which lies on the sofa, or sleeps in her lady's lap. Even the donkey, in the well-known picture of "Shoeing at the Forge," is of the utmost cleanliness and beauty, and we wholly forget the proverbial stupidity of the animal in its refined look of intelligence. This criticism on the English department would be incomplete, without a notice of the præ-Raphaelite pictures. It is possible that, in the London Exhibitions, the works of these men may be regarded and criticized from the circumscribed and prejudiced limits of intolerant dogmas, and a systematized practice; we were therefore specially anxious to observe how the pictures of these artists deport themselves in the presence of the assembled world. In Germany, a similar school, with the like aims, and guided by the same dogmas, have been long seeking to work a complete revolution in their country's art. At length the movement has reached our shores, but in a form and disguise so changed as scarcely to claim recognition. The modern Germans, renouncing all allegiance to Albert Durer, Holbein, and the Van Eycks, had enrolled themselves as devoted disciples of the early Italian masters; but the modern English school, while expressly taking the name of "præ-Raphaelite Brethren," have, in the spirit of contradiction, adopted the manner of these early German and Flemish masters. Hence it is but natural, that these two modern schools, professedly aiming at the same end, have, in fact, arrived at opposite goals. Innate differences in the tendencies of the English and German minds may likewise conspire to this contradictory result. But, whatever be the cause, it is a manifest fact, that our English schismatics have wholly mistaken their patron saints; that, in fact, they belong to the early Germans, while the modern Germans have assumed the characteristics of the early Italians. Hence the works of the German præ-Raphaelites in the Paris Exposition are dreamy, ideal, abstracted, while those of the same school in England are actual, positive, and worldly. This phase of German art, as we have already scen, is, like the philosophy of that nation, transcendental; this English school, on the contrary, if it possess any mental system, is obviously founded on the philosophy of fact, and of induction. The Germans, like the early Italians, have seized on a type of pure spiritual beauty; the English, by a strange aberration of taste, seek only for that truth which is latent in ugliness. In their subjects, likewise, while the Germans are eminently religious, the English are singularly secular, even when aspiring to sacred topics. The difference between these two modern revivals is not only in æsthetics, but extends even to the bodily structure of their works. In execution, they have nothing in common. In treatment of drapery, they are most dissimilar. German drapery is learned and statuesque, the lines and folds studiously arranged; the drapery of the English præ Water-Colour Drawings. 257 Raphaelites, on the other hand, is common-place and undigni. fied. In colour, likewise, we find the same opposing contrasts. The Germans, as befits solemn subjects, are sober and profound; while the English, although they studiously renounce the beauties of form, are allured by the witcheries of colour, and attain, as by miracle, a wondrous brilliancy. Perhaps the only point of agreement between these two schools is in a common origin. Each arose in a rebellion against established teachings and methods. This art-reformation, like the ecclesiastical, was thus a protest; but, departing from the same starting-point, the reformers, both artistic and ecclesiastical, took diverging roads, and soon found themselves widely severed. We must refer to the triumphant position which our water. colour drawings occupy by universal consent. In this department, indeed, it can scarcely be said there is any international competition. But as the opinion of the French on this point is of greater interest than any thing we ourselves can say, it will be well to leave the question to their decision. The "Moniteur" thus speaks :— "It is known to what point of perfection our neighbours beyond the Channel have pushed this national style, in which they have no serious rivals; they have acquired in it a vigour, an éclat, an incredible effect. If too often their oil pictures resemble water colours, in revenge their water colours are like oil pictures for intensity, warmth, and energy of tone. They possess colours of an irreproachable preparation, which form a scale the most extended, papers smooth as glass, granulated as a wall, according to the effect which they desire to obtain, and which admit of work the most varied, from a free wash to the utmost elaboration. Their exhibition of water-colour pictures is very numerous, and rich in remarkable works."-Moniteur, June 21st, 1855. Thus, then, our nation has not only reason to be content with the rank which our pictures take in this international competition, but must feel equally satisfied with the candid and generous spirit in which the English works have been criticized in the official journal of the French Government above mentioned, which, after devoting many articles to their careful examination, thus writes: "Now, already arrived at our ninth article, we are far from having exhausted the subject. The English school is, it is true, the most numerous and the most original after that of France. It is right, therefore, that we should dwell upon it at length and in detail: the artists, possessing a trenchant individuality, and known at most by name on the Continent, merit profound study."-Moniteur, June 16th, 1855. In our review of this great art-congress, our purpose has been to regard art as the representative of fundamental ideas; and thus, by our classification, we have endeavoured to arrive at a statement of the mental art-position occupied by the various nations. We have thus sought to generalize the multiform manifestations of each people into one ruling thought; and we would now finally, by a still wider induction, seek to compare the present art-epoch, as displayed in the Exposition, with periods already passed in the world's history. One marked characteristic of this collective living art is, its accurate study of nature, and tendency to detail. The age, whether we turn to science, commerce, or legislation, is one of detail; and art partakes of the general bias. This is specially seen in landscape, by the close study of nature throughout, and in the minute realization of foreground objects. This careful elaboration may likewise arise, in some measure, from the lack of strong impulsive genius. Men in whom genius is paramount, are frequently impatient of close study; they are not eminently learned; the one necessity of their nature is an outpouring expression. Now the absence of this overflowing impulse is especially conspicuous in extant art. It is, perhaps, a misfortune, resulting from position, that makes modern artists copyists and compilers. The first artist could not possibly copy or compile, the last can scarcely help it. The first man is original, the last learned. Still even the latest manifestation of genius, true to its inherent constitution, must create an originality of its own. And thus is the conclusion forced upon us, by this Universal Exposition, that there is a present lack of great