PICTORIAL PERIODICALS.
Or these, the Landscape Illustrations of the Bible are by far the most beautiful and interesting. The Fourth Number contains a view of Babylon by TURNER, showing a plain watered by the Euphrates, and intersected by continuous heaps of shapeless ruins, like a chitin of hills, with a huge mound in the distance, which we may fancy to be all that remains of Babel—a sublime scene ; a lovely view of the Fords of Jordan by Cma.corr, with travellers crossing on horseback, and pil- grims bathing—the winding banks of the river fringed with light and graceful trees, forming a striking contrast to the desolation of Babylon; a bright and tranquil view from Mount Carmel across the bay of Acre, by CALLCOTT ; and a distant prospect of Arimathea from the pass of the Valley of Jeremiah, between sterile and rocky mountains—a wild and romantic scene, vigorously, but somewhat coarsely depicted, by STAN FIELD. The execution of the plates leaves nothing to be desired. The other Pictorial Periodicals give little occasion for remark. We again admire the cheapness and the elaborate execution of the wood-cuts in 11ARTIN and WESTALL'S Bible Illustrations ; the spirit and general fidelity of the engravings of MAJOR'S Cabinet Gallery (Dom EN !CHINO'S sweet little picture of Tobit and the Angel, in the National Gallery, is beautifully engraved by MANSELL, in No. X) ; the striking character,- true expression, and fine execution of KNIG iIT'S Gallery ty'Portraits ; the quaint old faces in LODGE'S British Historical Portraits, so often re- engraved that theygreet us like old friends ; the finished execution of the portraits of the English female nobility in the Court Magazine, many of them lovely as well as noble ; the clearness with which (PAIN'S Ana- tomical Plates demonstrate the muscular anatomy of the human frame; and the cheapness and excellence of Fisunt's Views of Indian and of English Scenery. The New Readings of Oid Authors force many a laugh, by the extravagant comicality of the designs, and the excessive ludicrousness of their travesties of meaning; not the least humorous and poiiited of which is the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of Ox- ford, in illustration of the line in Henry the Fifth, "Never was suck a sudden scholar made."
The Magazine of Fine Arts contains some judicious remarks con- demnatory of the " k'ancy Portrait " mania, and the superficial system of teaching drawing, in vogue with sonic artists as well us amateurs; and is embellished with a capital likeness of Martin the painter, sketched by WAC.ENIAN. Fraser's portrait of Leigh Hind has a triste and lachrymose look, most ludicrously at variance with the character of the man. Leigh Hunt has been libelled by the limners worse than Wordsworth and Southey. The second plate of INSKIPP'S truthful and artist-like Studies from Nature is a simple and forcible sketch of a rustic girl ; not so captivat- ing as the first, but interesting for its strong natural character. We have never seen STANFIELD to better udvantage than in his Landscape Illustrations of Crabber; Poems. The Lighthouse at Orford- ness, with the brig tossing on the fore-sea, is a delightful little picture; and the long dull salt-marsh in the vignette brings to mind the poet s description in " The Lover's Journey." These constitute the embellish- ments of the Fifth Volume.
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