Chapter II: Part 2

Landscape--_Gaspar Poussin._ This great master admirably delineated the grandeur of Italian scenery, and invariably chose to represent it when the clouds forboded a storm, or when other accidental effects of nature added to the sublimity of the occasion. We generally experience a kind of awe while contemplating his works; and this feeling is excited by the _chef d'oeuvre_ before us. Several students have attempted it in oil; and Messrs. Musgrave, Burbank, and Taylor have copied it in water-colour.

Messrs. Marks, Sargeant, and Foster deserve notice for their studies from a Landscape with Figures, by _Waterloo_; and a charming picture by _Albert Cuyp_, representing a wide champaign country, with some well-executed figures in the foreground, has engaged the talents of Messrs. Hilder, Child, and Stanley.

_Guido's_ Magdalen has been beautifully copied, on a small scale, by Mr. Emmerson; and St. Martin dividing his Garments, by _Rubens_, has met with successful imitators in the pencils of Messrs. Middleton and Buss. These gentlemen's copies, however, are considerably smaller than the original, which is of the dimensions of life.

The Water Mill, a brilliant little picture by _Ruysdael_, has employed the pencils of several students;--among the most successful of whom are Messrs. Stark, Lee, and Hilder.

View on the Grand Canal, Venice, by _Canaletti_: this is, perhaps, the _ne plus ultra_ of the master, and is the property of that distinguished patron of the fine arts--Lord Farnborough. Miss Dujardin has produced the best copy: she has painted the buildings, boats, &c., with considerable accuracy, and has succeeded in imitating the transparency of the water. Miss Cook and Mr. Fowler have also copied this work.

Miss F. Corbaux (in water-colour), and Messrs. Sargeant, Robson, Simpson, and Lilley (in oil), have well copied the Cupid by _Sir J. Reynolds_; and Messrs. Fussel, Hilder, Sims, and Hoffland, deserve praise for their copies from a Dutch Village, by _Ruysdael_. A Corn Field, by the same master, appears to have been carefully studied by Messrs. Lee and Novice.

To conclude: A spirited series of small views in Venice, by _Guardi_, have been prettily imitated by Mr. Sargeant and Miss Dujardin.

G.W.N.

* * * * *

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

* * * * *

SCRAPS FROM THE DIARY OF A TRAVELLER.

_Rome_.

If e'er you have seen an artist sketching
The purlicus of this ancient city,
I need not tell you how much stretching
There is of _truth_, to make things pretty;--
How trees are brought, perforce, together,
Where never tree was known to grow:
And founts condemned to trickle, whether
There's water for said founts or no;--
How ev'n the wonder of the Thane
In sketching all its wonder loses,
As woods _will_ come to Dunsinane,
Or any where the sketcher chooses.

For instance, if an artist see,--
As at romantic Tivoli,--
A water-fall and ancient shrine,
Beautiful both, but not so plac'd
As that his pencil can combine
Their features in one _whole_ with taste,--
What does he do? why, without scruple,
He whips the Temple up, as supple
As were those angels who (no doubt)
Carried the Virgin's House[11] about,--
And lands it plump upon the brink
Of the cascade, or whersoever
It suits his plaguy taste to think
'Twill look most picturesque and clever!

In short, there's no end to the treacheries
Of man or maid who once a sketcher is,
The livelier, too, their fancies are,
The more they'll falsify each spot;
As any dolt can give what's _there_,
But men of genius give what's _not_.
Then come your travellers, false as they,--
All Piranesis, in their way;
Eking out bits of truth with fallacies,
And turning pig-stys into palaces.
But, worst of all, that wordy tribe,
Who sit down, hang them, to _describe_;

Who, if they can but make things fine,
Have consciences by no means tender
In sinking all that, will not shine,
All vulgar facts, that spoil their splendour:--
As Irish country squires they say,
Whene'er the Viceroy travels nigh,
Compound with beggars, on the way,
To be lock'd up, till he goes by;
And so send back his Lordship marvelling,
That Ireland should be deem'd so starveling.

This cant, for instance,--how profuse 'tis
Over the classic page of E----e!
Veiling the truth in such fine phrase,
That we for poetry might take it,
Were it not dull as prose, and praise,
And endless elegance can make it.--T. MOORE.

