The generality of the historical pictures in the gallery are such as have been always painted, and as will always be painted, in spite of all that can be said to the contrary, and therefore it is as well to say nothing about them.

Miss Jackson’s Mars subdued by Peace is a very pleasing composition. Both the face and expression of the figure of Peace are those of a very beautiful and interesting girl, though from the tender pensiveness of the features she seems rather as if sending Mars out to battle than disarming him; and as to the God of War himself, he does not look like one whom ‘deep scars of thunder have intrenched,’ but as if he had been kept a long time at home in a lady’s chamber. The Cupids (when Ladies imagine Cupids, what can they be less?) are very nice, little, chubby fellows.

There are two pictures of The Sick Pigeon and The Favourite Kitten by Miss Geddes, both of which we like, gallantry out of the question. The kitten in the last is exquisitely painted. You may almost hear it purring.

Among the foreign contributors to this department we ought to mention Music, by M. Messora, in the manner of the early Italian masters, and Devotion, a small picture by J. Laschallas, which is hung almost out of sight, and which, if it were hung a little lower, we suspect, would be found to be ‘a good picture and a true.’

To the scene from the Marriage of Figaro, by Chalon, no praise of ours could add the slightest grace or lustre. We wonder where he got the figure of his Susan, or how he dared to paint her!

In the domestic scenes, and views of interiors, &c. this exhibition is much like the former ones, except that we miss Collins, and find no one to replace him.

Of the landscapes, Burnett’s, Fielding’s, Nasmyth’s, Hofland’s, and Glover’s are the best. In Mr. Glover’s large picture of Jacob and Laban (which we believe was exhibited and much admired in Paris), there is a want of harmony and lightness in the whole: but there is a groupe of trees in the foreground, which Claude himself would not have disdained to borrow. Mr. Hofland’s landscapes, without being much finished, have the look, the tone, and freshness of nature. The View of Edinburgh is, we think, the best. Some of the others are too much abstractions of aerial perspective: they are naked and cold, and represent not the objects of nature so much as the medium through which they are seen. We will only add, in our professional capacity, that this gentleman’s pictures shew themselves, and that he need not be at the trouble of shewing them. Nasmyth’s pictures are not too much finished, but they want a certain breadth, which nature always adds to perfect finishing. Fielding is a new and most promising artist, of whom we mean to say more. Of the two Burnetts, we shall only remark at present, that they have made no addition to their live-stock since last year, which consisted then, as it does now, of one black, one yellow, and one spotted cow.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

The Champion.][February 12, 1815.

Cottage Child at Breakfast, W. Collins, A.R.A. This is a pleasing little picture, but inferior to Mr. Collins’s general performances. The shadow cast on the wall is like plaster of a darker colour, nor should we have suspected it to be meant for shadow, had it not been pointed out to us. Reapers, by the same artist, is a still greater falling off. The mixture of minute finishing and slovenliness in the execution, and of blues and yellows in the colouring of this picture is to us very unaccountable.