in religion, held her own still, in union with architecture, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, filling the churches with bas-reliefs and monuments, and preceding everywhere the sister art of painting in her renewal and development. Even the sixteenth century—that time of crisis between triumph and degradation-by reproductions of ancient work, or by its employment for decoration and display, gave a kind of third life to sculpture. But by 1750 the art had fallen to the lowest point, at once in technical skill, vitality of meaning, and general estimation; nor can it be said that the efforts of later years have as yet, in any real sense, restored it to its former glories. Sculpture awakens but a cold, feeble, artificial interest, the brief enthusiasm of personal patronage or pedantry. If it appeals at all to popular sympathies, they are the sympathies of ignorance for mechanical trick or mechanical grandeur, for mere mass or for mere minuteness: not for deep or tender feeling, truth to nature, freshness of invention, refinement in handling, loftiness in aim,-for those qualities, in a word, without which the block in the mountain side is far more living than the statue.

"Whence this deathly decline in an art second to poetry alone in antiquity and nobleness? It cannot be that modern life has no place or desire for sculpture. * *Sculpture, of all arts the most arduous in execution, is at the same time the most delicate of nature: like some tender and sympathetic living creature, if not understood, she fades and perishes. If few modern sculptors of merit for all time in imaginative work can be named-if the prevailing schools of the last hundred years must be divided mainly between the ornamental, the pedantic, and the common-place-not without certain groups only characterised by extravagance or emptiness-these judgments should not be given without great reserve as regards the individuals who have suffered from the long train of external depressing influences. That such classes should comprise so many minor sculptors is not wonderful, when men by nature so highly gifted as Canova and Flaxman have been able to carry the art so little onward, and have left no permanent effect except from the defective side-Canova turning his followers to operatic sentimentalism, Flaxman to antiquarian revival. Yet the Italian, by the grace and finish of his early works, appeared to his contemporaries the restorer of a lost art; whilst the neglected Englishman, whom Canova praised with the liberality of genius, possessed a loveliness of invention, a sense of simplicity, an instinctive poetry and grace, which, in a more appreciative age, would have placed the name of Flaxman with the best of his contemporaries in national estimation. If, however, the favourite subjects of these men, of Thorwaldsen, Gibson, and other distinguished artists are remembered, it is intelligible why imaginative sculpture should be the fallen art she has long been, praised by patrons, meaningless to the world at large. Will it not at some time appear one of the strangest of delusions, that a mythology, dead for two thousand years, should have been fancied a living interest to the nineteenth century?

"One branch of sculpture, however, remains, which has always maintained more or less of life; and to this, with the recovery of a more vital manner in architecture, and the re-union of the arts so long divorced, we may fairly look with hope for the future. For Portraiture, since mastery in it was first reached (hardly before the age of Alexander), has remained, and must always remain, the foundation of excellence in sculpture, as it will finally be recognised in regard to painting. Men are a little less unwilling to compare the semblance with the reality; and wanderings from nature are more easily traced, or censured with greater freedom. It is true that here also the general false position of the art appears. How few public or monumental statues can be named which do not fail, often utterly, from the conventional classical style, bringing with it feebleness in modelling and tameness in outline-from meretricious trick, or shallow artifice -from vacuousness and slovenly execution! Conspicuously placed as they are, how few have any interest or influence over the thousands who would be 'moved as by a trumpet' by the real effigy of a Richard, a Wellington, a Newton, a Napier, a Peel-even of the Sovereigns in their succession, or men of local mark and position!

To foreigners who visit Trafalgar Square or St. Paul's-to Englishmen who know Berlin and Paris, the Louvre and the Santa Croce-it will be needless to add more, or give the list of recognised too-familiar failures. But Foley, Rauch, and Rietschel may be properly named amongst the few honourable exceptions."

The truth of these trenchant remarks will be admitted by all who examine the sculpture in the International Exhibition. Some bright exceptions to the general rule of mediocrity will, however, be noticed and prized; and among them, few so conspicuous as the noble works of Gibson, Woolner, and Foley.

In the Central Avenue, which divides the British from the foreign half of the building, stands the splendid colossal Equestrian Statue of the late Lord Hardinge, by Mr. Foley. The work in the Exhibition is of plaster, coloured to imitate bronze. The original statue stands in a conspicuous situation in Calcutta, where it has been erected is a memorial of the intrepid soldier who won his spurs in many fierce encounter, beneath the burning sun of India.

This well-known group was executed in 1857. It is admitted to be the finest work of the kind ever seen in this country; and it is to be hoped that the wish expressed by so many artists and persons of taste will be eventually fulfilled—namely, that another cast in bronze may be made for the ornamentation of the metropolis. We entirely echo the sentiment expressed at a meeting of artists, that the work is highly honourable to British art, and that a subscription ought to be raised for its reproduction and exhibition at home.

