532 
feeling, and delicacy. They Teprefent. 
twa ruitic families engaged in their devo- 
tional exercifes, and reminded us of that 
‘admirable poem by Robert Burns—* The 
Cotter’s Saturday Night?’ The young 
man reading, in the firft, exhibits a cdun- 
tenance of peculiar intereft. In it are 
united innocence, fimplicity, and devotion; 
ahd the faces of the reft of this happy fa- 
mily are marked with mute attention, in- 
ternal cheerfulne({s, and religious comfort. 
‘The other fubje&t is anold man, who has 
jut left off reading in the Bible to fing a 
pfaln, his whole family joining with him 
in chorus. With thefe two prints we are 
much better pleafed than we have been 
with many that amateurs would place in a 
very fupérior clafs. An _ inexpreffible 
{weetnels and gentlenefs of conception per- 
yades the whole. The devotion of thefe 
two ruftic families is marked by that ge- 
neral unaffeSied fimplicity which diftin- 
guifhes genuine piety, and feems to be 
the emanation of gratitude, rather than 
the compulion of duty; every counte- 
nance and every attitude contributes to 
imprefs this idea. 
The Favourite Lamb; and Going to. the Hay- 
feld. A Pair of Prints. Ibetjon pinxit — 
Gerimia fculpt. 
The late Horace Walpole remarked 
that Watteau's pictures dilplayed a kind 
ef impeflible paftoral, a rural life led by 
thofe oppofites of rural fimplicity, people 
of fafhion. His fthepherdeffes, nay, his 
very fheep, are coguettes. Watteau’s trees 
are ccpied from thofe cf the Tuilieries and 
villas near Paris—a flrange f{cene to ftudy 
nature in; but thefe were the originals of 
thole tufts of plumes, and fans, and trim- 
med-up groves, that nod to one another 
like the feenes of an opera. Fantattic 
people! who range and fafhion their trees, 
and teach them to hold up their heads as a 
dancing-mafter would, if he expected Or- 
pheus fhouid return to play a minuet to 
them. 
That men who take fuch models, fhould 
make fuch defigns, is not to be wondered 
at; but that the inhabitants of an ifland 
fo diveriified with the ameenities of na- 
ture as Great Britain, fhould fo frequent- 
ly. dijgufi the eye of tafte with fuch fan- 
taftic fopperies, is altonifhing. We have 
been often compelled to notice the tenden- 
cy fome of our artifis (who have merit, 
if they properly applied it) difplay to 
this fippery French manner, which may 
Hot improperly be denominated the land- 
Monthly Retrofpedt of the Fine Arts 
[ Nov: Is 
{cape a-la-mode. This pair of prints is 
well enough engraved in the chalk man- 
ner. 
His Royal Highnefs Prince William Fritderick. 
Sir William Beechey; R. A. pinxit. Thomas 
Hardy feulpt.. _ 
Of Sir William Beechey’s portraits it is 
not eafy to fpeak in higher terms than 
they deferve. The artift is faithful te 
character, and his portraits are ufually in 
a very good tafte, and have an eafy and 
natural air. This comes into the clafs of 
his other delineations, and is very well en+ 
sraved. 
The Houfe ix Portman-fgnare of His Excellency 
L.. G. Otto, Minifter Plenipotentiary from the 
iventh Republic, as it appeared on the Night 
of the General Illumination for. Peace, May 
29th, 18023 moft re[pectfully inferibed to His 
Excellency, by bis moft obedient humble Sere 
want Auguflus Pugen. F.C. Stadler aqua 
tint. feulpt. 
For fireworks and illuminations the 
French have always had a pre-eminence 
over every otner country. The mag- 
nifique and blazing exhibition of whicli 
this is a copy, excited great attention at 
the time it was difplayed. As far as we 
recollect, this is a correét reprefentation of 
the general effeét, and infinitely fuperior 
to any print of the kind we ever faw.— 
Perhaps, on the whole, it is as well as the 
fubject would poffibly admit. le 
The Transit, anew-conftructed vef- 
fel with four mafts, invented and built by: 
Captain Gower, is now in the Mediterra- 
nean, and gives perfect fatisfaétion to the 
proprietors. Mr. Jeakes is engraving a 
very fine print of it, from a piéture paint= 
ed by Holkham, and, from its prefent ap- 
pearance, we think it will very much ex- 
cite the attention of the amateurs of fhip- 
building. 
Mr. Gilray, who has a larger portion of 
the mantle of William Hogarth than has 
often fallen to the lot of any other man, 
haslately exhibited fome fingular fatires on 
the crop of abfurdities which are now fo 
abundant. This gentleman aims at deli- 
neating-character a little heightened, and 
he generally fucceeds. The produétions 
of fome of h's contemporaries are coarfe 
and vulgar caricature. In one of his por- 
traits of a gentleman of high rank, hedoes 
not fhew a feature of the face; but the 
outline and air is fo corre&t, that whoever 
has feen the man, muft know the mirror.. 
Paris, where 2re now concentrated ma- 
ny of the fine {pecimens of ancient art 
which 
