setting spurs to his horse, made the animal suddenly spring forward, so that the Highlander fell under his horse's feet, and as he was endeavouring to rise again, Bruce cleft his head in two with his sword. The father, seeing his two sons thus slain, flew desperately at the king, and grasped him by the mantle, so close to his body that he could not have room to wield his long sword. But with the heavy pommel of that weapon, or, as others say, with an iron hammer which hung at his saddle-bow, the king struck this third assailant so dreadful a blow, that he dashed out his brains. Still, however, the Highlander kept his dying grasp on the king's mantle.'-Ibid. No. 6. HIS WANDERINGS.-'He was a better scholar than was usual in those days; except clergymen, few people learned to read and write. But King Robert could do both very well; and we are told, that he sometimes read aloud to his companions, to amuse them when they were crossing the great Highland lakes in such wretched leaky boats as they could find for that purpose. Loch Lomond, in particular, is said to have been the scene of such a lecture.-Ibid. The remaining incidents chosen are-2. His Vow; 3. His Crime-viz. Slaying the Red Comyn at the Altar; 4. His Honours; and, 7. His Glory. No. 2, is nearly wanting in subject; No. 4, is painfully theatrical, and all of them are more or less deficient in drawing an unpardonable fault in one who has had so much experience. Nearly all his figures are about a head too short-contrary to the more usual error of our clever draughtsmen, who generally make them fully two heads too long. One advantage that we anticipate with considerable confidence from these competitions, independent of all others, is the suggestion of new subjects from the pages of our national literature and history. It is surprising with what dull frequency the same subject reappears, year after year, on our exhibition walls, affording one among the many evidences of the very imperfect and superficial study which the majority of artists give to the lofty theme to which they profess to have devoted their lives. XLIII. Horses Feeding. By J. F. HERRING, sen. London, Graves & Co. 6 The admiration manifested, both by patrons and publishers, for the animal portraitures of Landseer, promises abundantly to meet the demand for works of art from this prolific source. It is by no means a high class of art, approaching, indeed, the nearest of any to that of still life. It is, however, thoroughly legitimate, and justly demands to be tried by its own standard. Some little time since, a very graphic print, intitled Members of the Temperance Society,' appeared from a painting by Mr. Herring. Three capitally painted heads of rough cart horses, enjoying their draught out of a well-filled trough with all the gusto of ' pledged teetotallers!' The success of that clever print has, we presume, stimulated the publishers to undertake this of the Horses Feeding,' which we have lately seen, preparatory to its passing into the engraver's hands. The subject is somewhat akin to Landseer's 'Horse-shoeing;' but we defy that prince of animal painters to surpass the brown pony which forms the most prominent object in the painting. Underneath the deep Gothic archway of some old English manor-house, a groom and maiden are engaged in feeding the sleek, well-conditioned pony we have alluded to; along with a strong grey trooper's horse, with his blue and crimson lined cloak thrown over the saddle. The artist has successfully aimed at producing a marked and striking contrast in colour, form, and character, between the two leading objects of the picture. The groom is seated, feeding the pony from a sieve, while he watches his fair companion, who holds some vetches to the grey horse's mouth. The accessories are all well painted; the vetches, and, still more, a trailing vine on the wall, most beautifully given; we cannot say the same, however, of the human figures, that ought, from their prominence, to be at least in no way behind their dumb companions in character and form. The maiden is anything but a flattering representative of her class, and the groom, to say the least of it, is insipid. Upon the whole, this picture, though pleasingly rendered, and in some parts very well executed, is one of a class that we think the lovers of art are soon to be satiated with, unless publishers show more moderation. The subject is well adapted for producing a showy engraving.. We should not be surprised to find it greatly improved in the translation of a clever engraver. XLIV. The Deer Stalker's Return. EDWIN LANDSEER. London, Graves and Co. This is another picture of the same class as the former, but one of much more pretension. It is now in the hands of Willmore-a most judicious choice of an engraver for giving effect to its peculiar characters. The picture is one of those very long and narrow subjects which this artist has occasionally produced of late years. Our readers are by this time familiar with his Refugee,' and the companion, The Challenge.' In The Deer Stalker's Return,' however, this peculiar panoramic shape of subject has, we think, been carried to its utmost limits, insomuch so that it might almost be cut into two pictures with advantage to both ends. A Highland chief, with the young heir, the piper, and a troop of gillies, are returning from a successful onslaught on the deer. The fruits of the chase are secured on the backs of two rough and very characteristic Highland ponies, which, at the moment of time chosen for the picture, are passing over a steep bridge that spans a mountain torrent, so as to bring the antlers of the deer very effectively against the evening sky. The piper struts before the cavalcade, blowing with all his might some Gaelic version of 'See the Conquering Hero comes,' and behind, one or two laggards in the train are staying to converse with a group of shearers, evidently fresh from the harvest-field. There is much to please the eye both in the landscape and grouping; but the great defect of the picture is the almost total absence of life and energy. So far from representing a triumphant return from the chase, it would much more intelligibly illustrate some sentimental grey beard carrying home a pet doe that the hounds had worried, with the intention of giving it decent burial beneath the greensward of his cottage-lawn. He hangs his head, and looks as grave as if he were actually meditating its elegy, and could not find a rhyme for doe! Even the piper might be playing Lochaber no more,' for aught of life and gaiety that appears in his gait; and the group on the roadside are no more interested in the cavalcade than if a herd of cows had just passed homeward to the byre. They do not even turn their heads to look the way it is going. We look for something more than this from Landseer. Glossy hides and well painted furs are a poor compensation for the higher merits of the painter's art. There is really as grave solemnity in this Hunter's Return, as in the faithfully rendered 'Highland Funeral' of Harvey, which Willmore has so beautifully engraved, while it has not even the energy and action, which, in the hinder pony, for example, and the lad who leads it, in the touching scene of the 'Funeral,' gives life and interest, without marring the touching character of that scene. We have been the more pointed in our censure of this picture of Landseer's, because, with all its faults, it is a pleasing one; and knowing the powers of the artist, we cannot but regret that so good a subject for his peculiar pencil should have fallen so far short of what he might have accomplished. 