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308 composition is fresh and graceful, its very sweep of lines expressing the conception of the picture — that of music in repose. No accessories disturb this with any officious literary aid, nor pedantry of painting skill; yet the picture is all the more one which it would be good and pleasant to live with ; indeed, as music and simple beauty thus realise themselves around simple life, no man need ask for more.

Another of the younger painters who is clearly ' arriving ' is Miss Alice Gray, whose ' Eident Wabster/ here as in Glasgow, is so ' eident ' and well woven it- self — worthy to last and increase in worth, alike as a painting and as a human document.

The historic and romantic painters, who were once so much in the ascendant in all galleries, are now but few ; there are indications, however, that the times are again changing in their favour, for ' King Romance is come again.' Mr. Hamilton's Jacobites have fallen into melodrama, but Mr. Ferguson's large ' Tocsin ' shows a distinct advance upon his in many respects kindred work of last year. The picture is well com- posed, and the story told with real dramatic intensity, the turbulent flame-lit sky and tossing banners quiver- ing in the storm-bell's clamorous, maddening notes. To paint a huge picture of this class, year after year, and in Edinburgh of all places, is evidence of a patience and force of character, alike as artist and man (if we may ever separate these), which cannot fail of ultimate reward. Yet, besides a certain deficiency of beauty, which finds expression especially in the girl's arm and lifted foot, a feeling of dissatisfaction remains with most spectators. Does not this arise, as in so many cases, not so much from any specific artistic defect as from a subtler incompleteness — some limitation of the painter's culture, which needs a deepened grasp of history and drama, a wider experience of life, to reach its aims .' Industry is good, but we all have some- times too much of it, and then need, even for our work's sake, holiday, and books, and travel.

Mr. Tom Scott's water-colours are gaining notably in vmity and co-ordination, without loss of his singular mastery of detail. In his ' Legend of Ladywood ' the sweep of the thistle continuing the line of the horseman's body is a fine instance of the one ; and the painting of its heads against the mailed foot and the horse's side, of the other. The horse's head, and many other passages of the picture, repay the closest examination ; the general pathos is also well rendered, although there is here, perhaps, some risk of the leaven of Sir Noel Paton. One feels, too, as with Mr. Ferguson, that something is still wanting which it is not in painting to supply. Mr. Hole's ' Gethsemane ' has no such defect as this. The whole picture is fully suffused with its emotion : the great sad olives, the melancholy dawn hardly need the sleeping apostles, the misty kneeling figure, to tell their story. In treatment there is no less full success — thanks equally to what is done and what is withheld.

Passing to the landscapes, Mr. George Reid's simple and luminous ' Montrose ' claims the first place. Mr. Reid has painted other landscapes more impressive, but few more pleasing, or more in the right spirit of landscape — poetic on one side, yet observant and veracious on the other. Mr. R. B. Nisbet's tendency to fixity of subject remains; his manner is still, also, somewhat stiff and ' tight ' ; but, without loss of his sharpness of vision, there is unusual mellowness and poetry in his ' Close of a Day.' Mr. C. H. Mackie, without losing what he has learned from Mr. Wingate — a spiritual father whom we could wish to many more of our landscape painters — has also been looking about the world for himself Very praiseworthy is his avoidance of repetition of the pictures which were so popular last year, and his pressing on to new experiences, when he must know pretty well that it is hardly until a man is ceasing to have any new song to sing that the public will recognise his voice, the dealers think him safe, or the Aca- demy admit him to a back seat within their sacred halls. Yet these elements of sup- posed success will all come soon enough, and then he will be glad to have had time and peace to paint so varied a compass of subjects as his midsummer fields, and spark- ling frosty dawning. Mr. George Johnston, on the other