of man is a right subject for fine art; and (2), that subjects of our own day should not be discarded in favour of those of a past time.  These principles, along with others bearing in the same direction, underlie the propositions lately advanced by Count Leo Tolstoy in his most interesting and valuable (though I think one-sided) book entitled “What is Art?”—­and the like may be said of the principles announced in the “Hand and Soul” of Dante Rossetti, and in the “Dialogue on Art” by John Orchard, through the mouths of two of the speakers, Christian and Sophon.  I have once or twice seen these papers by Mr. Tupper commented upon to the effect that he wholly ignores the question of art-merit in a work of art, the question whether it is good or bad in form, colour, etc.  But this is a mistake, for in fact he allows that this is a relevant consideration, but declines to bring it within his own lines of discussion.  There is also a curious passage which has been remarked upon as next door to absurd; that where, in treating of various forms of still life as inferior subjects for art, he says that “the dead pheasant in a picture will always be as ‘food,’ while the same at the poulterer’s will be but a dead pheasant.”  I do not perceive that this is really absurd.  At the poulterer’s (and Mr. Tupper has proceeded to say as much in his article) all the items are in fact food, and therefore the spectator attends to the differences between them; one being a pheasant, one a fowl, one a rabbit, etc.  But, in a varied collection of pictures, most of the works representing some subject quite unconnected with food; and, if you see among them one, such as a dead pheasant, representing an article of food, that is the point which primarily occurs to your mind as distinguishing this particular picture from the others.  The views expressed by Mr. Tupper in these two papers should be regarded as his own, and not by any means necessarily those upheld by the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood.  The members of this body must however have agreed with several of his utterances, and sympathized with others, apart from strict agreement.

By Patmore:  “The Seasons.”  This choice little poem was volunteered to “The Germ” in September, after the author had read our prospectus, which impressed him favourably.  He withheld his name, much to our disappointment, having resolved to do so in all instances where something of his might be published pending the issue of a new volume.

By Christina Rossetti:  “Dream Land.”  Though my sister was only just nineteen when this remarkable lyric was printed, she had already made some slight appearance in published type (not to speak of the privately printed “Verses” of 1847), as two small poems of hers had been inserted in “The Athenaeum” in October 1848.  “Dream Land” was written in April 1849, before “The Germ” was thought of; and it may be as well to say that all my sister’s contributions to this magazine were produced without any reference to publication in that or in any particular form.