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and the freedom of his nature.

men which was either procured or seen, during Parry's second voyage, (when it was first discovered,) is now in the Edinburgh Museum, and has been engraved for this work. ---As to the erodia, it belongs to that species of aquatic birds, which delight rather in the oozy shores of seas and lakes than in the wide waters themselves. This is a very numerous class. They have, for the most part, long, slender, naked legs, as if for the purpose of enabling them to wade more easily; and bills, too, of portentous strength and longitude, down which, it is easy to perceive that innumerable crustaceous animals, especially all sorts of shell fish, are destined to pass. The plumage of these marine birds, in good keeping with the element to which they belong, is commonly coloured grey, black, blue, and white, grey being the predominant tint.

Of the singing birds, it would be invidious and malicious to particularize any one in preference to his compa nions. All mankind owe them much, for they give a beauty, and a life, and a cheerfulness, to every rural scene which nothing else could equal. They are winged voices, whose whole existence is music. Trees are dearer to us, because we hear their songs among the branches; when the stars wane, the larks succeed them in the skies, and are no unworthy successors; from the gardens and the groves the innocent melodies of the feathered throng come like the prattle of children, to soften and to soothe the heart. No wonder that poets have sought for inspiration in their notes; no wonder that gentle ladies have held them captive in golden cages, and rejoiced to feed them with the honey dew of their own lips. How free are they from the dull satiety of ordinary life! How deeply ignorant of all the weariness and the fret of human society,

Who shall say how far it may be given him to reach? Why should he not travel on and on and on, until he either wander from the earth altogether, or, dying like Icarus on his too adventurous journey, come tumbling down the empyrean like a meteor, and fall dead into some far-off Glencoe, or nameless glen? But if he return scatheless from his sunward flight, is he not richly entitled to a kid, a lamb, or even a grown-up sheep, with which to regale himself in his mountainous solitude? Let us not grudge the bird of Jove-the very monarch of the air a dinner upon any of the paltry four-footed things that walk the earth.---If we next open Part Third, lo! the vulture ;---a shrewd and most sagacious-looking rascal, with a beak like an old Roman's nose, and an eye like Moffat's, the murderer of Begbie. It was for a long while a question whether the sense of smell or of sight was more useful to the vulture in the discovery of his prey; but the matter is now nearly settled by the experiments of Audubon, detailed in his excellent papers on the habits of the American Vulturida, which | go far to prove, that they are indebted to the latter of these senses almost exclusively. Generally speaking, the plumage of birds of prey is of an unusually sombre and sober kind, as if Nature thought it unnecessary to throw away gay feathers upon animals which were to be so much exposed to the tear and wear of actual service. And only look at the vulture's talons! With such instruments as these, it is impossible that the bird can resist clutching up every thing that comes within his reach, and then what a glorious scene of tearing, and rugging, and lacerating, and rending, will incontinently follow! He is a greedy Caligula; we do not love or respect the vulture. The hawk, with all the varieties of the species, should not be passed over in silence. The first plate in Part Fifthwhich has just been published---is one of the finest specimens we have ever seen. It is the crested spizœtus, or the falco cristatellus, and is said to have been shot, off the north coast, by the captain of a vessel about to enter the Of all created creatures, were we to change our own conport of Aberdeen. It is better known, however, as a na- dition, we should wish to be a singing bird; and pertive of the warmer climates of Asia; and from the fore-haps it would have been better for us, had we been a head, throat, sides of the neck, and the whole of the under singing bird from the beginning. parts, being pure white, we should hardly imagine it indigenous in this country. The upper part of the body is of a dark amber-brown, and from the occiput spring six or eight elongated dark brown feathers, which form a pendent crest. The bird altogether is of a beautiful and dignified aspect; there is a patrician air about him. He looks as if he had lived all his life, not upon sparrows, or “frogs, and mice, and such small deer," but on pigeons and ring-doves. Rich blood flows through his veins ;--he is a gentleman every inch of him,---a far more noblelooking fellow, we venture to say, than the sea-captain who said he shot him off Aberdeen.

"In some melodious plot

Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singing of summer in full-throated ease!"

