Perched up as this picture is above the door in the West Room, it is difficult to arrive at a correct appreciation of it. As far as we could distinguish, it is not without merit, and the expression of exhaustion in the figure of Murray is pretty well rendered; but altogether it is hardly worthy of the nervous and admirable verse it is intended to illustrate. Mr Armitage's _Aholibah_ has a good deal of pretension, but we cannot compliment him on it in any one respect. In the first place the subject is disgusting, and shows wretched taste in the artist who would select it. Then the face of Aholibah is ugly and repulsive, and the expression coarse in the extreme: the drawing of the limbs under the drapery is faulty, and the gazelles are out of place and out of perspective. Mr Armitage can do better than this. We prefer his picture in the Portland Gallery, of Samson tying firebrands to the foxes' tails for the destruction of the Philistine crops; although the face is a great deal too black, and we cannot understand why Samson should allow a fox to bite into the muscle of his thigh, as one of those in his grasp appears to do. Why does Mr Armitage persist in his French style of painting? It is quite a mistake. Let him be natural, and rely upon his own taste and judgment, and we think he may do better things. Mr Hook's _Dream of Venice_, a clever imitation of Paul Veronese, is a very pleasant picture. Mr F. Williams' _Holy Maiden_ is a pretty head, full of sentiment. We are glad to see such good promise given by Mr Leslie, junior, in a very humorous picture entitled _A Sailor's Yarn_. A thoroughbred and unmistakeable Cockney greedily listens to some astounding narrative, whilst, behind the credulous landsman, a second sailor grins admiration of his messmate, and contempt for the "green hand." _The Young Student_, by W. Gush, is a very nice picture of a youthful painter, with an artist's eye and a pleasing Vandykish contour of face, and with carefully painted hands. One of the most comical pictures in the Exhibition is a wild boar by Wolf. The bristly forest-ranger is making its way through the deep snow, leaving a long furrow behind it, along which it has apparently been nuzzling for provender, for its snout is garnished with the snow, which, combined with the sudden fore-shortening of the body, produces a ludicrous effect. No. 121, _Autumn--Wounded Woodcock_, from the same hand, has mellow and natural tints.