Chapter IX: Part XI (3)

He was leaning aft toward the width of the sky, with both hands clutched together before him, shuddering all over. For the first minute my own blood crept, I must say; but directly after I touched him on the shoulder. "This is strange, Mr Jones," said I, "what's the matter?" "Once in the Bermudas!" said he, still wildly, "once in the Pacific--and now! Does the sea give up its dead, though, think ye?"--"You've a strong fancy, Mr Jones, that's all," I said, sternly. "Fancy!" said he, though beginning to get the better of himself; "did ye ever fancy a face looking down--down at you in the utterest scorn--down sideways off the shoulder of the garment, as it sticks wet into every outline like life? All the time gliding on the other way, too, and the eyes like two stars a thousand miles away beyond, as kind as angels'--neither wind nor sea can stop it, till suddenly it rises to the very cope of heaven--still looking scornfully down at you!--No, sir, fancy it _you_ couldn't!" The glance he gave me was somehow or other such as I couldn't altogether stomach from the fellow, and he was turning to the side when I said quietly, "No, nor Homer either, I daresay!" Jones started and made a step towards me. "You heard me a little ago!" rapped out he, eyeing me. "Yes," I said; "by Jove! who could help being curious to hear a sailor spout Greek as you were doing, Mr Jones?"

"The fact is, Mr Collins," answered he, changing his tone, "I was well brought up--the more shame to me for bringing myself to what you saw me. I had a sister drowned, too, on her passage to America one voyage, when I was mate of the ship myself. No wonder it keeps my nerves shaking sometimes, when I've had too long about shore."--"Well, well, Jones," said I, rather softening, "you've proved yourself a first-rate seaman, and I've got nothing to complain of--but I tell You fairly I had my doubts of you! So you'll remember you're under the Articles of War aboard here, sir," added I, "which as long as I have this schooner under hand, I'll be hanged if I don't carry out!" All at once the thought struck me a little inconveniently, of my carrying off Webb and his people, and I fancied Jones's quick eye wandered to the Lascars forward. "I know it, sir," said he, looking me steadily in the face; "and what's more, Mr Collins, at any rate I couldn't forget you picked me out, confounded low as I looked, to come aft here! 'Tis not every captain afloat that has such a good eye for a seaman, as _I_ know!" "Oh well, no more about it," I said, walking forward on the weather side, and leaving him on the lee one as distinctly as Lord Frederick Bury could have done to myself in the frigate. Jones no doubt thought I didn't notice the slight wrinkle that gathered round his lee-eye when he gave me this touch of butter at the end; but I put it down for nothing more, gammon though it was.

It was near the end of the watch, the moon beginning to set, while it still wanted three hours of daybreak in those latitudes, when the look-out on the top-gallant-yard, who was stationed there in man-o'-war cruising fashion, reported a sail to windward. Just then the midshipman came on deck to his watch, wonderfully early for him indeed: and on my remarking it was probably the Indiaman at last, Jones himself went aloft with the night-glass to make her out. "Mr Snelling," said I, "see the hands on deck ready for going about." Next minute I saw him rousing up the rest of the Lascars, who slept watch and watch on the forecastle. Only five or six of the Hebe's men were up; and all of them, save the man at the wheel, ran aloft to rig out stunsail-booms to windward, as soon as the schooner was fairly on the starboard tack, standing to nor'-eastward. Suddenly I saw a scuffle between the midshipman, and the tindal,[9] a stout dark-faced young Bengalee, with a jaunty scull-cap and frock, whom Snelling had probably helped along with a touch of a rope's end; and in a moment two or three more of them were upon him; while the reefer drew his dirk, and sung out to me, scarce before I was with him, the Lascars rolling into the lee-scuppers at two kicks of my foot. Webb and three of the men from Cape Town were hoisting a stunsail at the time, the smart man-o'-war'smen aloft singing out to them to bear a hand. What with the noise of the sail flapping, and its being betwixt my own men and the deck, they could know nothing of the matter; and the Lascars let go the halliards in a body, making a rush at Snelling and myself with everything they could pick up in the shape of a spar.

[9] Lascar boatswain's mate.

This would have been nothing, as in two or three minutes more the men would have been down, and the cocoa-faced rascals dodged every way from the handspike I got hold of; but I just caught a glimpse on one side of the sly old serang shoving on the fire-scuttle to keep down the watch below; and on the other, of Webb looking round him, evidently to see how matters stood. Two Dutchmen seized the first sailor that came down the rigging, by the legs, and I saw the affair must be finished at once, it had so much the look of a regular plot on Webb's part, if Jones wasn't concerned in it too. I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and took him by the throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman full behind the ear, felling him to the deck; on which the man-o'-war's man grappled his watchmate, and Webb was struggling with me sufficiently to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant inkling of a Malay Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in his fist. I just looked over my shoulder at his black eyes twinkling devilishly before he sprang, when some one came sliding fair down from the fore-top-mast-head by a backstay, and pitched in a twinkling on top of his head--a thing enough to break the neck of a monument. Directly after, I saw Jones himself hitting right and left with his night-glass, from the moonlight to the shadow of the foresail, while Snelling tumbled over a Lascar at every slap, standing up in boxer style. By the time the rest of the men came down all was settled--the Dutchmen sulking against the bulwarks, and Webb gasping after I let him go. "Boatswain," said I to one of the sailors, "clap that man in irons below. Mr Snelling, see the watch called, sir." "I 'ad the law with me," said Webb gloomily. "You plotted it then, Mr Webb?" I said. "Didn't you carry us off illegally?" said he. "I only meant to recover the vessel--upon my honour, nothing more, sir; and if you're 'ard with me, you'll have to answer for it, I assure you!" Here he looked round to Jones in a strange way, as I fancied for a moment; but Jones turned on his heel with a sneer. "Why, Mr Webb," answered I, "you lost that tack by offering yourself in a watch, which makes the thing neither more nor less than mutiny--so take him below, do ye hear, bo'sun!" And down he went.

