flu Irto.

THE BRITISH INSTITUTION.

stitution portraits with fancy names when portraits with the sitters' names are excluded. Mr. Buckner's No. 233 is as near an approach to the actual portraiture of a very lovely boy as emasculate dandyism will allow him to reach, none the less palpably for his calling it a " Highland abortions a greater aggregate amount of pictorial competency, artistic Piper." Julia Smith, or whatever the young lady's appellative may be, notion, and defined purpose. The grovelling senselessness of a consider- would express the proportion of humanity in the product of Mr. Desanges's able portion of the English display would certainly not be equalled; but brush as well as " Anna di Montenegro." "Laban " and " The Favoured of course we do not deny that there are some positively and prepensely Knight" merely serve to reduce Mr. Pickersgill's heads from the class of bad points about the French works with which we are comparatively un- bad portraits to that of caricatures. Mr. RothwelPs " Contemplation" tainted, nor that the best of ours would be better—and this is safe praise continues to be such an eidolon of a particular lady and a particular child indeed—than any of the 572 prize monstrosities from the Garde-meuble. as the author of Rowland's Kalydor or the Balsamic Regenerator would

In one word further, let us say that an emptier exhibition than that of delight in, in just the same degree as when it was hanging last year, an the British Institution of 1854 we never saw ; and here, leaving objur- undisguised group of portraits, in the Royal Academy. This last gentle- gation as far as possible, determine to put the best face we can on it. man, by the way, not content with improving upon nature, must improve Only, while we struggle to enumerate a few good or tolerable works, be it upon Keats as well,—modestly eclecticizing

remembered, lest our details should seem to clash with our general de- "A thing of beauty is a joy for life" seription, that we mention all that are worthy of individual laudatory no- as the title of a picture which is not a thing of beauty, nor a joy either for Lice , while we touch lightly on only a few of that swamping majority life or for ever.

amid which these gleam fitful. " Save me from my friends !" may well be the cry of the P.R.B. when exhibiter of the best subject of the year, and his own best oil-picture— Selous, and by " Christ and the Woman of Samaria " that they have en-

" Sancho Panza informing his wife of his coming dignity, and of his in- tailed a disciple so grotesque as Mr. R. Reynolds. Good pictures bore the tendon to make his daughter a countess." Here are real humour and brunt of the savagest abuse, and conquered it; and now bad pictures would character ; although, as in previous instances, somewhat wanting in that fain come in for some splashings of the compensative flood-tide of pros- completed elaboration which the method of treatment demands. The perity. On the other hand, Mr. Hopley, one of the mouthpieces of the lumpish fixedness of Sancho in his chair—half obesity and half self-im- abuse, exhibits, in " Sir Isaac Newton explaining to the Lord Treasurer portance—is very good ; and equally so the calm philosophic gaze with Halifax his Theory of Colour," how far he is likely to go towards putting which his dog seems to appraise the squire's new-blown dignity. Mr. Preraphaelitism down by a practical triumph. From Sir G. Hayter's Glass follows his last year's cue, but not with the same f 11 degree egree of amazing historical mood, the 'Arrest of Cardinal Wolsey for High Tree- success. In three compartnfents he represents " A Raid on the Scottish son," we pass to that devotional mood which, through the medium of Border—the Rendezvous, the Return, the Rescue." The first section is " The Glorious Company of the Apostles praise Thee," has already num- the best and most peculiar ; being given under the effect of a thick white bored him among Mr. Barraud's print-shop catechumens ; and from this morning-mist, cleverly rendered, though perhaps a little exaggerated in to the work of that pillar of the faith himself,—