_Metropolitan_.

[11] The Santa Casa.

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ASMODEUS IN LONDON.

(_From the New Monthly Magazine_.)

I was alone with Sleep.

* * * * *

I woke with a singular sense of feebleness and exhaustion, and turning my dizzy eyes---beheld the walls and furniture of my own chamber in London. Asmodeus was seated by my side reading a Sunday newspaper--his favourite reading.

"Ah!" said I, stretching myself with so great an earnestness, that I believed at first my stature had been increased by the malice of the Wizard, and that I stretched from one end of the room to the other--"Ah! dear Asmodeus, how pleasant it is to find myself on earth again! After all, these romantic wonders only do for a short time. Nothing like London when one has been absent from it upon a Syntax search after the Picturesque!"

"London is indeed a charming place,"--said the Devil--"all our fraternity are very fond of it--it is the custom for the Parisians to call it dull. What an instance of the vanity of patriotism--there is vice enough in it to make any reasonable man cheerful."

"Yes: the gaiety of Paris is really a delusion. How poor its shops--how paltry its equipages--how listless its crowds--compared with those of London! If it was only for the pain in walking their accursed stones, sloping down to a river in the middle of the street--all sense of idle enjoyment would be spoilt. But in London--'the hum, the stir, the din of men'--the activity and flush of life everywhere--the brilliant shops--the various equipages--the signs of luxury, wealth, restlessness, that meet you on all sides--give a much more healthful and vigorous bound to the spirits, than the indolent loungers of the Tuileries, spelling a thrice-read French paper which contains nothing, or sitting on chairs by the hour together, unwilling to stir because they have paid a penny for the seat--ever enjoy. O! if London would seem gay after Paris, how much more so after a visit to the interior of the Earth. And what is the news, my Asmodeus?"

"The Theatres have re-opened. Apropos of them--I will tell you a fine instance of the futility of human ambition. Mr. Monck Mason took the King's Theatre, saith report--(which is the creed of devils)--in order to bring out an opera of his own, which Mr. Laporte, with a very uncourteous discretion, had thought fit to refuse. The season passes--and Mr. Monck Mason has ruined himself without being able to bring out his opera after all! What a type of speculation. A speculator is one who puts a needle in a hay-stack, and then burns all his hay without finding the needle. It is hard to pay too dear for one's whistle--but still more hard if one never plays a tune on the whistle one pays for. Still the world has lost a grand pleasure in not seeing damned an Opera written by the Manager of the Opera-house,--it would have been such a consolation to all the rejected operatives,--it would have been the prettiest hardship entailed on a great man ever since the time of that speaker who was forced himself to put the question whether he had been guilty of bribery, and should be expelled the House, and had the pleasure of hearing the Ayes predominate. _Je me mête_ with the affairs of the Theatre--they are in my diabolic province, you know. But if the stage be the fosterer of vice, as you know it is said, vice just at this moment in England has very unattractive colours."

"Ah, wait till we break the monopoly. But even now have we not the 'Hunchback?'

"Yes; the incarnation of the golden mediocre: a stronger proof, by the hyperbolic praise it receives, of the decline of the drama than even the abundance of trash from which it gleams. Anything at all decent from a new dramatic author will obtain success far more easily than much higher merit, in another line; literary rivalship not having yet been directed much towards the stage, there are not literary jealousies resolved and united against a dramatist's as against a poet's or a novelist's success. Every one can praise those pretensions, however humble, which do not interfere with his own."

"It is very true; there is never any very great merit, at least in a new author, when you don't hear the abuse louder than the admiration. And now, Asmodeus, with your leave, I will prepare for breakfast, and our morning's walk."

