The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-11 00:00:00

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

[THIRD NOTICE. ] :
It is a source of sincere regret to us that a young
artist of such unquestionable genius as Mr. Everett
Millais should not merely be retrograding so ob !
viously in his Art, but should actually, by the man-
ner of his retrogression, be rendering himself (we
must put it in plain terms) absolutely ridiculous !
The instant impulse produced upon us, on turning
our glance either to No. 283 or to No. 408, is to
laugh outright ! The former picture being the
hideousest as well as the grotesquest within the
reach of one's imagination. The later bearing a
wonderful resemblance to a tragedy turned into a
tomfoolery. Take the first, No. 283: " A Dream
of the Past : Sir Isumbras at the Ford." There
straddles, bolt upright, on a roman-nosed cart
horse, a grim old hobgoblin, having a very thin,
grey, ragged beard (as if he had left off shaving for
about a fortnight), and his limbs (a very forked-
radish of a man !) cased in yellow plate armour !
And this is "Sir Isumbras at the Ford !" The
knight being altogether about as much like a
knight as the "Man in Armour" in Lord Mayor's
Show ! His eyes exceedingly resembling boiled
gooseberries—and his destrier being in shape and
action uncommonly like Master Jacky's notion of
a horse, as seen among the smudged sums on his slate,
or in the midst of the blotted pothooks of his copy-
book. Or—turning to the other exemplar of Pre-
Raphaelitism, No. 408, " The Escape of a Heretic,
1559 "—what other feeling but one of absolute
comicality can possibly be produced by the merest
look askance at that mock-monk's mouth in the
centre of the picture ?—a mouth, the lips of which
are sticking out into an exaggeration of a pout,
such as any wag of the schoolroom might produce if
he were "putting on" a sham fit of the sullens !
Both of these extraordinary paintings, we main-
tain, really appear as though the artist, in common
parlance, were trying to " play the fool" with the
public generally, but particularly with his admirers.
For, apart from the absurdity glaring upon us
from each canvass in turn—each, in turn, has about
it, qualities, merits, beauties, that separately, and
collectively command our admiration ! The little
boy's face (dreamy and childlike) in the " Sir
Isumbras," and the marvellous flesh tints iu the
"Escape of a Heretic"—are wonders to be hung over
in delight and astonishment. You see at once that
this great Artist has genius—but a genius that
delects perversely in a ludicrous and degrading
masquerade.
Another and a very different " Assoc ate"—
Frost—appears to be fast settling down into a
mannerism that ultimately, we fear, may degene•
rate into the merest mediocrity. No. 14, '6 Nar-
cissus" is certainly worthy of him—it is exquisite
in its classic gracefulness. But No. 161, a
" Sea Nymph ; and No. 327, " O'Donoghue's
Mistress," and No. 326, " Coaxing "—have been
seen, again and again, befure now, by repetition
upon repetition. We know them by heart. They
are exceedingly pretty—but we are quite tired
of them, if only by reason of their sameness and
monotony. Pickersgill's " Duke Orsino and Viola"
(No. 87) is a charming, and, all things considered,
a satisfactory specimen of another of our pictorial
mythologists--who has this time, however, turned
from the classic Fairyland of Paganism to the Poetic
Fairyland of Shakepere ! Poole's " Field Conven-
ticle" (No. 391) is altogether a subject too old,
hackneyed, and thoroughly used-up to interest any
one—even when rendered anew by the brush that
revealed to us Job under the weight of his House-
hold Calamities, and Solomon Eagle prophesying,
in the midst of the Terrors of the Great Plague of
London, with the burning chauldron of coala upou
his head ! Sant delights our eyes, in No. 568, with
a glimpse of " Infancy," as he sees it ! Frank
Stone has a delightful French scene of a
market-cart going by, heavily laden with
Jean Crapaud, Madame Jeannot, et sa Famille
—full of life, and fun, and natu:.—entitled "Bon
jour, Messieurs !" Goodan,
quite a companion pietist: in No. 364, has
o (in its way) to this—a
painting representing " A Wedding Dance in Brit-
tany." Out of WithrJrington's four charming contri-
butions, weN 0
.a are fain fain to select, as our especial
"Spring"—Spring as seen in
the growth, the budding,flowering
the of some
sweet virginal primroses I Linnell's No. 467,
" Where the nibbling flocks do stray." is an idyll
upon canvass—a delicious landscape. Faed
has surpassed himself this season in No.
264, " The First Break in the Family, "
incomparably, as yet, his masterpiece.
It is a picture, we are quite certain, that would
entirely delight the authoress of " John Rintoul,"
aN o. 501 ,
and " Zaidee," and " Katie Stewart," and "The
Athelings"—% painting after the heart of Margaret
Oliphant. As to the young artist who won the ad-
miration of us all last year [2,y his noble work, illus-
tz trating the Death of <<
this season full real= Chat ter ton"—Wallis—he
y
es, we had almost said more
than realizes, o
':tr expectations. No. 458. " A
Sculptor's
Workshop, Stratford-on-Avon, 1617"
nc., " Montaigne in the library of his
i
chateau, n Gascony"—are both works of indubitable
gentsis. The former especially. It is the thought
Qi a Poet-Artist—a thought worthily, nobly, ex-
quisitely realized ! Mr. Wallis has only to
advance upon the same road upon which
he has already adventured so successfully—and
Fame and Fortune are his. May he prosper—and
with life he is certain of winnins, his spurs as an
academician. For the name of another young
artist who took our praises by storm last season, we
look in vain, unhappily, now, in all this long cata-
logue—we mean Mr. Burton, who for 1856 painted
so wondrously the death of the gambling duellist
in the presence of his lady-love and her Puritan
instructor. He has contributed nothing to the pre-
sent year's exhibition. Not so W. C. T. Dobson,
who, besides another (smaller) picture, 63, "Reading
the Psalms," has a lovely scriptural painting in the
' gallery, in 556, " The Cuild Jesus going down with
his Parents to Nazareth." A very beautiful work
of art, which we long to see worthily en-
graved. J. M. Carric's two contributions
are—as any one might safely have predicated
they would be, who at all remember,' his
" two" in the 1856 Exhibition—successes. One of
them especially—the landscape, No. 542, "Rydal,
Westmoreland." The precise meaning of the
second, No. 996, " Waiting for the Stage Coach-
17th Century," we must acknowledge we don't
rightly comprehend. This is poked away in the
North Room—a room generally rather chilly and
deserted. In the South Room, we recognise, with
a now accustomed satisfaction, many new specimens
of T. Carrick's admirable skill as a painter of minia-
tures half a-dozen, in fact, altogether, among
which half-dozen we may particularise os. 725,
and 702 as particularly excellent. In the same
apartment, among the miscellaneous drawings, we
must especially notice No. 914, by F. Piercy—a
charming sketch of "A Garden-gate, near that of
Osborne." In one of the larger rooms, O'Neill
evidences afresh his vivid appreciation of
the humourous in No. 541, representing
"The Last Day of a Sale," in which
we have drolly delineated, for our amuse-
ment, all the hubbub, crush, and confusion,
familiar to every practised auctioneer. G. Land-
seer's graceful portraiture, in No. 641, of " Miss
Matthews and Favourites," does credit to the
young artist's ssnse of the True and Beautiful--
whether viewed in regard to the young lady her-
self, the pony, the dog, the butterfly, or the land-
scape. Gen-rally spe tking, however, this season,
the Portraits without revealing amongst them
any Great Success—are more than usually meri-
torious.

