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He is the first monarch after chaos. He succeeds to a long interregnum of anarchy which constitutes a mere blank in the history of the country. His throne will be raised upon ruins which are not of his making -upon the debris of a power which had crumbled into the dust half a century before his arrival. The founding of his empire is like building a city upon the site of another which had long perished, and with which the new one does not enter into rivalry, but simply replaces. England wishes him good-speed. And among the strange events of the future it may possibly happen that the House of Hapsburg may be the head of a great and flourishing empire in the New World after the original empire in Europe has been broken into pieces.

The intervention in Mexico is a remarkable episode in the policy of Napoleon III., and as such will not fail to attract the regard of future historians. It is a task as novel as it is honourable for a monarch to attempt the regeneration of a country other than his own, to carry civilisation and prosperity into a region of the globe where they have fallen into decay, even though he undertook the task primarily with a view to his own interests. To raise a country thrice as large as France from a state of chronic desolation-to pierce it with railways, to reconstruct the old watercourses of irrigation, to reopen the rich mines, and to make the waste places blossom with flowers and fruits and useful plants, is certainly a noble design. And still nobler is it to rescue a population of eight millions from anarchy, demoralisation, and suffering, and to restore to them, in better fashion than they ever had before, the protection of the State and the benefactions of the Church. Lawlessness and rapine, wastefulness and oppression -no public virtue and no private enterprise-such has been the condition of Mexico for many years, Napoleon, it is true, does not undertake to remedy these evils himself, but he has made a beginning, he

has taken the first step, which is proverbially so difficult. He has placed the Mexicans on a vantageground which they could not have obtained for themselves, and he gives to them a Government temporarily aided by his troops, recognised by the Powers of Europe, and possessing a fair amount of credit in other countries, by which the work of regenerating the moral and material condition, of Mexico may be carried out. He has cleared away the old obstructions-he has founded the new empire; and whatever be the ultimate results of his enterprise, he has thereby added fresh laurels to his renown, which are all the more honourable since they are voted to him by the world at large.

So far as it has gone, the intervention has been successful, and the Napoleonic idea has a good prospect of being fully realised. Meanwhile two important ends have been attained. The expedition has paid its expenses-the cost of the intervention is to be refunded to France by the new Government, which likewise takes upon itself the charge of maintaining the French troops which are to be left in Mexico. The enterprise, moreover, has successfully engaged the thoughts of the French people during a period when the Emperor found it advisable to remain at peace in Europe. France is still in a condition in which the stimulus of military action abroad is requisite to keep her quiescent at home. The Emperor's Mexican idea has served this purpose as well as others. And Europe has been thankful that the French have been amused otherwise than at her expense. But the Mexican idea, so far as regards the direct action of France, is now at an end; and, looking at the circumstances of Europe as well as at the fact that the Emperor's hands are again free, we think the Continental Powers may now feel as King John did when, at the close of the tournament at Ashby de la Zouch, he received the brief but significant warning, "The devil has got loose."

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THE LONDON ART-SEASON.

THE three leading Exhibitionsthe Academy, the Old Water-Colour, and the New Water-Colourare at least of average interest and merit. Indeed, the general opinion is, that the collective pictures of the year show, if slow, at all events steady and satisfactory progress upon the pictorial products of previous seasons. It is true that no new or startling phenomena have arisen-that no star or comet of surpassing magnitude has come to shed unaccustomed brilliancy over the world of Art. Still, light is not lacking to our hemisphere, nor beauty wanting to the painter's fair creations. The power which belongs to knowledge, the charm which pertains to simple truth, and the reward that follows on honest labour, each year, even in the absence of long-looked-for and oftpromised genius, give to our English school accumulative worth. And, moreover, other causes cooperate towards this progression, over which, with reason, we rejoice. England has reached that point in the history of nations when the arts are accustomed to spring into luxuriant growth. She has long passed the period of pinching penury, wherein imagination is ofttimes stunted and starved. She has, at least in her higher classes, escaped from the drudgery which, while it wears away the body, grinds down the mind which makes the finer senses of humanity obtuse, and too often darkens the eye to the beauty of the outward creation. England, we say, has, in the onward march of her civilisation, left in the path behind these arid tracts, and now enters a garden of delight, redolent with flowers. And of all the gems which adorn daily life of all the decorations which add charm to our homes pictures are, perhaps, the most sought after. And as this demand is each year growing in its compass,

