The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-12 00:00:00

THE PARIS EXHIBITION.

Imperial Illustrated Catalogue of its
Contents.

The Art Journal—always an elegant and attrae"
tive periodical—is this month very considerably
enhanced in value by its numbering among its co'
tents for April (among its contents both literal
and artistic) the First Portion of a magnificent
Catalogue of the newly inaugurated Paris Exhibi-
tion. Like the Art Journal itself this Catalogue is
under the able editorship of Mr. S. C. Hall, en
art-critic pre-eminently qualified to preside over
any such responsible undertaking. It is, as if in
simple recognition of these pre-eminent qualifies'
tions appertaining expressly and almost exceptionally
to Mr. Hall, among art-critics and men of letters,
as an editor worthy of being entrusted with a task
of this particular character, a task requiring at the
hands, of any such editorial supervisor a singular
aptitude for the most delicate discrimination, that
the imperial illustrated Catalogue, as we have called
it, of the Universal Exhibition now opening is
Paris —this Catalogue, the serial issue of which 1135
bat just now been commenced in the April number
of the Art Journal, has been inscribed or dedicated
" by Gracious Permission" to the Emperor of the
French. And already we can now recognise for our-
selves that there are good reasons enow why the
exceptional honour thus accorded to the Art Journal
Catalogue should have been vouchsafed to it by 110
Imperial Majesty. So far as it has yet gone it 15
worthy of it—it is worthy of assuming its place among
the Exhibition Catalogues as the Illustrated Cata-
logue, or, according to our own definition of it, as
the Imperial Illustrated Catalogue. The embellish-
ments squandered among the letterpress are profuse
and elegant—besides being sagaciously selected and
admirably well executed. Fans and caskets, toilet
bottles and paper knives, tazzas and boabounieres, _
screens and brackets, mirrors and clocks, fruit
baskets and candelabra, bracelets and brooches,
drinking horns and flower stands, vases and chim-
ney pieces—all of which more or less elaborately
ornate designs, render the pages, as we turn theca,
delightful to look at. We long for more—we look
forward to the next instalment—we begin to think
seriously of getting ready our valise, or at any rate
our sac-de-nuit, and taking a run across to Paris,
to look in ourselves and compare notes with the
Art Journal Editor and his staff of contributors, in
regard to the contents of the Great Paris Exhibi-
tion. Although having nothing whatever to do
with the Catalogue itself, upon which more
especially we have been here desirous of corn-
mentiug, three other contributions to the cur-
rent April number of the Art Journal must in jug"
tie° be particularised as especially worthy of note
before passing on from the particular subject
matter of our remarks—an excellent engraving of
Webster's delightful " Village Choir" full of Ow
racter—Cousen's graceful rendering with the
graver, of G. Smith's pretty meadow glimpse of the
Sisters"—and another cf Mr. S. C. Hall's anec-
dotal recollections—this time a witheringly
sarcastic
one of " Samuel Rogers, Poet and Banker."

BALLAD CONCERTS AT ST. JAMES'S

BALL.

The first of a series of Ballad Concerts, under the
management of Mr. John Boosey, was given hot
evening at St. James's Hall. The programme vraB
highly attractive, and included such popular
old English, Irish, and Scottish songs and ballads as
" The Curly Headed Ploughboy," " Should he
upbraid," " The Meeting of the Waters," " Drag
the Sword, Scotland," " Rich and Rare were the
Gems she Wore," " My mother bids me bind ritY
hair," " Flow thou regal purple stream," " Home/
sweet Home," "Auld Robin Gray," and a (lova
others equally well known to all lovers of
our national music. When it is added that the
vocalists who endeavoured to do justice to these de'
served favourites, and fully suceeeded in the attempt,
were such Queens of Song as Miss Louisa Pyne,
Madame Sainton-Dolby, and Madame Lemmene'
Sherrington, and such promising aspirants to
the laurel crown of music as Miss Edith
Wynne and Madlle. Liebhart, with a mascu-
line choir, including such names as those of
Nlr. Weiss, Mr. Montem Smith, and Mr'
W. 11. Cummings, enough is said to
prove that the entertainment of the evening
was of a character to deserve the patronage of
the public. And that patronage was not
scantily bestowed. The hall "was crowded in every
part with a fashionable assemblage, who justified,
by the heartiness of their applause, the belief
that has of late been gradually extending, that
Italian and German music have not yet driven
out of the hearts of the British people
the love of their old and characteristic melodies,
and of the simple songs and ballads, many a one
of which contains as much true music as a whole
opera by Verdi and other composers, who need
not be more particularly specified. Miss Louise'
Pyno was in excellent voioc, and her beautiful ren-
dering of the beautiful Irish melody, to whiell,
Thomas Moore wrote the " Meeting of the Waters,
would alone have made the concert a sae'
cess. The same lady was equally charming 13
" Home, sweet Home," and Madame Sainton-Dolby
was beyond all praise, for the exquisite feeling with
which she warbled the perennial and tin"
dying favourite "Auld Robin Gray." If we have
any objection to make to the programme it 15
sulely that it was somewhat too long ; and that .
ts
length was unnecessarily increased by the eon"
stant demand for encores ; encores which NO
cannot but think are dishonest on the part of the
public to insist upon, and unfair towards the
artistes, who are both flattered and punished by
them. The second concert of the series is fixed for
the 23d of April—Shakspere's birthday—when
selection of Shaksperian glees will be performed,
as an appropriate memorial of the occasion.

The armoured iron frigate Bellerophon, Capt. V•
Tatham, on Wednesday and yesterday weighed her
anchor from Spithead and steamed out into the
Channel, east of the Isle of Wight, for gunnel
practice, to test the iron carriages and slides for her
l2i-ton gulls. On Wednesday there was a fresh
south-west gale in the Channel, and yesterday the
wind was stiff from the W.N.W., both days giviog
unusually favourable conditions for fully testing the
gun carriages and slides. The general results of the
two days' trials have been highly favourable for the
12k-ton gun broadside system of armament. There
is but little doubt, at the same time, that the broad'
side system has reached its limit in the 121-ton gloi.
Rear-Admiral F. Warden, C. 8., her Majesty's OP
Minotaur, second in command of the Channel fleel
for the present year, with the members of the NO.',
Gun Carriage Committee, were present at the trig
on both days.
LEIGH HUNT'S BOOK ON THE SONNETS eulogise°
it as the very microcosm of poetry. " You can," he 511
" make lovo in a sonnf:t ; you can laugh in a sonnet ; P9O
can lament in it, can narrate or describe, can robulit-',
ca
admire, c;an pray."