it expedient to seek for correct information on the subject, and, early in 1853, Mr Ellis was invited to proceed to Madagascar, to make all suitable inquiries, in company with Mr Cameron, then residing at the Cape of Good Hope.

Having arrived at the Mauritius on their journey of discovery, the two travellers embarked in a small vessel, the Gregorio, for Madagascar, but with faint hopes of being allowed to enter the country. Up to this period, all trade with the Mauritius was suspended, greatly to mutual disadvantage. The Mauritius depends for cattle on Madagascar, which, on the other hand, relies on imports for various articles of commerce. After a boisterous and uncomfortable passage from the 11th to the 17th of July, the voyagers arrived at Tamatave, and had some difficulty in being allowed to land. At length the harbour-master, who could speak a little English, took them to his house, a well-constructed native dwelling, about forty feet long, and between twenty and thirty feet high, with a door in the centre, and a window on each side, the whole front shaded with a veranda, and the house thatched with the leaves of the traveller's tree.' The house, backed by tall palm-trees, formed, with its inhabitants, a good subject for photography, in which Mr Ellis was such a proficient, that his volume is enriched with a large number of likenesses of public characters, picturesque scenes, and the more remarkable kinds of plants; his accomplishment in this respect making for him friends among all classes. During his brief sojourn at Tamatave, he was gratified with the acquisition of a beautiful aquatic plant, the Ouvirandra fenestralis, 'one of the most curious of nature's vegetable productions,' as it is designated by Sir W. J. Hooker. This plant, sometimes called the wateryam or lace-leaf, grows below the surface of the water, and only projects its flower-stalks into the air. The large leaves which float beneath consist of long fibrous veins, between which are rows of open work resembling the finest lace or needle-work. Mr Ellis had the satisfaction of bringing away specimens of this singularly beautiful plant, one of which, we believe, may be seen in the Crystal Palace, and another in the Royal Gardens at Kew.

The application to visit the capital being refused, Mr Ellis and his colleague were obliged to return to the Mauritius, and there make known the fact, that, unless the sum of 15,000 dollars was sent as an indemnity for injuries, the queen of Madagascar would not grant permission for the renewal of trade. The amount being immediately subscribed, Mr Cameron and one of the mercantile class were sent with it, and we learn that a few months later, trade with Madagascar was satisfactorily resumed. This event led to a second attempt on the part of Mr Ellis to reach the ruler of the Malagasy. Again the intrepid missionary, June 1854, embarks with a competent supply of photographic chemicals and medicines packed in his luggage, and gets once more safely to Tamatave. He has hardly time to take up his quarters, when he is called to attend a chief who needs medical assistance, which, by long practice, assisted by common sense, Mr Ellis is able to render with some effect-a conspicuous instance of the value of giving missionaries a certain amount of medical knowledge. The house of the sick chief was a dismal hut, with a fire of wood burning on a raised hearth, edged round with stones, and lighted by a lamp of melted fat stuck on the end of a rod which was fixed in the sand. Other appearances, with appropriate | comments, may best be given in our author's own words:

'I found the chief lying on a number of mats spread by the side of the fireplace. His wife was sitting near the doorway, working at a fine kind of

mat. One slave was in the outer room, driving away the poultry and pigs as they approached, and another little slave-girl squatting on the ground attended to the fire. The chief said he had removed to this low close hut for the sake of the warmth; the thermometer at that time was generally between 60 degrees and 70 degrees indoors. He was an officer of the government; and while I was talking with him, one of his assistants or aides-de-camp entered with a couple of letters, which, at the chief's request, he read, and which the chief told him he must answer. The young man then went to a box at the side of the room, brought paper, pen, and ink, and seating himself cross-legged on the ground near the lamp, laid a quire of paper on his knee, and having folded a sheet, the chief raised himself upon his mat and dictated, while his secretary wrote a reply. When the letter was finished, the secretary read it aloud, and the chief having approved, the writer brushed the sand adhering to his naked foot with the feathery end of his long pen upon the freshly written sheet, to prevent its blotting, then folded his letter, and departed to despatch it to its destination. There was something singularly novel and suggestive as to the processes by which the civilisation of nations is promoted in the spectacle I had witnessed. Little more than thirty years before, the language of Madagascar was an unwritten language; a native who had been educated at Mauritius was the only writer in the country, and he wrote in a foreign tongue; but now, without any of the appliances which are usually connected with a secretary's desk or office, a quiet, unpretending young man, seated on a mat on the floor in a low dark cottage three hundred miles from the capital of the country, and with his paper on his knee, receives and writes with accuracy and ease the orders or instructions of his superior; and while the latter reclines in his sickness on his mats spread on the floor in his leaf-thatched hut, as his fathers had done for generations before, he has only to utter his wishes or his orders, and these are conveyed to those whom they concern with as much authenticity and correctness as the most formal dispatch from an office of the most civilised nation. And when I reflected that to such an extent had the native government availed itself of the advantages of writing as that in the year 1836, when the late missionaries left the capital, there were four thousand officers employed, who transacted the business of their respective departments by writing, and that such is the benefit or pleasure which the people find in thus communicating with each other, that scarcely a traveller ever journeys from one place to another without being a letter-carrier, I was strongly impressed with the fact that, besides the benefits of their directly religious teaching, missionaries were rendering most important aid towards the enlightenment and civilisation of mankind.'

