The great features of the York Exhibition are the picture galleries; and here a better order of things prevails. The collections are classified; one gallery, or part of it, being devoted to the works of the old masters, another to the modern, and another to the water-colours. Among the old masters are some fine portraits by Velasquez, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, Sir Peter Lely, and others. And some of those grand old landscapes by Salvator Rosa, Rubens, Claude, Wilson, the English Claude, and George Morland, such pictures as are rarely seen out of private collections. The modern masters are abundantly represented by Wilkie, Etty, Frith, Westall, Faed, Cope, E. Nicol, Stanfield, Linnell, and a host of others. Amongst the water-colours are many fine examples of the works of Turner, the Richardsons (father and sons), Birket Foster, &c., &c.
Sculpture is very faintly represented, but there is a charming little Canova, Dirce, exhibited by Lord Wenlock; an antique bust of Julius Cæsar, which seems to have been found in fragments and carefully joined together. This bust is exhibited by the Hon. P. Downay, and was found in Rome amongst some rubbish, while some excavations were being made. There is also an interesting series of marble busts of the Twelve Cæsars, exhibited by Lord Londesborough. The Exhibition is open in the evening, and brilliantly lighted with gas till ten o'clock; and, taking it "all in all," it is a very creditable effort in the right direction, and does honour to York and Yorkshiremen.
Further north still, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, there is another exhibition of "Arts and Manufactures," the chief photographic feature of which is a considerable display of "Swan's Carbon Prints," from several well-known negatives by Bedford and Robinson. The promise of this process is very great, and its commercial advantages were singularly demonstrated to me when visiting the printing establishment of Mr. Swan, which I happened to do on a dark and unfavourable day--one totally unfit for silver printing; and yet I saw several very beautiful carbon prints that had been produced that day, the rate of production being about eight to one over silver printing. As a proof of the certainty and commercial application to which Mr. Swan has reduced his beautiful process, I need only mention that he has undertaken the printing of two thousand copies of the celebrated picture of "The First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland," painted by D. O. Hill. This historical picture contains four hundred and fifty portraits: the negatives were taken from the original painting by Mr. Annan, photographer, Glasgow, and are 32 by 14 inches, and 24 by 9 inches; and Mr. Swan has to turn off one thousand copies of each within a given time. The publishers of the work give a guarantee to their subscribers that every print shall be of a high standard, for each one has to pass the examination of two competent judges. They also very justly pride themselves on being the very first to translate and multiply such noble works of art by a process "so beautiful, and, at the same time, _imperishable_." I saw several of the prints, both in process of development and complete; and anything more like rich, soft, and brilliant impressions of a fine mezzotint engraving I never saw, by any process of photography.