topography, a kind of pictorial mapwork; in which rainbows, showers, mists, halos, large beams shooting through rifted clouds, storms, starlight, all the most valued materials of the real painter, are not.-" Fulham Church from the West!" A Mill!' with a supplementary, careful, and needful notice, that it is FROM NATURE." A study from Nature,' (a pigstye!) mercy on us! Who taught thee, colour-abuser! to blaspheme the mighty goddess, by attributing to her the sordid contriyances of man? "Oh, I would have such fellows whipped! Pray you avoid it!'. Hamlet. Amen! But go on "-Game ;-dead and alive,Animals of all sorts, Birds of all feather, Beasts of all bristle, Noah's Ark disembogued-Pidcock at large! -The dry bones of the preserves in the Leverian collection alive againAdam and Eve's Courtiers-Buffon, Audebert, and Le Vaillant, framed and glazed without the descriptions -Seriously this class is too full.-We. can eat partridge often, Mais toujours perdrix! "The proverb is somewhat musty."-There is a glut of puppies and rats, sheep, and dung-hills" Nay, look at Edwin Landseer's Seizure of a Boar (220), it is full of life and action! What a nerve-tearing screech he sets up, as the dog's white teeth break through the gristle of his earI think (though I confess that I am no judge) that it equals Snyders." -You are mistaken. It does not, and cannot, even in execution; the colouring is weak-tone and harmony wanting, and in choice of subject holds the same distance from Snyders, as Brauwer does from Rubens--Then, where lies the pleasure of seeing an innocent animal tortured?-The wild Boar of the Fleming is an awful brute, ferocious, blood-delighting.One makes up one's mind that he is an aggressor and the nervy-knee'd dogs are ministers of justice.-He is a savage yager, Sylvanus, a wild woodman unsympathetic with man-an affector of gnarled forests; but this miserable swine is cockney, tame, suburban-the property of Poor Widow Hill, who keeps the little green shop at the corner-and would beget greater pity for his tattered auricular, if his filth and stench did not produce disgust. As it is, I long to horsewhip the young rascals (they'll come to the gallows) who have tarred on the "twa curs."—I don't envy the heart of him who can dwell on the needless sufferings, and death agonies of helpless animals, without any apparent purpose, but that of gain, or drawing worthless praise on his manual dexterity.Probably Mr. Landseer will favour us with the picture of a dog tearing out the bowels of a strong cat, the affectionate pet of some venerable adult, who would not kill a spider; (I know such a one, who, without any conventicle cant, reverences her God too much to maltreat or despise the apparently meanest of his allpraise-exceeding works.) I was told the other day of a living artist who, when a child was run over by a cart, before its own loved home, and the bankrupt mother stood rigid as stone, staring with maniac agony on her crushed darling, calmly and deliberately gazed on her to study the expression,' as he called it!! I care not to know his name; my friend assured me, on his honour, that he did not belong to the Academy; (I never imagined that he did) but let me take this opportunity to assure him, that, as a man, I hold him in the most sovereign contempt, not to say detestation!-Now to something pleasant: give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary! Here is a pretty fragrant Landscape by Miss Landseer, "A painted Ode to Evening" (10), which has, in the chiaroscuro, something of my favourite Stothard about it. I should like to hang it up in my little study very much-where, in fancy, I would lie passively, lentus in umbrâ, under that cool canopy of leaves, and see the kine pass slowly homeward through the twilight, and smell their sweet breath, and hear the distant clank of the sheep bell; and mark, chaste Eve! Thy dewy fingers draw There is a Portrait next to it (11, Cupid) by Jackson, the imitator of This beautiful hymn of Collins makes, in my opinion, the nearest approach possible to the cadence and measure of Horace's ode Ad Fontem Blandusium.' I wish Mr. Elton would essay it, and let us have it in the next number. Onec already he has Sir Joshua.-I can't say I see any thing in it but some rich colour, which is not in its neighbour, "The Importunate Author," by Newton (12): the latter, by the by, has great merit, in its line; the expressions are true and humourous; the costume correct and well arranged; the back ground appropriate and walk-inviting; the attitude of the patron is simple, and yet elegant; and his whole appearance is not unlike to Charles Kemble in Count D'Anglade, though the dress of the former is red and the latter black, if I remember rightly; but it is five years ago-I have seen Farley put on exactly the eager anxiety of the big-wigged poet.