The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-27 00:00:00

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Thug BUN LONDON,' MONIii'A. MORNING A Pit IL 2i [Lk

EXHIBITION OF THE SOCIETY
OF PUNTERS IN WATER COLOURS.
The forty-second exhibition of this society, which will be
open to the public on Monday, was opened for private view
on Saturday, at one, at the Society's Gallery, 5, Pall. mall
East. The number of paintings exhibibited is 320.
The President of the Society, Copley Fielding, has, as usual,
contributed largely to the exhibition. His landscape, No.
70, " Ben Cruacban," seen from the moors above Taynuilt,
Argyllshire, is one of the most beautiful specimens of this
master in the exhibition. His view, No. 10, " Dunster, with
Minehead Point, Somersetshire," is also an exquisite little
bit of •landscape. S. Prout contributes several of
his fine architectural pictures. His " Hotel de Ville " at
Oudenarde, Flanders" (204), is one of those magnificent
specimens of architectural drawing that no one but Prout

LITERATURE.
THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. No.
Our blue and buff philosopher Concludes his eighty-
third volume with more than usual vigour and variety.
Foremost undoubtedly in importance, and possibly in
literary merit, as it actually is in posi*ion, the article on
"Ile,Lord Chancellors of England" engages our espe-
cial notice. Whether the three volumes recently issued
by Lord Campbell
(and upon which this preliminary
article is founded) be regarded as the production of a
liberal ex-Chancellor, the fruits of a career of untiring
erudition, or the effusion of a purely analytical intellect,
they must be looked upon as volumes of no ordinary
character. Through the intervals of his Parliamentary
occupations, Lord Campbell has striven, with no puny
or unsuccessful effort, to erect a monument by
which he may at once ensure the per-
petuity of his fame, and throw a stream of elucidatory
light into many of the most dusky and impenetrable
quarters of history. A most splendid section of bio-
graphy was to be devoted to the romance, the dignity,
the wisdom, the grandeur, the power, and the ac-
quirements of the Lord Chancellors of Great Bri-
tain, a line of men which Mr. Addison has correctly
declared to have accumulated in itself more intellectual
and worldly capacities, and to be, in all essential parti-
culars, more truly illustrious than any other office or
profession possibly in the world. From the accession of
William the Conqueror to our own immediate genera-
tion, the sealsand the royal conscience have remained in
the custody of men remarkable for some one or other, or
occasionally for a combination of all the lofty qualities
which we have just enumerated. Whether se regard
the gorgeous integrity of Becket, the protracted influ-
ence of Burnel, end the imperial magnificence and pon-
tifical supremacy of Wolsey, or descend to a considera-
tion of personages no less extraordinary who have in these
modern times presided over the High Courts of Chancery
—Eldon, and Brougham,
and Cottenham, and Lyndhurst
—there was almost every accessory attraction combined
in the theme undertaken by Lord Campbell ; there were
abstruse inquiries for the scholar, incidental discoveries
for the antiquary of letters, romantic alternations of
fortune for the indolent, sagacious inferences for the mo-
ralist, texts of thought in almost every page for the
philosopher, instruction for the sedate, amusement for
the volatile. Every grade of intellectual capacity, every
shade of temperament, every bias acquired in educa
tion was separately appealed to by the very title of the
literary venture. ." The Lives of the Lord Chancellors
of England." Attention was thus excited towards
and interest engaged in the undertaking : the
first series of the work has already appeared
and its reception has been commensurate with its pro-
mise. From the woolsack, and in the presence of the
assembled peers, the author has been complimented
for the work by the Lord Chancellor, Lynd-
hurst ; criticism has pronounced in its favour ;
even the .Edinburgh Review, whose reluctance
to praise has become proverbial, says, in regard to the
labour and the labourer—"We must not wish that Lord
Campbell may be permitted to finish his ' Lives of the
Chancellors of England' in the uninterrupted leisure
of a lean of letters ; but it is a great pleasure to us to
find that his well-earned leisure is h 0 happily em-
ployed." A concession that I drawn forth by the
greatness of the subject, and the skilfulness with
which it has been accomplished. Almost the entire
of the criticism—if it can be so designated—
in the Edinburgh Review, is devoted to a dry
account of the rise and establishment of the Chancellor-
ship, an account which can be gleaned from almost any
or every encyclopmdia. Two only of the renowned men
who have filled that office are selected for scrutiny by
the reviewer—both of them great men, one of them as
good as be was great, the other—we recoil even from
confessing to ourselves the ignominy which is attached
to the lustrous and unfading memory of Francis Bacon ;
as we linger over the moral beauty of Sir Thomas
More with astonishment and rapture. The latter, so
gentle, so guileless, so witty, so wise, so genuine in his
moral attainments (we might almost call them his mo-
ral perfection), so dignified in his simplicity, and yet of
such " homespun" excellence, as Sit James Mackintosh
has happily expressed it. The former, so majestic in
his genius, so profuse in his capacity, so flawed and tar-
pvilerstueosf
of
fopruralibtf tut more espe-
cially,ty
.indepen-
dence:and
" dedicated by nature a high priest of knowledge,
human and divine;" fallen to a proportionate lowliness
nished
as in
regardshis principles
in the estimation of a lamenting but reverential
posterity. Whether we accumulate our information
respecting Sir Thomas More from the tender revelations
of Roper, or the precise narrative of the great Chancel-
