complete the England and Wales drawings here exhibited. Only one puff of manufacturers' smoke seems to have been visible at Chatham when Turner painted it, and that was white.
' Florence ' from San Miniato, with its wide view over town and country, and its three tall cypresses, ' like Death's lean fingers pointing to the sky,' is a most charming drawing ; and specially beautiful is the way in which the town, with all the complexity of streets and houses, and the stony strength of the Palazzo Vecchio, is given. The distance is exquisite, and so is the tender light on the river. The ' Ober- wesel' (1840) and 'Heidelberg' (1842) are late and very bad drawings. Oberwesel is full of garish, scenic light and exaggeration. Had the hills been lil^e those in this drawing, which descend in sheer precipice to the river, how could the railways which ruin each bank of the Rhine have been made ? The ruined tower spoken of in the Catalogue is no ruin at all, but one of the constructions used in fortifications of this kind; the three outer sides only of the tower have ever been built. What trolls are to human beings, these towers are to other towers : they have no backs, but are hollow. ' Bamborough ' also was painted in 1840, and is all exaggeration and overwork.
'The Lake of Albano' (1828) and 'The Lake of Nemi' (1842), though widely apart in point of date, may be taken together, as in both Turner was trying for the same thing : to paint Nature as it appears to one looking at it with the sun shining directly in his face. Both, too, are crater lakes, and in both all truth of colour is sacrificed to truth of glow. In the ' Albano ' we doubtless have an incident which formed part of one of Turner's own sketching excursions. He boldly went into that brigand-infested region, relying on the obvious fact that he was a man who owned nothing worth stealing. To go in shabby guise was easy to him ; for he rarely went otherwise. The bulk of his luggage probably consisted of his roll of paper and his colour-box. We, most of us, know his colour-box ; he made it himself. It was only a flat piece of very thick leather, which would fold as he liked ; on this he stuck such colours as he used. These were never vei'y many. We have been informed that ' Prudhoe ' was painted with six colours only. Equipped thus, he was very likely surprised by the bandit whom he has painted. The gun which, in nautical phrase, has brought him to, is lying in the foreground. The look of distress in Turner's face is there too, though it may only have been distress at the idea that the bandit was about to appropriate his sketches — he does seem to have a feeling for art. ' The Lake of Nemi ' is splendid in colour of a rather over-ripe and unreal kind ; but what of that, if the glow and glitter of light are expressed ? All these drawings have figures, and figures which would be meaningless, and the very perfection of bad drawing, if viewed apart from the composition in which they occur ; but it is wonderful what meaning and expression they have when looked at with reference to the whole. Taken in connection with the whole, they are perfect.
Margaret Hunt.
THE PAINTER-ETCHERS' EXHIBITION.
' A liltle leaven leaveneth the lump,' and, although the present Exhibition held by the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, at their gallery in Pall Mall East, contains much that is insincere and unworkmanlike, it is redeemed from mediocrity by a fairly liberal sprinkling of really fine work. It is to be regretted that Mr. Frank Short is reprsented by only three small etchings. His ' Wrought Nails,' an absolutely direct and truthful impression of a cluster of poor cottages (possibly on Cradley Heath), is one ot' the best things in the Exhibition ; it is slight, but well seen, possessing that best of all qualities in an etching— the absence of any one superfluous line. Of the clever work contributed by Mr. William Strang, the 'Despair' (which appears to be etched on a mezzotint ground), is perhaps the most characteristic example. The subject is ghastly in the extreme : a gaunt, hollow-cheeked woman, with a baby at her breast, and a frightful indifference in lier eyes, stares rigidly out of the picture from the blank squalor of a dismantled garret. Both colour and quality are excellent. The two dry- points, 'The Rehearsal' and the 'Last Supper,' are striking specimens of pure diy-point — in conception the former is, by far, the more pleasing ; but perhaps Mr. Strang is seen at his best in 77, ' Four Portraits,' most powerfully drawn and modelled. Of the eight interesting, but unequal, illustrations to a ballad we have here no space to speak ; nor is there room to more than mention the three graceful imaginative designs for ' Fairy Tales,' by L. Hamilton, which show a freshness of invention joined to technical skill far above the average. It is hard to choose among the eiubarras de richesses of Mr. Walter Sickert's cleverly sugges- tive sketches, but perhaps his ' Dieppe in the Rain ' (dry-point) is one of the most interesting, the atmosphere and distance being chavnlingly rendered, and the drawing and feeling of wetness per- fectly sincere and successful. Mr. Richard Toovey is represented by much excellent work, agreeable alike in conception and execu- tion. It would be hard to praise too highly his ' Market Scene, Normandy,' remarkable for its clear decided drawing, its exquisite finish, and judicious choice of detail. Of the four sides of the room, one is entirely filled with etchings by the President, Mr. Seymour Haden ; of these one of the most complete is ' Grim Spain,' a little picture of dark walls, frowning towers, and rolling clouds very freely put in.
For the more part undeservedly ill-placed, but of remarkable and obvious merit, is the direct vigorous work contributed by Mr. Charles Holroyd, whose 'Stormy Landscape,' a pastoral full of the movement of wind and rain, shows somewhat plainly the influence of Legros ; the ' Secret Society ' is dramatically felt, and a fine study of light and shade ; but the most poetical is the ' Sketch from Nature,' a study of fir-trees upon clear evening light, with a solitary figure in the foreground.
The three Book Plates sent by Mr. Sherburn are minute masterpieces of work and design ; and ' A Reef in the Foresail,' by Mr. Hugh Paton, with its strange technique, is full of romance and a sense of vastness.
Other less noteworthy, but agreealjic, examples are furnished by Miss C. M. Nichols, and Messrs. Alfred East, R. Goft", Axel Haig, and Herbert Marshall.
