MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. (WITH A PORTRAIT, FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JOHN LUCAS.) MAY the day be distant when it shall be deemed expedient to present the public with a memoir of the charming authoress whose portrait graces our present number. In her delightful work, published a month. or two since, and which she has called "Recollections of a Literary Life," Miss Mitford has so nearly indicated her age, that we suspect we shall not be wrong if we affirm that she was born in the same year that ushered into the world Lord Byron, and our great and lamented statesman, Sir Robert Peel. There are, we suppose, very few of our readers who are not aware of the fame Miss Mitford acquired by her village sketches, and there are not many, we trust, who have not added to their stock of pleasure by a perusal of them. They are truly exquisite-as perfect, after their kind, as anything of Goldsmith or Washington Irving. To characterize them, we must go to a kindred art. They have not (as, indeed, the authoress sought not to bestow upon them) the classic grace of Wilson; still less do we discover in them the vigour and rough truthfulness of Constable; but you will see written pictures from her hand that have doubtless delighted Creswick, and in-door scenes that might have inspired Wilkie. We believe Mary Russell Mitford to be one of the most genial and constitutionally happy of human creatures. Had she been otherwise, some slight sensation of pain might linger in her breast that the fame of 'Our Village" should have somewhat obscured the reputation which she has shown herself fully capable of earning in poetry and the drama. This is, however, what all must expect to whom bounteous Nature assigns various abilities. The world will not recognize, at least on the instant, two kinds of excellence in the same individual; and "Watlington Hill," a poem, and the plays of " Julian," "Foscari," and "Charles the First," containing many passages of extreme beauty and power, comparatively unknown, would have won an enviable fame for anybody but Mary Russell Mitford. Yet let us not be unjust to the world or to the authoress. Well do we remember the triumph she achieved by her “ Rienzi,”- —a triumph heightened, but not created, by one of the greatest actors (Charles Young) that ever trod the boards, and by the graceful personation of Miss Phillips. The noble speech of Rienzi, immediately preceding his murder, will of itself set Miss Mitford in a high rank amongst dramatists. Our authoress has greatly added to the obligations we must all feel so much pleasure in acknowledging, by the publication of her "Recollections of a Literary Life." That so graceful a writer should be conversant and familiar with our best authors was reasonably to have been expected, and no one would be surprised were he told that such a heart and such a soul were capable of a sympathy with the beautiful and the great in any literary form. Yet our admiration has been called forth by the extent and variety of her reading, and by the delicacy and justness of her taste. On terms of intimacy and friendship with almost all the literary celebrities of her time, the "Recollections" of Miss Mitford are full of curious and most interesting anecdote; and not the least interesting peculiarity of this most charming book, is the evidence contained in it, how warmly and sincerely she regards her friends. VOL. XXXI. X X PRE-RAPHAELITISM ; A REVIEW of the present year's Exhibition at the Royal Academy demonstrates but too clearly the increase and extent of the mischiefworking agency of what is now generally understood as Pre-Raphaelite Art. One consideration alone indicates in a forcible manner its evil influence; for it is above all others the style best calculated to catch the vulgar, with whom identity of imitation has ever formed the scale of pictorial excellence. Resemblance and bright colours have always been panders to bad taste. That this opinion does not rest on unsupported assertion we have the evidence and authority of Mr. E. V. Rippingille,* whose observations are so just and opportune, that they cannot but be welcome to every lover of genuine art. Some three or four artistical aspirants," says Mr. Rippingille, "have within the last four years exhibited certain pictures distinguished by a peculiar quaintness of conception, a cold, dry, hard, meagre manner, an equalized distinctness of parts, and a laborious and superabundant detail of particulars, mistakenly regarded as high finish. In these doings we find great attention paid to little things, and little consideration be stowed on great ones, and supposing a purpose, the object of the artists seems to be, to paint Nature as she appears to untutored eyes, single, separate, unconnected, ungrouped, agreeable with the practice of the earliest, the rudest and the most unformed aspirants in art a practice exploded centuries ago, entirely distinct