e of a fashionable novel, it would reach round the world, and in
that case, it should disappear at _Terra del Fuego_.

The embellishments of the Georgian Era are not its most successful
portion; but a fine head of George I. fronts the title-page. The
anecdotes, by the way, will furnish us two or three agreeable pages
anon.

* * * * *

FINE ARTS.

* * * * *

PATRICK NASMYTH.

(_For the Mirror_.)

This distinguished landscape-painter was the son of Mr. Alexander
Nasmyth, an artist who is still living and well known in Edinburgh, at
which city Patrick was born about the year 1785. His education appears
to have been good, and he was early initiated in the art of painting
by his father, who constantly represented to him the many great
advantages to be derived from the study of nature rather than from the
old masters' productions, the greater portion of which have lost their
original purity by time and the unskilful management of those persons
who term themselves _picture restorers_. Far from confining himself to
the usual method adopted by most young artists of servilely imitating
old paintings, young Nasmyth very soon began to copy nature in all
her varied freshness and beauty. Scotland contains much of the
picturesque, and from this circumstance he seized every opportunity
to cultivate his genius for landscape-painting. With incessant
application he studied the accidental formation of clouds and the
shadows thrown by them on the earth; by which practice he acquired the
art of delineating with precision the most pleasing effects. His style
appears very agreeable and unaffected; he excelled however, only in
rural scenery, in which his skies, distant hills, and the barks of the
trees, are truly admirable. His foregrounds are always beautifully
diversified, and every blade of grass is true to nature. He is not
equal in every respect to Hobbima, yet certainly approximates nearer
to that celebrated master than any English artist.

In 1830, Mr. Nasmyth sold his valuable collection of original sketches
and drawings for thirty pounds to George Pennell, Esq., who also
purchased several of his exquisitely finished pictures, one of
which--a View in Lee Wood, near, Bristol--is now in the possession of
Lord Northwick. Nasmyth was a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy,
the British Institution, &c., and his performances delighted the
uninstructed spectato