gallop like a runaway horse. The whole country immediately below has become an uncertain sort of moving phantasmagoria. We are 2,000 feet from the ground, by eye, for I dare not lose sight of the earth to look at barometers. Sea or no sea, I must bring her to while yet there is room, or surely I shall be smashed to pieces. Over goes the ponderous mass of ballast, bag and all; and more follow as fast as I can seize and throw them. Over they go, till I have only one bag left. The heavy sacks of wet sand go down like thunderbolts. They ought, of course, to be emptied of their contents, which would then descend as usual in a harmless shower. Probably there is nothing but marsh, or only a few cattle, below. But were there flocks and herds innumerable, and a stray shepherd or two into. the bargain, I should be sorry to assert very positively that they would not have one and all to take their chance of a bag.

We are still running at a great rate, but it soon becomes clear that the balloon is losing her way. A little later, and she is bringing to. There is no longer an upward rush of air against my flattened hand held horizontally over the side of the car. The moving phantasmagoria has settled down into a well-defined ground plan. A piece of paper thrown over descends. The barometer, which I can now again afford to consult, informs me that we are a little under 1,000 feet from the ground. We have gained a thousand in pulling up.

Bad judgment, and badly done! For it is clear that I have greatly overdone the whole thing. Had one thrown only one-half that precious ballast up above there, just to check the balloon's course, and the remainder by successive instalments later on as required, we might now have been nearly on the ground, and moving towards it at a safe and manageable rate; whereas now she has lost all her way. We are still a long distance from the earth, with the sea very close. A long white line of hungry-looking foam is coming straight upon me with the speed of a railway train, and in a weird silent manner which half fascinates me.

And now her great downward momentum has carried her far below her true equilibrium level. Now, by all the laws which govern balloons, she is bound, if I let her go-like a light float driven forcibly down into a pool of water and then left to itself—to rise rapidly again. She will run up above the clouds once more, and carry me thousands of feet higher than we have ever yet been-to descend later on into the sea, miles from the shore, with a tremendous crash, for there will then be no ballast to stop her. We must get down now at all costs, if not on the land, then as near as possible to it. Below is a favourable marsh, covered with long rank grass. I have still one bag of ballast left, and the heavy grapnel to throw. This I can cut away, rope and all, if necessary; and she can hardly gather any very dangerous way now, however much gas I have to let out to get down in time.

There is no time for weighing such considerations as these before taking action, nor do I need any. For, indeed, at a crisis like this, as the plot steadily thickens, and your nerves get wound up more and more to the sticking point, your wits also seem to sharpen continually, until you arrive at a point at which you seize, as it were by inspiration, at a momentary glance, all the leading points of the situation, and translate them into instant action with a result as good, or better, than an hour's careful consideration would give at an ordinary time. The instant it became clear that the balloon was bringing to, or had already brought to, and before she had time to gather way upwards, I had seized the valve line and opened the valve full. I am now steadily letting out an enormous stream of gas, while thus reviewing and deliberately endorsing this sudden resolve. The sea is very near, and it will be a close race between us. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the balloon has got the lead, and this time she shall keep it. So I do not let go the valve line till we are well on our downward course once more. I then heave up the last bag of ballast, rest it on the edge of the car, steady it there with one hand, take the heavy grapnel in the other, and stand by to throw them at the right moment. The half-empty balloon goes rapidly down, gathering way as she goes, but in the hundreds of feet that are now left she cannot possibly accelerate as in the thousands up above; and the more empty she gets the more her hollow underside tends to hold the air like a parachute. The last bag goes when we are something over a hundred feet from the ground. The grapnel follows immediately after, the moment I am sure that it will reach the ground, as its sustaining rope is a hundred feet in length. We are running hard after them; but the loss of their combined weight puts a powerful drag upon the balloon, which has now only me and the light wicker car to carry. She strikes the ground with a fairly good whack, it is true, but nothing at all to signify. At the last moment I spring upwards and hold on to the hoop, that the car may take the first bump. The next instant I am sprawling at the bottom of the car, with hoop and balloon right on top of me.

The poor balloon is utterly crippled by the loss of the great quantity of gas which I had to let out up above, together with all that has been forced through the pores of the envelope by the great pressure of air below in her downward rush. She has no heart left in her, even to attempt to rise again, so there is no question of her drifting, or dragging the grapnel. Had she been lively and buoyant, and the grapnel not held very well, she might most easily have contrived to dance over the sea-wall into the sea after all, with or without

me.

