ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION. GROUP THE SECOND. course, minute. It may be measured sometimes by the square foot; and we need not look long round these walls of the Royal Academy to find vast surfaces of sinewy flesh (or what is fondly intended for flesh), which, telling nothing, suggesting nothing, subserving no possible idea of any kind, are trivial details, and would still be such, if their dimensions were doubled. But to finish the broad outline we have attempted of this, the very first picture of the whole Royal Academy Exhibition. OUR second group of pictures comprises the works of the pre-Raphaelites, as they are still called; and the first work on our list is the first also in merit, according to the judgment of nineteen persons out of twenty. You will find it in the middle room, to the left as you enter; and, unless your visit be either early or late in the day, you may at once tell the exact position of the picture by the knot of persons gathered round it. When you have it full before you, and refer to your catalogue, you will see that the composition does not illustrate any passage in written history or fiction, but that the story, told in the painter's own peculiar fashion, is itself his own. A young High-tral figure of the group; he is bending land wife has moved earth and heaven to procure the order of her husband's release, he having been wounded, and taken prisoner at Culloden. She has carried that precious dispatch, you may see, a weary march, burdened, too, with her boy, an infant of two or three years. Pain, weakness, denial, danger, all are forgotten as she stands at last barefoot on the flags of her husband's cell. She has him on her bosom, weeping like a child; but she has not quite finished her task, and can bear up a little longer. Summoning all her woman's pride to support her till the old corporal-turnkey has spelled out the document, which she holds before him, steadily at arm's length; on the other arm she supports her child, who is sleeping away the weariness of the last long miles; and his tiny grasp relaxing, drops on the prison-floor a few poor withered hedge-flowers, with which it is very easy to tell the brave wife and mother has beguiled him on the road. Much critical indignation has been expended on these withered blossoms, which are, indeed, painted with all the care and fidelity that might distinguish a botanical study. Such trivial details, the great critics say, are unworthy the pains of an artist. We reply, that the faded primroses in this picture of Millais, with such a meaning as that which we discover in them, and which any spectator who cares to think a moment will discover also, cannot be trivial. Triviality is not, as a matter of The woman stands erect, drawn up to her full bodily height by the force of her high resolution to betray no weakness in the presence of the last representative of power and authority she has to encounter. Her boy sleeps on the arm nearest the spectator. The husband forms the een down and hiding his face in her bosom. Her right hand, passed across his neck, holds forth the parchment. The hard, inflexible, imperturbable old gaoler scrutinizes the hand-writing, while he holds his pipe at a short distance from his dry and shrivelled lips. He has his hand on the open door of the cell, and will presently leave the Highland family, including faithful sheep-dog, that leaps up to liek his master's hand, to compare notes as well as, in the first agitation of their joy, they may be able. Such is the general outline of Millais' "Order of Release." In his second pieture, the "Proscribed Royalist" (520), we see a woman in another grade of life bringing hope and succour to another kind of prisoner. The date, too, is the same, 1651; the story leads back to the same juncture of politi cal events, but the resemblance between the two pictures goes no further. For the prison here is a hollow tree-the prisoner a young royalist gentleman, on whose head a price is set-the gentle girl who has ventured into peril for his sake, no wife,--not even, one would incline to judge from her cautious self-possession, a mistress. To be sure, the look of passionate devotion with which he presses her hand to his lips might be the look of a lover; but gratitude under such circumstances could scarcely show itself less fervently. the other hand, the calm, sweet gravity of her face does not, as we have intimated, speak of love or anything more than the On pity felt by a courageous woman for a man so perilled. But one beauty of the picture consists in its being subject to different readings. As in casually witnessing a real event of the kind two persons would in all probability form different conclusions, so is it in looking at this design. And here let us observe that, while it is something for a painter to select a phase of nature most fitted to his powers of expression, and to do it full artistic justice from his own point of view, it is infinitely a greater achievement to set before many eyes a scene in which all may find some paramount beauty, varying with various tastes and habits. its minute points of effect; whereas it only occurred to us, in sketching the "Order of Release," to produce the broad and general outline. least as