478 
but Mr. Loutherbeurg is a giant in his art : 
of his glowing ard fpirited ftyle we think 
with high refpect; but his piétures have 
fometimes a tumult that more than bor- 
ders ontheextravaganza. InNo. 116, he 
has chofen a fcene, which gives him full 
{cope for indulging his favourite manner 
in its-fulleit extent. It is 
in Avalanche or Ics- ae in the Alps, near 
_ the Scheideck, in the Valley of Louterbrunnen. 
» P. I. De Loutherbourg, R. A. 
This is a fpirited, ftriking, and mot 
forcible pitiure. It reprefents a torrent 
of {now and ice rolling from the adjacent 
beights with fuch impetuofity as to deftroy 
a bridge, on which were two men, one of 
whom is plunged, with the fragments of 
the arches, into the cataract, and the other 
is delineated in the a&t of endeavouring to 
efcape to the land, which exhibits every 
mark of devaftation : trees torn up by the 
violence of the tempeft, and peafants dif- 
playing every poflible mark of terror and 
difmay. When we fay every poffible 
gare, we mean to include the ftudied at- 
titude and ftart of the heroes and heroines 
tbat firut and fret their hour upon the fiage, 
in which thefe good people feem better 
verfed than one would expect from either 
their habits or infulated fituation; for 
they do not appear to be travellers but 
natives. This gives it rather a theatrical 
air, and by a natural coincidence leads the 
mind to an admirably conceived, and ini- 
mitably well executed, /cene, painted for a 
playhoufe, rather than to what the chil- 
dren call right earnefi tempeff, in a moun- 
tainous country. From this and fome 
ether citcumfances, a worfhipper of 
Rafaelle or Poufiin would fay, the pi€ture 
is rather overcharged ; be that as it may, 
if taken as a whole, it is fuch a piéture 
as no other artift in this country could 
paint. 
No. 150. 4 Summer Evening. P. I. De Louther- 
bourg, R. A. 
The curfew tolls the knell of parting days 
The lowing herd winds flowly o’er the lea. 
Of the picturefque Elegy, from which 
the quotation informs us this picture is 
painted, Dr. Johnfon truly fays Te 
abounds with images which find a mirror 
in every mind ; and with fentiments to 
which every bofom returns an echo.”— 
The confequence of this univerfal admira- 
tion is, that the ftanzas with which the 
poem opens, are impreft on the memory 
of every one who fees the picture, and the 
lines which follow in the poem occur to 
every reader of thofe quoted in the Cata- 
Jogue. Now, unluckily, there are fcarcely 
Monthly Retrofpeet of the Fine Arts. 
r Tae Le 
any two fcenes that can be imagined more 
oppofite to each other, than Mr. De 
Loutherbourg’s red-hot land{cape, and 
the following picture ‘drawn by the poet 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary 
way, 
And leaves the world to darknefs and to me. 
Now fades the glimmering landfcape on the 
fight, 
And all the air a folemn ftillnefs eailiak 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning 
flight, 
And drowty tinklings lull the diftant folds 5 
Save that from yonder ivy mantled tower, 
The moping ow! does to the moon complain. 
The mouldings on the tower, in this 
twilight {cene, are fo highly coloured that 
they look like gilt pi€ture-frames. The 
ploughmen of this country, we believe, 
ulually bring home the horfes with- 
out the plough, which they leave in the 
field, until they return to their labour on 
the following morning. On the whole, 
this piéture would have paft muftec much 
better witheut the infcription from Gray’s 
Elegy, than it will with it,. 
No. 183. Beats carrying out Anchors and Cable, 
to Duteh Men of War, in 1665, I MW, 
Turner, R. A. : 
We were at firft at a lofs to conceive 
what could be Mr. Turner’s motive for 
dating the performance of fo common.a 
thing as carrying out anchors and cables, 
150 yearsago, when itoccured to usthat he 
might poffibly notbe very converfant with 
the naval architecture of the pretent day, 
and therefore dated fo far back upon the 
fame ground ** that Toby Shandy recom+ 
mended to Corporal Trim, that when he 
was telling a iiory in which giants were 
_ the principal pertormers, he fhould date 
his ftory at an early period, to keep his 
giants out of the way of the critics.” —Yet 
though it is rather dangerous to paint 2 
fubject after Vandevelde, this is a very 
good pisture, 
The portrait of Mr. Fox, by Mr. I.R. 
Smith oi King. ttreet, we noticed ina former 
Retrofpect, with the praife to which it was 
juftly entitled. In this year’s exhibition, 
there are fix by the fame artift, and they 
are all in a very fuperior ftyle. 
No. 332. The Portrait of Sir W. Milner, 
Bart. M. P. for York, 
Ts of the fame fize with that of Mr.’'Fox, 
and bears as ftrong a refemblance to the 
criginal ; and to point out a more charac - 
teriftic likenefs than that would not be an 
eafy tafk. Sir William’s portrait has been 
engraved by Mr. Reynolds, the- fame ex- 
cellent artift that engraved Mr. Fcx. 
No. 4245 
