It is literally the skeleton of the feast, and the purpose of the picture is the portrayal of the various attitudes and facial expressions produced in the assistants by this reminder of mortality. These are represented in each case according to the type of the figure, always with much ingenuity and felicity. From the painter's own point of view the picture is extremely successful; but the painting is of a light order.
Of what order is the painting, by Mr. Millais, of an immense ulster overcoat, flanked by a realistic leather valise and roll of umbrellas, and confronted by a provisional young lady with clasped hands and a long chin, the whole being christened "Yes"? A lithograph on a music sheet, mercilessly magnified—such is the most accurate description of this astounding performance. Mr. Millais has a very much better piece of work on exhibition at one of the private galleries, an "Effie Deans," in which M. Taine's "expressiveness" is forcibly exemplified. But I prefer his large landscape at the Academy, "The Sound of Many Waters," possibly because, after all this emulation of the tableau vivant, it has the merit of having no expressiveness at all. The best picture in the Academy is one of a series of four by M. Alma-Tadéma, that Anglicised Hollander and extremely skilful painter whose contributions "to Burlington House" have for some years past attracted so much attention. These things are called the "Seasons"; they are all admirably clever, but the scene representing "Summer" is in its way a marvel. M, Alma-Tadéma's people are always ancient Romans, and in this case he has depicted a Roman bath in a private house. The bath is of yellow brass, sunk into a floor of yellow brass, and in the water, up to her shoulders, sits an ugly woman with a large nose, crowned with roses, scattering rose-leaves over the water, and fanning herself with a large, limp, yellow ostrich plume. On a narrow bench, against a mosaic wall, sits another ugly woman, asleep, in a yellow robe. The whole thing is ugly, and there is a disagreeable want of purity of drawing, sweetness of outline. But the rendering of the yellow stuffs and the yellow brass is masterly, and in the artist's manipulation there is a sort of ability which seems the last word of consummate modern painting.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
Superb and sole, upon a pluméd spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods with song; or typic drew
The swoop of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along
The sward, twitched-in a grasshopper, made song
Midflight, perched, primped, and to his art again.
Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull insect be
The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?
