Nature and Art, June 1, I860.] 
THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
31 
neighbours had taken the trouble to make us com- 
prehend that we had hissed a wonder, Guillaume 
Tell , Zampa, La Traviata, liigoletto, were con- 
demned by the Parisian public with touching 
unanimity In music our incapacity is 
great In painting it is different ; we 
know nothing at all about it ..... . In 
painting as in music we have scarcely anything 
in France, we are nothing but copyists ; and, for 
my part, I know only three veritable artistic 
temperaments amongst contemporaries. Delacroix, 
Diaz, and Troyon,”— and so on through two or 
three columns. M. Henri Rochefort lays his 
lash on with a heavy hand ; but he is, I fear, 
right in the main. Thought, sentiment, ori- 
ginality, genius, are far less conspicuous in French 
artistic productions than facility, or what our 
neighbours call chic. But there are signs of 
improvement with respect to painting ; Dela- 
croix, Decamps, Troyon, and others, have nearly 
ruined the prestige of the pseudo-classical school, 
and if, amongst the idols of the day, there 
are some conventionalists, there are others who 
dare to see for themselves, and to paint what' 
they see. Even Parisians themselves are begin- 
ning to laugh at the absurd stereotyped phrase— 
“II no, pas de style !’’ which is nearly equivalent 
to the old complaint against dramatic writers, 
who dared to neglect the sacred rule of the 
Unities. 
Few French popular ditties are better known 
to Englishmen than the famous Marlbrouck s'en 
va-t-en guerre , and few persons have ever doubted 
that it related to “ John, the great Duke of Marl- 
borough,” but it. appears, upon the authority of 
Chateaubriand, Frangois Arago, and others, that 
Marlbrouck has no more to do with Queen Anne's 
hero, than Lord Romilly has to do with French 
rolls. The original of the song is said to have 
been Mambrou , a crusader, and the ballad to have 
been brought into fashion by Marie Antoinette. 
There is little doubt, however, that the cap was 
slightly altered to fit, and it was well done ; the 
hero of Malplaquet and Blenheim is still, in the 
minds of a great mass of Frenchmen, a kind of 
Hudibrastic figure. 
THE R 0 Y A : 
“T) EAUTY, in all its highest forms, is calculated to impress 
D on human beings the belief in a perfection greater 
than this world contains.” Thus runs a passage from Sir 
C. Eastlake, affixed by the Academicians to' the first page of 
their catalogue for 1866 ; and if they thereby intend to 
claim high merit for their ninety-eighth exhibition, we can 
only say that by no more inapposite quotation could they 
have challenged the verdict of the public. A man’s imagi- 
nation must be vivid indeed, if he believes that the pictorial 
beauty exhibited at the Academy is “ in all its highest 
forms ; ” and no spectator can be impressed by any picture 
with a “ belief in a perfection greater than this world con- 
tains.” Certainly “ The Widow Wadman laying Siege to 
my Uncle Toby,” by Frith (73), is not “ perfection greater 
than this world contains,” nor is she the widow Wadman 
of Tristram Shandy. Inviting comparison, as this picture 
does, with Leslie’s charming work, it is seen how much 
easier a skilled artisan, with the brush, Can paint the wig 
than the face of my Uncle Toby. Sir Edwin Landseer’s 
“ Lady Godiva ” (109) is essentially vulgar and common- 
place, ill drawn, worse painted, and much too suggestive 
of the model. “ A Chat round the Brasero ” (132), by 
Phillip, R. A., like as the harridans maybe to those of Spain, 
is far away from “ beauty in its highest form or perfection 
greater than this world,” or even Spain, “ contains ; ” albeit 
in colour the picture has all the richness and brilliancy of 
the master. What supernatural beauty has that haggard 
and ugly nun (262), by Orchardson, who is telling- “ The 
Story of a Life ” ? What that story is no unprompted 
spectator can gather, except that it does not seem to interest 
the bevy of girls to whom it is related. Mr. Orchardson’ s 
portraits, exhibited the year before last, and his “ Hamlet 
and Ophelia,” of last year, gave promise not realized by this 
picture ; but he has, nevertheless, merits which cause his 
future career to be looked forward to with interest and 
expectation. “ Thetis,” by Watts (23), is a charming little 
picture, and yet it is not exactly the ideal of the wife of 
Peleus and mother of Achilles. Still, as she had power to 
assume any form she pleased, and her wedding was honoured 
with the presence of all the gods except Discord, Mr. Watts 
may be right in his imaginative sketch. Bacon has said 
that the use of art and pcesy “hath been to give some 
ACADEMY. 
shadow of satisfaction to the mind of men on those points 
wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being, 
in proportion, inferior to the soul ; by reason whereof there 
is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a 
more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can 
be found in the nature of things. Art doth raise and erect 
the mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires of 
the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto 
the nature of things;” and we must look for something besides 
beauty to fulfil the conditions laid down. Indeed, a highly 
original and competent critic on art, Proudhon, has said that 
“ The attainment of beauty is only the debut of the artist. 
There are the variety of human actions and passions, pre- 
judices, beliefs, conditions, casts, family, religion, domestic 
comedy, public tragedy, national epic, revolutions. All 
as much matter for art as for philosophy.” “ Here Nelson 
fell” (47), by Maclise, is an illustration of public tragedy. 
It is the study for the truly noble and national picture 
painted in the Houses of Parliament, and worthily represents 
the hero’s death, of which Napoleon said, “Bah! I won 
the battle of Trafalgar by the death of Nelson.” It was 
about the middle of the battle when Nelson’s ship, the 
Victory, fell aboard the Redoutable, and a slaughtering 
struggle took place, in which the superiority of the English 
ship and crew was manifest. The resistance of the enemy 
had almost ceased when Nelson fell ; yet the carnage on 
the deck of the Victory was terrific, and Dr. Scott, whose 
duties confined him entirely to the cockpit crowded with 
wounded and dying men, relates that such was the horror 
that filled his mind at this scene of suffering that it 
haunted him like a shocking dream for years afterwards. 
Mr. Maclise’s work now under notice, and the “Meeting 
of Wellington and Blucher,” are two of the finest pictorial 
records any nation can boast of, painted, too, at a large 
pecuniary sacrifice. The artist has worked at them silently, 
year after year, absorbed in the grandeur of his conception 
and the magnificence of his work ; and it may be said for him, 
as Rubens said for himself — “ Every one according to his 
gifts. My endowments are such that I never wanted 
courage to undertake any design, however vast in size or 
diversified in subject.” “ Queen Elizabeth receiving the 
French Ambassador after the news of the Massacre of 
