mole and others, it is a fine thing to get a subject that will admit of all. With such view, Mr Riviere is happy in his choice, but in nothing else; it is a villanous performance, and but for its affectation, which forces attention by annoyance, we should not have noticed it.

No. 214. "Boulogne Shrimper." J. J. Jenkins.-This is excellent in colour—a well-drawn figure-quite

nature.

No. 224. "Richard Coeur de Lion, arrested at Berlin, A. D. 1192." W. H. Kearney. This is another instance of unfortunately vulgar treatment of an historical subject. Poor Richard! that we should see the "Lion Heart" represented thus! Some red-haired waiter at a provincial inn, in a moment of perspiring leisure, must have sat for Richard. We see him fumbling for the napkin. "No Knight-Tem plar, but a waiter!!"

No. 237. "Lord Nigel's Introduction to the Sanctuary of Alsatia." E. H. Wehnert. There is much of artist ability in this picture; there is good grouping, and it is not without character; but it is of the class of subjects most unfit for painting. It may contain many pictures, but here the artist takes in too much.

The

scene would be disgusting, even in narration, if we were suffered to dwell upon it in its collective depravity, but words do not fix images so distinctly; we pass on rapidly, and character succeeds character, that we dwell not too long upon any one disgust, where nearly all is disgusting; and the expectation of the story, of what is to come, of danger to be escaped, avert the mind's eye from too intently resting upon individual or wholesale deformities; and in narration the whole scene is but a part, and serves its purpose, as contrast to other parts of the tale, where higher beauties are set off by it. Nothing of this kind can be done upon canvass, and there, as a choice, to portray accumulations of deformity, with no purpose but the mere odious display, is, we think, in very bad taste. Before painters learn how to paint, we would have them cultivate their minds, and educate their eyes to a sense of beauty, to know what to paint. There are subjects we should ever wish to see ill done; for the greater the skill the more degradation is suffered by art, and inthe profession. Beauty,

flicted upon

gentleness, goodness, heroic feeling, even sufferings that bring out the manly virtues, are the themes for art. Deformities of every kind are the bane of art, the poison of the mind. Bad as they are in writing, they are worse in painting; for they become fixed, and it is worse than a tasteless, it is a vitiated eye that can take pleasure in them.

We will take relief, and look at "Cinderella," J. J. Jenkins.-Here the gentle, the innocent, the patient Cinderella is leaning against the fireplace, meditating, we may be sure, no ill-and we know how she will be rewarded; the cat purring to her, loving her, perhaps herself a fairy cat, is most happy. Now, this is a subject of beauty and of interest. Innocence is more fit for the pencil than vice.

No. 310. "Percy Bay, one of the Bathing Places at Tynemouth, Northumberland-Sunrise-Study from Nature." T. M. Richardson, Sen.It is a very true transcript of nature's sunrise, beautifully coloured; there is the warmth of sun, yet freshness of morning; the distances, for they are indeed many, many a league over the water, are given with most true gradation. This is a fine drawing, and shows very great power in the artist.

No. 323. "Mountain torrent, near Llyn Tdwal, Caernarvonshire," Thos. Lindsay-is a good drawing, true in colour, and readily places the spectator in the mountain scenery. We were much struck with the power of No. 337, "Sunset," L. Hicks. The red is well set off by deep purples, and the light is effective. As in other exhibitions, we can here only imperfectly have performed our task. We will not, however, make further apology for omissions. This is an excellent exhibition; the New may more than rival the Old-the "matre pulchrâ filia pulchrior." In closing our remarks upon these exhibitions of modern art, while we admire the mechanical skill, and mastery over materials, we cannot but lament, that in general the aim of the artist seems to have been confined too much to subjects in which that skill may be displayed. Is it not preferring the means to the end? Poetry, poetry, poetry, we repeat, and original poetry too, the poetry of thought, is the province of painting: and above all, let painters at least shun vulgarity; whatever is low is in

bad taste, is injurious to the painter's own mind, vitiating the public eye and feeling, and does a manifest inju

ry to the whole fraternity. It would be better for English art if this were generally felt.

This exhibition contains 130 pictures of the late Sir David Wilkie, and sixty-three of old masters-the latter occupy one room, Wilkie two. Although we should prefer a larger contribution from many masters, and the old schools, to such an accumulation of works by one hand, we duly appreciate the spirit which has adopted the present plan. It is a just compliment to modern art, and acknowledgment of the high reputation of the deceased artist-we presume, however, it is one which will not be repeated under circumstances and claims less urgent. The fame of Sir David Wilkie is worthy the homage, and it is paid. We rejoice, too, that the public have here the means of reviewing their own judgment, of marking the progress of the painter whom they delighted to honour, from the day of their early approbation to the last effort of his pencil. For ourselves, we see no reason to alter the opinion we gave in the commencement of our review of the Royal Academy; and we think our remarks upon Sir David Wilkie as a painter fully borne out by the present exhibition of his works. They show a mind, rather by accident and circumstance, than powerfully by genius impelled to a particular line, led to adopt, in the commencement, a certain class of subjects, and style of painting; and this bias, when he would have changed his manner, influenced and shackled him. Had he been at once thrown in the way of seeing pictures of the highest class, of the Italian school, and those more particularly of effect and colour than of sentiment, he would rather have leaned to their manner than to the one which, in after life, he was ever endeavouring, but in vain, to discard. He does not appear to have been so much possessed of an originality, as of a perception of what is good in others, and a desire to adopt that good, and to improve upon it. And this was not always done as a whole; so that in one picture we may often see the characters of many masters, sometimes incongruously assembled, but always with ingenuity, with pictorial management and ability. He

But

was too soon the painter: forced upon the world and the world's applause and substantial favour, he was not allowed time to hesitate, to question, to lay up judgments from which a higher genius might have arisen. He was to continue as he had begun; and it is not very strange, if universal approbation and patronage kept him from seeking any thing better. there is weariness even in fame and flattery-that weariness came upon his mind, and it was never thoroughly satisfied with his early choice. That it was an unfortunate, in some respects an uncongenial choice, we collect from his unceasing efforts, after some years, to divest himself of it, and his ever attempting to imitate some master or other as opposite and irreconcileable to that early choice as possible. His great defect appears to have been an absence of perception of the "beautiful."

