have brought to the execution of the task all of his great resources. The expressions of the woman's face, in its dire conflict with emotion, are fearfully and wonderfully pictured. "Judgment of Paris," by Rubens.-The scene represented is the famous award of the apple, by Paris, to the belle of the mythologic heavens. The rival Goddesses are gathered in an excited group about him, plying the lucky dog with all the cajolements, and hopes of earthly reward, which their sex and Goddess-ship authorized them to employ. The celestial candidates are utterly bereft of dimity, and appeal to the umpire with a burst of undisguised outlines, altogether trying on a youth of sensibility. Mr. Paris, however, scrutinizes the palpitating tableau with a mixture of gusto and sang froid, which quite edifies the beholder. He is clearly not insensible to the advertised symmetries, but at the same time, he keeps one eye vigilantly fixed upon the commercial aspect of the situation. He has a wholesome relish for florid tints, and a toothsome physique, but has no thought of sinking the man of business in the connoisseur. obvious, that whatever may be the bent of his private admiration, Paris will elect a Queen of beauty, whoever offers the most congenial bribe. Rubens must have wrought the work con amore, for it is certainly a master-piece of naked flesh and warm color. It is "Abduction of the Sabine Women, by Rubens.—In the description of excited and inflamed multitudes, Rubens seems to me to realize his greatest power. "The abduction of the Sabine Women" is a capital illustration of this. Not one of the heterogeneous elements, which must have entered into such a fierce medley, appears to have been omitted. The rape is before us throbbing with life. The amorous and headlong Romans, the spurred and neighing horses, the overturned seats, the torn dresses, the floating locks, the rank exposure of person, the savage grapple of the ravishers, and every other physical accessory of the melange, are reproduced with thrilling fidelity. Nor is the moral physiognomy of the scene less faithfully delineated. There is hardly a mental condition, that such circumstances might naturally engender in different organizations, which is not typified in the face of one or more of the captured women. Some of them, stark from fear, or stolid from indifference, lie in the ravisher's embrace, prone and mannerly. Some of them, full of outraged modesty and pluck, wage a valiant war of nails. Some of them offer but a coy illusion of resistance, as if they half courted the violence they assume to repel. Some again frankly applaud the rape, while others lie dead afaint, with their alabaster faces turned pitifully to the skies, and their black hair drifting in the wind, like flags at half-mast. Raising of Lazarus," by Sabastiano del Piombo.-There is a horrible magnificence about this painting, which all of its gorgeous. ness of color seems rather to heighten, than to mitigate. The ghostly grave-clothes, the frightened by-standers, the appalling figure of the resurrected himself, evoked supernaturally from death to life, and appearing too direfully wedded to the one, ever to be cordially reconciled to the other again, are set forth with a shocking adherence to truth. The image of death it arouses is so real, so carnal, that the idea of resurrection is completely disguised. The train of thought originating from it, therefore, is rather impulsive than attractive, and thus it was with a sense of relief that I turned from its contemplation, to the picture of Daphnis and Chloe," by Paris Bordonne. This small painting attracts more attention, I verily believe, than any other one in the National Gallery, and yet, it is only after much deliberation, and still with a sense of reluctance, that I consent with myself to describe it. The treatment of its theme is somewhat prurient, and the association of ideas engendered is not altogether friendly to purity of imagination. Notwithstanding this, it bears the palm of popularity, and from the opening of the gallery to its close, the space in front of this little picture is crowded with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, canvassing its graceful features with eager looks. A description of it then is probably warrantable, since it will indicate what manner of thing it is, which solicits with success the suffrage of so many eyes. In it, Daphnis, a remarkably handsome fellow, is depicted by the side of Chloe, a remarkably handsome girl. His audacious fingers have ruffled her snowy robes, revealing above the dimpled knee. Her hand, pressed upon his, gently arrests the movement. In this position they sit, with anxious expression, as if listening to something, or for somebody. The abstract quality of grace could not, it appears to me, be more bewitchingly personified. Considered from an Exeter-Hall point of view, especially after a fine ventilation of the negro question, it is doubtless very shocking. Leaving out of consideration, however, the whatever-respects in which it may be obnoxious to a sound morality, it will always remain to true lovers of the beautiful in art a most charming creation. "Susannah and the two Elders," by Guido.