We have seen so many ladies with up-turned eyes, called in the annual catalogues "Meditation," that we will not interrupt the calm of Mr Cope's. C.G. Lewis has but one plate, "A Woodland Dell." A quiet spot of shade and flickering sunshine—a streamlet, and a rural bridge. It is sweetly etched, true to the character.
Richard Redgrave, in more than one instance in the book, shows that he has power over the deep and solemn pathetic, as well as over the tender. His first plate is "The Survivors of the Storm." The story is from Petronius, as told by Jeremy Taylor. A floating body of one of a shipwrecked crew lies pillowed on a wave, and is met with by the survivors in their boat. Solemn and awe-stricken is their expression. The plate is of a fine tone, befitting death in that awful shape. This story of Petronius was the subject of a poetical piece, which we remember to have read in a volume of poems by Thomas Flatman, one of the "mob of gentlemen" condemned by Pope, who, nevertheless, did not care about borrowing from him pretty much of his version of the "Animula, blandula, vagula"—the Emperor Adrian's address to his soul. We remember the commencement of the piece:—
"After a blustering tedious night,
The winds all hush'd, and the rude tempest o'er,
Rolling far off upon a briny wave,
Compassionate Philander spied
A floating carcass ride,
That seem'd to beg the kindness of a grave.
At near approach he thought he knew the man," &c.
His "Fairy Revels" make a light and elegant plate. A fairy group in a frame of leaves. He is here both painter and poet.
"Hast thou not seen the summer breeze,
The eddying leaves, and downy feather,
Whirl round a while beneath the trees,
Then bear aloft to heaven together?
With just such motion, gliding light,
These fairies vanish'd from my sight."
Poor unfortunate Dadd! some years ago he exhibited a picture of this subject, somewhat similarly treated, that was exquisitely ideal.
The "Ellen Orford," from Crabbe's Borough, is good in the effect; but it has not the pathos that usually distinguishes Redgrave. "Rizpah watching her Sons," is very fine. The night, the glaring torchlight, to scare away the approaching wolves, and the paler, more distant light in the sky, with the melancholy mourning Rizpah, are of the best conception. "The Sick Child" has quite the effect of a Rembrandt plate; yet it is very tender—a scene fit for the angelic visit, and pure and devout of thought and purpose is that angel—we do not like the mother. The best description is from Mr Redgrave's own pen.
"THE SICK CHILD.
"He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."—PSALM xci.
"In a chamber, faintly crying,
With its mother o'er it sighing,
Lay a baby pale and wan;
Ever turning—restless turning—
Much she dreaded fever burning,
Sickness slow or sickness hasting,
Cough, convulsion, ague wasting.
Bitter tears there fell upon
The pale face of her little son.