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No. 425, Mat 15, 1858. i THE LEAD EH. 47...
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X,.iiic Atlantic Tklkg-iuvji.—All tlic w...
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~~'~ mitTHS, MAUllIAUES, AND DliATUS^ JJ...
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London, Friday livening, May IX. Tnr.TiE...
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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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Publications And Hepublications. The Des...
Trussing , fyc , by Mrs . Smith , Torty Years Professed Cook to most of the . Leading Families in the Metropolis ( Chapman and Hall ) . The Initials , by tlie Author of ¦ " Quits , " is a new and cheap edition ( Bcntley ) of a successful novel by an Eng lish lady married m Germany , who writes with picturesque freshness and originality .
No. 425, Mat 15, 1858. I The Lead Eh. 47...
No . 425 , Mat 15 , 1858 . i THE LEAD EH . 475
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* .. . ..-. . r - . ..- THE ROYAL ACADEMY . ( SECOND NOTICE . ) No exhibition of the Eoyal Academy , since the first year of Prc-Kaphaelism , and of the Lea . de >>' s existence , has presented so many points for notice as does the exhibition which is now open . The year 1850 was not , indeed , remarkable for the number of its important pictures . On the contrary , it was a bad year for art , except—and we acknowledge the greatness of the exception—that it brought tlie Pre-Raphaelite brotberhood before the world . Academical dulness had culminated just at that period ; and the crudey inchoate idea of Pre- Baphaelism was , by natural consequences , the more startling . But the simple earnestness-which characterized these juvenile fathers of a strange school was not long in . * gaining proselytes from the ranks of their stoutest opponents . About midway between the Prc-Kaphaelite year , 1850 , and the present time , it was perceived that the leaven of Pre-Haphaelism had begun to change the character of these annual competitions . And now that the fraternity has got clear of its early encumbrances , there are few who withhold from its members the credit of having , at the very least , set the great hody of English painters thinking how they might contrive to make- ' their pictures more faithful to Nature . In truth , we believe that the praxis of INIr . Mir , LAis ( supposing him to represent Pre-llaphaelism as its original leader ) has been to a greater or less extent adopted by very many painters whose names were famous a long while before Pre-Raphaelisin was heard ofl Mr . Hook is clearly one of these . He may , like Mr , Eaton and Mr . Lewis , conscientiously object to being classed "with the followers of Mr . Millais ; but for all that , the pictures of Mr . Hook are decidedly yie-Raphaelesqw ? . He has three this year ; and it is difficult to say which is best . The beautiful and fitly-named " Pastoral" ( 326 ) , at once realistic and imaginative , comes with most freshness after . the scenes of coast-life which he gave us la . st year ; but we cannot pronounce it intrinsically superior to either of its fellows . "What is most praiseworthy in all three pictures is the just distribution and apportionment of work . The " landscape-painter" and the " figure-painter , " so complacently distinct as ve too often find them , are blended in Mr . Hook . The ^ false and foolish practice of splitting art into several avocations—a practice which Mr . Thackebay has ridiculed in . the person of a distinguished Royal Academician who declined to give any opinion with respect to the outline of a horse oa the ground that "he was not am animal-painter "—is most glaringly displayed in the matter of landscape-painting . Until lately , that is to say , until the principle of the Pre-Raphaelites had become dominant , it was held quite excusable in a painter of landscapes to show the most complete innocence of the lruman form . This has always been the one great blemish in the works of Mr . Anthony , and it may possibly explain the singular reticence of Mr . Rttskiu with regard to that most orighval , and refreshing artist . To return to Mr . Hook ' s " Pastoral , " we notice with satisfaction that the poetry , like the poetry of Tennyson ' s May Queen , is in accord with modern objects and modern Ideas . The couplet from Spenser , nevertheless— j Then blow your pypes , sheplierds , till you be at liovne ; j The night bighest fast , yts time to begoneseems no anachronism . The " Coast Boy gathering Eggs" ( 453 ) calls to mind Shakspeare ' s picture of the samphire-gatherer , suspended half-way down a precipitous height . On a jutting ledge of rock nearest the spectator is a basket containing the eggs , perhaps a trifle exaggerated in size , which the boy is supposed to have collected . A sea-gull swirls at his feet , and appears to be screaming an angry , protest against the spoliation . The third picture by Mr . Hook has no title in the catalogue , but its character is indicated by the fine verso from Proverbs— " Children ' s children are the crown of old men , and the glory of children are their fathers . " In this picture , which is numbered in the catalogue 232 , tlic artist carries out successfully a method of colouring which Mr . Redgrave has tried with only partial effect . The tone is at once bright , deep , and full . The care bo tenderly bestowed on the painting of grasses , pebbles , moss , and other natural minuting never becomes dry aaid formal with Mr . Hook as it is apt to become witli painters who finish their works very highly . Mr . O'NasiM , was always a painstaking artist ; but he never appeared to us a very powerful one until -we saw his picture " Eastward Ho !—August , 18 ;> 7 " ( 384 ) . It is the scene of troops embarking for India , with the leave-takings at the ship ' s side , down which the friends of officers and private soldiers are making their way into the boats which are to take them back again to shore . In