tone : the principal horse is an animal of dubious construction. In the "Ave Maria! mother blessed, second side-piece it is sunset, and the Borderers bring homewards an in- 1 To whom, caressing and caressed, dignant captive, whose expression of girlish heroism, heartache, and self- ' Clings the-eternal Child." mastery, is the chief merit ; in other respects, it is rather pink and thin, This is indeed a foul degradation : the Virgin Mary being Mr. Bar- and we should have expected Mr. Glass to make more of the subject. The raud's incapable attempt at a " Book of Beauty" order of charms, with centre shows the night-encounter with a rescuing party. The impetuous the neck but half-concealed by gauzy drapery ! Mindlessness never ex- forward rush of the horses is a remarkable thing of its kind ; but, beyond eceded this in unhallowed audacity. We may add, that Mr. Colby and this, the incident is rather impracticable, being the sort of affair that Mr. Mr. Andrews contribute things which are unfit to be hung, independently Abraham Cooper has done so often and so indifferently as to indispose one of any question of artistic shortcomings. to see it repeated. In subject, Mr. Coke Smyth's "Eastern Story-tel- We must pass rapidly over the landscapes and minor departments of lei " may be deemed the most considerable contribution in the gallery. the exhibition ; and indeed it boasts nothing of very striking quality in For expression, it is respectable, but not eminent ; has more characters than this way. Mr. Linr,ell has two large works which cannot fail to contain

character ; and labours under a general copper-colour. It belongs, how- ever, to the class of works that are competent, and even something more. „The Wooden Walls of England" is a fair specimen of Mr. Dawson's In the performance of a new-comer, Mr. P. A. Daniel, which the hangers skill, but not of his genius. Mr. Oakes's " Old Pier, Bridlington Quay," have hoisted up to the ceiling, we fancy we can discern a touch of power is remarkably clever, and fully made out in all respects; Mr. Thomas and originality. Framed, as it were, in the linking of their wands, and Danby's best, and one quite worthy of his artistic hand, is "A Summer looming against the great yellow blank of the full MOOD; Evening in North Wales " ; and from Mr. Dearman we have a bit of swoop over a desolate sea-shore. The thing is very hideous, and seems tion who contribute pictures, but of no salient excellence, are Messrs. Cres- t+) be painted in an obvious way, with little enough of art ; but there is wick, Branwhite, Hering, Holland, Linton, and Percy. In Mr. Pettitt an unmitigated horror about it, a grotesqueness which partakes of the and Mr. Inchbold we continue to acknowledge artists of promise ; but terrible, and a hint less perhaps of the Shaksperean supernatural than the former is badly hung, and the latter sends only a alight study whose the 2Eschylean. One may see wherein consists the kind of its superiority principal merit is faithfulness. Mr. M`Callum threatens to lose himself by contrasting it with Mr. Thomas Landseer's " Charming " ; a witch and his more than common capacity in a mannerism of dusky dimness scene, which sticks to the stock horrible and the stock means of obtaining and fiat perspective. Messrs. Hardy, Wallis, and Dell, appear with

horror, but which has its merit too. laudable interiors.

Ban mother and child, which does not appear to us to justify the feminine Earl, we have a study of " Black Cock and Grouse " by Mr. Hollintsr

gender of the title—is rather a pretty composition, and is particularly with a good indication of colour ; compositions by Mr. Roe, whose very skilful in the relief of the infant's arm. Again, the mother or elder sister decided ability seems to take a turn rather towards the eccentric ; and a in " Now catch it, dear," is a nice girl with soft eyes. Mr. Frost's group by Mr. George Landseer, of fawn, hares, and butterflies, not by any " Ophelia "—an open-eyed fair one, with coral mouth, and pretty flesh- 1 means wanting in a pleasant tender feeling, but with a certain spooseY shadows from her unbound hair—if inadequate, which Mr. Frost was quality, which we heard a lady aptly hit by calling the picture " the por- ffensive, as might have been but too confidently 1 trait of a weakminded fawn."

sure to make her, is not o

surmised. Another A.R.A., Mr. Goodall, sends, in " Children feeding I Animals are again the beat things in the sculpture ; Mr. Haehnel's

If any one wishes to become a confirmed grumbler—and it does seem to be the ideal of some Englishmen—let him take our place, and record, year after year, his candid opinion of the British Institution and the other pie- duced annually to discover new synonyms for mediocrity and inanity— hopeless mediocrity and inanity self-complacent—in order justly to cha- racterize the efforts of British art. Grumbling, to our notion, is a bore to both writer and reader ; but the Fates and the artists will have it so. We cannot grumble the leas in 1854 because an exhibition is of exactly the same calibre as it was in 1850 ; rather must we grumble the more. It is a thankless occupation; but silence or falsehood is the alternative.