Now one can afford to sit quietly down for a few moments, to recover from a somewhat dazed and bewildered state in which the smart landing, following on such a rapid fall, had left me. No harm

whatever has been done, except that I am partly deaf for a time. My ears seem half disposed to strike work. They further express their resentment at the great and sudden increase of barometric pressure to which their delicate drums have been exposed in such a hasty descent by sundry crackings and sudden noises at intervals. Two or three hours elapse before they recover their normal condition.

We have landed very near the sea-wall, and won the race by about one minute, more or less. Thus happily ends one of my earliest ballooning experiences.

HENRY ELSDALE.

THE EXHIBITING OF PICTURES.1

ONCE upon a time Royal Academicians were fined for not exhibiting, and the Royal Academy was reproached for making profits by showing the paintings of outsiders to the public. The contrast between such a state of things and that which now exists is extraordinary; it is greater and probably more permanent than the difference between the present fashions in dress and those of our ancestors who dyed themselves with woad; for it is quite certain that thousands of painters will be anxious to exhibit their works next spring on the walls of the Royal Academy, while no one can venture to affirm that art-ladies may not soon cast off their jerseys and stain their bodies with peacock-blue.'

The very useful little book, the title of which is quoted below, affords admirable materials for considering the struggle for existence awaiting every picture which comes into the world; and to those who can appreciate the study, the hopes, the disappointments, the praises, and the discouragements which every picture, however bad, has brought upon its author, a canvas is almost as remarkable a bundle of possibilities' as a baby.

no

In our remarks upon the fate of these bantlings we shall make distinction between the offspring of artists and amateurs. Works of art should stand upon their own merits, and the sources from which their authors pay their weekly bills afford no means of classifying such productions or estimating their artistic value. The broad distinction between the artist and the amateur is this, that the former lives, or desires to live, by the sale of his works, and that the latter is more or less independent of such a source of income. The artist may produce daubs which no one cares to buy, while the amateur may paint pictures which would command large prices if he were willing to sell them. As a rule most artists are better technically educated, can give more time to their art, and are therefore better painters than most amateurs, but many of them are artists from circumstances rather than from natural talent, and it is quite certain that some amateurs are in every respect superior to some artists.

It is, unfortunately, rather the fashion for artists to speak slight

The Year's Art. By Marcus B. Huish, LL.B. (Macmillan & Co., 1880.)

ingly of amateurs; but as the judgment passed upon a work of art should be wholly independent of its author's name and position, and as the works of the best artists are always very superior to those of the best amateurs, we are inclined to ascribe all sneers at amateurs as a class to the natural modesty of inferior professionals.

Now when a man has painted a picture he naturally wishes it to be seen, either that it may be appreciated, if he is an amateur, or that it may be bought, if he is a professional artist. It is, therefore, necessary for every painter that he should have the opportunity of showing his works to the public; and the object of this paper is mainly to show how far the existing means of exhibiting answer their purpose, and how they might be extended or improved.

The Royal Academy demands our first and chief consideration in this matter, not only on account of its position and pretensions, but also from the fictitious value popularly ascribed to the judgment it is supposed to pass upon pictures.

During the London season, the Royal Academy is generally exposed to much abuse. It is reviled as an ill-selected, self-elected body, with a knighted president and vague privileges, whose duty it is to exhibit every decent picture that is sent to its rooms, but which neglects its duty and abuses its privileges by hanging only the miserable daubs of its members, and of those painters who have condescended to truckle for their favour. Baldly stated as this is, we may appear to have exaggerated the charge against the Royal Academy, but we will venture to affirm that it is no more than a fair summary of the things that are said about it from the time when the pictures are sent in till the close of the exhibition.

The main grievance urged against the Royal Academy is that it assumes to judge of the merits of pictures, and judges them very badly. This is an unfortunately common delusion on the part of the public, and is especially hurtful to the very persons in whose defence it is brought forward-the painters of rejected' pictures. Its falseness is well known in artistic circles, but the public in general do undoubtedly believe that the exhibition of a picture on the walls of the Royal Academy is a proof of its merit, and it is common to see in sale catalogues that the fact of its having been so exhibited is mentioned in order to enhance its value. The natural conclusion therefore follows that a picture sent in, but not accepted, has been condemned as a work of art by the best painters in the kingdom.

Now it is quite true that the Royal Academy is a self-elected body, but it would be very unfair to say that its members are on the whole i selected: most of the best English painters belong to it; there are some very moderate performers in it, and some intolerably bad daubers, but although there are doubtless some artists still outside it who are far superior to some who have been admitted, it is probable that no other process of selection would have secured a