-Now we have some pictures by Wilkie, nothing particular, saving the character of importance and self-appreciation in the Highland Piper, blowing "the mort;" and the prodigious pleased astonishment of the child in arms behind him. (16) Hebe. Sir W. Beechey. A picture which must grieve his judicious friends, while it gratifies his unjust maligners. (20.) W. Linton.-The Landing of the Trojans in Delos. This is a sweet classical composition of that fast-improving Landscape-Painter. It is evidently an imitation from the style of Claude, as reflected by Turner; and would have been better had Mr. L. trusted to his own eyes, instead of those of the last mentioned great genius. Second hand is bad! What must third hand be? Nature first, Claude second, Turner third. Added to which, Turner has great, dashing faults, which would sink an ordinary artist. Like Fuseli therefore, he is a most unfit model. The foreground of this scene is well and genially designed, but most weakly and ungenially coloured. Glaze it richly up with ivory black, and a little lake, and you will have something far nearer Gelée. I can't do justice to Mr. Stephanoff's inventions, which I believe have a good deal of merit; for his touch always comes across me like the relish of magnesia. It is so meagre and chalky; he wants fatness and marrow." The painful Bite (33) Mr. T. Ward adds to the good opinion I entertained of this artist's talents. The expression of the curly puppy licking his bleeding foot, divided betwixt pain and a liquorish itch again to adventure the rat (I believe it is,) in the cage, is well caught.-Vincent's "Dutch Fair on Yarmouth Beach," (36), deserves a good substantial notice. I am sorry I have not time to do it. He must accept my excuses and sincere wishes for his success. The purchaser of this gay, yet chaste painting, would not repent his bargain. I thought of treating Mrs. Geo. Anesly (39, an "Italian Flower Stall,") as an ama 1 translated it in an equal number of lines with great success. (See his elegant work "Specimens, &c.") These volumes are sufficiently obscure (Mr. Elton having offended some college pedant, by his just strictures on the Æneid,) to induce me to transcribe it entire, not doubting the reader's hearty thanks. It is, as he perceives, extremely poetical; and the unlearned (no disrespect is intended by this phrase) may assure himself that it is abundantly faithful. He cannot do better than get the book, as I have-the more he drinks of its pure waters, the greater will be his thirst. Oh Blandusia's fount! more clear Than glass; oh! worthy luscious wine, With budding horns his forehead teems, The dog-star's flaming hours descend Stray flocks, and plough-worn oxen, bend, Thou too shalt roll ennobled waves, While the green oak inspires my theme, That canopies the lonely caves, Whence leaps thy babbling stream. In the Melo-Drama of the Portfolio. teur-but she is too strong to require it; therefore let me hint, that she is getting a little mannered in the coTouring of her female heads. Variety in her living models is the best caus tic to eat away the rotten part.—Mr. I. Crome has an enviable " Heath Scene near Norwich," in which the student may see how much a subtle observation of the elements, in their wild moods, does for a most uninteresting flat. This view is not at all like a mere topographical delineation. It assumes a much higher station.Gandy has a fine classical composition, (43,) "A Landing Place to the Temple of Victory," in a singular taste of colour. He should study this handmaid to design, a little more." A Farm Yard," by I. Ward, R.A. (47) is of course admirably handled. No man has greater power of pencil; which would shew out more shiningly if freed from the gyves, with which a desire of imitating Rubens fetters it. If I might venture to advise such a master of colours, I would hint that the sky is rather out of harmony with the general warm tone of the part terrestrial;-the ramifications of the boughs, in the back ground, are "marvellously crooked; they are quite caricatures.-I must hurry on, otherwise I would compliment more at large (52) "the Horse, Cur, and Shepherd's Dog, vide Gay's Fables," Mr. T. Ward. The different expressions are very vivid, and the story completely told. The guardian of the flocks is a perfect philosopher, a Socrates.-Mrs. Terry has a pretty recollection of Edinburgh. "Her own sweet" (an old epithet for auld reckie) native town. And Mr. Samuel, an agreeable, unpretending view, from an agreeable spot, "King's Weston place," (I know it well) at the Junction of the Avon with the Severn."