"Now, Mr Jones," said I, as soon as all hands were on deck, "you'll be so good as have half of these Lascars seized to the rigging here, one after the other, and see a good dozen given to each of their backs; then these two Dutchmen, each three dozen--then pipe down the watch, sir." Jones glanced at me, then at the fellows, then at me again. I thought he hung aback for an instant; but do it I was determined he should, for a reason I had; and I gave him back the look steady as stone. "Ay, ay, sir," said he at last, touching his hat. I walked aft to the capstan, and stood there till every mother's son of them had got his share, the Lascars wriggling and howling on the deck after it, and the Dutchmen twisting their backs as they walked off. 'Twas the first time I did that part of duty in command; and I felt, in the circumstances, I was in for carrying it out with a taut hand.

By this time the moon was setting, and in the dusk we lost sight of the sail to windward; but as we were heading well up to weather upon her, and going at least ten knots, I turned in below for a little, leaving the midshipman. Accordingly, it wasn't very long before Snelling called me in broad daylight. "She's a large ship, Mr Collins," said he, "standing under all sail on a wind. I hope to goodness, sir, it's that confounded Indiaman at last!" I hurried on deck, took the glass aloft, and soon made out the jury-foretop-mast shorter than the main, as the old captain mentioned. Accordingly it was with somewhat of a flutter in me I came down again, watching the schooner's trim below and aloft, to see if I couldn't take an hour or so off the time betwixt that and once more setting eyes on the Judge's daughter.

THE JEW BILL.

The period at which this obnoxious measure has been brought forward, limits our present remarks to a few paragraphs. But we have so long fought for the Constitution, that We cannot suffer the month to pass without reprobating an intrigue, which we cannot but regard as most dangerous to the Empire. We are no bigots,--we demand no surrender of the rights of opinion,--we force no man to our altars,--we forbid no man's access to his own; but to avert public evil is a duty of every subject,--to strip hypocrisy is clearly an act of justice,--and to protect religion is only an act of supreme necessity. We solemnly believe, that to bring the Jew into the Parliament of England, would be at once injury to the Constitution, a peril to public principle, and an insult to Christianity.

The attempt was made last year, and was defeated. It is now to be renewed, without the slightest additional ground, and the battle will have to be fought over again. Must we not ask, is this experiment to be again made on public patience? Is it meant to tell the people of England, that what common sense rejects, is to be forced on general weariness; that what manly principle repels, is to be gained by vulgar perseverance; and that which public judgement denounces, is to be made law by the united effect of disgust and disdain producing indifference? We trust that the common sense of England will speak such a language to the Legislature, as to extinguish the _prestige_ that obstinacy in the wrong is more effective than honesty in the right; that to be sickened of a struggle, is a legitimate reason for abandoning the contest; and that a great nation can be yawned out of the greatest interests in the world.

The first question of all is, Can this admission of the Jew into a Christian legislature be compatible with the character of a Christian constitution? If we live in bad times, with the evidence of bad practices in important positions, and with a powerful propensity among influential classes to sacrifice everything to the moment, this consciousness should only be a stronger claim on the vigilance of honest men. However strangely it may sound in some ears, England is still a Christian country: however some may doubt, the country still demands a Christian legislature; and, notwithstanding all opinions on the subject, we believe that to worship God and Mammon is still as impossible as it was pronounced to be eighteen hundred years ago. We believe that it is only by national virtue that nations can retain the divine protection; that zeal for the divine honour is the supreme source of virtue; and that to sacrifice the honour of God to any earthly purpose, is only to bring divine desertion on a people. Must we not ask, is there any national demand, national necessity, or religious principle, connected with giving legislative power, at this time, to the Jew?

