Read Ebook: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56 No. 346 August 1844 by Various

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AFFGHANISTAN

ETCHED THOUGHTS BY THE ETCHING CLUB

A LOVE CHASE--IN PROSE

ANCIENT CANAL--THE NILE AND THE RED SEA

THE OLD SCOTTISH CAVALIER

SOME REMARKS ON SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS

THE STOLEN CHILD

M. GIRARDIN

LORD ELDON

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS; 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

AFFGHANISTAN.

There are those persons now living who would give their own weight in sovereigns, though drawing against thirteen to sixteen stone, that all of this dreadful subject might be swallowed up by Lethe; that darkness might settle for ever upon the insanities of Cabool; and the grave close finally over the carnage of Tezeen. But it will not be. Blood will have blood, they say. The madness which could sport in levity with a trust of seventeen thousand lives, walks upon the wind towards heaven, coming round by gusts innumerable of angry wailings in the air; voices from nobody knows where are heard clamouring for vengeance; and the caves of Jugdulloc, gorged with the "un-coffined slain," will not rest from the litanies which day and night they pour forth for retribution until this generation shall have passed away.

But all the topics proper to this fifth head will fall more naturally under a paper expressly applying itself to India; and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the previous four.

Whilst, therefore, we recognize, as a policy worthy of an Indian statesman, the attempt to raise up a barrier in Affghanistan by way of defensive outwork to India, we conceive that all which should have been desired was a barrier against the Affghans themselves, by means of guarantees reposing on the structure of the Affghan government, and not any barrier against Persia as the agent of Russia; because, from the social condition of the Affghans, Persia was always sure to raise up barriers against herself, in exact proportion as she should attempt to intermeddle with Affghan affairs. The remedy was certain to grow up commensurately with the evil.

But afterwards, at page 166, there is a dreadful insinuation that such a necessity might have founded itself on the danger of taking prisoners "in a camp already subsisting on half and quarter rations." Now we, in a paper on Casuistry, anticipated this shocking plea, contending that Napoleon's massacre of 4000 young Albanians at Jaffa, could draw no palliation from the alleged shortness of provisions, whether true or false; and on the ground that a civilized army, consciously under circumstances which will not allow it to take prisoners, has no right to proceed. Napoleon's condition had not changed from the time of leaving Cairo. We little expected to see a Jaffa plea urged, even hypothetically, for a British army.

This last charge, indeed, being so intrinsically absurd, is hardly of a nature to have merited any answer, had it not been the one most insisted upon in England, where its ludicrousness is not so apparent, until the mind is recalled from the life of Christendom to that very different life which prevails in Asia. The charge then exhales into vapour; and a man laughs as a ship's company on the broad Atlantic would laugh, if charged with roaming abroad at night.

This was the rock on which we split. Had we restrained the king from levying taxes, all might have gone well. Had we restrained ourselves from enforcing his levies, all might have gone decently. And had we prompted the king to inaugurate some great public benefit--as, for instance, by conferring upon the people a simple system of judicial process and distributive justice--both he and we might have become popular; for, even in Affghanistan, there must be multitudes of poor men, peasants and tradesmen in towns, mothers and wives, who sigh for peace, and curse their endless agitations. Yes, even amongst their martial spirits, who now live by war and the passions of war, many are they who would relent from their angry feuds, if it were possible to get justice without them.

ETCHED THOUGHTS BY THE ETCHING CLUB.

Then, again, the union of etching and engraving has certainly retarded the art, and has given it another character. If that union has engrafted freedom on engraving, it has given to the needle too much precision--it has taken from it the working out effects. We have elsewhere noticed that the taste for the precise and labored engraving in landscape, introduced by Woollet, drove out from the field that which was very superior to it. The prints from Claude and Poussin, by Vivares Wood, Mason, and Chatelet, and published by Pond, are infinitely more characteristic of the masters than the works which succeeded them. But we speak here only of imitation. It is in the original handling of artists themselves, not in translated works, and according to the translating phraseology, "done by different hands," that we are to look for the real beauty and power of the art. It is this handwriting of the artist's original mind that constitutes the real beauty; we would not have a touch of the graver to any work professing to be an etching--the graver cannot be used with impunity. If it will admit of any adventitious aid, it may perhaps be, in a very subordinate degree, mezzotint and aquatint. But etching rather improves Prince Rupert's invention than is advantaged by it. The sootiness of mezzotint is dangerous--in bad hands it is the "black art" of Prince Rupert, though the term was applied to a metal of the prince's invention, not to his discovery of mezzotint.

