The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-28 00:00:00

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92

the task she has undertaken in abridging into a small
volume, and " adapting for tke use of schools,"
the history of a country so vast, and latterly so di-
vided, as that comprised within the limits of the
ancient Germania. These difficulties, however, she
has fairly grappled with, and overcome them as well,
perhaps, as it was possible to do under the circum-
stances. Although the hook, historically considered,
offers but a bare skeleton of multitudinous events
and changes, Miss Corner has contrived to give some-
thing like life to the dry bones, and has endowed her
narrative with more interest and picturesquesness
than the auth(cs of e' abridgments" rail generally
succeed in attaining. To the present edition some
new chapters are added, which bring down the history
to July, ItiGl, and briefly narrate the incidents ofthe
last revolution in Vienna, and war of Hungary.

Derecourt on Taxes and Duties, in a Letter to her
alaiesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer previous to
his Forming " The Budget" (and partly adopted).
London : Robins.
Is the compass of a few pages the author presents
the germs of half-a-dozen budgets, and offers
suggestions enough to set up any Chancellor of the
Exchequer in business as a financial reformer for the
rest of the century. Mr. Derecourt, however, proceeds
always upon the safe principle, which it would be well
if Mr. Gladstone could be induced to imitate, of se-
curing a surplus before setting about the pleasant
work of tax remission. His schemes are certainly
of the boldest—imposing burdens, and sweeping
away imposts with a glorious disregard of vested
interests. If adopted, indeed, more than one among
the series would leave our financial system in a state
of primitive simplicity ; despoiling it utterly of that
elaborate complication, that balance of inequalities
and adjustment of injustices, which some con-
temporary politicians regard with so much admiration.
And, not content with merely putting his plans into
print, the author proposes the establishment of a Tax
and Duty League as the "only means whereby the
old plans of taxation can he superseded, and the re-
venue of the country raised upon an entirely new
system, of which reason and justice shall be the basis."

A Letter to his Graee the Archbishop ►f Dublin, on
the Nature, Government, and Te►nlency ty' Miss
Senates Establishment at Plymouth, d'e. By the
Rev. W. 1.. Cookesley, M.A. London : Ridgway.
PARLIAMENT has confessed very recently the increasing
numbers of what must be called Protestant monastic
establishments, and Mr. Chambers's bill provides ac-
cordingly for the inspection of their arrangements,
and the guardianship of their inmates. The author•
of this pamphlet has endeavoured to do for our faith
what the Legislature is about doing for our liberty,
namely, to protect it from the insidious assaults of
Popery in disguise, For this purpose he has col-
lected a multitude of facts relating to the too cele-
brated Plymouth Establishment, and to Mr. Pusey's
" Home" in the Regent's-park, to show how danger-
ously near the doctrines and practices inculcated or
enjoined in these institutions approximate to those of
the Romish rituals. Copious and well-selected
passages from the writings of Archbishop Whateley
are appended, in order to add poignancy to the warn-
ing which Mr. Cookesley pronounces that these
innovations, " if ratified by silent admission and adop-
tion, seem calculated, beyond all other conceivable
methods, to carry back the Reformed Church of
England, by alm►►st imperceptible steps, to the faith
and allegiance of Rome."

Usque kko? or. What May be Said for the
People. With Introductory Remarks, addressed
to the Members of the House of Commons. Hy an
lonian. London : Saunders and Stanford.

THE British public, any more than the British House
of Commons, can seldom be stimulated into any
active sympathy with the wrongs suffered by a colo-
nial community. Yet to that. community itself—
however small their numbers, or complete their de-
tachment from the greater interests of the empire—
the consequences of misgovernment are not less im-
portant than if they involved an absolute fraction of
our "glorious constitution." The inhabitants of the
lonian Islands thus eomplain that they have been
misgoverned for the last thirty-five years, ever since
Sir Thomas Maitland "took possession of all power
under pretence of giving them a constitution, and
made a liveried senate and sham assembly jingle the
bells of liberty as they danced in the fetters of
slavery." This complaint the " lonian " renews,
especially with regard to the administration of Sir
Henry Ward. His style, as the reader has seen, is
somewhat. metaphorical ; but he writes with evident
knowledge of his subject; does not sham either his
indignation or his enthusiasm ; and has compiled a
formidable array of facts and arguments by which to
support the allegations brought by himself through
. the press, and Mr. Hume in the house, against the
present Lord High Commissioner and the state
nochinary that moves at his bidding.

