sight it would be hard indeed to find. Enormous painstaking with how painful a result! The sky is feebly eccentric. Mr. Cholmondeley exhibits a strongly painted effective "Roman Study" (532.) Mr. Johnston introduces us to a dandyfied representation of Bunyan (239.) Fancy the pilgrim cleansed and curled and scented like this! Mr. Lewis brings Eastern life before us with his old delicacy and precision of touch, conscientiousness and simplicity. Mr. Clark of "Sick Child" fame has a double picture, "The Wanderer" and "Restored" (518 and 519), full of quiet observation and truthful humour, yet manifesting no advance in technical merits. Messrs. Maguire and Rankley in their pictures, Dr. Jenner (No. 589) and George Stephenson (No. 309), demonstrate exactly their acquaintance with subjects decidedly not worth painting. Mr. Marcus Stone has a pleasant, manly picture of "Claudio and Hero," (425.) Mr. Burgess's "Knight's Home" (No. 190) is rich in colour, delicate in finish, and humorous in idea.

Mr. Solomon is a follower of the Frith school. He has made his success, such as it is, by painting pretty faces, by sentimental subjects ingeniously manipulated. But he does not improvehe is more and more Frith and water this year than ever—and the dilution, beyond a certain point in a concoction never very substantial, becomes dangerous. Mr. Frith is often passively commonplace, but he is never actively vulgar. Mr. Solomon is both; he has all the littleness without the refinement of mind of his master, while he does not approach his perception of colour and delicacy of touch. He is in fact a dull Frith, with an unhappy tinge of theatrical taste in his art. His "Consolation" (No. 180) is by far his best picture this year. The face of the peasant woman is not without feeling, but the Sister of Charity is intensely inane-looking in spite of her prettiness. She can really be only a silly milliner's girl in disguise-what consolation can she give, with her bonnet-block face, to the poor suffering woman? What a gulf there must be between the minds of the two women! The scene from Molière (No. 464) is very coarse and farcical; the comedy may be played, as Mr. Solomon has represented it, by provincial buffoons, but no artist of intelligence would go out of his way to select such a cast of characters. In

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fact the artist has no humour, and in his attempts to be amusing, like most men who so endeavour without a faculty for fun, he has only succeeded in being vulgar and noisy, and extravagant. His colour is singularly disagreeable, and he has not even availed himself of the presence of Toinette to introduce a pretty soubrette face. Mr. Solomon has considerable cleverness, though he will hardly obtain credit for it in his works of this season. Mr. T. Solomon has an excellent picture (No. 493), “A Young Musician employed in the Temple Service during the Feast of Tabernacles." Though rather black in tone the colouring is generally good, the drawing careful, and the finish admirable, with the exception perhaps of the hair, which appears needlessly vague and shapeless.

Mr. Leighton contributes several important works. The artist is at least original, and the determination to think for himself in days when "the simious" is so prevalent a state of mind, is highly commendable. Mr. Leighton's manner of painting and character of thought resemble no painter's that we know of. With something of an Italian style he combines a decided Frenchness of sentiment, if we may so say. His Paolo and Francesca is a work of unquestionable beauty, although it would be difficult to award to it unquestioning applause. It is full of poetry, and in earnestness of sentiment is worthy of Schoeffer, which is no mean praise. The subject is dangerous to a degree, and yet the treatment is singularly pure. The swooning ecstasy of the lovers in the miserable story could not possibly be conveyed more dexterously, and yet it is the spiritual side of their passion that is presented to the spectator. The hot blight that seems to hang oppressively in the air is happily given. A blurring twilight seems to veil their guilt, while it gives opportunity to their love. The Francesca is very beautiful, and the figure of Paolo very graceful and lover-like. The towers on the horizon, perhaps, strike in too sharply alouette fashion against the golden sunset sky, and the draperies are a trifle too studied and artificial in arrangement. His "Dream" (No. 399) is less to our liking. The subject is not very intelligible and does not lend itself to art purposes. The colouring, too, is hectic and unalluring. In spite of the talent it evidences, and

the extreme cleverness of much of its mechanism, this picture is not satisfactory. In arriving at this conclusion we desire to pay all homage to the purity of thought and originality of mind that prompted the work. "Mrs. S. O., a portrait" (No. 128), is admirably painted. "Lieder Onne Worte" (No. 550) is a very charming picture, shamefully placed. The face of the lady at the well is curiously pretty and piquant, with her blonde curls, her marked brows, her languishing eyes, and delicately formed mouth and chin. There is something quite haunting in the beauty of this face; it is so strange and witch-like, with a dash of the French marquise in its sentimental and childishly fatigued expression, a face not easy to describe or explain. Mr. O'Neil has been harping on one string for some years. His "Parting Cheer" (No. 335) is a reiteration simply. All original good effect is now blunted and weakened and ruined by frequent use. He seems to have struggled with Mr. Brooks (No. 389, the Life Boat), who could huddle together the most conventional figures in the most conventional positions. The one selects the right hand side of his canvas for his crowd, the other the left. Such pictures proceed simply from the demand of the market, not from the mind of the artist. Mr. Dobson's "Flower Girls" (Nos. 298, 394) are forcibly painted, with much beauty of expression. We regret that he should have quitted even his renderings of religious art to perpetrate a drinking fountain, such as we find in No. 34. Mr. Gale's minute paintings are admirable, but they want crispness of execution and certainty of drawing to attain Meissonier's high pitch of excellence. Mr. Hughes's "Home from Work" is excellent, and painted with more vigour than the artist has hitherto manifested.