-In Susannah is represented the best naked figure in the collection; which is something of a distinction, for there is an army of handsome women in the Gallery, with all their charms candidly unmasked. The form of Susannah is the coup de grace, the ultimate possibility of voluptuous symmetry; while the face, half-withdrawn, shy, and blushing, shines through its expressions of pain, with the light of tender beauty. The portraits of the two elders exhibit the same power of strong, dark delineation, so characteristic of Rembrandt. As expounded by Guido, this pair of respectable Jews are fine instances of that hard-mouthed, pig-headed kidney, which is so handsomely represented, even in our Christian church; gentlemen who indulge a fine verbal adoration of the virtues, and great tenderness, in practice, for a savory vice. I cannot close this cursory glance at the "National Gallery" without saying a word about the Madonnas. I presume there are not less than one hundred pictures of the Holy Mother, in this repository. Correggio has a Madonna, Guido has a Madonna, and nearly everybody who has been able to smuggle in a picture, has a Madonna. There is a Madonna in almost every imaginable attitude of body, and frame of mind. There is a Madonna looking solemn, another looking pleased, another looking pensive, another disposed to smile, and another threatening to burst into tears. One Madonna is suckling the child, one is contemplating him with a very speculative expression; one looks as though it would be a great satisfaction to her to pull the baby's ear, while another has him on her knee, and worships him devoutly. There is a Madonna in every conceivable aspect, and in not a single one is she handsome; in not a single one, of a noble appearance; in not a single one, even moderately comely. She is uniformly rendered as incurably ugly. Every man who starts out with an ambitious brush, seems to consider it is due to the age he proposes to illustrate, to paint a Madonna. He accordingly does so, and in nine cases out of ten, he afflicts us with a pair of saucer eyes, and a Dutch face. HYDE PARK. The man who comes here, and goes away without seeing Hyde Park, has missed seeing London. It is only on this parade-ground that London doffs its blouse, and emerges into full view. Here it takes on all its quality, here it appears in its sunshine aspect, here it puts its best foot foremost. I am just returned, with a parcel of friends, from a drive in the Park, and have all of its impressions fresh upon me. We sailed out from the hotel, under the brilliant auspices of an open carriage, gleaming with new paint, and a coat of arms, devised on a most imposing and savage plan; a driver, who was wrought upon with gold lace, until he was painfully luminous; a pair of dappled thorough-breds, and a gorgeous footman, who towered scornfully above us, from behind, but who, I am glad to assure you, treated us with the greatest affability, during the whole ride. Hyde Park covers an area of about four hundred acres, and under the joint administration of good taste, and a full purse, it expands into a series of beautiful woodland prospects. It is conveniently diversified with broad carriage drives, and contains several fine courses, set apart for the horsemen, and horsewomen, who prance, and gallop, and fiercely race over them. Immense throngs of carriages circulate about the drives, and great concourses of ladies and gentlemen career up and down the famous "Rotten Row," displaying their horsemanship, or the lack of it, to the admiration or disgust of the critical crowd afoot, who congregate in censorious groups to observe. There could not to-day have been less than five hundred private carriages, and some two hundred persons in the saddle. The whole together, made up such an ensemble of well-bred and enlivening gayety, as I have seldom witnessed before. There was a diversity in the style of the vehicles used, which trespasses on the limits of the incredible. No two carriages in the entire assemblage, I think, were exactly alike. Every man seemed to have thrown himself fearfully upon his unprompted invention, and the general result was the quaintest inventory of four, two, and one-wheeled contrivances, that ever startled a quiet man from his equilibrium. The methods of driving, too, were as strangely at variance as the patterns of equipage. In one carriage, a servant would drive; in another, the mistress, with a servant by her side; in another, the master, with a servant on the back seat; and in a fourth, the master and mistress would lounge behind, and the fellow with the yellow band and knee-buckles would handle the ribbons, astride the off horse. The Serpentine, a beautiful stream three hundred yards across, flows through the Park, describing a course indicated by its name. On this, are a number of pleasure boats, of various rig and structure, and in these you may row, scull, and even satisfy a circumscribed taste for sailing. Hyde Park is at once the fashionable and democratic rendezvous of London. There the whole world of cits, with its last wife, and its youngest child, assembles together, and compares differences. The lover goes there to meet his sweetheart; the rogue, to concert with his fellow-rogue; the nursery maid, to trundle her charge, and get at a dainty morsel of flirtation; the shop-keeper, to meet an appointment; and his clerk, to exhibit his last short-tail coat, and air the rose-bud in his button-hole. The Queen suns the royalty of England there, and the nobility carry out their quality to give it a bit of fresh air, and educate the ignoble in the vital distinctions between somebody and nobody. Work-a-day goes there for a full lung of oxygen, and a vivifying glimpse of animated and pleasing. sights. In fine, on any evening, when the rain does not actually pour down, you will find in the fierce gallopers on horseback, the loungers in softly-cushioned carriages, and the multitude on foot, the whole of London, epitomized in Hyde Park. CARTE BLANCHE. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE. 1.-ANNUAL STATISTICS OF NEW ORLEANS TRADE, 1866. [In accordance with our custom since 1846, we condense from the excellent annual tables of the New Orleans Prices Current, and shall continue to do so in regard to the leading items of the commerce of that great mart :] RECEIPTS FROM THE INTERIOR IN THE YEAR ENDING ON THE 31ST AUGUST. |