Where is the national demand? If the Jew, in some instances, is rich, is mere money to be the qualification for giving legislative power? In the simplest point of view, must we not demand ability, personal honour, a personal interest in the country, and a personal evidence that the trustee will never betray or abandon his trust? But what is the Jew? He has _no_ country. By being equally a member of all countries, he is equally an alien in all; beyond the casual connexion of trade, he has no connexion with any kingdom of earth: his only country is his counting-house,--his only city is the Exchange. His world consists in his traffic; and if any calamity should fall on one of those kingdoms where he keeps his counting-house, he transfers himself, like a Bill of Exchange, to the next; and in whatever land is equally at home. The Jew gives no pledge to any country; he is no possessor of land, no leader of science, no professor of the liberal pursuits, no manufacturer, no merchant, no sailor, no soldier; as if some irresistible destination prohibited him from ever finally settling in any land, his property is always ready to take wing. Must we not ask, Is this fugitive the man who has a right to share the privileges of the Englishman, bound, as we are, to the soil by nature, and bound to its defence and prosperity by the indissoluble obligation of nature?

In a political point of view, what security could we have for confiding in the Jew,--for intrusting our finances, our liberties, our councils, the guardianship of our country, to the Jew? The especial and perpetual object of his existence is money. Now, while every man knows that money is the great corrupter of the human mind, that, except in minds fully fortified by principle, it overwhelms all other objects, and that, in all the convulsions of the greatest war of Europe--the war of the French Revolution--the secrets of every Continental cabinet were at the mercy of the purse; do we desire to see this supremacy extended? Do we desire to see the principles of fraud and falsehood made a regular material in the market of public transactions, and lucre exalted into the sole object of existence?

As to the practical effect of bringing the tribe of the money-dealer into Parliament, would any man, in the exercise of his experience, wish to see the finances of England in the hands of any Jew in existence? And let no man pretend that this conception is imaginary. Place a Jew in Parliament, giving him the power of making a party; give him the opportunity of working on the impulses, habits, or necessities of men; and in twelve months you may see him anything he desires,--even Chancellor of the Exchequer. But he is a man of honour; he will not sell the secrets of Council; he will not copy a despatch for the benefit of his partners; he will not raise or sink the stocks, though every movement may add a million to the coffers of his partnership. We hope not; but can we run the risk? But the fact is, that he is a man not to be judged of by the feelings of any other in the world; he differs from all other men. What is patriotism to the Jew? He knows nothing of it. Who ever heard of the Jew taking any part in those noble struggles which have saved the honour or secured the rights of any nation on earth? His business is gain, and it is the only business that he ever follows; from the man with ten firms and five hundred clerks, with a counting-house in every village from the Rhine to the Neva, down to the seller of old clothes, and the pedlar in dilapidated slippers, who ever heard of a Jew thinking of anything but to make money?

But the view which must supersede all others, is the aspect of the measure as it relates to religion. Great Britain is certainly, on the whole, a religious country: it perhaps contains more true religion than all the earth besides; but its fault is, that, though reverent in the church, it does not sufficiently carry its reverence into the course of common life. If this were done, there would be no difficulties in public opinion. It is in no superstition that we say, the only question to be asked on any doubtful course of action is, "Will it please God? Is it for the honour of God?" This is what the Scripture calls "walking with God," and describes as the essential character of virtue. But the majority of mankind add to those questions, Will it benefit myself? The statesman asks, Shall I lose power by it?--the merchant, Shall I lose profit?--the tradesman, Shall I lose custom? And this question is the master-key to the diversities of opinion on points which, to the unbiassed mind, are as clear as the sun.

Let us put the matter in a more every-day point of view. Let us suppose the question asked, Would you take for your friend a man who denied your God, who scoffed at your religion, and who declared yourself a dupe or a deceiver? Yet all this the Jew does openly by the profession of his own creed. Can you conceive it for the honour of your Redeemer, to give this man your confidence in the highest form in which it can be given by a subject? Or can you bring yourself to believe that you are doing your duty to Christ in declaring by your conduct, that to be hostile to Him makes no imaginable difference in your estimate of the character of any man?

On those points it is wholly impossible that there can be any doubt whatever. The enemy of Christ cannot, without a crime, be favoured, still less patronised and promoted, by the friend of Christ. Now, this feeling is neither prejudice nor persecution: it merely takes the words of the Jew himself; and it would not force him, by the slightest personal injury, to change the slightest of his opinions. It is merely the conduct which all who were unbiassed by gain, or unperverted by personal objects, would follow in any common act of life. To give power to the Jew, from the motives of pelf, or party, or through indifference, is criminal; and it is against this crime that we protest, and that we desire to guard our fellow Christian.

We must now rapidly pass through the leading points of the question. The Jew is a "condemned man." More than three thousand years ago, Moses, in pronouncing the future history of the people, declared that a teacher should finally be sent to their nation, like himself, a man; and mingling as such among men, to give them a law, not in clouds and thunders as at Sinai, nor written in tables of stone, nor fixed in stern ordinances, but written in the heart, and acting by the understanding: and that, if they rejected him, they should be made nationally to answer the national crime to the Almighty. Him they rejected, and the rejection has been answered by national ruin. The prophecy is before the eye of the world; the fulfilment is also before the eye of the world.

