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 Praise for

Brian Leaf’s Top 50 Skills Series

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score: SAT Math

“What a surprise, what a relief! An SAT guide that “I enjoyed the informal writing style, and the flash
actually meets you where you are, talks to you with cards for math are brilliant! Students are used to
wit and compassion, and clears away the panic of stacks of vocabulary words in preparation for the
test-taking. And, the writing is first-rate too. Bravo verbal portion of the test, why not drills on flash
Brian Leaf.” cards for the math section?”
—Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, former Editor, —Denise Brown-Allen, EdD Upper School
The New York Times Book Review Director, The Pingry School

“If everyone starts using Brian’s secrets and

strategies, The College Board and ETS are going to
have to rewrite the SAT!!”
—Max Shelton, George Washington
University alum

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score: SAT Critical Reading and Writing
“Brian Leaf has hacked off the head of America’s “What’s more scary than facing SATs? Or more
high school boogie man—the dreaded SAT. He boring than prepping for them? For a student
clearly lays out how the test works, accessible swinging wildly between angst and ennui, the
preparation strategies, and how to maximize one’s solution is Brian Leaf’s Top 50 Skills for a Top Score:
score. Any college applicant can benefit from his SAT Critical Reading and Writing. Leaf, himself a
thoughtful and well-researched advice.” genius at connecting with teenagers, meets students
—Joie Jager-Hyman, former Assistant at their level, and spikes every drill with common
Director of Admissions, Dartmouth College, sense and comedy. I especially loved the Superbad
author of Fat Envelope Frenzy: One Year, Vocabulary section—not your usual stuffy
Five Promising Students and the Pursuit of approach to language deficit disorder. Guaranteed
the Ivy League Prize to relax and engage the most reluctant (or panicked)
student.”
“A long time ago, in an era far, far away, I took the —Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, former Editor,
SAT—and I can remember the pressure and anxiety The New York Times Book Review
of it like it was yesterday. Lucky for you modern-
day seniors, Brian Leaf has written the SAT guide
to end all SAT guides. He thoroughly demystifies
the test and lays out the 50 skills you need to max
out your score. Better yet, Mr. Leaf writes with such
humor, wit, and unpretentious expertise that you’ll
find yourself reading this book just for fun. I did. It
almost—almost—even made me want to take the
SAT again.”
—Sora Song, Senior Editor, Time Magazine

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 1 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Top 50 Skills for a Top Score: ACT Math
“Anyone even thinking of taking the ACT needs this “Brian Leaf knows how to talk with students and
short but targeted guide to the math section. You in his book, Top 50 Skills for a Top Score: ACT Math,
simply can’t afford not to spend the time reading you can hear his voice loud and clear. Students who
his laser sharp drills that break down every type follow Brian’s “Mantras” and work through the
of problem on the ACT, show the math behind practice questions will gain confidence in their work,
each type, and then provide drill sections based on as well as improve their ACT scores.”
that skill set. Even poor math students can learn —Barbara Anastos, former Director,
to recognize all the types of math on the ACT and Monmouth Academy
learn the ropes enough to get most of the easy and
medium questions right every time. Mr. Leaf’s guide “Feels like you have an insider divulging secrets
is even entertaining as he gives the skill sets names from behind the walls of the ACT! At times going
like “Green Circle, Black Diamond” to make it feel so far as to circumvent the math skills themselves,
like you are skiing rather than slogging through Brian gives practical tips and tricks specifically
lessons. If you want a short but concise guide to the designed to outwit the ACT’s formula, and he does
ACT with every trick and mathematical explanation it all with a sense of humor and fun. Nice job!”
necessary to get a perfect score, this is the book for —Danica McKellar, actress (The Wonder Years,
you. You may even actually LEARN real math in West Wing) and mathematician and author
the process as Mr. Leaf’s love of the subject shines of New York Times bestsellers Math Doesn’t
through so you don’t just feel you are learning for Suck and Kiss My Math
a test.”
—Dr. Michele Hernandez, author of the
bestselling books A is for Admission, The
Middle School Years, and Acing the College
Application

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score: ACT English, Reading, and Science
“This book is a good read even if you don’t have to
take the ACT.”
—Edward Fiske, author of the bestselling
college guide, the Fiske Guide to Colleges

“The specific skills needed for the ACT, confidence

building, stress-management, how to avoid careless
errors . . . this book has it covered!”
—Laura Frey, Director of College Counseling,
Vermont Academy
former President, New England Association
for College Admission Counseling

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 2 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 THE MOST TRUSTED
NAME IN TEST PREP

SAT Math Skills T H IRD E D IT IO N

BRIAN LEAF

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 3 10/27/21 5:13 PM

Copyright © 2022, 2017, 2010 by Brian Leaf. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-26-427481-9
MHID: 1-26-427481-5

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MHID: 1-26-427480-7.

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Version 1.0

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TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and McGraw-Hill Education and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject
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 Contents
How to Use This Book vi SKILL 26 “ Is” Means Equals . . . Translation 62
Easy, Medium, Hard, and Guessing vii SKILL 27 Just Do It! . . . Springboard 64
About Brian Leaf viii SKILL 28 Beyond Your Dear Aunt Sally:
Acknowledgmentsix The Laws of Exponents I 66
SKILL 29 Far Beyond Your Dear Aunt Sally:
Pretest1 The Laws of Exponents II 68
SKILL 30 Your Algebra Teacher Never Said
Top 50 Skills SKILL 31
“y = ax + b”70
Arrangements72
SKILL 1 Use the Answers 10 SKILL 32 Long Word No-Problems 74
SKILL 2 Algebraic Manipulation . . . “What SKILL 33 May the Odds Be Ever in Your
Is p in Terms of f ?”12 Favor. . . Probability 76
SKILL 3 “Mean” Means Average 14 SKILL 34 He’s Making a List . . . Median,
SKILL 4 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: Mode, and Range 78
Angles16 SKILL 35 y = ax2 + bx + c80
SKILL 5 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: SKILL 36 Circles84
Parallel Lines 18 SKILL 37 Hopscotch, Pigtails, and Remainders 86
SKILL 6 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: SKILL 38 Absolute Value 88
Triangles20 SKILL 39 Sequences90
SKILL 7 The Final Six-Minute Abs of Geometry 22 SKILL 40 Not So Complex Numbers 92
SKILL 8 Math Vocab 24 SKILL 41 Don’t Even Think About It! . . . Most
SKILL 9 More Math Vocab 26 Common SAT Math Careless Errors I 94
SKILL 10 Systems of Equations 28 SKILL 42 Don’t Even Think About It! . . . Most
SKILL 11 Green Circle, Black Diamond: Common SAT Math Careless Errors II 96
Slaloming Slope I 30 SKILL 43 Misbehaving Numbers: Weird
SKILL 12 Green Circle, Black Diamond: Number Behavior 98
Slaloming Slope II 32 SKILL 44 Mathematical Transformations 100
SKILL 13 The Sports Page: Using Tables SKILL 45 SohCahToa!102
and Graphs 34 SKILL 46 Beyond SohCahToa 104
SKILL 14 Function Questions on the SAT, Type I 36 SKILL 47 Directly and Inversely Proportional 106
SKILL 15 Function Questions on the SAT, Type II 38 SKILL 48 Rational Expressions 110
SKILL 16 Make It Real 40 SKILL 49 How to Think Like a Math Genius I 112
SKILL 17 Perimeter, Area, Volume 42 SKILL 50 How to Think Like a Math Genius II 116
SKILL 18 Donuts44 Brian’s Friday Night Spiel:
SKILL 19 Baking Granola Bars . . . Ratios 46 Recommendations for the Days
SKILL 20 More Granola Bars . . . Proportions Preceding the Test 120
and Cross-Multiplying 48
SKILL 21 Use the Diagram 50 Bonus Skill: Hello Harvard . . . How to Break 700 122
SKILL 22 Art Class 52 Easy, Medium, Hard, and Guessing Revisited 123
SKILL 23 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: Now What? 124
Length of a Side I 54 Posttest I 125
SKILL 24 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: Solutions135
Length of a Side II 56 Glossary164
SKILL 25 The Six-Minute Abs of Geometry: Top 50 Skills Flash Cards
Length of a Side III 58
Nina the Ninja, Let’s Get Zen!
A Yoga Posture for the SAT 60
Guided Relaxation 61

