devoting five or six years to the completion of his picture, Mr. Hunt has realized a work which must be classed among the costliest treasures of his country. The scene is the Temple of Moriah, well known to have been the most splendid structure of the olden world. Its floor is rich marble, its porch and pillars are coated with beaten gold. The gleam of golden colour blends with the rich attire of the figures in front, part brilliant in light, part rich, and clear, and cool in shade. Colouring of subtle and exquisite power, purple and white, scarlet and green, blue and delicate red, ravishes the eye with beauty. But the brightness of the surrounding tints does not prevent it from meeting and being arrested by what is indeed the eye of the picture. One fair Boy, the bloom of health upon Him, but solemn purpose and radiant purity in his rapt eye, leads the attention easily captive. He has been "sitting in the midst of the doctors," and has risen as His father and mother entered. His face is full of tender affection for Mary, who is drawing Him to her breast; but a manifest sense of higher relationship teaches us to expect the words "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" The doctors sit on the left; one ancient rabbi, blind with years; a younger but hoary man, who speaks with the former; a majestic-looking doctor, in his prime, in whose mind strange thoughts seem to have been awakened by the questionings of Jesus, and who unfolds the book of the Prophets for a conclusive answer; along with several others. Mr. Hunt has admirably avoided the error of anticipating the time when the high priests and doctors had become the irreconcileable enemies of that Boy. Their interest now is in an intelligent and wonderful child, who has left His young companions to seek wisdom among the elders. This mode of treatment is evidently consistent with fact, and gives an inexpressibly gentle and noble charm to the picture. The painter's conception of Christ, also, is new; but he had every right to abandon monkish languor and pallid intellectualism, and to show the Son of David ruddy and beautiful as His father when he followed the flock. We have been able here to give the reader but a glimpse of this picture. We advise him to see it, and study it for himself.

effect, it is yet founded throughout upon reality and truth. Sk. made by Mr. Egron Lundgren, a living artist, on the spot, have en. Mr. Barker to set before us the blaze of Indian light as it really : on stately palm and swarthy cheek-to show us costume as actually worn-and to convey no inaccurate idea of the palaces cupolas, and gold-touched minarets of the capital of Oude. In pain his figures, the artist has endeavoured to preserve the strictest trufi. portraiture. The incident he commemorates is one which ought to imprinted on the memory of the British nation. It is an incint which fathers will tell their children centuries hence, when they w to stir their nobler impulses by tales of "the brave days of old Henry Havelock, toil-worn and battle-stained-his brow and k pale with the anxiety and peril of that terrible advance fron pore to Lucknow-is seen in the centre of the picture gre tir Colin Campbell. The rugged and stalwart veteran of the Crime a the right hand of Havelock in both his, giving him a genuine H land welcome. General Outram, half-a-step behind, introduces Hivlock to the Commander-in-Chief. Left of Havelock, from the spent des point of view, are Sir John Inglis, Sir David Baird, and the r looking, gallant-looking Metcalfe. These all are on foot. To the r on horseback, are General Sir James Hope Grant, Colonel Gra. and Major Anson; while, still farther to the right, and on fost, Horman, Mansfield, William Peel, and Adrian Hope. Al them recognizable; and we gaze long upon them there, as the fierce leat str on their foreheads, and the dust and sweat of the fight, which is now going on, cling to their garments. Sir Colin Camp3» ; charger, held by his Syce in picturesque garb of green, erit,al, a blue, and Adrian Hope's dappled Arab, diversify the setues accessories are good. In the right corner, a sun-struck Hiv ministered to by a native with water; behind is an eleplaat v to a gun, and one or two red-faced, rattling tars. On the wounded soldier stretches in earnest affection towards Have camel lies screaming upon the ground; and some natives q A** spoil. Behind are the stalwart frames of Sikh hors men. 1: 1 are seen in the distance, from which the roll of British muskett to fall upon the ear; and shattered buildings and burtera speak the desolation and terror of war. Our country fractals, vist London, will do well to bend their steps to Waterloo-place, at 1 : a long, steady look at this admirable picture,

Very different in kind, belonging to a far more rare and e style of art, the first picture of the year, without a second in r the Academy, is Hunt's "Finding of the Saviour in the I: This, taken all in all, is the highest achievement yet wr pre-Raphaelite school. It marks the time when all must v the promise-in which, at one time, few put trust—to have magnificent performance. Shrinking from no severity of her research, spending a year and a-huif in Palestine in order to st costume and countenance in the ancestral land of the Jews ari

