The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-01 00:00:00

her unrivalled collection of water-colour drawings to be
engraved. The greater proportion of these are ne'w in
hands of the engraver ; the remainder are on view at
the premises of the Messrs. Colnaghi.
A cursory view of these admirable specimens of the art
of water-colouring will convince the spectator into what
able hands—for none of the pictures are original—the
task of copying has been entrusted. The collection is
very varied, both as to subject, as to the original artist,
and to the artist who has undertaken the copy ; and so
faithfully has the last been executed, that any copy,
with the original of which we are acquainted, may be
recognized in the exquisite fidelity with which the copy
follows in its minutest details.
'Perhaps the finest picture exhibited is the reception of
Cardinal Wolsey in the abbey of Leicester. This work
is in an unfinished state, but quite enough has been done
to show what it will be when finished. The cardinal—a
life likeness—is being lifted from his mule, and received
hy the abbot with all his attendant functionaries. Nothing
can exceed the benevolence beaming in the face of the ab-
bot, as he stretches forth his hands to receive the fallen
statesman. The picture is filled up in the foreground with
the brethren, noble-looking men, and behind the group of
ecclesiastics by the men-at-arms, who accompanied and
guarded the cardinal. This fine work is due to Mr. Cope,
Proceeding round the room, we find a most spirited
representation of the Battle of Meanee by Armitage.
The combatants are mingled together, and admirably
grouped. A homestead by Paul Potter, with stable and
cattle, is one of the best efforts of the master. " Abun-
dance," by Van Gycker, presents an exceedingly beau-
tiful girl, bending over two sleeping infants, who in
return are reposing on a basket, teeming with grapes
and flowers. It is a masterpiece of soft and luscious
painting. An Ariel couched on the leaf of a flower is as
pretty a fancy as can be conceived—only we think we
have seen some of the same kind before. An interesting
scene opens to us all the characters of Midas—the
snappish old justice, and Apollo as the shepherd,
supposed to be singing, "Pray, Goody, please to
moderate the rancour of your tongue." The picture
is finished with the characteristic minuteness of de-
tail which marks the style of Mr. Maclise. The next
picture we have to notice is one of a very striking na-
ture. It represents "The Wise Men journeying." The
scene is night iu the desert. A party of men, mounted
on camels, are following the guiding star, which flings
its rays across the arid sand. Altogether the effect is
both striking and associative. "The Wolf and the
Lamb," the bullying boy and the timid boy, by Mul-
ready, is too well known to need description. Her
Majesty is in possession of the original. The next and
last—and it is one full of sad associations—is the "Empty
Chair." The scene is in a room well known to all who
have seen Allen's picture of Sir Walter Scott's study.
Miss Scott is represented as kneeling in the attitude of
prayer, her hands in an imploring attitude on the arm of
the empty chair.

TURKISH IiABITS.

