FINE ARTS.
EMBELLISHMENTS OF THE ANNUALS.
OUR table is gay with a flight of these October butterflies. A passing glance will suffice to take in their beauties ; for we have now to deal with their outward attractions merely, and these require very tender handling.
Foremost in elegance and interest is Hermes Picturesque Annual, clad in a velvet vesture of emerald green, richly embossed. Ireland is the subject, LEITCH RITCHIE iS the tourist, and M‘ CUBE and Caeswick are the illustrators. M.CLISE'S contributions are limited to two charm. ing pictures of female loveliness. " The Irish Hood " discloses a Ma. donna-like (not an Irish) beauty, the " veiled lids " of whose downcast eyes appear to shroud orbs lustrous with sensibility, though dimmed by sadness. " The Jew's-harp " is vibrating between the pearly teeth of a buxom peasant-girl, with her mob-cub and short jacket, filling her pitcher from the little runnel of a fountain, and casting a sidelong glance of her wild roving eye at the listener to the harmony of the harp and the rill. The painter's art has idealized, not denaturalized, these specimens of female character : we are sorry they are the only ones.
CHESWICK, after giving us a view of the Lighthouse at Howtb, perched on the rocky peak of the promontory, lands us on the Quay of Dublin, where we get a sight of the Customhouse; thence we pro- ceed to the Four Courts, whose columned cupola composes well with the bridge ; and wide Sackville Street, with its stately column. The beauties of the county of Wicklow first attract his steps. The neat little village of Enniskerry, romantically situated, with the "sugar-loaf" hill tower. ing in the distance, crowned with a wreath of mist; the graceful water- fall of Powerscourt, almost artificial in its elegance ; the lovely Lake of Lagellan with its fringe of foliage and bold rocky brow; Glenda- lough, bare and barren with its ruined castle and lonely round tower; the Meeting of the Waters in the Vale of Avoca, the spot that the muse of MooicE has made classic ground—a picturesque seclusion; and the town of Arklow, with its bridge and ruined castle, and a fine expanse of sea : all these various scenes, familiar to the Irish tourist, arc depicted with local correctness and a painter's feeling for their cha- racteristic beauties. The prettily-situated town of Enniscorthy, with its old castle, on the Slaney river ; the noble Quay of Waterford; Lismore Castle, most romantically placed on a richly-wooded steep overhanging the Black water liver ; the ruined collegiate church of Youghall ; Black Rock Castle, in the Cove of Cork—a very bijou of a fortress; the Passage Ferry of the Cove; the little town of Cove, built on the steep cliff; and Kilkenny Castle—whose lofty towers, " bosom'd high in tufted trees," as seen from the river, re- mind us of Warwick—eomplete the list of picturesque objects. The characteristics of CHESWICK'S style are minuteness, tenderness, and delicacy. Mr. RITCHIE remarks that he has successfully preserved that peculiar atmospheric appearance that belongs to the moist cli- mate of "the Green Isle ; " and which is visible not only in the light spongy clouds, but in the transparent veil of humidity that tempers the fervid glow of the noon-day sun. The pencilling of the foliage and foregrounds is exceedingly graceful, and at the same time free and natural. There is an air of repose about every scene that verges on tameness ; though this approach to a defect arises not from the calmness of the view, but the feebleness with which the buildings are indicated—the want of point in the architectural details, as well as solidity and boldness in the masses. The shipping and craft too are ill-drawn, and frequently out of perspective. The drawings look too much like sketches smoothed down into neatness, rather than finished pictures ; and their miniature scale, while it gives them prettiness, reduces them to insignificance. The originals, we can well believe to be far better than the engravings, good as they are ; but CHESWICK'S pictures do not tell effectively in black and white—they want the force of colour and effect.
The Oriental Annual continues to be illustrated by Mr. DANIELL, whose store of Indian sketches seems exhaustless. For the present volume he finds subjects in the fortresses and tombs of Delhi ; the Italian-looking buildings at Bootan ; the boats on the Ganges, with their enormous sails; scenes of war and the chase ; portraits of natives in their picturesque costume ; curiosities of nature and art. Mr. DANIF.LL'S drawings are coldly accurate and monotonously smooth; but to this general remark there are some exceptions. The Bore rushing up the Hoogley, is a vivid and forcible representation of the impetuosity of the tide and the hurricane that accompanies it ; and the effect of moonlight in the view of the State-prison at Delhi, and of a
bright evening sun in that of a curiously-constructed bridge at Wan- depose, are very beautiful. The vignette in the title is one of the prettiest and most striking pictures in the collection. The alligator seizing on the bullock, the Fakeer dressed in a garment of skins and mounted on an ox, the portrait of Sultan Haber, and the Mahomedan at
prayer, are strikingly characteristic. In this last, the false perspective makes the man look like a colossus; and in another plate a pheasant appears as big as a cassowary, from a similar error. The plates are en- graved with clearness and neatness.
ACKERMANN'S Forget 31e Not boasts a striking design, by EDWIN LANDSEER, representing " Faithful Carlo," a noble hound watching at
the foot of a turret-stair, while his mistress is looking from the battle-
ment her last leave of her lord ; an elegantly-designed and expressive group of two females, by Miss SETCHEL, called " Annabel's Dream ;"
" The Sleeping Beauty," an Eastern vision, ornately pictured by Jouti
WOOD; a young lady fallen asleep in her chamber over a book, while a kitten, playing with its shadow in the glass, has knocked down the
candle and set fire to the curtains, called " Puss and the Poetess," by
H. P. PARKER ; " The Bridal Toilet," one of CATTERMOLE'S fine old architectural interiors ; a gigantic and substantial-looking " Spirit of the Flower," by Jolts Wools; a sumptuously attired " Sorceress," by Miss F. CORBAUX ; a handsome " Lady Blanche," with a redundancy of bust, by PARRIS ; a Spanish scene, with monks, muleteers, and peasant-girls, by LEWIS; and a corner of the Doge's Palace at Venice, by PROCT—a nice variety of pretty pictures.
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