The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-09 00:00:00

ening of the excavation will take place, until what was at first an artificial channel becomes an arm of the sea. Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Brassey are not men likely to fail in an undertaking of this kind : and the only doubt is—will it pay? An income of half a million yearly is wanted to replace the original investment, exclusive of working expenses, which are likely to be considerable. On the other hand, there 1400111,4 to be no danger from the competition of the Nicaragua line—an inferior work, fitted rather for the accommodation of the coasting trade than for the opening of an interoceanic passage for vessels of large draught. All the aid which European Govern ments can give to this great design will, no doubt, be tendered ; and by none more readily than that of France, whose Emper►r, some years ago, wrote a pamphlet on the subject. Selected Series of French Literature. No. I. Madame do SiNigni. London : Crockford. PLEA/urn. and readable sketches principally of the classic memoir-writers . of French society in its Augustan aura, among whom the first place is assigned appropriately to " a lady always in the fashion." 1114alialt Turkey; or a Greek Empire the inevitable Solution of the Eastern Question. By IL 1). I'. A Pamphlet. London : Saunders and Stanford. AnvocAnNo the claims of the eleven millions of Christian subjects of the Porte in accordance with the hints thrown out by Sir N. (1. Ward, and en forcing the suggestions of Marshal Marmont, in the event of the invasion of Turkey by Russia. The Danger—The Remedy. A Few Remarks on the Prospects of Conservatism ; addressed to Sir wer Lytton, Bart. A Pamphlet. London : Bosworth. BRIEF, true, and to the point, as far as it goes; em phasising t he necessity of preparing educational instntments to neutralise the incendiary lalmntrs of the Radical propagandists, the "Spmtts" and " Bur leys" of journalism; deserving attention in respect of the " I 'anger," but meagre in practical suggestions of the " ltemedy." The Reform of Testamentary Jurisdiction. A Pam phlet issued by the Committee of l'r.octors in Doc tors' Commons. London : Ilutterviortlit4. VALUABLE 104 a review by qualified Civilians of recent proposals for dispensing with their special vocation ; insisting on the importance of maintaining it for national purposes; and deserving attention if only for the evidence quoted in the appendix. Remarks and Suggestions on the System of Farming adapted to the Climate and Soil of the County Of Carmarthen. A I'Bllollcl I A nithm : Ridgway. THE views of a practical agriculturist, conversant with errors in the system of cropping at present pur sued in this part of the Principality, for the printing of which tl►e county is indebted to Lord Entlyn. The Memoirs of a Sto►►ach►. London : Painter. 11EIVY as a joke, and slight as a medical treatise, I►ut containing some useful sanitary suggestions at the end. Modern Domestic Cookery, hosed on the irell-known Work of Mrs. Randal. A new and revised Edition. : Murray. THE statement in the preface, which we can rely upon, that upwards of 210,000 copies of this work have been sold, is of itself sufficient testimony to its excellence, for practical persons are here the judges in a question which concerns them. The novel fea tures of value introduced into this edition are—a great increase in the number and variety of the recipes; a simplification of the terms of art in which they are expressed; the printing of numbers and quantities in figures ; and tables for computing household accounts. We should add also, that it is illustrated. independently of the wholesale contri bution of recipes from certain erudite personages, we observe that care has been taken to obtain the secrets of some opsonia of particular artists. Thns we observe inter alio the Ereetheium pudding, the pleasant and ingenious device of a rising man " Pie who rs a candidate for future fame ; and from such little indications as this of vigilant attention to the most recent social discoveries we infer the gene ral completeness of the publication. The History of trnele Tom's Countrymen, (re. Lon don Partridge and Oakey, Paternoster-row. Tun incidents of negro life, as too roam• negroes still And it, are traced in this little volume from the first THE PRESS. capture during some African raid, through the hor rors of the middle passage, to the ultimate condition of hopeless slavery upon a Cuban sugar estate, or in an American cotton plantation. The frightful nar rative is illustrated by the pictorial representation of a slave-ship, and justified by extracts from authentic documents. As the moral of his story, the author impresses upon Englishmen his conviction that, by continuing to purchase the larger proportion of the l'nited States cotton crop, they are rendering them selves partners in the guilt of the slave trade, and that the precarious nature of our supply of the article, with all its incalculable perils to the fabric of our prosperity, is the just retribution for this national sin. °U It LIBRARY TABLE. ClaAlar and Ilistorie Portraits. .Ituucm Bruce. Ilurst and Ithickett. Memoirs of Bishop Bathurst. By Mrs. Thisllclliu IL licutley. The Clinton*. 