Permitted to make excursions in the neighbourhood, Mr Ellis prosecuted his inquiries, and was able to improve himself in the language of the country; but he was denied permission to visit the capital, and finally returned to England. At length, the muchdesired permission to have an interview with the queen of Madagascar was given. Availing himself of it, Mr Ellis arrived at the island in July 1856, and the account of his more protracted and important visit on this occasion occupies the principal part of the work. The details of his journey to Antananarivo, the capital, which is situated in the interior, and which can be reached only by climbing hills, penetrating trackless forests of gigantic tropical vegetation, fording rivers swarming with alligators, and encountering many other varieties of difficulty and danger-the greater part of the way being performed à la palanquin, in a kind of blanket borne by native bearers-form altogether a deeply interesting

narrative. We are told that slavery prevails as a legal institution, but the bondage seems to be of a mild type, and the government disallows any export of slaves. Though allied to the Malay race, the people appear to be addicted to peaceful pursuits, and easily assume the habits and manners of Europeans. The mixture of the barbarisms of past times with the practices of modern civilisation, is peculiarly odd; and we can fancy that the general aspect of affairs is pretty much what might have been seen in Britain shortly after the natives had been tinctured with the notions and manners of their Roman invaders. According to the account before us, we should commit a serious mistake in looking on Madagascar as a territory to be taken possession of at the will of any European power. The country is in a state of transition; and nothing can be more obvious than that by the measures of improvement likely to be carried out by the amiable and intelligent prince who succeeds to the supreme authority, Madagascar will at no distant day make a rapid advance, and take a respectable place among Christian nations.

Reaching the capital, and there being lodged in handsome style, Mr Ellis is immediately visited by Prince Ramonja, a young man of colour, but of European cast of features, who speaks English, and is prepossessing in appearance. He wore a black dress-coat and pantaloons, gold-embroidered velvet waistcoat, and white cravat. Without formality or reserve, the prince evinced no want of self-respect. He very cordially welcomed me to the country, and in a short time we all seemed to be perfectly at ease. He asked after my home and family; and was much pleased with a picture of my house, and with portraits of some members of my family, which he said the princess his wife would like to see. I told him I had a small present which my wife herself had worked, and which I had thought of offering to the queen or some member of her family. He said the princess his wife would, he was sure, be much pleased with it. He spoke freely of the accounts he had heard of England, and of his esteem for the English; of his high estimate of the conduct of the English on several occasions which had been reported to him; of the character of their laws, especially in relation to human life, which he said they appeared to regard as a most sacred thing, not to be carelessly nor recklessly destroyed. He spoke of the English having often interfered to protect the weak and the injured, and to prevent wrong. The prince made inquiries respecting the royal family of England, mentioned his earnest wishes to remain on friendly terms with all European powers, and spoke hopefully of the improvement of Madagascar. He stated that an attempt had been made to convert him to Roman Catholicism, but without avail. On subsequent visits, the prince discussed a number of subjects with earnestness and animation; and it need scarcely be added that he and his wife-a lady in the costume of a London drawingroom-were vastly pleased by being photographed in different attitudes.

