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280 rustic life, not the least chami of this, as of much of his work, consisting in its distinct character and truth, with which one is irresistibly impressed. The portrait of a lady, by Raeburn, a canvas small in size in proportion to its merit, might well be taken for the work of a modern impressionist. Among the Wilsons, perhaps ' Lake Nemi,' a conventional but pretty landscape, with a neo-Greek building in the foreground, may be reckoned as attractive as any here. Passing another small and beautiful Crome, a most interesting portrait of Romney painted by him- self, and an admirable Gainsborough (portrait of Mrs. Lowndes Stone), we come to Constable's ' Lock.' Perhaps Constable's own words may be best employed in reference to this splendid realisation of fresh, open- air feeling ; ' it is silvery, windy, and delicious.' The composition is admirable, and scientific in the highest degree ; but it is to be regretted that the treatment in places, more particularly in the foreground, is scratchy, and the multitudinous detail irritating. The solidity of the woodwork of the lock is worthy of remark, and, as a whole, the picture is an extraordi- narily fine one. The outwai-d semblance of painters is not unfre- quently entirely out of harmony with the feeling of their work, but in Morland's portrait of himself when a youth, we find all the sweet and intelligent sim- plicity that he put into his pictures. In the East Gallery, next to Constable's masterly ' Valley Farm,' hangs a dignified portrait by Reynolds of Lord Dartmouth, a three-quarters figure, seated, dressed in a black suit with lace ruffles. This is another of those portraits that one feels must have been good likenesses ; the pose is fortunate, and the workmanship is fine, save for some bad drawing in the fore-shortening of the legs. And, talking of fore- shortening, what a learned example do we find of this difficult species of tour dc force in Etty's ' Manlius thrown from the Rock,' a clever study, splendidly drawn and modelled, but somewhat painful, withal, to look at for long, and suggestive of vertigo. The portrait of Lady Sligo, by Romney (life-size, nearly half-length), forms one of the most attractive features in this room, but there are also two portraits of children, which must have been painted in his palmiest days. One of these represents a little boy with yellow hair, in a plain brown suit, with the neck and throat partly exposed where his wide frilled collar is turned back ; he is an exceedingly pretty little boy, but it is in no measure on the mere prettiness of the subject that the beauty of this portrait depends — a picture that seems to us the apotheosis of child- portraiture — naive, dexterous, simple, full of a gracious and entirely t-hildlike nobility. The large Cotman which hangs upon the same side of the room is fine in parts, and doubtless contains a few not very interesting- truths, but it impinges too nearly on the boundary between romantic landscape and scene-painting ; and though the deep blue of the sky, and the strong russets of the town-walls and the fishing-sails come very near to making an agreeable scheme of colour, the eifect of the whole is a little meretricious, and suggestive of the ' back-cloth.' Strange to think that Crome, so distinctly a luminariste, and with so refined a feeling for colour, should have been guilty of perpetrating the execrable marine — in tinny texture and cheap colour most like a German lithograph — that meets one's startled gaze a little further along : and heaven it knoweth what Romney may have meant when he painted little Lord Burghersh ' dressed all in leather,' and in yellow leather too! Very Dutch and deft in technique, albeit unpleasant in colour and inane in sentiment, is Landseer's much- engraved original of the ' Highland Shepherd's Home.' To the casual observer, highly finished and somewhat minutely elaborated, it has yet certainly been painted with this painter's usual expedition ; the draperies are simple and skilfully managed ; the flesh, especially in the instance of the rosy child in the cradle, admirably modelled. A portrait of most keen and general interest is one by Raeburn, representing a boy of a fair and ruddy countenance. The lad is in Highland dress, with a bonnet of blue and red, and a plaid of blue and red tartan : his frank, intelligent face looks out with a half- smile from the background of grey sky, and he is none other than the youthful self of that great magician. Sir Walter Scott. Truly there is a strange pathos about old portraits ! In the small fourth room Blake's ' Rainbow ' shows a by no means uninteresting production of his imaginative genius. The colour has mostly fled ; but the inter- twined forms that fill the iridescent arch are extremely fine, and the whole scheme is learnedly composed. Of the pastels two or three are good, but all show a certain unfamiliarity with the potentialities of this most accommodating vehicle ; and very many of them are crude and garish in colour. An exquisitely delicate little portrait in this medium is that of a young man, with a fair nonchalant face, who was George, sixth Duke of Argyle. The Constable sketches — of which there are about eighty-six, of widely-varying merit — form a pleasing collection, but, of course, will not bear comparison with the really fine studies at South Kensington. One is glad, too, to have the opportunity of seeing the great painter's box and brushes — curiously like pa.ste-brushex these — his watch, and other relics ; but we could well have spared from this show the corpse of a martyred field-mouse upon which Constable sat (in the diction of Mr. Browning) ' unawares.' Could not a black- beetle that has had the misfortune of being accidentally stepped upon by Turner be found i Graham R. Tomson.