Anecdotes About Authors, and Artists

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THIS collection of anecdotes, illustrative sketches, and memorabilia generally, relating to the ever fresh and interesting subject of Books and Authors, is not presented as complete, nor even as containing all the choice material of its kind. The field from which one may gather is so wide and fertile, that any collection warranting such a claim would far exceed the compass of many volumes, much less of this little book. It has been sought to offer, in an acceptable and convenient form, some of the more remarkable or interesting literary facts or incidents with which one individual, in a somewhat extended reading, has been struck; some of the passages which he has admired; some of the anecdotes and jests that have amused him and may amuse others; some of the reminiscences that it has most pleased him to dwell upon. For no very great portion of the contents of this volume, is the claim to originality of subject-matter advanced. The collection, however, is submitted with some confidence that it may be found as interesting, as accurate, and as much guided by good taste, as it has been endeavoured to make it.

CURIOUS FACTS AND CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES.

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THE MS. Diary, or “Kalendarium,” of the celebrated John Evelyn lay among the family papers at Wotton, in Surrey, from the period of his death, in 1706, until their rare interest and value were discovered in the following singular manner.

The library at Wotton is rich in curious books, with notes in John Evelyn’s handwriting, as well as papers on various subjects, and transcripts of letters by the philosopher, who appears never to have employed an amanuensis. The arrangement of these treasures was, many years since, entrusted to the late Mr. Upcott, of the London Institution, who made a complete catalogue of the collection.

One afternoon, as Lady Evelyn and a female companion were seated in one of the fine old apartments of Wotton, making feather tippets, her ladyship pleasantly observed to Mr. Upcott, “You may think this feather-work a strange way of passing time: it is, however, my hobby; and I dare say you, too, Mr. Upcott, have your hobby.” The librarian replied that his favourite pursuit was the collection of the autographs of eminent persons. Lady Evelyn remarked, that in all probability the MSS. of “Sylva” Evelyn would afford Mr. Upcott some amusement. His reply may be well imagined. The bell was rung, and a servant desired to bring the papers from a lumber-room of the old mansion; and from one of the baskets so produced was brought to light the manuscript Diary of John Evelyn—one of the most finished specimens of autobiography in the whole compass of English literature.

The publication of the Diary, with a selection of familiar letters, and private correspondence, was entrusted to Mr. William Bray, F.S.A.; and the last sheets of the MS., with a dedication to Lady Evelyn, were actually in the hands of the printer at the hour of her death. The work appeared in 1818; and a volume of Miscellaneous Papers, by Evelyn, was subsequently published, under Mr. Upcott’s editorial superintendence.

Wotton House, though situate in the angle of two valleys, is actually on part of Leith Hill, the rise from thence being very gradual. Evelyn’s “Diary” contains a pen-and-ink sketch of the mansion as it appeared in 1653.

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A Quarterly Reviewer, in discussing an objection to the Copyright Bill of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, which was taken by Sir Edward Sugden, gives some curious particulars of the progeny of literary men. “We are not,” says the writer, “going to speculate about the causes of the fact; but a fact it is, that men distinguished for extraordinary intellectual power of any sort rarely leave more than a very brief line of progeny behind them. Men of genius have scarcely ever done so; men of imaginative genius, we might say, almost never. With the one exception of the noble Surrey, we cannot, at this moment, point out a representative in the male line, even so far down as the third generation, of any English poet; and we believe the case is the same in France. The blood of beings of that order can seldom be traced far down, even in the female line. With the exception of Surrey and Spenser, we are not aware of any great English author of at all remote date, from whose body any living person claims to be descended. There is no real English poet prior to the middle of the eighteenth century; and we believe no great author of any sort, except Clarendon and Shaftesbury, of whose blood we have any inheritance amongst us. Chaucer’s only son died childless; Shakspeare’s line expired in his daughter’s only daughter. None of the other dramatists of that age left any progeny; nor Raleigh, nor Bacon, nor Cowley, nor Butler. The grand-daughter of Milton was the last of his blood. Newton, Locke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Gray, Walpole, Cavendish (and we might greatly extend the list), never married. Neither Bolingbroke, nor Addison, nor Warburton, nor Johnson, nor Burke, transmitted their blood. One of the arguments against a perpetuity in literary property is, that it would be founding another noblesse. Neither jealous aristocracy nor envious Jacobinism need be under such alarm. When a human race has produced its ‘bright, consummate flower’ in this kind, it seems commonly to be near its end.”

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Towards the close of the last century, there met at Mrs. Montague’s a literary assembly, called “The Blue-Stocking Club,” in consequence of one of the most admired of the members, Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wearing blue stockings. The appellation soon became general as a name for pedantic or ridiculous literary ladies. Hannah More wrote a volume in verse, entitled The Bas Bleu: or Conversation. It proceeds on the mistake of a foreigner, who, hearing of the Blue-Stocking Club, translated it literally Bas Bleu. Johnson styled this poem “a great performance.” The following couplets have been quoted, and remembered, as terse and pointed:—

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When Hannah More came to London in 1773, or 1774, she was domesticated with Garrick, and was received with favour by Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke. Her sister has thus described her first interview with Johnson:—

“We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr. Percy, (‘Percy’s Collection,’ now you know him), quite a sprightly modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected: he was no sooner gone than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house: yes, Abyssinian Johnson! Dictionary Johnson! Ramblers, Idlers, and Irene Johnson! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion? The conversation turned upon a new work of his just going to the press (the ‘Tour to the Hebrides’), and his old friend Richardson. Mrs. Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the Doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said she was ‘a silly thing.’ When our visit was ended, he called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard it, he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopped a night, as they imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country.”

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When Miss Mitford left her rustic cottage at Three Mile Cross, and removed to Reading, (the Belford Regis of her novel), she penned the following beautiful picture of its homely joys:—

“Farewell, then, my beloved village! the long, straggling street, gay and bright on this sunny, windy April morning, full of all implements of dirt and mire, men, women, children, cows, horses, wagons, carts, pigs, dogs, geese, and chickens—busy, merry, stirring little world, farewell! Farewell to the winding, up-hill road, with its clouds of dust, as horsemen and carriages ascend the gentle eminence, its borders of turf, and its primrosy hedges! Farewell to the breezy common, with its islands of cottages and cottage-gardens; its oaken avenues, populous with rooks; its clear waters fringed with gorse, where lambs are straying; its cricket-ground where children already linger, anticipating their summer revelry; its pretty boundary of field and woodland, and distant farms; and latest and best of its ornaments, the dear and pleasant mansion where dwelt the neighbours, the friends of friends; farewell to ye all! Ye will easily dispense with me, but what I shall do without you, I cannot imagine. Mine own dear village, farewell!”

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In the year 1809 was interred, in the churchyard of St. Martin’s-in-the Fields, the body of one Hew Hewson, who died at the age of 85. He was the original of Hugh Strap, in Smollett’s Roderick Random. Upwards of forty years he kept a hair-dresser’s shop in St. Martin’s parish; the walls were hung round with Latin quotations, and he would frequently point out to his customers and acquaintances the several scenes in Roderick Random pertaining to himself, which had their origin, not in Smollett’s inventive fancy, but in truth and reality. The meeting in a barber’s shop at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the subsequent mistake at the inn, their arrival together in London, and the assistance they experienced from Strap’s friend, are all facts. The barber left behind an annotated copy of Roderick Random, showing how far we are indebted to the genius of the author, and to what extent the incidents are founded in reality.

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Mr. John Ragsdale, of Richmond, in Surrey, who was the intimate friend of Collins, states that some of his Odes were written while on a visit at his, Mr. Ragsdale’s house. The poet, however, had such a poor opinion of his own productions, that after showing them to Mr. Ragsdale, he would snatch them from him, and throw them into the fire; and in this way, it is believed, many of Collins’s finest pieces were destroyed. Such of his Odes as were published, on his own account in 1746, were not popular; and, disappointed at the slowness of the sale, the poet burnt the remaining copies with his own hands.

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Alas! poor Morris—writes one—we knew him well. Who that has once read or heard his songs, can forget their rich and graceful imagery; the fertile fancy, the touching sentiment, and the “soul reviving” melody, which characterize every line of these delightful lyrics? Well do we remember, too, his “old buff waistcoat,” his courteous manner, and his gentlemanly pleasantry, long after this Nestor of song had retired to enjoy the delights of rural life, despite the prayer of his racy verse:

Captain Morris was born about the middle of the last century, and outlived the majority of the bon vivant society which he gladdened with his genius, and lit up with his brilliant humour.

Yet, many readers of the present generation may ask, “Who was Captain Morris?” He was born of good family, in the celebrated year 1745, and appears to have inherited a taste for literary composition; for his father composed the popular song of Kitty Crowder.

For more than half a century, Captain Morris moved in the first circles. He was the “sun of the table” at Carlton House, as well as at Norfolk House; and attaching himself politically, as well as convivially, to his dinner companions, he composed the celebrated ballads of “Billy’s too young to drive us,” and “Billy Pitt and the Farmer,” which continued long in fashion, as brilliant satires upon the ascendant politics of their day. His humorous ridicule of the Tories was, however, but ill repaid by the Whigs upon their accession to office; at least, if we may trust the beautiful ode of “The Old Whig Poet to his Old Buff Waistcoat.” We are not aware of this piece being included in any edition of the “Songs.” It bears date “G. R., August 1, 1815;” six years subsequent to which we saw it among the papers of the late Alexander Stephens.

Captain Morris’s “Songs” were very popular. In 1830, we possessed a copy of the 24th edition; we remember one of the ditties to have been “sung by the Prince of Wales to a certain lady,” to the air of “There’s a difference between a beggar and a queen.” Morris’s finest Anacreontic, is the song Ad Poculum, for which he received the gold cup of the Harmonic Society:

Of the famous Beefsteak Club, (at first limited to twenty-four members, but increased to twenty-five, to admit the Prince of Wales,) Captain Morris was the laureat; of this “Jovial System” he was the intellectual centre. In the year 1831, he bade adieu to the club, in some spirited stanzas, though penned at “an age far beyond mortal lot.” In 1835, he was permitted to revisit the club, when they presented him with a large silver bowl, appropriately inscribed.

It would not be difficult to string together gems from the Captain’s Lyrics. In “The Toper’s Apology”, one of his most sparkling songs, occurs this brilliant version of Addison’s comparison of wits with flying fish:—

Many years since, Captain Morris retired to a villa at Brockham, near the foot of Box Hill, in Surrey. This property, it is said, was presented to him by his old friend, the Duke of Norfolk. Here the Captain “drank the pure pleasures of the rural life” long after many a bright light of his own time had flickered out, and become almost forgotten; even “the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall” had almost disappeared, and with it the princely house whereat he was wont to shine. He died July 11, 1835, in his ninety-third year, of internal inflammation of only four days.

Morris presented a rare combination of mirth and prudence, such as human conduct seldom offers for our imitation. He retained his gaieté de cœur to the last; so that, with equal truth and spirit, he remonstrated:

Captain Morris left his autobiography to his family; but it has not been published.

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Incredible as it may appear, it is sometimes stated very confidently, that English authors and actors who give dinners, are treated with greater indulgence by certain critics than those who do not. But, it has never been said that any critical journal in England, with the slightest pretensions to respectability, was in the habit of levying black mail in this Rob Roy fashion, upon writers or articles of any kind. Yet it is alleged, on high authority, that many of the French critical journals are or were principally supported from such a source. For example, there is a current anecdote to the effect that when the celebrated singer Nourrit died, the editor of one of the musical reviews waited on his successor, Duprez, and, with a profusion of compliments and apologies, intimated to him that Nourrit had invariably allowed 2000 francs a year to the review. Duprez, taken rather aback, expressed his readiness to allow half that sum. “Bien, monsieur,” said the editor, with a shrug, “mais, parole d’honneur, j’y perds mille francs.”

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Mr. Davy, who accompanied Colonel Cheney up the Euphrates, was for a time in the service of Mehemet Ali Pacha. “Pickwick” happening to reach Davy while he was at Damascus, he read a part of it to the Pacha, who was so delighted with it, that Davy was, on one occasion, called up in the middle of the night to finish the reading of the chapter in which he and the Pacha had been interrupted. Mr. Davy read, in Egypt, upon another occasion, some passages from these unrivalled “Papers” to a blind Englishman, who was in such ecstasy with what he heard, that he exclaimed he was almost thankful he could not see he was in a foreign country; for that while he listened, he felt completely as though he were again in England.—Lady Chatterton.

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“I remember when I was a little boy, (writes Swift in a letter to Bolingbroke,) I felt a great fish at the end of my line, which I drew up almost on the ground, but it dropt in, and the disappointment vexes me to this day; and I believe it was the type of all my future disappointments.”

“This little incident,” writes Percival, “perhaps gave the first wrong bias to a mind predisposed to such impressions; and by operating with so much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation of the Dean’s subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and final insanity.”

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The following characteristic story of these two “intellectual gladiators” is related in “A New Spirit of the Age.”

Leigh Hunt and Carlyle were once present among a small party of equally well known men. It chanced that the conversation rested with these two, both first-rate talkers, and the others sat well pleased to listen. Leigh Hunt had said something about the islands of the Blest, or El Dorado, or the Millennium, and was flowing on in his bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropt some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt’s pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts and objections at every interval of the speaker’s joyous progress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by turns; and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of Hopefulness and of the Unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or illustration, and that perfect ease and good-nature, which distinguish each of these men. The opponents were so well matched, that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. They all sallied forth; and leaving the close room, the candles and the arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant star-light night. They all looked up. “Now,” thought Hunt, “Carlyle’s done for!—he can have no answer to that!” “There!” shouted Hunt, “look up there! look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of hope in the soul of man.” Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. They began to think he was silenced at last—he was a mortal man. But out of that silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who, on earth, could have anticipated what the voice said? “Eh! it’s a sad sight!”—— Hunt sat down on a stone step. They all laughed—then looked very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the influence? Again they laughed—then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with slow and serious pace. There might be some reason for sadness, too. That brilliant firmament probably contained infinite worlds, each full of struggling and suffering beings—of beings who had to die—for life in the stars implies that those bright worlds should also be full of graves; but all that life, like ours, knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth, and the brilliant Universe in its great Movement having, perhaps, no more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destination, than hath one of the suffering specks that compose this small spot we inherit.

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Johnson, the publisher in St. Paul’s Churchyard, obtained the copyright of Cowper’s Poems, which proved a great source of profit to him, in the following manner:—One evening, a relation of Cowper’s called upon Johnson with a portion of the MS. poems, which he offered for publication, provided Johnson would publish them at his own risk, and allow the author to have a few copies to give to his friends. Johnson read the poems, approved of them, and accordingly published them. Soon after they had appeared, there was scarcely a reviewer who did not load them with the most scurrilous abuse, and condemn them to the butter shops; and the public taste being thus terrified or misled, these charming effusions stood in the corner of the publisher’s shop as an unsaleable pile for a long time.

At length, Cowper’s relation called upon Johnson with another bundle of the poet’s MS., which was offered and accepted upon the same terms as before. In this fresh collection was the poem of the “Task.” Not alarmed at the fate of the former publication, but thoroughly assured of the great merit of the poems, they were published. The tone of the reviewers became changed, and Cowper was hailed as the first poet of the age. The success of this second publication set the first in motion. Johnson immediately reaped the fruits of his undaunted judgment; and Cowper’s poems enriched the publisher, when the poet was in languishing circumstances. In October, 1812, the copyright of Cowper’s poems was put up to sale among the London booksellers, in thirty-two shares. Twenty of the shares were sold at 212l. each. The work, consisting of two octavo volumes, was satisfactorily proved at the sale to net 834l. per annum. It had only two years of copyright; yet this same copyright produced the sum of 6764l.

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Thomas Warton, in his Account of Oxford, relates that at the sign of Whittington and his Cat, the laborious antiquary, Thomas Hearne, “one evening suffered himself to be overtaken in liquor. But, it should be remembered, that this accident was more owing to his love of antiquity than of ale. It happened that the kitchen where he and his companion were sitting was neatly paved with sheep’s trotters disposed in various compartments. After one pipe, Mr. Hearne, consistently with his usual gravity and sobriety, rose to depart; but his friend, who was inclined to enjoy more of his company, artfully observed, that the floor on which they were then sitting was no less than an original tesselated Roman pavement. Out of respect to classic ground, and on recollection that the Stunsfield Roman pavement, on which he had just published a dissertation, was dedicated to Bacchus, our antiquary cheerfully complied; an enthusiastic transport seized his imagination; he fell on his knees and kissed the sacred earth, on which, in a few hours, and after a few tankards, by a sort of sympathetic attraction, he was obliged to repose for some part of the evening. His friend was, probably, in the same condition; but two printers accidentally coming in, conducted Mr. Hearne, between them, to Edmund’s Hall, with much state and solemnity.”

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Sheridan’s wit was eminently brilliant, and almost always successful; it was, like all his speaking, exceedingly prepared, but it was skilfully introduced and happily applied; and it was well mingled, also, with humour, occasionally descending to farce. How little it was the inspiration of the moment all men were aware who knew his habits; but a singular proof of this was presented to Mr. Moore, when he came to write his life; for we there find given to the world, with a frankness which must have almost made their author shake in his grave, the secret note-books of this famous wit; and are thus enabled to trace the jokes, in embryo, with which he had so often made the walls of St. Stephen’s shake, in a merriment excited by the happy appearance of sudden unpremeditated effusion.—Lord Brougham.

Take an instance from this author, giving extracts from the common-place book of the wit:—“He employs his fancy in his narrative, and keeps his recollections for his wit.” Again, the same idea is expanded into “When he makes his jokes, you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and ’tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination.” But the thought was too good to be thus wasted on the desert air of a common-place book. So, forth it came, at the expense of Kelly, who, having been a composer of music, became a wine-merchant. “You will,” said the ready wit, “import your music and compose your wine.” Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient; so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas’s cost and charge, “who generally resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his facts.”

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This man of genius among trading authors, before he began his History of England, wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, then in the Whig Administration, offering, if the Earl would procure for his work the patronage of the Government, he would accommodate his politics to the Ministry; but if not, that he had high promises of support from the other party. Lord Shelburne, of course, treated the proffered support of a writer of such accommodating principles with contempt; and the work of Smollett, accordingly, became distinguished for its high Toryism. The history was published in sixpenny weekly numbers, of which 20,000 copies were sold immediately. This extraordinary popularity was created by the artifice of the publisher. He is stated to have addressed a packet of the specimens of the publication to every parish-clerk in England, carriage-free, with half-a-crown enclosed as a compliment, to have them distributed through the pews of the church: this being generally done, many people read the specimens instead of listening to the sermon, and the result was an universal demand for the work.

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The transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into “measures” for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.

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When Mr. Fox’s furniture was sold by auction, after his decease in 1806, amongst his books there was the first volume of his friend Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: by the title-page, it appeared to have been presented by the author to Fox, who, on the blank leaf, had written this anecdote of the historian:—“The author, at Brookes’s, said there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table. Eleven days after, this same gentleman accepted a place of lord of trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!” Such was the avidity of bidders for the most trifling production of Fox’s genius, that, by the addition of this little record, the book sold for three guineas.

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Sir Joshua Reynolds used to relate the following characteristic anecdote of Johnson:—About the time of their early acquaintance, they met one evening at the Misses Cotterell’s, when the Duchess of Argyll and another lady of rank came in. Johnson, thinking that the Misses Cotterell were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected as low company, of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew angry, and, resolving to shock their suspected pride, by making the great visitors imagine they were low indeed, Johnson addressed himself in a loud tone to Reynolds, saying, “How much do you think you and I could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we could?” just as though they were ordinary mechanics.

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The Earl of Dudley, in his Letters, (1814) says:—“To me Byron’s Corsair appears the best of all his works. Rapidity of execution is no sort of apology for doing a thing ill, but when it is done well, the wonder is so much the greater. I am told he wrote this poem at ten sittings—certainly it did not take him more than three weeks. He is a most extraordinary person, and yet there is G. Ellis, who don’t feel his merit. His creed in modern poetry (I should have said contemporary) is Walter Scott, all Walter Scott, and nothing but Walter Scott. I cannot say how I hate this petty, factious spirit in literature—it is so unworthy of a man so clever and so accomplished as Ellis undoubtedly is.”

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Little Britain, anciently Breton-street, from the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne on that spot, in more modern times became the “Paternoster-row” of the booksellers; and a newspaper of 1664 states them to have published here within four years, 464 pamphlets. One Chiswell, resident here in 1711, was the metropolitan bookseller, “the Longman” of his time; and here lived Rawlinson (“Tom Folio” of The Tatler, No. 158), who stuffed four chambers in Gray’s Inn so full, that his bed was removed into the passage. John Day, the famous early printer, lived “over Aldersgate.”

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A Dean of Gloucester having some merry divines at dinner with him one day, amongst other discourses they were talking of reconciling the Fathers on some points; he told them he could show them the best way in the world to reconcile them on all points of difference; so, after dinner, he carried them into his study, and showed them all the Fathers, classically ordered, with a quart of sack betwixt each of them.

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Sir James once asked Dr. Parr to join him in a drive in his gig. The horse growing restive—“Gently, Jemmy,” the Doctor said; “don’t irritate him; always soothe your horse, Jemmy. You’ll do better without me. Let me down, Jemmy!” But once safe on the ground—“Now, Jemmy,” said the Doctor, “touch him up. Never let a horse get the better of you. Touch him up, conquer him, do not spare him. And now I’ll leave you to manage him; I’ll walk back.”

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Sir James Mackintosh had a great deal of humour; and, among many other examples of it, he kept a dinner-party at his own house for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, who had mistaken the Rev. Sydney Smith for his gallant synonym, the hero of Acre.

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The number of Lope de Vega’s works has been strangely exaggerated by some, but by others reduced to about one-sixth of the usual statement. Upon this computation it will be found that some of his contemporaries were as prolific as himself. Vincent Mariner, a friend of Lope, left behind him 360 quires of paper full of his own compositions, in a writing so exceedingly small, and so exceedingly bad, that no person but himself could read it. Lord Holland has given a facsimile of Lope’s handwriting, and though it cannot be compared to that of a dramatist of late times, one of whose plays, in the original manuscript, is said to be a sufficient load for a porter, it is evident that one of Mariner’s pages would contain as much as a sheet of his friend’s, which would, as nearly as possible, balance the sum total. But, upon this subject, an epigram by Quarles may be applied, written upon a more serious theme:

With regard to the quantity of Lope’s writings, a complete edition of them would not much, if at all, exceed those of Voltaire, who, in labour of composition, for he sent nothing into the world carelessly, must have greatly exceeded Lope. And the labours of these men shrink into insignificance when compared to those of some of the schoolmen and of the Fathers.

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Other writers, of the same age with Lope de Vega, obtained a wider celebrity. Don Quixote, during the life of its ill-requited author, was naturalized in countries where the name of Lope de Vega was not known, and Du Bartas was translated into the language of every reading people. But no writer ever has enjoyed such a share of popularity.

“Cardinal Barberini,” says Lord Holland, “followed Lope with veneration in the streets; the king would stop to gaze at such a prodigy; the people crowded round him wherever he appeared; the learned and studious thronged to Madrid from every part of Spain to see this phœnix of their country, this monster of literature; and even Italians, no extravagant admirers, in general, of poetry that is not their own, made pilgrimages from their country for the sole purpose of conversing with Lope. So associated was the idea of excellence with his name, that it grew, in common conversation, to signify anything perfect in its kind; and a Lope diamond, a Lope day, or a Lope woman, became fashionable and familiar modes of expressing their good qualities.”

Lope’s death produced an universal commotion in the court and in the whole kingdom. Many ministers, knights, and prelates were present when he expired; among others, the Duke of Sesa, who had been the most munificent of his patrons, whom he appointed his executor, and who was at the expense of his funeral, a mode by which the great men in that country were fond of displaying their regard for men of letters. It was a public funeral, and it was not performed till the third day after his death, that there might be time for rendering it more splendid, and securing a more honourable attendance. The grandees and nobles who were about the court were all invited as mourners; a novenary or service of nine days was performed for him, at which the musicians of the royal chapel assisted; after which there were exequies on three successive days, at which three bishops officiated in full pontificals; and on each day a funeral sermon was preached by one of the most famous preachers of the age. Such honours were paid to the memory of Lope de Vega, one of the most prolific, and, during his life, the most popular, of all poets, ancient or modern.

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The first of these ladies, whom Swift romantically christened Varina, was a Miss Jane Waryng, to whom he wrote passionate letters, and whom, when he had succeeded in gaining her affections, he deserted, after a sort of seven years’ courtship. The next flame of the Dean’s was the well-known Miss Esther Johnson, whom he fancifully called Stella. Somehow, he had the address to gain her decided attachment to him, though considerably younger, beautiful in person, accomplished, and estimable. He dangled upon her, fed her hopes of an union, and at length persuaded her to leave London and reside near him in Ireland. His conduct then was of a piece with the rest of his life: he never saw her alone, never slept under the same roof with her, but allowed her character and reputation to be suspected, in consequence of their intimacy; nor did he attempt to remove such by marriage until a late period of his life, when, to save her from dissolution, he consented to the ceremony, upon condition that it should never be divulged; that she should live as before; retain her own name, &c.; and this wedding, upon the above being assented to, was performed in a garden! But Swift never acknowledged her till the day of his death. During all this treatment of his Stella, Swift had ingratiated himself with a young lady of fortune and fashion in London, whose name was Vanhomrig, and whom he called Vanessa. It is much to be regretted that the heartless tormentor should have been so ardently and passionately beloved, as was the case with the latter lady. Selfish, hardhearted as was Swift, he seemed but to live in disappointing others. Such was his coldness and brutality to Vanessa, that he may be said to have caused her death.

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Coleridge, among his many speculations, started a periodical, in prose and verse, entitled The Watchman, with the motto, “that all might know the truth, and that the truth might make us free.” He watched in vain! Coleridge’s incurable want of order and punctuality, and his philosophical theories, tired out and disgusted his readers, and the work was discontinued after the ninth number. Of the unsaleable nature of this publication, he relates an amusing illustration. Happening one morning to rise at an earlier hour than usual, he observed his servant-girl putting an extravagant quantity of paper into the grate, in order to light the fire, and he mildly checked her for her wastefulness: “La! sir,” replied Nanny; “why, it’s only Watchmen.”

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Mr. Samuel Ireland, originally a silk merchant in Spitalfields, was led by his taste for literary antiquities to abandon trade for those pursuits, and published several tours. One of them consisted of an excursion upon the river Avon, during which he explored, with ardent curiosity, every locality associated with Shakspeare. He was accompanied by his son, a youth of sixteen, who imbibed a portion of his father’s Shakspearean mania. The youth, perceiving the great importance which his parent attached to every relic of the poet, and the eagerness with which he sought for any of his MS. remains, conceived that it would not be difficult to gratify his father by some productions of his own, in the language and manner of Shakspeare’s time. The idea possessed his mind for a certain period; and, in 1793, being then in his eighteenth year, he produced some MSS. said to be in the handwriting of Shakspeare, which he said had been given him by a gentleman possessed of many other old papers. The young man, being articled to a solicitor in Chancery, easily fabricated, in the first instance, the deed of mortgage from Shakspeare to Michael Fraser. The ecstasy expressed by his father urged him to the fabrication of other documents, described to come from the same quarter. Emboldened by success, he ventured upon higher compositions in prose and verse; and at length announced the discovery of an original drama, under the title of Vortigern, which he exhibited, act by act, written in the period of two months. Having provided himself with the paper of the period, (being the fly-leaves of old books,) and with ink prepared by a bookbinder, no suspicion was entertained of the deception. The father, who was a maniac upon such subjects, gave such éclat to the supposed discovery, that the attention of the literary world, and all England, was drawn to it; insomuch that the son, who had announced other papers, found it impossible to retreat, and was goaded into the production of the series which he had promised.

The house of Mr. Ireland, in Norfolk-street, Strand, was daily crowded to excess by persons of the highest rank, as well as by the most celebrated men of letters. The MSS. being mostly decreed genuine, were considered to be of inestimable worth; and at one time it was expected that Parliament would give any required sum for them. Some conceited amateurs in literature at length sounded an alarm, which was echoed by certain of the newspapers and public journals; notwithstanding which, Mr. Sheridan agreed to give 600l. for permission to play Vortigern at Drury-lane Theatre. So crowded a house was scarcely ever seen as on the night of the performance, and a vast number of persons could not obtain admission. The predetermined malcontents began an opposition from the outset: some ill-cast characters converted grave scenes into ridicule, and there ensued between the believers and sceptics a contest which endangered the property. The piece was, accordingly, withdrawn.

The juvenile author was now so beset for information, that he found it necessary to abscond from his father’s house; and then, to put an end to the wonderful ferment which his ingenuity had created, he published a pamphlet, wherein he confessed the entire fabrication. Besides Vortigern, young Ireland also produced a play of Henry II.; and, although there were in both such incongruities as were not consistent with Shakspeare’s age, both dramas contain passages of considerable beauty and originality.

The admissions of the son did not, however, screen the father from obloquy, and the reaction of public opinion affected his fortunes and his health. Mr. Ireland was the dupe of his zeal upon such subjects; and the son never contemplated at the outset the unfortunate effect. Such was the enthusiasm of certain admirers of Shakspeare, (among them Drs. Parr and Warton,) that they fell upon their knees before the MSS.; and, by their idolatry, inspired hundreds of others with similar enthusiasm. The young author was filled with astonishment and alarm, which at that stage it was not in his power to check. Sir Richard Phillips, who knew the parties, has thus related the affair in the Anecdote Library.

In the Catalogue of Dr. Parr’s Library at Hatton, (Bibliotheca Parriana,) we find the following attempted explanation by the Doctor:—

“Ireland’s (Samuel) ‘Great and impudent forgery, called,’ Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakspeare, folio 1796.

“I am almost ashamed to insert this worthless and infamously trickish book. It is said to include the tragedy of King Lear, and a fragment of Hamlet. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to me the words which Joseph Warton used, the very morning I called on Ireland, and was inclined to admit the possibility of genuineness in his papers. In my subsequent conversation, I told him my change of opinion. But I thought it not worth while to dispute in print with a detected impostor.—S. P.”

Mr. Ireland died about 1802. His son, William Henry, long survived him; but the forgeries blighted his literary reputation for ever, and he died in straitened circumstances, about the year 1840. The reputed Shakspearean MSS. are stated to have been seen for sale in a pawnbroker’s window in Wardour-street, Soho.

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Hoole was born in a hackney-coach, which was conveying his mother to Drury-lane Theatre, to witness the performance of the tragedy of Timanthes, which had been written by her husband. Hoole died in 1839, at a very advanced age. In early life, he ranked amongst the literary characters that adorned the last century; and, for some years before his death, had outlived most of the persons who frequented the conversazioni of Dr. Johnson. By the will of the Doctor, Mr. Hoole was enabled to take from his library and effects such books and furniture as he might think proper to select, by way of memorial of that great personage. He accordingly chose a chair in which Dr. Johnson usually sat, and the desk upon which he had written the greater number of the papers of the Rambler; both these articles Mr. Hoole used constantly until nearly the day of his death.

Hoole was near-sighted. He was partial to the drama; and, when young, often strutted his hour at an amateur theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Upon one occasion, whilst performing the ghost in Hamlet, Mr. Hoole wandered incautiously from off the trap-door through which he had emerged from the nether world, and by which it was his duty to descend. In this dilemma he groped about, hoping to distinguish the aperture, keeping the audience in wonder why he remained so long on the stage after the crowing of the cock. It was apparent from the lips of the ghost that he was holding converse with some one at the wings. He at length became irritated, and “alas! poor ghost!” ejaculated, in tones sufficiently audible, “I tell you I can’t find it.” The laughter that ensued may be imagined. The ghost, had he been a sensible one, would have walked off; but no—he became more and more irritated, until the perturbed spirit was placed, by some of the bystanders, on the trap-door, after which it descended, with due solemnity, amid roars of laughter.

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During the residence of Lord Byron at Venice, a clerk was sent from the office of Messrs. Vizard and Co., of Lincoln’s Inn, to procure his lordship’s signature to a legal instrument. On his arrival, the clerk sent a message to the noble poet, who appointed to receive him on the following morning. Each party was punctual to the minute. His lordship had dressed himself with the most studious care; and, on the opening of the door of his apartment, it was evident that he had placed himself in what he thought a becoming pose. His right arm was displayed over the back of a splendid couch, and his head was gently supported by the fingers of his left hand. He bowed slightly as his visitor approached him, and appeared anxious that his recumbent attitude should remain for a time undisturbed. After the signing of the deed, the noble bard made a few inquiries upon the politics of England, in the tone of a finished exquisite. Some refreshment which was brought in afforded the messenger an opportunity for more minute observation. His lordship’s hair had been curled and parted on the forehead; the collar of his shirt was thrown back, so that not only the throat but a considerable portion of his bosom was exposed to view, though partially concealed by some fanciful ornament suspended round the neck. His waistcoat was of costly velvet, and his legs were enveloped in a superb wrapper. It is to be regretted that so great a mind as that of Byron could derive satisfaction from things so trivial and unimportant, but much more that it was liable to be disturbed by a recollection of personal imperfections. In the above interview, the clerk directed an accidental glance at his lordship’s lame foot, when the smile that had played upon the visage of the poet became suddenly converted into a frown. His whole frame appeared discomposed; his tone of affected suavity became hard and imperious; and he called to an attendant to open the door, with a peevishness seldom exhibited even by the most irritable.

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No one knew how to apologize for an affront with better grace, or with more delicacy, than Lord Byron. In the first edition of the first canto of Childe Harold, the poet adverted in a note to two political tracts—one by Major Pasley, and the other by Gould Francis Leckie, Esq.; and concluded his remarks by attributing “ignorance on the one hand, and prejudice on the other.” Mr. Leckie, who felt offended at the severity and, as he thought, injustice of the observations, wrote to Lord Byron, complaining of the affront. His lordship did not reply immediately to the letter; but, in about three weeks, he called upon Mr. Leckie, and begged him to accept an elegantly-bound copy of a new edition of the poem, in which the offensive passage was omitted.

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Lord Brougham, in an essay published long ago in the Edinburgh Review, read a smart lesson to Parliamentary wits. “A wit,” says his lordship, “though he amuses for the moment, unavoidably gives frequent offence to grave and serious men, who don’t think public affairs should be lightly handled, and are constantly falling into the error that when a person is arguing the most conclusively, by showing the gross and ludicrous absurdity of his adversary’s reasoning, he is jesting, and not arguing; while the argument is, in reality, more close and stringent, the more he shows the opposite picture to be grossly ludicrous—that is, the more effective the wit becomes. But, though all this is perfectly true, it is equally certain that danger attends such courses with the common run of plain men.

“Nor is it only by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination, flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle’s—chiefly answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John—and the solid traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from ‘Change towards St. Stephen’s Chapel, at five o’clock, to see the business of the country done by the Sovereign’s servants. A pretty long course of observation on these component parts of a Parliamentary audience begets some doubt if noble passages, (termed ‘fine flourishes,’) be not taken by them as personally offensive.”

