The Express.
London, England, 1859-04-18 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 18, 1889.

LITERATUBB.

Six Years' Travels iss Amnia. By an Montan.
• LADY In two volute& Hurst and Blactett
—...

1869.

" Six Years' Travels in Russia" reads more
like • journal which the author has kept to
assist her own recollection than a work in-
tendedto convey bee impressions to readers at
home. She does not seize upon what is charm-
teristically Russian in the scenes she describes, bat
writes with equal fulness and elaboration about dr-
eametaanes which must be the same all over the
world, sad might be safely left to the imagi-
nation of the reader. We imagine it is
not only at Russian parties that " bright
oyes, white throats, charming headdresses, and the
rt odours of eu, de la rnowelina, et d'orange
ann enlivening influence around, which doubt-
less had its due effect," &e. The style in which the
book is written is, as may be gummed from the fore-
going paasage, exceedingly bad. It is not only_full
of French words and phrases in places where Eng-
lish ones would have done just as well, but of false
and tawdry ornament, and bits of haeknied quota-
tion and allusion, the very nibs* of our language.
After a few years, she says, " the ci-dsrant cavalry
cadet returns to his native salons one of the most
maned and best-informed members of the
fesidenable riunions." The atticsof a Russian house,
she tells us, are " • portion of her roieinage which
a Raman Eligante on the bet itage has probably
never visited even in thought." Some Russian
seldom& whom she met looked " like a fine old
Englidt gentleman, one of the olden time." The sea
is " old Neptune's territory." The mental status
indicated by this sort of writing is not high, and
we are by no means surprised to find an inordinate
share of the author's attention given to the " uphol-
stories " of Russian high life, and great people
spoken of in a tone of snobbish adulation. Speaking
of the Emperor and Empress having made some pre-
sents to a poor man who brought them a sack
fall of nuts, our author says, "such incidents
are as thorniest' roses growing in the path of the
monarch, the beauty of which affords pleasure with-
oat alloy, and wheel fragrance remains long, after
the assess of their blooming has passed away.' Per
her greatest effort at description is her account
of a visit to the palace inhabited by " the different
members of this united and amiable imperial family."
She has a mostoongenial subject in the " noble rows
of marble columns, the walls interlaid with rich
gilding, and adoszedwith mirrors of fabulous dimen-
sions in and as she recounts the beauties and wonders
of the sacred spot she takes occasion to relate some
little anecdotes, such as the flunkey mind
delights in, as to the Tsar's having in-
dulged in a load peal of laughter at something,
as to one of his tame birds being allowed to perch on
his shoulder knot, &c. "In his hears of relaxation,"
she tells us, " though they are few and far between,'
they say his Majesty joins the Emmen, and from a
debate at the senate, involving the most momentous
subjects, he an descend to the minutiae of his con-
sort's flowers and birds, entering into all her simple
domestic pleasure with as much devotion as if they
were affairs of State." In the sanctum sone-
torum the Emperor's bed-room, she says, "The
stranger's eye rests with inquiry upon a bare
looking camp bedstead of iron, upon which is stretched
a green morocco covered wittier, staffed
se hard as • board, a pillow en suite, covered
with a linen slip, a pair of fine sheets, and an Indian
shawl-like counterpane, lined with silk, and behold
the bed of the Turr

