int farts.

THB PALACE AT SPDENMAM.

The visitor to the Crystal Palace can now begin to form an idea of what the place will be when, complete in its construction and adornment—

the last pane of glass fixed and the last column painted—it shall have be- come the well-nigh exhaustless repository of the nature of all climes, the art of all ages, and the manufacturing and commercial productiveness of

the present. As it is, the multiplicity of objects is a plethora for a day's visit ; although there is not much at present beyond a number of the casts located in or destined for some of the courts,' representative of distinct epochs and countries. When all shall be collected and in order, day after day of studious examination will suffice for only a commencement. Just now' freezing draughts and drifts of treacherous snow- under-foot,, traceable to unglazed roofing, or of cause untraceable beyond a malignant' design against your-wellbeing, contend for the palm of discomfort, driving' the visitors to idle huddling over-workmen's fires, if not driving them out of the building altogether, into the less cruel bleakness of stony road, slip- pery with ruts or snow, and of the almost unbroken undulation of white- ness along hill and plain, which, in this New Year's week of 1854, encounters an equally white and a blanker space from horizon-line to' zenith.

Turning to the extreme-right of Western side from the entrance,:

we find the horticultural department, comprising already, it is said, more

than 100,000 plants, and this as only a sample of what is to be : among these, of camellias alone 10,000, and many varieties of fticheias, gore-- ' niums verbenas, &c., intended-for the outer gardens. Pines'also, azaleas, aloes, Kaffir bread-fruit tree, and other exotics, flourish here: In con- flexion with this department is that of the stuffed Lomita and birds, which are to illustrate the animal life appropriate to this? the-vegetable life, of climes and zones.

Hence -we pass into the Pompeian house ; in whose aspect we eonfette to some disappointment. Certainly no onerwho has an eye forlarmaiir or a pleasure in repose can help being shocked by the trenchant In'trithrimur of this bran-new antique. We insinuate nothing against the ability with which Signor Abate and his colleagues have revived a style : .the copy may be perfect, butif so, the original is a solecism., -Maine' colours- and parti-colours cut up into infinite subdivisions ofthe most salient and unaccommodating geometrical linen wreaths and festoons and figures at once trivial, ugly, and misplaced, cannot constitute a style other than

absolutely bad. We think, too, that the more elaborate decorations should have been' confided to' an artist, and not, as we ittfe they have been, to an artisan. The constructive character of the house,- ifthe eye

were not studiously distracted from enjoying it by opposinglineekof paint, would excite as much pleasure as the decoration does pain; and

we must still wait to see the full effect of the 'alibiing as a whole, when it shall be furnished, as it is to ,lie,_according. to the manner of itspro- totypes.

Some casts from modern.vnarka of aculpture--tnonaters some of them for size and abortion, such. as that basest of ogres Greefs's Rubens from Antwerp--have to be passed, and let.theni by all means be pretermittod, as we advance to the Egyptian court. This already contains many monuments of that severe art, abstract and grand even in its monsters., whose giants were not ogres —atrociou.s indeed, and devil-like as the nightmares of"a rnedirevalNatair-maker,.bat god/Ike irrtheirieapassibilitti extinct idols, the shadows which a mighty hierocracy has-projected' on the world to the end of time;: noble palm-leaved" and lotus'', leaved, and the noble botours of the colonnade of Carnac.... The Nineveh i

court s somewhat less advan.ced...In. the Greek mut, .,replete already' with world-wondrous, things, is to be noted a..frieze from, the Parthenon, restored in colour by Monti, and: hiving a:beauty, though we think it s. descent from the higher beauty of colourless tici4ture, in its ruddy Etruscan browns and deep iron-greys. Some of the highest grandeura of classic antiquity, with the Farnese Ileff among them, stud the nave. The Roman corat attracts by the rich-toned colour of its walls, imitative, of porphyry, jasper, Siena marble, and malachite, as well as by its statues.

The Alhambra is begun, but no more ; and waits for its enchantment from colour, and fountains, and-light subdued through foliage of myrtle and citron. In the gallery above stands ranged a host of modern works— from a Donatello's St. George and a Michel Angelo's Morning, to the last excellence, or, unfortunately, in too many eases to the last feebleness, of a. Munich, or French, or English, or Italian sculptor.

The Eastern aisle, at the corresponding extremity, commences with the Italian court, which begins to show its columns and festooned

entablature; but is ae yet innocent .of its•Cioqueflento sculpture. The Renaissance court, sonorous with the songs and lively impromptus of a baud of French artisans, who divide ,their fipqe between working as if work were a plegametntiff.firesj.4 tela4troniffeliiiMt find easy enough to show that that work is thetuainess-d- men and not machines, has pro- gressed considerably ; ,being alreadt fignislied' with easte.0.7.9tr1tiOtrO Baptistery-gates, dootWays from itlati'Deriit Palace :at:Sanaa* gidlinite Nymph of Fonttfinbleifi, LudErdallk_Robbia's-frieze'ef the

manly and life-enjoying as itis

the backward-traced epochs -enniestke Medireval tjgr,e,term:4. partmente, not- yet porzided,witla Many. 0:the ifoxmaitktWW„aki samples of which lie in the gallery above ; and next-to this-the embryo Byzantine court, whose fithire' dectretione cattrpass in novelty and in- terest, while:they ftittientlyniote_flitiffetralitibeantyrtliege of any of

its_precuriora,'' , .• _ .

Here we are. again at the 'great Icentre transept : from which to the South traiiseikt will be erected .t.*i MaXiufaetfiring. courts as. th,' courts, homesofact1pture and arehitecture, range:hence to the Northern extremity of,fie.structure. Blit1; InaccessiblO,' blank and chaos, to

the Sou . ' • P• •••••• ,- • ,

In Some idstanees, the casts of the Crystal Palace are hardly of that elect order of eminence which was to be desired ‘i in so far that, on the whole, the effect is gre_ater and the satisfaction more ccireplete; resulting from the mass of Egypt or of Ninev211,.tkina from the noble refinements of art and bealgy.beq.Pet4led. to us or a tfig.grea.t.mmi of.Greece and me- direval or modem Europe.... .1,,t.does not admit of a doubt, ..howeveri that this half of , the Brin9twilli be at art-temple and 'atadetarof in- estimable value ; a'..tttvjW,wth Its brillianey alighc, its various luxury of temperetnee,',:ibrinvnitficentigrounds and splendid prospects, its human threogs;and.itaii6; knature,.ef ark and Of skill, promises ito be the very sublimation and entrancpment of sightseeing.