20 OCTOBER 1832, Page 20

EMBELLISHMENTS OF THE ANNUALS.

THE embellishments OPthe Literary Souvenir, the Forget Me Not, and the New Year's Gift, constitute our show of attractions this week. They are each various and interesting enough ; but the selection of those of the Souvenir is as superior as are the designs themselves and their execution to those of the Forget Me Not. The plates of the Forget Me Not will please every one to whom a pretty picture is suffi- cient attraction ; while those of the Souvenir will elicit praise from the more fastidious few, as well as admiration from the many. We think the plates equal to those of the Keepsake. The gem of the collection is an exquisitely-finished line engraving, by CHARLES ROLLS, of a pic- ture by NEWTON, of the Prince of Spain's Visit to Catalina ; and for delicacy and precision of line, it is quite perfect. The keeping of the picture and the expression of the various faces appear to have been well preserved : its defect—and what work of art is without some ?—is hardness of texture ; which, after all, is almost an unavoidable conse- quence of the extreme minuteness of its execution. It is an admirable picture, somewhat in the style of LESLIE: the fair Catalina, however, looks like a peevish girl reluctantly obeying the command of her mother to show off her accomplishments for the opinion of the gallant, grave, and handsome gentleman who contemplates her charms. There is also one of NEWTON'S pensive peasant-girls of Normandy, forcibly engraved in the line manner; which is also too hard, and the lines of the thee are too coarse—a common fault with modern engravers : we wish they would look at the heads by some of the old French engravers. We are glad to meet with one of Damiv's fanciful visions, of Fairies on the Sea-shore : a feeling of poetry pervades the scene, whose very unreality has an analogy with nature. A view on the Terrace of the Heidelberg, by ROBERTS, is deformed by a blot in the middle of the view. It would seem as though Mr. ROBERTS had once been impri- soned in a black hole, and that he perforce introduced a faint shadow of its darkness into all his pictures. He must needs improve the beauty of nature by putting a patch on her fair cheek. A Shipwreck scene, by BENTLEY, has extraordinary beauty of effect ; but we tear the merit of it belongs to TURNER, from whom it appears to have been studied : that painter, however, would not have made the sun look like the nave of a wheel with its rays forming the spokes; nor would he have made that black triangle of leg which the drowned sailor in the foreground presents. We think Children at Prayers, by Uwixs, too affected. HOWARD'S group of Naiads is a pretty composition : their attitudes present a union of natural ease and grace with classic feeling. In this Annual we have some specimens of French designers ; whose faults are an affectation of expression, and a theatrical style. Bayard Knighting the Emperor Francis, by FRAGONARD, is a scene for a stage tableau vivant; every figure is in a set attitude, as though conscious of aiding the coup The Pledge, by WATTIER, is altogether an affair of costume ; it is brilliantly engraved. The Inundation, by SCHEFFER, —a peasant, his wife, and children, who have lost their home by a flood

is a bit of French pathos, that affects one like a similar scene on the stage, not as the reality would : the design is not assisted by the hard and monotonous engraving. The engravings of all the plates are for the most part beautifully executed—the landscape scenes especially; and the plates bear evidence of a liberal spirit and judicious superin- tendence on the part of the proprietor.

The New Year's Gift assumes a much higher character this year in its embellishments ; which are mostly from designs by French artists, and engraved in the best manner. The Sisters, by JOHANNOT, is somewhat affected in style ; a prevailing fault, which destroys our faith in the genuineness of the feeling of French artists generally. Ra- phael's Introduction to the Duchess of Urbino, by DzvEntA, has no other merit than that of costume : Raphael looks like "my pretty page." The Invalid Mother, by SCHEFFER, has got two very Chinese-looking children to comfort her. We pass over Comis's Peasants of Procida, WESTALL'S Little Mendicant, and HOWARD'S Kitten ; and stop at the

lively and amusing picture, by Dscames, of a French village school, with its host of urchins crowding out of the door to play: it is the best and truest picture in the book, and the most suitable withal.

The plates of the Forget Me Not comprise the illustration of the stories of "Count Egmont's Jewels," and "The Emigrant's Daugh-

ter," which we have spoken of elsewhere; a personification of Night,

by RICHTER, in the manner of HOWARD, but without his grace and po- etic feeling ; a mannered design by HART, made to illustrate a story

called Giuletta; The China-mender—a feeble picture of still-life, by

CHISHOLME ; a fancy portrait, by MACPHERSON, of the Honourable Mrs. Leicester Stanhope, in the character of Sappho, clad in a drapery like CANOVA'S Hebe; one of Buss's comic pictures, not in his hap-

piest humour, of an old beau horrified at beholding a black face re- vealed to his astonished gaze from behind the screen of a white veil, that must have been thick indeed to have so concealed the colour of the

charms it shrouded, and which is made the text for a tale called "Uncle Anthony's Blunder ;" a Claude landscape, imitated by BARRETT ; a view of the picturesque Cathedral of Nuremberg, by PROUT ; and the Departure of the Israelites, by MARTIN—less unnatural than his views usually are, but still too artificial as a landscape. We cannot commend the engravings very highly : that of the "Emigrant's Daughter," by C. ROLLS, is the best ; and the landscapes (the view by PROUT excepted) are the least effective.