With regard to the miscellaneous birds, which do not exactly belong to any of the three classes already enumerated, volumes might be written to illustrate their peculiarities. They swarm everywhere;-in the fields of England, on the mountains of Scotland, among the marshes of Holland, on the sands of Africa, in the forests of America. Some are remarkable for the splendid beauty of their plumage, such as the Malabar chloropsis, in Part I., with its forehead of brilliant orange, its throat ultra-marine blue, tinged with violet purple, its upper parts sap green, changing in intensity according to the light in which it is placed, and its shoulders pale glossy blue; or the azure kingsfisher, in Part IV.; or the purple-crowned pigeon, and tabuan parrakeet, both magnificent birds, in Part V. Others are remarkable for their minute and exquisite shape and hues, justifying the poet's appellation of "winged gems.” Witness the different kinds of the Malurus, called by Lewin the variegated warbler, and by Phillip the superb warbler; the birds of Paradise, and many more. Others, again, are remarkable for being good-for-nothing, greedy, chattering wretches. Here, for example, is an animal-the garrulus coronatus, or crowned jay, whom one may see, with half an eye, to be the most conceited, backbiting, irritable, old-maid kind of creature in the whole of the aerial dominions. Here are two other fellows, the saffron-coloured araçari, and the spotted-billed araçari, both South American birds, who have bills almost as large as the whole of the rest of their bodies put together; these are the aldermen of the woods,

Though there is a still greater variety of aquatic than of predatorial birds, there is probably a still stronger general resemblance between them, both in their habits and appearance. In the work before us, the two most interesting birds of this description which have yet been given, are the larus roseus, or rosy gull, in Part I., and the erodia amphilensis, or pied erodia, in Part V. The first of these is an acquisition gained to ornithology by the enterprising expeditions of Captain Parry. The genus to which it belongs is sufficiently numerous, and the gull may be called the very bird of the ocean. In all weathers and seasons, in all latitudes, and on every voyage, it meets the sailor-now careering on the outskirts of the storm, and now floating in dreamy idleness upon the heaving bosom of the unruffled deep, now clustering and shrieking in the offing round some rude rock, and now sailing before the breeze, dipping in the snowy wave its more snowy bosom, and, as if it loved-gluttons, who lay waste whole colonies of innocent inthe companionship of men, sporting for leagues in the wake of the gallant vessel. There must be something less gregarious, and more solitary, in the habits of that particular species called the rosy gull; for the only speci

sects, and devour more food in an hour, than they would entitle themselves to, by their talents or virtues, in a year. Then here are two collared shrikes from Africa, caught in the very act,---with the red hand, as we say in Scot

land.

No wonder the shrike is proverbial among the Hottentots for cruelty; did you ever see a dark, black villain, with a hooked beak, hand down more coolly to one of his younger associates a murdered and bleeding butterfly? and the young thief, with an expression of savage joy, gapes wide to receive the prey; these are the very Burks and Hares of the feathered tribe; we should like much to see a goshawk pounce upon them, like a master of police, and put an end to their infamous revelries.

tish art, wherever he has the power of personal examination. "Though the lives of men, devoted to silent study and secluded labour," he subsequently observes, "contain few of those incidents which embellish the biographies of more stirring spirits, yet they are scarcely less alluring and instructive. Their works are at once their actions

and their history, and a record of the taste and feeling of the times in which they flourished. We love to know under what circumstances a great work of art was conceived and completed: it is pleasing to follow the vicissitudes of their fortunes whose genius has charmed us—to sympathize in their anxieties, and to witness their tri

Having thus feebly adverted to a few of the interesting traits in the character and history of birds, we conclude, as we began, by warmly recommending these "Illustra-umph." tions of Ornithology," not to the man of abstract science alone, but to all who take an interest in natural history, and are willing to strengthen and improve their mind, by paying some attention to one of its most delightful branches.

The Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. By Allan Cunningham. Vol. I. Being the Family Library, No. IV. London. John Murray. 1829.

