was the invention of Miss Thompson, and was exhibited, and we believe not quite fairly-much mischief having been done to the pictures by pulling out parts, either for wanton mulation, or to see the manner of the working. Whether from disgust arising from this circumstance, or at the little encouragement shown to it, the invention seems to have dropped. Yet was the effect most powerful, more to the life than any picture, in whatever material; and from the size of the works produced by the hands of one person, we should judge that it is capable of rapid execution. We have a vivid recollection of a copy from a picture by Northcote, figures size of life, and of the head of Govartius, in the National Gal lery. We are not without hope that this slight notice may recall a very effective mode of copying, at least, if not producing, original works. Of painted glass, it is remarked"The earliest notice of its existence is in the age of Pope Leo III., about the year 800. It did not, however, come into general use till the lapse of some centuries. The earliest specimens differ entirely from those of a later date, being composed of small pieces, stained with colour during the process of manufacture, and thus forming a species of patchwork, or rude mosaic, joined together with lead, after being cut into the proper shapes." Mr. Cleghorn omits to say that this more perfect invention of painting on one piece various tints and colours, and regulating gradations of burning, was eflec ed and brought to perfection by the same extraordinary man to whom the world is indebted for the invention of oil painting, Van Eyck. From the discoveries of this extraordinary man, or rather these extraordinary brothers, Van Eyck, must be dated the advance in the arts, both on glass and in oilcolours, which brought to both the perfection of colouring The wonderful splendour added to design upon glass, which was so eminently practised at Venice, without doubt supplied to the Venetian school an aim which it could not have had under the old tempera system, but which the new oil invention of Van Eyck sufficiently placed within its each. Yet, in one view, we may hence date the corruption of art. The severity of fresco was superseded by the new fascination, and somewhat of dignity was lost as beauty was more decidedly established. As very much of the splendour of glass painting was thus introduced in oil, the greater facility of more correctly representing nature, and embodying ideas by degrees of opacity, so gave the preference to oil-painting, that not only the old tempera and fresco were soon neglected, but painting on glass itself, as if it had done its work, and transferred its peculiar beauty, lost much of its repute, and in no very long time, the processes to which it owed its former glory. Mr. Cleghorn remarks-"Within a few years it has been much cultivated in Great Britain; and the intended application to the decoration of the Houses of Parliament will materially conduce to its improvement and extension." It is unquestionably an art of the greatest importance in decora tion. It has a charm peculiarly its own. It dignifies, it solemnizes by its own light, and is capable of affecting the mind so as particularly to predis pose it to the purposes of architecture. It encloses a sanctuary, excluding the very atmosphere of the outer world. There is the impression and the awe of truth under the searching and embracing light, that should make the utterance of a falsehood the more mean, even sacrilegious. The art that can have this power, nor is this its only, though its greater power, is surely to be cultivated and encouraged extensively. There is now more attention paid to the architecture and decoration of our churches, and a taste has sprung up for monumental windows. We cannot resist, therefore, the temptation to offer a few remarks upon the subject, now that so many mistaken views are taken as to the proper application of this beautiful art. There seems to be a false idea abroad that the painted window is to be predominant, not assistant to the general impression which the architecture intends. In reality it loses, not gains, power by setting up for itself. And, even in colours, it is not to vie with shop display of colours "by the piece," nor to set forth all its powers at once in a full glare and blaze, and too often without other object and a large history-book with its many meaning than to display flags of strong unmixed colours. A painted window should be a whole, and have no one colour predominant, but be of infinite depths and degrees of tint and tone with one tendency. Nor should it aim at picture-making, however it may be adapted to the emblematical. It should never affect the absolutely real-the picture illusion: it is altogether of a world of thought and imagination, belonging rather to the inner mind of the spectator than to his ordinary thought or vision. The very difficulty of the early manufacture was an advantage to it, for great brilliancy has resulted from the crossings and hatchings of the leaden fastenings; and now that we are enabled to hang up, as it were, flags of colour, the effect of those subduing subdivisions is gone. There is such a thing, so to speak, as the genius of a material. That genius, in the case of glass-painting, is not for