The whole picture makes us feel delightfully present in a scene very far removed from our manners, but true in every thing to nature, and, in spite of its geography, true in every thing to that well-remembered East, which draws to itself the first morning-look and the last evening-look-which receives every hymn and prayer, and oath and vow-which is still the resting-place of the memory, the hope, and the faith of the expatriated Hebrew. The vile habits common among such of this exiled race as are to be met with in our country, have had the effect of rendering the associations connected by us with the name of Jew, very remote from pleasing-to say nothing of poetical; nor have the attempts of a few poets and novelists to counteract these deep-rooted associations been at all successful in the main. In truth, they have not merited to be so, excepting in regard to their intention alone. It is useless to waste wit in attempting to gild over the meanness of a despicable old Hunks, who starves himself and his cat, and spends his whole time in counting rouleaus. A sentimental old clothesman or pawnbroker is a being whom we can by no means admit into our world of imaginative existence. He is as completely and manifestly an ens meræ rationis, as any of the new species to which the human naturalist is introduced in the dangerous and delusive horti sicci of the circulatinglibrary. But the Polish Jews are a very different kind of people from our ones. They form a population of several hundred thousands, and occupy whole towns, villages, and tracts of territory by themselves. Here they live in a state of great simplicity and honesty, cultivating the soil, and discharging all the healthful duties of ordinary citizenship. Above all, they are distinguished from their brethren in Germany and elsewhere, by a rigid observance of the laws of their religion. In short, they are believers in the Old Testament, and still expect, with sincere devotion, the coming of their Messiah. The respect which a Polish Jew meets with all over the continent, so strongly contrasted with the utter contempt heaped upon all the other children of his race, is primarily, of course, the fruit of that long experience which has established the credit and honour of his dealings; but it is certainly very much assisted and strengthened by that natural feeling of respect with which all men regard those who are sincere in what they seem. The character of these Polish Jews, with their quiet and laborious lives, with their firm attachment to the principles of honesty, with their benevolence and their hospitality, and, above all, with their fervid and melancholy love for their old Faith-a love which has outlived so many centuries of exile, disappointment, and wretchedness-this character, whatever may be thought of it in other respects, cannot surely be denied to be a highly poetical one. Allan, who has enjoyed so many opportunities of contemplating the working of human thoughts and passions under so many different shapes, has seen this character, and the manners in which it is bodied forth, with the eye of a poet and a painter; and I would hope the Merry-Making may not be the only glimpse of both with which he may favour us. Mr. But there would be no end of it, were I to think of acting Cicerone through the whole of his gallery, in a letter such as this: And besides, these are not pictures whose merits can be even tolerably interpreted through the medium of words. They are every where radiant with an expression of pathos, that is entirely peculiar to the art of which they are specimens. They cannot be comprehended unless they be seen; and it is worth while going a long journey, were it only to see them. It is not, on a first view, that the faults of pictures, possessing so much merit, can be at all felt by persons capable of enjoying their beauties. But I shall enter upon these in my next; I shall also say something of the pictures which Mr. Allan has painted more lately, and the scenes of which are laid nearer to ourselves. Wide as is the field of the East, and delicious as is the use he has made of that untrodden field -I am glad to find that he does not mean to confine himself to it. The pictures he has painted of oriental subjects, are rich in the expression of feelings, gathered during his wanderings among the regions to which they belong. But there are other feelings, and more powerful ones, too, which ought to fix, and I think it probable they will do so, the matured and once more domesticated mind of such a painter as Mr. Allan. LETTER XLVIII. TO THE SAME. P.M. THE largest and most finished picture, which Mr. Allan has painted upon any subject not oriental, (or at least not partaking of an oriental character,) is that of the PressGang. The second time that I went to his house, he was in the act of superintending the packing up of this fine piece, for being sent into the country;* so that I was lucky in having a view of it at all-for I certainly was