Powers from England, for works of sculpture which
will keep him employed for years to come.

The exhibition of paintings by the Royal Academy is now open. I see
nothing in it to astonish one who has visited the exhibitions of our
Academy of the Arts of Design in New York, except that some of the worst
pictures were hung in the most conspicuous places. This is the case with
four or five pictures by Turner--a great artist, and a man of genius, but
who paints very strangely of late years. To my unlearned eyes, they were
mere blotches of white paint, with streaks of yellow and red, and without
any intelligible design. To use a phrase very common in England, they are
the most extraordinary pictures I ever saw. Haydon also has spoiled
several yards of good canvas with a most hideous picture of Uriel and
Satan, and to this is assigned one of the very best places in the
collection. There is more uniformity of style and coloring than with us;
more appearance of an attempt to conform to a certain general model, so
that of course there are fewer unpleasant contrasts of manner: but this is
no advantage, inasmuch as it prevents the artist from seeking to attain
excellence in the way for which he is best fitted. The number of paintings
is far greater than in our exhibitions; but the proportion of good ones is
really far smaller. There are some extremely clever things by Webster, who
appears to be a favorite with the public; some fine miniatures by
Thorburn, a young Scotch artist who has suddenly become eminent, and
several beautiful landscapes by Stanfield, an artist of high promise. We
observed in the catalogue, the names of three or four of our American
artists; but on looking for their works, we found them all hung so high as
to be out of sight, except one, and that was in what is called the
condemned room, where only a glimmer of light enters, and where the
hanging committee are in the practice of thrusting any such pictures as
they can not help exhibiting, but wish to keep in the dark.

My English friends apologize for the wretchedness of the collection, its
rows of indifferent portraits and its multitude of feeble imitations in
historical and landscape painting, by saying that the more eminent artists
are preparing themselves to paint the walls and ceilings of the new Houses
of Parliament in fresco. The pinnacles and turrets of that vast and
magnificent structure, built of a cream-colored stone, and florid with
Gothic tracery,