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 5 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 How to Use This Book

It’s simple. The questions that will appear on your This book is filled with SAT Math Mantras. They tell
SAT are predictable. Every SAT has a few function you what to do and when to do it. “When you see a
questions, one or two ratio questions, an average proportion, cross-multiply.” “When you see a linear
question, etc. While each of these topics is broad and pair, determine the measures of the angles.” This is
could be the subject of a whole mathematics course, the stuff that girl who got a perfect score on her SAT
the SAT always tests the same concepts! Math does automatically. The Mantras teach you to
think like her.
In this book, I will teach you exactly what you need
to know. I will introduce each topic and follow “Sounds good, but the SAT is tricky,” you say. It is,
it with drills. After each set of drills, check your but we know their tricks. Imagine a football team
answers. Read and reread the solutions until they that has great plays, but only a few of them. We
make sense. They are designed to simulate one-on- could watch films and study those plays. No matter
one tutoring, like I’m sitting right there with you. how tricky they are, we could learn them, expect
Reread the solutions until you could teach them to a them, and beat them. SAT prep works the same way.
friend. In fact, do that! My students call it “learning You will learn the strategies, expect the SAT’s tricks,
to channel their inner Brian Leaf.” There is no better and raise your score. Now, go learn and rack up the
way to learn and master a concept than to teach it! points!
Any new concept that you master will be worth 10
or more points toward you SAT Math score. That’s
the plan; it is that simple. If you did not understand
functions, ratios, and averages before and now you
do, you will earn 30+ extra points.

vi

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 6 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Easy, Medium, Hard,
and Guessing
The SAT is not graded like a math test at school. If In this book, the drills that follow each skill are
you got only half the questions right on an algebra also arranged easiest to hardest. Knowing the
midterm, that’d be a big fat F. On the math SAT, level of difficulty of a question is important. The
half the questions right is a 500, the average score easy questions are worth just as much as the hard
for kids across the country. If you got 75% of the ones. So, don’t rush and risk a careless error just
questions right, that’d be a C in school, but around to reach the hard questions. If an easy or medium
a 630 on the SAT, better than 82% of students who question seems hard, take another look for what
took the SAT. And 89% correct, which is a B+ in you are missing. Ask yourself, “Which skill can I
school, is a beautiful 720 on the SAT, higher than use? What is the easy way to do this question?”
96% of students who took the test. After you complete this book, you will know! What
about guessing? Well, you do not lose points for
Use this info to determine how many questions you
wrong answers, so put an answer for every question,
need to answer on the SAT. The math questions
even ones that you do not get to. Even if you are
are organized in order of difficulty, from easiest to
running out of time, budget a bit of time to fill in
hardest. If you want half correct, or 70% correct,
an answer for the last questions. It’d be crazy not
don’t rush through the easies just to get to the hard
to. Statistically, if you randomly fill in the last four
ones. In school you might need to finish tests in
ovals, you’ll get one correct. That could be worth 10
order to do well, here you do not. You only need to
points on your score! So keep an eye on the clock,
get to the very hardest questions if you are shooting
and when there are a few minutes left, choose an
for 700+.
answer for each remaining question.

vii

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 7 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 About Brian Leaf

Six, maybe seven, people in the world know the

SAT like Brian Leaf. Most are under surveillance
in Princeton, NJ. Brian alone is left to bring you
this book.
Brian has seen the SAT from every angle, even
teaching yoga to the test makers at ETS Corporation.
You are about to find out what Brian learned from
them while they slept in deep relaxation.
Brian is the author of McGraw Hill’s Top 50 Skills
SAT and ACT test-prep series and the Director of the
New Leaf Learning Center in Western Massachusetts.
He teaches SAT, PSAT, and ACT prep to thousands
of students from throughout the United States. (For
more information, visit his website www.BrianLeaf
.com.) Brian also works with the Georgetown
University Office of Undergraduate Admissions as
an Alumni Interviewer. For more about Brian, check
out his hilarious memoir, Misadventures of a Garden
State Yogi.

viii

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 8 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Acknowledgments

Special thanks to all the students of New Leaf

Learning Center for allowing me to find this book.
Thanks to my agent Linda Roghaar and my Editors
at McGraw Hill, Anya Kozorez and Bob O’Sullivan.
Thanks to math wiz Noah Leaf and grammar wiz
Pam Weber-Leaf for great editing tips; Larry Leaf
for his one-liners; Zach Nelson for sage marketing
advice; Ben Allison, Jake Duggan, and Sarah
Duggan for their math genius and thorough editing;
Matthew Thompson for astute design help; Susan
and Manny Leaf for everything; and of course,
thanks most of all to Gwen, Noah, and Benji for
time, love, support, and, in the case of Benji, an
uncanny ability to locate treasure.

ix

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 9 10/27/21 5:13 PM

Visit https://testbankfan.com
now to explore a rich
collection of testbank or
solution manual and enjoy
exciting offers!
 This page intentionally left blank

intro.indd 28
 Pretest

The following 50 questions correspond to our 50 Skills. Take the test, and then check your answers in the 50 Skill
sections that follow.

DIRECTIONS: This pretest contains the two types of math questions that you will see on the SAT: multiple-
choice and student-produced response questions. Multiple-choice questions are followed by answer choices.
Solve each and decide which is the best of the choices given. Student-produced response questions are not
followed by answer choices.
You may use any available space for scratchwork. A calculator is permitted unless you see the symbol.

m+1 1
1 If m is a positive integer and = , what is 3 If the average (arithmetic mean) of m and n is 7,
the value of m? 32 3 what is m + n?
A –1 A 3.5
B 0 B 7
C 1 C 14
D 2 D 21

2 If 4x + 2y = 12, what is y in terms of x? 4 In the figure below, what is the value of a?

A 6 + 2x A 25
100°
B 6 – 2x B 30
C 12 – 4x C 35 a° 140°
D 12 – 2x D 40

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 1 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Pretest

5 In the figure below, if a || b and the measure of (Question 8 is the first example in this book of
x = 45, what is the measure of y? an SAT student-produced response question,
where you are not given multiple-choice options
A 27 a
y°
and must come up with your own answer.)
B 53 b
x° 8 Let S equal the set of all real numbers. How
C 127 many members of S are even prime numbers?
108°
D 153

6 If MN = MO in the figure below, which of the 9 If P is the set of all different, real number, prime
following must be true? N factors of 100, how many members does set P
contain?
A a=b b°
B b=c A None
C a=c B 2
D MN = NO
a° c° C 3
M O
Note: Figure not drawn to scale. D 8

7 In the figure below, what is the value of b?

5x + 3y = 16
A 50 b° 8x – 3y = 10
B 55
10 What is the x-value of the solution (x, y) to the
C 60 25° 80°
system of equations above?
D 65 Note: Figure not drawn to scale.