lor's grandson ; whether we collect the materials
of his career from the correspondence of Erasmus,
the careful summary of Hoddeston, or from
that masterpiece of biography his life as writ-
ten by Sir James Mackintosh, we cannot but
revere More for the angelic purity of his heart, love him
for the exceeding and unaffected tenderness
of his nature, and entertain sentiments of the
deepest admiration for the accurate balance
and lofty capabilities of his intellect. Ad-
mirably is he christened by the historian "a martyr to
truth ; his name, if not the proudest, is, without one
moment's question, the most unsullied in the his-
torical records of our country. For the impu-
tations of intolerance and religious persecution
east upon the memory of More, by our re-
viewer, are, we undertake to assert, based upon his own
contorted view of passages in the " Apology," and upon
the questionable evidence of Fox. For a thorough
refutation of these accusatory remarks we
refer our readers, and the reviewer himself, to the pages
of Mackintosh, which, notwithstanding the writer al-
ludes to as familiar to himself. we conjecture, have not
met his perusal very recently, or in that case have been
consulted with random precipitation. Of Bacon our
language is too feeble to express our feelings of
admiration, and our admiration too exalted and sin-
cere to allow us to expatiate upon the demerits
—" for," as the writer of this article in the
Edinburgh Revview exclaims, "his genius, and
for the glory of it, the world is not large enough
to contain them." An after-observation, in the same
article, is beautiful in its emphasis, in its expressions of
awe, and the mournful hopelessness of its desires. It is
this—" Our reverence for the genius of Bacon is so
great ; we have that sense of what we owe him
for the delight and profit mankind have reaped
from his immortal writings ; we feel so deeply
what it is we lose in hope and glory, and how
all that is most magnificent in the prospects
of human nature is clouded over by that melan-
choly antithesis which holds forth Bacon as
at once the wisest and the meanest of
mankind ; that nothing can be thought of in the way
of monument or reward which ought not to be gratefully
bestowed, not only by lellow•couetrymen, but by fellow-
men, for a nobler restoration of attainted blood than ever
fell to the office of any herald; upon the man who should
indeed remove "the blot of ignomy" from that still most
resplendent name. Bat, unfortunately, the facts,
and the one rational construction of them, admit
of neither gloss nor question." Such was
the contradiction of the character of this
wonderful mortal, so vast were his powers of mind and
so little his powers of self-control, so exalted his genius
and so paltry his abasement that we recur to his career,
in one and the same moment, with feelings of pride, and
exultation, and reverence, and with feelings which (but
for a certain sense of awe) would actually merge them-
selves into scorn. Of the dead, however, nil nisi bonuni;
it is a a good adage, and costs nothing in the fulfilment.
So in reference to the greatest of modern philosophers,
and the only one who can, in a relative sense, be coupled
with Aristotle, we would leave his culpabilities to his
Maker, and turn with a solemn gratitude to the nobler
deeds he has accomplished. We gladly recognise in
this number of the Review a tribute paid individually
to the merits of two of our contemporary authors—one
still living, the other in a premature grave—Thomas
Hood and Walter Savage Lander. Yet, though we ac-
knowledge the general sagacity which pervades the
analysis of the poetical powers of Hood, we are sur-
prised to find one of his most delicate and chastened
poems (44 The Bridge of Sighs") carped at for what the
critic is pleased to christen its "falsetto tone." If there
be really anything like a "falsetto tone" about this
pure and generous chant, it is in the theme itself—and
surely that theme deserves a venture of this kind, even
at the risk of its merit being cavilled at by an Edin-
burgh Reviewer! What is possibly the chief charm in
the "Bridge of Sighs " is the exquisite adaptation of
words, thoughts, allusions, even of the fantastic metre
itself, to the suicide of a young female. The estima-
tion of Landor's character and position as a writer is
deserved, is honest, is just :—" perhaps no writer of the
present age is more likely to survive and make acquaint-
ance with another." It will be some satisfaction to that
venerable sage to hear this prediction of his fame from
such an organ, to taste in those words the sweets of the
reflection that his life has not been all useless—that
he
has laboured his allotted labour—that he may fold his
arms and rest, until his hour of probation has reached
its close. Particular attention should be given to two
other articles, " The Administration of Charitable
Trusts," and the " Government of Dependencies," evi-
dencing, as they do, retentive erudition, clear observa-
tion, and cautious arrangement, though occasionally the
arguments employed are rather more hasty than appo
edit. -
site. A survey of " Wilkes' Exploring Exn "
t ion is
interesting ; and the notice of Duve-
yrier s work as
illustrative of certain " Political Views of Frenchs, Af-
fairs," is replete with important considerations• As the
leader of that regenerative spirit which is d •
con ucting
the whole European system to better days, to a more
extended consonance of religion and government, to
a
o
greater diffusion of happiness, and consequently t
greater diffusion of knowledge, Prance
must ever a
en-
gage the sympathies of the most remote as wellas of
the most adjacent states. She has offered up her
cll l -
dren, as it were, as a holocaust to the cause
of universal
emancipation, and has thus acquired for herself the re
rogative of marshalling the world to freedom, and to
what men of ardent imaginations might be pleased to
designate the millenium.

