Barrias has worthily painted the last scene in the life of Chopin. A native of Paris, where he was born in 1822, this artist has to his credit a long list of meritorious works which have secured him many honours. They include the "Exiles under Tiberius," in the Luxembourg, "The Death of Socrates," "Sappho," "Dante at Ravenna," "The Fairy of the Pearls," "The Sirens," "The Triumph of Venus," and "Camille Desmoulins at the Palais Royal," in addition to a number of important decorative works. The "Death of Chopin" was exhibited in 1885. A gold medal was bestowed upon Barrias at the Paris Exposition of 1889, when the artist was in his sixty-seventh year. The critic, Roger Ballu, said of him: "A painter of style, very careful of the dignity of his art, he has never made a compromise with the taste of the day." MEYERBEER. Among the chief mourners at Chopin's funeral was Meyerbeer, who, though German by birth and training, passed the most important years of his life in Paris, as did the gifted Pole. In our picture Hamman has represented the composer enthroned amid the characters of his chief operas, doubtless as real to him as creatures of flesh and blood. [Illustration: Mayerbeer. From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.] In the foreground, at Meyerbeer's right hand, are seen Nelusko and Selika, from "L'Africaine," his last opera, which was not produced until the year after his death. "Vasco da Gama, the famous discoverer, is the betrothed lover of a maiden named Inez, the daughter of Don Diego, a Portuguese grandee. When the opera opens he is still at sea, and has not been heard of for years. Don Pedro, the president of the council, takes advantage of his absence to press his own suit for the hand of Inez, and obtains the king's sanction to his marriage on the ground that Vasco must have been lost at sea. At this moment the long-lost hero returns, accompanied by two swarthy slaves, Selika and Nelusko, whom he has brought home from a distant isle in the Indian Ocean. He recounts the wonders of the place, and entreats the government to send out a pioneer expedition to win an empire across the sea. His suggestions are rejected, and he himself, through the machinations of Don Pedro, is cast into prison. There he is tended by Selika, who loves her gentle captor passionately, and has need of all her regal authority--for in the distant island she was a queen--to prevent the jealous Nelusko from slaying him in his sleep. Inez now comes to the prison to announce to Vasco that she has purchased his liberty at the price of giving her hand to Don Pedro. In the next act Don Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the African island, taking with him Inez and Selika. The steering of the vessel is entrusted to Nelusko. Vasco da Gama, who has fitted out a vessel at his own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and generously warns his rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering