tures,-softened by art, held up to be gazed at by the world. The pencil goes so lightly over defects-and dallies so delicately with the beauties. But with all the excess of portrait in this Exhibition (which we are compelled to admit) there are a few works in the loftiest department of the art, of which it is almost impossible to speak in too high terms; and it is quite clear, to judge by them, that it is in the power of the English artist, if it were the will of the English patron, to elevate art in this country to the summit of excellence and fame.

Having indulged in these brief introductory remarks, we propose turuing to the catalogue, and pointing out to our readers those pictures which have appeared to us most worthy, on account of either any particular or general merit or defect, of being noticed; at the same time, we beg to have it understood that we do not by our silence wish to imply that we think unfavourably of such as we pass over. It would be impossible in the small space allotted us to select the titles even of all those which we are desirous of noticing.

No. 13. A Scene from the Spoiled Child Mrs. Harlowe, Mr. Tayleure, and Miss Clara Fisher, as Miss Pickle, Tag, and Little Pickle. G. Clint.

(Tag sings)

O thou wert born to please me.

This is a picture decidedly unpleasant in its style, and yet certainly cleverly painted in its way. It evinces considerable talent in the

artist-but is the stiff imitation of an imitation; that is, the faithful formal copy of dramatic characters, which are copies (at the best) from life.

The likenesses to the actor and actresses are distressingly correct. There is something of the French school in the finishing.

21. The Solar System. I. Howard, ᎡᎪ.

Hither as to their fountains, other stars
Repairing in their golden urns draw light.

Wand'ring fires that move
In mystic dance not without song.

Paradise Lost. This is a highly poetical picturé. The invention is full of genius, and the execution, though light, full of JUNE, 1823.

beauty. The sun is represented by Apollo, who, tuning his lyre, is seated in the centre. The planets, delicately personified by nymphs, with starlight on the forehead, or illuminated lamps in their hand, are floating round and taking their light from him. The satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, &c. are sylph-like forms, with small urns of light, or streaming diadems. And the whole effect of the picture is starry-etherialbeautiful. The broad mass of shadow is cleverly managed, and gives a fine brightness to the focus of light above it. Mr. Howard's is a delicate pencil, and we only wonder that his pictures are not purchased with twice the eagerness, and with double the liberality hitherto evinced.

22. The Dawn. H. Fuseli, RA. Under the opening eyelids of the morn, What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn. Lycidas.

In this picture, we have the repetition of one painted many years ago, and introduced by Mr. Fuseli, in his celebrated gallery from Milton. Perhaps, in some respects, it is an improvement upon the original. The thought is in the highest degree poctical and touching: and the tone of colour is finely expressive of the effect of twilight; indeed, all Mr. Fuseli's pictures seem under the influence of twilight, The distant light proach of the orb of day. in the horizon indicates the near ap

York. Sir Thomas Lawrence, PRĂ, 28. Portrait of the Archbishop of

The

We have here a dignified and characteristic portrait. The head is admirably painted; as, indeed, all Sir effect of the picture is much adThomas's heads generally are. vanced by the judicious back ground and the peruke in neat but full flower of columns, &c. The lawn-dress

are sad drawbacks upon a portrait, and yet the President has contrived to make them even picturesque in this picture. The lawn falls easily down from the shoulders, and the legs in their black dress seen through it are most cleverly painted.

58. Portrait of Captain Nicholson. R. R. Reinagle, RA. elect. This is a good half-length, in which the spirit of the artist has gone its full length.

59. Salisbury Cathedral, from the

3 A

Bishop's Grounds. J. Constable, A.The landscape and cows are extremely well managed; and speak of that rich fat country ever to be found about the church. The cathedral perhaps does not appear of sufficient magnitude; but there is great merit in the picture. This artist seems to have taken for his model the style of Hobbima, which is certainly doing nature no great wrong.

77. The Bay of Baic, with Apollo and the Sybil. J. M. W. Turner, RA. The distance in this picture is beyond all praise, and the picture itself is full of fancy and genius. The rich golden foreground, with two figures sitting above the bay in the soft shade of a lofty tree; the dist'nctness of the two high and graceful trees against the lustrous warm and azure sky; the irregular descent of the water-deeply, intensely blue-the airy distance-in which the eye seems to measure space from mountain to mountain; all parts indeed seem to combine to form a picture for a poet. The sunshine is really hot to the eye. Possibly (we must find fault) a greater degree of force, and a solidity of character in the foreground and in the middle ground, with more shadow in those parts, would have added much to the effect of the whole, rendering it perhaps one of the finest landscapes ever painted. As it is, it is enough to call Claude from the tomb, to see how well his pencil becomes an English hand.