The Jew is an undone being, if there be truth in the words of inspiration. "He that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, _shall not see life_; but the _wrath of God_ abideth on him." (John iii. 35, 36.) What right have we to dispense with such words? The declaration is unequivocal; and if there be a compassionate allowance for the barbarian, who has no Bible and whom the gospel has never reached, what allowance can there be for the Jew, possessing the Bible and living in the sound of the gospel? But this language is not alone. We have the declaration of ruin constantly expressed or implied, "Who is a liar, but he that _denieth that Jesus is the Christ_? Whosoever _denieth the Son_, the same _hath not the Father_." (1 John ii. 22)

Are those deniers the men whom the Christian is to take into the very centre of his political favouritism? Are the brands of Scripture on the national forehead to be scorned by a people professing obedience to the Divine will? Can human conception supply a stronger proof of the reality of those brands than the condition of the Jews ever since their first fulfilment, in the fall of Jerusalem--the terrible reply to their own anathema, "His blood be on us, and on our children."

What is the state of the Jew himself with respect to sacred things? Nothing but ignorance can speak of the _religion_ of the Jew. So far as belongs to worship, he has _none_. Sacrifice, the solemnisation of the three great festivals, the whole ceremonial of the temple, were _essential_ to Judaism. The Jew cannot perform a single public ceremonial of his religion. Sacrifice was supremely essential for nearly the atonement of every fault of man; but it could be offered only in the Temple. The Temple is gone. What now becomes of his atonement?

A weak attempt is made to answer this tremendous question, by referring to the condition of the Jews in Babylon. But what comparison can exist between a captivity prophetically limited to years not exceeding a single life, passed under the protection of kings, and under the guardianship of the most illustrious man of Asia, the prophet Daniel, cheered by prophecy and miracle, and certain of return, and the eighteen hundred years' banishment of the Jew? What comparison between the temporary suspension of the national worship, and the undefined and hopeless duration which seems to lie before the Jewish exile; and which, when it shall close at last, will extinguish his Judiasm, will show him his folly only by stripping the superstition of the Rabbi and the Talmud from his eyes, and will awake him at once to the extent of his error, to the exercise of his understanding, and to the worship of Christianity?

After considerations of this order, all others must be almost trivial. But the common declamation on the _natural right_ of the Jew to be represented in Parliament is verbiage. But the Jew is actually represented, as much as a multitude of other interests of superior importance are represented. Are the fifteen thousand clergy of the Church of England (a body worth all the Jews on the globe) personally represented? Are the millions of England under twenty-one represented? One might thus go through the great industrious classes of England, and find that, out of twenty millions, there are not one million electors. And what claim have a class--who come to this country only to make money, and who make nothing but money, and who, if they could make more money anywhere else on the earth, would go there to-morrow--to an equality of right with the manly, honest, and attached son of England, every day of whose life adds something to the comfort or the credit of the community?

The whole and sole claim of the Jew is, that some of his party are rich. How they have made their riches, or how they spend them, is beneath us to inquire. But what are their national evidences, even of wealth, it might be difficult to discover. They exhibit no fruits here, nor anywhere. It has been often asked, with genuine astonishment, what signs of national liberality have ever been given by Jewish wealth in the world? What contribution does it make, or has it ever made, to the arts that decorate life, to the literature that enlightens it, or to those bold and commanding services by which nations are raised or restored? Where are the picture galleries, or the great libraries, the great institutions, erected by the wealth of the Jew? As to the genius which endows mankind, for generations to come, with noble inventions, or leaves its name behind in a track of glory to posterity, who ever heard of it among the Jews? Shopkeepers of London have planted its vicinity with great establishments, castles of charity, magnificent monuments of practical religion, to which all the works of Jewish bounty are molehills. The Jews have an hospital and a few schools,--and there the efflux of liberality stops, the stream stagnates, the river becomes a pond, and the pond dries away.

It is remarkable, and may be a punitive consequence, that there is nothing so fugitive as the wealth of the Jew. There is perhaps no hereditary example of Jewish wealth in the world. In England we have seen opulent firms, but they have never had the principle of permanency. Supposed to be boundlessly wealthy, a blight came, and every leaf dropt off. One powerful firm now lords it over the loan-market of Europe. We have no desire to anticipate the future; but what has become of all its predecessors in this country? or what memorial have they all left, to make us regret their vanishing, or remember their existence?

Of the sudden passion with which Ministers have snatched the Israelite to their bosom, we shall leave the explanation until their day of penitence. As poverty makes man submit to strange companionship, political necessity may make a Whig Cabinet stoop to the embrace of the Jew. The resource is desperate, but the exigency must be equally so. We hail the omen,--the grasp at straws shows nothing but the exhaustion of the swimmer.

On one point more alone we shall touch. It is of a graver kind. It has been the source of a kind of ignorant consideration for the Jews, that prophecy speaks of their future restoration. But, as _Jews_ they will _never_ be restored. In the last days some powerful influence of the Holy Spirit will impel the surviving Jews to solicit an admission into Christianity. How many or how few will survive the predicted universal convulsion of these days, is not for man to tell; the terrible, or the splendid, catastrophes of those times are still hidden; but no Jew well ever dwell in the presence of the patriarchs, but as a "new creature"--a being cleared from the prejudices of his exiled fathers, and by supernatural interposition purified from the unbelief, to be rescued from the ruin, of his stiff-necked people.

