I did not mean to induce a belief, Eusebius, that the Chinese excelled in the fine arts when I wrote down the description of the Chinese lady. The portrait had its peculiarities, and would not have been hung upon the line in the Royal Academy. I only chose it for its historical expression, which spoke of civilisation of manners, of security, and as containing in itself things which civilised people boast of. But there the argument is not very much in favour of this our “Nineteenth Century;” for the chiefest works of art in painting are of the _cinque cents_. It is not pretended that we have thrown into oblivious shade the masters of old celebrity; nor that we have made better statues than did Phidias and Praxiteles; nor excelled the Greeks in architecture; nor even the artist builders of the ages which we are pleased to style “Dark;” so that we have at least lost some marks of civilisation. Nay, to come to nearer times for comparison: It would be a hard thing for our swaggerers to find a dramatist willing to be taken by the collar, and contrasted face to face with the portraits of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, taking their plays as their representatives. There were worthies of a high romance in the civilised days of the “Glorious Gloriana.” What marks of essential civilisation are visible in the comedies of Shakespeare—what delightful mixture of the real and unreal—the mind springing from its own natural elasticity above the fogs and blight of worldly business, that ever tend to keep the spirits from rising! And why say comedies? Tragedies too. How fresh is the atmosphere mankind seem then to breathe. Humanity is made lovable or dignified. If we might judge of civilisation from the works of writers of that age, we might be justified in pronouncing it most civilised, for it was governed by a vivid and romantic spirit. Take as contrast the literature of Queen Anne’s boasted time. It is quite of another spirit. There is a descending, a degradation of the whole mind. There begins visible worldliness. We see man taking his part in the affairs of the world for what he can get as an individual. There is a prominence of the business, and less made of the enjoyments of life;—the commercial spirit predominating, which has since overwhelmed the imaginative faculties, and buried the better, the more civilised pleasures of life, under the weight of avarice. We are, my dear Eusebius, too money-loving and money-getting to deserve the name of a thoroughly civilised people. Is a true and just perception of the fine arts a sign of civilisation? What is admired—what is eagerly purchased—what intellectual food do the purchases convey? Is the mere visual organ gratified by the lowest element of the arts—imitation—or the mind’s eye enlarged to receive and love what is great and noble? In one sense, undoubtedly, the art of living is better understood, because, the romance of life fading away, personal comforts and little luxuries become exigencies, and engross the