THE FINE ARTS IN AUSTRALIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 101, 11 December 1852, Page 7

THE FINE ARTS IN AUSTRALIA.

There is a picture now lodged at the Amateur Gallery, 121, Pall Mall, which, apart from its own merits, is rendered interesting by being the first large picture ever painted, or (by many people) ever seen in Australia. It is an illustration of the Scripture, " Suffer little children to come unto me." The painter is Mr. Marshall Claxton. It was produced under the following circumstances. In the summer of the year 1850, a.munificent lady residing in London, and distinguished everywhere for her gentle generosity and goodness, commissioned Mr. Claxton to paint this picture for the interior decoration of an Infant School. Mr. Claxton was then on the eve of emigrating to Sydney. If he might only consider the subject on tbe voyage, he said, and paint it in the land of bis adoption, what a pride he would have in showing it to his new countrymen, and what a testimony it would be to them that he was not slighted in Old England ! The commission was freely entrusted to him to be so dealt with: and away he sailed, light of heart and strong of purpose.

How he studied it, and sketched it, month " after month, during the long voyage ; and how he found it a companion in whom there was always something new to be discovered, and of whom he never tired ; needs not to be told. But when he came to Sydney, he could find no house suited to his requirements, with a room large enough to paint the picture in. So he asked the Committee of the Sydney College for the loan of that building; and, it being handsomely conceded, went to work there.

It maybe questioned whether any Australian models had ever sat before, to painting man. At all events, models or not models, the general population of Sydney became so excited about this picture, and were so eager to see it in every stage of its progress, that seven thousand persons, first and last, dropped in to look at it. And such an object was as new to many of them, as the travelling elephant was to the young men on the banks of the Mississippi, when he made a pilgrimage "a while ago," with his caravan, to those far-off regions.

Thus the Picture was imagined, painted, and sent home. Thus, it is, at the present writing, lodged in Pall Mall—the dawn perhaps of the longest day for the fine arts, as for all tbe arts of life, that ever rose upon tbe world. As the bright eyes of the children in the Infant School, will often in these times, rest upon it with the awe and wonder of its having come so far over tbe deep sea; so, perhaps, Mr. Macaulay's traveller, standing, in a distant age, upon the ruins of an old cathedral once called St. Paul's, in the midst of a desert once called London, will look about him with similar emotions for any broken stones that may possibly be traces of the School, said in the Australian nurserylegend to have contained the first important picture painted in that ancient country. — Household Words.

Lieutenant Brady.—We (' Globe') happened, on meeting Mr. Thackeray, to interchange some words of regret at the loss of Eliot Warburton ; —" I had another friend on board the Amazon," he added " poor Brady, whom you remember under the name of Bandy, in my trip from Cornhill to Cairo, in 1844." On referring to the passage we find it equally creditable to the distinguished writer and the lamented officer, and, like the pages of" Darien," full of melancholy presentiment.—"l just allude to one other martyr, the kind lieutenant in charge of the mails, and who bore his cross with what I can't but think a very touching and noble resignation. There's a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment,— who excels in it, —and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life—l have often thought must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favour as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men. As I sate with the lieutenant upon deck, his telescope laid over his lean legs, and he looking at the sunset with a pleased, withered face, he gave me a little account of his history. He has been seven-and-twenty years in the navy, being somewhat more mature in the service than Lieutenant Peel, llear-Admiral Prince de Joinville, and other commanders who need not be mentioned. He is a very well educated man, and reads prodigiously,—travels, histories, lives of eminent worthies and heroes, in his simple way. He is not in the least angry at his want ol luck in the profession. ' Were I a

boy to-morrow,' he said, « I would begin it again ; and when I see my school-fellows and how they have got on in life, if some are better on than I am, I find many are worse, and have no call to be discontented.' So he carries Her Majesty's mails meekly throug-li this world, waits upon port-admirals and captains in his old glazed hat, and is as proud of the pennon at the bow of his little boat, as if it were flying from the mainmast of a thundering man-of-war. He gets two hundred a year for his services, and has an old mother and a sister livinoin England somewhere, who I will wao-er (though he never, I swear, said a word abouUtj have a good portion of this princely income It is breaking a confidence to tell Lieutenant Bundys history? Let the motive excuse the deed. It is a good, kind, wholesome and noble character. Why should we keep all our admiration for those who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are ? When we write a novel, our great, stupid imaginations can cr o no further than to marry tbe Lero to a fortune at the end, and to find out that he is a lord by right. O, blundering, lickspittle morality' And yet I would like to fancy some Liappy retributive Utopia in the peaceful cloudland, where my friend.the meek lieutenant should find the yards manned of his ship as he went on board, all the guns firing an enormous salute (only without the least noise or the smell of powder), and be saluted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, or Sir Joseph—ay, or TLord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the orders under the sun.

