conceive, be the extreme
of rashness. It melts into the ground on one side, and might reasonably
be conjectured to form a part of it, having no trace of woody structure
or color; but on the other side it presents a series of concave curves,
interrupted by cogs like those of a water-wheel, which the boldest
theorist would certainly not feel himself warranted in supposing
symbolical of rock. The forms which this substance, whatever it be,
assumes, will be found repeated, though in a less degree, in the
foreground of No. 159, where they are evidently meant for rock.

Sec. 8. Compared with the works of Stanfield.

Sec. 9. Their absolute opposition in every particular.

Let us contrast with this system of rock-drawing, the faithful,
scientific, and dexterous studies of nature which we find in the works
of Clarkson Stanfield. He is a man especially to be opposed to the old
masters, because he usually confines himself to the same rock subjects
as they--the mouldering and furrowed crags of the secondary formation
which arrange themselves more or less into broad and simple masses; and
in the rendering of these it is impossible to go beyond him. Nothing can
surpass his care, his firmness, or his success, in marking the distinct
and sharp light and shade by which the form is explained, never
confusing it with local color, however richly his surface-texture may be
given; while the wonderful play of line with which he will vary, and
through which he will indicate, the regularity of stratification, is
almost as instructive as that of nature herself. I cannot point to any
of his works as better or more characteristic than others; but his
Ischia, in the present British Institution, may be taken as a fair
average example. The Botallack Mine, Cornwall, engraved in the Coast
Scenery, gives us a very finished and generic representation of rock,
whose primal organization has been violently affected by external
influences. We have the stratification and cleavage indicated at its
base, every fissure being sharp, angular, and decisive, disguised
gradually as it rises by the rounding of the surface and the successive
furrows caused by the descent of streams. But the exquisite drawing of
the foreground is especially worthy of notice. No huge concave sweeps of
the brush, no daubing or splashing here. Every inch of it is brittle and
splintery, and the fissures are explained to the eye by the most
perfect, speaking light and shade,--we can stum