There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir Joshua may say of them),
and in which the very management of the gray tones which the President
abuses forms the principal excellence and charm. Why, after all, are we
not to have our opinion? Sir Joshua is not the Pope. The color of one
of those Vandykes is as fine as FINE Paul Veronese, and the sentiment
beautifully tender and graceful.

I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists (1843), the
remembrance of whose pictures after a month's absence has almost
entirely vanished. Wappers's hand, as I thought, seemed to have grown
old and feeble, Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as good as
Paul Potter's, and Keyser has dwindled down into namby-pamby prettiness,
pitiful to see in the gallant young painter who astonished the Louvre
artists ten years ago by a hand almost as dashing and ready as that of
Rubens himself. There were besides many caricatures of the new German
school, which are in themselves caricatures of the masters before
Raphael.


An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with applause. The
writer lost a pocket-book containing a passport and a couple of modest
ten-pound notes. The person who found the portfolio ingeniously put it
into the box of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the
owner; but somehow the two ten-pound notes were absent. It was, however,
a great comfort to get the passport, and the pocket-book, which must be
worth about ninepence.


BRUSSELS.