people would be honest enough to admit it, so they feel it to be. The grouping, the colouring, the attitudes, the whole tone is theatrical life-life as we see it through an opera-glass, diminished and crowded, and fantastic and pretty-the sport of a leisure evening; but not life as we come up to it, in fact, with its men and women of large proportions, of whom we can only see a few at once, face to face.

Sir Edwin Landseer, however, knows his power and uses it. No fear has he of painting his creatures the full size of life, for he knows every movement of their bodies, every muscle of their frames, every habit of their lives, and almost every hair of their coats.

But I am not speaking this of his Deer in mists, or his somewhat tame Horses. I know but little of Deer, and better Horses may possibly be found elsewhere; but better Dogs, never! Landseer's Dogs are true individual creatures, real fellows whose paws he has shaken, and whose heads he has patted, as they sat for their portraits, and to whom, no doubt, he has from time to time murmured out the words of friendly encouragement, the kindly tone of which, at any rate, reaches the seat of dog-intelligence, and causes the large brown eyes to become watery and bright with a pleasant emotion. Truly Sir E. Landseer is a genius in one strong peculiar line, never so well treated before, perhaps never to be so well treated again.

Of his colouring it is impossible not to feel that it is constantly deficient in crispness and force. He wants both more daring and more time. He paints too much, not for the pleasure of the public, perhaps, but for the immortality of fame.

No. 331, There is Life in the Old Dog yet,' is only one among his many fine pictures here. It is an affecting representation, and brings a tear involuntarily to the eye. With more boldness in his colouring and effects, this nobly-conceived picture might have hung in the strong

old school across the building, and challenged the world for a rival. It is always said he is the painter of still animal life, as Snyders is of active. Be it so, the meditative in dogs is one of their most remarkable characteristies, and we never feel them more thoroughly the friends of the human race, than when we see them in the hands of their own peculiar master, Sir Edwin Landseer.

Etty, with his Nymphs, No. 263, 'Ulysses and the Syrens,' is equally fearless in size, and in general effect is daring and telling; nay, there is surely no modern artist who in the painting of the human figure has done so much. His flesh is touched with a masterly hand, and constantly makes the impression of being drawn from life. That the tone of his subjects is of questionable taste is an involuntary sensation that rises to mar the pleasure his skill creates. And there is no doubt that his colours are going; a cruel fact in an age so advanced in science; bat the same tale is told also of pictures by Turner, notwithstanding all the attention he gave to the subject of colour itself. Alas for modern art if this carelessness is to cotinue ! No prophet will be needed to speak its doom.

No. 464, 'Charlotte Corday led to Execution,' by Wal The conception of Charlotte Corday in this picture is full of genius and sentiment. So decidedly so that we lament the size that holds it down. One soldier to lead her forth, and a life-size figure of this exquisite meaning, with more elaboration in the painting, more study of grand general effect in the shadows, and less of troublesome accessories of well-painted pavement, and two unnecessary portraits of villains, and Mr. Ward would have flown at higher game, and perhaps with eminent success.

Of a lower aim, and therefore easier to perfect, are the well-known pictures of Webster's 'Smile' and 'Frown,' Nos. 447 and 452.

In the department of faithful portraiture of peasant life, the grand style is not called for or necessary, and the

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funny darlings on those benches, although one would have been well pleased to see them bigger, are still delightful to us as they are. Surely neither Teniers nor Wilkie could have devised anything better than this. I do not say that the colouring has the depth or brightness of Teniers, but the two scenes are perfect in life-like character, and are delicious in their soft pleasantry. They are peeps into the least sophisticated of all mortal nature, that of children, and there is not a detail about them that wars against experience or probability.

Last, but by no means least in love, let us approach the modern Pre-Raphaelite School. And surely such colouring as this is never destined to fade! What a strange relic would Wallis's 'Death of Chatterton,' No. 371, be, if the glossiness had deserted the silk stockings, and the puce had faded from the satin breeches, and the blue pallor had passed away from the face. Nevertheless it would be a beautiful ghost even then, and we could do very well without this amount of blue, which far more resembles the effect caused by salt thrown on brandy, in the childish play of snapdragon, than the sallow hue of a genuine corpse.

