The blaze of brilliancy-the fire-work which is playing round the dim equestrian figure, dazzling you with its glorious indistinctness, is Turner's last production, as, of course, you know at once, without referring to your catalogue. How indefatigable is this artist in searching for new opportunities to display his wonderful knowledge of colour! A year or two back he pinned down a railway train, which was going at full speed, in the midst of a shower of rain, to startle his spectators with a wondrous combination of fire, steam, and atmosphere. Now he rushes to the casting of the Wellington Statue, and thence draws occasion for a new display of his own brilliancy. What is called the " German school" of painting, is this year much more favourably represented than usual by Mr. Herbert's picture of "Our Saviour subject to his parents at Nazareth." The hardness of outline, the stiffness of attitude, and the effect of the very positive sky at the back of the figures, belong to the peculiarities of the school. The expression of the Virgin, who is eyeing her son with an earnest veneration, is sublimely conceived, though even this is somewhat frozen down by Germanism. Dyce is less Teutonic than usual this His sketch for a fresco, "Neptune assigning to Britannia the empire of the sea," is not without formality, but it is well drawn, and the composition is good. year. Of the delicate manipulation, excessive finish, and beautiful distribution of colour, for which Mulready is renowned, his " Burchell and Sophia" is an excellent specimen. The whole is wrought with that nicety, that has almost a porcelain result. Does not the background give some notion of a porcelain perspective? Leslie is so excellent a painter for illustrating the gaities and gravities of domestic life—is so happy in tearing an unctuous chapter out of one of our old novelists-so perfectly understands the humour of expression and the humour of costume, that one regrets to see him straying into epical regions. "Children at Play," a little party who has formed a coach and horses out of a drawing-room chair and themselves-what can be more cheering and life-like? Who would compare with it the dusky" Martha and Mary," or the morose penitent in the " Pharisee and the Publican?" For brilliancy of colour and a successful attempt to combine together a Hogarth-like variety of character, Mr. E. M. Ward's "South Sea Bubble" is one of the most remarkable pictures of its kind. To illustrate the condition of Change Alley during a period of speculative excitement so great that it has become proverbial, the artist has assembled together an almost countless multitude of personages, and has marked out every one of them with great force and distinctness. A gentleman drinking in the contents of a promising prospectus is the principal figure of the whole, forming the centre to a motley group of people-here a man almost delirious with cupidity, there a lady parting with her trinkets to find means for speculation, there a portly dame marching pompously into the eager crowd attended by her footman. For invention in a limited sphere, for unity of expression got out of one occupation look at the "Village Choir" of T. Webster, who has the art of being humorous without drawing caricatures. The "Pulse," from Sterne's Sentimental Journey; a highly-finished picture by Hollins, Ellmore's well drawn and carefully wrought "Invention of the Cotton Room," Egg's "Bianca and Lucentio," strong in expression, should not be passed over. Frank Stone has carved for himself a nice little niche out of the costumes and manners of the last century, in which he disports himself very agreeably, placing his characters in pleasing positions, and dressing them to perfection. "Mated," a very fond young lady and gentleman, is a worthy companion to the many interesting couples whom Mr. Stone has introduced to the public. To the lines from Milton's Allegro, beginning, "When the merry bells ring round," we have two very clever pictures of rural merrymaking by Messrs. W. P. Frith and F. Goodall, made up of the usual elements of rustic love, dances on the green, amid pitchers of strong ale. A group in Frith's picture, representing a village damsel displeased at being asked to a dance by a stupid swain, evidently preferring the society of a somewhat sturdy admirer, is remarkable for character and animation. If There are two or three painters who have appealed to the religions feeling of some of their countrymen, and have not worked in vain. the Teutonic school disseminates something of a Catholic sentiment, Puritanism is not without its representatives, and the more rigid ride of Protestantism really comes out with very good effect. We do not so much allude to "Presbyterian Catechising," a very nice picture, by J. Philip, for, venerable as is the old divine, the artist has evidently a strong sympathy for the light disposition of the more juvenile personages-there is waggery mingled with his reverence-but we mean "Hill-preaching in the West Highlands," by J. Drummond, who evidently paints with earnest faith, and writes that faith on the mild but firm countenance of the preacher, and the devotional attention of the grim tartan-clad Celts. And still more do we mean 66 Quitting the Manse," by G. Harvey. That gentleman does not rush into the arms of the beautiful; he can be happy in the very midst of ugliness. The pastor who quits the Manse in consequence of the events of 1843, how ugly is his countenance ! and his little girl, how ugly has she made her eyes by crying!