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The fact is, that the artists have long ago recognised the difficulty, and have abandoned the attempt to transfer these special allegories to canvass. When they do paint from Spenser, they confine themselves to subjects selected from the more epical part of the poem, in which the general allegory is least conspicuous, and multiply Florimels and Unas. On the other hand, it would be quite possible to paint every scene from the beginning to the end of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The reason of this is, that Bunyan transformed his abstractions into realities, and saw them, with his mental eye, moving and living as distinctly as though they had passed under the ken of his visual organ. Even the child rejects the allegory, and has implicit faith in the reality of Christian. No wonder that, with such a guide, it should be an easy task to follow.

Mr Paton has attempted to produce a special allegory. There was in reality no occasion to print in the catalogue an elaborate explanation of the artist's idea, for the design of the picture is evident enough. Floating in the air towards an abyss, in which lurid fires are seen to smoulder, is a female figure of great beauty, but rather scantily draped, with long yellow hair and wings of the death'shead moth. She is preceded and attended by two imps blowing bubbles. Behind her, and in pursuit, is a confused crowd, male and female, of all ages and nations-priests, statesmen, voluptuaries, men of genius, warriors, Bacchantes, misers, and fools-all pressing after the phantom. Above, dim in the sky, is the Angel of Doom with his sword.

The general conception does not strike us as felicitous-nay, there is a positive incongruity, which, after a moment's consideration, becomes painfully apparent. All the group are following Pleasure, and Pleasure appears to them all in the guise which the artist has depicted. We cannot destroy the painted allegory by supposing that the form of Pleasure appears different in the eyes of each one who is following it. Mr Paton attaches a large significance to the word Pleasure, comprehending therein every pursuit in which mankind can engage

VOL. LXXVII.—NO. CCCCLXXV.

for the sake of self-indulgence or gratification. We cannot accept his principal figure as a proper embodiment of that view. Whether he meant it or not, that figure suggests the idea merely of sensual desire, and that in a restricted form. Such might not be his intention, but such is clearly the effect; and, therefore, we cannot recognise any propriety in the arrangement of the miscellaneous mob of followers. The churchman is in pursuit of power, the statesman of office, the poet of fame, the miser of wealth, the warrior of glory, and so on; but the object of pursuit in the picture does not in any way represent the attributes of Ambition, Fame, Wealth, or Glory. Mr Paton has painted his figure of Pleasure-and very exquisitely painted it is-far too distinctly for that. Had he shrouded it in mystery, and exhibited only a dim outline, which in the eye of imagination might be supposed to take a variety of shapes, the case might have been different. But as the picture stands, the allegory is manifestly defective and incoherent. The "Lust of the eye, the Lust of the flesh, and the Pride of life," are symbolically different and apart from each other, and must be so treated in representation. Thus there is a radical fault in the conception, which no dexterity of detail

can remove.

Neither can we say of this picture, as of Mr Paton's previous works, that the grouping is executed with skill. It is exceedingly, and even painfully confused. The figures are huddled together in an area too small for standing-room, and consequently we are perpetually at a loss to know whether arms, legs, and drapery belong to the statesman, the man of genius, or the fool. We half suspect that Mr Paton found, after a time, that he had crowded his canvass too much, and that he was obliged, in consequence, to have recourse to brilliant colouring and vivid tints to an almost prodigal extent. By doing so, he has injured, in our opinion, the tone of the picture, which, viewed from a little distance, is anything but harmonious, and displays rather an abuse than an artistic application of colour. We lack also, in the expression of the countenances of some of

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the figures, that ideality for which Mr Paton has hitherto been distinguished;-for example, the warrior is a very coarse and vulgar specimen of humanity, and we cannot say much in favour of the grace of the elevated damsel.

In short, we hope that Mr Paton will make up his mind, once for all, to have done with allegory; and that he will not again expend his rare powers upon impracticable subjects. We have spoken our opinion quite freely, and if any should think that we have erred in judgment, we can only say that the error has not arisen from any want of respect for the genius of the artist.

