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From The Reader. MR. CHURCH'S PICTURE OF ICEBERGS. Mr. CHURCH'S clever and interesting scenic picture of Icebergs off the Coast of Labrador" has been viewed with great and deserved approval. His previous attempts to represent the movement and weight of Niagara, to exhibit the mass and elevation of Cotopaxi, proclaim the bent of his ambition, which aims at the realization on his canvas of the awful forces of nature as they are manifested to us in the cataract, the volcano, or, as in the picture before us, the iceberg.

of Mr. Church's picture has been written by his able critic in The Times. Every hole and cranny, every curve and sinuosity, peak, spire, and pinnacle, is catalogued; even all the varied hues and tints of color are followed and arrested and named as they lie away half-hidden in caverns or blaze with glory in the zenith. The description is beautiful, and could hardly have been more eloquent had the writer penned it in the cabin of the schooner, immediately after contemplating the very scene itself on the coast of Labrador. But it could never have been written when, for the first time, he stood upon the schooner's deck in the wondrous world of ice. Wonder, mystery, awe, the sense of God's presence, precede the lower faculty that tickets off the details which we know must form the aggregate of every great display of the forces at work in creation. Mr. Church's picture has received a true criticism in The Times. There is neither majesty nor mystery about it; but there is much careful observation of detail, and better warrant for the praise bestowed upon it than a less careful critic would at first be willing to admit. The chief and all-important truth which Turner always grasped at has been missed, and consequently the picture has no place in the highest rank; while from a certain scenic treatment, which at first sight is suggestive of a background for "The Frozen Deep," it is even in danger of being un

Although we believe that the true vocation of a painter is to inform the mind through the pleasure and delight which it may receive from his work, and that to this end the choice of subject is likely to be more wise when viewed in reference to its capabilities for representation, as well as to its probable and general acceptance, yet we should be sorry to deprecate any attempt to reproduce the impression made upon a human. mind by any scene in nature, even though apparently incapable of representation. Before a great genius impossibilities appear to vanish; and the secret of his power is his sympathy. A shipwreck with all its dread accompaniments is perhaps more difficult to imagine-it certainly seems a more unlikely subject to realize with a few pigments upon canvas-than either the heart of the Andes or the icebergs off Labrador. Yet we stand before Turner's fairly underrated. Turner's genius was able picture of the wreck of a transport, irresistibly attracted. Turner may never have seen a shipwreck; but his unconscious sympathy

realized it.

To suggest a comparison with Turner in his best days is to apply a strong test to any landscape painter, living or dead. To compare Mr. Church's interpretation with the original language of nature would be, in the present instance, presumptuous in any critic not qualified by the special opportunities for study which Mr. Church's adventurous spirit has provided for his pencil. Most of us, happily, are in the same way disqualified for applying the test of familiarity with the scene to Turner's terrible picture of the shipwrecked transport. But it is still open to us to inquire into the difference between the mental capacity of the great English landscape-painter and that of the foremost landscape painter of the United States.

The strongest condemnation we have read

to summon the ice-world to his canvas, and to present it to us, as he did the shipwreck, with a verisimilitude and power as immeasurable as his sympathies. Mr. Church has produced a remarkable work, and one which cannot fail to be interesting as the product of an adventurous spirit and a well-cultivated mind.

From The Reader.

THE LATE WILLIAM MULREADY.

ONE of the greatest English painters has passed away. Passed away! The words peacefully express the disappearance from amongst us of a most accomplished artist, a kind and helpful friend, and most courteous gentleman. In either character it would be hard indeed to find his equal in the ranks of the profession of which he was a most distinguished ornament.

He was born in Ireland in 1786, but was

early removed to London, where he became a | Vernon Collection. In 1841-2 he produced student of the Royal Academy in his fifteenth the drawings from which Thompson engraved year. His student days were marked by more the illustrations to the Vicar of Wakethan the usual trials and difficulties that so field; " and these designs are perhaps the often accompany the young aspirant in a very best test of his mental capacity extant. From arduous profession. A record of these early three of these designs he painted picturesdays has been left to the world, written by" Choosing the Wedding Gown," "Burchell himself, and embodied in an autobiography and Sophia hay-making," and "The Whisdedicated to Godwin, the author of "Caleb tonian Controversy." The first of these three Williams," in 1805, and entitled "The Look- works called forth almost an ovation when it ing-glass a true history of the early years was exhibited in the Royal Academy; and of an artist, calculated to awaken the emu- this was almost the culminating point of Mullation of young persons of both sexes in the ready's fame. Subsequently he produced pursuit of every laudable attainment, partic-"The Butt" (1848), in the Vernon Collecularly in the cultivation of the Fine Arts." This work is extant, and will, doubtless, furnish some of the materials for a life of the author.

