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Show Babbie' Picture. Much interest is being awakened by a portrait of Burns now on view in Princes street. The picture haa been quite recently re-cently discovered, and though the final word haa yet to be spoken by thecxperts thero is every reason to suppose that the portrait is by Sir Henry Raeburn. In a j letter from the artist, written in 1803, he mentions having dispatched a portrait of Burns in a fishing smack from Leith to London to a well known firm of picture pict-ure dealers. The later history of the picture is not yet satisfactorily cleared up, but from internal evidence there is every reason to believe that the present picture is the portrait alluded to in the letter. Tho coloring is rich and mellow in tone, and the figure stands out from thecanvas with lifelike force and reality. The poet is painted seated in an arm chair, with one leg crossed over the other. I . There is much individuality about the treatment of the figure and face, and it is curiously different from Nasrayth's portrait; but as the latter picture was done as an order from the publisher for a frontispiece to the poems, it may be supposed that the face was somewhat idealized. . . In this portrait the eyes are full of fire and the eyebrows (generally a marked feature in people of the artistic temperament) tempera-ment) are broadly defined and have a stamp of marked individuality. Tho forehead, one of the most characteristic features in an intellectual face, is unfor- i tunately almost hidden by the heavy black hair; the lower part of tbe face ia somewhat coarse, It is difficult, when looking at this picture, to know how much to gather from the face itself, or how much we read into it from our knowledge of the character. Whether it prove to bo the missing Raeburn or not, it is a decidedly fine piece of painting and a most suggestive portrait. Murray's Mur-ray's Magazine. |