PORTRAITS OF SIR CHARLES NAPIER.
Mr. M`Lettn is exhibiting an oil-painting of Sir Charles Napier, by Mr. Smart, an artist who practises in India. The style is dry and hard, but spirited and lifesome, distinct, and well suited for the engraver. The picture is of small size, though it will make a large engraving; it gives a fall-length view of the sitter. The General is seated at his camp-table; he looks as if he were revolving some subject in his mind, with a rapid and determined purpose. His eagle-eyes are fixed upon you through the im- mortal spectacles-an eye " to threaten or command," like Mars in bar- nacles. His hair is black, inclining to a grizzled tint; his beard, grown to its natural length and form, is flattish, and characteristically sharp at the edges: by a capricious concession to English usage, the front of the chin and the under lip are shaved. His slender form is clothed in a blue frock-coat, with the star of the Bath on the left breast and the General's aguillette on the opposite side; very loose white pantaloons enfold the legs, and are lost in a stout pair of jack- boots. Something about the whole aspect of the man reminds you of Paganiui; but it is a robust officerlike Paganini-the Mars to that Apollo. Mr. Smart gives to the hero slenderer proportions and a sharper countenance than the daguerreotype has done: something perhaps may be allowed for the central exaggeration of the photograph, something on the other hand for portrait-painter's tare and tret, by which the original is refined; some- thing also for the difference between active service and repose. At any rate, it is a striking portrait; highly typical of one of the most remarkable men of our times.
Messrs. Hering and Remington have published a lithograph of Mr. Kil- burn's daguerreotype, as a foretaste of the engraving. It is not so firm and sharp as the photograph, but it shows the general character and composition of the portrait.
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