We have left ourselves but little space to speak of other pictures, though many are crowding reproachfully on our memory. Let us, in the department of historical painting, congratulate Mr Drummond on his capital and characteristic picture of the "Porteous Mob," one of the very best pieces of colouring in the whole Exhibition, albeit that here and there, in the front-ground, there are some brilliant points that might have been toned down with advantage. Let us thank Mr Gavin for his sweet little picture, "Going to School," which is a perfect gem; and let us congratulate Messrs Herdman and Ross on the evident improvement which they display. As for old-established favourites-Lauder, Christie, Johnstone, Archer, and others who shine in the historical and cabinet departmentsour space will not admit of our doing more than stating that their respective pictures are worthy of this occasion.

Our landscape-painters have this year exerted themselves greatly, and we are grateful to observe that the public has not been contented with a mere verbal recognition of their merits, but that the purchases have been very numerous. And most deservedly so; for in this department the Scottish Academy is acquiring a high name. The "Sunset," and "Edinburgh from Dalmeny Park," by Horatio MacCulloch, are most admirable pictures. So also are Edmund Crawford's scenes

near

"Dort" and "Rotterdam," Hill's "Dunsinane," Harvey's "NightMail," and Fraser's "View on the Eden." Here we stop, not for want of material, but for want of space.

Then as to the portraits. We shall not begin with the works of our excellent president, Sir John Watson Gordon-for this reason, that another distinguished academician, Mr Graham Gilbert, has secured a special advantage, and acquired a right to priority of notice, on account of his admirable and life-like picture of the President. This, we are pleased to see, has been presented to the Academy, and it will remain in all time coming as a perfect portrait of the best portraitpainter of his day. Sir John Watson Gordon has not won that distinction -acknowledged in London as well as here-without a struggle, for Colvin Smith, Graham Gilbert, and Daniel Macnee have been most formidable competitors.

Last-for we must come to an end, as imps, of a very different kind from those who wait upon Pleasure, are clamorous without-we shall take a glance at the sculpture-room. Our attention is first attracted by Brodie's statue of Corinna, in marble-a most chaste, refined, and beautiful work, which certainly is not obnoxious to any of the remarks which we have hazarded at the commencement of this article. Among the busts, those by Patric Park are undoubtedly the finest. That of Mrs Houldsworth is one of the most graceful and engaging specimens of statuary that we have ever seen, and may challenge comparison with the antique. That of the Emperor Louis Napoleon is remarkably bold and powerful. Our annual exhibitions would be imperfect without specimens from the studios of Steel and Calder Marshall; and both of them are well maintaining their established reputation.

And now, one word, by way of conclusion, as to the future prospects of art in this country. We have said already that we consider these hopeful times for the artists, and we are not at all disposed to depart from that opinion. We find, on going over the Exhibition a day or two ago, that, irrespective of the portraits, which always constitute a large portion, sixtyseven works of art have been sold, and forty-six have been exhibited as property. There are undoubtedly some pictures of merit which have not found purchasers; but, on the whole, the best works exhibited have been

a brief, how can he possibly progress? So say we of the artists. The men who have won their fame can look after themselves; but we want you to look after the men who have yet their fame to win, and to encourage them in the career which they have been prompted from instinctive impulse to enter. This much must be recollect

point of emolument, between several branches, or rather departments of art. Very few years have elapsed since Robert Thorburn, a pupil in the Scottish Academy, who was educated under the eye of Sir William Allan, left this for London, and he has now taken his place as the first miniaturepainter of the day. But those who cultivate art in other styles, cannot expect the like success. We do not wish by any means to see bad painting encouraged-indeed, we should set our face resolutely against any scheme which could lead to such degradation,-but we desire to see rising talent encouraged, and the upward path made easier for those who give decided indications of the talent which requires nothing more than practice and application to produce notable results. This, we think, might be accomplished by the means of extended art associations; and, at all events, the hint is worthy of consideration.