men. Painting, like architecture, failing in original creative capacity, falls back upon greater accuracy and truth, than was attainable in earlier ages. But if living art can show no examples of giant greatness, at least the strength which does exist is widely diffused. In this competition, if no nation can feel inordinately exalted, there is none that need be wholly cast down. If this conflux of art were followed by a conference of artists, each nation has, by the works exhibited, established its right to send to the world's senate its representative. Forty years of peace are here closed by this great exhibition of the arts of peace. A great epoch in the history of the nations is thus marked by a full manifestation of their aggregate civilizations. In art, then, what have these golden years of tranquillity brought forth? Upwards of five thousand works, in which the characteristics of the fifteenth, the sixteenth, and even of the seventeenth centuries can be traced; but the nineteenth has not yet, even in these five thousand works, set its seal on the scrolls of arthistory. The arts have infused themselves into our manufactures, and, in return, the spirit of manufacture has invaded art. Five thousand works are here assembled, and again dispersed, without creating an art-epoch. Ancient schools and epochs originated in, and centred around, men of genius; it is now sought to organize such periods through associations called "academies." Nevertheless, let us rejoice that we live not in utter darkness: in the absence of suns, satellites, with borrowed light, may cheer our way. BRIEF LITERARY NOTICES. A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady his Letters. Edited by Third Edition. London : WE can scarcely wonder that this work, issued about the time of our last publication, has already reached a third edition. The great reputation of Sydney Smith for brilliant wit, and his extensive acquaintance with the highest circles of the metropolis, sufficiently prepare the reader for a treat of no ordinary kind; and, what is more unusual, he is not doomed to disappointment. It seems to us that the subject of this biography appears to more advantage in its memorial pages, than even in his own admired productions; and the anecdotes and letters with which it is enriched serve not merely to sustain, but to verify and enhance, his social reputation. As a wit, he is more happily reported to the world than any of the tribe we can call to memory; while his character as a man, quick-sighted, shrewd, industrious, cheerful, affectionate, high-principled, gives substance to the whole, and realizes that picture of moral goodness and domestic virtue which men of every class delight to honour. Unfortunately, in his clerical character he challenges a yet higher praise and still greater reverence, which the reader of these Memoirs must reluctantly refuse; for their perusal begets a painful sense of incongruity existing between the man and his office. So far as appears from these records, he might have been an active, benevolent country squire. The spiritual concerns of his parishioners, apart from their merely moral and social improvement, would appear to have been ignored. We do not wonder that his surviving literary friends declined to undertake to write these Memoirs, a duty which has been fulfilled with much filial affection by his daughter. With all his eminently good qualities, we rejoice that the existing state of public feeling, amongst members of the Established Church, with regard to the requirements of the clerical character, will tend to discourage the future appearance of such a phenomenon as Sydney Smith in so high and responsible a sphere. We incline to think that, as a member of the Bar or of the Senate, the subject of these Memoirs might have attained the loftiest position and the most unequivocal success; and all the more painful, therefore, are the anomalous fame and circumstances of this great man's life, and strikingly illustrative of the mischief of that Churchsystem which admits other than a divine call to the ministry of souls, and demands no spiritual qualification for the same. Sydney Smith was the second of the four sons of Robert Smith, an accomplished but eccentric man, who had two notable peculiarities: one was a disposition to absent himself from home for indefinite periods; the other, a whim of dissipating his property by buying, altering, spoiling, and then selling, something like nineteen country houses in different parts of England. His mother was of French descent, of good intellectual powers, of which a curious instance is recorded in the fact, that her letters to her sons at school were regularly read aloud at the request of their schoolfellows,-and died while yet young. She appears to have inspired her children with great respect for her virtues and high tone of feeling; and to her may be ascribed much of what was great and good in their characters. Sydney was sent first to a school at Southampton, then suffered some miserable years at Winchester, and finally entered New College, Oxford, of which he speedily became Fellow. We next find him settled as Curate of a small parish on Salisbury Plain, a situation which he held during two years, when he was induced by the squire of the parish to undertake the office of tutor to his son. A contemplated residence in Germany was frustrated by the revolutionary state of the Continent; and the travellers were compelled, to use Sydney's own expression, by "stress of politics to put into Edinburgh," where he remained five years. Here he became intimate with a number of young men of great talent, amongst whom may be mentioned Jeffrey, Brougham, Horner, Playfair, Walter Scott, and others. A proposal of Sydney's led to the establishment of the "Edinburgh Review," of which he became the first editor, and to which he largely contributed. After remaining five years in Edinburgh, being now married and his family increasing, he thought it right to put himself into a more favourable position for obtaining promotion, and proceeded accordingly to London, where he lived much in society, and became favourably known to great numbers of the more intellectual circles of the metropolis, particularly amongst the Whigs. We then find him settled in a small living at Foxton, in Yorkshire, whence, after a few years, he was promoted, by the favour of Lord Lyndhurst, to the Rectory of Combe Florey, near Taunton. The descriptions of his mode of life when residing amongst his flock are the most pleasing in the book. His active benevolence led him to every expedient to alleviate the distresses and increase the comforts of his poorer neighbours. He acted as their counsellor, friend, teacher, and physician; throwing into all his intercourse with them so much sound common-sense, such cheerful energy, such consideration for their prejudices and weaknesses, that he first gained their attachment, and then carried them forward in a course of progressive improvement. Meanwhile his intercourse with his equals and the aristocratic friends whom his character and talents attracted to him, was of the most fascinating kind. Master of a species of wit so peculiar as to defy all definition; never exercising his powers so as to offend the self-love of his companions and friends, at the same time that he kept them under an agreeable |