BURFORD'S PANORAMA OF POMPEII.
A new painting has been added to Mr. Burford's panoramic rooms in Leicester Square,—a picture of Pompeii. The circle is small, and the picture is brought close to the spectator: it is painted with proportionate care and finish. The view of the ancient city is taken from the Forum; and the spectator is in the very midst of the ruined streets. A few stragglers in modern costume are sauntering among the columns; on the banks of the soil which has covered the city of the past, a few Nea- politan peasants are sporting; around—towards the North-east stretches the plain, to the vast amphitheatre of mountains, above which towers Ve- suvius—to the South-west is the bay of Sorrento, opening into the sea. In the foreground the stone ruins stand forth sharply; every column well- defined, every brick and cornice. The plain is clothed with the olive and the vine. There you see Torre del Greco, memorable for its familiarity with the eruptions; there Castellamare, with its strange rock in the waters. The mountains are more peaked and projecting in sharper ridges than the Ap- pennines of Central Italy—more varied and beautiful, both in shape and tint.
It is a scene of spacious grandeur and piquant beauty; uniting the lovely and the terrible, the present and the antique. Even in those co- lumns, and the fragmentary pictures of the ruined city, beauty appears to assert an immortality and to defy destruction. The work is executed with a congenial feeling for the scene, and with all Mr. Burford's practised skill; Mr. Selous aiding in the labour.
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