sink; and round these are floundering such a race of fishes as never was seen since the sæculum Pyrrhæ; gasping dolphins, redder than the reddest herrings; horrid spreading polypi, like huge, slimy, poached eggs, in which hapless niggers plunge and disappear. Ye gods, what a "middle passage"! How Mr. Fowell Buxton must shudder! What would they say to this in Exeter Hall? If Wilberforce's statue downstairs were to be confronted with this picture, the stony old gentleman would spring off his chair, and fly away in terror !

And here, as we are speaking of the slave-trade, let us say a word in welcome to a French artist, Monsieur Biard, and his admirable picture. Let the friends of the negro forthwith buy this canvas, and cause a plate to be taken from it. It is the best, most striking, most pathetic lecture against the trade that ever was delivered. The picture is as fine as Hogarth; and the artist, who, as we have heard, right or wrong, has only of late years adopted the profession of painting, and was formerly in the French navy, has evidently drawn a great deal of his materials from life and personal observation. The scene is laid upon the African coast. King Tom or King Boy has come with troops of slaves down the Quorra, and sits in the midst of his chiefs and mistresses (one a fair creature, not much darker than a copper tea-kettle), bargaining with a French dealer. What a horrible callous brutality there is in the scoundrel's face, as he lolls over his greasy ledger, and makes his calculations. A number of his crew are about him; their boats close at hand, in which they are stowing their cargo. See the poor wretches, men and women, collared together, drooping down. There is one poor thing, just parted from her child. On the ground in front lies a stalwart negro; one connoisseur is handling his chest, to try his wind; another has opened his mouth, and examines his teeth, to know his age and soundness. Yonder is a poor woman kneeling before one of the Frenchmen; her shoulder is fizzing under the hot iron with which he brands her, she is looking up, shuddering and wild, yet quite mild and patient : it breaks your heart to look at her. I never saw anything so exquisitely pathetic as that face. God bless you, Monsieur Biard, for painting it! It stirs the heart more than a hundred thousand tracts, reports, or sermons: it must convert every man who has seen it. You British Government, who have given twenty millions towards the good end of freeing this hapless people, give yet a couple of thousand more to the French painter, and don't let his work go out of the country, now that it is here. Let it hang along with the Hogarths in the National Gallery; it is as good as the best of them. Or, there is Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay, who

has a family interest in the matter, and does not know how to spend all the money he brought home from India; let the right honourable gentleman look to it. Down with your dust, right honourable sir; give Monsieur Biard a couple of thousand for his picture of the negroes, and it will be the best black act you ever did in your life; and don't go for to be angry at the suggestion, or fancy we are taking liberties. What is said is said from one public man to another, in a Pickwickian sense, de puissance en puissance, -from Titmarsh, in his critical cathedra, to your father's eminent son, rich with the spoils of Ind, and wielding the bolts of war.

What a marvellous power is this of the painter's how each great man can excite us at his will! what a weapon he has, if he knows how to wield it! Look for a while at Mr. Etty's pictures, and away you rush, your "eyes on fire," drunken with the luscious colours that are poured out for you on the liberal canvas, and warm with the sight of the beautiful sirens that appear on it. You fly from this (and full time too), and plunge into a green shady landscape of Lee or Creswick, and follow a quiet stream babbling beneath whispering trees, and chequered with cool shade and golden sunshine; or you set the world-nay, the Thames and the oceanon fire with that incendiary Turner; or you laugh with honest kind-hearted Webster, and his troops of merry children; or you fall a-weeping with Monsieur Biard for his poor blacks; or you go and consult the priests of the place, Eastlake, Mulready, Boxall, Cope, and the like, and straightway your mind is carried off in an ecstasy, happy thrilling hymns sound in your ears melodious,sweet thankfulness fills your bosom. How much instruction and happiness have we gained from these men, and how grateful should we be to them!

It is well that Mr. Titmarsh stopped here, and I shall take special care to examine any further remarks which he may think fit to send. Four-fifths of this would have been cancelled, had the printed sheets fallen sooner into our hands. The story about the "Clarendon" is an absurd fiction; no dinner ever took place there. I never fell asleep in a plate of raspberry ice; and though I certainly did recommend this person to do justice by the painters, making him a speech to that effect, my opinions were infinitely better expressed, and I would repeat them were it not so late in the month. O. Y.

A PICTORIAL RHAPSODY: CONCLUDED

AND FOLLOWED BY A REMARKABLE STATEMENT OF FACTS BY

AN

MRS. BARBARA

ND now, in pursuance of the promise recorded in the last number of this Magazine, and for the performance of which the public has ever since been in breathless expectation, it hath become Titmarsh's duty to note down his opinions of the remaining pictures in the Academy exhibition; and to criticise such. other pieces as the other galleries may show.

In the first place, then, with regard to Mr. Maclise, it becomes us to say our say and as the Observer newspaper, which, though under the express patronage of the Royal family, devotes by far the noblest part of its eloquence to the consideration of dramatic subjects, and to the discussion of the gains, losses, and theatrical conduct of managers,-as, I say, the Observer newspaper, whenever Madame Vestris or Mr. Yates adopts any plan that concurs with the notions of the paper in question, does not fail to say that Madame Vestris or Mr. Yates has been induced so to reform in consequence of the Observer's particular suggestion; in like manner, Titmarsh is fully convinced, that all the painters in this town have their eyes incessantly fixed upon his criticisms, and that all the wise ones regulate their opinions by his.

