The Press.
London, England, 1854-05-13 00:00:00

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Booxs.

The West Indies before and since Emancipation. J. Davy,
M.D., F.B.S. Cash.
Addison's Works. Vol. 111. Bishop Hurd. Bohn.
Locke's Works. Vol. I. Ditto.
Mrmoira and Correspondence of Mgjor•General Sir W. Nott.
J. H Stocqueler. Hurst and Blackett.

Oakfield. I). Arnold. Longman and Co.
Weiss on English Education. Ditto.
Marmont's Turkish Empire. Sir F. Smith, R.E.

Harrison.
Angelo. Bentley.
Julie. F. Carlen. Ditto.
7'urkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia. Captain
Spencer. Routledge.
llo.ipitals and Sisterhoods. Murray.
Leaves from My Journal. Lord Robert Grovenor. Ditto.
Handbook for Turkey. Third Edition. Ditto.

SATURDAY

The Oki Printer and the Modern Press. C. Knight. Ditto.
Major Thorpe'e Narrative. Seeleys.
Ministering Children. Ditto.
On the Prugression of a Teacher. Miss Sarah Jolly. Ditto.

PAMPHLETS.

Confirmation, Rev. B. L. Nitta. Ditto.
The Two Sacraments. Rev. B. L. Witte. Ditto.
The Cross and the Age. No. H. Ditto.
The Love of Pleasure. A Lecture by the Rev. H. Stowell.

Ditto.
I Hearkened and I Heard. Rev. J. Lister. , Ditto.
The People's Budget. Wilson,
Fun Jottings. N. P. Willis. Rowe.
3farriage in Mayfair. A Comedy. Saunders and Otley.
Why are we at War with Russia t Hardwicke.
()n the Working of the Municipal Corporation and Public
Health Bills. Colonel S. Bullock. Ridgway,
The Representatives of the Greek Preposition. J. H. Kaye.

lint gds.

ROYAL ACADEMY.
[ Second Notice.]

No. 192, " The Rape of the Lock," by Mr. Leslie,
R.A. This class of subject has been worn a little
threadbare. To be handled with effect the painter
should borrow the pencil and the palette of Watteau.
The nymphs and shepherds of his Arcadia are
always the living ladies and gentlemen of the Court
of Louis XIV., though in masquerading attire. Our
modern imitations are unreal and lifeless, and sug-
gest no more the personages of past times than of
those in which we live. A strict attention to costume
is peremptorily demanded, and this Mr. Leslie has
neglected. One of bis ladies wears a cloak, while
another is in a riding-dress, and brandishes her whip
over the tea-table, though the scene is the drawing-
room of the " gracious Anna" in her palace at
Hampton.
No. 157, "Life at the Seaside," by Mr. Frith, R.A.
A picture that has been deservedly commended for
the dexterity with which it is painted and the
variety it presents. It is to this variety, however,
that we are inclined to object as excessive. The
groups are so crowded that we are reminded
rather of the Margate steamer than of its
sands. There is too much of studied contrast in the
groups; the distance approaches the foreground
too nearly ; due subordination is not preserved ; and
among such a multiplicity of objects, to all of which
a nearly equal degree of importance is given, effect
must necessarily be wanting.
No. 361, " Second Class—the Parting," by Mr. A.
Solomon. The subject is simple and touching. A
widowed mother accompanies her boy to the seaport
at which he is to embark on his first voyage. We
could wish that the painter in his anxiety to give in-
terest to the principal female figure had not idealised
the face and attitude. The expression of the boy,
however, cannot be overpraised. The reddened brow
denotes the grief that his firm eye tells us he can re-
tain and control. His whole countenance shows the
mixture of awe and resolution with which he enters
an unknown world—his consciousness of danger and
his courage to resist it. We read in the speaking
countenance of that boy all that renders a man
amiable in private and respectable in public life—a
kindly and even a tender nature united with patient
courage and fearless devotion to duty. The tender
ness of this group, which is farther increased by the
artless sorrow of the sister, is finely contrasted with
the gay indifference of a jolly tar, seated behind with
his buxom bride, bound to the same destination, but
with no feeling of doubt or uncertainty to dash the
pleasure of the hour.
The excessive attention that a certain class of mo-
dern painters lavish even on the least important de-
tails of their pictures induces us to offer a few
remarks on this subject. The principle of Sir
Joshua Reynolds to sacrifice all the accessories
of his pictures to the general effect may per-
haps have been carried by him, and the admirable
artists his contemporaries, to an excess. Their
practice, however, was far more in accordance with
that of the great masters of the sixteenth century than
the method since adopted ; and, what is still more
important, is truer to nature. When the eye is fixed
upon one object, or,one group of objects (as it
always must be), as a centre, the surrounding
objects become subordinate, and lose all sharp-
ness of outline and strength of colour, nor do
they recover their natural distinctness until the eye
is directed towards them. Mr. Sant, in his
"Children of the Wood" (No. 334), has mate-
rially injured his effect by the brilliancy and multi-
plicity of the objects with which he has surrounded
the orphans, and the introduction of which is pecu-
liarly ill-fitted to the scene and to the story. The
various vegetable productions with which the wood
abounds are all made out with a bewildering and
misplaced accuracy; and the whole is lighted with a
brilliancy which is still farther removed from poeti-
cal truth. The well-known ballad represents the
wood as not less drear and dismal than the purpose
of "the cruel uncle."