A Wholesale Murderer. The followingparticulars respecting the man who attempted to murder Madame Naudin, keener of a public house, 111 the Hue de Sevres, I>ciris, have been obtained by his own confession to a commissioner of police:—His name is Guillaumme Pradeaux, and his age thirty-three. He was condemned, in 1841, 1844, and 1848, to different periods of imprisonment for robbery. He some months ago became attached to a young girl, named Aline, who had been brought up at the Foundling Hospital, and placed in the family of tradesman named Bei-tin. He demanded the girl's hand, and M. Bertin. not knowing his real character, consented to a marriage. The ceremony was fixed for the Ist of May. In the night of the 6th April, just after the wedding had been resolved on Pradeaux entered the building of M; jVXichelet, a weaver, in the Rue de Sevres, and murdered his carter, named Emery, as he lay sleeping- in his bed. He committed this crime^ he admitted, to facilitate the perpetration of a robbery. He afterwards broke open the iron safe in which M. Michelet kept his money, and g-ot off with between 500fr. and 700fr. The next day. he spent nearly 200fr. in making preparations for his wedding. Fifteen days later, he murdered the widow Chateau, keeper of a lodging-house, in the Rue Vanneau, as she was sleeping with her grand child. " I knew this woman," said he, " from having slept several times in her house. I knew she had money, and my firm intention in going to her house was to kill her, as I knew I should not be able to rob her until after 1 should have got rid of her." He added that he at first stabbed her with a pair of scissors, and then strangled her. When he saw that she was quite dead, he opened a drawer and took 300fr. in money and a quantity of jewels. The next day he made a present of some of the jewellery to his fiancde Aline. On the 30th of April a female, named Susan, living in the same neighbourhood, was found dead in her chamber from strangulation, caused by a pocket-handkerchief bound tightly round her thi-oat. " I committed that murder," said Pradeaux, with, extraordinary coolness, "I was in her service, and we had some dispute about money matters. I got vexed and knocked her down, and then strangled her. She bit and scratched me a little. When I saw she was dead, I said to myself "if there be any money I may as well take it,' and I took all I could find." The next day, that which was fixed for his marriage, he attempted to kill Madame Naudin, in the Rue de Sevres. Just after he was captured, the friends invited to his wedding, not knowing, of course, what had taken place, assembled at the house of M. Bertin, and Aline, gaily decked in bridal attire, awaiting his arrival with impatience. But after some hours' delay tbe friends went away, and the Bertins, to console Aline for her disappointment, took her to dinner at Belleville, and promised her a visit to the theatre in the evening. When she learned that her destined husband was a murderer, she rendered thanks to heaven

that the marriage had not been accomplished — Galignani.

Fi-ax Cotton.—The New York Journal of Commerce says -.—" The Flax Cotton movement will surprise the world yet. It would seem that Chevalier Claussen's mode of converting tbe flax into cotton, ready for tbe ordinary cotton machinery has fully succeeded. It will be, however, a greater boon to this country than to Europe. In England and Ireland the soil is too valuable for the product of food to admit of raising flax. It will be better for them to look to our American cotton at its ordinary price for their material than to flax cotton of their own production. But this country will soon become largely productive of flax, and the raw material, as well as the fabrics from it, will no doubt become one of our chief articles of export. Either the statements and estimates as to the cost of the preparation of the cotton from flax are erroneous, or it is certain that flax cotton must soon become one of the great staples of the western and middle states. Eights have been purchased already for the preparation of the article in the states of New England, New York, and Illinois. It is thought that Virginia will be particularly benefitted by the introduction of the culture of flax. It will give all the advantages of a cotton-growing State. She will not only produce the article, but manufacture it. The fabrics from flax cotton, whether pure or mixed with other materials, are very strong and handsome. Among the fabrics now on exhibition at the Capital are pantaloon stuffs and army clothing all very strong. The plain linen cloth is also excellent, so are also the specimens of linen and cotton hosiery. The flax cotton can be sold to the maufacturers at six cents per pound, and leave an ample margin for the profits of those who produce the flax and prepare it."

The Planets Inhabited.—We have something more than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We know that this earth turns round upon itself; and we observe that all those celestial bodies that are accessible to such an observation, have the same movement. We know that the earth performs a yearly revolution round the sun; and we can detect, in all the planets which compose our system, a revolution of the same kind, and under the same circumstances. They have the same succession of day and night. They have the same agreeable vicissitudes of seasons. To them light and darkness succeed each other; and the gaiety of summer is followed by the dreariness of winter. To each of them the heavens present as varied and magnificent a spectacle; and this earth, the encompassing of which would require the labours of years from one of its puny inhabitants, is but one of the lesser lights which sparkle in their firmament. To them, as well as to us, God has divided the light from the darkness; and the darkness he has called night. He has said, Let there be lights in the firmament of their heaven, to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days, and for years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light to earth; and it was so. To all of them he has given a sun to rule the day ; and to many of them he has given moons to rule the night. To them he has made the stars also. And God has set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upou their earth, and to rule over the clay and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness ; "and God has seen that it was good.— Dr. Chalmers.

National Customs. —Sir.C. Napier put down the practice of " suttee," which, however, was rare in Scinde, by a process entirely characteristic ; forjudging the real cause of these immolations to be the profits derived by the priests, and hearing of an intended burning, he made it known that he would stop the sacrifice. They said it was a religious rite, which must not be meddled with—that all nations had customs which should be respected, and this was a very sacred one. The Governor, affecting to be struck with the argument, replied, v Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom : prepare tbe funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive, we bang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us act according to national customs!" No "suttee" took place then or afterwards.