—and how big are all the heads! But mind, there is good substantial stuff in Harvey, and we would rather see his wooden visages than multitudes of pretty conventionalities. Look again at the pastor, and you will see sincerity, and strong-will, and conscientiousness, marked in every line of his uncouth countenance. He is the very man made to be a martyr: not a romantic martyr, in drapery ; but one of the stern, prosaic martyrs, of the northern parts of this island. The three French artists who have this year favoured us with their contributions, have done themselves very great credit. Delaroche has given a fine characteristic head of Napoleon, finished to the height of continental smoothness, and breathing a most impressive melancholy. Gudin furnishes a "Scene on the Coast of Scotland," in which the transparency of the waves, and the watery aspect of the sky, are highly wrought; and Biard has gone to work on the "Capture of a Slaver by a French Ship of War," like a man fully inspired with his subject. There is something crude and unfinished, not to say repulsive, in the aspect of this picture: some of the figures are exceedingly stiff and odd; but the variety of expression which breaks forth, especially as indicating the joy of the liberated blacks, is wonderful. Every form in which rapture could be conveyed by a rude and unsophisticated people, seems to have been seized by the artist; and a good contrast to the general joy is obtained by the countenance and attitude of the captive pirate, who, though conquered, still looks defiance. The landscape department is, as usual, very abundant. Creswick, exhibiting his command on atmosphere, gives some of his best specimens. Lee still throws patches of sun-light through foliage of his trees. Roberts produces a noble view of Edinburgh, and Stanfield, piling mountain upon mountain, represents a march of the French army, which is among the most striking pieces in the collection. And we must request our readers not to overlook the little circular picture of H. Bright, although it modestly conceals itself in the corner. It represents a ruined castle on the Rhine, and while the general view is illumined by a moon which shines brightly from a deep blue sky, the setting sun is indicated by a light which falls on the building, and which thus makes the focus of the work. The Sculpture-room is not very remarkable, though we have here and there some striking works. Mac Dowall's "Virginius and his Daughter" is a vigorous group, by an artist, who has hitherto confined himself to subjects of a gentle nature, and who this year gives us a pretty figure of a "Girl Mourning over a Dead Bird." For animation and feeling, we may look to the listening "Sabrina," and the wounded "Euridice," of Marshall, who is more life-like than any of his brother-sculptors. Then there is Bailey's statue of "Sir N. C. Tyndal"-an excellent likeness, excellently draped in modern costume. But sculpture does not flourish among us as in a genial soil, and so thinks the Royal Academy, for it bestows on this department of art a room rather fitted for the purpose of concealment than of exhibition. WHEN we two parted all I heard from thee I will remember thee-and from my heart The past is nothing, and our hopes are o'er, Or if we do meet it will be in vain, That past-those hopes-can ne'er be ours again. Yet will I give thee all that thou dost crave, Thou too with me these memories wilt share, SIR GEORGE SIMPSON'S NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY I. UPPER CANADA. SIR GEORGE SIMPSON might have traversed other countries, such as Central Africa or Australia, with more benefit to geographical knowledge; but it would be impossible to have travelled in peopled, yet little known countries so replete with interest as those, the descriptions of which are comprised in this "Narrative of a Journey Round the World." Commencing his travels among the English citizens of a young republic, which is at the present moment doubling its original territory, without any visible or conceivable obstacle in the way of its almost indefinite extension; Sir George proceeds to a conquered province, where the descendants of the first possessors, however inferior in wealth and influence, have every reason, he asserts, to rejoice in the defeat of their fathers ; and thence following one continuous series of English posts that stud the wilderness from the Canadian lakes to the Pacific Ocean, he plies way from the isolated yet progressive colony of the Red River across prairies and Rocky mountains to the disputed territory of Columbia, to which, by the very force of circumstances, an eventful future must necessarily be attached. his Then again in California we have before us the fragment of the grandest of colonial empires, where English adventurers (with that innate power which makes every individual, whether Briton or American, a real