1823.7 Olympian Revels, a Dramaticle. Till it was scarcely worth the drinking; still 303 She drank, and sobb'd,—and sobb'd,—and drank again. Litherwit. She had the best of good reasons,-wet stockings; less excuse would serve a landlady. poor Sun. Tramontane. "Halloo!" cries Momus, "'Pollo's wig's on fire!" Blushing in busto on a bran-new mug; He did not know what 'Pollo meant-" No more!" Who meddles with my nose, may feel my teeth!" Litherwit. Bite! Momus got a snap there. Our noses stand in the second place of punctilio of our whole bodies; they are very sensible to offence. 'Ds pug! a man cannot take his nose into civilized society, now-a-days, You are not a post, without running it against some post or another. master? Tramontane. Eh ?-no,-but I have a cousin very high Litherwit. O! I have a cousin myself as high as a lamp-post; but will he lend me ten pieces? Cousins, quoth 'a! with their magnificent mouths and hypocritical professions of friendship, but as close-fisted, when it comes to the deed, as a knight-o'-the-tombstone's inflexible gauntlet, or th' Egyptian antiquity's freestone knuckles. Away with them, then! Go on with your mummery. it ? Tramontane. 'Slid! what does he mean by that? Mummery! Tramontane. Wilt thou hear any more of this-mummery, as thou call'st Litherwit. Why what would'st thou have, thou cantankerous malcontent? must I prick up mine ears like an ass in a panic, and stand with open mouth like a baker's prentice at a puppet-show? Tramontane. No, but Litherwit. "No, but !"-What "but"? Art thou going to take exceptions, because I don't fall down and worship thee for a golden calf, or the divine Log in a Chinese temple? Wilt thou quarrel, becauseTramontane. Well, well, well, no more. Thou'rt an incomprehen sible, but no matter. Hem! Hum-num-num—num—0 ! Tramontane. What tell you me of Judith? I know nought of Judith. Tramontane. No! What then? Litherwit. Then thou hast never seen the most heavenly-conditioned Venus that ever trimm'd a carpet! the most superlatively well-modelled Venus that ever wore undarned hose! the most incomparably 1 You put me out. Tramontane. 'Slid! I know not what you would be at. Cupid had tumbled off her lap: the boy, Gamesome at first, play'd round her beauteous limbs ; Blue eyes, sweet blue, but dim with orient love The whistling shaft was answer'd back with sighs. Tramontane. But the poor child grew sleepy; all too young Rubb'd his fringed eyelids; cried, the sandman's come;' That half the theft conceal'd, drew to his breast (Love's cruel beverage), nectar warm from the heart. Litherwit. But where was Leather-bib? that buck blacksmith, and elaborate knitter of love-cages? Vulcan, the bellows-blower? Tramontane. Vulcan was speechifying.-Dian look'd Litherwit. Askew at the sofa, while her panting breast Cinderella, What I feel-a. Verily it is come to the rhyming-time with me; I'm in a sorry state. O! for Lither wit. O! a garter and a bedpost! a garter and a bedpost! There is nothing here deeper than an ewer, else I would drown myself incontinent. O! that was a wise saying of King Nebuchadnezzar (thistle-eater though he was), "None but lovers know what 'tis to love!" Ò! what a sad shepherd am I! Tramontane. Tut, man! leave fooling. Hear Vulcan's speech. Lither wit. Why wilt thou then still love to excite this whining devil within me to cry O! with thine amorous descriptions? Prithee, let's ha' the speech; it will divert this melancholy devil; speeches are good for diversion. Tramontane. Ay, now thou talk'st like a fellow of some wit. 'St. Vulcan was on his legs; one foot advanced (That the least clubb'd), to grace his rhetoric; This arm a-kimbo, like a city-knight Great on the canvas; that laid down the law. "Marry" (quoth Vulcan),-Jove the table rapp'd "Marry" (quoth Clubfoot),-" marry, I say" (quoth he),— "I say, this plan" (quoth he),-" this plan, I say, 66 Of kissing" (quoth he)," other men's wives" (quoth he), Litherwit. Though the sun, moon, and stars were all shining together! Litherwit. Out of all reason! quite tramontane ! Tramontane. The cloudy floor was strown with gods and goddesses, Litherwit. All the deities were drunk! ha! ha! ha! Tramontane. Troy's fatal plains ne'er groan'd with such a weight Litherwit. A sort of charnel-house for the quick of all denominations, as one might say. Tramontane. Here was the triumph of the pottle-pot! Wine had a moiety o' th' club at's feet, And half the population lay like logs; Whilst o'er their fall'n companions, those less drunk Halloo'd like crack-brain'd phantoms, clash'd their bowls Like spectres at a feast of bones and blood Terribly joyant, and with whirlwind steps Strode, like the minions of a wild sea-storm, O'er rolling, roaring, floundering, long-back'd waves. Litherwit. Why, if we forget the dignity of our nature so far, as to lay our heads under other people's feet, do we not deserve to be buffeted? Tramontane. Ay, but you know Lither wit. O! true; "the deities were drunk, true;" and drunkenness is a good excuse for all bad actions; true. Tramontane. Now, now the rout begins! Joy turns to rage, And merriment to madness: Bacchus whirls His blazing flambeau through the midnight hall The mad priests of mad rites; loud twangs the horn Shock'd by th' unholy discord in their ears, And stand, and stagger, gape and gaze around! Litherwit. He exceeds himself. O' God's name! let me get near the door. Tramontane. Ho! ho! Euhoë! Io! Evæ! Ho! Toss high the flaming brand! and shake the spear, The ivy-vine-clad thyrsus! clash the gong! And let the brazen trump breathe twice its blore! Litherwit. Another convert to the sect of the Bethlemites. 'Ds pug! he may bite, if I don't Tramontane. Roaring and bawling, quarrelling and brawling, The gauzy-bosom'd clouds dropt nectar like a sieve, Pleiad and Nereid, Thyad and Oread, All join'd the chorus in the midnight roar, Tymbal and cymbal, pipe and harp and horn, Cans, pans, fife and flute, braying-bass and brazen-tubeEh? Is he gone?