– Three sides of the first room are done, -well, if the architect had stopped here; but, unfortunately for me, he fancied a fourth; and cruel artists have covered it with their brain-andhand-labours. Corragio then! Gee up old dobbin! Lo! he pricks up his ears at the sight of those vigorous dogs in the turnip field. (67." Pointers, to ho!" Ed. Landseer.) They are indeed well drawn; full of vitality and acuteness: but they demand strength of chiaroscuro, tone, appropriately coloured backgrounds, to give them value: and I don't think that their hinder quarters are very characteristically touched ;-the surface is rather satinny than "crinite," and the whole picture wants solidity and breadth. "The Lion disturbed at his Repast (78, by the same,) labours under a similar ignorance of the art of making up the picture. The lion's head is sadly deficient in nobility; and the snake reminds me too much of a large eel. Sound knowledge of anatomy is. displayed in the nervous, sinewy paws of the savage; and his furry coat and coarse mane are ably touched. The antelope, as far as execution goes, deserves praise; but its large glazing eye, blood-shotten withagony, and the gore-choaked mouth, so lately fragrant with the dewy herb, presents to the healthy eye not "an image of legitimate terror, but of frigid horror."-Stark has two very superior landscapes, (69 and 76,) but eulogy of mine is vain, after the approval of that able judge, Thos. Phillips, Esq. R.A. who has given the highest proof of his admiration, by purchasing. "The Grove Scene," (76.) I would fain now say something about Martin's "Feast," but it is. impossible to see it at present, for a mob of fancied connoisseurs, the sounding dogmatism of whose remarks is equitably balanced by their emptiness and folly,-so have the goodness to cast your eyes up on the right of it here! That is a very tasteful, gentle thing, is it not? very pleasingly coloured without affectation. (74. Composition from a descrip tion of Pæstum.) The inventor, Arnald, A.R.A., has lately made some most interesting and clever views on the Rhine and Meuse; (published, I think, by Messrs. Rodwell and Martin, or Hurst and Robinson ;) and I gladly take this opportunity of recommending strenuously the work of an industrious, improving, sterling artist. I had thought to have given it a more detailed notice before this, but I will not neglect it long. I am at present dreadfully in arrear with regard to embellished publications, and I feel In the mean while, let the counsel the admirer of beautiful scenery to purchase W. Westall's cheap and faithful" 'iews of the Lakes." Three numbers, folio. myself bound to make an apology for such neglect, to their respective proprietors; for, in my opinion, he who has any power, however small, of commending obscure merit to due honour, and does it not, commits an act of injustice. His exertions, it is true, may not contribute to " the creature-comforts" of the object of his care;-but is genuine, unbought sympathy, and a knowledge that its powers are appreciated, nothing to the sensitive mind? Does not judicious uninterested praise flow softly, like honey-dew, on the lacerated heart of the poet and artist, drowning past slights and difficulties in Lethe's dull lake? Say no longer, then, mental sluggard! that thou can'st profit nothing patient, spurned genius. If thy wrestlings on its behalf with wordlings do not achieve every thing, still they may do much. They may preserve it from the fate of Kirk White, and that shining meteor John Keats. -O! shady spots of ground * O ye whom ancient wisdom, in its graces, You finer people of the earth, niuses, W. Reynolds, is quite a minikin Cupid and Psyche (109), Etty. This artist's study and practice have been intense; and out of all proportion to the results. Power of pencil, agreeable surface, firmness of touch, pulp, and a systematic plan of colour may be acquired, and these he has: but, that transcribing the common limbs of the Academy model, will not in~ stil into the mind images of beauty, dignity and high pathos,-nor servile copies from the antique create invenThe heads of Amor and Psyche tion-he is an instructive living proof. would be vulgar if they were not mawkish, and disarm critical severity by meek imbecility. The drawing is feeble; the handling and colouring of the figures shadowy, and consort ill with the common unraised humanity of their forms, which are little better There are the fair-limbed Dryads, who than Albert Durer's famous Adam and I see you, here and there, among the trees: This hum in air, which the still ear perceives, Is your unquarrelling voice among the leaves. And now I find, whose are the laughs and stirrings That make the delicate birds dart so in whisks and whirrings. love nooks Eve, only more fleshy, gristly, or defects, the painting has great merit rather woolly. Yet with all these in its class, which is what Vasari calls the ornamental: the silver clouds in 2 L vite by their pillowy fleeciness and sunny warmth and there is quite a touch of poetry in the gorgeous colour of Cupid's pinions, Ambleside Mill (168).