loss for an illustration of what we mean. But, setting aside the claims of religious veneration, as a mere act of policy, the glasspainter will clothe his figures in long and ample draperies, for he will scarcely meet with any greater mechanical difficulty in his art than the proper representation of flesh of large extent on glass. We trust, therefore, that this conventionality will never cease to be observed.

But the mere length of garments, though it may secure propriety, will not produce dignity. And it is the modern artist's province, by study and experiment, to attain to a majestic disposition of the folds of drapery. We cannot venture to suggest any rule on this head. Of course, something of severity will be acknowledged as required in an ecclesiastical painting; but this may be effected by the most opposite treatment. Let any one, for instance, set side by side some of Albert Durer's woodengravings and the designs of Flaxman. In the former, (as in the German and Italian painters who preceded A. Durer), the folds are numerous, strongly marked, and angular. In Flaxman's figures the drapery is defined by very few bold but undulating strokes; yet in both of these there is a common element of severity. The same fact is displayed by a comparison of early ecclesiastical paintings with classical sculpture; yet, the study of the latter was greatly cultivated by the early painters, and their choice of a different method to produce somewhat the same effect is as difficult to be traced to a motive as it certainly commends itself in the result. One point in which the experience of the artist will be brought to bear upon this question will be, the distribution of light and shade. The sharp, small, frequent folds of ancient drapery would tend to scattered and unvaried light. How far this would be an evil in a transparent material we are not prepared to say.

The demand for memorial windows (happily an increasing one) suggests some difficulties which the glass-painter has to overcome peculiarly in this case. He will be expected to introduce at least some characteristic symbol of the person commemorated; and he ought to be well acquainted with all the ancient methods of accomplishing this by monograms, rebuses, merchants' marks, badges of trades and professions, patron saints, &c. But it is not improbable that he will also have occasion to pourtray the person of the deceased, and, perhaps, that of the donor of the window. In this case an immediate difficulty presents itself in the unsightliness of modern costume. true that the difficulty is not peculiar to this branch of art. It has evidently been the enigma of sculptors, painters, and artists in general for centuries past, that is, ever since the revival of pagan art in England. Hence it is that, whereas our statesmen

It is

and generals have invariably argued or fought their way to distinction in swallow-tailed coats and trousers, their friends commonly consider them best commemorated in a bare neck, flowing toga, and sandals. Half of our metropolitan public statues, if they were gifted with a little more of the spirit and accuracy of classical sculpture, would seem likely to delude future generations into the belief that their originals were among the adventurers who came over, not, like our old English gentry, with William the Conqueror, but, somewhat earlier, with Julius Cæsar. And yet in the only case in which a conventional dress could be adopted with full propriety, that of ecclesiastics, to whom belongs of right an attire more solemn and picturesque than they commonly assume, this method of solving the problem seems never to have entered into the heads of artists. Chantrey, for instance, who clothes Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Wellington, so far as he clothes them at all, in a foreign and unmeaning garb, makes exertions, not less obvious than unsuccessful, to give dignity to the real costume of Bishop Heber and other bishops whom he has transmitted to posterity, as types of what a bishop is, externally at least, in our days. The mitre and staff, and all those vestments whose symbolical propriety is as inseparable from the episcopate now as when they were its ordinary garb, seem never to have occurred to him as materials ready to his hand for the due and decent representation of his subject. In the case of secular persons, however, the painter has still to grapple with the difficulties of modern costume. We need hardly protest against the unreality of returning to a more picturesque but inappropriate and exploded dress. On the other hand the colourless and shapeless vestments in which our limbs are commonly clad form no ornamental feature in a

painted window. Where royalty, nobility, any office of state, or an academical position or degree, offers a peculiar and less vulgar costume, the difficulty is comparatively small; but very often these facilities will be withheld. In this case the figure should occupy a very subordinate position in the window, so as not to challenge notice, and a devotional attitude will go far to dignify any inevitable vulgarity.

Having noticed some unfavorable points in Mr. Winston's book, we will not withhold the great praise to which some parts of it are entitled. The care with which the illustrations have been executed is very praiseworthy. Nearly all are copied from actual tracings of the originals, either reduced or precise facsimiles. The author has not commonly availed himself of the labours of others, but examined, traced, and coloured, expressly for the work in hand. Even the quality of the material is often expressed in his illustrations, as, for instance, the streaky

appearance of ancient ruby-glass. But even the pictorial part of the volumes displays the same timid and low view of his task which forbids his giving any theory of composition and design, or anything beyond dry facts, with a few moral and theological sentiments. The examples chosen are not such as display the greatest beauty and purity, but those which best illustrate his descriptions of distinctions in manner of execution or mechanical peculiarities. After all, however, as we have before intimated, there is no other English book which can serve the same purpose as this is calculated to serve. And, so far as we have ascertained, the same may be said of foreign works on the subject. There are more splendid and more original publications, such as the yet incomplete one of M. Lasteyrie, and there are several recent French and German pamphlets upon stained glass, but this is the first attempt at a manual.

