L | + SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES (Thursday, February 4). A. W. FRANKS, Esq., exhibited a collection of rubbings from brasses in Berkshire, which he has presented to the Society. Many of them are extremely fine, and the rubbings were remarkably well taken. Some are very curious. Two, from II. Rutland Chantry in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, are in memory of William and Dorothy, children of Dr. King, Prebendary of Windsor in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and represent the children lying in their beds, with curtains hanging from the top, which could be drawn so as completely to cover the sleepers. A similar design occurs at Hurst, where a lady named Alice Harrison is represented in a large four-post bedstead. In Winkfield Church is another pictorial brass, showing Thomas Mount, yeoman of the guard, who died in 1630, distributing loaves of bread to the poor. His dress is nearly identical with that worn by the beefeaters at the Tower before the change made in their uniform a few years ago. Many of the specimens, being from the churches in the neighbourhood of Windsor, are the memorials of persons connected with the Court, and are useful examples of the costume, both lay and clerical, of the fourteenth and later centuries. LINNEAN SOCIETY (Thursday, February 4). DR. G. J. ALLMAN, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. A letter was read addressed to Dr. Hooker by Mr. J. Gammie, on the peculiar appendage to the spadix of Arisaena speciosum (belonging to the Aroideae). It had been conjectured that the appendage was in some way a contrivance for the cross-fertilisation of the plant, but the author had not been able to detect that it was ever visited by insects. A paper was read by H. N. Moseley, on the Plants and Insects of Kerguelen's Land. It has been stated that the insects of these islands were entirely apterous; but, in addition to several wingless insects, Mr. Moseley had found one winged gnat. One of the insects was found in great quantities on the Pringlea, but not on the inflorescence. The next paper was by the Rev. G. Henslow, on the Origin and prevailing Systems of Phyllotaxis. By a very elaborate train of reasoning, the author traced the origin of all other modes of phyllotaxis to modifications of the decussate as the simplest. In the discussion which followed, in which Mr. Hiern, Professor Dyer, Dr. Masters, and Mr. A. W. Bennett took part, a doubt was suggested as to the soundness of Mr. Henslow's conclusions, on the ground that the decussate arrangement of leaves is found only in Some of the higher groups of flowering plants, and that the original or primitive mode must rather be looked for among the arrangements met with in some of the lower orders of plants, as the disfichous in the Muscineae. PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Friday, February 5). RICHARD MORRIS, LL.D., President, in the Chair. A paper on "English Rhythm" was read by Professor J. B. Mayor. He began by controverting Mr. A. J. Ellis's views in regard to the use of classical terms (iambic, trochaic, &c.), and also to the practice of routine scansion, defending this latter also tion Prof of ve as the natural mode of reciting poetry, and as the necessary basis of scientific investigaConfining his attention to the heroic metre, or Mayor pointed out the different modes rying the typical line, and discussed the limit B. Fragmentary (1) or defective lines (2). b. at the beginning, middle, and end (2) Explained by difference of pronuncia- Superfluous syllables outside the foot (1), within the foot (2). (1) a. feminine ending of line (a), of (2) a. evanescent by elision (a), slurring b. distinct, constituting trisyllabic feet An interesting discussion followed, in which Mr. FINE ART. of some trees and meadows that lay out before him, but his etching is as void of any true realism as it is void of sentiment. The best thing here is Laguillermie's memorandum of his picture in last season's Salon-a Breton girl winnowing black wheat by the sea. This is graceful in sentiment, and true in drawing and tone.. There is something to praise in Lhermitte's Intérieur de Moulin, à Kersaint, Finisterre; and a better known painter of Breton subjects than Lhermitte-figures of reverie, fisher folk working or watching by the shore of the great western sea which must be classed among works of serious -we mean M. Feyen-Perrin-sends something art. This is Les Deux Frères-a man bending indeed and free from a perilous commonplace over a coffin, in passionate despair-which is good homely and serious instead. But its merit is in sentiment and composition, for as etching it is too full of abrupt and sudden and uncalled-for passages from high light to shade. Legros is generally impressed with some spiritual beauty or exaltation that lurks behind physical ugliness and misery, and his Mendiants Anglais may worthily join the company which, in Rembrandt's pitying fashion, he makes defile before us-he the selfchosen chronicler of dark days and lonely lives. FREDERICK WEDMORE. a An Introduction to Ancient and Modern Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Music. By N. WE have received L'Eau-forte en 1875-a port- d'Anvers. (London: Asher & Co.) The value folio of many etchings, published by Cadart, with of art training, not only as a branch of technical introduction by M. Philippe Burty. M. Burty, education, but also as means of culture, who is well known to readers of the ACADEMY, can is becoming every day better appreciated. Art only be condoled with for having good-naturedly schools in connexion with South Kensington are furnished the text to a publication, so disappoint- springing up all over England, and not the least ing as the present one. There are forty examples: of the advantages that the School Board proposes all of them original: that is, they include none of to confer on the rising generation is instruction in the admirable copies made, say by Rajon, from drawing. Even the poorest child, therefore, who Meissonier or De Hooghe, or by Flameng from evinces artistic capacity is pretty sure to be able to Rembrandt. It is a truism to say that the value obtain some sort of art teaching whereby his capacity of originality depends wholly on its quality; yet may be developed. But with all this progress in this requires to be said in presence of such origi- the practical knowledge of art, it is astonishing nality as is before us, and in proof of it we need to find how few persons, even of the educated only ask the reader to compare