THIS is a delightful volume, on a subject which must interest every man of classical attainments, who aspires to the cultivation of his taste, and the extension of a highly useful species of knowledge. There runs through it a fine fresh vein of bold and manly thought; and whilst it is evident that the author, avoiding all the disgusting cant of criticism and vulgar amateurship, thinks decidedly for himself, it is at the same time no less evident, that his acquirements are such as to entitle him to exercise, in|| the freest manner, his independent judgment, and to make its decisions valuable. "Will no one write a book on what he understands?" was asked by Mr Jeffrey some time ago, in alluding to an earlier work of Allan Cunningham's; and this was but the prologue to a merciless rebuking, which might have been well spared by the critic, considering the kindness he showed to others, whose merits were certainly not greater. No complaint, however, of the kind formerly made, can be brought against the book before us. Allan Cunningham's habits, of late years, peculiarly fit him for doing justice to the task he has undertaken. He has held for some time a high and lucrative situation in the extensive establishment of Chantrey the sculptor; and as literature and the arts are kindred studies, he has found it both for his pleasure and advantage to divide his time between them. It would not be easy, it is true, to fetter down by any established rules, however excellent, the exuberant genius of Cunningham; but a delicate susceptibility to all that is lovely and sublime in nature, which is only another phrase for genius, is the best guarantee that the beauties of art can be duly appreciated, and will not be discussed with the flippancy of conceit, or the obstinacy of igno

rance.

The present work upon the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of Great Britain, is to extend to three volumes. Only the first has yet appeared, which contains an historical account of the early English Painters, followed by the Lives of William Hogarth, Richard Wilson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Thomas Gainsborough. The historical introduction is written with great ability, and is very interesting. The author has had many difficulties to contend with; for, as he justly remarks, the history of art, and of British art in particular, and the lives, characters, and works of its earlier professors, are scattered through many volumes, and are to be sought for in remote collections, private cabinets, and public galleries." Almost the only authorities to which he could appeal are Vertue and Walpole, the one too indiscriminating, and the other too easily prejudiced. Justly, therefore, does Mr Cunningham determine, on all occasions, to express his own sentiments concerning works of Bri

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Painting, unlike her sister, Poetry, made very slow progress in England for many centuries. Henry the Third seems to have been among the first of our kings who patronised the arts to any considerable extent. But the low estimation in which painting was then held may be guessed from the fact, that in the person of an artist were commonly combined the different trades of a carver

of wood, a maker of figures, a house and heraldry painter, a carpenter, an upholsterer, a mason, a saddler, a jeweller, and sometimes, over and above all, a-tailor! From this state of degradation, the arts were far from rising during the reigns of the two first Edwards, who were too fond of military trappings to care much for aught else. Greater progress was made during the long reign of Edward the Third. The illustration and illumination of missals, and of books of chivalry and romance, though a far humbler pursuit than legitimate painting, contributed to encourage a taste for the latter; and the art of making tapestry, which was now much attended to, exercised probably a still greater influence towards the same end. Our author's observations upon this subject are so interesting, that we shall extract them :

TAPESTRY.

"The art of tapestry, as well as the art of illuminating books, aided in diffusing a love of painting over the island. It was carried to a high degree of excellence. The earliest account of its appearance in England is during the reign of Henry the Eighth; but there is no reason to doubt that it traditional account, that we were instructed in it by the was well known and in general esteem much earlier. The Saracens, has probably some foundation. The ladies encouraged this manufacture, by working at it with their own hands; and the rich aided by purchasing it in vast quantities whenever regular practitioners appeared in the market. It found its way into church and palace, chamber and hall. It served at once to cover and adorn cold and comfortless walls. It added warmth, and when snow was on the hill, and ice in the stream, gave an air of social snugness which

has deserted some of our modern mansions.

"At first, the figures and groups which rendered this manufacture popular, were copies of favourite paintings; but, as taste improved and skill increased, they showed more of originality in their conceptions, if not more of nature in their forms. They exhibited, in common with all other works of art, the mixed taste of the times a grotesque union of classical and Hebrew history-of martial life and pastoral combinations certainly were, and destitute of those beauties Absurd as such repose of Greek gods and Romish saints. of form and delicate gradations and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings worthily so called, still, when the hall was lighted up, and living faces thronged the floor, the silent inhabitants of the walls would seem, in the eyes of our ancestors, something very splendid. As painting rose in lighter and less massive mode of architecture abridged the fame, tapestry sunk in estimation. The introduction of a space for its accommodation; and, by degrees, the stiff and fanciful creations of the loom vanished from our walls. The art is now neglected. I am sorry for this, because I cannot think meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of the ladies of England, and gave, to the tapestried hall of elder days, fame little inferior to what now waits on a gallery of paintings."-Pp. 13–4.

