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of its closest rivals is the 6:72 THE Ii...
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/AfUty fjlvfc; ( Vil/|J K Ml W ?
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ROYAL ACADEMY. V.—VAUIETIKS. Anothhr gla...
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JDON GIOVANNI AT THE TWO HOUSES. This ha...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Latter-Day Poetry. A Vast Accumulation O...
a little above the dead level of the rest , and in the tale of Ariadne , more especially , there is some pretty writing ; but common-place is the rule , and real poetical feeling the exception . Mr . Blackie would probably have been more a poet had he been less a pedant . Here is another volume of poems by a Scotchman . ^ -The Wanderer : Fantasia and Vision , $ -c . , By the Smith of Smitheden . ( Edinburgh : Hogg . )—We do not know whether or not the writer is really a working smith ; but , as it may be so , we shall content ourselves with simply notifying to the reader that such a volume has been published , as there is always something that commands respect and sympathy in untutored literary efforts , however great the failure , and in the present instance we find it impossible to congratulate the writer on success . Nor can we congratulate Mr . W . Attfield , ALA . ; Oxon—who publishes a
few pa «* es of verse called The Neptune ' s Car : a Tale of New York ( Saunders and Otley )—upon anything else than the good feeling which inspires his writing . He has -versified a narrative of real life , recently published m the Daily News , the heroine of which is a Mrs . Patton , a young American lady of twenty , who , when her husband was stricken with brain fever at sea in the commercial vessel which he commanded , took his place , though having to attend on him , conducted the ship through the rest of her voyage ( she was circumnavigating the globe ) y defeated the evil designs of the mate , whose conduct was refractory and suspicious , and brought the valuable cargo safely into port , though she was near her confinement . A nobler or more pathetic story was never acted in truth or invented by fiction ; but Mr . Attfield , though evidently moved by the tale , seems incapable of relating
it with the earnest simplicity it demands . Poems by Alastor ( Saunders and Otley ) must assuredly be the productions of some sentimental youth in a Byronic collar , stupidly fond of moonlight and concertinas . He publishes two dedications—one to the memory of Byron , the other ( inverse ) to a " fair thing" who is asked if she will " have it—say ? " The first poem we come to—The Belfry—is a tale of the author ' s passion for a certain Maude , a " pale , marble girl , " like Tennyson ' s , although " from a robust woman sprung / ' Of the young gentleman ' s admiration of this damsel we are told that it extended To the brink Of feelings where the soul doth sink .
As a consequence of his soul being in this perilous position , Alastor behaves with rude gallantry one day to Maude ; then goes well nigh out of his wits with remorse , but is finally forgiven and made happy by the marble fair one . The style in which these things are told may be gathered from this choice specimen of inversion : — . Quietly answered Maude me thus- ^ - " Than friends there'll be no niorer'twixt us . " Alastor ' s heart is evidently exceedingly susceptible . If he makes love as it in the law
often in fact as he does in verse , we shall probably hear of courts ; but no doubt he reserves many of his raptures for the woods and the printers . Several of his poems are addressed "To- ; " and we cannot help suspecting that he has previously sent them through the post in the form of Yalentines . It is to be hoped the fair " " approves of them ; but , for ourselves , great as our sympathy is with these modest stammerings of the heart , we could wish the author had first learnt a few of the plain rules of grammar , metre , and composition . with for the iece is noveltyyet here
A volume of verse a map frontisp a ; it is in the shape of The Poetical Legends of the Channel Islands . By the Rev . W . Langley Pope , M . A ., Pembroke College , Oxford . ( Saunders and Otle ' y ) " Gloria Deo" is the motfco which , in no very good taste , Mr . Pope puts on his title-page ; but he dedicates to the Earl of Shaftesbury , and probably thinks it necessary to appear in full canonicals . In his epistle to that nobleman , he says he submits the Legends to his Lordship ' s ''¦ attentive perusal "—which is really demanding too much—and adds that , at the same time , he considers it his duty " to commend them to the Catholic Church of Christ . " Turning the page , we find this
PREFACE . Most courteous Reader ! askest thou me , why Let / ends my theme ? Pray , know they Truth supply . This must surely be regarded as a parody on a deceased wit ' s burlesque of the elaborate nothings which Martial used to weave into verse : — Jones eats his lettuces undresB'd : D ' you ask the reason ? Tis confess'd—That ia the way Jones likes them best . The use of the map in Mr . Pope ' s volume is to point out , by means of red numbers , the sites of the legends here immortalised . If the reader wants a further taste of the poems , here it is : —
The loveliest of village maidens she s Her deep blue eye (/ listened with purity . . , Young , graceful , fair , o f chastest soul , Bold fisher Hubert bow'd to her control . This will probably be enough . Mr . Langley Pope is certainly widely distinct froui . Mr . Alexander Pope .