not allowed time to contemplate it in so leisurely a manner as I could have wished. It is of about the same dimensions as the Circassian Slaves, and the canvass, as in it, is filled with a very large number of figures; but I am not prepared to say, that I think the same happy effect is produced by this circumstance as in the other. I question, however, whether any scene of actual British Life could have been selected more happily calculated for such a pencil as Mr. Allan's. The moment one sees the picture, one cannot help being struck with wonder, that such a subject should have been left so long unhandled; but where, after all, was ever the British artist that could have occupied * The picture belongs to Mr. Horrocks, of Tillihewan Castle, Dumbartonshire, it in such a manner, as to throw any difficulties in Mr. Allan's way, or even to take away the least of the originality which he has displayed in its management? The canvass represents the house of a fisherman by the sea-side-neat and cleanly, as the houses of respectable fishermen are always found-but more picturesque in its interior than the house of any other poor man can well be, from the mixture of suspended nets and fishing tackle every where diversifying the more usual kinds of peasant plenishing. It is supposed, that the son of the fisherman had just returned from a long voyage in a merchant ship-his parents are preparing to welcome the wanderer with their fatted calf-and his mistress, having heard the news of his arrival, has hurried, half-clothed as she was, in the eagerness of her unsuspecting love, to be folded in his arms. Scarcely are the first warm, tearful greetings over, ere a caitiff neighbour gives notice to the Press-Gang, and the picture represents the moment when they have rushed into the house, and pinioned their prey. The agony of the Sailor-Boy is speechless, and he stands with his hand upon his face, as if stunned and insensible to the nature of his misery. His other hand, however, has not quitted the hand of his sweetheart, who has swooned away, and is only prevented from lying like a corpse upon the floor, by this his unconscious support. His father looks on in despair; but he has presence of mind enough to know, that resistance would be unavailing. The mother has seized the lieutenant by the hand, and is thrusting upon him all their little household store of guarded guineas, as if she had hoped to purchase her boy's safety by her bribe. In a chair by the fire, meanwhile, which even joy could not have enabled him to leave, the aged and infirm grandfather sits immoveable, and sick at heart-his eyes turned faintly upwards, his feeble hands clasped together, and the big drops coursing each other down the pale and furrowed cheeks of his half-bewildered second childishness. The wife of the old man,-for she, too, is alive to partake in all this wretchedness,-is not so infirm as her partner, but she has moved from her chair only to give aid to him. Dear as are her children to her, her husband is dearer he is every thing to her, and she thinks of nothing but him. She has a cup of water in her hand, of which she beseeches him to drink, and gazes on his emaciated features with an eye, that tells of the still potency of long years of wedded love-a love that has survived all the ardours of youthful blood, and acquired only a holier power from the lapse of all their life of hardships. Perhaps this is the most noble conception in the whole picture-it does not disturb the impression of the parting of the youthful lovers; but reflects back a nobler sanctity upon all their sufferings, by bringing before us a fresh poetic vision of the eternal might of those ties, which that broken-hearted agony is bruising "Ties that around the heart are spun, Even over the groupe of stubborn mariners around the captive boy, the poetical soul of the painter has not disdained to lavish something of its redeeming softness; their hard and savage features are fixed, indeed, and resolute but there is no cruelty, no wantonness, no derision, in their steadfast look. Like the officer who commands them, they do what they conceive to be their duty-and such it is-but they do no more. It was a delightful delicacy of conception, which made the painter dare to part with so much of the vulgar powers of contrast, and to make the rainbow of his tenderness display its gentle radiance, even here in the thickest blackness of his human storm. The fainting girl is represented in a very difficult attitude, (I mean difficult for the painter,) her collapsed limbs, as I have said, being prevented from falling prostrate on the floor only by the hand of her lover, which, even in the speechless agony of despair, refuses instinctively to let her hand go. Her head, however, almost touches the floor, and her long dishevelled tresses of raven black, sweep it already with their disconsolate richness. Her virgin bosom, but a moment before bursting with the sudden swell of misery, is now calm |