The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-10 00:00:00

Sacred Picture, the interest of which concentrates (as
it should do) upon the form, or rather, it should
even be said, upon the countenance of the world's
Redeemer. There alone it is, upon the visage of
Our Lord, that the failing of the artist's hand
is in any way conspicuously visible. But there
it is visible and conspicuously. Who can
marvel, however, that it should be so—remember-
ing the theme selected for illustration, remembering,
among the countless evidences there are indicative
of its being beyond the reach of all human art, how
one of the very greatest artists that ever wielded
the painter's brush, Leonardo to wit, contented
himself with lightly sketching in the countenance of
the Redeemer in the centre of his great masterpiece,
his Picture of the "Last Supper"—lightly sketching
the holy features upon the wall of the Refectory,
rather than reveal by any more elaborate performance
the absolute powerlessness of his genius to poutray
its own reverent imaginings ! Apart from this one
particular, however—apart, that is, from this one
greatest and most obvious insufficiency on the part
of the artist—Mr. Dowling's painting of the " Bap-
tism of Our Lord" is in many ways, as we have
said, highly meritorious, and in the general effect
of it, is wonderfully, even, we might say, devotion-
ally impressive. _ _ _

hOSA BONIIEUR'S NEW PICTURE, but just now
opened to view, a little further along Pall-mall than
Messrs. Colnaghi's—namely at 121, the gallery of
the Messrs. G. Gambart and Co. will be found when
visited, to be, if not (as it certainly is not) among
the greatest, at least among the most charming of
that gifted lady's realistic productions. The paint-
ing, here, is one of considerable size—that is, it is a
picture with its length extending horizontally. It
represents a Family of Deer crossing the Summit of
the Long Rocks in or near the Forest of
Fontaiubleau. The landscape is sterile, gray,
flat, and uninteresting. But the fact that it is
so, is comparatively of no consideration whatever,
seeing that the interest of the picture rests entirely in
the portraiture of the various members of this (we are
almost tempted to have the word misprinted) Deer
Family. The delineation of character, and of such
a truly wonderful variety of character, as Madlle.
Bonheur has here depicted it, commands at
once the expression of our profoundest admira-
tion. Viewing the picture in regard to this
one quality alone, we should have been
disposed to say of it, that it is worthy of Sir
Edwin Landseer, but that we can otherwise say
quite as much in the way of unmeasured panegyric
when we have simply remarked that it is worthy of
the artist's own hand, that it is worthy of Madile.
Rosa Bonheur herself ! Standing before the paint—
ing—what though we hear the rattle of the carriage,
traffic of the West-end audible enough the while
under those Pall-Mall Windows—we are, as it were,
hundreds of miles away from " London town," in
one of the lonely waste lands intermingled
with the old Forest of Fontainbleau. The
paterfamilias Stag—suddenly arrested in a rush
at the head of his family over those waste lands—
has stopped to listen eagerly, with erected ears and
distended nostrils, to some sound that has startled
him (and for that matter the whole party of them
more or less)—his fore feet planted straight before
him at an angle, his noble head (in every nerve of
it, one might fancy) upon the alert, his eye full,
bright, searching into the distance ! 'While,
behind this father of the family, stand
in a straggling group, or processional line
one might almost say—the materfamilias emulating
her lord by habit in the forward protrusion of her
ears—and her offspring revealing each a quite separate
character, an easily distinguishable and idiocyncrasy
or individuality. The frightened, the thoughtless,
the half alarmed, the wholly indifferent are there
—the last and youngest of the whole family
—a lovely fawn, so little alarmed, so wholly inex-
perienced, as to be quietly slaking its thirst in the
shallow pool of water into which it has stepped so
daintily and delicately—forming to our eye the gem
of the whole picture. Upon the picture in its en-
tirety, the gifted artist has—according to her wont,
we believe—lavished an extraordinary amount of
care and observation, both preliminary and correc-
tive.