The measure must be thrown out by the awakened power of public opinion. We must not indulge our indolence in relying on the House of Lords. They _may_ do their duty, but _we must do ours_. The Jew _must not_ enter the Christian Legislature.

THE PICTURES OF THE SEASON.

The taste for pictorial art, if its progress may be measured by the opportunity afforded for its gratification, is decidedly upon the increase in this country. In London, especially, pictures of one class or other form, each successive year, a larger and more important item in the sum of public amusements. During the present season of 1850 there have been open, at one time, four exhibitions consisting chiefly of oil paintings, two numerous collections of water-colour drawings, and panoramas and dioramas in unprecedented number and of unusual excellence. These last, although pertaining to a lower walk of art, have strong claims on consideration for their scenic truthfulness and artistic skill, and are fairly to be included in an estimate of the state of public feeling for the pictorial. The four first exhibitions alone comprise upwards of three thousand works of art, now for the first time submitted to public inspection. As usual, the exhibition of the Royal Academy is the most important and deserving of attention. Numerically, the Society of British Artists claims the next place; but in point of interest it must yield precedence to the British Institution, now for some weeks closed, and also to the exhibition of an association of artists which has installed itself, upon a novel principle, and under the title of the National Institution, in a building constructed for its accommodation, and known as the Portland Gallery. It were for some reasons desirable--it certainly would be favourable to the comparative appreciation of merit--that, as at Paris, the whole of the annual harvest of pictures should be collected in one edifice, subject, of course, to such previous examination by a competent and impartial council, as should exclude those works unworthy of exhibition. But such a system, however pleasant it might be found by the public, could hardly be made agreeable to the artists. The most indulgent censorship, excluding none but the veriest daubs--nay, even the plan of open doors to all comers, which has lately clothed a portion of the walls of the Republican Louvre with canvass spoiled by ignorance and presumption, would fail to satisfy artists and their friends. In London, as in Paris under the old system, it is less the question of admission than the placing of the pictures that is the source of discontent. The excluded conceal their discomfiture; the misplaced grumble loudly, and not always without reason, especially as regards the Academy exhibition. The fault may be more in the rooms that contain, than in the men who place the pictures. Of course everybody whose work gets into the Octagon Room feels aggrieved, although it is evident that, as long as that ridiculous nook is used to contain pictures, some unlucky artists must fill it. The good places in the other rooms--limited as is the extent of these compared to the large number of pictures annually exhibited in them--cannot be very numerous, although they may be multiplied by the exercise of judgment, and by impartial attention to the requirements of each picture as regards light and elevation. The best possible arrangement, however, will fail to please everybody, and the persons to whom falls the difficult task of distributing a thousand or fifteen hundred pictures over the walls of a suite of rooms inadequate to their proper accommodation, must be prepared to endure some obloquy, and esteem themselves fortunate if the public acquit them of flagrant partiality or negligence. It is not our purpose to dilate on this oft-mooted and still vexed question. We have no polemical intention in the present paper, in which we shall not have too much space to note down a few of the thoughts that suggested themselves to us during our morning wanderings amongst the throng of pictures in four exhibitions.

The great event of the artist's year, the opening of the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, is of course the signal for a Babel of opinions. The question which on all sides is heard: What sort of Exhibition is this? obtains the most conflicting replies. People are too apt to trust to their first impressions, and to indulge in sweeping censure or excessive encomium. We have heard this year's exhibition set down by some as first-rate, by others as exceedingly poor. Our own opinion, after careful examination and consideration, is, that it has rather less than the average amount of merit. This we believe to be also the opinion of the majority of those most competent to judge. There is certainly an unusually small number of pictures of striking excellence; nor is this atoned for by any marked improvement in those artists whose works can claim but a second rank. One circumstance unfavourable to the interest of the exhibition is the uncommonly large number of portraits, the majority of which are not very admirable either in subject or execution. The impression, as one walks through the rooms, is, that an extraordinary number of ugly or uninteresting persons have got themselves painted by careless or indifferent artists. Of landscapes there seem to be fewer than usual--certainly fewer good ones. Some of the best of this class of painters have contributed to other exhibitions. On the other hand, historical, scriptural, and dramatic subjects are numerous, but not in many cases have they been treated with very great success. One of the foremost pictures in the Exhibition--certainly the one about which most curiosity has been excited--is Edwin Landseer's _Dialogue at Waterloo_. We are unfeigned admirers of Mr Landseer's genius, but we do not think this one of his happiest efforts. There is much fashion in these matters; people are very apt to be led away by a name, and to fall into ecstasies before a picture simply because it is by a great painter. We believe it impossible for Edwin Landseer to paint anything that shall not have great merit, but he is certainly most felicitous when confining himself to what is strictly speaking his own style. We do not think him successful as a portrait painter. His Marchioness of Douro does less than justice to the beautiful original. As to the Duke of Wellington, it is a failure; especially if, as we are assured, it is intended to be his portrait as he now is. We certainly cannot admire the burly figure and swarthy complexion of Mr Landseer's Duke, which gives us the idea of a younger and more robust man than him it is intended to represent. We should be disposed to object to the strained appearance of the downward-pointing hand; but the gesture is said to be one habitual to the original, and of course the painter was right to preserve character, even at the cost of grace. The less prominent portion of the picture is the most to our taste--the peasants and child, the dogs and game, and the plough horses with their old driver. We are not quite clear as to what it all means; some of the objects seeming rather to have been dragged in than naturally to have come thither; the tablecloth spread in the ploughed field appearing rather out of character, and the left-hand corner of the picture having altogether somewhat of a crowded aspect: but these are trifles not worth dwelling upon. The painting is evidently unfinished. The subject of Mr Landseer's second picture, a shepherd digging the stragglers from his flock out of a snow-drift, is of less interest than that of his larger work; but, in an artistic point of view, it claims higher praise. His snow is admirable, the tender gray tints are full of light, and distributed with surpassing skill; and the earnest laborious face of the delving peasant is very vigorous and characteristic. Mr Landseer is so accurate an observer of brute nature that it is with extreme caution we venture to criticise his animals, but we must say that the wool of his sheep in this painting has a hard and cork-like look. Upon the whole it is a question with us, when we revert to some of this artist's former productions, whether he is painting as carefully as he used to do. Looking at his Waterloo Dialogue, we say no; but an affirmative starts to our lips when we examine his last and smallest picture in this year's Exhibition, Lady Murchison's dog. With this the most fastidious would be troubled to find fault. It is a gem of admirable finish. If Mr Landseer's power of drawing, in the grander contours of his designs, were equal to the skill he displays in the details, he would leave nothing to desire.