can give us.
Among the most eminent of the contributors to the exhi-
bition is ➢lr. George Fripp. His picture, No. 3, " Scene of
the Coast, near Lulworth," is a fine representation of the
bold rocky scenery of the Dorsetshire coast, treated in the
most artist ical manner.
No. 66. "The Unwelcome Return," by Cattermole. The
return of a knight from the Holy Wars. He has arrived
within his own domain, and there is none to welcome him.
The trees in this picture are exceedingly beautiful.
No. 58. " Irish Courtship ;" and No. 180. "Irish Reap-
ers meeting their friends kfier harvesting in Eng-
land," by Alfred Fripp, are both gems of art.
The first consists of two figures, the lover and his'
sweetheart. The anxiety which is expressed in his features
while he is pouring the tale of love into her ear, contrasts
admirably with the coquettish yet warm-bearted expression
of her countenance—it is evident he is pleading
his cause before no unfriendly tribunal. The last is
a large picture, and the subject is treated in a spirit of
reckless joyousness which would not have been unworthy of
Wilkie. J. D. Harding gives us a splendid landscape (No.
118), "The rangeof the highest Alps, taken from the road be-
tween Como and Lucca, Como in the distance ;" and Gusti-
nean gives us a most brilliant landscape, " Tantield, York-
shire." (No. 15). We had marked out several others fur no-
tice in our catalogue, but we must reserve them for another
opportunity.

NEW SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN

WATER COLOURS.

Like the old society, this society opened its annual exhibi-
tion at the Gallery, 53, Pall-mall, for private view, on Sa-
turday morning, preparatory to the public exhibition on
Monday. While the oil painters seemed to have
given up even the attempt to paint a picture of a
high order of art, the water-colour painters, more particu-
larly the members of this society, not only make the attempt,
but succeed in it. We have in this exhibition several pic-
tures of the very highest order of art, and first. we
would mention, No. 132, "Christ raising from death
the daughter of Jairus," by Edward Corbould. This is
really a fine picture; the subject is treated with true
artistic feeling. It is true, the expression of the coun-
tenance of the Saviour is somewhat wanting in majesty, but
that is a fault which is common to almost every artist who
has treated the subject. The finite can never compre-
hend or express the infinite. But the expression of the
features of the daughter of Jairus is exceedingly beautiful,
there is about it that sort of indescribable expression of calm

which is produced by pain that has ceased : the deep
anxiety of the mother, as kneeling by the side of the bed she

watches her child, and the humble adoration of the father
who, bowed down by sorrow, partially hides his face
in his hands as be kneels, are given in a
manner that proves the artist must not only have
been an attentive student of the old masters, but
that he has drawn his inspiration from the same source from
whence they derived theirs—the study of nature. The
grouping is most artistical, the drapery is flowing and well
managed, and the colouring brilliant. It is a great picture.
No. 166. " The welcome of the boy King Henry into
London," is!t painting 'from the cartoon on the same subject
by the same artist, whiCh was exhibited at the Art-Vnicin
cartoon exibition, and is very. brilliant. - .