THE PRESS.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

Mintsorandunuo Made its Ireland. 2 voim. .1. Forbes, 31. D.
Smith, Elder, awl Co.
Poem,. Dem is. Longman snot 1•41.
Coalition; a Letter to Ilse Earl of .11.,r.lern. .1. Mortituor.
Protest .Inaioutt Lim Tose,. J. li.•utuuut.
.ysb•m Lryill lagtructi,m. P. 4 ,•141411

-
ttli,l
77te Paoerverti Act, ust
~,,r I....neigrant.. .1. T..ludite.
Piper uud CO.
TIMMS Jurisprudence. Spittinalunle awl Shim.
l'estunientary Jurisdiction. A. 11111. Spot iimvimmle Sliu%.
7'he ('ht,rclrrate question Con,idece.t. Lord stuule•r.
.1. and W. Boone.
77te Brifitilt 11'e4f I 'Witt T.

xnerts.

SALE OF THE PICTURES OF THE KING OF
THE IBENCH.

Os last Saturday (the ttlst) closed the sixth and last
day of the sale of the pictures of the late King of the
French. " There's revolution," as Hamlet says, in
the circumstances attending the collectio►► not less

than the dispersion of these pictures. When in
aristocratical, ultra-Catholie Spain a series of revolu-
tions had abolished entails, and suppressed the reli-
gious houses, in the year 1535 Louis Philippe sent
Baron Taylor and M. Danzats into the country to
collect the treasures of art which these innovations
might be expected to force into the market.
The results of this mission were placed in suites
of apartments appropriated exclusively to them in
the Louvre, and were designated the " Spanish Gal-
lery." Perhaps the King was not unwilling that his
munificence should thus be displayed to the best
advantage. But there was an obvious propriety, for
the purposes of instruction and comparison, in keeping
unbroken the series of painters that compose the
school ; and many of the pictures, of inferior merit in
themselves, nevertheless possess a value as throwing
light on the history of the art and of national taste
and manners. We do not tel that we understand a
school of art till we are acquainted with its rise and
its decline, as well as with its meridian glory. In
this collection, the dispersion of which we cannot but
regret, there were specimens of every date of Spanish
art, from Pietro di Coniolat in 1500, to Coello, the
ukimum Romanormn, the last of the great painters,
the contemporary of Luca Giordano, who is said to
have died of mortification when that rapid and Jail-
hunt but careless artist. was sent for to the Spanish
Court, end from Coello through a long stage of feeble-
ness and decline to Ginza and the Court painters of
modern days.
It cannot but. be admitted, however, that the spe-
cimens were of a varying degree of merit, and that
the collection on the whole could not be accepted as
a criterion by which to judge the powers of the
Spanish masters. It must be remembered at the
seine time that few collections have ever been so
little prepared for sale before being submitted to the
public. Few of the pictures had any frames; many
wanted varnish; and those which required neces-
sary reparation had received it in a manner that
quite acquits the agents of the Orleans family from
the slightest intention of deception.
On looking round the three exhibitions into which
the collection has been divided, and which for three
weeks have successively ornamented Messrs. Christie's
walls, it is impossible not to be struck by the type of
originality anti of national character which distin-
guishes the Spanish school front all others, and the
strong mutual resemblance of its component parts,
which unites it together as a whole. In all there is
observable the rich, sober tones and transparent
shadows which we admire so much in the chiefs of
the school. In all its works there is the same deep
religious feeling, combined with an absence of
imagination, and a renunciation of all attempts to
idealise. The wildest legends are treated in a plain
matter-of-faet way, which seems to attest the earnest-
ness of the painters' belief in them. The most bar-
barous martyrdoms are painted in all their frightfid
reality, without an attempt to idealise their horrors.
Whatever the Church permits to be asserted must be
plain undeniable fact ; nothing that tends to her
exaltation can be revolting; nothing that she sanc-
tions can be ridiculous. It' in the churt•li we see a
Madonna in a hoop and crowned with artificial
flowers, there can be no objection to represent the
beatified Virgin in the same dress; end so she is
represented by some of the submit, whose merit in
other respects would have been thought incompatible
with so trivial a conception. In one picture a Virgin,
clothed in cloth' of gold, supports an infant .lesns in
&general's uniform, with red breeches, and the golden
fleece round his neck. The shrine in which this idol
is placed is lwautit'ully painted, and below are the
self-complacent donors, obviously strong likenesses,
who isnild not be content without. obtaining this
memorial of their piety and taste.
The question which will first occur to most of our
readers is, probably, what acquisitions have the tens.
tees of the National Gallery made from this collec-
tion" There are two. The first, in point of time,
was " St. Francis in Prayer," by Zurbaran. Zurbaran
is sometimes called the Caravaggio of 'Spain, but his

