posterity an honour to the Fine Arts, and an ornament to his Country. John Flaxman, Esq. of an ancient and respectable family in Buckinghamshire, but originally from Norfolk, was born in the city of York, on the 6th July, 1755. The affluence of his ancesters was considerably diminished by the civil wars during the reign of Charles the First; four brothers of this respectable family joined the Parliamentarians against Charles at the battle of Naisby. James, the eldest, was shot through both arms while in pursuit of the King; Francis was killed in the battle; another brother after the fight emigrated to Ireland; and John, the youngest, from whom the subject of our memoir is lineally descended, settled in Buckinghamshire where he entered upon an agricultural life, at the same time following the business of a carrier.Mr. Flaxman married Miss Anne Denman, of London; he is now a widower and without children, his wife died after a union of forty years, and left an indelible impression of the fondest affection on her husband's heart. She was distinguished for her literary attainments, particularly in the French and Italian literature, and was the companion of her husband's travels and studies in Italy. Mr. Flaxman was elected a member of the Academies of Florence and Carrara while he was in Italy; and an academician of the Royal Academy, about five years after his return to England. In this Institution, about ten years ago, he was appointed the first Professor of Sculpture, in which honourable situation he still continues. It is not, perhaps, generally known, that this is the only professorship of Sculpture in the world. At an early age Mr. Flaxman applied himself to modelling and sculpture, which he has since continued without interruption. In the year 1782, he began his studies in Rome, which he continued seven years; in 1794, he returned to England. The principal works of this excellent sculptor are as follow:-- In Westminster Abbey-The monument of Lord Chief Justice Mans field, and a monument to Captain Montague, killed in a battle with the French Fleet, over which Lord Howe obtained a signal victory in the year 1794. In St. Paul'sEarl Howe's monument in the south cross of the Cathedral; Lord Nelson's on the right hand, leading to the choir; Sir Joshua Reynolds' statue under the dome, and a tabular monument to Captain Millar. In Winchester Cathedral-the monuments to Dr. Wharton and Mrs. North. In Chichester Cathedral-a monument to Collins the Poet, and several others. In Christchurch, Hampshire-a group the size of nature of Lady Fitz-Harris and her Children. At Bringston, near Althorpe, Northamptonshire-a monument to the late excellent Countess Dowager Spencer, terminated by a group of Charity at one end, and at the other by a figure of Faith. In Lewisham Church, Kent-a monument to Miss Lushington. In Ireland-a monument to the Earl of Mazarine. In Scotland a statue of the Right Hon. William Pitt, for the Town Hall of Glasgow, and a colossal statue, in bronze, of General Sir John Moore, in the same City. In Oxford-two monuments to Sir William Jones. The Designs and one Model for the Basso Relievos on Covent-Garden Theatre, and the statue of Comedy in the same building. A group of the Fury of Athamas, colossal, executed for the Earl of Bristol. A statue of Apollo, the Shepherd, and a colossal group of Michael the Archangel's Victory over Satan, both for the Earl of Egremont. A sepulchral statue of Mrs. H. Tighe, author of Psyche. A monument of Mrs. Morley, in Gloucester Cathedral. A monument of the Baring Family, in Micheldever Church, near Stratton Park, Hampshire. A statue of the Right Honourable Warren Hastings. A model for the Shield of Achilles, from Homer's description, executed in silver gilt, by Messrs. Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, for His Majesty King George IV., and His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Volumes of Outlines have been also executed by Mr. Flaxman, which have considerably extended his fame as a classical scholar as well as an artist; they are illustrative of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and the works of Æschylus, Hesiod, and Dante. SLEEP.