to keep the couple going. It was in somewhat later days than these, and when he was himself more truly, that his straits were the greatest. The development of his genius came then apace, and on the part of the Public there was no response. Yet at this time, more distinctly than in the beginning, artistic folk believed in him.

Frequent then was his practice of Pastel; and it was when he was settled in humble fashion at Honfleur, or on the hillside above it, in 1859-when the character of the Pastel work, done for his own sake entirely, was in advance of that of the Painting, done in part for the rare buyer-that Baudelaire was smitten with the charm of these impromptus, with their suggestiveness, so free and so potent that for the seeing eye it is a realisation, absolutely. And why may I not quote here, instead of later, those phrases of Baudelaire's which have almost the colour, almost the vivacity, almost the depth, of the intense and personal visions-those pastels they describe? He is speaking of skies. Ténèbres chaotiques, immensités vertes et roses. . . ces fournaises béantes, ces firmaments de satin noir ou violet . . . ces horizons en deuil, ou ruisselant de métal fondu; toutes ces profondeurs, toutes ces splendeurs, me montèrent au cerveau.'

Two painters with whom, in years still relatively early, Boudin became associated, must be named here. To mention themJongkind and Claude Monet-is to show in part Boudin's derivation, and to show in part his influence. Jongkind—a Dutchman, chiefly of French practice-was Isabey's pupil; but his originality was such that he departed wholly and at once from Isabey's often theatrical manner. The marines of Isabey-save at his very best -have something that is artificial, too obviously. The marines of Jongkind are scenes observed with closeness, and suggested with power. Whether in Painting or in Etching, Jongkind's touch has knowledge, economy, and strength. Boudin, up to a certain point, was influenced by him; though he had qualities—the quality of colourist was one of them-Jongkind never possessed. He became a little hopeful as to his own Future-as to the eventual acceptance of his work-when, as he says, he saw the Public disposed at last to swallow 'that fruit of Jongkind's, of which the rind was certainly hard.' Jongkind, by learned vividness, by learned omission-an art of omission sometimes even overdone-set the way to Impressionism. And Boudin, looked at in one light at least, appears a link between the orthodox of the earlier half of the Nineteenth Century and the Impressionist of the latter half-he was the master of Claude Monet-and it is the Impressionists and those who understand Impressionists-it is, at all events, the Moderns-who comprehend best, and value most, the work of Boudin. For Monet, Boudin was a fascination from the first; and M. Hugues le Roux prettily chronicles the meeting of the man and the boy. 'Aimes-tu la peinture? Regarde,' says Boudin. And the chronicler explains: 'They were in a light key-for the

period, revolutionary-all those landscapes of the port and of the Lower Seine. C'est très beau.' And they were friends immediately. And master and pupil marched off together—' s'asseoir dans le grand vent des plateaux.'

A few years later, Claude Monet-already in Paris or its neighbourhood-laboriously urged Boudin to establish himself in the capital. But means were lacking, and perhaps the desire. Afterwards Boudin wrote, not altogether regretfully-not with much self-reproach; for he knew that in Art, at least, his ways had been justified-' Je suis un isolé, un rêvasseur, qui s'est trop complu à rester dans son coin et à regarder le ciel.' But he had his Exhibitions; humble at first; then more visibly important-Durand Ruel, a picture lover d'avant garde, if there is one, and some of the younger of the dealers, too, were believing in him. Alexandre Dumas-the second of the name, of coursebought two of his things, and wrote to him, at a later time, imploring him for a third. What he asked for was 'a great sky, a line of sea, and on that sea one boat.' Yet when Boudin found purchasers his terms were low; the period of the War and of the Commune (1870–71) saw him in dire straits; and he who had been at Trouville, painting in poverty, Summer after Summer, not only the landscape but the people of the Plage (they are amongst the most vivacious of his sketches), passed over to Belgium, and so to Dordrecht, and set down with a power not less than Jacob Maris's the towns and towers and long canals of the Low Countries.

