FREE EXHIBITION OF THE PRODUCTS OF On Shrove Tuesday a small Roman CathoNATIVE TALENT.-The second annual exposi- lic church, called the Church of St. John the tion of British Manufactures, consisting of 700 specimens of Decorative Art, has been lately opened at the house of the Society of Arts, John-street, Adelphi. The exhibition is open every day (Saturday excepted) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets may, we learn, be had gratis upon application to any members of the society as well as to the following printsellers, &c. :-Messrs. Ackermann, Strand; J. Cundall, 12, Old Bond-street; D. Colnaghi, 18, Pall Mall East; Dean and Co., King Williamstreet, London-bridge; J. Hetley, Sohosquare; J. Mortlock, 250, Oxford-street; J. Tennant, 149, Strand; Phillips, 358 and 359, Oxford-street; R. Henson, 70, Strand; and W. Mortlock, 18, Regent-street. We hope that our metropolitan readers will avail themselves of this opportunity for inspecting the results of British ingenuity.

Baptist, at Hackney, was opened for Divine worship. It consists of a nave, north aisle, chancel, and sacristy, with a bell-cot and spire of Caen stone, 90 feet in height, at the west end, and has withinside more decoration than is usually found in Protestant churches. The altar is richly carved in Caen stone; and there is a sepulchre, piscina, and sedile, in the chancel. The rood-screen is of carved oak, with the rood, and figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John. It has a stained-glass window, by Messrs. Ward and Nixon. The roof of the nave is open, and the ceiling of the chancel is emblazoned in colours and gold; the panels are powdered with stars, and contain monograms of the Holy Name, the Virgin, the Four Evangelists, &c. The church is built of Kentish rag and hassock, and in style is of the decorated period.

that, with reference to paper-hangings, the system of manufacture in this country is dif ferent from that of the French, who often employ a chemist, and always an artist, to mix

Royal Academy.

and distribute the colours, which are applied PROFESSOR LESLIE'S THIRD LECchiefly by women and youths under such TURE ON PAINTING. superintendence; whilst in England the

colours are prepared and laid on by the unedu- THE professor in this lecture entered upon the cated but dexterous workmen. At the present consideration of form and composition; and time the best kind of "flock and gold" English proceeded in a masterly manner to point out papers are equal in every respect to the same the real significancy of the term ideal as emkind produced in France; but in the manufac-ployed to distinguish that best condition to ture of flowered and many-coloured patterns which Nature always tends, and from which in we do not obtain the perfect gradation of tints her individual productions she is only interwhich is peculiar to the French manufactures. cepted by accident. He took for illustration He was also of opinion that, since the admis- the human body, and pointed out in a perspision of French papers under a reduced duty, cuous manner the accidents to which the the English manufacturers have had more re-human flesh is prone in an artificial mode of gard to a reduction of the cost than to the pro-life, and the malformations produced by even duction of better designs; and he thought that the most trivial circumstances such as wearteaching boys, as alluded to, is exceedingly ing clothes, &c., and ending by referring the necessary, especially as the application and mixing of colours are, in this country, left in the hands of such persons when they have acquired a mechanical proficiency in printing.

BLEACHING IVORY.-Antique works in ivory that have become discoloured may be brought to a pure whiteness by exposing them to the sun under glasses. It is the particular property of ivory to resist the action of the sun's rays, when it is under glass; but when deprived of this protection, to become covered with a multitude of minute cracks. Many antique pieces of sculpture in ivory may be seen, which, although tolerably white, are, at the same time defaced by numerous cracks; this defect cannot be remedied; but, in order to conceal it, the dust may be removed which has insinuated itself into the fissures, by brushing the work with warm water and soap, and afterwards placing it under glass. Antique works in ivory that have become discoloured, may be brushed with pumice stone, calcined and diluted, and while yet wet, placed under glasses. They should be daily exposed to the action of the sun, and be turned from time to time, that they may become equally bleached; if the brown colour be deeper on one side than the other, that side will, of course, be for the longest time exposed to the sun. The bleaching may be accelerated by frequently repeating the operation just described.-Repertory of Arts.

students to the study of Grecian art as presenting the best proportions of the human body: at the same time recommending where possible to refer to Nature, as he observed that although we were rich in fragments of antiquity, many of these were, no doubt, but merely indifferently executed copies of the originals, and originals but imperfectly restored; besides the practice of constantly referring to these could not but lead to mannerism, as in the, case of Raffaelle himself, who always drew his horses from the mediocrital performances of the masters who had preceded him.

The professor then entered upon relative beauty, pointing out the difference which exists between manly, womanly, and infantile beauty-the most perfect proportions of the woman bore but in few cases any analogy to those of the man, and the long body and short legs of the child would almost amount to positive deformity in the adult.