intelligible as that nature he professes to imitate, he cannot choose, if he will weigh the matter well, but reject all those equivocal accidents which, being in nature transitory, need not, for his purpose, be supposed to exist. The other members of this school are advancing to a more comprehensive recognition of the purposes of art, than belongs to their formula. Hunt paints "Our English Coasts" (534), showing a flock of sheep browzing on the edge of a high eliff. The execution is wonderfully skilful, and for the most part true to nature. There is this fault-and in stating it we state the fundamental mistake, as it seems to us, of Pre-Raphaelism. The sea, which is perfectly calm beneath a clear sky, re"I see a pheasant," literally did ex- flects the atmosphere in such a manner as claim a sportsman whose keen, accustomed to produce an illusion. Now it is true eye pierced the leafy depths in this picture that we may mistake one natural object for of the "Proscribed Royalist." A little another, but the slightest change, either girl was powerfully impressed with the by shifting our own ground, or by waiting truth of a scattered litter of dried leaves, till the light shall alter, or by the least and pine-cones, and bits of rotten wood, motion on the part of the doubtful object, which you may notice on the right hand will immediately enable us to correct our of the picture; and she laughed gaily as erroneous impression. None of these aids she pointed out these "trivial details," to our perception can be given by the evidently remembering how she had shuf-painter, and as he is called on to be at fled through just such a débris, on her last nutting expedition in the country. A deformed boy, who leant sideways on a little crutch to study the picture, saw the spots of sunlight which fall perpendicularly on the "antique root of the hollow tree-on the moss on the concealed royalist's head; and this observer involuntarily looked up at the skylight, and at the real sun, which sometimes gladdened him by streaming in at the window of his sickroom. All these kinds of criticism the writer of the present article has seen passed on this same picture; and he is so little of an orthodox critic himself that he is inclined to question if, taken together, they may not outweigh the sentence pronounced by the "Times;" and whether that can be a hard, formal mannerism which we see to affect so many different persons so differently. Indeed there is very little to choose, in our opinion, between these two pictures. We have said that the general preference is given to the "Order of Release," and as a whole it is perhaps the finest composition. But in parts the "Royalist" goes beyond it, as we feel, on revising our notice, to find that we have fallen naturally into describing We have somewhat overstepped our limits, and must defer noticing the other Pre-Raphaelite pictures till our next number. They will have occupied our attention somewhat longer than other works, not merely because of their great importance, as examples of a new and distinct school, but because their different kinds of excellence as well as their faults bear out our assertion, that the fulness of Nature is to be looked for at the artist's hand. The fulness of Nature, be it remembered, is seldom to be found in any one natural form, or group of forms. It is the artist's business to supply not a copy but a type. Portrait painting has been considered the lowest branch of art, because it is supposed that here the artist, being called on to give the normal expression of the particular sitter, cannot generalise. But in settling what that normal expression is, in the individual, the same rules apply as dealing with Nature at large. WITH the lightest crimson wool, work+ 12 times. on the end of the cord 14 stitches, and close it into a round. 1st Round.-(Same crimson and white). +1 white, 1 crimson, + 12 times. 2nd Round.-(Same colours). +3 white, 1 crimson, + 12 times. 3rd Round.-(Same colours, and darkest green). + 1 green, 3 white, 1 green, 1 crimson,+ 12 times. 4th Round. (Same green, white, next crimson). 2 green, 1 white, (on centre of 3,) 2 green, 1 crimson, + 12 times. 5th Round.-(Same crimson, and next green). 5 green, 2 crimson on 1, + 12 times. 9th Round.-(Next crimson, and lightest green). + 5 green on the centre 5 of 7, 5 crimson on 3, and a green at each side, 12 times. 10th Round. Work round with the next crimson, increasing sufficiently to cover the cord. 11th Round. (Next crimson, and gold twine). 2 gold, 2 crimson, + all round, increasing to keep it perfectly flat. Now one round of the darkest crimson will complete the centre of the mat. A shell. Darkest green, 11 Ch, 2 Dc, in every chain, with 1 Ch after every Dc. Next green, 2 De under every chain, with 1 Ch after every Dc. MOUSQUETAIRE CUFF, IN MUSLIN EMBROIDERY, BY MRS, PULLAN. Next lightest green, De under every chain, with 1 Ch between the Dc. The same with the next lightest green, loosely. String 40 bugles on a bit of white Berlin wool. Fasten it to one end of the last row, and hold it along the edge. Fasten on the gold thread. + Do 1 Ch, then 1 De under the chain of green, leaving a bugle under the gold Ch, +. Repeat this, so that the bugles, with the gold thread above them, form the edge. This shell is then twisted into the form seen in the engraving, and sewed to one-sixth of the round, a single string of 12 bugles also being entwined with it. Two more shells in green, and 3 crimson ones form the border, being sewed alternately round the edge of the mat. Materials sent for 4s., post-free. MOUSQUETAIRE CUFF. IN MUSLIN EMBROIDERY. Materials.