Take, for example, “such fine passages as Mr. Canning often indulged himself and a few of his hearers with; and which certainly seemed to be received as an insult by whole benches of men accustomed to distribute justice at sessions. These worthies, the dignitaries of the empire, resent such flights as liberties taken with them; and always say, when others force them to praise—‘Well, well, but it was out of place; we have nothing to do with king Priam here, or with a heathen god, such as Æolus; those kind of folk are all very well in Pope’s Homer and Dryden’s Virgil; but, as I said to Sir Robert, who sat next me, what have you or I to do with them matters? I like a good plain man of business, like young Mr. Jenkinson—a man of the pen and desk, like his father was before him—and who never speaks when he is not wanted: let me tell you, Mr. Canning speaks too much by half. Time is short—there are only twenty four hours in the day, you know.’ ”

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Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste, displayed in very early life a taste for mathematical studies. In the year 1788, when he was only fifteen years old, he actually made an almanack for the year 1790, containing all the usual tables, calculations of the eclipses, and other phenomena, and even the customary predictions of the weather.

Bowditch was bred to the sea, and in his early voyages taught navigation to the common sailors about him. Captain Prince, with whom he often sailed, relates, that one day the supercargo of the vessel said to him, “Come, Captain, let us go forward and hear what the sailors are talking about under the lee of the long-boat.” They went forward accordingly, and the captain was surprised to find the sailors, instead of spinning their long yarns, earnestly engaged with book, slate, and pencil, discussing the high matters of tangents and secants, altitudes, dip, and refraction. Two of them, in particular, were very zealously disputing,—one of them calling out to the other, “Well, Jack, what have you got?” “I’ve got the sine,” was the answer. “But that ain’t right,” said the other; “I say it is the cosine.”

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This romance, on its first appearance, roused the attention of all the literary world of England, and even spread its writer’s name to the continent. The author—“wonder-working Lewis,” was a stripling under twenty when he wrote The Monk in the short space of ten weeks! Sir Walter Scott, probably the most rapid composer of fiction upon record, hardly exceeded this, even in his latter days, when his facility of writing was the greatest.

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Thomson, the author of the “Seasons,” was a very awkward reader of his own productions. His patron, Doddington, once snatched a MS. from his hand, provoked by his odd utterance, telling him that he did not understand his own verses! A gentleman of Brentford, however, told the late Dr. Evans, in 1824, that there was a tradition in that town of Thomson frequenting one of the inns there, and reciting his poems to the company.

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Goldsmith, during the first performance of this comedy, walked all the time in St. James’ Park in great uneasiness. Finally, when he thought that it must be over, hastening to the theatre, hisses assailed his ears as he entered the green-room. Asking in eager alarm of Colman the cause—“Pshaw, pshaw!” said Colman, “don’t be afraid of squibs, when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder for two hours.” The comedy had completely triumphed—the audience were only hissing the after farce. Goldsmith had some difficulty in getting the piece on the stage, as appears from the following letter to Colman:—“I entreat you’ll relieve me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever objections you have made, or shall make, to my play, I will endeavour to remove, and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges either of its merits or faults, I can never submit to. Upon a former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. Garrick, he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead’s tribunal, but I refused the proposal with indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you, as from him. I have, as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly; by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God’s sake take the play, and let us make the best of it; and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad plays as mine.”

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Coleridge once dined in company with a person who listened to him, and said nothing for a long time; but he nodded his head, and Coleridge thought him intelligent. At length, towards the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and the listener had no sooner seen them than he burst forth, “Them’s the jockeys for me!” Coleridge adds: “I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow’s head.”

Coleridge was very luminous in conversation, and invariably commanded listeners; yet the old lady rated his talent very lowly, when she declared she had no patience with a man who would have all the talk to himself.

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When Dr. Chalmers first visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. “If this be all,” said Canning to his companion, “it will never do.” Chalmers went on—the shuffling of the conversation gradually subsided. He got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. “The tartan beats us,” said Mr. Canning; “we have no preaching like that in England.”

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Hallam’s History of the Middle Ages was the last book of any importance read by Sir Samuel Romilly. Of this excellent work he formed the highest opinion, and recommended its immediate perusal to Lord Brougham, as a contrast to his dry Letter on the Abuses of Charities, in respect of the universal interest of the subject. Yet, Sir Samuel undervalued the Letter, for it ran through eight editions in one month.

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It is remarkable, (says Bulwer, in his Zanoni,) that most of the principal actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance—from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, and the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator’s features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, and had also a cat’s cleanliness, was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his hands. Réné Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a blood-red coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the bureau of the police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled with sinister malice; strongly and coarsely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless bar.

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This distinguished surgeon died suddenly on April 29, 1842, at Hallow Park, near Worcester, while on his way to Malvern. He was out sketching on the 28th, being particularly pleased with the village church, and some fine trees which are beside it; observing that he should like to repose there when he was gone. Just four days after this sentiment had been expressed, his mortal remains were accordingly deposited beside the rustic graves which had attracted his notice, and so recently occupied his pencil. There is a painful admonition in this fulfilment.

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It was suggested to a distinguished gourmet, what a capital thing a dish all fins (turbot’s fins) might be made. “Capital,” said he; “dine with me on it to-morrow.” “Accepted.” Would you believe it? when the cover was removed, the sacrilegious dog of an Amphytrion had put into the dish “Cicero De finibus.” “There is a work all fins,” said he.

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Campbell was a great lover of submarine prospects. “Often in my boyhood,” says the poet, “when the day has been bright and the sea transparent, I have sat by the hour on a Highland rock admiring the golden sands, the emerald weeds, and the silver shells at the bottom of the bay beneath, till, dreaming about the grottoes of the Nereids, I would not have exchanged my pleasure for that of a connoisseur poring over a landscape by Claude or Poussin. Enchanting nature! thy beauty is not only in heaven and earth, but in the waters under our feet. How magnificent a medium of vision is the pellucid sea! Is it not like poetry, that embellishes every object that we contemplate?”

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One of the most stinging reproofs of perverted literary taste, evidently aimed at Newgate Calendar literature, appeared in the form of a valentine, in No. 31 of Punch, in 1842.

The valentine itself reminds one of Churchill’s muse; and it needs no finger to tell where its withering satire is pointed:—

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Men before they die see and comprehend enigmas hidden from them before. The greatest poet, and one of the noblest thinkers of the last age, said on his death-bed:—“Many things obscure to me before, now clear up and become visible.”

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Stammering, (says Coleridge,) is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb’s presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of Cumberland, in restraining the duchess from rushing up to the embrace of her son, whom she had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. “How horribly cold it was,” said the narrator. “Yes,” said Lamb, in his stuttering way; “but you know he is the Duke of Cu-cum-ber-land.”

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Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Master of Westminster School, in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But Fuller says, while Newell was catching of fishes, Bishop Bonner was catching of Newell, and would certainly have sent him to the shambles, had not a good London merchant conveyed him away upon the seas. Newell was fishing upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing, that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him provisions for the day; and when, in the first year of England’s deliverance, he returned to his country, and to his own haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank: there he looked for it, and “found it no bottle, but a gun—such the sound at the opening thereof; and this (says Fuller) is believed (casualty is mother of more invention than industry) to be the original of bottled ale in England.”

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Canning was once asked by an English clergyman, at whose parsonage he was visiting, how he liked the sermon he had preached that morning. “Why, it was a short sermon,” quoth Canning. “O yes,” said the preacher, “you know I avoid being tedious.” “Ah, but,” replied Canning, “you were tedious.”

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The Rev. Sydney Smith compares Mr. Canning in office to a fly in amber: “nobody cares about the fly: the only question is, how the devil did it get there?” “Nor do I,” continues Smith, “attack him for the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province. When he is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like Samson in a wig. Call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he was an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest lustre, I do most readily admit. After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for the last half-century.”

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Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. “What!” exclaimed the old lady, “d’ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other folk’s kail?”

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Campbell relates:—“Turner, the painter, is a ready wit. Once at a dinner where several artists, amateurs, and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the painters and glaziers of Great Britain. The toast was drunk; and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British paper-stainers.”

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Lord Byron, in a conversation with the Countess of Blessington, said that he wept bitterly over many pages of Anastasius, and for two reasons: first, that he had not written it; and secondly, that Hope had; for it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book; as, he said, excelling all recent productions, as much in wit and talent as in true pathos. Lord Byron added, that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of Anastasius.

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Walpole relates, after an execution of eighteen malefactors, a woman was hawking an account of them, but called them nineteen. A gentleman said to her, “Why do you say nineteen? there were but eighteen hanged.” She replied, “Sir, I did not know you had been reprieved.”

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This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps of paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater part at a house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton’s lodging was a penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table, with a stumpy pen, our author wrote.

Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in London about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828 a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000l. He blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in 1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune.

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There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have perused so intently as the Acts and Monuments of John Fox, the martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater and far more important portion which has obtained for it its popular name of The Book of Martyrs. Bunyan’s own copy of this work is in existence, and valued of course as such a relic of such a man ought to be. It was purchased in the year 1780, by Mr. Wantner, of the Minories; from him it descended to his daughter, Mrs. Parnell, of Botolph-lane; and it was afterwards purchased, by subscription, for the Bedfordshire General Library.

This edition of The Acts and Monuments is of the date 1641, 3 vols. folio, the last of those in the black-letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bunyan’s hands. In each volume he has written his name beneath the title-page, in a large and stout print-hand. Under some of the woodcuts he has inserted a few rhymes, which are undoubtedly his own composition; and which, though much in the manner of the verses that were printed under the illustrations of his own Pilgrim’s Progress, when that work was first adorned with cuts, (verses worthy of such embellishments,) are very much worse than even the worst of those. Indeed, it would not be possible to find specimens of more miserable doggerel.

Here is one of the Tinker’s tetrasticks, penned in the margin, beside the account of Gardiner’s death:—

One of the signatures bears the date of 1662; but the verses must undoubtedly have been some years earlier, before the publication of his first tract. These curious inscriptions must have been Bunyan’s first attempts in verse: he had, no doubt, found difficulty enough in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was done; otherwise, he would not have written them in a book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chattels. In later days, he seems to have taken this book for his art of poetry. His verses are something below the pitch of Sternhold and Hopkins. But if he learnt there to make bad verses, he entered fully into the spirit of its better parts, and received that spirit into as resolute a heart as ever beat in a martyr’s bosom.[1]

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Leigh Hunt pleasantly says:—“I can no more pass through Westminster, without thinking of Milton; or the Borough, without thinking of Chaucer and Shakspeare; or Gray’s Inn, without calling Bacon to mind; or Bloomsbury-square, without Steele and Akenside; than I can prefer brick and mortar to wit and poetry, or not see a beauty upon it beyond architecture in the splendour of the recollection. I once had duties to perform which kept me out late at night, and severely taxed my health and spirits. My path lay through a neighbourhood in which Dryden lived, and though nothing could be more common-place, and I used to be tired to the heart and soul of me, I never hesitated to go a little out of the way, purely that I might pass through Gerard-street, and so give myself the shadow of a pleasant thought.”

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Lord Brougham says:—“The dreadful malady under which Bolingbroke long lingered, and at length sunk—a cancer in the face—he bore with exemplary fortitude, a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his vigorous mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolations of any religion; for, having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens.”

Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters, which has been published by Earl Stanhope, says that Bolingbroke only doubted, and by no means rejected, a future state.

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It is said that Owen, the divine, greatly admired Bunyan’s preaching; and that, being asked by Charles II. “how a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an itinerant tinker?” he replied: “May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.”

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This popular work was commenced by its author after he had renounced political satire for the more peaceful study of the antiquities of our country. The publication was issued in weekly sheets, and extended through two years, 1824 and 1825. It was very successful, the weekly sale being from 20,000 to 30,000 copies.

In 1830, Mr. Southey gave the following tribute to the merits of the work, which it is pleasurable to record; as these two writers, from their antipodean politics, had not been accustomed to regard each other’s productions with any favour. In closing his Life of John Bunyan, Mr. Southey says:—

“In one of the volumes, collected from various quarters, which were sent to me for this purpose, I observe the name of William Hone, and notice it that I may take the opportunity of recommending his Every-day Book and Table Book to those who are interested in the preservation of our national and local customs. By these curious publications, their compiler has rendered good service in an important department of literature; and he may render yet more, if he obtain the encouragement which he well deserves.”

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Bunyan had some providential escapes during his early life. Once, he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the river Ouse, near Bedford, and each time he was narrowly saved from drowning. One day, an adder crossed his path. He stunned it with a stick, then forced open its mouth with a stick and plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to be the sting, with his fingers; “by which act,” he says, “had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to an end.” If this, indeed, were an adder, and not a harmless snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he himself was aware of. A circumstance, which was likely to impress him more deeply, occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, when, being a soldier in the Parliament’s army, he was drawn out to go to the siege of Leicester, in 1645. One of the same company wished to go in his stead; Bunyan consented to exchange with him, and this volunteer substitute, standing sentinel one day at the siege, was shot through the head with a musket-ball. “This risk,” Sir Walter Scott observes, “was one somewhat resembling the escape of Sir Roger de Coverley, in an action at Worcester, who was saved from the slaughter of that action, by having been absent from the field.”—Southey.

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More drolleries are uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being “droll to order.” One evening a lady said to a small wit, “Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;” and the poor fellow was mute the rest of the evening.

“Favour me with your company on Wednesday evening—you are such a lion,” said a weak party-giver to a young littérateur. “I thank you,” replied the wit, “but, on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ——, and stand upon my head at Mrs. ——.”

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It happened one afternoon, in those years when Cowper’s accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection; it was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin, (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), to dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effects on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment. He informed her the next morning that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night! and that he had turned it into a ballad. So arose the pleasant poem of John Gilpin. To Lady Austen’s suggestion, also, we are indebted for the poem of “the Task.”

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Sir E. B. (now Lord) Lytton, in the memoir which he prefixed to the collected works of Laman Blanchard, draws the following affecting picture of that author’s position, after he had parted from an engagement upon a popular newspaper:—

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A writer in the Law Quarterly Magazine says:—To the best of our information, James’s coup d’essai in literature was a hoax in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylvanus Urban inserted without the least suspicion. In 1803, he became a constant contributor to the Pic-Nic and Cabinet weekly journals, in conjunction with Mr. Cumberland, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Horatio Smith, and others. The principal caterer for these publications was Colonel Greville, on whom Lord Byron has conferred a not very enviable immortality—

One of James Smith’s favourite anecdotes related to him. The Colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. He was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washington, who announced to them that the conduct of their Government, in condemning one of his officers to death as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals; and that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, “I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit of backgammon in my life.” As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companionship, but, in reality, to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. “And what,” inquired Smith, “did you say to comfort him?” “Why, I remember saying to him, when they left us, D—it, old fellow, never mind;” but it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhortation. Lady Asgill persuaded the French minister to interpose, and the captain was permitted to escape.

Both James and Horatio Smith were also contributors to the Monthly Mirror, then the property of Mr. Thomas Hill, a gentleman who had the good fortune to live familiarly with three or four generations of authors; the same, in short, with whom the subject of this memoir thus playfully remonstrated: “Hill, you take an unfair advantage of an accident; the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you now give yourself out for younger than you are.”

The fame of the Smiths, however, was confined to a limited circle until the publication of the Rejected Addresses, which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity.

James Smith used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman: “I do not see why they (the Addresses) should have been rejected: I think some of them very good.” This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish bishop, that there were some things in Gulliver’s Travels which he could not believe.

Though never guilty of intemperance, James was a martyr to the gout; and, independently of the difficulty he experienced in locomotion, he partook largely of the feeling avowed by his old friend Jekyll, who used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the drive before his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down all day long.

He used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds:—

His bachelorship is thus attested in his niece’s album:

The two following are amongst the best of his good things. A gentleman with the same Christian and surname took lodgings in the same house. The consequence was, eternal confusion of calls and letters. Indeed, the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. “This is intolerable, sir,” said our friend, “and you must quit.” “Why am I to quit more than you?” “Because you are James the Second—and must abdicate.”

Mr. Bentley proposed to establish a periodical publication, to be called The Wit’s Miscellany. Smith objected that the title promised too much. Shortly afterwards, the publisher came to tell him that he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it Bentley’s Miscellany. “Isn’t that going a little too far the other way?” was the remark.

A capital pun has been very generally attributed to him. An actor, named Priest, was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club, that there were a great many men in the pit. “Probably, clerks who have taken Priest’s orders.” The pun is perfect, but the real proprietor is Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters as well as one of the cleverest comic writers and finest satirists of the day. It has also been attributed to Charles Lamb.

Formerly, it was customary, on emergencies, for the judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was desired by his father to attend a judge’s chambers for that purpose, but being engaged to dine in Russell-square, at the next house to Mr. Justice Holroyd’s, he thought he might as well save himself the disagreeable necessity of leaving the party at eight by dispatching his business at once: so, a few minutes before six, he boldly knocked at the judge’s, and requested to speak to him on particular business. The judge was at dinner, but came down without delay, swore the affidavit, and then gravely asked what was the pressing necessity that induced our friend to disturb him at that hour. As Smith told the story, he raked his invention for a lie, but finding none fit for the purpose, he blurted out the truth:—

Smith was rather fond of a joke on his own branch of the profession; he always gave a peculiar emphasis to the line in his song on the contradiction of names:

and would frequently quote Goldsmith’s lines on Hickey, the associate of Burke and other distinguished cotemporaries:

The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a dinner-table between Sir George Bose and himself, in allusion to Craven-street, Strand, where he resided:—

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The late Mr. Tegg, the publisher in Cheapside, gave the following list of remunerative payments to distinguished authors in his time; and he is believed to have taken considerable pains to verify the items:

Fragments of History, by Charles Fox, sold by Lord Holland, for 5000 guineas. Fragments of History, by Sir James Mackintosh, 500l. Lingard’s History of England, 4683l. Sir Walter Scott’s Bonaparte was sold, with the printed books, for 18,000l.; the net receipts of copyright on the first two editions only must have been 10,000l. Life of Wilberforce, by his sons, 4000 guineas. Life of Byron, by Moore, 4000l. Life of Sheridan, by Moore, 2000l. Life of Hannah More, 2000l. Life of Cowper, by Southey, 1000l. Life and Times of George IV., by Lady C. Bury, 1000l. Byron’s Works, 20,000l. Lord of the Isles, half share, 1500l. Lalla Rookh, by Moore, 3000l. Rejected Addresses, by Smith, 1000l. Crabbe’s Works, republication of, by Mr. Murray, 3000l. Wordsworth’s Works, republication of, by Mr. Moxon, 1050l. Bulwer’s Rienzi, 1600l. Marryat’s Novels, 500l. to 1500l. each. Trollope’s Factory Boy, 1800l. Hannah More derived 30,000l. per annum for her copyrights, during the latter years of her life. Rundell’s Domestic Cookery, 2000l. Nicholas Nickleby, 3000l. Eustace’s Classical Tour, 2100l. Sir Robert Inglis obtained for the beautiful and interesting widow of Bishop Heber by the sale of his journal, 5000l.

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The story of Evelina being printed when the authoress was but seventeen years old is proved to have been sheer invention, to trumpet the work into notoriety; since it has no more truth in it than a paid-for newspaper puff. The year of Miss Burney’s birth was long involved in studied obscurity, and thus the deception lasted, until one fine day it was ascertained, by reference to the register of the authoress’ birth, that she was a woman of six or seven-and-twenty, instead of a “Miss in her teens,” when she wrote Evelina. The story of her father’s utter ignorance of the work being written by her, and recommending her to read it, as an exception to the novel class, has also been essentially modified. Miss Burney, (then Madame D’Arblay,) is said to have taken the characters in her novel of Camilla from the family of Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, who built for Gen. D’Arblay the villa in which the work was written, and which to this day is called “Camilla Lacy.” By this novel, Madame D’Arblay is said to have realized 3000 guineas.

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Lamb lies buried in Edmonton churchyard, and the stone bears the following lines to his memory, written by his friend, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the erudite translator of Dante and Pindar:—

Lamb survived his earliest friend and school-fellow, Coleridge, only a few months. One morning he showed to a friend the mourning ring which the author of Christabelle had left him. “Poor fellow!” exclaimed Lamb, “I have never ceased to think of him from the day I first heard of his death.” Lamb died in five days after—December 27, 1834, in his fifty-ninth year.

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The author of this very successful work, (originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine,) was a Mr. Mick Scott, born in Edinburgh in 1789, and educated at the High School. Several years of his life were spent in the West Indies. He ultimately married, returned to his native country, and there embarked in commercial speculations, in the leisure between which he wrote the Log. Notwithstanding its popularity in Europe and America, the author preserved his incognito to the last. He survived his publisher for some years, and it was not till Mr. Scott’s death that the sons of Mr. Blackwood were aware of his name.

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The royal patent, by which the performance of the regular drama was restricted to certain theatres, does not appear to have fostered this class of writing. Dr. Johnson forced Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer into the theatre. Tobin died regretting that he could not succeed in hearing the Honeymoon performed. Lillo produced George Barnwell (an admirably written play) at an irregular theatre, after it had been rejected by the holders of the patents. Douglas was cast on Home’s hands. Fielding was introduced as a dramatist at an unlicensed house; and one of Mrs. Inchbald’s popular comedies had lain two years neglected, when, by a trifling accident, she was able to obtain the manager’s approval.

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Marvellous anecdotes are related of Dr. Thomas Fuller’s memory. Thus, it is stated that he undertook once, in passing to and from Temple Bar to the farthest conduit in Cheapside, to tell at his return every sign as they stood in order on both sides of the way, repeating them either backward or forward. This must have been a great feat, seeing that every house then bore a sign. Yet, Fuller himself decried this kind of thing as a trick, no art. He relates that one (who since wrote a book thereof) told him, before credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had taught him (Fuller) the art of memory. Fuller replied that it was not so, for he could not remember that he had ever seen him before; “which, I conceive,” adds Fuller, “was a real refutation;” and we think so, too.

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Horace Walpole records Lord Hervey’s memorable saying about Lord Burlington’s pretty villa at Chiswick, now the Duke of Devonshire’s, that it was “too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to your watch;” and Lady Louisa Stuart has preserved a piece of dandyism in eating, which even Beau Brummell might have envied—“When asked at dinner whether he would have some beef, he answered, ‘Beef? oh, no! faugh! don’t you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those things?’ ”—The man that said these things was the successful lover of the prettiest maid of honour to the Princess of Wales—the person held up to everlasting ridicule by Pope—the vice-chamberlain whose attractions engaged the affections of the daughter of the Sovereign he served; and the peer whose wit was such that it “charmed the charming Mary Montague.”

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The following, one of the latest productions of the poet Moore, addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows that though by that time inclining to threescore and ten, he retained all the fire and vivacity of early youth. It is full of those exquisitely apt allusions and felicitous turns of expression in which the English Anacreon excels. It breathes the very spirit of classic festivity. Such an invitation to dinner is enough to create an appetite in any lover of poetry:—

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Cottle, in his Life of Coleridge, relates the following amusing incident:—

“I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty; but, after many strenuous attempts, I could not remove the collar. In despair, I called for assistance, when aid soon drew near. Mr. Wordsworth brought his ingenuity into exercise; but, after several unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement, as a thing altogether impracticable. Mr. Coleridge now tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessors; for, after twisting the poor horse’s neck almost to strangulation and the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse’s head must have grown (gout or dropsy?) since the collar was put on; for he said ‘it was a downright impossibility for such a huge os frontis to pass through so narrow a collar!’ Just at this instant, a servant-girl came near, and, understanding the cause of our consternation, ‘La! master,’ said she, ‘you don’t go about the work in the right way. You should do like this,’ when, turning the collar completely upside down, she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and wonderment, each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge in the world to which we had not yet attained.”

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Sir John Hawkins, in his “Memoirs of Johnson,” ascribes the decline of literature to the ascendancy of frivolous Magazines, between the years 1740 and 1760. He says that they render smatterers conceited, and confer the superficial glitter of knowledge instead of its substance.

Sir Richard Phillips, upwards of forty years a publisher, gives the following evidence as to the sale of the Magazines in his time:—

“For my own part, I know that in 1790, and for many years previously, there were sold of the trifle called the Town and Country Magazine, full 15,000 copies per month; and, of another, the Ladies’ Magazine, from 16,000 to 22,000. Such circumstances were, therefore, calculated to draw forth the observations of Hawkins. The Gentleman’s Magazine, in its days of popular extracts, never rose above 10,000; after it became more decidedly antiquarian, it fell in sale, and continued for many years at 3000.

“The veriest trifles, and only such, move the mass of minds which compose the public. The sale of the Town and Country Magazine was created by a fictitious article, called Bon-Ton, in which were given the pretended amours of two personages, imagined to be real, with two sham portraits. The idea was conceived, and, for above twenty years, was executed by Count Carraccioli; but, on his death, about 1792, the article lost its spirit, and within seven years the magazine was discontinued. The Ladies’ Magazine was, in like manner, sustained by love-tales and its low price of sixpence, which, till after 1790, was the general price of magazines.”

Things have now taken a turn unlooked for in those days. The price of most magazines, it is true, is still more than sixpence—usually a shilling, and at that price the Cornhill in some months reached an impression of 120,000; but the circulation of Good Words, at sixpence, has touched 180,000, and continues, we believe, to be over 100,000.

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And who was Mrs. Southey?—who but she who was so long known, and so great a favourite, as Caroline Bowles; transformed by the gallantry of the laureate, and the grace of the parson, into her matrimonial appellation. Southey, so long ago as the 21st of February, 1829, prefaced his most amatory poem of All for Love, with a tender address, that is now, perhaps, worth reprinting:—

The laureate had his wish; for in duty, he was bound to say, that worthier strains than his bore inscribed the name of Caroline connected with his own—and, moreover, she was something more than a dear friend and sister poetess.

“The laureate,” observes a writer in Fraser’s Magazine, “is a fortunate man; his queen supplies him with butts (alluding to the laureateship), and his lady with Bowls: then may his cup of good fortune be overflowing.”

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M. Agassiz, the celebrated palæontologist, is known to have relinquished pursuits from which he might have been in the receipt of a considerable income, and all for the sake of science. Dr. Buckland knew him, when engaged in this arduous career, with the revenue of only 100l.: and of this he paid fifty pounds to artists for drawings, thirty pounds for books, and lived himself on the remaining twenty pounds a year! Thus did he raise himself to an elevated European rank; and, in his abode, au troisième, was the companion and friend of princes, ambassadors, and men of the highest rank and talent of every country.

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Lord North had little reason to congratulate himself when he ventured on an interruption with Burke. In a debate on some economical question, Burke was guilty of a false quantity—“Magnum vectĭgal est parsimonia.” “Vectīgal,” said the minister, in an audible under-tone. “I thank the noble lord for his correction,” resumed the orator, “since it gives me the opportunity of repeating the inestimable adage—“Magnum vectīgal est parsimonia.” (Parsimony is a great revenue.)

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When Victor Hugo was an aspirant for the honours of the French Academy, and called on M. Royer Collard to ask his vote, the sturdy veteran professed entire ignorance of his name. “I am the author of Notre Dame de Paris, Les Derniers Jours d’un Condamné, Bug-Jargal, Marian Delorme, &c.” “I never heard of any of them,” said Collard. “Will you do me the honour of accepting a copy of my works?” said Victor Hugo. “I never read new books,” was the cutting reply.

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Dr. Johnson’s wigs were in general very shabby, and their fore-parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale’s butler always had a wig ready; and as Johnson passed from the drawing-room, when dinner was announced, the servant would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the newer one; and this ludicrous ceremony was performed every day.—Croker.

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Mr. Pitt was accustomed to relate very pleasantly an amusing anecdote of a total breach of memory in some Mrs. Lloyd, a lady, or nominal housekeeper, of Kensington Palace. “Being in company,” he said, “with Mr. Sheridan, without recollecting him, while Pizarro was the topic of discussion, she said to him, ‘And so this fine Pizarro is printed?’ ‘Yes, so I hear,’ said Sherry. ‘And did you ever in your life read such stuff?’ cried she. ‘Why I believe it’s bad enough,’ quoth Sherry; ‘but at least, madam, you must allow it’s very loyal.’ ‘Ah!’ cried she, shaking her head—‘loyal? you don’t know its author as well as I do.’ ”

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The following were Dr. Johnson’s several places of residence in and near London:—

1.	Exeter-street, off Catherine-street, Strand. (1737.)
2.	Greenwich. (1737.)
3.	Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square. (1737.)
4.	Castle-court, Cavendish-square; No. 6. (1738.)
5.	Boswell-court.
6.	Strand.
7.	Strand, again.
8.	Bow-street.
9.	Holborn.
10.	Fetter-lane.
11.	Holborn again; at the Golden Anchor, Holborn Bars. (1748.)
12.	Gough-square. (1748.)
13.	Staple Inn. (1758.)
14.	Gray’s Inn.
15.	Inner Temple-lane, No. 1. (1760.)
16.	Johnson’s-court, Fleet-street, No. 5. (1765.)
17.	Bolt-court, Fleet-street, No. 8. (1776.)

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Gibbon, when speaking of his own genealogy, refers to the fact of Fielding being of the same family as the Earl of Denbigh, who, in common with the Imperial family of Austria, is descended from the celebrated Rodolph, of Hapsburgh. “While the one branch,” he says, “have contented themselves with being sheriffs of Leicestershire, and justices of the peace, the others have been emperors of Germany and kings of Spain; but the magnificent romance of Tom Jones will be read with pleasure, when the palace of the Escurial is in ruins, and the Imperial Eagle of Austria is rolling in the dust.”

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Fielding having finished the manuscript of Tom Jones, and being at the time hard pressed for money took it to a second-rate publisher, with the view of selling it for what it would fetch at the moment. He left it with the trader, and called upon him next day for his decision. The bookseller hesitated, and requested another day for consideration; and at parting, Fielding offered him the MS. for 25l.

On his way home, Fielding met Thomson, the poet, whom he told of the negotiation for the sale of the MS.; when Thomson, knowing the high merit of the work, conjured him to be off the bargain, and offered to find a better purchaser.

Next morning, Fielding hastened to his appointment, with as much apprehension lest the bookseller should stick to his bargain as he had felt the day before lest he should altogether decline it. To the author’s great joy, the ignorant trafficker in literature declined, and returned the MS. to Fielding. He next set off, with a light heart, to his friend Thomson; and the novelist and the poet then went to Andrew Millar, the great publisher of the day. Millar, as was his practice with works of light reading, handed the MS. to his wife, who, having read it, advised him by no means to let it slip through his fingers.

Millar now invited the two friends to meet him at a coffee-house in the Strand, where, after dinner, the bookseller, with great caution, offered Fielding 200l. for the MS. The novelist was amazed at the largeness of the offer. “Then, my good sir,” said Fielding, recovering himself from his unexpected stroke of good fortune, “give me your hand—the book is yours. And, waiter,” continued he, “bring a couple of bottles of your best port.”

Before Millar died, he had cleared eighteen thousand pounds by Tom Jones, out of which he generously made Fielding various presents, to the amount of 2000l.; and he closed his life by bequeathing a handsome legacy to each of Fielding’s sons.

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The showman’s work is very profitable at the country-house of Voltaire, at Ferney, near Geneva. A Genevese, an excellent calculator, as are all his countrymen, many years ago valued as follows the yearly profit derived by the above functionary from his situation:—

	Francs.
8000 busts of Voltaire, made with earth of Ferney, at a franc a-piece	8,000
1200 autograph letters, at 20 francs	24,000
500 walking canes of Voltaire, at 50 francs each	25,000
300 veritable wigs of Voltaire, at 100 francs	30,000
In all	87,000

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Lord Brougham, during his indefatigable canvass of Yorkshire, in the course of which he often addressed ten or a dozen meetings in a day, thought fit to harangue the electors of Leeds immediately on his arrival, after travelling all night, and without waiting to perform his customary ablutions. “These hands are clean!” cried he, at the conclusion of a diatribe against corruption; but they happened to be very dirty, and this practical contradiction raised a hearty laugh.

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Jasper Mayne says of Master Cartwright, the author of tolerable comedies and poems, printed in 1651:—

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“One of the Authors of the Rejected Addresses” thus writes to a friend:[2]—

“Let me enlighten you as to the general disposal of my time. I breakfast at nine, with a mind undisturbed by matters of business; I then write to you, or to some editor, and then read till three o’clock. I then walk to the Union Club, read the journals, hear Lord John Russell deified or diablerized, (that word is not a bad coinage,) do the same with Sir Robert Peel or the Duke of Wellington; and then join a knot of conversationists by the fire till six o’clock, consisting of lawyers, merchants, members of Parliament, and gentlemen at large. We then and there discuss the three per cent. consols, (some of us preferring Dutch two-and-a-half per cent.), and speculate upon the probable rise, shape, and cost of the New Exchange. If Lady Harrington happen to drive past our window in her landau, we compare her equipage to the Algerine Ambassador’s; and when politics happen to be discussed, rally Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives alternately, but never seriously,—such subjects having a tendency to create acrimony. At six, the room begins to be deserted; wherefore I adjourn to the dining-room, and gravely looking over the bill of fare, exclaim to the waiter, ‘Haunch of mutton and apple tart.’ These viands despatched, with the accompanying liquids and water, I mount upward to the library, take a book and my seat in the arm-chair, and read till nine. Then call for a cup of coffee and a biscuit, resuming my book till eleven; afterwards return home to bed. If I have any book here which particularly excites my attention, I place my lamp on a table by my bed-side, and read in bed until twelve. No danger of ignition, my lamp being quite safe, and my curtains moreen. Thus ‘ends this strange eventful history,’ ” &c.

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The celebrated Mrs. Thicknesse undertook to construct a letter, every word of which should be French, yet no Frenchman should be able to read it; while an illiterate Englishman or Englishwoman should decipher it with ease. Here is the specimen of the lady’s ingenuity:—

“Pre, dire sistre, comme and se us, and pass the de here if yeux canne, and chat tu my dame, and dine here; and yeux mai go to the faire if yeux plaise; yeux mai have fiche, muttin, porc, buter, foule, hair, fruit, pigeon, olives, sallette, forure diner, and excellent te, cafe, port vin, an liqueurs; and tell ure bette and poll to comme; and Ile go tu the faire and visite the Baron. But if yeux dont comme tu us, Ile go to ure house and se oncle, and se houe he does; for mi dame se he bean ill; but deux comme; mi dire yeux canne ly here yeux nos; if yeux love musique, yeux mai have the harp, lutte, or viol heere. Adieu, mi dire sistre.”

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Flatman’s beautiful lines to Walton, (says Mr. Jesse) commencing—

have always struck us as conveying a true picture of Walton’s character, and of the estimation in which he was held after the appearance of his “Angler.”

The last male descendant of our “honest father,” the Rev. Dr. Herbert Hawes, died in 1839. He very liberally bequeathed the beautiful painting of Walton, by Houseman, to the National Gallery; and it is a curious fact, as showing the estimation in which any thing connected with Walton is held in the present day, that the lord of the manor in which Dr. Hawes resided, laid claim to this portrait as a heriot, though not successfully. Dr. Hawes also bequeathed the greater portion of his library to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury; and his executor and friend presented the celebrated prayer-book, which was Walton’s, to Mr. Pickering, the publisher. The watch which belonged to Walton’s connexion, the excellent Bishop Ken, has been presented to his amiable biographer, the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles.

