ibited to the admiration of Paris in the
various salons after their execution, and were then sent off to decorate
Versailles. There are also, in the _Gallery of French History_, at
Versailles, several others of his, such as the "Battle of Bouvines;"
"Charles X. reviewing the National Guard;" the "Marshal St. Cyr," and
some others among those we have already named. In them the qualities of
the artist are manifested more fully, we think, than in any others of
his works. They are full of that energy, vivacity, and daguerreotypic
verity which he so eminently displays. There is none of that pretension
after "high Art" which has injured the effect of some of his pictures.
The rapidity of their execution too in general was such, that the public
had hardly finished reading the last news of the combats, when the
artist, returned in many cases from witnessing the scenes, had placed
them on the canvass, and offered them to popular gaze. Yet the canvasses
are in many cases of great extent, and often, the figures of life-size.
But the artist rarely employs the model, painting mostly from memory, a
faculty most astonishingly developed in him. He generally also saves
himself the trouble of preparing a smaller sketch to paint after,
working out his subject at once in the definitive size. Of course with
more serious and elevated subjects, worked out in a more serious and
elevated spirit, such a system would not do. But for the style of
subject and execution required by Horace Vernet's artistic organization,
these careful preparations would not answer. They would only tend to
diminish the sweeping passion of the fiery _melee_, and freeze the swift
impulsive rush of the attack or flight.

Vernet has several times attempted Biblical subjects, but they have
never succeeded so well as to add anything to his fame as a
battle-painter. "Judah and Tamar," "Agar dismissed by Abraham," "Rebecca
at the Fountain," "Judith with the head of Holofernes," "The Good
Samaritan," have rather served to illustrate Arab costume and manners,
(which he makes out to be the same as, or very similar to, those of old
Biblical times,) than to illustrate his own power in the higher range of
Art.

In the midst of painting all these, Horace Vernet has found time, which
for him is the smallest requisite in painting, to produce an innumerable
mass of pictures for private galleries, or at the command of various
crowned heads; which, with many of those already mentioned,