The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-10 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Materials for the History of Oil Painting. By C. L.
EASTLLIEE, &c. Longman and Co.
The birth of Van Eyck—its time and place—have
been the cause of much controversy, and led to much
vilipendiog and abuse of authors among each other.
Had John Van Eyck but known to what doubts and
disputes his birth would have given rise, he would
have carved the particulars in imperishable material
for the benefit of posterity. We must only now
regret that it did not occur to him to do so. As his-
torians are apt to combat facts established, if not by
complete at least by fair evidence, by theories wilder
than those they propose to reject, so the historians of
Flemish art have endeavoured to transfer the honour
of the invention of oil painting from John Van Eyck
to Hubert.
Mr. Eastlake hes entered this track, already fol-
lowed by so many authors, and, as we think, without
success. Not content with demonstrating that to the
Van Eycks we owe the improved method of oil paint-
ing, he has involved himself in a controversy,
already of considerable duration, and advocated that
ride of the question which has been decided against
by many most competent judges. Theories should
be based on facts, and not on inferences deduced
from probabilities. Yet on such inferences Mr.
Eastlake rests his main argument in favour of
the theory that Hubert was the inventor of the im-
proved method, and on such grounds he has ventured
to impugn the united testimony of Vasari, Van
Mender, Baldinucci, and Facius.
We have already said that the date of John Van
Eyck's birth was involved in doubt ; Mr. Eastlake
infers, from the portraits of the brothers, and from
other circumstantial evidence, that John Van Eyck
can have been but twenty years of age when the
improved method was first employed, and, conse-
quently, much too young to have achieved what the
maturer years and experience of his brothers were
more likely to have brought about. If, however, it
were to be shown that John Van Eyck was much
nearer thirty than twenty when the invention took
place, there would be an end to that part of Mr.
Eastlake's argument which stands upon so narrow a
foundation. It is not our intention to enter here into
the discussion as to whether John Van Eyck was
born in 1386 or in 1395, for this is the point upon which
all argument must turn: we will leave the question
as it at present stands, on debateable ground, where it
is likely to remain, until some facts unknown till now
turn up to indicate the truth more precisely, and
show the partisans of Hubert that they have been
mistaken in their calculations.
Apart from these considerations, Mr. Eastlake's
book is exceedingly interesting, more so, perhaps, to
the inquiring mind which has studied the question
than to the public at large. The processes in use
previous to the 14th century are all stated in succes-
sion, and the discrepancies existing in the different
treatises extant explained. These treatises were
mostly the production of monks, and the time in
which they were written, which is a matter of doubt,
gives room for ingenious speculation. Mr. Eastlake
shows bow the study of art stood at first in connexion
with that of medicine, the making of colours and pig-
ments being then closely allied to the more abstruse
sciences of the laboratory. The derivations of the
names of substances from which varnishes were made
are studied and explained, though we may be
allowed to doubt the reality of some, such as that
amber is derived from the Greek Beronike or Bere-
nice. It is also shown that the word venni, when
used in the old manuscripts, often meant as much the
resin with which the varnish was made as the
varnish itself. Some curious accounts and processes
employed for the painting monuments in England are
also given, the information being derived from account-
rolls of different periods to which Mr. Eastlake has had
access ; and the manner of preparing grounds for
canvasses and panels used by the old painters, forms
an interesting chapter.
In fine, as in the words of Mr. Eastlake, in his pre-
face, "the work was undertaken to promote the ob-
ject" of the Commissioners of the Fine Arts, and to
trace the recorded practice of oil painting from its
invention," it is but just to state that the object in view
has been fully attained, and the task performed in an
able manner. The doubt which arises, however, is,
whether artists will take the trouble to avail them-
selves of the information thus placed within their
reach, in order to perfect the modes at present in use.
We are afraid they will not do so. Brilliancy and
speed are more desired now-a-days than truth and
durability, and it will be long before the generality
of English artists s ill be brought to imitate the con-
scientious care of the early school of the Netherlands.

Observations on Game and the Game Laws. By J. Bumf
MURDOCH, Esq.