picture. Surely Sir Joshua Reynolds made a great mistake when, in his window for New College, he designed, as for canvas, a picture, and that for the most part without colour, which the genius of the material required. Nor by the largeness of his figures, and of the whole as a design, did he assist, or indeed at all agree with, the character of the architecture. In such instances many and small parts should make one whole, both for the advantage of the real magnitude of the particular work, and that the magnitude of the architecture be not lessened-a method, indeed, which the Gothic architecture studiously followed, in which even minute design and detail give largeness to all the leading lines. Daylight is never to be seen-an imaginary light is the all in all. In this respect it should be like a precious stone, which is best seen in all its infinite depths, in shade, out of all common glare In the best specimens of old glass-painting the positive and strong colours were few, and in small spaces, and adjoining them was a frequent aiming at those which were almost opaque,-even black and greens, browns and purples, bordering on black. And if emblematic subjects were represented, they were in many compartiments, as if the window were The pages-a world of curious emblems, по one obtrusive. It is bad taste to fill up a whole window with even Raffaelle's Transfiguration; either a picture or a large design is out of place, and dissonant to the genius of the art. One of the worst specimens of painted window is that in the Temple, all self glorifying, painted as a savage would paint himself, in flags of colour as crude as possible. The genius of the art is for innumerable subdivisions none obtruding, lest there be no whole. It should be of the light of a brighter world subduing itself, veiling its glory, and diffusing itself in mystic communication with the inner mind; and like that mind, one in feeling with all its varied depths of thought. Colour and transparency are the means of this beautiful art; but these, as they are very powerful, require great judgment and determi nation of purpose in the use. interwoven gold in the old tapestries was more effectually to separate the character of the material from the too close imitation of nature or the picture; so on the transparent material of glass, the crossing, and sometimes quaintly formed lead lines, always marked, answer the same purpose. Mr. Cleghorn is too sparing of remarks and information on the art of painting on glass, which we the less regret, as we are shortly to have before the public the carefully gath red knowledge upon this subject from the pen and research of Mrs. Merrifield. His chapter on tapestry is more full and interesting. We have not seen the specimens of a new kind invented by Miss King. It will be a boon to the public if, in its adoption, it supersedes, with a better richness, the Berlin work, at which ladies are now sc unceasingly and so tastelessly employed. The Art-Union speaks highly of the invention. It is curious that, in modern times, a Raffaelle tapestry should be destroyed to get at the gold. The anecdote is characteristic of the equally infidel French of 1798, and of the Jew-excepting that the Jew was ignorant of its value. Mr. Cleghorn thus speaks of the celebrated cartoon tapestries-"They were sent to be woven at Arras, under the superintendence of Barnard Van Orlay and Michael Coxes, who had been some years pupils of Raffaelle. Two sets of these interesting tapestries were executed; but the deaths of Raffaelle and the pontiff, and the intestine troubles, prevented them being applied to their intended destination. They were carried off by the Spaniards during the sack of Rome in 1526-7, and restored by the French general, Montmorency. They were first exhibited to the public by Paul IV. in front of the Basilica of St. Peter's, on the festival of Corpus Domini, and again at the Beatification: a custom that was continued throughout part of the last century, and has again been resumed. The French took them in 1798, and sold them to a Jew at Leghorn, who burned one of them-Christ's Descent into Limbus-to extract the gold with which it was interwoven. There is so much information in these little volumes, that were we to notice a small part of the passages which we have marked with the pencil we should unduly lengthen this paper, which we can by no means be allowed to do. We here pause, intending, however, shortly to resume the pen on the subject of art, which now offers so many points of interest. KAFFIRRAND. Ir is always with fresh interest that we address ourselves to the perusal of books relating to Great Britain's colonial possessions. The subject, daily increasing in importance, has the strongest claims upon our attention. In presence of a rapidly augmenting population, and of the prodigious progress of steam and machinery, the question, naturally suggests itself-and more so in England than in any other country-how employment and support shall be found for the additional millions of human beings with which a few years (judging of the future from the past) will throng the surface of a country already densely and superabundantly populated? The problem, often discussed, has not yet been satisfactorily solved. Without broaching the complicated question