"Oh, dear, dear London, dear even in October! Regent-street, I salute you!--Bond-street, my good fellow, how are you? And you, O beloved Oxford-street! whom the 'Opium Eater' called 'stony-hearted,' and whom I, eating no opium, and speaking as I find, shall ever consider the most kindly and maternal of all streets--the street of the middle classes--busy without uproar, wealthy without ostentation. Ah, the pretty ancles that trip along thy pavement! Ah, the odd country cousin-bonnets that peer into thy windows, which are lined with cheap yellow shawls, price £1. 4s. marked in the corner! Ah, the brisk young lawyers flocking from their quarters at the back of Holborn! Ah, the quiet old ladies, living in Duchess-street, and visiting thee with their eldest daughters in the hope of a bargain! Ah, the bumpkins from Norfolk just disgorged by the Bull and Mouth--the soldiers--the milliners--the Frenchmen--the swindlers, the porters with four-post beds on their back, who add the excitement of danger to that of amusement! The various, shifting, motley group, that belong to Oxford-street, and Oxford-street alone. What thoroughfares equal thee in variety of human specimens! in the choice of objects--for remark--satire--admiration! Beside the other streets seem chalked out for a sect,--narrow-minded and devoted to a _coterie_. Thou alone art Catholic--all receiving. Regent-street belongs to foreigners, cigars, and ladies in red silk, whose characters are above scandal. Bond-street belongs to dandies and picture-buyers. St. James's to club-loungers, and young men in the Guards, with mustachios properly blackened by the _cire_ of Mr. Delcroix; but thou, Oxford-street, what class can especially claim thee as its own? Thou mockest at oligarchies; thou knowest nothing of select orders! Thou art liberal as air--a chartered libertine! accepting the homage of all, and retaining the stamp of none. And to call _thee_ stony-hearted!--certainly thou art so to beggars--to people who have not the WHEREWITHAL; but thou wouldst not be so respectable if thou wert not capable of a certain reserve to paupers. Thou art civil enough, in all conscience, to those who have a shilling in their pocket;--those who have not, why do they live at all?"

"That's not exactly what surprises me," said Asmodeus; "I don't wonder _why_ they live, but _where_ they live: for I perceive boards in every parish proclaiming that no vagrant--that is, no person who is too poor to pay for his lodging--will be permitted to stay there. Where then does he stay?--every parish unites against him--not a spot of ground is lawful for him to stand on. At length he is passed on to his own parish; the meaning of which is, that not finding a decent livelihood in one place, the laws prevent his seeking it at any other. By the way, it would not be a bad plan to substitute a vagrant for a fox, and, to hunt him regularly, you might hunt him with a pack of respectable persons belonging to the middle class, and eat him when he's caught. That would be the shortest way to get rid of the race. You might proclaim a reward for every vagrant's head: it would gain the King more honour with the rate-payers than clearing the country of wolves won to his predecessor. What wolf eats so much as a beggar? What wolf so troublesome, so famished, and so good for nothing? People are quite right in judging a man's virtue by his wealth; for when a man has not a shilling he soon grows a rogue. He must live on his wits, and a man's wits have no conscience when his stomach is empty. We are all very poor in Hell--very; if we were rich, Satan says, justly, that we should become idle."

I know not how it is, but my frame is one peculiarly susceptible to ennui. There's no man so instantaneously bored. What activity does this singular constitution in all cases produce! All who are sensitive to ennui do eight times the work of a sleek, contented man. Anything but a large chair by the fireside, and a family circle! Oh! the bore of going every day over the same exhausted subjects, to the same dull persons of respectability; yet that is the doom of all domesticity. Then _pleasure_! A wretched play--a hot opera, under the ghostly fathership of Mr. Monck Mason--a dinner of sixteen, with such silence or _such_ conversation!--a water-party to Richmond, to catch cold and drink bad sauterne--a flirtation, which fills all your friends with alarm, and your writing-desk with love-letters you don't like to burn, and are afraid of being seen; nay, published, perhaps, one fine day, that you may go by some d----d pet name ever afterwards!--hunting in a thick mist--shooting in furze bushes, that "feelingly persuade you what you are"--"the bowl," as the poets call the bottles of claret that never warm you, but whose thin stream, like the immortal river,--

"Flows and as it flows, for ever may flow on;"

or the port that warms you indeed: yes, into a bilious headach and a low fever. Yet all these things are pleasures!--parts of social enjoyment! They fill out the corners of the grand world--they inspire the minor's dreams--they pour crowds into St. James's, Doctors' Commons, and Melton Mowbray--they----Oh! confound them all!--it bores one even to write about them.

Only just returned to London, and, after so bright a panegyric on it, I already weary of the variety of its samenesses. Shall I not risk the fate of Faust, and fall in love--ponderously and _bonâ fide_? Or shall I go among the shades of the deceased, and amuse myself with chatting to Dido and Julius Caesar? Verily, reader, I leave you for the present to guess my determination.

