246 Exhibition of the British Institution. Royal Academy exhibition, but hung in so bad a place (over Mr. Ward's immense view of Gordale) that the finest head of Titian or Rembrandt would there have passed unnoticed. We are now enabled to see its merits, which are high and indisputable; and if the same path be pursued with energy and perseverance, it must soon place Mr. Hayter among our very first painters. 30, A Page to Fitzwalter: a study for the Picture of King John signing Magna Charta in the presence of the Barons at Runnemede: J. LONSDALE, As we have been favoured with a sight of the picture of which this is only an accessory, we are the better enabled to judge of its merits, which are greater in the groupe than in this detached figure; yet it posseses high intrinsic claims to notice for design and colour. 32, View from Richmond Hill: Evening: T. C. HOFFLAND.-This fine laudscape is also a transfer from the Royal Academy, where it hung on the dark side of the Anti-room. The change of situation is favourable to the artist, who has made some judicious alteration in the fore-ground, which considerably enhance its beauty. It is one of the finest landscapes of the present school, and must convey a favourable idea of our scenery and landscape painters. 67, Gil Blas dismissed with contempt by the Archbishop of Grenada for presuming to point out the defects in his Homilies, F. P. STEPHANOFF.-Admirably designed, beautifully painted, and correctly delineated. This picture tells at one glance the drift of the story. The self-importance and gravity of the archbishop is well contrasted with the subtle humour of Gil Blas. 87, Meg Merrilies, (Guy Mannering,) J. PARTRIDGE. A very imperfect definition of the mysterious heroine of the novelist, whose creation of this superhuman being is only inferior to the Caliban and Witches of Shakspeare. 88, Windsor, from Clewer Meadows: Morning: T. C. HOFFLAND.-A fresh, clean, and natural view of one of the most charming scenes in England. This picture must be classed among the best landscapes of the day. 90, Richard the Third, J. J. HALLS. --An indifferent portrait of Mr. Kean, claborately finished in the detail, but deficient in grandeur and breadth. 105, Sabrina, from Comus, H. HowARD, R. A We must refer our readers to our last review of the Royal Academy [April 1, for an opinion on this very charming illustration of our great poet Milton. 124, Belvidera: a Chamber in the House of Aquilina, a Greek Courtezan: A. W. DEVIS.-We have already expressed our opinion so fully on this fine portrait of Miss O'Neil, that we need but say it must here once more claim respect from the critics and connois seurs. 124, 125, and 126, Two Studies painted on the Spot, at Stapleton, near Bristol, and a Study painted on Hampstead Heath, T. C. HOFFLAND.-These beautiful little works bear internal evidence of the truth and authenticity of their origin, and are creditable to the pencil of the artist. 133, A Scene from Gil Blas: Donna Mencia, the Captive Lady, on recovering from the Swoon caused by the Murder of her Husband, finds herself in a Cavern surrounded by Robbers, (vol. i. book 1,) W. ALLSTON.-This picture also suffered condemnation from an illjudged situation at the top of the new room at the Royal Academy last year; but as it now appears it fully retrieves any opinion that might have been formed of the decline of Mr. Allston's talents, from the view we there took of this work. 137 and 139, Birds and Still Life, and Fish from Nature, N. CHANTRY.They possess all the qualities that are excellent in pictures of this nature. 144, View of Durham Cathedral from the River-side, W. WEST ALL, A. R. A.— A fine view of one of our most splendid and interesting cathedrals. 162, The Muse of Tragedy, F. JoSEPH, A. R. A.—Miss O'Neil in character. This picture has either been much improved by the artist, or by situation, since its exhibition at Somerset House last year. 164, A View from near Ambleside, looking up Long Dale, Westmoreland, C. V. FIELDING. A rich, beautiful, and naturally-painted picture; bearing a few marks of borrowing from the Italian masters irreconcileable with English sce nerv. 186, Iris conveying Jove's commands to King Priam, surrounded by his Sons, who are in grief at the loss of Hector. 187, Marc Antony showing the Robe and Wll of Jurus Cæsar to the eople. 188, The Hours bringing out the Horses of the Chariot of the Sun at the solicitations of Young Phaeton Painted by BENJAMIN WIST, Esq. President of the Royal Academy. To mention that these Exhibition of the British Institution. works are here is all that need be said to prove this exhibition worthy of notice. 206, The Angel liberating St. Peter from Prison, (Acts, xii. 5, 67,) W. ALLSION.-This fine historical picture, painted by commission for Sir Geo. Beaumont, answers our predictions in its favour some months ago. ground is more appropriate and better The backpainted than any picture we remember to have seen for a long time; and if any fault can be found, it may be in the over-robust frame of the apostle. 234, Diana with her Nymphs in the Chase, W. ALLSTON.-A fine classical composition, replete with energy and reuned taste. 256, Cottage and Figures, Mrs. MULREADY--Beautiful and delicately touched, evincing a true relish for nature. SCULPTURE. 