Mr. Murdoch is an apologist for the Game Laws.
But his apology, when examined, will be found to
contain admissions, arguments, and statements which
are decisively condemnatory of the barbarous code he
would maintain. Indeed, he adduces nothing new:
his most showy plausibilities were tried and refuted
before the Game Law Committee. Most of his argu-
ments have been before urged, though in a
more harsh and offensive form, by Mr. Grantley
Berkeley, of whose published plea for the game
laws the present pamphlet may be deemed
a mitigated version. Mr. Murdoch seems to have
been impelled to the task he has undertaken, that is,
to show " that game in its proper place and under
proper management"—the italics are the author's—
"is a blessing not a curse; and that instead of being
always wasteful and destructive, it is in truth a
remunerative and profitable article of cultivation,
conducive to the subsistence and enjoyment of the
human race," by his fondness for field sports. This
is certainly a bold proposition in the face of daily
experience, and especially since the result of a
searching inquiry has been collected and recorded in a
form so authentic, as the evidence printed by the
Game-law committee. That Mr. Murdoch is a good
sportsman we have no doubt ; bat we suspect he
is a better hand at beating a cover or finding a hare,
than at close observation or logical reasoning. It is,
however, only justice to this gentleman to say that he
abandons battue shooting and the preservation of " a
large head of game" as utterly indefensible, and con-
tends only for "a moderate preservation of Fame."
This, however, rather increasesthe difficulty of his task,
for it has been clearly shown by Lord Hatherton, Mr.
Pusey, and other landowners who have tried it, that
a moderate preservation of game in the cultivated
districts is next to an impossibility, as, if preserved
at all, these wild creatures must be completely pro-
tected from disturbance, and then, food being abun-
dant, they increase with immense rapidity. Mr.
Murdoch opens his defence in a way which shows
he is entirely without a competent knowledge of the

subject, beyond the narrow and superficial views of
sporting men, for he supposes that " the game laws
have been started as an excellent subject upon which
toget up a grievance, and through which that
amount of agitation may be produced, so essentially
necessary to give zest to the speeches of popular de-
claimers." 'Dila is merely childish, and proves that
Mr. Murdoch has never mastered the subject, for the
"grievance" is one long and universally complained
of by tenant farmers, and the statements made by
public men are merely repetitions of complaints made
wherever farmers congregate.
Mr. Murdoch commences with the usual landlord's
objection, that the reservation of game is matter of
pnvate arrangement between landlord and tenant,
and such agreements might still be made if the
game laws were repealed. And this is no doubt
true ; and the remedy for this part of the evils of
Fame lies in the hands of farmers. But does
it follow that because some landlords may be so
unreasonable as to require tenants to feed game for
the owner of the estate, and some tenants may be
so imprudent as to submit to such a ruinous im-
position, that therefore a special code of laws should
be maintained for protecting game? Moreover, this
evil would soon be remedied. Even now there is
scarcely a new letting in which the game is not a
bone of contention, and landlords are in most cases
making some, though often illusory, concessions with
respect to game. He then enters into details about
game animals, in which, however, his "facts" are
the reverse of true. For instance, he says:
Much error and misconception very generally remit as to the
nature and quantity of food consumed by game. It is constantly and
confidently asserted by one clam of individuals, that game feed exclu-
sively upon grain and other cultivated plants; and the msertioe is
believed by them who have had neither time nor opportunity of
making any investigation into its truth, and the animals are there-
upon declared guilty of the crime of wasting human food, and then
condemned to destruction. Now, horn the observations which I bane
made, I have arrived at a very different conclusion an the subject. I
am satisfied that when game (just like any other kind of stock kept
span a farm) are properly managed, they are not only not de-
structive to human food, but they are productive of it or, to state my
view in a perfectly mercantile manner, I would my, that from a cer-
tain quantity of grain (and that • very small quantity), more human
food may be produced in the shape of pheasants and partridges than
by its employment in rearing any other kind of stock.
