired by the confused ambitions of a disorderly mind. Naturally enough, mademoiselle, who writes in many varying moods, sometimes contradicts herself. Her chief problems in life are herself-and Fate. She is in an attitude of constant defiance and revolt, blended with eager yearning. "I have a gigantic imagination, and, without suspecting it, am the most romantic of women." Oh, mademoiselle, how you do love to pose! how you desire to produce effect! "The matchless fairness of my

complexion is my chief beauty. I feel that I am beautiful, and fancy that I shall succeed in everything." She does not dislike fictitious grief, or object to be sad for very wantonness. "I like to cry, I like to be in despair, I like to be sad and miserable." "Eagerly seize what you can of life . . . never lose an instant of pleasure; lead an easy, exciting, and splendid existence.

Be powerful; yes, powerful! powerful! No matter how! Then you are feared and respected; then you are strong, and that's the height of human bliss." Such are some of Marie's ideals. Hard as her nature is, she has soft moments. "I am charmed with myself. My white arms beneath the white wool, oh, so white! I am pretty." "Vanity! vanity! vanity! the beginning and end of everything; the sole and eternal cause of everything." Later she says of her paintings: "I exhibit out of vanity." Truly, this young girl walks in a vain shadow. The meek shall inherit the earth, and her outrageous self-esteem will prevent her from attaining the success for which she pines and yearns. It was her wish to enjoy infinitely, and to fulfil every wish so fast as it was conceived. She rages because the universe does not seem to be created only in order to satisfy her desires; and she expects from life more than life can give. "I swear that I will become famous; swear by the Gospels, by the passion of Christ, by myself." Then she asks: "Why does not Prince Orloff, who is a widower, fall in love with and marry me? I should then be ambassadress in Paris, almost Empress." Her ideals are of the earth earthy. Grandiose as trivial, pretentious as frivolous, the lovely young Russian has no elevation of soul, no nobleness even in her dreams and reveries. Her thoughts of love, as of ambition, are poor and slight.

Speaking of herself as a journalist and diary-keeper, she says, self-admiringly, but truly, "I do not fall short for want of fine terms." Like Madame Roland, or even like Nana, the sensuous girl takes an extreme and self-complacent delight in her own physical beauty. "My body, like that of an antique goddess, my Spanish-looking hips, my small, perfectly-shaped bosom, my feet, my hands, and my childlike head." She poses gladly before a mirror, and records that she spent twenty minutes or half an hour in looking at her pretty self in a glass; and the sight gave her real delight. In all that she does or says, there is individualism so intense that it attracts and holds us greatly. A slight thing in very essence, she is strong in her personality. Her first love-dream occurred at Nice, when she was a very young girl. She did not know him, but she saw, and fell in love with, the English Duke of H-. It was not so much his personal