263, Cast from the Antique Horse's Head in the Elgin Collection; the mutituted parts restored: R. LAWRENCE. Spirited and fine. 264, Apollo discharging his Arrows against the Greeks, E. H. BAILY.-This may be reckoned among the best modern works in sculpture, and which we should be happy to see executed in marble. 239, Model of an Arabian Horse, intended as part of an Equestrian Statue of the Duke af Wellington, R. LAWRENCE. This horse wants revision before it can be fit for the important object Mr. Lawrence intends; not but it sesses fire, animation, and much animal posintelligence as a whole, but it is too bulky and clumsy in the body, and would not suffer by a little more attention to the detail. This was modelled among the Elgin marbles, and is another proof of the superior value to artists of that collection; but a little regard to those inimitable works would improve this otherwise beautiful animal. WATERLOO PICTURES. The following are the pictures offered in competition for the 1000 guineas to be distributed in premiums, as announced by the directors, and mentioned in our Magazine for August 1815, page 62; and as the Institution have not yet decided, we shall avoid prejudging the subjects, not so much out of deference to the directors, as the fear of being prejudicial to the artists. No. 113, Battle of Waterloo, JAMES HOWE. 115, The overthrow of the French Army at the Battle of Waterloo, L. CLENNELL. 119, Ditto D, DIGHTON. 247 KIRSCH.-The last desperate effort of 156, The Battle of Waterloo, F. J. MANSthe French near the farm of La Haye British army to advance in the foreSainte, and Lord Wellington ordering the ground is seen the Marquis of Anglesea, and in the back ground La Belle Alli ance. : 158, Ditto ditto, A. SAUERWEID, 160, A finished Sketch of ditto, G. JONES. No. 1. 2 p. m. charge by the general Sir W. Ponsonby.-16, No.2, brigade under the command of Majorevening; the Duke of Wellington leading on the whole of the British line in pursuit of the routed enemy. allegory, JAMES WARD, R. A. 161. The Battle of Waterloo in an W. H. BROOKE. ment ordered the whole line to move for"The Duke of Wellington at this moward: nothing could be more beautiful! The sun, which had hitherto been veiled, at this instant shed upon us his departing rays, as if to smile upon the efforts we were making, and bless them with success."-(Extract of a Letter from an Officer in the Horse Guards). DRUMMOND, A. R. A. 176. Ditto, (with a page and three quarters of closely printed description!) D. GUEST. THE ELGIN MARBLES-Mr. HAYDON versus Mr RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT; Committee of the House of Commons on the same subject, &c. &c. chase of the remains of the sculptures The important subject of the purfrom the Parthenon, or Temple of Miderous grasp of the Turks by the panerva at Athens, rescued from the murtriotic exertions of the Earl of Elgin, is tigation in a Committee f the House of now most properly the subject of invesenquiries, and is daily examining artists. Commons; which is indefatigable in its value. We shall therefore array before 248 Opinions of Eminent Artists respecting the Elgin Marbles. [April 1, dom of our legislature will do ample justice to the ill-treated Nobleman to whom the arts and artists of the country are so highly indebted. Among the principal artists who have printed their opinions, are CANOVA and HAYDON, and at the head of the connoisseurs is Mr. PAYNE KNIGHT, who are decidedly at issue; the two former pronouncing them among the finest works of art in existence, and the latter decrying them as the productions of "workmen scarcely ranked among artists!" As this gentleman has been quoted in the house as of high authority, and may, from the inBuence of his name, mislead some of the members of the Committee, we feel that we cannot at such an important period do a greater service to the fine arts, than to devote a portion of our pages to these opinions. Opinion of the celebrated CANOVA ON (as he emphatically terms them) "the precious antique Marbles transported by the Earl of Elgin from Greece.”—“I can never," says this illustrious artist, who is confessedly the first of modern sculptors, in a letter to Lord Elgin, "sufficiently examine them to gratify myself; and though my sojourn in this great capital is necessarily very short, I have consecrated every spare moment to contemplate these famous relics of ancient art. I admire in them the truth of nature, joined to the choicest of beautiful forms. Every thing here breathes life, with the most exquisite skill, yet without the least affectation, or ostentation of art, which is veiled" (from the eyes of connoisseurs, but not from those of the genuine artist) "with admirable address. The naked figures are true and beautiful flesh. I esteem myself happy in having been able to see with my own eyes, these distinguished works, and I should have been content to have come to London solely on their account. The most grateful acknowledgment will be given to you, my Lord, by the amateurs and artists, for having brought so near to us these memorable and stupendous sculptures. For myself in particular, I give you a thousand thanks." Opinion of B. R. HAYDON, Esq. Historical Painter.