The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-14 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

TURNER'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE
PLEASURES OF MEMORY, 4'c. Lox..
DON, I 533.

Mr. Rogers may well congratulate himself on
having secured the talents of such an artist as
Turner to illustrate his poems ; for, by so doing,
he has made sure of the attention of after times.
Turner has booked him for immortality. The
Pleasures of Memory, chaste, polished, beauti-
ful as they are, would scarcely have outlived
their age, had not our first landscape painter
stepped forward, just in time, to revive the fading
recollection of the public, and once more direct
its earnest attention towards them. Oa the
part of the illustrator, the task seems to have
been one quite con amore. The refined fancy
of the poet, has set his own on the work ; he
has evidently been anxious to show himself the
equal of Rogers in point of classic taste ;
and the consequence of this generous emula-
tion, has been a work which, as respects
delicacy and elaborate finish of execution, is
superior to anything Turner has yet attempted.
Elsewhere he may have shown himself more a
spendthrift of imagination—more gorgeous as a
colourist, especially in his wild, startling blues
and reds, and his singularly artificial lights ; but
here he is all grace and chasteness. His designs
are miniature gems of art—things to be wondered
over, and treasured among the pictorial Plea-
sures of Memory. Venice, with the moonlight
glimmering through an arch of the Rialto, and
streaming in a level line of mild brilliance along
the canal, is finely felt, as such a scene should
be. Keswick Lake looks just like some land-
scape in fairy-land, seen only in dreams or the
magic verse of Spenser ; and the little vessel,
with its snowy, glittering sail, which floats on
the bosom of the waters, is so much like " a
gay creature of the element," that none but a
fairy crew can possibly trim it. The leanest
poet that ever crossed the stream might
shudder to commit himself to so frail
and visionary a shallop. It would sink
even with the weight of the " Lady of the
Lake." The Boy of Egremont is a pleasing
sylvan landscape, with a fine ruin hanging among
the clouds, in a mountainous distance. Bolton
Abbey breathes the quiet, monastic air of re-
pose ; nothing stirs but a solitary heron in the
foreground, which contrasts impressively with the
still life of the rest of the scene. Turner has
walked these majestic ruins in a fitting spirit of
reverence, not unmindful of the dead. Co-
lumbus and his Son contains three figures,
exquisitely grouped, under a Gothic archway.
The bending head of the monk, whose cowl is
flung back, is the very beau ideal of grace
St. Anne's Hill, with the vacant chair of Fox,
(an exquisite idea) standing in the front ground,
under the spreading shadow of a yew, teems
with impressive associations. A Vision is not
among Turner's happiest efforts. It is tame,
prosaic, and wanting in the imaginative. The
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mers of the Enniskillen Dragoons. St. Her-
bert's Chapel is remarkable for the pictu
resque effect produced by the moonshine glim-
mering through the Gothic windows of the
Abbey, and thence reflected on the stream be-
neath. The distant mountain gorge, searched
to its lowest depths by the yellow light, adds
greatly to the impressiveness of the picture,
which is full of Turner's most marked mannerisms.
Of the remaining landscapes we have barely left
ourselves space to say, that they abound in
beauties.

The Lausanne Gazette announces that, in
compliance with an application from Austria, the Coun.
cil of State of Tessin has decided that the Italian refugees
should be compelled to quit that canton. The Geneva
Gazette at the same time states that the Italian refugees,
on presenting themselves at the French frontier, have ht en
stopped, in pursuance of an order from the Governtni nt
not to allow any such refugees to pass without being fur-
nished with passports signed by the French Ambassador in
Switzerland.