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• * Nojjgg, .AjrcrosT 21,JL858.] THE LEA...
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BOOKS RECEIVED THIS WEEK. The Writings o...
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HOPES AND I>REAMS. 1. Behold! my hopes d...
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9 A MTJUILIiO? Before tlie last hundred ...
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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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Stanford' S Pans Guide , With Three Maps...
Tegg ' First Book o / Geography for Children has the merit * of great simplicity and cheapness . As it is intended as a Companion to Tegg ' s First and Second Boohs for Children , we recommend parents and . teachers Xo provide themselves with these elementary-works , -which they will find admirably contrived to interest and at the same time to impart information to very young minds . The Orioin of ' the / ScottishLanguage . ~ R y JamesPaterson . ( Edinburgh : Nimmo . ) If the writer fail to convert those vho hold opposite theories to the one he advocates , he will not fail to satisfy the general Scottish reader that he has exerted much industry and research in getting together the materials for hia clever little volume . The author has produced a very readable affair that will certainly bes warmly appreciated on the other side of the Tweed .
English Grammar , by 1 *< Direy and . A . Foggo ( Chapman and Hall ) , contains all that is valuable in Lindley Murray , -without Lindley Murray ' s obscurities and imperfections . The rules of grammar are not only laid down in simple language , but they are explained so as to be intelligible to the slowest intellect . The Christian Sabbath ; or , Rest in Jesus , by Robert Macnair ( Trubner and Co . ) , is out of our pale of criticism . The work , which is of pamphlet size , is written on the Sunday question , and its arguments are worthy of being studied by all who desire to come to an impartial decision on its merits .
The Privateer ; a Tale of the Nineteenth Century . By Cecil Peicival Stone , 77 th Regiment . ( J . F . Hope . )—Tliis is a curious and a clever book , hut sadly misnamed . We shall find no perils by sea , no ocean fighte , nothing , in fact , tobearout the promise which the title holds out ; bat , in exchange , we shall come upon a series of sketches , linked together , it is true , to fornri something like coherence and connexion in the story , each of which contains the material for a separate romance . We will not venture to give even an outline of the plot , but will copy from the table of contents a few of the heads of chapters , to show there is no want of variety to reiider the work pleasant reading — " The Household —The Rescue—The Schoolgirl—The Hunt—The Gipsy Queen — The Trance—The Murder—A . Mother ' s Revenge-Love — Politics —The Squatter—The Slave—Revenge —The Death of Gnzmar . "
The Little Philosopher ; or , the Science of Familiar Things . By Thomas Tate , F . R . A . S . Longman and Co . —An outline of Natural History , in which the facts are stated with & brevity and clearness that belongs only to the highly informed scientific mind . Such simplicity is not that of ignorance but of knowledge . It is a manual which young and old scholars in Nature ' s book may study with advantage . The woodcuts are characteristic and numerous- >
• * Nojjgg, .Ajrcrost 21,Jl858.] The Lea...
• * Nojjgg , . AjrcrosT 21 , JL 858 . ] THE LEAJBE . 845
Books Received This Week. The Writings O...
BOOKS RECEIVED THIS WEEK . The Writings of William Paterson , with Biographical Notices of the Author . By S . Bannister , M . A . 2 vols . 8 vo . Eflfingham Wilson . Every Man JIus Own Trumpeter . By George W- Thornbury . 8 vols . post 8 vo . Hurst and Blackett . Beatrice Cenci : An Historical Novel ' of the / Sixteenth Century . By F . D . Guerazzi . Translated by C . A . Scott . Post 8 vo . Bosworth and Harrison . Leaves from Lakeland . By James Payn . Post 8 vo . Hamilton , Adams , and Co . Le The & tre Moral desEcoles . Trois Comedies . ParC . A . De G . Liancourt . Post 8 vo . Newbr . Constable ' s Educational Series—Household Economy 16 mo . Constable and Co .
Hopes And I>Reams. 1. Behold! My Hopes D...
