1830.] 



Fine Arts' Exhibitions. 



717 



There is one subject on which we regret 

 that Mr. Babbage should have been almost 

 silent, it is the you tickle me I tickle you 

 system carried on between this country and 

 the continent, in the interchange of medals, 

 and the reciprocal pigtails appended by the 

 philosophers of France and England. For 

 example, if B., an official member of the 

 Royal Society, will obtain for C., a member 

 of the Institute of France, or for his nominee, 

 a Copley medal, let us say, or the caudal ap- 

 pendage of F.R.S., C. wilt obtain for B., or 

 for his nominee, the Lalande, we will sup- 

 pose, in return, or the dignity of Foreign As- 

 sociate of the Academy of Sciences, F. A. A. S. 

 let us call it. We refrain from enlarging 

 upon this subject; they whom it concerns 

 will see that we understand it. 



Great dissatisfaction has been expressed by 

 the troop of mediocre men, who now engross 

 and degrade every situation misnamed a 

 scientific appointment, that their qualifica- 

 tions and proceedings should be the object of 

 anonymous criticism. The writer who ar- 



gues upon facts, avowed and acknow- 

 ledged to be such, need not append his name 

 to his reasonings, they must stand or fall by 

 their own intrinsic merit; and it is not every 

 one who is in a situation to brave the mali- 

 cious vengeance of official vermin, wriggling 

 in and battening on the corruption they pro- 

 duce. Mr. Babbage can venture to stand 

 forward, and he has done so : the worthy oc- 

 cupant of the chair which Newton held, con- 

 ferring equal honour to that which he re- 

 ceives, he has added the authority of his 

 name to censures of which the severity is not 

 equal to the justice. If the coterie, or cabal, 

 or whatever it is to be called whose malprac- 

 tices have rendered necessary the work before 

 us, should attempt to reply to it, let us hope 

 that these abhorrers of anonymous criticism 

 will not practise what they condemn. Their 

 little names will compensate by numbers 

 their deficiency of weight ; and they can 

 supply by assurance what they want in 

 capacity. 



FINE ARTS' EXHIBITIONS. 



EXHIBITION OP THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 



LIKE the rest of the world, we have seen 

 the sixty-second exhibition of the Royal 

 Academy ; and we will confess at once, as 

 the world would do if it had a little more 

 sincerity in it, that we are infinitely more 

 displeased than delighted. We are aware 

 that it is a custom with critics of all sorts to 

 take the good things of this academy for 

 granted. It is the fashion (and a very con- 

 venient one it is) to open a catalogue, to 

 mark all the great names, and to pour out 

 praises upon them in exact proportion to 

 their popularity. We are in the habit of 

 being told, a week or two 'previous to the 

 annual opening, that somebody has per- 

 formed prodigies of painting ; and that some- 

 body else is to illumine all the town with the 

 brilliancy of his pencil ; that one academi- 

 cian has surpassed all the .world, and that 

 a second has surpassed himself; in short, 

 that Titian has out-Titianed everybody, and 

 that Correggio has displayed his usual Cor- 

 reggioscity. The consequence of this is, 

 that for six weeks every year the entire con- 

 tents of the respective parishes of St. James 

 and St. Giles are poured promiscuously into 

 Somerset-house ; until fashion grows almost 

 ashamed of its folly, and surrenders itself up 

 to fatigue criticism takes place of cant 

 the Vandyckes turn out to be nothing but 

 Jacksons, and the fifty superlative pictures 

 dwindle down to five ; the " eleven buck- 

 ram men" relapse again into the Prince and 

 Poins. In the meantime, however, artists 

 and the academy pocket prodigious sums, 

 and the arts are said to be flourishing because 

 its professors are ; which is about as true as 

 that the Argyle-rooms flourished on fire, be- 

 cause Chabert did. Wherever we meet with 

 this spirit of puffing and pretension, we de- 



spise it ; but we detest it most especially in 

 art, because from long standing it has ac- 

 quired something like a sacred and exclusive 

 character. Artists in general are at least a 

 day behind the rest of the world. While 

 others have been looking into the current, 

 they have watched only the ripples on the 

 surface. Instead of tracing out events, and 

 observing the progress of moral enlightenment 

 and opinion, they have marked only the 

 changes of manners ; and have been for the 

 most part too much occupied in copying an 

 expression to think about the emotion that 

 produced it, or to judge of the mysteries and 

 marvels that were working in the human 

 mind. They look about for the picturesque, 

 but they have no conception of the earth- 

 quake that has occasioned it. In short they 

 are a conventional set of people, who have en- 

 veloped themselves in modes and systems 

 till they hardly understand the meaning of 

 them ; and who have confined the expression 

 of their ideas to set phrases and terms of art 

 until they have half forgotten the common lan- 

 guage of society. We are speaking of them 

 en masse; there are among them many, 

 very many, accomplished and intellectual 

 men. But Arcadia, we are told, was at one 

 time celebrated for its asses as well as its 

 poetical associations ; and we think this Ar- 

 cadian mixture of obstinacy and dullness in 

 a region of poetry and romance, this deter- 

 mination not to go on where there is so much 

 to attract and to urge it to advancement, 

 presents with tolerable accuracy a picture of 

 nine, tenths of the exhibitors that have this 

 year figured in the Royal Academy. 



These remarks are not out of season ; for 

 a new era in art may be said to have com- 

 menced. This is the first exhibition of the 

 reign of a new president, and the last that 



