The Sun.
London, England, 1856-06-24 00:00:00

PAINTED BY J. BARRETT.

A charming memorial of the late war is now on
view at 162, Piccadilly. It is a remarkable paint-
ing, by Mr. J. Barrett—a painting, we rejoice to
observe, now about to be engraved in the highest
style of art by Mr. T. 0. Barlow upon a plate some-
where about the size of the popular engraving of
Landseer's celebrated picture of " Bolton Abbey
—a plate which it is intended to be destroyed im-
mediately after the subscribers shall have been sup-
plied with their respective copies by the eminent
publishing firm of Messrs. Agnew and Sons, of
Manchester. The incident depicted by the artist
is one singularly deserving of commemoration. It
represents the "First Visit paid by Queen Vic-
toria to the Wounded Soldiers," upon the morning
of Saturday, the 3d of March, 1855, when her
most gracious Majesty proceeded to Chat-
' ham for the purpose of herself visiting in
person the disabled heroes who had just
then returned from the seat of war before
Sebastopol. It may be remembered that after
staying for a while first of all at Fort Pitt, our
beloved Sovereign subsequently pursued her way
to the Brompton Barraoks, in one of the wards of
which then recently organised military hospital the
scene portrayed by Mr. Barrett's skilful hand is
supposed to be situated. No less than nineteen
admirable portraits are introduced by the artist into
t his most attractive and truly historical composition.
Nineteen portraits, very interesting to look upon
nowadays, but destined to be regarded with a yet
more eager scrutiny doubtless by the spectators of
another generation. Five of the gallant soldiers
have had the additional glory of being associated
with the British Monarch in this graceful memorial
of their bravery and of their sufferings. John
M'Cabe, of the sth Dragoon Guards, who
had five sabre wounds on his body, besides
seven stabs from the lance, having his right
hand nearly severed, and losing two horses
in the charge at Balaklava ! Lying in bed is
James Higgins, of the 7th Fusilier Guards, who
had his left foot entirely carried away at the Alma,
and who only saved his life by running a distance
of forty yards upon the stump having his
leg subsequently twice amputated ! An invalid
(whose name is not given in the printed
prospectus) leans upon his elbow talking to the
Queen—who listens to him with an air of gentle
commiseration. The Prince Albert standing be-
side her Majesty, whose hand rests upon the arm
of his Royal Highness—beside the Queen and her
Consort at the end of the poor pallet, the youthfUl
heir to the throne of England, H.R.H. the Prince
of Wales, and H.R.H. the Prince Alfred, the latter
with the prettiest boy-face imaginable ! These four
likenesses of themselves would have been sufficient
to invest the picture with an enduring interest.
But besides these there are, as we have intimated,
several others, two of them soldiers from the seat
of war, and the rest either attendant upon the
Court or some of the local hospital authorities.
Of the two gallant fellows from the Crimea
whose names have not yet been particu-
larised, one is George Barratt, a private of
the 7th Fusiliers, who received at the
Battle of Inkermann a six ounce shot between
the eyes, a shot afterwards extracted, leaving only
a scar, but depriving the sufferer almost entirely
of the power both of taste and smell ! The
other is Serjeant John Breese of the 11th,
Prince Albert's, Hussars, who had his right arm
torn off by a 321 b. skit—Serjeaut Breese one
of the heroes of the famous light cavalry charge
at Balaklava a brave soldier, who distin-
guished himself at Alma, and who was only at last
wounded towards the close of the terrible struggle
on the ever memorable sth of November. Stand-
ing beside Mr. Barrett's picture as he related to
us some among the stirring incidents of the war in
which he had himself so largely participated, Ser-
jeant Breese was a living testimony of the accuracy
of this notable work of art as the production of an
historical portrait-painter. It should be remarked
that the Staff Surgeon of the Hospital, Mr. H. C.
Heade, should consider himself, we cannot but
think, very highly favoured by the artist—his figure
being about the most conspicuous upon the can-
vass ; at the first glance the hero of the scene ! In
addition to those already mentioned there are re-
cognisable in the background, very cleverly grouped
together--the Commandant of the Ca atham garrison,
Colonel Eden ; the General Commanding-in-chief
Viscount Ltardinge ; one of the ladies in waiting,
Viscountess Canning ; another of them, the Hon.
Lucy Kerr ; the welt-known Court secretary, Col.
the Hon. C. B. _Phipps; the principal medical
officer, Deputy-Inspector-General G. B. Dart-
?bell ; the wife of the Commandant of the gar-
rison, Mrs. Eden ; besides Major-General Grey,
and the Duke of Cambridge. Enough.
The subject of the picture, coupled with
the name of the artist, will be accepted -by the
discerning as equivalent to an assurance of the
painting comprising among its merits those of value,
beauty, interest, and importance, 'lt is destined;
we doubt not, to be among the most popular pic-
tures commemorative of the late war with Russia—
a memorial to be hung up by many an English
hearth, sacred as among the lares and penates of
domestic art, generation after generation.

