passions of the human breast are exhibited in his paintings. If, however, a painter were to do for them what he has done for the manners of humble life, and in some respects for its feelings, our low opinion of British painting would be removed.

We know that many would appeal to the paintings of West, Barry, &c. against our remarks: but the poetry of none of their paintings answers to our idea. The paintings of Fuseli indicate an imagination indeed of a very bold class, but certainly not sub. ordinate to nature or in good taste, and therefore not poetical.

With respect to the other classes of paintings,-landscapes, portrait, and pieces of humour, or such as depict on the canvas what comedy and farce do by the pen,-this country undoubtedly excels: but while in poetry, properly so called, we can appeal to the names of Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, &c. and boldly challenge either ancient or modern times to rival them, we cannot mention one poetical painting at all to be compared with the best paintings of ancient Italy.

In sculpture we are making greater advances than in painting. In a former volume we noticed the productions of Mr. Chantry as being truly British in their conception and execution; and if it be great merit, which it undoubt edly is, to have banished allegory from sculpture and to have confined it to the simple delineation of nature, Britain may challenge that merit in having given birth to Chantry; for, till he appeared, the finest pieces of sculpture were degraded, lost a deal of their merit and effect, and were in fact ren

dered unnatural, and therefore bad, by the absurd introduction of allegory.

We mention engraving merely to notice the great progress which, within these few years, has been made in lithography. The head of Belzoni, prefixed to his Travels, exhibits a softness and mellowness which could scarcely be excelled by the best executed copper-plate.

Having premised these general remarks, we shall now proceed to notice the exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the British Gallery for 1820, and also any picture of merit which was exhibited by itself during that year:-our notices, however, must be very short and general.

1. Royal Academy. Before giving a character of the pictures in the exhibition for 1820, it will be proper to advert to the death of the venerable president, and the choice of his successor. When Mr. West first came into this country, soon after the commencement of the late king's reign, painting was at a very low ebb in Britain: he lived to see it flourish and encouraged even beyond his expectations; and it is but doing justice to him to say that to his exertions as well as talents it was much indebted-another proof that goodwill, zeal, and perseverance, even when not united with the highest abilities or advancement in any science or profession, may benefit them more than the rarest abilities destitute of these qualifications. The successor of Mr. West is sir Thomas Lawrence, who certainly is an admirable portrait painter, and who seems to possess, though he has not chosen to exert, powers of a higher kind, if we may judge from his painting of Satan.

We

We cannot help thinking that he is called upon now, as president of the academy, to turn his attention to the highest subjects, and that he should no longer confine himself almost exclusively to portrait painting.

In our account of the Royal Academy exhibition we shall attend solely to paintings of the higher classes. There were, as usual, in it a very large proportion of portraits by Lawrence, Owen, Philips, Beechey, Shee, &c. &c. some of which possessed great merit; but, as we have already remarked, this kind of painting is too much encouraged, and draws off talents that might im prove other and higher branches.

In the higher branches there was a painting of Fuseli, the Widow of Siegfrid the Swift, which we notice because it united the excellences with the extravagances of his pencil in a striking manner and degree. If this artist could regulate and controul his extravagant imagination by good taste and sound judgement, how much higher would he have risen in his art!

Christ raising from Death the Daughter of Jairus, by H. Thomson, is on the whole a fine picture. It is evident from the subject, that there was great room for the display of some of the most interesting feelings of the human breast, in painting the expression of the countenances of the father and mother, who are watching the issue of the miracle. To these, rather than to Christ or the daughter, the eye of the spectator is first directed, and on them his interest is most deeply fixed; and it is but doing justice to the painter to say that he has conceived and execut

ed this part of his painting ex tremely well.

There were nine paintings by T. Stothard, most of them taken from the Decameron and Don Quixote :-the character of the age, as it appears in the dress, occupation, and even in the physiognomy (for the physiognomy of those of old times was different from what it is at present, so far as mere manners acted on it) is ad mirably represented in all these, as indeed in all the former paintings of this artist.

