titular legend were full of summer,
glowing with golden light, and toned with quiet melancholy:

"To him who sails
Under the shore, a few white villages,
Scattered above, below, some in the clouds,
Some on the margin of the dark blue sea,
And glittering thro' their lemon groves, announce
The region of Amalfi. Then, half-fallen,
A lonely watch-tower on the precipice,
Their ancient landmark, comes--long may it last!
And to the seaman, in a distant age,
Though now he little thinks how large his debt,
Serve for their monument."

Prepared by these lines for a dream upon deep, calm waters, under the
shadow and scent of the close lemon leaves, the spectator found himself
placed by the painter, wet through, in a noisy fishing boat, on a
splashing sea, with just as much on his hands as he could manage to keep
her gunwale from being stove in against a black rock; and with a heavy
grey squall to windward. (This squall, by the by, was the very same
which appeared in the picture of the Magra of 1847, and so were the
snowy mountains above; only the squall at Amalfi entered on the left,
and at the Magra on the right.) Now the scenery of Amalfi is impressive
alike in storm or calm, and the writer has seen the Mediterranean as
majestic and as southern-looking in its rage as in its rest. But it is
treating both the green water and woods unfairly to destroy their peace
without expressing their power; and withdraw from them their sadness and
their sun, without the substitution of any effect more terrific than
that of a squall at the Nore. The snow on the distant mountains chilled
what it could not elevate, and was untrue to the scene besides; there is
no snow on the Monte St. Angelo in summer except what is kept for the
Neapolitan confectioners. The great merit of the picture was its
rock-painting; too good to have required the aid of the exaggeration of
forms which satiated the eye throughout the composition.

Mr. F. R. Pickersgill's "Contest of Beauty" (No. 515.), and Mr. Uwins's
"Vineyard Scene in the South of France," were, after Mr. Mulready's
works, among the most interesting pieces of color in the Exhibition. The
former, very rich and sweet in its harmonies, and especially happy in
its contrasts of light and dark armor; nor less in the fancy of the
little Love who, losing his hold of the