I -X ,— I L A: . 361 



their company, could he by :e bitter fruit3 



that vice produces, the drama:: etween the phan- 



tasmal pi : licentiousness, and the grim, stern realities 



to which they lead ? Mr. Frith has painting power and draw- 

 ing power, colour perception to a moderate extent ; but think- 

 ing, reflecting, and idealizing faculties in very feeble force. 

 His conception of the last Sunday of Charles the Second is 

 vulgar and commonplace. Hampton Court supplied the por- 

 a and the costumes ; his own skill has grouped the various 

 figures pretty well together, but the picture has no soul in it. 

 His gamblers have no variety of ea _arles the 



Second looks hearty and well contented, as if lust had agreed 

 with him, and promised length of days ; his loose women are 

 all flourishing, the revel successful, with nowhere an intimation 

 of the fallacious character of mere animal enjoyment. He 

 may reply that good for nothing people do often make them- 

 selves verv comfortable, and we grant the fact ; but a _ 



would not paint them simply to show that fact. 



only justification for a true artist dealing with such subj 



his capacity I —ring further and deeper into char; 



duct, and its : .an ordinary mortals can realize without 



aid. Mr. Frith has in his mind evidently nothing more than 



the rudest externalities and upholsteri— :: inch a scene, and 



so his picture, technically slever, is : ; :leticalry good for 



naught. 



Bv introducing John Evelvn surveving the scene with a 

 wobegone, niethodistical countenance, Mr. Frith may suppose 

 he has made his canvass ''point a moral;" but Nature does 



in this commonplace way. What 

 a looker-on thinks of vice is of less consequence than what 

 vice is, and whither it leads : and the collection of reprobates 

 a: T\ hitehall must, in their own persons, have made the 

 ignominious failure of their lives, and the certainty of retribu- 

 tion, more conspicicus and repulsive than could be effected by 

 any comments a bystander might m 



It seems s putting SShak in purgatory were a 



special run _ : which E. A.'s comm 



themselves last year. We have had a Juliet scandalized, an 

 Othe" Iwe have only to go a little further to 



rind a : offender 



in th> S jiving her his keys, and the Jew and 



-ughter are the only figures introduced. Whether Mr. 

 G. W. Cope, Pi. A., ever read the M tqfV< we can- 



not vent 11 _ — . We hope not, because, if he took 



his Jessica from some bad, second-hand imitation, there may 

 still be some hope for him on his first introduction to the 

 young lady herself; but, if he did read the play, his case must 