But even were the colours gone, the figure is goodheavy with death, not sleep-and the details are admirable. It does not aim at the sublime, but it is a touching scene, touchingly told. I cannot criticise colouring I admire so much for its accuracy; and as to the handling and mechanical part, they are perfect. Having always, and from the first, hung to the so-called Pre-Raphaelite School, as the school of hope and promise, raising us from our slip-shod incorrectness into something recognizable as real, I hang still to almost all its developments, excepting where they sin flagrantly (which they occasionally do) against drawing, perspective, and possibility. But in this Chatterton all is real (though it is diminutive reality) except the colour of the face and hair. Surely Mr.

Wallis has given far less study to the appearances prodaced by death than to those of a knotted counterpane? Yet in a work of art, if the principal be imperfectly given, it is almost a fault if the accessories are scrupulously

correct.

In Hunt's Awakened Conscience,' No. 550, subject and treatment are alike detestable, with whatever minute correctness they may be given. What would Fra Angelico say to such a disciple? and yet in his 'Claudio and Isabella,' No. 565, the artist has shown us that he can conceive finely, as well as paint correctly.

No. 543, 'Autumn Leaves,' has strange effects amidst fine painting; but as a whole it has an awkward construe tion, and puzzling shadows, and is simply queer at a very short distance off.

No. 572, April Love.' Though more in defiance of rules and systems than Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy,' this lilac-dressed girl is yet a most attractive being! What labour, what zeal is here bestowed, as on all the effort of this school!

But what will the young Pre-Raphaelite School à Will they burst away from mannerism and minuters, into a grandeur as great as their present mechanical skill and so create a new era in modern art? It is impossible to foresee. Their very taste seems to hang by a thread between the false and true; but surely they are destined to choose the good, and break away from the evil. Surely they can bestow their exquisite accuracy on what is simple and sublime, as well as on what is fantastic and obscure, and so rise to an eminence in art unknown to England before.

In the Clock Entrance Gallery hang two or three Dealroches, and a few pictures by Ary Scheffer, the artist I be lieve of the 'Christus Consolator.' With every predilection strong in this man's favour, I cannot nevertheless subscribe with honest pleasure to his school. In the Christ teach

ing Humility,' No. 680, there is the intense sweetness and overdone softness of Carlo Dolce, without his full rich colouring; and the same remark must be made of the 'Dante and Beatrice,' No. 663, though a ghost-like hue is more appropriate here than in the other. The designs, however, argue a pure and gentle spirit, not far short of Fra Angelico's in pious feeling, and it may be that he is better in design than in colour. But I saw nothing of his at Manchester comparable to his 'Christus Consolator.' I must leave the fine Portrait Gallery to the loves and interests of its various beholders; but not allow the notice of this brilliant place to be dishonoured by forgetfulness of the Bust of Alfred Tennyson. Looking at statuary under the influence of music, there are moments when the story of Pygmalion seems no impossible fable, and we can almost believe that the cold marble moves and breathes. Let this experiment be tried, even here, where no great creations of the heathen art are exhibited, and the spectator will find that he may gaze and listen till he almost fancies he sees a movement coming into the uplifted arm, and the arrested figure suddenly progress forward.

And so, in standing before that noble bust of an intellectual head, with its 'sensitive nose,' massy forehead, and abundant hair, it seems as if we could almost see the Poet think. And then follows the involuntary sensation, that that man's thoughts mock at all we have said of pictorial skill, for they have gone down into the heights and depths of existence, like Schiller's Diver into the Gulfs of Charybdis, and brought up gems which have never been surpassed, and many of which are beyond the reach of representative art.

A too brief visit to the Water-Colour Gallery forbids my entering on any discussion of its merits, and a hurried walk through the North Stair-case Gallery, leading to the organ, filled me with regret that I had neither time nor the Supplemental Catalogue to enable me to look over the