* * * * *

DOMESTIC HINTS.

* * * * *

WASTE OF BONES

Is at all times reprehensible, but more especially as they are employed as a manure for dry soils, with the very best effect. They are commonly ground and drilled in, in the form of powder, with turnip seed. Mr. Huskisson estimated the real value of bones annually imported, (principally from the Netherlands and Germany) for the purpose of being used as a manure, at 100,000_l._; and he contended that it was not too much to suppose that an advance of between 100,000_l._ and 200,000_l._ expended on this article occasioned 500,000 additional quarters of corn to be brought to market.--_Loudon's Encycl. Agricult._

* * * * *

GOOD FLOUR.

According to the assize acts, a sack of flour weighing 280 lbs. is supposed capable of being baked into 80 quartern loaves; one-fifth of the loaf being supposed to consist of water and salt, and four-fifths of flour. But the number of loaves that may be baked from a sack of flour _depends entirely_ on its goodness. Good flour requires more water than bad flour, and old flour than new flour. Sometimes 82, 83, and even 86 loaves have been made from a sack of flour, and sometimes hardly 80.

* * * * *

LEGAL ADULTERATION OF BREAD.

Within the city of London, and in those places in the country where an assize is not set, it is lawful for the bakers to make and sell bread made of wheat, barley, rye, oats, buckwheat, Indian corn, peas, beans, rice, or potatoes, or any of them, along with common salt, pure water, eggs, milk, barm, leaven, potato or other yeast, and _mixed in such proportions as they shall think fit_. (3 Geo. IV. c. 106, and 1 and 2 Geo. IV. c. 50.)

* * * * *

HIGH PRICE OF COALS IN LONDON.

Much has frequently been said of the monopoly of coal-owners; "but," observes Mr. Macculloch, "we are satisfied, after a pretty careful investigation of the circumstances, that no such monopoly has ever existed; and that the high price of coal in the metropolis is to be ascribed wholly to the various duties and charges that have been laid upon it, from the time that it has passed from the hands of the owner, to the time that it is lodged in the cellar of the consumer."--_Dict. Commerce, &c._ 1832.

* * * * *

ROASTING COFFEE.

Coffee in this country is rarely well roasted; and in this consists its chief excellence. Dr. Moseley long since observed--"The roasting of the berry to a proper degree requires great nicety: the virtue and agreeableness of the drink depend upon it; and both are often injured by the ordinary method. Bernier says, when he was at Cairo, where coffee is so much used, he was assured by the best judges, that there were only two people in that great city who understood how to prepare it in perfection. If it be underdone, its virtues will not be imparted, and, in use, it will load and oppress the stomach; if it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste, its virtues will be destroyed, and, in use, it will heat the body, and act as an astringent." The desirable colour of roasted coffee is that of cinnamon. Coffee-berries readily imbibe exhalations from other bodies, and thereby acquire an adventitious and disagreeable flavour. Sugar placed near coffee will, in a short time, so impregnate the berries as to injure their flavour. Dr. Moseley mentions, that a few bags of pepper, on board a ship from India, spoiled a whole cargo of coffee.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

* * * * *

_History of "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" and "The Witch of Edmonton."--_Lysons, in his _Environs of London_, says, "There is a fable (says Norden) of one Peter Fabell, that lyeth in Edmonton church, who is said to have beguiled the devell by policie for money; but the devell is deceit itselfe, and hardly deceived."--"Belike (says Weever) he was some ingenious, conceited gentleman, who did use some sleightie tricks for his own disport. He lived and died in the reign of Henry the Seventh, says the book of his merry pranks." The book Weever refers to is a pamphlet, now very scarce, called "_The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, with the Pleasant Pranks of Smug the Smith, &c."_ These pleasant pranks compose the greater part of the book, which informs us that Peter Fabell was born at Edmonton, and lived and died there in the reign of Henry VII. He is called "an excellent scholar, and well seene in the arte of magick." His story was worked up into a play, called "The Merry Devil of Edmonton," which has been falsely attributed to Shakspeare, but is now generally supposed to have been written by Michael Drayton. There are five editions of this play; the first came out in 1608; the scene is laid at Edmonton and Enfield. Edmonton has furnished the stage with another drama, called, "The Witch of Edmonton."

