FINE ARTS.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION.

THE pay-entrance of the National Gallery was opened on Monday for the receipt of shillings to see the great picture-show of the season. The rain, and the absence of EDWIN LANDSEER'S dogs, however, damped the ardour of public curiosity, which is usually impatient to 'witness the annual proofs of the crab-like progression of British art ; and the rooms, even on the first day, were, like the majority of the performances, very passable.

The amount of mediocrity this year is more than commonly large, and diffused amongst a considerable quantity of merit below that respectable rank ; while the manifestations of mind and imagination are so few, that, slight as they mostly are, they well repay the trouble of searching for them. It would be a welcome improvement if one of the small rooms were exclusively appropriated to pictures of interest-and there are a score or two of such : they might then be placed so as to be visible without risk of a crick in the back or the neck, and with a most acceptable relief to the eyes. Such an arrangement would leave plenty of space, even on the line, for those numerous pictures that obtain conspicuous places from being the production of R.A.s, and which would be more tolerable if looking at them were optional. It 'would be worth double the price of admission were a well-chosen tithe of the whole number of works exhibited, if only to escape the twelve hundred other performances, and a headache to hoot ; for there is but little of that amusing sort of badness that lightens fatigue by trovoking merriment. We may contribute somewhat to lessen the poil of the visiters, by indicating, as briefly as may be, what is really worth attention.

The only picture of elevated character is the solitary work of Run.LAKE, (75,) representing Christ, seated on the Mount of Olives, mourning over the future destruction of Jerusalem. The compassionate reproach and sorrow depicted in the look and gesture of the Saviour express the Divine sentiment, and, taken together with the accessorial figures, at once suggest the quotation which stands in place of a title. The refinement and tenderness of EASTLAKE'S style accord with the spirit of the scene : indeed, the art of the painting leaves nothing to be desired. MULREADY has one of his elaborate and expressive compositions, (109) ; but the incident of a little boy encouraged to give a piece ' of money to a group of fierce-looking mendicants, is not a very pertinent illustration of the precept of Solomon, "Train up a child in the way he should go." Macnisn has two clever pictures : The Sleeping Beauty, (1240 a fanciful version of the splendid scene in the Covent Garden Easter piece of last year, designed and drawn in a masterly style, but painted in a glaring and superficial manner ; and Hunt the Slipper at Neighbour Flanzborough's-Unexpected Visit of the Fine Ladies, (3I3,) full of character and animation, and conceived in the spirit of the author. REDGRAVE also has a subject from the same story : The Vicar of Wakefield Finding his Daughter at the Inn, (498,) in which pathos and humour are combined: and he has portrayed Si, Roger de Coverley's Courtship, (287,) with a finish and tact that would have won for him the applause of ADDISON. The Castle-builder, (295)-a milkmaid kicking over her basket of eggs in an ecstacy of delight at the contemplation of her imaginary wealth-is, however, the most perfect of his performances. Macmsn's Irish Girl Burning Nuts as a Charm, (33,) is not equal to it either in conception or painting. WEBSTER has three pictures of schoolboys, each of them inimitable in point of character and perfect in execution : The Boy and Many Friends, (65)-a timid urchin with a lapfull of cake and oranges, beset by eager candidates for his favour-is an epitome of human nature ; and the row of rustic scholars under the influence of The Frown and The Joke of the master, (268 and 271,) amusingly depicts the lights and shadows of a school-day. LESLIE exhibits three pictures, but only one is worthy of his reputation; the scene from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, (52,) where Jourdamn is having a fencing-bout with his servant, the sketch of which has been lithographed : his Fairlop Fair, (95,) is a mere painted toy ; and The Library at Holland House, with Portraits, (340,) a very commonplace interior.

CHARLES LANDSEER has not succeeded in expressing the high sentiment of incorruptible patriotism in his Temptation of Andrew Marvell, (17); but there is considerable merit both in it and De Montfort, (339,) though not adequate to the demands of the subject. The Stolen Interview of Charles the First when Prince of Wales, with the Infanta of Spain, (507,) is depicted by F. STONE with characteristic elegance.