and as the taste of purchasers becomes from day to day more highly educated, so are our English artists stimulated by increased reward, and yet, at the same time, held in wholesome check by the discriminative power of public opinion. Still further, the advance which has been made in all branches of knowledge, the development of inductive science, especially in those departments which lie close upon nature, and the extraordinary activity which, in every direction, has seized upon the human intellect, ever eager to enter on new enterprise-these restless motions in the universal mind rendering absolute stagnation, even within the tranquil world of art, impossible-have imparted to our painters corresponding impulse. Moreover, we think, notwithstanding occasional symptoms to the contrary, that enterprise of intellect is now more than formerly governed by sobriety of judgment; that imagination, though at seasons ready to break wildly loose, is in the end reined in by sober sense. The drama, indeed, may degenerate for short intervals into sensational excess; romances may, in the hands of some writers, indulge in extravagance; but before long we can rest satisfied that truth to nature and allegiance to conscience as the silent yet potent witness to rectitude, will obtain the ascendance. And thus it is within the special sphere of pictorial art likewise: mistaken ardour may for a time mislead; extravagance such as that of which the so-called Preraphaelites were guilty may for a few short years betray the inexperience of youth; but in the end we can be sure, as indeed now we rejoice to be, that in the well-balanced English mind moderation will prevail. Thus have we endeavoured to set forth the reasons why our Exhibitions show amelioration. The causes do not

lie in the rise of any transcendent power, or in the display of creative originality by the artists themselves. The impetus to progression, on the contrary, comes, as we have seen, from without; the painter is merely the child of the age in which he lives, the mirror that reflects the form and fashion of his time and country. Thus it is that our English school is emphatically English, and that our annual Exhibitions serve as pictorial chronicles to the day and generation in which our lot is cast. This is, indeed, high commendation-yet, after all, not the highest; for there is an injunction which Schiller lays upon the artist that we would here repeat by way, if not of censure, at least of caution. "Live," says this poetphilosopher, "with your century, but be not its creature; bestow upon your contemporaries not what they praise, but what they need. Though you may regard them as they are if you are tempted to work for them, imagine them as they should be if you are to influence and raise them." Our Exhibitions, it must be admitted, show little indication that painters are striving for this command over the intellect of their age. Content to follow, few desire to lead. For the most part, they paint in order to win the wherewithal to live, and, thus living for the present, few, it may be feared, will survive the century which has witnessed the beginning and will see the close of their labours.

Armitage, Watts, and in some measure Leighton, have a right to rank among those disciples of high art who, fulfilling the behest of Schiller, work less for present times than for posterity. Forsaking forms positive and individual, they seek truths generic and absolute; they make the accident of nature submit to the proportions prescribed by æsthetic law; they require rude reality to bend to ideal beauty; and thus they ascend to the sphere of historic or philosophic art, a lofty region which only a few venturous spirits dare to tread. Edward

Armitage, in the picture of 'Ahab and Jezebel,' attains heroic proportion, and with size comes commensurate dignity. King Ahab, a figure seven and a half feet high, reclines on a couch: his wife, the infamous Jezebel, stands at his head with the fury of a tigress and the appetite of a vulture, uttering the upbraiding words, "Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, eat bread, and let thine heart be merry; I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." But the king lies sad and sick, and the grapes and the wine are put aside untasted. Mr Armitage has sought, and not without success, to reconcile the broad generic treatment of the older historic style with the literal detail which is now dominant in our modern school. Rich regal robes and sumptuous palatial decorations are studiously transcribed from the works of Mr Layard, or taken direct from the Assyrian remains in the British Museum. It is also interesting to mark how the artist has given to his picture the manner of an ancient bas-relief, how he has brought the liberty allowed to the one art under subjection to the severity imposed by the other. What we mean will be better understood by an appeal to the designs on Greek vases, the purest and best examples of which illustrate the transformation through which sculpture emerged into painting; or, in other words, these monochrome pictures of the Greeks reveal sculpture as the elder and the parent art. Mr Armitage deserves praise for the courage required in the adoption of this self-denying manner, for experience proves that a facile pictorial treatment is in the present day the surest road to popular applause. We are sorry, however, to see that in one vital point he submits to a compromise. Repose and equanimity, Winckelmann tells us, the Greeks deemed inseparable from the noblest art; and our own Reynolds offers some apology, or at least explanation, for the violence of passion which the

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sculptor has thrown into the agonised features of the Laocoon. Now we should be sorry to bind a painter down to strict compliance with conditions which may prove a bondage even to the sculptor; but as Mr Armitage of his own free will puts himself under the law, we need have less scruple in saying that the ordinance imposed as a canon of high art-which is, after all, not artificial, but essential-he has transgressed, and that much to the loss of dignity and quiet power. The figure of Jezebel, especially in the passionate spasm of the hand, is melodramatic. Mr Watts, in his design, Time and Oblivion,' also challenges severe criticism. The very explanation which he gives of his intent, that this personification of Time and Oblivion' is “a design for sculpture," "to be executed in divers materials after the manner of Phidias," alone suggests comparisons which it is difficult for any work to sustain. Yet may we at least accord to this perilous attempt somewhat of the largeness in masses and the grandeur of manner which are peculiar characteristics of the Phidian era. Only we must be permitted to object that the artist has essayed a Herculean labour considerably beyond his powers. The figures are not ill conceived, the idea is not inaptly expressed; but the drawing is certainly wanting in mastery, and the difficult passages in the composition appear slurred rather than solved. The

aspirations of Mr Watts, as seen in the fresco executed in the dininghall of Lincoln's Inn, are ever lofty; but technical power, which would give to his noble ideas adequate pictorial development, seems lacking. A small head by this artist, called Choosing,' is altogether lovely, and especially to be commended for harmony of colour.

