The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-13 00:00:00

THE FRENCH AND FLEMISH

EXHIBITION,

A tenth annual exhibition of pictures by living
French and Flemish artists has this morning been
opened at Mr. Gambert's Gallery, in Pall-mall. Oa
Saturday we had the gratification of attending the
private view of the collection for the present season.
Not an exceptionally remarkable exhibition in any
way, we should observe at once. But still a very
admirable collection nevertheless. As among the
foremost of the chiefs of his charming school
M. Meissonier has but a single contribution,
this year in the Gallery. Our own John Gilbert,
who smokes, while he manipulates with his won-
drously tacile pencil on the sleek box-wood, we feel
assured, could not but be interested, surely, to glance
at this sketch, by M. Meissonier, of his brother artist,
The Etcher "—his lit cigar in his left hand, his
right delicately touching the plate with his etching
needle! A couple of the foremost pupils of Meis-
sonier make up for his own slight appearance, this
season, on the wills or in the catalogue. M. Chavel,
ror example affording us a minute glimpse of an
'Artist's Studio," with the artist at his easle.
\I. Ruipercz depicting, among other scenes, a room,
one might suppose, in an old barrack, with 0,
soldier amusing his comrades by enacting the part
of a guitar-player. M. (Jerome—whose name is ever
turned to now with eager interest—contents himself
with one strar.ge (Mental spectacle, fantastic,
almost grotesque, to western eyes—" A Group of
Camels at a Fountain." M. Frere—the Thomas
Webster of France—has two delightful pictures that
victors will be safe to cluster about—one "The Arri-
val at School"—the other, " Breakfast-time at the
Farmhouse." Besides these,he has a cluster of children
overtaken by a storm, and another contribution also
depicting the mournful form and features of a
widowed mother. M. Tissot's " Young Luther at
Church" is an odious subject, and one that, as hero
treated, is nothing less, to our mind, than eminently
repulsive. The same artist's "Dance of Death,',
however—though hanging too high for satisfactory
examination—appears to us, in many respects, to
be very fine: the procession of figures, holier -skel.
tering downhill, being brought out marvelously ea
that hill side against the glare of a ghastly sunset is
the sky. Though we miss Mad lle. Rosa Bonheur alto-
gether from the gallery this year, we have M. Auguste
Llonheuea " Meadow Scene in Auvergne." Ocher
contributors of various excellence we should be
tempted here to particularise had we time and space
for doing so : among these are MM. Poiteverl,
Achenbach, and Decamps. Sweetly pretty is ISI-
- " Conversation at the Window." There is
a delightful picture of Beethoven in his youth, tor
booted, long-heired (was he then dead P), seated at
the piano! Tu do anything like justice to the El'
hibition it requires to be visited more than once,
even by the most vigilant of art-critics.

AN ESSAY AT A COLLAR OF SS. FOR A STEED
Spanker, the property of 0 * D * SatardaY,
the 16th of September next, will be sold, or set up for sale,
at Skibberdeen,—A strong, staunch, steady, sound, stout,
safe, sinewy, serviceable, strapping, supple, swift, smart,
sightly, sprightly. spirited, sturdy, shining, sure-footed,
sleek, smooth, spunky, well-skinnei, sized, and shaped,
sorrel steed, of superlative symmetry, styled Bpanksr; with
with small star aid snip, s ,uare sided, slender shouldered,
sharp sighted, and step. singularly stately; free flogs
strain, sprain, sprain, spasm, stratghalt, sciatica, staggers,
strangles, seeling, sellander, surfeit seams, strumoua swell-
ings, sorrances, scratches, splint, squint, scurf, sorest
scattering, shuffling, shambling gait, or symptoms of sielt-
ness of any sort. He is neither stiff-mouthed, shabby'
coated, sinew-shrunk, spur-galled, saddle-backed, shell--
toothed, slim-gutted, surbated, skin-scabbed, short-winded,
splay-footed, or shoulder-slipped, and is sound in the sword
point and stifle-joint. ILas neither sick-spleen, sleeping'
evil, se:-, fast, snaggle-teeth, sand-crack, subcutaneous sores,
or shattered hoofs; nor is he sour, sulky, surly, stubborn,
or sullen in temper, .Aeither shy nor skittish, slow, slug'
gish, or stupid. He never slips, strii s, strays, stalks,
starts, stops, shakes, snivels, snuffles, snorts, stumbles, or
sticks, in his stall or stable, and scarcely or seldom sweatl•
He has a showy, stylish, switch-tail or stern, and a safe act
of shoes on ; can feed on stubble, sainfoin, sheaf-oats, strasvo
sedge, or Scotch-grass. Carries sixteen stone with sur'
prising speed in his stroke over a six-foot sod or stone wall'
His sire was the sly ,sobersides, on a sister of Spindleshanks,
by Sampson, a sporting son of Sparkler, who won the
sweeps+ akes and subscription plate last session at Sligo-
His selling price sixty-seven pounds sixteen:shillings and
sixpence sterling.—A Handbill, dated 1829, quoted in ellf
History of Horse Racing.

Str 'Patton 63 kes stood six feet in his stockings ;
he allowed no spare flesh to grow; he was Jackson's bet-3
amateur pupil ; and though he never figured in tee I ins"'
save once when he came down from the Grand Stand at
Doncaster to shake hands, at 88, with Tom Sayers after his
great fight at Farnborough, and an extempore ring v,'6°
formed for him by the admiring bystanders—he was one
whom no "rough" ever ventured to make free with. Sir
Tattoo Sykes' best epitaph was thus spoken by a pair of
hone,4t Yorkshire lips at his funeral—" Esgh, well ! there'll
may bz3 be a vast o' Sir Tattoo Sykes's--and the more the
better; but there'll niver be nobbut one ' Sir Tattoo,' "