The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-15 00:00:00

Hewitt, of New Orleans ; Mrs. Murray Smith, of
Alabama ; Hon. Fernando Wood, President Bar-
nard, Columbia College; Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles;
Col. Bowen, Chicago ; Frank Leslie, New York ;
M. Seymour, New York ; Hon. 11. S. Sanford,
United States Minister ; Col. Heine, United States
Army ; Mrs. Bainbridge Smith, New York ; Miss
E. B. Vance, of Tennessee, &c., &c. _ _

The English charity-ball, given on Tuesday
night, at the Grand Hotel, for the benefit of the
poor of London, must not pass " unnoticed by,"
for it well deserves mention.
The two magnificent saloons of the hotel were
thrown open, and beautifully decorated with the
flag of England and lovely flowers, while a full
band of music was placed on a raised platform at
the back part of the dancing hall.
At half-past nine o'clock the guests commenced
to arrive, and later, on the entrance of Lord and
Lady Cowley, accompanied by the lady patronesses,
the band played " God save the Q teen," all the
persons in the room standing during the perform-
ance. Among the distinguished persons present
may me mentioned Prince George, of Meck-
lenburg, Prince Achille Murat, Princess Ezen-
micheff, Lady Wellesley, Earl and Countess Cow-
ley, Earl of Brownlow, Lady 011iffe, Lord and
Lady Thynne, Duke de Vallambrosa, Duke de
Praslin, The O'Gorman Mahon, and others.
There were present also quite a number of
American ladies and gentlemen. The belles of the
evening were two English and three Ameri-
can ladies. The two who carried the palm of
beauty among the English were, indeed, beautiful,
and the adoration which they received wag most
certainly due. I ought not, being unable to give
their names, or sufficiently conversant with the
toilettes of the fairer sex, to attempt a description of
their mode of dress, which was such as to add
greatly to their charms. The three American ladies
who upheld the reputation of their country for
beauty were Mrs. Ronalds, of Boston ; Miss E. B.
Vance, of Memphis, Tennessee; and Miss Carrie
Sims, of Alabama. _ _

I remember well every graceful line of each dress,
and the tastefully selected colours, but my pen is
unequal to the description, and I will not detract
from the pleasant recollection by the attempt.
Other Americans present were—Dr. J. Marion
Sims, Dr. Pratt, Colonel Vance, Mrs. Pratt, Mrs.
Sims, Miss Sue Vance, Mrs. and Miss Hitchcock,
Mr. and Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Gowen, Miss Gowen,
Miss Carera, Miss Noble, and a few more, for
which we have not space. The ball was kept up

until four o'clock in the morning, and one and al
unite in pronouncing it a most delightful en-
tertainment.

ROME, May 27.
From the province of sculpture, where form is
all, entering that, where colour adds its beauties and
difficulties, let me begin with the studio of Mr. Free-
man, one of those longest resident at Rome, and
who is still busily adding to the products of his
pencil. I must pause to notice that his name is one
of several unreasonably omitted in Murray's hand-
book. That list is so inadequate as to demand re-
vision, which it is to be hoped it may receive. Mean-
while Americans who would know what their coun-
trymen can show worthy of examination would do
well to consult the lists at the bankers or reading-
rooms rather than that of Murray. Artists whose
arrival is recent, and whose stay is uncertain, have
of course no expectation of mention in such a work,
but in the case of one who has been located here for
more than thirty years, an omission is equivalent to
condemnation, which his works certainly do not
deserve.

To return from this digression, I would refer to
the large picture of a Tuscan peasant gathering
grapes as a pleasing representation of one phase of
Italian life. The colouring is extremely brilliant;
the face is perhaps not enough idealised, but is for
that reason more true to character ; it is that of
such a peasant as the traveller constantly sees.
The Marys at the Sepulchre, a picture well con-
ceived, but inferior in execution to the artist's best
manner, is now about to be sent to America.
Still in progress is a picture suggested by the
well-known passage in " Uncle Toby," " the accus-
ing spirit who flew up to heaven with the oath
blushed as he gave it in, and the recording angel
as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word
and blotted it out for ever." The painting promises
to realise singularly well the idea of a paragraph
with the feeling of which every one must be touched,
whatever criticism he may pass upon its theology.
The Savoyard Boy in London brings Italy and
Ireland into the edge of Cheapside. In the back-
ground the ever-rushing crowd, and the Cathedral
spire dimly seen through a London fog ; in front,
the Italian boy, his black locks drooping over his
ruddy face as his head reclines in profound slum-
ber, while a little Irish child, with the blond com-
plexion of the north, is seated on the pavement
watching the sleeper with timid pity and wonder ;
on the wall above are placards which appeared
there when the war in America, of which they tell,
was raging.
Still another unfinished picture of the Fisher-
man's Wife watching in the storm appears calcu-
lated to be very successful. The babe in the cradle
sleeps tranquilly while the storm rages with rising
fury. The hand of the mother just touches its form
with an instinctive care, while her looks and
thoughts are far away from the child and the
storm, striving to reach one little bark which bears
life's best hope.
But, in the judgment of the writer, the finest
thing in the studio, and a real gem, is a picture
called Young Italy. It is a painting of an Italian
child, so life-like that it must be a portrait, so
intellectual that it cannot be a real face just enough
idealised. Full of life and merriment, yet for the
moment abashed and shy, she shades her eyes with
one chubby hand in the attempt to execute the
difficult feat of seeing you without having seen her.
The complexion and costume are childish and
rational without being a whit exaggerated, and the
finish of the whole is very complete and consistent.
A large and fine picture of the Valley of Mexico,
displaying the mountain ranges and the city, which
are the house of the American " sick man," whose
complaint differs from that of his relative in Eu-
rope, in being of the frantic and delirious rather
than of the somnoles2ent type; a Sunset on the
Campagna, very rich in colouring, the higher clouds
perhaps a trifle hard ; a Harvest Scene, also on the
Campagna, full of bright light and life, and of the
expression of Italian customs and character cen-
turies behind the age ; a brilliant Vintage Scene ; a
group of Stone Pines in the Barberini Valley, fine
in perspective, and in what I must venture to term
silent colour, the light which sleeps, as it were, on
every object in a still summer noon ; Views out of
the Porta Salara and over the Lake of Abano adorn
the studio of Mr. Chapman.
Mr. Coleman has many fine views from different
parts of the Cornice Road, all careful studies and
satisfying expressions of colour, pictures which may
be seen often without being exhausted. To specify
one of many, the Mother and Child resting by the
sea, especially pleased me for its representation of
scenery, of national character, and of the realities
of human life and feeling.
In the same studio Mr. Butler, who has given
one arm to his country, is engaged upon a Cam-
pagna Scene, where the genuine shepherd, true to
the fact, seems trying how long it is possible to live
without thinking, leaving the exercise of intellect
and the care of his charge to a most wide-awake,
important, and dangerous-looking dog, which keeps
watch at his side. It is to be hoped this may be
followed by many others, equally successful, from
the hand of the same artist.
Mr. Inman, who has been but a few months at
Rome, has found that time long enough for very
many representations of Ronan life, executed with
a rapidity which would seem impossible from a study
of the results. Most pleasing to the writer is one
christened " Sunny Thoughts," a sweet child lean-
ing from a window, with serious but happy thought
iu her deep blue eyes, innocence and cheerfulness
in every line of her face, all according well with
the bright light which falls over the golden hair and
over the vine-leaves drooping from the casement
above.
Two views of the ruined theatre of Taurinena, in
Sicily, painted by Mr. Hotchkiss, afforded me much
pleasure.
The pictures are similar, without being identical,