Gaucherel's classes, have any real appreciation of artistic exoriginal" Venise in this collection with his cellence, or are capable of enjoying it. In ancient reproduction of one of Ziem's Venetian scenes Greece almost every citizen was able to criticise to be found in the illustrated catalogue of the the merits of the noble works of art that adorned great Wilson collection, or with his delightful his capital, and was educated and elevated to a transcript from Mr. Inchbold's river-side drawing great extent by them; in mediaeval Italy also, in in the December Portfolio. His copy of Ziem, Florence especially, a lively interest was felt by his copy of Inchbold, has some definite value and the people in the works of their artists; but in charm. His original is flat and colourless; yet it walking through a picture gallery or museum at is by no means the worst in the volume. That the present day, one can scarcely fail to notice the painters, many of whom are seemingly just begin- indifference with which the greater number of the ning to etch, should contribute bad etchings-visitors regard the works of art presented to their beneath whose badness hardly a trace of latent or notice. It is evident from their weary looks and inarticulate artistic quality can be discovered is inane remarks that they fail to derive either pleasure matter for dissatisfaction, perhaps, but hardly for or instruction from the aesthetic treat provided surprise. But it is matter of surprise to find that for them. This indifference and lack of appreciathe contributions of good etchers, like Bracque- tion are mainly due to want of knowledge. Directly mond and Lalanne, should be of the sort which even a little knowledge is gained, an interest is we see here. Bracquemond sends a dry, hard created, and further teaching by the works themportrait of Legros; Lalanne has chosen a subject selves becomes possible. not likely to inspire him, for he needs must busy among the most famous of Molière's the moment "Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurais voir.” It is just this preliminary knowledge that the elementary History of Art before us aims at supplying. "It is not," it is owned, "within the power of this, or any book, to give an intimate knowledge and keen appreciation of art," but no better beginning can perhaps be made in the study of any one of the fine arts than its history. And yet art history, which thus forms to a great extent the basis of art culture, is about the only history left untaught in our schools. It is not so in Germany, for the present work is founded upon only the German setting, so to speak, has been one that has been long in use in German schools, altered, and a special chapter added on Art in England." 66 With regard to the merits of the book itself, it may be said that it is comprehensive and accurate. It aims, perhaps, at giving too much knowledge, a mistake often made in element ary works; but the matter is well arranged, school, Giotto and his followers, had kept the The addition of a chapter on the History of Music is a most unusual and, we cannot help thinking, incongruous element in a work devoted, with this exception, entirely to the arts of Design. Considering that "the exact position of Music in the scheme of the fine arts has never yet been defined," it seems unnecessary to thrust its history before art scholars. MARY M. HEATON. SIXTH WINTER EXHIBITION OF OLD MASTERS AT (Fifth and Concluding Notice.) Neither the easy sort of enquiry about the famous names, nor the more difficult identification of the obscure, can be allowed much place in what is to be said to-day of the portraits in the Exhibition. Both studies might be interesting; but they would never end. I shall simply, as before, look for those larger matters of comparative criticism which seem suggested by the works of the different schools as they elbow or confront each other upon the walls. It was not until the fifteenth century that portraitpainting came to perfection. The early Italian ago from certain famous studios in Leicester Square, robe of stamped velvet has that quality which no one but Tintoret ever achieved; to flash so and be so soft at the same time is the privilege which crimsons and purples of his share with rubies and rich wine and nothing else in the world. of What, then, shall we say of the picture that hangs next but one to this, No. 132? It is the work of a different school, and painted in different tones. From the opposite side of the great room the Venetian pictures along this wall look all golden and splendid; this Spanish picture looks all grey and silver; but somehow the Spanish picture is of a force to dim even the Venetian. A finer Velazquez than this of the Duke of Abercorn's has not been seen in'any of these exhibitions. I do not know its history. It would seem to be a replica of one described by Sir William Stirling Maxwell as existing and numbered 308 in the Royal Museum at Madrid. Don Balthazar Carlos, the faircoloured round-faced boy whom we are accustomed to see caracoling in the manège, in at least three pictures in our own country, stands at full length in a hall opening on a landscape. The little man is booted, gloved, and hatted, wearing a dark green suit stiff with gold, and holding by the muzzle with his right hand a short gun which the butt rests on the ground. A bloodhound watches half-asleep beside him with its heavy face laid along the ground, two small greyhounds sit, all eagerness, behind. It is the very magic of reality, and that without ostentation or sign of toil. The strokes and spots of colour, when you are close to them, look all confusion; but fall back, and there is the living frame of the boy standing sturdy and alive in his suit of green and gold; in the gold an incredible subtlety and soberness and variety; in the expression of the different dogs an intense truth of character, rendered with two or three weighty and perfectly calculated touches of the brush; and then a wild landscape full of romance, full of silver light and azure shadow, and ending in a range of dark sierras that you can scarcely distinguish from the clouds above them. The only drawback is the curtain, which seems in the way both as to colour and position. The other Velazquez lent by the Queen, again a court portrait, it is to the full as potent, but to my mind less delightful (121). It is with the name of Ghirlandaio that the portraits in this gallery begin. No. 188-a full face of a grave, stout citizen in close red bonnet, with a little son at his side looking up in profile, and a careful