-This gentleman who has deeply and most intensely studied these memorable and stupendous sculptures" from their first arrival in England, who to our knowledge was the first (although Mr. West, in his letter to Lord Elgin claims this honour) who ever drew and studied from them, and is at present the only one who has ever taken casts from them, which he has done from the Theseus and other principal figures, and which form the most distinguished ornaments, with the bust of Michel Angiolo of his painting room and study, says distinctly that it is that "union of nature with ideal beauty, the probabilities and accidents of bone, flesh, and tendon, from extension, flexion, compression, gravitation, action, or repose, that rank at once the Elgin marbles above all other works of art in the world.”—“ The Elgin marbles,” says this high-minded enthusiastic young painter, "will as completely overthrow the old antique, as ever one system of philosophy overthrew another."-" Were the Elgin marbles lost," (and but for Lord Elgin be it remembered they must have been lost to this country, at least, if not to the world, by being made along with the rest of their lamented fellow fragments into most excellent mortar"), there would be as great a gap in art, as there would in philosophy, had Newton never cxisted.". He further bears witness that Canova was, in the enthusiasm of the moment, inclined to kneel and worship; and the writer of this article was the happy witness of not less enthusiasm in a celebrated French artist at his first visit above seven years ago, and who would have commissioned him to purchase them from Lord Elgin at any rate, and have given a great advance upon the price for them for the Napoleon Museum, but the negotiation was broken off by his Lordship's patriotie declaration, that they should not be sold to any one who would not give a satisfactory guarantee that they should never be removed from England. - Mr. Haydon farther adds, " to these divine things I owe every particle of the art I may possess; I never enter among them without bowing to the great spirit that reigns within them; I thank God daily, I was in existence at their arrival, and will ever do so to the end of my life. Such a blast will Fame blow of their grandeur, that its roaring will swell out as time advances; and nations yet unborn, will in succession be roused by its thunder, and refined by its harmony; pilgrims from the remotest corner of the earth will visit their shrine, and be purified by their beauty," Opinion of RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, Esq. member of the Society of Dilletanti, &c.&c.-Before we enter on this learned connoisseur's opinion, we beg to refer dur readers to the initial chapter to the book of that most admirable picture of human 1816.] Opinions on the Elgin Marbles.-Mr. West. nature, Tom Jones, wherein the humorous and discriminating Fielding, playfully endeavours to prove that men do not write the worse on a subject for happening (like Messrs. Canova and Haydon) to understand it; and also to refer Mr. Knight to his favorite Pliny, who will tell him that De Pictore, Sculptore, Fictore, nisi artifer judicare non potest. But to the opinion itself," they are merely architectural sculptures, executed from his "(Phidias")" designs, under his direction, probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists”—“ they can throw little light on the more important details of the art" !!! (See Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Dilletanti Society, page 39, art. 74.) HAYDON 7. R. P. KNIGHT. Fearing that the committee of the House of Commous may be somewhat influenced by the opinions of Mr. Knight, and other connoisseurs, Mr. Haydon in the Champion Sunday paper of March 17, boldly and avowedly enters the lists "on the judgment of connoisseurs being preferred to that of professional men." This is a subject of the utmost consequence to the nobility and richer classes of the gentry in general, and to the professors of the fine arts in particular, and has been before complained of by Mr. Soane, in Mr. Prince Hoare's admirable series of periodical essays, called the Artist, and by Mr. Elines, in a letter to Thomas Hope, esq. in Valpy's Pamphleteer. Mr. Haydon boldly and truly tells them that their "little dependence on their own judgment in art, is principally owing to a defect in their education," and which defect Mr. Elmes proposed in the above letter, to be remedied by the appointment of professors of the fine arts in the universities. Mr. Haydon most pertinently says "No man will trust his limb to a connoisseur in surgery. No minister would ask a connoisseur in war, how a campaign should be conducted-No nobleman would be satisfied with the opinion of a connoisseur in law, on disputed property; and why should a connoisseur of art, inore exclusively than any other without the reach of common aquirement, be preferred to the professional man? What reason can be given, why the painter, the sculptor, and the architect, should not be exclusively believed most adequate to decide on what they best understand, as well as the surgeon, the lawyer, and the general?" We shall add to these conclusive remarks, an apostrophe of a very NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 27. 