Returning to France, in the very fullest possession of his meansliving still from hand to mouth, and sustained only by the strength of his delight in Nature and in the ever-opening vistas of his artBoudin was in the North mainly, where was that paysage de mer' (Courbet's phrase) of which the ships he knew so well, and drew so skilfully, were but the incidents and, so to say, the figures. But once, at least, in the middle of the Seventies-in the middle of his greatest years, that is, for his greatest years were not those of his largest canvases-Boudin was at Bordeaux. And the Port de Bordeaux,' which represents him at the Luxembourg-and which is large by exception-is in every way one of the most considerable of the pictures devoted to the aspects of ports. It is a comprehensive and elaborate record of the town and its pursuits: it is a vision and a history. But it has not, and it cannot have, the charm of impressions less complex, more vivid, and more personal-those smaller pieces in which it is now the outer port of Le Havre, or now the harbour front of Dieppe, or now the quay of Fécamp, that is brought actually before us, with its characteristic shipping, and its tidal waters, and its background of Channel skies. These smaller pictures, when they went to the Salons, were almost lost there; yet in '87 Etaples; marée basse,' of modest proportions, perfectly composed, and with such spirited figures (but his groups, whether of

figures or of cattle, were good always), is recognised as a morceau de choix, morceau accompli, symphonie des gris des plus délicats.' The succeeding year the painter had an Exhibition on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, followed by a sale at the Hôtel des Ventes. Sixty Pictures, thirty Pastels, ten Water-colours. The result, scarcely 400l. One year later the painter lost his wife. He was childless, I believe. But companions he had, of either sex. In the Winter, Paris was now his home. And as to his affairs-by an irony of circumstance, the tide turned. But time began to tell on him. In his latest years, he went to Venice, and health compelled him, and money then allowed him, to winter in the South. He painted Venice ably—but it was not his field. He had true visions of the French Riviera-of the 'Côte d'Azur '-but he did not exhaust its charm, and did not, perhaps, seize the most characteristic of its features.

Already an incidental reference has implied or mentioned the mediums in which Boudin worked; but Boudin used these mediums with such unfailing appropriateness, and he transferred himself from one to another with such freedom, that these mediums and the themes he treated in them must be discussed a little less superficially. As regards scale, he had the sense to confine Pastel and Water-colourand, one need hardly add, Pencil-work, to the size that exhibits best, and justifies most, the means he was at the moment employing. In these mediums he did nothing large in size: the largeness was in his style, rather. In Oil, the best work of his middle period the work by which for the most part he lives-is, with but very few exceptions, of more or less modest scale. The masterpieces that show best the finely conceived breadth of his noblest time-that are veritable lyrics of weather-measure sometimes twelve inches by nine; sometimes twenty inches by fifteen, or thereabouts. When he goes much beyond this, he is apt to be a little empty, or, less frequently, a little laboured-anyhow a little less personal. His treatment of his themes, with the art at his command, with all his learning and dexterity, has no need for wandering into vastness. The precision of his earlier work-I am not speaking of his earliest has its own charm: it is a precision not devoid of breadth. But I prefer to that, and I prefer to the looser largeness of his latest time, the strangely expressive breadth of his middle period from 1865 to 1886 marks that period's limits when, with delicate, decisive hand, he was pouring out accumulated stores. Then it was that his realism was most fearless: then it was that it was most essentially poetic.

Water-colour, Boudin used generally for more or less brief notes: sometimes extraordinarily pregnant; but rarely exhausting-never pretending to exhaust-the possibilities of his theme. His Trouville crowds, or Trouville groups, of the later Sixties-before the reign of crinoline was quite passed-have, as far as our eyes are concerned (and our prejudices into the bargain), some obvious difficulties to

