462 



Fine Arts' Exhibitions^ 



{Oct. 



critical eye could have detected. A fourth 

 of these charming- little engravings is from 

 a scene of actual life, in the style of Col- 

 lins. It is called " Tlie ^lace of Pan's 

 Pipes," and representing a delightful gi'oup 

 of cliildren, planet-struck at the sounds 

 which a rustic minstrel is producing from a 

 set of reeds. Of the three others, making 

 up the seven that we have before us, of 

 these illustrr.tive flowers of the " Winter's 

 M'reatli," two are single figures — one a 

 charming specimen of Howard's Venetian 

 girls, called " La Blandoline ;" and the 

 other a female portrait, from a painting by 

 Northcote. The seventh is an interesting 

 group, of a blind beggar and his two grand- 

 children. 



Portrait of the Right Hon. Lady Aitne 

 Beckett. — This charmingly characteristic 



portrait of Lady Anne Beckett, is exe. 

 cuted by Wright, from a portrait by 

 Mrs. JMee ; and it fonns No. 58 of the 

 Gallery of the Female Nobility, which 

 appears monthly in La Belle AssembUe. 

 Tiie present portrait will bear a comparison 

 with most that have preceded it, no less 

 from the softness and sweetness of its exe- 

 cution, than the grace and elegance of its 

 design. Its only fault is that the costume 

 is rather obsolete. But it is idle to complaio 

 of a portrait on this score ; since that which 

 is now utterly exploded and outre, may 

 next year be the height of the mode. 

 Tliere will come a time when this interesting 

 series of portraits will be looked upon as one 

 of the most ciu'ious and valuable memorials 

 that our day lias presented to those which 

 are to succeed it. 



VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 



Physiological Botany I\I. Raspail, a 



French naturalist, has recently shown the 

 existence of calcareous crystals in the tissues 

 of living vegetables — that the crystals of 

 the pendani, orchides, scilla?, &c., in short, 

 all those which arc about one-tenth of a 

 millimetre in length, and one 300th in 

 breath, arehexahedral erystalsof phosphate of 

 lime ; and that the crystals ot the tubercles of 

 the iris, which are one-third of a millimetre 

 in length, and one-thirtieth in breadth, are 

 rectangular crystals of oxalate of lime. It 

 ■was by means of a magnifying power of 

 from 1,000 to 2,000 diameters that these 

 new researches were established. These 

 crystals, it will be remembered, were taken 

 for microscopic hairs ; and, very recently, an 

 author imagined he saw them perforated in 

 the middle of their length and figured them 

 as such. 



Active Molecules in organic and inor- 

 ganic Bodies — The peculiar and apparently 

 inherent motion of these molecules, dis- 

 covered some time since by Mr. Robert 

 Brown, excites an increased interest in con- 

 sequence of the difficulty of accounting for 

 it satisfactorily. Mr. Holland, who has for 

 some time closely applied himself to micro- 

 scopic researches, has found that the motion 

 continues equally vivid when the liquid con- 

 taining the molecules is covered with a 

 thin piece of talc : he was induced to try 

 this experiment in order to ascertain whe- 

 ther the motion might not be the result of 

 external causes acting upon the surface of 

 the fluid. On the 2t)th of June last, he 

 carried the experiment further by sealing 

 hermetically the whole circumference of the 

 talc in order to prevent evaporation, which, 

 ten days after, had not taken place ; and 

 yet there is not the slightest alteration either 

 in the molecules or their motion, and should 

 the sealing be perfect most probably none 

 will occur : this experiment proves that 

 evaporation is not the cause of the motion. 



The trite Fornarina The account of a 



journey which was taken in the year 16C4, 

 by Cosmo, the son of Ferdinand II. de 

 Medici, was written at the time, by Philip 

 Pizzichi, his travelling chaplain. This work 

 was pul)lished for the first time at Florence, 

 about seven months ago. It contains some 

 curious notices of persons and things, and 

 among others, what will interest every lover 

 of the fine arts. It is this — speaking of 

 Verona, he mentions tlie Curtoni gallery of 

 paintings, and says, " Tlie picture most 

 worthy of attention is the lady of Raff'aello, 

 so carcfuUy finished by himself, and so well 

 preserved that it surpasses every other." 

 The editor of these travels has satisfactorily 

 sliewn that RafFaeUo's lady here described 

 is the true Fornarina ; so that of the three 

 likenesses of her said to be executed by this 

 eminent artist, the genuine one is the Vero- 

 nese, belonging to the Curtoni gallery, now 

 in the possession of a Lady CaveUini Bren- 

 zoni, who obtained it by inheritance 



The Ghost Moth The lava which pro- 

 duces the ghost moth (hepialus humuli), is 

 hidden in the ground during the season of 

 winter, the fly being formed in the month of 

 Ma}', and soon rising from the soil, then 

 commences its short career. At this time 

 one or more of them may frequently be 

 observed under some hedge, in a wood, or 

 some low place, in a damp pasture only a 

 few feet from tlie ground, persevering for a 

 length of time togetlier in a very irregular 

 flight, rising and falling, and balancing 

 about in a space not exceeding a few yards 

 in circumference, an action not observable 

 in any other, and fully indicating this moth. 

 This procedure is not the meanless vagary 

 of the hour, but a frolicsome dance, the 

 wooing of its mate, which lies concealed in 

 the herbage, over which it sports, and into 

 whose good graces it seeks to caper, like an 

 opera-dancer into tliose of a lordling, or 

 rather of a Frenchman, into these of hi* 