And again, rabbits being condemned, he says :
flares are lee; destructive !in their habits than rabbits, and they
may be reared in moderate quontilies upon an arable farm without
causingany loan to the farmer. Theyare more moveable in their manner
of feeding than rabbit., and unless kept in greatnumbera, never eat
down a growing plant of corn more than once in its growth, and that
cropping does not prevent the plant from thriving, and in due time
producing its ears in vigour and abundance. After the plants have
attained a certain stage of forwardni as, and long before the appearance
of the grain-hearing stem, harm cease to feed on them. Young
grasses, from the Natures, hedge mot• and woodland., *institute
their food; and, until the winter frosts set in, when they will attack the
turnips, bares are innocent frequenters of our fields. In severe frost,
harm, in common with every other wild animal, lett attark turnips,
although the depredations committed by them are but trifling when
compared with the injury inflicted upon these roots by the wood-
pigeon and common crow.
And in a note to the above passage, Mr. Murdoch
naively adds, " Agriculturists are often in the habit
of turning sheep upon growing crops, in order to
thicken the sward, and cause the plants to tiller."
Now this silly argument was suggested by some of
the game preservers on the game-law committee, and
' the prompt and decisive reply was, that when farmers
feed off their wheat with sheep—and it is only an
occasional and exceptional practice induced by
some peculiarity in particular seasons they put
on the sheep at the right time, and keep them
there so long only as may be beneficial ; but that
hares are running at will through the crop,
biting a blade here and another there, de-
stroying, with seeming wantonness, three times as
much as they consume, and making tracks and runs
" from seed-time until harvest." So far is it from
being true that hares live chiefly on " young grasses
from the pastures, hedge-roots, and woodlands," that
it is a proven fact that hares cannot be reared in great
numbers upon pasture land, where they have none of
the produce of amble land, grain crops, tares, turnips,
Sc., to resort to. Rabbits will live and multiply to
any extent en pastures, but hares will not to any
great extent. Then is it any reason that because
crows do some damage to farm-crops, that game
should be kept to damage them also? But it is a
farce to pretend that crows or wood pigeons do a tenth
of the damage caused by game; and it is notorious
that wood pigeons have of late years become more
abundant, from the rigid protection of the woods and
covers in which they breed established to preserve the
game. Mr. Murdoch, however, says—
Flares, however, require to be regularly killed, and only a moderate
number kept on the ground; they will °theme's. increase and multi-
ply, and get overstocked, and become an injurious and not a profitable
stock on a farm. .

Now, on this very point, Lord Hatherton said, "I
soon found, as a farmer, desirous of introducing
among my tenantry, and into the neighbourhood, a
better system of cultivation, that it was utterly hope-
less to do so unless I completely destroyed the hares ;
for the attempt merely to reduce them was useless,
for a good season repaired their numbers to such an
extent, that I found there teas no effectual means but
entire destruction." And when we remember that it
has been demonstrated by experiment, that four hares
actually consume as much food as one Leicester sheep,
it is quite obvious that so large a wild animal as the
hare can only be allowed to exist in very limited
numbers upon well-cultivated farms.
Our author then endeavours still more earnestly to
show that pheasants do little damage to farm pro-
duce, an assertion which the bitter experience of all
farmers on preserved estates contradicts. The fal-
lacies of Mr. Murdoch are so nearly a repetition of
Mr. Grantley Berkeley's "wiredrawn" arguments for
pheasant preserving, wherewith the world hes been
so much amused, that we do not think it necessary to
extract them. There is one passage in the author's
sporting experiences which se strikingly confirms
what Mr. Pusey told the game-law committee,
as to the practical impossibility of a moderate
preservation of game, that it cannot be passed over.
Mr. I'usey said, particularly in reference to pheasants,
that game being no longer in the shape of wild
animals, but merely preserved artificially, as
soon as it wanders off the protected property it die-
appears. Now, unless pheasants are fed artificially—
a practice Mr. Murdoch denounces—they are sure to
wander and be lost to the person who reared them.