Walton died at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, at Winchester. He was buried in Winchester Cathedral, in the south aisle, called Prior Silkstead’s Chapel. A large black marble slab is placed over his remains; and, to use the poetical language of Mr. Bowles, “the morning sunshine falls directly on it, reminding the contemplative man of the mornings when he was, for so many years, up and abroad with his angle, on the banks of the neighbouring stream.”

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Dr. Still, though Bishop of Bath and Wells, seems not to have been over fond of water; for thus he sings:—

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Sydney Smith writes:—If men are to be fools, it were better that they were fools in little matters than in great; dulness, turned up with temerity, is a livery all the worse for the facings; and the most tremendous of all things is a magnanimous dunce.

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In 1841, the author of Pelham lived in Charles-street, Berkeley-square, in a small house, which he fitted up after his own taste; and an odd melée of the classic and the baronial certain of the rooms presented. One of the drawing-rooms, we remember, was in the Elizabethan style, with an imitative oak ceiling, bristled with pendents; and this room opened into another apartment, a fac-simile of a chamber which Bulwer had visited at Pompeii, with vases, candelabra, and other furniture to correspond.

James Smith has left a few notes of his visit here: “Our host,” he says, “lighted a perfumed pastile, modelled from Vesuvius. As soon as the cone of the mountain began to blaze, I found myself an inhabitant of the devoted city; and, as Pliny the elder, thus addressed Bulwer, my supposed nephew:—‘Our fate is accomplished, nephew! Hand me yonder volume! I shall die as a student in my vocation. Do thou hasten to take refuge on board the fleet at Misenum. Yonder cloud of hot ashes chides thy longer delay. Feel no alarm for me; I shall live in story. The author of Pelham will rescue my name from oblivion.’ Pliny the younger made me a low bow, &c.” We strongly suspect James of quizzing “our host.” He noted, by the way, in the chamber were the busts of Hebe, Laura, Petrarch, Dante, and other worthies; Laura like our Queen.

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Sterne’s sermons are, in general, very short, which circumstance gave rise to the following joke at Bull’s Library, at Bath:—A footman had been sent by his lady to purchase one of Smallridge’s sermons, when, by mistake, he asked for a small religious sermon. The bookseller being puzzled how to reply to his request, a gentleman present suggested, “Give him one of Sterne’s.”

It has been observed, that if Sterne had never written one line more than his picture of the mournful cottage, towards the conclusion of his fifth sermon, we might cheerfully indulge the devout hope that the recording angel, whom he once invoked, will have blotted out many of his imperfections.

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A few days before the close of 1840, London lost one of its choicest spirits, and humanity one of her kindest-hearted sons, in the death of Thomas Hill, Esq.—“Tom Hill,” as he was called by all who loved and knew him. His life exemplified one venerable proverb, and disproved another; he was born in May, 1760, and was, consequently, in his 81st year, and “as old as the hills;” having led a long life and a merry one. He was originally a drysalter; but about the year 1810, having sustained a severe loss by a speculation in indigo, he retired upon the remains of his property to chambers in the Adelphi, where he died; his physician remarking to him, “I can do no more for you—I have done all I can. I cannot cure age.”

Hill, when in business at the unlettered Queenhithe, found leisure to accumulate a fine collection of books, chiefly old poetry, which afterwards, when misfortune overtook him, was valued at 6000l. Hill was likewise a Mæcenas: he patronized two friendless poets, Bloomfield and Kirke White. The Farmer’s Boy of the former was read and admired by him in manuscript, and was recommended to a publisher. Hill also established The Monthly Mirror, to which Kirke White was a contributor. Hill was the Hull of Hook’s Gilbert Gurney. He happened to know everything that was going on in all circles; and was at all “private views” of exhibitions. So especially was he favoured, that a wag recorded, when asked whether he had seen the new comet, he replied—“Pooh! pooh! I was present at the private view.”

Hill left behind him an assemblage of literary rarities, which it occupied a clear week to sell by auction. Among them was Garrick’s cup, formed from the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare in his garden at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon; this produced forty guineas. A small vase and pedestal, carved from the same mulberry-tree, and presented to Garrick, was sold with a coloured drawing of it, for ten guineas. And a block of wood, cut from the celebrated willow planted by Pope, at his villa at Twickenham, brought one guinea.

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Sir David Brewster relates that in the year 1566, an accident occurred to Tycho Brahe, at Wittenberg, which had nearly deprived him of his life. On the 10th of December, Tycho had a quarrel with a noble countryman, Manderupius Rasbergius, and they parted ill friends. On the 27th of the same month, they met again; and having renewed their quarrel, they agreed to settle their differences by the sword. They accordingly met at seven o’clock in the evening of the 29th, and fought in total darkness. In this blind combat, Manderupius cut off the whole of the front of Tycho’s nose, and it was fortunate for astronomy that his more valuable organs were defended by so faithful an outpost. The quarrel, which is said to have originated in a difference of opinion respecting their mathematical attainments, terminated here; and Tycho repaired his loss by cementing upon his face a nose of gold and silver, which is said to have formed a good imitation of the original. Thus, Tycho was, indeed, a “Martyr of Science.”

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George Colman, the younger, notes:—“There is no Shakspeare or Roscius upon record who, like Foote, supported a theatre for a series of years by his own acting, in his own writings; and for ten years of the time, upon a wooden leg! This prop to his person I once saw standing by his bedside, ready dressed in a handsome silk stocking, with a polished shoe and gold buckle, awaiting the owner’s getting up: it had a kind of tragic, comical appearance, and I leave to inveterate wags the ingenuity of punning upon a Foote in bed, and a leg out of it. The proxy for a limb thus decorated, though ludicrous, is too strong a reminder of amputation to be very laughable. His undressed supporter was the common wooden stick, which was not a little injurious to a well-kept pleasure-ground. I remember following him after a shower of rain, upon a nicely rolled terrace, in which he stumped a deep round hole at every other step he took, till it appeared as if the gardener had been there with his dibble, preparing, against all horticultural practice, to plant a long row of cabbages in a gravel walk.”

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Mr. Gifford to Mr. Hazlitt.

“What we read from your pen, we remember no more.”

Mr. Hazlitt to Mr. Gifford.

“What we read from your pen, we remember before.”

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This question has not yet been satisfactorily answered. In 1812, Dr. Mason Good, in an essay he wrote on the question, passed in review all the persons who had then been suspected of writing these celebrated letters. They are, Charles Lloyd and John Roberts, originally treasury clerks; Samuel Dyer, a learned man, and a friend of Burke and Johnson; William Gerard Hamilton, familiarly known as “Single-speech Hamilton;” Mr. Burke; Dr. Butler, late Bishop of Hereford; the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen; Major-General Lee, who went over to the Americans, and took an active part in their contest with the mother-country; John Wilkes; Hugh Macaulay Boyd; John Dunning, Lord Ashburton; Henry Flood; and Lord George Sackville.

Since this date, in 1813, John Roche published an Inquiry, in which he persuaded himself that Burke was the author. In the same year there appeared three other publications on Junius: these were, the Attempt of the Rev. J. B. Blakeway, to trace them to John Horne Tooke; next were the “Facts” of Thomas Girdlestone, M.D., to prove that General Lee was the author; and, thirdly, a work put forth by Mrs. Olivia Wilmot Serres, in the following confident terms:—“Life of the Author of Junius’s Letters,—the Rev. J. Wilmot, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford;” and, like most bold attempts, this work attracted some notice and discussion.

In 1815, the Letters were attributed to Richard Glover, the poet of Leonidas; and this improbable idea was followed by another, assigning the authorship of the Letters to the Duke of Portland, in 1816. In the same year appeared “Arguments and Facts,” to show that John Louis de Lolme, author of the famous Essay on the Constitution of England, was the writer of these anonymous epistles. In 1816, too, appeared Mr. John Taylor’s “Junius Identified,” advocating the claims of Sir Philip Francis so successfully that the question was generally considered to be settled. Mr. Taylor’s opinion was supported by Edward Dubois, Esq., formerly the confidential friend and private secretary of Sir Philip, who, in common with Lady Francis, constantly entertained the conviction that his deceased patron was identical with Junius.

In 1817, George Chalmers, F.S.A., advocated the pretensions of Hugh Macaulay Boyd to the authorship of Junius. In 1825, Mr. George Coventry maintained with great ability that Lord George Sackville was Junius; and two writers in America adopted this theory.

Thus was the whole question re-opened; and, in 1828, Mr. E. H. Barker, of Thetford, refuted the claims of Lord George Sackville and Sir Philip Francis, and advocated those of Charles Lloyd, private secretary to the Hon. George Grenville.[3]

In 1841, Mr. N. W. Simons, of the British Museum, refuted the supposition that Sir Philip Francis was directly or indirectly concerned in the writing; and, in the same year, appeared M. Jaques’s review of the controversy, in which he arrived at the conclusion that Lord George Sackville composed the Letters, and that Sir Philip Francis was his amanuensis, thus combining the theory of Mr. Taylor with that of Mr. Coventry.

The question was reviewed and revived in a volume published by Mr. Britton, F.S.A., in June 1848, entitled “The Authorship of the Letters of Junius Elucidated;” in which is advocated with great care the opinion that the Letters were, to a certain extent, the joint productions of Lieut.-Colonel Isaac Barré, M.P., Lord Shelburne, (afterwards Marquess of Lansdowne,) and Dunning, Lord Ashburton. Of these three persons the late Sir Francis Baring commissioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 1784-5, to paint portraits in one picture, which is regarded as evidence of joint authorship.

Only a week before his death, 1804, the Marquess of Lansdowne was personally appealed to on the subject of Junius, by Sir Richard Phillips. In conversation, the Marquess said, “No, no, I am not equal to Junius; I could not be the author; but the grounds of secrecy are now so far removed by death (Dunning and Barré were at that time dead), and change of circumstances, that it is unnecessary the author of Junius should much longer be unknown. The world is curious about him, and I could make a very interesting publication on the subject. I knew Junius, and I know all about the writing and production of these Letters.” The Marquess added, “If I live over the summer, which, however, I don’t expect, I promise you a very interesting pamphlet about Junius. I will put my name to it; I will set the question at rest for ever.” The death of the Marquess, however, occurred in a week. In a letter to the Monthly Magazine, July 1813, the son of the Marquess of Lansdowne says:—“It is not impossible my father may have been acquainted with the fact; but perhaps he was under some obligation to secrecy, as he never made any communication to me on the subject.”

Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope) at length and with minuteness enters, in his History, into a vindication of the claims of Sir Philip Francis, grounding his partisanship on the close similarity of handwriting established by careful comparison of facsimiles; the likeness of the style of Sir Philip’s speeches in Parliament to that of Junius—biting, pithy, full of antithesis and invective; the tenderness and bitterness displayed by Junius towards persons to whom Sir Philip stood well or ill affected; the correspondence of the dates of the letters with those of certain movements of Sir Philip; and the evidence of Junius’ close acquaintance with the War Office, where Sir Philip held a post. It seems generally agreed that the weight of proof is on the side of Sir Philip Francis; but there will always be found adherents of other names—as O’Connell, in the following passage, of Burke:—

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Three of the most celebrated resorts of the literati of the last century were Will’s Coffee-house, No. 23, on the north side of Great Russell-street, Covent Garden, at the end of Bow-street. This was the favourite resort of Dryden, who had here his own chair, in winter by the fireside, in summer in the balcony: the company met in the first floor, and there smoked; and the young beaux and wits were sometimes honoured with a pinch out of Dryden’s snuff-box. Will’s was the resort of men of genius till 1710: it was subsequently occupied by a perfumer.

Tom’s, No. 17, Great Russell-street, had nearly 700 subscribers, at a guinea a-head, from 1764 to 1768, and had its card, conversation, and coffee-rooms, where assembled Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Murphy, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Foote, and other men of talent: the tables and books of the club were not many years since preserved in the house, the first floor of which was then occupied by Mr. Webster, the medallist.

Button’s, “over against” Tom’s, was the receiving-house for contributions to The Guardian, in a lion-head box, the aperture for which remains in the wall to mark the place. Button had been servant to Lady Warwick, whom Addison married; and the house was frequented by Pope, Steele, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Addison. The lion’s head for a letter-box, “the best head in England,” was set up in imitation of the celebrated lion at Venice: it was removed from Button’s to the Shakspeare’s Head, under the arcade in Covent Garden; and in 1751, was placed in the Bedford, next door. This lion’s head is now treasured as a relic by the Bedford family.

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At the close of the first canto of Don Juan, its noble author, by way of propitiating the reader for the morality of his poem, says:—

Now, “the British” was a certain staid and grave high-church review, the editor of which received the poet’s imputation of bribery as a serious accusation; and, accordingly, in his next number after the publication of Don Juan, there appeared a postscript, in which the receipt of any bribe was stoutly denied, and the idea of such connivance altogether repudiated; the editor adding that he should continue to exercise his own judgment as to the merits of Lord Byron, as he had hitherto done in every instance! However, the affair was too ludicrous to be at once altogether dropped; and, so long as the prudish publication was in existence, it enjoyed the sobriquet of “My Grandmother’s Review.”

By the way, there is another hoax connected with this poem. One day an old gentleman gravely inquired of a printseller for a portrait of “Admiral Noah”—to illustrate Don Juan!

Sir Robert Walpole, in one of his letters, thus describes the relations of a skilful Minister with an accommodating Parliament—the description, it may be said, having, by lapse of time, acquired the merit of general inapplicability to the present state of things:—“My dear friend, there is scarcely a member whose purse I do not know to a sixpence, and whose very soul almost I could not purchase at the offer. The reason former Ministers have been deceived in this matter is evident—they never considered the temper of the people they had to deal with. I have known a minister so weak as to offer an avaricious old rascal a star and garter, and attempt to bribe a young rogue, who set no value upon money, with a lucrative employment. I pursue methods as opposite as the poles, and therefore my administration has been attended with a different effect.” “Patriots,” elsewhere says Walpole, “spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them within four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or insolent demand, and up starts a patriot.”

Johnson decided literary questions like a lawyer, not like a legislator. He never examined foundations where a point was already ruled. His whole code of criticism rested on pure assumption, for which he sometimes gave a precedent or authority, but rarely troubled himself to give a reason drawn from the nature of things. He judged of all works of the imagination by the standard established among his own contemporaries. Though he allowed Homer to have been a greater man than Virgil, he seems to have thought the Æneid to have been a greater poem than the Iliad. Indeed, he well might have thought so; for he preferred Pope’s Iliad to Homer’s. He pronounced that after Hoole’s translation of Tasso, Fairfax’s would hardly be reprinted. He could see no merit in our fine old English ballads, and always spoke with the most provoking contempt of Dr. Percy’s fondness for them.

Of all the great original works which appeared during his time, Richardson’s novels alone excited his admiration. He could see little or no merit in Tom Jones, in Gulliver’s Travels, or in Tristram Shandy. To Thomson’s Castle of Indolence he vouchsafed only a line of cold commendation—of commendation much colder than what he has bestowed on The Creation of that portentous bore, Sir Richard Blackmore. Gray was, in his dialect, a barren rascal. Churchill was a blockhead. The contempt which he felt for Macpherson was, indeed, just; but it was, we suspect, just by chance. He criticized Pope’s epitaphs excellently. But his observations on Shakspeare’s plays, and Milton’s poems, seem to us as wretched as if they had been written by Rymer himself, whom we take to have been the worst critic that ever lived.

The house of Gibbon, in which he completed his “Decline and Fall,” is in the lower part of the town of Lausanne, behind the church of St. Francis, and on the right of the road leading down to Ouchy. Both the house and the garden have been much changed. The wall of the Hotel Gibbon occupies the site of his summer-house, and the berceau walk has been destroyed to make room for the garden of the hotel; but the terrace looking over the lake, and a few acacias, remain.

Gibbon’s record of the completion of his great labour is very impressive. “It was on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last line of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waves, and all nature was silent.”

At a little inn at Morges, about two miles distant from Lausanne, Lord Byron wrote the Prisoner of Chillon, in the short space of two days, during which he was detained here by bad weather, June 1816: “thus adding one more deathless association to the already immortalized localities of the Lake.”

A fellow passenger with Mr. Dickens in the Britannia steam-ship, across the Atlantic, inquired of the author the origin of his signature, “Boz.” Mr. Dickens replied that he had a little brother who resembled so much the Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield, that he used to call him Moses also; but a younger girl, who could not then articulate plainly, was in the habit of calling him Bozie or Boz. This simple circumstance made him assume that name in the first article he risked to the public, and therefore he continued the name, as the first effort was approved of.

Sir John Malcolm once asked Warren Hastings, who was a contemporary and companion of Dr. Johnson and Boswell, what was his real estimation of Boswell’s Life of Johnson? “Sir,” replied Hastings, “it is the dirtiest book in my library;” then proceeding, he added: “I knew Boswell intimately; and I well remember, when his book first made its appearance, Boswell was so full of it, that he could neither think nor talk of anything else; so much so, that meeting Lord Thurlow hurrying through Parliament-street to get to the House of Lords, where an important debate was expected, for which he was already too late, Boswell had the temerity to stop and accost him with “Have you read my book?” “Yes,” replied Lord Thurlow, with one of his strongest curses, “every word of it; I could not help it.”

In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison could scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the deficiency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by the artificial encouragement—by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary merit were so splendid—at which men who could write well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided, patronized literature with emulous munificence.

Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Rowe was not only poet laureate, but land-surveyor of the Customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissioners of the Peace. Ambrose Phillips was judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance. Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silk-mercer, became a secretary of Legation at five-and-twenty. It was to a poem on the death of Charles II., and to “the City and Country Mouse,” that Montague owed his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and his auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the queen, would have been a bishop. Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a Commissioner of Stamps, and a member of Parliament. Arthur Mainwaring was a Commissioner of the Customs, and Auditor of the Imprest. Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison was Secretary of State.

But soon after the succession of the throne of Hanover, a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared little for poetry or eloquence. Walpole paid little attention to books, and felt little respect for authors. One of the coarse jokes of his friend, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, was far more pleasing to him than Thomson’s Seasons or Richardson’s Pamela.

When Brummell was obliged by want of money, and debt, and all that, to retire to France, he knew no French; and having obtained a grammar for the purpose of study, his friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummell had made in French. He responded, that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the Elements.

“I have put this pun into Beppo, (says Lord Byron), which is a fair exchange and no robbery, for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners, (as he owned himself,) by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered him in the morning.”

In a paper in the Edinburgh Review, we find this cabinet picture:—The club-room is before us, and the table, on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke, and the tall thin form of Langton; the courtly sneer of Beauclerc, and the beaming smile of Garrick; Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up—the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease; the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig, with the scorched foretop; the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and nose moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the “Why, sir!” and the “What then, sir?” and the “No, sir!” and the “You don’t see your way through the question, sir!”

In October, 1841, Dr. Chalmers commenced two series of biblical compositions, which he continued with unbroken regularity till the day of his decease, May 31, 1847. Go where he might, however he might be engaged, each week-day had its few verses read, thought over, written upon—forming what he denominated “Horæ Biblicæ Quotidianæ:” each Sabbath-day had its two chapters, one in the Old and the other in the New Testament, with the two trains of meditative devotion recorded to which the reading of them respectively gave birth—forming what he denominated “Horæ Biblicæ Sabbaticæ.” When absent from home or when the manuscript books in which they were ordinarily inserted were not beside him, he wrote in short-hand, carefully entering what was thus written in the larger volumes afterwards. Not a trace of haste nor of the extreme pressure from without, to which he was so often subjected, is exhibited in the handwriting of these volumes. There are but few words omitted—scarcely any erased. This singular correctness was a general characteristic of his compositions. His lectures on the Epistle to the Romans were written currente calamo, in Glasgow, during the most hurried and overburthened period of his life. And when, many years afterwards, they were given out to be copied for the press, scarcely a blot, or an erasure, or a correction, was to be found in them, and they were printed off exactly as they had originally been written.

In preparing the “Horæ Biblicæ Quotidianæ,” Chalmers had by his side, for use and reference, the “Concordance,” the “Pictorial Bible,” “Poole’s Synopsis,” “Henry’s Commentary,” and “Robinson’s Researches in Palestine.” These constituted what he called his “Biblical Library.” “There,” said he to a friend, pointing, as he spoke, to the above-named volumes, as they lay together on his library-table, with a volume of the “Quotidianæ,” in which he had just been writing, lying open beside them,—“There are the books I use—all that is Biblical is there. I have to do with nothing besides in my Biblical study.” To the consultation of these few volumes he throughout restricted himself.

The whole of the MSS. were purchased, after Dr. Chalmers’s death, for a large sum of money, by Mr. Thomas Constable, of Edinburgh, her Majesty’s printer; and were in due time given to, and most favourably received by, the public.

In the autumn of 1831, died the Rev. Dr. Shaw, at Chesley, Somersetshire, at the age of eighty-three: he is said to have been the last surviving friend of Dr. Johnson.

On the 16th of January, in the above year, died Mr. Richard Clark, chamberlain of the City of London, in the ninety-second year of his age. At the age of fifteen, he was introduced by Sir John Hawkins to Johnson, whose friendship he enjoyed to the last year of the Doctor’s life. He attended Johnson’s evening parties at the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet-street;[6] where, among other literary characters he met Dr. Percy, Dr. Goldsmith, and Dr. Hawksworth. A substantial supper was served at eight o’clock; the party seldom separated till a late hour; and Mr. Clark recollected that early one morning he, with another of the party, accompanied the Doctor to his house, where Mrs. Williams, then blind, made tea for them. When Mr. Clark was sheriff, he took Johnson to a “Judges’ Dinner,” at the Old Bailey; the judges being Blackstone and Eyre. Mr. Clark often visited the Doctor, and met him at dinner-parties; and the last time he enjoyed his company was at the Essex Head Club, of which, by the Doctor’s invitation, Clark became a member.

The chemical philosophers, Dr. Black and Dr. Hutton, were particular friends, though there was something extremely opposite in their external appearance and manner. Dr. Black spoke with the English pronunciation, and with punctilious accuracy of expression, both in point of matter and manner. The geologist, Dr. Hutton, was the very reverse of this: his conversation was conducted in broad phrases, expressed with a broad Scotch accent, which often heightened the humour of what he said.

It chanced that the two Doctors had held some discourse together upon the folly of abstaining from feeding on the testaceous creatures of the land, while those of the sea were considered as delicacies. Wherefore not eat snails? they are known to be nutritious and wholesome, and even sanative in some cases. The epicures of old praised them among the richest delicacies, and the Italians still esteem them. In short, it was determined that a gastronomic experiment should be made at the expense of the snails. The snails were procured, dieted for a time, and then stewed for the benefit of the two philosophers, who had either invited no guests to their banquet, or found none who relished in prospect the pièce de resistance. A huge dish of snails was placed before them: still, philosophers are but men, after all; and the stomachs of both doctors began to revolt against the experiment. Nevertheless, if they looked with disgust on the snails, they retained their awe for each other, so that each, conceiving the symptoms of internal revolt peculiar to himself, began, with infinite exertion, to swallow, in very small quantities, the mess which he internally loathed.

Dr. Black, at length, showed the white feather, but in a very delicate manner, as if to sound the opinion of his messmate. “Doctor,” he said, in his precise and quiet manner—“Doctor—do you not think that they taste a little—a very little, green?” “D——d green! d——d green! indeed—tak’ them awa’,—tak’ them awa’!” vociferated Dr. Hutton, starting up from table, and giving full vent to his feelings of abhorrence. So ended all hopes of introducing snails into the modern cuisine; and thus philosophy can no more cure a nausea than honour can set a broken limb.—Sir Walter Scott.

“Curran!” (says Lord Byron) “Curran’s the man who struck me most. Such imagination!—there never was anything like it that I ever heard of. His published life—his published speeches, give you no idea of the man—none at all. He was a machine of imagination, as some one said that Prior was an epigrammatic machine.” Upon another occasion, Byron said, “the riches of Curran’s Irish imagination were exhaustless. I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have ever seen written—though I saw him seldom, and but occasionally. I saw him presented to Madame de Stael, at Mackintosh’s—it was the grand confluence between the Rhone and the Saone; they were both so d——d ugly, that I could not help wondering how the best intellects of France and Ireland could have taken up respectively such residences.”

The poet Cowley died at the Porch House, Chertsey, on the 21st of July, 1667. There is a curious letter preserved of his condition when he removed here from Barn Elms. It is addressed to Dr. Sprat, dated Chertsey, 21 May, 1665, and is as follows:—

It is stated, by Sprat, that the last illness of Cowley was owing to his having taken cold through staying too long among his labourers in the meadows; but, in Spence’s Anecdotes we are informed, (on the authority of Pope,) that “his death was occasioned by a mere accident whilst his great friend, Dean Sprat, was with him on a visit at Chertsey. They had been together to see a neighbour of Cowley’s, who, (according to the fashion of those times,) made them too welcome. They did not set out for their walk home till it was too late; and had drank so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. The parish still talk of the drunken Dean.”

Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs. Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at Bolt Court, and his servant Frank could not immediately furnish her with a chair, the doctor said, “You see, madam, that wherever you go there are no seats to be got.”

Day, the author of Sandford and Merton, was an eccentric but amiable man; he retired into the country “to exclude himself,” as he said, “from the vanity, vice, and deceptive character of man,” but he appears to have been strangely jilted by women. When about the age of twenty-one, and after his suit had been rejected by a young lady to whom he had paid his addresses, Mr. Day formed the singular project of educating a wife for himself. This was based upon the notion of Rousseau, that “all the genuine worth of the human species is perverted by society; and that children should be educated apart from the world, in order that their minds should be kept untainted with, and ignorant of, its vices, prejudices, and artificial manners.”

Day set about his project by selecting two girls from an establishment at Shrewsbury, connected with the Foundling Hospital; previously to which he entered into a written engagement, guaranteed by a friend, Mr. Bicknell, that within twelve months he would resign one of them to a respectable mistress, as an apprentice, with a fee of one hundred pounds; and, on her marriage, or commencing business for herself, he would give her the additional sum of four hundred pounds; and he further engaged that he would act honourably to the one he should retain, in order to marry her at a proper age; or, if he should change his mind, he would allow her a competent support until she married, and then give her five hundred pounds as a dowry.

The objects of Day’s speculation were both twelve years of age. One of them, whom he called Lucretia, had a fair complexion, with light hair and eyes; the other was a brunette, with chesnut tresses, who was styled Sabrina. He took these girls to France without any English servants, in order that they should not obtain any knowledge but what he should impart. As might have been anticipated, they caused him abundance of inconvenience and vexation, increased, in no small degree, by their becoming infected with the small-pox; from this, however, they recovered without any injury to their features. The scheme ended in the utter disappointment of the projector. Lucretia, whom he first dismissed, was apprenticed to a milliner; and she afterwards became the wife of a linendraper in London. Sabrina, after Day had relinquished his attempts to make her such a model of perfection as he required, and which included indomitable courage, as well as the difficult art of retaining secrets, was placed at a boarding-school at Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire, where she was much esteemed; and, strange to say, was at length married to Mr. Bicknell.

After Day had renounced this scheme as impracticable, he became suitor to two sisters in succession; yet, in both instances, he was refused. At length, he was married at Bath, to a lady who made “a large fortune the means of exercising the most extensive generosity.”

Geoffrey Crayon (Irving), and Wilkie, the painter, were fellow-travellers on the Continent, about the year 1827. In their rambles about some of the old cities of Spain, they were more than once struck with scenes and incidents which reminded them of passages in the Arabian Nights. The painter urged Mr. Irving to write something that should illustrate those peculiarities, “something in the Haroun-al-Raschid style,” which should have a deal of that Arabian spice which pervades everything in Spain. The author set to work, con amore, and produced two goodly volumes of Arabesque sketches and tales, founded on popular traditions. His study was the Alhambra, and the governor of the palace gave Irving and Wilkie permission to occupy his vacant apartments there. Wilkie was soon called away by the duties of his station; but Washington Irving remained for several months, spell-bound in the old enchanted pile. “How many legends,” saith he, “and traditions, true and fabulous—how many songs and romances, Spanish and Arabian, of love, and war, and chivalry, are associated with this romantic pile.”

When the late Sir Richard Phillips took his “Morning’s Walk from London to Kew,” in 1816, he found that a portion of the family mansion in which Lord Bolingbroke was born had been converted into a mill and distillery, though a small oak parlour had been carefully preserved. In this room, Pope is said to have written his Essay on Man; and, in Bolingbroke’s time, the mansion was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment, of Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England. The oak room was always called “Pope’s Parlour,” it being, in all probability, the apartment generally occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke.

On inquiring for an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, Sir Richard Phillips was introduced to a Mrs. Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who told him she well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eyebrows. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. Sir Richard mentioned to her the names of several of Bolingbroke’s contemporaries; but she recollected none except that of Mallet, who, she said, she had often seen walking about in the village, while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House.

Milton was born at the Spread Eagle,[7] Bread-street, Cheapside, December 9, 1608; and was buried, November, 1674, in St. Giles’s Church, Cripplegate, without even a stone, in the first instance, to mark his resting-place; but, in 1793, a bust and tablet were set up to his memory by public subscription.

Milton, before he resided in Jewin-gardens, Aldersgate, is believed to have removed to, and “kept school” in a large house on the west side of Aldersgate-street, wherein met the City of London Literary and Scientific Institution, previously to the rebuilding of their premises in 1839.

Milton’s London residences have all, with one exception, disappeared, and cannot be recognised; this is in Petty France, at Westminster, where the poet lived from 1651 to 1659. The lower part of the house is a chandler’s-shop; the parlour, up stairs, looks into St. James’s-park. Here part of Paradise Lost was written. The house belonged to Jeremy Bentham, who caused to be placed on its front a tablet, inscribed, “Sacred to Milton, Prince of Poets.”

In the same glass-case with Shakspeare’s autograph, in the British Museum, is a printed copy of the Elegies on Mr. Edward King, the subject of Lycidas, with some corrections of the text in Milton’s handwriting. Framed and glazed, in the library of Mr. Rogers, the poet, hangs the written agreement between Milton and his publisher, Simmons, for the copyright of his Paradise Lost.—Note-book of 1848.

Dr. Dibdin, in his Reminiscences, relates:—“Sir John Stoddart married the sister of Lord Moncrieff, by whom he has a goodly race of representatives; but, before his marriage, he was the man who wrote up the Times newspaper to its admitted pitch of distinction and superiority over every other contemporary journal. Mark, gentle reader, I speak of the Times newspaper during the eventful and appalling crisis of Bonaparte’s invasion of Spain and destruction of Moscow. My friend fought with his pen as Wellington fought with his sword: but nothing like a tithe of the remuneration which was justly meted out to the hero of Waterloo befel the editor of the Times. Of course, I speak of remuneration in degree, and not in kind. The peace followed. Public curiosity lulled, and all great and stirring events having subsided, it was thought that a writer of less commanding talent, (certainly not the present Editor,) and therefore procurable at a less premium, would answer the current purposes of the day; and the retirement of Dr. Stoddart, (for he was at this time a civilian, and particularly noticed and patronised by Lord Stowell,) from the old Times, and his establishment of the New Times newspaper, followed in consequence. But the latter, from various causes, had only a short-lived existence. Sir John Stoddart had been his Majesty’s advocate, or Attorney-General, at Malta, before he retired thither a second time, to assume the office of Judge.”

The portal of the Boar’s Head was originally decorated with carved oak figures of Falstaff and Prince Henry; and in 1834, the former figure was in the possession of a brazier, of Great Eastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied since the great fire. The last grand Shakspearean dinner-party took place at the Boar’s Head about 1784. A boar’s head, with silver tusks, which had been suspended in some room in the house, perhaps the Half Moon or Pomegranate, (see Henry IV., Act. ii., scene 3,) at the great fire, fell down with the ruins of the houses, little injured, and was conveyed to Whitechapel Mount, where it was identified and recovered about thirty years ago.

The Edinburgh Review was first published in 1802. The plan was suggested by Sydney Smith, at a meeting of literati, in the fourth or fifth flat or story, in Buccleugh-place, Edinburgh, then the elevated lodging of Jeffrey. The motto humorously proposed for the new review by its projector was, “Tenui musam meditamur avena,”—i. e., “We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal;” but this being too nearly the truth to be publicly acknowledged, the more grave dictum of “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur” was adopted from Publius Syrus, of whom, Sydney Smith affirms, “None of us, I am sure, ever read a single line!” Lord Byron, in his fifth edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, refers to the reviewers as an “oat-fed phalanx.”

However great talents may command the admiration of the world, they do not generally best fit a man for the discharge of social duties. Swift remarks that “Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and disfigure the paper.”

The Gentleman’s Magazine unaccountably passes for the earliest periodical of that description; while, in fact, it was preceded nearly forty years by the Gentleman’s Journal of Motteux, a work much more closely resembling our modern magazines, and from which Sylvanus Urban borrowed part of his title, and part of his motto; while on the first page of the first number of the Gentleman’s Magazine itself, it is stated to contain “more than any book of the kind and price.”

This ingenious woman was the daughter of Joshua and Sarah Kirby, and was born at Ipswich, January 6, 1741. Kirby taught George the Third, when Prince of Wales, perspective and architecture. He was also President of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, out of which grew the Royal Academy. It was the last desire of Gainsborough to be buried beside his old friend Kirby, and their tombs adjoin each other in the churchyard at Kew.

Mrs. Trimmer, when a girl, was constantly reading Milton’s Paradise Lost; and this circumstance so pleased Dr. Johnson, that he invited her to see him, and presented her with a copy of his Rambler. She also repeatedly met Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Gregory, Sharp, Hogarth, and Gainsborough, with all of whom her father was on terms of intimacy. Mrs. Trimmer advocated religious education against the latitudinarian views of Joseph Lancaster. It was at her persuasion that Dr. Bell entered the field, and paved the way for the establishment of the National Society. Mrs. Trimmer died, in her seventieth year, in 1810. She was seated at her table reading a letter, when her head sunk upon her bosom, and she “fell asleep;” and so gentle was the wafting, that she seemed for some time in a refreshing slumber, which her family were unwilling to interrupt.

It was on a visit to the parliament house that Mr. Henry Erskine, (brother of Lord Buchan and Lord Erskine,) after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell’s hand, whispering that it was for the sight of his bear.—Sir Walter Scott.

Lord Elibank made a happy retort on Dr. Johnson’s definition of oats, as the food of horses in England, and men in Scotland. “Yes,” said he, “and where else will you see such horses, and such men?”—Sir Walter Scott.

The house in which Dr. Johnson was born, at Lichfield—where his father, it is well known, kept a small bookseller’s shop, and where he was partly educated—stood on the west side of the market-place. In the centre of the market-place is a colossal statue of Johnson, seated upon a square pedestal: it is by Lucas, and was executed at the expense of the Rev. Chancellor Law, in 1838. By the side of a footpath leading from Dam-street to Stow, formerly stood a large willow, said to have been planted by Johnson. It was blown down, in 1829; but one of its shoots was preserved and planted upon the same spot: it was in the year 1848 a large tree, known in the town as “Johnson’s Willow.”

