and shows its fair proportions boldly from whatever may be the road of approach, while its domes, towers, turrets and loggias are reflected in formal lotus pools and tanks to double the pleasure of the beholder. It is this world-famous yet never hackneyed work of art that forms our frontispiece; it is not a colored photograph or color photogravure from nature, but the reproduction in colors of a painting by Colin Campbell Cooper.

It has been said that an Italian architect planned this mausoleum but the claim is not sustained by a close examination of the facts concerning the rise of the Taj. Credit has also been given to a French architect, one Austin of Bordeaux, who was known in India as the Marvel of the Age; but that seems to be another traveler's tale. In style it is directly sprung from the Persian and Syrian architecture of the Moslems, not only as to mass and outlines and the distribution of its parts but in its details and mosaics that simulate flowers and leaves but never an animal-and of course not a human being while the inner and outer walls are profusely diapered with color-inlays of marble repeating verses from the Koran-the whole of the Koran it is said.

The Taj was begun in 1631 and finished in 1653. Twenty thousand workmen are said to have labored on it pretty constantly during all these years. What has fascinated the minds of successive generations is not merely the beauty of the Taj but the unexpected romance of its origin-a bloodthirsty Mogul

so attached to his wife that he promises on her death-bed to erect the most beautiful mausoleum in the world and then, mirabile dictu! actually does it! One always harks back to Artemisia and her tomb to honor Mausolos. Which tomb was the more beautiful? We do not know. But the first mausoleum could not possibly have been so airy and soaring, so uplifted, so fairylike and as if built of crystallized cloud-forms, especially when seen through the warm shadows of the Indian night. Mr. Cooper has given his own conception of the Taj-for it need hardly be said that each artist has his own way of seeing and reporting a mountain or a mausoleum-and thus adds a new note to the many by which he is known at home. Cooper is a member of the National Academy of Design, an old pupil in the Julien School at Paris, recipient of medals here and there about the world, and otherwise distinguished; he will be recalled most readily perhaps by his townscapes, which are bold and brilliant enough for most modern requirements without a forcing of the color note to the limit of discord. Like Joseph Pennell he is a Philadelphian and like him a great magician when it comes to dealing with architecture in pictures. In New York the Lotos Club owns his view of the Rialto, in Boston the Art Club has his "Basilika, Quebec" and the Art Club of his native city has his "Procession at Bruges." This excursus to the banks of the Jumna is among the most successful of his works.

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HE late Mr. Dolph used to take a practical view of the picture market so far as his particular line of painting was concerned: "well," he'd say, rubbing his hands, "dogs are booming this season! Last year cats were up; but toward the close they slumped. Now it's dogs -stick to dogs and you're all right!”

Dolph was a humorist, but certainly there does exist a tide in the demand for special kinds of pictures that often leaves high and dry a practitioner who runs too closely to the rut. There are two other domestic animals, however, which seem to enjoy an unfailing support from those who buy pictures-cattle and sheep. None can deny the picture quality inherent in cows and herds of sheep, the way they fit into the landscape, not merely by reason of their coloring but their shapes. Yet one often wonders whether the buyers of cattle and sheep in pictures are not moved by other impulses quite beyond their consciousness-hereditary, traditional impulses, obscure but compelling, which belong to the eons of pastoral life when the existence of the tribe hung upon its herd and the cow and the ewe were raised to the position of superhuman deities by the gratitude of roving clans. Each of these patient servitors and victims of carnivorous man had its effigies and temples on the Nile and both have found a star-spelled immortality among the constellations.