On this subject Mr. Murdoch says:
On certain days they will never be found at an, and a person who
did not know of their existence otherwise, would not suppose such a
bird had ever been rem in the locality ;—at other Mace they will he
found congregated in number/4 in some outof the way and, it may be,
very unlikely situation. For example:—One day, after haring in vain
tried every spot on my own ground where pheasants usually were to
be found, I reached my march. I there met my neighbour's game-
keeper. My remark was, " John, all my pheasants must hare paid a
visit to-day to —'s shrubberies, for there is not oneon my ground ;"
when, to my surprise, bin reply was, "Well, sir, I was just saying
before we mow you that ell our pheasants must he in your young
corers today, br there is not one to be found anywhere on —'e
salute." Where the animals bad hidden them/elves was never disco-
vered. for none of them were seen that day. That they were In exist-
ence, however, is certain, for they afterwards appeared, in due time,
in their usual numbers. It may be remarked that the estate nest my
ground Is as folly (although, for the ace" not Injuriously) stacked
with pheasants as any gentleman's estate nand be. Again, upon the
last day of the shooting lost season, I experienced another instance of
the wandering habits of these birds. I had tried at isms eight or nine
mall cavern, to each of which a few pheasants were generally to be
fasted, without seeing more than messicaany astray bird. At last,
in one corer jut on my march with the neighbouring property already
alluded to, I found, I am convinced, not only pew, piteasorut belonging
to my own ground, but am Wafted berry one from Shot derision of
;up, Iseighbour's reale next to mime. What had induced them to
assemble at that spot could not be divined, bat so was the fact.
Here, then, we find in the habits of these wild
creatures the reason why game preservation must be
managed upon the system so justly condemned, if it
be practised at all in cultivated districts. Rigid pro-
tection, artificial feeding, abstinence from frequent
disturbance of their haunts, are indispensable to the
existence of game, and with such aid it is sure to
swarm. The notion of a moderate quantity of game
is a day dream of other days, and can no more be re-
produced in this country than oar 'squires can be retro-
graded into 'Squire Westerns, or our lords into feudal
barons. Battue shooting, if game is to exist at all, is
a necessity ; and it is plain that this demoralising
thing must be speedily put down. Now, bearing
this in mind, hear what this game-law apologist says
of battne shooting :
Ens elehoget the pleasured shooting depended entirely upon the
ember of leis fired sad lane of game killed. I should call upon
every to toren a pert of the great:Ann he may depend
Srt.:, inn whet noesins with non latiethetios But
listmet nos** eny nes tiding plasm is Mpg a ands
n @thumbed* of ion la any given time. He gent probably
will Ind a howlech. Acorns Unbland proprietor, who has tines
for gone yore net the ' in such matters, lust year, according be
the popes, kilted in on dese hundred and forty-five bran of
grown eight or ten mangohere, banes None anon no—torcto
rotted sumbera, three homing of new, mining Oat
he powered at Me Won Mais perin of a wan-
logsna' da, ten hours sod that de pained a
shot, bo must hare fired ashetankilled erery two miones.
ERA thin rate of kiting our ernine by two exalted iadividush he
the ether end of the sunk wee wars yeported, is two boon sod a
to ban killed above tar henna hens and neeonis and rek-
bits or Beast, three heed of pow awry two minutes Now I wend
by norm hedsnee 04 ot theme honked enil fortpine lane
of pewee Mire UV rims birds, or the any of dee
=ft or eehldlibig ben =the proem le pedieren
dr not
d tho day ea whin their essowtles wee to
take plies not gen gip Inn k son Inn= \bled
at ; Wtt iss we hiss repined thst. wire nonbas tea the Nisei
of the deeeles grow Inn hen yenestal to no berm el •
not, deer cwmrg he mftent la also seen elemer, wet the balt•
dedpl hate lesesehosion by a hamar *to the Won that, nos their
atteneng to get up a b. they might become the legitimate object
of the doelsee elm.
We mast protest against the following libel upon
British landowners, for we believe that they are now
rapidly, awakening to the higher and purer pleasures
afforded by the improvement and management of their

Jose.