The most real representation of a scene of actual life at the present

time, is COPE'S of Poor-law Guardians-Board-day-Application for Bread, (242,) which conveys in a homely manner a forcible idea of the spirit and influence of the measure, while it expresses the character of the recipients and administrators of relief. The Cottage-Door, '(563,) by LINNELL, is a more pleasing phase of English rustic life, and equally faithful in its way. The Trial of Effie Deans, (539,) by R. S. LAUDER, is a striking and powerful, though somewhat coarse piece of reality, so far as the bench of judges, the counsel, and spectators of a Scottish court of justice ; but the-pathos of the story is not commensurately expressed. Neither has another Scottish artist, ALLAN, succeeded ia redeeming from insipidity the hackneyed incident of The Stolen Child Recovered, (29). Their countryman A. JOHNSTON has been more happy in his pastoral scene of Sunday Morning, (1176); which is worthy of the quotation from

BURNS that it illustrates. Immediately above this last, but scarcely visible by the dungeon-light of the little hole called the Octagon Room,

is an historical picture by a young artist ; Cardinal Wolsey Leaving London after his Disgrace, (1175,) by S. WEST, whose merits, apart from the fact of there being so few works of this class, deserve a better place. Such a battle-piece as The Fight at Cropedy Bridge, where Sir William Waller attacked King Charles the First, (1820 by A. COOPER, is unworthy of the epithet historical, and only to be admired for the

studies of horse-flesh introduced. Nor are Errr's studies of human flesh to be regarded in any other light than as academic exercises;

made attractive by a display of nudity almost indelicate from the absence of sentiment ; such as Female Bathers Surprised by a Swan, (379,) and To Arms, ye Brave (206.) The Repentant Prodigal's Return to his Father, (136,) if from any other pencil than Erry's, would be consigned to the obscurity that it deserves.

Pirates of Istria Bearing off the Brides of Venice, (410,) by J. R, HERBERT, is an amplified and improved version of his small design

which was engraved : the drawing is beautiful, but the painting is too much in the rigid and ornamental style of MecusE, and the action and expression of the groups want movement and earnestness ; it has the

set air of a stage tableau. Mary Queen of Scots Returning to Stirling, (429,) by W. SIMON ; and Venice, (571,) by M`L'asms, are pictures of too much merit to be passed over.

Of scenic pictures with imaginative character, The Sculptor's Triumph when his Statue of Venus is about to be placed in her Temple-a Morning at Rhodes, (466,) by DARBY, is a beautiful example : the poetry of the incident is expressed with classic simplicity. MARTIN has a pair of preternatural scenes, Pandemonium, (570,) in black and red, and the Celestial City, (428,) in blue and pink. TURNER is less extravagant this year, and we hail the symptoms of returning sanity : his two views of Venice, Ducal Pakwe, Dogano, Sze.

(53,) and Giudecca, &c. (66,) are gorgeous creations conveying a poetical idea of the actual scene steeped in an atmosphere of light and colour. His view of .Roseneu, seat of Prince Albert, near Coburg, (1760 is lumi

nously splendid in colour ; and though overcharged, not unnatural irt

effect, if viewed at a proper distance. Depositing of John of Bellini's Three Pictures in la Chiesa Redentore, Venice, (277,) is a pageant of

painting worthy to be the pendant to DARBY'S Triumph of Sculpture ; and his two circular studies of a warm and cool effect, (532 and 542,) are brilliant rondos of harmony in prismatic hues.

ROBERTS has three large, interesting, and doubtless accurate views, Portico of Temple at Denderah, (223,) Jerusalem, (399,) and Ruins of Baalbec, (994); but they do not embody the imaginative suggestions of his sketches.

STANFIELD'S large marine subject, Castello d' Ischia, from the Mole, (9,) is a grand composition, admirably drawn and dexterously painted;

but the atmosphere looks too still for a heavy gale, nor are the waves

so very tremendous. His smaller coast-scene, Near Castel a Mare, (4I7,) is bright and sparkling ; but even in this, as well as his view of Pozzuoli from Caligula's Bridge, (354,) the monotony of colour and texture, and the still-life character of the objects, fail to convey an impression of actual nature, such as we feel while looking at A Scene taken from the Caves of Ulysses at Sorrento, (384,) by COLLINS: indeed this last is the most genuine and characteristic transcript of nature in the

exhibition, and therefore attractive, though little else but a strip of sea and rock.

WirnEnn:GroN's large landscape, Repose, (153,) is black and white, not sun and shade ; but his two smaller studies, Keston Common, (264,) and Morant's Court-hill, (1215,) have true English character. CRES WICK'S Pastoral, (1210,) is thrust into the Black Hole, and can scarcely be judged of. LEE'S Devonshire Scenery, (2010 is thin and poor ; and his Highland Scenery, (300,) coarse in its vigour. Mr. J. J. CHALON, the new Academician, is conspicuous by the production of the most trumpery piece of painting in the exhibition, Going to the Fair, (38.)

The Portraits are below the average as paintings, and less interesting than usual as likenesses. Wri,K1E, being in the East, has no other

works but two portraits ; of which, The Student, (67,) is a fine study of character ; the other is Sir Peter Laurie, (116.) A whole-length of the Duke of Sussex, (60,) by HART, iS a forcible but vulgar picture : the furniture being conspicuous, however, it may find favour with the Jews, for whose Hospital it is painted.

