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    has said or thought on this subject ; I merely note in passing that the various influences of such a gathering will ramify into remoteness at present unsuspected . I think one good effect , one incalculable effect upon our nation will be to teach them a higher appreciation of Beauty ; and only those accustomed to analyze the complexities of our nature , mingling , as it does , the sensuous with the emotive , and both with the intellect , will clearly

    apprehend my meaning in this matter . Collateral with this , I will note that the Exposition must go far to disabuse the British mind of its prejudice against colour . Here colour is squandered with the prodigality of Nature . All colours , all tints , subdued by no law , but in all the charming effects of hazard and caprice , wherever the eye turns , it is pleased with some brilliant spot of beauty , and in spite of caprice , in spite of occasional bad taste , the general effect is of festal splendour .

    But , having vainly endeavoured to indicate the splendour of this page out of the Arabian Nights Entertainments , shall I tell you what , next to the building , dazzled und enraptured me ? The women . Ye gods , such women ! Firenznola has left us a treatise , Delia Bellezza delle Bonne , on the Beauty of Women , which as it is " extant and written in very choice Italian , " I refer you to , if you can read it ; but for those who would read the " Italian without a master , " I refer them to their souvenirs of Saturday . It was the last of the exclusive days : the guinea tickets

    brought with them guinea beauties ! My heart was riddled by shots from eyes in whose lustrous gentleness I saw glimpses of Paradise . Firenzuola would have said there was more than one who diffused as it were around her the perfume of a queen—getta quasi un odor di Regina , while her mouth dimpled with s miles was as the fountain of amorous tendernesses—bocca fontana de tutte le amorose dolcezze . But why do I go on hammering at rny memory for phrases which that Italian let fall from his fluent pen , when it is quite evident that he , not having seen the galaxy of loveliness which lighted up the Crystal

    Palace could know nothing of the summits which Female Beauty was capable of attaining ! Not one lovely woman , but crowds of them ! With sweet demure English looks , some of them , the fresh innocence of youth , and English girlhood ; others with riper and more luscious Summer , even preferable in my eyes to Spring ; others again magnificent in Autumnal mellowness . Then such complexions ! such brows ! such lips ! such eyes ! Tancred , led by his straining heart through Armkla ' s gardens , was nothing to Vivian in that garden of beauty , wishing that one of them would bo his Armida and enchant him as long as she

    pleased ! I have always been the slave of the sex ( they call me , indeed , a Turk and a Tyrant , but exactness of language , yon know , is not their forte !) and always considered my own countrywomen the perfection of the species— -the Rose of the Carden . But on Saturday I was fairly surprised . After any prolonged absence * abroad , when first I walk the streets of London , I am bewildered and almost harassed by the beauty of the women . Almost every one 1 meet seems to me a Ilcbe . Yet there are queer Ilebes , too , to be met with in our London streets . It is not the one pretty woman , but the quantity which always amazes me . Alter a little while 1 begin to whereas it is

    fancy the pretty women are all gone , only that my eyes have become accustomed to the general standard . On Saturday , at the Exposition , 1 felt very much as I do on coming from abroad — I was bewildered by the nuuntity of loveliness . I lowever , I congratulated myself on not being a married man ! with a bachelor ' s liberty I looked upon all those Ilebes as possible SAcbes ( by which feeble joke I mean wives ) —mind 1 any possiblepotential—within the . spacious limits of ( act ; lor after all , you know , the handsomest is not always the most fascinating , and before I had made up my mind to propose , to one , she might have shown a deposition— -to reject me ! It is this natural modesty and retiring unobtruaiveness which has kept me a bachelor .

    This , however , is something of a digression What I wanted to convey to you was the unparalleled beauty of the Crystal Palace , and the unparalleled beauty of the women in it on Saturday a gorgeous frame to an exquisite picture ! 1 was there on Tuesday again , but the fairies bad departed : some beauties there were , and many bogien , but the Visions of Saturday bad vanished . Consequently 1 looked more at the Exposition itself , and wan deeply interested .