Mr Maclise has two pictures in this exhibition. There is scarcely an English artist living concerning whom we are more embarrassed to make up our minds, than concerning the painter of _The Spirit of Justice_ and _The Gross of Green Spectacles_. His merits and defects are alike very great, and unfortunately he delays to amend the latter--if indeed it be in his power so to do. His first-named and larger picture, whilst it contains much to admire, leaves a great deal to be desired. To us it is a vexatious performance. We cannot look at it without admitting it to be the work of no ordinary artist, and we feel the more annoyed at the mannerism that detracts from its merit. Mr Maclise has fertility of invention and power of design, but there is a deficiency of true artistical feeling in his execution. We cannot coincide, besides, with the notion which he, in common with many others, seems to entertain, that fresco painting precludes chiaroscuro. In _The Spirit of Justice_ there are some good faces; but there are more that are unnecessarily ugly, and several of faulty expression. Justice has a fine countenance and altogether pleases us well. The widow's face is hard and unflesh-like; the accuser, who drags the murderer before the tribunal, and displays a bloody dagger as evidence of guilt, and the free citizen who unrolls the charter of liberty, are anything but admirable. The accuser looks more like an informer than an avenger. Nothing can be more unfavourable to the face than the sort of scrubby, colourless, thinly-sown stubble with which his chin is provided, as a contrast, we presume, with the dark hirsute countenance of the criminal, who, deducting the beard, might pass for a portrait of Mr Macready, of one of whose favourite attitudes the position of the head and shoulders particularly reminds us. With all its defects, however, this is by far the best of Mr Maclise's two pieces. _The Gross of Spectacles_ we consider a failure. It is a gross of spectacles, and little besides. The first thing that catches the eye is Moses' unlucky bargain. There they are, the twelve dozen, in green cases and with plated rims. We submit that the first thing which _should_ attract the eye is the countenances of the actors in the scene. Owing to their tameness of expression, these, which should be prominent, are almost subordinate to the inanimate details of the apartment. Unimportant as it is, we are inclined to prefer the recess, and the peep through the window, to any other part of the picture. There is an airiness and transparency in that corner of the canvass, which we in vain seek elsewhere. The general effect is very hard. The hair of Moses and the little boy is as unlike hair as it well can be: we remember to have seen something very like it upon a tea-tray. These are technical objections. But Mr Maclise may rely upon it that he lacks the keen perception of humour indispensable to the artist who would illustrate Goldsmith.