No. 195. " BY tliewaters of Babylon, there we sat down ;
yea, we wept when we remembered Zion," H. P. Riviere, is
a fine subject finely treated. The expression of grief in the
countenances of the women, and of despair and hatred in
those of the men, is very fine. The oriental cast of the fea-
tures is well preserved, and the grouping is admirable.
No. 100. "Wickliff Defying the Mendicant Friars," E. H.
Wehnert.—" While at Oxford, Wickliff was assailed by
severe sickness, and reports were circulated of his approaching
death. The mendicant friars, with whom he had for sometime
been engaged in a sharp controversy, considered this to be a
favourable opportunity for obtaining a recantation of his de-
clarations against them. A doctor from each of the privi•
leged orders of beggars, attended by some of the civil autho-
rities of the city, entered the chamber of Wickliff. detailed
the wrongs they had suffered from him, especially by his
sermons and other writings ; and as death now appeared near,
they concluded he must have feelings of compunction on this
account, and therefore expressed a hope that he would not
conceal his penitence, butlwould distinctly recal whatever he
had said against them. Wickliff listened to their address un-
moved ; but when it was concluded, he started up in his bed,
and exclaimed loudly, 'I shall not die, but live, and shall
again declare the evil deeds of the friars.' The appalled
doctors hurried fram the room, and the prediction was ful-
filled." The manner in which this subject is treated is good.
Wickliff, who is rising from his bed, is held back' by a female
in attendance on him ; and who seems terrified at the scene,
and fearful lest he should, by his exertion, destroy himself.
At the head of the bed stands the leech, prepared to
administer some remedy ; and the friars are at the
bottom of the bed, ietiring in a group. The varied
expression of the countenances of the friars is
admirable; in some terror prevails, and in others baffled
hate and smothered rage. Wickcliff seems a perfect incar-
nation of mental energy. This picture has but one fault...
the draperies are not well managed, they are somewhat
wrinkly.

Aaron Penly gives us some rich and glowing landscapes
which are exceedingly beautiful. When all are so fine, it I;
really difficult to particularise. And on referring to eue
catalogue to guide us, we find we have marked all Penly's as
excellent.

No. 63. " Dutch Ferry on the Mouse," by E. Duncan, is
a beautiful bit.

No. 54. " A Tiff," by J. Jenkins, is an exceeding clever
picture. It is a lovers' quarrel; they are sitting
back to back the lady sulky, the gentleman
somewhat impatient. He is looking over his
shoulder at her, but is evidently prepared to turn his head
away the instant she shall look towards him ; of
which, however, there seems little probability.
There are some exquisite fruit and flower pieces, among
which we would particularise No. 37, " Gathered in a hurry,''
painted by Mrs. Harrison, as particularly deserving of
notice. The lateness of the hour compels us ielactantly to
close this hasty notice, and to defer to another opportunity
our remarks on many other exquisite specimens of art in
this delightful exhibition.

3Bvyoitsh.e Autitorof " iliount
viotliulteer,easfttse'r aTehaerreeful and attentive pe-
imperceptibly, uncon-
EMThiiLsliAs interestingaWdeY.eNplpyBllAreir? ; and highlya re
fee
vnvtwer
who
oainwin
Will
l
work—and something more, and something far higher
and far better. It will instruct while it entertains, will
sciously, perhaps, a little the better, a little the wiser for
closeirmu spioover the t
he third
its teaching. Example has always' more force, always
far more efficacy than any 13!'cept, and few
whilewhole, without being
learned
homilies or wise discourses could persuade so gently, or
convince so powerfully, as the simple stet.y, ,
of Emilia
Wyndham. Contrary to all the rules of romance, in
direct opposition to the favoured theories of novel
readers, it speaks of the quiet duties of domestic life.
It would inspire the noble courage not to brave the
storms of adversity, the face_ of danger, the front of
battle, in which the ordinary heroine delights, but to
encounter and overcome, steadily, Patiently, uod calinly,
the petty cares, trials, and anxieties of every-day life.
Such an endeavour way seem illsignifictuat, humble, wa•