that he had to wait until the Christmas social exodus to the country in order to obtain the elbow-room necessary for painting. But when he wrote his bitter Examiner' letters, and it was discovered that Sir George Beaumont had refused to buy his' Macbeth,' the fashionable world unanimously forsook him, and he became a social outcast. Later on, however, when he attacked Payne Knight at the time of the Elgin Marbles Commission, Society for some reason or other reinstated him as its favourite painter. Not even the fact that Knight had labelled his Solomon'' distorted stuff,' and that Princess Charlotte had expressed her regret that such a picture should be on view at the Water Colour Society's Gallery, could diminish his temporary popularity, and he was once more established as the lion of the hour.

It is said that the success or failure of his exhibition of 'Jerusalem' in 1820 depended entirely upon the verdict pronounced by one woman, the well-dressed crowd of spectators who filled the Egyptian Hall on the opening day waiting breathlessly for the judgment of Mrs. Siddons before expressing their own opinion as to the merits of the picture.

How do you like the Christ?' asked Sir George Beaumont, amid an anxious silence.

'It is completely successful,' answered Mrs. Siddons; and from that moment it became the fashion to praise what in Haydon's own opinion was certainly the least perfect part of his picture.

But though Society flocked to see his work, very few commissions followed upon their visits. It might be worth their while to pay a shilling for the privilege of inspecting an exhibition of historical pictures, but nobody seemed to care about spending any larger sum upon their purchase. During thirty-seven out of the forty-two years in which Haydon was before the public he was without a commission of any kind, and for the greater part of that time the excess of his receipts over his necessary expenditure reached the lordly sum of 13s. 6d. The huge size of his pictures was always considered a grave disadvantage, and he doggedly refused to diminish that vast spread of canvas which was never large enough to satisfy his ambition. Give me the dome of St. Paul's!' he cried on one occasion, and was for ever expressing the delight which he derived from the mere thought of producing work upon so heroic a scale. 'Let me be penniless, helpless, hungry, thirsty, 'croaking or fierce, the blank even space of a huge canvas restores 'me to happiness, to anticipations of glory, difficulty, danger, ruin or victory. My heart expands, and I stride my room

of a Boxing Kangaroo or a Two-headed Nightingale. And Haydon, whom Blackwood's Magazine' described as the 'Cockney Raphael,' were he alive, would experience to-day as fully as he did a hundred years ago the unsubstantial nature of popular support and the fickleness of public taste.

With the failure of his last exhibition Haydon's difficulties grew more and more insurmountable, and the problem of borrowing money sufficient for his needs became more perplexing as the sources to be tapped diminished in number. He has been more than once mistakenly identified with that Prince of Borrowers' who was so dear to the heart of Charles Lamb. But though he was not the model for Ralph Bigod, Esq.' he resembled in many ways that charming personality, and Lamb's eulogy of Fenwick would have been just as applicable to Haydon. Like Bigod, he had an undeniable way with him; he' anticipated no excuse, and found none.' When I think of this man,' Elia might well have written of him, of his fiery glow of 'heart, his swell of feeling-how magnificent, how ideal he was; how great at the midnight hour! And when I compare him with the companions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am 'fallen into the society of lenders and little men.'

Charles Lamb used to entertain his friends every Thursday evening at parties which were attended by all the most brilliant men of the day, from Wordsworth and Goodwin to Coleridge, Hazlitt and the Hunts. Amid such a galaxy of constellations Haydon's star shone brightly forth; he was often, indeed, great at the midnight hour.' His conversation, says Hazlitt, was like a game of trap-ball; his laugh, like merry bells, 'set one on one's legs as it were better than a glass of champagne.' Crabb Robinson admired his warmth and vigour, and found him particularly interesting; Wordsworth called him a capital talker.' To Miss Mitford he appeared as a 'bright, dapper little man' whose conversation was singularly 'brilliant, fearless, bold, original, full of impulse and of the 'keenest observation of character.' He entertained curiously modern views upon the subject of fresh air, which did not appeal to the tastes of his stuffy contemporaries, and would sometimes incur the displeasure of his acquaintances by taking it upon himself to throw open the windows in other people's houses without permission. On the very first evening of his visit to Petworth he was discovered airing the sheets of his bed and endeavouring to freshen his room by a system of thorough draughts which surprised and no doubt shocked his aristocratic host.