landscape behind is assigned to that master, and is rather adventurously called "Portrait of Count Sassetti, patron of the painter, and his son." Florence had no counts in those days, and Francesco Sassetti was a Florentine citizen like any other. He it was who commissioned Ghirlandaio in 1485 to paint the famous series from the life of St. Francis, still existing in the church of Sta. Trinità, and whose noble portrait kneels in that place opposite his wife Nera, "conjug. dulciss. cum qua suaviter vivit." I do not know whether this panel has any pedigree, or has been simply named by the dealers from a certain likeness of the sitter to the kneeling citizen of Sta. Trinità. That likeness is not enough by itself to justify identification. But whoever the sitter is, and whether the portrait is from the hand of Ghirlandaio, or, as I should suppose more probable, from that of his pupil Mainardi, it is a good example of the style; the child's head charming; and the injuries not excessive. Two other Italian portraits, of a striking aspect in spite of injury and repair, are numbered 170 and 186, and respectively given to Beltraffio and Giovanni Bellini. Some collectors would not have scrupled to put the rare name of Antonello de Messina to a head of the character and treatment of 170. The other is, by its background, quite in the manner of Bellini or Basaiti. But if we are to stop at Venetian portraits, let it be at the two noble Tintorets lent by the Duke of Abercorn (123, 129). One after another, as the grave merchants of the ruling caste came to their turn of office in the State, they would pass before the easel of the master. One wonders how long the fiery hand took in turning out an official portrait of this kind. Not longer, certainly, than Reynolds took to his airiest and slightest play with the countenance of a fashionable sitter. But what a difference between the workmen ! How fragile, perishable, uncertain, the graces of the one; how solid, triumphant, enduring,gant ancestors and ancestresses are here too the splendour of the other! Reynolds beside Tintoret is a dewdrop beside a diamond. There is this comfort in the hiding away of Italian pictures in English country-houses, that they generally keep much better there than in the galleries of their home. Both of these portraits of Tintoret are well preserved, No. 129 quite perfectly; and by them we may know what all his portraits would be like but for the layers of coarse restoration which, in Venice, have passed over too many of them. A mighty grasp and sincerity of character; ruggedness with dignity; every crow's foot about the wary eye, every hair of the grizzled beard, laid down, hurled down rather, with a certainty so swift and so unerring that its one fault is to seem sometimes almost mechanical; vigorous relief, colour gorgeous in light, solemn and transparent in shade. For colour, indeed, No. 129 is one of the most surprising things that can be seen. The crimson Another school had engaged in the grapple with physiognomy in another, though not less noble, way. I mean the German school. The manner of Holbein has something in its stern patience. in its deliberate profoundness and exactness, that corresponds to the Northern character, and coll trasts with the more imaginative and capricioas methods of the Southern schools. Of Holbein there is here only one rather poor example, in Lord Yarborough's portrait of Edward VI. (179). There is an admirable example of an almost unknown Englishman, John Bettes, working under his influence (175). And then we leap a hundred years, to the days of that rage for portrait-painting in the great families of England which began with the residence of Vandyck among us. These ele merous to speak of in detail. I will only point to two of them-the likeness of James Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, and the so-called Portrait of an Artist-as extraordinarily strong works of the master, and among the very finest portraits in the world. If the painting of the dogs in the Velazquez is masterly, and their expressions full of life, still grander is the hound in the portrait of James Stuart, seated in a foreshortening which makes the most of the immense length and springy straightness of his forelegs and pressing up his head and long fine muzzle ta meet the caress of his master's hand. Of the two, the dog is the nobler animal, for no chivalros spirit in the painter, no brilliancy of his pencil, can make an agreeable type out of the master. To be chivalrous and brilliant is natural to Vandyck, but it is only at his happiest that he is also so solid and careful as in this work, and in the other which I have named. Who the "Artist" is re remains unknown, nor does an engraving which ists after the picture help us. Very possibly he may not be an artist at all; the antique bust the table is the only appurtenance which proclaims him so; the compasses in his hand would do as well for a geometer, the globe for a naviator or astronomer, the flute for a musician, or hat you will. What distinguishes the painting, besides the admirable vivacity and character comon to this as to all good Vandycks in the head and hands, is the beautiful and careful painting of Les accessories, and their exquisite treatment, together with that of the curtain behind the ure, for the scheme of light and shade in the mposition. The immediate succession of Vandyck in Engand is doubtfully represented by No. 201; which hardly be by Lely as it is said to be, and suredly represents, not Monmouth whom it is Lid to represent, but Charles the Second. Lely's generate successors, Kneller and the Englishmen rmed by Kneller, find no place, as indeed they eserve none, in the company of the great masters. That Hanoverian age is barrenness at first. But we soon find an Englishman formed by himself, who deserves as honoured a place as any one. It is only in quite late years that criticism has come to acknowledge how complete a master Hogarth was; how thoroughly, in everything he sat down to, he knew what he wanted, and with what workmanlike simplicity he compassed it, almost always, like a very few masters who had gone before him, at a single painting. In this portrait of Miss Fenton as Polly Peachum (137), as in all Hogarth's portraits, there is no faltering and no shortcoming. The merry rosy face is painted with absolute simplicity and refinement; the little harmony of white and brownish yellow and green in her frills and dress is charming and characteristic; the whole spirit of the age has passed into the picture. Still more interesting