-There seems now a little opening to Martin's Picture, and I am expected to say something about that which has created so great an interest. If I have time Celestial plumes! That not like mortal I will return to Hilton's Penelope and hairs The best picture of Etty's for invention and expression that ever I saw, was his Drunken Barnaby. I trust he has sold his Hercules, and the Man of Calydon, as well as his Pandora; if, however, this last brilliant sketch remains in his atelier, and its price would come within my limited means, I should like to have it. Christmas's Puss in Danger (108) is a very terrific thing. The grim demon of a bull-dog, who interrupts the cat in her unhallowed dalliance with the rat, has some analogy in my fancy with Lanciotto, Lord of Rimini, scaring "the Lovers" from their forbidden delight. It will make a kind of companion to Fuseli's celebrated picture, now I believe at Liverpool (I begin to find myself overstepping my Editor-prescribed limits, I am not the Editor-I wish I was) and I must intreat those gentlemen, who may imagine they are slighted to consider the brevity of my notices as occasioned, not by their want of merit, but my want of space:-and first, if I was sufficiently grateful for the pleasure I received from Mr. Willes's delicious Landscape-composition from the Electra of Sophocles (114), I should fill three pages. As it is, all I can say is, that its sweet remembrance, will, I trust, bear me not infrequent from the yellow bricks of St. James's, to the wild shores of inhospitable Tauris, lashed by "the savourie brine."-Gandy's Landscape composition from Collins's Third Eclogue (142) is full of fancy, beauty, and singularity.-I like his drawings far better than his oil pictures. I grieve that I can only name Hofland's River Uske, (163) and young Landseer's capital picture of the Rival Candidates (two dogs contending for a stick thrown into the water by some shepherd boys). Mrs. Carpenter's Italian Peasant Girl manifests a very gentle taste and sweet feeling for beauty; a great scarcity in this exhibition. I can safely say the same for my favourite Dewint's Ulysses, though it is as well for him that I should not; for at present I must say that his powers are in a state of stagnation." O Ebony! O Gold!" as Theocritus says, on a different occasion, here is the Black Frame and its gull-gathering contents!-I must request the compositor for a new paragraph. So!-Well how! Shall I speak out, or not? "Aye! it is sold you see, and to a brother artist, Collins, R. A!!"-Bravo! That's fine! it warms the heart, and gives the lie nobly to those fellows, reputation's blow-flies, who buzz about with festering whispers of the envy of rivals. But what of the picture?" Frankly then, it does not please me, if considered as an embodying of the passage in Daniel.-Martin succeeds best when every thing is left to his own imagination; which circumstance alone is no mean proof of his talents. His Adam and Eve thrust through the rocky wall of Eden (a landscape-composition) was heartquelling and sublime; but the "blasted heath," in his Macbeth, was completely missed. It had none of that vast, illimitable-black-level barrenness which stamps on the mind such a chilling image of bleakness and desolation, mingled with curdling awe ; but, on the contrary, was cut up into a thousand littlenesses, which peremptorily arrested the sweep of the eye. Some of the hollows looked like gravel pits ;-there were bare patches whence turf had been cut for Mr. Any-Body's Garden; and bating the mountains and lake, which seemed very much ashamed of themselves, it put me in mind of Hampstead Heath in the winter. Neither did the sky make any amends;-it was fidgetted, tattered, fantastic, and petty; when it should have been massy, simple in its forms, sulphurous, thunder-charged, louring, and ominous. The tone was feeble, and without gusto. The colouring weak, chalky, inappropriate, and the figures both in conception and execution,-ludicrous, only that one grieved to see a clever man so mistaking his powers. Notwith |