Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 19 No. 552 June 16 1832 by Various

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"Talking of pictures, by the way, what a marvellous falling off is there in Wilkie!--a misfortune arising, as I take it, from a struggle after novelty of style. There is a portrait of the King by him in Somerset House Exhibition, like nothing on earth but a White Lion on its hinder legs, and there was one a year or two since of George the Fourth in a Highland dress--a powerful representation of Lady Charlotte Bury, dressed for Norval. Look at that gem of art, his Blind Fiddler, now in the National Gallery, or at his Waterloo Gazette, or at the Rent Day, and compare any one of them with the senseless stuff he now produces, and grieve. His John Knox--ill placed for effect, as relates to its height from the ground, I admit; but look at that--flat as a teaboard--neither depth nor brilliancy. Knox himself strongly resembling in attitude the dragon weathercock on Bow steeple painted black. Has Wilkie become thus demented in compliment to Turner, the Prince of Orange of artists? Never did man suffer so severely under a yellow fever, and yet live so long. I dare say it is extremely bad taste to object to his efforts; but I am foolish enough to think that one of the chief ends of art is to imitate nature as closely as possible. Look, for instance, at Copley Fielding's splendid drawing in the Water Colour Exhibition, of vessels in a gale off Calshot; and certainly I have never yet seen any thing either animal or vegetable at all like the men, women, trees, grass, mountains, which appear in Mr. Turner's works.

"Everybody knows the story of the sign-painter in the country, who could paint nothing but a red lion; and accordingly he advised every inn-keeper and alehouse-keeper in the neighbouring village, who applied to him, to have the sign of the Red Lion. This did very well for a considerable time, and the painter practised so successfully that not a hamlet or town, for ten miles round, that had not its red lion; until at length a new-comer, who, like Daniel of old, thought there were quite as many lions round him as were wanted, suggested to the artist that he should like to have a swan for the sign of his small concern. In vain the painter protested, Boniface was resolute. 'Well,' said the rural Apelles, 'if you will have a swan you must, but you may rely upon it when it is finished, it will be so like a red lion, you would not know the difference.' So Turner, if he were to paint a blackbird, it would be so like a canary when it was finished, you would not know one from the other.

"Among other sights, I was induced to go and visit the 'Fleas,' last Saturday. Never was there such an imposition; instead of being harnessed, they were tied by the hind legs, and the combatants, poor wretches! were pinched by the tails in tweezers, and of course moved their legs in their agony. Well, thought I, as I went out, I have been in Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and have passed many a restless night, but hang me if ever I was so flea bitten in my life as I have been to day; and I thought of my shilling and the old proverb.

"And what are we to say of other representations? What a sensation Mr. Sheridan Knowles' Hunchback has made: why Mr. Sheridan Knowles made his hero a Hunchback I cannot imagine. The play is an admirable play; and what is as strange a part of the affair as any, is the acting of the author. To say it is finished, or fine, would be to talk nonsense; but it is plain, straightforward, common-scene acting, which very much surprised us, more especially from an author, still more from an Irish author; and more still from an author, who in private life is a perfect enthusiast, and a fine phrenzied-eye orator. Fanny Kemble never appeared to greater advantage in public--in private, her charming conduct with regard to her brother, the young soldier, speaks volumes for her. They say she is going to marry a son of Keppell Craven's, Lord Craven's uncle. They met first, I believe, at the acting of Lord Leveson Gower's play of Hernani, at Bridgewater House, when Mr. Craven reaped much histrionic fame as an amateur. Of one thing we are quite sure, Miss Kemble will act well wherever she may be placed in the world.

"Dear is my little native vale, The ring-dove builds and warbles there, Close by my cot she tells her tale, To every passing villager."

"Mr. Barton--who he was I never found out--having eulogized this little effusion with a superhuman ecstacy, repeated it right to a line--but not to a word. He gave it us thus--

THE MESSIAH.

The subsequent passages exhibit many of the beauties and few of the blemishes of Mr. Montgomery's new poem:

THE WILDERNESS.

Oh, when hath mind conceived Magnificence beyond a midnight there, When Israel camp'd, and o'er her tented host The moonlight lay?--On yonder palmy mount, Lo! sleeping myriads in the dewy hush Of night repose; around in squared array, The camps are set; and in the midst, apart, The curtain'd shrine, where mystically dwells Jehovah's presence!--through the soundless air A cloudy pillar, robed in burning light, Appears:--concenter'd as one mighty heart, A million lie, in mutest slumber bound. Or, panting like the ocean, when a dream Of storm awakes her:--Heaven and Earth are still; In radiant loveliness the stars pursue Their pilgrimage, while moonlight's wizard hand Throws beauty, like a spectre light, on all. At Judah's tent the lion-banner stands Unfolded, and the pacing sentinels,-- What awe pervades them, when the dusky groves, The rocks Titanian, by the moonshine made Unearthly, or yon mountains vast, they view! But soon as morning bids the sky exult, As earth from nothing, so that countless host From slumber and from silence will awake To mighty being! while the forest-birds Rush into song, the matin breezes play, And streamlets flash where prying sunbeams fall: Like clouds in lustre, banners will unroll! The trumpet shout, the warlike tramp resound, And hymns of valour from the marching tribes Ascend to gratulate the risen morn.

