The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-08 00:00:00

APRIL 8, 1854. rect opinion. The writer should have omitted the anecdote relating to an old associate and rival of Talfourd, and many will concur with US in thinking that if the entire article had been omitted nobody would be a loser. In " Literary Leaflets" we have some shreds and patches of criticism on " Isaac Taylor," the writer referring to "the sort of testi " menial paid to Mr. Taylor's genius in Sir James " Stephen's Essays "—of a very different sort from that scratchy tribute given to him here. " A Fort night in Finland " reads like extracts from a forgot ten book of travels—the title is the best part of the contribution. Mr. Jolly Green contributes a bur lesque account of the peace deputation of " Mr. Beans " to St. Petersburg, but we trust that the enemy will be exposed to a more dangerous fire than that opened on him by the not very dangerous wit of " Mr. Jolly Green." The article on the " War with Russia " is heavy, and its speculations have been an • ticipated in the journals. On the whole the variety of matter in the present number is not sufficiently sustained by the excellence of the particular con tributions. Ainsworth is a mixture of travel and fiction ; the latter gleaming alternately with ancient armour and modern silver forks. Tait has twelve articles, the first on an interesting subject, the " Recent Travels and Discoveries in Syria." Macplutita Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal has seven articles. An " Inquiry into the Origin and His tory of Proclamation of Bans of Marriage" is concluded in this number. The Art-Journal's three chief engravings are, " Christ lamenting over Jerusalem," " A Summer Holiday," by Goodall, and the "Surprise," a well-known female figure by Dubufe. Dick Diminy the Jockey, No. VI., opens with the " Polite Conversation" of boys attached to a racing stable. The incidents are sufficiently melodramatic to satisfy the most voracious of the " mysteries of, &c.," school. Three lords enjoy a carouse in a New gate cell with a condemned murderer the night before the latter is " scragged ;" and a " Running Rein " affair, in which an English baronet is the principal performer, is perpetrated. Orr's Household Handbooks. No. IV.—" Household Medicine."—This contains good surgical information. We should suppose it consisted of the lectures of some eminent medical man if vulgar expressions, strangely discordant with the general tone, did not here and there militate against that supposition. The author says that " the rage" for this species of knowledge is endangering national modesty. If so, why did he publish this work, than which nothing can be more explicit? Orr's Circle of the Sciences. No. XV.—We have before had occasion to remark on the useful instruction to be derived from this and similar works. The pre sent number, containing information on comparative anatomy, is not inferior to its predecessors. The True Briton furnishes varied and respectable matter; The Home, ➢ir. Oastler's cheap weekly pub lication, maintains its consistency and its thorough English tone ; and Bentley's Monthly Review and Paul Peabody are average numbers. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. BOOKS. Murray's British Classics. Gibbon's Rome. V. 11. J. Murray. Cowper's Poetical Works. Edinburgh : T. Nichol'. Poetical Works of Catherine G. Godwin. Chapman and Hall. _ _ _ Days and Hours. Poems. By F. Tennyaoh. Parker and Son. Table Traits. Bentley. The Indian Army Surgeon. Ditto. The Heiress of Somerton. Ditto. Modern Mystery; or Table-tapping. J. G. MlValter. Shaw. Philip Rollo. J. Grant. Rontledge. Modern German Music. Recollections and Criticisms. H. F. Chorley. Smith and Elder. Flora Lyndsay. Mrs. Moodie. Bentley. Russia and the Russians. J. W. Cole. Ditto. PAMPHLETS. Table-turning and the Parsons. Saunders and Otley. The Csar Unmasked. Ditto. England, Turkey, and Russia. A Sermon. by G. Croly, LL.D. Seeleys. Do You Love God? Rev. J. W. Lester. Ditto. Ditto The Waters wear the Stones. D itto. . The Jews. A Lecture. Rev. L ord A. Herve y . Ditto. Young England. A Lecture. Rev. J. B. Owen. Ditto. The Rites of Sepulture. A Lecture. Rev. F.D. Bernard. Ditto. The Red Man. A Lecture. Rev. Lord W. Russell. Ditto. THE PRESS. The Philosophy of a Sunbeam. A Lecture. Rev E. Sidney. Ditto. Turkey and Mahomelanism. A Lecture. Rev. J. Cum miug. Ditto.. GasProvidenlial Care of Children. A Sermon. Rev. T. Dale. Ditto liar; is it Unchristian ? Ditto. Charge to the Clergy of Sierra Leone. The Bishop. Ditto. The Seat of War in European Turkey. Ridgway. De la Politique .4nylo Francaise duns le question Ferrier t Mars, 1854. Bruxelles : M. Hayez. lint glrts. THE PORTLAND GALLERY