-A FRAGMENT. Hark! the great Abbey clock, the faithful oracle whose honest tongue tells the same truth to all however unwelcome, utters with solemn voice the midnight hour, and time stands tiptoe on to-morrow's threshold. Thrice welcome, holy night, the joyful season of the joyless; welcome to many a throbbing head, and many an aching bosom. Now the proud sufferer, who has struggled through the day to keep his sorrows out of sight, forced to divide the mind against itself, to split the heart in two, as it were, and give one half to mirth and one to misery may cast aside the mask upon the pillow, and shew his griefs to trusty solitude. Come, gentle Sleep, death's beautiful brotherfairest phenomenon-poetical reality-thou sweet collapsing of the weary spirit-thou mystery that every one knows-thou remnant of primeval innocence and bliss, for Adam slept in Paradise. To sleepthere's a drowsy mellifluence in the very word that would almost serve to interpret its meaning-to shut up the senses and hoodwink the soul to dismiss the world-to escape from one's self-to be in ignorance of our own existence-to stagnate upon the earth-just breathing out the hours, not living them-"Doing no mischief, only dreaming of it"-neither merry nor melancholy, something between both, and better than either. Best friend of frail humanity, and like all other friends best estimated in its loss. Who has not known the value of oblivium whene'er some newly past or close impending evil has flung its giant shadows athwart the morning twilight of the soul? Who has not felt a vehement desire to retreat into insensibility; a clinging to unconsciousness; a recoiling from perception; a sickly aversion from the sun's brightness; a careless contempt for the great things of the world; a debility, a lassitude, a strengthlessness of spirit. Another day is before us to get through as best we may; we must go forth to meet our fate; we have come out of a land of pleasantness and peace to engage in strife, and toil, and warfare. And sleep too hath its sports and its diversions, its wild indefinable dreams; fantastic scenes, which fancy's finger sketches in the dark-distorted reflexion of the bu siness of life on the Camera-obscura of the brains. Oh! kind and blissful mockery, when the manacled felon, on his bed of straw, is transported to the home of his innocent boyhood, and the pining and forsaken fair is happy with her fond and faithful lover,—and the poor man hath abundance-and the dying man is in joyous health-and despair hath hope--and those that want are as though they wanted not and they who weep, are as though they wept not. But the fashion of these things passeth away! ARIETTA, [MAY, "LES ROCHERS," THE CHATEAU OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. You asked me to give you some description of the remarkable places I have visited. I owe to the letters, from which Madame de Sévigné has deservedly obtained so much reputation, addressed to our illustrious president, a native of Bretagne, to inform you of the present state of this celebrated château. The architecture is picturesque, I should think the greatest part of it was built in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries; there is the winding stair-case built in a tower; the body of the house flanked by two other towers, both of them ornamented with rude heads of animals, from the eaves to the summit; on one side is the chapel built for "le bien bon," (the Abbé de Coulanges) in the same style. It is placed in a large tower, covered with a roof in the shape of a priest's bonnet. Such is the general aspect of a place rendered illustrious by the most amiable of women, and the tenderest of mothers. This is all, besides the antique esplanade upon which these old buildings are situated, that can remind us of Sévigné. A rich Breton, M. des N the proprietor of Rochers, has whitened three layers thick inside and out, a barbarism worthy of a Turk, the walls and towers, the side of the house, and the chapel. He certainly never read the letters par excellence! Nothing now remains of the ancient dependencies of the castle. A wash-house, large enough for barracks, immense stables, supported by corinthian columns, courtyards, poultry-yards ornamented with fluted pilasters; in the midst of this grotesque farm "Ce ne sont que festons, ce ne sont qu'astragales,* Je me sauve au travers du jardin.+" There I found new sources of segret; new walls on the terrace, a new orangery, a new park, a new garden. He has destroyed, without mercy, that which la belle des belles had planted, that he himself might have the pleasure of planting. "Hélas! qu'est devenu ce bosquet enchanté," did the allusion strike me; and the said I, sighing to myself, so much gardener, who acted as guide and ciceroni, told me those large oaks, which, according to him, were more yet attained to half their size, that than eighty years old and had not elms, those ash trees strait as an those fine beech trees, those tufted windows and doors of Monsieur's arrow, had been cut up to make the hen-house! Happily neither Monsieur nor his Celtic architects had the inclination to change the distribution of the garden. It is still a large parterre with long, wide, strait alleys, in the style of the parterres at Sceaux, Marly, or the grand Trianon. The echo discovered by Madame heard by two persons, placed at the de Sévigné, and which can only be distinctly carries their words to the two points of the circle, and which distance of ten feet, even if they speak as low as possible only just stirring the lips, this echo, a sin gular trick of nature, is well preserved. But the park, the mall, the