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 2 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Pretest

11 If the slope of a line through the points (2, 4) 14 If f(x) = 2x + 1, what is f(3)?
and (0, b) is 1, what is the value of b?
A –2
B –1
C 1
D 2 15 If f(x) = 2x + 1 and f(m) = 9, what is m?

12 In the xy coordinate plane, line j is the reflection

of line k about the x-axis. If the slope of line j is 16 Grandma Jones is making cookies for the fair.
-3 She needs x cups of flour per batch. Each batch
, what is the slope of line k?
4 makes c number of cookies. If she has 10 cups of
4 flour, in terms of x and c, how many cookies can
A she make?
3
3 A xc
B
4 B 10xc
1
C 10c
4 C
x
-3
D 10x
4 D
c

SAT Book Sales

100
Thousands of
Books Sold

80
60
40
20 A B C
0
SAT
Success

SAT
Math

Top 50
Skills

I♥SATs

F D

G E

13 According to the graph above, which two SAT 17 In the figure above, the perimeter of square
books sold the fewest copies? BCDF is 12, and the perimeter of rectangle
ACEG is 30. If AB and DE are each positive
A SAT Math and I ♥ SATs integers, what is one possible value of the area
B I ♥ SATs and Top 50 Skills of rectangle ACEG?
C I ♥ SATs and SAT Success
D SAT Success and SAT Math

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 3 10/27/21 5:13 PM

 Pretest

21 In the figure below, ABED is a square with sides

of length 6. If EC = 3, what is the perimeter of
quadrilateral ABCD?
A 24 D E C
B 27
C 18 + 3 5
18 In the diagram above, if the area of the large D 21 + 3 5
circle is 10 and the area of the small circle is 8,
what is the area of the shaded region?
A B

19 In a mixture of pretzels and corn chips, the ratio

of pretzels to corn chips is 3 to 7. How many 22 Points A, B, C, D, and E are collinear. If B is the
pretzels will be in a mixture that has 100 total midpoint of AC , C is the midpoint of AD, and
pieces? D is the midpoint of AE, which of the following
is the longest segment?
A 70
B 50 A AB
C 37 B AD A B C D E

D 30 C BC Note: Figure not drawn to scale.

D CE

20 If the numerator of a fraction is 3 more than the

denominator, and the fraction equals 4, what is 23 In right triangle ABC (not shown), the measure
3 of AB is 6 and the measure of BC is 10. Which of
the numerator of the fraction? the following could be the measure of AC?
A 3 A 3
B 6 B 4
C 9 C 6
D 12 D 8

9781264274802_Leaf_SAT-Math-2022_P4.indb 4 10/27/21 5:13 PM

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away from the evil to come, and that are now resting upon their
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What must we do in the holy place? To whom it was answered: You
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glory and majesty, and put into an equipage fit to ride out with the
King of Glory.… Also when he shall again return to the city, you shall
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[May 25.]
If we can make this with ourselves: I was in times past dead in
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and after the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience; but
God, who is rich in mercy, through his great love, wherewith he
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was fierce, heady, proud, high minded, but God hath made me like a
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followed greedily the joys of this present world; I esteemed him that
erected a stage or theater more than Solomon which built a temple
to the Lord; the harp, viol, timbrel, and pipe, men singers and
women singers were at my feast; it was my felicity to see my
children dance before me; I said of every kind of vanity, O how
sweet art thou unto my soul! All which things are now crucified to
me, and I to them; now I hate the pride of life, and the pomp of this
world; now I take as great delight in the way of thy testimonies, O
Lord, as in all riches; now I find more joy of heart in my Lord and
Savior, than the worldly minded man when “his possessions do much
abound;” now I taste nothing sweet but the bread which came down
from heaven, to give life unto the world; now my eyes see nothing
but Jesus rising from the dead; now my ears refuse all kinds of
melody, to hear the song of them that have gotten the victory of the
beast and of his image, and of his mark, and of the number of his
name, that stand on the sea of glass, “having the harps of God, and
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Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God
Almighty; just and true are thy ways, O King of saints.” Surely, if the
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ourselves anew, then we may say boldly with the blessed apostle, in
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with the treasure of this blessed assurance of faith unto the end.—
From Hooker.

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qualities which make the poorest peasant sacred and valued by me.
Moral perfectibility is our destiny, and here are opened up to the
historian a boundless field and a rich harvest.—Forster.
 READINGS IN ART.

II.—THE PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS OF

NORTHERN EUROPE.

This paper is abridged from “German, Flemish and Dutch Paintings,”

by H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M.A., and Edward J. Poynter, R.A.