has this season more pictures of interest than usual, and in landscapes may even be called rich. The glowing sunsets over heath, mountain, and river, painted, some under the nommes de chevalet of Percy, Gilbert, Sac., by the brothers Williams (Nos. 41, 48, 337, 410, ST.), arrest the attention in various parts of the rooms—all pleasing, notwithstanding a com parative want of forcibleness in the foregrounds. Mr. Alfred Montague's "Antwerp" (238) is very pretty, in a Turneresque way; and the many other pictures of his that are here prove hint to possess an eye for colour and a dextrous hand, though his skill is too apt to degenerate into a showy mannerism. "A Shady Lane" (234) has been painted by Mr. Charles Simms with true love for its peen shadows and sunlights, its lazy sheep, its pool and foxgloves. More finish would, we think, have doubled the value of this delightful little picture ; and we venture to suggest to the artist that all trees have not the same kind of trunks, like elephants, but rather, like rail way travellers, a great variety. No. 188, a water coloured drawing, by Miss B. Leigh Smith, shows true sympathy with nature. The empurpled gorge and mountains recal Tennyson's glens— drowned in azure gloom No. 163, by the same, is a " Ruined Church," on the seashore, done with right feeling, but very inade quately finished—an objection which also applies, though in a less degree, to the work previously no ticed. High finish, on the contrary, is the charac teristic of two other water-colour paintings hung near to these. We mean Mr. George Boyce's " Anstercove" (185) and " Babbacome Bay " (205). The latter of the two is wonderful for the success with which the expanse of loose stones in the fore ground and the texture of the rocks behind them are given, the treatment being very exact, without any flnicality. Equally good are the swarded ranges of the cliffs. But the whole effect of the picture is unpleasing, mainly, we think, from the blue-paper tint of the sky and its violent contrast with the red cliffs. No less exquisitely finished, and at the same time perfectly satisfactory as a whole, is the smaller painting, " Anstercove," where the split rocks, crowned and tufted with sward, the slopes of the green, sunny farms lifted behind them, and the hard, pale-brown sand at their feet, where the wave let runs up in slender curves, with a whisper we almost think we hear, carry to the heart a fresh and tranquil joy. Mr. Holland's Venetian scenes (225, 220, 227) are gay and clever. Mr. Duffield's "Knitter" (230) has a rich, many-coloured curtain, to which the woman is but an accessory ; and the same curtain decorates his " Game and Fruit" (50), which is wonderfully imitative in parts, yet in the whole hue very unlike nature. Mr. Alfred Purvis has two very clever little in teriors of a " Breton Farmhouse" (261, 275). Miss Mutrie deserves a word of decided praise for her true and delicate " Flowers " (342), but it seems to us that a more agreeable relief might have been given by a dark background of less sooty tinge. "The Quay, Rouen" (360), by Mr. Henshall, is truthful, but appears to want air. No. 20, " La Fleur's Courtship," is worthless, in spite of the demoiselle's elaborate quilted petticoat, but we cannot afford space for blame ; and with a passing word of condemnation for " The Robbers' Cave," by G. Harvey, R.S.A., a large picture painted in emulation of Rembrandt, with tobacco-juice or liquorice-water, pass to consider two pictures by Mr. H.S. Marks. The first of these (310) cannot be ac cepted as in harmony with Shakspeare's con ception of the scene. Hamlet is too old and dreary, Horatio has the meanest of countenances. Osric extravagantly grotesque. Yet there is decided merit in the piece. There is an endeavour for unconventional rendering, and much careful and fine w rk, especially in the dresses; Hamlet's black robe, indeed, as a specimen of technical skill, is truly admirable. Altogether, this picture ought to have been hung on the line. " The Royalist" (282), by the same artist, has much merit. Mr. Marks has enjoyed the subject, and taken good hold of it. The jolly old fellow is drinking " The King," and equally enjoys his toast and his ale ; nor could he ever be mistaken for a Puritan, even without the portrait of his Sacred Majesty Charles the Second 331 which adorns the wall behind him. In the flesh here, as well as in the Hamlet scene, we have to notice a want of brightness in the effect; but as the painter, we understand, is a very young man, he will doubtless attain a greater mastery in future efforts. Mr. Allan's " Fiery Cross " deserves a look, espe cially for the sobriety with which the surprise of the reapers is expressed, without tameness. Last we turn to