* * * * * Running and Reid-in. And now MAYNE REID is announced as having a lecture on BYRON. At this rate we shall soon have BYRON'S memory embalmed in Stowe-Reid greatness. * * * * * Good Roaming Catholics. The Sisters of Charity. A VISIT TO "SHERIDAN'S RIDE." PHILADELPHIA, March 26, 1870. DEAR PUNCHINELLO: Taking my way along Chestnut Street a few days since, I found my progress arrested at Tenth Street by a great current of humanity, that swept with resistless force into the entrance to the Academy of Fine Arts. I, too, entered, and, passing around the familiar group of the "Centaurs and Lapithæ," which stands beneath the dome, was hurried breathlessly onward by the throng, until I found myself face to face with that _chef-d'oeuvre_ of modern art, T. BUCHANAN READ'S painting of "SHERIDAN'S Ride." Give the reins to your imagination, now, (a little horse-talk is appropriate here,) and behold one thousand men and women, of refined and cultivated tastes, doing tearful homage to the genius of the great Poetaster--pardon me, Mr. T.B.R., Poet-artist was what I meant to have said. From these my critical orbs now wandered to the painting; from the painting to PUGH, (the astute "engineer" of the "show,") and then to the painting again. "What drawing!" remarked I. (PUGH smiled, and glanced approvingly at the audience.) "There is much freedom and boldness in it," continued I. "It is very broad, rich in color, and--" "In a word," interrupted a friend of mine, whose grandfather was a Frenchman, "full of _chic_!" (PUGH blushed.) Admirable and truthful, indeed, is the expression imparted by the artist to the fleet General who suddenly became famous by being Twenty Miles away from the Post of Duty! The flashing eye; the close-cut military style of the hair; the fierce moustache; the row of three buttons marking exalted grade; the vigorous yet graceful movement of the sword-arm, and the cap disappearing in the distance, indicative of the remarkable time making by the "horsenman"--all these are admirable points in the picture, and worthy of being closely studied by the student of Art. As I gazed, a shock-headed young man, with a very red nose, whom I at once recognized as a student of the Life Class, sneeringly observed that the "flourish of the sword smelt a little of the foot-lights." (Artists are ever jealous.)