The Sun.
London, England, 1856-06-05 00:00:00

IRATION.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

(FOURTH NOTICE.)
It is worthy of remark and, for that matter
too, of commendation also, that there are scarcely
so many portraits this season as have hitherto
hung upon the walls of the Royal Academ • Gal-
lery, monopolising in a most unconscionable man-
ner the lion's share of the great annual exhibition.
Yet, strange to tell, that share, iu one sense,
might not unreasonably have been claimed by
right in the present collection, seeing that so
many of the portraits actually displayed in the
suite of apartments are the portraits—veritably
—of Lions, the Lions of the social world of our
metropolis ! Incomparably and beyond all man-
ner of doubt, the Portrait of the year is that of
" Mr. David Cox" (No. 138), by Sir J. Watson
Gordon—a most life-like representation ! A very
admirable and masterly memento of one of the
most exquisite of our painters of landscapes in
water-colours—a truthful effigy of a very worthy
and gifted man, and one which, we are rejoiced to
see, is ultimately to be placed in some public
building in his native town—Birmingham. Ulti-
mately, we say, for, in the first place, the
picture is the property of old David Cox
himself, having been painted by subscription, and
" presented to him," says the Catalogue, with
more gracefulness of feeling than of grammatic
construction, "by a number of his friends and
admirers of his professional eminence and private
worth." The ingenious portrait painter himself,
to whose practised hand we are indebted for this
really charming memorial of a contemporary artist,
has, in his turn, been portrayed with a Most skil-
ful brush in (No. 170 by J. G. Gilbert, whose
ability by the way shines forth none the less re-
markably from .the circumstance of its
having to contend with the spindling ugli-
ness inseparable from that absurd garb,
popularly known as a_court costume. Besides the
inimitable portrait of David Cox, there are four
others in the Gallery this season from the easel of
the P.R.S.A., Sir John Watson Gordon—(No.
34) "Mrs. Campbell, of Monzie Castle, Perth-
shire ;" (No 358), " Professor Ferguson ;" (No.
(504) " Lieut.-Colonel Hamley, Capt. R. A.,"
interesting to the readers of Blackwool, as the
author of " The Story of a Campaign of Sebas-
topol, written from the Camp," but still more so
as the author of the charming serial tale, entitled
" Lady Lee's Widowhood ;" and (No. 424)—
most interesting of all to the lovers of Maga—
" Samuel Warren, Esq.," Q.C., F.R.S., D.C.L.,
Recorder of Hull, and Member for Midhurit in
the present Parliament. Batter than any of
which dignities won by his genius and industry,
we take to be his distinguishing title above all
others—that of Author—accruing to him prin-
cipally from his too most remarkable works " Ten
Thousand a Year," and the " Diary of a late
Physician." Interesting as the picture is as a re-
presentation of the features of the celebrated
novelist and jurisconsult, we cannot induce our-
selves to regard it as iu any high degree satisfac-
tory. The upper part of the face, the eyes, the
brow are admirably life-like and characteristic—
! but the mouth lacks at once both tho mobility
expressive of the varying sensibilities of the ro-
mancer, and the inflexible resolve at other moments
deepening the lines of a very fine judicial counten-
ance. Instead of either of which characteristic ex-
pressions there is observable upon the lips of this
portrait by Sir J. W. Gordon, only an air of
primness (so to speak) most unlike and uncharac-
teristic. Better than this as a whole, is T. Earle's
portrait-bust of the author of "Ten Thousand a
Year" (No. 1,322), in the room devoted to sculp-
ture. Out of the seven portraits contributed
by Francis Grant to this year's exhibition
we may select (No. 63) that of " His Grace
the Duke of Rutland," as about one of the
most curiously successful—the wiggiest portrait
of an old gentleman that one would wish to see any
where upon a fine day, but particularly in his
comfortable arm chair in his cosy library. The
same artist (in No. 116) gives us a posthumous
full-length effigy of "Field-Marshal Lord Raglan,"
painfully like, and as such distressingly common-
place—not by any means the beau idea/ of a vigorous
and resolute Commander-in Chief. Further on
in the list, Mr. Grant portrays, also at full
length, and "in full fig."—(No. 190), " Lieut.-
General the Earl of Lucan," hardly less than Mr.