Mr. Lomax, who for many years kept a bookseller’s shop—“The Johnson’s Head,” in Bird-street, Lichfield, possessed several articles that formerly belonged to Johnson, which have been handed down by a clear and indisputable ownership. Amongst them is his own Book of Common Prayer, in which are written, in pencil, the four Latin lines printed in Strahan’s edition of the Doctor’s Prayers. There are, also, a sacrament-book, with Johnson’s wife’s name in it, in his own handwriting; an autograph letter of the Doctor’s to Miss Porter; two tea-spoons, an ivory tablet, and a breakfast table; a Visscher’s Atlas, paged by the Doctor, and a manuscript index; Davies’s Life of Garrick, presented to Johnson by the publisher; a walking cane; and a Dictionary of Heathen Mythology, with the Doctor’s MS. corrections. His wife’s wedding-ring, afterwards made into a mourning-ring; and a massive chair, in which he customarily sat, were also in Mr. Lomax’s possession.

Among the few persons living in the year 1848 who ever saw Dr. Johnson, was Mr. Dyott, of Lichfield: this was seventy-four years before, or in 1774, when the Doctor and Boswell, on their tour into Wales, stopped at Ashbourne, and there visited Mr. Dyott’s father, who was then residing at Ashbourne Hall.[8]

After Coleridge left Cambridge, he came to London, where soon feeling himself forlorn and destitute, he enlisted as a soldier in the 15th Elliot’s Light Dragoons. “On his arrival at the quarters of the regiment,” says his friend and biographer, Mr. Gilman, “the general of the district inspected the recruits, and looking hard at Coleridge, with a military air, inquired ‘What’s your name, sir?’ ‘Comberbach!’ (the name he had assumed.) ‘What do you come here for, sir?’ as if doubting whether he had any business there. ‘Sir,’ said Coleridge, ‘for what most other persons come—to be made a soldier.’ ‘Do you think,’ said the general, ‘you can run a Frenchman through the body?’ ‘I do not know,’ replied Coleridge, ‘as I never tried; but I’ll let a Frenchman run me through the body before I’ll run away.’ ‘That will do,’ said the general, and Coleridge was turned in the ranks.”

The poet made a poor dragoon, and never advanced beyond the awkward squad. He wrote letters, however, for all his comrades, and they attended to his horse and accoutrements. After four months’ service, (December 1793 to April 1794), the history and circumstances of Coleridge became known. He had written under his saddle, on the stable wall, a Latin sentence (Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!) which led to an inquiry on the part of the captain of his troop, who had more regard for the classics than Ensign Northerton, in Tom Jones. Coleridge was, accordingly, discharged, and restored to his family and friends.

Perhaps, in Cobbett’s voluminous writings, there is nothing so complete as the following picture of his boyish scenes and recollections: it has been well compared to the most simple and touching passages in Richardson’s Pamela:—

Cobbett was, for a short time, a labourer in the kitchen grounds of the Royal Gardens at Kew. King George the Third often visited the gardens to inquire after the fruits and esculents; and one day, he saw here Cobbett, then a lad, who with a few halfpence in his pocket, and Swift’s Tale of a Tub in his hand, had been so captivated by the wonders of the royal gardens, that he applied there for employment. The king, on perceiving the clownish boy, with his stockings tied about his legs by scarlet garters, inquired about him, and specially desired that he might be continued in his service.

During his residence at Nether Stoney, Coleridge officiated as Unitarian preacher at Taunton, and afterwards at Shrewsbury. Mr. Hazlitt has described his walking ten miles on a winter day to hear Coleridge preach. “When I got there,” he says, “the organ was playing the 100th psalm, and, when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text:—‘He departed again into a mountain himself alone.’ As he gave out his text, his voice rose like a stream of rich distilled perfume; when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey. The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war—upon Church and State; not their alliance, but their separation; on the spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity; not as the same, but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore! He made a poetical and pastoral excursion; and, to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast between the simple shepherd-boy driving his team a-field, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, as though he should never be old, and the same poor country-lad crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the finery of the profession of blood.

and, for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the music of the spheres.”

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Fontenelle, who lived till within one month of a century, was very rarely known to laugh or cry, and even boasted of his insensibility. One day, a certain bon-vivant Abbé came unexpectedly to dine with him. The Abbé was fond of asparagus dressed with butter; Fontenelle, also, had a great goût for the vegetable, but preferred it dressed with oil. Fontenelle said, that, for such a friend, there was no sacrifice he would not make; and that he should have half the dish of asparagus which he had ordered for himself, and that half, moreover, should be dressed with butter. While they were conversing together, the poor Abbé fell down in a fit of apoplexy; upon which Fontenelle instantly scampered down stairs, and eagerly bawled out to his cook, “The whole with oil! the whole with oil, as at first!”

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The craft of authorship is by no means so easy of practice as is generally imagined by the thousands who aspire to its practice. Almost all our works, whether of knowledge or of fancy, have been the product of much intellectual exertion and study; or, as it is better expressed by the poet—

Pope published nothing until it had been a year or two before him, and even then his printer’s proofs were very full of alterations; and, on one occasion, Dodsley, his publisher, thought it better to have the whole recomposed than make the necessary corrections. Goldsmith considered four lines a day good work, and was seven years in beating out the pure gold of the Deserted Village. Hume wrote his History of England on a sofa, but he went quietly on correcting every edition till his death. Robertson used to write out his sentences on small slips of paper; and, after rounding them and polishing them to his satisfaction, he entered them in a book, which, in its turn, underwent considerable revision. Burke had all his principal works printed two or three times at a private press before submitting them to his publisher. Akenside and Gray were indefatigable correctors, labouring every line; and so was our prolix and more imaginative poet, Thomson. On comparing the first and latest editions of the Seasons, there will be found scarcely a page which does not bear evidence of his taste and industry. Johnson thinks the poems lost much of their raciness under this severe regimen, but they were much improved in fancy and delicacy; the episode of Musidora, “the solemnly ridiculous bathing scene,” as Campbell terms it, was almost entirely rewritten. Johnson and Gibbon were the least laborious in arranging their copy for the press. Gibbon sent the first and only MS. of his stupendous work (the Decline and Fall) to his printer; and Johnson’s high-sounding sentences were written almost without an effort. Both, however, lived and moved, as it were, in the world of letters, thinking or caring of little else—one in the heart of busy London, which he dearly loved, and the other in his silent retreat at Lausanne. Dryden wrote hurriedly, to provide for the day; but his Absalom and Achitophel, and the beautiful imagery of the Hind and Panther, must have been fostered with parental care. St. Pierre copied his Paul and Virginia nine times, that he might render it the more perfect. Rousseau was a very coxcomb in these matters: the amatory epistles, in his new Heloise, he wrote on fine gilt-edged card-paper, and having folded, addressed, and sealed them, he opened and read them in the solitary woods of Clairens, with the mingled enthusiasm of an author and lover. Sheridan watched long and anxiously for bright thoughts, as the MS. of his School for Scandal, in its various stages, proves. Burns composed in the open air, the sunnier the better; but he laboured hard, and with almost unerring taste and judgment, in correcting.[9]

Lord Byron was a rapid composer, but made abundant use of the pruning-knife. On returning one of his proof sheets from Italy, he expressed himself undecided about a single word, for which he wished to substitute another, and requested Mr. Murray to refer it to Mr. Gifford, then editor of the Quarterly Review. Sir Walter Scott evinced his love of literary labour by undertaking the revision of the whole of the Waverley Novels—a goodly freightage of some fifty or sixty volumes. The works of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Moore, and the occasional variations in their different editions, mark their love of the touching. Southey was, indeed, unwearied after his kind—a true author of the old school. The bright thoughts of Campbell, which sparkle like polished lances, were manufactured with almost equal care; he was the Pope of our contemporary authors.[10] Allan Cunningham corrected but little, yet his imitations of the elder lyrics are perfect centos of Scottish feeling and poesy. The loving, laborious lingering of Tennyson over his poems, and the frequent alterations—not in every case improvements—that appear in successive editions of his works, are familiar to all his admirers.

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Joe Miller, (Mottley,) was such a favourite at court, that Caroline, queen of George II., commanded a play to be performed for his benefit; the queen disposed of a great many tickets at one of her drawing-rooms, and most of them were paid for in gold.

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Much has been said of the state of insanity to which the author of the Ode to the Passions was ultimately reduced; or rather, as Dr. Johnson happily describes it, “a depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right, without the power of pursuing it.” What Johnson has further said on this melancholy subject, shows perhaps more nature and feeling than anything he ever wrote; and yet it is remarkable that among the causes to which the poet’s malady was ascribed, he never hints at the most exciting of the whole. He tells us how Collins “loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters;” how he “delighted to roam through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.” But never does he seem to have imagined how natural it was for a mind of such a temperament to give an Eve to the Paradise of his Creation. Johnson, in truth, though, as he tells us, he gained the confidence of Collins, was not just the man into whose ear a lover would choose to pour his secrets. The fact was, Collins was greatly attached to a young lady who did not return his passion; and there seems to be little doubt, that to the consequent disappointment, preying on his mind, was due much of that abandonment of soul which marked the close of his career. The object of his passion was born the day before him; and to this circumstance, in one of his brighter moments, he made a most happy allusion. A friend remarking to the luckless lover, that his was a hard case, Collins replied, “It is so, indeed; for I came into the world a day after the fair.”

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Mr. Speaker Abbott having spoken in slighting terms of some of Moore’s poems, the poet wrote, in return, the following biting epigram:

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When Lord Byron was in Parliament, a petition setting forth, and calling for redress for, the wretched state of the Irish peasantry, was one evening presented to the House of Lords, and very coldly received. “Ah!” said Lord Byron, “what a misfortune it was for the Irish that they were not born black! they would then have had plenty of friends in both Houses”—referring to the great interest at the time being taken by some philanthropic members in the condition and future of the negroes in our West Indian colonies.

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At a club of which Jerrold was a member, a fierce Jacobite, and a friend, as fierce, of the Orange cause, were arguing noisily, and disturbing less excitable conversationalists. At length the Jacobite, a brawny Scot, brought his fist down heavily upon the table, and roared at his adversary, “I tell you what it is, sir, I spit upon your King William!” The friend of the Prince of Orange rose, and roared back to the Jacobite, “And I, sir, spit upon your James the Second!” Jerrold, who had been listening to the uproar in silence, hereupon rang the bell, and shouted “Waiter, spittoons for two!”

At an evening party, Jerrold was looking at the dancers, when, seeing a very tall gentleman waltzing with a remarkably short lady, he said to a friend at hand, “Humph! there’s the mile dancing with the milestone!”

An old lady was in the habit of talking to Jerrold in a gloomy, depressing manner, presenting to him only the sad side of life. “Hang it,” said Jerrold, one day, after a long and sombre interview, “she would not allow that there was a bright side to the moon.”

Jerrold said to an ardent young gentleman, who burned with desire to see himself in print: “Be advised by me, young man: don’t take down the shutters before there is something in the windows.”

While Jerrold was discussing one day, with Mr. Selby, the vexed question of adapting dramatic pieces from the French, that gentleman insisted upon claiming some of his characters as strictly original creations. “Do you remember my Baroness in Ask No Questions?” said Mr. Selby. “Yes, indeed; I don’t think I ever saw a piece of yours without being struck by your barrenness,” was the retort.—Mark Lemon’s Jest-book.

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John Dennis, the dramatist, had a most extravagant and enthusiastic opinion of his tragedy of Liberty Asserted. He imagined that there were in it some strokes on the French nation so severe, that they would never be forgiven; and that, in consequence, Louis XIV. would never make peace with England unless the author was given up as a sacrifice to the national resentment. Accordingly, when the congress for the negotiation of the Peace of Utrecht was in contemplation, the terrified Dennis waited on the Duke of Marlborough, who had formerly been his patron, to entreat the intercession of his Grace with the plenipotentiaries, that they should not consent to his surrender to France being made one of the conditions of the treaty. The Duke gravely told the dramatist that he was sorry to be unable to do this service, as he had no influence with the Ministry of the day; but, he added, that he thought Dennis’ case not quite desperate, for, said his Grace, “I have taken no care to get myself excepted in the articles of peace, and yet I cannot help thinking that I have done the French almost as much damage as Mr. Dennis himself.” At another time, when Dennis was visiting at a gentleman’s house on the Sussex coast, and was walking on the beach, he saw a vessel, as he imagined, sailing towards him. The self-important timidity of Dennis saw in this incident a reason for the greatest alarm for himself, and distrust of his friend. Supposing he was betrayed, he made the best of his way to London, without even taking leave of his host, whom he believed to have lent himself to a plot for delivering him up as a captive to a French vessel sent on purpose to carry him off.

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Lully, the composer, being once thought mortally ill, his friends called a confessor, who, finding the patient’s state critical, and his mind very ill at ease, told him that he could obtain absolution only one way—by burning all that he had by him of a yet unpublished opera. The remonstrance of his friends was in vain; Lully burnt the music, and the confessor departed well pleased. The composer, however, recovered, and told one of his visitors, a nobleman who was his patron, of the sacrifice he had made to the demands of the confessor. “And so,” cried the nobleman, “you have burnt your opera, and are really such a blockhead as to believe in the absurdities of a monk!” “Stop, my friend, stop,” returned Lully; “let me whisper in your ear: I knew very well what I was about—I have another copy.”

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The learned Sale, who first gave to the world a genuine version of the Koran, pursued his studies through a life of wants. This great Orientalist, when he quitted his books to go abroad, too often wanted a change of linen; and he frequently wandered the streets, in search of some compassionate friend, who might supply him with the meal of the day.

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Sir Richard Lovelace, who in 1649 published the elegant collection of amorous and other poems entitled Lucasta, was an amiable and accomplished gentleman: by the men of his time (the time of the civil wars) respected for his moral worth and literary ability; by the fair sex, almost idolized for the elegance of his person and the sweetness of his manners. An ardent loyalist, the people of Kent appointed him to present to the House of Commons their petition for the restoration of Charles and the settlement of the government. The petition gave offence, and the bearer was committed to the Gate House, at Westminster, where he wrote his graceful little song, “Loyalty Confined,” opening thus:

But “dinnerless the polished Lovelace died.” He obtained his liberation, after a few months’ confinement. By that time, however, he had consumed all his estates, partly by furnishing the king with men and money, and partly by giving assistance to men of talent of whatever kind, whom he found in difficulties. Very soon, he became himself involved in the greatest distress, and fell into a deep melancholy, which brought on a consumption, and made him as poor in person as in purse, till he even became the object of common charity. The man who in his days of gallantry wore cloth of gold, was now naked, or only half covered with filthy rags; he who had thrown splendour on palaces, now shrank into obscure and dirty alleys; he who had associated with princes, banqueted on dainties, been the patron of the indigent, the admiration of the wise and brave, the darling of the chaste and fair—was now fain to herd with beggars, gladly to partake of their coarse offals, and thankfully to receive their twice-given alms—

Worn out with misery, he at length expired, in 1658, in a mean and wretched lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride’s church, Fleet Street. Such is the account of Lovelace’s closing days given by Wood in his Athenæ, and confirmed by Aubrey in his Lives of Eminent Men; but a recent editor and biographer (the son of Hazlitt) pronounces, though he does not prove, the account much exaggerated.

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The Empress Catherine of Russia having sent, as a present to Voltaire, a small ivory box made by her own hands, the poet induced his niece to instruct him in the art of knitting stockings; and he had actually half finished a pair, of white silk, when he became completely tired. Unfinished as the stockings were, however, he sent them to her Majesty, accompanied by a charmingly gallant poetical epistle, in which he told her that, “As she had presented him with a piece of man’s workmanship made by a woman, he had thought it his duty to crave her acceptance, in return, of a piece of woman’s work from the hands of a man.”—When Constantia Phillips was in a state of distress, she took a small shop near Westminster Hall, and sold books, some of which were of her own writing. During this time, an apothecary who had attended her once when she was ill, came to her and requested payment of his bill. She pleaded her poverty; but he still continued to press her, and urged as a reason for his urgency, that he had saved her life. “You have,” said Constantia, “you have indeed done so: I acknowledge it; and, in return, here is my life”—handing him at the same time the two volumes of her “Memoirs,” and begging that he would now take her life in discharge of his demand.

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Chatterton, the marvellous boy, wrote a political essay for the North Briton, Wilkes’s journal; but, though accepted, the essay was not printed, in consequence of the death of the Lord Mayor, Chatterton’s patron. The youthful patriot thus calculated the results of the suppression of his essay, which had begun by a splendid flourish about “a spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:”

“Lost, by the Lord Mayor’s death, in this essay, £1 11  6

Gained in elegies,              £2  2  0
Do.  in essays,                3  3  0
————      5  5  0
————
Am glad he is dead by                        £3 13  6”

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Locke, the brilliant author of the Essay on the Human Understanding, was once introduced by Lord Shaftesbury to the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Halifax. But the three noblemen, instead of entering into conversation on literary subjects with the philosopher, very soon sat down to cards. Locke looked on for a short time, and then drew out his pocket-book and began to write in it with much attention. One of the players, after a time, observed this, and asked what he was writing. “My Lord,” answered Locke, “I am endeavouring, as far as possible, to profit by my present situation; for, having waited with impatience for the honour of being in company with the greatest geniuses of the age, I thought I could do nothing better than to write down your conversation; and, indeed, I have set down the substance of what you have said for the last hour or two.” The three noblemen, fully sensible of the force of the rebuke, immediately left the cards and entered into a conversation more rational and more befitting their reputation as men of genius.

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When the immortal composer Haydn was on his visit to England, in 1794, his chamber-door was opened one morning by the captain of an East Indiaman, who said, “You are Mr. Haydn?” “Yes.” “Can you make me a ‘March,’ to enliven my crew? You shall have thirty guineas; but I must have it to-day, as to-morrow I sail for Calcutta.” Haydn agreed, the sailor quitted him, the composer opened his piano, and in a few minutes the march was written. He appears, however, to have had a delicacy rare among the musical birds of passage and of prey who come to feed on the unwieldy wealth of England. Conceiving that the receipt of a sum so large as thirty guineas for a labour so slight, would be a species of plunder, he came home early in the evening, and composed other two marches, in order to allow the liberal sea captain his choice, or make him take all the three. Early next morning, the purchaser came back. “Where is my march?” “Here it is.” “Try it on the piano.” Haydn played it over. The captain counted down the thirty guineas on the piano, took up the march, and went down stairs. Haydn ran after him, calling, “I have made other two marches, both better; come up and hear them, and take your choice.” “I am content with the one I have,” returned the captain, without stopping. “I will make you a present of them,” cried the composer. The captain only ran down the more rapidly, and left Haydn on the stairs. Haydn, opposing obstinacy to obstinacy, determined to overcome this odd self-denial. He went at once to the Exchange, found out the name of the ship, made his marches into a roll, and sent them, with a polite note, to the captain on board. He was surprised at receiving, not long after, his envelope unopened, from the captain, who had guessed it to be Haydn’s; and the composer tore the whole packet into pieces upon the spot. The narrator of this incident adds the remark, that “though the anecdote is of no great elevation, it expresses peculiarity of character; and certainly neither the composer nor the captain could have been easily classed among the common or the vulgar of men.”

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During his stay in England, Haydn was honoured by the diploma of Doctor of Music from the University of Oxford—a distinction not obtained even by Handel, and it is said, only conferred on four persons during the four centuries preceding. It is customary to send some specimen of composition in return for a degree; and Haydn, with the facility of perfect skill, sent back a page of music so curiously contrived, that in whatever way it was read—from the top to the bottom or the sides—it exhibited a perfect melody and accompaniment.

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It was Swift that first suggested to Gay the idea of the Beggar’s Opera, by remarking, what an odd, pretty sort of a thing a Newgate pastoral might make! “Gay,” says Pope, “was inclined to try at such a thing for some time; but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the Beggar’s Opera. He began on it; and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice, but it was wholly of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, ‘It would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.’ We were all, at the first sight of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by hearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, ‘It will do—I see it in the eyes of them.’ This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke (besides his own good taste) has as particular a knack as any one now living, in discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this, as usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause.”

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Sheridan made his appearance one day in a pair of new boots; these attracting the notice of some of his friends: “Now guess,” said he, “how I came by these boots?” Many probable guesses were then ventured, but in vain. “No,” said Sheridan, “no, you have not hit it, nor ever will. I bought them, and paid for them!” Sheridan was very desirous that his son Tom should marry a young lady of large fortune, but knew that Miss Callander had won his son’s heart. Sheridan, expatiating once on the folly of his son, at length broke out: “Tom, if you marry Caroline Callander, I’ll cut you off with a shilling!” Tom, looking maliciously at his father, said, “Then, sir, you must borrow it.” In a large party one evening, the conversation turned upon young men’s allowances at college. Tom deplored the ill-judging parsimony of many parents in that respect. “I am sure, Tom,” said his father, “you have no reason to complain; I always allowed you £800 a-year.” “Yes, father, I confess you allowed it; but then—it was never paid!”

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In a journey which Mademoiselle Scudéry, the Sappho of the French, made along with her no less celebrated brother, a curious incident befell them at an inn at a great distance from Paris. Their conversation happened one evening to turn upon a romance which they were then jointly composing, to the hero of which they had given the name of Prince Mazare. “What shall we do with Prince Mazare?” said Mademoiselle Scudéry to her brother. “Is it not better that he should fall by poison, than by the poignard?” “It is not time yet,” replied the brother, “for that business; when it is necessary we can despatch him as we please; but at present we have not quite done with him.” Two merchants in the next chamber, overhearing this conversation, concluded that they had formed a conspiracy for the murder of some prince whose real name they disguised under that of Mazare. Full of this important discovery, they imparted their suspicions to the host and hostess; and it was resolved to inform the police of what had happened. The police officers, eager to show their diligence and activity, put the travellers immediately under arrest, and conducted them under a strong escort to Paris. It was not without difficulty and expense that they there procured their liberation, and leave for the future to hold an unlimited right and power over all the princes and personages in the realms of romance.

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Hawkesworth and Stillingfleet died of criticism; Tasso was driven mad by it; Newton, the calm Newton, kept hold of life only by the sufferance of a friend who withheld a criticism on his chronology, for no other reason than his conviction that if it were published while he lived, it would put an end to him; and every one knows the effect on the sensitive nature of Keats, of the attacks on his Endymion. Tasso had a vast and prolific imagination, accompanied with an excessively hypochondriacal temperament. The composition of his great epic, the Jerusalem Delivered, by giving scope to the boldest flights, and calling into play the energies of his exalted and enthusiastic genius—whilst with equal ardour it led him to entertain hopes of immediate and extensive fame—laid most probably the foundation of his subsequent derangement. His susceptibility and tenderness of feeling were great; and, when his sublime work met with unexpected opposition, and was even treated with contempt and derision, the fortitude of the poet was not proof against the keen sense of disappointment. He twice attempted to please his ignorant and malignant critics by recomposing his poem; and during the hurry, the anguish, and the irritation attending these efforts, the vigour of a great mind was entirely exhausted, and in two years after the publication of the Jerusalem, the unhappy author became an object of pity and terror. Newton, with all his philosophy, was so sensible to critical remarks, that Whiston tells us he lost his favour, which he had enjoyed for twenty years, by contradicting him in his old age; for “no man was of a more fearful temper.”

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Of Butler, the author of Hudibras—which Dr. Johnson terms “one of those productions of which a nation may justly boast”—little further is known than that his genius was not sufficient to rescue him from its too frequent attendant, poverty; he lived in obscurity, and died in want. Wycherley often represented to the Duke of Buckingham how well Butler had deserved of the royal family by writing his inimitable Hudibras, and that it was a disgrace to the Court that a person of his loyalty and genius should remain in obscurity and suffer the wants which he did. The Duke, thus pressed, promised to recommend Butler to his Majesty; and Wycherley, in hopes to keep his Grace steady to his word, prevailed on him to fix a day when he might introduce the modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. The place of meeting fixed upon was the “Roebuck.” Butler and his friend attended punctually; the Duke joined them, when, unluckily, the door of the room being open, his Grace observed one of his acquaintances pass by with two ladies; on which he immediately quitted his engagement, and from that time to the day of his death poor Butler never derived the least benefit from his promise.

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The celebrated club at the “Mermaid,” as has been well observed by Gifford, “combined more talent and genius, perhaps, than ever met together before or since.” The institution originated with Sir Walter Raleigh; and here, for many years, Ben Jonson regularly repaired with Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect. Here, in the full flow and confidence of friendship, the lively and interesting “wit-combats” took place between Shakspeare and Jonson; and hither, in probable allusion to some of them, Beaumont fondly lets his thoughts wander in his letter to Johnson from the country:—

For the expression, “wit-combats,” we must refer to Fuller, who in his “Worthies,” describing the character of the Bard of Avon, says: “Many were the wit-combats between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. I behold them like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances; Shakspeare, like the latter, less in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.” With what delight would after generations have hung over any well-authenticated instances of these “wit-combats!” But, unfortunately, nothing on which we can depend has descended to us.

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Professor Porson, the great Græcist, when a boy at Eton, displayed the most astonishing powers of memory. In going up to a lesson one day, he was accosted by a boy in the same form: “Porson, what have you got there?” “Horace.” “Let me look at it.” Porson handed the book to his comrade; who, pretending to return it, dexterously substituted another in its place, with which Porson proceeded. Being called on by the master, he read and construed the tenth Ode of the first Book very regularly. Observing that the class laughed, the master said, “Porson, you seem to me to be reading on one side of the page, while I am looking at the other; pray whose edition have you?” Porson hesitated. “Let me see it,” rejoined the master; who, to his great surprise, found it to be an English Ovid. Porson was ordered to go on; which he did, easily, correctly, and promptly, to the end of the Ode. Much more remarkable feats of memory than this, however, have been recorded of Porson’s manhood.

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Wycherley being at Tunbridge for the benefit of his health, after his return from the Continental trip the cost of which the king had defrayed, was walking one day with his friend, Mr. Fairbeard, of Gray’s Inn. Just as they came up to a bookseller’s shop, the Countess of Drogheda, a young, rich, noble, and lovely widow, came to the bookseller and inquired for the Plain Dealer—a well-known comedy of Wycherley’s. “Madam,” said Mr. Fairbeard, “since you are for the Plain Dealer, there he is for you”—pushing Wycherley towards her. “Yes,” said Wycherley, “this lady can bear plain dealing; for she appears to me to be so accomplished, that what would be compliment said to others, would be plain dealing spoken to her.” “No, truly, sir,” said the Countess; “I am not without my faults, any more than the rest of my sex; and yet I love plain dealing, and am never more fond of it than when it tells me of them.” “Then, Madam,” said Fairbeard, “You and the Plain Dealer seem designed by Heaven for each other.” In short, Wycherley walked with the Countess, waited upon her home, visited her daily while she was at Tunbridge, and afterwards when she went to London; where, in a little time, a marriage was concluded between them. The marriage was not a happy one.

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Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delight in assembling under his roof the most eminent geniuses of the age; especially Chapelle, Racine, Molière, and La Fontaine. Racine the younger gives the following account of a droll circumstance that occurred at supper at Auteuil with these guests. “At this supper,” he says, “at which my father was not present, the wise Boileau was no more master of himself than any of his guests. After the wine had led them into the gravest strain of moralising, they agreed that life was but a state of misery; that the greatest happiness consisted in having been born, and the next greatest in an early death; and they one and all formed the heroic resolution of throwing themselves without loss of time into the river. It was not far off, and they actually went thither. Molière, however, remarked that such a noble action ought not to be buried in the obscurity of night, but was worthy of being performed in the face of day. This observation produced a pause; one looked at the other, and said, ‘He is right.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ said Chapelle, ‘we had better wait till morning to throw ourselves into the river, and meantime return and finish our wine;’ ” but the river was not revisited.

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The author of the Seasons and the Castle of Indolence, paid homage in the latter admirable poem to the master-passion or habit of his own easy nature. Thomson was so excessively lazy, that he is recorded to have been seen standing at a peach-tree, with both his hands in his pockets, eating the fruit as it grew. At another time, being found in bed at a very late hour of the day, when he was asked why he did not get up, his answer was, “Troth, man, I see nae motive for rising!”

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Fraulein Dorothea Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, was thought worthy of the highest academical honours of Göttingen University, and, at the jubilee of 1787, she had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her, when only seventeen years of age. The daughter of the Professor of Philosophy in that University, she from her earliest years discovered an uncommon genius for learning. Before she was three years of age, she was taught Low German, a language almost foreign to her own. Before she was six, she had learned French and German, and then she began geometry; and after receiving ten lessons, she was able to answer very difficult questions. The English, Italian, Swedish, and Dutch languages were next acquired, with singular rapidity; and before she was fourteen, she knew Latin and Greek, and had become a good classical scholar. Besides her knowledge of languages, she made herself acquainted with almost every branch of polite literature, as well as many of the sciences, particularly mathematics. She also attained great proficiency in mineralogy; and, during a sojourn of six weeks in the Hartz Forest, she visited the deepest mines, in the common habit of a labourer, and examined the whole process of the work. Her surprising talents becoming the general topic of conversation, she was proposed, by the great Orientalist Michaelis, as a proper subject for academical honours. The Philosophical Faculty, of which the Professor was Dean, was deemed the fittest; and a day was fixed for her examination, in presence of all the Professors. She was introduced by Michaelis himself, and distinguished, as a lady, with the highest seat. Several questions were first proposed to her in mathematics; all of which she answered to satisfaction. After this, she gave a free translation of the thirty-seventh Ode of the first Book of Horace, and explained it. She was then examined in various branches of art and science, when she displayed a thorough knowledge of the subjects. The examination lasted two hours and a half; and at the end, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was unanimously conferred upon her, and she was crowned with a wreath of laurel by Fraulein Michaelis, at the request of the Professors.

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Pope was one evening at Button’s Coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard their conference, begged that he might be permitted to look at the passage. “Oh,” said Pope, sarcastically, “by all means; pray let the young gentleman look at it.” Upon which the officer took up the manuscript, and, considering it awhile, said there only wanted a note of interrogation to make the whole intelligible: which was really the case. “And pray, Master,” says Pope with a sneer, “what is a note of interrogation?”—“A note of interrogation,” replied the young fellow, with a look of great contempt, “is a little crooked thing that asks questions.”

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“Dryden,” says Leigh Hunt, “is identified with the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. He presided in the chair at Russell Street (Will’s Coffee-house); his plays came out in the theatre at the other end of it; he lived in Gerrard Street, which is not far off; and, alas for the anti-climax! he was beaten by hired bravos in Rose Street, now called Rose Alley. The outrage perpetrated upon the sacred shoulders of the poet was the work of Lord Rochester, and originated in a mistake not creditable to that would-be great man and dastardly debauchee.” Dryden, it seems, obtained the reputation of being the author of the Essay on Satire, in which Lord Rochester was severely dealt with, and which was, in reality, written by Lord Mulgrave, afterwards the Duke of Buckinghamshire. Rochester meditated on the innocent Dryden a base and cowardly revenge, and thus coolly expressed his intent in one of his letters: “You write me word that I am out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you please, and leave the repartee to Black Will with a cudgel.” “In pursuance of this infamous resolution,” says Sir Walter Scott, “upon the night of the 18th December 1679, Dryden was waylaid by hired ruffians, and severely beaten, as he passed through Rose Street, Covent Garden, returning from Will’s Coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard Street. A reward of fifty pounds was in vain offered in the London Gazette and other newspapers, for the discovery of the perpetrators of this outrage. The town was, however, at no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the bravos; with whom the public suspicion joined the Duchess of Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus revenged.... It will certainly be admitted that a man, surprised in the dark, and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a misfortune. But if Dryden had received the same discipline from Rochester’s own hand, without resenting it, his drubbing could not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him; a sign, surely, of the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero that ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation on his character.”

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Samuel Rogers was requested by Lady Holland to ask Sir Philip Francis whether he was the author of Junius’ Letters. The poet, meeting Sir Philip, approached the ticklish subject thus: “Will you, Sir Philip—will your kindness excuse my addressing to you a single question?” “At your peril, Sir!” was the harsh and curt reply of the knight. The intimidated bard retreated upon his friends, who eagerly inquired of him the success of his application. “I do not know,” Rogers said, “whether he is Junius; but, if he be, he is certainly Junius Brutus.”

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Alfieri, the greatest poet modern Italy produced, delighted in eccentricities, not always of the most amiable kind. One evening, at the house of the Princess Carignan, he was leaning, in one of his silent moods, against a sideboard decorated with a rich tea service of china, when, by a sudden movement of his long loose tresses, he threw down one of the cups. The lady of the mansion ventured to tell him, that he had spoiled the set, and had better have broken them all. The words were no sooner said, than Alfieri, without reply or change of countenance, swept off the whole service upon the floor. His hair was fated to bring another of his eccentricities into play. He went one night, alone, to the theatre at Turin; and there, hanging carelessly with his head backwards over the corner of the box, a lady in the next seat on the other side of the partition, who had on other occasions made attempts to attract his attention, broke out into violent and repeated encomiums on his auburn locks, which were flowing down close to her hand. Alfieri, however, spoke not a word, and continued his position till he left the theatre. Next morning, the lady received a parcel, the contents of which she found to be the tresses which she had so much admired, and which the erratic poet had cut off close to his head. No billet accompanied the gift; but it could not have been more clearly said, “If you like the hair, here it is; but, for Heaven’s sake, leave me alone!”

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Smollett, perhaps one of the most popular authors by profession that ever wrote, furnishes a sad instance of the insufficiency of even the greatest literary favour, in the times in which he wrote, to procure those temporal comforts on which the happiness of life so much depends. “Had some of those,” he says, “who were pleased to call themselves my friends, been at any pains to deserve the character, and told me ingenuously what I had to expect in the capacity of an author, when first I professed myself of that venerable fraternity, I should in all probability have spared myself the incredible labour and chagrin I have since undergone.” “Of praise and censure both,” he writes at another time, “I am sick indeed, and wish to God that my circumstances would allow me to consign my pen to oblivion.” When he had worn himself down in the service of the public or the booksellers, there scarce was left of all his slender remunerations, at the last stage of life, enough to convey him to a cheap country and a restoring air on the Continent. Gradually perishing in a foreign land, neglected by the public that admired him, deriving no resources from the booksellers who were drawing the large profits of his works, Smollett threw out his injured feelings in the character of Bramble, in Humphrey Clinker: the warm generosity of his temper, but not his genius, seeming to fleet away with his breath. And when he died, and his widow, in a foreign land, was raising a plain memorial over his ashes, her love and piety but made the little less; and she perished in unbefriended solitude. “There are indeed,” says D’Israeli, “grateful feelings in the public at large for a favourite author; but the awful testimony of these feelings, by its gradual process, must appear beyond the grave! They visit the column consecrated by his name—and his features are most loved, most venerated, in the bust!”

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Douglas Jerrold and some friends were dining once at a tavern, and had a private room; but after dinner the landlord, on the plea that the house was partly under repair, requested permission that a stranger might take a chop in the apartment, at a separate table. The company gave the required permission; and the stranger, a man of commonplace aspect, was brought in, ate his chop in silence, and then fell asleep—snoring so loudly and discordantly that the conversation could with difficulty be prosecuted. Some gentleman of the party made a noise; and the stranger, starting out of his nap, called out to Jerrold, “I know you, Mr. Jerrold, I know you; but you shall not make a butt of me!” “Then don’t bring your hog’s head in here!” was the instant answer of the wit.

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An Edinburgh acquaintance is related to have sent to Shenstone, in 1761, as a small stimulus to their friendship, “a little provision of the best Preston Pans snuff, both toasted and untoasted, in four bottles; with one bottle of Highland Snishon, and four bottles Bonnels. Please to let me know which sort is most agreeable to you, that I may send you a fresh supply in good time.”