For want of an eye to see, or the art to
describe the look of things about her, this English
lady's narratives of Russian life appear to be without
proper setting. Res descriptions of scenery are
elaborate failures. The following, which is one of
the beat, will show the " forcible feebleness "of her
attentyras, in this kind :
Ifa pawl the bar formed by the junction of the
Neva wi the gulf—the yellow bed of which, with cattalo
winds, is occasionally left true—the hitherto wide expanse of
water becomes narrower, the land gradually closes in; far
away over the bend of the river gleam tall gilt spires whose
tiger points are lost to right amid the rich ovum of heaven;
while donee and clustering cupolas, covered with gold or
silver, or blur, or green, speogiod with stars, scintillated tram
afar,—the stupendous liussialmd domes of the mammal
cathedral of Elk Issas rift out eri.b a retrgenos so ba-
✓ing as to be viditis el a distance of forty vents. The lis-
ds:i_ntd= rah here Red there a patch of shingle end
m s eta baniers—now give pleas to ineedre
parts beiverks of mars cesallon,w hich clumped
with broad Ira rheas, &Maas bone& to the noble Neva.
Bread disrobes, public buildings like pacer,
awl the devilry of the nobility, oa a grand majestic
I seals, hem ths pagestive on either hand; while, in
oboes of titeLlnagger. a les .ben bridge, resting on
miry piers of Mai gariee, spins the breed blue stream.
Fr away thee* the psugnetive ci tta arches, the roving
F.,pureaes the ors ire- of enshitesture, combing, en route,
per of tics Parer emblark, sad the Imperial Weaff
race. We see new 4 Illt. Peleiroburg ; Yes, verily in the
very hart of poistre," that regkn of bins skier,
placZend glittering cupolas, which, my what yon like of
swamp, is sorely wither a rival among the cities ofihe earth.
Notwithstanding all we have said, there is a great
deal of information' of a certain kind in this book.
We have not mach faith in the author's little
romantic and rose-ooksred stories of peasant life ;
we can seldom make anything out of her descriptions
of natural objects, and where we can we distrust
them from their appearance of untruthfulness and
exaggeration ; we conceive her estimate of Russian
character to be founded on vary limited and super-
ficial observation ; but we have seldom met with a
book containing a faller amount of the dinner parties,
balls, and social amusements of the upper circles
in the RasaiMn capital. In spite of the slovenly
way in which it has been put together, and its radi-
cally bad style, a great many readers will find
" Six Tears' Travels in Ramis" • sufficiently
amusing book.

THE UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE.

PINE ABM

EXHIBITION OF THi NEW SOCIETY OP
PAINTERS IN WATER COLOURS.

The exhibition of this society, which to the
public to-day, is of more than average attractiveitees.
The landscapes still greatly preste in number,
but the figure contributions—making allowance for
their greater diffieulty—are equally meritorious;
and there is no great disparity of any kind to be
apprehended between this present display and
that of the parent society, now its president, Mr.
John Lewis, has resigned and become a member of
the Royal Academy, and while Marrs. Corbould
and Louis Haghe continue to exhibit in this
By far the most noticeable figure subject in the
present exhibition, and one of the most important
pictures the artist has hitherto prodneed, is " A
Dream of Fair Women" (212), by Mr. E. H. Cor-
bould. This illustration of Tennyson's poem of that
name does not (despite the long quotation in the
catalogue) either explain itself clearly in virtue of
its own pictorial perspicuity of realisation, or render
the somewhat mystical allusions of the poet more
definite. With a little examination' however, the
spectator will easily recognise the fair women"
here intadaced and focussed, as 'titers, in visionary
light, Vetting, on all sides, into &musty and phan-
Memel forms, or dissolving views of @modal inci-
dents. The fair-haired figure in tunic and peplum
in the centre is, of course, Helena. The passage in
Tennyson-7.

I would the white, cold, heavy-plunging foam,
Whirrd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below,
eTben whim I Idt my home—

is mailed by the rostrum of a ship being indis-
tinctly seen beating spinet the rocks at the foot of
the incline. By the side of Helens, and pointing at
her indignantly, is esmandra :
' '

"Mccsatt," she 'W
oman wYI: was Dieted with a ewes:
Thie, we need hardly say, is an allusion to the dis-
belief which Apollo decreed should attend all the
prophecies of Cassandra, and which led to the fatal
disregard of her prediction respecting the fall of
Troy. Cleopatra with the up-wound, and Rosa-
mund with the poison-cup, shrinking from the
dagger held by Eleanor with the bloodshot " dragon
eyes,' are plainly distinguishable. The Eastern
drew sufficiently identifies Jephtha's daughter,
her that died

To save her 6thwis--;-0;..

Other fair heroines of history or poetry are intro-
duced less prominently, while, by means of very
clever filmy stumbles of opaque colour, incidents
such as the sack of a city and the abduction of its
women, the murder of the innocents, the waters of
oblivion, and the artist (or poet ?) dreamer are very
faintlzindicated. It is impossible to deny that
there is in this work considerable fancy, a very de-
licate and finished style of hatching, and, indeed,
great command of all the technical resources of
water-colour painting. Yet the whole has an arti-
ficial operatic character, and there is weak drawing
and little of nature or truly refined and elevated
beauty in any of these " fair women." Nor is full
justice done to the half sorrowful sentiment of Tenny-
son. However, this elaborate drawing would be a
capital ornament for the boudoir of some exquisite
west-end bachelor.