Notwithstanding the progress which England had now made in many ways, it is still most remarkable that, so late as the accession of Henry the Eighth, painters were numbered with the common menials of the court; "they

mother's, the queen that was. Doctor, you may be out in your letters, but I cannot be out in my lines.'"-Pp. 48-9. Kneller brings us down to the commencement of the 18th century, when native painters of genius and reputation make their appearance. Up to this period, Great Britain was indebted principally to the four foreign artists, Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Kneller; for though the Olivers, Jamesone, and Cooper, were native artists, they were unquestionably of an inferior grade. Hogarth was born in London on the 10th of December, 1697, and with him the Biographical Memoirs of the British Painters commence. It is impossible for us to attempt any analysis of these Memoirs, all of which are written with elegance, spirit, and impartiality. Hogarth seems to be an especial favourite with Mr Cunningham, who is anxious to do him all justice, both as an artist and a man. We suspect, indeed, that he conveys almost too favourable an impression of the painter's moral character; but this is an error on the right side. All the remarks on Hogarth's celebrated works are pertinent and good; the following account of one of them may serve as a brief specimen :

HOGARTH'S ENRAGED MUSICIAN.

had their livery suit, their yearly dole, and their weekly wages." The Reformation, for some time at least, did no good to the arts, especially to historical painting. Portraiture was allowed to survive the general wreck; and Hans Holbein, who was received with honour at the court of Henry in the year 1526, was the first artist of eminence who visited England. He died of the plague in London in 1554. Elizabeth did little for the arts, and James not much more. He gave a pension, however, to the Dutch painter Mytens," whose reputation was such, that, in the opinion of many, it suffered but a slight eclipse on the appearance of Vandyke." Charles the First did more for art and literature in this country, than all his predecessors put together. Inigo Jones was his architect, and Vandyke was his painter. In the great Gallery of Whitehall, he had a collection of four hundred and sixty pictures, comprising many of the chef-d'œuvres of Corregio, Julio Romano, Parmegiano, Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Tintoret, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Leonardo da Vinci. It was about this time, also, that George Jamesone, a native of Aberdeen, known by the name of the Scottish Vandyke, made his appearance. He commenced his professional career at Edinburgh in the year 1628, after having studied under Rubens. "This design,' says Ireland, originated in a story "When Charles visited Scotland in 1633, he sat for his which was told to Hogarth by Mr John Festin, who is the portrait to Jamesone, and rewarded him with a diamond hero of the print. He was eminent for his skill in playing ring from his own finger." The troubles which soon upon the hautboy and German flute, and much employed as a teacher of music.' To each of his scholars he dedicated afterwards ensued, and the ascendency of the Puritans, checked for a long while the progress of art. "The arts," he, I waited upon my Lord Spencer, but his Lordship one hour each day. 'At nine o'clock, one morning,' said says Walpole, were in a manner expelled with the being out of town, from him I went to Mr V-n, now royal family from Britain. The arts that civilize so- Lord V-n; it was so early that he was not arisen. I ciety are not calculated for men who rise on the ruins of went into his chamber, and, opening a window, sat down established order." The Restoration of Charles the Se- on the window-seat. Before the rails was a fellow playing cond changed the order of things, as if by sudden enupon the hautboy. A man with a barrowful of onions of chantment; but the natural grace of innocence and sim- ended, he offered a second for a second tune; the same for fered the piper an onion if he would play him a tune; that plicity of youth no longer attended the arts. The talents a third, and was going on; but this was too much-I could of Sir Peter Lely, which were unquestionably great, not bear it; it angered my very soul. Zounds!' said I, were dedicated, for the most part, to the task of record-stop here! This fellow is ridiculing my profession-he is ing the features of lordly rakes and courtly wantons. playing on the hautboy for onions!' His successor, Sir Godfrey Kneller, had a still higher reputation, and a more extended range. "All the sovereigns of his time, all the noblemen of the court, all the men of genius in the kingdom, and almost all the ladies of rank or of beauty in England, sat for their portraits." The following anecdotes of this painter are characteristic and amusing:

