The record-union., 1898-06-12

Lippincott's: Nearly all the great au-
thors suffered severely at the hands
OF the critics. Pope was seen TO Wrlthe
In his chair at the shafts OF Colley
Cibber. Byron was made reckless ana
half mad Dryden and Hume lived IN
constant state of anger and mortin-
cation; the latter at one time declared
he intended changing his name and
leaving his country forever. Tasso,
Collins, and others were even driven
into lunacy.
Hazlitt because of unfavorable crit
icism imagined himself ostracized; he
thought himself sighted even by
strangers whom he met in the street
and who never dreamed of such a
thing. Tom Moore guarded himself
against criticism as against the plague.
He would never forgive even a friend
If he mentioned to him a criticism. He
read but few periodicals, and burned
letters coming from a suspicious
source.
Walter Savage Landor, after being
numerically criticised, wrote thus to a
friend: This cures me forever, if
live, Of writing what could be pub
lished; and 1 will take good care that
my son shall not suffer in the same
way. Not a line Of any kind will
leave behind me-"
He did not mean it, certainly; but 1t
would seem this resolution might well
be taken and kept by the whole craft
of writers, if they would live with any
>peace and comfort in the world.
ART IN GRIDIRONS.
New York Times: Will the decorative
artist ever compose an esthetic clothes-
pin? Will Biddy of the tubs ever elect
between two ornate vanities of wash
boards? Are we to have kitchen
dressers like Breton bahuts, chaste
forms for rolling pins, or Benvenuto
Cellini -four dredgers? And frying
pans, spits, pots, and the whole cul-
mary outfit, are we or are we not to
exercise good taste in their selection?
Could you make a better soup in
vessel elaborately ornamented? May
we be critical as to a waffle, and de-
clare it impossible to eat one unless
baked in an iron of an elegant pat
tern?
The question of the utensils in COM
mon use, their development, is a sub
ject not to be treated in a hasty man
ner. AS a ceramic archaeologist said,
there We're thousands of years dividing
the period when man made the first
earthen pot and set it to simmer di-
rect on the fire, and a second, a more
advanced epoch, when the pot had
three legs to it. Study the skewer.
Primitive man took splints Of wood
and ran them through his hippo or
rhnoceros steaks, and so grilled them.
Later on came the bronze age, and the
iron one, and the metal skewers. Alas!
while on the subject of skewers, this is
an age of deterioration. The splendid
age of the skewer was one Of the
medieval period, when the magnif1-
cent peacock was placed on the royal
board The insignificance of the skewer
of to-day, a mere butchers thing,
shows our decadence, our ignorance Of
artistic possibilities.
All this narrowing Of our finer tastes
has been brought about by reading OF
certain efforts originating, we think.
in our own dear country by a society
bent on the improving of the forms
Of ordinary household and kitchen
things So attention is to be called to
an article in the international Studio,
which has for title Art in Gridirons.'
The practical grid" as our Anglo
Saxon ironmonger sold it, need not be
described 1t was the plain parallelo-
gram with its half dozen bars. Imagine
with what contempt any self-respectlns
cook in a grillroom of to-day would
look at an ornamented grid. But the
French, the Dutch, the Italians in the
long past made very pretty and artistic
"grids," and in European and English
museums such gridirons have been pi-
ously collected The smith some CEN
turies ago lavished all his skill on the
gridiron The bars followed the tastes
of the day, and were highly ornament
rTSl. oil 1Iaf dc hof
revolved on a pivot, and so if some
Goals on the fire We're too hot, and
there was the chance of the chops
scorching, the grid could be turned
This idea of a circular grid
esthetics Of the subject being over
looked-might be found of practical
usefulness In the studio there are
no less than fifteen illustrations of the
various gridirons of former periods. Die
Quentin Matsys ever make grid fol
his lady love? He began as an iron
worker. and bear in mind that when
the old artists manufactured these or
dinary kitchen things they turned out
too, their splendid cathedral iron
gates.
A PORTRAIT OF vOLTAIRE.
Mile. de Livri, a danseuse. belonging
to the "gigotteuse'' of that period when
NJ de Voltaire was powerful, appar-
emily fascinated the cynic. NJ. Lar
gilliere was commissioned by Voltaire
to paint his portrait, and voltaire laid
his likeness in homage before the pret-
ty feet of the then famous dancer oi
the French comedy.
Voltaire was, however, of uncertain
temper and changeable, and so when
Mile. de Livri was married, he most
ungallantly insisted on the return OF
the portrait, and did get it back Next
the likeness passed into the hands ol
Nine. de Villette, and when the lady
died. M. lie Marquis de Villette was its
possessor Then the portrait became
the property of NJ. de Varicourt, de-
scendant of the de Villettes, and that
event happened some thirty-three years
ago. BY some strange mutation of for
tune, this Voltaire portrait, in 1887
was owned by the French Embassadol
at the court of Bavaria, who, at hi.
death, willed it to Charles Floquet. AT
ter drifting around for much more thar
a century, the picture finally has come
to a rest, as it now forms part OF the
Carnavalet Museum in Paris
Voltaire, in his prime, never coull
have been good looking. He was ther
cadaverous, and in his old age "he was
a mere skeleton" The sharpness OF
his features was accentuated by his
long nose and those piercing eyes which