contend with. They surmount them-they win us to their side. Admirably these notes record the aspect of the beach on a September morning the cool, clear light, an hour before breakfast-time: the attitudes, the very gossip, of Parisians en villégiature. But when Boudin wills that the people shall become of secondary importancewhen the pageant of sunset is his motive instead, or, seen from the Jetty perhaps, the ominous marshalling of cloud behind cloud-he turns to Pastel, and by that medium, sumptuous and summary, the effect is rendered-the end before him attained. Again, no one has understood better than Boudin-not even Prout of old, or Fulleylove in our own day-no one has understood better than Boudin the extraordinary expressiveness of the Lead Pencil. He has employed it chiefly for notes-sometimes for complete little drawings-of Shipping. A fishing boat, it may be, in the quiet corner and refuge of the port; or with its sails catching the sunlight, as in brisk and pleasant weather it makes for the sea. Or, perhaps, in a larger harbour, and alongside of some spacious quay, two or three trois-mâts—their rigging against clear sky-are moored in stately line. The earlier pencil drawings, with a dessin menu et précis, are pencil alone. In the later ones-in which the record of effects is compassed quite as much as the record of form-it has occurred to Boudin that four learned dabs of Indian ink will help the chiaro 'scuro-will give emphasis and strength to what, for all its economy of means and all its speed, is really a little picture.

'Where, apart from the galleries of such Parisian dealers as Durand Ruel, Georges Bernheim, Gérard, and others, and such private houses as that of M. Gustave Cahen, and that of M. Van de Velde, may Boudins be seen in any number?' The question is a fair one. The Luxembourg has put away, for the moment, all but the 'Port of Bordeaux.' Well-apart from these places-the most interesting spots in which to see them are Le Havre and Honfleur. Le Havre especially; for there, within sight of the Museum windows, lies so much that Boudin painted-within sight of the Museum windows, ride the boats, and roll the waters, and forms and re-forms itself the changeful sky which were the very theme and inspiration of Boudin's art. The large picture, the 'Pardon de Sainte Anne la Palud'—I have mentioned it already-is sufficiently pale and inexpressive in colour: sufficiently tame in touch. But that is a piece of 1858-only it is worth noting that, early though it is, Boudin had given before it much promise, not in it fulfilled. He had given it in considerably earlier pieces: quiet little bits as they are; one, a Fort apparently, and the terrain vague that lies near it; another of the same fort, it would seem, seen differently—with a glimpse of water beyond. And they are dated 1852'-the year after the town of Hâvre pensioned Boudin. A picture of the Giudecca, with the Ducal Palace, comes near the end of his career, and represents that work

at Venice, which for the artist was neither a great failure nor a brilliant success. It is nearly three feet long; and by it, and of much the same dimensions, are two highly interesting visions of the Channel; one, indeed, very slight and sketchy—a record of tossed seas and breezy sky-the other the jetée du Havre, swept over by tempestuous waters; the lighthouse at the jetty's end standing out, white and steadfast, against a sky that is one vast sheet of greyish lead. And not to speak of innumerable Sky studies, now turquoise and now leaden, now orange, rose, or saffron, and studies of Hâvre fishing-boats and rich-hued cattle in fat meadows by the Toucques, there is particularly to be noticed, in that Museum of Le Havre, a splendid vision of an illuminated shore and hillside beyond a dark foreground and a shadowed river; and again, a study of a row of seated people with bathing huts to right and a sky of grey, with rose in it: an ébauche if you will, but full of tone, and from the very first a picture. These Studies and their like -two hundred in number-form the generous, lavish gift of M. Louis Boudin to the town that helped his brother's first steps.

In the Museum at Honfleur-looking out almost on Boudin's Bust, by the shore-are a few vivid oil sketches, good and interesting enough in themselves; but they at all events do not quite equal the best of the many at Le Havre. They were obtained for Honfleur through the instrumentality of M. Louveau, I believe. And it is sketchesbut sketches in all mediums: Oil and Pastel and Pencil and Watercolour (though chiefly of a period before 1870)—that are possessed, in a quaint, delightful house, of the Rue Eugène Boudin, by M. Louveau himself-Boudin's friend: the friend who closed Boudin's eyes; who keeps religiously, in a chamber shown to few, Boudin's palettes, his easel, and, on the easel, the last sketch he made. He left that sketch unfinished. It is a sea sunset: orange, shot with red. And in its glory, as in Boudin's own glory when he did it, there is no hint of melancholy, but that which belongs to the end of a day-and to the end of the day of a man.

FREDERICK WEDMORE.