of over-population and its antidotes, without attempting to decide when a country is to be deemed over-populated, we may assert, without fear of contradiction, that emigration is the simplest and most direct remedy for the state of plethora into which a nation must sooner or later be brought by a steady annual excess of births over deaths. It is a remedy to which more than one European state will ultimately be compelled to resort, however alleviation may previously be sought by temporizing and theoretorical nostrums, more palatable, perhaps, to the patient, but inadequate, if not wholly inefficacious and charlatanical. And, after all, emigration is no such insupportable prescription for a very ugly malady. Doubtless much may be said upon the cruelty of making exile a condition of existence; but sympathy on this score may also be carried too far, and degenerate into drivel. At first sight the decree appears cruel and tyrannical, until we investigate its source, and find it to proceed from no earthly potentate, but from that omniscient Being whose intention it never was that men should crowd together into nooks and corners, when vast continents and fruitful islands, untenanted, save by beasts of the field, or by scanty bands of barbarians, woo to their shores the children of labour and civilization. Love of country, admirable as an incentive to many virtues, may be pushed beyond reasonable limits. It is so, we apprehend, when it prompts men to pine in penury and idleness upon the soil that gave them birth, rather than seek new fields for their industry and Five Years in Kaffirland, with Sketches of the Late War in that Country. Written on the Spot. By HARRIET WARD. Two vols. London, 1848. The Cape and its Colonists, with Hints to Settlers, in 1848. By GEORGE NICHOLSON, Jun., Esq., a late Resident. London, 1848. A Three Years' Cruise in the Mozambique Channel, for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. By LIEUT. BARNARD, R.N. London, 1848. enterprise in uncultivated and vacant lands. What choice of these is afforded by England's vast and magnificent colonies! The emigrant may select almost his degree of latitude. And where Britannia's banner waves, and her laws are paramount, and the honest, kindly Anglo-Saxon tongue is the language of the land, there surely needs no great effort of imagination for a Briton to think himself still at home, though a thousand leagues of ocean roll between him and his native isle. lauded for the volume with which he has favoured the public. We are not quite sure, however, that the public will think as highly of it as we do. Our admiration is founded on the consistency of its tone; upon the steady, well-sustained grumble kept up throughout. The preface at once prepossessed us in favour of what was to follow. Intended, doubtless, as a dram of bitters to assist in the digestion of the subsequent sour repast, it consists of general depreciation of other works regarding the Cape, and Excepting that they all more or less especially of one by a Mr. Chase "— refer to the British possessions at the of sneers at "stay-at-home wiseacres" Cape of Good Hope, it were difficult and hollow theorists-and of a vague to find three books more distinct from accusation brought against certain each other in character than those colonial residents of "fomenting the whose titles we have assembled at the warlike propensities of the neighbourfoot of last page. An ex-settler, an ing barbarians, to secure their own accomplished lady, and a shrewd ends," grievously to the detriment and sailor, have selected the same moment prejudice of their fellow-colonists. for the publication of their African ex- "The peculiar bent," says Mr. Nicholperiences. As in gallantry bound, we son, of each author's mind has, in give the precedence to the lady. Mrs. general, been so far allowed to preHarriet Ward, wife of a captain of the dominate as to exclude the hope of 91st regiment of foot, is a keen witted, forming a correct estimate of the high spirited person; and, like most capabilities of the soil, climate, and of her sex when they espouse a cause, other interesting features of this exa warm partisan of the feelings and tensive country, by a perusal of their opinions of those she loves and ad- works." Could the author of "The mires. She is an uncompromising Cape and its Colonists" read his book assailant of the system pursued at the with somebody else's eyes, he would Cape, especially as regards our discover that his own " peculiar bent treaties with the Kaffirs, whom she has been allowed to predominate," very justly denounces as perfidious, and that the consequences have been of bloody, and unclean savages, untame- the most gloomy description. Mr. able, she fully believes, and with Nicholson is evidently a disappointed whom Whig officials and negotiators man. Either by his fault or misforhave been ridiculously lenient and tune, by the force of circumstances or confiding. Although some of her his own bad management, his attempt views are rather sweeping and severe, to establish himself thrivingly at the she is certainly right in the main. Cape resulted unsatisfactorily; and And we honour her for her heartiness this sufficiently accounts for the general in denouncing the nauseous humbug tint of blue so conspicuous in his of