PATRIARCHAL TIMES.

ISAIAH.

Terrific bard! and mighty--in thy strain A torrent of inspiring passion sounds-- Whether for cities by the Almighty cursed, Thy wail arose--or, on enormous crimes That darken'd heav'n with supernat'ral gloom, Thy flash of indignation fell, alike The feelings quiver when thy voice awakes!-- Borne in the whirlwind of a dreadful song, The spirit travels round the destin'd globe, While shadows, cast from solemn years to come, Fall round us, and we feel a God is nigh!

But when a gladness from thy music flows, Creation brightens!--glory paints the sky, The Sun hath got an everlasting smile, And Earth in temper'd for immortal spring-- The lion smoothes his ruffled mane, the lamb And wolf together feed, and by the den Of serpents, see! the rosy infant play.

THE SAVIOUR.

A God with all his glory laid aside, Behold Him bleeding,--on his awful brow The mingled sorrows of a world repose-- "'Tis FINISH'D,"--at those words creation throbs, Round Hell's dark universe the echo rolls-- All Nature is unthroned--and mountains quake Like human being when the death-pang comes-- The sun has wither'd from the frighted air, And with a tomb-burst, hark, the dead arise And gaze upon the living, as they glide With soundless motion through the city's gloom, Most awfully,--the world's Redeemer dies.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

"From the fifth century," says Masden, "or from the beginning of the sixth, the custom prevailed in Spain of the infirm, when so heavily afflicted as to be in danger of death, piously assuming the tonsure and the penitential habit, and engaging to continue both through life, if God raised them up. As the use of this penance became common enough to throw discredit on the piety of all who did not thus undertake it, if the sick or dying man was unable to demand the habit, his relations or friends could invest him with it, and his obligation to a penitential life thenceforward was as great as if that obligation had been imposed, not by others, but at his own request, since, as he was charitably supposed to be thus piously inclined, he must of necessity wish to become a penitent. This continued in force until king Chindaswind, impressed with the abuses to which it had given rise, decreed that in such cases the obligation imposed by others should be void unless the patient should afterwards ratify it when in a sound state of mind. Penitents of this class might remain in their own houses, without seclusion within the walls of a monastery; but they were for ever compelled to wear the habit and shaven crown, to shun business and diversions, to lead exemplary and chaste lives: if single, they could not marry; if married, they could not enjoy the privileges of the state: hence, though they inhabited not the cloister, they were of the religious order, and consecrated to God."

"This custom is not yet extinct in Spain, though, like many others of a similar kind, its observance is daily weakening since the period of the French revolution, and of the increased intercourse between the two nations. Many of the greatest names in the Spanish annals voluntarily assumed the profession, and thereby ceased to be laymen. Among these was the author of Don Quixote."

THE GATHERER.

CONCEALED SORROW.

There oft times dwells within the human breast, a grievous and a bitter sorrow; a sorrow once formed--seldom, if ever, entirely eradicated. Such sorrow hath borne down to the grave many a noble, though ill-fated, heart; there to seal up the remembrance of the degraded, the broken, feelings of its once fine nature, and for ever crush the spirit of its love. It is a sorrow that cometh not as the whirlwind's rushing blast, in the fury of the tempest, or as the lion's roar; but rather as the soft, still moan of the desert's poisoned breeze, or as the silent gnawing of a cankering worm: so comes it preying on our heart's fondest hopes till they gradually sink to ruin and oblivion. It is a grief that mortal eyes cannot see; it is only keenly felt; its tears are the wasting away of health, and its lamentation is the low beating of a sinking pulse. The loudest cry of its woe is but the dull, bitter sigh of its lonely unhappiness, engendered by the deep misery of the secret depression of its mental complaining, making the heart like a faded flower in a gloomy wilderness; like a blighted tree in a sultry waste. Weep! weep! and sigh from thy very soul; yet thy sorrows will not end; their root will still remain to spring and spread afresh. Unhappy they that such sorrows have! alas! for them! R.N.

"You scrapers that want a good fiddle well strung, You must go to the man that is old while he's Young, But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold, You must go to his son, who'll be Young when he's old. There's old Young and young Young, both men of renown, Old sells, and Young plays, the best fiddle in town; Young and old live together, and may they live long, Young to play an old fiddle, old to sell a new song."

P.T.W.

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