Nothing is more interesting in the history of an artistic talent than
the moment at which its "elective affinity" declares itself, and the
interest is great in proportion as the declaration is unmistakable.
I mean by the elective affinity of a talent its climate and period of
preference, the spot on the globe or in the annals of mankind to which
it most fondly attaches itself, to which it reverts incorrigibly, round
which it revolves with a curiosity that is insatiable, from which in
short it draws its strongest inspiration. A man may personally inhabit
a certain place at a certain time, but in imagination he may be a
perpetual absentee, and to a degree worse than the worst Irish landlord,
separating himself from his legal inheritance not only by mountains
and seas, but by centuries as well. When he is a man of genius these
perverse predilections become fruitful and constitute a new and
independent life, and they are indeed to a certain extent the sign and
concomitant of genius. I do not mean by this that high ability would
always rather have been born in another country and another age, but
certainly it likes to choose, it seldom fails to react against imposed
conditions. If it accepts them it does so because it likes them for
themselves; and if they fail to commend themselves it rarely scruples
to fly away in search of others. We have witnessed this flight in many
a case; I admit that if we have sometimes applauded it we have felt at
other moments that the discontented, undomiciled spirit had better have
stayed at home.

Mr. Abbey has gone afield, and there could be no better instance of a
successful fugitive and a genuine affinity, no more interesting example
of selection--selection of field and subject--operating by that insight
which has the precocity and certainty of an instinct. The domicile of
Mr. Abbey's genius is the England of the eighteenth century; I should
add that the palace of art which he has erected there commands--from the
rear, as it were--various charming glimpses of the preceding age.
The finest work he has yet done is in his admirable illustrations, in
Harper's Magazine, to "She Stoops to Conquer," but the promise that he
would one day do it was given some years ago in his delightful volume
of designs to accompany Herrick's poems; to which we may add, as
supplementary evidence, his drawings for Mr. William Black's novel of
_Judith Shakespeare_.

Mr. Abbey was born in Philadelphia in 1852, and ma