Mulready appears to have received his first encouragement from Banks, the sculptor; and from the time when, by his advice and assistance, he became a student of the Royal Academy, he marched steadily on to fame. His early pictures gave little promise, however, of his future success. Among the first works which really attracted serious attention were "The Roadside Inn" and "Punch." In 1815, when in his thirtieth year, he painted the picture of " Idle boys," which led to his election as an associate of the Royal Academy in the November of the same year; and three months after he became a full member of that body.

After his election, the first important work he exhibited was the "Wolf and the Lamb." This picture was magnificently engraved in line by Robinson; and the plate became the property of the Artists' Annuity Fund, of which Mulready was one of the founders. The original is in the Vernon Collection at • South Kensington. After this he exhibited "The Careless Messenger," 1821, "The Convalescent," 1822, "The Widow," 1824, and "The Cannon," 1827. Between 1830 and 1848 he produced the works upon which his fame rests, and many of which are among the most precious possessions of the English school. During these eighteen years he painted the fine picture of "The Lascars," the exquisite little picture of "The Sonnet," "First Love," and "The Ford,"-all in the

"The

tion, "Women Bathing" (1849), by which
he was represented in Paris in 1855.
Young Brother," was exhibited in 1857, and
became the property of the nation under Mr.
Vernon's bequest. "The Toy-Seller was
Mulready's last effort, and it appeared in the
Royal Academy last year.

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Mulready's career is especially worthy of the attention of every earnest-minded student. Without any remarkable genius, he became one of the most distinguished artists of his epoch by the diligent exercise of his faculties, physical as well as mental. To the very last day of his life he was still a student among students: and the evening before he was called away to other fields of labor and of praise he was at work in the Royal Academy schools. His steadfast attachment to nature, and hatred of conventions, was well repaid, for "nature never yet forsook the heart that truly loved her." He learned to imitate her with understanding; and his progress is marked by a scientific arrangement of form and color that emulates that of the most highly gifted genius, while it stands at an immeasurable distance from any mere student work. Conscious of his great ability, he was ever ready to help the young, yet so to help them as a father and a brother would have done. Those who, with the present writer, have had the priviledge of his personal friendship will be more fully able to estimate his loss. They know that the country has lost a great painter; but they feel still more that a just, manly, modest and courteous spirit has passed away.

SEPTEMBER.

FAIR September! month of dogs and birds,
Month of leisure and the double barrel,
Prose for thee is but a waste of words:
Take a carol.

Pigeons whirl about the country-house,
As, profoundly bored by railway travel,
We, in dog-cart, driven by groom of nous,
Crush the gravel.

Picturesque thy manor-house, old friend;
Noble elm-trees in thy noisy rookery;
Fair thy daughters; and (inglorious end)
Good thy cookery.

Partridges are wild upon the wing:
As we plod through turnip and o'er stubble,
With a sudden whirr the coveys spring,
Giving trouble.

Pleasant toil beneath the autumnal sky:
Pleasant interval-when every man has
Done his best-for sherry and Yorkshire pie
And Cabanas.

Pleasant, too, an earlier hour than all,
When old Morpheus has men by the neck fast,
I, more restless, 'neath the southern wall,
Wait for breakfast.

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THE room is dark, the lights grow pale; Am I struck with deadly ail?

Money-honor-yes, I know,

There they go!

All upon a single card!

Oh, but it is very hard!

Life-long hopes at one fell blow,
There they go !

O my love! my brow is wet
With her tender kisses yet;
None again shall she bestow-
There they go !
Boyhood's hopes of future days,
Place and honor, fame and praise,
Paths of joy and peace below,

There they go !

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ALONE I walk the peopled city
Where each seems happy with his own:
O friends, I ask not for your pity-
I walk alone.

No more for me yon lake rejoices,
Though wooed by loving airs of June;
O birds, your sweet and piping voices
Are out of tune.

In vain for me the elm-tree arches
Its plumes in many a feathery spray
In vain the evening's starry marches,
And sunlit day.

