every student and lover of art The the Hon. Mrs. J. Macdonald, by gence and the rare merit of this F. Grant. We have intentionally simple and truth-seeking artist, reserved the mention of several portraits, the closing works of Sir John Watson Gordon, in order to pay a tribute to the memory of this great and honoured painter. In style this artist possessed the charm of simplicity and the vigour of truth; few painters the world has fancy to the picture that stood unknown could model a head with a finished on the easel" when the firmer or bolder pencil. His name artist died, -a collection which will henceforth go down to posterity forms "a worthy memorial of the not only as President of the Royal great painter, who from his youth Academy of Scotland, not only to the evening before his death was through the grateful remembrance of the many services he conferred on art in the city of his birth, but likewise, as was the lot of Reynolds, through the illustrious men whose portraits will to future generations testify to the rare pictorial powers of this master-hand. The annals of Scotland owe to John Watson Gordon the noble portraits of Wilson, De Quincey, Cockburn, Chalmers, and Scott pictures which now more than ever will be prized for two-fold reasons and accumulative associations. John Watson Gordon was, even to the last days of his long and active life, in the full post session of that vigour of hand and of intellect which have ever given to his works universal power and worth. Within a comparatively few hours of his death he was able to devote to his profession his wonted zeal. The Academies of Scotland and of England, which his portraits have for many years adorned, will now mourn his loss- a loss which not only falls on the public at large, but a bereavement that cannot fail to be felt most acutely among private friends, to whom his simple straightforward character made him very dear. This seems a fitting place to record another loss which the Academy has sustained. William Mulready died in July last, full of years and crowned with honours. The present Exhibition is bereaved of those works which for half a century have been endeared to the public eye. To judge of the dili a workman in the service of art." "I have," said Mulready, in the evidence given before the Royal Academy Commission," from the first moment I became a visitor in the Life School, drawn there as if I were drawing for a prize." evidence of this untiring devotion lies before us in the instructive series of paintings and studies wherein one of the greatest among our British artists has transcribed, as it were, a detailed autobiography. It is indeed most interesting to mark how the nascent thought, as it first dawned, was jotted down in the short-hand of the painter's art; how, at a subsequent stage of development, the embryo idea grew into draughtman's study or cartoon, till at length colour and a colour how subtle and exquisite those who know these works most intimately will best appreciate being added, the picture, thoroughly mature, became, after its kind, little short of perfect. Mulready assuredly, in all the technical qualities of his art, was not surpassed by the most dexterous of the Dutch masters. And then, in forming a just estimate of his concerted powers, it must not be forgotten that to the skill of his brush and the rich harmonies of his palette were superadded traits of sagacious wisdom, of thought serious and profound, and yet wont to sparkle in sportive wit and playful satire upon the surface. He is gone, this master who, touched each note upon the gamut, with a light yet pensive hand, who passed from grave to gay, claiming a tear for pity, and winning a smile from the face of joy. Two Academicians we mourn over as dead: other Academicians, who shall be nameless, we lament over as living. Melancholy is it that men whose brains are out, should go on, year after year, painting pictures which proclaim little else than an enfeebled and incoherent intellect. Professions there are of mere mechanical routine, which, so long as the wheels of life manage to rotate, however slowly, can be carried on even to the very last without serious detriment to the public weal. But the practice of the artist's calling is not of this lower nature. A picture is the very life-blood of genius; and when the flood of manhood's prime stagnates, the image cast upon the canvass shows itself decrepid. We shall not, for reasons which good taste dictates, direct individual attention to works which it is mercy to pass unnoticed: but in general terms we may denounce one of the worst abuses known to creep into institutions that after a time, it may be feared, are sustained, not so much to promote the best interests of art, as for the protection of individual members unable to stand without adventitious support. The outcry raised against the Academy for its persistent maintenance of vested private rights, whatever public wrongs be thereby inflicted, grows every year louder as each succeeding Exhibition comes round. It is certainly a grievance past toleration, that hundreds and tens of hundreds of pictures should be rejected altogether for want of space, and that other paintings of first-rate merit, even when admitted, should be thrust out of sight, simply because Academicians and Associates have the privilege of inundating the rooms with works of boundless mediocrity. How greatly the quality of the present Exhibition is deteriorated by this flagrant injustice, inflicted upon the outsiders in the profession, a glance round the walls will at once indicate. There are, in fact, pictures placed in positions of command, which, wholly beneath criticism, call aloud for the reform of an Academy which, strange to say, is not ashamed thus to proclaim its incapacity and corruption. We must now, in rapid survey, again turn to individual works which ought not to escape commendation. The public has usually to thank