The strongest exception to these general remarks in the present collection, is certainly _Mr. Bird’s Picture of Job_, surrounded by his friends. Many of the heads and figures in this very able composition have a strong and deeply infused tincture of true history. The best of them are in a mixed style, which reminds us at the same time of Annibal Caracci, and N. Poussin. The three finest figures are undoubtedly those of Job, and the man and woman seated on each side of him. The countenance of Job displays a noble firmness with a mixture of suppressed feeling, not, perhaps, sufficiently marked for the character or for the interest of the subject. The full grey drapery which envelopes his whole figure, has an admirable effect, and seems in a manner to shroud him from the attacks of external misfortune, in the consolations of his own mind. The action of the man on his right hand, pointing with his finger, and indeed the whole figure, are equally appropriate and striking. The posture of the man leaning on a marble slab, is also natural and picturesque, though it has too great an appearance of ease and indifference for the occasion. The drapery of this last figure is remarkably loose and flimsy, or what the painters, we believe, call _woolly_. There are several other good heads in the picture; but both the countenance and attitude of the man behind the messenger, and the face of the figure between Job and the front figure in red, are mean and vulgar—mere low life, without sense or dignity. The expression in the countenance of the messenger, who comes to inform Job of the last calamity that has befallen him, is neither intelligent nor beautiful; and the whole of the figure, both by its situation and the quantity of light thrown upon it, assumes a prominence disproportioned to its importance, and throws the rest of the composition into a kind of half back-ground. The story is illustrated (whether with chronological propriety or not we leave to the critics) by a group of figures just behind the circle of Job and his friends, carrying off the dead body of one of his children. The great fault of this picture, which displays much sense, character, study, and invention, is the heaviness and monotony of the colour. It is of one uniform leaden tone, as if it had been smeared over with putty, except where a sudden transition to a glaring red or yellow, or the introduction of a spotty light, not at all accounted for, serves, instead of relieving, to add greater weight to that mechanic gloom, which affects, not the imagination, but the eye. We think it right to notice a defect which may be more easily remedied by attention, viz. that the extremities of Mr. Bird’s figures are in general very ill made out.