566 LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY We have read the papers containing the charges of the Rev. Dr. Reed against the London Missionary Society, and the replies to them by the directors, and we have read those documents, as we think, dispassionately and with fairness. As the result, we feel bound to enter our protest against the course which Dr. Reed has pursued; to state that we regard his accusations as singularly unsustained by proof; and to add, that our own confidence in the directors and officers of the society has been augmented, and not diminished, by the scrutiny thus instituted. NOTE ON THE ARTICLE ON PHRENOLOGY. In our November number, in the article entitled 'Phrenology,' two tables were given, of which the first was described as being a table of the actual measurements of a series of casts of skulls. Sometime after the publication of that number, and, indeed, too late for correction in our last, it was discovered, that through some misadventure, a wrong table had been given;—the one published being, in fact, one of calculated, not of actual measurements. Two tables of calculated measurements were thus given instead of one only, accompanied by the actual measurements. We now beg to furnish our readers with a corrected table comprising both;-the first column under each head containing the actual measurement of the phrenological organs, and the second, the measurement of those organs when all the heads are brought to the same size or capacity. In the January number of the 'Phrenological Journal,' some strictures upon this article were published, partly from the pen of Mr. Combe, and partly from that of Mr. Straton. Certain of these strictures referred to the accuracy of the measurements and calculations. It was pointed out that the alleged measurements were not correct, and that they did not afford by calcu lation, on the principle laid down, the results given in the second table. In this the critic was perfectly correct. The professed table of measurements, not being in reality the measurements, could not be correct; and the table of calculated measurements not having been made from it, but from the actual measurements, could not, of course, correspond with calculations made from the former. The table now given will, we believe, meet the whole of the objections on the score of inaccuracy made by Mr. Straton. He will find, we think, that the measurements have been made with care, and the calculations with, at least, ordinary exactitude. Messrs. Combe and Straton, admitting that the principle of homologous lines may be applied for phrenological purposes, both contend, that the results in the calculations given, are entirely vitiated by taking the head of Swift as a standard. Swift became an idiot, they say, several years before his death, and, therefore, the whole of the calculations are a farce, as Swift's skull was altered by age and disease. We had thought better of Mr. Straton's mathematics, of which he is a teacher, until we read this. In the article referred to, the skull of Swift is nowhere mentioned as a standard of comparison. True, the measurements of all the crania are brought to those of a cranium having the capacity or size of Swift's; but if we had brought them all to those of the capacity of the head of a walruss, it would not have interfered in the least degree with the comparison instituted. The simple object was to bring them all to the same size, and then to institute a comparison between the measurements of the organs and the development of the faculties of the individuals in question. The skull of Swift was taken as being nearly the mean size; but if the whole had been converted into the measurements of a skull of standard capacity, they would still have each occupied the same relative position in the tables which we published. We might show, further, did the limits of this note permit, that Swift did not die in a state of idiocy; and that, even admitting he did, there is not a shadow of evidence to show that the cranium undergoes any material alterations in form or size in consequence of age, or of that imbecility which often accompanies its advances. The writers of the strictures referred to, further object to the dogma laid down in the article regarding the size of the phrenological organs-viz., that it can only be estimated by the degree of prominence which they display as compared with the neighbouring surface of the cranium, or their distance from some central point. They contend, that the measurements given take no account of the breadth of organs, and that the breadth can be recognised by the eye. If the writer of the article,' says Mr. Straton, 'will take the trouble to learn how to mark the outlines of the organs on any cranium on sight, (not a very difficult matter to do if he minutely study the indications of nature)if he will mark any dozen or more crania selected at random in any museum, or from any burial-ground, if he prefers it, he will never in his life repeat the sentences just quoted.' To this the writer of the article can only reply, that he has minutely examined both the outer and inner surface of as many crania as either Mr. Combe or Mr. Straton, and has described them minutely hundreds of times to others, and never could discover the slightest indication of any line or mark whatever by which the limits of any phrenological organ could be chalked out on the surface of the cranium. He does not believe that there is a single anatomist in Europe who will contend for a moment for the existence of any such 'outlines.' There is, and can be, no other estimate of the size of the socalled phrenological organs than that assigned to them-viz., their degree of prominence. Of this, the callipers can take a much more accurate measurement than the fingers; and to this method of measurement we would bring them. The principle we have adopted, of homologous lines, has not been infringed, even by the phrenologists themselves. If it is a correct one, let them make their own measurements and their own calculations on this principle, and let them show us any ten heads of the same size, the measurements of which harmonize with the doctrines they maintain. 568 Burns. Swift. M'Kean. La Fontaine. Pollard. Bruce. Haggart. Stella. Heloise. Lockey. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- Actual. Calcu- 129.15 122-9 129-15 136.5 129-15 128.6 129-15 119.2 129-15 142.7 129.15 142-05 129.15 |