Passing over the account of numerous ceremonial interviews with chiefs and officers of the court, we arrive at the grand presentation to the queen, who is described as a portly woman of sixty-eight years of age, with an agreeable expression of countenance. She was decked out in a queenly style; and wore a crown made of plates of gold, with an ornament and charm, something like a crocodile's tooth in gold, in the front plate. The interview took place in an open court-yard in front of the palace, a tall barn-like building with a thatched roof and a veranda on two stories all around. The queen sat in state in the upper veranda, environed by her courtiers, while in the open ground below, which was surrounded by

soldiers, stood the parties to be received with their interpreters. The ceremony passes off agreeably, and Mr Ellis has the further honour of being invited to dinner, the particulars of which we leave him to describe. 'After ascending by a somewhat steep path to the crest of the hill on which the house stands, we reached the front court, where the queen's band, in scarlet uniform (apparently English) was stationed beneath the veranda. On entering, I was received by a number of servants dressed in a sort of livery, consisting of blue jackets bordered with red. I was politely received by the owner of the house, a number of officers, and other company, amongst whom were M. Laborde, and the Catholic priest with whom I had breakfasted. When dinner was announced, we were shewn to our respective places, which were designated by papers bearing our names placed on the table. Mine was on the left hand of the chief officer, and M. Laborde's was immediately opposite.

"The room was large and lofty, furnished with looking-glasses and other articles of European or Asiatic manufacture, having a large sideboard at one end. The table was splendidly furnished with porcelain vases, filled with artificial flowers, and silver vases the size of wine-coolers along the centre. The covered dishes, spoons, and forks, were all silver; the dishes as well as the vases being of native manufacture, after English patterns, and remarkably well executed. On all these articles, as well as on the handles of the knives, a crown, and a bird, the crest of the Hovas (the royal tribe), were engraved.

'As soon as all were seated, my friend the secretary, who sat next me, intimated in English, that as I was a stranger, and the queen's guest, I should now propose her majesty's health; and on a sign from one of the attendants, the band in the veranda played the Malagasy "God save the Queen."

'The dinner commenced with soup, after which an almost endless variety of viands were served. There must have been upwards of thirty different dishes handed round in succession; beef in every form, poultry, game, made dishes in great variety, with pastry, all exceedingly well cooked, especially the rice and the rolls of bread. There was not much wine on the table, the drinking was very moderate, and there were but few toasts. The utmost propriety characterised the deportment of all present; although there were many of the younger members of the aristocracy at the table, the entertainment was more lively, and much less formal, than some at which I had been present in the country. After the dessert, tea was served in small coffee-cups, perhaps instead of coffee, from the supposed preference of the English for tea.

'After the dinner, the chief officer rose, and delivered a speech expressive of the good feeling and hospitality of the Queen of Madagascar towards the subjects of other governments, strangers from across the sea, visiting her country. This was said in allusion to my presence amongst them; and then, stating that it had been the wish of the queen and the Malagasy government to preserve friendship with all foreign nations, he asked why it was that they were so frequently disturbed by reports that the French were coming to take their country. He said that reports to that effect had been recently brought, and were now in circulation amongst the people; and then appealing to me as recently from Europe, he asked if I knew whether these reports were true, and if so, why was it that the Malagasy were to be attacked.

'Appealed to so directly, I could not decline offering a few words on the subject; and after thanking the queen for the kind attention and hospitality I had experienced, and observing that the cultivation

The assurances of amity on this and other occasions gave inexpressible satisfaction to the authorities, who seemed very nervous on the subject of invasion. During his residence at the centre of political affairs, Mr Ellis appears to have picked up from conversations with the prince and others, much of the kind of information which was specially the object of his embassy. The leading fact we gather from his statements is, that if Prince Ramonja should ever occupy the throne, the island will be again opened to the missionaries, and go rapidly forward in civilised usages. The prince, unfortunately, has no surviving family, and hence a new element of doubt as to the future. What in the present critical state of matters seems desirable is, that nothing from without should be done to compromise this well-intentioned prince, or bring fresh severities on such natives as privately adhere to Christianity. It need only be added, that Mr Ellis parted with regret from his hospitable entertainers, and having safely reached the coast, sailed for England, where he arrived in March 1857. His volume can be recommended, not less for its valuable information respecting Madagascar, than for various amusing details descriptive of the scenery and social aspects of the Mauritius.

THE SONG OF THE STUDIO. IN a feu de joie, all scarlet and purple, the sun smiled a splendid adieu, disbursing gracious vails of gold gleams among the attendant cloudlets as he journeyed away from them to another land. Nature's mantle was decked with her choicest hues, blended and sweetened, as painters say, after her own peculiar manner, the crimson dimming through violet into gray, the orange melting through green into blue.