CRIMEAN PHOTOGRAPHS.

BY ROGER FENTON.

A selection from these celebrated Photographs
having recently been published by the Messrs.
Agnew and sous, of Manchester—the firm to whose
enterprise the public is indebted for the whole of
this very remarkable undertaking—some adequate
notion may be already formed of the peculiar value
and interest attached to the work, a work altogether,
as unexampled of its kind as it is eminently
historical in its general character. Eleven spe-
cimens of the Collection find their place even
now in the subscribers' portfolio. Specimens
for the most part as brilliant as examples of the
photographic art, as they are interesting as memo-
rials of the Crimean War. Conspicuous among
them is that wondrous glimpse of the " Council of
War," held on the morning of the taking of the
Marnelon—in which are seen grouped about the
little table at the British Head-quarters, the Eng-
lish, French, and Turkish Commanders-in-Chief.
Lord Raglan, in "mufti," with white a scarf wound
round his " wide-awake," a very amiable-looking old
putleinan I And Omar Pacha, with his flashing,
eyes and silvered beard, a favourable specimen of
one of the wirey old warriors of the Osmanli ! And
Marshal Pelissier, short, stout, white-headed, whip
in hand, with an expression upon his calm fact
precisely of the very kind (cold and resolute) one
Would look for in the vi-age of the dare-devil sol-
dier who smoked the poor Arabs to death once upon
a time in that dreadful Cave of Suffocation !
Single portraits there are, too, in others of these
Crimean Photographs. Here the likeness of Sir
Do Lacy Evans—a quaint, sour-looking counte-
nance, compared not inaptly by the Athenceum, to
one's ideal of D m Quixote. There the features of
Sir Colin Campbell—hardly less quaint in aspect,
with the brow wrinkled up comically enough,
some what after the fashion of ourfavouritecomedian,
Mr. Buckstone. Examples of camp life also there
are in the collection—hardships illustrated by the
free-and-easy manner in which three British officers
are hob-nobbing round -a
wheelbarrow ! A peep at
the canteen, where sundry privates of the Bth
Hussars are clustered round the kettle, getting
their rations ! Yonder, again,• samples of the
soldier's life as it was with our heroic Allies in the
Crimea—General Bosquet seated observantly at
the opening of his tent; standing beside him
his aide-de camp, Captain Dampierre ! Or that
slap-dash of a Zouave, there, quietly smoking his
pipe while he picks off, every now and then, some
wretched victim of his unerring rifle—a greycoated
Russian with a holy medal on his breast and a bit
of black bread in his knapsack ! Besides these,
two other photographs commemorating the deplor-
able, .higgeldy-piggeldy jumble at Balaklays,—
and two more perpetuating the actual appear:
ance of things in 1854 1855 upon the Plateau
of Sebastopol. Such are the constituent parts of
this preliminary gathering from Mr. Roger Fen-
ton's three or four hundred Crimean Photographs
now in course of being issued from the press by the
eminent publishing house of the Messrs. Agnew and
Sons, of Manchester. A. collection, the intrinsic
value of which it would be difficult to esti-
mate even now when the events are almost
contemporaneous, and when the actors who look
their share in those events are, for the most part,
still surviving. Later on, when both have become
merely matters of history, it will be as wholly in-
valuable mementos of the past that these marvel-
lous sun-pictures will be examined with curious
and wondering eyes by the men, women, and chil-
dren of another, and now remote generation.

POLYCHROMATIC GLASS.—Some results have been sub-
'bitted to us of an invention by Mr. Burridge, which
has for its object the introduction of an entirely new
description of coloured glass, adapted to useful as well as
ornamental
.purposes, for which a transparent oolqured
glass, or a transparent and opaque coloured glass „com-
bined, is required. It consists in this,—that plates of
glass being formed with a different colour on each:side,
patterns are removed by an- acid, and give either one or
other of the colours, pore white, or combinations of the
two colours, according to the thickness of each left. It
' is applicable- for the windows, walls, and ceilings of build-
ings in every style of architecture, and supersedes the
necessity for any kind of lead-work. G!ass thus deco-
rated 14S a peculiar richness and brilliancy, .The js
voiltiotti cartgaly clioneo attaitiiiii=rholivitdor