Art in Germany and the Netherlands may be considered as

beginning about the middle of the fourteenth century. There is,
however, no name of importance in the German school of artists
until the time of Albrecht Dürer. Before him painters had shown little
or no originality in their work. They had followed the Byzantine
models largely, and had been influenced by the servile and narrow
influences of the middle ages. With the new intellectual and spiritual
life which sprang up in the fifteenth century, artistic life awoke in
Germany. Dürer was the first and greatest master of the school. He
was born in Nuremberg on the 21st of May, 1471.
His father was a Hungarian, who settled in Nuremberg as a
goldsmith. Albrecht Dürer was taught his father’s trade, but
fortunately his talent for art was observed, and he was sent, in
1484, a boy of thirteen years, to Schongauer. In 1486 he was
apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut for three years. From the studio of
his master, Albrecht Dürer passed, in the year 1490, to a new world
—he traveled; and in those “wander-years,” which lasted till 1494, he
was doubtless laying in stores of learning for the after-time; but
unfortunately we know nothing of those years, except that he had a
glimpse of Venice, the first sight of the Italian paradise which, in his
case, though seen again, never made him unfaithful to the art of his
fatherland. In 1494, Albrecht Dürer returned to Nuremberg, and
married Agnes Frey, the daughter of a singer. He received two
hundred florins with his wife for her dowry, and it has been said that
with her he found more than two thousand unhappy days. In 1506,
Dürer again traveled to Italy, and found a warm welcome from the
painters at Venice, a city which he now beheld for the second time.
Doubtless he learned much from the works which he saw, and the
criticism which he heard, but, fortunately for his country, he could go
to Italy without becoming a copyist. Giovanni Bellini paid him
especial honor, and Dürer tells us that he considered Bellini “the best
painter of them all.”
Between the years 1507 and 1520, Dürer produced many of his
most famous works. In 1509, he bought a house for himself in the
Zisselgasse, at Nuremberg. In 1515 Raphael sent a sketch from his
own pencil to his great brother, who has been well styled the
“Raphael of Germany.” The sketch is in red chalk, and is preserved in
the collection of the Archduke Charles, at Vienna. In 1520 we find
Dürer appointed court-painter to the emperor, Charles V., a position
which he had already held under Maximilian. His own countrymen
seem to have been niggardly in their reward of genius, for the court-
painter had only a salary of one hundred florins a year, and painted
portraits for a florin (about twenty English pence). In the same year
Dürer, accompanied by his wife, visited the Netherlands, and at
Antwerp, then the most important town of the Low Countries, both
he and his wife were entertained at a grand supper; the master has
recorded in his journal his pleasure at the honor bestowed upon
him. At Ghent and Bruges all were delighted to show their respect
for his genius. At Brussels, Dürer was summoned to the court of
Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, to whom he
presented several engravings. Either through jealous intrigues, or
from some other cause, his court favor was of short duration. In
Brussels he painted several portraits which were never paid for, and
for a time he was in straitened circumstances. Just at this time,
however, Christian II., king of Denmark, became acquainted with
him, and having shown every mark of honor to the painter, sat to
him for his portrait. Soon afterward he returned to Germany.
Once more at home in his beloved Nuremberg, Dürer wrote to
remind the Town Council that whilst the people of Venice and
Antwerp had offered him liberal sums to dwell among them, his own
city had not given him five hundred florins for thirty years of work.
But we must pass to the end. Whether the health of Albrecht Dürer
had been injured by home cares and the tongue of Agnes Frey, we
know not, though many passages in his letters and journal seem to
point to this fact. He died on the 6th of April, 1528, and was buried
in the cemetery of St. John, at Nuremberg.
Most of Dürer’s works are to be found in Germany. In the Louvre
there are only three or four drawings. The Museum of Madrid
possesses several of his paintings—a “Crucifixion” (1513), showing
the maturity of his genius, two “Allegories” of the same type as the
“Dance of Death,” so favorite a subject at this period, and a “Portrait
of Himself,” bearing the date 1496. At Munich we may trace, in a
series of seventeen pictures, the dawn, the noonday, and the
evening of Albrecht Dürer’s art. The “Portrait of his Father,” 1497, is
one of his earliest works. His father was then seventy years old. The
color is warm and harmonious. The masterpiece of Dürer’s art is the
painting of the four apostles—“St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul and St.
Mark.” This wonderful work is clearly the production of his later
years; it bears no date, but the absence of the hardness, which
Michael Wolgemut’s workshop had imparted to his early style, is
gone, and the whole work shows the influence of his travels and
unflagging study. It is usually assigned to the year 1526. The picture
has been supposed to represent the “Four Temperaments,” but there
is no satisfactory proof that Dürer intended this.
Vienna possesses some of the finest specimens of his art. In the
legend of “The Ten Thousand Martyrs,” who were slain by the
Persian king Shahpour II., Dürer has described on a panel of about a
foot square every conceivable kind of torture. These horrors are
witnessed by two figures which represent the painter himself, and
his friend Pirkheimer.
The “Adoration of the Trinity” is one of the most famous of
Dürer’s works. It is a vast allegorical picture, representing the
Christian Religion.
Of his wood-cuts the best known are the “Apocalypse,” 1498; the
“Life of the Virgin,” 1511; and the “History of Christ’s Passion.” Of his
copper-plate engravings, “St. Hubert,” “St. Jerome,” and “The
Knight, Death, and the Devil,” bearing the date 1513, in which we
see what Kugler calls “the most important work which the fantastic
spirit of German art has ever produced.” The weird, the terrible, and
the grotesque look forth from this picture like the forms of some
horrible nightmare. Another famous engraving, called “Melancholy,”
is full of mystic poetry; it bears the date 1514. To these may be
added a series of sixteen drawings in pen and ink on gray paper,
heightened with white, representing “Christ’s Passion,” which he
never engraved. They are in his best style, and among the finest of
his works.

HANS HOLBEIN.
Contemporary with Dürer lived another great artist, Hans Holbein.
He was born at Augsburg, in 1497. Comparing him with Albrecht
Dürer, Kugler says that “as respects grandeur and depth of feeling,
and richness of his invention and conception in the field of
ecclesiastical art, he stands below the great Nuremberg painter.
Though not unaffected by the fantastic element which prevailed in
the Middle Ages, Holbein shows it in his own way.” What we know of
Holbein’s life must be told briefly. He was painting independently,
and for profit, when only fifteen. He was only twenty when he left
Augsburg and went to Bâle. There he painted his earliest known
works, which still remain there. In 1519, after a visit to Lucerne, we
find him a member of the Guild of Painters at Bâle, and years later
he was painting frescoes for the walls of the Rathaus—frescoes
which have yielded to damp and decay, and of which fragments only
remain. These are in the Museum of Bâle, as well as eight scenes
from “The Passion,” which belong to the same date. Doubtless
Holbein had gone to Bâle poor, and in search of any remunerative
work. It is said that he and his brother Ambrose visited that city with
the hope of finding employment in illustrating books, an art for
which Bâle was famous. Hans Holbein was destined, however, to find
a new home and new patrons. In 1526, Holbein went to England.
The house of Sir Thomas More, in Chelsea, received him, and there
he worked as an honored guest—painting portraits of the ill-fated
Chancelor and his family. Of other portraits painted at this time that
of “Sir Bryan Tuke,” treasurer of the king’s chamber, now in the
collection of the Duke of Westminster, and that of “Archbishop
Warham,” in the Louvre, are famous specimens. Having returned to
Bâle for a season, hard times forced Holbein to seek work once more
in England. This was in 1532, when he was taken into the service of
Henry VIII., a position not without its dangers. He was appointed
court-painter at a salary of thirty-four pounds a year, with rooms in
the palace. The amount of this not very magnificent stipend is
proved from an entry in a book at the Chamberlain’s office, which,
under the date of 1538, contains these words: “Payd to Hans
Holbein, Paynter, a quarter due at Lady Day last, £8 10s. 9d.”
Holbein was employed to celebrate the marriage of Anne Boleyn
by painting two pictures in tempera in the Banqueting Hall of the
Easterlings, at the Steelyard. He chose the favorite subjects for such
works, “The Triumph of Riches,” and “The Triumph of Poverty.” The
pictures probably perished in the Great Fire of London. In 1538,
Holbein was engaged on a very delicate mission, considering the
matrimonial peculiarities of his royal master. He was sent to Brussels
to paint the “Portrait of Christina,” widow of Francesco Sforza, Duke
of Milan, whom Henry would have made his queen, had she been
willing. Soon after, having refused an earnest invitation from Bâle to
return there, Holbein painted an aspirant to the royal hand, Anne of
Cleves. Perhaps the painter flattered the lady; at all events the
original was so distasteful to the king that he burst into a fit of rage
which cost Thomas Cromwell his head. Holbein continued his work
as a portrait painter, and has left us many memorials of the Tudor
Court. He died in 1543, of the plague, but nothing is known of his
burial place. Some time before his death we hear of him as a
resident in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the city.
The fame of this great master rests almost entirely upon his
power as a portrait painter. In the collection of drawings at Windsor,
mostly executed in red chalk and Indian ink, we are introduced to
the chief personages who lived in and around the splendid court in
the troublous times of the second Tudor.

JOHANN FRIEDRICH OVERBECK.

After the death of Dürer and Holbein the German school did not
long hold its supremacy. Its decline was rapid, and not until the
present century was there a re-awakening. Johann Friedrich
Overbeck, the chief of the revivalists of German art, was born at
Lübeck, in 1789. When about eighteen years of age he went to
Vienna, to study painting in the academy of that city. The ideas on
art which he had carried with him were so entirely new and so little
agreeable to the professors of the academy, that they met with but
small approval. On the other hand, there were several among his
fellow-pupils who gladly followed his lead; and in 1810, Overbeck,
accompanied by a small band of youthful artists, went to Rome,
where he established the school which was afterward to become so
famous.
Overbeck, who was professor of painting in the Academy of St.
Luke, a foreign member of the French Institute, and a member of all
the German academies, died at Rome in 1869, at the advanced age
of eighty years. He painted both in fresco and in oil. Of his
productions in fresco, the most noteworthy are a “Vision of St.
Francis” in Santa Maria degli Angeli, at Assisi, and five scenes from
Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” in the villa of the Marchese Massimo,
in Rome. Of his oil paintings, the best are the “Triumph of Religion in
the Arts,” in the Städel Institute at Frankfort; “Christ on the Mount of
Olives,” at Hamburg; the “Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem,” painted
in 1816 for the Marien Kirche, at Lübeck; and a “Descent from the
Cross,” at Lübeck. Overbeck also executed a number of small
drawings. Of these we may mention forty designs of the “Life of
Christ,” and many other Biblical subjects.

