of the smooth curves of infancy. And who is the woman with her hand clasped in his? As we gaze she seems to shape herself into Humanity, drooping, suffering, at the point to die, and yet withal nobler, more spiritual, more enduring than he. Time is no true mate for her. He stands suddenly arrested while she takes a faint step forward and droops aside from him. Her fingers relax their hold. She casts a lingering glance at at the fair blossoms gathered in the skirts of her garment. Behind hovers the shadowy Death Angel with the balance and the drawn sword. His garments, though dim, are not sad-coloured. The face is hidden-the face of Death must be ever a mystery, but a faint light seems to radiate from it. We feel it could not be a terrible face. A moment more and the companionship of Time and Life will be severed. Courage, Humanity!

Next to "Time and Death" hangs another picture by the same hand, entitled "Mischief." A tricksy sprite with lovely iridescent wings, in floating garments of saffron and dark blue, is binding the hero with chains of flowers, in a tangled wilderness of roses and creeping plants. The picture is of a rich, mellow harmony of colour, and of that wonderful texture that distinguishes Mr. Watts's best work. Hard by, "Ophelia" rests her chin upon a mossy stone, frail and pallid, the wreck of a sweet soul; one limp hand lies on the moss, and she gazes idly downwards, as if watching her blossoms borne away on the stream.

The small study of Sir Galahad is a perfect gem. The young knight paces beside a gentle milk white steed, with clasped hands and a transfigured face. We feel that he has seen the vision of the Holy Grail. He is clad in a suit of mail,

which catches the gleam of the dawn, and he is bareheaded. The face and hair are but little elaborated, yet they leave nothing further to be desired. The rich dark greens of the vegetation and blue quiet sky, with a rolling mass of morning clouds, complete the picture. Mr. Watts's "Britomart" in the Royal Academy is also a noble work.

We pass on to the great apostle of the Mediæval revival, Mr. Burne-Jones. The "Laus Veneris" occupies the post of honour in the East Gallery. It is so marvellously beautiful, after its kind, that we cannot wonder at all that has been said and sung in its praise, and it seems invidious to utter a word of dispraise; yet we cannot but ask ourselves, Is this Venus? Is this indeed the Lady of Love, with the face of a sated favourite and the look of a woman whose nerves are all unstrung? Well has she laid her crown upon her lap, a discrowned queen. Hence eager young warriors hurrying to her shrine, this queen will not inspire you to high thought and daring deed-verily a Queen of the Pessimists-and her maidens' music will but numb your soul. In "Le Chant d'Amour," again, we have surpassing beauty coupled with unutterable sadness. "Day," "The Four Seasons," and "Night" are represented in a series of six panels. Day" is a youth of wondrous beauty, but ah! so worn and pale. He looks as if just arisen after a night of unrest, with weary eyes and scarce repressed yawns of exhaustion. His very torch burns dim, and sheds no lights and shadows over his form. Fleecy cloudlets girdle him, and float up around his feet. We prefer Mr. Burne-Jones' conception of "Night." The drooping form and the weariness seem more in harmony with Night than with the

bright young Day. "Night's" heavy blue drapery and the blue sky and sea, and the blue-green of the grass, and of the marble doorway are relieved by one gleam of ruddy smoke from her reversed torch; this one touch of warm colour has a wonderful value in

66

the picture. "Spring, "Summer," Autumn," and "Winter" are symbolised by four lovely female figures. They all share the same hopeless, heartsick sadness. The small picture of "Pan and Psyche" is delightful. Psyche's graceful young form is emerging from the waters-her wet hair massed together on her neck. Pan, kneeling on a rock, bends forward and lays his hand in loving sympathy on her head. The dark skin and shaggy hair of the Satyr set off Psyche's fair sweetness. The water reeds and blossoms make a lovely surrounding for her, and the quiet green meadow and encircling rocks, and the blue sky make up a whole of exquisite harmony.

Not far from Mr. Burne-Jones is a single work by Miss Evelyn Pickering. It is one of the finest paintings we have ever seen by a woman painter. The subject is "Venus and Cupid." The drapery of Venus is exquisitely modelled, reminding us of the multitudinous airy folds of that marvel in stone, the Venus of the Elgin marbles. The face is lovely, with loose wavy hair blown about; perhaps she is hardly the Goddess of Love, yet she is very beautiful; and Cupid is a beautiful boy. The caressing action of the two figures is charming, and the shells on the sea-shore are rendered with wonderful truth. Mr. Spencer Stanhope has also impersonations of "Night" and "Morning." They are not very satisfactory. Morning" is a singular figure, attired in pink bandages lined with blue, which are

ingeniously twisted about his limbs, and must greatly impede their movements. He is pouring sunrays of gold out of a small gold urn. "Night" moves through the air, encircled with a dusky mantle. The inevitable pink bandages reappear over her dark robe, but not with such startling effect

as upon Morning's" otherwise

nude form. Just beneath hangs a landscape by Mr. A. F. Grace, of which the delicate beauty is somewhat impaired by its near proximity to the deep hues of "Night." He is also represented in the Royal Academy by several landscapes in oil and water colours, noteworthy for a certain peaceful poetry that characterises them. "Proserpine," by Mr. Walter Crane, belongs also to the Medieval school. The daffodils are beautifully painted in every individual blossom, but there is a total lack of atmosphere. Pluto's figure is fine, and so are the black horses of Hades. In the vestibule is another work by Mr. Burne-Jones of great singularity-an oak panel representing Perseus and the Grain. The armour of Perseus and the robes of the awful sisters are wrought in some metal laid on the panel in slight relief; similarly the sparkling eye which Perseus is in the act of snatching is laid on in metal. It recalled to our mind a strange Chinese picture we saw at Sir Henry Thompson's Exhibition, with little conventional figures standing out in relief from the ground. The astonishment and puzzle of the spectators at this extraordinary work of art of Mr. Burne-Jones is a sight not to be speedily forgotten. Leaving the pre-Raphaelites, we glance now at the paintings of the other school.