-French muslin, and Messrs. W. Evans and Co,'s Royal Embroidery Cotton, No. 60. This is one of the newest Parisian pat terns for a Mousquetaire sleeve, which is worn, more than any other style, in morning dress. The sleeve itself is a full plain bishop, with a narrow band at the wrist, and to this the cuff is attached. It falls back over the arm. It is particularly becoming to a small hand, besides being both more elegant and more suitable for morning wear than the mandarin and pagoda sleeves which leave the entire arm, up to the elbow, unprotected. The design must be enlarged to the size required, exactly to fit the wrist. It should be fastened by double gold but tons. It is worked almost entirely in raised button-hole stitch, the centres of the flowers, and the clusters of eyelet-holes only being pierced with a stiletto. The holes in the border are pierced, and worked round in button-hole stitch. The flowers in satin-stitch. Our readers will, we think, be pleased with the novel and beautiful design which is now submitted to their appreciation. CONVERSATIONS ON GEOLOGY. (NO. VI. CONCLUDED.) the great lizard, from megas, great. It was about thirty feet long. Its teeth were of a sabre form-just the very sort adapted for a carnivorous animal. quent Professor has compared it to a ser It was a most peculiar animal; an epent threaded through the shell of a turtle. STEPHEN I should like to hear some Well, then, the plesiosaurus derives its more about the iguanodon, papa. name from plesion, near to, and saurus, 80, PAPA. It seems as if there had always-translated, it means, almost a lizard. been upon our globe animals, whose office it was to diminish the number of vegetables by feeding on them, as if there had also always been other animals, whose province it was to prey upon the vegetarians themselves. It is a remarkable distinction, and the huge iguanodon in its day performed the office now executed by cows and sheep. But what an mense quantity of food it must have consumed! With its fore feet it could scize and pull down the foliage and branches of trees; and its teeth were of a peculiar form, fitted to masticate the ferns and coniferous trees on which it fed. WILLIE. What sort of trees are coniferous trees? PAPA. Why trees bearing cones, to be sure; the fir-tree and pine are coni ferous. STEPHEN. But how do you know that the iguanodon fed on such trees and ferns? PAPA. Because the structure of the teeth and jaws shows the nature of its food; and as the remains of arborescent, or large tree ferns and coniferous trees are found imbedded with its remains, I think it is a legitimate eonclusion to come to, that the iguanodon lived on them. STEPHEN. the iguanodon ? Did any animals live on PAPA. Oh yes, the monster iguanodon had very formidable enemies in the megalosaurus and the crocodile on land, while the ocean swarmed with plesiosauri, cetiosauri, and other monsters; and the air was peopled by awful creatures, called plerodactyls. WILLIE. Oh, papa, papa! whatever shall we do with such a lot of sauris and sauruses? PAPA. We will try to do our best, and I don't think you will find it difficult to understand something of the nature of each animal from its name. Three of the words are compounded of the word saurus, which means a lizard. The megalosaurus might have had a better name given to it. Its name means Like other fossil animals, the plesie saurus had a remarkable combination of characteristic modifications of structure; for instance, it had a head such as lizards now have, teeth like a crocodile, and a neck of such extraordinary length as to be peculiar to itself. The swan has the greatest number of bones in the neck of all existing animals. STEPHEN. Has not the giraffe a longer neck than the swan? PAPA. Not in proportion. I believe the giraffe has only seven vertebræ in its neck, while the swan has twenty-four; but the plesiosaurus had as many as forty. Indeed, the neck is equal in length to its body and tail put together. STEPHEN. What was the use of such a long neck? PAPA. The plesiosaurus is supposed to have arched it in the same way that the swan does, and to have darted down at the fish which happened to come within reach. But a more extraordinary animal than the plesiosaurus, was an inhabitant of those ancient seas; one is called the ichthyosaurus, from icthys, a fish, and saurus, because it combined characteristics of a fish and a lizard, and, like the plesiosaurus, it united such combinations of structure as no longer exist in any one animal. It had the snout of a porpoise, the teeth of a crocodile, the head of a lizard, the breast bone of the ornithorhynchus, the vertebræ of a fish, and four powerful paddles. WILLIE. I never heard of the animal that you said had a breast-bone like the icthyosaurus has. PAPA. thorhynchus. I suppose you mean the orni WILLIE. Yes, that's it, I couldn't pronounce it. PAPA. Well, then, call it the Australian |