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    EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY . In general character , the Exhibition of the Royal Academy resembles the three or four last—the interest lying mainly in the figure pictures by Frith , Ward , and the younger members of the Academy ; the historical pictures not many , and with few exceptions , uninteresting : of the changes , the absence of Turner and Mulready is the most remarkable ; Etty , too , is gone . Among the younger men , especially Armitage , and the principal of the pre-Raphael school , there is movement ; but in certain very prominent instances , the annual repetition of the same idea seems to strike with a more unpleasant force than usual : the idealized models which Mr . Frost groups every year , are as familiar to the anticipation as the five letters that form his name , or as Colonel Sibthorp at a private view . On entering the great room and commencing the tour indicated by the catalogue , the first picture to arrest attention , is David Roberta ' s " Interior of the Church of St . Ann , at Bruges /* a large and effective picture , but not possessing so much interest as his Syrian scene , " Surprise of the Caravan , " where mounted Arabs are dashing about amid sand and pillared antiquities . Creswick next meets the eye with one of his most vigorous and animated landscapes— " Over the hills and far away "; both in this and in other works he is in great

    strength . Then , Heibert ' s group of his own children , two daughters , designed and painted with a simplicity not often seen out of the greatest schools . The same painter ' s study for the Judgment of Daniel , stands forth in striking contrast with the sleepy , dead-alive action of the compositions around it ; Daniel is a living youth , thoroughly intent upon the business which he is about , and not , like the figures in most

    of the historical pictures , conscious and weary of the drudging painter . " Caxton ' s Printing-office " draws round it a large crowd : it is an elaborate work in Maclise ' s best manner , grouped with much animation , and comprising much research . The portraits of Macready in the character of Werner , and Sir Edward Lytton , are more true to the modesty of nature , and therefore more powerful , than Maclise ' s portraits are apt to be .

    Edwin Landseer has five pictures —a stag standing in heather , on a bank just above the spectator ; a large group of animals' heads round a feeding trough ; a scene from " Midsummer Night ' s Dream "; a Highlander standing , with an eagle he has shot , in a snowstorm ; a Highland lassie , and " The Last Run of the Season "—a fox in a state of panting ; exhaustion . The " Midsummer Night ' s Dream" is a novelty in Landseer ' s style , more welcome to bis admirers than his Waterloo scene

    was . It represents Bottom , caressed by the doting Titania , and attended by the Fairies ; the asinine head , and some perfect white rabbits with red eyes , are designed and executed as Landseer only could , and there is much graceful fancy in the compositions . Webster confines himself to modest sketchesa man reading in a chimney corner , and children looking at ; a Savoyard with white mice , admirably executed studies from nature . E . M . Ward has two pictures , both marking an

    increase of power : " The Royal Family in the Prison of the Temple "—Marie Antoinette mending the coat of Louis XVI . while he sleeps , —a painful spectacle of royalty in its dregs ; and " John ( iilpin Delayed by his Customers , " excellent in the play of expression . Among other pictures of a similar class , which we shall have , to examine more closely hereafter , Frith shows us " Hogarth brought before the ( lovernor of Calais as a Spy ;" Leslie , " FalKl . au" personating the King ; " Egg , " IYpy « ' Introduction to Nell ( Jvvynne ; " Klinore ,

    " Hotspur and the Fop . " Among the more notable pictures of the serious histoiical kind are , " Cromwell Reading a Letter at Naseby , " by Ch ;» i-les LaudHeer ; "Laurence Saunders , the Protestant Martyr , " by C . W . Cope ; " Ceofirey Chaucer reading to Edward the Thii d , " by V . ML Brown ; " Harold ' s Oath to William , " by . L douse ; " Florentines giving up Plate and Jewels , " by the Chevalier AlcM . sutidro Cupultc ; "The Secret Execution" ( of a wife by her jealous husband ) , by II . C . Selous ; " The Right into Egypt , " by It . Redgrave ; and " Samson ( Grinding for the Philistines , " by E . Armitage ; the laat , a picture with real greatness in it . Of the lire-Raphael gentlemen , W . Hunt , in