Compared with this picture, the contributions of
Mr. Louis Haghe are more manly and unaffected—
more tonic and bracing. The constant aim of this
artist in his lithographic drawings to obtain the
merely picturesque in subject and accessories, has,
however, rendered him incapable of giving the lee.
obvious subtleness of expression. The scene from
" Woodstock," in which the daughter of Cromwell
(63) dimmers. him commenting aloud, in the pre-
sence of Wildrake, on the portrait of the dead
Charles, will bear out this remark. With all the
inferior and yet necessary elements of a good pic-
ture, the faces are strikingly weak, and con-
tain scarcely a glimmering indication of the
intense burning and varied expression which
under the circumstances should illuminate
them. In another drawing by Mr. Haghe we do
not look for this anatomy of expression, and we are
bound to say that in the " Emeute at Louvain" (81),
the artist has given as an excellent specimen of those
representations of Flemish feuds which are decidedly
his forte. The individual action, the general move-
ment, the variety of episode, the appment accident
in the whole composition, render this an altogether
satisfactory and admirable work. The manipulation
of Mr. Haghe may be cited as exemplary; it has
none of the finical fritter or dull chuckling patient
stipple of the common run of amateur young ladies,
or even of professional artists.
What shall we say to Mr. Warren, the president
of this society, who instead of the simple, broad, and
impressive scriptural subjects which we formerly had
from his hand, gives us such a pretentious failure as
the illustration of Moore's "Paradise and the Peri"
(No. 73) P Here again the defect is in essentials.
Instead of a most etherlal type of angelic Perihood,
ms have a clumsy, flat, flabby, stupid, hoyden.
Really, it is most provoking, where a golden, jewelled,
fiewer-festooned, and Arabic-inscribed door, with
meresque-lattice and interlaced-work to match, is
painted in so masterly and bold a style to find
tie face—of a Peri, too, of all personages-moo
essentially =poetical. Barely none of these water-
colour painters can ever go through a conies of draw-
ing from the figure, or ever paint a portrait. " The
Flight into Egypt" (233) is more a study of night
effect than any thing else, and therefore quite free from
the faults alluded to. To gains lesson of how far the
men may go who determine—with the intention, we
presume, of pleasing the ladies—to be smug, clean,
polished, and pretty, we may point to " A Sunny
Corner, Tolosa" (130), by Mr. Bouvier. Now, this
artist is one of those whose porcelain fame are
apparently always warranted to be of the same
pattern; and although them is a dectidoesedoreirove-
ment this year, he is still so palpably with
one idea in regard to the necessity of eir matching,
that actually In this picture there is scarcely any
distinguishable difference between two faces, the
one is shadow the other in sunlight—and that the
sunlight of Spain !
Mr. Tidey, in "The Feist of Roses" (171), has,'
considering the nature of the subject, kept tolerably
clear of the " Book of Beauty " school, and all that
vapid and effete elegance in art for which Tom
Moore is so responsible. There is considerable &reads
feeling in this picture, and a certain twilight tone of
colour, peculiarto the artist, is here in excellent keep-
ing. That Mr. Tidey can paint a head well Is
proved by "The Captive " (138) ; and there is mach
appropriate expression in " John Anderson my jo,
John " (107).
Mr. Mole and Mr. Lee may be clasped together,
as both paint simple rustic figures, which in the
pictures of the first serve to fill up a landscape,
and in those of the second generally to point some
' simple homely moral. In " Keep the Gate Open"
(11) Mr. Mole has much of the engaging simplicity
of Collins, but where the faces more directly chal-
• lenge criticism, as in " A Willing Ear" (45), we
find little to commend. Mr. Lee's humble subjects
(Noe. 92 and 117) are marred by a mannered mono-
, ton yof execution.
The " Fountain in the Piave di Vallee. Hano—
i waiting fora precession to pass slow the Corm"
• (80), by Mr. Wehnert, is a singular piece of work.
bas artist has improved in drawing, and there is a
certain solidity about this picture; but we would
ask—does Mr. Wehnert paint on whitewash?—for,
r cruder brightness, more uncompromising opacity of
I plastered colour, more unfeeling handling, and lON
of the changeful hen of light and shade, we do not
remember to have seen conjoined with such work-
, manlike confidence. In fine, this is experienced
mechanise' work, but not art.
There is a small drawing (No. 112) by Mr. Keeling
r —a name new to se -which, though conventional in
sabjeet, displays very comideralle ability. Two or
three drawings by Mime Foam me extremely sweet
and pleasing. Mr. Harrison Wok has purposed km
fensir u
se la Weeks*. Hit!" (70).