representative of his country and his race), already monopolise the trade and influence the destinies of the country. In the Sandwich Islands we can contemplate the noblest of all triumphs, the slow but sure victory of the highest civilisation over the lowest barbarism. English merchants and English missionaries now sway the destinies of an Archipelago, which promises, under their care and guidance, to become the centre of the traffic of the East and West, of the New World and the Old. And lastly we cannot but look to the immense acquisitions of Russia in Asia, without that profound interest and those peculiar feelings as Englishmen, which must be excited in perusing the actual condition, in its distant settlements, and in territories untrodden by observing travellers, of the only possible rival of our own country in the extent and variety of moral and political influence. Sir George Simpson sailed from Liverpool on the 4th of March, 1841, accompanied by four or five gentlemen connected with the Hudson's Bay Company's service. The party was destined to experience on its traverse the very storm in which in all probability the President was lost. Arriving at Boston on the forenoon of the 20th, they proceeded the same evening by Lowell-the Manchester of New England-to Nashua, and thence night and day they travelled onwards by sleigh, till the ice of the St. Lawrence presented them with a ready means of reaching Montreal. Hurry is throughout the order of the day. The plains, mountains, rivers, and forests of North America are traversed for a distance of * Narrative of a Journey Round the World, during the years 1841 and 1842. By Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories in North America. 2 vols. Henry Colburn. nearly two thousand miles in six weeks and five days, and from Ochotsk to St. Petersburg, the whole length of the Asiatic continent, or about seven thousand miles, is crossed in ninety-one days, and nearly one-half as many nights. Sir George appears to have been thoroughly infected with the American passion for getting on. Many great objects, as we shall afterwards see, were accomplished during this remarkable journey, and there apparently remained plenty of time for interesting remarks and useful observation, but the most prominent impression, after all, on arriving at the conclusion of the narrative, is that the greatest of all objects was to get over the ground. With such a field before us, the reader would scarcely thank us for detaining him in the United States or the Canadian territories; but we have a more important reason for neglecting these countries at the present moment, inasmuch as the consideration of this part of the subject will be taken up at a future opportunity in this Magazine by more competent hands. The season being more backward than usual, the state of the river did not allow of their departure from Montreal until the 4th of May, when they started up the Ottawa for nearly four hundred miles, turning into the Matawa, and thence across the water-shed to Lake Nipissing, where they parted with Colonel Oldfield, who had accompanied our travellers so far for the purposes of surveying the country with respect to the means of navigation. The resting-place of the previous station is characteristically described by Sir George as bad-" the ground damp, the water muddy, the frogs obstreperous, and the snakes familiar. In spite, however, of all these trifles, fatigue was as good as an opiate, and in sound sleep we soon forgot the troubles of the day." At the outlet of the Nipissing they saw the first savages, who, though poorly clad, appeared to be faring well. The current of French River, although obstructed by rapids which necessitated several "portages," carried them swiftly downwards to Lake Huron, whence they had the prospect before them, with the single exception of Sault Sainte Marie, of seven or eight hundred miles of still water to the head of Lake Superior. The celebrated strait above-mentioned, which empties Lake Superior into Lake Huron, has a British settlement, with a post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the one side, and an American village with an inconsiderable garrison on the other. The mortification of the party may be easily imagined, when, on arriving at this point in their journey, they learnt that the ice of Lake Superior was still as firm and as solid as in the depth of winter. This was on the 16th of May, and their fourteenth day from Montreal. Yet the sun was already powerful, and budding flowers and numerous birds attested the approach of spring-the warm weather, indeed, made the ice a pleasant addition to the wine-andwater, and their least disagreeable prospect appears to have been that of eating their way through the luxury. At length, on the night of the 19th, a slight breeze broke the field which had so pertinaciously resisted the sun's rays, though the masses continued to be closely packed, and after a hard day's work they accomplished about thirty miles. Their progress was much embarrassed by the mirage, which at one time deceived them with the appearance of an island, at another with that of open water, and then again with impenetrable icebergs. Arrived at |