249 learned connoisseur in art. "Delivre nous grand Dieu de ces amateurs sans amour, and de ces connoisseurs sans connoissance." We cannot but congratulate Lord Elgin, the artists of Great Britain, and the public, on this very important letter, which must set for ever at rest, the ques tion between artists and mere connoisseurship, so happily begun by Mr. Prince Hoare, by putting the pen into the hands of many excellent artists, convincing them that they could write and judge the better for their knowledge in art, and that literature is not a species of freemasonry kept from the uninitiated; so continued by Messrs. Soane and Elmes, and so triumphantly finished by Mr. Haydon. We lament that we cannot give his letter entire, and therefore refer the reader to the Champion, a print whose intrinsic merit recommends it to the particular attention of every lover of literature and the fine arts. INTELLIGENCE. The professors of the fine arts will learn with pleasure the homage paid to distinguished excellence in their line, in the recent appointment of the venerable President of the Royal Academy, to be a member of the Royal Bavarian Academy at Munich, and also of the ce cbrated Academy of St. Luke at Rome. These honours are declared to be a tribute due to those superior talents, that have shed lustre on the age and country in which they have been exerted. The value of one of them may be more justly appreciated, when it is known that Mr. WEST is the first Protestant ever admitted into the Academy of St. Luke. Our readers will not be displeased to find here a record of the numerous distinctions conferred on a man not less estimable for moral worth than professional abilities. Mr. WEST is now a member of the following institutions: In England. Royal Academy, over which, as is well Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Com merce. Highland Society. Governor of the Foundling Hospital. On the Continent of Europe. Royal Prussian Academy, at Berlin. 2 K DRURY LANE. ON Thursday, the 29th Feb. a new farce from the pen of Mr. Thomas Dibdin, called What Next, made its appearance at this theatre. The plotis trifling, but it possesses some bustle and little probability, characteristics by no means uncommon, or unpleasing in pieces of this nature. Its popularity hangs principally on the resemblance of a military officer to his uncle, which is increased by his dressing himself in his uncle's uniform; creating a series of whimsical mistakes after the Inauner of Shakspeare's Comedy of Errors. The resemblance between the uncle (Dowton) and nephew (Bartiey) is striking; and by the imitative skill of the latter, produces ludicrous incidents, which are very much kept alive and prolonged by the efforts of Knight, particularly in the scene in which, from his drunkenness, he mistakes the uncle for the nephew. Farquhar's witty Comedy of The Recruiting Officer has been revived, and, from the manner in which it is got up, does infinite credit to the managers; although thei laudable curtailment of its most licentious parts has sadly impaired its spirit. Ra sustained the part of Plume; Harley that of Brazen; and Jack Johnstone that of Sergeant Kite, into which he infused inimitable humour and drollery. Munden and Knight were Coster Peurmain, and Tummus Appletree, and it is impossible to say which deserved most praise. Miss Kelly's personification of Rose, was very creditable; her mode of looking at the captain's guinea, and telling him she could not give him change, and her soliloquy whilst seated on her empty basket, were excellent. Mrs. Mardyn did not gain upon our good opinion by her performance of Sylvia. The sub-committee of this theatre deserve the thanks of every lover of the na New Prologue to the "Duke of Milan." tional Drama, for the elevated station to which they seem determined to aspire; for while they cap bring the town to admire and endure Shakspeare and Massinger simply, and without the sauce piquante of rope dancing, they will be more likely to encourage writers who will emulate their lofty standard. We are induced to render them this tribute of justice, for their effectual revival of d New Way to pay Old Debts, and their more recent one of the Duke of Milan; both of which are in full possession of public opinion; whence we cannot but augur an improvement in the public taste. On the 9th of March, was revived with a few alterations in the denouement, &c. from the united efforts of Lord Byron, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, and Mr. Rae, Massinger's sterling play of The Duke of Milan: Ludovico Sforza by Mr. Kean, whose performance was marked throughout by study, care, and discrimination. If it was capable of any improvement, it was only in the costume; for he ought to have entered the tent of the emperor booted and spurred, like "a knight of olden time" and not in silks like a courtier. We never remember to have seen Mr. Rae surpass his performance in Francisco. The scenery, mostly architectural, was correct and for once appropriate, particularly the piazza and duomo in the first act. The costume of the whole of the charac ters, far superior to the mere efforts of the tailor and mantua-maker, exhibited the feelings of a genuine artist, and reflected the highest credit on the conductor (whoever he was) of this department; the men and women being in the exact costume of the times, looking like animated pictures of Titian, Tintoretto, or Guercino da Cento: a cloak or mantle would |