every-day, every-hour play of boyhood, will enjoy this plate. A boy is,
with a peacock's feather, tickling a child asleep in the arms of a grave
old lady--so sedate have we seen grimalkin look whilst encouraging her
kitten, lightly and coquettishly, to play with a ball of cotton. "The
Beach" is a well-sketched coast scene, and shows Mr Townsend to have an
eye for nature's scenery, as well as nature's sympathies. Very good is
"The Model"--an artist sketching in the figure of a Lascar. But his best
plate is "Sad Tidings." It is a very sweet figure--youth, elegance,
tenderness, are there--and such an even melancholy light, or rather such
a mournful evenness of light and shade, that, as a whole, it is neither
light nor dark, and should have no other name than melancholy. He had
the judgment and forbearance to hide the face--we know it is lovely, and
that is enough; it is this, in part, which separates "Sad Tidings" from
such subjects as they are usually treated. There are two etchings by
Frederic Tayler--"The Chase" from Somerville, and "The Auld Grey" from
Burns--both are lightly etched and good; but they have not that free and
certain hand which marks Mr Tayler's style in his drawings, where one
wash of the brush hits off his object with great truth. "The Gypsy Boy,"
by Mr Knight, is very masterly in chiaroscuro, and certainly
characteristic of the race. Effect of chiaroscuro seems to be his aim.
It is marked in his "Old Fable" (which always means the newest) of "The
Peasant and the Forest." It is thus given: "A peasant once went into an
old forest of shady oaks, and humbly entreated the same to grant him a
small branch to make a handle for his axe, and thereby enable him to
pursue his labours at home. The forest very graciously acceded to his
request, and the peasant soon formed the required handle; but presently
he began to lay about him in every direction, using the very substance
with which the forest had furnished him out of its own bosom, and in a
short time hewed down its whole growth."