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ANECDOTES OF SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

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"In the spirit of this story the artist has gone to work. Of vocal performers, we have the dustman, shouting Dust, ers!' a mik-maid, crying Milk above! milk below! a ho! dust, ho!' the wandering fishmonger, calling Floundfemale ballad-singer, chanting the doleful story of the 'Lady's Fall'-her child and a neighbouring parrot screaming the chorus; a little French drummer beats 'rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub,' without remorse, singing all the time; two cats squall and puff in the gutter tiles; a dog is howling in dismay, while, like a young demon, overlooking and inspiring all, a sweep-boy, with nothing unblack about him, save his teeth and the whites of his eyes, proclaims that his work is done-from the top of a chimney-pot. Of instrumental accompaniments, there is good store. A postman with his horn, a stroller with his hautboy, a dustman with his bell, a pavior with his rammer, a cutler grinding a butcher's cleaver, and John Long, pewterer,' over a door, adds the clink of twenty hammers, striking on metal, to the medley of out-of-door sounds."-Pp. 111-13.

The materials for a Life of Richard Wilson are very

"The vanity of Kneller was redeemed by his naïveté, and rendered pleasant by his wit. 'Dost thou think, man,' said he to his tailor, who proposed his son for a pupil, dost thou think, man, I can make thy son a painter? No! God Almighty only makes painters.' His wit, however, was that of one who had caught the spirit of Charles the Second's wicked court. He once overheard a low fellow cursing himself—' God damn you! indeed!' exclaimed the artist, in wonder. God may damn the Duke of Marlborough, and perhaps Sir Godfrey Kneller; but do you think he will take the trouble of damning such a scoundrel as you?' The servants of his neighbour, Dr Ratcliffe, abused the liberty of a private entrance to the painter's gar-scanty, and accordingly it is the shortest in the volume; den, and plucked his flowers. Kneller sent word that he must shut the door up. Tell him,' the Doctor peevishly replied, that he may do any thing with it but paint it.'Never mind what he says,' retorted Sir Godfrey, I c take any thing from him-but physic.' "Kneller was one day conversing about his art, when he gave the following neat reason for preferring portraiture: Painters of history,' said he, make the dead live, and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me live.' In a conversation concern ing the legitimacy of the unfortunate son of James the Second, some doubts having been expressed by an Oxford doctor, he exclaimed, with much warinth, His father and mother have sat to me about thirty-six times apiece, and I know every line and bit of their faces. Mein Gott! I could paint King James now by memory! I say the child is so like both, that there is not a feature in his face but what be longs either to father or to mother; this I am sure of, and cannot be mistaken! Nay, the nails of his fingers are his

can

but as this country has produced few landscape-painters of greater eminence, any particulars concerning him must be interesting.---Sir Joshua Reynolds occupies a much more prominent place. The friend of Johnson, Burke, literature as well as the arts of his country. He was Garrick, and Goldsmith, his name is connected with the born at Plympton, in Devonshire, in 1723, and it appears that his name is recorded in the parish register as Joseph, not Joshua. A portrait-painter, of the name of Hudson, was his first master; but in the year 1749, when he was in his twenty-sixth year, he visited Rome, and the splendid works in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican were his second masters. Raphael and Michael Angelo were the painters whose productions he principally admired. But, in the opinion of Mr Cunningham," the severe dignity of Angelo or Raphael he had no chance of attaining, for he wanted loftiness of imagination, without

following able piece of criticism on Sir Joshua's style of portrait-painting :

which no grand work can ever be achieved; but he had a deep sense of character, great skill in light and shade, a graceful softness and an alluring sweetness, such as none "The portraits of Reynolds are equally numerous and have surpassed. From the works of Leonardo da Vinci, excellent, and all who have written of their merits have Fra. Bartolomeo, Titian, and Velasquez, he acquired swelled their eulogiums by comparing them with the simknowledge, which placed fortune and fame within his plicity of Titian, the vigour of Rembrandt, and the elegance and delicacy of Vandyke. Certainly, in character and exreach." He remained in Italy for three years. His bril-pression, and in manly ease, he has never been surpassed. liant and lucrative career, when he returned, is ably de- He is always equal, always natural-graceful-unaffected. scribed, and a number of anecdotes and notices of his con- His boldness of posture, and his singular freedom of colourtemporaries are introduced, which enhance the interesting, are so supported by all the grace of art-by all the sor

and value of the Memoir. We can find room for only one extract, and it is of somewhat a melancholy cast:

THE LAST DAYS OF SIR JOSHUA Reynolds.

