blossoms and flowers that are peculiar to it, the trees that you might suppose pretty much the same in June as in May are in fact not so. How do they differ? Not only in the green of a fresher and more tender colour, but the very leaves are in youth and inexperience, and have not acquired their proper air; they perk upwards, as if looking out upon the novelty of the world; nor have they formed themselves into communities, their proper masses; and this not for lack of numbers, for they are out like a swarm of bees, but it is their character that is sportive and wilder, and has not yet acquired the weight, the gravity that in June will bend them downward, and make them (like the rest of the creation) look to the earth for their maintenance.

It is curious to note how, asl June approaches, they settle themselves into masses, and as it were know their own boughs. Sketch the same trees at the interval of a month or even less, and you will be convinced that this is true. Then, again, colour -how different is it! and in consequence, the shadows in May have not those blue, almost purple massive shadows, that set them off with such dignity from the now yellower and browner earth, and make the season so truly the very "pride and manhood of the year;" and it is then that old parks enrich the ancient ancestral halls, and look representatives without doors, as the picture gallery within, of the worthy generations that planted them, that their fame might be mutual and perpe tual; and they lift their heads like peers of the land, and keep their houses, ay, and their country's glory "bosom'd high in tufted trees." They are like solemn monuments in the temple of nature.Was not such Milton's meaning of the "Monumental Oak?" When ever I walk through an avenue of those noble ancestral trees, with their sturdy barks grey and rugged from the storms they have withstood for generations, and with their proud branches shooting within and with out, as in attitudes of protection and defiance, I seem to myself to be walking through a nation's armory, where the trunks are covered with mail and cuirass that have borne the

dust of Cressy and Agincourt, whose banners and trophies are suspended overhead. But you should see them in June if you would have this feeling perfect.

So far a few hints" from the fields and woods, and why not one from the painting room? and it shall be contained in an invention, from which, notwithstanding its being offered, few will reap any advantage, for it is given without mystery, and only for the trouble of reading. It is a medium for painting. Artists will perhaps totally disregard it from two opposite feelings, some from disgust at experimental failures, and some from being satisfied with what they themselves use.

Professional artists (whatever they may do secretly) openly set their faces against experiments, because were they to do otherwise, they think they would proclaim a deficiency, which must depreciate their own works. And there are many who, if they secretly discover any thing good, will take care to keep it to themselves. An open, singleminded and perhaps simple amateur tells all he knows, and if he makes an experiment that seems to answer, tells it to all he meets, because he is an amateur. He is a thousand times laughed at, and can afford to join in the laugh against himself; but, nevertheless, onward he proceeds, and no one is injured by his failure, perhaps some friend is benefited, who candidly makes it an excuse for not framing his last present. The old ballad says,

"Did you never hear yet

A fool may teach a wise man wit." The difficulty is to get the wise men to listen to it. I do not wish particularly to be troubled with questioning visitors any more than Walter Savage Landor, Esq., who publishes to "Pencillers" that he cannot point out a better view than that which is to be seen, outside his iron gate, or I would advertise thus, "If R. A. will call on Mr at he will hear of something to his advantage." I cannot puff my art like the Macassar, nor caution painters, lest Claudes and Poussins rise without their manual dexterity from the attraction of their colours to each other, as ladies' maids are

desired to wear gloves that the palms of their hands may not be come hairy. Having nothing to sell, I cannot afford to keep a poet and pay for advertisements; therefore, knowing the circulation of Maga, I thus give my medium the chance of being a circulating medium. It is but a poor experiment of some three weeks or so, still it may deserve being put to tests, and if any sneeringly would point out the necessity of the test of time, I have only to say, that as that is a test that will put me under ground, I shall not wait for it, but said Sneerer may. Therefore, as I never may live to be an old master, such as it is, and for lack of a better, and as I cannot insure the publication of the redis covery of Van Eyk's invention, and having perhaps excited some curiosity by this preamble, will I disclose the whole silly matter. I must first say how I came by it. A few weeks ago I was admiring a very fine landscape by Salvator Rosa, which was offered for sale; on expressing to a friend a wish to copy the pic ture, the owner to my surprise most kindly and liberally offered to gratify me, and accordingly sent me the picture. As I could only have it for a limited time, and not being within reach of the best materials, I set my wits to work to manage the matter as well as I could. The painting was on that peculiar Italian canvas which is all over in small squares, which I think has a good effect upon the paint. It being very large, above six feet in length, I prepared some very open canvas, with a coat or priming. I recollected discussing some years ago with a scientific friend (who ought to publish to the world his valuable discoveries), the probable reasons why colours on Chinese drawings were so fresh, and ours so subject to change. We had a specimen of the Chinese before us, and a crucible soon discovered that the white used was nothing but white lead, which on our paper turns black. My friend then suggested that their paper is made of gums, and ours of animal size, which emits a deleterious gas that totally changes the paint. To this gas we exposed the Chinese white, and it became black. I thought the experiment satisfactory, and

