In addition, you will always find us of the press your trusty friends. Although behind the scenes myself, the peculiar connection that exists between items-men and artists is as inexplicable to me as the partnership of the owl and the prairie-dog in their dwellings on the plains. Why, when we make every other calling pay roundly for a notice, we puff the artists gratis in the most conspicuous columns of the paper, is a puzzle to me. But the fact exists. Hire your studio, nail up your name on the door, and we will make a pet of you at once, and pat you encouragingly on the back. You shall have little paragraphs of this kind: "Salvator Smith is studying atmospheric effects in the Brooklyn Mountains"; or, "Smith, our own Salvator, is making studies from nature near Roxbury"; or, "He has a grand classical picture on his easel in Green Street, representing a celebrated American in the character of the infant Hercules, strangling the British lion with one hand and the Gallic cock with the other." Few of our readers may have heard of Smith, but they read these iterated notices, and soon believe Smith to be somebody. And he has the sweet sensation of seeing his name in print at no expense to himself, and the rare luck of fame before it is earned. In the circle he adorns he will be looked upon as a judge in all matters æsthetical. It is only necessary to have painted a poor picture in order to be an authority in architecture, music, poetry, dress, decoration, furniture, private theatricals, and fancy balls. At this moment the fashionable world is an oyster, which with his spatula an artist may open. A picture mania rages. Good works bring enormous prices, and any discoloration of canvas in a gilt frame finds a ready purchaser, if signed by a known name. We are a commercial people, and are satisfied with a first-rate indorsement. The patron of art can soon educate himself for the position. The pet little phrases--"chalky," "sketchy," "tone," "repose," "opaque coloring," and all the rest of the technical vocabulary--are soon learned; and then if Lorenzo is able and willing to give ten thousand dollars for a picture, he may hold a court of artists and be sure of having a number of pleasant fellows about him. They, too, will be sure of champagne and oysters. All the schools, however different their theories of art may be, agree, I believe, that both of these compositions are excellent.