Of Its Closest Rivals Is The 6:72 The Ii...
of its closest rivals is the 6 : 72 THE IiEADEB . fNo . 377 . Sat , ^ ., ¦ ' " . _ _ _'«« fc ^* w .. t f *» . « *¦*» . « - '_ ¦ -1— - ^^^^^^^^^^*^^^ 1 ^^^ m ' >~—~ - m
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Royal Academy. V.—Vauietiks. Anothhr Gla...
ROYAL ACADEMY . V . —VAUIETIKS . Anothhr glance at the whole face of the Exhibition discovers some works thnt we have passed in looking out for specimens to illustrate tho particular point that we have In hand . We still observe tho same tendency to improve the matter-of-fact , nnd to decline In the inventive . Tho portraits show this aa »« vujn as anything . Wo Have excellent "likenesses , * few dmpm in portraiture J , he artist alms to emulate tho photograph rather than Titian ; und since tho one is easier than tho other , upon tho whole the effect 1 b satisfactory . Take tho portrait of Captain M'CHntoeh , by 8 . Pbabok , an artist whoa ^ name we do not remember to hare frequently quoted : it is excellent , full of life and reality .
One portrait of Sir Roderick Murchison 1 , * u " *' hand . A more ambitious painting , but excellent also for ¦ th ? o u same vigour , is Phii-lips ' s portrait of Sir John Burgoyne . Other Pvn » i Cter of be the portrait of David Cox , by Boxall ; I portrait of S ? l wiU Knight , and of Professor Ward , by the same ; George Combe bvSh ?® * ' b ? Gordon , and Mr . Dallas , the American Minister , by Eddis ' in th i ATS 0 N painter had a capital subject ; for Mr . Dallas is a fine specimen of an a the With his dignified and cheerful countenance , his bearing and the « T ^ ' hair , he ' might . very , veil stand to all time as the model of an Archbislmn 3 We have passed over two of the most remarkable pictures in the Exr ' wr not perhaps even naming " Rough and Ready , " one of I ^ andseer ' s «„ n ' paintings . It is excellent . A hen has laid an egg , and is in the usual > t » i I fuss which follows tliat . operation ; ' while a horse looks on as if willing tthe sympathy that the hen demands , but scarcely understanding the natu ™ " * the situation . The characteristics of the animals are more vigorously sented than in Lahdseer ' s later works , because , while the handling is ft * - * is more firm and precise : he attempts less of effect by the short c-our f -
manufacturing clouds of white paint over grey , as in his Braemar sZn <> " Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale" is a catch , so far as the title is coneerSl " It represents two bull-dogs in a fine state of preservation and ugliness Unol Tom is sitting with his mouth open , his tongue out , panting under the on pression of his own comfortable state and the heat of the weather- while h wife turns to liini willi an appealing tenderness . Of course youmay ' name anv dog " Uncle Tom" and his companion " Uncle Tom's wife ; " but the was of an artist has either christened his work with much humour , or he has really designed a satire . There is a resemblance between the black-muzzled , snub-nosed bulldog and the Negro . The Uncle Tom in the pictur e has a sort of ost entatio us contentedness , which quite equals that portrayed by Mrs . Beecher Stowe- and the look of humble affection in the wife , regarded from a Nigger point of view , is truly laughable . We only wonder how Sir EiiwiN Lakdseer can settle accounts with the Duchess of Sutherland !