Amongst the scriptural and mythological paintings, those of Mr Patten and Mr F. R. Pickersgill attract at least as much notice as they deserve. Besides portraits, Mr Patten has contributed three pictures. His _Susannah and the Elders_ is remarkable as being the most decidedly indecent picture exhibited this year. The subject is not a very pleasing one, and, to our thinking, has been painted quite often enough. But this is not the question. Mr Patten has put his version of it out of the pale of propriety by his mode of handling it. There is nothing classical in his treatment, nothing to redeem or elevate the nudity and associations of the subject. His Susannah is simply a naked English girl, with a pretty face, an immaculate cuticle, and something exceedingly voluptuous in the form and arrangement of her limbs. There is no novelty of conception in the picture, nor any particular merit except the colouring, which is good, but not equal to that in No. 446, _Bacchus discovering the Use of the Grape_. This is a pleasanter subject, cleverly treated, displaying more originality and much better taste. The flesh-tints are capital, and the picture altogether does credit to the painter. _Venus and Cupid_, by the same artist, is chiefly remarkable for a plaster-of-Paris dove of an extraordinarily brilliant and very unnatural effect. As to Mr F. R. Pickersgill, we should like his pictures better if he would not imitate poor Etty, whose memory, be it parenthetically observed, has been little regarded by those who have exhibited that most coarse and unpleasant picture, _The Toilet_, No. 276, a specimen of the deceased artist's worst manner. Mr Pickersgill's _Samson Betrayed_ is, there is no denying it, a very unsatisfactory composition. His red-haired Dalilah is graceless and characterless. Samson, recumbent in an attitude in which no man ever slept soundly, seems prevented only by a miracle from slipping off her knees. Two girls, instead of getting to a safe distance, are hugging each other in terror within reach of the giant's arm. There is scarcely an attitude in the picture that is not strained. In the conception there is an utter want of novelty of circumstance. The whole picture is deficient in originality. The eye wanders over it, seeking some feature of special interest or striking beauty whereon to dwell, and finds none. Mr Pickersgill has good qualities, but the spark of fancy and genius which alone can complete the great painter, is, we fear, wanting in his composition.

We turn with pleasure to Leslie's pictures. Were we disposed to find fault with this very agreeable artist, our objections could only be technical. With want of imagination, and feeling for beauty, none can tax him. Two of his three pictures contain the sweetest female faces in this exhibition. How admirably has he interpreted Shakspeare's description of Beatrice stealing to the woodbine bower, to play the eavesdropper on Hero and Ursula.

"Look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground."

The painter has exactly rendered the poet's graceful idea. As she glides along, we seem to detect the slight flutter and palpitation attendant on the clandestine movement. Expression and attitude are alike charming. Sophia Western deserves even higher praise. She is indeed a lovely creature. Tom Jones bids her behold herself in the mirror, and say whether such a face and form do not guarantee his fidelity. It is altogether a most agreeable composition; and if we have any fault to find, it is with the face of the enamoured foundling, which wants refinement, and has a sort of overgrown schoolboy's ruddy fulness. Katherine of Arragon beseeching Capucius to convey to Henry VIII. her last recommendation of her daughter and servants to his goodness, is the most important of Mr Leslie's pictures; and although by many it will not be deemed the most attractive, none can deny it great merit and interest. The suffering countenance of Katherine, and the tearful faces of her attendants, are full of expression. The ambassador is rather tame, and one scarcely recognises in his face or bearing the energy with which he vows to do the bidding of the unhappy queen.

Mr Eastlake has one scriptural and one historical picture in this year's exhibition. A passage from Sismondi, telling the escape of an Italian noble and his wife from the persecution of the Duke of Milan, has suggested the latter, which is painted for the Vernon Gallery. There is some good expression in the faces in this picture, which has more interest and novelty than its companion _The Good Samaritan_, and also greater vigour. Both show the hand of the experienced and skilful artist, although perhaps neither can be classed amongst the best things he has produced. We should gladly see a little more nerve in Mr Eastlake's style, and this we think might be advantageously combined with his beautiful transparency of colouring, and other excellent qualities as a painter. There is no diminution in the purity of style and thought which has always been one of his finest characteristics.

Mr Frith is an improving artist. There is humour and progress in No. 543, a scene from Goldsmith's _Good-natured Man_. _Mr Honeywood introduces the bailiffs to Miss Richland as his friends._ He must beware, however, of running into caricature in subjects of this kind. The bailiffs are perhaps a little overdone. Miss Richland has a very pretty face, but she looks more like a _soubrette_ or smart actress than a woman of fashion. Mr Frith's other picture, Sancho proving to the duchess that Don Quixote is at the bottom of the table, is well painted, and, in a technical point of view, it must be spoken of with respect. He has not been quite so successful as we should have expected in the expression of the faces,--that of the duke excepted, which is a good and thoroughly Spanish countenance, with its habitual gravity disturbed by Sancho's quaint humour and his master's manifest distress. But painting ladies is not Mr Frith's forte. His duchess is pretty, but there is a want of aristocratic distinction in her face and bearing; and as to the ladies grouped behind her chair, they are cookmaids in masquerade. Very few living artists, besides Leslie, should venture upon Sancho. We will not say that Mr Frith is not one of those few, but his delineation of the shrewd esquire, although very humorous, is rather coarse, and he has made him ragged and filthy to an unnecessary degree. The vexation and embarrassment of Don Quixote are ludicrously portrayed.

