Nothing is more curious in the history of the nineteenth century than the prodigious increase in the number of artists both in England and France. A well-known French painter told me there were twenty thousand of his profession in Paris, working, of course, chiefly for exportation, as France produces painting to sell rather than to keep. The number of sculptors, though not nearly so great, is even more remarkable, because sculpture is so little bought. An English academician has an interesting theory about the intentions of Nature with regard to the fine arts; he says that pictures are produced now as coal was in prehistoric times, to serve long afterwards for fuel. Seriously, it appears that Nature follows in this matter her usual principle of “a thousand seeds for one to bear.” She produces a thousand workmen in the fine arts that there may be found amongst them a single artist of genius whose work is truly precious to the world. In France the great number of semi-artists has had the effect of infusing an artistic element into several of the handicrafts, and of disseminating artistic ideas, chiefly amongst the population of Paris. Artists who have failed as makers of pictures or statues fall back upon decorative painting or sculpture, upon designing for manufactures, and upon teaching elementary drawing in public schools. Painters often have recourse to another of the graphic arts when painting fails. There is hardly one of the French etchers who has not desired to be a painter. [Sidenote: Small Worldly Success of the French Clergy.] [Sidenote: Presents given to Priests.] [Sidenote: French Canons.] [Sidenote: Prelates.] [Sidenote: Poverty of the Catholic Priesthood.] [Sidenote: Importance of the Pope.]