The genius of Mr Leighton has for years lain in chaos, or broken out only in rebellion. Possessed of more than ordinary erudition, impelled by an ambition which soared to the highest style, and

essayed the most arduous of subjects, this artist has for some time attracted to his works a wondering gaze. It always becomes a curious question, as it long was and still is with a brother artist, the painter of 'The Vale of Rest,' and of 'St Agnes' Eve,' What astounding work Mr Leighton may do next? Will he show us a harem, will he introduce us to houris, will he conduct us to Hades, or will he bid us take a walk on Parnassus? Certain it is that whoever presumes to follow in the eccentric flight of this artist will do well to provide himself with wings. As for the ordinary faculties of humanity, plain sober eyesight, clear common-sense, and the like, they may be dispensed with altogether, and the adventurer through space or across the broad field of history need only take to himself a copious supply of transcendental reason and gaseous imagination. As in other aeronautic expeditions, the chief danger lies in the approach to, and the coming in contact with, mother earth. But whatever lawlessness may have marked Mr Leighton's past career, we are bound to concede that the courses on which he has now entered claim from the critic respectful homage. The powers which have hitherto been scattered are at length concentrated, so that in the latest of Mr Leighton's works, 'Dante in Exile,' the vapourings of genius now shine as true visions. The artist here reverts with maturer power to the country and the epoch chosen in his earliest and hitherto most successful picture, 'The Procession of Cimabue.' Italy of the middle ages, crowded with illustrious characters, poets, painters, patriots-a country whose very stones are eloquent in undying memories -such are the scenes congenial to the genius of this painter. The theme he has here selected is arduous, the style to which he aspires ambitious. Imagination has invested Dante in no ordinary dignity; a historic halo shadows and yet shines upon that brow awful in

grandeur; and the artist who at tempts to realise the image which every cultured mind has already painted in his fancy, does indeed essay a task of peculiar difficulty. Mr Leighton, we think, has come through this ordeal with honour. The moment chosen discovers Dante, an exile from his native city, in the palace of his patron, Can' Grande della Scala, Prince of Verona. This master of the Lombard republic reigned with a splendour which no other of the princes in Italy had equalled. At his court were congregated the poets, painters, and sculptors who cast upon the opening years of the fourteenth century unaccustomed lustre. But we are told that the pride of Dante could ill brook patronage; that his high spirit rebelled against gilded dependence; and so, by the roughness of his manner and the haughtiness of his bearing, he lost the favour of a friend who had given him an asylum. This story may be read word for word in the picture before us. The lines quoted declare, in terms not to be mistaken, the poet's mind :

"Thou shalt prove How salt the savour is of others' bread; How hard the passage to descend, and

climb

By others' stairs. But what shall gall

thee more

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The painter is literal to the poet's text. Dante, care worn and painstricken, descends the palace-stairs. The motley crew of courtiers, the paid jester, and ladies who, by enticing beauty, might have charmed the melancholy heart stricken with the love of Beatrice,-all fall back at the approach of the prophet-poet, who as an avenging god walks the earth. Mr Leighton, we have said, has accomplished the task here set more than creditably. The knowledge he brings, the academic training he displays, no one can question. His learning, in fact, is almost in excess; his artistic tact and contrivance, indeed, usurp the place

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which unsophisticated nature might with advantage occupy. By his finedrawn subtleties he delights and cheats the senses which in surfeit would gladly turn to a repast more simply dressed and decked. The taint which often mars the creations of this artist, eats, in another of his works, as a cancer into the fair forms of Eurydice and Orpheus,' a picture, nevertheless, which contains passages which no criticism can rob of their beauty-giving charm. The transcendentalism, however, into which this painter is betrayed, is not only excessive in degree, but wrong in kind. Michael Angelo, Raphael, and all truly great painters, indeed, have reached loftiest heights, and yet they walked, even when on the topmost summits, hand in hand with nature. Sibyls, apostles, prophets, muses, they painted; yet was humanity, however glorified, never made to wander from paths of simplicity, or permitted to wanton in debilitating luxury. Let Mr Leighton remember, then, that the best nature and the truest art preserve a stamina vigorous and healthful.

Our English school, while comparatively barren in products of high, heroic, or sacred art, is prolitiers of history. Our native painfic in works which lie on the fronters seldom narrate the annals of their country on a large folio scale; they are content, for the most part, to put their facts within the limits of an octavo or duodecimo edition, and thus they seldom addict themselves to the grand march of nations, but choose rather the by-ways of a people's progress, and delight in the episodes wherewith families or individuals have rendered a province or a generation memorable. The artists who each year betake themselves to this pleasing and prolific style are not only increasing in numbers, but advancing in proficiency. Calderon, Crowe, Yeames, Pettie, Storey, Hayllar, and Mrs Ward, have one and all enriched the Academy with works which deserve explicit commendation. Mrs

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