own eetates, and that the abrogation of the piss
laws, and the abandonment of game preserves, will
do much to make them useful, popular, and happy in
their own districts :

Now, I am thoroughly convinced, that if game were extirpated
from the mil, at least cis-sevenths of the landed penprkWn of Bri-
tain would be banished from their estates. In rckrence to this oh.
jest, it u, affaudion to talk of the game Laws. While proprietors an
entitled to protect their Linda from forcible calcium, game will eon-
' arum to alit. The title and right to protect their lands must be
Man from them before game is benleW from the soil. The game
lain, in fact, neither make the game, nor would their abrogation
I destroy it; to effectuate that end, now so much Melted for by many.
it will be necessary not only to repeal the old, but to place new laws
I upon the statete-book; gad before game is extirpatod, every man,
must be, by law, entitled to follow the noxious animal Into every
place .to take and to destroy it. Were such • law in existence, few
proprietons would chores to remain in the country; most of them
would prefer the safety of the town and a good police, lathe ineecurit
of the plain. Not to mention the mane of enjoyment and recreate)
of which they would be thereby deprived, end io eoneequence
which they would be faced to seek amusement in other quarters.
few would choose to remain to witness the destruction of their feats
end pLuaatione, and to have their wives and children exposed to the
sbot descry ruetic who could obtain pomsemion Ma fowlinjpplece. in
teeth, howcasr, if each had been the law for the last Vilely years, few
proprietors could have witnessed the destruction of plantation or
(me of t eir own rearing, for, verily, such would not have been in
existence—but neither would the rural labour, re of the v Wages have
been fed and supported by the wages which have been expelled in
their formation. The proprietor would have vest his winter in the
capital, and his summer at a German watering-place;—the middle-
man or factor, from the county town, would have appeared, no doubt.
at regular intervals, to draw the rents, but he would have had no time
to entity the growing of young trees or rearing of new tenon.
What air-drawn phantoms are these ! What pro-
prietor ever found the game laws necessary to pro-
tect his land from hedge-breakers or forcible entries?
Find as to planting and improving, it is notorious that
when a landowner takes to improvement, he soon
abandons game. Like Lord Hatherton, he soon finds
that the two occupations, as preserver of game, and
an improver of land by planting and farming, are
" perfectly incompatible."

Milt Ans.
TOE OTT Ptcrulte.—Yesterday, the large City
picture of the " Lord Mayor and Aldermen presenting their
address to Louis Philippe, in the Itubens Room, at Windsor
Castle," wag hung for inspection and ornament in the
Court of Exchequer, at the Guildhall. The picture toga
painted by command of the King of the French, and
the artist's name is M. Alton. It is a poor tame perform-
ance, not destitute of design or arrangement, but dull and
heavy in colour, and without the every-day excellences of
containing a number of portraits in any way resembling
the individuals for whom they are intended. The most
conspicuous figure in the picture is Alderman Ilumphery,
who really looks, as Dryden expresses it, " goodly and
great"—an alderman for two wards, and those the
largest, " Farringdon Within," and " Farringdon Without."
The worthy alderman it is understood went to Paris on pur-
pose, and sat to the artist rat least three times. Louis Phi-
lippe is a cheese-paring compared to him, and is so repre-
sented that the address (the object of the picture) seems
really lost sight of, and the King is seen yielding the palm of
the outward signs of good living to the alderman and M.P.
But for these three visits to Paris it is perfectly clear that
M. Alloy would have painted a picture of a London mayor
and twenty-five London aldermen without a real London
dignitary in the whole picture. "(fold chains, warm furs,
broad banners, and broad faces," composed a civic procession
in Pope's time, and the aldermen are of opinion that descrip-
tion is still true, for the picture will not be hung, it is under-
stood, in the place of honour, the Court of Common Coun-
cil, but in the less honourable situation where it was seen
yesterday. The picture is a present from Louis Philippe.
THE NEW COINAGE.—The new model penny piece
—a circle of silver in a frame of copper—is not a new idea,
one moreover unsanctioned by the Mint, and one that was
found five-and-twenty years ago expensive and useless. The
coin we see in the streets is therefore nothing more than •
hawker's medal. The report that the five shilling pieces are
to be treated in the same manner is equally erroneous.