Mr. Legros is in great force. He exhibits some more of those charming studies of heads painted before

his pupils in the Slade School; two of these are portraits of his brother professors at University College. He has also a fine study in monochrome for a St. Sebastian, and several pictures painted in his bold, strong style. Mr. Millais exhibits a beautiful portrait of twin sisters-wonderfully alike. We longed to scrub a little dirty colour over some of the accessories. He does an injustice both to his own really fine picture and also to two charming girls by so attracting the attention of the beholders to wondrous trimmings of braid and lace, and the marvel of a dog-whip with a plaited and knotted lash, that they have no eyes for the higher excellences of the work. His other picture, "A Good Resolve," is one of the half-length girl figures of which he is so fond. The flesh colour is good; Mr. Millais is recovering from the attack of chalkiness he suffered from a few years ago. Mr. Hubert Herkomer has some good portraits, and a fine study of an old man and two children, entitled "Who comes here?" The expression of interest and inquiry in the faces is well rendered.

A Mudlark" is a little picture full of fresh life. A ragged little pure-faced lassie is perched like a bird on an old stump which rises out of the water-side mud.

Mr. Alma Tadema contributes several paintings, which exhibit his customary excellences of perfect imitation of marble and archaic knowledge; in other respects they are less noticeable than many of his works. "A Rain Cloud," by Mr. Hallé, is not ethereal enough to represent vapour dissolving in tears. The clouds and rain and gleam of rainbow are good. There is, by the same artist, a portrait of Mrs. Poynter, wearing a string of coral beads, which are very pretty when examined closely, but at a distance they give the disagreeable

effect of a red line round her throat as if she had been beheaded and the head replaced. Mr. Poynter is represented only by some small water-colour landscapes. They are painted with his accustomed fidelity. Mr. Boughton has two excellent pictures" The Rivals," and

March Weather." Mr. Morris has chosen a mirthful theme-a country girl, on a shaggy donkey, driving a flock of geese before her down a lane, and flapping her blue mantle at them like wings. "Pity is akin to Love," by Mrs. Louise Jopling, is a pleasant picture. A handsome young man, with his arm in a sling, is spreading his web, to which the pretty white-robed maiden will evidently soon fall a victim. The circular mirror is cleverly represented, and the fine old oak cabinet of blue Nankin china. We are again reminded of Sir Henry Thompson's gallery, where groups of aristocratic visitors were peering into cabinets and whispering to each other with bated breath of the priceless rarity and antiquity of sundry specimens. We had been barbarous enough to regard them as a collection of pleasant bits of noble form or blue colour to decorate an apartment or introduce into a picture, considerably more refined, but still not differing in anything but degree from the blue willow pattern that has become so happily naturalised in our cottages. Is rarity becoming accepted as a quality of artistic perfection? We notice a splendid portrait of Mr. W. H. Elvy and his dog, by Mr. Gregory. The faces of both are full of character. The old coat has a personality too.

M. Tissot's pictures are as admirable in execution and as disagreeable in conception as usual. Mr. Whistler shews a selection of harmonies, nocturnes, variations,

and arrangements. He belongs to a school of his own and is already beginning to find imitators. We expect something will emerge from the obscurity when he has worked off some of his present eccentricity. A hot discussion was raging in front of these pictures between an elderly lady and a young one. The elder maintained that the titles were intended for the frames and not for the pictures at all. The younger could not agree to this astonishing assertion. At last they both came to the amicable conclusion that the titles had got mixed up and affixed to the wrong pictures. A well known poet who followed in their wake decided that the frame formed the "gold" in the Harmonies, and that the leading tenet of the new school must be to regard the frame as part of the picture. The Marchioness of Waterford has some vigorous water-colours. Several of them are on Scriptural subjects. Her style suits them well. Weber is represented by three charming landscapes with cattle, and Mark Fisher by two-one of them with cattle, and the other with sheep; but the finest landscapes in the whole collection are the three by Mr. Cecil Lawson. He has also two in the Royal Academy, one in particular of great originality,

Otto

but they are badly hung. The most important of the three in the Grosvenor Gallery is from Oliver Goldsmith, "In the Minister's Garden." We seem to stand there among the profusion of sweet, old-fashioned garden flowers, and the cabbages growing side by side with them. There are delicate pink hollyhocks, red and yellow roses, nasturtiums and poppies, marigold, sweetpeas, carnations and blue larkspur. The beehives stand in a row on the bench. Beyond, stretches the moorland in far perspective, with varying light and shade, up to the blue sky and floating summer clouds. The same painter's other works are "Strayed: a Moonlight Pastoral," and "In the Valley: a Pastoral," both the very poetry of landscape art.

But we have not described all the pictures that so many persons flock to see. The living pictures, the dainty costumes, the silks and laces, and springtime nuances of colour, these are not in the catalogue, but, in spite of the crowding, we prefer the days when they are present to the dreary Press-day, when a scanty band, armed with note books, files through the long, unawakened galleries.

L. S. COOK.