These firmamental glories could we guess at only, not perceive fully, as we sat in Tim Doolan's studio, which rejoiced in the orthodox north-east aspect; yet by the reciprocal rose-pink blushes of the east, much of the glow and passion of the west could be surmised. Tim Doolan was at his easel, painting with an energy that bordered on the ferocious.

'I never value the light half so much,' he said, 'as when there is not any. The day was certainly waning, and Tim stood close to his work, as though he were about to dig his head through the canvas.

'It's provoking, it is-growing dark, just as I'm fetching out and finishing.' He was ever a profligate of the day's early hours, and a miser of its last few moments. I may mention that he was called Tim for no other reason that I could ever ascertain than that it was not his name. His godfather and godmother at his baptism had called him 'William,' but the world had chosen despotically to ignore that appellation as inappropriate and absurd, and had somehow substituted the laconic title by which he now went, and to which he answered more readily than to his legitimate prefix. He was Irish, of course. Very spare and very tall, as though nature had had a sort of second thought about his height, and had suddenly added a foot to his stature, without making any corresponding addition to his other proportions. The result was rather a lineal and angular character of figure. He was prone to colour in his dress-affected flame-hued shirts, and grass-green

There was no affectation of finery about the studio. The walls were of a simple whitewash, not recent in execution. Fugitive sketches in black or red chalk, or in charcoal, were the sole decorations. Interspersed were divers names, initials, and memoranda, addresses of models, recipes for colours and vehicles; also caricatures of Tim in various fanciful situations-painful and otherwise. There was no display of fragments of armour, weapons of war, velvet draperies, and other properties occasionally found in the rooms of painters, more especially those of theoretical rather than practical idiosyncrasy. Tim Doolan did not pretend to be an art Croesus; or, if he did, the appearance of his studio certainly contradicted him.

I was sitting looking at Tim as he worked. In a dark corner there could just be traced the filmy outline of a pair of boots emerging from a cloud of tobacco-smoke, the only evidence of the presence of another man in the room. He did not speak nor move, this other man; and his feet were at a considerable elevation above the level of his head. The attitude might have been convenient; it was, at least, unconventional.

'Be asy, Miss Bellairs. How am I to put the high-lights into your eyes, if you keep rolling them about like marbles? And, please, don't wag your head like the mandarin in the tay-shop! And if you could keep your double set of pearls invisible, it would be convanient, as it isn't the Bull and Mouth I'm painting.'

I have omitted to state, that that distinguished model, Miss Bellairs, was sitting to Tim, and it was to her the above playful admonition was addressed.

'You shouldn't be always eating, Miss Bellairs; sea-goddesses never took dessert; leastways, they didn't crack walnuts with their teeth.' The lady accepted the reproach with a laugh and a toss of her long, undulating hair-a glossy shot-silk of gold and orange-brown.

'Where's my flake-white-was it that I threw at ye for not sitting still? Oh, here you are! Och, how the light's going! It's not safe painting at this time. There I'll stop. Miss Bellairs, you're a good one to look at, but a bad one to sit still. Can you come to-morrow? Have you change for a sovereign? You'll leave it till the morning? Ten o'clock? All right: good-bye!'

And the light had gone; Miss Bellairs, too, had vanished. There was gloom in the studio-shortly there was growling.

6

'It's hard times,' says Tim, drawing himself up in a rectangular stretch; one paints and paints, and one don't sell, and the money goes out and it don't come in again.'

No one spoke. The boots slightly moved in their circumambient smoke-that was all.

'And what to call this?' and Tim stood fronting his easel. 'Come and help, you fellows. Will it do for Venus, risen from the sea? Euphrosyne is a good name; or Galatea. Wasn't Galatea a seanymph? Or shall I stick a chain round her ankle, and call her Andromeda? But then there ought to be a monster; and Jason-wasn't it Jason? or was it David? Who's up in Lempriere? Andromeda has been painted before.'

'I should rather say she had;' the voice came from behind the boots, which waggled derisively.

And Croppie moved over to the easel. He was not an artist: he was something more formidable-a critic. He wrote on art; not so much essays as manifestoes-bulls, not Hibernian, but pontifical. He was our friend, therefore he did not spare us, for he rated more than he valued our productions.

