the communion of minds and hearts. But what is the average Hindu in his dealings with his neighbour? Even this: an ideal 'Christian,' save in one thing-where the interests of his loved ones are at stake. Then the saintliest Hindu becomes a sinner. He would see the whole world go to ruin if thereby he could bring happiness to his loved one-be it parent or child, wife or mistress. From his earliest childhood the Hindu is taught one practical virtue: to love his own people. Reverence for parents, love for brothers and sisters, constitute his chief moral training in his youth; from that, the love for wife and child follows in the course of nature. It becomes the keynote of his external conduct. If he falls, it is for the love of them. Even if his love be illicit, from it there spring the main motives of his conduct, good or evil.

The European that understands this will find no such 'mystery' in the ways of the Hindu as Mr. Kipling has sought to imply in his writings. There are exceptions to everything, but usually let him try to understand Hindu conduct, in the first instance, by the doctrines of reincarnation and karma. If he sees the Hindu showing kindness and tenderness to the lower animals, let him know that the Hindu does so out of compassion for fallen manhood that may perchance dwell reincarnated within them. If he sees cringing servility suddenly give place to pride and hauteur, let him know that in that instant the debased Hindu suddenly realises that in a future life his position and that of the one to whom he had cringed may be reversed-that then he may receive the homage and the other cringe. Let him know also that the so-called 'fatalism' of the Hindu is in reality but another manifestation of this belief in reincarnation. What is to be, is to be,' is not the true Hindu belief; rather, 'everything will be changed hereafter.' The hope of improvement in one's lot in a new life, not admission of helplessness in this; improvement by one's own virtues, not by Divine mandate alone. The history of India is in itself a proof of this practical belief.

And if these two tests of belief in reincarnation and karma fail, let the European that seeks to understand the ways of the Hindu apply the remaining test-his love; alike in deeds of virtue and of sin. In such a case let him try to realise that to the Hindu the ties of affection are stronger far than triple steel. Where that affection is at stake, king, country, the entire world, may go to perdition. The history of India for seven long centuries is a proof of this also. Cannot the European read it? It is fairly writ in letters of fire. Seven centuries ago King Prithiraj of Delhi, Emperor of all India, lost his kingdom, his life, the very destiny of his country for the love of Princess Sanjogini of Kanauj. And since that day the conduct of the humblest Hindu, in sin and in virtue, has been but a reiteration of that sad tragedy.

Both in regard to the love of the Hindu as a motive of conduct, and in his belief in reincarnation, one could not close this argument with a more striking proof than that supplied in the book mentioned above, The Romance of an Eastern Prince. In it we have the clearing up of a mystery' of Hindu life, the revelation of a motive of Hindu tragedy. The hero, an Indian Prince, is dominated by his love throughout his life. In his earliest youth he gives his entire love to his parents. Then, having lost them, and having no brother or sister, he concentrates all his affections upon an adopted sister, a mere child. She is the sister of another young Prince whose acquaintance he has made in the Raj-Kumar College at Ajmere. Him he learns to love as a brother; wherefore the sister of his brother' becomes his 'own sister.' Years pass. To him she still remains a sister, and a mere child. But, unrealised by him, the child has now grown to be a woman. Then to his horror the scales suddenly fall from his eyes. He realises that 'in making her his sister, he had not succeeded in making himself her brother-that in giving her all the love in his heart, a brother's love, he had gained in return all the love in her heart, which was not a sister's love.' Forthwith he resigns his princedom, and disappears. His motive is thoroughly Eastern. Having called her sister he can never call her wife; for in India the law of adoption is equal to the law of nature; once a sister, for ever a sister. Moreover, he knows that according to immemorial custom she will soon be compelled to marry, he likewise. He could not spare her the pain of the first; but he could of the second-of the knowledge of his union to some other woman. He disappears, hoping that she will believe him to be dead. He comes to London secretly and in disguise. Here, unhappily, he falls in love with an English lady; tries to win her, as man, not as prince; fails.

Meanwhile, a cruel tragedy has been enacted within him. Every nation has believed, some time or other in its history, in the coming of a Messiah. But even as to Israel, so also to India-the Messiah is to come as a national hero and a conqueror. According to ancient Hindu prophecy the tenth and last avatar of Krishna is now due; he is to come again to rebuild the walls of Ujjain and Hostinapur, and restore the lost splendour of Hind. And from his earliest youth the hero of The Romance of an Eastern Prince had sincerely believed himself to be that avatar of Krishna! Nay, all the conditions of prophecy were seemingly fulfilled in him. Thus he had yielded up his whole life to fit himself for that supreme destiny.

Then suddenly the whole edifice upon which he had built that destiny lies fallen at his feet. His eyes are opened. He discovers that he is not Krishna; that his whole life has been one stupendous failure-one long blasphemy. The shock leads him to suicide. But, refusing to yield up a last lingering hope, he first appeals to the

justice of the Deity to send him back to life in a new incarnation as Krishna.