from that adopted by the artists of England or the intelligent of any other country. "Hence the claim of these aspirants to originality. "These attempts have none of that loose, vague, careless, offhand, bold, free and dexterous execution which distinguish the works of the English school, and which, taken together, constitute its bane, its reproach, and its excellence. Pre-Raphaelite Art has none of these. "Hence the claim of its professors to improved practice! "The works of the Pre-Raphaelites exhibit none of that want of confidence, timidity or modesty, with which the sensible and sincere ever approach a great and a difficult undertaking. We do not find here as we do in the works of beginners, and which is a sure and inva riable type of early art, any of that patchiness and inequality of success which mark and distinguish the course pursued by men who are earnestly striving to make their way in a new and difficult pursuit, wanting altogether the guidance and the light of experience and example. Nothing of the sort is to be found in Pre-Raphaelite Art, but, in its place, the appearance of impertinence- full evidence of a settled plan of operation resolutely determined upon, and obstinately persisted in; the whole conducted in a 'temper of resistance by exceed ingly young men of stubborn instincts and positive self-trust,' just in proportion as these works betray no evidence of the learner they arrogate to themselves that of the master. "Hence their claims to style. "In these productions we find full evidence that certain excellences A Reply to the Author of "Modern Painters,” in his "Defence of Pre-Raphaelitism," by E. V. Rippingille, will be published in a few days. PRE-RAPHAELITISM; OR, OBSOLETISM IN ART. 599 of Art, which are the acknowledged result of improved practice, vast experience, and evident advancement, which have been approved and exercised by men of the highest powers, the most profound knowledge, and the most refined taste; taught in theory, exemplified in practice, and supported by the fullest and best authority, are entirely dispensed with, neglected, overlooked, rejected, and unfelt. In the place of all this, we have the adoption of Art before its crudities were corrected and its principles understood; before Raphael had made over to himself the high honour of reaching that peculiar artistic excellence, completeness, and perfection which before his time had not even been dreamt of or approached by other labourers in the pursuit of Art; thus affording examples and lessons which none but the prejudiced and the imbecile will neglect. "Hence the claim of these aspirants to the high-sounding title of Pre-Raphaelites! "The peculiar 'eccentricities' of this little band have very naturally startled the public, who, unaccustomed to see such things, and unac quainted with the practices of artists and what they may take up in whim, or adopt in earnest, have divided upon their merits, the one party admiring, the other denouncing what is difficult without some knowledge of Art to understand. Many, no doubt, believing that this new-light faction has discovered some of the lost secrets of Art, of which we have read or heard, whilst others have assailed them with abuse, and denied to their works the possession of any merit at all. "In the midst of this conflict of opinions the author of 'Modern Painters' steps forward as their champion; let us see in what way and upon what grounds he supports their cause. "In the preface of the work before us are quoted some remarks from the close of the first volume of Modern Painters,' which are offered as advice to young artists. "The sense we find in these remarks is very like the subject, presented to us sometimes in the rough and indefinite sketch of a picture in which something is made out, but a great deal more is left to be supplied by the fancy of the inquirer. "The advice given to the young artists of England is, that they should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing.' "Now this advice to be rendered serviceable must be understood: it means constructingly, work hard, trust to Nature's teaching you very much of what it is indispensable for you to know. Go to her therefore with pure singleness of heart, and trust in her as if you had nothing else to learn; for the time, think nothing she presents too trifling to be studied and imitated, and do not favour one thing, or one course of study, to the exclusion and neglect of all others. This is clearly enough a free interpretation of what as an indefinite precept must prove a fallacious guide; but as if meant to be taken literally and regarded as a maxim full of instruction and replete with intelligence, and which there is no difficulty in following, it is exultingly stated that this advice, although for the most part rejected, has 'at last been carried out to the very letter by a group of men who, for their reward, have been assailed with the most scurrilous abuse which I |