tell you all I can. The Queen's etchings were bought here in England, and I came by them honestly. That is all I will tell you." He then asked me to send him a copy of the catalogue, which I promised to do. In leaving me he added, "I shall lay the catalogue before her Majesty." I detained him to say that I was very glad he had mentioned this, because the introduction which I had written was not meant for the eyes of royalty, and that it would never do to have the Queen see such a thing. Sir Charles said that he would use his own discretion in the matter, and so we parted, I assuring him that after reading it he would never show it to her Majesty. Here is what I had printed:

The name of Queen Victoria is about as certain to remain a great name in history as that of any individual of the nineteenth century; but it is not through her work as an original etcher that she will be immortalized. And yet these etchings of hers come distinctly nearer to being works of art then do those of some more pretentious amateurs. They are not very far from being as good as the etchings of Thackeray - although that great man of letters was at one time in treaty with Charles Dickens to illustrate the works of the latter with etchings such as those of Vanity Fair.

These etchings by Queen Victoria and others by her husband are intimate souvenirs of her happy young wifehood and motherhood. The dates run from 1836 to 1846. The Queen took lessons from Sir Edwin Landseer, whose father, John Landseer, was a good etcher. These etchings were, of course, never published; she sometimes gave proofs of them to her near friends, and these are the only ones in existence so that at least this exhibition shows prints

of extreme rarity. While many of the plates are both designed and etched by the Queen, others are done by her from drawings by her husband. Prince Albert is represented by etchings after his wife's drawings as well as by some which were designed by himself.

On this occasion we cannot invite the public to view a collection of masterpieces; but if Martha Washington had etched some plates we would all have been curious to see them. We know that the latter lady had some taste, because a letter of hers expresses strong disapproval of the practice of some of the "Whiggs" who had the reprehensible habit of leaning their heads back against the immaculate walls of her parlors!

A circumstance may illustrate the kind feeling of Americans toward her Majesty Queen Victoria. It is our custom to speak of the Emperor of Germany, or the Queen of Holland, or the King of Italy - but when it comes to the mention of Victoria we simply call her "the Queen."

Shortly afterward I was astonished to receive the following letter from Sir Fleetwood Edwards, one of Queen Victoria's private secretaries:

"DEAR SIR: I am commanded by the Queen to thank you for a copy of the catalogue of the exhibition, made in New York, of her etchings. Her Majesty has perused this catalogue with much interest."

"OF

CHARLES JACQUE

F all the rustic artists Charles Jacque has the simplest and purest feeling, and we enjoy a rusticity which is genuine and sincere. So writes Hamerton of this master, whose paintings, as well as his etchings, are about as well known as those of any artist of the nineteenth century; and while no general collection, either of paintings or of etchings, by other men, is too good to exclude him from an honored place, yet his work is so sane and so simple that in no case is this liking for it "an acquired taste." While there is no lack of artistic invention or of technical mastery in his pictures, yet there is no queerness" and no mysterious and hidden quality in them, so that one enjoys them from the first and enjoys them always.

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Charles Jacque was born in Paris in 1813 and died there in 1893. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to an engraver of maps, but even at that early age he had aspirations toward higher things, for it was then that he made his first etching, and he made a good beginning, for his first plate was a copy of Rembrandt's "Head of a Woman," which the Dutch master had etched in 1637. Jacque very soon tired of the drudgery of map-engraving, and in 1830 he enlisted in the

French army.

He served for seven years, taking part in the siege of Antwerp, and retiring with the modest rank of corporal.

Most well-constituted boys begin by making pictures of soldiers. Whistler did it, and so did Jacque. Monsieur Jules Claretie, in his monograph on Jacque, tells us that he made a number of "not drawings but sketches" of this character, and they are still preserved in two little books of a convenient size to be carried about in a soldier's pocket. The sketches they contain were done between the eighteenth and the twentyfourth year of the artist's life. In his twentyfifth year Jacque went to England, remaining there for two years and working as an illustrator of books. His work at this period gave good promise of his future fame.

Returning to Paris, his first essay there was the publication of a series of military sketches. He sold the original drawings to a publisher named Henriot at the price of one franc each, but as Monsieur Henriot never paid him for them it was not an auspicious beginning; but it may have taught Jacque a lesson, for he died a very rich

man.

I may, perhaps, be allowed to repeat here a part of what I said of him in a lecture delivered before the Grolier Club shortly before his death:

"Jacque was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, pioneer in the great nineteenth century revival of etching, and he did more than any other one man to bring it about. A famous

LA BERGERIE BÉARNAISE

Size of the original print, 18 by 144 inches.

From the original etching by Charles Jacque. This fine plate won for M. Jacque the Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition of 1889. In his book Les Graveurs du XIXe Siecle, M. Henri Beraldi calls this etching a "superbe pièce" and so it is.