SATURDAY,

contrasts of light and shallow are less violent, anti
his tones more harmonious. The merit of this pic-
ture consists in the intense reality of its treatment
it represents St. Francis on his knees, iu earnest sup-
plication, and holding a skull in his hand ; the effeet
IS very broad, and the colouring rich and sober.
The prier given for this picture (265/. ) has been
censured, and the King of Prussia, it is said, has
obtained a better picture at a less price. No doubt
All excellent bargain made by a neighbour is very
provoking. lint for this all frequenters of auctions,
trustees, or private individuals, must be prepared.
After all, there is no mode of purchasing pictures fin•
the nation of which we so much approve as by pub-
lic auction. Unless we suppose great indiscretion
on the part of the agents for the nation, and an un
principled league of the dealers against it, no method
seems more efiectual to prevent overcharge. If a
picture be bought by private contract, no answer can
be given to the insinuation that at some time, past or
present, the owner had been willing, or might be
willing, to part with it at a lower price. At a public
auction we have the security that some one (the
next bidder) was willing to give within a few pounds
of the price paid. We must, at the same time, regret
that further purchases were not made, and that all the
best pictures were not secured to the National Gal-
lery. Such another opportunity of completing the
Spanish department of the collection is not likely to
occur again. The second picture purchased by the
trustees is of a much more important character, and
a much higher price was paid for it.
It is the celebrated " Manger" by Velasquez—a
picture that few, on first seeing it, would attribute to
that master ; but the authorship is proved by the
most undeniable historical evidence. It has been
cited by various critics as a most remarkable speci.
men of the early manner of the painter, bef re he
had emancipated himself from the somewhat harsh
style of his first master, Herrera. It was ordered of
the painter by the Count d'Aguilar, and in his family
it remained as an heirloom till the abolition of entails
enabled his successors to sell it. The treatment of
the subject is of that matter-of-fact, unidealixed cha-
racter that we have described. The colour is very
rich, and the contrasts, though far stronger than we
usually observe in the Spanish school, are well ma-
naged. The effect is broad, and the picture a very
remarkable one in its school, and, among the pro-
ductions of its author, is one which we consider a
great acquisition to the national collection.
The very fine alterpieces painted by Zurbaran for
the Carthusian Convent. at Seville have been pur-
chased by the Duke of Montpensier, at the price of
1,700!., for the purpose of restoring them to Spain.
So also has the " Holy Family" by Murillo—sold on
the first day for 1,550/. We have also understood
that other members of the French Royal Family have
made various purchases.

Tile puma.

PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

Mrt. T. P. COOKE'S engagement still continues, anti
this week be has appeared as Long Tom Coffin,
in Mr. Fitzball's dramatic version of Cooper's
novel, " The Pilot," to the great satisfaction of the
audience. It is so long since this once-popular
drama has been acted in London that our readers
may perhaps require to be informed that the
American characters of the novel are in the play
turned into Englishmen, and vice venni. The ne-
cessity for the transmutation is, to our mind, an in-
superable objection to this revival. We dislike
changing places with the Yankees, even in the re-
gions of fiction.
Mr. Wright took his farewell benefit at this theatre
on Thursday last. The nature and scene of his next
engagement has not, as yet, transpired.
31r. Kean is about to produce I.ord Byron's play,
Sardanapaltr, on the occasion of his benefit on
Monday, June Lath. Report says that the scenery
and appointments are to be on a scale of unusual
magnificence.