The Reading of the Will, by Wilkie, is an admirable specimen of his best powers, exerted with great care and skill, in the deline ation of a subject quite adapted to them.

Rome from the Vatican, by Turner, may be classed as a picture partly of imagination and partly of landscape: it is very striking, or rather brilliant, in design and execution, but surprises more at first sight than it pleases and satisfies on cool and close inspection.

Strongly contrasted with this was a Dead Calmon the Medway, with small craft dropping down, by Calcott. In this painting art seemed even to surpass nature; for the idea of profound and utter calmness excited by it, was more vivid than any real calm ever produced. Indeed it is evident that the repose of nature can be displayed in painting much better. than nature in violent or even moderate agitation. The colouring of this painting, as well as the whole design and execution, is admirable.

We were sorry to observe that Mr. Chantry had injured the effect which his admirable statue of a sleeping child must otherwise have produced, by admitting alle.

gories or emblems, which not only distract the attention, but are in congruous, and, as is generally the case, not very intelligible. A sleeping child by this artist requir. ed nothing to explain what it meant, or to set it off: his statues are so true to nature, they appeal so directly and powerfully to the heart, that they need no foreign ornament, but are, when unadorned, adorned the most.

Besides several pictures by Mr. West, mostly in his best manner, Gandy's Temple of Jupiter Pluvius, Jones's View of Abbeville, Stewardson's Aladdin, the whim. sical Pelting of the supposed invisible Italian poet, &c. there were three fine Wilkies, a Highland Still at Work, an Old Soldier, and a Bacchanalian Scene, in quite a new manner, combining the styles of Poussin and Rubens; a grandly conceived Macbeth and Witches, by Martin; Dogs of St. Bernard rescuing a frozen Traveller, Ed. Landseer; the Battle of Waterloo, painted for the Institution, by Jones; the Day before the Wedding, Mr. W. Sharpe, and in his happiest mood; a charming lady portrait, with a curious black cap, and other heads, by Jackson; fine portraits, &c. by Shee; a Venetian Curiosity Shop, and a Drowning Female, Mrs. Ansley; delightful views, Edinburgh, and Greenwich, by G. Vincent; Edinburgh and others, by Hoffland; a grave, by Starke; landscapes, by Samuel, Wilson, and Fielding; a moonlight, by Leslie; various and clever pieces by Chalon, Burnett, Cooper, Davison, Craig, Crome, Childe, Stephanoff, Strutt, G. Watson, Deese, &c. &c. &c.

British Institution Gallery of Portraits. The paintings in this in

general derived more interest from the subjects than the execution, There were 183 subjects, some by painters older than Holbein, many by this artist, which were the most curious and interesting, others by Vandyke, possessing great intrinsic excellence, the rest by Rubens, More, Lucchero, Dobson, Lely, Kneller, Hogarth, Reynolds, &c. It is interesting and instructive to observe the great falling off in the portraits of Lely, Kneller, &c. as compared with those of Vandyke. With Reynolds this species of painting revived: but the tricks this artist played with his colours was very evident in this exhibition-as many of them are quickly passing into premature decay. On the whole, the greater number of paintings at this exhibition may justly be characterised as bearing little or no resemblance to the best paintings of those artists to whom they were attributed, and as deriving their interest rather from their subjects than their intrinsic merit.

The Spring Gardens exhibition contained some good paintings particularly "The Tight Shoe," in Richter's best manner, the story humorously told, and the painting superb; some exquisite drawings by G. F. Robson; a grand poetical composition of Jupiter nursed by the Nymphs in Crete, J. Cristall, the grouping and general character belonging to the foremost class of design; Eton and Windsor, two sweet little pieces by J. Varley; a clever landscape or two by J. Wilson; several glowing copies of nature by C. Fielding; the Trial of Algernon Sydney by Stephanoff; the Veteran: a curiously painted subject, by W. II. Watts; Una in the fo

rest

rest, by W. Bewick; uncommonly well executed views of French towns, by Prout; admirable pic. tures of dogs, by E. Landseer, and something of the same kind by J. Christmas; together with other pleasing contributions by Barrett, A. Robertson, Linton, Lewis, Miss Gouldsmith, J. Graham, Boaden, Linnell, Nash, Vincent, Barker, Hayter, &c. &c.