Mr. PARTRIDGE'S half-lengths of the Queen and Prince Albert, (61 and 188,) are of a like character. Sir MARTIN SirEE's of the Archbishop of Canterbury, (68,) the Bishop of Litchfield, (183,) and Mr. Gaily Knight, (540 are clever pictures, but petty in style. Parnmps keeps his ground, but BRIGGS has fallen back ; his full-length of Miss Miinzan, (125,) is ludicrously tame and insipid in character ; and he paints more smoky than ever. Mrs. CARPENTER'S whole-length of the veteran Whig George Byng, (171,) is one of the best portrait-pictures ; and A. CHALON'S Farewell, (216,) one of the worst.

PICKERSGILL seems to monopolize all the intellectual people: he has painted the poet Wordsworth, (368,) Lawrence the surgeon, (167,) and last, not least, for he stands as big as O'Connell, Mr. Ainsworth, (10): but these liknesses either show what very commonplace people some great geniuses are, or that this portrait-painter cannot indicate the mind in the countenance, just as some landscape-painters cannot represent atmosphere. That character may be portrayed without exaggeration or affectation, by a modern limner, is proved by a likeness of Thomas Carlyle, (565,) by S. LAURENCE ; which, though stuck up as far out of sight as possible, yet gives a true impression of the massive head and vigorous mind of the graphic exponent of the French Revolution,. A. MORTON has depicted Charles Kemble, (404,) in his latest character of Stage Licenser: and E. M. WARD has given us a sketch of Tlwrwaldsen in his Study at Rome, (552), whose homely truth makes it preferable to the best-dressed and best-furnished whole-lengths by R.A.s. LINNELL'S, and other cabinet portraits by LAUDER, BOXALL, and CORBET, will not fail to attract notice by the force of character and refinement of style. In the Miniature room, A. Cnenott's half-lengths of the Prince and Princess of Capua, (696 and 712,) are most conspicuous : the artist must surely have had "Beauty and the Beast" in his mind's eye. Be tween them is an elaborately bad, inky-looking miniature of Prince Albert, (706,) by A. Prammr. The Prince fares better in Ross's hands, (826,) though he looks too much of the courtier. The grand miniature of all is The Homage, (839)—another Coronation-scene, and we hope the last—by Sir W. J. NEWTON, which is remarkable as being the worst as well as largest painting on ivory ; as will be evident on comparing it with Ross's whole-length of the Dutchess of Somerset, (864.) We looked in vain for a specimen of fresco, painted by Mr. DYCE ; for the Academy, not choosing to sanction the attempt to revive a style that the smudges with R.A. tacked to their name could not practice, it was excluded.

The SCULPTURE is more than ordinarily attractive : but to see it properly in the dark hole where colossal figures and chimney-ornaments are huddled together promiscuously, is impossible. Bsu.v's Eve Listening, (1219,) is a beautiful form, but the head has not the charm of his famous Eve, of which this is a modification. His bust of Prince Albert, (1217,) being unfinished, we will only say that it may be made better; though the fault seems to be in the pose of the head and the light of the eyes, which cannot be altered. The two statues most remarkable for those rare excellences in ideal sculpture, individual character and beautiful expression, are by MacDowELL—Prayer (1223,) and A Girl going to Bathe, (1244); and the most perfect model of form is A Nymph coming out of a Bath, (I243,) by R. J. WysTr. GrasoN's basso-relievo of Hero and Leander, (1236,) is an animated design in classic taste. The Contention between the Archangel and Satan for the Body of Moses, (1234,) by E. G. PAPWORTH, is a fine composition. Caractacus before Claudius, by W. C. MARSHALL, is an admirable study of the ancient British chief, that deserves to be in marble. PARK'S colossal Statue of a Warrior possessed of Emulation, Energy, and Resolution, (1226.) shows bold and powerful modelling, but the form and expression are exaggerated and inelegant : his colossal statue of Mr. Tennent is a noble piece of portraiture ; and his little group of Byron's Grandchildren, (1227,) is engaging. CHANTREY has a brace of Bishops, one kneeling and the other sitting, both modelled with his usual skill ; and BAILY a colossal statue of Sir R. Bourke.

Among the Busts, the most interesting are—Thomas Moore the Poet, (1321,) an excellent likeness, by his namesake' C. Moons; who has also made a charming bust of Lady Dover, (1299); Lord John Russell; (1318,) by J. TmiNoura ; and the Reverend J. H. Newman, of Oxford Tract celebrity, (1342,) by WEsTmAcorr junior—a fine study of an acute and subtle controversialist.