Amongst the landscapes which we have passed , and which would have well illustrated some of our remarks , is " A Scene in a Welsh Valley , " by F . W . Hulme : it is full of life and conscientious labour . The picture is worked out with a high degree of finish . The artist has taken the side of a chain of tall hills , which are clothed with vegetation ; and every one knows how endless is the variety of form , of shadow , and tint in such a surface . By a careful fidelity to the scene itself , the artist has preserved all this aspect of variety has caught the whole character of the mountain surface , the sharpness and almost the movement of the foliage . In comparison with the most perfect landscape of the Exhibition , there is perhaps less variety , less exactness in 1
following the infinite change of forms in nature . Ior instance , the trees which stand in front of the mountain rise in the middle of the picture , are too exactly parallel in the uprightness of their stems , too precise in the imitation of each other ' s general form . Again , more to the dexter side of the picture , where the branches of the trees diverge , the angles of divergence are too equal . Another defect is strange in an artist who has done so well . In nature , the forms that stand near the foreground , are sharp and clearly defined , the details visible ; as the distance increases , the forms blend into each other , until at the . extremity they become vague ; and it is the same with clouds : but in this picture , the dimness that comes over the forms of the mountain range as it recedes from the foreground is not paralleled in the perspective of the clouds that overhang the range . It is , however , a very fine picture . Two other landscapes we ought to have noticed in our " survey . One is Willis ' s scene with cattle . Is it an imitation of Sidnev Coopeu's treatment ? A better model could not be found .
But above all we ought to have pointed out one of Cooper ' s own most perfect works—a small landscape with cattle , who are settling down to their repose under the falling night- The picture is almost in darkness ; but the eye , growing accustomed to the dim light , can gradually discern even the distance j and the calm repose of the coming sleep of nature is beautiful . Among those which we ought not to have passed is " Crimea , 1855—A Welcome Arrival , " by J . G . Luahd . It is an officer ' s hut ; the inmates engaged in breaking up a package from home , with its newspapers , its letters , its Fortnuni-and-Masonica , and its beloved photograph . There are in the lixhibition many scenes from the Crimea , and many Crimean heroes among tlie portraits ; but there is not one which gives us a glimpse of life as it passed amongst the residents of the Crimea so vividly and vigorously as tins ; msq ^ GooDAil'Tfc ' te in Brittany is an advance upon his recent worka-lcss maned in the roundness of its formsmore characteristic .
ner , But one of the prettiest bits is Goodall ' s sketch of the Breton lover , asking 1 Voux-tu la tendresse , Jenny ? " The scene in which the rustic couple swa hank rising up under the trees—is painted in harmony with the story j m « the story is the thing . The lover is seated rather behind the girl , « 0 'P ™ very close to her , his face anxious , earnest , fixed , tender , and P »«« nt ~ " ^ J g look of a man who is urging home a sustained and truthful plea oni wwui iw relies , and yet anxiously watches the effect . The girl , her face t war J listens ; she has not yet yielded , but sho is moved , and she delays the yuwwg that she may draw out tho pleasing importunity .
Jdon Giovanni At The Two Houses. This Ha...
JDON GIOVANNI AT THE TWO HOUSES . This has been a Mozart week in the height of a Vehpi season . Now ,, wHlii » disrespect to VisitM , without joining in a hypercritical howl ogam * opo which all the world ( whose opinion is worthy oi consideration ) nppiu . uuj enjoys , wo must confess that a deep draught of the perennia 1 tountow strengthening , and refreshing to the musical sense , a little palled ai ciojmj / Traviatu and Trovatore , Trovatora and Traviata , deoies remttta . Wiw « wt . recognize in tho old masters a majestic calmnees , a grand simp lie uy . * tftU ? a clearness , a deep tranquillity of strength which belong only to "' e lma > w , In tho music of these latter days is there not a feverish milsatioi , a « immaturity , a hectic languor , a tumultuous excitement e " 6 ^ f ^ j do ? toriatic of a jaded and dissolving society , and of an ago of nolao a ™ ? , In Mozaiit we have art in its otornal youth , and science in its tuu « of \ a / i «» . .. ,, i ,,, thr > i wiint nn nop . mifc . what symmetry of lorm , wiiiic . <* " . <
, harmony , what inexhaustible melodic invention , what a f " ^ " ^ " cording expression ! But . wo are running away from our simple duty . nl 0 jnya tho appearance of Don Giovanni nt tho Two Houses this wc . ; t ,, * , " ftuoe tho town hud been startled by numerous phionrds nnnoune ngt e 1 ioj ^ of ' AiozAKT ' H Chqfd ' aiuvrb' with restorations , majestic fl » ales , «" , J \ , 0 H « yimportant discoveries . Mozart was to bo taken in and done ior ' f Lj-etroot . market , with tho same mugnifloont patronngo as Siiaksimuhu " » wUa of Meantime without any ceremony , Don Qiovanni was quietly puv '"
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 13, 1857, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13061857/page/20/
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