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Waller wrote a fine panegyric on Cromwell, when he assumed the Protectorship. Upon the restoration of Charles, Waller wrote another in praise of him, and presented it to the King in person. After his Majesty had read the poem, he told Waller that he wrote a better on Cromwell. “Please your Majesty,” said Waller, like a true courtier, “we poets are always more happy in fiction than in truth.”

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Perhaps there is no notable department of human effort and interest—not excepting literature itself—that furnishes such delightful and plentiful materials for anecdote and illustration, as Art and Artists. As the studios of eminent painters or sculptors afford a favourite lounge for men of taste and leisure; so, to those to whom such a pleasure is denied, or as regards those sovereigns of the pencil and chisel who are at rest from their labours, there is a peculiar gratification in being placed, in fancy, in contact with the creators of immortal things of beauty and of power. Artists, besides, have been and are, in very many cases, also men of culture and wit, of refined taste and powerful intellect—men remarkable quite apart from their performances on canvas or in marble. Their works, moreover, possess what we may almost term a personal history and vitality: they are each unique and full of character, like human beings; and their voyagings and vicissitudes are at times of even greater interest than those of their authors—whose life, too, is but as a span in comparison with theirs. This selection of facts and anecdotes relating to Art and Artists, therefore, seems to require for its subject-matter no strenuous recommendation to the favour of the reader; and it is put forth in the confident hope that it may not be found lacking either in variety or in interest.

CURIOUS FACTS AND CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES.

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In 1547, at the invitation of Charles V., Titian joined the imperial court. The Emperor, then advanced in years, sat to him for the third time. During the sitting, Titian happened to drop one of his pencils; the Emperor took it up; and on the artist expressing how unworthy he was of such an honour, Charles replied that Titian was “worthy of being waited upon by Cæsar.”—(See the Frontispiece.)—After the resignation of Charles V., Titian found as great a patron in his son, Philip II.; and when, in 1554, the painter complained to Philip of the irregularity with which a pension of 400 crowns granted to him by the Emperor was paid to him, the King wrote an order for the payment to the governor of Milan, concluding with the following words:—“You know how I am interested in this order, as it affects Titian; comply with it, therefore, in such a manner as to give me no occasion to repeat it.”

The Duke of Ferrara was so attached to Titian, that he frequently invited him to accompany him, in his barge, from Venice to Ferrara. At the latter place, he became acquainted with Ariosto. But, to reckon up the protectors and friends of Titian, would be to name nearly all the persons of the age, to whom rank, talent, and exalted character appertained.

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Benjamin West, the son of John West and Sarah Pearson, was born in Springfield, in the state of Pennsylvania, October 10, 1733. His mother, it seems, had gone to hear one Edward Peckover preach about the sinfulness of the Old World and the spotlessness of the New: terrified and overcome by the earnest eloquence of the enthusiast, she shrieked aloud, was carried home, and, in the midst of agitation and terror, was safely delivered of the future president of the Royal Academy. When the preacher was told of this, he rejoiced, “Note that child,” said he, “for he has come into the world in a remarkable way, and will assuredly prove a wonderful man.” The child prospered, and when seven years’ old began to fulfil the prediction of the preacher.

Little West was one day set to rock the cradle of his sister’s child, and was so struck with the beauty of the slumbering babe, that he drew its features in red and black ink. “I declare,” cried his astonished sister, “he has made a likeness of little baby!” He was next noticed by a party of wild Indians, who, pleased with the sketches which Benjamin had made of birds and flowers, taught him how to prepare the red and yellow colours with which they stained their weapons; to these, his mother added indigo, and thus he obtained the three primary colours. It is also related, that West’s artistic career was commenced through the present of a box of colours, which was made to him, when about nine years old, by a Pennsylvanian merchant, whose attention was attracted by some of the boy’s pen-and-ink sketches.

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Guido, when in embarrassment from his habit of gaming and extravagance, is related by Malvasia, his well-informed biographer, to have sold his time at a stipulated sum per hour, to certain dealers, one of whom tasked the painter so rigidly, as to stand by him, with watch in hand, while he worked. Thus were produced numbers of heads and half figures, which, though executed with the facility of a master, had little else to recommend them. Malvasia relates, that such works were sometimes begun and finished in three hours, and even less time.

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Shortly after Gainsborough’s death, Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President of the Royal Academy, delivered a discourse to the students, of which “the character of Gainsborough” was the subject. In this he alludes to Gainsborough’s method of handling—his habit of scratching. “All these odd scratches and marks,” he observes, “which, on a close examination, are so observable in Gainsborough’s pictures, and which, even to experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident than design—this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance—by a kind of magic, at a certain distance, assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places; so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chaste and hasty negligence.”

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Giorgione is, in some of his portraits, still unsurpassed. Du Fresnoy observes of him, that he dressed his figures wonderfully well; and it may truly be said, that, but for him, Titian would never have attained that perfection, which was the consequence of the rivalship and jealousy which prevailed between them.

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Backhuysen’s favourite subjects were wrecks and stormy seas, which he frequently sketched from nature in an open boat, at the great peril of himself and the boatmen. He made many constructive drawings of ships for the Czar Peter the Great, who took lessons of the painter, and frequently visited his painting-room. Among his other avocations, Backhuysen also gave lessons in writing, in which he introduced a new and approved method. He was a man of cheerful eccentricity. Within a few days of his death, he ordered a number of bottles of choice wine, on each of which he set his seal. A certain number of his friends were then invited to his funeral, to each of whom he bequeathed a gold coin, requesting them to spend it merrily, and to drink the wine with as much cordiality as he had in consigning it to them.

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George Morland, the famous painter of rustic and low life—a great but dissolute genius—when he left the paternal roof, had for master an Irishman in Drury-lane, who kept him constantly at his easel by never leaving his elbow. His meals were brought him by the shop-boy; his dinner consisting usually of sixpennyworth of beef from a cookshop, and a pint of beer. If he asked for five shillings, his taskmaster would growl, “D’ye think I’m made of money?” and give him half-a-crown. Morland painted pictures for this man enough to fill a room for admittance to which half-a-crown was charged. From this bondage he was freed by an invitation to Margate, by a lady of fortune, to paint portraits in the season; he stole away from his garret, and entered on profitable labour. In winter he returned to London. He had so risen in repute, that prints from his pictures had a marvellous sale. Soon, such was the demand for anything from his hand, that, though often ill-paid, he could earn from seventy to a hundred guineas a-week. But no man could be more heedless of money; and he hardly ever knew what it was to be out of want. He was constantly granting bills, and when they fell due, he seldom had cash to meet them. To get a note of £20 renewed for a fortnight, he has been known to give a picture that at once sold in his presence for £10. His easel was always surrounded by associates of the lowest cast—horse-dealers, jockeys, cobblers, &c. He had a wooden barrier placed across his room, with a bar that lifted up, to allow the passage of those with whom he had business, or who enjoyed his special favour. He might have been said to be in an academy in the midst of models. He would get one to stand for a hand, another for a head, an attitude, or a figure, according as their countenance or character suited him. Thus he painted some of his best pictures, while his low companions were regaling on gin and red herrings around him.

Morland, indeed, neither in nor beyond the studio let slip an opportunity which he could turn to professional advantage. Nature was the grand source from which he drew all his images. He dreaded becoming a mannerist. With other artists he never held any intercourse, nor had he prints of any kind in his possession; and he often declared that he would not step across the street to see the finest assemblage of paintings that ever was exhibited. Once, indeed, he was induced to go to see Lord Bute’s collection; but, having passed through one room, he refused to see more, declaring that he did not wish to contemplate the works of any other man, lest he should become an imitator.

At the death of his father, Morland was advised to claim the dormant title of Baronet, which had been conferred on one of his lineal ancestors by Charles II. Finding, however, that there was no emolument attached to the title, he renounced the distinction; saying that “plain George Morland could always sell his pictures, and there was more honour in being a fine painter than a titled gentleman; that he would have borne the vanity of a title had there been any income to accompany it; but as matters stood, he would wear none of the fooleries of his ancestors.” He died in 1804, while in confinement in consequence of intemperance.

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There are no examples in the history of painting, of such noble disinterestedness as has ever been shown by the English Historical Painters. Hogarth and others adorned the Foundling for nothing; Reynolds and West offered to adorn St. Paul’s for nothing, and yet were refused! Barry painted the Adelphi without remuneration; but, as Burke beautifully says, “the temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.”—Haydon’s Lectures.

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One of the finest examples of preserving beauty, even in maturity, is given in Niobe, the mother.

“In early life, at a rout, (says Haydon,) I admired and followed, during the evening, a mother and her daughters, distinguished for their beauty. The mother did not look old, and yet looked the mother. On scrutinizing and comparing mother and daughters, I found there was a little double chin in the mother, which marked her, without diminishing her beauty. I went at once, on my return to my studio, to the Niobe mother, and found this very mark in the Niobe mother, which I had never observed before, under her chin.”

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When Sir Richard Phillips, in his Morning’s Walk from London to Kew, visited the Church on Kew-green, he halted beside the tomb of Gainsborough, and said to the sexton’s assistant, “Ah, friend, this is a hallowed spot—here lies one of Britain’s favoured sons, whose genius has assisted in exalting her among the nations of the earth.”—“Perhaps it was so,” said the man; “but we know nothing about the people buried, except to keep up their monuments, if the family pay; and, perhaps, Sir, you belong to this family; if so, I’ll tell you how much is due.”—“Yes, truly, friend,” said Sir Richard, “I am one of the great family, bound to preserve the monument of Gainsborough; but if you take me for one of his relatives, you are mistaken.”—“Perhaps, Sir, you may be of the family, but were not included in the will; therefore, are not obligated.” Sir Richard could not avoid looking with scorn at the fellow; but, as the spot claimed better feelings, gave him a trifle, and so got rid of him.

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In a note-book of 1848, we read of Ruskin’s first work:—One of the most extraordinary and delightful books of the day, is Modern Painters, by a “Graduate of Oxford;” in which the author admits and vindicates his direct opposition to the general opinion, in placing Turner and other modern landscape painters above those of the seventeenth century—Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Canaletto, Hobbima, &c.

Yet, this remarkable book has been strangely treated by what is called the literary world. The larger reviews have taken little or no notice of it; and those periodicals which are considered to represent the literature of the fine arts, and to watch over their progress and interests, almost without an exception, have treated it with the most marked injustice, and the most shameful derision. Yet, in spite of all this neglect and maltreatment, the work has found its way into the minds and hearts of men. This is better shown by the first volume having reached a third edition, than by any of the most elaborate patronage from the press.

A writer in the North British Review, waxing eloquently wroth at this reception of a work of unquestionably high genius by the critics, observed:—“The national treatment is in this case a good index to the national mind and feeling; so that it is not to be wondered at, that such productions as Charles Lamb’s Essays on the Genius of Hogarth, and on the Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the productions of Modern Art—Hazlitt’s Works on Art—those of Sir Charles Bell and his brother John,—should rarely occur, and be not much regarded, and little understood, when they do, in a country where Hogarth was looked upon by the majority as a caricaturist fully as coarse as clever,—where Wilkie’s ‘Distraining for Rent’ could get no purchaser, because it was an unpleasant subject,—where to this day Turner is better known as being unintelligible and untrue, than as being more truthful, more thoughtful, than any painter of inanimate nature, ancient or modern,—where Maclise is accounted worthy to illustrate Shakspeare, and embody Macbeth and Hamlet, as having a kindred genius,—and where it was reserved to a few young, self-relying, unknown Scottish artists, (students of the Royal Scottish Academy,) to purchase Etty’s three pictures of Judith, the Combat, and the Lion-like Men of Moab, at a price which, though perilous to themselves, was equally disgraceful to the public who had disregarded them, and inadequate to the deserving of their gifted producer.”

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This exquisite picture was the gem of Sir Robert Peel’s fine collection. Its transparency and brilliancy are unrivalled: it is all but life itself. It was bought by Sir R. Peel for 3500 guineas.

The name of “Chapeau de Paille,” as applied to this picture, appears to be a misnomer. The portrait is in what is strangely termed a Spanish hat. Why it has become the fashion in this country to designate every slouched hat with a feather a Spanish hat, it is hard to say; since at the period that such hats were worn, (about the reign of Charles I. in England,) they were not more peculiar to Spain than to other European countries. Rubens himself wore a hat of this description; and it is related that his mistress, having placed his hat upon her own head, he borrowed from this circumstance the celebrated picture in question. With respect to the misnomer, it has been conjectured that Span’sh hut being somewhat similar in sound to Span hut, Flemish for straw hat, first led to the incongruous title “Chapeau de Paille.” Now, Span hut, the Flemish name of this work, does not mean a straw hat, but a wide-brimmed hat; and further, whoever has had the good fortune to see the picture, must be aware that the woman is there represented not in a straw (paille) hat, but a black hat. The French title, “Chapeau de Paille,” is, therefore, and we think with reason supposed to be but a corruption of Chapeau de Poil (nap, or beaver,) its real designation.

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Opie was painting an old beau of fashion. Whenever he thought the painter was touching the mouth, he screwed it up in a most ridiculous manner. Opie, who was a blunt man, said very quietly, “Sir, if you want the mouth left out, I will do it with pleasure.”

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Never, relates Haydon, was anything more extraordinary than the modesty and simplicity of Wilkie, at the period of his production of “The Village Politicians.” Jackson told me he had the greatest difficulty to persuade him to send this celebrated picture to the Exhibition; and I remember his (Wilkie’s) bewildered astonishment at the prodigious enthusiasm of the people at the Exhibition when it went, May, 1806. On the Sunday after the private day and dinner, the News said:—“A young Scotchman, by name Wilkie, has a wonderful work.” I immediately sallied forth, took up Jackson, and away we rushed to Wilkie. I found him in his parlour, in Norton-street, at breakfast. “Wilkie,” said I, “your name is in the paper.” “Is it, really?” said he, staring with delight. I then read the puff, ore rotundo; and Jackson, I, and he, in an ecstacy, joined hands, and danced round the table.

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Sir Thomas Lawrence, when attending the funeral of Mr. Dawe, R.A., in the vault of St. Paul’s Cathedral, was observed to look wistfully about him, as if contemplating the place as that to which he himself would some day be borne; and, when the service was concluded, it was remarked that he stopped to look at the inscription upon the stone which covers the body of his predecessor, West. Within three months from the date of this incident, the vaults were re-opened to receive Lawrence’s remains.

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“Oh, how I hate this expression!” said poor Haydon, in his famous Lectures. “When Wellington said he would break the charm of Napoleon’s invincibility, what was the reply? It will never do! When Columbus asserted there was another hemisphere, what was the reply? It will never do! And when Galileo offered to prove the earth went round the sun, the Holy Inquisition said, It shall never do! It will never do has been always the favourite watch-cry of those, in all ages and countries, who ever look on all schemes for the advancement of mankind as indirect reflections on the narrowness of their own petty comprehensions.”

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George the Fourth (when Regent) proposed to connect Carlton House, in Pall-Mall, with Marlborough House, and St. James’s Palace, by a gallery of portraits of the sovereigns and other historic personages of England; but, unfortunately Mr. Nash’s speculation of burying Carlton House and Gardens, and overlaying St. James’s Park with terraces, prevailed; and this magnificent design of an historical gallery was abandoned; although the crown of England possesses materials for an historical collection which would be infinitely superior to that of Versailles.

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“Of all conceptions, as well as executions of portraits,” says Dr. Dibdin, “that of Lord Heathfield, by Reynolds, is doubtless amongst the very finest and most characteristic. The veteran has a key, gently raised, in his right hand, which he is about to place in his left. It is the key of the impregnable fortress of Gibraltar; and he seems to say, ‘Wrest it from me at your peril!’ Kneller, and even Vandyke, would have converted this key into a truncheon. What a bluff spirit of unbending intrepidity and integrity was the illustrious Elliott! His country knows no braver warrior of his class than he!”

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“What are these marbles remarkable for?” said a respectable gentleman at the British Museum to one of the attendants, after looking attentively round the Elgin Saloon. “Why, sir,” said the man, with propriety, “because they are so like life.” “Like life!” repeated the gentleman, with the greatest contempt; “why, what of that?” and walked away.

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Mr. Howard, the well-known Secretary and Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy, died October 5, 1847, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was born in 1770; and was at Rome in 1794, when, in his twenty-fourth year, he forwarded his first work, “The Death of Cain,” to the Royal Academy Exhibition. In 1807, he painted “The Infant Bacchus brought by Mercury to the Nymphs of Nysa;” and in the autumn of the same year, he was elected a Royal Academician. Of his fellow academicians, in 1848, only two out of forty survived—Sir Martin Archer Shee, and Mr. J. M. W. Turner. Others, however, elected after him, had died before him—Callcott, and William Daniell, for instance; Wilkie, Dawe, Raeburn, Hilton, Collins, Jackson, Chantrey, Constable, and Newton. His diploma picture on his election was “The Four Angels, loosed from the River Euphrates.” For fifty-three years, from 1794 to 1847, Mr. Howard never missed sending to a Royal Academy Exhibition. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find another example of such assiduity; yet, where his pictures went—for he had few or no patrons, so called—it is hard to say. Banks and Flaxman, the two great sculptors, took notice of Howard’s early efforts, gave him friendly encouragement in all he did, and suggested, it is said, new subjects for his pencil. Yet, his pictures were very popular; they are classically cold; his place, therefore, in the history of Art is not likely to be high or lasting.

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In 1841, Messrs. Smith, the eminent printsellers, of Lisle-street, had the good fortune to discover in the country a duplicate set of the pictures of “The Marriage à-la-Mode,” by Hogarth; which appear to have escaped the researches of all the writers on his works. They are evidently the finished sketches, from which he afterwards painted the pictures now in the National Gallery, which are more highly wrought. The backgrounds of these pictures are very much subdued, which gives a greater importance to the figures. They became the property of H. R. Willett, Esq., of Merly House, Dorsetshire, who added them to his already rich collection of Hogarth’s works.

These pictures of “The Marriage-à-la-Mode” are painted in an exceedingly free and sketchy manner and are considered to have been most probably painted at the same time as the four pictures of the Election, now in the Soanean Museum, the execution of which they very much resemble. There is a considerable number of variations between these and the National Gallery pictures; and such differences throw much light upon the painter’s technical execution, which is somewhat disputed. “Although in some respects rather sketchily handled,” says a critic, “they are not painted feebly; and if they cannot be called highly finished, these productions are worthy to rank as cabinet pictures. To be fairly understood, (to use Charles Lamb’s happy expression,) ‘Hogarth’s pictures must be read, as well as looked at.’ ”

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The first great painter in encaustic, of whose works lengthened descriptions have been handed down, was Polygnotus. He painted his celebrated “Triumph of Miltiades and the Victors of Marathon,” by public desire; and such was the admiration in which it was held, that the Athenians offered to reward the artist with whatever he might desire. Polygnotus nobly declined asking anything; upon which the Amphictionic Council proclaimed that he should be maintained at the public expense wherever he went. Such was the homage of a whole nation! What, then, shall we say to the sentiments of the narrow-minded prelate, who declared that a pin-maker was a more valuable member of society than Raphael!

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Brunelleschi was the discoverer of the mode of erecting cupolas, which had been lost since the time of the Romans. Vasari relates a similar anecdote of him to that recorded of Columbus; though this has unquestionably the merit of being the first, since it occurred before the birth of Columbus. Brunelleschi died in 1446; Columbus was born in 1442.

A council of the most learned men of the day, from various parts of the world, was summoned to consult and show plans for the erection of a cupola, like that of the Pantheon at Rome. Brunelleschi refused to show his model, it being upon the most simple principles, but proposed that the man who could make an egg stand upright on a marble base should be the architect. The foreigners and artists agreeing to this, but failing in their attempts, desired Brunelleschi to do it himself; upon which he took the egg, and with a gentle tap broke the end, and placed it on the slab. The learned men unanimously protested that any one else could do the same; to which the architect replied, with a smile, that had they seen his model, they could as easily have known how to build a cupola.

The work then devolved upon him, but a want of confidence existing among the operatives and citizens, they pronounced the undertaking to be too great for one man; and arranged that Lorenzo Ghiberti, an artist of great repute at that time, should be co-architect with him. Brunelleschi’s anger and mortification were so great on hearing this decision, that he destroyed, in the space of half an hour, models and designs that had cost him years of labour, and would have quitted Florence but for the persuasions of Donatello. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the cupola was completed with perfect success by Brunelleschi; since St. Peter’s, at Rome, and our own St. Paul’s, were formed upon the model of his dome at Florence.

By the way, some of the wise men of the day proposed that a centre column should support the dome; others, that a huge mound of earth (with quatrini scattered among it) should be raised in the form of a cupola, the brick or stone wall built upon it. When finished, an order was to be issued, allowing the people to possess themselves of what money they might find in the rubbish; the mound would thus be easily removed, and the cupola be left clear!

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When Raphael enjoyed at Rome the reputation of being the mightiest living master of the graphic art, the Bolognese preferred their countryman, Francisco Francia, who had long dwelt among them, and was of eminent talent. The two artists had never met, nor had one seen the works of the other. But a friendly correspondence existed between them. The desire of Francia to see some of the works of Raphael, of whom he ever heard more and more in praise, was extreme; but advanced years deterred him from encountering the fatigues and dangers of a journey to Rome. A circumstance at last occurred that gave him, without this trouble, the opportunity of seeing what he had so long desired. Raphael having painted a picture of St. Cecilia, to be placed in a chapel at Bologna, he wrote to Francia, requesting him to see it put up, and even to correct any defects he might perceive in it. As soon as Francia took the picture from its case, and put it in a proper light for viewing it, he was struck with admiration and wonder, and felt painfully how much he was Raphael’s inferior. The picture was indeed one of the finest that ever came from Raphael’s pencil; but it was only so much the more a source of grief to the unhappy Francia. He assisted, as desired, in placing it in the situation for which it was intended; but never afterwards had he a happy hour. In one moment he had seen all that he had ever done, all that had been once so much admired, thrown quite into the shade. He was too old to entertain any hope, by renewed efforts, of coming up with the excellence of Raphael, or even approaching it. Struck to the heart with grief and despair, he took to his bed, from which he never rose again. He was insensible to all consolation, and in a few days, the victim of a sublime melancholy, he died, in his sixty-eighth year.

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“I think,” says the “Graduate of Oxford”—Ruskin—in his Modern Painters, “the noblest sea that Turner has ever painted, and, if so, the noblest certainly ever painted by man, is that of the Slave Ship, the chief Academy picture of the Exhibition of 1840. It is a sunset on the Atlantic, after prolonged storm; but the storm is partially lulled, and the torn and streaming rain-clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of sea included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high nor local, but a low broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting of its bosom by a deep-drawn breath after the torture of the storm. Between these two ridges, the fire of the sunset falls along the trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious light,—the intense and lurid splendour which burns like gold, and bathes like blood. Along this fiery path and valley, the tossing waves by which the swell of the sea is recklessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, but three or four together, in wild groups, fitfully and furiously, as the under strength of the swell compels or permits them; leaving between them treacherous spaces of level and whirling water, now lighted with green and lamp-like fire, now flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now fearfully dyed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds, which fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to the reckless waves the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and blue, the lurid shadows of the hollow breakers, are cast upon the mist of the night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like the shadow of death upon the guilty ship as it labours amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, girded with condemnation in that fearful hue which signs the sky with horror, and mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight; and cast far along the desolate heave of the sepulchral waves, incarnadines the multitudinous sea.”

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When Fuseli went with Haydon to the Elgin marbles, on recognising the flatness of the belly of the Theseus, in consequence of the bowels having naturally fallen in, he exclaimed, “By Gode, the Turks have sawed off his belly!” His eye was completely ruined.

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During the residence of Haydn, the celebrated composer, in England, one of the royal princes commissioned Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint his portrait. Haydn went to the residence of the painter, and gave him a sitting; but he soon grew tired. Sir Joshua, with his usual care for his reputation, would not paint a man of so distinguished genius with a stupid countenance, and in consequence he adjourned the sitting to another day. The same weariness and want of expression occurring at the next attempt, Sir Joshua went and communicated the circumstance to the commissioning prince, who contrived the following stratagem. He sent to the painter’s house a pretty German girl who was in the service of the Queen. Haydn took his seat for the third time, and as soon as the conversation began to flag, a curtain rose, and the fair German addressed him in his native tongue, with a most elegant compliment. Haydn, delighted, overwhelmed the enchantress with questions, his countenance recovered its animation, and Sir Joshua rapidly and successfully seized its traits.

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At my entrance among these divine things, (says Haydon,) for the first time with Wilkie, 1808, in Park-lane, the first thing I saw was the wrist of the right hand and arm of one of the Fates, leaning on the thigh; it is the Fate on the right side of the other, which, mutilated and destroyed as it was, proved that the great sculptor had kept the shape of the radius and ulna, as always seen in fine nature, male and female.

I felt at once, before I turned my eyes, that there was the nature and ideal beauty joined, which I had gone about the art longing for, but never finding! I saw at once I was amongst productions such as I had never before witnessed in the art; and that the great author merited the enthusiasm of antiquity, of Socrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Juvenal, of Cicero, of Valerius Maximus, and of Plutarch and Martial.

If such were my convictions on seeing this dilapidated but immortal wrist, what do you think they were on turning round to the Theseus, the horse’s head, and the fighting metope, the frieze, and the Jupiter’s breast?

Oh, may I retain such sensations beyond the grave! I foresaw at once a mighty revolution in the art of the world for ever! I saw that union of nature and ideal perfected in high art, and before this period pronounced by the ablest critics as impossible! I thanked God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my being, that I was ready to comprehend them from dissection. I bowed to the Immortal Spirit, which still hovered near them. I predicted at once their vast effect on the art of the world, and was smiled at for my boyish enthusiasm!

What I asserted in their future influence and enormous superiority, Canova, eight years after, confirmed. On my introduction by Hamilton, (author of Egyptiaca,) I asked Canova what he thought of them? and he instantly replied, with a glistening Italian fire, “Ils renverseront le systême des autres antiques.” Mr. Hamilton replied, “I have always said so, but who believed me? and what was the result of the principles I laid down? Why, many a squeeze of the hand to support me under my infirmities, and many a smile in my face in mercy at my delusion. ‘You are a young man,’ was often said; ‘and your enthusiasm is all very proper.’ ”

“After seeing them myself,” says Haydon, “I took Fuseli to see them; and, being a man of quick sensibility, he was taken entirely by surprise. Never shall I forget his uncompromising enthusiasm; he strode about, thundering out—‘The Greeks were gods!—the Greeks were gods!’ When he got home he wanted to modify his enthusiasm; but I always reminded him of his first impressions, and never let him escape.”

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James Smith says:—“I don’t fancy Painters. General Phipps used to have them much at his table. He once asked me if I liked to meet them. I answered, ‘No; I know nothing in their way, and they know nothing out of it.’ ”

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These are to be found in works of all ages. Thus we have Verrio’s Periwigged Spectators of Christ Healing the Sick; Abraham about to shoot Isaac with a pistol; Rubens’ Queen-mother, Cardinals, and Mercury; Velvet Brussels; Ethiopian King in a surplice, boots, and spurs; Belin’s Virgin and Child listening to a Violin; the Marriage of Christ with St. Catherine of Siena, with King David playing the Harp; Albert Durer’s flounced-petticoated Angel driving Adam and Eve from Paradise; Cigoli’s Simeon at the Circumcision, with “spectacles on nose;” the Virgin Mary helping herself to a cup of coffee from a chased coffee-pot; N. Poussin’s Rebecca at the Well, with Grecian architecture in the back-ground; Paul Veronese’s Benedictine Father and Swiss Soldiers; the red Lobsters in the Sea listening to the Preaching of St. Anthony of Padua; St. Jerome, with a clock by his side; and Poussin’s Deluge, with boats. In our time, West, the President of the Royal Academy, has represented Paris in a Roman instead of a Phrygian dress; and Wilkie has painted Oysters in the Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo—in June!

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Not one in ten thousand, perhaps, Mr. John Bell says, can move his ears. The celebrated Mr. Mery used, when lecturing, to amuse his pupils by saying that in one thing he surely belonged to the long-eared tribe; upon which he moved his ears very rapidly backwards and forwards. And Albinus, the celebrated anatomist, had the same power, which is performed by little muscles, not seen. Mr. Haydon tried it once in painting, with great effect. In his picture of Macbeth, painted for Sir George Beaumont, when the Thane was listening in horror before committing the murder, the painter ventured to press the ears forward, like an animal in fright, to give an idea of trying to catch the nearest sound. It was very effective, and increased amazingly the terror of the scene, without the spectators being aware of the reason.

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This ingenious R.A. was a native of Guildford, and the eldest son of Mr. John Russell, bookseller, of that town. In early youth he evinced a strong predilection for drawing, and was placed under the tuition of Mr. Francis Coates, an academician of great talent, after whose decease “he enjoyed the reputation of being the first artist in crayon painting, in which he particularly excelled in the delineation of female beauty.” In 1789, Russell was chosen a member of the Royal Academy; and soon after appointed crayon-painter to the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York. Notwithstanding this constant succession of professional employment, he devoted considerable attention to astronomical pursuits; and his Selenographia, or Model of the Moon, which occupied the whole of his leisure from the year 1785 until 1797, affords a remarkable instance of his ingenuity and perseverance. At the time of his decease he had finished two other drawings, which completed his plan, and exhibit an elaborate view of the moon in a full state of illumination. Mr. Russell died at Hull in 1806.

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On the birth of the son of a friend (afterwards a popular novelist), Sir David Wilkie was requested to become one of the sponsors for the child. Sir David, whose studies of human nature extended to everything but infant human nature, had evidently been refreshing his boyish recollections of kittens and puppies; for, after looking intently into the child’s eyes, as it was held up for his inspection, he exclaimed to the father, with serious astonishment and satisfaction, “He sees!”

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When assured that the progress of his fatal malady (cancer) precluded all hopes of life, Gainsborough desired to be buried in Kew churchyard, and that his name only should be cut on his gravestone. He sent for Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was reconciled to him: then exclaiming, “We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the company,” he immediately expired, in the sixty-first year of his age. Sheridan and Sir Joshua followed him to his grave.

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It is curious to reflect, that mistaken views of religion have in all times been the prime cause of the ruin of art. It was not Alaric or Theodoric, but an edict from Honorius, that ordered the early Christians to destroy such images, if any remained.

Flaxman says: “The commands for destroying sacred paintings and sculpture prevented the artist from suffering his mind to rise to the contemplation or execution of any sublime effort, as he dreaded a prison or a stake, and reduced him to the lowest drudgery in his profession. This extraordinary check to our national art occurred at a time which offered the most essential and extraordinary assistance to its progress.” Flaxman proceeds to remark, that “the civil wars completed what fanaticism had begun; and English art was so completely extinguished that foreign artists were always employed for public or private undertakings.”

In the reign of Elizabeth it became a fashionable taste to sally forth and knock pictures to pieces; and in the “State Trials” is a curious trial of Henry Sherfield, Esq., Recorder of Salisbury, who concealed himself in the church, and with a long pike knocked a window to pieces: as he was doing this, he was watched through the door, and seen to slip down, headlong, where he lay groaning for a long time, and a horse was sent for to carry him home: he was fined 500l., and imprisoned in the Fleet; and the Attorney-general for the Crown, 1632, said there were people, he verily believed, who would have knocked off the cherubim from the ark. By the witnesses examined, it was evidently a matter of religious conscience in Sherfield, who complained that his pew was opposite the window, and that the representation of God by a human figure disturbed him at prayer.

Queen Elizabeth was the bitterest persecutor: she ordered all walls to be whitewashed, and all candlesticks and pictures to be utterly destroyed, so that no memorial remain of the same.

In Charles the First’s time, on the Journals of the House is found, 1645, July 23: “Ordered, that all pictures having the second person in the Trinity shall be burnt.” Walpole relates, that one Blessie was hired at half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass window at Croydon Church. There is extant the journal of a parliamentary visitor, appropriately enough named Dowsing, appointed for demolishing superstitious pictures and ornaments of churches, &c.; and by calculation, he and his agents are found to have destroyed about 4660 pictures, from June 9, 1643, to October 4, 1644, evidently not all glass, because when they were glass he specifies them.

The result of this continued persecution, says Hayden, was the ruin of “high art;” for the people had not taste enough to feel any sympathy for it independently of religion, and every man who has pursued it since, who had no private fortune, and was not supported by a pension like West, became infallibly ruined.

Historical painters left without employment began to complain. In the time of Edward VI. and Elizabeth we find them petitioning for bread! They revived a little with Charles I. and II. Thornhill got employed in the early part of the last century; then came the Society in St. Martin’s Lane, 1760; and in 1768 was established the Royal Academy, to help high art; but there being still no employment for it, the power in art fell into the hands of portrait-painters, who too long continued to wield it, with individual exceptions, to the further decay and destruction of this eminent style.

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Every one remembers the marvellous story of Sir James Thornhill stepping back to see the effect of his work, while painting Greenwich Hospital; and being prevented falling from the ceiling to the floor, by a person intentionally defacing the picture, and causing the painter to rush forward, and thus save himself. This may have occurred; but we rather suspect the anecdote to be of legendary origin, and to come from no less distance than the Tyrol; in short, to be a paraphrase of a catholic miracle, unless the Tyrolese are quizzing the English story, which is not very probable. At Innspruck, you are gravely told that when Daniel Asam was painting the inside of the cupola of one of the churches, and had just finished the hand of St. James, he stepped back on the scaffold to ascertain the effect: there was no friend at hand gifted with the happy thought of defacing the work, and thus saving the artist, as in Sir James Thornhill’s case, and therefore Daniel Asam fell backward; but, to the astonishment of the awe-struck beholders, who were looking up from beneath, the hand and arm of the saint, which the artist had just finished, were seen to extend themselves from the fresco, and grasping the fortunate Asam by the arm, accompany him in his descent of 200 feet, and bear him up so gently, that he reached the ground without the slightest shock. What became of the “awe-struck beholders,” and why the saint and painter did not fall on their heads, or why they did not serve as an easel in bringing the pair miraculously to the ground, we are not told.

The Painted Hall at Greenwich, contains 53,678 square feet of Sir James Thornhill’s work, and cost 6,685l., being at the rate of 8l. per yard for the ceiling, and 1l. per yard for the sides. The whole is admirably described in Steele’s play of The Lovers.

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The pictures which now constitute the private gallery of her Majesty at Buckingham Palace, were principally collected by George the Fourth, whose exclusive predilection for pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools is well known. To those which he brought together here, and which formerly hung in Carlton House, her present Majesty has made, since her accession, many valuable additions—some purchased, and others selected from the royal collections at Windsor and Hampton Court; others have been added by Prince Albert, from the collection of the late Professor d’Alton, of Bonn. * * * George IV. began to form his collection about the year 1802, and was chiefly guided by the advice and judgment of Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, an accomplished man, whose taste for art, and intimacy with the king, then Prince of Wales, rendered him a very fit person to carry the royal wishes into execution. The importation of the Orleans gallery had diffused a feeling—or, it may be, a fashion—for the higher specimens of the Italian schools, but under the auspices of George IV. the tide set in an opposite direction. In the year 1812, the very select gallery of Flemish and Dutch pictures collected by Sir Francis Baring was transferred by purchase to the Prince Regent. Sir Francis Baring had purchased the best pictures from the collections of M. Geldermeester of Amsterdam, (sold in 1800,) and that of the Countess of Holderness, (sold in 1802,) and, except the Hope Gallery, there was nothing at that time to compare with it in England. Mr. Seguier valued this collection at eighty thousand pounds; but the exact sum paid for it was certainly much less.