The only single pictures which we shall notice are those of Christ's triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, by Haydon, and the Wreck of the Medusa, by M. Jerricault. The former had raised great expectations before it was exhibited, which we imagine have not been realized. Mr. Haydon rose rapidly into fame, and if he has not proceeded steadily he is in some measure himself the cause: he is constantly attacking old and deeprooted opinions on subjects of art, not in the most dispassionate manner or perhaps with becoming diffidence. The picture to which we are at present alluding appeared to us to fail principally in the conception of Christ, whose countenance and figure by no means give the idea of that union of benevolence, heavenly-mindedness, and dignity, which our Saviour must have excited. We also think it was injudicious, and in bad

taste, to admit portraits into this painting: the countenances of Newton and Voltaire are so generally known, that they are immediately recognised; and this must destroy the illusion of the painting. In all other respects it is an admirable picture.

M. Jerricault's picture has perhaps fewer of the peculiar faults of the French school of painting, than any of that school which have been exhibited in this country: and its merits are very considerable. It is of a large size, and represents the raft from the Medusa on the 13th day after it was cut adrift by the selfish inhumanity of the other part of the crew. At that time, out of the 150 who took refuge on it, only 15 survived. The moment chosen by the painter is just when some of the survivors are making a signal to the vessel by which they were saved. The intense interest and anxiety manifested at this prospect of release, the mixture of hope and fear, and the play of those passions in the different countenances, are admirably pourtrayed. Its colouring and some part of the execution, which are evidently for effect, and therefore not true to nature, are the only circumstances which point out this painting as belonging to the French school.

CHAP.

IN

N a former volume we noticed the low state of dramatic writing, and endeavoured to as sign the probable causes of it. We are sorry to say that the last year has not rescued this country from the imputation of poverty and want of success in these species of composition. And to these we are compelled to add, that the drama is suffering in another respect, in an extreme paucity of good actors.

In our remarks on the subject of the drama we shall notice 1st, the appearance of Kean in new characters: 2d, the appearance of new actors who undertook parts of the first consequence; and lastly, such new pieces of merit as were acted in 1820.

Mr. Kean appeared in the characters of Coriolanus and King Lear, and also in the characters in which he is generally supposed most to excel, previously to sailing for America. The merits of this actor have in our opinion been very much exaggerated: he possesses wonderful command of the muscles of his face, great flexibility of voice, and an abruptness of manner, all of which are in some parts of great service to him, and very effective. But he knows not when he ought to use them and when he ought to abstain from the use of them; and when he

does use them, it is with so much mannerism, that when the novelty is worn away, his merit appears to be as much below what it actually is, as on the first impression it appeared to be above it. In the parts where these qualifications were not appropriate and serviceable, his acting is very inferior: his Coriolanus gives us no idea of what the Roman was, nor of what Kemble so admirably represented him. Steadiness and lofty grandeur of mind, which cannot stoop to be angry, and from which no violent and sudden changes of features or voice can originate, found no suitable habitation in Mr. Kean's mind. It might have been supposed that in king Lear he would have been more successful: perhaps his failure was not so palpable, but it was a failure. He misconceived the character; he thought Lear, because mad, was insane: he did not seem to be aware that Lear is represented by Shakespeare as broken-hearted, and from this cause alone pouring forth the bitterness of his spirit, not in mere rant or unnecessary speeches, but in the lofty declamation of morbid morality. The pathetic passages were not given in that simple and chaste manner which distinguished Mr. Kemble's acting of the character. In some

parts