THE SCHOOL OF THE NETHERLANDS.

In the Netherlands, we find before the seventeenth century, two
schools of art; that of Bruges, whose most famous painters were the
brothers Van Eyck, and that of Antwerp, whose founder, Matsys, did
some fine work. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth
century, however, that art in the Netherlands attained its full
strength and life. The artist to whom the revival was due was Peter
Paul Rubens. He was born on the day of the festival of St. Peter and
St. Paul—the 29th of June, 1577, at Siegen, in Westphalia. His father
was a physician, who being suspected of Protestant proclivities, had
been forced to flee from his native town of Antwerp, and was
subsequently imprisoned, not without cause, by William of Orange,
whose side he had joined. When Peter Paul was a year old, his
parents removed to Cologne, where they remained for nine years,
and then on the death of her husband, the mother of Rubens
returned with her child to Antwerp. Young Rubens was sent to a
Jesuit school, doubtless in proof of his mother’s soundness in the
faith of Rome, and studied art. Fortunately for the world, Rubens
possessed too original a genius to be much influenced by his
masters. He visited Italy in 1600, where the coloring of the
Venetians exercised a great influence upon the young painter, and
we may consider Paolo Veronese as the source of inspiration from
which Rubens derived the richness of his tints. In 1601 we find
Rubens in the service of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, an
enthusiastic patron of art, and two years later he was sent to Philip
III. of Spain, on an “artistic commission,” some secret mission,
perhaps, but certainly as the bearer of costly presents. On his return
from Spain he passed some time in Mantua, Rome, and Genoa; the
dramatic power of his pictures he derived probably from
Michelangelo, as he had learned richness of coloring from Veronese,
and we can trace the influence of Giulio Romano, whose works he
must have studied at Mantua.
Rubens settled in Antwerp, and married in 1609 his first wife,
Isabella Brandt. Always popular, and always successful, Rubens
founded a school of painting in Antwerp, which was soon crowded
with pupils. His life, however, was destined to be full of action and
movement. In 1620 he went to Paris at the invitation of Marie de
Medicis, then living in the Luxembourg Palace. The work which the
widowed queen proposed to Rubens was to decorate two galleries,
the one with scenes from her own history, the other with pictures
from the life of Henri IV.
In 1626 Rubens visited Holland, saw the principal painters of that
country, and lost his wife in the same year. The picture of the two
sons of this marriage is in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in Vienna. In
1627 Rubens was employed in diplomatic service at the Hague, and
in the next year he was ambassador to Philip IV. of Spain, from the
Infanta Isabella, widow of the archduke Albert. In 1629 we find the
painter still acting as a diplomatist, and this time to the Court of
England. The courtly manner, handsome person, and versatile genius
of Rubens made him a favorite at Whitehall.
On his return to Antwerp in 1630, he married his second wife,
Helena Fourment, a girl of sixteen, belonging to one of the richest
families in the city. She served him many times as a model for his
pictures. The great master died in 1640, wealthy, honored, and
famous, not only in his own city, but in many another. He was buried
in the Church of St. Jacques at Antwerp.
In speaking briefly of the chief works of Rubens, we come first to
the “Descent from the Cross,” in Antwerp Cathedral. We find in this
wonderful work perfect unity, and a nobler conception and more
finished execution than usual. Of the coloring it is needless to speak.
But even here in this masterpiece we notice the absence of
spirituality. The dead Christ is an unidealized study, magnificently
painted and drawn, but unredeemed by any divinity of form, or
pathos of expression in the head, so that we discover no foregleam
of the Resurrection; it is a dead body, no more. Among the eighteen
pictures by Rubens in the Antwerp Museum, is a “Last Communion
of St. Francis,” which has a great reputation, but suffers from the
ignoble type of St. Francis’s head. It was painted in 1619.
In the Gallery at Munich we find ninety-five paintings by this
master, illustrating all his styles. The masterpiece is the “Last
Judgment.” Passing to Vienna, we find in the Lichtenstein Gallery the
portraits of Rubens’s “Two Sons,” and a long series of pictures
illustrating the “History of Decius.” In the Belvedere is a magnificent
portrait of his second wife, “Helena Fourment.” In the Louvre we find
forty-two paintings by Rubens. The greater number of these belong
to the series illustrating “The Life of Marie de Medicis.” At Madrid in
the Museo del Rey is a “Glorified Virgin,” a truly wonderful work.
Turning to Russia, we find in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg some
fine works by this master; especially deserving of notice is the “Feast
in the House of Simon.” Coming home to England we find this great
master again largely represented. The “History of Ixion on the
Cloud” is in the gallery of the Duke of Westminster; and “Diana and
her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs,” painted for Charles I. in 1629.
Blenheim contains many great works by Rubens.

ANTOON VAN DYCK,

The greatest of the pupils of Rubens, the son of a merchant of good
standing, was born at Antwerp, in 1599. At ten years of age he was
studying art under Van Balen, and was registered in the Guild as his
pupil; from him he proceeded to the studio of Rubens. His wonderful
precocity enabled Van Dyck to become a master in the Guild of
Antwerp painters when only nineteen. In 1620 he was engaged as
an assistant by Rubens, and in the following year he was in England
employed by James I. This royal service soon ended, and in 1623
Van Dyck went to Italy; in Venice he copied many of Titian’s works,
and spent some time in Rome, and a much longer time at Genoa.
Wherever he went he was busy with brush and canvas, and in
Genoa he painted many of his best pictures. From 1626 to 1632 Van
Dyck was in Antwerp, diligently working at some of his greatest
pictures, historical subjects and portraits. In the Cassel Gallery there
are fourteen of his portraits, among which that of the “Syndic
Meerstraten” is one of the most characteristic of his art at this
period. At the close of these six years of Antwerp work a new world
opened to him. His first visit to England seems to have been
unfruitful, but in 1632 he became one of the court painters of
Charles I. Success and honor now crowned the new works of Van
Dyck. He received a salary of £200 a year as principal painter to the
Stuart court, and was knighted by the king. Nothing succeeds like
success, and we find Van Dyck sought after by the nobility and
gentry of England, and at once installed as a fashionable portrait
painter.
Later, after his return to Flanders, in 1640, with his wife, a lady of
the Scottish house of Ruthven, he went to Paris, hoping to obtain
from Louis XIII. the commission to adorn with paintings the largest
saloon in the Louvre, but here he was doomed to disappointment, as
the work had been given to Poussin. Van Dyck returned to England,
and found that he had fallen, like his patron, Charles I., “on evil
tongues and evil days.” The Civil War had commenced. There was no
time now for pipe or tabor, for painting of pictures or curling of
lovelocks, and whilst trumpets were sounding to boot and saddle,
and dark days were coming for England, Van Dyck died in
Blackfriars, on the 9th of December, in 1641, and was buried hard by
the tomb of John of Gaunt, in old St. Paul’s.
Possessed of less power of invention than his great master, Van
Dyck shows in his pictures that feeling which is wanting in the works
of Rubens. It is infinitely more pleasant to gaze on a crucifixion, or
some other sacred subject, from the pencil of Van Dyck, than to
examine the more brilliant but soulless treatment of similar works by
his master. As a portrait painter Van Dyck occupies with Titian and
Velasquez the first place. In fertility and production he was equal to
Rubens, if we remember that his artistic life was very brief, and that
he died at the age of forty-two. He lacked the inexhaustible
invention which distinguishes his teacher, and generally confined
himself to painting a “Dead Christ” or a “Mater Dolorosa.” Of Van
Dyck’s sacred subjects we may mention the “Taking of Jesus in
Gethsemane” (Museum of Madrid), “Christ on the Cross” (Munich
Gallery), the “Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph” (Vienna), the
famous “Madonna with the Partridges” (St. Petersburg), and the
“Dead Christ,” mourned by the Virgin, and adored by angels, in the
Louvre.
Portraits by Van Dyck are scattered widely throughout the
galleries of Europe, and his best are probably in the private galleries
of England. In all his portraits there is that air of refinement and
taste which rightly earned for Van Dyck the name which the Italians
gave him, Pittore Cavalieresco.

