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Rh and cultured taste which prevails among the classes in our country in whose hands lie the patronage and the direction of Scottish art. Both painters have, from first to last, been essentially true to their own ideal, to their especial artistic individuality. They have made no effort to meet the public half-way, to produce what would be merely pleasing and would sell ; and both of them have had the reward which, in the end, is sure to come to the earnest and original artistic worker. Of the two, Mr. Lawton Wingate is perhaps the more essentially poetic in conception, the more perceptive of the quietly harmonious aspects of Nature, of her moments of still delicate loveliness, of her unity and her quiet subtleties of relation. In particular, he is a most refined and delicate painter of the sunset — whether it be of those minglings of potent colours which come when ' triumph takes the sunset hour ' and the heavens are alive with the glow of crimson and the flashing of gold, or of those softer blendings of gentle hue which lead in the twilight. Of his treatment of the former, the 'After-glow,' a little canvas, 14 by 11, which fetched 56 guineas on the gth, was a perfect example ; while in the latter he has never surpassed his 'Winter Twilight,' exhibited several years ago in the Royal Scottish Academy. But, though the chosen hour of Mr. Wingate's art is the time of sunset, he is an admirable painter of clear, tranquil, silvery daylight. ' The Swan's Nest ' was one of his most notable efforts in this direction ; and in his Sale other examples of eminent success of a similar kind were afforded by works like ' Lintibert Farm, Muthill,' and ' Stack-building.' In the art of Mr. M'Taggart, on the other hand, we find an especially keen and delighted perception — an especially vivid portrayal — of the motion and changeful glitter of Nature, of her hurrying clouds, of her glinting sunshine, of the brilliancy of her lightning, and the sharp intensity of her colouring. He is an ' impressionist ' in the best sense of that much-abused word ; and conveys into his work — with an unrivalled appearance of fresh un- laboured directness — the totality of a scene, in its broad relations as a harmonious whole. As a painter of sea he stands alone among Scottish artists of the present or the past. His ' Dulse Gatherers,' 'Bathers,' and 'Sunday,' all in the Sale, were ad- mirable examples of his marine painting; while ' Up the Burn,' in the delicate division of its fleecy clouds and the infinite grada- tion of its breadth of blue, was an admirable specimen of his sky- painting. A very interesting portion of the Sale consisted of a series of sketches originally made for the earlier pictures of the artist, sketches which had recently again passed beneath his hand, and been carried well towards completion. Introducing figures with somewhat greater prominence than is the case in his later work, and dealing, usually, with effects of placid diffused sunlight, these drawings were particularly interesting on technical grounds for the dexterous use made of charcoal lines, afterwards treated with a wash of colour, in securing atmos lere and luminosity ; the method employed being not dissimilar fr .n that adopted by David Cox in some of his later water-colours. We hope, at no very distant date, to return to Mr. Wingate and Mr. M'Taggart, and to present our readers with a somewhat more elaborate record of their artistic career, and a more adequate estimate of their delicate and sensitive work. J. M. Gray. Deat/Cs Disguises, and Other Sonnets. By Frank T. Marzials. London : Walter Scott. To make a sonnet is easy enough — we have all committed at least one ; but tite sonnet, like other good things, rare to the seeker and precious to the finder. If the sonnet is the easiest of poetic forms, it is also, perhaps, the form in which the reader is apt to be most fastidious in his expectations. Some licence may be granted to most poets ; but the sonnet-writer choses his game, and must be bound by the rules thereof. There are thirty-nine sonnets in Mr. Marzials' little volume, each alone on a small but sumptuous page ; and any one of them will stand the most rigid of tests on the score of workmanship. Detached as they are in form, they are so subtly akin that as a whole they present a certain theory of life. This theory of life is neither wholly optimistic nor yet wholly pessimistic and cynical, but is something of all of these. No recent volume of sonnets contains more delicate and skilful literaiy work, or a series of fresher or more original motifs. We quote one sonnet, not by any means the best in point of craft, but offering a forcible suggestion of a little-regarded antithesis between culture and art : — PRIV.TE VIEW DAY, GROSVENOR GALLERY. (Picture of a Tramp, bv Millet.) How bright the chit and chat ! Light laughter flies A-rippIe o'er the deeps of art, and all Glints gaily ; it is culture's festival ; The pictures smile on us in sunniest wise. But hush ! see here — beneath those pure, pale skies, There in that frame, what wolfish thing, the thrall Of ignorance and want, lurks bestial, With the hate-hunger in its haggard eyes ! ' O fit and few,' it seems to shriek, ' I curse Your selfish soul-joys ! Why from age to .age To glut your fulness should the gods amerce Us, as dumb swine, of manhood's heritage, And fling us but the husks of life — nay, worse. Trap us like beasts, with brutishness for cage ? ' Three Volumes of Essays : Essays of J. J!. Lowell ; Essays of Dr. [ohnson ; Essays of William Haditt. London : Walter Scott. An essay might well be written upon ' The Decay of the Essay.' If one were to inflict upon one's-self the task of reading the contents pages of the monthly reviews, one would find there matter-of-fact articles upon all imaginable concrete subjects, and scarcely one essay. We have, for example, innumerable articles upon ' Examination versus Education,' upon 'The Russian Frontier,' upon 'Prince Bis- marck as the ' ' Man of Destiny," ' upon 'Agnosticism and the Future of Reaction,' and other subjects upon which much that is not litera- ture is written, and (worse luck) read. But of essays there is scarcely ever one. When an essay, a bit of literary craftsmanship pure and simple, does appear, it is of course neglected by the crowd, but is looked upon with becoming awe by the elect. There need not be anything wonderful about it except its isolation. Thus, alone in a heterogeneous collection of unliterary writings, Mr. Oscar Wilde's essay ' On the Decay of Lying,' shone out like a new luminary. This was, perhaps, merely another appearance in an unsuspected quarter of the essay comet, whose periodicity might have been calculated if we had been sharp enough. It was altogether a happy thought to publish in rapid succes- sion three volumes of essays, two at least of which merit the title without risk of challenge. Mr. Lowell'sare rather critical articles than essays in the old sense ; but Johnson's in the past century, and Hazlitt's in this, may stand for types of essays for all time com- ing. It goes without saying that Johnson had by far more highly developed than had Hazlitt the artistic instinct. He was under no such delusion as Hazlitt professed to be that the artist-author must ' hold the mirror up to nature.' ' The task of an author,' says Johnson in the Rambler, ' is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them,' that is to say, without any disrespect to the stout old Puritan, and after the manner of Mr. Wilde, to lie about them. And Johnson does it with perfect vigour. Many of his short sketches in the Rambler, the Taller, and Adventurer are bits of perfect literary craftsmanship, full of fancy, and without a word of plain truth in them. Hazlitt, on the other hand, is pro- saic not seldom, though he by no means adheres with rigidity to the principles he lays down in his essay, ' On the Periodical Essayists.' Mr. Lowell's critical essays, unequal as they are, are su ;estive and entertaining, but they are likely to hold no such pe lanent place in literature as are his Biglow Papers. The Ap -logy for a Preface will not add to Mr. Lowell's reputation. He seems to have undervalued the importance of the service Mr. Scott was rendering his fame in introducing him to a great mass of readers, to whom otherwise he would have perhaps remained merely as the author of 'John P. Robinson, he'. The Johnson essays have been compiled with a biographical introduction by Mr. Stuart J. Reid, and the Hazlitt volume has been edited by Mr. Frank Carr.