CiHKNT. 49 



which was now open, and crowded to-day by the common 

 people in their holiday dresses. To those who take pleasure 

 in contemplating the costume of a country, this would have 

 been a charming opportunity. To us the treat was in a great 

 measure lost : we remarked only that the colours of the 

 dresses of the lower orders were generally glaring, and 

 that these colours were often most unharmoniously asso- 

 ciated, or rather violently contrasted, in the upper and 

 lower garments of the same individual. The exhibition of 

 paintings is held, every third year, under the direction of 

 the Royal Academy of Ghent, in the hall of the ci-de- 

 vant College of Augustins, which was granted by Buo- 

 naparte for this purpose. It will not be expected that 

 we should give a detailed account of the paintings, or pass 

 judgment upon them. A very few remarks will suffice to 

 give some general idea of the exhibition. 



The number of paintings was great, occupying a long 

 gallery, besides several small rooms, for models, pieces of 

 sculpture, and other exercises of the young academicians. 

 The list of artists and amateurs who had contributed the 

 pictures was also very ample. In short, this seems still to 

 be a country of painters, although the glory of the Flemish 

 school has long since passed away. Many belonged to Ghent, 

 but many likewise to Brussels, Bruges, Malines, Antwerp, 

 and other places. The number of historical pieces was 

 proportionally great ; at least, so it appeared to us, who 

 had been accustomed to see only two or three in each Edin- 

 burgh Exhibition *. One of the largest dimensions was by 



* It is impossible not to regret, that the exhibitions of the works of liv- 

 ing Scottish artists should seem to have been given up at Edinburgh. It 

 was perhaps too much to expect, that the artists and amateurs of Scotland 

 could furnish the walls of Raeburn's large room with works of merit every 

 year ; but we are persuaded, that an exhibition of triennial recurrence, like 

 that of Ghent, would be eminently useful and successful, especially if placed 



