EXHIBITION OP BRITISH ART.
A very interesting collection of the works of British artists, living or recently deceased, has been opened at Mr. Wass's Gallery, 188 Bond Street, with the view of fairly and honourably representing our own sta- tus in art to our foreign critics. Many of the works are eminently calcu- lated to answer this object. Here are reproduced Maclise's "Bohemian Gipsies," painted in 1835,- one of his masterpieces ; several Ettys, many of them prominent speci- mens of his ever splendid colour, and including two of his most import- ant if not best works-the "Joan of Arc," and "The Judgment of Paris"; some fine Millers, and exquisitely true Linnells. Poole's "Job and the Messengers" of last year is here also ; and his "Solomon Eagle in the Great Plague,"-a picture the sense of whose genius does not lessen on second view. The "Gaston de Foix before the battle of Ravenna" is a fine example of Eastlake, in virtue of the lovely lady which is its chief feature : nor could any work of Leslie display his best points in a more charming and natural way than the "Fudge" scene from The Vicar of Wakefield. The Turner, a "Burning of the Houses of Parliament," painted about the time of the event, is a wonderful picture, one of those on which his fame as the noblest of landscape-painters rests securely ; not uninformed with the elements of his later style, but less prodigally daring in the use of colour. There are specimens also of Creswick, Sidney Cooper, Stanfield, Pync, Lance, Gronland, and others ; and Herbert's " Christ and the Woman of Samaria," renewed acquaintance with which has certainly not increased our respect for it. Other works will perhaps be added to the collection.
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