And now let us turn to "Etched Thoughts by the Etching Club." We find a new name or two added to the list--C.G. Lewis, the renowned and best of etchers; and Severn, whose etchings are new to us, not so his other works of art. We remember his "Ship of the Ancient Mariner," and his expressive, sentimental, figures; and poor Fearnley--now no more--we remember greatly admiring a somewhat large picture of his--"A River-Scene in Norway,"--evidently painted immediately from nature, powerfully, expressively given. Somehow or other he did not take in this country, and quitted it, leaving behind him very beautiful studies strangely undervalued, and sold for little. The fact is, he was too true to the solemnity and sobriety of nature to please a public led away by gaudy display and meretricious colouring. Yet was he a man of more genius--in landscape--than any nine out of ten of our best artists that have, these last ten years, attempted to show nature or art upon our academical walls. Poor Fearnley! We have heard that elsewhere he was appreciated and successful. Stone and Herbert are good additions. Happy is it when the feelings of the artist and poet are in unison; happier still when the poet is himself the artist: and such is the case here. So that, in many cases, they are really "Etched Thoughts"--not etched translations of thoughts; and the work of the pen is not inferior to that of the needle. In the "Deserted Village" was a continuous story; every plate was in connexion with its preceding. In this publication, every artist seems to have been left to his own choice of subject, and to his free fancy.

Cope first comes under our notice. He commences the work with "Love," and a quotation from Spenser. As an etching, it is powerful, but we doubt if quite true: there should be something to account, in such a twilight scene, for the strong light upon the "Ladye-love!" Nor are we quite satisfied with the love of the lover, or the reception it meets with. The man or his guitar, one of the two, if not both, must be out of tune. His "Veteran's Return" tells its tale, and a somewhat mournful one; it is in illustration of some very good and pathetic lines by a member of the club, H.J. Townsend; and as, we believe, they are not to be met with out of "Etched Thoughts," we extract them for the gratification of the reader:--

THE VETERAN'S RETURN.

The old yew, deck'd in even's parting beams, From his red trunk reflects a ruddier ray; While, flickering through the lengthen'd shadow, gleams Of gold athwart the dusky branches play. The jackdaws, erst so bustling on the tower, Have ceased their cawing clamour from on high; And the brown bat, as nears the twilight hour, Circles--the lonely tenant of the sky.

The soldier there, ere pass'd to distant climes, On Sabbath morn his early mates would meet; There list the chant of the familiar chimes, And the fond glance of young affection greet. There, too, at eve--before the twilight grey Led the dark hours, when sprites are wont to walk-- With his sweet Nancy how he joy'd to stray, And tell his rustic love in homely talk.

Now, home return'd, far other thoughts he owns, Though still the same the scene that meets his view! The same sun glistens o'er the lichen'd stones-- Scarce one year more seems to have gnarl'd the yew. There, too, the hamlet where his boyhood pass'd Sends, as of old, its curls of smoke to ken-- So near, his stalwart arm a stone might cast Among the cots that deck the coppiced glen!

But ere the joys of that domestic glade Can wipe the tear from off his rugged brow, A stone beneath the yew-tree's ebon shade Deep o'er his heart a heavier shade doth throw. That tablet tells how cold within the tomb Are hands whose fond warm grasp he long'd to feel.

"Morning Prayer" is introduced with a few elegant lines, we presume by Mr Cope himself. They have no name to them. The figure is graceful, the effect tender; but we confess we have been so satiated with such subjects in the Annuals, that we do not relish this as perhaps we ought. From the same cause, we do not dwell upon "The Mother." "The Wanderer-- the beggar and his dog," is good. The impostor beggar was in sunshine, and which he turned to his purpose: he could cope with the world's broad glare. This is no impostor; and the atmosphere he breathes is suited to his fortunes. The rejecting hand, with its shadow of the dry skinny fingers, is well conceived.

"The Readers," from Boccaccio, is not happy. The figures are not Italian; nor is the costume of the age of the book. His "Girl and Cupid" is a little gem, reminding us of Schidoni. We presume these lines are by the etcher--

"Love, in the virgin breast of beauty lying, Laughs at the fate for her he doth prepare-- Will swiftly turn her sweetest smiles to sighing, And flee when she is fixed in despair."

