choose subjects from Dante, Shakespeare, and Byron; the art of the painter at times becomes illustration of poetry. But it was the art of painting which was most powerful in influencing the sister arts, especially poetry, and that distinctly for good. The lover no longer, as in the days of Racine, prayed his mistress "to crown his flame." The public demanded naturalness of the author, and refused to accept representations of impossibilities. In 1824 Delacroix exhibits his _Massacre of Scios_, a picture with a Grecian subject and a reminiscence of Byron, in 1831 _The Bishop of Liège_, which illustrates Scott's _Quentin Durward_, in May 1831 _Liberty at the Barricades_. In February 1829, Auber's opera, _La Muette de Portici_, makes a great sensation; Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_ follows in 1831. In February 1830 Victor Hugo's _Hernani_ is played for the first time at the Théâtre Français; in 1831 Dumas' _Antony_ is a grand success. The authors Dumas and Hugo, Delacroix the painter, the sculptor David d'Angers, the musical composers Berlioz and Auber, the critics Sainte-Beuve and Gautier, Frédéric Lemaître and Marie Dorval the scenic artists, and, corresponding to them, the two great dæmonic musical virtuosi Chopin and Liszt--all these make their appearance simultaneously. One and all proclaim the gospel of nature and of passion, and around them assemble groups of young men who apprehend and cultivate literature and art in a spirit akin to theirs. These men did not always realise that in the eyes of posterity they would constitute a natural group. Some of the greatest of them felt as if they stood alone, and believed that the spirit and tendency of their work was different from that of their contemporaries', nay, actually antagonistic to it. Nor were they entirely wrong, for there are very essential points of difference between them. Yet common excellences, common prejudices, common aims, and common faults unite them and make of them a whole. And it happened much more frequently than is generally the case, that those whom reflection inclines us to class together actually did feel themselves drawn to each other; many of the best among them early joined hands and formed a league. Seeking the connecting links we find, as it were, a chain which binds the group together.