MR. BRIGHT AND THE FINE ARTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 188, 23 June 1862, Page 5

MR. BRIGHT AND THE FINE ARTS.

(From Punch.')

That distinguished connoisseur and zealous patron of the Arts, John Bright, Esq., M.P., has felt so naturally anxious that his favorite country (we mean, of course, America) should be fitly represented at the coming International Exhibition, that we hear he has commissioned the first artists in New York to paint for him a series of historical pictures, which he'trusts to get admitted to the gallery at Kensington, before he finally receives them to decorate his own. The subjects he has chosen liave mostly been selected with the view of pointing out the decadence of England, and her marked inferiority in Standing to the States. From a whisper which has reached us we are privileged to state, that the following are some of the historical events which it has been his wish to see pictorially treated :—

The Quaker's Dream.—Grand historical cartoon, representing the election of John Bright as the perpetual President of Great Britain, consequent on the annihilation of the Throne and House of Lords. (Note: the artist will be pleased to represent J. B. in a fine heroic attitude, with' a smile upon his face, and pointing to the Crown with a gesture of contempt, after the manner of O. Cromwell, saying, "Take away that bauble.")

Battle of Bunker's Hill.—Total defeat and utter rout of the entire British army by a handful of Americans led by General Washington. Cowardly flight of Sir John Burgoyne, leaving all his guns and wounded on the field.

■ Sea-piece, > showing the famed Action of the Shannon and the Chesapeake: wherein the former, a gigantic British frigate of sixty-seven guns, was captured by the latter, a little Yankee cutter, carrying three six-pounders and less than fifty men. Vide Hookey Walker's " Naval History of the AVar." ' . ; Sinking of the Royal George: scuttled by a brave American to avenge his country's wrongs.

' A Series of Marine Views, representing the stories (as told to the Marines) of the sinking or surrender of several huge English frigates, which were in reality line-of-battle ships disguised, when encountered t,by as many small American corvettes.

: Dastardly Retreat of General Wolfe after his attempted - storming of Quebec : Vide General Bunkum's "American Campaigns." The Glorious Signing of the famous Declaration of Independence : (From a sketch by an eyewitness, who was present as reporter for the " New Tork Penny Tomahawk"). Grand historical picture of England's humiliation aud American emancipation from the British tyrant's thrall. : IVench Landscape : with a view of the Column at Boulogne, erected to commemorate the invasion of England by the French (helped by the Yankees) in 1805. (Note by Mr. Bright.—English writers have declared that the invasion, though intended, never actually took place. That is no business of the artist. There stands the Column, whatever be the fact.) Portrait of a Pennsylvanian, taken in the noble act of bravely repudiating his bond. "The 'Cute Coou and the Cogged Dice-,' a

Scene from real Yankee life :by an American Pr«!-Rafflito.

Sinking' of the whole British Fleet by the American Armada, a.». IS6G. (A view of the future, taken by an artist who paints in clairvoyance).