never forgot it. Having to make my priming I wanted a substitute for glue-for this purpose I mixed up a quantity of colour, of red lead and chalk, with starch, and added to it, mixing it all up together well with the spatula, such a quantity of linseed oil as I thought would fasten it. With this I made my priming, and painted my copy with the medium supplied by my scientific friend. The canvass was, however, bad, I must confess, and gave me a good deal of trouble, not from this mixture, but from other causes, and I was not satisfied with my copy. I determined to attempt a second; to accomplish this in time it was requi site to have something that would dry very fast-finding the ground I had made of the priming to be very firm, I thought of using the same medium for my painting, and after a few trials on a smaller scale, which were all more or less satisfactory, I began my picture thus. I had some starch made in a gelatinous state, and with the palette knife mixed up with it a quantity of nut oil-perhaps twothirds starch-with this I painted in the sky at once-it worked very freely and pleasantly, and looked so fresh and unclogged with oily matter, that it was quite agreeable to the eye, and I could not help thinking it looked very like the Venetian method of getting in a picture, such as we find observable in Paolo Veronese. I should mention that I used no bladder colours, but with this medium mixed up all my colours in powder. I then proceeded to the darker parts of the picture, for which I used less starch, and found in the process that it was best in its less gelatinous state, and that perhaps for general use it was best to have the starch made only so strong as just to escape being gelatinous; thus as a fluid it mixed better with the oil, and the proportion equal quantities of each-it should be well mixed up with the palette knife, and it becomes whitish or creamy in the mixing. The oil will not afterwards separate, and when it has been made an hour or two it becomes thicker and very delightful to use-rich, and upstaring from the brush, it has all the brilliancy of varnish, seems to increase the power of the deep tones, and to give a re

markable brilliancy to the light, which I conceive may arise from the uneven surface, or granulation which the water most probably produces, and which, without being actually visible, may have its effect, that of dividing the particles of paint very minutely, which we know will have the effect of giving brilliancy-as even a white board hatched across is more brilliant than the undisturbed surface. My picture was paintednow, to what test could I put it? To that which I have long used for all others-perhaps it will be thought a rough method, but I never hurt a picture with it-even after it has been painted but a day or two. I take a quantity of common kitchen sand and water, and rub it pretty hard over it, till all greasiness is removed, and the surface like marble -I do this not only for the present advantage for proceeding, but because I conjecture that it removes that bad portion of the oil which gets to the surface, and may thereby be a great cause of the picture's looking impure, and changing. It may, in fact, effect much that time does, though time may do it too late to prevent some changes, and take up the predominance of the oil. It might have been feared that so much starch in parts, and so little oil, would not well have borne this scrubbing and washing process, but it was not in the smallest degree injured, nor have I the least reason to suppose that any mischief will be produced by the starch, but on the contrary. The only real test will be time. It may be found useful to subject it to that; for that purpose you cannot begin too soon. For lack of that proof I reason thus: The water of course evaporates, leaving only the farina and oil-what is likely to become of the farina so held? Varnishes never thoroughly dry, because they are gums, and can almost always be indented, and are very apt to become leathery in appearance when mixed with oil, and to separate and tear the part asunder; but even if it be possible to prevent this hideous cracking, the leathery look that megillups acquire is a condemnation of their use. Is there any reason that farina and oil should not be come a very hard substance?

Artists and amateurs, make a few trials, and judge for yourselves.