We have seen so many ladies with up-turned eyes, called in the annual catalogues "Meditation," that we will not interrupt the calm of Mr Cope's. C.G. Lewis has but one plate, "A Woodland Dell." A quiet spot of shade and flickering sunshine--a streamlet, and a rural bridge. It is sweetly etched, true to the character.

Richard Redgrave, in more than one instance in the book, shows that he has power over the deep and solemn pathetic, as well as over the tender. His first plate is "The Survivors of the Storm." The story is from Petronius, as told by Jeremy Taylor. A floating body of one of a shipwrecked crew lies pillowed on a wave, and is met with by the survivors in their boat. Solemn and awe-stricken is their expression. The plate is of a fine tone, befitting death in that awful shape. This story of Petronius was the subject of a poetical piece, which we remember to have read in a volume of poems by Thomas Flatman, one of the "mob of gentlemen" condemned by Pope, who, nevertheless, did not care about borrowing from him pretty much of his version of the "Animula, blandula, vagula"--the Emperor Adrian's address to his soul. We remember the commencement of the piece:--

"After a blustering tedious night, The winds all hush'd, and the rude tempest o'er, Rolling far off upon a briny wave, Compassionate Philander spied A floating carcass ride, That seem'd to beg the kindness of a grave. At near approach he thought he knew the man," &c.

His "Fairy Revels" make a light and elegant plate. A fairy group in a frame of leaves. He is here both painter and poet.

"Hast thou not seen the summer breeze, The eddying leaves, and downy feather, Whirl round a while beneath the trees, Then bear aloft to heaven together? With just such motion, gliding light, These fairies vanish'd from my sight."

Poor unfortunate Dadd! some years ago he exhibited a picture of this subject, somewhat similarly treated, that was exquisitely ideal.

"THE SICK CHILD.

"He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."--PSALM xci.

"In a chamber, faintly crying, With its mother o'er it sighing, Lay a baby pale and wan; Ever turning--restless turning-- Much she dreaded fever burning, Sickness slow or sickness hasting, Cough, convulsion, ague wasting. Bitter tears there fell upon The pale face of her little son.

"The evening chimes had ceased their ringing, And the even song was singing In the old kirk grey with years; Through the air sweet words came welling-- Words of peace, unto that dwelling; Hymns they sang, how angels shielded Those who ne'er to sin had yielded:-- And her pale face lost its fears-- That lonely mother dried her tears.

"In her arms the babe soon slumber'd; That little son, whose days seem'd number'd, Smiled upon his mother sleeping. The Lord indeed had sorely tried her, But his angel knelt beside her; Heavenly breezes cool'd the fever Of her child--He shall not leave her! And this mother ceased her weeping."

The "Expected Return" is quite in Redgrave's best manner

This is a lovely figure; a loving and lovable gentle creature! and many such have we seen by Redgrave's hand. Not Raffaelle himself could more truly paint the pure mind--that precious jewel, innocence, in its most lovely casket.

Severn has two plates, which may be called companions; racy and good are they, and of one vintage. We are not quite satisfied with either face or figure of the maiden in the "Roman Vintage." Hers is not a face of feeling; nay, we would almost beg Mr Severn's pardon, and pronounce her a bit of a fool. The "Neapolitan" is much better. They are executed in a very bold, broad, free style of etching, and effective. Horsley's "English Peasant" might be allowed to be a little weatherbeaten; but, at first sight, we should say that he was not of the temperance society when the aquafortis was on the table. It is black, from being overbitten. Yet, after a while, we see through the darkness into the character. He is an honest fellow, but a little "disguised." His "Twilight" is very good, yet perhaps is the light a little too sharp and strong for that hour. The subject is from verses by Redgrave, and good and quaintlike old gentle rhymes they are. But how comes it that the figures are both feminine?--that does not accord with the lines.

"Time was no more for them: the sun had gone, The stars from sunset glow began to peer; Yet 'neath those stars that pair still linger'd on, Unconscious of the night, fast drawing near! His voice to her was daylight, and her smile A sunny morning breaking o'er his soul: Such hours of bliss come only once--the while Long-silent love speaks forth without control, And of its hopes and fears first telleth out the whole."

"Welsh Gossips."--

"At every word a reputation dies."

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