Art Subjects and their Treatment. 363 



leaders by showinghim her child asleep; Mr. Drummond gives an 

 incident in the life of Claverhouse ; Mr. Hayllar is inspired with' 

 ' ' Queen Elizabeth's toothache ;" Mr. Faed takes an incident 

 from old border minstrelsy, and his picture — a very good one — ' 

 is historical in spirit, if not in fact ; Mr. Leslie discourses in 

 pigments on the " Defence of Latham House.'" 



Not one of these subjects indicate any particular research 

 amongst recent writings on the part of the artists. Their 

 pictures might have been painted at any time, from information 

 picked up anyhow, and no one has any special tendency to stir 

 up great thoughts, vindicate noble memories, or incite to lofty 

 deeds. "Within the last few years, a very powerful, and in many 

 cases, novel light, has been thrown upon English and con- 

 tinental history by the labours of Froude, Mottley, Kirke, etc. 

 Mottley's Bise of the Butch Republic and History of the 

 Netherlands are grand works, exciting to read, and abound- 

 ing in vivid descriptions of scenes, not hackneyed, and full of 

 human interest. Do our artists peruse none of these things ? 

 If the historical pictures of the present exhibition were all put 

 together, who would be better for them, morally or intellec- 

 tually ? The two most striking pictures are (C The Night of 

 Rizzio's Murder/' and " The Romans leaving Britain." In the 

 former case the worthlessness of the victim, the dubious cha- 

 racter of the Queen, the undoubted baseness of her husband, 

 and the brutality of Ruthven, are not the elements out of which 

 a picture intellectually or morally great could be made. The 

 story is melodramatic rather than genuinely tragic, and it has 

 long since become commonplace. Passing over the want of 

 high purpose in this picture, we do not think it merits much 

 praise upon aesthetic grounds. The lurid fire-light overpower- 

 ing the numerous candles on the table is scarcely natural, and 

 certainly not beautiful. The spectral-looking Ruthven con- 

 forms pretty closely with the story, as it has come down to us. 

 Darnley looks mean enough for those who take the worst view of 

 his wretched character ; and Mary shows a mixture of disgust 

 with her husband, anger at the intrusion, and alarm at its 

 aspect, which is highly probable. 



But why represent these things on canvas ? As a domestic 

 picture it is disagreeable, not redeemed by any pleasant har- 

 monies of colour. It makes us feel that a supper party of 

 loose people, intruded upon by a ruffian proposing to kill one of 

 them, is a very unpleasant affair. Beyond this we find no- 

 thing to recompense the horror which an incipient murder 

 excites. 



Mr. Millais, in his work, has given us a very powerful, if 

 not very pleasing, delineation of human feeling. A Roman 

 soldier casts himself in a last embrace upon a British woman, 