HOPES AND I > REAMS . 1 . Behold ! my hopes drift down the stream , Down to the silent Past , Sear'd by the bitter breath of Time , Time the Iconoclast . 2 . And nevermore shall those sweet hopes , lieturn to me , I ween , As distant as two distant lands With all the sea between . 8 . Out on tho bleak bnre beach I stand , And watch the ghostly sight-Youth and its halcyon golden dreams Grlido out into tho night . 4 . Poor heart ! why feel the bitter blight ? Gold dreams are only air , But ah ! how oft doth Wisdom teach Tho lesson of Despair . 5 . Farewell I I walk Life ' s weary way , Companionlcas , but not alone ; Thy memory still shall follow mo , And ainff her sad awoet antiphono . N .
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9 A Mtjuiliio? Before Tlie Last Hundred ...
9 A MTJUILIiO ? Before tlie last hundred years comparatively little was known of Spanish pictures , and still less of Spanish painters . The Catholic abjeefcness and excltisivencss of Spain tended to retard and prevent any spirit of research from developing the intellectual , force which pervaded that kingdom during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . So great washer retentiveness , that even Charles I ., tbe most tasteful collector that England lias ever known , was unable to
name one Spanish picture in his catalogue ; and as we mean to prove the rule by an exception , Evel vn says that , at a sale of Lord Melford ' s effects in 1693 , " Lord Godolphin bought the picture of ' The Boys / by Murillo , the Spaniard , for eighty guineas , " remarking also , with a curt sneer , " deare enough . " And Cumberland ( an astute dealer ) , a century later , very ranch doubts the fact of any historical group or composition of his ( Murillo ) being in . English lianas . But the Napoleonic eagles—lutes ratherwith blood y beak and talons , tore and rent aside this " blanket o' the dark . " Soult at Seville , and
Sebastiani at Grenada , with murderous enthusiasm and avaricious rapacity , rifled those cities , and grasped with unerring violence all their finest samples of intellectual and material wealth . King Joseph , too , ere his flight , laid in a goodly store of Madrid ' s coveted pictures . Out of evil cometh forth good . By Napoleon ' s ambition , Spain became an open book , where all who run may read . " We know now that Spain ' s intellectual advancement rose with . Ferdinand and Isabella ; culminated during the life of the fourth Philip ; declined during the evil days of Charles II ., and has remained , at the nadir down to the present hour . -
Lithe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries rose the three greatest luminaries that adorn Spain's sphere of art— -Bibera , Yclasquez , and Murillo—all three of whom may be generically described as eminent examples of the naturalistic , in contradistinction to the idealistic school . The second of these in status ( Velasquez being indisputably the first ) was Bartholome Est 6 ban Murillo , who was born in 1617 and died hvl 6 S 2 . From his boyhood lie was a painter , and unto the age of twenty-four gained his livelihood by painting anything- ranging from melons to " Immaculate Conceptions" for tlie Wardour-street merchants of
signees , and have nothing to do with tlie extraordinary circular issued about the picture . The very first line in the circular is a mistake ; it begins , " The Assumption of the Virgin . " In the seventeenth century a bull of the Pope , Paul V ., expressly settled the distinction that should exist between the two dogmas ; viz . that the Assumption of the Virgin should apply to the Virgin Mary , and the Conception to her motlier , Sfc . Ann ; and Pacheco expressly defined the symbols that were to indicate tlie Conception—namely , the lily , the palm and olive branches , and a mirror ; she was also to stand upon the crescent moon , all which sisms- are here .
We mention these circumstances because in our estimation it throws considerable doubt upon the history of the picture , which states , " This picture originally formed part of the collection in the monastery of the Garmelites , who were stem up holders of the Conceptive Theory in Mexico , in the seventeenth century , " and remained there until the beginning of 1800 , when Lord Cochrane and the Viceroy of Mexico induced them to part with it ; it was , then taken to Vera Cruz and lodged there in a Carmelite monastery . In 1812 , Arclibishop Don . Antonio Joaquhn Perez Martinez
obtained possession of it , —how is not stated . After his death , Don Francisco Pablo Vasquez , Archbishop of Mexico and Plenipotentiary of the Pope , purchased it . By hirn it was sold ' to Don Jose Lang , wlio sent it to his friend , Mr . J . Henry Dick , from whose hands it came to the present possessor . Amongst all this startling circumstantialit y they managed to lose the obvious title of the subject of the picture ! The next two lines fire an " assumption" indeed , for / they say , "An original and important work by Murillo / " Here we join issue at once , by a distinct , sincere ^ and forcible denial .
