114 BIRMINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS. 



it is a sweet, unaffected, feminine, and graceful figure. From this 

 we pass to The Infant Christ, by Murillo : a justly famed specimen 

 of this great master, whose genuine pictures are truly beautiful, 

 but rare. The happy, placid sleep of the chief figure is exquisitely 

 expressed ; and nothing can exceed the softness and natural delicacy 

 of the colouring. The w T hole picture has a charming air of quiet 

 repose. 



Several fine portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds grace the va- 

 rious rooms ; among our chief favourites are Siacust Ukah, a 

 man of colour, painted with great force and brilliancy ; and Doctor 

 Ash, a large and very fine whole-length — a very characteristic pic- 

 ture of Reynolds's best style. 



Of Sir Thomas Lawrence we have no favourable example. His 

 pre-eminent excellence lay in his unapproachable delineation of fe- 

 male and infantine beauty ; the grace, individuality, mind, and re- 

 fined elegance with which he invested his fair and noble sitters, 

 comprise his chief strength, great as he was in all his works. But 

 portraits of royalty, such as the two full-lengths of the third and 

 fourth Georges, are not the subjects in which to see Lawrence. 

 They are fine and masterly works ; but other hands might have 

 achieved them. The grand he divided with brother artists — the 

 beautiful was all his own. 



From the glitter and glare of coronation robes and regimentals, 

 we gladly turn to Wilson's half-divine landscape. Wait to see 

 this picture until a sudden gleam of sunshine illumines its clear 

 sky and aerial distance, so strongly, yet harmoniously relieved and 

 heightened in effect by the dark masses of trees in the foreground. 

 The bright lights which sometimes transiently rest upon the pictures 

 have an almost magical effect on this superb landscape; they seem 

 to change it from the perfection of painting to positive reality. 



The large picture of The Lucy Family, by Jansen, is highly in- 

 teresting, not alone as a work of art, but as a memorial of the cos- 

 tume of its era. The brief paragraph appended to the title, in the 

 catalogue, is too amusing to be passed over in silence. It runs thus 

 — " Portraits of Sir Thomas Lucy, knt., and his lady, Alice Spencer, 

 with three of their children, member of Parliament for the county of 

 Warwick in six several parliaments, and grandson of the Sir Thomas 

 who prosecuted Shakspeare, and who built Charlecote House." 

 How are we to understand this enigmatical announcement ? — that 

 u three of their children" were consolidated into one " member of 

 Parliament ?" — (most likely, for three Justice Shallows would go 

 to one man, without bringing much head to the partnership). We 

 next find this trinity considered as " grandson to the Sir Thomas 

 who prosecuted Shakspeare, and who built Charlecote House !" both 

 these performances being considered equally meritorious by his duti- 

 ful descendants ! Verily and indeed, if this extraordinary paragraph 

 be the composition of any of the Sir Thomas's " ancestors who have 

 come after him," the family likeness remains marvellously strong. 

 If it owe its existence to the compiler of the catalogue, we call on 