is the sketch of the Shrimp Girl (31). (Sir William Miles is the contributor of both). I think of this as a portrait, though by its spirit of fun and character it may rank rather as a study for one of his social grotesques. But what charm, as well as what fun and character! Momentary expression has been so over-cultivated by our later school, that one is predisposed against work of which it is the aim; but even a broad grin is a sight to be grateful for when it is so brilliant and full of life and free from vulgarity as this of the Shrimp Girl; and, above all, when it is accompanied by such a magical light in the eyes, and such an exquisite tone in the shadowed forehead beneath the hat. The thing is a sketch, as I have said, and thin; but enough to rank any painter a master. A third portrait put down to Hogarth, I should say (unless family tradition is quite decisive on the point) was not by him. This is the likeness of the Hon. J. Hamilton, lent by the Duke of Abercorn (212). It is good and has vivacity, but is not in the manner of Hogarth. With the aforesaid reservation, I should put it down confidently to Knapton, a painter of the Hudson school who was better than the rest, and not quite without some of the vivacity of Hogarth and some of the grace of Reynolds: both in composition and method of painting this picture is altogether like Knapton. And with it we come to the greater name of Reynolds. The same sitter, I believe, is represented in the Hon. Captain Hamilton, also lent by the Duke of Abercorn-an early costume portrait which does not count for very much in the history of the master. On the whole, this is not a very good year for Reynolds. There is more than a common proportion of his careless or ruined work. Thus the two pictures lent by the Dowager Countess Cowper, one from the beginning and one from the end of his career, interesting as they are, have an interest that is chiefly melancholy. The early picture, with the portraits of the little Ladies Amabel and Mary de Grey (139), has altogether lost its carnations. These are the ghosts of girls, and their nimble movement and smiles make their ashen colour look all the more strange: the only part that is well preserved is the leaping poodle that follows them-a marvel of dexterous play with the brush. The pendant of three boys (144), one of them the son of the little Lady Mary in the last, is damaged in another way. It has been cruelly cracked and more cruelly restored, and the pretty actions and brilliant composition are all of which we can now be aware. Another case of decay, though less complete, is the well-known and beloved little lady in the snow with her big hat and muff-the Duke of Buccleuch's Portrait of Lady Caroline Montague Scott (43). Here the accessories of snowy landscape and robin-redbreast, the sweet quaintness and heartiness of the child, half troubled at the nipping cold and half amused with herself for minding it, have all the charm one would have gathered from the print; but in the face the half-tints have gone, so that the roses of her cheeks have become exaggerated, almost like harlequin's patches, upon the white. If we were to point to the two Sir Joshuas here that are best preserved, they would be Lord de Clifford's Portrait of Colonel Coussmaker beside his great charger (159), and Lord Castletown's Portrait of Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick, better known as Collina (73). The first is not an interesting subject, but is redeemed not only by its perfect preservation, but by a singular excellence in the accessories. Reynolds was apt to leave these things to assistants; but I think that no hand but his own could possibly have put such colour and quality into this noble charger's head; still more, into the stem of this birch-tree against which the red-coated soldier leans, and which with its black and tawny and silver stains has the splendour of a serpent. What strikes one about the Collina, over and above the happy dignity of composition (a scheme Reynolds has repeated more than once) which places the little maid alone on a knoll against the sky, is the disproportion of the pains spent upon the head and upon the rest of the figure, and the tact by which we are prevented from feeling that disproportion. Nothing can be more exquisite in finish than the shy countenance and curly crown; it is one of the most highly wrought things in all Sir Joshua's work; nothing can be much emptier or hastier than the dress, the arms and hands; and yet, by some subtle artifice of keeping, one does not feel this, one only sees it on examination. But it is impossible to discuss all the Reynoldses in detail: especially when it is Reynolds's great contemporary Gainsborough, this year, who is better represented than himself. The Exhibition contains at least three unsurpassed portrait-pieces of Gainsborough. First, The Sisters, bought for what seemed a fabulous sum last year at Christie's, and now the property of Mr. J. Graham. The surface of this brilliant work has no doubt gone a little browner than it was meant to be; otherwise it is intact; and the picture has all the charm of the famous Linley sisters at the Dulwich gallery-all the radiant life and sparkling tenderness and high breeding of those women who smile out beneath their tall headdresses and from amid their dainty muslins, as they caress each other or walk alone in front of a background boldly smeared in to represent the family park and shrubberies. Next, the equally uninjured portrait of Mr. Lowndes Stone, an auditor of the Court of Exchequer, at the age of eighty-three (46). This was painted just before Gainsborough left Bath, and is in a key of colour unusual with him: the sitter wears a coat of a warm brown, and there is a warm red curtain behind him. It is touching to note how Gainsborough's vigorous manly powers have grasped to the life the weakness of old age and its resistance to weakness. The lights in the eyes are bright, but small and beady: the mouth is toothless and shrunk, but with the lips set firm; the hands doubled with a set firmness over the cane-head; weakness in the posture of the knees, but no yielding; an 19 upright seat, a keen outlook; wig well kept, and cuffs and collar of the fairest white. The little spaniel beside his old master's side is a miracle of life and dexterity. By a curious contrast of age and youth, the other best Gainsborough here is a portrait of his own two children, Peggy and Mary -the lovely girls that grew up to give not a little uneasiness to their father. He painted them many times