venturing upon a far bolder effort thaa he had yet made , this artist has relinquished none of his habitual care and delicacy . It is curious to observe the coincidence of subjects this year . We do not mean the old selections which , occur regularly e \ exy year ; but themes derived from actual-experience or suggested by some prevalent state of popular feeling . There are the two pictures by Mr . Ldard , painted under the influence of the same sentiment as that which has animated Mr . O'Neill . " The Girl I left behind Me" ( 242 ) i 3 an ambiguous name fonr -a picture 'which contains two sisterly figures , embracing sorrowfully in front of a mirror , which mirror ~ is made to reflect an open window and the street beyond , and a regiment marching past . The girls whom Mr . Luaei > or somebody else has left behind , have , it is easy to perceive , just turned away and to indulin
f | t * ^ t t x t t from the window ,, are preparing ge decorous grief . " Neariug Home" { 444 ) has greater merit than Mr . Luakd ' s other picture . The scene is the deck of a vessel , on which an invalid officer , tended by a young lady , is taking the air . A land-bird has alighted near his feet , and he , as well as other passengers , watches the sign with evident delight . The character of the entire composition is that of a picture painted by an artistic traveller rather than a travelling artist . We believe that in thus describing an appearance we are indicating a fact . While before this picture of Mr . Litahd ' s , we may as well mention that a calmly beautiful view of Lulworth Cove , Dorsetshire ( 443 ) , hangs next it . As a piece of landscape-painting of the honest kind it will raise the name of the artist , Mr . Fenn . A kindred work , though the scenery is of a different character , is " The Warren" ( 526 ) , painted by Mr . Oakes .
* , ) r -, " ! ; One , of the ideas whichj as we have remarked , have struck two or more painters , is the idea of " Paillasse" in his private relations . It has ]| been discovered that our friend the mountebank has private relations , together with organs , senses , dimensions , affections , like any other man . So the antithesis of tumbling and tribulation , of care and motley , serves the painter for easy moralizing . There is the vagabond element strongest and uppermost of all the elements in Mr . Fbith ' s already famous " Derby Day" ( 2 L 8 ) , where we have the episode of a hungry little Pierrot diverted from Iris performance by the sight of pigeonpie . 3 Iiss Solomon has worked out the same little bit of cheap philosophy and sentiment in the picture called " Behind the Curtain ( 1094 ); and then there is Mr . Oabrick / s" Weary Life" ( 300 ) , very much in the style and feeling of Miss Solomon ' s work . Of a better , truer school of thought , is that sternly sad picture ; by Mr . Waxlts , of the stone-brea ~ ker who has died at his work . Strangely this picture has its correlative in anotlier Pre-liaphaelite work , by Mr Bkett
called the " Stone-breaker" ( 10 S 9 ); on ly Mr . Bit kit ' s is a living stone-breaker , not a dead one . Mr . Wallis does not give any name to his picture , but quotes one of Caklyle ' s grandly pathetic outbursts from Sartor JResartus . The indistinctness of the form as it lies in the gloom and awful stillness of gathering night ; the dark , silent , melancholy laiidscape , with its low mountain range reflected , solemnly in the water and closing in the scene , are conceptions of the most truly poetical nature . One object , which we fear may be misinterpreted ( though not from any fault of the painter ) , is the lean , hungry stoat , slinking towards the dead nian . "We do not read this incidental feature as a horrible fact , but as a profoundly suggestive type and embodiment of famine triumphing oveT humanity . We do not find that Mr . Egg ' s ' * Triptych" ( 372 ) quite justifies , on inspection ^ the praise generally lavished upon it . By this time all readers know that the subject is a wife ' s frailty and her terrible punishment . The central picture contains the scene of the discovery and its first
conequence ; the husband sitting at a table , his pale face fixed in an expression of unforgiving hopelessness , and sunk in a stupefaction of dismay , his hand clutching the intercepted note ; his wife , a richly dressed woman in the pride of still youthful beauty , prostrate at his feet ; their children , arrested in their play , gazing wonder-stricken . On either side of this group is a scene denoting the misery which has pursued the adulteress , and the sorrow which has fallen on her children . She herself , bearing a meagre babe at her breast , crouches in one of the horrible river-side recesses of our city ' s main thoroughfare—in one of 1 he dark arches , that is to say , of the Adelphi . The third compartment holds a contemporary picture of the young daughters of that wretched pair , sitting at their bedroom window and gazing on the same
moonlit river which ilows by their fallen mother ' s feet . The father has recently died , and the orphans mourn a double loss . In currying out his painful theme , Mr . Egg has shown much aptitude for histrionic grouping ; but he has , in jnore than one point , betraj'ed a very careless habit of dealing with plain facts . To take one glaring instance from the middle picture : there is the cardhouse which tlie children have built , and which is falling beneath their hands , in . an obviously symbolical , but not by any means practicable , manner . While the foundation has disappeared , the superstructure remains firmly balanced , the ap < : x of the two top cards being preserved as rigidly as if their base rested on a . steady , even surface . That this could not occur for the briefest possible space of time we need not insist .