78. Portrait of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. T. Phillips, RA. A gorgeous portrait. The Duke shines out in all his robes. We can imagine the good people of Liverpool dreaming over the Coronation, when they see this figure, in his habit as he walked.

́83. Portrait of Dr. Harrison. M. A. Shee, RA. - An easy intelligent portrait. The Doctor is sitting at his table, with an open book before him, the pen in his hand. He reminded us, we scarcely know how, of Cowper's Ballad upon Kempenfelt: it seemed the same simple unaffected description of a man at his ordinary occupation.

ness of pencil which we admire in Guido or Vandyke. The head is spiritedly drawn.

88. Scene in Borrowdale, Cumber land. W. Collins, RA.-There is great chasteness and soberness of colouring in this, and we can pronounce it to be an interesting pastoral landscape. The little children at the brook are sweetly introduced; and we could, as Wordsworth says of the House-lamb Child, "have almost received the heart into our own," of that little fair-haired, Sir Joshua-headed thing leaning over the pan of fish.

Sir

89. The Countess of Jersey. Thomas Lawrence.-The Countess is sauntering in an evening dress in her grounds. She looks the woman of fashion-and more than that--for her head is full of spirit and penetration. There is a fine courtly spirit in this picture. The warm rays of the setting sun are finely introduced, striking through the trees upon the ground and part of the figure. We fancy we could walk the sun down with her-talking" of queens and kings."

117. The Muse Erato. T. Stothard, RA. - This is one of Stothard's muses, and therefore a muse at which a poet might jump. We like it, although it has all the artist's defects in a very small compass. The spirit of beauty never deserts his

outline.

Stephanoff. This is not an ill composed picture, but it is artificial in its arrangement and character, and deficient in force of colour. The girl returning married to her father, is like an Irish giantess creeping into the bosom of Mr. Paap. And the youth, with his extremely correct legs, seems fit only for a tea-board.

foreshortened, indeed, that the magistrate appears absolutely sitting in his chair. The head is, perhaps, a little too large and wide. We have heard that the Original has a long head. On the whole, we think, that this picture does great credit to the artist.

193. Portrait of a Young Lady. Sir W. Beechey, RA.-This is a whole length figure. The action is natural and animated. She is drawing on her glove whilst walking on rapidly. Sir William has caught her on the wing. The colouring is not forcible. 194. Portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Agar Ellis. J. Jackson, RA.-This is a striking head in a black hat and feathers; it is evident the artist was thinking of the Chapeau de Paille of

Rubens.

196. Comus with the Lady in the Enchanted Chair. W. Hilton, RA.

This is a very masterly performance: the colouring is exquisite, and we must say that, in our opinion, it far exceeds any other work of the artist, both in conception and execution. The figure of the lady is shrunk up from every thing but its own beauty; and the luxurious flowing form of Comus, with his flushed cheeks, and easy symmetry of limb, seems to show her off doubly calm and fair. The cold gathered looks of the lady appear to defy temptation: in them is the chaste and fixed mind. She is seated in a marble chair, by the side of some white marble pillars of a temple; and all around are dancing and tumbling satyrs, overexcited with wine and music, The glowing shoulders and backs of these nutbrown revellers show off against the cooler tints of the picture, like ripe fruit in white porcelain. In this dazzling autumnal richness of colour,

we are continually reminded of Ru bens. The trees of the forest, the portentous sky, the wealth of colour, make this picture quite a poem in itself.

233. The Battle of the Angels. W. Y. Ottley, H.-This picture, in its spirited drawing, and in its great conception, reminds us of a work of one of the old masters. It is a battle of the Angels; a study, in chiaros curo, unfinished. In the extreme distance, at the top, the general com bat is alive---while nearer to the eye, the rebel army of spirits begins to give way before the phalanx of the good angels; and in front, where Michael has overthrown Satan, the rout is complete !---In chiaroscuro only ought such a subject to be treated; for what pencil could give the brightness, the heavenly lustre fare, the gloom of their terror, the of angels, the fiery light of their wardarkness of their defeat? We trust the artist will leave the study as it is, and not by temperate after-touches attempt to perfect what can only approach perfection by being done under the inspiration of the first con ception.

