SHIPLEY'S SKETCHES IN THE PACIFIC.*
Lieutenant Shipley's sketches have a good deal to recommend them. They- present us with many picturesque combinations ; and even where the view possesses little intrinsic beauty or grandeur, a peculiar interest
° Sketches in the Pacific: the South Sea Islands. Drawn from Nature and on Stone, by Conway Shipley, Lieut. Published hy APLean.
will always be found attaching to scenes of far extreme regions, an that we can but put faith in the truthfulness of the transcript Such faith we see no reason to withhold in the present case. Indeed, a claim in this respect seems almost universally established by the plea of amateurship ; whereas, in the works of the professional artist, we are often led to sup- pose an influence from without, —that here a cluster of trees has been substituted for one stark trunk, or the mountains there made to recede in order to obtain an atmospheric distance. But the counterbalancing draw- back on the amateur's efforts is here very apparent The execution is singularly weak and hazy ; there is nothing pronounced or distinctive. Lieutenant Shipley might well have availed himself in this matter of some well-practised cooperation.
The letterpress, narrative and descriptive, (as far removed from the trick of authorship as need be desired,) may be consulted with profit and
amusement ; especially the account of the small colony on 's Island, descended from the mutineers of the Bounty. Their code of laws is in the earliest stage of the primitive ; witness the following—" If any dog kills or otherwise injures a goat, the owner of the dog so offend- ing must pay the damage ; 'but, should suspicion rest on no particular dog, the owners of dogs generally must pay the damage. N.B. The fore- going law is of no effect when the goat is on forbidden ground." Our European constitutioneera of 1848 and 1849 would scarcely have debated such a statute.
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