purchased; and we must say, more especially for the private buyers, that they have shown much taste in their selection. The number of these amounts to thirty-add to them the number of purchases before exhibition, and the result is seventy-six private purchases of pictures which are not portraits. In addition to this, the Edinburgh Association has bought twenty-ed, that there is a wide difference, in three works of high merit, and the Glasgow Art-Union fourteen; in all, about one hundred and thirteen. This is no despicable market, considering that some of these works of art have been bought at high prices, and we hail it as a good augury for the future. What we wish especially to impress upon the public, is the duty, if we are really to maintain a great school of art in this country, of strengthening the hands of the existing Art Associations, and, if possible, of creating new ones. We are not yet wealthy enough to depend upon private patronage. Pictures which are well worth £150, £200, or £300, would not find purchasers if the associations were given up; but of that there is very little fear, since each guinea subscriber, though he may fail to draw a prize, has full value supplied to him in the shape of engravings. We wish, however, that the system could be extended, so as to reach a class who cannot afford their annual guinea. Why should there not be five-shilling associations? Many of the works unpurchased are of a superior order of merit, and we cannot help thinking that their dissemination would be of essential use-irrespective of the interests of the artists-in creating a pure and wholesome taste in many a humble household. We hold in utter scorn the idea that associations tend to the production of an inferior class of artists. Artists are not made in a day. They have to advance from the rudiments to perfection; and it would indeed be a death-war

rant to art to announce that, until a painter had reached perfection, none of his works ought to be purchased. No one expects that the young advocate, employed for the first time, will do the same justice to his brief as an old and experienced counsellor; and yet, if the young advocate never gets

And now we make our bow to the artists of our country, with a deep feeling of pride and gratitude for what they have done, and with a confident expectation that they will yet accomplish more. Nationally speaking, they form the youngest academy in Europe, and yet they have sent forth men who, in other academies, have taken the most conspicuous place. We can hardly expect it to be otherwise. In foreign fields Scotland has won much of her renown; but we ought at least to take care that full scope and due encouragement is given to the development, in every department, of the talent which we possess; and if that is afforded, we have little fear of the result. The land in which the national poetic influence and national associations survive, cannot possibly fail in corresponding art, if due attention is paid to its exigencies and requirements.

THE COLD SHADE.

A DIALOGUE.

EVERYBODY knows that our friend Irenæus always was, or has become lately, a man of taste. Since he has been churchwarden, he has spent his money in a most public-spirited manner in adorning his parish church. His term of office has been a boon to the parish. He has revived all the antiquities, and given an antiquarian respectability to the novelties. He has done away with the barrel-organ, and put up a real organ. In addition to this organic change, by the help of the curate, the Rev. Celsus Cope, and the two Misses I., whose assistance is not the less readily given that the curate is five-and-twenty, interestingly pale, and good-looking, and has taken a vow of celibacy, he has also organised a choir of singing-boys or charity cherubims, with brown holland pinafores turned into surplices. The ladies say they will wash white. These have superseded the beery bassviol, flageolet, and violoncello, and chaunt the Gregorians on Sundays and holidays, on the latter with a certain degree of levity, having been used to connect them with playing rather than with singing. He has knocked down the old rickety pews, which, with their stolid agricultural occupants, used to suggest the pens in a cattle-market-not sparing his own squirearchical one-and substituted pretty open sittings, airy in summer but chilly in winter; and his example has had its effect all over the church, except with one recalcitrant swain, who has never read The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and is in consequence an unenlightened character, and whose family pew stands alone, enfilading the reading-desk, taking the pulpit at point blank, and dominating the aisle with an effrontery worthy of a better cause; but then honest Giles Steers doubtless looks upon it as a sort of palladium of civil and religious liberty, and you might

as easily get him to disturb the bones of his grandfather who sleeps below. Nay, more, Irenæus has put up to his non-conforming ancestors memorial windows, with coats of arms on them enough to raise their ghosts. The stained glass was got from Belgium, and the figures on it were drawn out by the stainless fingers of the young ladies above mentioned; and a dim religious light comes slanting through one of these windows when the evening sun is on the church, tattooing with the said figures the interesting face of the curate in the desk, throwing a blush on his pallid cheek which becomes it more than the tattoo, and painting his surplice with rainbow colours, bright as those which fall from the electric light on the great fountain at the Panopticon in Leicester Square. The rainbow hues of hope suggest to the fair craftswomen that a dispensation might possibly be obtained from the vow of celibacy.