The extent to which Abdul Medjid has cast aside the
old repulsive forms of Turkish courtly etiquette has been
amply commented on. It certainly is a startling pheno-
menon to witness the Sultan, whore predecessors never
lent to their hospitality the finishing grace of their per-
sonal presence, receiving in public, and familiarly convers-
ing with, the distinguished Christian guests entertained
in his palace. Still more striking—more suggestive of
thought and far-reaching anticipations—is the scene where
the Sultan placed himself on a sofa, with a French prince of
the blood on one hand, and an English prince of the
blood on the other, examining the pupils of his military
schools. It is alleged that the instruction which the
clews receive in the military schools of Constantinople,
Adrianople, and Broussa, is more showy than substan-
tial. In Europe it is not easy to obtain data whereby
to test the justice of this censure; nor is the question of
much moment. The pupils of these schools enjoy a
training which elevates them above the mass of their
countrymen ; they have ideas instilled into them which
awaken and liberalise their minds ; they are a new edu-
cated interest called into existence in the Ottoman em-
pire, to counterpoise the hitherto exclusive influence of
one educated class of the Uleinah, whose learning at
least equally superficial had the additional disadvantage
of being as narrow-minded and unfruitful as that of our
European schoolmen of the dark ages. The recent ex-
amination of the military schools by the Sultan presented
the hopeful sight of the Sovereign of the Osmanlee sur-
rounded by a young, ardent, and instructed class, as
' anxious as himself to earn their country's admission into
the full brotherhood of the system of European States.
It may not unnaturally be feared by the less san-
guine that the Sultan and his military and civil
officials and students are too much in advance of
their nation, that they may do more harm than
good by too hastily adopting European customs and
habits of thought, still repellent to the great body of
Turks. But the accounts received from Constantinople
of the rapid decline of the old habits of Mussulman isola-
tion from social intercourse with Franks since the arri-
val of the French and English troops go far to allay this
apprehension. The cordiality with which the European
and Turkish soldiers fraternise is remarked with astonish-
ment by the professional reporters, and by the officers
who have recently arrived in Constantinople. And pri-
vate letters from intelligent and observant Europeans
and Americans, who have been long resident in Constan•
tinople, and who have hitherto laboured in vain to esta-
blish intimate social relations with the inhabitants, speak
in undisguised astonishment of the progress that has
been made since the arrival of the troops in breaking
down the wall of partition which formerly excluded all
Franks from anything like the establishment of a friendly,
familiar position in the domestic circles of the Turks.
The numbers of the military guests, and their rattling,
unconstrained, soldier-like fashions, have proved too
much for even Turkish reserve to resist ; and in many
houses of private Turkish citizens the Franks are now
received with as frank a hospitality as the native burgh-
ers. This is important. It is only necessary to consult
the interesting account lately published by Mr. Smith
of his wanderings in Asia Minor and Salonike to the
Danube, to see that the Turkish country gentlemen are
noways averse to such familiar intercourse. But in all
nations the citizen—the industrious townsman—class
have always been found the last to abandon their preju-
dices against foreigners, and even with them it is now
apparent that these prejudices are giving way.
True, the pages of history are rife with examples which
prove that the emancipation of a people from even a
bigoted and exclusive nationality may let in corruption
and dissolution of national morals instead of ameliora-
tion. But there is something in the present position of
the Turkish people and state to warrant hopes of better
results. The pressure of a foreign war upon the orderly
and industrious class of citizens is favourable to their
cherishing earnest, not frivolous, views of passing events.
And there are important reforms in progress in the ad-
ministrative Government. This opinion is not irrecon-
cileable with the admission that there is too much truth
in the complaints that are heard of local departmental
corruption and oppression in they,Turkish magistracy.
Generations must pass away before the taint contracted
under the old system can disappear. But the enor-
mously augmented influx of Europeans into Turkey,
occasioned by the war, is bringing a healthier public
opinion to bear upon public functionaries. The merest
soldier, the most reckless adventurer, attracted to
Turkey by the present commotions, has learned in
Europe to pay homage in his language, and to a cer-
tain extent in his actions, to higher principles of mo-
rality than obtained in the Ottoman empire under the
old regime. The growing familiarity of intercourse be-
tween Mussulmans and Christians will teach the
former to test by these principles the conduct of
their rulers in the first place, and of their neighbours
in private stations in the second. Here is a powerful
element of social purification and popular political con-
trol over magistrates. Nor is its influence likely to be
confined to those Turkish provinces which are now the
resort of foreigners : if there be truth in the news (and
there appears no reason to doubt it) that the energetic
and intelligent Colonel Youssouf, himself a Mussulman
and distinguished by hid services in Algeria, is to havel
a principal charge in the attempts to reform and d. •
cipline the Bashi-buzuks, even out of these desperadoes
may be trained efficient missionaries of law and order
for their own remote provinces.
the exi
One thing is certain—that in such an infusion of a
better and more elevated spirit into sting
estab-
lished institutions of Turkey appears to consist the best
hope for the future of that empire. Such hopes have
been built on the emancipation of some of the dependent
races or nationalities in Turkey, but experience has
dissipated !them. Even in Servia, its all but indepen-
dence has only led to the establishment of a local Govern-
ment servilely framed upon the models of Austria and
Russia, with their debasing and enfeebling systems of
finance, passports, pedantic restrictions, and political es-
pionage. As for the Greeks, it is but too obvious that
they have been taught.no more by their centuries of
bondage, than the Bourbons by their years of beg-
gary and exile. What was said of the Bourbons on
their restoration—that they had forgotten nothing and
learned nothing—may with equal truth be said of the
Greeks. They are now the same plausible, quick-
witted, insincere, fickle, short-sightedly selfish race that
the Latin crusaders found them, in all their negotia-
tions with the court of Byzantium. Vain of their tradi-
tional glories and inherited intellectual culture,
they are
tent upon exercising a despotic authority over races
more rude it may be, but of a more robust physical and
moral
enlightenment
nl i hte progressennm oft
constitution
os tryof moral
t han
and n
their own.tee
settled industry,
among all the races subject to the Porte, holdsg out a
prospect of their ultimate equalisation and fusion,
which alone a permanent independent state bupon
can
They who look for such a final result from the present
based.
resent
turmoils must not be too impatient—too
dis-
couraged by occasional outbursts of senseless easilyand
even
destructive popular passion. Old antipathies of race are
not obliterated in a day ; rulers are aft all mere falliblere
mßuent" revolutions are not made with rose-water."
Turkey, as elsewhere, permanent order may row
out of discoura •commotions, • • grow
out since it is now clear
that the Czar's eager wishes deceived him when he flat-
tered himself that the Ottoman empire was in articuli
mortis.

DEATH [OF WILLIAMS, THE SCRIPTUEE READER.—
Poor Williams, the Scripture-reader, beaten some
months ago at Aghada, died on Saturday, at Milltown,
county oelierry, his medical attendant (a Roman Catho-
lic) stating, as we are informed, then be died of the in-
juries then received. With what feelings the intelligence
will he read by those whose consciences admonish them
of the share they bore in the assault we know not ; but
the man is dead—dead in consequence, it is medically
stated, of the cruelties inflicted by thei
illin r ha
him" nds, a
ser-
or at
their Instigation ; and if they
deem kg
vice to God," they may exult, if they like, over the suc•
cess of the means they employed to accomplish it,—
Cork oflozugitagion.