The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-08 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

the metropolis. The sweet face of Lady
Malmesbury bears no trace of the ill-
health from which she has suffered. Who
would think that the Countess of Durham,
here depicted as in the blush of girlhood, had
acquired claims to matronly character and
loveliness? This likeness, as also that of her
sister, Lady Louisa Hamilton, were probably
taken a few years since. The style of these
two portraits (they are by Gray) is striking
and attractive from its extreme simplicity.
The peculiar sketchy manner of Mr. Hayter is
displayed in portraits of Lady Emily Dungar
von, the Hon. Magdalen Montagu, the Hon.
Letitia Vivian, Miss Verner, Mrs. Hurtopp,
Lady Mary Yorke, and Miss Ashworth. Mr.
Tidey contributes a characteristic likeness of
Mrs. Thistlewayte : her mourning dress indi
cater the loss she has sustained. Her brother,
Colonel Pakenham, fell at Inkermann.

4. The design of " Sabbath Bells" is to
collect from the poets passages descriptive of
the sanctity and peaceful joys of the Sabbath
This design has been carried out with much
taste, and the reader will be both astonished
and delighted to find how much exquisite
poetry the devotional feeling and repose of
our seventh day have given birth to. The
illustrations from drawings by Mr. Foster ate
printed in colours, and exhibit in greater per-
fection than we have ever witnessed before the
rustic grace of his pencil. In every scene
save one the village church is an object in
the landscape—at but the distance of a field,
through which the villagers are wending their
way to the house of God, while children stop
by the hedge•row to gather the flowers that
profusely bloom in it ; or seen in the distance
over ripe corn-fields such as Constable loved
to paint; or with the steeple faintly visible
over stream and grove ; or the square tower
forming a boundary to the village road ; or the
outline almost lost in the blue distance beyond
flocks and herds ; or with the old porch conspi-
cuous through which devout villagers reverently
pass ; or at the extremity of newly-ploughed
fields, with the tower reflected against the
crimson sky of evening : or seen through an
opening in the woods ; or partially buried in
deep snow; or gleaming in the light of the
full moon ; or viewed by the loiterer afar off,
as he sits watching the flow of the placid
stream at his feet. Over all these varied
aspects of rural scenery there seems to brood
" a sabbath stillness." The beautiful verse
could not possibly have met with more appro-
priate illustration. The one picture where no
church is visible is a view of the ocean, glow-
ing in the glory of golden sunlight.. The sub-
ject was suggested by some lines in the
" Sunday Morning's Walk" of Bishop Mant :
Along the strand my pathway led, the salt seashore beside,
Where from his throne the sun look'd down and lit the
golden tide ;
And as the billows danced and shone beneath his sparkling
rays,
They seemed to clap their hands for joy and shout then
Maker's praise.

The picture is one of the most truly poetical
in the volume. We anticipate for " Sabbath
Bells " an extensive and enduring popularity.
It is a book to place on the library shelf when
newer works crowd it from the table, as it
_never can be opened without pleasure by per-
sons who can appreciate the beauty of devo-
tional poetry, and the charm of thoroughly
rural scenery.