Holman Hunt's picture, and a great deal more
than my Lord Stratford de Redcliffe—a Scape-
goat. Besides which, as yet more favourable
specimens of Mr. Grant's undiminished ability as
one of the first of living portrait-painters (No.
393), the "Right Hon. Edward Vl:lice, M.P.," and
(No. 432) the "Hon. Sir Charles Crompton, Jus-
tice of the Queen's Bench," may be mentioned,
the latter as full of dignity, the former as not in-
appropriately destined to be sent to Coventry
—to the Right Hon. Gentleman's constituents.
Celebrities, one way or another, of the most
varied kind (some of them not even restricted
to the human species—instance, No.loB, "Sandy,
the dog of the Sappers, a Crimean Hero")
attract the visitor's gaze as he saunters round
the rooms of the Academy Exhibition. Hero
(No. 93) is "Richard Owen," the Cuvier, and in
some respects much more than the Cuvier,
of our generation ; here (No. 153) is " Thomas
Carlyle," the philosophic hero-worshipper, the
unraveller of the tangled mysteries of Chartism,
the biographer of Cromwell, the historian of the
French Revolution, the translator
.of Wilhelm
Meister, the sage of Teufelsdrocht, the high pri,•st
of Transcendentalism ! Here (No. 139) is E.
Boutibonne's graceful equestrian portrait of
" Napoleon 111., the Emperor of the French ;"
and here (No. 155) is the same artist's charming
portrait (also equestrian) of his Majesty's beau-
tiful spouse, " The Empress Eugenie"—both
pictures the property of Queen Victoria ! Yonder
(No. 201) is the half-melancholy half-comical
visage of " General Sir Colin Campbell," with his
brow wrinkled up a/a Buckstone ! And yonder
(No. 207), flames from the wall " The Right
Elan. David Salomons, Lord Mayor of London "
—a picture all crimson velvet and silk stockings !
There (No. 216) is the Kossuth-like face of "Dr.
Sandwith" dreadfully called in the Catalogue,
the Author of the Siege of Kars—meaning, how-
ever, of course, a book rather than a bombardment.
There, again, (No. 249) we all recognise the pos.
thumous likeness of good, honest, earnest "Josepla
Hume," so long M.P. for Montrose, and repre-
sentative of the principle of Economy ! We don't
feel at all satisfied with W. M. Tweedie's pretended
portrait of (No. 306) "A. H. Layard, Esq., M.P.,
and cannot by any means induce ourselves to re-
gard so dull a face as that either of the learned
antiquary or the slashing debater—the member
either for Nineveh or for Aylesbury ! Accordingly,
as the visitor to the gallery is disposed, he will look
with interest or not, as prejudice or predilection
may inflame him, upon (No. 271) " Owen
Jones," the colourist ; upon (No. 326) the "Earl
of Ellesmere, K.G.;" upon (No. 425) his Ma-
j, Unclee,sty‘'LLeoeoppooldld, inugpoonf t(liNeo.Beslg3i9a)ns,t'h'
eshmreawwd.
worm of the House of Commons last- session,
ioerudt
eRn
aonbtpe rct
oGnreol s viae
on
rodr ;"A (No. 609)
and
n soldiersd
uponf rom( theN o.
doulpphouns Vane Tem-
rapetset s"e a°tn eo
f°wf
miniature painter, and as such noteworthy even
o
365) " Sir William. Charles Ross," the eminent
aortirb ebfroar ve
Sebastopol; bearded
in the remarkable group of our distinguished aca-
demicians. No one who has any appreciation for
the beautiful will fail to pause awhile before
(No 123) the charming representation of " Lady
ClementinaVilliers," by the Court painter Winter-
halter, or to cast one glance at (No. 82) Sant's
lovely Hebrew portrait of " Miss de Rothschild."
As we commenced the present notice with an
allusion to the most successful portrait in the
gallery, that of David Cox, by Watson Gordon,
so we end it now with a reference to one which
appears to us, of all, by far the most interesting,
everything considered, namely (No. 62), the por-
trait of " Charles Dickens," by Ary &heifer
Thd most interesting both in regard to
the subject and in regard to the artist
—Ary Scheffer's portrait of Charles Dickens
—the most interesting because of the two
names, but not by anT means the most satis-
, factory as an achievesairn a It is worthy of re-