. It seems
rather hard, perhaps, to devote serious censure to a thing so frail; but
without a little homely truth, how are we ever to get beyond this
bread-and-butter epoch of American fiction?

_Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with Notices of Some of his
Contemporaries._ Commenced by CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE, R. A. Continued and
concluded by TOM TAYLOR, M. A. London: John Murray. 2 vols. 8vo.

"When, in 1832," writes C. R. Leslie, "Constable exhibited his 'Opening
of Waterloo Bridge,' it was placed in the school of painting,--one of
the small rooms in Somerset House. A sea-piece, by Turner, was next to
it,--a gray picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive color in
any part of it. Constable's 'Waterloo' seemed as if painted with liquid
gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while he
was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the
city barges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the 'Waterloo' to his
own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where
he was touching another picture, and, putting a round daub of red lead,
somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his gray sea, went away without
saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the
coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable
to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. 'He has been
here,' said Constable, 'and fired a gun.'"

Twenty years ago the erratic life of Haydon the artist was dashed
suddenly and violently out by his own hand. Men brought the cold light
of their judgment then, and overspread his character, forgetful of the
fires of his genius; but Mr. Tom Taylor remembered the burning spirit,
memorable to the soul of art, and he published two volumes containing
Haydon's autobiography and journals, which have set a seal upon his
memory, and lead us to thank the man who has done for Haydon what Turner
did for his own picture,--fired a gun.

Since Haydon's Autobiography was published, Mr. Taylor has not been
idle. Some of the purest and most popular plays now upon the stage we
owe to his hand. The face of the _blase_ theatre-goer shines when his
play is announced for the evening; and even the long-visaged critic,
fond of talking of the _decadence_ of the modern stage, has been known
to appear punctually in his seat when Tom Taylor's play was to lead off
the performance.

The days of Burton have passed, and the echoe