"Sir Joshua had now reached his 66th year; the boldness and happy freedom of his productions were undiminished; and the celerity of his execution, and the glowing richness of his colouring, were rather on the increase than the wane. His life had been uniformly virtuous and temperate; and his looks, notwithstanding the paralytic stroke he had lately received, promised health and long life. He was happy in his fame and fortune, and in the society of numerous and eminent friends; and he saw himself in his old age without a rival. His great prudence and fortunate control of temper had prevented him from giving serious offence to any individual; and the money he had amassed, and the style in which he lived, unencumbered with a family, created a respect for him amongst those who were incapable of understanding his merits. But the hour of sorrow was at hand. One day, in the month of July 1789, while finishing the portrait of the Marchioness of Hertford, he felt a sudden decay of sight in his left eye. He laid down the pencil; sat a little while in mute consideration, and never lifted it more.

"His sight gradually darkened, and within ten weeks of the first attack, his left eye was wholly blind. He appeared cheerful, and endeavoured to persuade himself that he was resigned and happy. But he had been accustomed to the society of the titled and the beautiful, and from this he was now cut off; he knew the world well, and perceived that, as the pencil, which brought the children of vanity about him as with a charm, could no longer be used, the giddy tide of approbation would soon roll another way. His mental sufferings were visible to some of his friends, though he sought to conceal them with all his might. One read to him to charm away the time,-another conversed with him,—and the social circle among whom he had so long presided, still assembled round the well-spread table. Ozias Humphreys came every morning and read a newspaper to him; his niece, afterwards Marchioness of Thomond, arrived from the country, and endeavoured to soothe and amuse him; and he tried to divert himself by changing the position of his pictures, and by exhibiting them all in succession in his drawing-room, so that he at once pleased his friends and gratified himself.

"But a man cannot always live in society, nor can society always spare time to amuse him. There are many hours of existence which he must gladden, as he can, for himself. Cowper took to the taming of hares; and Sir Joshua made a companion of a little bird, which was so tame and docile as to perch on his hand, and with this innocent favourite he was often found by his friends, pacing around his room, and speaking to it as if it were a thing of sense and information. A summer morning and an open window were temptations which it could not resist; it flew away; and Reynolds roamed for hours about the square where he resided, in hopes of reclaiming it.

cery of skill, that they appear natural and noble. Over the meanest head he sheds the halo of dignity; his men are all nobleness, his women all loveliness, and his children all simplicity: yet they are all like the living originals. He had the singular art of summoning the mind into the face, and making sentiment mingle in the portrait. He could completely dismiss all his preconceived notions of academic beauty from his mind, be dead to the past, and living only to the present, and enter into the character of the reigning beauty of the hour with a truth and a happiness next to magical. It is not to be denied that he was a mighty flatterer. Had Colonel Charteris sat to Reynolds, he would, I doubt not, have given an aspect worthy of a President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

"That the admirers of portrait-painting are many, the annual exhibitions show us; and it is pleasant to read the social and domestic affections of the country in these innumerable productions. In the minds of some they rank with historical compositions; and there can be no doubt that portraits that give the form and the soul of the poets, and statesmen, and warriors, and of all whose actions or whose thoughts lend lustre to the land, are to be received as illustrations of history. But with the mob of portraits fame and history have nothing to do. The painter who wishes for lasting fame, must not lavish his fine colours and his choice postures on the rich and titled alone; he must seek to associate his labours with the genius of the country. The face of an undistinguished person, however exquisitely painted, is disregarded in the eyes of posterity. The most skilful posture, and the richest colouring, cannot create the reputation which accompanies genius, and we turn coldly away from the head which we happen not to know or to have heard of. The portrait of Johnson has risen to the value of five hundred guineas; while the heads of many of Sir Joshua's grandest lords remain at their original fifty. "The influence of Reynolds on the taste and elegance of the island was great, and will be lasting. The grace and ease of his compositions were a lesson for the living to study, while the simplicity of his dresses astonished the giddy and the gay amidst the hideousness of fashion. He sought to restore nature in the looks of his sitters, and he waged a thirty years' war against the fopperies of dress. His works diffused a love of elegance, and united with poetry in softening the asperities of nature, in extending our views, and in connecting us with the spirits of the time. His cold stateliness of character, and his honourable pride of art, gave dignity to his profession: the rich and the far-descended were pleased to be painted by a gentleman as well as a genius."-Pp. 314-16.