244. A Cottage. J. Constable.-A delightful cottage scene, true as ever woodman smoked beside! It is lit tle, if at all, inferior to Hobbima.

261. L'Improvisatrice. H. W. Pickersgill, A. A very pleasing and cleverly painted half-length of an Italian female playing and singing to her guitar. She seems, however, scarcely up! Inspiration is wanting, We should have preferred the portrait of an Improvisatrice in full song, with all the light in her eyes and over her forehead, and with the music parting from her lips.

Here for the present we must stop; in the next Number of our Magazine we hope to be able to do justice to those artists whose works are left unnoticed.

COVENT GARDEN THEATRE.

Clari, or the Maid of Milan. A SERIOUS Opera from the French is a serious evil. The light gossamer pieces which are woven from that source, on sultry summer nights, look bright and glittering for their hour, and then pass away. But a long solemn heavy drama of three acts, as long as Jenkinson's legs, constructed on a foundation of false sentiment, is too much. We can cry our eyes out with any gentlemen living, for three quarters of an hour, at a murder miraculously discovered by a brace of ravens flying over the ruffian's head on the night of Easter Monday, when he has his best clothes on; and can damp as many white pocket handkerchiefs as our betters, at the girl and the spoon, where she is involved in trouble by the natural means of a magpie, who puts the spoon in the spout of the church, until a person in the nick of the moment takes it out of the spout, or, to speak less slangly, redeems it. These temporary troubles please us well enough, and we love the gentle dishonesty. But when the extravagance and pestilent pathos of the French come to be forced upon us for three hours, we beg leave to dry our eyes, pocket our cambric buckets-button up our pockets, and protest as stoutly as we can, against our tears and our money being so plentifully drawn upon.

Clari is the work of Mr. Howard Payne, the American Roscius; and, certainly, to adapt an expression of Mr. Coleridge, in this instance a very American Roscius. The story which runs, like Pickford's Manchester Van, solidly through the night, is of a girl who is trepanned, not seduced, to quit her father's house, and to make love at the mansion of the Count Vivaldi. The Count now opens his heart-aye-candidly, for he wishes to love without marriage; but though he wishes thus to be the master-she declines being the mistress, and the abomination of his deceit and villany drops her ladyship and the drop scene; ending the first act of Parisiau dulness done into English

by an American. The second act is taken up with Clari escaping from a room in the Count's mansion, by moonlight, in a light chip hat. The third act shows her return to her father's cottage; a sweet spot by the side of a waterfall (for, as Clari's French papa would moralize, water is liable to its falls, as well as woman): here Mr. Fawcett lives on a moderate income, with a corn-rick, a gun, a white head, a pair of gaiters, and a wife. The daughter comes home from her lover, and Mr. Fawcett from rabbit-shooting, much a bout the same time. He is in despair. She is in the farm yard. The mother brings her veiled to hear the terrible denunciations of an angry father against a fallen and lost daughter; in the course of which, the acting manager looks like Mrs. Chapone in gaiters. Clari takes off the veil (we hardly thought her pure enough ever to have taken it) at the moment when Mr. Fawcett has elevated himself to such a pitch of di dactic retrospection, as to look the Editor of the Critical Review-she shrieks-the father hears she is innocent, and then very prudently forgives her. Count Vivaldi enters, unfolds his determination to marry Miss Tree (Clari), and all the difficulties are overcome-the third being made the Marriage Act.

The characters are all old friends with very indifferent new faces. Clari and Louisa Venoni are two for a pair; and Fawcett is a revived parent, out of a play called (if we remember rightly) Grieving's a Folly. The Count is a moral seducer, not at all uncommon. The language is French-English, which is not the best of styles.

The performers did their utmost. Miss Tree, in Clari, was interesting, and made it more natural than any other lady could have done. In the last scene, where she comes dejectedly in at the old gate, in the face of the bright old waterfall, crawling by the old golden corn-rick, as though they were the same on purpose to rebuke her for the change, she is beautiful, and, it would be unjust not to ad