opposition; yet an opposition may have its functions even though unable to become a ministry.

Our limits do not permit us to follow Dr. Ball into the period. subsequent to disestablishment. And, in truth, we do not consider this the most satisfactory portion of his work. Perhaps it is because the contests in the Church of Ireland which followed upon disestablishment are fresh in our minds that the bare record of the statutes passed by the synod appear to us so lifeless a record of a history, most of which indeed had better be permitted to die, but which still conveys some useful lessons. For then the stored-up Puritanism of many generations of Protestant supremacy attempted to reconstruct a branch of the Catholic Church, and only succeeded in proving in the face of the world how ill fitted it was for any such task. And surely Dr. Ball is wrong in representing the Oxford movement as utterly without influence in Ireland. That its influence was not widely extended we allow; would that we could deny it. But it enlisted some remarkable men even in Ireland, not to mention the Irish men and Irish women who helped the Church movement in England itself. Dr. Ball has named among the writers of Ireland the lamented Archer Butler, a decided Churchman, who, had he lived, would have played an important part. He might also have mentioned the little knot of accomplished men who surrounded the late Lord Dunraven, and whose secession to Rome did sore harm to the cause of Irish churchmanship; while of those who remained staunch there were among others Todd, Boyton, the Woodwards, and the patriarch of Irish Churchmen, Dr. Maturin, who has, amid universal respect and regret, departed to his rest in this very year, having testified for half a century to unsympathizing ears, and lived to see his principles progressing with a measure of success which is, at all events, greater than he could ever have expected in his earlier days.

How far the Irish Church has it in her power to repair any of the neglects and heal any of the wounds of past ages it is not for any of us to say. Let her work in faith, leaving the issue to God. For many a year to come her best way of doing good to the nation at large will be to improve herself; so that the aspect she presents to the people may not be that of a sect but of a church. Let her not spend her time in protesting; let her eschew new inventions in doctrine and devotion; let her teaching be positive and Catholic, her worship constant and as beautiful as she can make it, her attitude towards all political movements and interests impartial and dignified, her witness to God's moral law unbiassed by favour

or interest, her learning genuine and superior to the passing circumstances of the time. And we must in fairness pronounce that the authors now before us have written as men who felt that such an attitude became their Church, and were determined to assist her in assuming it.

ART. IX. FIFTY YEARS OF ENGLISH ART.

I. Victorian Fine Art.

By WALTER ARMSTRONG.

Journal, Jubilee Number. (London, 1887.)

Art

2. Fifty Years of British Art, as illustrated by the Pictures and Drawings in the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition, 1887. By J. E. HODGSON, R.A., Professor of Painting in the Royal Academy. (London, 1887.)

3. The English School of Painting. By ERNEST CHESNEAU. Translated by L. N. ETHERINGTON, with a Preface by Professor RUSKIN. (London, 1885.)

It was a happy inspiration which prompted the citizens of Manchester to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee by an Exhibition which should illustrate the progress of Art and Science during her fifty years' reign. Nowhere in England do we find Art cultivated and artists encouraged in a more enlightened and understanding spirit than in this great city, in itself one of the most remarkable products of the present century. Not only has the Corporation been distinguished for its liberal purchase of the masterpieces of contemporary art, but for some years past one of our best living painters has been employed to decorate the Town Hall of Manchester with a series of frescoes illustrating the civic history. It was, therefore, only natural that special attention should be devoted to the Fine Arts department of the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition, and the most complete success has attended the exertions of the committee to whom this section was entrusted. Perhaps never before has so thoroughly representative a collection of the works of art belonging to any period been brought together as this one of the paintings and drawings of the Victorian age at Manchester.

The opportunity was a splendid one for the student, who could thus cast his eyes backward over the last fifty years,

VOL. XXV.-NO. XLIX.

M

and compare the works of men whose now half-forgotten names cast lustre on the early days of the Queen's reign with the latest achievements of living painters, which were the boast of last year's Academy. Each successive phase of art, every movement which has taken place during this memorable period, was here fully represented. The works of masters who have stood apart from the crowd, and painted in silence and solitude, were seen here as well as those of the popular favourites with which we are all familiar. For the first time pictures by Dante Rossetti and Madox Brown hung side by side with works by Leighton and Millais, by Orchardson and Tadéma, and the respective merits and distinguishing tendencies of their painters were clearly brought to light.

An exhibition so varied and so admirably arranged, so complete and representative in its character, could not fail to be profoundly interesting. Many were the reflections it suggested, many the problems which it forced upon our consideration. Does Art progress to-day? we ask ourselves. Has it reached a higher level than it had when Queen Victoria ascended the throne? Do we see here any advance in painting which at all corresponds to the marvellous development of science and material prosperity which England has witnessed during these last fifty years? Above all, does the art we see here worthily represent the culture and learning, the passions and aspirations of this great Victorian age?

