left; but
still, in chiaroscuro, it would have been a fine picture, if completed
according to his first intention, but Canute and his courtiers spoil it.
In the first place, they make, by their position and ease, the awful
overwhelming sea safe. It is, as Longinus remarks, the plank that takes
away the danger and the poetry; and such an assemblage of courtiers put
the times of Canute quite out of our heads--a collection from a book of
fashions--Ladies' Magazines--in their velvet gauze and tiffany, in
colours that put the sun to shame, and make him blush less red; and the
little, minute work about the pebbly shore creates a weariness, for they
tempt us to count the sands. All this arises from a mistaken view of the
sublime, that we have before noticed in Mr. Martin. It is very strange
that an artist of his undoubted genius should err in a matter so
essential to the greatness at which he aims.

Would that we could say a word in of Mr Haydon's one historical
picture, "The Heroine of Saragossa." She is most unheroic certainly,
stretching across the centre of the picture with a most uncomfortable
stride, with what a foot! and a toe that looks for amputation--a torch
suspended out of her hand, held by nothing--not like "another Helen," to
"fire another Troy," but purposing to fire off a huge cannon, without a
chance of success; for not only do not her fingers hold the torch, but
her face is averted from the piece of ordnance, and her feet are taking
her away from it. She is splendidly dressed in red, and without shoes or
stockings--a great mistake, for such a foot might have been well hid.
She is the very worst historical figure we have ever seen in a picture
of any pretensions; there is another figure that only attempts to hold a
pistol. The whole is a most unfortunate display of the vulgar
historical. The unfortunate woman has two heads of hair, and both look
borrowed for the occasion. How very strange it is that an artist who
could paint the very respectable picture of the "Raising of Lazarus,"
now at the Pantheon, should not himself be sensible of the glaring
faults of such a picture as this; and we may add, the large one
exhibited last year. Mr Haydon understands art, lectures upon it, and
is, we believe, enthusiastic in his profession. Does he bring his own
works to the test of the principles he lays down? The misconception of
men of talent with regard to their own works is an unexplained
phenomenon.

Edwin Landseer,