Mr. Millais for some startling pictorial prodigy. This year, however, he relies for his effects upon the force of literal facts, and, like some of the greatest painters, his predecessors of old, finds the means of making a simple portrait a consummate piece of art. Leaving several such works, we at once go to the charming little picture, in praise of which every tongue is loud. My Second Sermon had been a homily, were it not a satire. A little girl, who last year listened, all attention, in this same place, to her "first sermon," has now under the infliction of a "second," gone fast asleep; and never was slumber more profound in its depths, or more peaceful on its placid surface, unruffled by breath of conscious thought or care. For technical qualities of colour and handling the picture can scarcely be surpassed. The works contributed by Mr. Millais may be taken in illustration and in extension of the foregoing remarks upon schools of portraiture. Other and widely dif ferent productions, which we now proceed to mention, exemplify the various phases of that school which we have ventured to designate the Anglo or Scottish Dutch. One of the very choicest examples of this popular style is T. Webster's seriocomic little picture, A Penny Peepshow of the Battle of Waterloo.' Other works of a like class demand no stinted praise, such as 'Evening,' by G. Hardy; Try_dese Pair,' by F. D. Hardy; The Banquet Scene, Macbeth,' by C. Hunt; Interior near Penmachno,' by A. Provis; and Among the Old Masters,' by E. Nicol. The two brothers, Mr. Thomas Faed and Mr. John Faed, เ in manner different the one from the other, call for more express notice. The authors which these artists, in the present Academy, illustrate Thomas quoting lines from Ballantine, a poet after the Burns type, and John choosing a passage from Scott's 'Abbot' will indicate the diverse paths in which the two brothers severally walk. Mr. Thomas Faed's picture, indicated by the homely quotation, "He was faither and mither and a' things tae me," is humble in scene. The tenants or visitors in this honest shoemaker's shop are children of the poor rustics of a village, and all the accessories such as Wilkie might have hit upon in his happiest moments, or Teniers and Ostade painted when in their best manner. The brother, Mr. John Faed, we have said, as a contrast somewhat, in his pleasing and polished picture, 'Catherine Seyton,' aims at a more lofty mark. We surely have never seen this artist to better advantage than in Catherine' in the act of "glancing her deep-blue eyes a little towards Roland Græme." The pictures of Mr. Horsley, especially 'The Bashful Swain,' are agreeable through a like polish of exterior, which is indeed more than external, reaching beneath the surface down to the underlying sentiment-a sentiment not only refined and smooth, but bright with laughter and sparkling in wit. late as having reverted to his hap piest manner. These two leading masters of animal painting are, however, as unlike the one to the other as if their studios and easels were planted in opposite hemispheres. Landseer romances with his subject; Cooper is as literal, though not so hard, as Paul Potter. Yet Cooper, too, has his moods of poetry, as when he makes his herds repose in peaceful meadows, lying beside still waters - a landscape which, for flooding daylight, Cuyp would have loved to look on. Furthermore, the present Academy is fortunate in the possession of masterpieces by four of its foremost members, Stanfield, Roberts, Creswick, and Cooke. Stanfield's two contrasted yet companion pictures, 'Peace' and 'War,' show the genius of this honoured and veteran artist great and grand as ever in intent; only the hand which once dashed so boldly among the stormy elements, shows now more timorous solicitude. David Roberts has seldom concentrated so much material, or in one picture so fully deployed his various powers and resources, as in 'The Mausoleum of Augustus,' which is indeed little short of an epitome of the entire, city of Rome. This picture displays the artist's habitual largeness of manner; it triumphs in a certain broad histrionic treatment, the reverse of that penny-a-lining which some painters, having in their eye no fine frenzy, believe to be the signmanual of genius. T. Creswick's Landseer, whose hons for Trafalgar Square have been so long looked for, presents to the Academy polar bears and squirrels. It is not for Beck in the North Country' is a some years that this consummate giant among landscapes, yet quiet in painter of animal life has been so manner and unobtrusive as English much himself. As of old, he here pastorals are wont to be, especially not only gives smoothness of coat when this Wordsworth of painters, and texture of hair, but seems at with truth-loving pencil, follows the same time, by an art too subtle after nature in beauty unadorned. for analysis, to portray the inner Lastly, among the few memorable nature and mute consciousness of pictures of the year which lapse of the brute creation, making the si- time from the mind will not efface, lent actors in the scenes he deline- must rank pre-eminent The Ruins ates move the spectator to terror; of a Roman Bridge, Tangier,' by or, on the other hand, by beauty E. W. Cooke. This artist seems in and pathos awaken to sympathy. no ordinary degree to unite an imMr. Cooper, also, we may congratu- agination of fine intuition with a G mind made accurate by science. His jet, her lips of coral, and her skin pictures are painted with an intel- of copper. Pigeons of spangled lectual purpose-they contain even didactic truth; and thus, while they delight the fancy, they add to the stores of the intellect. plumage, irridescent in purple, emerald, and gold, flock into the foreground. The sun has set, and now kindles "the after-glow," burning as a fire on the dusky brow of twilight. It may be objected that this picture, even like the Christ in the