Nay, more, he has pulled down all the ugly stucco from the screen and roof, and revealed the ancient glories of the stifled oak; he has opened a great hole at the side of the screen, which the ladies call a Hagioscope,* which they say used to be there in the fifth century, but through which, in the nineteenth, it is quite certain that the curate can be seen in the chancel. He has illustrated the walls with inscriptions of quaint forms and divers colours; an excellent plan for keeping his little spoilt boy good in church, until such time as he shall have become of age to follow the service. Nor has he forgotten the poor-he never does-but has put an alms-box at the door, with a slit at the top, broad enough both for pence and sixpences, avoiding Sir Isaac Newton's mistake, who had a large hole in the door made for the cat and a small one for the kitten.

It is bound and decorated with iron

* A word which Irenæus tells them comes from two Greek words, meaning "a saint," and "to observe."

clasps, and fastened with a curious medieval lock, tangled and twisted and gnarled, and it looks strong enough to contain the diamonds of the crown, though, when it is opened, it somehow or other generally contains ninepence.

Besides what he has done for the church, Irenæus has decorated his dwelling-house and garden, which is not a great way off, in an ecclesiastical manner. Everywhere are Roman crosses and Greek crosses to be seen, so that the most devout Roman or Greek might be saved the trouble of crossing himself, so abundantly would he be crossed at every turn; and we should recommend lovers to avoid those tempting meandering walks, or before they had gone ten steps their affection would certainly be crossed. For as you go in and out, and all about this garden to look at the panoramic view, or sit down to gaze on the silver reaches of the little river which winds below, you pass under arches of rustic work, you sit down on seats of rustic work, each arch and each seat surmounted by a cross, and climbed over with rose, honeysuckle, clematis, and all other pretty plants of a loving, clinging, womanly nature. The seats are at intervals wherever a new point of view presents itself, and over each is a moral inscription, either borrowed from the page of a sage, or composed by friend Irenæus himself. Nor do we blame the ci-devant member of the Peace Society, if he has built his soul a temple of peace. In the least suspected nook of the garden, and stolen from the utilitarian area of the kitchen-garden, though well screened from a view of the cabbages, is a long grotto or arcade of rough stones, covered with climbing roses and other pretty parasites, ending in a fantastic bower through which the sunset lights or the rays of the moon produce effects which bring to mind some of Woolmer's pictures in illustration of Spenser and the Arabian Nights. Irenæus loves this bower after dinner, especially in warm weather, for it is airy, and the breeze helps his nap.

“ ἐν Θέρει δ' υπνὸν

δι' αμφιτρῆτος αὐλίου πέμπει πνοή. But he has another bower in the op

posite part of the garden, where he has put a table to entertain his friends. It is roofed by two shadowy yews. Here he loves to sit with a friend or two, in that weather so rare in our country, but much more frequent than is generally supposed, when it is pleasanter to sit out of doors than in the house, which will be found true whenever the wind is from the west in the summer months, bringing with its breathings a fragrance and a freshness which it is a thousand pities to lose. It is near the end of April, and the birds are singing against each other in Irenæus' garden. I walk in by the garden gate, and make for the yew bower. But as I come near it a fragrance salutes my nose, which seems to come not from blossoms, but from the dead leaves of that plant sacred to the excise, which none but doctors are allowed to grow. There must be some one besides Irenæus. I go in. There is Irenæus, and a fair youth with an aspiring mustache and distinctive cap, smoking one of those deep china pipes which are so attractive in the shop-windows of Germany, making each place where they are sold a miniature picture-exhibition.

TLEPOLEMUS. Hail, Irenæus; how long have you taken to smoking?

IRENEUS. I have just taken a cigar in self-defence,-do the same. My nephew Hyperbolus, the son of my brother Trygæus, of the university of Dummerjungenberg. He has a long pipe in his mouth, as you perceive, and a scratch on his nose from a duelling-sword, to which I call your attention. He is a gentleman who will not be taken alive. My old friend Tlepolemus.

TLEPOLEMUS. Happy to make his acquaintance. Having a respect for my proboscis, I shall take care to keep on good terms with him. Is it not rather early in the season to be sitting out of doors? It is warm enough in the sun, but the shade is cold, especially the shade of those great black horse-poisoning yew-trees.

HYPERBOLUS (striking his fist on a number of the Times). You have hit it, sir, exactly.

TLEPOLEMUS. You have, sir, at all events. Don't your knuckles tingle? HYPERBOLUS. I allude, sir, to your mention of the cold shade. Have

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