Publishers seem to vie with each other in doing pictorial
honour to the name of BYRON. Messrs. SMITH and ELDER, not satisfied with the Landscape and Portrait Illustrations of the poet's works got up by Mr. MURRAY,—forgetful of the designs of STOTHARD, so exqui- sitely beautiful in art and poetical in feeling, and unmindful of the More popular illustrations by WESTALL and CORBOULD,—announce a series of Historical Embellishments of the Poems of Byron, in a form suitable to the various editions, to be called "'the Byron Gallery." The attempt is a spirited and bold one ; and, from the specimen before us, it is evident that no expense has been spared to render the plates as worthy of the works as the skill of the painter and engraver can make them. The artists' names, however, are not announced. The plate given as a specimen is by RICHTER; who has made a beautiful design, though he has not succeeded in embodying the sentiment of the poet: we fear this is beyond the power of the majority of artists. Even STOTHARD'S (which we would fain see included in this collection—a Byron Gallery ought not to be without them) were more valuable for their intrinsic beauty, grace, and feeling, which rendered them delight- ful and suitable companion pictures to the poems, than as illustrations of the individual characters and 'their expression. Mere pictorial skill, requires to be united to a high degree of refinement and sensibility, to produce a design that shall charm by its sweetness and excellence, in- dependently of its success in the representation of character.
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