Glasgow knick-knackets, and contains, among other
things, a large number of drawings, engravings, and
maps, illustrating the changes which have occurred
from time to time during the growth of the city,
and which in recent years have been so remarkable.
In all the rooms the walls are adorned with paint
ings of historical personages, including the most
authentic portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, trophies
of arms, drawings and photographs. Some of the
articles brought together are of great intrinsic value;
many are quite unique and priceless. It is therefore extraordinary, and most creditable to the public-spirited owners, that so many have been found willing
to part with their treasures for a time, and hand
them over to the custody of the Committee.
From this rough sketch of the scope of the Exhibition in the Bishop's Castle, it will be evident that the collection is well calculated to be attractive and instructive to many classes of visitors, and to awaken a wide diversity of sympathies. Its character is eminently popular, and as the objects are all plainly labelled, the peculiar interest attaching to most of them may be appreciated by any one who has had the advantage of a Board School education. Many of the relics, here in curious juxtaposition, must excite profound, it may be conflicting, emotions, in every leal Scottish breast. No one can look unmoved on the veritable Brooch of Lorne, the sword and battle-axe of the Bruce, the prayer-book the unhappy Mary held in her hand at her execution, and the Bible which was on the scaffold with the good Marquis of Argyll, the embroidered sash worn by Charles at Edgehill, the claymore of Claverhouse, and the blood-stained banner of Drumclog; but the grim contrasts suggested, the conscious quickening of latent loyalty to one or other or above and beyond all to that land of his sires which claims his fealty-who but a true-born Scot can understand? Yet the citizen of the world, viewing these memorials of bygone times with impartial eye, undimmed by the perfervidum ingenium, and recognising in them the mementoes of a noble national record, will be slow to attribute blame to either factions or individuals, and ready to see that each had his own proper and indispensable part to play in working out the great problem of the nation's civil and religious emancipation—that the passionate Edward was a 'maker' of Scotland as well as the patriotic Bruce, and the vacillating Charles not less than the uncompromising Covenanter.
John Honeyman.
NOTES ON SOME LONDON EXHIBITIONS.
THE ideal critice may be gifted with an insatiable appetite for picture-seeing, but the most robust would quail before attempting to examine with any degree of care one-tenth of the galleries whose doors are thrown open in the beginning of May. The Royal Academy and the New Gallery must be left for a future notice, and little more than a catalogue of the outstanding works in some of the other exhibitions can be attempted in the space at our disposal. The true interests of art suffer grievously through crowding into the space of two months a series of picture-shows, each deserving a certain amount of attention which it is almost impossible to give them.
Enough, and more than enough, has been said and written regarding the quarrel between Sir Coutts Lindsay and his lieutenants. The Gros- venor has certainly suffered through the withdrawal of the artists whose work in former years gave the gallery its raison d'être, and its rooms have now little or nothing to distinguish them from an unusually good section of the Academy. The hanging is no better: numerous really good pictures are badly placed, while the line is largely occupied by works of little character. Mr. Arthur Hacker, Mr. W. E. F. Britten, and Mr. John R. Reid, have been accorded the places of honour. Mr. David Murray shows no fewer than seventeen canvases of no special elevation, while we hear of several very hard cases of entire exclusion.
Among the very good pictures is a boy's head, by Mr. Geo. Clausen, soundly and ably painted, of astonishing truth of tone. Mr. Mark Fisher has a cattle subject which shows him at his best. Mr. Arthur Lemon's fine canvas is badly hung, while Mr. H. W. Gilchrist's interesting portrait of Walt Whitman can hardly be seen among so many sickly productions. Mr. Wellwood Rattray's fresh land- scape brings one somewhat in touch with nature, and Mr. R. W. Allan's Passing Showers' holds its own with its neighbours.
On the whole, however, the Grosvenor is decidedly uninteresting.
The New English Art Club has fully warranted its formation, and occupies a place unique among London exhibitions. Its members include many of the ablest young men of the day. Though some of
