1S32.] Fine Arts' Publications. 363 



and beauty of colour more to our mind than any thing we have seen by the 

 same painter. 



There are not many comic subjects, and few of these have any pretensions to 

 humour or character ; altogether there seems a lack of invention among our 

 artists ; but invention is a rare gift, and artists are very plentiful, so that it is, 

 perhaps, unreasonable to expect more in an exhibition of nearly six hundred 

 pictures, excluding portraits. 



LIVERSEEGE promised well, but he is not now to be classed with living 

 artists, unfortunately. There are two subjects very prettily treated by him in 

 the present exhibition, Nos. 187, A Spanish Gentleman, and 337, The Recruit. 



WEBSTER'S picture, called The Effects of Intemperance, possesses many good 

 qualities the subject is well treated ; a drunkard in the stocks, surrounded by 

 a crowd of boys and neighbours of both sexes, and guarded by a portly beadle 

 of the parish, to whom the culprit's wife is making an earnest appeal. We like 

 two figures of an elderly couple going home from church, down a pretty road ; 

 they seem as if they had been much impressed with " an excellent sermon," and 

 quite shocked at the sight of the vile sinner in limbo at the church door. We 

 fancy this, though their backs are turned towards us, and they are trudging along 

 half a mile in advance. 



Falstaff, Pistol, and Mrs. Quickly, by G. CLINT, is cleverly painted, though, 

 we think, not successfully in the characters of Falstaff and the hostess. 



Covent Garden Market, by J. LEWIS, is good as a whole, though rather "too 

 sketchy to be dwelt upon with satisfaction. 



H. HOWARD, R. A., exhibits two poetical subjects Morning, from MILTON, 

 and Queen Catherine's Dream, from SHAKSPEARE hazardous subjects for any 

 painter, though tempting to one whose mind is imbued with classical reading. 

 We cannot think Mr. Howard has achieved all that he has attempted, or at- 

 tempted even enough of the poetical in effect. 



WILSON, the landscape and marine painter DANIEL, R. A. J. CHALON 

 WESTALL, R. A., and LESLIE, have severally contributed some very clever pic- 

 tures. Also Messrs. LINTON, HART, HANCOCK, BOXALL, EDMONSTON, and 

 MORTON. 



Mr. PRENTIS* Eleventh Hour, 297, is so badly hung that it is impossible to 

 see it as it deserves to be seen ; but we remember having a good look at it last 

 season, in Suffolk-street. m 



FINE ARTS 1 PUBLICATIONS. 



SAUL. 

 (Painted by Varley, engraved by Linnell.) 



THIS is a fine production, and one to which, in these modern times, we have 

 been but little accustomed. What with domesticities and eccentricities dogs 

 and ducks jolly-faced dowagers, and whey-and-water-visaged " scions of a 

 noble stock/' the genuine poetry of the art seems to have been buried five 

 fathoms deep, or, like another Sappho, to have thrown herself, in mere despair, 

 from the mountain of genius, into the waters of insignificance. After a long and 

 tedious walk amid every day occurrences, from the purlieus of common life, we 

 have imbibed a most refreshing draught at the fountain of " Saul." From this 

 engraving we learn that it is still possible to produce solemn effects, without 

 borrowing the gewgaw arrangements of melodrame to sustain them a sort of 

 rotten prop, inserted to uphold the sullen glories of some ancient abbey ; and we 

 see that sublimity of feeling may yet exist, without the introduction of an impos- 

 sible light to trick the unwary into a false and unwholesome faith. 



The funeral of Saul is a poetical subject in itself. The warrior, who lost his 

 three sons in one sad hour, and then " played the Roman fool, and died on his 

 own sword," has a fair claim to poetical honours at his funeral ; and in this 

 picture they are duly rendered. Throughout the whole of the scene there is a 