devoting five or six years to the completion of his picture, Mr. Hunt has realized a work which must be classed among the costliest treasures of his country. The scene is the Temple of Moriah, well known to have been the most splendid structure of the olden world. Its floor is rich marble, its porch and pillars are coated with beaten gold. The gleam of golden colour blends with the rich attire of the figures in front, part brilliant in light, part rich, and clear, and cool in shade. Colouring of subtle and exquisite power, purple and white, scarlet and green, blue and delicate red, ravishes the eye with beauty. But the brightness of the surrounding tints does not prevent it from meeting and being arrested by what is indeed the eye of the picture. One fair Boy, the bloom of health upon Him, but solemn purpose and radiant purity in his rapt eye, leads the attention easily captive. He has been "sitting in the midst of the doctors," and has risen as His father and mother entered. His face is full of tender affection for Mary, who is drawing Him to her breast; but a manifest sense of higher relationship teaches us to expect the words "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ?" The doctors sit on the left; one ancient rabbi, blind with years; a younger but hoary man, who speaks with the former; a majestic-looking doctor, in his prime, in whose mind strange thoughts seem to have been awakened by the questionings of Jesus, and who unfolds the book of the Prophets for a conclusive answer; along with several others. Mr. Hunt has admirably avoided the error of anticipating the time when the high priests and doctors had become the irreconcileable enemies of that Boy. Their interest now is in an intelligent and wonderful child, who has left His young companions to seek wisdom among the elders. This mode of treatment is evidently consistent with fact, and gives an inexpressibly gentle and noble charm to the picture. The painter's conception of Christ, also, is new; but he had every right to abandon monkish languor and pallid intellectualism, and to show the Son of David ruddy and beautiful as His father when he followed the flock. We have been able here to give the reader but a glimpse of this picture. We advise him to see it, and study it for himself.

VIII.

THE GREAT ARMADA FIGHT.-No. II.

THE history of English maritime enterprise is the brightest page of a brilliant story. The roots of our naval supremacy stretch far back into Norman, Danish, and even Saxon times. In truth, it runs in the blood. There never was a time when the English were not daring and successful sea-rovers. From Beowulf to Nelson it is the same tale. The Vikings live again in the exploits of our great Admirals. The Englishman is conscious of an athome-ness on the stormy ocean, which is unshared by any other people in the world. The, age of Elizabeth opens a new era in our naval history. The seamanship of England broke out in her reign in a series of the most daring and consummate exploits recorded in history. In a former paper, I have described the exploration of the Arctic Seas by her mariners. In that cradle was nursed some of the courage and seamanship which shone so conspicuously in the defeat of the Armada. In 1576 Frobisher sailed to the Arctic Seas to force a new path to Cathay. Two boats, "between 20 and 25 tunne a-piece," were all that he thought needful to battle with perils, which all the resources of the English Navy have since been tasked to meet. He was moved, he tells us, by a gallant hardihood, "as it was the only thing in the world left undone, whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate." In 1585 John Davis discovered Davis' Strait, and reached 78° north, in the Moonshine, a little bark of 35 tons. Meanwhile, a greater man than either of these had made a grander exploration, which opened up the world to British enterprise and skill. The desperate attempt to force a passage to the N.E. and N.W. arose from the fear that the English Navy would never be able to cope with the great armaments of Spain and Portugal in the broad ocean. It was thought by our merchants that their only chance of trade was in the discovery of an independent track. A few casual encounters between English and Spanish ships had a little shaken that opinion; and about the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, the idea began to dawn on the minds of our sea-captains that they need not fear to meet any armament in the world, even on the high seas. It was Drake and Hawkins chiefly who let this light in upon the nation. In 1573 Drake made a most successful expedition to the West Indies; having first justified his somewhat piratical foray by the judgment of a pliant chaplain, "That as he had lost a considerable sum by the treacherous dealings of the Spaniards, he was justified in repaying himself out of their treasure

anywhere about the world." Drake, who had something of the Puritan about him, joined with the sea-rover, doubtless found comfort in the clerical license-a kind of letter of marque sealed in the chancery of Heaven-but I suspect, on the whole,

It is a rule which prevails much in a simple state of society, and in such a state is the only practical solution of many of the vexed questions of the time. In that expedition, from the top of a hill or tree, on the isthmus, he caught sight of the Pacific Ocean: and, falling on his knees, vowed by God's help to bear the English flag into those unknown seas. In 1577 he sailed, with five little ships and 160 men, on his memorable enterprise. In a former Paper I have given some sketch of his voyage round the world. His hardy seamanship, his masterly command of men, his utter contempt for any number of Spanish ships, and his burning hate against the Spaniard for the cruelties and brutalities which daily came under his eye, are most conspicuous. In three years he returned with but one ship out of the five, with £800,000 of booty, and the glory of being the first sea-captain who had circumnavigated the world. His return to London was a great triumph; he became at once the most renowned mariner of his time; and he planted an intense hatred and contempt of the Spaniard, and an assurance of superiority, in the breasts of all the great seamen of his day. Raleigh, Gilbert, Grenville, I must not even mention, but pass on to the year 1587, when the magnitude and object of the Armada became patent to all the world. Then Drake, by the Queen's commission, set forth to delay, if possible, the sailing of the fleet for another year; it might be that he would cripple it altogether. The whole expedition is one of the most daring and successful on record. His old contempt for the Spaniards led him, with his thirty ships, in the most reckless manner, into the Spanish ports. One of the ships only was the Queen's; the rest were furnished by the merchants of London, partly as a private venture, and partly for the public good. He dashed into Cadiz, where a fleet was waiting to join the Armada, and destroyed every shipin number, it is said, not less than 100-with two large galleons. Thence to the Tagus, where he challenged Santa Cruz, at the head of the main body of the Armada, to come out and fight him, with his thirty ships; which the Spaniard, knowing well what a dare-devil he had to deal with, most wisely declined. Thence, having humbled the Spaniard in his own ports, to the Azores,