REMBRANDT.
Contemporaneous with the Flemish school of which Rubens and
Van Dyck were the masters, was the Dutch school, of which the
great name was Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn. Few persons have
suffered more from their biographers than the painters of the Dutch
school, and none of them more than Rembrandt. The writings of Van
Mander, and the too active imagination of Houbraken, have
misrepresented these artists in every possible way. Thus Rembrandt
has been described as the son of a miller, one whose first ideas of
light and shadow were gained among his father’s flour sacks in the
old mill at the Rhine. He has been described as a spendthrift reveler
at taverns, and as marrying a peasant girl. All this is fiction. The
facts are briefly these: Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1607, in the
house of his father, Hermann Gerritszoon Van Rijn, a substantial
burgess, the owner of several houses, and possessing a large share
in a mill on the Weddesteeg at Leyden. Educated at the Latin school
at Leyden, and intended for the study of the law, Rembrandt’s early
skill as an artist determined his father to allow him to follow his own
taste.
 But it was not from these nor from any master that Rembrandt
learnt to paint. Nature was his model, and he was his own teacher.
In 1630 he produced one of his earliest oil paintings, the “Portrait of
an Old Man,” and at this time he settled as a painter in Amsterdam.
He devoted himself to the teaching of his pupils more than to the
cultivation of the wealthy, but instead of being the associate of
drunken boors, as some have described him, he was the friend of
the Burgomaster Six, of Jeremias de Decker the poet, and many
other persons of good position. In 1632 Rembrandt produced his
famous picture, “The Lesson in Anatomy;” about that time he was
established in Sint Antonie Breedstraat; in the next year he married
Saskia van Ulenburch, the daughter of the Burgomaster of
Leeuwarden, whose face he loved to paint best after that of his old
mother. We may see Saskia’s portrait in the famous picture,
“Rembrandt with his wife on his knee,” in the Dresden Gallery; and a
“Portrait of Saskia” alone is in the Cassel Gallery.
In the year 1640 Rembrandt painted a portrait, long known under
the misnomer of “The Frame-maker.” It is usually called “Le Doreur,”
and it is said that the artist painted the portrait in payment for some
picture frames; but is in reality a portrait of Dorer, a friend of
Rembrandt. The year 1642 saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece, the so-
called “Night-watch.” Saskia died in the same year, and the four
children of the marriage all died early, Titus, the younger son, who
promised to follow in his father’s steps, not surviving him.
Rembrandt was twice married after Saskia’s death. The latter years
of the great master’s life were clouded by misfortune. Probably
owing to the stagnation of trade in Amsterdam, Rembrandt grew
poorer and poorer, and in 1656 was insolvent. His goods and many
pictures were sold by auction in 1658, and realized less than 5,000
guilders. Still he worked bravely on. His last known pictures are
dated 1668. On the 8th of October, 1669, Rembrandt died, and was
buried in the Wester Kerk.
Rembrandt was the typical painter of the Dutch School; his
treatment is distinctly Protestant and naturalistic. Yet he was an
idealist in his way, and as “The King of Shadows,” as he has been
called, he brought forth from the dark recesses of nature, effects
which become, under his pencil, poems upon canvas. Rembrandt
loved to paint pictures warmed by a clear, though limited light, which
dawns through masses of shadow, and this gives much of that air of
mystery so noticeable in his works. In most of his pictures painted
before 1633, there is more daylight and less shadow, and the work
is more studied and delicate.
In the National Gallery we find two portraits of Rembrandt, one
representing him at the age of thirty-two, another when an old man.
In the same collection is the “Woman taken in Adultery” (1644), and
the “Adoration of the Shepherds” (1646), both superb in
arrangement and execution. Germany and Russia are almost as rich
as Holland in the number of Rembrandt’s pictures which they
possess. The “Descent from the Cross,” in the Munich Gallery, is a
specimen of the sacred subjects of this master. He interprets the
Bible from the Protestant and realistic standpoint, and though the
coloring of the pictures is marvelous, the grotesque features and
Walloon dress of the personages represented make it hard to
recognize the actors in the gospel story. Many of his Scripture
characters were doubtless painted from the models afforded him in
the Jews’ quarter of Amsterdam, where he resided. The magnificent
panoramic landscape belonging to Lord Overstone, and the famous
picture of “The Mill” against a sunset sky, are signal examples of his
poetic power, and his etchings show us this peculiarity of his genius,
even more than his oil paintings. Of these etchings, which range
over every class of subject, religious, historical, landscape and
portrait, there is a fine collection in the British Museum; and they
should be studied in order to understand the immense range of his
superb genius. The “Ecce Homo,” to say nothing of the splendor, the
light and shade, and richness of execution, has never been
surpassed for dramatic expression; and we forgive the commonness
of form and type in the expression of touching pathos in the figure
of the Savior; nor would it be possible to express with greater
intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly servile and
cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to please on
the part of Pilate. The celebrated plate “Christ Healing the Sick,”
exhibits in the highest perfection his mastery of chiaroscuro, and the
marvelous delicacies of gradation which he introduced into his more
finished work.
The number of Rembrandt’s pictures in Holland, although it
includes his three greatest, is remarkably small—indeed, they may
be counted on the fingers; and lately, by the sale of the Van Loon
collection, the Dutch have lost two more of his finest works in the
portraits of the “Burgomaster Six” and “His Wife.” But his works
abound in the other great galleries of Europe.

There is really in nature such a thing as high life. A life of health,

of sound morality, of disinterested intellectual activity, of freedom
from petty cares is higher than a life of disease and vice, and
stupidity and sordid anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a
nation to set before itself the highest attainable ideal of human life
as the existence of a complete gentleman.—Hamerton.
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN
LITERATURE.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

“Among the writers who have done much to refine and
elevate American literature, Thomas Bailey Aldrich should
have the brightest place of one who has wrought equally
well in prose and poetry. Among his early efforts ‘Baby
Bell’ will longest hold its place in poetry.”—Henry James,
Jr.
It is the vision of a gentle, tender spirit, and many eyes unused to
tears will grow moist over the delicate lines. We have not room for
the whole.

“Baby Bell.”
Have you not heard the poets tell,
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours?
The gates of heaven were left ajar;
With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
Wandering out of Paradise,
She saw this planet, like a star,
Hung in the glistening depths of even—
Its bridges, running to and fro,
O’er which the white-winged angels go,
Bearing the holy dead to heaven.
She touched a bridge of flowers—those feet,
So light they did not bend the bells
Of the celestial asphodels.
They fell like dew upon the flowers;
Then all the air grew strangely sweet!
And thus came dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours.