For some time previous to its transport to India, the "Hardinge" was publicly exhibited at Burlington House, Piccadilly; and the general opinion of the critics was that nothing so complete and so entirely original had hitherto proceeded from the atèlier of an English sculptor. The highest authorities in art concurred in this conclusion; and now all the world has an opportunity of estimating its truth.

The likeness of Lord Hardinge is preserved with remarkable fidelity, and the contour of the head is grand and vigorous. The horse is modelled from Lord Hardinge's favourite charger, “Meanee,” which bore him through the whole of the Sutlej campaign. The ease and grace of the lines are remarkable; the pawing foot, the tail lashed inward against the hind leg, the arched neck, the well-formed mouth, and the open, fiery eye, express impatience for the charge, and contrast finely with the calm earnestness and dignity of the rider. Who would suppose that the sculptor who produced the "Ino," and drew tears from all eyes by a marble representation of maternal woe, could have so well succeeded in characterising the heroic in bronze, instinct with life and natural grandeur ? "Mr. Foley," says one of the critics, "has placed Lord Hardinge, as the Greeks would have done one of their 'horse-taming' heroes, on horseback. He bestrides, and rules the coquettish and feigned passion of his favourite Arab; his head is bare; a simple military cloak, classic in its few strong folds, falls over his shoulders, and leaves the arms reasonably free; by his side is the straight, heavy, business-like sword of Napoleon, given to the old Peninsular chief by Wellington, to whom, we suppose, it fell with other spolia opima. The plain, military surcoat, and the long boots and spurs were all the elements of a soldier's dress given to Mr. Foley to shape and arrange, and he has used them with skill, and rendered them subservient and not antagonistic to form."

The proportions of this fine group are, as we have said, colossal; and the whole conception bears the impress of genius-the work being treated in so masterly a manner as to call forth enthusiastic admiration from all beholders. Nothing finer in its own class is to be seen in the Exhibition, or, indeed, in Europe. Amid all the sculpture in the International Exhibition it is unsurpassed in masterly execution and nobility of idea. A few such statues as these distributed throughout the metropolis would relieve us from the odium, so liberally thrown upon us by foreigners, of being fond of public monuments, and yet possessing few worth looking at.

We shall have again to refer to the sculpture in the World's Fair

at Brompton.

WORKS in the precious metals are abundant and valuable in the International Exhibition. Excluding jewellery-of which there is a finer and richer show than was ever before witnessed under one roof -the Silver Plate, in its various forms, is an exhibition of itself. Both British and Foreign manufacturers seem to vie with each other in the exquisite taste and immense value of the several objects exhibited. Who can walk down the nave, and fail to admire the beautiful specimens of silversmiths' and goldsmiths' work fit reminders of the triumphs of the great Italian, Benvenuto Cellini?

In the cases, on the English side, of Messrs. Hunt and Roskell, Garrard, Hancock, London and Rider, Harry Emanuel, Widdowson and Veale, Attenborough, Benson, of Ludgate Hill; Dodd and Son, Shaw and Son, of Birmingham; Wilkinson and Co., of Sheffield; and Derry and Jones, of Birming. ham, will be found some of the most tasteful and exquisite articles in silver, whether shown

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male figure, surrounded bt impossible for the Cupids), of folly, of fortune and of poetry, each being represented by artistically formed figures; while th soldier dreams of victory, figure bearing the laure branch, followed by Honour Fame with a trumpetR, and the Muses, who writ his name in the page o history.

CEarved oak piano exStreet. This elegant

The engraviny that prevailing style of Elizabeth had given of each figure is as finibition as though it were intende rk, ha the purpose of the for a separate work, though Co sounds. Kneeling the whole design is in th he support of the key strictest harmony. The boray carved portraits of der of the table is forme form the ends; the of a fantastic combination of essrs.

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armour forged by Vulcan. But, perhaps, the most ambitious and the most successful work in silver is the Table exhibited by Messrs. Elkington. It is called the "Dreamer," and is the work of M. Morel Ladul, a pupil of Vechte. The work is engraved m silver, in what is called the repoussé style - that is, the raised figures are beaten up from the back, and then sculptured. This style was successfully practised by Cellini and others. The design is worked out in the most poetical manner imaginable, and is emblematic of sleep and dreams. The table rests on a substantial tripartite foot, at which recline the labourer, the warrior, and the minstrel. They are seated amid the poppy and other narcotic herbs, which twine round and upwards, and so form the stem to support the top of the table. The table

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the grace and finish of his earl the restorer of a lost art; w Canova praised with the libera invention, a sense of simplicity in a more appreciative age, wo with the best of his contempo ever, the favourite subjects of 1 other distinguished artists ar imaginative sculpture should praised by patrons, meaningles some time appear one of the st dead for two thousand years, sh to the nineteenth century?

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FLOWER STAND.