FINE ARTS. 167 



woods; and cloud- ward, sterile, rocky, and vast. A boat, with 

 white wings spread, sails like a swan upon the loch, and in the im- 

 mediate foreground of the picture, two plaided and kilted highland- 

 ers are resting beneath a rugged old tree. If we could suppose 

 them watching the distant sail, romance might indulge her specu- 

 lations to her heart's content ; but a gay party, full dressed for a 

 masquerade pic-nic, are disembarking from another vessel, and con- 

 template exhibiting fashions and feathers among Highland moun- 

 tains and Highland heather ! 



" Inverary Castle" is, indeed, a glorious scene, and a friend, whose 

 fortune, in having seen the original, is happier than our own, pro- 

 nounces it "a true copy." Here the foreground is occupied by 

 merry troops of reapers, and bonny lassies ; and teams loaded with the 

 wealth of harvest. 



" Loch Achray," is a splendid scene of cloud-girt mountains and 

 woody dells, which one may fancy are ringing with the cry of the 

 huntsmen, who spring into sight from a bosky dingle ; and we in- 

 stantly recognize " the Knight of Snowdon, James Fitz James," in 

 the rider of the " gallant grey," foremost of the band. 



" Ben Lomond, from Inveruglas," " Braemar Castle," and " The 

 Head of Loch Lomond, looking south," are three pictures of places 

 merely as they are; but they are beautiful pictures, especially the 

 latter, with its gradually distancing mountains ; but there is a blot 

 on its loveliness, in the most ungainly of all mechanical forms — a 

 steam boat. 



" The fall of the Clyde at Stonebyres," is a fine subject, well 

 described, but rendered ridiculous by the figure of a white-frocked 

 damsel, whom two attendant cavaliers, each seizing an arm, seem 

 about to dismember. The abrupt mass of th« white dress, too, in 

 the dark side of the plate, catches the eye, and materially detracts 

 from the effect of the chief light of the picture, which is the grand 

 cascade. The gain of really sublime effect, produced by hiding 

 these offending pigmies, is surprising. Figures injudiciously intro- 

 duced into a landscai)e, are in a much greater degree injurious to its 

 effect, than good ones could be beneficial ; they very often diminish, 

 and rarely enhance, the beauty. In saying this, we only allude to 

 grand natural scenes, where solitude and sublimity seem the pre- 

 siding spirits of the place ; of course the haunts of men must be 

 represented in their every-day, populous occupation. But when we 

 find pictures of the Giant's Causeway " animated" by a party of 

 exquisite cockneys, or some majestic* and hoary ruin — vast, grand, 

 and desolate — invaded by a bevy of boarding-school, parasoled pic- 

 nic-ers, we decide that the loss of such additions would be to us as 

 gain. 



" The Vale of Glencroe," one of the wildest scenes that ever 

 broke upon painter's eye or poet's fancy, forms the crowning gem of 

 Mr. Allora's volume. *' Within that dark and narrow dell," a 

 winding road skirts the margin of a brawling torrent, fed by tribu- 

 tary streams which fall from the summits of the overhanging moun- 



