of no energy; nor in truth had she any, for her spirit had been struck when her cousin was separated from her. Her father had absorbed all her young affections, and his death severed every tie on earth. The Millionaire's daughter soon followed her father to the vault, a victim to the mistaken ambition of wealth, and the ignorant notion that riches alone constitute or can command happiness.

FINE ARTS.

EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF THE LATE SIR DAVID WILKIE.

BY J. W. ALLEN.

It cannot be denied that he who holds a true love of the arts, would feel it a duty incumbent upon his existence to lend a pioneering hand to the hewing down and clearing away those obstacles which unfortunately the empirics in criticism upon these matters heap together in the public way. And by thus pointing to those ignes fatui who "darken wisdom by words without knowledge," teach the learner to avoid the stumbling blocks ignorance has placed in the path to that social good, which a propagation of the knowledge of art will invariably impart to the community.

This shall be our task in future; not that we intend to parade our banner, or settle as a standard for either amateur, connoisseur, or the mere looker-on to rush to; but simply, though with honest vigour, do we promise to devote our energies to the work, as an integral portion in the same field of labour with the few earnest promoters of free trade, that have of late had the courage to raise their voices in support of this branch of civilization.

We shall furthermore make it our especial care, as far as practicable, by comparing with the works of the old masters, (or rather those virtuous portions of their minds which have been set apart for our admiration by the homage paid them by other great minds,) the mistaken stamp of meretricious worth too often observable in the productions of our own time; and bring back the aberrations of taste and false opinions into a tone of health and intelligibility, conducive not merely to the support but the advancement of art. It is not enough to merely keep the machinery free from rust, but absolutely to work it to an improving issue.

We have just returned from a visit to the works of the late Sir David Wilkie, whose abilities are too widely known to require any inadequate eulogy that would flow from our humble efforts; one whose powerful characteristics and distinctive excellence are linked with those of Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and the other names associated with the perfection of the British school, to support and raise our national greatness in art.

As almost all the pictures forming the Exhibition are already well known, a descriptive notice would no doubt be deemed useless; we shall therefore endeavour only to draw attention to their comparative merits. It having been a frequent subject of argument amongst those connected with the pursuits of taste, whether the style which was

adopted by Wilkie after going abroad was superior or otherwise to that displayed by him in his previous works, the very arrangement of this collective Exhibition will materially assist in forming an opinion of: at all events, the juxtaposition in which they have been placed is the temptation for us to do so;-brought as they are together into one gallery, we are spared the trouble and unsatisfactory operation of taxing the memory, so as to bring up any one production to the imaginative gaze, whilst we might be looking at another.

It must be beyond supposition that the romantic picturesqueness of Spain and its people made a very powerful appeal to the feelings of the painter; and that the circumstances which actuated every thing about him into stirring interest, could not have been beheld without breaking through that quietude which his own more peaceable country generated; and causing him to meditate, and hence to practise, a more enlarged style of art.

And, as his mind and eye expanded into a wider field of view, and revelled in a new vein, he felt the necessity of rendering the operation of his hand, in conjunction with his thought, freer and more open to leave the minute details attached to the Dutch masters, which had evidently accompanied him in his earlier representations of homely scenes and domestic dramas, for the vigorous expression and broader generalities of the Spanish school, and such as those subjects demanded which he afterwards aimed at.

It has been urged, that there is not a corresponding worth in his second style even with his first: that he showed not the same equality of mind and execution; in a few instances such observations might have been applied with truth. We will take what we consider an example, though in so doing we beg to record our opinions, that, in the one instance, the superior mental power, necessarily requisite for such a composition, must be ever assumed superior to the mechanical excellence in the other, however great it may be.

No. 48, "The Card Players," is a work bearing date 1808, and undoubtedly of its class the most perfect ever produced since the time of Teniers, possessing, in addition to the usual attributes of that painter, delicate greys and half-tones, forcible and transparently painted shadows, and a firmness of pencil, a chastity and truth in its local delineation, entirely devoid of grossness and vulgarity, too often the accompaniment to the otherwise beautiful emanations from the easel of the talented Dutch painter.