In vain your beauty, summer flowers;
Ye cannot greet these cordial eyes,
They gaze on other fields than ours-
On other skies.

The gold is rifled from the coffer,

The blade is stolen from the sheath; Life has but one more boon to offer. And that is-Death.

Yet well I know the voice of Duty,

And therefore life and health must crave, Though she who gave the world its beauty, Is in her grave.

I live, O lost one! for the living
Who drew their earliest life from thee,
And wait, until with glad thanksgiving,
I shall be free.

For life to me is as a station

Wherein, apart, a traveller stands-
One absent long from home and nation,
In other lands-

And I as he who stands and listens,
Amid the twilight's chill and gloom,
To hear, approaching in the distance,
The train for home.

For death shall bring another mating-
Beyond the shadows of the tomb,
In yonder shore a bride is waiting
Until I come.

In yonder field are children playing,
And there-oh, vision of delight!-
I see a child and mother straying

In robes of white.

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PCETTY.-Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, 98. Compensation, 98.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Modern History in France, 105, Ready-Made Sermons, 108. An English Magazine in Russia, 129. Literary Intelligence, 129, 144.

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Bending above the vault where Outram slept ; Lingering as if reluctant to withdraw

From that grave-side, where sun-bronzed soldiers wept.

The thought filled many minds, is he the next
To take his place within the Abbey walls?
A gnarled trunk, by many tempests vext,
That bears its honors high, even as it falls.

He is the next! the name that was a fear

To England's swarthy foes, all India through, Is now a memory! No more fields will hear His voice of stern command, that rang so true. The tartaned ranks he led and loved no more Will spring, like hounds unleashed, at his behest;

No more that eye will watch his soldiers o'er, As mothers o'er their babes, awake, at rest.

A life of roughest duty, from the day

When with the boy's down soft upon his chin, He marched to fight, as others run to play, Like a young squire his knightly spurs to win. And well he won them; in the fever-swamp,

In foughten field, by trench and leaguered wall, In the blank rounds of dull routine, that damp Spirits of common temper more than all,

He trod slow steps but sure; poor, without friends,

Winning no way, save by his sweat and blood; Heart-sick too often, when from earned amends

He saw himself swept back by the cold flood,

Against which all must strive, who strive like him

By merit's patient strength to win the goal, Till many a swimmer's eye grows glazed and dim,

And closes, ere the tide doth shoreward roll. Stout heart, strong arm, and constant soul to aid, He sickened not nor slackened, but swam on; Though o'er his head thick spread the chilling shade,

And oft, twixt seas, both shore and stars seemed gone.

Till the tide turned, and on the top of flood

The night spent swimmer bore triumphant in; And honors rained upon him, bought with blood, And long deferred, but sweeter so to win.

And fame and name and wealth and rank were heaped

On the gray head that once had held them

high;

But weak the arm which that late harvest reaped, And all a knight's work left him was to die.

Dead! with his honors still in newest gloss,
Their gold in sorry contrast with his gray:
But by his life, not them, we rate his loss,
And for sweet peace to his brave spirit pray.

No nobler soldier's heart was ever laid
Into the silence of a trophied tomb;
There let him sleep-true gold and thrice assayed
By sword and fire and suffering-till the doom!
-Punch.

COMPENSATION.

THE bruised flower more fragrance gives
Than those of hardy growth and strong;
And scarce a bird of summer lives
His life of song,

But bears some broken joy along.

The ripple on the glassy lake,

The breezy murmur of the trees, The flowery waves of dell and brake, Yea, all of these

Are types of human destinies,

That circle on, that grieve and sigh,
That bloom and fade, and pass away-
While not the meanest flower can die
From day to day,

But hath its own appointed way:

It lives again through endless years,

Each atom bearing well its part ;— And thus, O dweller of the spheres! O human heart!

Thou shalt thy usefulness impart.

Thou hast a germ of life within,

That evermore shall deathless be; By mortal suffering thou shalt win The liberty

Of all that is enslaved in thee.

Each faith, each hope, each warm desire,
Held captive in the chains of earth,
Shall, chastened by affliction's power,
Hail sorrow's birth,
And deem earth's joys of little worth.

And if thou art so circumstanced

That earthly pleasures are not thine, Then shall thy soul be recompensed By joys divine: The furnace doth the gold refine.

Thou atom of a power divine!
Where'er unhappiness is rife,
There let a bright example shine:
And, all thy life,
Assist thy brother in the strife.
-New York Observer.

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