is an old one, but Etty has treated it in a new way, and given it a moral interest, which the old painters seem not to have thought of.  In the delineation of the naked human figure, Etty is allowed to surpass all the English living artists, and his manner of painting flesh is thought to be next to that of Rubens.  His reputation for these qualities has influenced his choice of subjects in a remarkable manner.  The walls of the exhibition were covered writh Venuses and Eves, Cupids and Psyches, and nymphs innocent of drapery, reclining on couches, or admiring their own beauty reflected in clear fountains.  I almost thought myself in the midst of a collection made for the Grand Seignior.

The annual exhibition of the Royal Academy is now open.  Its general character is mediocrity, unrelieved by any works of extraordinary or striking merit.  There are some clever landscapes by the younger Danbys, and one by the father, which is by no means among his happiest—­a dark picture, which in half a dozen years will be one mass of black paint.  Cooper, almost equal to Paul Potter as a cattle painter, contributes some good pieces of that kind, and one of them, in which the cattle are from his pencil, and the landscape from that of Lee, appeared to me the finest thing in the collection.  There is, however, a picture by Leslie, which his friends insist is the best in the exhibition.  It represents the chaplain of the Duke leaving the table in a rage, after an harangue by Don Quixote in praise of knight-errantry.  The suppressed mirth of the Duke and Duchess, the sly looks of the servants, the stormy anger of the ecclesiastic, and the serene gravity of the knight, are well expressed; but there is a stiffness in some of the figures which makes them look as if copied from the wooden models in the artist’s study, and a raw and crude appearance in the handling, so that you are reminded of the brush every time you look at the painting.  To do Leslie justice, however, his paintings ripen wonderfully, and seem to acquire a finish with years.

If one wishes to form an idea of the vast numbers of indifferent paintings which are annually produced in England, he should visit, as I did, another exhibition, a large gallery lighted from above, in which each artist, most of them of the younger or obscurer class, takes a certain number of feet on the wall and exhibits just what he pleases.  Every man is his own hanging committee, and if his pictures are not placed in the most advantageous position, it is his own fault.  Here acres of canvas are exhibited, most of which is spoiled of course, though here and there a good picture is to be seen, and others which give promise of future merit.