3 vols. • ..... .„.-. Ifiwyries. Vol. I. . 1 . Bennett. Midland Metropolitan Maya Aro', July. ILtll, Virtue, and Cu. •I'lu• Family Treamitip. I lunlst.ru 141111 Sllllll4llllll. The Tarkv in Europe. llayle St..lnliii. Chapman and Hall. Trareho in the Steppe* 41lie Caviare. Sea. By Xavier de I tell. Chapman and Hall. The Strike*. By Vimlex. A pamphlet. Sin ill and Eilwortla. Jihshay av a C'wou/i/nan rf Social Avogrevs. By S. I.newv. J. M urray. tint .rts. PURCHASES FOR THE NATIONAL GALLERY. "THE GIORGIONE." THE attention of our readers has probably been drawn to several letters which have appeared in the morning newspapers relating to purchases re cently made for the National Gallery at the various sales of pictures which have occurred during the pre sent season. In our notice of the sale of the Spanish collection of the late King of the French we expressed a warm approbation of the selection made by the trustees on that occasion, and we have only to regret that their purchases were not more numerous and did not include all the pictures worthy to hold a place in our national collection. We suspect that the zeal of the trustees and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is paralysed by the hostile criticism, net to say invective, which their every act is sure to pro voke ; but public men in England should be har dened to such attacks, and, conscious of integrity and honest intention, should trust to time and the good sense of the country for their justification. On the occasion of the Spanish sale to which we have ad verted we expressed our sense of the injustice with which the trustees had been criticised, and of the illogical arguments which were used against them. An interesting anal able letter appeared in the Times newspaper of Tuesday relating to the purchase of a picture by Giorgiotte, made at the sale of the late Mr. Woodburn in the course of last week. We have no intention of questioning the accuracy of the facts so broadly and so distinctly stated by M r. Morris Moore, but we think the purchase, even on his own showing, cannot be considered as an injudicious one. The painting said to be by (liorgione represents a warrior paying his devotions at the fret of the Virgin Mary, who is seated with the infant in her arms, attended by St..l►weph, and a page appears in the back ground holding the knight's war horse. This pic ture, which Mr. Moore tells us bad been bought and sold for a small sum, was, in his opinion, a very tine one, when he first saw it at Florence, and he might hint self have been the purchaser. The friend to whom he ceded it seems to have I►een unworthy of the possession, for he not only destroyed the surface of the picture, but subsequently " stippled it over," in the critic's phrase, and thus obscured every vestige of the original painting. If this statement. is not exaggerated, it would still be possible to remove this superficial coat, of painting, and to reduce the picture to the state in which Mr. Moore saw it when in the hand of the restorer, and thus to preserve it as a prelims relic and curious example of the method in which the 0141 masters worked. We cannot but hope, however, that. Mr. Moore's zeal has misled him, and that the damage hats not. been so extensive or so irreparable as he supposes that a careful hand might remove the superficial restoration, and s till l e ave us a ti ne anal interesting work of art. This picture, which we think erroneously attributed to Giorgione, possesses high qualities both of design anal colouring. The composition is striking and unusual ; the draperies are folded into those broad and monumental masses which the early masters loved. The landscape is of great beauty ; anal the rich and mellow colouring, in spite of all restoration, is such as could proceed from no school but. that of Venice. It is not that we think it unworthy of the master to whom it is attributed, but we think the evi dence to prove it his wanting. The works of Giorgione are well known, and have been carefully catalogued. They were highly esteemed anal eagerly sought for during his short life, and after his early death. lie SATURDAY, was much engaged in fresco-painting ; his oil pictures were few ; and we think so important a spe cimen could hardly have escaped the notice of his biographers ; but, further still, we think the internal evidence insufficient. The works of Palma Vecchio have sometimes been confounded with