We now turn to No. 6, "Guerilla Council of War in a Spanish Posada;" and most reluctantly do we enter upon any remark that may be esteemed in the least degree chilling to the sensitive feelings of a rising genius, (for such there may be, and we sincerely trust are, at the present period,) whose ardent aspirations for the higher distinctions may be leading him from a homelier trait to venture his powers upon an epic theme. Yet we cannot avoid adverting to the peculiar execution of the above-mentioned, and regret that Wilkie, in the daring spirit of his new career (or second style), should have been in this instance so thoroughly disdainful of the executive quality, which, although but a secondary essential, by its absence should leave the admirer of so great a work anything to desire. Many of his sketches-such, par

exemple, as that for "Blind Man's Buff,"

"The Chelsea Pensioners," and others, will be regarded as finished pictures in comparison with this.

Thus far, as regards the two works which we have just compared, it may be assumed, that the scrupulous completeness of the earlier one is preferable to the unfinished essay of twenty years afterwards; and although that be admitted, nevertheless, by following this system of comparison, we shall produce a vast preponderance in favour of his latter time. Again, we will bring in apposition, No. 16, "The Sick Chamber," (painted also in the year 1808,) which must be regarded as a superior subject, and calculated, from the tenderness and delicacy of its sentiment, to delight the mind as well as the eye, and take a firmer hold of the feelings than "The Card Players.' Its treatment may be said to be in the Rembrandt way; and by this we do not insinuate an imitation, but that, in the management of the chiaro 'scuro, Wilkie has evidently regarded his subject and its arrangement through the medium of Rembrandt, and adapted that charming repose (which the Dutch master made peculiarly his own) as a means to enchain the beholder to the main point of the story. Notwithstanding all that has been said, and deservedly so, in praise of this picture,—and we yield with pleasure to the influence which from time to time a contemplation of it begets,—yet what will not be allowed of reiterated eulogy upon two works in the present collection carried even much further? No. 121, "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and No. 51, "Queen Mary Escaping from Lochleven Castle," (both painted in 1837). In the first-mentioned, all that rendered Wilkie great, and superior to his cotemporaries, in the simplicity of his elegance, the purity of his design, the sweetness of his colour, and the mastery of his composition, is herein more than thirty years in advance of "The Sick Chamber," if it be possible to create a scale of improvement by the progress of time. In addition to this, the higher style of narrative assumed by him in representing the escape of the unfortunate Mary, has evinced a loftier conception, and a maturity of action, that will ever associate his name with those which posterity will place in the first order of talent.

There are in the collection many very slight and indifferent sketches, such as No. 105, "A Jewish Family," and No. 79, "A Female Adjusting her Hair," a mere scrawl-devoid of that delicacy which is found generally in Wilkie's sketches-and clumsily drawn, at the same time suggestive of nothing agreeable. Again, what good, we would ask, can possibly arise from thrusting upon public attention such very inferior attempts as the one catalogued No. 99," View Looking to the West of the Church and Manse of Cults," as they now appear? With the utmost respect for the production of every great man-wherever it is merited-we beg to differ with the intentions of those who would exhibit this as a specimen of the talents of Wilkie-it would be just as wise to stick upon the wall of the Institution a printed paper, (shown to us a few days since as a valuable addition to a museum of wonderments,) which possessed no closer affinity to him than being a parochial circular which had been left at his late residence in Kensington, and which he had been seen to sneeze upon. We must withdraw from the curiosity-monge

and autograph collectors, who carry their fanaticism to so wild an extent of raving dotage for name.

In the South Room are a few specimens of the old masters, which we did not intend in these remarks to have touched upon, but are induced to call the attention of the visiter to the similarity in tone between No. 187, "An Exterior, with Figures Drinking," P. Ďehooge, and No. 62,"The China Menders," by Wilkie. This is extraordinarily apparent to any one placing himself at the doorway communicating with the middle room, so that he may there observe the two last mentioned works at the same time. We do not allude to this from a supposition that the latter had deemed it necessary to adapt to his means the experience of the former-but to substantiate the notion, how often men of genius remark to the same purpose without communion with each other.

In this division of the collection-may we so express ourselves— there are some few pictures, which, if they will not call up feelings of delight, are excellently calculated to promote those of surprise, from persons even so slightly conversant in such affairs as to be able to distinguish an original from a gross imitation.