With a disposition to work out minutely, and to an excess, what was before him to do, from nature, he too often elaborated deformity. Beauty had not enough of character for his bent; it was too simple-an exquisitiveness not to be portrayed by many strokes ; character indeed it has, but not peculiarities to be mastered and finished at the pencil's point. We have not seen a single picture by his hand in which there is real feminine beauty. We doubt if he could have thoroughly re ceived, for he never attempted to make them his own, as he did the excellences of almost every other master, the purity of Raffaele's, or the more human loveliness of Corregio's Madonnas. He was too early forced upon character, in the generally received sense of the word, character of delineation, and missed for ever that of higher mind and feeling.

No. 1. "King George the Fourth's Entrance to his Palace of Holyrood House, the 15th August 1822."-This picture justifics some of the above remarks. It is a mixture of styles. The trumpeters on the right are like Velasquez-the background, after Rembrandt; other parts in the manner of inferior masters-there is great ingenuity in endeavouring to make these

imitations unite-the consequence is that they do so to a certain extent, so that, without considering what the subject should really represent, we are pleased with the general pictorial effect. In this view it is perhaps his best pic ture. But examining it for its purpose, we find it lamentably deficient. A king comes to his own palace, a visiter too, amongst his people seldom seen. There should be joy and welcome, a princely dignity and love; there lies the poetry. What have we? the king was in his own person the gentleman, the dignified prince. Sir David has made him look like a hair-dresser.

His attitude

is of ungentlemanly pride, assumed; there is none of the condescension of dignity. Then, though he is supposed to be supported and attended by a retinue of his nobles, he seems to stand alone, he is unconnected. So it is with those who receive him; a very few seem employed in that cold duty, there is not a crowd of worthies, the choice of the land, but room for mere vulgar curiosity with appropriate figures. The whole colouring is sombre to a degree, of ill omen to a prince coming to Holyrood. The brown background, the tone of the architecture, is dismal, unjoyous, and not imposing in design. There is a vying of the low with what should be the great, and it is uncertain which predominates. There must be false perspective in some of the heads. Some boys above and below Sir Walter Scott, have immense heads, larger than of the men around them; and Sir Walter's greatly exceeds those of his companions. The Earl of Arran presents the keys as if in fear lest they should go off, and detonate devastation-he holds them so ungracefully at his arms' length; and a girl is seen shrinking back, as if from dread of an explosion. The subject should be great and joyous. The picture is any thing but joyous, and greatness it has none. No. 2. "The Siege of Saragossa." We have ever been annoyed at this picture in print. It is most unpoetically treated, of vulgar stride and violence, ostentatiously dragging forth a piece of ordnance. It might have been matter of fact, but it uncharms the incident of its high virtue. The maid is not only ugly, but a brutal virago of the lowest class. It is affectedly energetic, and is therefore really tame. No. 3. "The Guerilla taking leave of his Confessor." The confessor is a good figure

in the boy we recognize imitation of Murillo. No. 4. "Her Majesty Queen Victoria." This is like a German toy standing on its own wooden petticoat. It is alike unfortunate in colour and design. No. 5. "The Guerilla's Return to his Family." Here the woman, who should be most interesting, is very ugly. No. 6. "Guerilla Council of War in a Spanish Posada." This is well-grouped, and two figures are-Good-news and Attention. The woman in the background has hard spots for eyes; this was not uncommon in some of the later pictures. The finished sketch of "Blind Man's Buff," No. 8, is not better than the picture. No. 9. "Her Majesty Queen Victoria at her First Council." This is not treated so as to give the elevation the subject demands. The hard lines of eyes and mouth of the Queen makes her look like a painted sixpenny doll; her left hand seems crippled, emblematical of half the fact, as she is surrounded by ministers who crippled both. No. 10. "John Knox Preaching," is well known by the print. The figures always appeared to us too large for the scene they act in; and there are by far too many principal figures. The importance is divided. The coarse violence of Knox, perhaps true enough to fact, does not accord with a poetical, or historical, if the word be more artistical, treatment; with the two placid women before him, the Reformer is like a vulture going to pounce upon two doves. The picture exhibits a powerful management of light and shade, and some very good colouring. There is a female head in the corner, like one of Bassan's, but strangely large and out of drawing. No. 11. "The Penny Wedding." One could not expect much beauty for a penny, though at a wedding-and there is none; the men playing are good. No. 12, “ The Fortuneteller," is well composed, would have been better with a little more depth of colour. No. 13. "Portrait of his Grace the Duke of Wellington." Undignified-and therefore untrue. No. 14. "Chelsea Pensioners reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo." This is, perhaps, Wilkie's very best picture; it is well coloured, well composed, and well grouped; the figures have their proper room, and there is plenty of character. No. 15. "Blind Man's Buff." This reminds one of Ostade, and, as in Ostade, the