The specimens of Rubens and Van Dyck are excellent, but do not present sufficient variety to afford an adequate idea of the wide range or power of the first of these great painters, nor of the particular talent of the last. On the other hand, the works and style of Gerard Douw, Teniers, Jan Steen, Adrian and Wilhelm Vandevelde, Wouvermans, and Burghem, may be very advantageously studied in this gallery, each of their specimens being many in number, various in subject, and good in their kind. Of Mieris and Metzes, there are finer specimens at Mr. Hope’s and Sir Robert Peel’s; and the Hobbimas and Cuyps must yield to those of Lord Ashburton and Lord Francis Egerton. But, on the whole, it is certainly the finest gallery of this class of works in England. The collection derives additional interest from the presence of some pictures of the modern British artists—Reynolds, Wilkie, Allan, Newton, Gainsborough. It is, however, only just to these painters to add, that not one of their pictures here ought to be considered as a first-rate example of their power.—Mrs. Jameson.

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To West must be given the record of achieving this honour; and what he has thus done in restoring historical painting to the purity of its original channel, can only be appreciated by those who have contemplated the debauched taste introduced into this country by Verrio, Laguerre, and other painters, who revived the ridiculous fooleries patronized in the reign of James the First; but which had, by the countenance of the nobility, and people of fashion, taken strong hold of most men’s minds. “A change,” says Cunningham, “was now to be effected in the character of British art: hitherto historical painting had appeared in a masquing habit; the actions of Englishmen seemed all as having been performed, if costume were to be believed, by Greeks or by Romans. West at once dismissed this pedantry, and restored nature and propriety in his noble work of ‘the Death of Wolfe.’ The multitude acknowledged its excellence at once; the lovers of old art, the manufacturers of compositions, called by courtesy classical, complained of the barbarism of boots and buttons, and blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors, with bows, bucklers, and battering rams. Lord Grosvenor, disregarding the frowns of the amateurs, and the, at best, cold approbation of the Royal Academy, purchased this work, which, in spite of laced coats and cocked hats, is one of the best of our historical pictures. The Indian warrior watching the dying hero to see if he equalled in fortitude the children of the desert, is a fine stroke of nature and poetry.”

West, however, was plagued with misgivings as to his new doctrine; and the dampers came forth in numbers with their unvarying, “It will never do.” When it was understood that West actually intended to paint the characters as they appeared on the scene, the Archbishop of York called on Reynolds, and asked his opinion; they both called upon West to dissuade him from running so great a risk. Reynolds warned him of the danger which every innovation incurred of contempt and ridicule; and concluded by urging him to adopt the costume of antiquity as more becoming the greatness of the subject than the garb of modern warriors. West replied that the event to be commemorated happened in the year 1758, in a region of the world unknown to Greeks and Romans, and at a period when no warriors wearing such costumes existed. The subject to be represented was a great battle, fought and won; and the same truth which gives laws to the historian should rule the painter; that he wanted to mark the place, the time, the people, and to do this he must abide by the truth.

The objectors went away, and returned when West had finished the picture. Reynolds seated himself before it, and examined it with deep and minute attention for half an hour; then rising, said to Drummond, “West has conquered—he has treated his subject as it ought to be treated. I retract my objections: I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art,” “I wish,” said king George the Third, to whom West related the conversation, “that I had known all this before, for the objection has been the means of Lord Grosvenor’s getting the picture; but you shall make a copy of it for me.” This anecdote, though it operates against the foresight of Reynolds, carries truth on the face of it.

The king not only gave West a pension of 1000l. a year, but when the artist hinted that the noble purpose of historical painting was best shown in depicting the excellencies of revealed religion, the monarch threw open St. George’s Chapel to be decorated with sacred subjects; and on his Majesty’s restoration to health, finding that the work had been suppressed, and the money withheld, he instantly ordered him to be paid, and the works proceeded with. The heads of the church, however, acted otherwise; for when the Academy proposed to decorate St. Paul’s with works of art, and Reynolds, West, Barry, Dance, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffman offered pictures free of expense, the Bishop of Bristol, Dr. Newton, at that time Dean of St. Paul’s, warmly took up the idea; but the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London refused their consent. The Bishop of London said: “My good Lord Bishop of Bristol, I have already been distantly and imperfectly informed of such an affair having been in contemplation; but as the sole power at last remains with myself, I therefore inform your lordship that whilst I live and have the power, I will never suffer the doors of the metropolitan church to be opened for the introduction of popery into it.”

Notwithstanding this heavy blow to the cause of art, the example of the king was the cause of many altarpieces being painted by West and others; one of the best of which is the very appropriate one in the chapel of Greenwich Hospital.[11]

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Gottfried Mind, a celebrated Swiss painter, was called the Cat Raphael, from the excellence with which he painted that animal. This peculiar talent was discovered and awakened by chance. At the time when Frendenberger painted his picture of the Peasant cleaving wood before his Cottage, with his wife sitting by and feeding her child with pap out of a pot, round which a cat is prowling, Mind cast a broad stare on the sketch of this last figure, and said, in his rugged, laconic way, “That is no cat!” Frendenberger asked, with a smile, whether he thought he could do it better? Mind offered to try; went into a corner, and drew the cat, which Frendenberger liked so much that he made his new pupil finish it out, and the master copied the scholar’s work—for it is Mind’s cat that is engraved in Frendenberger’s plate. Prints of Mind’s cats are now very common.

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Fuseli had a great dislike to common-place observations. After sitting perfectly silent for a long time in his own room, during “the bald disjointed chat” of some idle callers in, who were gabbling with one another about the weather, and other topics of as interesting a nature, he suddenly exclaimed, “We had pork for dinner to-day!” “Dear! Mr. Fuseli, what an odd remark!” “Why, it is as good as anything you have been saying for the last hour.”

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Barry, the painter, was with Nollekens at Rome in 1760, and they were extremely intimate. Barry took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English Coffee-house, to exchange hats with him; Barry’s being edged with lace, and Nollekens’s a very shabby, plain one. Upon his returning the hat next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him know why he left him his gold-laced hat. “Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey,” answered Barry, “I fully expected assassination last night, and I was to have been known by my laced hat.” Nollekens often used to relate the story, adding: “It’s what the Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem.”

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When Lawrence was but ten years old, his name had flown over the kingdom; he had read scenes from Shakspeare in a way that called forth the praise of Garrick, and drawn faces and figures with such skill as to obtain the approbation of Prince Hoare; his father, desirous of making the most of his talents, carried him to Oxford, where he was patronized by heads of colleges, and noblemen of taste, and produced a number of portraits, wonderful in one so young and uninstructed. Money now came in; he went to Bath, hired a house—raised his price from one guinea to two; his Mrs. Siddons, as Zara, was engraved—Sir Henry Harpur desired to adopt him as his son—Prince Hoare saw something so angelic in his face, that he proposed to paint him in the character of Christ, and the artists of London heard with wonder of a boy who was rivalling their best efforts with the pencil, and realizing, as was imagined, a fortune.

The Hon. Daines Barrington has the following record of Lawrence’s precocious talent in his Miscellanies: “This boy is now, (viz. February, 1780,) nearly ten years and a half old; but, at the age of nine, without the most distant instruction from any one, he was capable of copying historical pictures in a masterly style, and also succeeded amazingly in compositions of his own, particularly that of Peter denying Christ. In about seven minutes he scarcely ever failed of drawing a strong likeness of any person present, which had generally much freedom and grace, if the subject permitted.”

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This celebrated picture, (known also as “The Kemble Family,” from its introducing their portraits,) was the last and most esteemed work of J. H. Harlow, whom Sir Thomas Lawrence generously characterizes as “the most promising of all our painters.” The painting was commenced and finished in 1817; immediately after its exhibition at the Royal Academy, it was finely copied in mezzotint, by G. Clint; and the print in its time probably enjoyed more popularity than any production of its class. A proof impression has been known to realize upwards of twenty guineas.

The picture is on mahogany panel, stated to have cost the artist 15l.; it is one and a half inch in thickness, and in size about seven feet by five feet. It originated with Mr. T. Welsh, the professor of music, who, in the first instance, commissioned Harlow to paint for him a kit-cat size portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the character of Queen Katherine, in Shakspeare’s play of Henry VIII., introducing a few scenic accessories in the distance. For this portrait Harlow was to receive twenty-five guineas; but the idea of representing the whole scene occurred to the artist, who, with Mr. Welsh, prevailed upon most of the actors to sit for their portraits; in addition to these are portraits of the friends of both parties, including the artist himself. The sum ultimately paid by Mr. Welsh for the picture was one hundred guineas; and a like amount was paid by Mr. Cribb for Harlow’s permission to engrave the well-known print, to which we have already adverted.

Harlow owed many obligations to Fuseli for his critical remarks on this picture: when he first saw it, chiefly in dead-colouring, he said: “I do not disapprove of the general arrangement of your work, and I see you will give it a powerful effect of light and shadow; but you have here a composition of more than twenty figures, or, I should rather say, parts of figures, because you have not shown one leg or foot, which makes it very defective. Now, if you do not know how to draw legs and feet, I will show you,” and taking up a crayon, he drew two on the wainscot of the room. Harlow profited by these instructions, and the next time Fuseli saw the picture, the whole arrangement in the foreground was changed. He then said to Harlow, “So far you have done well; but now you have not introduced a back figure, to throw the eye of the spectator into the picture;” and then pointed out by what means he might improve it in this particular. Accordingly, Harlow introduced the two boys who are taking up the cushion.

It has been stated that the majority of the actors in the scene sat for their portraits in this picture. John Kemble, however, refused when asked to do so by Mr. Welsh, strengthening his refusal with emphasis profane. Harlow was not, however, to be defeated; and he actually drew Kemble’s portrait in one of the stage-boxes of Covent Garden Theatre, while the great actor was playing his part. The vexation such a ruse must have occasioned to a man of Kemble’s temperament may be imagined. Egerton, Pope, and Stephen Kemble were successively painted for Henry VIII., the artist retaining the latter. The head or Charles Kemble was likewise twice painted; the first, which cost him many sittings, was considered by himself and others to be very successful. The artist thought otherwise; and, contrary to Mr. Kemble’s wish and remonstrance, he one morning painted out the approved head: in a day or two, however, entirely from memory, Harlow repainted the portrait with increased fidelity. It is stated that but one sitting was required of Mrs. Siddons: the fact is, the great actress held her uplifted arm frequently till she could hold it raised no longer, and the majestic limb was finished from another original.

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Towards the close of Correggio’s days, it is said that the canons of one of the churches which he was employed to embellish, were so disappointed with the work, that, to insult him, they paid him the price in copper; that he had this unworthy burthen to carry eight miles in a burning sun; the length of the way, the weight of the load, and depression of spirits, brought on a fever which carried him in three days to his grave.

Among the many legends respecting this illustrious artist, it is said that, when young, he looked long and earnestly on one of the pictures of Raphael—his brow coloured, his eye brightened, and he exclaimed, “I also am a painter.” Titian, when he first saw his works, exclaimed, “Were I not Titian, I would wish to be Correggio.”

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In the spring of 1837, Mr. Atherstone bought for a few guineas a Magdalen, by Correggio, at the Auction Mart, where he saw it among a heap of spoiled canvass, that an amateur (no connoisseur) of pictures had sent to be sold. This gentleman had bought it in Italy for 100l., admiring its beauty, but ignorant of its value. It was in perfect preservation; in the grandest style of Correggio: and in colouring surpassing in brilliancy and depth of tone even the famous specimens in the National Gallery.

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Washington, on seeing this picture, remarked, “this work, highly valuable in itself, is rendered more estimable in my eye when I remember that America gave birth to the celebrated artist that produced it.” The picture is ten feet long, and seven feet six inches high. The painter refused fifteen hundred guineas for it; it was purchased, we know not at what price, by the Earl of Liverpool, who used to say that such a work ought not to be in his possession, but in that of the public. These words were not heard in vain by the son of the Earl, who munificently presented it to the National Gallery.

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Allan Cunningham warms into rapture in speaking of this wondrous picture, captured by Wellington at Vittoria. “The size is small, some fifteen inches square, or so; but true genius can work miracles in little compass. The central light of the picture is altogether heavenly; we never saw anything so insufferably brilliant; it haunted us round the room at Apsley House, and fairly extinguished the light of its companion-pictures. Joseph Bonaparte, not only a good king, but a good judge of painting, had this exquisite picture in his carriage when the tide of battle turned against him: it was transferred to the collection of the conqueror.”

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One day, when Giotto, the painter, was taking his Sunday walk, in his best attire, with a party of friends, at Florence, and was in the midst of a long story, some pigs passed suddenly by; and one of them, running between the painter’s legs, threw him down. When he got on his legs again, instead of swearing a terrible oath at the pig, on the Lord’s-day, as a graver man might have done, he observed, laughing, “People say these beasts are stupid, but they seem to me to have some sense of justice; for I have earned several thousands of crowns with their bristles, but I never gave one of them even a ladleful of soup in my life.”

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Sir John Sinclair, happening once to dine in company with Wilkie, asked, in the course of conversation, if any particular circumstance had led him to adopt his profession. Sir John inquired, “Had your father, mother, or any of your relations a turn for painting? or what led you to follow that art?” To which Wilkie replied, “The truth is, Sir John, that you made me a painter.”—“How, I?” exclaimed the Baronet; “I never had the pleasure of meeting you before.” Wilkie then gave the following explanation:—“When you were drawing up the Statistical Account of Scotland, my father, who was a clergyman in Fife, had much correspondence with you respecting his parish, in the course of which you sent him a coloured drawing of a soldier, in the uniform of your Highland Fencible Regiment. I was so delighted with the sight, that I was constantly drawing copies of it; and thus, insensibly, I was transformed into a painter.”

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In the year 1300, Giovani Cimabue and Giotto, both of Florence, were the first to assert the natural dignity and originality of art; and the story of these illustrious friends is instructive and romantic. The former was a gentleman by birth and scholarship, and brought to his art a knowledge of the poetry and sculpture of Greece and Rome. The latter was a shepherd; when the inspiration of art fell upon him, he was watching his flocks among the hills; and his first attempts in art were to draw his sheep and goats upon rocks and stones. It happened that Cimabue, who was then high in fame, observed the sketches of the gifted shepherd; entered into conversation with him; heard from his own lips his natural notions of the dignity of art; and was so much charmed by his compositions and conversation, that he carried him to Florence, and became his close and intimate friend and associate. They found Italian painting rude in form, without spirit, and without sentiment. They let out their own hearts fully in their compositions, and to this day their works are highly esteemed for grave dignity of character, and for originality of conception. Of these great Florentines, Giotto, the shepherd, is confessedly the more eminent: in him we see the dawn, or rather the sunrise, of the fuller light of Raphael.

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This great man showed from his infancy a strong inclination for drawing, and made so early a proficiency in it that, at the age of fourteen, he is said to have corrected the drawings of his master, Domenico Ghirlandaio. When Michael Angelo was an old man, one of these drawings being shown to him, he said, “In my youth I was a better artist than I am now.”

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This celebrated picture was disposed of by the painter by lottery. There were 1843 chances subscribed for; Hogarth gave the remaining 167 tickets to the Foundling Hospital, and the same night delivered the picture to the Governors. The fortunate number is generally stated to have been among the tickets which the painter handed to the Hospital; but, it is related in the Gentleman’s Magazine, though anonymously, that a lady was the possessor of the fortunate number, and intended to present it to the Foundling Hospital; but that some person having suggested what a door would be opened to scandal, were any of her sex to make such a present, it was given to Hogarth, on the express condition that it should be presented in his own name.

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Mr. Gordon relates:—“M. Averani, a young French artist at Florence, had extraordinary talent for copying miniatures, giving them all the force of oil. I had frequently seen him at work in the gallery, and I purchased of him a clever copy of the Fornarina of Raphael, and one of the Venus Vestita of Titian, in the Pitti Palace, said to be the only miniature painted by this great man. It had a good deal of the character of Queen Mary Stuart, was painted on a gold ground, had great force, and was highly finished. I gave the artist his price, six sequins, and brought it to England. When I disposed of my vertu, in Sloane-street, previous to my settling in Scotland, this miniature made a flaming appearance in the catalogue. The gem was bought by a gentleman for fifty-five guineas. I thought I had done very well by this transaction, until I saw it advertised in the Morning Chronicle, stating that “an original portrait of Mary, Queen of Scotland, the undoubted work of Titian, value one thousand guineas, was to be seen at No. 14, Pall-mall; price of admission, 2s. 6d.” The bait took; the owner put three or four hundred pounds into his pocket by the exhibition, and sold the portrait for seven or eight hundred pounds. Here was I an innocent accessory to the greatest imposition that was ever practised on the public. As a work of art, it was worth all I got for it; and I was offered nearly that sum by a friend who knew its whole history. I understand that a nobleman was the purchaser of this beautiful miniature.”

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John Astley, the painter, was born at Wem, in Shropshire. He was a pupil of Hudson, and was at Rome about the same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. After his return to England, he went to Dublin, practised there as a painter for three years, and in that time earned 3000l. As he was painting his way back to London, in his own postchaise, with an outrider, he loitered in his neighbourhood, and, visiting Nutsford Assembly, he there saw Lady Daniel, a widow, who was so captivated by him, that she contrived to sit to him for her portrait, and then offered him her hand, which he at once accepted. Poor Astley, in the decline of life, was disturbed by reflections upon the dissipation of his early days, and was haunted with apprehensions of indigence and want. He died at his house, Duckenfield Lodge, Cheshire, Nov. 14, 1787, and was buried at the church of that village.

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Wills, the portrait-painter, was not very successful in his profession, and so quitted it, and, having received a liberal education, took orders. He was for several years curate of Canons, in Middlesex, and at the death of the incumbent he obtained the living. In the year 1768, he was appointed chaplain to the chartered Society of Artists; and he preached a sermon at Covent-garden Church, on St. Luke’s Day, in the same year; the text being taken from Job, chap. xxxvii. verse 14—“Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.” This discourse was afterwards printed at the request of the Society; but Wills did not long enjoy his appointment, in consequence of the disputes which broke out among the members.

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The celebrated Italian sculptor Canova, when rich and titled, remained the same simple, unostentatious man as in his unknown and humble youth. He cared nothing for personal luxuries. Not only the pension of 3000 crowns granted him by the Pope with the title of Marquis, but a great part of the wealth acquired by his labours, were bestowed in acts of charity, and upon unfortunate artists. One year, the harvest failing, he fed the poor of his native Venetian village all winter at his own expense. The manner in which he bestowed his favours reflected additional honour on him. A poor, proud, bad painter, was in danger of starving, with all his family. Canova knew the man would refuse a gift; and, out of respect to his feelings, he sacrificed his own taste. He requested him to paint a picture, leaving the subject and size to his own choice, and saying he had set aside 400 scudi (not less than £100) for this purpose, half of which he handed him at present, the other half should be sent when the work was finished; adding, that the sooner he received it, he should be the better pleased.

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Hogarth displayed no little vanity regarding his pretensions as a portrait-painter. One day, when dining at Dr. Cheselden’s, he was told that John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, had asserted in Dick’s coffee-house, that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. “That fellow, Freke,” cried Hogarth, “is always shooting his bolt absurdly, one way or another. Handel is a giant in music, Greene only a light Florimel-kind of composer.” “Ay, but,” said the other, “Freke declared you were as good a portrait-painter as Vandyke.” “There he was in the right,” quoth Hogarth; “and so I am, give me but my time, and let me choose my subject.”

Writing of himself, Hogarth says:—“The portrait which I painted with most pleasure, and in which I particularly wished to excel, was that of Captain Coram, for the Foundling Hospital;” and he adds, in allusion to his detraction as a portrait-painter, “If I am so wretched an artist as my enemies assert, it is somewhat strange that this, which was one of the first I painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years’ competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place, notwithstanding the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their talents to vie with it.”

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That Tenterden Steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands does not appear a whit more strange than that in the Foundling Hospital originated the Royal Academy of Arts. Yet, such was the case. The Hospital was incorporated in 1739, and in a few years the present building was erected; but, as the income of the charity could not, with propriety, be expended upon decorations, many of the principal artists of that day generously gave pictures for several of the apartments of the hospital. These were permitted to be shown to the public upon proper application; and hence became one of the sights of the metropolis. The pictures proved very attractive; and this success suggested the annual Exhibition of the united artists, which institution was the precursor of the Royal Academy, in the Adelphi, in the year 1760. Thus, within the walls of the Foundling, the curious may see the state of British art previously to the epoch when King George the Third first countenanced the historical talent of West.

Among the earliest “governors and guardians” of the Hospital we find William Hogarth, who liberally subscribed his money, and gave his time and talent, towards carrying out the designs of his friend, the venerable Captain Coram, through whose zeal and humanity the Hospital was established. Hogarth’s first artistical aid was the engraving of a head-piece to a power-of-attorney, drawn for the collection of subscriptions towards the Charity; Hogarth next presented to the Hospital an engraved plate of Coram.

Among the early artistic patrons of the Charity, we find Rysbrach, the sculptor; Hayman, the embellisher of Vauxhall Gardens; Highmore, Hudson, and Allan Ramsay; and Richard Wilson, the prince of English landscape-painters. They met often at the hospital, and thus advanced charity and the arts together; for the exhibition of their donations in paintings &c. drew a daily crowd of visitors in splendid carriages; and a visit to the Foundling became the most fashionable morning lounge of the reign of George the Second. The grounds in front of the Hospital were the promenade; and brocaded silks, gold-headed canes, and laced three-cornered (Egham, Staines, and Windsor) hats, formed a gay bevy in Lambs’ Conduit Fields.

A very interesting series of biographettes of “the artists of the Foundling,” with a catalogue raisonnée of the pictures presented by them, will be found in Mr. Brownlow’s “Memoranda; or, Chronicles” of the Hospital. Among the pictures by Hogarth, are--“Moses brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter,” the “March to Finchley,” and a “Portrait of Captain Coram.” Here are, also, “The Charterhouse,” by Gainsborough; “St. George’s and the Foundling Hospitals,” by Wilson; “Portrait of Handel,” by Kneller; “The Earl of Dartmouth,” by Reynolds; The Cartoon of “The Murder of the Innocents,” by Raphael; the altarpiece of the chapel, “Christ presenting a Little Child,” by West; Portrait of the “Earl of Macclesfield,” by Wilson; “Dr. Mead,” by Allan Ramsay; “George the Second,” by Shackleton; “the Offering of the Wise Men,” by Casali; crayon portrait of “Taylor White,” by Cotes; “A Landscape,” by Lambert; “A Sea-piece,” by Brooking, &c.

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M‘Ardell, (says Smith, in his Life of Nollekens), resided at the Golden Ball, Henrietta-street, Covent Garden. Of the numerous and splendid productions of this excellent engraver of pictures by Sir Joshua, nothing can be said after the declaration of Reynolds himself, that “M‘Ardell’s prints would immortalize him;” however, I will venture to indulge in one remark more, namely, that that engraver has conferred immortality also upon himself in his wonderful print from Hogarth’s picture of ‘Captain Coram,’ the founder of the Foundling Hospital. A brilliant proof of this head in its finest possible state of condition, in my humble opinion, surpasses anything in mezzotinto now extant.

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Liotard, a Swiss artist, who came to this country in the reign of George II., and stayed two years, is best known by his works in crayons. His likenesses were as exact as possible, and too like to please those who sat to him: thus he had great business the first year, and very little the second. Devoid of imagination, and one would think of memory also, he could render nothing but what he saw before his eyes. Freckles, marks of the smallpock, everything, found its place; not so much from fidelity, as because he could not conceive the absence of anything that appeared to him. Truth prevailed in all his works; grace in very few or none. Nor was there any ease in his outline; but the stiffness of a bust in all his portraits. Liotard’s lack of employment may, therefore, easily be accounted for.

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It is painful to think how soon the paintings of Raphael, and Titian, and Correggio, and other illustrious men, will perish and pass away. “How long,” said Napoleon to David, “will a picture last?” “About four or five hundred years—a fine immortality!” The poet multiplies his works by means of a cheap material; and Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, and Tasso, and Moliere, and Milton, and Shakspeare, may bid oblivion defiance; the sculptor impresses his conceptions on metal or on marble, and expects to survive the wreck of nations, or the wrongs of time; but the painter commits to perishable cloth or wood, the visions of his fancy, and dies in the certain assurance that the life of his works will be but short in the land they adorn.

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This merry imp is the portrait of a child, which was painted without any particular aim as to character. When Alderman Boydell saw it, he said: “Sir Joshua, if you will make this pretty thing into a Puck, for my Shakspeare Gallery, I will give you a hundred guineas for it.” The President smiled and said little, as was his custom: a few hours’ happy labour made the picture what we see it.

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This cartoon came into the possession of the Foundling Hospital by the conditional bequest of Prince Hoare, Esq. Haydon describes it as “one of the finest instances in the world of variety of expression and beauty of composition, as a work of ‘high art.’ ” It is the centre part of one of the best cartoons which belonged to the set executed by Raphael, at the order of Leo X., and sent afterwards to Flanders, to be copied in tapestry, for exhibition at the Vatican.

The original number of the cartoons was thirteen; but in consequence of the Flemish weavers cutting them into strips for their working machinery, after the tapestry was executed and sent to Rome, the original cartoons were left mingled together in boxes.

When Rubens was in England, he told Charles I. the condition they were in; and the king, who had the finest taste, desired him to procure them. Seven perfect ones were purchased, all, it may be inferred, which remained, and sent to his majesty; what became or had become of the remainder, nobody knows; but here and there, all over Europe, fragments have appeared. At Oxford there are two or three heads; and we believe the Duke of Hamilton or Buccleuch, has others. After Charles’s misfortunes, the cartoons now at Hampton Court were sold, with the rest of his Majesty’s fine collection; but by Cromwell’s express orders they were bought in for three hundred pounds. During the reign of Charles II. they were offered to France for fourteen thousand francs, but Charles was dissuaded from selling them.

The above portion of the “Murder of the Innocents,” was sold at Westminster many years ago, as disputed property. Prince Hoare’s father, before the sale, explained to an opulent friend the great treasure about to be disposed of, and persuaded him to advance the money requisite, on condition of sharing the property. To his great surprise he bought it for twenty-six pounds; and his friend, having no taste, told Mr. Hoare if he would paint him and his family, he would relinquish his right.

These particulars Mr. Haydon had from Prince Hoare, the son; they are related in a letter from the painter to Mr. Lievesley, at the Foundling Hospital, dated October 3, 1837, wherein Haydon suggests the better exhibition of the work as a model of study; and soon after the Governors of the Hospital sent the cartoon by way of loan, to the National Gallery, where it may now be seen and studied.[12]

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Spencer was a miniature-painter of much celebrity, contemporaneous with Hogarth. He was originally a gentleman’s servant, but having a natural turn for art, he amused himself with drawing. It happened that one of the family with whom he lived sat for a portrait to a miniature-painter, and when the work was completed, it was shown to Spencer, who said he thought he could copy it. He was allowed to make the attempt, when his success was so great, that the family he lived with at once patronised him, and by their interest he became a fashionable painter of the day.

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Peter Jones, a pupil of Hudson, may be considered a portrait-painter, though his chief excellence was in painting draperies. In this branch of the art, so useful to a fashionable face-painter, he was much employed by Reynolds, Cotes, and West. Many of Sir Joshua’s best whole-lengths are those to which Jones painted the draperies: among them was the portrait of Lady Elizabeth Keppell, in the dress she wore as bridesmaid to the queen: for this Jones was paid twelve guineas; but Sir Joshua was not remarkably liberal on such occasions, of which Jones did not neglect to complain. When the Royal Academy was founded, he was chosen one of its members.

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The following anecdote of Sir Robert Strange, (says Smith,) was related to me by the late Richard Cooper, who instructed Queen Charlotte in drawing, and was for some time drawing-master to Eton School. “Robert Strange, (says Cooper,) was a countryman of mine, a North Briton, who served his time to my father as an engraver, and was a soldier in the rebel army of 1745. It so happened when Duke William put them to flight, that Strange, finding a door open, made his way into the house, ascended to the first-floor, and entered a room where a young lady was seated at needlework, and singing. Young Strange implored her protection. The lady, without rising, or being in the least disconcerted, desired him to get under her hoop. He immediately stooped, and the amiable woman covered him up. Shortly after this, the house was searched; the lady continued at her work, singing as before; the soldiers upon entering the room, considering Miss Lunsdale alone, respectfully retired. Robert, as soon as the search was over, being released from his concealment, kissed the hand of his protectress, at which moment, for the first time, he found himself in love. He married the lady; and no persons, beset as they were with early difficulties, lived more happily.”

Strange afterwards became a loyal man, though for a long time he sighed to be pardoned by his king who, however, was graciously pleased to be reconciled to him, and afterwards knighted him. Sir Robert was a conscientious publisher in delivering subscription impressions of prints; he never took off more proofs than were really bespoken, and every name was put upon the print as it came out of the press, unless it were faulty, and then it was destroyed; not laid aside for future sale, as has been the practice with some of our late publishers.

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George Lambert was for many years principal scene-painter to Covent Garden Theatre; and being a person of great respectability in character and profession, he was often visited, while at work, by persons of consideration. As it frequently happened that he was too much pressed by business to leave the theatre for dinner, he contented himself with a beef-steak, broiled upon the fire in the painting-room. In this humble meal he was sometimes joined by his visitors: the conviviality of the accidental meeting inspired the party with a resolution to establish a club, which was accordingly done, under the title of “The Beef-Steak Club;” and the party assembled periodically in the painting-room.[13] The members were afterwards accommodated with a private apartment in the theatre, where the meeting was held for many years; but, after Covent Garden was last rebuilt, the place of meeting was changed to the Shakspeare Tavern. It was then removed to the Lyceum Theatre, in the Strand, on the destruction of which, by fire, in 1830, the place of meeting was transferred to the Bedford Coffeehouse, in Covent Garden. The regime of the club is a course of beef-steaks, followed by stewed cheese in silver dishes. The number of members is only twenty-four; and the days of meeting are every Saturday, from November until the end of June.

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John Burnet was educated with Wilkie in the first four years of his studies in the Trustees’ Academy of Edinburgh; and, after arriving in London, in 1806, witnessed the progress of nearly every picture of familiar life which he painted. Burnet relates, that Wilkie was always first on the stairs leading up to the Academy, (which was then held in St. James’s-square,) anxious not to lose a moment of the hours of drawing; and this love of art, paramount to all other gratifications, continued with him to the last, even when his success had put the means in his power of indulging relaxation and procuring amusement. When in the Academy, his intenseness attracted the notice of the more volatile students, who used to pelt him with small pills of soft bread. As he was one of the first to be present, so he was one of the last to depart. After Academy hours, which were from ten to twelve in the forenoon, (the best time of the day for application,) those who were apprentices returned to their several professions; but Wilkie invariably returned to his lodgings, there to follow out what was begun in the Academy, by copying from his own hands and face in a mirror: thus, as it were, engrafting the great principles of the antique on the basis of nature.

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Sir Joshua appears to have been but an irregular manager in his conviviality. “Often was the dinner board prepared for seven or eight, required to accommodate itself to fifteen or sixteen; for often, on the very eve of dinner, would Sir Joshua tempt afternoon visitors with intimation that Johnson, or Garrick, or Goldsmith was to dine there. Nor was the want of seats the only difficulty. A want of knives and forks, of plates and glasses, as often succeeded. In something of the same style, too, was the attendance; the kitchen had to keep pace with the visitors; and it was easy to know the guests best acquainted with the house by their never failing to call instantly for beer, bread, or wine, that they might get them before the first course was over, and the worst confusion began. Once was Sir Joshua prevailed upon to furnish his table with dinner-glasses and decanters; and some saving of time they proved; yet, as they were demolished in the course of service, he could never be persuaded to replace them. “But these trifling embarrassments,” says Mr. Courtenay, describing them to Sir James Macintosh, “only served to enhance the hilarity and the singular pleasure of the entertainment.” It was not the wine, dishes, and cookery, not the fish and venison, that were talked of or recommended: those social hours, that irregular convivial talk, had matter of higher relish, and far more eagerly enjoyed. And amid all the animated bustle of his guests, the host sat perfectly composed; always attentive to what was said, never minding what was ate or drank, and leaving every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.”—Forster’s Life of Goldsmith.

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Brooking, a ship-painter of rare merit, about the middle of the last century, like many of the artists of the time, worked for the shops. Mr. Taylor White, Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, one day saw some of the sea-pieces of this artist in a shop-window in Castle-street, Leicester-square. He inquired his name, but was answered equivocally by the dealer, who told Mr. White that if he pleased he could procure other pictures by the same painter. Brooking was accustomed to write his name upon his pictures, which mark was as often obliterated by the shopkeeper before he placed them in his window. It, however, happened that the artist carried home a piece on which his name was inscribed; and the master being from home, his wife, who received it, placed it in the window without effacing the signature. Luckily, Mr. White saw the picture before it was removed, and thus discovered the name of the painter whose works he so much admired. He instantly advertised for the artist to meet him at a certain wholesale linen-draper’s in the city. To this invitation, Brooking, at first, paid no regard; but, seeing it repeated, with assurance of benefit to the person to whom it was addressed, he prudently attended to it, and had an interview with Mr. White, who, from that time, became his friend and patron. One of Brooking’s sea-pieces hangs in the Foundling Hospital: it was painted in eighteen days, and is, altogether, a first-class picture.—Brownlow’s Memoranda of the Foundling Hospital.

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Sir D. Wilkie, in his remarks on Portrait Painting, says:—No representations of female character have equalled in sweetness and beauty the female portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds; yet, a contemporary has remarked, that this was accomplished greatly at the expense of likeness. Hoppner, who was himself distinguished for the beauty with which he endowed the female form, remarked, that even to him it was a matter of surprise that Reynolds could send home portraits with so little resemblance to the originals. This, indeed, in his day, occasioned portraits to be left on his hands, or turned to the wall, which, since the means of comparing resemblances have ceased, have blazed forth in all the splendour of grace and elegance, which the originals would have been envied for had they ever possessed them. I may add to this what is remarked of Sir Thomas Lawrence: his likenesses were celebrated as the most successful of his time; yet, no likenesses exalted so much or refined more upon the originals. He wished to seize the expression, rather than copy the features. His attainment of likeness was most laborious: one distinguished person, who favoured him with forty sittings for his head alone, declared he was the slowest painter he had ever sat to, and he had sat to many.

This distinguished person, (says Burnet, in his Practical Essays,) I believe, was Sir Walter Scott. The picture was painted for his Majesty, and Lawrence was most anxious to make the picture the best of any painted from so celebrated a character. At other times, however, Sir Thomas was as dexterous with his pencil as any artist. I remember him mentioning that he painted the portrait of Curran, the celebrated Irish barrister, in one day; he came in the morning, remained to dinner, and left at dusk; or, as Lawrence expressed it, quoting his favourite author,

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Zoffani was a native of Frankfort, and came to England as a painter of small portraits, when he was about thirty years of age. He was employed by George the Third, and painted portraits of the royal family. He was celebrated for small whole-lengths, and painted several pieces of Garrick, and his contemporaries in dramatic scenes. He was engaged by the queen to paint a view of the tribune of Florence; and while there he was noticed by the Emperor of Germany, who inquired his name; and on hearing it, asked what countryman he was. Zoffani replied, “An Englishman.” “Why,” said the Emperor, “your name is German!” “True,” replied the painter, “I was born in Germany; that was accidental: I call that my country where I have been protected.”