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ART. II.-The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido, for the Suppression of Piracy: with Extracts from the Journal of JAMES BROOKE, ESQ., of Sarawak, (now Her Majesty's Commissioner and Consul-General to the Sultan and independent Chiefs of Borneo.) By CAPTAIN THE HON. HENRY KEPPEL, R.N. Third Edition. With an additional Chapter, comprising recent Intelligence, by WALTER K. KELLY. In 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall. 1848.

THERE is a charm about the idea of a beautiful island which the imagination lays hold of with avidity. An insular position, either literally or metaphorically, gives intensity and vividness. Be a thing good or bad, beautiful or deformed, full of pleasant, happy thoughts, or fraught with terrors, it is the more so from being alone, for the imagination loves solitude, and delights in working out one idea undisturbed by a multiplicity of forces. The stranger, the widow, and the orphan, apart from higher motives, have ever been the subjects of poetic sympathy from the loneliness of their condition. Distress is aggravated by desolation; deformity is most hideous when made the mark of exclusion; while superstitious alarms are more quickly excited at the idea of one mighty, overwhelming creature of the fancy, stalking all in solitude and darkness, than by the thought of innumerable little imps, however troublesome and nasty they may be. Again, if we would apply the same argument to our notions of comfort and security, it is an obvious illustration to appeal to the idea of a man's home being his castle. Bars and bolts, forms and manners of society, and such exclusive influences add much to our domestic enjoyments. This is well described by Leigh Hunt in his amusing, though in some respects not very commendable work, Men, Women, and Books,' with regard to the furthest retreat of all in private life-the centre keep of the domestic castle we have alluded to. Bed is the home of home; the innermost part of the 'content. It is sweet within sweet; a nut in the nut; within 'the snuggest nest a snugger nest; my retreat from the publicity ' of my privacy; my room within my room, walled (if I please) 'with curtains; a box, a separation, a snug corner, such as 'children love when they play at "house;" the place where I ' draw a direct line between me and my cares; where I enter upon a new existence, free, yet well invested; reposing, but

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'full of power; where the act of lying down, and pulling the 'clothes over one's head, seems to exclude matters that have to do with us when dressed and on our legs.' We ascend, however, to more imaginary pictures-to scenes which we know more of from the indulgences of hope than from the gratification of experience. What is most often the local habitation of a child's poetic fancies? What was the blissful retreat of Homer's wandering hero? What is the Utopia of many speculations and many plans, political, economical, philosophical? What is the brightest dream to the weary of the world's cares and troubles? What is the passing fancy of many an enthusiastic moment? Is it not to find a pleasant island encompassed by the dark blue ocean-to wander from shore to shore through fertile plains, by the side of romantic streams, or under the bold outline of a mountain range: with or without company, how many, or of what sort, depending on circumstances, we need not discuss. But the question will next occur, Where should the island be? To the excitable inhabitants of Tipperary, perhaps it might appear that, if cleansed of the cowardly Saxons, and freed from the restraining obligations of rent, no colour would contrast so well with the before-mentioned ocean blue, as the bright Emerald Isle; but to quote in this case the words of a graver censure in hac parte nullam ejus fiduciam habemus,' we like not the results which follow Tipperary excitement, and therefore do not recommend any, but such as in a very literal way are wearied with the busy world, to fix on Ireland as the realization of their Utopian aspirations.

We have moreover a decided admiration for a certain great luminary, which, in our humble judgment, exercises a powerful influence in brightening up the dull elements of which this earth is composed. Cheering as its inner strata may be to the speculating eye of the geologist, we yet feel confident that the particular part of it which is exposed to the light and heat of the sun will ever be most popular and most generally admired. If any one is inclined to be sceptical, let him descend the dark regions of a coal-pit, or even let him wander through limestone caverns with all their beauties of stalactites, stalacmites, and the many varieties of glistening spars; let him do this on a fine sunny day, and on emerging from below, let him cast his eyes around, and let him feel the warm beams of the sun. Then he will perceive what a glorious influence the sun has on all that meets its joyous face. In contrast with the dark, cold, and damp regions he has quitted, all will appear like fairyland; for a few brief moments he will think of Paradise, where every sense drinks in a spontaneous draught of most pleasing sensations. But to jump to our conclusion without further delay, we