O, Baby, dainty Baby Bell,

How fair she grew from day to day!
What woman-nature filled her eyes;
What poetry within them lay!
Those deep and tender twilight eyes,
So full of meaning, pure and bright,
As if she yet stood in the light,
Of those oped gates of Paradise.
And so we loved her more and more;
Ah, never in our hearts before
Was love so lovely born;
We felt we had a link between
This real world and that unseen—
The land beyond the morn.
And for the love of those dear eyes
And for the love of those dear eyes,
For love of her whom God led forth
(The mother’s being ceased on earth
When Baby came from Paradise),
For love of Him who smote our lives,
And woke the chords of joy and pain,
We said, Dear Christ! our hearts bent down
Like violets after rain.

It came upon us by degrees,

We saw its shadow ere it fell—
The knowledge that our God had sent
His messenger for Baby Bell.
We shuddered with unlanguaged pain,
And all our hopes were changed to fears,
And all our thoughts ran into tears
Like sunshine into rain.
We cried aloud in our belief,
“O, smite us gently, gently, God!
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,
And perfect grow through grief.”
Ah, how we loved her, God can tell;
Her heart was folded deep in ours;
Our hearts are broken, Baby Bell!

At last he came, the messenger,

The messenger from unseen lands;
And what did dainty Baby Bell?
She only crossed her little hands,
She only looked more meek and fair;
We parted back her silken hair,
We wove the roses round her brow—
White buds, the summer’s drifted snow—
Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers
And thus went dainty Baby Bell
 Out of this world of ours.

Some of Aldrich’s descriptions of oriental scenery are richer in

color and more luxurious, but he is more at home and more
captivating with familiar themes drawn from every day life. We are
charmed with such simple pictures as

“Before the Rain.”

We knew it would rain, for all the morn

A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering its golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens,

Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the jewels out of the sea,
To sprinkle them over the land in showers.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed

The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind—and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

North from Jerusalem.

We left Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate. Not far from the city wall
there is a superb terebinth tree, now in the full glory of its shining
green leaves. It appears to be bathed in a perpetual dew; the
rounded masses of foliage sparkle and glitter in the light, and the
great spreading boughs flood the turf below with a deluge of
delicious shade. A number of persons were reclining on the grass
under it, and one of them, a very handsome Christian boy, spoke to
us in Italian and English. I scarcely remember a brighter and purer
day than that of our departure. The sky was a sheet of spotless
blue; every rift and scar of the distant hills was retouched with a
firmer pencil, and all the outlines, blurred away by the haze of the
previous few days, were restored with wonderful distinctness. The
temperature was hot, but not sultry, and the air we breathed was an
elixir of immortality.
Through a luxuriated olive grove we reached the Tombs of the
Kings, situated in a small valley to the north of the city. Part of the
valley, if not the whole of it, has been formed by quarrying away the
crags of marble and conglomerate limestone for building the city.
Near the edge of the low cliffs overhanging it, there are some
illustrations of the ancient mode of cutting stone, which, as well as
the custom of excavating tombs in the rocks, was evidently
borrowed from Egypt. The upper surface of the rocks was first made
smooth, after which the blocks were mapped out and cut apart by
grooves chiseled between them. I visited four or five tombs, each of
which had a sort of vestibule or open portico in front. The door was
low, and the chambers which I entered, small and black, without
sculptures of any kind. There were fragments of sarcophagi in some
of them. On the southern side of the valley is a large quarry,
evidently worked for marble, as the blocks have been cut out from
below, leaving a large overhanging mass, part of which has broken
off and fallen down. The opening of the quarry made a striking
picture, the soft pink hue of the weather-stained rock contrasting
exquisitely with the vivid green of the vines festooning the entrance.
From the long hill beyond the tombs, we took our last view of
Jerusalem, far beyond whose walls I saw the Church of the Nativity,
at Bethlehem. Notwithstanding its sanctity, I felt little regret at
leaving Jerusalem, and cheerfully took the rough road northward
over the stony hills. There were few habitations in sight, yet the
hillsides were cultivated, wherever it was possible for anything to
grow. After four hours’ ride we reached El Bireh, a little village on a
hill, with the ruins of a convent and a large Khan. The place takes its
name from a fountain of excellent water, beside which we found our
tents already pitched. The night was calm and cool, and the full
moon poured a flood of light over the bare and silent hills.
We rose long before sunrise and rode off in the brilliant morning
—the sky unstained by a speck of vapor. In the valley, beyond El
Bireh, the husbandmen were already at their plows, and the village
boys were on their way to the uncultured parts of the hills with their
flocks of sheep and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge,
with perpendicular walls of rock on either side. Our road mounted
the hill on the eastern side, and followed the brink of the precipice
through the pass, where an enchanting landscape opened upon us.
The village of Zebroud crowned a hill which rose opposite, and
the mountain slopes leaning toward it on all sides were covered with
orchards of fig trees, and either rustling with wheat or cleanly
plowed for maize. The soil was a dark brown loam, and very rich.
The stones have been laboriously built into terraces; and, even
where heavy rocky boulders almost hid the soil, young fig and olive
trees were planted in the crevices between them. I have never seen
more thorough and patient cultivation. In the crystal of the morning
air the very hills laughed with plenty, and the whole landscape
beamed with the signs of gladness on its countenance.
The site of ancient Bethel was not far to the right of our road.
Over hills laden with the olive, fig and vine, we passed to Aian el
Haramiyeh, or the fountain of the robbers. Here there are tombs cut
in the rock on both sides of the valley. Over another ridge, we
descend to a large, bowl-shaped valley, entirely covered with wheat,
and opening eastward toward the Jordan. Thence to Nablous (the
Shechem of the Old and Sychar of the New Testament) is four hours
through a winding dell of the richest harvest land. On the way, we
first caught sight of the snowy top of Mount Hermon, distant at least
eighty miles in a straight line. Before reaching Nablous, I stopped to
drink at a fountain of clear sweet water, beside a square pile of
masonry, upon which sat two Moslem dervishes. This, we were told,
was the tomb of Joseph, whose body, after having accompanied the
Israelites in all their wanderings, was at last deposited near
Shechem.
There is less reason to doubt this spot than most of the sacred
places of Palestine, for the reason that it rests not on Christian, but
on Jewish tradition. The wonderful tenacity with which the Jews
cling to every record or memento of their early history, and the fact
that from the time of Joseph a portion of them have always lingered
near the spot, render it highly probable that the locality of a spot so
sacred should have been preserved from generation to generation to
the present time.
Leaving the tomb of Joseph, the road turned to the west and
entered the narrow pass between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The
former is a steep, barren peak, clothed with terraces of cactus,
standing on the northern side of the pass. Mount Gerizim is
cultivated nearly to the top, and is truly a mountain of blessing,
compared with its neighbors. Through an orchard of grand old olive
trees, we reached Nablous, which presented a charming picture,
with its long mass of white, dome-topped stone houses, stretching
along the foot of Gerizim through a sea of bowery orchards. The
bottom of the valley resembles some old garden run to waste.

CELIA THAXTER.
Her home is by the sea, and she gives us some vivid glimpses of
ocean scenes. Occasionally a joyous phrase is delicately presented,
but the prevailing tone of her verse, on whatever subject, is in the
minor. Perhaps “Beethoven” shows most imagination and insight, as
well as felicity of expression.