He lived on terms of

The Life of Gainsborough, who, with Wilson, laid the foundation of our school of landscape, concludes the volume. The penury of contemporary biography precludes the possibility of many personal details in his case, any more than in that of Wilson. great affection with Richard Brinsley Sheridan; and died in the sixty-first year of his age, in 1783. His style is well characterised by his biographer in these few words:" His paintings have a national look. He be

"A concealed and fatal malady was invading the functions of life, and sapping his spirits. This was an enlargement of the liver, which expanded to twice its natural di mensions, defied human skill, and deprived him of all cheer-longs to no school; he is not reflected from the glass of fulness. His friends were ever with him, and sought to soothe him with hopes of recovery and with visions of long life; but he felt, in the simple language of the old bard,

That death was with him dealing,' refused to be comforted, and prepared for dissolution. 'I have been fortunate,' he said, in long good health and constant success, and I ought not to complain. I know that all things on earth must have an end, and now I am come to mine' Sir Joshua expired without any visible symptoms of pain, on the 23d of February, 1792, in the 69th year of his age."-Pp. 302-8.

To these biographical particulars we shall subjoin the

men, but from that of nature. He has not steeped his landscapes in the atmosphere of Italy, like Wilson, nor borrowed the postures of his portraits from the old masters, like Reynolds. No academy schooled down into uniformity and imitation the truly English and intrepid spirit of Gainsborough." Again,—“ There is a charm about the children running wild in the landscapes of Gainsborough, which is more deeply felt by comparing them with those of Reynolds. The children of Sir Joshua are indeed beautiful creations, free, artless, and lovely; but they seem all to have been nursed in velvet laps, and fed with golden spoons. There is a rustic grace,

an untamed wildness, about the children of the latter, which speak of the country and of neglected toilets. They are the offspring of nature, running free among woods as wild as themselves. They are not afraid of disordering their satins, and wetting their kid shoes : They roll on the green sward, burrow like rabbits, and dabble in the running streams daily."

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numerous and appropriate examples. He has, moreover,
followed these up by copious original and apposite
marks," which cannot fail to prove highly interesting, as
well as useful, to the practical mechanic.
We have long
considered such a work as the present a great desideratum,
and are therefore happy in having it in our power to bear
testimony to the able manner in which Mr Hay has sup-
plied it. He is evidently perfectly acquainted with his sub-
ject, and has certainly rendered it as simple as the nature of
a strictly scientific work would admit; most of the "de-
monstrations requiring only a knowledge of the rules of
proportion, and none more than a slight acquirement in
geometry or simple equations."

The Doom of Derenzie. A Poem. By the late Thomas
Furlong. London. Joseph Robins. 1829.

WE have been asked to give a candid opinion of this
posthumous production, which is from the pen of an
amiable man, who died, in Dublin, at the early age of
thirty-three. We feel the whole force of Johnson's ad-
vice,
"To wit, reviving from its author's dust,