Zoffani was admitted a member of the Royal Academy in 1783. He went afterwards to the East Indies, where he became a favourite of the Nabob of Oude, and amassed a handsome fortune, with which he returned to England, and settled at Strand-on-the-Green. Whilst there, he presented a large and well-executed painting of the Last Supper, as an altarpiece, to St. George’s Chapel, then lately built, where it still remains. Every head in the picture, (excepting that of Christ) is a likeness. Here is a portrait of Zoffani himself; the others were likenesses of persons then living at Strand-on-the-Green and Old Brentford. Zoffani had in his establishment a nursemaid who possessed fine hands, which he ever and anon painted in his pictures.

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To suffer from the want of discernment on the part of the nobility and the people, appears to be the fate of artists in this country. It was not a whit better formerly than it is in our own time. Hogarth had to sell his pictures by raffle, and Wilson was obliged to retire into Wales, from its affording cheaper living. The committee of the British Institution purchased a picture by Gainsborough, for eleven hundred guineas, and presented it to the National Gallery, as an example of excellence; yet this very picture hung for years in the artist’s painting-room without a purchaser; the price was only fifty pounds. In our own times, says John Burnet, “let us take the case of Sir David Wilkie as an example; a painter who has founded a school of art unknown before in this or in any other country—a combination of the invention of Hogarth with the pictorial excellences of Ostade and Teniers; yet this artist’s works, on his coming to London in 1804, were exposed in a shop window at Charing Cross for a few pounds; and a work for which he could only receive fifteen guineas, was sold the other day for eight hundred. Do transactions such as these show the taste or discernment of the public? Lord Mansfield thought thirty pounds a large sum for ‘the Village Politicians;’ and Sir George Beaumont, as a kind of patronage, gave Wilkie a commission to paint the picture of ‘the Blind Fiddler,’ and paid him fifty guineas for what would now bring a thousand at a public sale.[14] It seems, therefore, a fair inference that a discerning public, or a patronising nobility, are only shown when an artist’s reputation makes it safe to encourage him.”—Practical Essays.

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Antonio More was a favourite of Philip of Spain, whose familiarity with him placed the painter’s life in danger; for he one day ventured to return a slap on the shoulder, which the king in a playful moment gave him, by rubbing some carmine on his Majesty’s hand. This behaviour was accepted by the monarch as a jest; but it was hinted to More that the holy tribunal might regard it as sacrilege; and he fled, to save himself, into Flanders, where he was employed by the Duke of Alva.

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The late Sir Walter Scott used to say that when he told a story, he generally contrived to put a laced coat and a cocked hat upon it: this is a good illustration of the Venetian painters—their stories look like the spectacles of a melodrama.—Burnet’s Essays.

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In a fire at Belvoir Castle, in October, 1816, several of the pictures were burnt; among them was Sir Joshua Reynolds’s “Nativity,” a composition of thirteen figures, and in dimensions twelve feet by eighteen. This noble picture had been purchased by the Duke of Rutland for 1200 guineas.

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Holloway, who so successfully copied in black chalks the cartoons of Raphael in Hampton Court Palace, was an eccentric genius, deeply read in Scripture, which he expounded in the most nasal tone; but it was very interesting to listen to his observations on the beauties and merits of these master-pieces of art. A Madame Bouiller, a French emigrée, was also occupied on the same subjects. She was patronised by West, who gave her permission to study in the palace; and said that he had never seen such masterly artistical touches of the crayon as hers.

One morning Holloway was found foaming with rage in the Cartoon Gallery. Some person had written against the cartoons, denominating them “wretched daubs;” and sorely did it wound the feelings of the enthusiastic artist, who worshipped with religious fervour these works of Raphael. Yet it was a grotesque scene to behold Madame Bouiller pacing after Holloway, up and down the gallery, with all the grimace and intensity of a Frenchwoman, and re-echoing his furious lamentations.

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Sir Abraham Hume, the accomplished annotator of The Life and Works of Titian, observes: “It appears to be generally understood that Titian had, in the different periods of life, three distinct manners of painting: the first hard and dry, resembling his master, Giovanni Bellino; the second, acquired from studying the works of Giorgione, was more bold, round, rich in colour, and exquisitely wrought up; the third was the result of his matured taste and judgment, and, properly speaking, may be termed his own—in which he introduced more cool tints into the shadows and flesh, approaching nearer to nature than the universal glow of Giorgione.”

After stating what little is known of the mechanical means employed by Titian in the colouring of his pictures, Sir Abraham remarks: “Titian’s grand secret of all appears to have consisted in the unremitting exercise of application, patience, and perseverance, joined to an enthusiastic attachment to his art: his custom was to employ considerable time in finishing his pictures, working on them repeatedly, till he brought them to perfection; and his maxim was, that whatever was done in a hurry, could not be well done.” In manner and character, as well as talent, Titian may not inappropriately be associated with the most eminent painter this country ever produced, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

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Catlin, the traveller, was born in Wyoming, on the Susquehannah: he was bred to the law, but after he had practised two or three years, he sold his law library, and with the proceeds commenced as painter in Philadelphia, without either teacher or adviser. Within a few years, a delegation of Indians arrived from wilds of the far west in Philadelphia, “arrayed and equipped in all their classical beauty—with shield and helmet—with tunic and manteau, tinted and tasselled off exactly for the painter’s palette. In silent and stoic dignity, these lords of the forest strutted about the city for a few days wrapped in their pictured robes, with their brows plumed with the quills of the war-eagle,” and then quitted for Washington city, leaving Catlin to regret their departure. This, however, led him to consider the preservation by pictorial illustrations of the history and customs of these people, as a theme worthy the life of one man; and he therefore resolved that nothing short of the loss of life should prevent him from visiting their country, and becoming their historian. He could find no advocate or abettor of his views; still, he broke from all connexions of family and home, and thus, firmly fixed, armed, equipped, and supplied, he started, in the year 1832, and penetrated the vast and pathless wilds of the Great Far West—devoted to the production of habitual and graphic portraiture of the manners, customs, and character of an interesting race of people who were rapidly passing away from the earth.

Catlin spent about eight years in the Indian country, and, in 1841, brought home portraits of the principal personages from each tribe, views of their villages, pastimes, and religious ceremonies; and a collection of their costumes, manufactures, and weapons. He was undoubtedly the first artist who ever started upon such a labour, designing to carry his canvass to the Rocky Mountains. He visited forty-eight different tribes, containing 400,000 souls, and mostly speaking different languages. He brought home 310 portraits in oil, all painted in their native dress, and in their own wigwams; besides 200 paintings of their villages, wigwams, games, and religious ceremonies, dances, ball-plays, buffalo-hunts, &c.; containing 3000 full-length figures; together with landscapes, and a collection of costumes and other artificial produce, from the size of a huge wigwam to that of a rattle. It was for a time expected that the collection would have been purchased by the British Government, and added to the British Museum, but the opportunity was let slip; and thus did we lose these records of a race of our fellow-creatures, whom we shall very shortly have swept from the face of the globe.

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Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has written this eloquent criticism: “Martin’s ‘Deluge’ is the most simple of his works; it is, perhaps, also, the most awful. Poussin had represented before him the waste of inundation; but not the inundation of a world. With an imagination that pierces from effects to their ghastly and sublime agency, Martin gives, in the same picture, a possible solution to the phenomenon he records; and in the gloomy and perturbed heaven, you see the conjunction of the sun, the moon, and a comet. I consider this the most magnificent alliance of philosophy and art of which the history of painting can boast.”

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In the year 1760, a youth named Buckingham, a scholar at Mr. King’s academy, in Chapel-street, Soho, presuming upon his father’s knowledge of Sir Joshua Reynolds, asked the President if he would paint him a flag for the next breaking-up of the school; when Sir Joshua goodnaturedly replied, if he would call upon him at a certain time, he would see what he could do. The boy accordingly went, accompanied by a school-fellow, named Williamson (the narrator of this anecdote), when Sir Joshua Reynolds presented them with a flag, about a yard square, on which he had painted the king’s coat of arms. This flag was carried in the breaking-up procession to the Yorkshire Stingo, an honour to the boys, and a still greater honour to him who painted it, and gave up his valuable time to promote their holiday amusements.

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The admirers of Mr. Cooper’s Cuyp-like pictures will be gratified with the following anecdote of the early recognition of the painter’s genius, pleasantly related by Miss Mitford, in her Belford Regis.

“Sometime in November, 1831, Mr. Cribb, an ornamental gilder in London, (King-street, Covent Garden,) was struck with a small picture—a cattle-piece, in a shop window in Greek-street, Soho. On inquiring for the artist, he could learn no tidings of him; but the people of the shop promised to find him out. Time after time, our persevering lover of the arts called to repeat his inquiries, but always unsuccessfully; until about three months after, when he found that the person he sought was a Mr. Thomas Sydney Cooper, a young artist, who had been for many years settled at Brussels, as a drawing-master, but had been driven from that city by the Revolution, which had deprived him of his pupils, among whom were some of the members of the royal family; and, unable to obtain employment in London as a cattle-painter, he had, with the generous self-devotion which most ennobles a man of genius, supported his family by making lithographic drawings of fashionable caps and bonnets, I suppose, as a puff for some milliner, or some periodical which deals in costumes. In the midst of this interesting family, and of these caps and bonnets, Mr. Cribb found him; and deriving from what he saw of his sketches and drawings additional conviction of his genius, he immediately commissioned him to paint a picture on his own subject, and at his own price, making such an advance as the richest artist could not scruple to accept on a commission, conjuring him to leave off caps and bonnets, and foretelling his future eminence. Mr. Cribb says, that he shall never forget the delight of Mr. Cooper’s face when he gave the order—he has the right to the luxury of such a recollection. Well! the picture was completed: our friend, Mr. Cribb, who is not a man to do his work by halves, bespoke a companion, and while that was painting, showed the first to a great number of artists and amateurs, who all agreed in expressing the strongest admiration, and in wondering where the painter could have been hidden. Before the second picture was half finished, a Mr. Carpenter, (I believe that I am right in the name,) gave Mr. Cooper a commission for a piece, which was exhibited in May, 1833, at the Suffolk-street Gallery; and from that moment orders poured in, and the artist’s fortune was made. It is right to add, that Mr. Cooper was generously eager to have this story made known, and Mr. Cribb as generously averse to its publication. But surety, it ought to be recorded for the example sake, and for their mutual honour.”

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Verrio, who painted the ceilings in Windsor Castle, was a great favourite with Charles II. The painter was very expensive, and kept a great table; he often pressed the King for money, with a freedom encouraged by his Majesty’s own frankness. Once, at Hampton Court, when he had but lately received an advance of £1000, he found the King in such a circle, that he could not approach. He called out, “Sire, I desire the favour of speaking to your Majesty.” “Well, Verrio,” said the King, “what is your request?” “Money, Sire; I am so short of cash, that I am not able to pay my workmen; and your Majesty and I have learned by experience, that pedlars and painters cannot long live on credit.” The King smiled, and said “he had but lately ordered him £1000.” “Yes, Sire,” replied Verrio; “but that was soon paid away, and I have no gold left.” “At that rate,” said the King, “you would spend more money than I do to maintain my family.” “True,” answered Verrio; “but does your Majesty keep an open table as I do?”

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Soon after his marriage, Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lambeth, and became intimate with Jonathan Tyers, then proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens. On passing the tavern one morning, Hogarth saw Tyers, and observing him to be very melancholy, “How now, Master Tyers; why so sad this morning?” said the painter. “Sad times, Master Hogarth,” replied Tyers, “and my reflections were on a subject not likely to brighten a man’s countenance: I was thinking, do you know, which was likely to prove the easiest death, hanging or drowning.” “Oh,” said Hogarth, “is it come to that?” “Very nearly, I assure you,” said Tyers. “Then,” replied Hogarth, “the remedy you think of applying is not likely to mend the matter; don’t hang or drown to-day. I have a thought that may save the necessity of either, and will communicate it to you to-morrow morning; call at my house in Leicester Fields.” The interview took place, and the result was the concocting and getting up the first “Ridotto al Fresco,” which was very successful; one of the new attractions being the embellishment of the pavilions in the gardens by Hogarth’s pencil. Thus he drew the Four Parts of the Day, which Hayman copied; and the two scenes of Evening and Night, with portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. Hayman was one of the earliest members of the Royal Academy, and was, when young, a scene-painter at Drury Lane Theatre.

Hogarth was at this time in prosperity, and assisted Tyers more essentially than by the few pieces he painted for the gardens; and for this Tyers presented the painter with a gold ticket of admission for himself and friends, which was handed down to Hogarth’s descendants—the medal being for the admission of six persons, or “one coach,” as it was termed.

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It is related that Rubens caused a remarkably fine and powerful lion to be brought to his house, in order to study him in every variety of attitude. One day, Rubens observing the lion yawn, was so pleased with his action, that he wished to paint it, and he desired the keeper to tickle the animal under the chin, to make him repeatedly open his jaws; at length, the lion became savage at this treatment, and cast such furious glances at his keeper, that Rubens attended to his warning, and had the animal removed. The keeper is said to have been torn to pieces by the lion shortly afterwards; apparently, he had never forgotten the affront.

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Andrea Boscoli, the Italian painter, whilst sketching the fortifications of Loretto, was seized by the officers of justice, and condemned to be hanged; but he happily escaped within a few hours of execution, by the interposition of Signor Bandini, who explained to the chief magistrate the painter’s innocent object.

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Gainsborough was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, in 1727, and had the good fortune to take Nature for his mistress in art, and her to follow through life. Respecting this painter, memory is strong in his native place. A beautiful wood, of four miles extent, is shown, whose ancient trees, winding glades, and sunny nooks inspired him while yet a school-boy with the love of art. Scenes are pointed out where he used to sit and fill his copy-books with pencillings of flowers and trees, and whatever pleased his fancy. No fine clump of trees, no picturesque stream nor romantic glade, no cattle grazing, nor flocks reposing, nor peasants pursuing their work, nor pastoral occupations, escaped his diligent pencil. He received some instruction from Gravelot; and from Hayman, the friend of Hogarth. Having married, he settled in Ipswich; but in his thirty-first year removed to Bath, where he was appreciated as he deserved, and was enabled by his pencil to live respectably.

He then removed to London, where he added the lucrative branch of portrait-painting to his favourite pursuit of landscape. The permanent splendour of his colours, and the natural and living air which he communicated to whatever he touched, made him at this time, in the estimation of many, a dangerous rival of Sir Joshua himself.

Gainsborough was quite a child of nature, and everything that came from his easel smacked strongly of that raciness, freshness, and originality, the study of nature alone can give. “The Woodman and his Dog in the Storm” was one of his favourite compositions; yet, while he lived, he could find no purchaser at the paltry sum of one hundred guineas. After his death, five hundred guineas were paid for it by Lord Gainsborough, in whose house it was subsequently burnt. “The Shepherd’s Boy in the Shower,” and the “Cottage Girl with her Dog and Pitcher,” were also his prime favourites. Although having the good taste to express no contempt for the society of literary or fashionable men, Gainsborough, unlike the courtly Sir Joshua, cared little for their company. Music was his passion, or rather, next to his profession, the business of his life. Smith, in his Life of Nollekens, relates that he once found Colonel Hamilton playing so exquisitely to Gainsborough on the violin, that the artist exclaimed, “Go on, and I will give you the picture of the ‘Boy at the Stile,’ which you have so often wished to purchase of me.” The Colonel proceeded, and the painter stood in speechless admiration, with tears of rapture on his cheek. Hamilton then called a coach, and carried away the picture.

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Haydon was born at Plymouth, and at ten years old was sent to the Grammar School, under the care of the Rev. Dr. Bidlake, who possessed great taste for painting, and first noticed Haydon’s love of drawing; and, as a reward for diligence in school, the reverend gentleman used to indulge his pupil by admitting him to his painting-room, where he was allowed to pass his hal.-holidays.

At the age of fourteen, Haydon was sent to Plympton St. Mary School, where Sir Joshua Reynolds acquired all the scholastic knowledge he ever received. On the ceiling of the school-room was a sketch drawn by Reynolds with a burnt cork; and it was young Haydon’s delight to sit and contemplate this early production of the great master. Whilst at this school, he was about to join the medical profession; but the witnessing of an operation at once debarred him. When he left the Plympton School, after a stay there of about two years, he had not decided what profession he should pursue; and whilst at home in this unsettled state, his mind was never at rest, but he was constantly employed in drawing or painting, and reading hard. About this time, Reynolds’s “Discourses” attracted his attention, and fixed his resolution on painting; and, as the first step to which, he resolved to study anatomy.

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Rubens was in the habit of rising very early: in summer at four o’clock, and immediately afterwards he heard mass. He then went to work, and while painting, he habitually employed a person to read to him from one of the classical authors, (the favourites being Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, and Seneca,) or from some eminent poet. This was the time when he generally received his visitors, with whom he entered willingly into conversation on a variety of topics, in the most animated and agreeable manner. An hour before dinner was always devoted to recreation, which consisted either in allowing his thoughts to dwell as they listed on subjects connected with science or politics,—which latter interested him deeply,—or in contemplating his treasures of art. From anxiety not to impair the brilliant play of his fancy, he indulged but sparingly in the pleasures of the table, and drank but little wine. After working again till evening, he usually, if not prevented by business, mounted a spirited Andalusian horse, and rode for an hour or two. This was his favourite exercise: he was extremely fond of horses, and his stables generally contained some of remarkable beauty. On his return home, it was his custom to receive a few friends, principally men of learning, or artists, with whom he shared his frugal meal, (he was the declared enemy of all excess,) and passed the evening in instructive and cheerful conversation. This active and regular mode of life could alone have enabled Rubens to satisfy all the demands which were made upon him as an artist; and the astonishing number of works he completed, the genuineness of which is beyond all doubt, can only be accounted for through his union of extraordinary diligence with the acknowledged fertility of his productive powers.

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Like other great painters, Rubens was an architect, too; and, besides his own house, the church and the college of the Jesuits, in Antwerp, were built from his designs.

We are enabled to form some estimate of the astonishingly productive powers of Rubens, when we consider that about 1000 of his works have been engraved; and, including copies, the number of engravings from his works amount to more than 1500. The extraordinary number of his paintings adorn not merely the most celebrated public and private galleries, and various churches in Europe, but they have even found their way to America. In Lima, especially, there are several, and some of them of considerable value and excellence. Yet, of the countless pictures everywhere attributed to Rubens, but a small proportion were entirely painted by his own hands; the others contain more or less of the workmanship of his pupils. The greatest number of works, begun and finished by his own hands, are to be found in the galleries of Madrid, Antwerp, and Blenheim.—Mrs. Jameson’s Translation of Dr. Waagen’s Essay on Rubens.

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This picture was bought of the artist by Sir W. Elford and Mr. Tingcomb, for 700l. Whilst painting it, Haydon got embroiled in a controversy on the Elgin Marbles, with Mr. Payne Knight, one of the Directors of the British Institution. This gave great offence; and when the painter had been four months at work on the “Solomon,” he was left without resources; but, by selling successively his books, prints, and clothes, he was enabled to go on with his picture. At length, after a labour of two years, and by a closing exertion of painting six days, and nearly as many nights, the picture was completed, and exhibited in Spring Gardens, with great success. The Directors of the British Institution then showed their sense of Haydon’s genius by a vote of 100 guineas, and all ill-feeling was forgotten. For this work, Haydon was presented with the freedom of the borough of Plymouth, says the vote, “as a testimony of respect for his extraordinary merit as an historical painter; and particularly for the production of his recent picture, ‘the Judgment of Solomon,’ a work of such superior excellence, as to reflect honour on his birthplace, distinction on his name, lustre on the art, and reputation on the country.”

Miss Mitford addressed to the painter the following Sonnet on this picture:—

Mr. West, on seeing the picture, was affected to tears, at the figure of the pale, fainting mother.

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When Dr. Waagen visited England in 1835, his sea passage gave rise to the following exquisite critical observations: “I must mention as a particularly fortunate circumstance, that the sea gradually subsided from a state of violent agitation to a total calm and a bright sunshine, attenuated with a clouded sky, and flying showers. I had an opportunity of observing in succession all the situations and effects which have been represented by the celebrated Dutch marine painters, William Van de Velde, and Backhuysen. Now, for the first time, I fully understood the truth of their pictures, in the varied undulation of the water, and the refined art with which, by shadows of clouds, intervening dashes of sunshine near, or at a distance, and ships to animate the scene, they produce such a charming variety in the uniform surface of the sea. To conclude in a striking manner this series of pictures, Nature was so kind as to favour us at last with a thunder-storm, but not to interrupt by long-continued rain, suffered it to be of very short duration.”

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It was the constant practice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as soon as a female sitter had placed herself on his throne, to destroy the tasteless labours of the hairdresser and the lady’s maid with the end of a pencil-stick.

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Dr. Waagen relates the following singular anecdote of one of the portraits in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle—that of the minister, William von Humboldt. The conception is poor, and the likeness very general; but the want is, that the body does not at all suit the head; for when king George the Fourth, who was a personal friend of the minister, during his last visit to England, and a short time before his departure, made him sit to Sir Thomas Lawrence, the latter being pressed for time, took a canvass on which he had begun a portrait of Lord Liverpool, and had already finished his body in a purple coat, and painted upon it the head of M. Von Humboldt, intending to alter it afterwards. This, however, in consequence of the death of the king, and of Sir Thomas Lawrence, was not done.

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In the spring of 1830, there was exhibited in London a superb specimen of painting on glass, the size almost amounting to the stupendous, being eighteen by twenty-four feet. The term “window,” however, is hardly applicable to this vast work, for there was no framework visible; but the entire picture consisted of upwards of 350 pieces, of irregular forms and sizes, fitted into metal astragals, so contrived as to fall with the shadows, and thus to assist the appearance of an uninterrupted and unique picture upon a sheet of glass.

The subject was “the Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold,” between Henry VIII. and Francis I., in the plain of Ardres, near Calais; a scene of overwhelming gorgeousness, and, in the splendour of its appointments well suited to the brilliant effects which is the peculiar characteristic of painting in enamel. The stage represented was the last tourney on June 25, 1520. The field is minutely described by Hall, whose details the painter had closely followed. There were artificial trees, with green damask leaves; and branches and boughs, and withered leaves, of cloth-of-gold; the trunks and arms being also covered with cloth-of-gold, and intermingled with fruits and flowers of Venice gold; and “their beautie shewed farre.” In these trees were hung, emblazoned upon shields, “the Kynge of Englande’s armes, within a gartier, and the French Kynge’s within a collar of his order of Sainct Michael, with a close croune, with a flower de lise in the toppe;” and around and above were the shields of the noblemen of the two courts. The two queens were seated in a magnificent pavilion, and next to the Queen of England sat Wolsey; the judges were on stages, the heralds, in their tabards, placed at suitable points; and around were gathered the flower of the French and English nobility, to witness this closing glory of the last days of chivalry.

The action of the piece is thus described:—The trumpets sounded, and the two kings and their retinues entered the field; they then put down their vizors, and rode to the encounter valiantly; or, as Hall says, “the ii kynges were ready, and either of them encountered one man-of-armes; the French Kynge to the erle of Devonshire, the Kynge of England to Mounsire Florrenges, and brake his Poldron, and him disarmed, when ye strokes were stricken, this battail was departed, and was much praised.”

The picture contained upwards of one hundred figures (life size) of which forty were portraits, after Holbein and other contemporary authorities. The armour of the two kings and the challenger was very successfully painted; their coursers almost breathed chivalric fire; and the costumes and heraldic devices presented a blaze of dazzling splendour. Among the spectators, the most striking portraits were the two queens; Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, and the Countess of Chateaubriant; Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; and Queen Mary, Dowager of France; with the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, whose hasty comment upon the extravagance of the tournament proved his downfall. The elaborate richness of the costumes sparkling with gold and jewels, the fleecy, floating feathers of the champions, their burnished armour and glittering arms, the congregated glories of velvet, ermine, and cloth-of-gold, and the heraldic emblazonry amidst the emerald freshness of the foliage—all combined to form a scene of unparalleled sumptuousness and effect.

The picture was executed in glass by Mr. Thomas Wilmshurst (a pupil of the late Mr. Moss), from a sketch by Mr. R. T. Bone; the horses by Mr. Woodward. The work cost the artist nearly 3000l. It was exhibited in a first-floor at No. 15, Oxford-street, and occupied one end of a room decorated for the occasion with paneling and carving in the taste of the time of Henry the Eighth. It was very attractive as an exhibition, and nearly 50,000 descriptive catalogues were sold. Sad, then, to relate, in one unlucky night, the picture and the house were entirely burnt in an accidental fire; not even a sketch or study was saved from destruction; and the property was wholly uninsured. As a specimen of glass painting, the work was very successful: the colours were very brilliant, and the ruby red of old was all but equalled. The artistic treatment was altogether original; the painters, in no instance, borrowing from the contemporary picture of the same scene in the Hampton Court collection.

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It was thus Claude Lorraine denominated a book in which he made drawings of all the pictures he had ever executed. Since even in his own day his works had obtained a great reputation, it was found that many inferior artists had painted pictures in his style, and sold them as genuine Claudes; so that it was found necessary to prove the authenticity of his paintings by a reference to his “Book of Truth.”

This renowned record of genius is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. The drawings are in number about 200, and upon the back of the first is a paper pasted, with the following words in Claude’s own handwriting and orthography:—

“Audi 10 dagosto, 1677. Ce livre aupartien a moy que je faict durant ma vie. Claudio Gillee Dit le lorains. A Roma ce 23. Aos. 1680.”

When Claude wrote the last date, he was seventy-eight years old, and he died two years afterwards. On the back of every drawing is the number, with his monogram, the place for which the picture was painted, and usually the person by whom it was ordered, and the year; but the “Claudio fecit” is never wanting. According to his will, this book was to remain always the property of his own family; and it was so faithfully kept by his immediate descendants, that all the efforts of the Cardinal d’Estrées, the French ambassador at Rome, to procure it, were in vain. His later posterity had so entirely lost all traces of this pious reverence for it, that they sold it for the trifling price of 200 scudi to a French jeweller, who again sold it in Holland, whence it came into the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, who preserved it with due honours. The well-known copies by Barlow, in the work of Boydell, give but a very vague and monotonous representation of these splendid drawings.

Dr. Waagen, who inspected the treasure at Devonshire House, says: “The delicacy, ease, and masterly handling of all, from the slightest sketches to those most carefully finished, exceed description; the latter produce, indeed, all the effect of finished pictures. With the simple material of a pen, and tints of Indian ink, sepia, or bistre, with some white to bring out the lights, every characteristic of sunshine or shade, or ‘the incense-breathing morn,’ is perfectly expressed. Most happily has he employed for this purpose the blue tinge of the paper, and the warm sepia for the glow of evening. Some are only drawn with a pen, or the principal forms are slightly sketched in pencil, with the great masses of light broadly thrown in with white; the imagination easily fills up the rest.”

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This picture is—Portraits of a Flemish Gentleman and Lady, standing in the middle of an apartment, with their hands joined. In the back-ground are a bed, a mirror, and a window, partly open; the objects in the room being distinctly reflected in the mirror. A branch chandelier hangs from the ceiling, with the candle still burning in it; in the foreground is a small poodle. In the frame of the mirror are ten minute circular compartments, in which are painted stories from the life of Christ; and immediately under the mirror is written “Johannes de Eyck fuit hic,” with the date 1434 below. This signifies literally, “John Van Eyck was this man,” an interpretation which leads to the conjecture that this may be Van Eyck’s own portrait, with that of his wife, though in this case the wife’s name should have been written as well as his own; and the expression is not exactly that which would have been expected. The words are, however, distinctly fuit hic. As already mentioned, the date of the picture is 1434, when John Van Eyck was, according to the assumed date of his birth, in his fortieth year, which is about the age of the man in this picture. Van Mander speaks of the painting as the portraits of a man and his wife; or bride and bridegroom: it may be a bridegroom introducing his bride to her home.

This picture, about a century after it was painted, was in the possession of a barber-surgeon at Bruges, who presented it to the then Regent of the Netherlands, Mary, the sister of Charles X., and Queen Dowager of Hungary. This princess valued the picture so highly, that she granted the barber-surgeon in return, an annual pension, or office worth 100 florins per annum. It appears, however, to have again fallen into obscure hands; for it was discovered by Major-General Hay in the apartments to which he was taken in 1815, at Brussels, after he had been wounded at the battle of Waterloo. He purchased the picture after his recovery, and disposed of it to the British Government in 1842, when it was placed in the National Gallery. It is the oldest painting in the collection.

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The great experimental colourist of the fifteenth century, Van Eyck, has left unfading proofs of his skill as well as his genius; whilst the experimental colourist of the eighteenth century, Sir Joshua Reynolds, has already lost so much of his tone and brightness. The painters of our own time throughout Europe, notwithstanding the recent discoveries in chemistry and natural science, are unable to reproduce the rich hues of Titian, or of the early Germans.

Yet, Van Eyck met with many disappointments. He had just applied a newly-invented combination, (probably of lime-water and some other ingredients,) to a large and highly-finished picture. This mixture required to be rapidly dried; and for that purpose the picture was left for a short time in the sun. When the artist returned to witness the result of his experiment, he found that the action of the heat on the composition had split the canvas, and that his work was utterly ruined! Happily for the arts, their best votaries have possessed the genius of perseverance, as well as the genius of enterprise.

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One of Stothard’s last great designs was that for the frieze of the interior of Buckingham Palace. The subjects are illustrative of the history of England, and principally relative to the Wars of the Red and White Roses. The venerable artist was between seventy and eighty years old when he executed these; and they possess all the spirit and vigour of imagination that distinguished his best days. As a whole, there is not, perhaps, to be found a more interesting series of historical designs of any country in ancient or modern times. The drawing of this frieze ought to have been in the possession of the King; but they were sold at Christie’s, with other works, on the decease of the painter. Mr. Rogers was the purchaser.

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About the year 1844, when John Martin, the historical painter, was examined before the Parliamentary Committee on Arts and Manufactures, he was questioned as to the information he had collected on the subject of glass-painting. To this he replied, “Glass-painting has fallen almost to the same level as china-painting; but it might be greatly improved now to what it was in ancient times. There is an ignorant opinion among the people that the ancient art of glass-painting is completely lost: it is totally void of foundation; for we can carry it to a much higher pitch than the ancients, except in one particular colour, which is that of ruby, and we come very near to that. We can blend the colours, and produce the effect of light and shadow, which they could not do, by harmonizing and mixing the colours in such a way, and fixing by proper enameling and burning, that they shall afterwards become just as permanent as those of the ancients, with the additional advantage of throwing in superior art.” Martin began life as a painter on glass. One of his earliest pictures was for the conservatory at the mansion of the Marquess of Wellesley, at Knightsbridge.

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If you have an artist for a friend, (says N. P. Willis,) he makes use of you while you call, to “sit for the hand” of the portrait on his easel. Having a preference for the society of artists myself, and frequenting their studios considerably, I know of some hundred and fifty unsuspecting gentlemen on canvas, who have procured, for posterity and their children, portraits of their own heads and dress-coats to be sure, but of the hands of other persons.

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Prince Hoare introduced Haydon to Fuseli, who was so struck with his close attendance at the Royal Academy, that he one day said, “Why, when do you dine?” The account of his introduction is very characteristic. “Such was the horror connected with Fuseli’s name, (says Haydon,) that I remember perfectly well the day before I was to go to him, a letter from my father concluded in these words: ‘God speed you with the terrible Fuseli.’ Awaking from a night of awful dreaming, the awful morning came. I took my sketch-book and drawings,—invoking the protection of my good genius to bring me back alive, and sallied forth to meet the enchanter in his den! After an abstracted walk of perpetual musing, on what I should say, how I should look, and what I should do, I found myself before his door in Berners-street——1805.” Haydon was shown into his painting-room, full of Fuseli’s hideous conceptions. He adds:—“At last, when I was wondering what metamorphosis I was to undergo, the door slowly opened, and I saw a little hand come slowly round the edge of it, which did not look very gigantic, or belonging to a very powerful figure, and round came a little white-faced lion-headed man, dressed in an old flannel dressing-gown, tied by a rope, and the bottom of Mrs. Fuseli’s work-basket on his head for a cap. I was perfectly amazed! there stood the designer of Satan in many an airy whirl plunging to the earth; and was this the painter himself?—Certainly. Not such as I had imagined when enjoying his inventions. I did not know whether to laugh or cry, but at any rate I felt that I was his match if he attempted the supernatural. We quietly stared at each other, and Fuseli kindly understanding my astonishment and inexperience, asked in the mildest voice for my drawings. Here my evil genius took the lead, and instead of showing him my studies from the antique, which I had brought, and had meant to have shown him, I showed him my sketch-book I did not mean to show him, with a sketch I had made coming along, of a man pushing a sugar-cask into a grocer’s shop. Fuseli seeing my fright, said, by way of encouragement, ‘At least the fellow does his business with energy.’ ” From that hour commenced a friendship which lasted till his death.

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Wilson loved, when a child, to trace figures of men and animals, with a burnt stick, upon the walls of the house, a predilection which his father encouraged. His relation, Sir George Wynn, next took him to London, and placed him under the care of one Wright, an obscure portrait-painter. His progress was so successful, that in 1748, when he was thirty-five years old, he had so distinguished himself as to be employed to paint a picture of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, for their tutor, the Bishop of Norwich. In 1749, Wilson was enabled by his own savings, and the aid of his friends, to go to Italy, where he continued portrait-painting, till an accident opened another avenue to fame, and shut up the way to fortune. Having waited one morning for the coming of Zuccarelli the artist, to beguile the time, he painted a scene upon which the window of his friend looked, with so much grace and effect, that Zuccarelli was astonished, and inquired if he had studied landscape. Wilson replied that he had not. “Then I advise you,” said the other, “to try—for you are sure of success;” and this counsel was confirmed by Vernet, the French painter. His studies in landscape must have been rapidly successful, for he had some pupils in that line while at Rome; and his works were so highly esteemed, that Mengs painted his portrait, for which Wilson, in return, painted a landscape.

It is not known at what time he returned to England; but he was in London in 1758, and resided over the north arcade of the Piazza, Covent-garden, where he obtained great celebrity as a landscape painter. To the first Exhibition of 1760, he sent his picture of Niobe, which confirmed his reputation. Yet Wilson, from inattention to his own interests, lost his connexions and employment, and was left, late in life, in comfortless infirmity—having been reduced to solicit the office of librarian of the Royal Academy, of which he had been one of the brightest ornaments.

