The Art Journal, September and October, 1864. (James S. Virtue.)
—This old friend of the lovers of art maintains its reputation. Of the en- gravings Mr. Lightfoot's plate after O'Neill's "Foundling" preserves the various and forcible expressions of the figures very happily, and two of Turner's gorgeous dreams are rendered by Messrs. Prior and Will- more with characteristic softness. Turner's best landscapes produce that same sense of vague melancholy which Tennyson has so well expressed in the famous song of Tears, Idle Tears." Neither is it possible to pass over Mr. Blanchard's beautiful engraving of Murillo's peasant girl in the Dulwich Gallery. It makes one long for the com- pletion of some National Gallery which could contain the Duhvich collec- tion. Amid a good deal of rubbish that collection possesses some master-pieces which are buried where they are. One must absolutely make a holiday and take a guide to reach Dulwich. Hampton Court is at least accessible. These two numbers of the Art Journal give us in the way of literature the completion of Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt's interesting life of Wedgwood, two more instalments of Mr. Wright's history of caricature, and a paper on the Sardinian nur-hags by Pro- fessor Ansted. Also we see with pleasure a notice of that accom- plished but neglected artist William John Muller. Now his pictures fetch prices which would have delighted him while he was still living—not that he cared much for money, but because like every artist he desired public sympathy. He was one of the men whom the Academy kept down, but time has reversed their verdict.
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