THE FRENCH EXHIBITION.
The English journals of the week announce as follows the list of Bri- tish artists contributing to the Paris Exhibition who have received prizes. In Painting and Engraving, Great gold medal : Landseer. First-class gold medal : Grant, Gordon, Leslie, Stanfield, Cattermole, Thorburn, Robinson. Second-class : E. M. Ward, Roberts, Frith, Webster, Millais, Tayler, Haghe, Cousins. Third-class: Ansdell, Wm. Hunt, (water-colour,) Doo, Poole, J. Thomp- son, Hurlstone, Macnee. Honourable mention : Topham, Henry Warren, Wehnert, Wilson junior, Crate, F. Goodall, R. Corbould, E. W. Cooke, F. Danby, Elmore, Harding, Holland, Horsley, Lane, Nash, Paton, Philip, Pye, Stocks, Stone, Wells. In Architecture, Barry has obtained the great medal ; and either one of the other medals or honourable mention has been awarded to Cookerell, Owen Jones, Donaldson, Hardwicke, Gilbert Scott, Falkener, Hamilton, Burton, Fowler, Thomas Wyatt, Allom, Digby Wyatt, Kendall, and Shaw.
The list strikes us as a somewhat singular one. We have no inclina- tion, however, to constitute ourselves a jury on the jurors, for the purpose of bringing them in guilty or not guilty of injustice, partiality, caprice, or obtuseness. There may be much passing in the jury-box of which the public in the gallery have no means of judging ; and any person who may feel himself aggrieved will do sensibly to reflect that, provided the verdict is a biased or unwise one, to have obtained it in his own favour were small distinction.
The list would, indeed, be more than singular if nothing beyond what itself indicates had transpired. It is only explicable when we hear that various artists withdrew themselves from competition ; among whom the names of Mulready, Three, Eastlake, Maclise, Herbert, and Rosa, have been recorded. In sculpture, Gibson and Baily withdrew ; and not a sin- gle Briton obtains either prize or honourable mention. However, Mul- ready and Eastlake among the painters, and Gibson among the sculptors, have received the decoration of the Legion of Honour ; as well as Cockerell, already a prizen1an, among the architects.
We do not exactly understand the designations given to the several prizes in the journals. According to the Imperial regulations, there were to have been a silver medal and a bronze medal ; with which we presume that the so-called second and third class gold medals correspond. The Emperor also reserved it to himself to recompense specially, on recom- mendation, any one who might have rendered extraordinary services, or incurred great sacrifices in the cause of art ; and we are not certain whether this recompense remains over and above all those here mentioned, or whether possibly the " great gold medal " is it.
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