over; surely never more brilliantly than here. I believe the two heads have been separated and brought together again as we now have them; together at any rate they belong. One sister has not been sitting nicely; the other puts out her arm and catches her by the hair above the forehead, with a "Come, lift your head up; and this gesture is expressed with a vivacity, a delicacy, that nothing can exceed. The arm is only sketched, the background is a mere play of the brush for the sake of pleasant colour; but such a play as a Venetian might envy; for instance, if you want to be happy over the very poetry of colour, look at that lovely passage where the pink and purple of one girl's hairband and the blue of the background come together. In the midst of one's delight, one feels half provoked with the genius that draws results so precious from means so uncertain, so unsound; one half resents the power of these gifted smearers to beat a ten times better workman, Hogarth, and to rival the greatest schools of old. The painting is an example of those "curious strokes and hatches" which Reynolds criticised in Gainsborough; the brush has gone straight backwards and for wards as in the drawings of some masters: but the result is a flesh painting of astonishing purity and tenderness; these cheeks and lips are all alive with the rosy blood, these temples and lean young throats and shoulders all tenderly shaded with the blue: it may be provoking, but it is beautiful and a marvel. Other Gainsboroughs only a little less admirable are the portraits of the Duchess of Montagu (156), and of Tickell (231). But it is time to close; taking leave of our great native school of portrait with a look at the Romneys, of which there are several. No. 29 is an interesting portrait, both by the quaintness of the fashion and the beauty of the sitter-Mrs. Wells, the actress (29); but it is not free from that heaviness which was Romney's besetting fault in his highly finished work. Of work less highly finished, there are two exceedingly happy examples: Nos. 206 and 213 in the fourth gallery. Lord Carlingford's picture (No. 26) I do not think genuine. SIDNEY COLVIN. MESSRS. AGNEW'S WATER-COLOURS. AN "Exhibition of Selected High-class WaterColour Drawings" (as the catalogue has it) will be held for a few weeks at Messrs. Agnew and Sons' premises, 5 Waterloo Place-Monday last having been the opening day. Messrs. Agnew do not, as a rule, lay themselves out for the more intellectual water-colours, or those of the most advanced artistic style, produced by living painters; but their gallery contains some very fine works of past date. The noble large-sized Turner, View near Fonthill Abbey, exquisite in atmosphere, and sumptuous in its sunny orange-brown tone, is worthily companioned by two truly great examples of Cox, Gathering Blackberries, and A Lamb bleating over a Dying Ewe. These large works (smaller, howover, than another but far inferior Cox, The Junction of the Llugwy and the Conway) show the master at his very highest; intense in sentiment and perception, impetuous and arbitrary in handling, commanding in colour, and full throughout of that vital force which defies or baffles analysis. There is also an important De Wint, View of Lincoln, and some clever pen-and-ink sketches by Landseer. Works by living artists that have been seen before, and bear being inspected again, are |--The Tramps by Pinwell, The Fruit-stall by Birket Foster, and John the Baptist before Herod by Houghton. The following are new to us:-Waning Light, for 243 guineas; fluted bowl, 17 guineas; two large Worcester coffee cups and saucers, 13%. and 171. Of a Worcester tea service, scale pattern ground, the teacups and saucers sold from 4 guineas to 81. 58. the pair, the teapot 8., and sugar basin 4 guineas. Pair of Chelsea figures, Shakspere and Milton, 121.; and a Crown Derby dinner service, 501. THE most important sale of English china of March 15, will be that of the collection of Mr. H. the season, advertised by Messrs. Christie for Bohn, one of the finest and most comprehensive in the kingdom. Mr. Bohn has for many years been first in the field among collectors, and his J. Knight, a fine work of tone, with something not unlike Millet in feeling; On the Exe, J. W. North; The King of Beasts, A Dancing Bear, and A Caro Donkey-boy, Heywood Hardy all able works, and the last noticeable for exact finish; A Street in Rome (not Naples, as in the catalogue), N. Cipriani, with a barber operating al fresco hard by the Temple of Vesta, very cleverly done, but less tastefully than cleverly; Apollo, Briton Rivière, a water-colour of the same composition which had been already exhibited in oil-colour, not very satisfactory in point of execution; The Dead Sea, H. A. Harper, farge and striking; The Two Ducks, F. W. Burton, a little girl carrying a drake, her face very arch and living in expression specimens have the great characteristic of genuine(perhaps this has been exhibited before); The ness, a recommendation of the highest value in Music Lesson, Simonetti, a skilful specimen of these days, when Chelsea bosquets, bee jugs, and the class of work founded on Fortuny's style; King of Prussia transfer are so extensively manuWagner's Wells and Tilford Meadows, two river-factured, and Chelsea anchors affixed, serving scenes treated pleasantly and efficiently, if also thereby to deceive the unwary and mislead the rather coldly, by William H. Millais, the brother inexperienced. of the Royal Academician. The total number of works is 148. W. M. ROSSETTI. ART SALES. A SALE took place on the 20th of last month, at Grantham, of the collection of Mr. Hawkins, for many years a zealous collector of British pottery and porcelain. Almost every manufacture was represented by choice specimens, those of Derby especially being of remarkable beauty. Some of the prices obtained were as follows:-A Nottingham bear beer jug, 37., and another with a bear holding a monkey, 21. 16s.; a ball, used as a rattle, of the same manufacture, dated 1769, 31. 158., and a puzzle jug, also dated, 21. 188. Wedgwood cream ware coffee pot, with transfer garden party, 41. 58. Some of the Staffordshire figures sold-Atlas, 21.; Diana, 17. 168.; The Cobbler and his Wife, 31.; busts of Wesley and Whitfield, signed by Enoch Wood, 47. 58. and 6 guineas; Shakspere, 31. 10s.; an early threehandled posset pot, date and inscription, 57. 