Even our great legal head, Sir H. J. Fust, when he found, in the case of Faulkner above cited, a rubric opposed to his views, and asserting the very contrary to the opinion he was about to express, set aside its authority without scruple by one of those clever devices which none can ever propose but the very learned in the law. He said that what the rubric directed was not what the parties asked for. The rubric directed stone altars to be retained-what was asked for was a stone communion table—so he refused the table without giving offence to the rubric, further than by quoting Durandus, as a more explicit or a more decisive authority.

Where, therefore, there is so much diversity of opinion among bishops and judges concerning the rubrics, strict uniformity and general agreement among the clergy can scarcely be expected; but, the fact is, the clergy must arrange these things among themselves: there is no authority over them so infallible as to procure universal acquiescence to his opinions, and the difficulty of obtaining a decisive and unqualified opinion from a bishop upon any subject of ecclesiastical law or discipline leaves to the clergy a very wide discretion in all things that concern both; and it is discretion that in the present circumstances of the Church is so greatly and constantly needed. But the very discreet man is seldom a zealous man-the very prudent is very often a do little-the very earnest is frequently very hasty; and, therefore, the value of bringing the clergy by some constituted authority very frequently together, that they may when together gain wisdom from each other-profit by each otherthat the burning zeal of one may be tempered by the wise moderation of another, and the excessive caution of one be quickened by hearing of the successful exertions of the more active ministers. Wherever ten or twenty men can be collected together in friendly intercourse on such subjects for one day three or four times in the year, and are presided over on such occasions by one with authority, and who is capable and willing to exercise that authority for the pleasure and profit of all, it is incalculable the good that results from such meetings. A mutual esteem is felt by all one towards another; singularities in a great measure disappear; party spirit is softened down; knowledge is communicated; kind feelings are felt and exercised; charity is improved and enlarged, and uniformity in ministrations greatly promoted. And, with the power that the bishops possess of appointing rural deans in every portion of their diocese, and with their irresponsible power of selecting everywhere the very best men for the purpose, they have most decidedly the very best means in their own hands of establishing

discipline among the clergy, and through them among the laity; of promoting a more cordial agreement among all parties in the Church, and of securing a more general uniformity of opinion and practice than any Acts of Parliament could give them, or than any judgments from the Ecclesiastical Courts could secure to them. Through the rural deans the bishop might communicate to the clergy his wishes upon all Church matters; paternally and confidentially could learn what the opinions of his clergy were on all subjects submitted to them; and their views and feelings personally upon all things that concern the interests and welldoing of the Church in all its complicated relations with the State. He would then have a most correct knowledge of his diocese, and of all parties and opinions within it; he would know what precisely, with the general concurrence of his clergy, he might do or say on every subject that came before him in his legislative capacity-to use a military phrase, he would have them "well in hand," and they would have the utmost confidence in him.

But, to make this machinery work well, the rural deans must be men of business habits, and they must have matters of business always in hand ready for consideration at the quarterly meetings. Clergymen do not like to be taken half a dozen miles out of their parish for nothing; and, with the work they have already in hand, it would be very undesirable that they should do so; but they would gladly go where their diocesan desired their presence and solicited their deliberations, where he sought their advice, and where they might profit by his exhortations and his counsels. If brotherly love is universally to to prevail amongst us-if effective discipline is to be established among us-if uniformity is to be expected from us-it is through such an agency as this, where the bishop and his clergy could communicate to each other their thoughts and their feelings, their hopes and their wishes, in a friendly spirit, neither too authoritatively on the one hand, nor too intrusively on the other; but regularly, frequently and confidentially, to the mutual comfort and profit of both parties, and to the great advantage of the Church which both serve.

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Notices of Books.

Modern Painters. Vol. I. By A GRADUATE OF OXFORD. Third Edition. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1846.

SECOND and third editions are usually so like the first that it would be a mere waste of time and space to notice them. We are, however, induced to depart from our general rule of confining our remarks to the editio princeps, in respect to the work before us, from the circumstance of its having been professedly "revised by the author," as well as from the fact, deducible from the size of the volume as compared with the former editions, that it contains much new matter. If we were called upon to multiply our reasons for thus infringing upon a general and wholesome rule, we might adduce the celebrity of the work; which, in the circles of literature as well as art, has created no ordinary sensation, and which, while it has been hailed on the one hand by acclamations of applause, has been assailed on the other by the most virulent and unmeasured abuse-an equally unequivocal evidence of the importance attached to the opinions it promulges. This violence of vituperation has more especially been directed towards the second volume, which was noticed in our last number, and which, from the religious tone that pervades it, would naturally provoke the hostility of a certain section of the critical press. The author, in the preface to this edition, modestly remarks of the work as it had previously appeared

"Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I have cut it out: what I have left, however imperfect, cannot, I think, be dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not under the idea of rendering the work, in anywise, systematic or complete, but to supply gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance to passages of mere declamation. Whatever inadequacy or error there may be throughout, in materials or modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of the main result; though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed; yet the point and bearing of the book-its determined depreciation of Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Canaletto; and its equally determined support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's recent works as his finest-are good and right; and, if the prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not been either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but the vindication, most

.........

necessary to the prosperity of our present schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest artist, and the distinction equally necessary, as I think, to the prosperity of our schools, of the unadvised admiration of the landscape of the seventeenth century. ...... Some important additions have also been made to the chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though something is withdrawn, little is changed; and the reader may rest assured that, if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful revision which it much needs but little deserves, it would not be to alter its tendencies or modify its conclusions, but to prevent indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and admiration partizanship on the other."