the picture which has certainly attracted more general attention than any other in this exhibition, " Faust's Margaret Returning from the Fountain," by Miss Anna Mary Ilowitt, the daughter of William and Mary Howitt, and herself not unknown in the world of letters. Margaret's beautiful face, as she enters the porch of her lately happy home, is wan and heavy with unutterable grief. The sunshine lies broad upon the grass and trees, while blueish shades are nestled in the ivy round the pillars, and greenish shades sleep upon the roof and floor, and the long leaves, here and there one withered, droop motionless over the brims of the earthen pots, and the vine leaves at the edges of the porch show transparent against the steady light. All these are painted with true feeling, great care, and considerable skill; though the action of the feat, the right hand, the purple petticoat (inharmonious from neglect of the reflections), and certain details of the background, prove that the artist has much to learn. Much, doubtless, will be learned through experience and practice by one whose first work is, on the whole, so praiseworthy as this ; and we are glad to learn that the present picture was sold on the first day of its appearance in public, and that Miss Burdett Coutts has commis sioned another from the same pencil. We omitted to refer in the intended place to Mr. Herring's three pictures (219, 220, 223), which are of animals, painted with extreme neatness and bright effect; but everything, horse, ducks, rabbits, turnips, crockery, are far too clean ; the very bit of candle in the stable-sconce is purified of its tallowiness. They will, perhaps, be bought up by some enthusiastic advocate of sanitary reform. Nor must we fail to express our admiration of Mrs. Oliver's " Lancaster Sands," which hangs close by ; with its cottage and keel•up boat, and drying clothes, on the border of the downs and the long long strand. Mr. G. A. Williams's "Summer Evening" and "Winter Evening" (202, 203 ), showing the same place at the two seasons, have a peculiar interest well sustained, and therefore claim our last word. NC usir. ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA. Tess theatre was opened for the opera season on Saturday last with Rossini's William Tell, the princi pal parts being sustained by Tamberlik, Ronconi, and Mlle. Marai, a lady who is new to the English boards. The opera on the whole was very well per formed, though the new prima donna, whose voice is weak, and whose style has nothing particular to re commend it, seems unequal to the position which she has been called upon to fulfil. We question whether the part of Arnoldo has ever had so efficient a repre sentative as Signor Tamberlik. The music is exactly suited to his voice, and the energy and feeling with which he sang from first to last deservedly called forth the most enthusiastic applause. The orchestra and chorus did much to establish the claims of this opera to be considered as its author's master piece. Its merits are so great that every performance must tend to increase its popularity. On Thursday last Verdi's feeble opera Ernani, was given, Mme . Bosio sustaining the part of Elvira, and a new singer, Signor Susini, that of Don Silva. Mme. Bosio was warmly greeted, and was considered by her ad mirers to possess more attractions than ever, and to be unrivalled in her own particular school of singing. Signor Susini, though evidently labouring under the nervousness consequent upon a first ap pearance, made a favourable impression. He has a good voice and sings correctly, and if he be not thrust into too prominent a position he will doubtless prove a valuable addition to the company. PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. THE programme of the third concert, given last Monday, was as follows :--- PART I.—Sintt) The Power of Sound," Spam—Aria, "Zan. herfiate," Herr Formes, Moran—Conc. rto in 4, pianoforte, Mr. Hall!, Beethoven—Hecit. Aria, " The Praise of Jehovah," Mute Birch, Weber—t Iverinre, " Anacreon," • heruLini. PART 11.—Sinfunia is F, No. 8, Beethoven—Duetto, " Qua hepolero" (Agnese), Miss Birch sad lirrT Formes, Peer--Over. Lure, " The Cahn Ses and Happy Voyage," Mentlelasubn. Music essentially appeals to the imagination and affects the minds of its hearers so differently that it scarcely ever happens, as a general rule, that any musical illustration is successful where the subject can be presented to the senses in a more tangible and intelligible form. Few indeed, if any, are the excep tions to this rule ; and Spohr's very clever symphony, "The Power of Sound," has no pretensions whatever to be included in the number. Viewed as an intel lectual work, it is barren in ideas and deficient in ....-