    Among the landscapes , Sidney Cooper has several of his best , some in conjunction with Lee Stansfield , " The Battle of Roveredo , " a fine piece of cabinet scene painting ; Ansdell depicts , " The Shepherd ' s Revenge "—a wolf shot , flagrante delicto , —in a scene by Creswick : and Redgrave , "A Poet ' s Study , " an excellent specimen of his

    " Valentine receiving Sylvia from Proteus , " and Collins , in " Convent Thoughts , " are as deliberately fantastic and feeble as ever ; but there are evident signs that Millais ' s great powers are outgrowing the crudities and distortions of this preposterous school . His pictures are Tennyson ' s Mariana in the moated grange , " The Return of the Dove to the Ark , " two girls caressing the bird , and " The Woodman ' Daughter , " from Coventry Patmore ' s poem , with a little Lord graciouslybestowing some fruit .

    new manner . # Among the portraits , Williams ' s Moritz Retsch fastens attention by its subject ; also Watson Gordon ' s Duke of Argyle , for the same reason ; and several of Thorburn ' s dignified miniatures for the transcendent beauty of the treatment . The sculpture is not abundant ; a diversion having been effected by the Crystal Palace ; neither is it interesting .

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    RETIRED FROM BUSINESS . Douglas Jerrold , I am about to remonstrate with you . Don't talk to me about Friendship ; if one can't speak the truth to one ' s friends , to whom can it be spoken ? It is wasting a precious thing to give one ' s enemies the exclusive privilege ! You know how heartily I admire you , and how often I have expressed my admiration , so that I can say point blank , and with an easy conscience , that " Retired from Business" is not a comedy greatly to my taste , is not a comedy worthy of your powers . Wit , there is , sparkling and joyous—satire that tells—and strong healthy elementary feeling tooall this any one foresees in a comedy signed by you And the jewels thrown with a careless prodigality over that patched and tattered garment of a plot are jewels , and of fine water ; but jewels on a beggar do not hide the beggary , they bring it into strong relief ! Against this 1 protest . You "With gold and silver cover every part , And hide with ornament the want of art . Let me ask of you calmly , hand on your conscience , whether you have either told a good story , or set character in action in this " Retired from Business ? " Have you not contented yourself with indicating character , indicating satire , and leaving the story to shift for itself ? The comedy opens capitally . The idea , though

    not a new one , belongs to true comedy , taken out of the very heart of our conventional life . The Pennyweights have retired from business in the greengrocery line , and have taken a cottage in Pumpkinfield , where there is " excellent society , " if the newcomers can but wriggle themselves into it . As a first step , Mrs . P . adopts the elegant addition of Fit / ., and becomes Mrs . Fitzpennyweigbt , completely renouncing her past . Visitors call . From one of them , a Russia merchant , the

    Pennyweights learn that " society" is divided into two classes—the retired wholesale and the retired retail : the " bill ocracy " and the " till ocracy . " Between these there is internecine war . The slit in the counter is an impassable abyss . " Raw wool doesn ' t speak to halfpenny ball of worsted , tallow in casks looks down upon sixes in the pound , and pig iron turns up its nose at tenpenny nails . " This is a good broad canvas for the satiric painter , and I recognize your touch in the design and in the figures . The figures , reader , are these : Mr .

    Pennyweight , a plain man with a greengrocery turn of mind , who is not ashamed of Ins past ; bis wife , a struggling parverme ; their daughter , a romantic school girl ; Mr . Puffins , a pompous Russia merchant ; Mr . Jubilee , a lively pawnbroker , with uxorious remembrances , varied by an occasional forgetfulness of bin having retired from business , which leads him to ask people " how much they want on" certain articles ; Mr . CreepmouNe , an army clothier with military aspirations ; and Mr . Paul Puffins , a young gentleman of " genius , " in love with Miss Virginia l * ennyweitfht .

    These all start admirably : the jokes are a&pid and telling ; the Hatire broad and true ; the subject promising . But once having net tlio ideft visibly before us , having placed your character clearly on tho stage , why do you flhirk the difficult part of the dramatist , and not attempt to make thcHe characters move ? You have contented yourself with indicating what you were

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    446 ® t > * ILtaHet . [ Satdrdav ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 10, 1851, page 446, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1882/page/18/