The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-04 00:00:00

PRUSSIA.

The King has sent the following reply to the
address presented to him by the municipality of
Berlin on the occasion of his Majesty's birthday:--

" I have to return my sincere thanks to the
magistrates and town authorities of Berlin for the
good wishes expressed by them towards me on my
birthday. Although I keep this day for the first
time since my accession to the Government, it must
give rise to very complicated feelings, which im-
pose on me a greater retirement ; yet the universal
sympathy expressed by the inhabitants of Berlin
towards me on the day has not escaped my notice,
but has left a pleasurable impression on my heart.
Doubly joyful, however, are the assurances of con-
fidences which the authorities of the town bring
to me in the name of the corporation, and which I
hope to justify through my government. May I
succeed in keeping the storms which threaten
Europe far from our country in order that we may
undisturbedly promote our internal development,
and devote all our powers thereto. May the Lord
grant us His blessing and His assistance for this
purpose.
" Berlin, March 28, 1861." " WILLIAM.

THE SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY.

Although, according to custom, we duly at-
tended upon the occasion of the Private View of
the pictures here collected together, and although
we have since then revisited the Gallery for the
express purpose of subjecting its contents to a
more careful and deliberate examination, we have
been precluded until now from making any com-
ment upon this, The Society of British Artists'
thirty-eighth Annual Exhibition. Upon considera-
tion, however, the delay is by no means matter
of regret to ourselves. For upon a closer scru-
tiny of the 877 works of art here distributed
over the walls of this ample suite of apartments
—upon a much closer scrutiny than was in any
way practicable upon the afternoon of the Pri-
vate View, when the Five Rooms were thronged
by far more than the usual number of art con-
noiseurs, we have found reason to modify in some
particulars our estimate of the general character
of the present year's collection. Several of the
less obtrusive and more meritorious contributions
to the Gallery win the attention only after the
eye has become accustomed to the glare of the
great majority of productions here exhibited,
those more gorgeous, and in one sense more am-
bitious paintings by which they are surrounded.
Scattered at rarest intervals through the
collection, there are undoubtedly noticeable
here and there, even at a superficial glance,
a " select few" among these 877 pictures,
that are at once recognised as remarkable,
that almost instantly captivate more or less of our
admiration. But with the mass of paintings in
this collection, it is really and truly (without one
particle of exaggeration) very much indeed what
it was with a certain class of quasi poetry, accord-
ing to a memorable phrase in one of Lord Macau-
lay's most formidable criticisms. The art here
revealed for the most part is indubitably, as Ma-
caulay pronounced its sister art to be in the instance
elf the unfortunate metrical aspirant then under
the lash of that terrible Edinburgh Reviewer—of
tine " Turkey.carpet " school or character. " His
writing," quoth Macaulay, " bears the same rela-
tion to poetry which a Turkey-carpet bears to a
picture. There are colours in the Turkey-carpet
out of which a picture might be made. There are
words in these writings which when disposed in
certain orders and combinations, have made, and
will again make, poetry. But, as they now
stand, they seem to be put together
.on prin-
ciple in such a manner as to give no image
o'f anything, in the heavens above, or on
the earth beneath, or in the waters under the
trth.'" It is, we repeat, with the bulk of these
petintings as it was with the bulk of that sot-disant
pc retry : here, as there, the art is unquestionably of
the Turkey-carpet style or character. Remember-
ing what the limner's art can accomplish, remem-
Naring what it can be and has been—
" Caracei's strength, Corregio's softer line,
Paulo's free stroke and Titian's warmth divine—"
(Pope's Epistle to Jervas.)
oiae cannot view the generality of tne pictures here
ellhibited without a certain sense of depression, with-
ou: t experiencing a certain solicitude for the prospects
of the British Artists of whose skill (or rather want
of it) they are the manifestation. Altogether the
twofold character (already specified) of the Exhibi-
tiott now opened for the current season in the Suf.-
foLls-street Gallery is, to us, in one sense exceed-
in g:ly like a realization of Mason's art•rule from
D xi Freenoy—
" Forbid two hostile colours close to meet,
And weave with middle tints their union sweet ;
Yet varying all their tones, let some aspire
Fiercely in front, some tenderly retire."
Here, without doubt, the more flagrant majority of
th e pictures now being exhibited do certainly aspire
" iiercely in front"—"with a vengeance. While some
as certainly—the consoling minority—" tenderly
ret ire," have for the most part to be looked for—but
the se " when found," after Captain Cuttle's plan, we
" n lake note of" on the margin of our catalogue.
Gonspienous among the more outrageous majority
oit the Exhibitors, however, must assuredly be
el used Mr. Tinrlstone himself, the Society's Presi-
dent. His indfistry, season after season, we pre-
suiue, meets with its reward somewhere—certainly
wins from us, and we believe from the gene

raJity also, but a very small modicum of admiration

Magnificence of colouring he does unquestionably
impart to his canvass, with the affluent brush of a
house-painter, almost, one might fancy,
at times
with the lavish trowel of a plasterer. 284,
" Spanish peasant girls of the spurs of the Alpujarras
tountains," estimated in the catalogue at 125 guineas
may be particularised as one of the most notable
ai nong the six specimens displayed by him this
y( sar, exemplars of his bad drawing and of his
ga.;udy audacity as a colourist. Another well known
member of the society, Mr. Woolmer, contributes
to' the Gallery this season as many as seven of his
mannered productions—productions almost equally
glaring in hue, decidedly better in drawing, occa-
sionally more careless in manner, always more
vague and mystical in significance. Of these, No,
285 4( The Bridal Wreath," may be specified, as,
perhaps,out of the whole seven, the least meretrici-
ous. Mr. Pyne, another eminent member, once one
(sr the glories of the Society's Gallery, contents him.
$e If this year with a single production, a little cabi.
quite unworthy of his genius,
thL
)t picturues:"Nßome73,
from the Ilex Walk," in the
iPin'wig
eiann Gardens. Un worthy of Mr. Pyne's
gimius, that is to say, not so much intrin-
oillally, not so far as the little painting itself goes
but simply viewing it as the one solitary product
of his indisputably large abilities. A charming
embodiment of " Summer," No. 172, by J. J. Hill
'another popular member of the Society), a picture
e.ilmost instantaneously lit up in the margin
by that little green ticket so dear to an
artist's eyes—the little green ticket roguishly

pinmed to her stomacher by Ethel Newcome

when affianced to the Marquess of Farintosh—

1g Summer," As she is there depicted by Mr, Hill,