Let us take a rapid glance at the chief features of the fifty years' art which is here brought before us, and, with the help of the critics whose writings stand at the head of the page, see how we can best answer questions such as those which the Manchester Exhibition naturally suggested. The critical essay on Victorian Fine Art which heads our list appeared in the Jubilee number of the Art Journal, and is the work of Mr. Walter Armstrong, a writer already known to most of our readers by his papers on the National Gallery, which originally appeared in the Guardian. In these, as in other contributions to periodical literature, Mr. Armstrong has proved himself a competent critic, and his judgments cannot fail to command respect even where we may differ from his conclusions. His present sketch of Victorian art is powerful and comprehensive, and he gives a lucid and interesting account of the different schools or movements into which the painting of this period may be divided. Here and there, it seems to us, his keen appreciation of technical merits is apt to blind his eyes to higher excellence, and while he invariably endeavours to be fair in his criticism it is plain

that he has but little sympathy with those contemporary masters who devote themselves to the higher forms of imaginative art. The 'painted poetry' of Rossetti, of Watts, or of Holman Hunt has apparently but few attractions for him, and in dwelling on technical faults and defects of their work he is inclined to forget the poetic intention and nobleness of aim that inspired them. In the same way the art of Orchardson and Tadéma is more congenial to him than that of Holman Hunt or Burne Jones. He ranks Millais and Frank Holl above Watts as portrait painters, writes with greater sympathy of the Scotch landscape painters than of Frederick Walker and his followers, and leaves out all mention of George Mason, whose fine group of works attracted general attention at Manchester.

Το

The pamphlet in which the Professor of Painting in the Royal Academy discourses of Fifty Years of British Art, as illustrated by the Pictures and Drawings of the Manchester Exhibition, offers a curious contrast to Mr. Armstrong's brief but able and well-written summary of Victorian Art. judge from this specimen of his powers, Mr. Hodgson is not largely gifted with the critical faculty. He leaves to others the invidious game of finding fault, and distributes his praises right and left with lavish hand. He finds Long's Babylonian Marriage Market 'delicious,' and pronounces Goodall to be one of the ablest and Joseph Clark one of the most consummate of living artists. Rossetti alone he frankly confesses is altogether beyond him; he tells us 'it is brain-splitting work to study him,' and that 'his drawings fatigue the mind and convey no meaning' (p. 46). Mr. Hodgson's notes on the pictures contained in the thirteen galleries at Manchester may be of use to visitors to the Exhibition, but on the whole we are inclined to think the parts of his book likely to prove the most valuable are those portions in which he gives his personal recollections of artists, or his reminiscences of the stir caused in artistic circles, and what he calls 'the topsyturveyism of old associations' which he found in the art world on his return to England after some years' absence in 1852.

If the last-named book is decidedly tinged with the flavour of self-congratulation common to much of our Jubilee literature, M. Chesneau's history of English painting will serve as a wholesome corrective in this respect. It is both useful and interesting to hear English art and artists judged from a foreign point of view, 'to see ourselves as others see us,' and in justice to the French critic it must be said that he has

devoted much time to the study of that side of English painting which is in direct opposition to French views of art, and has endeavoured with praiseworthy zeal and patience to enter into the meaning of English pictures and understand the aims that have inspired our finest national art. The book is, in fact, to quote the words of the preface with which Mr. Ruskin has honoured M. Chesneau's volume, 'a piece of entirely candid, intimately searching, and delicately intelligent French criticism.'

Faults it undoubtedly has, as Mr. Ruskin also points out. The author is too ready to forgive the transgressions of minor genius, and to waste his own and the reader's time in the search for beauties of small account and the descriptions of accidental and evanescent fancy.' He gives elaborate descriptions of pictures by such little-known pre-Raphaelites as Arthur Hughes and W. H. Fisk, and devotes five or six pages to Sir Noel Paton, while he has scarcely one to give to Walker or Rossetti. The achievements of several of our most illustrious masters have to be crowded into a single paragraph for want of space; others, such as W. B. Richmond and Dyce, are not mentioned at all; and not a word is said of our modern school of portrait painting, one of the most remarkable developments of Victorian art. But, putting aside this want of proportion, which makes itself felt throughout M. Chesneau's work, his acute perception and the soundness and independence of his judgments render his book a valuable one and deserve the high praise which it has received from Mr. Ruskin.

The French critic divides the history of English painting into two periods, and dates the rise of the modern school from the year 1850-that is to say, the moment of the pre-Raphaelite revolt. Up to this time he considers painting in Englandwith the exception of landscape art-to have been clever indeed, and at times original, but altogether wanting in genius. And certainly it must be confessed that during the early years of the Queen's reign oil painting sank to a very low ebb. Constable had died in 1837, and although Turner lived till 1851 his best work was done. Most of the other painters whose names stood highest in public opinion, Etty and Stanfield, Mulready and Leslie, belonged to what M. Chesneau calls our ancienne école,' and were survivals from the Georgian age. Their ideals were those of another day, and, with the exception of Stanfield, whose 'Tilbury Fort,'

·

1 Preface, p. x.