THE FRENCH EXHIBITION.
The fourth annual exhibition of French paintings opened at Pall Mall on Saturday last ; an exhibition which has already grown so popular, and (if we mistake not) so remunerative, that we should almost as soon expect to hear that the Royal Academy had closed for ever as that there would be no more London displays of the French school. The principal exhibitors are A.7 Scheffer, Meissonnier, Rosa Bonheur, and Frere. Dead in colour, and worthless in all save the principal figure, is the firstnamed painter's "Christ Crowned with Thorns " : but the head of the Saviour—that well nigh hopeless attempt—has seldom been surpassed,— majestic in pathos, charity, and endurance. The minute Meissohniers will be the lions of the season; the artist has often done better, but these also are at once works of fine art and curiosities of virth. Rosa Bonheur gives a group of Righlsnd bullocks—excellently firm and true, and snorting wonderfully through the atmosphere of Scotch mist which dishevels their reeking hides. Frere is the perfection of true sweetness and refinement in truly humble life. Prominent among the remaining contributions are the varied and always characteristically-realized subjects of Biard ; the small cabinet works and chaste style of Chant, contesting the palm with Meissonnier, ; Dubufe's admirable portrait of Rosa Bonheur ; "The Morning of the Chase, Time of Louis XIII "—a master-piece of Isabey's crowded picturesqueness ; the excellent landscape of Lambinet, and animals of Troyon and Palizzi ; and the Venetian views of Ziem. Vernet, Decamps, and Couture, also exhibit ; but the works of the former two are not of much weight, and that of the last has little hold, or claim, upon the sympathies of an English public.
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