I will add a few words upon the picture which I copied. The subject is announced as one of the pictures in the British Institution, Pall Mall. I believe that it is from the collection of the Marquis of Westminster. I hope to see it soon; in the mean time, I will remark on this, which (having copied) I can vouch for its being an original. Salvator may have painted more than one, or it may only be the same subject, differently treated. It is taken from Æsop's fable of the Woodman and Mercury, and painted with very great power, forcible lights and shadows. The sky is particularly bold and fine; in form and colour, and in perfect agreement of character, with the distant mountains that connect it by a gradation of half tones with the darker parts of the scene. One side of the picture is very deep and dark; you look into a wood through which is seen the stream which edges the very foreground of the picture, and out of which some of the trees are growing. There is another and a larger river beyond a park in the second distance, across which is a rocky eminence, surmounted by a town, and behind this high mountains. The figures are admirably painted and disposed. The Woodman is nearest to the foreground, and looks a simple, honest, sturdy old man; and the fallen trunks around him show his practice, strength, and prowess. Mercury is at some distance from him, in the water, and pointing to the woodenhandled hatchet which he has just taken up. Mercury is considerably more in shade, as if a deity should not be made too palpably flesh and blood, though that is not according to the notion of the heathen poets; for if their blood was ichor, it fairly gifted them with human infirmities. And perhaps Salvator never intended any such mystery. If he did, he marred it by too manifestly endowing the god with some of his least honest attributes, for a more thieflike looking personage you seldom see; and, in truth, I must confess not the most dignified. He has a very hanging aspect. His very cloak does not seem to fit him, but

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM! Had Shakspeare pondered for a lifetime to discover the most appropriate title for this enchanting play, he could have found none which so accurately and expressively embodies its poetical essence. The Winter's Tale is a happy title for the strange, gossip-like, and slenderly connected drama which paints the insane and meaningless jealousy of Leontes, the patient sufferings of Hermione, the loss and recognition of Perdita-her growth from infancy to womanhood in the course of the piece. It is such a "sad tale," fit for winter, as might be supposed to be told "by the dead and drowsy fire," to the accompaniment of a November wind without, and the deep bass of the neighbouring sea; a tale of changes and chances, in which stormy passions and wild incidents rage through the first three acts; quiet affections, and pastoral stillness reign over the fourth, when Time, in his swift passage, has slid o'er sixteen years; and the pathetic and soothing close of which, bearing upon it the impress of still wonder, "sends the hearers weeping to their beds," but with no unpleasing tears. But still more poetically and truly is the spirit of Midsummer Night's Dream expressed in its title. This is truly the shadow of a dream; such a dream as might be supposed to pass before the eye of a poet, in the glimmering twilight of a summer evening, when he abandoned himself passively to the wonder working influences of nature, when the most familiar objects of nature are seen changing their shapes to gigantic and mysterious forms, and in the dim perspective

fairy beings sailing, "with the slow
motion of a summer cloud," through
an atmosphere steeped in moon-
light and dew. Calderon's "Life a
Dream" is the Tragedy of Dreams; a
work of great imagination and power,
but it is characterised by those
depths of wayward gloom and pain-
ful gleams of wizard splendour, those
uneasy bewildering transitions, that
constant feeling of insecurity and
anxiety, and restraint, which accom-
pany the dreams of suffering and
pain. We follow the changing for-
tunes of Sigismund from the desert
to the dungeon-from the dungeon
to the throne-from the throne again
to the dungeon-as under the influ-
ence of a spell which we would fain
shake off, but cannot.
All is pre-
sented to us in sad or terrible co-
lours. "What is life," asks the scep-
tical and unfortunate prince, and
the answer is given in these pro-
foundly pathetic and affecting lines:*

"What is life? 'Tis but a madness.
What is life? A wild illusion,
Fleeting shadow, fond delusion;
Short-lived joy that ends in sadness,
Whose most steadfast substance seems
But the dream of other dreams."

Calderon's is like the dream of disease; in Shakspeare-" after life's fitful fever we sleep well," and enjoy the sweet and soothing dreams of youth and health. Here we meet but with the comedy of life, at most its griefs and anxieties so softened and shaded away by the lightness of the touch with which they are painted, the airy accompaniments by which they are surrounded, and the gentle irony which plays through and penetrates the whale, that they