JOHN PARRY'S SKETCIIES AND DRAWINGS, now on
view at Mr. M'Lean's New Gallery in the Hay-
market, will to many of his admirers reveal that
first of all our buffo-singers in a wholely new
character. It did not so reveal him, of course to our-
selves —familiar as we were with his fund of drollery
as a wonderfully whimsical caricaturist. But
to a considerable portion of the public to
whom John Parry's mere name is as a pleasant
greeting--recalling to remembrance as it does hie
many delightful and unrivalled impersona-
tions, his inimitable freaks and oddities as a
singer, as a pianist, as an actor, as (in one word,
intensely his) a droll—to a considerable proportion
of the public, we would here say, the powers of
John Parry as a draughtsman, as a wielder of the
paint-brush, the crayon, and the pencil, are almost,
if not entirely unknown. Whosoever is until now
unacquainted with them, with those it may be wholly
unconjectured qualities, gifts, or capacities of John
Parry as an artist off the stage, as an artist in the
studio, as an artist at the easle—let him (this
hitherto uninitiated admirer of John Parry's as a
singer) hie with all speed to that New Gallery of Mr.
M'Lean's, at No. 7, in the Haymarket, and there
" sun themselves with laughter" by a careful exami-
nation of all the countless whims and oddities of
this fantastic collection !

Dramatic Authors' Petition in Support of
Theatres, &c., Bill.

To the Honourable the Speaker and the Commons of
Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled : the
humble petition of the undersigned dramatic authors
sheweth

That your petitioners have found that the existing legis-
lation concerning theatres operates as a restriction upon
their industry, while it has not in any manner supported
or elevated dramatic literature. That the lower middle
class and working class have, of late years, developed a
large appotito for intellectual amusement, which the num-
ber of theatres and the present construction of theatres
(which give no comfortable or proper accommodation for
these classes) have failed to satisfy.
Your petitioners therefore pray your honourable house
to pass the second reading of the Theatres, &c., Bill, which
measure, in your petitioners' belief, is sufficient to remedy
the evil of which they complain.
And your petitioners will ever pray.
CHARLES READS. HENRY T. CRAVEN.
BAYLE BERNARD ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.
ROBERT BELL. JOHN BROUGHAM.
GEORGE W. LOVELL. F. C. BURNAND.
R. B. KNOWLES. ANDREW HALLIDAY.
DION BOUCICAULT. W. SAWYER.
JOHN OXENPORD. EDMUND YATES.
PALGRAVE SIMPSON. HOWARD PAUL.
J. A. HERALD. N. H. HARRINGTON.
F. G. TOMLINS. JOHN HOLLINGSHEA.D.
E. L. BLANCHARD.

T
ONAS WEBB'S MEMORIAL FUND.—The Emperor
of the French has sent a subscription of £5 to the
Hon. E. T. Yorke, chairman of the committee of the Jonas
Webb Memorial Fund, through Lord Royston. It will be
remembered that the subscriptions were limited to that
amount. His Imperial Majesty, therefore, with great good
taste and delicacy, found himself bound by the condition
of the circular of the committee, and declined to place the
other contributions to the memorial in a false position by
giving more than was required by that document. —Cam-
bridge Independent.
MR. HERALD'S SHAKSPERIAN PHILOSOPHY is
spoken of facetiously by a Spectator critic as Platonic
with a vengeance—only that it is often so difficult to dis-
tinguish it from " fine writing." Here is a specimen :
"Out of the bosom of the Infinite a soul having transferred
its allegiance from the Eternal to the Temporal manifested
itself in a mortal body on the 23d April, 1564." Would it
not have been easier to say Shakspere was born than all
that ? Mr. Heraud goes on to say that this immortal soul
brought with it powers and attributes from the Eternal
and the Infinite, but their operation was limited by the
" condition of the organism with which it had associated."
We hope so poor a word as "body" will drop out of the
language now. But let Mr. Heraud continue, " The soul,
moreover, was not only immortal, but cosmical, and there-
fore (we give up the 'therefore') enjoyed not only a will,
but strong will." "Doubtless," the author goes on, "this
Shaksperian soul was chafed Like others, when, in an in-
fant body, it found that it was incapable of sustaining and
fully expressing the action of a will, yet free, but in bonds.
It was fain to expend itself in inarticulate cries, until it had
learned to exercise the organs- of speech." Good gracious !
here's a pother, and all to tell us that the baby Shakspere
could not talk before he could speak, and so cried like
other babies. If he had not cried . there would have been
more in it. However, when Mr. Heraud condescends to
come off the Platonic high horse, he has really a good deal
to say which lovers of Shakspere will do well to ponder,