While dwelling on the performances of the Lyceum, it would be unpardonable to omit, from the notice of Maga and her readers, the genius of Mr Beverley, the scene-painter. It almost requires an apology for applying that old appellation to a man who lavishes upon the landscapes required in a play a richness of imagination and power of touch which would bring envy to the hearts of the Poussins or Claude. It is not by gorgeous colours, or startling light and shade, that Beverley produces his effects. With a severe adherence to his original design, he works out a scene, so perfect in its parts, and so combined as a whole, that it is difficult to realise to the mind the gigantic scale, or the coarse touches, with which it is painted: you gaze on it as on a finished picture by some great artist, who has devoted months to its elaboration in the solitude of his studio; and wonder not less at the taste, and fancy, and sentiment of those extraordinary works, than at the rapidity with which they are produced, and the inexhaustible resources of the mind that gives them birth. It rests with Mr Beverley himself, whether to follow his illustrious predecessors, Roberts and Stanfield, to the highest honours of the Academy, or to continue an exhibition of his own, where the applause of shouting theatres testifies nightly to his artistic powers; and ample room and verge enough is given for his highest conceptions, which would, perhaps, object to find themselves cramped within the limits of an ordinary frame, and subjected to the tender mercies of a hostile hanging committee. Whichever way he decides, the arts will infallibly be the gainers. If he descends to ordinary canvass, and places “infinite riches in a little room,” he will take rank in after ages with the masters who have ennobled the English school; if he continues where he is, not less useful will his efforts be in diffusing a love of beauty and a knowledge of effect. The Lyceum, like its Athenian prototype, will become a lecture-hall; and from his lessons and examples, new Wilsons and Turners, new Calcotts and Constables, may arise to maintain the supremacy of British landscape against all competitors.