SHOCKING ACCIDENT.—About four o'clock on Friday
afternoon an accident occurred on the London and
North-Western Railway, at the coal-yards crossing, near
the passenger station, Fishergate, Preston, by which a
woman named Jane Waddington was instantaneously
deprived of life. The unfortunate woman was returning
home, having two bundles of rod iron she had been pur-
chasing for her husband, who is a blacksmith, in one
arm, and an infant is the other. She was accompanied
by a woman, and when on the point of crossing the line
to go into Dock-street a coal train came up from a siding
and proceeded towards the tunnel. The woman waited
until the last waggon had passed, and were cro,siog the
line, when a luggage-train, which had been hidden from
their view by the coal-train, emerged from the tunnel in
an opposite direction. One of the women succeeded in
clearing the train, buL the other (the deceased) was
might by the buffer and thrown upon the line, the train
passing over her body, hands, and legs, cutting off one
of her breasts, and teal-leg away a portion of flesh from
various parts of the body, tier iu4et was thrown ff.'''.
ward out of her amyl! AO OA folintllll.±.l near to her
aide in the R set space; Beyond being a good des! I
shaken the child was hot injtired. The deceased was I
about 35 years elt4., and has left a family of three tihildren.
te be hoped for the future safety of the public that
%,11.(3, railny rtuiborittol ',‘l!! to 6 sot+ipelled to erect
bridge et this stiet., several accidents of a fatal nature
naving previously happened by pe4sons having to cross
the metal,, ttite uangerous piade tdr d #feseinef cifin-
boi; be conceived, for in addition to the large number of ,
regular trains passing over the line at this point coal-
trains are often standing or shunting. It is stated
that the corporation have given their sanction to the
stoppage of the crossing. No blame is attributed to the
engine-driver, as it was impossible for him to have
stopped the train and prevented the accident, and he had
given the usual sigbal of danger—the whistle. At an
inquest held on the following day (Saturday) a verdict
of "Accidentally Killed" was given, and the jury re- I
commended that some steps be taken at the place
where the accident occurred for the future safety of
the public.

LATEST NEWS.

THE OVERLAND MAIL.

We have received the following telegraphic
despatch from Mars Pines :
MARSEILLES, SUNDAY, MAY 10.
We have advices from Alexandria to the 2d of
May.

The Bombay mail arrive 1 at Suez on the 30th of

April.

There are no tidings of the Calcutta mail.
The capture of Mohammerah on the 26th March
by General Outram with a force of 4,500 men,
which left Bushire on the 19th, is confirmed.

The entrance of the Karoon had been skilfully
fortified by the enemy, but the forts were silenced

by the steamers in two hours.

Prince Khanlas Mirza, at the head of 13,000
men, fled, with a loss of 200, leaving ammunition,
stores, camp equipages, and 17 guns.

General Stalker and Commo lore Etheridge have
both committed suicide in a moment of temporary

insanity.
The Bombay money-market was improving.
The import-market was fair.
Freights were falling.

MALTA, MAY 7.
Lord Elgin passed Malta on the 2d of May.
Lord Lyons' squadron continues in Valetta