It will be seen in our previous notices of this remarkable writer that, admiring as we do his wondrous eloquence, high poetic feeling, and profound study of nature, we have not bound ourselves to the chariot-wheels of his opinions, at the same time that we are not prepared to impugn them. Indeed we have felt it but candid to admit that we cannot measure our knowledge of art with his; and, therefore, that it rather becomes us to put our readers in possession of the nature of the work than attempt anything like a critical examination of its theories.

Among the new matter presented to us in this volume we are glad to find some remarks on the works of artists who were merely glanced at in the former editions; and we especially rejoice to quote the following allusion to Mr. Prout, who, at one time, stood almost alone as a water-colour artist, and who, in many excellences of his art, is still unapproached :

"We owe to Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only existing expression, of precisely the characters which were wanting to old art-of that feeling which results from the influence among the noble lines of architectere-of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the lichen and the weed-and from the writing upon the pages of ancient walls of the confused hieroglyphics of human history. I suppose, from the deserved popularity of the artist, that the strange pleasure which I find myself in the deciphering of these is common to many: the feeling has been rashly and thoughtlessly contemned as mere love of the picturesque : there is, as I have above shown, a deeper moral in it, and we owe much-I am not prepared to say how much -to the artist by whom pre-eminently it has been excited. For, numerous as have been his imitators, extended as his influence, and simple as his means and manner, there has yet appeared nothing at all to equal him: there is no stone drawing, no vitality of architecture like Prout's. I say not this rashly; I have Mackenzie in my eye and many other capital imitators; and I have carefully reviewed the architectural work of the academicians, often most accurate and elaborate. repeat there is nothing but the work of Prout which is true, living, or right in its general impression, and nothing, therefore, so inexhaustibly agreeable. Faults he has, manifold, easily detected, and much

I

declaimed against by second-rate artists; but his excellence no one has ever touched, and his lithographic work-Sketches in Flanders and Germany'-which was, I believe, the first of the kind, still remains the most valuable of all, numerous and elaborate as its various successors have been. The second series (in Italy and Switzerland) was of less value, the drawings seemed more laborious, and had less of the life of the original sketches, being also for the most part of subjects less adapted for the development of the artist's peculiar powers; but both are fine, and the Brussels, Louvain, Cologne, and Nuremberg,' subjects of the one, together with the Tours, Amboise, Geneva, and Sion of the other, exhibit substantial qualities of stone and wood drawing, together with an ideal appreciation of the present active vital being of the cities, such as nothing else has ever approached."

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Our author, referring to architectural painting, instances the works of one of the most distinguished of the recent additions to the Royal Academy-David Roberts, a painter who, we happen to know, is as much and deservedly honoured on the continent as he is at home. Mr. Roberts started suddenly into fame, on the strength of his admirable Spanish drawings, and has gone on steadily but rapidly adding to his reputation to the present day: while, to his honour be it added, he is one of the few favoured sons of genius whom prosperity has not spoiled. Of this artist our "Graduate" observes

"Among the members of the academy, we have at present only one professedly architectural draughtsman of note, David Roberts, whose reputation is probably farther extended on the continent than that of any other of our artists, except Landseer. I am not certain, however, that I have any reason to congratulate either of my countrymen upon this their European estimation, for I think it exceedingly probable that in both instances it is exclusively based on their defects; and in the case of Mr. Roberts, in particular, there has of late appeared more ground for it than is altogether desirable in a smoothness and overfinish of texture which bears dangerous fellowship with the work of our Gallic neighbours.

"The fidelity of intention and honesty of system of Roberts have, however, always been meritorious: his drawing of architecture is dependent on no unintelligible lines, or blots, or substituted types: the main lines of the real design are always there, and its hollowness and undercuttings given with exquisite feeling: his sense of solidity of form is very peculiar, leading him to dwell with great delight on the roundings of edges and angles: his execution is dexterous and delicate, singularly so in oil, and his sense of chiaroscuro refined. But he has never done himself justice, and suffers his pictures to fall below the rank they should assume by the presence of several marring characters which I shall name, because it is perfectly in his power to avoid them. In looking over the valuable series of drawing of the Holy Land, which we owe to Mr. Roberts, we cannot but be amazed to find how frequently it has happened that there was something very white