Before closing this volume, which we heartily recommend to the attention of our readers, and which has made us anxious for the speedy appearance of the two which are to follow, we have a word or two to say of the embellishments. These are ten in number,-two on steel, and eight on wood. This indicates a degree of liberality on the part of the publisher highly praiseworthy; and the portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds and of William Hogarth, both on steel, are themselves worth the price of the volume. We beg, however, most particularly to state, that we would rather have had one other engraving on steel or copper, than the whole eight which have been given on wood. We do not know to what perfection engraving on wood may yet be brought, (it has got into considerable favour already;) but we are clear that it in no one instance does justice to the original. There is a Be kind, ye judges, or at least be just ;" soft indistinctness about it which we cannot abide, and and we shall, therefore, content ourselves with saying, the disagreeable effect of which any one will perceive by that we do not think Mr Furlong, had he lived, would looking at the portrait of Thomas Gainsborough in the ever have risen to the rank of a great poet. There are volume before us. The best woodcut is from one of some pleasing, and perhaps even powerful, passages in the Hogarth's works; but we must say, that considering the "Doom of Derenzie ;" but, on the whole, the diction is subject, which is "The Harlot's Progress, scene second," too prosaic, and the story too feebly brought out, to secure it was bad taste to give it a place in the book at all. We popularity. Such passages as the following are little caldo not see what it has to do with the Family Library.culated to suit the present taste of the literary world: Wilson's "Morning,"-Reynolds's "Shepherd Boy,"— and Gainsborough's "Cottage Girl," are in better taste, but the execution is inferior. Let us not part in the least ill-humour, however, for the Family Library is very ably conducted, and all the works which have appeared in it have been worthy of commendation, though to our taste the present is the best.

A Concise System of Mechanics, in Theory and Practice; with Original and Practical Remarks, Rules, Experiments, Tables, and Calculations, for the use of Practical Men. By James Hay, Land Surveyor. Edinburgh. Oliver & Boyd. 1829.

WE have frequently been led to observe, with regret, that in almost all the ordinary books intended for the use of practical mechanics, the rules are merely given, without any investigation of the principles upon which they are grounded, or the methods by which they are deduced from these principles. The chief reason for this is, no doubt, the very imperfect education of the lower classes. Adam Smith has very justly observed, that " if, instead of a little smattering of Latin which the children of the common people are sometimes taught at school, and which can scarce ever be of any use to them, they were instructed in the elementary parts of geometry and mechanics, the literary education of this rank of people would perhaps be as complete as it can be. There is scarce a common trade which does not afford some opportunity of applying to it the principles of geometry and mechanics, and which would not, therefore, gradually exercise and improve the common people in those principles,-the necessary introduction to the most sublime, as well as to the most useful, sciences." If our mechanics were educated to use the powers of their minds freely--to investigate, by their own industry, all the principles they want to consider nothing as a useful acquisition but in consequence of such investigation---we are convinced that this knowledge would be of the greatest benefit to them, not merely in a mechanical, but in a moral, point of view.

The great excellence of Mr Hay's work consists in his having combined theory with practice, by selecting from more voluminous and expensive works the most useful practical rules; in having given simple but rigorous demonstrations of these rules, and accompanied them with

"She, at times,

Did talk of sleepless nights and days of drowsiness,
Of headachs, spasms, and other slight infirmities,
Or real or imagined-such as haunt

The waking dreams of maidens."

There are, of course, many passages of a far superior kind; but, in giving an opinion upon a poem, it is not individual excellencies-unless they be bursts of real genius-but the general tone and spirit of the whole, that must be considered. The following extract is of the most favourable kind we can select :

"And thus, through life's gay dawn they went,
Lovely, and loved, and innocent,

And still each morn, that came and pass'd,
To them seem'd fairer than the last;
For they were happy, and they felt
Pleased with the world in which they dwelt.
Still, with his blooming one, the boy

Play'd round her mother's plain abode ;
Or took his sunny walks of joy
Through the wild wood, or o'er the road:
And many an aged man that pass'd

Gazed on the little tenants there;
And, as he went, pour'd forth a prayer,
Wishing that favouring Heaven at last
Would join the beauteous pair.
Oh! love, so simple and so bright,
Hath such a charm to cheer the sight,
That even a cherub, throned in light,
Might let one glance of kindness fall-

Öne calm, kind glance, from censure free-→→
And say, as such he chanced to see,
That the earth's weak ones had not all
Lost their primeval purity."

This is very pretty and Moore-ish, but the poetical reader will perceive, that even this carefully selected extract wants the true merit of vigorous originality; and this want is still more apparent throughout the volume.

History of the most Remarkable Conspiracies connected with European History, during the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries. By John Parker Lawson, M. A. Being Volumes XLIII. and XLIV. of Constable's Miscellany. Edinburgh. 1829.

WERE we inclined to enter in detail upon the general question, it would be easy to show, that we have good

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