Temple,' is realistic, and nothing more. Yet by its marvellous brilliancy, by its superb colour, and even by its detail, true to deceptive illusion, does the work acquire power, and even attain to poetry. We have spoken of The Landing at Gravesend,' of 'The Triumph on London Bridge,' and now we come to a third scene, The Royal Marriage,' painted by G. H. Thomas. This certainly is a masterly performance; accurate in its drawing, firm in outline, brilliant in light and colour, yet quiet in well-tempered general effect. The style is not unlike that of Frith, only less elaborate in finish. The picture has probably been painted so as to present as few difficulties as possible to its "fac-simile reproduction in full colours;" therefore the outlines, as we have stated, are preserved in unbroken continuity, and the finish is kept within the limits of the chromolithographic process. A word may be devoted to three festive compositions, products of the Royal Marriage-works which, like laureate odes, have to contend with materials untractable in the hands of either painter or poet. Pictures of state-ceremonials serve up, of necessity, the fashions and the forms found in milliners' showrooms, in barbers' shop-windows, or on the lay figures of a tailor's fitting - establishment. It is fair, however, to admit, that the artists engaged on the recent auspicious occasion have acquitted themselves with more than usual credit. In order of time, the first scene is The Landing of the Princess Alexandra at Gravesend,' by H. O'Neil, exhibited in the Academy-a cheerful, pleasing picture to be commended especially for the full length figure of the Prince, supremely gentlemanly in bearing, which, considering the pictorial parodies to which Royalty has to submit, is saying a great deal. The next event commemorated is 'The Sea King's peaceful Triumph on London Bridge,'-a picture which, The two Water-Colour Exhibinotwithstanding the sentimentality tions we have declared to be above of its title, must be accepted less as usual average. In "the Institute,' a loving chronicle than as a laugh- the most ambitious drawing is Mr. ing comedy. Mr. Holman Hunt has, Tidéy's 'Night. of the Betrayal,' in the choice of a Hogarth-subject, composed as a triplych in three mistaken his vocation. The inci- parts, a centre and two wings, after dents are scattered and confused; the manner which obtained in the the execution wants dexterity and altar-pieces of the middle ages. In facile play; and the colour is black, the first of the series, the Garden opaque, and crude. The artist of Gethsemane, Jesus, a noble should graduate in the Frith school figure gently bowed in sorrow, ere he ventures to repeat a like comes and finds the disciples sleepattempt. 'The After Glow in ing. This serves as a prelude to Egypt,' however, exhibited by the the central composition, Christ same artist in the same gallery, may be received as some set-off to the affair on London Bridge. Here is a single life-size figure of a Coptic girl bearing a sheaf of corn upon her head through the rich harvestvalley of the Nile. Her eyes are of brought before Caiaphas,' which in treatment fails as somewhat melodramatic. The third and closing act in the trilogy discloses Peter, after his denial, wandering forth, in the bitterness of his soul, to weep over his apostasy. This conception of the impetuous apostle is the derick Taylor gave strength to the boldest and most original we have body and chivalry to the mind; met with in the roll of modern art. The Brittany Interior,' by Mr. Mr. Tidey, however, were wise to Walter Goodall, is homely, simple, forsake the vaporous light and and happy; the camels of Mr. Carl shade to which he is addicted, and Haag might satisfy the critical to brave in their stead the difficul- eye of a pilgrim to Mecca; and the ties of a style more severe in its out- Falstaff of Mr. Gilbert was not surlines and forms. His drawing must passed by Mr. Phelps in the revival become more certain and precise; of 'Henry IV.' at Drury Lane. and he should submit to the labour Landscape art, in its changing of making elaborated studies, such moods of gay and grave, florid and as Perugino, Raphael, and Leo- sober-narrow as a homestead, or nardo are known to have executed, wide-stretching and sky-soaring as as needful preliminaries to tho- mountain, lake, or campagna — is roughly mature works. Mr. Cor- faithfully and nobly represented by bould's Morte d'Arthur' is an- George Fripp, Whittaker, Birket other ambitious flight into the Foster, Naftel, Palmer, Richardson, upper regions of the painter's and Branwhite and Newton. The last the poet's art. The forms are lovely, and the finish, minutely detailed, bespeaks infinite labour. We could have wished, however, that the shadows had not been forced up to the last pitch of opaque blackness. But the drawing which in this gallery, if not indeed in the wide metropolis, stands supreme for rare artistic qualities, is Mr. Jopling's Fluffy.' This fancy title is taken from a little doll of a dog which a lady is in the act of holding up to the gaze of doating affection. The head of the sweet and sympathetic girl, dowered with a crown of golden hair, is painted exquisitely. The colour cannot be surpassed for delicious harmony, and the execution is both facile and firm. Entering the gallery of the Old Water-Colour Society, many are the subjects which would tempt to long tarriance, did time permit. Mr. Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs' is a work which, by its precision of drawing, and by the mental expression which intelligent form can alone impart, will serve to enhance the reputation which this artist, through like high qualities, has already acquired. The tasteful compositions of Mr. Alfred Fripp are delicious in delicate harmony of colour; the peasants of Mr. Topham are hearty and healthful; the hunting and sporting scenes of Mr. Fre of these painters this year shows เ |