The taste which many painters, including Rembrandt, Ostade, and several of the Dutch and Flemish schools, had for painting ugly features, required some remark, and the professor explained that the correct portraiture of the human face required that character should always be imparted to the physiognomy, for otherwise the portrait was blank and lacked expression; but still there were points which should not be overreached-in nature the extremes either of beauty or ugliness were seldom visible-Raffaelle had often surpassed the ordinary limits of beauty, but they were not on than account to select him as their FOSSIL WOODS TO PREPARE SECTIONS FOR model, for the pictures in which this was exhiTHE MICROSCOPE. A thin slice is first cut from bited had often many faults which even the the fossil wood by the usual process of the good nature of the critic should not allow to lapidary. One surface is ground perfectly flat be passed over. Rembrandt's taste for excesand polished, and then cemented to a piece of sive ugliness was generally exhibited more in plate glass by means of Canada balsam. The the form than the countenance-and an inslice thus firmly attached to the glass is now stance of this might be met with in an etching ground down to the requisite degree of tena- by him of Adam and Eve, in which the form of city, so as to permit its structure to be seen by the woman was the perfect ideality of uglithe aid of the microscope. It is by this inge-ness. nious process that the intricate structure of The subject of drapery next engaged his atany fossil plant can now be investigated, and tention, and after stating that on this point the nature of the original determined, with as they derived much valuable suggestion from much accuracy as if it were now living.-Man-antique art, he proceed to point out the differtell's Geology. ence which should exist between the peculiar

disposition of drapery in sculpture and paint- were all made by perspective to terminate in ing. In sculpture, the close adherence of the one point above the horizon; they were to drapery to the limbs, showing clearly the out- continue as heretofore to draw all lines perpenline of the body, might form a beauty in sculp- dicularly that they knew to be really perpenture, whereas in painting, unless accounted for dicular to the horizon, because the plane of by rapid action, or the effect of the wind, it the picture being itself subject to the laws of would be a defect-a mistake, he observed, perspective, became altered by those laws acwhich they found more frequently in Michael cording to the point from which they viewed Angelo than in Raffaelle. He referred to Ra-it, and carried with it all lines that were paralffaelle, in this respect, as a master beyond lel to itself. This rule obviously applied most others worthy of study. He neither equally to lines parallel to the horizon if they overloaded his pictures, nor were his lines ever were also parallel to the plane of the picture. poor or meagre. Action was always aided by But in the application of the laws of perthe streaming or fluttering, or slighter move- spective there was as much room for choice as ment of the dress, and grace was made more in the application of any of the other princigraceful. ples of Nature to art. The beauty of a composition depended greatly on the placing of the horizontal line, and its apparent truth on the choice of the point of distance. The professor adduced the remark of Stothard that great grandeur might be obtained either by a very high or a very low horizon; but when the horizon was placed in or near the middle of the picture, grandeur of composition was to be sought from some other prínciple, and cited several instances to prove the justice of this remark.

In action Rubens was a great painter, as many of his works testified, and one in particular, a small and slight work of his masterly hand, exhibited in the Louvre, and which contained not less than one hundred figures, scarcely one or two of which were not in motion, dancing, romping, and rolling on the ground; while even of those who sat on benches or on tables, not one appeared to be able to sit still. It was a wonderful display of the most difficult attitudes, mastered with consummate ease; but the whole together was too far removed from the probabilities of Nature and any picture of the younger Teniers of a similar subject placed beside it would show at once how much the truth was to be preferred to such splendid falsehood.

Repetitions of particular attitudes which were often to be observed in crowded assemblages, were not to be rejected because they were not presented in what was called the picturesque style, as in the best works of many great masters, such as Raffaelle, Poussin, and Peter de Hooge, they constituted their chief excellencies, and the best points with enlightened critics, as must be the case with everything that is true to Nature.

All improvements in composition from the infancy of art to its full maturity, were owing to the successive discoveries made in the broad and varied field of Nature, and the study of the principles by which she made her assemblages pleasing to the eye. Linear perspective was the basis of linear grouping, and until its laws were first well understood composition remained imperfect. The professor adduced several examples of paintings executed both before and after the discovery of this art, and critically analysed each specimen.

After some very able and judicious remarks on Hogarth's style of perspective and composition; and his style of painting costume, the professor announced that he should defer the consideration of several admirable styles of composition until his next lecture.

was

HARDENING OF STEEL DIES.-Mr. Adam the following successful mode of hardening Eckfeldt is stated to be the first who employed steel dies. He caused a vessel, holding 200 gallons of water, to be placed in the upper part of the building, at the height of forty feet above the room in which the dies were to be hardened; from this vessel the water conducted through a pipe of one inch and a quarter in diameter, with a cock at the bottom, and nozzles of different sizes, to regulate the diameter of the jet of water. Under one of these was placed the heated dies, the water being directed on to the centre of the upper surface. The first experiment was tried in the year 1795, and the same mode has been ever since pursued at the Mint without a single instance of failure. By this process the die is hardened in a way as best to sustain the pressure to Balance of lines and masses was the great which it is to be subjected; and the middle of principle of general composition; and whether the face, which, by the former process, was apt this was obtained by exact symmetry of parts, The hardened part of the dies so managed, to remain soft, now becomes the hardest part. as in the school of Athens, or by the many other more irregular plans of arrangement, de- were it to be separated, would be found to be pended much on the subject:-for one form in the segment of a sphere, resting in the lower was not more legitimate than another. Nature softer part as in a dish, the hardness of course delighted them in so many different ways that gradually decreasing as you descend towards art might, and, indeed, should, follow her the foot, Dies thus hardened preserve their variety if it would avoid the stagnation of form till fairly worn out.-Franklin's Journal. mediocrity-the invariable result of too exclusive an attachment to any one system.

BADIGEON.-A preparation. for colouring houses. It is prepared with saw-dust, slaked The first thing taught by perspective was lime, the powder of the stone with which the that they saw the form of no object whatever house is built, and a pound of alum, dissolved exactly as it was; and though the lines of in a bucket of water. A little yellow ochre is buildings which were in reality perpendicular | sometimes added to it.