The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-07 00:00:00

THE ANNUALS.

THE LANDSCAPE ANNUAL FOR 1835.
, Jennings. London.
The subject of the illustrations of this Annual is
Granada, and a more fascinating one could not have
been selected. The very mention of the word " Gra-
nada" acts like a spell on the imagination, conjuring
up a thOusand vivid, romantic reminiscences. It bids
us think of the old glories of the Abencerrages, and
their disastrous end ; of the Fplendours of the Alham-
bra, and the Hall of Lions, with its one delicious foun-
tain, bordered by hedges of roses, and glittering with
golden fish, where the young Queen of Mahommed
the Magnificent loved at evening to resort and listen
to the songs of the gay Moorish courtiers ; of the
mountain fortress, like an eagle's eyrie, wherein the
last King of Granada made his memorable stand against
the Christian forces of Ferdinand ; of the Mosque and
the Minaret ; of the myrtle garden of the Lindaraxa, and
the " Rio Verde" of the Darro, famed for its golden
sands and the buildings that adorned its banks ;—in a
word, of all the pomp, wealth, and power, of one of
the most chivalrous, intellectual, and accomplished
people that modern Europe has ever seen. The
Moors, in every respect, were worthy of the terres-
trial Paradise they inhabited. At a period when

lick darkness brooded over the rest of Spain,

they basked in the meridian light of intellect.
Granada still bears triumphant testimony to their
skill and taste as architects ; the fragments of Moorish
songs that still survive, show what they were as pets :
and Gibbon has assured us that, as mathematicians
and philosophers, they were the instructors of Europe.
To write worthily of such a nation, requires not only
learning, but fancy also, and feeling. The mind
should kindle with the theme, for imagination has full
as much to do with it as history. Has Mr. Roscoe
conceived and executed it in this spirit ? He has,
combining in his task the fancy of the poet, with
the learned lore of the antiquarian. Nothing
can be more apt or felicitotis than his tales—

historiettes we should rather call them—illustrative of
the domestic manners of the Moors of Granada in their
" palmy days." His details too of the fall of the
Abencerrages, and the last siege of the Queen of Cities—
for which Washington Irving has supplied him with
many useful hints—►stir with life and spirit. Mr.
Roberts the artist has brought equal enthusiasm to his
task. His sketch of the " Alhambra from the
Albacim" with its broad marble terraces, richly
foliaged hills, from which rise up the many domes
and pinnacles of the Moorish palace, backed
in distance by the dim, silent, mountains, whose
cloudy summits, here precipitous, there gradual
and undulating, stretch away as if to infinity,
is a triumph of the very difficult art of per-
spective. " Palace of Generaliffe " looks like a
scene of enchantment conjured up by the wand
of a magician. In splendour and richness of
effect, it may vie with the palace of Aladdin. The
gardens however in the back-ground might have been
improved ; they are stiffly and harshly handled, though
this is the engraver's, rather than the painter's, fault.
" Descent into the Plain of Granada" displays an

infinite variety of landscape. Rocks and moun-
tains,—level plains and deep-sunk glens—here a
patch of richly cultivated soil, there a bleak and
frowning moor—are mingled, not inharmoniously, to-
gether : while the scene is hallowed by the solitary
cross reared up on a broken crag ; and its still-life
broken by a band of muleteers who are winding along
one of the defiles in front. The artful disposition
of this group is admirable. In the " Court
of the Alberta," the chief merit is the crystal

transparency of the fountain, in which the carved pillars
are reflected as in a mirror. " Ronda" is a landscape
partaking of the Swiss character. It is not engraved
in Mr. Cousen's best style, for the different objects are
huddled together, so that it is almost impossible to de-
fine them ; nevertheless, it displays skill in fore-
shortening. On the whole the Landscape Annual is
the best we have seen this year.