Beethoven.
If God speaks anywhere, in any voice,
To us his creatures, surely here and now
We hear him, while the great chords seem to bow
Our heads, and all the symphony’s breathless noise
Breaks over us, with challenge to our souls!
Beethoven’s music! From the mountain peaks
The strong, divine, compelling thunder rolls;
And “Come up higher, come!” the words it speaks,
“Out of your darkened valleys of despair;
Behold, I lift you upon mighty wings
Into Hope’s living, reconciling air!
Breathe, and forget your life’s perpetual stings—
Dream, folded on the breast of Patience sweet,
Some pulse of pitying love for you may beat!”

Faith.

Fain would I hold my lamp of life aloft

Like yonder tower built high above the reef;
Steadfast, though tempests rave or winds blow soft,
Clear, though the sky dissolve in tears of grief.

For darkness passes; storms shall not abide,

A little patience and the fog is past.
After the sorrow of the ebbing tide
The singing flood returns in joy at last.

The night is long and pain weighs heavily;

But God will hold His world above despair.
Look to the east, where up the lucid sky
The morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair!

The Sandpiper.
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit—
One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds

Scud black and swift across the sky,
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach—
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,

Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery;
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night

When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God’s children both,
Thou, little sandpiper and I?
 UNITED STATES HISTORY.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.

Before the middle of the eighteenth century the current of events
in the American colonies became rapid and impetuous. Many
obstacles were met, but the swollen stream rushed on, leaping over,
or dashing aside the barriers that seemed to accelerate, rather than
hinder the progress.
But a crisis was at hand, and the danger grew apparent.
England and France, rival nations, and often in conflict, both had
extensive possessions in this country, and their rights were in
dispute. The English occupied the Atlantic coast from Maine to
Florida, and their colonies were well established. As yet all their
important settlements were east of the Allegheny Mountains, though
they claimed, as their right by discovery, all the land westward to the
Pacific.
Meanwhile, the French had made important inland settlements,
occupying principally the valley of the St. Lawrence and some of its
tributaries. They had built Quebec and Montreal, more than 500
miles from the gulf, with other towns of importance; had fortified
themselves at different points along the great chain of lakes, from
Ontario to Superior; had penetrated the wilderness of western New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, fixing their stations
and building forts on all the more important tributaries of the
Mississippi, with the evident and avowed intention of connecting
their St. Lawrence and Canadian possessions with the great western
valley; and, through the large rivers that drain it, find their way to
the sea. They would thus confine the English to the Atlantic States,
and found their empire in the West. Comparatively little intercourse
as there was between the East and West, these designs were well
understood, and the resolute purpose to thwart them was at once
avowed. The nations beyond the Atlantic were nominally at peace,
but not friendly, and neither disposed to yield to the claims of the
other. France, dominated by Roman Catholics, and England, the
leading Protestant nation of Europe, had nurtured hatred and
jealousies that might any day precipitate a conflict of arms, and the
theater of the strife would be in their colonial possessions.
But before war was declared the colonists themselves became
involved in actual hostilities. The English had adjusted their
difficulties, and, confederate by articles of agreement and a strong
national feeling, refused to be restrained by the mountain barriers.
Two settlements were begun west of the Alleghenies, one on the
Youghiogheny, and one in some part of western Virginia. Their
relations with the Indians were friendly, and trade with them was
profitable. The French, who had taken possession of the valley of
the Ohio, and were doing their utmost to secure the influence of the
Indians in all the region between the river and the lakes, protested
against the encroachment of the English, and warned the Governor
of Pennsylvania to restrain his subjects from entering territory
claimed by the King of France. Of course no attention was paid to
the warning other than appeared in preparations for the conflict that
now seemed inevitable. The “Ohio Company,” composed of
Virginians, continued to explore and survey the country. The natives
protested against the French occupying their country, and the tribes
prepared for an armed resistance. The Virginia charter included the
whole country north to Lake Erie, and Governor Dinwiddy thought
best, before hostilities were begun, to draw up a remonstrance,
setting forth in order, the nature and extent of the English claim to
the valley of the Ohio, and warning the French against any further
attempt to occupy it. It was necessary that this paper, whatever
danger and hardship it might require, should be carried to the
French General St. Pierre, who was stationed at Erie, as commander
of their forces in the West. The journey, that could be performed
only on foot, would be through a vast, unbroken wilderness, and
would require more than ordinary endurance, as well as undaunted
courage. George Washington, then a young surveyor, was sent for
from his home on the Potomac, and duly commissioned to carry the
document. He set out on the last day of October, with four
attendants and an interpreter. The route was through the mountains
to the head waters of the Youghiogheny, thence down the stream to
the site of Pittsburgh, which was noted as an important point, and
the key to the situation in the valley of the Ohio. Thence the course
was twenty miles down the river, and across to Venango (Franklin),
and thence, by way of Meadville, to Fort Le Bœuf, on the head
waters of French Creek, fourteen miles from Erie, where he met the
General, who had come over in person to superintend the
fortifications.
The officer received him with courtesy, but declined to discuss
any questions of national rights. “His superior, the Governor of
Canada, owned the country from the lakes to the Ohio; and being
instructed to drive every Englishman from the territory, he would do
it.” A respectful but decided reply was sent to Dinwiddy, and
Washington was dismissed, to find his way back to Virginia.
It was by this time midwinter, and the perils of the long journey
were increased by swollen rivers that had to be crossed on the
treacherous ice, or on rafts constructed of logs and poles cut for the
purpose. Of the incidents of that first great public service by the
“Father of his Country,” but few authentic records are found, and we
only know that it was performed with fidelity, and that the fuller
information gathered respecting the strength of the French forces,
and their preparations for descending the Allegheny with their large
fleet of boats and canoes, in the spring, thoroughly aroused the
Virginians to the importance of holding the point at the confluence of
the great rivers forming the Ohio. In March, and before it was
possible for the French to come down the Allegheny, a rude stockade
was built; but there was not force enough to hold it. As the fleet
came sweeping down the river, and resistance was found impossible,
the little band at the head of the Ohio surrendered, and was allowed
to withdraw from the stockade, which the enemy at once entered,
and where they laid the foundations of Fort Du Quesne.
Remonstrance and negotiations having failed, the alternative of war
was promptly accepted, and Washington having been made Colonel,
was commissioned to take the fort, “to kill or repel all who interfered
with the English settlements in the disputed territory.” His regiment
of Virginia soldiers, in the month of April, encountered difficulties
and hardships in their westward march that made progress slow.
The roads were well nigh impassable, the streams were
bridgeless, and drenching rains fell on the tentless soldiers. Before
reaching the Ohio, Washington learned that the enemy were on the
march to attack him, and immediately built a stockade that he called
Fort Necessity. He advanced cautiously, with some heavy
skirmishing, in which a number of the enemy were killed, and some
prisoners were taken. But the promised reinforcements not arriving,
he fell back to his little fort, and was scarcely within the rude
enclosure when he was surrounded. The enemy in force gained an
eminence, from which they could fire into the fort, while they were
partly concealed. For hours, the gallant little band, encouraged by
the calm, resolute bearing of their colonel, vigorously returned the
fire. Thirty of the company were killed, and others wounded, when
they were allowed to withdraw, taking all their stores and equipage.
The retreat was orderly, but the enterprise was abandoned.
The valley of the Ohio and the whole country to the lakes was left
in the power of the French, who were also strengthening their works
at Crown Point and Fort Niagara.
As yet there had been no declaration of war by England or
France, and the ministers of the two countries kept assuring each
other of peaceful intentions, though the hostility of their
dependencies in America could not be ignored. Louis XV., to help
keep the peace, sent an army of three thousand soldiers to Canada,
and the British government ordered General Braddock, with two
regiments, to America, to protect their frontier settlements. Early in
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