-'Ds lid! (Going to the top of the stairs) Hilloah! Litherwit. (From below.) Oah! Tramontane. Will you go, when I'm just at the top of my climax? Litherwit. Bathes! I say; bathos! The last step o' the staircase! Tramontane. 'Slid! can't you soar up a few flights? Art thou coming? Litherwit. Judith! Tramontane. Judith! piff! (Returning.) I never yet could find any one who would not rather hear the most simple clack of a woman's tongue, than the very best of my poetry. Piff! the world hath no sense of genius, or I should eat cheese no longer. Well! when I'm dead, I shall lie i' the Corner; that's some comfort. THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. THE palaces of Windsor and Hampton-court contain pictures worthy of the feelings we attach to the names of those places. The first boasts a number of individual pictures of great excellence and interest, and the last the Cartoons. Windsor Castle is remarkable in many respects. Its tall, grey, square towers, seated on a striking eminence, overlook for many miles the subjacent country, and, eyed in the distance, lead the mind of the solitary traveller to romantic musing; or, brought nearer, give the heart a quicker and stronger pulsation. Windsor, besides its picturesque, commanding situation, and its being the only palace in the kingdom fit for the receptacle of a line of kings," is the scene of many classical associations. Who can pass through Datchet, and the neighbouring greensward paths, and not think of Falstaff, of Anne Page, and the oak of Herne the hunter? Or if he does not, he is affected by them as if he did. The tall slim deer glance startled by, in some neglected track of memory, and fairies trip it in the unconscious haunts of the imagination! Pope's lines on Windsor Forest also come across the mind in the same way, and make the air about it delicate. Gray has consecrated the same spot by his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College; and the finest passage in Burke's writings is his comparison of the British Monarchy to "the proud Keep of Windsor." The walls and massy towers of Windsor Castle are indeed built of solid stone, weather-beaten, timeproof; but the image answering to them in the mind's eye is woven of pure thought and of the airy films of the imagination-Arachne's web not finer! The rooms are chill and comfortless at this time of year, and gilded ceilings look down on smoky fire-places. The view from the windows, too, which is so rich and glowing in the summer-time, is desolate and deformed with the rains overflowing the marshy grounds. As to physical comfort, one seems to have no more of it in these tapestried halls and on marble floors, than the poor bird driven before the pelting storm, or the ploughboy seeking shelter from the drizzling sky, in his sheepskin jacket and clouted shoes, beneath the dripping, leafless spray. The palace, any more than the hovel, does not always defend us against the winter's cold. The apartments are also filled with too many rubbishly pictures of kings and queens-there are too many of Verrio's paintings, and a whole roomful of West's; but there are ten or twenty pictures which the eye, having once seen, never loses sight of, and that make Windsor one of the retreats and treasuries of art in this country. These, however, are chiefly pictures which have a personal and individual interest attached to them, as we have already hinted: there are very few historical compositions of any value, and the subjects are so detached, that the young person who shows them, and goes through the names of the painters and portraits very correctly, said she very nearly went out of her mind in the three weeks she was "studying her part." It is a matter of nomenclature: we hope we shall make as few blunders in our report as she did. In the first room the stranger is shown into, there are two large landscapes by Zuccarelli. They are clever, well-painted pictures; but they are worth nothing. The fault of this The artist is, that there is nothing absolutely good or bad in his pictures. They are mere handicraft. whole is done with a certain mechanical ease and indifference; but it is evident no part of the picture gave him any pleasure, and it is impossible it should give the spectator any. His only ambition was to execute his task so as to save his credit; and your first impulse is, to turn away from the picture and save your time. In the next room, there are four Vandykes-two of them excellent. One is the Duchess of Richmond, a whole-length, in a white satin dra pery, with a pet lamb. The expres sion of her face is a little sulky and petted. The other, the Countess of Carlisle, has a shrewd, clever, sensible countenance; and, in a certain archness of look, and the contour of the lower part of the face, reminds one of the late Mrs. Jordan. Between these two portraits is a copy after Rembrandt by Gainsborough, a fine, sombre, mellow head, with the hat flapped over the face. Among the most delightful and interesting of the pictures in this collection, is the portrait by Vandyke, of Lady Venetia Digby. It is an allegorical composition: but what truth, what purity, what delicacy in the execution! You are introduced into the presence of a beautiful woman of quality of a former age, and it would be next to impossible to perform any improper or unbecoming action with that portrait hanging in the room. It has an air of nobility about it, a spirit of humanity within it. There is a dove-like innocence and softness about the eyes; in the clear, delicate complexion, health and sorrow contend for the mastery, the mouth is sweetness itself, the nose highly intelligent, and the forehead is one of " clear-spirited thought." But misfortune has touched all this grace and beauty, and left its canker there. This is shown no less by the air that pervades it, than by the accompanying emblems. The children in particular are exquisitely painted, and have an evident reference to those we lately noticed in the FOUR AGES, by Titian. both from the style and subject, reminds one forcibly of Mrs. Hutchinson's admirable Memoirs of her own Life. Both are equally history, This portrait, |