15 NOVEMBER 1851, Page 18

31E.IXISH INSMITII PION-: COPTES FROM THE OLD .MA.STE HS.

There is little !remarkable•or suggestive in the muster of students this year, unless it be that the -selection of works is free from ill taste of the grosser kind. Some attempts are undesirably ambitions, but -rather in subject and idea than i-method. Thus, there is no satisfaction in seeing Lionardo's Madone aux Rochers the object of mechanical copyism; yet the copyist who confines himself to the externals of his task (and the chance of his attempting more is small indeed) does not 'find himself en- tirely beyond his depth. One agreeable disappointment is in the foot that, contrary to wont, none of the Greuzes exhibited this year has been selected. The ,gathering, however, is quite a -mediocre one : we meet with no predminently-successfal.stLy.

Perhaps the most generally satisfactory is that by Mr. Bowler from Vander Heist's Dutch Lady. The choice is a very sensible one • the work 'being well and soundly painted, without any excessive difficulty or specialty of treatment. The serious fault of Mr. Bowler's copy is the bad drawing of the face, one side of which bulges out an as to counter- balance the extreme hollowing of the other. Of the studies from Van- dyck's portrait of Snyders, twenty-two in number, Mr. Fitter's is decidedly the best. He has caught the character, end-his work possesses some style ; but the treatment of the drapery wants 'force and distinction. An anony- mous copy hanging above Miss Hill's ranks next'; and those by Mr. Burlison, Mr. W. W. Scott, and Miss Louisa Hemming, may be men- tioned with some commendation. The single Rembrandt 'has collected a scantier knot of copyists than usual. Mr. Kendall's study has mostlike- ness to the original : Miss Hill's, of reduced size, is the best on its own • showing.

The work most numerously resorted to has been. Sir. Joshua Reynolds's Fortune-teller, of which not hover than twenty-six imitations appear. One of these, bearing no name, is very bright and adventurous in colour ; the drawing is defective, and the method far from eound, but we find the-evi- dence of•,enterprisein the student more pleasing than thefeeblenesses which .surround it. The -portrait of Master Banbury, which has also proved at- tractive, is the -wort whose copyists have reached the highest average success. Miss Sanl's rendering strikes us us the most laudable attempt in the collection for modelling ; and those of Mr. Hensley, Miss Hill, Miss 'lemming, and Mr. Paul, are all above the common run. Three other works of Reynolds have been selected,—the Ugolino and the por- traits of the Countess of Harrington, and of Lord Sidney and Colonel A9- land : but .there is little worthy of remark among the eopies, except one, again anonymous, from the second, which is of very fair merit The Anonymous staultuns—whom we may not be rash in: supposing: amateurs —rank well this year; a fourth unacknowledged copy—that from-the Andrea del Sarto—offering to the full as many successful points of endea- vour as any in the rooms.

The landscape copies are generally very inferior. 'There is not one tolerable, from the Cuyp or the Wilson. Miss Cordella Gould's and Mr. Hall's from Rubens's Watering-place are better : but the first place is taken by Mr. W. R. Earl with his study from the Hobbima,—an un- wontedly close resemblance to the-original, in character anal general treat- ment.