58. Chelsea jugs with exotic birds, 9 guineas and 10 guineas; group, Summer and Winter, 15 guineas; Neptune, 13 guineas; pair of pastoral figures, 35 guineas; Justice, a fine figure, 13 guineas; Britannia, 15 guineas; Fame, 10 guineas; an oviform vase, gold and white stripes, 50 guineas. Chelsea-Derby, a two-handled chocolate cup, 8 guineas; cup, with anchor under the crown, 6 guineas. Crown Derby, two-handled cup, fluted blue and gold, 8 guineas; the "Hutchinson vase," with peacock and exotic birds, 9 guineas; vase, with painting of Holy Family by Askew, 12 guineas; a spill vase, painted by Haslem, 16 guineas; group of Four Quarters of the World, 18 guineas; Garrick as Richard III., 5 guineas. Of the biscuit groups for which Derby was so renowned: Four Seasons, 101.; Bacchante adoring Pan, 12 guineas, and Two Virgins awaking Cupid, 8 guineas, both modelled by Spangler; Fire, 5 guineas; Music and Poetry, a pair 13 guineas; a fine figure of Wilkes, 7 guineas; Mrs. Macaulay, the companion, 7 guineas; Infant Hercules, 8 guineas. little biscuit figures sold from 10s. to 30s.; Worcester jugs from 10 to 15 guineas; teapot, blue scale, and square mark, 18 guineas; sugar basin of the same set, 10 guineas; mugs, 8 to 10 guineas; cups and saucers, Japanese pattern, 6 guineas; pair of vases, exotic birds in medallions on blue ground, Dr. Walle's period, 90 guineas; and one, Flight and Barr, The Death of Dido, 27 guineas. A Plymouth coffee pot, 123 guineas, and figure of a musician, 12 guineas; pair of Pinxton jardinières, 6 guineas; Nantgarw pentray, 77. 168.; and a plate, painted with flowers, 6 guineas. The sale produced 2,9741. Cocker's ON the 3rd inst. Messrs. Christie, Manson and Woods had a sale of English porcelain. A fine old Worcester plate, with exotic birds and butterflies, with deep blue and turquoise grounds, sold NOTES AND NEWS. [FEB. 13, 1875. country. He testifies to the interest taken in the work of the Society by some of the young Jate nese students and envoys in Europe. The Societ contains members of different countries, and open "à tous les japonisants qui ont la passion sincère du japonisme." The writer suggests that its meetings would be improved by greater reg larity as to place and time, and by a less exci sive attention than is sometimes given at them t purely philological questions. He concludes with some very just remarks on the necessity, at this juncture of all others, of bringing all applia of criticism and investigation at once to bear the mythology, the traditions, the arts of the unique civilization which seems in the act of solving and changing its character at contact with European influences. A LARGE and important painting by Meindert Hobbema, representing a Dutch town, is not being exhibited in the_art-galleries of the Herr Miethke, at Vienna. It belongs to the painter's best period, and is ranked by connoisseurs with the well-known "Avenue" in the National Gal WE regret to hear that the eminent artist M.lery: It is rumoured that this picture comes from a private collection in England, and that it wil Corot is lying ill in Paris. be secured for one of the public galleries of Ge many, few of which are rich in works by th MRS. NOSEDA has just published an important line engraving by J. Outrim, whose reputation as an engraver is sufficiently known. It is from Mr. Watts's portrait of Sir Antonio Panizzi, than which no work of the great contemporary portraitpainter has been more strongly or justly admired. The portrait is undoubtedly among the more remarkable of Mr. Watts's works, nor has the engraver failed in his task of translation. MR. FREDERICK BRUCKMANN will shortly publish an engraving of La Madonna di Tempi, after Raphael's famous picture in the Royal Pinakothek at Munich, by J. L. Raab, Professor of the Royal Academy at Munich. THE same publisher is preparing a series of photographs of the Arctic regions, after sketches made by Lieutenant Payer, of the late Austrian expedition, known as the Payer-Weyprecht Arctic Expedition. The magnificent painting by Meindert Hobbema which formed one of the chefs d'œuvre of the colleetion of the Marquis d'Abzac was not sold, it is affirmed, with that nobleman's other paintings. THE exhibition organised at Bordeaux by the Société des Amis des Arts will open on March 1. neuve. IN the République Française for January 22, there appeared an interesting account, to which we ought to have done justice more immediately, of the operations of the Society for Japanese Studies (Société des études japonaises), which was formed in Paris at the close of the International Congress of Orientalists in 1873. The initiative of the movement is ascribed to M. Léon de Rosny. Beside two Annuals, the Society has just produced a Compte Rendu of its transactions in a handsome illustrated volume issued gratis to subscribers, and on sale to the number of fifty copies (at what price we are not told), by the house of MaisonThe writer of the notice gives an analysis of the contents of this volume; of which the principal are a paper by M. Léon de Rosny on the Oldest Monuments of Japanese Civilisation; another by M. de Zelinski on the Names of Colours in Japanese; translation by M. Fr. Sarrazin of treatise written by a Japanese, Fulu-Yen, on the coinage of his country; an important memoir by M. Longpérier on the dates and relative antiquity of the most archaic order of Japanese bronzes; a study of the primitive, prae-Buddhistic religion of Japan, by M. Emile Burnouf; and finally a few words by a French official in Japan, M. du Bousquet, in justification of the recent revolution in the State Church of the country. The writer adds that the Society is about to publish a second volume of Comptes Rendus, as well as the translation of a (non-official) native history of the a a master. ANOTHER fine art exhibition for the benefit d the natives of Alsace and Lorraine who have e grated to Algeria, will be held at Naney in the summer of this year. One of its principal featu will be a collection of American antiquities, a nised more especially for the congress of Amer can savants that will meet at Nancy during the period of the exhibition. ANOTHER election will shortly take place at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, to fill the place of M. Pelletier, lately deceased. THE Gazette des Beaux-Arts opens this month with a long article by Léonce Mesnard, on Loca Signorelli and his frescoes in the chapel of San Brizio at Orvieto. It does not add much to the knowledge that Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaseite have already collected concerning this painter, but students will be interested in a large-sized etching of the two grand angels in the "Parad a fresco in the cathedral of Orvieto, of whe there is an outline