The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

for the Exhibition of 1851. Eyre and

Hundred French Phrases. Groombridge and Son—Letter-
Writing Simplified. Groombridge and Son—A Letter to
the Edito, of the " Times" Newspaper upon the Expediency
of Repealing the Act of Uniformity. Ridgway—The Paisley
Wallet and Literary Album. Glasgow : Murray.

tint qtris.

ROYAL ACADEMY.
(Third Notice.)
As a contrast in intelligib►lity of sentiment to Mr.
Millais' "Peace Proclaimed," we may notice Mr.
Noel Paton's "Home" (No. 35), in illustration of the
same event. There is no elaborate allegory here ;
all is simple pathos, appealing to the heart alone.
A wounded soldier has just reached his cottage
home, and sinks exhausted into a chair; his aged
mother hides her head on his neck, and his young
wife, completely overpowered, falls half fainting on
his breast. The accessories are painted with a won-
derful truth of detail which heightens the intense
reality of the scene, but the colour of the flesh is
perfectly unnatural. Webster has but one picture,
"Hide and Seek," a simple bit of childish fun,
capitally rendered; the contrast between the quiet
enjoyment of the mother and the intense eagerness
of the children (one of whom in his haste has for-
gotten to conceal his hand, which peeps out in a
most tell-tale manner from beneath the basket which
hides his body), is well conceived and truthfully ex-
pressed. There is a warmth of colour, too, in the
work unusual in Mr. Webster's producticns. Mr.
Faed's Home and the Homeless" (No. 273) is a
"sweet thing," so say the ladies, at least, who crowd
before it. It is remarkable for the striking truth of
expression in one of the children, the youngest, to
whom paterfamilias is offering an apple. The
artist has seized the first look with which a very
young child regards an object presented to it, that
air of intense profundity and puzzled curiosity which
precedes both pleasure and gratitude, and has suc-
ceeded in conveying his meaning with the most per-
fect success. The sentiment of the picture is
remarkably touching, though perhaps, regarded as a
whole, it falls somewhat short of the " Mitherless
Bairn." Mr. Frank Stone has but one picture, the
subject of which is of course a fugitive tone from that
one string on which be plays so constantly and so
well. "Doubt" (No. :?I9) will bear comparison with
any of his previous works for beauty of colour and
form, while the success with which he has fixed 4

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passing emotion in the expression of the youth, who
for a moment. hesitates between two sisters, the
careless beauty and the " model " affectionate daugh-
ter, will raise it far above many of those mere senti-
mental prettinesses in which it has hitherto been his
pleasure to indulge. Mr. Leighton, whose " Cima-
bue" made so great a sensation last year, has failed
in realising the hopes which that first picture ex-
cited. His " Power of Music" displays no commen-
surate power of painting. Orpheus fiddles away in a
horrible yellow kilt with an enthusiasm worthy of
more decided success, for Pluto, in spite of Proser-
pine's pinches, perseveres in what seems to be a sort
of prandial apoplexy, while a lady in the corner
(Eurydice, we presume) appears, to judge from
her contortions, to be under the impressio that
some new torture is "on rehearsal " previous to
its introduction into Tartarus. We are involuntarily
reminded of the effect of Southey's hexameters
in Byron's famous " Vision." We would give very
little for Eurydice's chance of liberation, if the
" Powers of Darkness" may be supposed to possess
any ear for music. J. B. Halle's " Deluge " (No 32)
is another example of ambitious failure : there is a
certain grandeur in the old man's head in the centre,
and the convulsive clinging c n to the smallest chance
of life in some of the figures is not without its effect;
but the muddiness of colour, the confused composi •
tion, the preternatural ugliness of the faces twisted
into every variety of contortion, completely destroy
the feeble impression produced by the better quali •
ties of the work. By tar tue most poetical concep-
tion in the exhibition is Stanfield's illustration of a
passage in Washington Irving's " Sketch-lhok:"
" The Abandoned " (No. 94) is, perhaps, the artist's
grandest work. A deserted wreck lies rolling on the
open sea, alone in the vast waste of angry waters.
The feeling of utter desolation is intense. There is
nothing here but the lonely ship, the gloomy sky,
and the desert ocean; by the simplest means the
grandest effect has been produced. The artist
has one other work, "A Guarda Costa Riding
out a Gale off Fuentarabia " (No. 191), remark.
able for truth of effect. We can only just
mention Mr F. Goodall's " Cranmer at the Trai-
tor's (iate," as exhibiting good drawing though
rather conventional treatment ; Mr. Elmore's
" Charles V. at Yuste" (No. 175) as carefully
painted, though wanting in truth in soma of the de-
tails ; Mr. F. Pickersgill's " Love's Labour Lost" (No.
17) as full of cleverness, though we object to the
allegorical cupids, which are both superfluous and
ill drawn; Mr. Leslie's single picture " Hermione,"
which quite inadequately expresses the artist's
powers; Mr. Wa lis's " Chatterton " (No. 352), a
disagreeably real treatment of a painful subject, very
chalky in colour, though not without a certain power;
M. Le Jeune's " Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre"
(No. 015), remarkable for the intense earnestness of
Mary's gaze into the sepulchre, though defective in
colour ; and among the landscapes, Witherington's
"The Brook " (No. 83), " The Glen—Chudleigh "
(No. 320), as full of beauty and truth; D. Roberts'
"Christmas-day in St. Peter's, Rome" (No. 10), a
fine piece of architectural painting, and an effective
representation of a gorgeous ceremonial; T. S.
Cooper's " Before Sunset" (No. 507), and " After
Sunset" (No. 154), and " Clearing-up—an Evening
Effect" (No. 439), ►n which last the artist has caught
that hazy golden luminousness peculiar to the break-
ing forth of a horizontal sun after heavy rains with
striking success ; one seems actually to smell the
" moist earth " and feel the cool fresh breeze.