Miss Hay is the most distinguished of the season's lady painters. Her "Tobias" (No. 308) is a very meritorious work. Miss Osborne is strained and theatrical in her "Escape of Lord Nithsdale" (No. 258), and Miss Solomon has been injudicious in her choice of subject (No. 581), "The Arrest of a Deserter." For this scene she has drawn upon her imagination rather than her knowledge. Sympathy is wasted upon a deserter, and especially such a one as we have here represented. The sentiment is altogether of the sham school, and the drawing is

defective; there are too many of what Hamlet calls "most weak hams." The pretty blonde is the drawing-room notion of the actress of the booth. The Misses Mutrie have brought their studies of flowers to the highest pitch of excellence.

In landscape Mr. Lee has grafted a new vigour on his old not very strong style: there is much to commend in his Gibraltar scenes, (Nos. 16 and 122.) Mr. M'Cullom has much happy sunny effect in his "Spring" (No. 456), and his "Winter" (No. 503), though in this last the snow is cruelly lowered in tone to heighten the effect of the blush light of the afternoon. With much careful elaboration there is a suspicion here and there that his finish is occasionally make-believe rather than real. Mr. Raven's "Upper Valley of the Conway" is very good, with an inclination to be over pink in tone. Mr. Davis sends a capital landscape-full of light and air—“Rough Pasturage, Pas de Calais,” (No. 484.) Mr. Linnell paints for the public evidently—not for the critics.

The best portrait is Mr. Watts's "Miss Alice Prinsep" (No.343); a glowing brunette in blue, slashed with orange. The heads by Mr. H. T. Wells are really excellent in force, colour, and finish.

In the sculpture room there is little that requires special mention. The fact, however, that British statuary has now a respectable apartment appropriated to it, in lieu of the cellar to which it was formerly condemned, is worthy of note.

The water-colour galleries this season present very excellent collections. The popularity of this always favourite branch of art seems on the increase. Mr. Hunt still asserts his supremacy as the head of the old society. Mr. Corbould, Mr. Warren, and Mr. J. Haghe are perhaps the ruling triumvirate of the new. A highly interesting if not very complete exhibition in connection with this subject, is the history of water-colour painting, shown by the works of various masters now on view at the rooms of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi.

In close connection with South Kensington art, and the monster building (of which Captain Fowke is the Frankenstein) in course of erection there for the International Exhibition of next year, it may be noted that the Prince Consort opened, on the

6th June, the new gardens of the Horticultural Society. The inaugurative fête passed off with such eclat and success as the unfavourable state of the weather would permit of.

THE DRAMA.

THE summer months constitute the "breathing time" of the Theatres: Drury Lane and the Lyceum have closed their doors owing to want of public favour. Mr. Wigan has brought to a conclusion his first season at the St. James's Theatre with "A Scrap of Paper," a good version by Mr. Simpson of the successful French play of "Les Pattes des Mouches." The customary short season of French plays has been commenced at this house-the admirable comedian M. Geoffroy being the present chief attraction. At the Haymarket a comedy by Mr. Eyre, "Black Sheep," has been played with much success, owing in part to the audience finding a resemblance between Mr. Buckstone's appearance in the play, and the personnel of a popular dissenting preacher; but also it should be stated to the author's thorough knowledge of "stage carpentry," and the good use made by him of not very new materials. The illness of Mr. Robson has turned the public from the Olympic. The appearance of Miss Sedgwick in the School for Scandal has failed to compensate for the absence of the popular manager, and very empty benches have been the rule. Mr. Robson has now reappeared to restore, it is to be hoped, the perilled fortunes of his undertaking. Miss Wilton has reappeared at the Strand, after a long absence from illness. Her vivacity and dash are important elements in the success of Mr. Byron's thoroughly Strand burlesque of "Aladdin." The "Colleen Bawn," after a brief and unavoidable suspension, has been resumed at the Adelphi with its old unaccountable eclat. The 200dth night of performance has been reached, and yet the attraction continues unabated. Mr. Fechter's Hamlet seems even to grow in public favour, a sure proof of its merit. Playgoers will find it difficult to remember such a "run" as Hamlet has of late been enjoying at the Princess's.