And there remains one thing more for him to do, to make one last reparation to the Hindu princess whose life he has unwittingly wrecked. Before his death he sends her this message:

Soul to soul, flesh to flesh: thou canst not be my wedded bride till from death I do return; for in this life I have called thee my own sister. Wait, watch my returning. Seek for me anew amid marble and alabaster.

From the Christian standpoint his last act is indefensible. From the Brahminical, inevitable; perhaps also heroic.

NARAYAN HARISCHANDRA.

THE REAL CIMABUE

IN the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore at Naples hangs one of the most beautiful altar-pieces of the Trecento, Simone Martini's Coronation of King Robert by St. Louis of Toulouse. This picture is not only a consummate work of art; it is a great historical illustration, and is connected with two names which occupy an important place not merely in the history of the kingdom of Naples, but also in world-history. Moreover, upon the predella of this picture is to be found an original inscription, probably from the hand of the artist himself, which tells both the name and the nationality of the master who painted it. Every line of this altar-piece confirms the inscription. No one now doubts that the Coronation of King Robert is a work of the great Sienese master. Modern critics agree that it is one of the most sincere, the most characteristic of all existing examples of his achievement.

It seems inconceivable that any successful attempt could ever have been made to rob the author of such a work of the credit due to him. But the parochial patriotism of the Italian archeologist and art historian is never daunted by mere facts. The feat was accomplished, and most successfully accomplished. Erudite Neapolitans, eager to enhance the artistic reputation of their fellow-countrymen, managed to persuade themselves and the world that this typical Sienese painting was the work of a half-mythical local master, Simone Napoletano. In a similar fashion, in the sixteenth and following centuries, this shadowy artist was furnished with a whole catalogue of heterogeneous paintings. Nor was he provided with stolen works alone. Patriotic archæologists came to the aid of the local art critics. Simone Napoletano was supplied with a biography. Ultimately, not content with stealing Sienese pictures for their hero, the art historians of Naples appropriated a piece of Sienese history. In a guide book1 written by local antiquarians for the members of a scientific congress held in Naples-a work which was publicly described in its own day as a most learned and accurate book'-an

1 Napoli e sue vicinanze: Guida offerta agli Scienziati nel congresso del 1845, vol. i. p. 296. Quoted by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A New History of Italian Painting, vol. i. p. 321 (London, 1864).

account was given of the triumphal procession of the clergy and. people of Naples that accompanied one of Simone Napoletano's masterpieces when it was borne from the artist's house to San Domenico. This story was evidently modelled upon the well-authenticated historical narrative of the joyful procession that followed Duccio's great Majestas when the great ancona of the Sienese master was carried in state from his house near the Porta a Stalloreggi to the Cathedral.2

The only thing to be said about the Neapolitan version of the Sienese story is that the picture to which it is attached is not by Simone Napoletano, and does not even belong to his age or school. It is by an Umbrian master, and was painted a century after the period in which Simone Napoletano flourished. In no early manuscript, in no printed chronicle of the fourteenth or fifteenth century can be found any reference to such an event in Naples.

Distinguished German and English critics who had not sounded the depths of Italian local prejudice accepted without question some of the most astounding inventions of patriotic Neapolitans like Dominici. Kugler himself acquiesced in the attribution of the Coronation of King Robert to the Neapolitan master. At the hotels in Naples foreign dilettanti were accustomed to prattle about the masterpieces of Simon of Naples.

In a similar way the works in Naples of the Sienese sculptor Tino di Camaino were given to Neapolitan artists. And vain, overrated Naples, self-styled nobilissima, might have continued to persuade the world that some out of the very few masterpieces of the Trecento she possesses were the work of her own sons had not a humble archivist, in that unfortunate way archivists have, produced documents which silenced for ever the claims of local connoisseurs.

The artistic reputation of Siena was peculiarly liable to detraction by subtraction. In the fourteenth century the influence of her art was felt in every great Italian town, and in some cities across the Alps. Her architects found honourable employment at Rome and Naples, at Orvieto and Perugia. Her school of sculpture was the most prolific in Italy. Even in Florence itself all the most important sculptured monuments executed in the first thirty years of the fourteenth century were chiselled by Sienese artists. Her painters went everywhere. They were employed in Rome and Florence, Orvieto and Arezzo, Perugia and Assisi, Pisa and Pistoia, Città di Castello and Castiglione Fiorentino, Naples and Avignon.

2 An anonymous chronicler who would seem to have taken part in the festival has left us an account of it. His testimony is confirmed by the account-book of the Camarlingo of the Commune for the year 1311. At page 261 of this book we read 'Ancho viii sol. a Marsefetto Buoninsegne, a Pericciuolo Salvucci, a Certiere Guidi, a Marcho Cierreti, trombatori et ciaramella et nacchare del chomune di Siena, per una richontrata che feciero de la Tavola de la Vergine Maria, a ragione di due soldi per uno, sechondo la forma de' patti ch'ene tra 'l chomune di Siena e loro.'