would under such a system meet with easy
and immediate exposure—they cannot, in
such awful association, be too vigilantly
exposed, or too heavily punished—and there
would be an end for ever of all selling of the
dead. The cost of dissection to a student
would be simply the cost of removal and
burial. Now, it is at least twice as much;
and exact anatomical knowledge being costly
to obtain, it is, perhaps, acquired only by tens,
when there is sore need that thousands should
possess it.

CALMUCK.

THE last summer's exhibition of the Royal
Academy contained many wonders, quite
apart from the gratifying display of wonderfully
good pictures, by which different classes
of the community were obviously
impressed. But the wonder of wonders
shared by all habitués whatsoever who
glanced round the walls or hastily turned
over their catalogues on entering the building,
was the discovery that my friend Mildmay
Strong had not exhibited at all.

For Mildmay is a great painter, and
prolific withal. Whatever he chooses to paint is
honourably exhibited. Whatever he exhibits
is profitably sold; and it is pretty well
known that, if he cares greatly for a single
thing on earth apart from painting pictures,
it is selling them. He is not dead, that is
tolerably certain, or we should have heard of it.
The world is far too much interested in his
existence to allow him the privilege of a
noiseless decease. Ill he is as little likely to
be as any human being I know of. For
Mildmay is a prudent Hercules, who
measures his lions before tackling them, and
who, if engaged on any scavenger business
In the Augean stable line, takes care to
provide plenty of chloride of lime. Laziness,
in his case, is out of the question.
My friend Strong would sit up painting all
night, but for one objection. It would not
leave him in a fit state to recommence
painting at his usual early hour on the
following morning.

Has Mildmay taken offence at some ill-
treatment from that desperate gang of
malefactors, the hanging committee, and has cut
the Royal Academy in dudgeon?

By no means. Mildmay is remarkably fond
of his nose. When you detect him in the act
of cutting off that feature, to gratify
a vindictive feeling towards his face, I will
thank you to inform me of it. The ruffians
in question, no doubt from interested
motives, behave as a rule, rather well to Mildmay
than otherwise. Indeed, considering what a
very corrupt and iniquitous institution the
Royal Academy is, as a hundred indignant
critics and a thousand exasperated artists will
assure you, its members appear to yield to
public opinion, in the recognition of young
merit, with a magnanimity that is rather
surprising; and which other governing
bodies would do well to imitate. They
hate Mildmay Strong, if you like, as one
of a turbulent and firebrand race of young
painters, who have come to disturb them
in the placid enjoyment of their easy
old tie-wig traditions of art; as cordially
and as naturally as Wonter Van Twillen and
his peaceful fellow burghers of the New
Netherlands must have detested those restless
invading hordes of Yankees, with their
outlandish practices of asking questions and
planning improvements. But the R.A.s hang
my friend's pictures on the line for all that,
and seldom in unfavourable situations.

The fact is (for, of course, I have been in
the secret all along, and it is high time to
make it public) Mildmay Strong is in
Mexico. The circumstances are these: A
few months ago, Mildmay got hold of Mr.
Prescott's picturesque history of the
Conquest of Mexico, which he read with an
eye to subjects for painting. The latter
remark, by those who know my friend, will
be considered superfluous, it being
notorious that he never reads, looks at, or thinks
of anything whatsoever, except with an eye
in that direction. Between ourselves, I
believe that a certain beautiful young lady of
my acquaintance owes her present engagement
quite as much to the turn of her elbow,
the colour of her hair, or to other external
graces valuable for model purposes, as to any
quality of her head or heart. However, to
the Prescott question.

Mildmay liked the Conquest of Mexico,
and was struck by some passage in it having
reference to the loves of Cortez and that
semi-mythical, wholly beautiful, Aztec girl,
whom the grim conqueror is supposed to
have converted from patriotism to
Christianity. Mildmay saw a picture. The lithe,
graceful, bronze-limbed warriors of Montezuma,
with their fairy-like feather costumes,
cotton breast-plates, rich golden ornaments,
and obsidian weapons, contrasted with the
sombre, velvet-draped, iron-bound, black-
bearded Spaniards, the whole seen under the
rarefied atmosphere of the wonderful tableland,
whereon the mysterious old Aztec
Venice stretched out its countless lakes and
floating gardens. All this was suggestive to
our friend of fresh fields and pastures new.
He weighed the matter carefully in his mind,
made a few ugly, unintelligible sketches,
approved of them, provided for the
comfortable subsistence of his mother and four
sisters for the space of a year and a half,
paid his landlord, invited all his bachelor
friends to a jolly supper; and, drinking to
all our healths in the only glass of wine
I ever saw him put his lips to, informed us
that he intended starting for Liverpool on
the following morning, en route for Vera
Cruz.

To those ignorant of what is required of,
and in return what is awarded to, a great