those of Gior gione. Pordenone was his imitator and survivor. He was at least equal to his celebrated contemporary in invention, and not much inferior in richness of colouring, simplicity of design, and breadth of effect. His pencil was rapid, his fancy prolific, anti his works are numerous. Mr. Morris Moore, whose opinion is decidedly worth attention, is inclined to attribute the picture to Giovanni Mini, and his judgment is certainly corroborated by the introduction of two partridges into the foreground—a whimsical method of identifying Ins pictures to which that master frequently resorted. The figure of the Virgin, particularly the action of her right hand, wants the vigour of either Giorgione or Pordenone, and the head and shoulders of the kneeling figure bear no proportion to the diminutive limbs ; but, on the other hand, the style of painting is freer, and the composition more picturesque, than that of any work of the master with which we are ac quainted. The " Christ " at Emaus, in the Church of St. Salvatore at Venice, to which it hears some re semblance in style, is more formal and less original in its composition. To any of these masters we think the disputed work might with more plausibility be assigned than to Giorgione. It is to be regretted that pictures are so frequently misnamed, not seldom, we fear, intentionally. Titian and liiorgione were not exceeded, hardly perhaps equalled, by any of their contemporaries. Their names stand, therefore, first amongst Venetian painters in the collector's list. The principal collections, both in France and England, were made before names of inferior note were familiarly known, and to Tintoretto anti Paul Veronese were attributed all those works which it was found impossible to assign to their more celebrated contemporaries. Thus the names of excellent painters have been suffered to fall out of the market, and a ,jealous proprietor resents as an insult to his collection every attempt to restore to the true master the identity of which► he has been robbed. But there is no reason why the merits of Palma Vecchio, Pordenone, Bonifaccio, and l'olidoro should not be recognised, or why they should be cheated of their immortality. ' BRITISH INSTITUTION. [Third Notice.] No. 3, "The Charity of St. Thomas deVillanneva," by Murillo, was purchased by Mr. Thomas Baring at the late auction of Spanish pictures for the enormous sum of 7101. It is very slightly painted, and was probably intended merely as the sketch fir some larger picture. We do not admire the composition. The principal figure in the piece is a Benedictine monk in the black robes of his order. The drawing is careless and faulty. It has been greatly repainted, but so unskilfully that we are justified in the suppo sition that the restorer's touches were wholly, or nearly, unnecessary, and that they might be removed without serious injury to the picture. No. 133, "The Cardplayers," by Wilkie, is in his earlier and happier manner. If he had not the transparency of colour and the exquisite execution of the Dutch masters, his imagination was brighter, his subjects have more of story, his figures of cha racter and expression; and some tender and pathetic touch of nature frequently gives them an interest wholly wanting in the Dutch and Flemish schools. No. IV, "The Judgment of Solomon," by Haydon, has some of the extravagance and much of the talent of that unfininnate painter. To be seen to advan tage, it should be placed in a church or at the end of along gallery. The scene is finely conceived, but the exaggeration of the executioner's attitude is the more to be regretted, as ho is one of the principal actors in the piece. The figure of Solomon is tine, but it cannot. be admitted as wholly original : we are un avoidably reminded of the composition of Poussin in the Louvre, who, in treating this subject, has realised the same conception of the wise young judge. Severe of the figures are well drawn, and the general tone of colouring is rich and vigorous. Of the Dalian school there are several tine speci mens. N 0.15, entitled " Due Fran," by Fin Bar tolommeo, has more subject than the framer of the catalogue is aware of. It represents that interview between Saints Francis and Dominick, the two great apostles of the Mediieval Church, and champions of the regular clergy, who, on the opposing principles of persuasion and coercion, divided the Catholic world between them. 1/ante celebrates the meeting of these two luminaries : " L fu tint.) smile() di Rrilona I.'ultro per siipirilmt in terra nie lli elkernbielt hive two splentlort+" No. lia, "A Virgin and Child," by Andrea del Sarto, like the last-named picture, from the collec tion of Lord Wenlock, is well preserved, and displks the graceful simplicity, massive drapery, and grave dignity which the painter learnt from the noble coin-