The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-03 00:00:00

SIMMONDS'S COLONIAL MAGAZINE.

"Progress of Discovery in Australia" is an interest-
ing narrative of the return of Captain Sturt's expedition,
and is agreeably written, rather in a strain of accuracy
than of elegance. A long poem, descriptive of the
death of the Rev. Ernest Schlotz, and headed "The
Missionary's Grave," is remarkable more for its length
than for any intrinsic poetic force; the inferred moral,
however, is instructive if not very impressive. From
the statistical papers upon Van Diemen's Land and
Antigua, much useful information may be gleaned; and
the tables appear to be compiled with no inconsiderable
care. Charles Hooton supplies the most readable por-
tital of the magazine, and the "Australian Sketches"
are not devoid of an air of actuality. With its accus-
tomed amount of correspondence, and a pleasant sprink-
ling of miscellaneous sulijects, the Colonial for July is, as a
whole, creditable to its indefatigable editor.

TIIEFREEMASOIV'SQUAI!TERLY REVIE W.

lye have repeatedly had occasion to notice the meri-
torious manner in which this publication is conducted;
and, as far as its particular class. of readers is concerned,
it need dread no " damning with faint praise." " The
Freemason's Lexicon" alone, which is continued
from number to number, must prove a most
acceptable boon to all members of that mystic brother-
hood; while it evinces the earnest regard which the
entrepreneur has to their interest. One of the best con-
tributions before us is the article upon the " Knights
Templar," an order founded in 1110 by Pope Galasius.
Though at the outset this celebrated order of knight-
hood consisted of only nine members, its numerical
force increased rapidly under the foste ring influence of
the Crusaders; but " the name of Templars was only
conferred upon the members some time after the origi-
nal institution of the order. Baldwin 11. appears to
have first christened them. By the Council of Trent,
A.D. 1127, all the donations, privileges, lands, and ho-
nours granted by successive Pontiffs to the Knights
Templars were fully confirmed; but they were subse-
quently, in 1186, scattered throughout Christendom
when Jerusalem was captured by Saladin. Their prin-
cipal celebrity, as a wise, sagacious, and erudite race of
men, devoted to a half-clerical, half-chivalric existence,
dates from this period, when the Grand Master esta-
blished himself at Cyprus. They have since, after en-
jo) ing considerable political authority, dwindled
down to a comparative insignificance, and still
remain secretly in existence in various parts of
Europe. This circumstance, nevertheless, we cannot
induce ourselves to regret, as, however admirably their
power might have influenced society many centuries
back, we believe they woald be little better than a
Quixotic raco of beings now-a-days. Their time has
gone by—like many other orders, and like many empires
and cities, they have flourished, have performed the
duties for which they were summoned into being, and
have fallen. The paper in connexion with the Associa-
tion, in the Freemason's Review, is a document found
under the high altar of the Temple Church, Loudon, in
1540 ; it is an extraordinary curiosity.

ALMANACK FOR TIIE MONTH.
This little miscellany of wit, and whim, and jest, is
favourably distinguished from its predecessors by a
paper entitled " Painters and the Premier," for the in-
troduction of which the apology by which it is prefaced
is not needed. The subject is the sad fate of poor
Haydon, and every artist would do well to ponder over
the following sensible observations to which his melan-
choly history has given rise :
" Haydon's history reads a terrible lesson to the aspirant
after honour as a historical paintereen a large scale. It may
be that the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament is
but the dawn of a demand for nobler works than can be
easily accommodated in the private gallery, and which are
altogether excluded by size from the boudoir or the drawing-
room. If so, there may still be hope for the historical
painter. But the advice which we feel strongly urged by the
sad fate of R. B. Hayden to impress on the young artist, is
to strive after the elements of high art which are to be
found in lowly, but not vulgar, subjects.
" That there is, fur example, a field which nestles under
the shadow of the domestic affections, as truly now, as
when Raphael painted his Madonnas—types to all time of
maternal love and matfonly purity—is proved by such pic-
tures as the " Mother and Child" of Leslie in this year's ex-
hibition. That the colourist need not work on the scale of
Titian's canvasses, if it needed proof, is evident from the
brilliant " Mulready" which lights up the same walls. In
fact, we would recommend to the artist that attention to the
conditions of time and place which we fear poor Haydon not
only neglected, but systematically trampled under foot.
These conditions were scrupulously observed by the old
masters. 'lt is in these conditions that we find explanations
of the strangest peculiarities of form in canvasses, and what
without them would Le oddity in the arrangement of de-
signs.
"Just as much as Teniers differed from Titian, though on
different grounds, should an English artist of the nineteenth
century depart from the practice of an Italian religious
painter of the fourteenth, or a transcriber of Flemish in-
teriors of the seventeenth. It is the spirit of art which is im-
mortal. Its forms change like all other external manifeita-
Cons. While we demand of the artist this study of his own
time, and its requirements, we demand nothing inconsistent
with the highest and purest devotion to art. It is his
bounden duty, as an interpreter of the beautiful, to seek for
it in the haunts where its existence is least suspected, and to
bring it forth in forms with which it is usually held to be in-
consistent or at least incongruous."