Four very small, very unpretending pictures by Thomas Webster, R.A., must be sought for, but, when found, cannot fail to be admired. They are a feature, and a very charming one, of this year's Exhibition. High finish and truth to nature are their chief characteristics. Mr Webster is getting quite into the Ostade manner. His colouring, too, is admirable. No. 54 is a boy in a chimney corner, supping pottage, with an old woman knitting opposite to him. Both faces are excellent, and full of character. _A Cherry Seller_ is a perfect _bijou_--the woman weighing out the fruit; the boys, looking on with eager eyes and watering mouths; the fruit itself, with its Dutch nicety of finish:--altogether it is a most desirable picture, such as one can hardly pass, even for the twentieth time, without pausing for another view. _A Peasant's Home_ is upon the whole too gray, and perhaps the least attractive of the four; but in the _Farmhouse Kitchen_ are a couple of figures, a farmer and his dame, than which nothing can be better, either in colour or expression. Mr Webster shows great taste and judgment in adhering to a pleasing simplicity, without ever falling into quaintness or affectation. And it is a study for a young artist to observe the skill with which he throws his lights, and the transparency and absence of _paintyness_ (to borrow a term from the studio) which characterise his pictures.

Mr Solomon Hart's _Kitchen Interior at Mayfield_ will not do after Webster. This, however, is one of the least important of his six pictures, which comprise two other interiors, two heads, and a Jewish festival. This last is perhaps the best picture he has painted. The MSS. of the Pentateuch are being carried round the synagogue at Leghorn, amidst chanting of hymns. There is a strong devotional character in many of the faces; and, as a work of art, the picture is more than respectable. The interest of the subject is a question of taste. For us, we confess, it possesses very little attraction; and the Jewish physiognomy, so strongly marked as it is in all the occupants of the synagogue, is, to our thinking, incompatible with beauty. We do not much admire either _A Virtuoso or Arnolfo di Lapo_. The latter is the best of the two: the former, carefully painted, is merely an ordinary-looking Jew.

What can we say of Mr Turner? Perhaps we had better content ourselves with mentioning that he has four pictures in the Exhibition, all in his latest manner, all illustrative of that far-famed, but, unfortunately, unpublished poem, _The Fallacies of Hope_, and all proving the fallacy of the hope we annually cherish that he will abjure his eccentricities, and revert to the style which justly gained him his high reputation. It were absurd of us to attempt to criticise his present productions, for to us they are unintelligible; and, judging from the extremely puzzled looks we see fixed upon them, we suspect that not many of those who pause for their examination are more successful than ourselves in deciphering their meaning, and in appreciating the beauties which a few stanch adherents pretend to discover in those strange compounds of red, white, and yellow. What if Mr Turner were to seek his inspirations elsewhere than in the aforesaid MS.? Can it be that the poet's halting verse influences the painter's vagaries? From the specimens afforded us, we are not inclined to think highly of _The Fallacies_ _of Hope_. Take the following, _exempli gratiâ_:--

"Beneath the morning mist
Mercury waited to tell him of his neglected fleet."

And this--

"Fallacious Hope beneath the moon's pale crescent shone,
Dido listened to Troy being lost and won."

Enough of such poetry, and enough, as far as we are concerned, of a great painter's unfortunate aberrations.

Apropos of aberrations, we have a word to say, which may as well be said here as elsewhere. Affectation, however, is a more suitable word for the mountebank proceedings of a small number of artists, who, stimulated by their own conceit, and by the applause of a few foolish persons, are endeavouring to set up a school of their own. We allude, to the pre-Raphaelites. Let not Messrs Millais, Hunt, Rosetti, & Co. suppose, because we give them an early place in this imperfect review of the exhibitions, that we concede to them an undue importance. As to admiration, we shall presently make them aware how far we entertain that feeling towards them. Meanwhile, let them not plume themselves on a place amongst men of genius. Just as well might they experience an exaltation of their horns, because their absurd and pretentious productions get casually hung next to pictures by Landseer or Webster. It appears they have got into their wise heads certain notions that the ideal of expression is to be found in the works of the artists who flourished previously to Raphael. And they have accordingly set to work to imitate those early masters, not only in the earnestness of purpose visible in their productions, but in their errors, crudities, and imperfections--renouncing, in fact, the progress that since then has been made; rejecting the experience of centuries, to revert for models, not to art in its prime, but to art in its uncultivated infancy. And a nice business they make of it. Regardless of anatomy and drawing, they delight in ugliness and revel in diseased aspects. Mr Dante Rosetti, one of the high-priests of this retrograde school, exhibits at the Portland Gallery. Messrs Millais and Hunt favour the saloons of the Academy. Ricketty children, emaciation and deformity constitute their chief stock in trade. They apparently select bad models, and then exaggerate their badness till it is out of all nature. We can hardly imagine anything more ugly, graceless, and unpleasant than Mr Millais' picture of Christ in the carpenter's shop. Such a collection of splay feet, puffed joints, and misshapen limbs was assuredly never before made within so small a compass. We have great difficulty in believing a report that this unpleasing and atrociously affected picture has found a purchaser at a high price. Another specimen, from the same brush, inspires rather laughter than disgust. A Ferdinand of most ignoble physiognomy is being lured by a pea-green monster intended for Ariel; whilst a row of sprites, such as it takes a Millais to devise, watch the operation with turquoise eyes. It would occupy more room than the thing is worth to expose all the absurdity and impertinence of this work. Mr Hunt's picture of a Christian Missionary sheltered from Druid pursuit is in as ridiculous taste as any of the group.