The low opinion which _Punch_ entertained of contemporary architects and sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London. He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a judge of painting and painters _Punch_ showed greater independence, intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper of established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's "Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his "courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles. _Punch_, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we read:--
No. 77 is called _Whalers_, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his pictures _Whalers_, or _Venice_, or _Morning_, or _Noon_, or _Night_, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated artist.
[Illustration: VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,--RETURNING FROM THE BALL
MS. "Fallacies of Hope" (An Unpublished Poem).--TURNER.]
We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his celebrated MS. poem, the _Fallacies of Hope_, to which he constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to his _Morning--returning from the Ball_, which really seems to need a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the _Fallacies of Hope_, we will quote it for him: