Haydon is getting very forward with his great picture of
the Reform Banquet in Guildhall, which he is painting for Earl GREY; and it promises to be equally splendid and interesting. Nearly all the Cabi- net Ministers have sat to him ; and his sketches of them are very spirited, and full of character. He has made studies of all the acces- aeries, even to the plate, glass, and table ornaments • so that it will be minutely accurate in detail, as well as true in general effect. He has only taken the necessary liberty of placing all the Ministers at the head table, and introducing other prominent personages into such situations at other tables as that their faces may be turned towards the spectator. . PROUT is advancing towards completion his volume of Sketches of Scenes in some of the Continental Cities. He draws them himself upon the stone ; so that every impression will be virtually an original— the hand and feeling of the artist will be evident in every touch. They are to be printed on a grey tinted paper, the high lights being touched in afterwards with white. We have seen a few specimens, and their effect is very powerful. They are scarcely more than outlines, but the relief of the different objects is wonderful. There does not appear to be a touch more or less than is necessary to convey a vivid picture of the scene. Many of the buildings are extremely picturesque. This work will afford a striking exemplification of the advantages of lithography as a medium for giving to the world multiplied fac-similes of an artist's sketches. We wish it may lead to the publication of similar works by other artists. The first sketches of a man of genius have a charm which is often lost in the finished picture ; and that can never be truly con- veyed by imitation. The artist has only to draw on stone instead of paper, and then the public may possess original works at the price of indifferent copies. What would we not have given for a set of impres- sions from CLAUDE'S Studies, or the first designs of RAPHAEL or of N. POUSSIN ! How highly we prize a genuine etching of REMBRANDT ! PROUT is also publishing a smaller work, of Interiors, to be com- prised in four or six numbers. The drawings are principally remark- able for the brilliancy of their effects, and the felicity with which the artist has imitated the transient appearance of a gleam of sunshine illumining a dark corner of some old building. The arrangement of these bright little bits of effect is very tasteful and picturesque. They are drawn on stone, by PROUT himself, in his rapid and rough but forcible manner.
The Second Number of LIVERSEEGE'S Works is not so interesting as the first, nor, as we may predict, the remainder will be. It contains, to be sure, one of his best pictures, the Gravediggers in Hamlet ; but that of the scene where the Ghost appears to Hamlet closeted with his mother, is altogether a failure ; and the study of a girl's head has not pleasing character. The Gravediggers are very humorous and charac- teristic. The full-blown importance of the rotund and rosy-gilled functionary is well contrasted with the spare form and angular attitude of his assistant, whose perpending visage has a very knowing look. Mr. PARKER, he bronzist, has publighed a medallion profile in bronze of Sir Walter Scott, which is executed in a finished style by that clever medallist, A. J. STOTHARD, from a model by CIIANTREY from the bust by himself. CHANTREY'S bust of Scott is perhaps one of the most successful that he has produced. The grand character of the head is preserved, with the shrewd humour of the poet's countenance. There is more sternness in the expression of the profile of the medallion than in the bust. We have the best testimony —that of the poet's family—in favour of the resemblance. The medal is enclosed in a neat bronze rim or frame, on which is inscribed in relief the following motto, selected by the poet himself- - Baraorum citharas Patrio qui rerlidit Istro."
It forms a chaste and durable ornament for the wall of the library. We could have wished the inner border of the medallion had been omitted : it interferes with the eflect of the profile.
That very pretty, cheap, and interesting little work, the Outlines of the English School of Painting and Sculpture, gains upon our esteem, as it improves in the spirit and fidelity of its outline delineation of pic- tures and statues, and loses none of its neatness and delicacy. We re- commend Mr. VALPY to compare the outline embellishments of his Shakspeare with these plates by NORMAND junior. They are got up in Paris, though published in London : indeed, few English engravers un- derstand drawing sufficiently well to reduce and copy the effect and ex- pression of a picture in outline. They are in general only copyists, and not always intelligent in this mechanical art. It requires great knowledge and feeling, as well as technical skill, to seize upon the leading points of expression, preserving the drawing and embodying in these brief abstracts of a picture its prominent qualities of design and effect, with such slender means. How these Numbers, containing six plates each, are afforded for eighteenpence, we do not know. It could not be done in England.
A volume of Christmas Tales, by W. H. HARRISON, tastefully got up in the style of an Annual, with embellishments, affords a striking instance of the last new system of book-making, which we characterized as the " Foundling Hospital" plan for fathering unappropriated designs. The
whole of the plates in the volume were intended to form part of a series' of illustrations of the Waverley Novels ; the publication of which was commenced, but soon abandoned as a bad speculation. By way of using them, the proprietor hit upon the expedient of employing a tale- maker to weave a few stories, into which he is to introduce scenes and incidents according to the designs. It is impossible to be pleased with either the story or its embellishment with so palpable evidence of the manufacturing system before us. We must, however, do the publishers the justice to notice that they avow the fact. Indeed, it will be evident to every one who has read the Waverley Novels. We have Balfour of Burley, the Black Dwarf, Helen Macgregor, &c. pressed into this service with only the aid of an alias.
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