We would be the last to deny many good qualities to British art; and we even recognize in it tendencies more hopeful than those of any other existing school. Still, we must confess our suspicion, however humilia- ting it may be, that, if any one had matched the 572 productions in the gallery just opened by selecting out of the last Paris exhibition the worst pictures hung to the same number, there would be found in the French Swans," a group either precisely or proximately copied from his bat year's Academy picture of Charles the First rowed to Hampton Court; and a third, Mr. Stone, gives us the very lady with the blue porcelain epee whom we might expect from his hand under the title of " The Balcony," The Woman taken in Adultery is not such a figure as the resources at Mr. Sant's command—strong light and shade, and a well-managed oppo- sition between blue and a clay-brown in the drapery—suffice for; the essential qualities are present in only an ordinary degree. " The Youth- ful Artist" is a commonplace of the order which ranks among nuisances. Like Mr. Sant, Mr. Gale devotes himself to single heads, but mostly of small size. "Eleanor," which appears to be the best, cannot be properly seen. "A Peep at the Carnival" is very, different from the beautifully finished head this artist had at the Academy—belonging indeed to the make-believe style. " The Gipsy Queen" has a stagey glitter, which may pass as appropriate to the personage. Mr. H. W. Phillips sends a liquid-eyed Venetian beauty, not ranking with his best heads. A very sweet young country face greets us in " The Fern-gatherer " of Mr. Mann—full of the pleasant freedom of true rustic nature, undiluted by any vile prettifying, and both delicately and thoroughly painted withal. This is not the first time that we have recognized in the productions of Mr. Mann a feeling for what is really graceful in form and sentiment. The "Kentish Hoppers" of Mr. C. S. Lewis betrays youth, but is warm, bright, and, of its class, unhackneyed ; the class being the same as that to which Mr. T. F. Marshall's " Rustic Favourites"'---

Lure-shows which open in its wake from February to May. For our own pait, one of his most agreeable and least conventional pictures—belong. An- it is with a reluctance verging on mauvaise honte that we find ourselves re- other artist just emerging into day, Mr. J. Morgan, has a subject (62) of much the same order as the one he exhibited last year at the Achdemy and with something of the same look of life, though less satisfactory. The contributions of Mr. Cruikshank and Mr. Egley are old acquaint- ances ; the farmer having been etched as the frontispiece to Dickens's Memoirs of Grimaldi, and the latter having appeared two or three years ago in Trafalgar Square. So also is Mr. Johnston's obtrusive and un- meaning " Melanchthon," which he pairs with an obtrusive and un- meaning " Peggy and Jenny," from The Gentle Shepherd. We cannot perceive the common sense of admitting into the British In- We fix upon Mr. Gilbert, the prolific and admirable wood-designer, as the they see by the " Othello" that they have made a convert so fatal as Mr.

fine points ; but on the whole they are both rather coarse and violent.

"The weird sisters, hand in hand, " Cumberland Scenery after Sunset"—felt with afire solemnity and rea- Posters of the sea and land," dered with talent and vividness. The chief men of established reputa-

Mr. Brocky is more graceful than usual. " Mia carissima "—an Ita- For animals, besides the well-known styles of Mr. Ansdell and Mr.

small models of a camel and a giraffe being excellent, though rather fan- tastic in character. We cannot unriddle the meaning of Mr. Lough's "Usurper," and fail to perceive any meaning to unriddle in the other specimens.