In the English section are plenty of old acquaintances: we have seen them at Philadelphia, in London and I know not where besides. Frith's _Railway Station_ and _Derby Day_ we all remember, so badly realistic and modern, and the _Casual Ward_ of Fildes--pictures that have gained in England the popularity and success due to veritable works of art, and in Paris the sort of praise we should give to a large colored photograph--if it were well done. This English school is hardly to our taste: Leslie, Leighton, Millais, Orchardson, the painters most in vogue in their own country, have not succeeded in overcoming the cold indifference of the public, who pass through the galleries without caring even to stop. Whence comes the strange disregard for art in a country which lavishes such vast sums for the encouragement of artists? Here are canvases which have been covered with gold, but Parisian criticism treats them as contemptuously as if they were mere chromo-lithographs. The English school is severely condemned for its inharmonious colors, which are either too violent or too cold; for its drawing, which is without what we call _distinction_; and for that unaccountable light which seems to shine through their figures from within, giving many of the heads the appearance of lanterns. Naturally, Professor Ruskin comes in for his share of this harsh criticism--which, I beg my readers to observe, is not ventured as my own, but is only the echo of the opinion of competent authorities, members of the Institute of France--and the veteran apostle of Pre-Raphaelism is accused of an affected simplicity, and, at the same time, of an offensive and coarse realism, of a mongrel combination of the styles of Courbet and of the old missals, of a want of perspective, and, in short, of all the faults which mark the contemporary English school.