In other respects, the Catalogue affords
cheering evidences of strictly Conservative
policy on the part of the Academy in particular,
and of the Artists in general. There is still a
strong infusion of the recently-imported Spanish
element. Certain painters still stagger and drop
under the weight of the English grammar, in
composing their titles, or offering their necessary
explanations in small type. Certain subjects
which have been perpetually repeated in countless
numbers, are reiterated once again for the
benefit of a public faithful to its darling
conventionalities. Poor old Venice continues to be
trotted out, and has no present prospect of
retiring into private life. Our more juvenile, but
still well-known old friend, the transparent pool,
with the wonderful reflexions, the pretty sky,
and the unpronounceable Welsh name to
distinguish it in the Catalogue, still courts the general
admiration. So do the Campagna of Rome, the
Festa Day at Naples, the Contadina, Rebecca,
the Bride of Lammermoor, the portrait of a
gentleman, and the portrait of a lady. As for
Cordelia, Othello, Macbeth, Falstaff, and Ophelia,
they all cry " Here we are again!" from their
places on the walls, as regular to their time as
so many Harlequins, Clowns, Pantaloons, and
Columbines, in so many Christmas Pantomimes.

Thus much for the general character of the
Exhibition. Descending next to details, I beg
to communicate the following classification of
the thirteen hundred and odd works of art,
exhibited this year, as adapted to the necessities
of my own Private View. I divide the Catalogue,
then, for my own purposes, into——

1. The pictures that are vouched for by their
artists' names.

2. The pictures that are sure to be hung
scandalously high, or scandalously low.

3. The pictures that I don't think I shall look
for.

4. The pictures that I shall be obliged to see,
whether I like it or not.

5. The pictures that puzzle me.

6. The pictures that I am quite certain to
come away without seeing.

Past experience, close study of titles, and a
vivid imagination, enable me to distribute the
whole of this year's collection of works of art
quite easily under the foregoing six heads. The
first head, embracing the pictures that are
vouched for by their artists' names, naturally
gives me no trouble whatever, beyond the
exertion involved in a moderate exercise of memory.
Here in my bed, I know what main features the
new works of the famous painters will present,
as well as if I was looking at them in the
Academy Rooms. Mr. Creswick again gives me
his delicate, clear-toned, cheerful transcripts of
English scenery. Mr. Leslie still stands alone,
the one painter of ladies—as distinguished from
many excellent painters of women—whom
England has produced, since Gainsborough and
Sir Joshua dropped their brushes for ever.*

* The ink was hardly dry on these lines, when
the writer received the news of this admirable
painter's death.  Insufficient though it be, let the
little tribute in the text to one only of Mr.Leslie's
many great qualities as an artist, remain unaltered;
and let a word of sincere sorrow for the loss of him
be added to it here.  No man better deserved the
affectionate regard which all his friends felt for him.
He was unaffectedly kind and approachable to his
younger brethren, and delightfully genial and simple-
minded in his intercourse with friends of maturer
years.  As a painter, he had no rival within his own
range of subjects; and he will probably find no
successor now that he is lost to us.  In the exact
knowledge of the means by which his art could
illustrate and complete the sister-art of the great
humorists—in the instinctive grace, delicacy, and
refinement which always guided his brush—in his
exquisite feeling for ease, harmony, and beauty, as
applied to grouping and composition—he walked on
a road of his own making, following
no man himself, and only imitated at an immeasurable
distance by those who walked after him.  Another
of the genuinely original painters of the English
School has gone, and has made the opening for the
new generation wider and harder to fill than ever.

Sir Edwin Landseer may be as eccentric in his
titles as he pleases: I know very well that there
are deer and dogs on the new canvases such as
no other master, living or dead, native or
foreign, has ever painted. Mr. Stanfield may
travel where he will; but I am glad to think
that he cannot escape from that wonderful
breezy dash of sea-water which it will refresh
me to look at the moment I can get to Trafalgar-
square. Mr. Ward has only to inform me
(which he does by his title) that he has happily
stripped off his late misfitting Court suit, and I
see his old mastery of dramatic effect and his
old force of expression on this year's canvas as
plainly as I see my own miserable bed-curtains.
Mr. Roberts finds the most formidable intricacies
of architecture as easy to master this
season as at any former period of his life. Mr.
Danby is still writing poetry with his brush, as
he alone can write it. Mr. Stone has not lost
that sense of beauty which is an artist's most
precious inheritance. Mr. Egg is as manfully
true to nature, as simply powerful in expression,
and as admirably above all artifice and trickery
of execution as ever. And Mr. Millais—who
must only come last to pay the enviable penalty
due from the youngest man—has got pictures,
this year, which will probably appeal to all
spectators to empty their minds of conventionalities,
and to remember that the new thing in Art is not
necessarily the wrong thing because it is new.

It is time now to get to the second head—to
the pictures that are sure to be hung scandalously
high or scandalously low. How can I—in bed
at Peckham Rye at this very moment—presume
to say what pictures are under the ceiling, or
what pictures are down on the floor, in Trafalgar-
square? There is no presumption in the matter.
I consult the Catalogue by the light of past
experience, and certain disastrous titles
immediately supply me with all the information of
which I stand in need.

"Dead Game," "A View near Dorking,"
"A Brig signalising for a Pilot," "A Madonna,"

*The ink was hardly dry on these lines, when
the writer received the news of this admirable
painter's death. Insufficient though it be, let the
little tribute in the text to one only of Mr. Leslie's
many great qualities as an artist, remain unaltered;
and let a word of sincere sorrow for the loss of him
be added to it here. No man better deserved the
affectionate regard which all his friends felt for him.
He was unaffectedly kind and approachable to his
younger brethren, and delightfully genial and simple-
minded in his intercourse with friends of maturer
years. As a painter, he had no rival within his own
range of subjects; and he will probably find no
successor now that he is lost to us. In the exact
knowledge of the means by which his art could
illustrate and complete the sister-art of the great
humorists—in the instinctive grace, delicacy, and
refinement which always guided his brush—in his
exquisite feeling for ease, harmony, and beauty, as
applied to grouping and composition—he walked on
a road of his own finding and making, following no
man himself, and only imitated at an immeasurable
distance by those who walked after him. Another
of the genuinely original painters of the English
School has gone, and has made the opening for the
new generation wider and harder to fill than ever.