It was said of a certain recent French king, that a pear-shape chalked on the wall was understood by everybody to represent his caricature, and of Croppie may safely be asserted, in like manner, that the drawing of a pair of moustaches merely, would have clearly identified him in the minds of his numerous friends and acquaintances. He was all moustache; his moustache was the first idea you conceived of him, and it was also the last. It was of voluminous character, and to obtain its luxuriance he appeared to have mortgaged deeply, if not sacrificed altogether, his other capillary properties; he was closely shorn, save in regard to the dense line cutting across his face, like an obese equator dividing a pale globe. His hair was kept so short, his head seemed to have been under the mowing-machine, as it was not to be conceived that the hand of tonsurial art could work so evenly; but the moustache was wonderful, a thing to see, and having seen, to swear by afterwards; and then the means of expression to which he converted it-when in wrath how he tugged at its ends, as though they were tavern bell-ropes and the waiter deaf; how he sucked it in, and then puffed it furiously forth again; how he pointed up the ends, and looked the incarnation of remorseless defiance; how he turned them down, and donned an aspect of religious resignation. He was snorting through them, angry at being disturbed, when he came to the easel.

This is only an old study cooked up,' he said contemptuously.

'It's been kicking about here a long time,' said Tim apologetically. 'I thought I'd finish it, and see what I could do with it. It must have a namejust think of one.'

This is the way with you fellows;' he turned to Tim and myself, but we could feel that he was addressing not us merely, but a large artist-world without. 'You paint first, and then you think, or ask some one else to think for you; you make the thunder, and then run all over the world to find a flash of lightning to fit it;' and he gnawed at his moustache in a rage.

The baby generally comes before its name is settled,' I suggested humbly.

rural scenes quick enough; now, they 're a drug, and I've got smock frocks and ankle-jacks I'll sell cheap. Pious Sunday-evening pictures were safe things once -venerable parents singing hymns, patting grandchildren's heads, with sunset and church-spire in the distance; but they 've been done to death. Chorister boys, with texts underneath, didn't do badly; chainmail had its admirers. Horses drinking, I've made money by; and sleeping infants, with gauze angels hovering over them, or orphan-kids in crape weeping over parents' graves; but now, hearts are hardening, pockets are drying up, or something horrid's going on-nobody wants pictures. What does it mane? Is it photography? Is it the war with Chayna? No buyers-no buyers-that's the song of the studio now!'

Croppie screwed the ends of his moustache into prolonged points. IIe gazed at us, calmly severe as a schoolmaster, who, eyeing his intended victim, says to him: 'It's much more pain to me to punish than it is to you to suffer. Hold out your hand.'

"There are men in this world,' he said, with the cool keenness of a dissecting-knife-There are men in this world who call themselves artists when they are simply tradesmen-dealers in colours and canvas. Painters, who should be also plumbers and glaziers. What is pictorial art? Thought in paint, if you like, but not paint merely.'

Tim sat down, and meekly crushed himself into an acute angle.

'Is the artist mind but a parrot intelligence?' went on Croppie didactically. 'No! Why, then, do so many of you paint looking over the shoulders of other men? Why do you elect to study their easels in preference to the eternal picture-gallery of Idea, of Nature, of Life, around you? One man among you lights on the Vicar of Wakefield, and you all hasten to smother that minister with paint; one reads Gil Blas, and you all read it; one finds the body of Harold, and then you all find it.'

Tim, aghast, fell back, by way of variety, into an obtuse angle.

'Examine the walls of an exhibition; take stock of the thoughts there-you'll not find many. If you can't think, you might observe; but we don't even get honest observation of nature. We get only shams

cosmeticised with prettiness, stuccoed with bad sentiment, to make them, as you think, saleable; or we have the rags and tatters of other men's notions, worn greasy and threadbare, pounded up into pictorial shoddy.'

He thrust his moustache so far into his mouth, I thought he would have choked himself.

Tim was smitten dumb, but not motionless. He whirled up his arms, and converted himself into an accurate representation of a railway semaphore giving the signal 'Danger.' A few moments, and he subsided into Proceed with caution.'

'You might make decent house or coach painters some of you; and there's more art in graining a door or picking out the white lines in a gig-wheel than in many of your works; but you 're too vain, too idle, to be honest. You adopt the profession of art as an excuse for vagabondism-to be chartered Bohemians, to live unaccountable lives, wear beards, queer-shaped hats, and be abnormal beings altogether.'

'One must live,' jerked out Tim hoarsely. 'Always the rogue's apology; and putting bad pictures into circulation is a good deal like forging

Tim bowed his head, straddled out his legs, folded his arms, and became as much like the figure of the fifth proposition in Euclid as a diagram could resemble humanity. Croppie was silent. Frowning fiercely in the ambuscade of his moustache, he stood in the attitude of Cromwell dissolving the Long