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Had its origin in the Orleans Gallery. The Italian part of the collection had been mortgaged for 40,000l. to Harman’s banking-house, when Mr. Bryan, a celebrated collector and picture-dealer, and author of the “Dictionary of Painters,” induced the Duke of Bridgewater to purchase the whole as it stood for 43,000l. The pictures, amounting to 305, were then valued separately by Mr. Bryan, making a total of 72,000l.; and from among them the Duke selected ninety-four of the finest, at the prices at which they were valued, amounting altogether to 39,000 guineas. The Duke subsequently admitted his nephew, the Earl Gower, and the Earl of Carlisle, to share his acquisition; resigning to the former a fourth part, and to the latter an eighth of the whole number thus acquired. The exhibition and sale of the rest produced 41,000l.; consequently, the speculation turned out most profitably; for the ninety-four pictures, which had been valued at 39,000l., were acquired, in fact, for 2000l. The forty-seven retained for the Duke of Bridgewater were valued at 23,130l. * * The Duke of Bridgewater already possessed some fine pictures, and after the acquisition of his share of the Orleans Gallery, he continued to add largely to his collection, till his death in 1803, when he left his pictures, valued at 150,000l., to his nephew, George, first Marquis of Stafford, afterwards first Duke of Sutherland. During the life of this nobleman, the collection, added to one formed by himself when Earl Gower, was placed in the house in Cleveland-row; and the whole known then, and for thirty years afterwards, as the Stafford Gallery, became celebrated all over Europe. On the death of the Marquis of Stafford, in 1833, his second son, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, taking the surname of Egerton, inherited, under the will of his grand-uncle, the Bridgewater property, including the collection of pictures formed by the Duke. The Stafford Gallery was thus divided: that part of the collection which had been acquired by the Marquis of Stafford fell to his eldest son, the present Duke of Sutherland; while the Bridgewater collection, properly so called, devolved to Lord Francis Egerton, and has resumed its original appellation, being now known as the Bridgewater Gallery. This gallery has a great attraction, owing principally to the taste of its present possessor: it contains some excellent works of modern English painters. Near to the famous “Rising of the Gale,” by Van de Velde, hangs the “Gale at Sea,” by Turner, not less sublime, not less true to the grandeur and the modesty of nature; and by Edwin Landseer, the beautiful original of a composition which the art of the engraver has made familiar to the eye, the “Return of the Hawking Party,” a picture which has all the romance of poetry and the antique time, and all the charm and value of a family picture. Nor should be passed, without particular notice, one of the most celebrated productions of the modern French historical school—“Charles I. in the Guard Room,” by Paul Delaroche; a truly grand picture, which Lord Francis Egerton has added to the Gallery since 1838.—Mrs. Jameson.

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It is well known that, in 1623, Charles, then Prince of Wales, accompanied by his father’s favourite, George Villiers, the celebrated Duke of Buckingham, visited Madrid, with the avowed object of wooing and winning the Infanta. We are informed by Pacheco, that his son-in-law, Velasquez, received one hundred crowns for taking the portrait of the prince, probably designed as a present to his lady-love. The suit, however, proved unsuccessful; but what became of the picture has not been recorded, even incidentally. There is reason to suppose it was committed to the custody of Villiers, who had at York House, which occupied the site of Villiers, Duke, and Buckingham streets, in the Adelphi, a splendid collection of pictures. Charles, on his return from Spain, reached York House past midnight, on the 6th of October; and the picture may have been left there in some private apartment, and afterwards have gradually fallen out of mind. There was a sale of pictures on the assassination of the first duke. Again, when the second duke fled to the Continent, to escape the vengeance of the parliament, he sold part of his paintings to raise money for his personal support; and according to a catalogue of these pictures, compiled by Vertue, the Velasquez was not among them. Subsequently, the parliament sold part of the remaining pictures. Either at or before the death of the second duke, a fourth sale took place. In 1697, York House was burned down; and it is possible the missing portrait may have been in the house at this date.

A very interesting search after the lost treasure is detailed in a pamphlet, extending to 228 pages, published in 1847, from which these particulars are, in the main, condensed:

The picture was exhibited for some time in Old Bond-street; but the opinion in favour of its being by Velasquez did not gain ground among connoisseurs: the distance has more of the painter’s manner than the portrait itself, which is rather that of Vandyke. The pamphlet goes very far to settle the identity of the picture with that mentioned in the Fife House Catalogue; but the ascription may merely have been that of the Earl of Fife; and it is somewhat strange that it should not have been specially mentioned as the lost picture, had its identity been positively settled.

Since the publication of Mr. Snare’s pamphlet, Sir Edmund Head, in his “Handbook of the History of the Spanish and French Schools of Painting,” has expressed his disbelief in the authenticity of the picture being the long-lost portrait; adding, first, it is not in his opinion by Velasquez; secondly, it is a finished picture; and, thirdly, it represents Charles as older than twenty-three years, which was his age when at Madrid. Again, Mr. Stirling, in his “Annals of the Artists of Spain,” published in 1848, does not consider the picture proved to be that formerly at Fife House; nor does he regard it as a sketch, (“bosquexo,”) but more than three parts finished. He thinks also that Charles looks considerably older than twenty-three; and he sees “no resemblance in the style of the execution to any of the acknowledged works of Velasquez.” To both these objections, Mr. Snare replied, in a second pamphlet, wherein he opposed to their opinions the cumulative evidence of his unwearied investigations. His first pamphlet, “The History and Pedigree”—is a singularly interesting array of presumptive evidence.[15]

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While Haydon was an inmate of the King’s Bench Prison, in July, 1827, a burlesque of an election was got up. “I was sitting in my own apartment,” (writes the painter,) “buried in my own reflections, melancholy, but not despairing at the darkness of my own prospects, and the unprotected condition of my wife and children, when a tumultuous and hearty laugh below brought me to my window. In spite of my own sorrow’s, I laughed out heartily when I saw the occasion.” (He sketched the grotesque scene, painted it in four months with the aid of noblemen and friends, and the advocacy of the press, in exciting the sympathy of the country.) “To the joint kindness of each,” wrote the painter, in gratitude, “I owe the peace of the last five months, without which I never could have accomplished so numerous a composition in so short a time.” The picture proved attractive as an exhibition; still better, it was purchased by King George IV. for 500l., and it was conveyed from the Egyptian-hall to St. James’s Palace. A committee of gentlemen then undertook Mr. Haydon’s affairs; and with the purchase-money of the picture, and the proceeds of the exhibition, the painter was restored to the bosom of his family. In 1828, he painted, as a companion to this picture, “The Chairing of the Members,” which was bought by Mr. Francis, of Exeter, for 300 guineas.

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The Eastern Zoological Gallery of the British Museum has its walls decorated with an assemblage of portraits, in number upwards of one hundred, forming, probably, the largest collection of portraits in the kingdom. The execution of many of them is but indifferent; there are others which are exceedingly curious; and some are unique. Great part of them came into the Museum from having belonged to the Sloanean, Cottonian, and other collections, which now form the magnificent library; and others have been the gifts of individuals. Before the rebuilding of the Museum, many of these pictures were stowed away in the lumber-rooms and attics of the mansion; and it was principally at the suggestion of an eminent London printseller, that they were drawn from their “dark retreat,” cleaned, and the frames regilt, and hung in their present position, above the cases containing the fine zoological specimens. The Gallery itself occupies the whole of the upper story of the wing of the edifice, and has five divisions formed by pilasters, on the side walls, the ceilings being also divided into the same number of compartments, which gives an harmonious proportion to the whole it would not otherwise possess. The light comes from elevated skylights, and it may be a question whether, taken altogether, its advantages for the display of paintings are not superior to those of the National Gallery, in Trafalgar-square.

Among the portraits are those of the English Sovereigns, including Richard II., Henry V., Margaret Countess of Richmond, Edward VI., (no doubt an original,) and Elizabeth, by Zucchero. Here are likewise foreign sovereigns, British statesmen, heroes, and divines, &c., peculiarly appropriate to the place; naturalists and philosophers, mathematicians, navigators, and travellers, whose labours have contributed to enrich this national Museum.

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Bacici, a Genoese painter, in the seventeenth century, had a very peculiar talent of producing exact likenesses of deceased persons he had never seen. He first drew a face at random; and afterwards, altering it in every feature, by the advice and under the inspection of those who had known the subject, he improved it into striking resemblance.

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The fame of Copley as a portrait-painter is comparatively limited. I can speak (says Dr. Dibdin) but of four of his portraits from reminiscence; those of the late Earl Spencer, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Colchester, and the late Richard Heber, Esq.—the latter when a boy of eight years, in the dining-room at Hodnet Hall. These portraits, with the exception of the last, are all engraved. That of Earl Spencer, in his full robes as a Knight of the Garter, and in the prime of his manhood, now placed at the bottom of the great historical portrait gallery at Althorp, must have been a striking likeness; but, like almost all the portraits of the artist, it is too stiff and stately. The portrait of the young Heber has, I think, considerable merit on the score of art. There is a play of light and shadow, and the figure, with a fine flowing head of hair, mixes up well with its accessories. He is leaning on a cricket-bat, with a ball in one hand. The face is, to my eye, such as I could conceive the original to have been, when I first remember him a Bachelor of the Arts at Oxford, full, plump, and athletic. In short, as Dean Swift expresses it, “if you should look at him in his boyhood through the magnifying end of the glass, and in his manhood through the diminishing end, it would be impossible to spy any difference.” The contemplation of this portrait has at times produced mixed emotions of admiration, regard, and pity.

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In the year 1800, M. Masquerier had occasion to go to Paris on family matters. Like a sensible man, who made all his pursuits available to the purposes of his profession, he conceived the happy thought of obtaining permission to make a portrait of Bonaparte, (then First Consul,) and afterwards portraits of his generals the whole of which were concentrated in one grand picture, of the size of life, and exhibited in this country as “Bonaparte Reviewing the Consular Guard.” It appears that Masquerier, through the interest of a friend acquainted with Josephine, got permission to be present at the Tuilleries, where he saw Bonaparte in the grey great-coat, which has since been so well-known throughout Europe. Masquerier remarked that Bonaparte’s appearance in this costume was so different from all portraits which he had seen, that he resolved to fix him in his sketch-book in this identical surtout, the French thinking that the portrait of a great man must necessarily be tricked out in finery. He sketched him just as he saw him, and carried him to England; placing him upon a grey horse, his usual charger, and surrounding him with his staff. The picture told in all respects. The Prince Regent (afterwards George IV.) and Tallien, then in London on his return from Egypt, were among the twenty-five or thirty-thousand visitors who went to see it. Tallien left in the exhibition-room the following testimony to the likeness of the First Consul:—

“J’ai vu le portrait du General Buonaparte fait par M. Masquerier, et je l’ai trouvé tres resemblant.” Tallien, Londres, ce 24 Mars, 1801.”

There is a print of this picture, which is scarce. The original was afterwards sold, to be taken to America. Masquerier netted about 1000l. by this speculation, but the remuneration did not overpay the toil. Such was the reaction, from incessant application and anxiety, that the artist was confined to his room several weeks afterwards.

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One of Lawrence’s most remarkable male portraits is that of Curran: under mean and harsh features, a genius of the highest order lay concealed, like a sweet kernel in a rough husk; and so little of the true man did Lawrence perceive in his first sittings, that he almost laid down his palette in despair, in the belief that he could make nothing but a common or vulgar work. The parting hour came, and with it the great Irishman burst out in all his strength. He discoursed on art, on poetry, on Ireland; his eyes flashed, and his colour heightened; and his rough and swarthy visage seemed, in the sight of the astonished painter, to come fully within his own notions of manly beauty. “I never saw you till now,” said the artist, in his softest tone of voice; “you have sat to me in a mask; do give me a sitting of Curran, the orator.” Curran complied, and a fine portrait, with genius on its brow, was the consequence.

Allan Cunningham, whose Memoir of Lawrence we quote, states how he gradually raised his prices for portraits as he advanced to fame. In 1802, his charge for a three-quarter size was thirty guineas; for a half-length, sixty guineas; and for a whole-length, one hundred and twenty guineas. In 1806, the three-quarters rose to fifty guineas; and the whole length to two hundred. In 1808, he rose the smallest size to eighty guineas, and the largest to three hundred and twenty guineas; and in 1810, when the death of Hoppner swept all rivalry out of the way, he increased the price of the heads to one hundred, and the full-lengths to four hundred guineas. He knew—none better—that the opulent loved to possess what was rare, and beyond the means of poorer men to purchase; and the growing crowds of his sitters told him that his advance in price had not been ill received.

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It was the lot of Northcote to live long in something like a state of opposition to Opie. They were both engaged in historical pictures, by the same adventurous alderman, (Boydell,) and acquitted themselves in a way which, with many, left themselves in a balance. In after life, when Opie had ceased to be in any one’s way, Northcote would recal, without any bitterness, their days of rivalry. “Opie,” said he to Hazlitt, “was a man of sense and observation: he paid me the compliment of saying, that we should have been the best of friends in the world if we had not been rivals. I think he had more feeling than I had; perhaps, because I had most vanity. We sometimes got into foolish altercations. I recollect, once in particular, at a banker’s in the City, we took up the whole of dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton and Shakspeare. I am sure neither of us had the least notion which was right; and when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen added to my confusion by saying, ‘Lor! what I would give to hear two such men as you talk every day!’ On another occasion, when on his way to Devonport, Opie parted with him where the road branches off for Cornwall. He said to those who were on the coach with him, ‘That’s Opie, the painter.’ ‘Is it, indeed!’ they all cried, and upbraiding Northcote for not informing them sooner. Upon this, he contrived, by way of experiment, to try the influence of his own name; but his fame had not reached the enlightened ‘outsides;’ and the painter confessed he felt mortified.”—Cunningham.

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In Shire-lane, Temple Bar, is said to have originated the famous Kit-Kat Club, which consisted of thirty-nine distinguished noblemen and gentlemen zealously attached to the protestant succession of the house of Hanover. The club is supposed to have been named from Christopher Kat, a pastry-cook, who kept the house where the members dined; and who excelled in making mutton-pies, which were always in the bill of fare, these pies being called kit-kats. Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, was secretary to the club. “You have heard of the Kit-Kat Club,” says Pope to Spencer. Sir Richard Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanburgh, Manwaring, Stepney, and Walpole, belonged to it.

Tonson, whilst secretary, caused the club meetings to be transferred to a house belonging to himself at Barn Elms, and built a handsome room for the accommodation of the members. The portrait of each member was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller; but, the apartment not being sufficiently large to receive half-length pictures, a shorter canvas was adopted; and hence the technical term of kit-kat size. Garth wrote the verses for the toasting-glass of this club, which, as they are preserved in his works, have immortalized four of the reigning beauties at the commencement of the last century—Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde, and Lady Wharton.

In 1817, the club-room was standing, and was the property of Mr. Hoare, the London banker. Sir Richard Phillips visited it at this date, when it was sadly in decay. It was 18 feet high, and 40 feet long, by 20 wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb fashion of the last century; but the whole was falling to pieces from the effects of dry-rot. There was the faded cloth-hanging of the walls, whose red colour once set off the famous portraits of the club that hung around it. Their marks and sizes were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guidance of the hanger! “Thus,” says Sir Richard, “was I, as it were, by these still legible names, brought into personal contact with Addison, and Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, and Dryden, and with many hereditary nobles, remembered only because they were patrons of those natural nobles!—I read their names aloud!—I invoked their departed spirits!—I was appalled by the echo of my own voice! The holes in the floor, the forests of cobwebs in the windows, and a swallow’s nest in the corner of the ceiling, proclaimed that I was viewing a vision of the dreamers of a past age—that I saw realized before me the speaking vanities of the anxious career of man! The blood of the reader of sensibility will thrill as mine thrilled! It was feeling without volition, and therefore incapable of analysis!”

Not long after this the club-room was united to a barn, to form a riding-house. The kit-kat pictures were painted early in the eighteenth century, and about the year 1710, were brought to this spot; but the club-room was not built till ten or fifteen years afterwards. The paintings were forty-two in number, and were presented by the members to the elder Tonson, who died in 1736. He left them to his great nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. They were then removed from the building at Barn-Elms, to the house of his brother, at Water-Oakley, near Windsor; and on his death, to the house of Mr. Baker, of Hertingfordbury, where they were splendidly lodged, and in fine preservation. We are not aware if the collection has been dispersed.

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Copley, the father of Lord Lyndhurst, painted a vast picture of the Relief afforded to the Crew of the Enemy’s Gun-boats on their taking fire at the Siege of Gibraltar. The painting was immense, and it was managed by means of a roller, so that any portion of it, at any time, might be easily seen or executed. The artist himself was raised on a platform. The picture was at length completed, and a most signal mark of royal favour was granted the painter, by his receiving permission to erect a tent in the Green Park for its exhibition. It attracted thousands. Beneath the principal subjects, in small, was painted Lord Howe’s relief of the garrison of Gibraltar; and the portraits of Lords Heathfield and Howe, (heads only,) occupied each one side of this smaller subject.

When Copley’s magnificent picture, afterwards hung up in the Egyptian darkness of the Council-room in Guildhall, was first exhibited, Dr. Dibdin one day placed himself in front of it, and was sketching the portrait of Lord Heathfield with a pencil on the last blank page of the catalogue, when some one to his right exclaimed, “Pretty well, but you give too much nose.” The Doctor turned round—it was the artist himself, who smiled, and commended his efforts.

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Mr. (subsequently Sir) Robert Kerr Porter, at the age of nineteen produced a performance at once inconceivable and unparalleled—the panorama of the Storming and Capture of Seringapatam. It was not the very first thing of its kind, because there had been a panorama of London exhibited in Leicester Fields by Mr. Barker; but it was the very first thing of its kind, if artist-like attainments be considered. The learned, (says Dr. Dibdin,) were amazed, and the unlearned were enraptured. I can never forget its impression upon my own mind. It was a thing dropt from the clouds—all fire, energy, intelligence, and animation. You looked a second time; the figures moved, and were commingled in hot and bloody fight. You saw the flash of the cannon, the glitter of the bayonet, the gleam of the falchion. You longed to be leaping from crag to crag with Sir David Baird, who is hallooing the men on to victory! Then again, you seemed to be listening to the groans of the wounded and the dying—and more than one female was carried out swooning. The oriental dress, the jewelled turban, the curved and ponderous scimitar—these were among the prime objects of favouritism with Sir Robert’s pencil: and he touched and treated them to the very spirit and letter of the truth. The colouring, too, was good and sound throughout. The accessories were strikingly characteristic—rock, earth, and water, had its peculiar and happy touch; and the accompaniments about the sally-port, half choked up with the bodies of the dead, made you look on with a shuddering awe, and retreat as you shuddered. The public poured in by hundreds and by thousands for even a transient gaze—for such a sight was altogether as marvellous as it was novel. You carried it home, and did nothing but think of it, talk of it, and dream of it. And all this by a young man of nineteen.

Miss Jane Porter, Sir Robert’s sister, wrote for Dr. Dibdin a very interesting narrative of this extraordinary work.

Such is the affectionate narrative from the pen of the youthful painter’s sister.

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Zoffani was employed by George III. to paint a scene from Reynolds’s Speculation, in which Quick, Munden, and Miss Wallis were introduced. The King called at the artist’s to see the work in progress; and at last it was done, “all but the coat.” The picture, however, was not sent to the palace, and the King repeated his visit. Zoffani, with some embarrassment, said, “It is all done but the goat.” “Don’t tell me,” said the impatient monarch; “this is always the way. You said it was done all but the coat the last time I was here.” “I said the goat, and please your Majesty,” replied the artist. “Ay!” rejoined the King; “the goat or the coat, I care not which you call it; I say I will not have the picture,” and was about to leave the room, when Zoffani, in agony, repeated, “It is the goat that is not finished,” pointing to a picture of a goat that hung up in a frame, as an ornament to the scene at the theatre. The King laughed heartily at the blunder, and waited patiently till “the goat” was finished.

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In the year 1644, Cosmo, the son of Ferdinand II. de Medici, undertook a journey, an account of which was written at the time by Philipe Pizzichi, his travelling chaplain. This work was published at Florence, in 1829. It contains some curious notices of persons and things, and, among others, what will interest every lover of the fine arts. Speaking of Verona, the diarist mentions the Curtoni Gallery of Paintings, in which “the picture most worthy of attention is the Lady of Raffaello, so carefully finished by himself, and so well preserved, that it surpasses every other.” The editor of these travels has satisfactorily shown that Raffaello’s lady here described is the true Fornarina; so that of the three likenesses of her said to be executed by this eminent artist, the genuine one is the Veronese, belonging to the Curtoni Gallery, then the property of a Lady Cavalini Brenzoni, who obtained it by inheritance.

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Upon pulling down the Bishop’s palace at Chelsea, many years ago, a singular discovery was made. In a small room near the north front were found, on the plaster of the walls, nine figures as large as life, three men and six women, drawn in outline, with black chalk, in a bold and animated style. Of these correct copies have been published. They display much of the manner of Hogarth, who, it is well known, lived on intimate terms with Bishop Hoadly, and frequently visited his lordship at this palace; and it is supposed that these figures apply to some incident in the Bishop’s family, or to some scene in a play. His lordship’s partiality for the drama is well known. His brother, who resided in Chelsea, at Cremorne House, wrote one of the best comedies in the English language—The Provoked Husband.

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Mr. Cribb, of King-street, Covent Garden, has (1848), in his collection of memorials of men of genius, a palette which belonged to Sir Joshua Reynolds. It descended to Mr. Cribb from his father, who received it from Sir Joshua’s niece, the Marchioness of Thomond. It is of plain mahogany, and measures 11 inches by 7 inches, oblong in form, with a sort of loop handle.

Cunningham tells us that Sir Joshua’s sitters’ chair moved on castors, and stood above the floor a foot and a half. He held his palettes by a handle, and the sticks of his brushes were 18 inches long. The following memoranda are dated 1755:—“For painting the flesh, black, blue-black, white, lake, carmine, orpiment, yellow ochre, ultramarine, and varnish. To lay the palette: first lay, carmine and white in different degrees; second lay, orpiment and white ditto; third lay, blue-black and white ditto. The first sitting, for expedition, make a mixture as like the sitter’s complexion as you can.”

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Sir Joshua once hearing of a young artist who had become embarrassed by an injudicious marriage, and was on the point of being arrested, immediately hurried to his residence, to inquire into the case. The unfortunate artist told the melancholy particulars of his situation; adding, that £40 would enable him to compound with his creditors. After some further conversation, Sir Joshua took his leave, telling the distressed painter he would do something for him. When bidding him adieu at the door, Sir Joshua took him by the hand, and, after squeezing it cordially, hurried off with a benevolent triumph in his heart—while the astonished and relieved artist found in his hand a banknote for £100!

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The anecdotes of the dog which menaced a goat depicted by the faithful pencil of Glover, and of the macaw, which, with beak and wings, attacked the portrait of a female servant painted by Northcote, are well known. Two family portraits, painted by Mr. J. P. Knight, were one day sent home, when they were instantly recognised with great joy by a spaniel which had been a favourite with the originals. On being taken into the room, and perceiving the canvas thus stamped with identity even to illusion, the faithful dog endeavoured, by every demonstration of affection, to attract the notice of her former friends; and was with difficulty withheld by one of the bystanders from leaping upon them, and overwhelming them with her caresses. This interesting recognition continued for many minutes, and was repeated on the next and following days; until finding, doubtless, that the scent was wanting, poor “Flossy” slunk away abashed, in evident mortification that her well-known playfellows were so regardless of her proffered kindness. Yet, turning upon them both alternately many a wistful look, she seemed unwilling to be convinced, even by experience, that she had thus mistaken the shadow for the substance.

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The Plough public-house at Kensal-green, on the road to Harrow, was a favourite resort of George Morland. Here this errant son of genius was wont to indulge in deep potations. He lodged hard by, and was frequently in company with Ward, the painter, whose example of moral steadiness was exhibited to him in vain. While at Kensal-green, Morland fell in love with Miss Ward, a young lady of beauty and modesty, and soon afterwards married her; she was the sister of his friend, the painter; and to make the family union stronger, Ward sued for the hand of Maria Morland, and in about a month after his sister’s marriage, obtained it.

Morland’s courtship and honeymoon drew him from the orgies at the Plough, but on returning to the metropolis, he betook himself to his former habits. Yet, with all his dissipation, Morland was not indolent; as is attested by four thousand pictures, most of them of great merit, which he painted during a life of forty years.

Among Morland’s portraits is one which has become of peculiar historical interest: it is a small whole-length of William the Fourth when a midshipman. The sailor-prince is looking wistfully upon the sea, which he loved far dearer than the cumbrous splendour of a crown.

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Henry Cornelius Vroom, the Dutchman, having painted a number of devout subjects, started for Spain to sell them; but was cast away upon a small island near the coast of Portugal. The painter and some of the crew were relieved by monks, who lived among the rocks, and they conducted them to Lisbon, where Vroom was engaged by a picture-dealer to paint the storm he had just escaped. In this picture he succeeded so well, that the Portuguese dealer continued to employ him. He improved so much in sea-pieces that he saved money, returned home, and applied himself exclusively to that class of painting. He then lived at Haerlem, where he was employed to design the suite of tapestry representing the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, which hung for many years upon the walls of the House of Lords, at Westminster. It had been bespoken by Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral of the English Fleet, which engaged the Armada; it was sold by him to James the First. It consisted originally of ten compartments, forming separate pictures, each of which was surrounded by a wrought border, including the portraits of the officers who held command in the English fleet. This tapestry was woven, according to Sandrart, by Francis Spiering: it was destroyed in the fire which consumed the two Houses of Parliament, in 1834. Fortunately, engravings from these hangings were executed by Mr. John Pine, and published in 1739, with illustrations from charters, medals, &c.

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The following summary of the fortunes of painters is at once curious and interesting:—

“One must confess that if the poets were an order of beings of too great sensibility for this world, the painters laboured still more under this malady of genius. Zoppo, a sculptor, having accidentally broken the chef d’œuvre of his efforts, destroyed himself. Chendi poisoned himself, because he was only moderately applauded for the decorations of a tournament. Louis Caracci died of mortification because he could not set right a foot in a fresco, the wrong position of which he did not perceive till the scaffolding was taken away. Cavedone lost his talent from grief at his son’s death, and begged his bread from want of commissions. Schidone, inspired with the passion of play, died of despair to have lost all in one night. There was one who languished, and was no more from seeing the perfection of Raphael. Torrigini, to avoid death at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, put an end to himself, having broken to pieces his own statue of the Virgin, an avaricious hidalgo, who had ordered it, higgling at the price. Bandinelli died, losing a commission for a statue; Daniel de Volterra, from anxiety to finish a monument to Henry IV. of France. Cellini frequently became unwell in the course of his studies, from the excitement of his feelings. When one sums up the history of painters with the furious and bloody passions of a Spagnoletto, and Caravaggio, Tempeste, and Calabrese, one must suppose all their sensibilities much stronger than those of the rest of mankind.”

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This far-famed picture, believed to be the only genuine portrait of the poet, was bought at the sale at Stowe, in the autumn of 1848, by the Earl of Ellesmere, for 355 guineas. Its history, as stated in the Athenæum shortly after the period of the sale, is as follows:—“The Duke of Chandos obtained it by marriage with the daughter and heiress of a Mr. Nicholl, of Minchenden House, Southgate; Mr. Nicholl obtained it from a Mr. Robert Keck, of the Inner Temple, who gave (the first and best) Mrs. Barry, the actress, as Oldys tells us, forty guineas for it. Mrs. Barry had it from Betterton, and Betterton had it from Sir William Davenant, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, and not unwilling to be thought his son. Davenant was born in 1605, and died in 1668; and Betterton, (as every reader of Pepys will recollect,) was the great actor, belonging to the Duke’s Theatre, of which Davenant was the patentee. The elder brother of Davenant, (Parson Robert,) had been heard to relate, as Aubrey informs us, that Shakspeare had often kissed Sir William when a boy.

“Davenant lived quite near enough to Shakspeare’s time to have obtained a genuine portrait of the poet whom he admired—in an age, too, when the Shakspeare mania was not so strong as it is now. There is no doubt that this was the portrait which Davenant believed to be like Shakspeare, and which Kneller, before 1692, copied and presented to glorious John Dryden, who repaid the painter with one of the best of his admirable epistles.

“The Chandos Shakspeare is a small portrait on canvas, 22 inches long by 18 broad. The face is thoughtful, the eyes are expressive, and the hair is of a brown black. The dress is black, with a white turnover collar, the strings of which are loose. There is a small gold ring in the left ear. We have had an opportunity of inspecting it both before and after the sale, and in the very best light, and have no hesitation in saying that the copies we have seen of it are very far from like. It agrees in many respects—the short nose especially—with the Stratford bust, and is not more unlike the engraving before the first folio—or the Gerard Johnson bust on the Stratford monument—than Raeburn’s Sir Walter Scott is unlike Sir Thomas Lawrence’s—or West’s Lord Byron unlike the better known portrait by Phillips. It has evidently been touched upon; the yellow oval that surrounds it has a look of Kneller’s age.”

The opinion of the writer in the Athenæum is, that the Chandos picture is not the original for which Shakspeare sat, but a copy made for Sir William Davenant from some known and acknowledged portrait of the poet.

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Sir Joshua Reynolds has done more than any one else to vindicate the art of portrait-painting as indigenous to our country—he has started it afresh from its lethargy and recovered it from its errors—placed himself at once above all his countrymen who had preceded him, and has remained above all who have followed. Like Holbein and Vandyke, Sir Joshua put his stamp upon the times; or rather, like a true artist and philosopher, he took that aggregate impression which the times gave. Each has doubtless given his sitters a character of his own; but this is not our argument. Each has also made his sitters what the costume of the time contributed to make them. If Vandyke’s women are dignified and lofty, it is his doing, for he was dignified and lofty in all his compositions; if they are also childish and trivial, it is the accident of the costume; for he was never either in his other pictures. If Reynolds’s sitters are all simple, earnest, and sober, it is because he was the artist, for he was so in all he touched; if they are also stately, refined, and intellectual, it was the effect of the costume, for he was not so in his other conceptions. For instance, Lady St. Asaph, with her infant, lolling on a couch, in a loose tumbled dress, with her feet doubled under her, is sober and respectable looking—in spite of dress and position. Mrs. Hope, in an enormous cabbage of a cap, with her hair over her eyes, is blowsy and vulgar in spite of Reynolds.

To our view, the average costume of Sir Joshua was excessively beautiful. We go through a gallery of his portraits with feelings of intense satisfaction, that there should have been a race of women who could dress so decorously, so intellectually, and withal so becomingly. Not a bit of the costume appeals to any of the baser instincts. There is nothing to catch the vulgar, or fix the vicious. All is pure, noble, serene, benevolent. They seem as if they would care for nothing we could offer them, if our deepest reverence were not with it. We stand before them like Satan before Eve, “stupidly good,” ready to abjure all the fallacies of the Fathers, all the maxims of the moderns—ready to eat our own words if they disapproved them—careless what may have been the name or fame, family or fortune, of such lofty and lovely creatures—yea, careless of their very beauty, for the soul that shines through it. And then to think that they are all dead!—Quarterly Review.

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Before the change that took place in the general appearance of London, soon after the accession of George III., the universal use of signs, not only for taverns and ale-houses, but also for tradesmen, furnished no small employment for the inferior rank of painters, and sometimes even for the superior professors. Cotton painted several good ones; but among the most celebrated practitioners in this branch, was a person of the name of Lamb, who possessed a considerable degree of ability. His pencil was bold and masterly, well adapted to the subjects on which it was generally employed. Mr. Wale, who was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and appointed the first Professor of Perspective in that institution, also painted some signs; the principal one was a full-length of Shakspeare, about five feet high, which was executed for and displayed before the door of a public-house at the corner of Little Russel Street, Drury Lane. It was enclosed in a sumptuously carved gilt frame, and suspended by rich iron-work. But this splendid object of popular attraction did not stand long before it was taken down, in consequence of an Act of Parliament that was passed for paving, and removing the signs and other obstructions from, the streets of London. Such was the total change of fashion, and the consequent disuse of signs, that this representation of the immortal bard was sold for a trifle to a broker, at whose door it stood for several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other accidents.

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The Duchess of Kingston was very anxious to be received by some crowned head, as the only means of relief from the disgrace fixed upon her by her trial and conviction for bigamy. The Court of Russia was chosen, where pictures were sent as presents, not only to the Sovereign, but to the most powerful of the nobles. Count Tchernicheff was represented to the Duchess as an exalted character, to whom she ought, in policy, to pay her especial devoirs. Feeling the force of the observation, she sent him two paintings. The Duchess was no judge of pictures, and a total stranger to the value of these pieces, which were originals by Raphael and Claude Lorraine. The Count was soon apprised of this, and, on the arrival of the Duchess at St. Petersburg, he waited on her Grace, and professed his gratitude for the present, at the same time assuring the Duchess that the pictures were estimated at a value in Russian money equal to ten thousand pounds sterling. The Duchess could with the utmost difficulty conceal her chagrin. She told the Count “that she had other pictures, which she should consider it an honour if he would accept; that the two paintings in his possession were particularly the favourites of her departed lord; but that the Count was extremely kind in permitting them to occupy a place in his palace, until her mansion was properly prepared.” This palpable hint was not taken.

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J. Swartz, a distinguished German painter, having engaged to execute a roof-piece in a public townhall, and to paint by the day, grew exceedingly negligent; so that the magistrates and overseers of the work were frequently obliged to hunt him out of the tavern. Seeing he could not drink in quiet, he one morning stuffed a pair of stockings and shoes corresponding with those that he wore, hung them down betwixt his staging where he sat to work, removed them a little once or twice a-day, and took them down at noon and night; and by means of this deception he drank without the least disturbance a whole fortnight together, the innkeeper being in the plot. The officers came in twice a-day to look at him; and, seeing a pair of legs hanging down, suspected nothing, but greatly extolled their convert Swartz as the most laborious and conscientious painter in the world.

Swartz had once finished an admirable picture of our Saviour’s Passion, on a large scale, and in oil colours. A certain Cardinal was so well pleased with it, that he resolved to bring the Pope to see it. Swartz knew the day, and, determined to put a trick on the Pope and the Cardinal, painted over the oil, in fine water-colours, the twelve disciples at supper, but all together by the ears, like the Lapithæ and the Centaurs. At the time appointed, the Pope and Cardinal came to see the picture. Swartz conducted them to the room where it hung. They stood amazed, and thought the painter mad. At length the Cardinal said, “Idiot, dost thou call this a Passion?” “Certainly I do,” said Swartz. “But,” replied the Cardinal, “show me the picture I saw when here last.” “This is it,” said Swartz, “for I have no other finished in the house.” The Cardinal angrily denied that it was the same. Swartz, unwilling or afraid to carry the joke further, requested that they would retire a few minutes out of his room. No sooner had they done so, than Swartz, with a sponge and warm water, obliterated the whole of the water-colour coating; then, re-introducing the Pope and the Cardinal, he presented them with a most beautiful picture of the Passion. They stood astonished, and thought Swartz a necromancer. At last the painter explained the mystery; and then, as the old chroniclers say, “they knew not which most to admire, his work or his wit.”

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Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, tells the following:—“Some years ago, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one. Little H—— the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy. If any one says so again, I’ll break his head. Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come and give me your real opinion of it?’ ”

THE END.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
just by by chance=> just by chance {pg I,98}
snm of four hundred=> sum of four hundred {pg I,110}
had a great gout=> had a great goût {pg I,124}
proved his downfal=> proved his downfall {pg II,88}
have no hesitatation=> have no hesitation {pg II,126}

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