Let us be understood . We mean "by " an original " picture ( to quote an example , No . 13 in the National Gallery ) , a work designed , begun , and finished by one bead and hand , all bearing au outward visible sign of the inward spiritual grace of none but Murillo . Kow turn we to the Henrietta-street picture , and what find we here ? Unquestionably Ifttrillo ' s design , not Miirilld's drawing , not Murillo's colour , and , to our serious conviction , hot one touch * of the hand of . the great Sevillian , but most clearly and distinctly two heads and two handsit mihtindeedbe three
Seville , who sent them to Mexico and South America . Haying saved a little money , in . 1642 he went to Madrid , and spent some time in copying the works of Ribera , vandyck , and Velasquez , and mastered their styles so thoronghly as to be able to imitate them so as almost to defy detection . Prom this period is dated his first manner , which the Spaniards called frio , cold ; in 1648 , he generated another , which they called oalido , wixrm ; and about 1056 , commenced liis third , vapo / aso or vapory style , so called from the light and dark portions gliding one into the other , not light against
; g , , , or more , because tlie picture has been scrubbed down to the laying hi , being originally a clever copy from a very fine picture . One does not know which to be most shocked at , the ruthlessness of the savage scourer or the impudence of the impotent restorer . Two circumstances , we ate sure , will make our readers smile : the first , the price asked for this effete production—" Four Thousand Pounds ' . "—the other is the perusal of the following three letters by men notorious in art-history , and which are thus set forth : —
dark , and vice versa . This he continued to practise to the last : fortunately so , for its elementary basis contains more truth and beauty . From the first period he never retrograded in artistic perception or power , but steadil . y and surely advanced . This truth , one of his last pictures , in the National Gallery ( No . 13—the Holy Family ) , proves beyond dispute ; and other p ictures of his arc to be found in that Gallery and the Dulvvich which suffice to prove his changes of style and progression' —besides very many others distributed , throughout the land ; one the "Return of the Prodigal Son" ) in Stafford House , especially to bo remembered for two circumstancesfirst , beincr one of his finest works : and next , that
Opinions of Professor Waagcn , Professor Magnus , and Mr . Otto Mundler . * ( Translation . ) Professor Waagen says : " The picture is decidedly a Murillo , and even one of the finest Murillos which I have seen ; and whoever expresses a doubt upon this point can only intend to injure the possessor !" It is impossible that the Professor Waagen could have given utterance to such assertions as the above . Though he does sometimes speak micelle ex . cathedru , we have failed to discover in his works any such evidence of insolent arrogance as the few lines attributed to him express .
Some wag * of a Maria must have dropped this before some Malvolio dealer . The next is Professor Magnus , who says : — This picture , like others in Spain painted by Murillo , is less imposing and effective than that in the Paris Museum , but according to my opinion it has not the less the stamp of originality , and is ev « n in a better state of preservation . So far as my knowledge and experience serve , lean assure you , without the least interest , and accoTding to truth , that I consider it a genuine picturo of Murillo . A . s we know not who the Professor is , or what he has done , we can have no objection to his expressing his opinion as far us his knowledge and
exthat murderous scoundrel and Plunder-mastergeneral Soult , got 11 , 000 / . for it . The Spaniards ' favourite and most religious dogma was the miracle of the Immaculate Conception ; and so fond was the Scvillian painter of portraying this subject , that he was called , par excellency " The painter of the Conception . " We have thrco reasons for thia exordium : because it gives a brief history of Murillo ; because it will give to our readers the sources whence we lmvc gained , and wlienco they may gain , the requisite necessary bnsis on which to form a j udgment on that painter ' s pictures ; and lastly , that it may induce them to go to Messrs . Williams and Norgutc , 14-, Hcnricttu-strcct , Covcnt-gardcu , and see a . picture which , by a circular , and some of our contemporaries , is stated to be by Murillo . Let us state our conviction at starting , that Messrs . Williams and Norgatc are merely the
conpertifnee may serve . Now last , though not least , comes a gentleman of whom we have had sonic experience He says —but wo will put it as printed m the circular : — TAx . Otto Mllnuler ( formerly Expert in tho Louvre , at present attached to tho National Gallery ) , says : " I h « r « by certify of my own accord , and from thorough conviction , that the picturo of Murillo , tlie ? Assumption of the Virgin , surrounded by cherubs , ' is not only with
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 21, 1858, page 845, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_21081858/page/21/
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