There can be no question that man has been profoundly influenced by domestic animals, notwithstanding his superior brain; while forcing them to be his companions, his meat and drink, his clothing, even his house and his canoe, they have had an influence on him. The great restfulness of the lowing herd, its trustful pathos and its obstinacy are reflected on mankind. One might go farther and say that the cattle-painter is also apt to gain from the humble herd, likely to be an equable, restful and even cheery soul; perhaps one might call to witness such painters as Paulus Potter and Troyon, just to select two conspicuous masters of the painting craft from the past three centuries, each of whom has made a name through persistence in one line of work. Potter, who died young and before Rembrandt, had plenty of humor also, as one sees from his pictures of the wild animals judging and solemnly executing a hunter and his dogs. Troyon, who began as a decorator of china, rid himself early of the hard tight method that goes with that kind of work and became the greatest of French cattle-painters. The mantle of geniality that wrapped these two masters has descended to some Americans, among whom a conspicuous place is held by the veteran William Henry Howe, two of whose cattle-pieces are reproduced in this month's issue.

Mr. Howe, it will be noticed, has a good sense of composition, the group of yearlings having been distributed with skill, and while each one remains individual yet the herd forms a single mass; there is variety of action and even a touch of personality in its several component parts. He has caught the rapid gait and semi-wild movement of young bulls and cows at the age when they have lost that confidence in men the calf shows and have not yet attained to the sedateness and fearless gait of the adult.

Mr. Howe is indeed an Ohio man who has traveled far and won prizes for his pictures in many lands. "My Day at Home" is in the National Gallery, Washington and there are few public galleries without one of his pictures. The National

Academy of Design made him Associate in 1894 and Academician in 1897, after he had taken medals at New Orleans, Philadelphia, Boston, and London; also at Chicago and Atlanta. A medal of thirdclass was decreed him in the Salon of 1888, and the silver medal at the exposition, Paris in 1889. France made him Officier d'Académie in 1896 and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1899. So, abroad as well as at home, this genial and able painter has received medals of gold, silver and bronze and all the honors, pretty much, that can be showered on an artist. One of his chief haunts is Old Lyme, Connecticut where he finds about him the majestic trees and beautiful pasture lands that appear so often in his paintings.

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HE passing away of William Macbeth in New York means a definite loss to American painters and sculptors of figurines, for it means that the man is gone who did more than any other to bring the work of large groups of artists before the public. William Macbeth has been an introducer of our artists to buyers for many decades-and that is as much as to say, he passed the better part of his life playing a very difficult rôle considering the touchiness of many artists and the unreasonable character of many buyers. He had to persuade the buyer, out for a bargain, that it is absolutely necessary to give money enough to cover the cost of frame, canvas and paints, leaving the time of the painter entirely out; and it was necessary for him to convince the latter, that, whatever may be the prices paid for Homers, Martins, Innesses and others, he, the painter, is not in their class and can not hope to be-unless he should be willing to die or retire to a sanatorium! It was between these two camps of producers and consumers that William Macbeth plied as Mercury with never-failing candor, cleverness and good-will.

New York was his field of endeavor.

At first with Frederick Keppel in the shop near Union Square where Keppel sold etchings and engravings and kept live ravens as a hobby on the

side, and later in his own galleries near the Public Library, Macbeth had occasion to meet all kinds of people beside the local painters and figurine makers, and to all he offered the same alert, cheerful, canny Scottish visage he brought with him as a boy from his home in the north of Ireland, for he belonged to the stock that did so much to people the colonies before the Revolution and settle that conflict when it came.

Mr. Macbeth did a useful work in making the younger painters known by the exhibitions held in his galleries and the comments printed in the little Art Notes he published from time to time. He was very open to argument and took the risk of accepting, showing and praising pictures whose standing is far from assured. standing is far from assured. The new thing is not of necessity the good thing and the work of art that makes a sensation is not always the one heard from later; but a dealer in art-works ought to be liberal and ready to give newcomers their chance, no matter if his steady customers do not follow his lead, nay, even decry his efforts to convince them that such geese are swans.

The artists have lost an appreciator and furtherer and New York an excellent citizen; many acquaintances and friends will carry about with them regret for William Macbeth, a man of winning personality and sterling character.

ful motors. Mr. R. U. Johnson, secretary of the movement, announces that the fund of the poets has reached the point where twenty motor-ambulances are going forward to Italy under the sign of Apollo. Any one who wishes to provide an ambulance ($2000) or any part of ambulance for the Italian armies should communicate with Mr. Johnson at No. 70 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.