=Art. Painting and Music.=--And now what must be said of the domain of the arts and of women’s place therein? If women have entered but timidly into this fair kingdom, it has not been for want of fitness, as the rapid success of a few among them clearly shows; the hindrance has lain rather in the prejudices of society and the lack of proper training. Though rapidly disappearing, the former are not yet extinct; means of training are not the same for both sexes, nor have women ceased to suffer from the blasting influence of Puritanism upon art. Anything that damages the social reputation of a profession bars it more or less to women; and anything that makes training difficult or expensive is a more serious hindrance to women than to men, since parents are not so willing to make sacrifices for a girl as for a boy. Astonishment is often expressed at the absence of women composers of merit; but the reason is not really far to seek. Until the foundation of the London schools of music (to which that of Manchester must now be added) musical education has been difficult to obtain by either sex. But the practical part, which involves an acquaintance with orchestral instruments, the methods of opera, the arrangement of church music, the management of chorus parts and a hundred other details, has hitherto been almost unattainable by women. There seems little _à priori_ reason for supposing that music is an affair of sex. Fanny Mendelssohn was scarcely, if at all, less gifted than the brother who so calmly placed her in the background, and was not ashamed to appropriate the credit of her work. Some of the “Lieder ohne Worte,” and “O rest in the Lord”--the latter perhaps the most popular of all Mendelssohn’s melodies--were, as is now generally known, composed by Fanny.