illustration in the History Painting in Italy. (2.) A biographical and crite account of Jean Louis Hamon, who died May of last year. Hamon was educated as artist under Delaroche and Gleyre, but his classica proclivities are unmistakeable in the numer illustrations given from his works. His There de Guignol is conceived quite in an ancient of satire. (3.) "Un Amateur Parisien du Xi siècle" reveals a certain Nicolas Honel, apothecary of Paris, who in 1570 wrote a of sonnets adorned with twenty-nine drawings bistre, in celebration of the virtues of Catheri de' Medici, then Queen Mother of France. i book is dedicated to this "très-vertueuse, très-illu et très-excellente Princesse," and, strange to say, 4 been preserved to the present day. It is now in t cabinet of prints of the Bibliothèque Nation (4.) "The Symbolism of Fire" as represented the Homeric mythology by Hephaistos, and the mythology of Hesiod by Prometheus, is trac in its various expressions in art by Louis Mena The Creation of Man by Prometheus is a subj often represented on sarcophagi, and the wi symbolism of fire, especially in the form of fable of Prometheus, taught, according to Ménard, the immortality of the soul, and prepa men's minds for the Christian doctrines of Fall and the Redemption. The other articles of number are-a continuation of "Murillo and Pupils," by Paul Lefort, illustrated by an eter by Waltner from the Divine Shepherd of Mad and a woodcut of the mutilated St. Anthony Padua; a notice of the Exposition de Lille Alfred Darcel; and of the Musée de Lyon, Engine Véron; and a short history of the French culptor Clochon, whose real name appears to have been Claude Michel, by René Ménard. THE Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst has certainly in one respect an advantage over its French contemporary. If learning bears any proportion to ponderosity, then it must be admitted that the German Zeitschrift is far more learned than the French Gazette; but it is possible to be heavy without being learned, and this we are afraid is what the Zeitschrift occasionally accomplishes. In the current number we find (1) a continuation of Iwan Lermolieff's long critique on the Borghese Gallery, translated by Dr. J. Schwarze from Lermolies Galleries of Rome; (2) the conclusion of Krell's article on "Stuttgart's recent Activity in Building;" (3) a descriptive catalogue of the architectural drawings in the Uffizi collection (Baugeschichtliche Mittheilungen aus der Handzeichnungensammlung der Uffizien), by Rudolf Redtenbacher; and (4) The Technic of Italian Miniature painting. This last article is interesting, for it makes known a manuscript in the National Library at Naples which gives a clear <description of the whole process used in miniature painting and illuminating. The author of the manuscript is not known, but its style and the Characters in which it is written appear to place it the thirteenth century. Two or three extracts are translated. It would be interesting to compare this manuscript, if genuine, with those of Heraclius and Theophilus, and to see if it had been in any way derived from them. The action passes during the first half hour of Victor Tremaine's return to his home. Some six years ago, handling a gun recklessly, after too excellent a lunch, he had shot his child, and had lost his reason through remorse and grief at his deed. The six years he has spent in a lunatic asylum; and now a second child, born at the time of the accident, has grown to be like the first and is called by his name. Reason is gradually returning to Tremaine, but he has not seen his wife or his son, and the play concerns itself with the scheme of doctor and wife to bring him home, and at first, when he finds himself there, to persuade him the cause of his remorse is but a creation of his fancy, and so to cure him altogether. He has had a fever, and many days' delirium-they will tell him anything but the truth at first, and the child before him he is to accept as the child he fancied he had killed. He wakes on a sofa to find himself at home; the doctor bends over him with a cheery word-he has had a narrow escape, he says-and the wife watches for what he will say The puzzle, the complication, is better imagined than described. Now he is soothed: now he breaks out again. Now, left to himself, he puzzles over his position; recognises with half incredulous delight the child's toys on the mantelshelf, and then is encountered by the child himself, and begins to believe that the deception is truth. THE recent publication, by Professor J. Over-Of course there is the obvious difficulty of dates, beck of Leipzig, of a third edition of his History and the lapse of years, and very soon he chances of Pompeim Art has supplied the archaeological on the newspaper, and reads not of the Emperor student with a mass of information and a number and the Great Exhibition, but of the ex-Emperor of illustrations of the results of the latest excavaand his exile at Chislehurst. He is wild again tions which are not to be found in any other with dread, when his wife returns to him, and work. The volume is enriched by a large plan of they bring the child to him to say who he is, and the town, of which it is believed that two-thirds the whole truth dawns on the father at last, and have now been brought to light, and has twenty- he accepts it with the sanity they had been six coloured illustrations and 315 woodcuts, while anxiously waiting for; and so the curtain falls on the text gives a résumé of all the earlier monosome gentle words of the wife, which point hardly graphs and observations of Professor Overbeck on to happiness, but to consolation. the past and present aspect of the town, which owed their origin to repeated personal inspection and a prolonged study of the subject. CORDING to the Allgemeine Zeitung, Piloty's coal picture of Thusnelda in the Triumphal Proc of Germanicus has been hung in the new Pakothek at Munich, where it will remain perently. The enormous weight of the frame dd to the large size of the canvas threw great iculties in the way of its transportation from nna, where it had formed one of the chief atctions of the German Gallery at the Vienna hibition, and it was found necessary to use cial machinery for lifting it to the place which now occupies on the walls of the Pinakothek. present position is considered to be specially ll-adapted to show off its crowded and varied tail under the best possible combinations of lit and elevation. E spe it THE STAGE. "AWAKING." Marcel, the little drama from the Théâtre Français, which