THE ENGLISH STAGE,

SHOWING THE CAUSE OF ITS EXCELLENCE, THE REASON OF ITS DECLINE, AND THE SOURCE FROM WHICH IT WILL BE REVIVED.

BY EDWARD MAYHEW.

No history has received so much attention to so little purpose as the dramatic. The reader labours over miles of type, but his toil being ended, he is rather acquainted with the materials for a history, than informed of the history itself. A whole has not been grasped-incidents are narrated, but events are not connected-effects are not traced to causes-and the memory, overtasked, retains but little, while the perception, unappealed to, leaves the mind no ways enriched: which clearly shows that information, in the real meaning of the term, has not been conveyed. Principles, easy of comprehension, simple in application, and profound with truth, have yet to be discovered-and, till this is done, and a history written to elucidate them-the further gathering up of isolated anecdotes can but increase the mass of frivolous rubbish from beneath which the truth must be ultimately rescued.

This lamented defect the present paper attempts, in some degree, to remedy. The space at disposal of the writer enables him to convey no more than a brief indication of his views, which will be accepted as his apology, if assertions occasionally seem to usurp the place of proof; and he is sometimes compelled to assume his reader to be generally acquainted with the broad features of the subject.

The English Stage was never in so declined and declining a state as at the present moment. Heretofore, three or four gentlemen have stimulated criticism by their rivalry-as leading tragedians-a position now held by a single individual, who appears to exist without fear of

a competitor, or reasonable hope of a worthy successor arising. Whenever Mr. Macready shall retire from his professional duties, he will not leave a gap, but a vacuum in his art. He is the last of a race, and with him a long and glorious dynasty of mimic monarchs will have become extinct-but of this more will be said in another place.

The public, to account for the cessation of good performers, speak of the decline of the Drama-for, to the general mind, the Drama and the Stage are one thing. A want of consideration makes the effect regarded alone in the entertainment; and it has yet to be perceived that several distinct causes are united in simultaneous operation to produce it; but the amusement being lessened by the decay of that part which is most prominently exhibited, the whole is hastily presumed to be in a similar state of dilapidation. Thus sweeping condemnations touch the surface only, and on that scarce make impression, for beneath the first thin crust of the matter lies palpable evidence of the fallacy. In the time just passed, when Kemble, Cooke, Kean, and Young flourished--our actors, as a body, were unique in their completeness. All casts of characters had one representative of excellence most possessed several, whose superiority was to be decided only by individual taste. The day of Garrick, Barry, Henderson, and Quin was certainly, in histrionic genius, not inferior to that which succeeded it; nevertheless, during the first period, our Drama was inflated in sentiment, and exaggerated in effect. Its life was not in itself, but created by the talents it employed-with the absence of which it also has ceased to be. As belonging to our literature, it has no place. Yet it was an improvement on the stage plays of the former age, when tragedies and comedies were imported from France with an avidity not to be exceeded by the minor adaptators of the present time. Limited as the sphere allowed to the Dramatist at that period was, the native genius, then at so low an ebb, was unequal to its occupation. Now we have among us the finest Dramatist who has lived since the Restoration, and with him many, who, not unworthily, dispute the title here accorded. We possess also an Unacted Drama, which, whatever it may be for theatrical purposes,—and its fitness has yet to be tested,-is of great merit as a literary product, and as declaring a spirit and evidencing an ambition of all worth to the present argument. The space the law permits is not only filled by original writers, but others are clamouring for room to breathe their inspirations. Our Modern Drama is above comparison with any that, since the seventeenth century, has preceded it. Our present actors are as far below the reputations of those who, for the like period, filled their places. Then it must be conceded, these two arts, which can at one time exist in wholly different states, are distinct and separate; and it must, as a general principle, also be perceived, each does not directly influence the other-though one may. Good acting can make popular a bad Drama; but is powerless to stimulate a good one Dramas, however, exact good acting for illustration; and it will be our inquiry to discover, whether good Dramas are capable, by their unaided influence, of calling into existence good actors; for this experiment is now only beginning to be tried, whereas the former fact is proved by centuries of experience.

Good