beautiful alleys, ornamented with such pretty devices and such fine names, are all fallen under the axe of this terrible Breton, who seems to be inveterate against the memory of this incomparable woman. He is right; these places which would remind us of the admiration and loyalty of the Sévignés for their sovereigns, would now involuntarily recal to us the recollection of La Bedoyére, and this contrast must have been painful. L'alleé de ma fille still existed in 1810. Now there is no longer a witness of those tender effusions, of those amiable disputes between the mother and daughter. There remains no longer a silent witness of the piquant conversations between the mother and son! What can remind us now of the mild reprimands of the toute bonne, the agreeable and naïf confessions of the amiable Vantrin, who, in one evening at Lansquenet swallowed up 500 of his mother's large oaks, who was handsome as Paris, brave as Condé, lively as St. Evremond, amiable as Cheaulieu, who struggled with Dacier for the honour of commenting on Horace, who excelled in conversation, who lived with Racine and Boileau, Lafontaine and Moliere, got tipsy with an air of grace, committed an hundred follies, owned them in a charming manner, suffered himself to be scolded by his mother-in-law, reproached himself for his faults, repented of them, was always pardoned, and always began the same pranks. The apartments even in the chateau no longer put us in mind of the Bellissima Madre, except in a portrait painted, as they say, by Mignard, or rather copied from him, which is placed in a diningroom, low, narrow, and dark. The wainscot ceilings, furniture, paintings, all have been injured, broken, effaced, re-made, and re-made in the worst style; in the bedroom, and even in the reading-cabinet of the illustrious Sévigné. Really this destructive country-gentleman would be, God forgive me, a worthy chief of the Bande noire. The court of the Chateau des Rochers is shut by gates. The proprietor scarcely permits strangers to see it. Recommended and conducted by my nephew à-la-mode de Bretagne a cousin-german of the mistress of the house, they would not receive us, nor even shew us Mad. de Grignan's room where her portrait is, or the interior of the house, where are assembled the pictures of the N who have chased from their domicile the old Sévigné's. I could not learn whether there exist any descendants of Pillois the honest gardener of Mad. de Sévigné ; the only living things, contemporaries of the soft-eyed Marchioness and the beautiful and proud Countess of Grignan, are the large orange-trees which, thanks to the mild and damp climate of Brittany, live without artificial heat and almost without care in a vast greenhouse built like a cart-shed by the new proprietor; I begged leave to gather some flowers, it was the only favour they granted me, and the only relic I brought away from this celebrated place. The names of the avenues in the park still exist; I walked through L'Allee royale, in the Allée de ma fille, in that of du point du jour, in the Tremaine, in l'infinie, in the mall. I sat down upon the three semicircular banks of turf which were called la place de Madame, and which is now elegantly named la Motte à Madame. These are not the same banks, though situated in the same place. At the end of the Allée royale there is a beautiful view of the neighbouring woods. Near it are the little pavillions where the amiable Sévigné reposed during the day, reading, meditating and listening to the singing of the birds, or contemplating l'astre melancolique. 66 Envoyez moi de la vue et je vous enverrai des arbres," were written by her to Mad. de Grignan, and I repeat this remarkable phrase because it agrees with the platform between Vitré and Rennes,it perfectly describes the country round Rochers where trees abound, and where the view is too confined. This is what I saw of Les Rochers Sévignéens. It has left on my mind more of regret than remembrance; there pride usurps the tender throne of affability, and thence wit and good taste have apparently for ever fled. Ah! if the beautiful monuments of Italy had fallen under the Scourge of this barbarous Breton! Sileo et Precor. LINES ADDRESSED TO MISS F. H. KELLY, ON HER NOT HAVING RECENTLY APPEARED AT COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE. Belov'd of genius, nature's artless child! Thee, as "the sweet Italian girl," we've seen— Thou mov'dst" to teach the torches to burn bright.” 'Midst thy young blushes, in Verona's bowers,* With thee we've smil'd and wept-as joy and woe But wherefore from the world's admiring gaze Why-blest with talents to surprise and charm, Why hath a youthful Siddons met the eye Thou gifted wonder!-vers'd in Shakspeare's page, Return, first fav'rite of the tragic Muse, So, like O'Neill, shalt thou each night impart And wake at will the pulses of the heart, *The first garden scene in Romeo and Juliet. |