Mr. Campbell Clark has adapted to the English stage, under the title of Awaking, and which they now play nightly at the Royalty Theatre before the after-dinner public gathers to see Mdme. Dolaro in La Périchole, is a piece of serious, nay, almost of lugubrious interest, from end to end. All the dialogue is occupied with the telling of its pathetic story; there are no halts by the way: none of those abrupt pauses or transitions almost inevitable in English pieces-pauses and transitions which where, as in some fine pieces, they prevent the tension from being too great, are welcome like drops of rain in a thunder storm, but which much oftener, in the ordinary work of the day, effect no purpose but that of spoiling the tempt a piece most perilous to put before an everyA difficult piece to act-an ambitious piece to atday English audience, which scarcely recognises delicate art even when it has the opportunity. Many strictures have been passed on the way in which the little drama is played at the Royalty, especially in the minor parts, which, in tracing the story's outline, I have not had need to mention. But the performance on the whole-and I speak of the chief parts-is much to be praised, and to make comparisons between these actors and the company of the best theatre in all the world. is not much to the point. The manager of the Théâtre Français, desiring to produce such a piece, can put his hand on any one he likes out of twenty or thirty trained artists, all of whom are fortified not only by the traditions of the theatre-by the superintendence at rehearsals of such a teacher as Regnier (the best teacher in the world, now that Samson is gone)—but by early and regular study of everything that can make an actor accomplished, and by constant association with a little society wholly artistic and cultivated. When the actors now playing at the Royalty Theatre can have advantages like these, it will be reasonable to demand in their performance the experience, the finish, the pregnant art, which the Rue Richelieu can naturally produce. Not that I in the least omit to recognise how much they fail to do in the little theatre in Dean Street. The performance is tentative, slight-far indeed from complete. But it is undertaken, as far as one can see, with carefulness, intelligence, and feeling; and an experiment so made, deserves at least to be encouraged and commended. Throughout, the acting is quite free from exaggeration: the piece is under-acted, not overacted. And this, of itself, if it be a fault, is one that is rare on the English stage. There is a ten dency to pass on too quickly; to rely too little on facial play and gesture; too much on rapid movement of the piece itself. Time and rhythm are as important in acting as in music, but of this too few people have any adequate appreciation. Gesture and word too often go together-it was a maxim of Samson's that the gesture must precede the word. When people are not sure of themselves, they are given to hurry, as if hurry could hide a mistake. But in a piece like this, every sentence must have its weight-nay, every word. There is always time for acting well and slowly anything that is worth acting at all. If you tell a story to another person on the stage, it should not be told like a story read out of a book. For a narration on the stage is supposed to be made for the first time-the very thought has to precede the word; the man has to form his story, not merely to tell it. A diner-out, if he is a good story-teller, is sure to know his story before, yet he plants his points leisurely, and is not in a mortal hurry to finish. Why should a narrative told upon the stage go off like a pistolshot? There should be more of detail in the performance at the Royalty-many looks that might be significant are missing; many gestures that might tell much, are unused. The effect would be immeasurably improved if the action passed in a room not luxuriously furnished, but more thoroughly furnished than this one. This room presents no evidence of civilised life, its refinements and occupations. It is not a room to live in. It is like a strange bare room at an inn, with no associations either pleasant or painful. It is decorated with curtains-Japanese curtains apparently-stretched flat over the wall, but of such a large, horrible and dazzling pattern that they suggest only the wall-paper of a fifth-rate lodging house in Islington or the Waterloo Road. No worse, no more dazzling background for faces and figures of men and women to move before, has it happened to us to see for a very long while at a theatre. And all this question of the appointments of a room-the absence of what makes a room look home-like—is by no means a little thing. Mr. Lin Rayne is a thoughtful actor. His portrait of Sir Benjamin Backbite was almost the best thing in the Prince of Wales's performance of The School for Scandal. Here he has more difficult and varied work, and proves himself worthy to undertake it. I will not follow his performance in full. It is rather wanting in inventive detail, but is well conceived; and is never revolting (as it easily might be) by its realism. Mr. Rayne has many moments of natural and strong emotion: hiscry, when the half-mad father sees on the mantelpiece the toys which remind him of his child's presence, is perhaps the truest and best found thing in his part. Mr. Stephens plays the doctor with his habitual bonhomie; and if he has not the vital interest in the success of his scheme that the wife should have, and the brother, he does but show the difference between his position and theirs. Still, a scheme of his planning should cost him greater anxiety than any which he shows. Miss Bessie Hollingshead-who appears as the wifecomes to the theatre from a few light performances elsewhere, and plays a part which though brief, is, by the intensity and strain of its emotion, worthy of the most accomplished and most experienced of artists. She plays it with no subtlety, yet with a simplicity so rare upon the stage, that the subtlety hardly seems to be wanting. Force is undoubtedly wanting: at the beginning of Miss Hollingshead's performance there is none of the evidence of strain which the wife inevitably must have shown. There is momentary anxiety, together with hopefulness-as there well may be-but there is no record of the Past this wife has gone through-the years in which she has suffered alone. She says her "Heaven help me!" at a critical point in the piece, with not enough of intensity. But on the other hand, her words of consolation to the husband-words on which |