Though Haydon sponged freely upon his friends and borrowed persistently with but little hope of repayment, his popularity does not appear to have suffered thereby. On the subject of finance it has often been assumed that his sense of honour was not very highly developed; but little or no evidence exists in support of this view. He seldom kept his promises to me,' said one of his friends, but he always tried to do so, which morally is the same thing.' He was naturally inclined to generosity, a gift which he inherited from his mother, who in the course of a winter walk had been known to strip herself of her petticoat in order to clothe some shivering beggar. He lent money to Leigh Hunt, who afterwards, as Keats declares, expostulated on the indelicacy' of a demand for its return. He taught many pupils for nothing-notably Lance, the painter of still life-he befriended Lough, the sculptor, when the latter was starving, and helped to raise a fund to provide for the widow of Belzoni, the acrobat, engineer and explorer. When he could not give in kind he gave in kindness, and when the actor Payne attributed his failure to the jealousy of other actors and the illiberality of the press, Haydon, with artless vanity, offered to make amends by introducing him into his picture of Christ Entering Jerusalem' in the character of St. John. Last of all, let it be placed to his credit that through all the extremes of mental agony which he suffered Haydon never sought relief either in drinking or any other form of vice. In a letter to his patron, Sir George Beaumont, he once likened himself to Wordsworth's Happy Warrior,' and he may fairly he permitted to boast of some of the qualities of that generous 'spirit'

'who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought.
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That make the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn.

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state.

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause.'

ART. VI.-DEGENERATION AND PESSIMISM.

1. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Von ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Leipzig. 1879.

2. Studies in Pessimism. By ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Selected and translated by T. BAILEY SAUNDERS. London: Swan Sonnenschein. 1893.

3. Philosophie des Unbewussten. Von EDUARD VON HARTMANN. Berlin Carl Duncker. 1871.

4. Degeneration. By E. RAY LANKESTER. London: Macmillan and Co. 1880.

5. Entartung. Von MAX NORDau. Berlin Carl Duncker. 1896.

6. Le Crime. Causes et Remèdes. Par Cesare Lombroso. Paris. 1899.

7. Genie und Entartung. Von WILLIAM HIRSCH. Berlin: Oscar Coblentz. 1894.

8. Etudes sur la Nature Humaine. Par ELIE METCHNIKOFF. Paris: Masson et Cie. 1903.

9. Essais Optimistes. Par ELIE METCHNIKOFF. Paris: A. Maloine. 1907.

10. Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. [Cd. 2175.] 1904.

11. The Problem of the Feeble-minded. London: P. S. King and Son. 1909.

OR the introduction of any improvement in the processes or social life of mankind there are commonly required two sorts of preliminary activities. In the first place, there is required a set of men who will passively study the evil to be removed, who will note its proportions, analyse its causes, survey and describe the whole situation. These men constitute the philosophers of the movement. In the second place, there is required a set of men who, not troubling themselves with inquiries into the intimate nature of the situation, have adopted some plan of action, which in their judgement is calculated to secure the desired improvement, and who devote themselves to getting their plan carried out. These men constitute the propagandists of the movement. It is clear that both sets of men are necessary and complementary to one another. The philosopher might discern the whole truth in a given situation; and yet, if there

were no means of spreading his conclusions, the public would profit nothing from his studies. So also the propagandist might throw irresistible energy into his work; but if the basis of his activities were not philosophically founded, the result he desired would not be attained, and very possibly much harm might be done.

The distinction is deeply rooted in human nature. The majority of men incline to the propagandist type, the minority to the philosophic type. To most people doing is more agreeable than thinking, though we must confess there is a large proportion of humanity who are equally averse to either mode of activity. The propagandist mode, however, is generally found the more agreeable, not only on account of its intrinsic nature, but because it usually brings more popular applause, and nearly always more notoriety than the philosophic mode. More honour is accorded to one who has excelled in some sphere of activity than to one who has excelled in an intellectual sphere. The most universally popular of Shakespeare's plays is that which depicts the ineffectiveness of thought divorced from activity. In France the tendency is less accentuated than in any other civilised nation, yet even there it is noticeable enough. In Paris no morument is to be found in memory of Descartes, while there are several in memory of Jeanne Darc; nor can the tomb of Pasteur be compared with the magnificent edifice raised over the remains of Napoleon Buonaparte.

The literature dealing with the problem of degeneration displays the characteristic here noted. In general the subject of interest is how may degeneration be arrested or prevented? what measures ought to be taken? in short, what must be done? And the burden of the discussion at present turns upon the merits or demerits of various schemes put forward by the various schools of propagandists. Perhaps it will be expected that we should proceed to indicate what, in our view, are the proper measures to be taken. Such however is not our intention. We propose to discuss the question of degeneration with little reference to the propagandist aspect. Whatever opinion may be held as to the effect of certain lines of propagandism, there can be no question that inquiry and the increase of knowledge on the whole subject can be fraught only with good results. To obtain a dispassionate view of the facts is therefore the goal of the present article. Even should our results point to no promising line of activity, still the spread of positive information and the dissipation of ignorance is an achievement of the highest value. One of