the pseudo-philanthropists, whose restrospective sketch of the scene of manœuvres have had a most prejudi- his mishaps. The particular spot cial effect upon our South African pos- where these occurred was a considersessions, and have given to persons in able tract of land (called a farm) in this country notions completely erro- the district of Graaf Reinet, to arrive neous concerning the rights and at which he steamed from Cape wrongs of the Kaffir question. But Town, where he had landed from whilst blaming the administration of England, to Port Elizabeth in Algoa the colony, she finds the country itself Bay. The dismal aspect of this bay fair and excellent and of great re- painfully affected him. He "had source. Herein she differs from her read some of the glowing descriptions contemporary, Mr. George Nicholson, given of this part of the country, junior. This gentleman, lately a set- by persons whose interest it is to tler at the Cape, cannot be too highly entice over settlers by any means, conversion, it might be accepted as some compensation for the temporal evils and inconvenience they aid to inflict on a colony where servants are scarce and bad. But this is far from being the case. Mr. Nicholson assures us (and we readily believe him) that it is very rare to find an individual whose moral conduct has been improved by a residence at a missionary station, and that for his part he prefers the downright heathen to the imperfect convert. Few of these coloured Christians have any distinct idea of the creed they profess; when able, which is seldom, to answer questions concerning its first principles, their replies are parrot-like and unintelligent. Against the general character of the missionaries nothing can be said; but they are throwing away time, and their employers are wasting money which might be employed to far greater advantage in England, or in other countries whose inhabitants, equally in want of reli gious instruction, are more capable of receiving and comprehending it than are the stolid aborigines of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Nicholson does not dwell upon the subject of missionary labours in Africa, but compresses at the close of a chapter his opinions, which are sound and to the purpose. Mrs. Ward says nothing even the most dishonest, in order to have the benefit of plucking them afterwards. It is true that I had not believed the El Dorado stories so current of this and other colonies, but my expectations had been raised sufficiently high to make the disappointment at the really desolate appearance of the place, perfect." The apparent desolation is accompanied by substantial disadvantages, which Mr. Nicholson complacently enumerates. Water is scarce and brackish; there are no vegetables or fruit within twenty miles; hardly forage for a team of oxen; the town is built on sand, of which unceasing clouds are hurled by prevalent strong winds in the face of all comers. No wonder that the new settler, evidently indisposed to be easily pleased, made his escape as quickly as possible from so dreary a neighbourhood. Shipping himself, family, and chattels in an ox-waggon, he joyfully quitted Port Elizabeth on a splendid morning of the African autumn--that is to say, about the end of March or beginning of April, and set out for his property, over a road which he describes as a fair sample of Cape causeways, "nothing more than a series of parallel tracks made by the passage of waggons, from time to time, through the sand and jungle." Finding little to notice on his way, he takes the opportunity of having a fling at the missionaries, whom he describes as ing already often taken occasion doing much harm, although actuated, as he is willing to believe, by the best of intentions. The stations serve as the headquarters of the idlest and most vagabond portion of the coloured population, who have only to affect a Christian disposition to find ready acceptance and refuge. "No sooner These were manifold; and he makes is a Hottentot, or other coloured servant, discontented or hopelessly lazy, than off he flies to the nearest station, where he can indulge in the greatest luxury he knows of-that of sleeping either in the sun or shade as his inclination may lead him, with the occasional variation of participating in the singing and praying exercises of the regular inhabitants of the place." If the zealous propagators of Christianity, who thus encourage the natural idleness of the natives, were successful in their attempts at on the matter, and we ourselves are not disposed to dilate upon it, hav to expose the folly of the system that sends preachers and biblemongers to the remotest corners of the earth when such scope for their labors exists at home. Let us return to George Nicholson, his trials and tribulations. the most of them. No encouraging signs or omens cheered his progress through the land, bidding his heart beat high with hope. At two days' journey from Port Elizabeth he halted for the night at a farm belonging to an Englishman of independent property, who received him hospitably, but assured him that sheep-breeding was a hopeless speculation, owing to the bad pasturage, to the bushy tangled nature of the country, and to the hyenas, there called wolves, which are most destructive. As he proceeded, |