Many may say we bring out much that is not in it. This maybe partly true, and is rather to that extent an enhancement of its worth. But the real truth is, that there is all this in it, if it be but sought for and received in simplicity and reverence. The materials for imagination are there; let the spectator apprehend them in the like spirit, and he will feel all, and more than we have described. Let a man try to bring anything out of some of the many landscapes we see in our Exhibitions, and he may be strong and willing, but it will prove too hard for him; it is true here as everywhere else—ex nihilo nihil Jit—ex parvo, parvum—ex falso, falsum—ex magno, magnum—ex Deo, Optimo, Maximo, maximum, optimum, divinum.
THE GLEN OF THE ENTERKIN.
This is a representation by Mr. Harvey of a deep, upland valley; its truthfulness is so absolute, that the geologist could tell from it what formation was under that grass. The store-farmer could say how many sheep it could feed, and what breed those are which are busy nibbling on that sunny slope. The botanist could tell not only that that is a fern, but that it is the Aspidium filix-mas; and the naturalist knows that that water-wagtail on that stone is the Motacilla Yarrelli. To all this, the painter has added his own thoughts and feelings when he saw and when he painted this consummate picture. It is his idea of the place, and, like all realized ideals, it has first crept into his study of imagination, before it comes into the eye and prospect of his soul or of ours. We feel the spirit of the place, its gentleness, its unspeakable seclusion. The one shepherd with his dog far up on the hillside, grey and steadfast as any stone, adding the element of human solitude, which intensifies the rest. It were worth one's while to go alone to that glen to feel its beauty, and to know something of what is meant by the "sleep that is among the lonely hills," and to feel, moreover, how much more beautiful, how much more full of life the picture is than the reality, unless indeed we have the seeing eye, the understanding heart, and then we may make a picture to ourselves.
DAWN—LUTHER IN THE CONVENT LIBRARY AT ERFURT.
This is, we think, Mr. Paton's best work. We do not say his greatest, for that may be held to include quantity of genius as well as quality. He has done other things as full of imagination, and more full of fancy; but there is a seriousness and depth, a moral and spiritual meaning and worth about this which he has never before shown, and which fully deserve the word best.
The picture requires no explanation. It is Luther, the young monk of four-and-twenty, in the Library of the Convent of Erfurt. He is at his desk, leaning almost wildly forward, one knee on the seat—its foot has dropped the rude and worn sandal—the other foot on the floor, as it were pressing him forward. He is gazing into the open pages of a huge Vulgate—we see it is the early chapters of the Romans. A bit of broken chain indicates that the Bible was once chained—to be read, but not possessed—it is now free, and his own. His right hand is eagerly, passionately drawing the volume close to him. His face is emaciated to painfulness; you see the traces of a sleepless night—the mind sleepless, and worse, seeking rest, and as yet finding none, but about to find it—and this takes away from what might otherwise be a plus of pain. Next moment he will come upon—or it on him—the light from heaven, shining out from the words, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God and in intimation of this, His dawn, the sweet, pearly light of morning, shining in at the now open lattice, is reflected from the page upon his keen anxious face—faint yet pursuing." If you look steadily into that face, you will see that the bones of the mighty Reformer's face, so well known to us, are all there, and need but good food and sleep, and the open air, and peace of mind, and the joy of victorious faith and work, to fill it up and make it plump, giving it that look of energy in repose, of enough and to spare, of masculine power, which that broad, massive, but soft and kindly visage, wears written all over it; and the slightly upturned head, the clear, open, deep eyes, and that rich chin and neck, "dewlapped like a Thessalian bull."