In the language of the Observer, then, Mr. Maclise has done wisely to adopt our suggestions with regard to the moral treatment of his pictures, and has made a great advance in his art. Of his four pictures, let us dismiss the scene from "Gil Blas" at once. Coming from a second-rate man, it would be well enough; it is well drawn, grouped, lighted, shadowed, and the people all grin very comically, as people do in pictures called comic; but the soul of fun is wanting, as I take it, the merry, brisk, good-humoured spirit which in Le Sage's text so charms the reader.

"Olivia and Malvolio" is, on the contrary, one of the best and most spiritual performances of the artist. Nothing can be more elegant than the tender languid melancholy of Olivia, nor more poetical than the general treatment of the picture. The long

clipped alleys and quaint gardens, the peacocks trailing through the walks, and vases basking in the sun, are finely painted and conceived. Examine the picture at a little distance, and the ensemble of the composition and colour is extraordinarily pleasing. The details, too, are, as usual, wonderful for their accuracy. Here are flower-beds, and a tree above Olivia's head, of which every leaf is painted, and painted with such skill, as not in the least to injure the general effect of the picture. Mr. Maclise has a daguerréotypic eye, and a feeling of form stronger, I do believe, than has ever been possessed by any painter before him.

What cheer

Look at the portrait of Mr. Dickens,-well arranged as a picture, good in colour, and light, and shadow, and as a likeness perfectly amazing; a looking-glass could not render a better facsimile. Here we have the real identical man Dickens: the artist must have understood the inward Boz as well as the outward before he made this admirable representation of him. ful intelligence there is about the man's eyes and large forehead ! The mouth is too large and full, too eager and active, perhaps; the smile is very sweet and generous. If Monsieur de Balzac, that voluminous physiognomist, could examine this head, he would, no doubt, interpret every tone and wrinkle in it: the nose firm, and well placed; the nostrils wide and full, as are the nostrils of all men of genius (this is Monsieur Balzac's maxim). The past and the future, says Jean Paul, are written in every countenance. I think we may promise ourselves a brilliant future from this one. There seems no flagging as yet in it, no sense of fatigue, or consciousness of decaying power. Long mayest thou, O Boz! reign over thy comic kingdom; long may we pay tribute, whether of threepence weekly or of a shilling monthly, it matters not. Mighty prince! at thy imperial feet, Titmarsh, humblest of thy servants, offers his vows of loyalty, and his humble tribute of praise.

And now (as soon as we are off our knees, and have done paying court to sovereign Boz) it behoves us to say a word or two concerning the picture of "Macbeth," which occupies such a conspicuous place in the Academy gallery. Well, then, this picture of "Macbeth" has been, to our notion, a great deal too much praised and abused; only Titmarsh understands the golden mean, as is acknowledged by all who read his criticisms. Here is a very fine masterly picture, no doubt, full of beauties, and showing extraordinary power; but not a masterpiece, as I humbly take it,-not a picture to move the beholder as much as many performances that do not display half the power that is here exhibited. I don't pretend to lay down any absolute laws on the sublime (the reader will remember how the ancient satirist hath accused John Dennis

No, no;

of madness, for his vehement preaching of such rules). Michael Angelo T. is not quite so impertinent as that; but the public and the artist will not mind being told, without any previous definitions, that this picture is not of the highest order: the "Malvolio" is far more spiritual and suggestive, if we may so speak; it tells not only its own tale very charmingly, but creates for the beholder a very pleasant melancholy train of thought, as every good picture does in its kind, from a six-inch canvas by Hobbema or Ruysdael up to a thousand-foot wall of Michael Angelo. If you read over the banquet-scene in words, it leaves an impression far more dreadful and lively. On the stage, it has always seemed to us to fail; and though out of a trap-door in the middle of it Mr. Cooper is seen to rise very solemnly, his face covered with white, and a dreadful gash of vermilion across his neck; though he nods and waggles his head about in a very quiet ghost-like manner; yet, strange to say, neither this scene, nor this great actor, has ever frightened us, as they both should, as the former does when we read it at home. The fact is, that it is quite out of Mr. Cooper's power to look ghostly enough, or, perhaps, to soar along with us to that sublime height to which our imagination is continually carrying us.

A large part of this vast picture Mr. Maclise has painted very finely. The lords are all there in gloomy state, fierce stalwart men in steel; the variety of attitude and light in which the different groups are placed, the wonderful knowledge and firmness with which each individual figure and feature are placed down upon the canvas will be understood and admired by the public, but by the artist still more, who knows the difficulty of these things, which seem so easy, which are so easy, no doubt, to a man with Mr. Maclise's extraordinary gifts. How fine is yonder group at the farthest table, lighted up by the reflected light from the armour of one of them! The effect, as far as we know, is entirely new; the figures drawn with exquisite minuteness and clearness, not in the least interrupting the general harmony of the picture. Look at the two women standing near Lady Macbeth's throne, and those beautiful little hands of one of them placed over the state-chair; the science, workmanship, feeling in these figures are alike wonderful. The face, bust, and attitude of Lady Macbeth are grandly designed; the figures to her right, with looks of stern doubt and wonder, are nobly designed and arranged. The main figure of Macbeth, I confess, does not please; nor the object which has occasioned the frightful convulsive attitude in which he stands. He sees not the ghost of Banquo, but a huge, indistinct, gory shadow, which seems to shake its bloody locks, and frown upon him. Through this