Each time that we look at Mr . J . Clark ' s picture , tho " Doctor ' s Yisit" ( 89 ) , our admiration of its unaffected , simple pathos , and perfect truth of incident increases . It is so complete a picture that criticism is felt to be hero a matter of fact , and not in any way dependent upon mere liking of this or that school . Tlie characteristic , indeed , of the design is , that it leaves no doubt as to the universal npptoval of all who may see it .
X,.Iiic Atlantic Tklkg-Iuvji.—All Tlic W...
X ,. iiic Atlantic Tklkg-iuvji . —All tlic wire of the Atlantic telegraph is out of the tanks nt Key bam . After tlic Niagara has received one bundled and forty-two miles from tho steam-vessel Adonis , which arrived from the Thames last Saturday , mid , forty miles now in completion at tho manufactory , lier portion will be on baiml . liroin Newfoundland there is telegraphic communication with QSTew Orleans , distant 8710 miles following the course of the wire ; and , when the Atlantic cable is laid , < lircct communication will be bad with Constantinople , tlius uniting the four continents . It is calculated that a -message leaving tho Turkish capital Jit two o ' clock in tho afternoon will reuch New Orleans a ( . six o ' clock the flatnc evening . , Tho first message from Constantinople direct left on Sunday evening , May 2 , at 11 . 45 , and nrrived in London at 8 . 57 in the evening of the siynie day , London tinao , beating the sun nourly threo hour * . Tho departure of tho ships on the experimental cruise will probably tako place on the 25 th hist . Mr . Whitehouse , tho company ' s electrician , proposes to use on board each ship u battery which shall bo ro arranged as to throw n current constantly into the wire , and thus keep it what ia termed u permanently charged" by current equilibrium . " l \ y this method , cither vessel
will , it is expected , bo able to ascertain at any time if the wire is receiving a current from tho other , without waiting for a definite signal . A Mad Lkttkr-Wiutick to Tirn : QuisiES . —A gcntlcman from Hereford , who has practised as an architect , has been arrested in London on a charge of writing a j letter to the Queen , in which he required of her Majesty i to render up to him . her office as bead of the Church , na I Christ had specially deputed him to that dervico . It is ; needless to say that ho ia insane ; and it appears that , I since ho was taken into custody , he has been very vioi lent .
~~'~ Mitths, Maulliaues, And Dliatus^ Jj...
~~ ' ~ mitTHS , MAUllIAUES , AND DliATUS ^ JJIRTHS . IIAMIL'EON .-On the Iftth Mutch hwt , at Mount Mncoilon , Melbourne , Victoria , the wife of Thomas Forrioi- Hamilton , Usfj .: a sou . MONK LAND . —On tho 21 st llavch , at ISoilary , Madras l ' reaideney , the wife of Col . Moukland , 7-Hli Hi ^ hlandm-a -. a son . RUM HALL . —On the 5 th inst ., at Lisbon , tho wifo of Thomas llvmiball , Esq .: it « on . MAURI \ OES . 0 ROSS-IUJR 8 ET / L . —On Tuesday , the 4 th inst ., at St . Mary ' H , Charlbury . Oxon , Urn Itev . John Cross , of
Chni'l-| bury , i , o Anno Mnrin , youngo-st daughter of Thomas Rust " sell , EfH \ ., of Chortsey , Surrey . SAFFURY . —DUNN—On tho 11 fch inst , Josc » i > l ! John , oldestson of John SiillYiry , Ex <\ ., of Hacknoy , to Mary Elizabeth , da ugh Lot of J . M . Dunn , lisq ., of King-street , Finsburysquare . WHAT IIS . BENISON . —On the 3 rd March last , at Hobnrl . Town , Tasmania , of iiulauuuntion of the brain , Uobert William , oldest son of Paymaster Samuel Bemsoii , of 1 LM . V 39 LU lteKUnisnt of Foot . MAXW-BLL-. —On tlio 20 th March , at the Island of St . Tliouuvs , W . 1 ., of yellow Cover , William Maxwell , ttli oHicnr in tho Koyal West India JSIail Steam . PacketCompany , in tho 22 ud yoar of his nvjo , third sou of . 1 . G . Maxwell , Usq ., of Onkiiuids , Devon .
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London, Friday Livening, May Ix. Tnr.Tie...
London , Friday livening , May IX . Tnr . TiE lins been a disposition to ru «(!<|< riii tin . ' funds nil tho week ; tho uncertain Htuto of tlio Ministry , which would Heoiu to live ( vow day to day , and tho mimvod drain of gold to tlio Continent aro causon tli » t . explain Iho woakiU !« s of tho funds . There is , donbtloss , a very eonsidorablo iloar
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 15, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15051858/page/19/
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