"The town of Edmonton has lent the stage
A Devil and a Witch, both in an age."

says the prologue to this play, which is said to be founded on a known true story, and exhibits various witchcrafts practised upon the neighbourhood by one Mother Sawyer, whose portrait with that of her familiar (a dog, called Tom, which is one of the _dramatis personae_,) is in the title-page. In the last act, Mrs. Sawyer is led out to execution. Thus far Lysons.--Many curious particulars relating to Mrs. Sawyer may be seen in a quarto pamphlet, published in 1621, under the title, of _The wonderful discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer, a witch, late of Edmonton; her conviction, her condemnation, and death; together with the relation of the Divel's accesse to her, and their conference together. Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the Word of God, and her continued visitor in the Goale of Newgate._ The play of "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" was performed at the Globe, on the Bank-side. "The Witch of Edmonton" was often acted at the Cock-pit, in Drury-lane, and once at Court, with singular applause. It was never printed till the year 1658; and was composed by Rowley, Dekker, and Ford, as a tragi-comedy.

P.T.W.

* * * * *

_Moody the Actor_ was an avaricious man. He once lent money to Mr. Brereton, the actor; Brereton did not return it immediately, and Moody waited with some degree of patience. At length, the first time Moody met him, he looked earnestly at him, and vented a kind of noise between a sigh and a groan. He repeated this interjection whenever he met Brereton, who at length was so annoyed, that he put his hand in his pocket and paid him. Moody took the money, and with a gentler aspect said, "Did I ask you for it, Billy?"--Speaking of Sheridan, Moody once said, "I have the highest respect for Mr. Sheridan; I honour his talents, and would do anything to show my friendship for him, but take his word."--_Taylor._

* * * * *

_A Cruel Physiognomist._--Quin said of Macklin, "If God writes a legible hand, that fellow is a villain." At another time, Quin had the hardihood to say to Macklin himself, "Mr. Macklin, by the _lines_--I beg your pardon, sir--by the _cordage_ of your face, you should be hanged."

* * * * *

"_The Grand Pause._"--Macklin had three pauses in his acting--the first, moderate; the second, twice as long; but his last, or "grand pause," as he styled it, was so long, that the prompter, on one occasion, thinking his memory failed, repeated the cue (as it is technically called) several times, and at last so loud as to be heard by the audience. At length Macklin rushed from the stage, and knocked him down, exclaiming, "The fellow interrupted me in my grand pause!"

_John Gilpin_.--Henderson, the actor, in his public readings, first brought into notice the humorous tale of John Gilpin, which he recited with such spirit and comic effect that it drew public attention to the poems of Cowper in general, which, excellent as they are, particularly _The Task_, were but little known at the time, though they are now justly in universal estimation.

* * * * *

_Bibb the Engraver._--Taylor relates: How Bibb supported himself, having relinquished engraving, it would be difficult to conceive, if he had not levied taxes upon all whom he knew, insomuch that, besides his title of Count, he acquired that of "Half-crown Bibb," by which appellation he was generally distinguished; and according to a rough, and, perhaps, fanciful estimate, he had borrowed at least 2,000_l._ in half-crowns. I remember to have met him on the day when the death of Dr. Johnson was announced in the newspapers, and, expressing my regret at the loss of so great a man, Bibb interrupted me, and spoke of him as a man of no genius, whose mind contained nothing but the lumber of learning. I was modestly beginning a panegyric upon the doctor, when he again interrupted me with, "Oh! never mind, that old blockhead. Have you such a thing as ninepence about you?" Luckily for him I had a little more.

* * * * *

_Worst Leg_--Theophilus Cibber was by no means wanting in abilities or humour. He had ill-formed legs; and having projected one of them in company, which was noticed with a laugh, he offered to lay a wager that there was a worse in company; and it being accepted, he put forward his other leg, which was indeed more ill-shaped than the other.

* * * * *

_A Painter's Gratitude_.--Zoffani, the celebrated painter, who was born at Frankfort, 1735, came to England, as a painter of small portraits, when he was about the age of thirty years. He had the honour to be employed by his Majesty, and painted portraits of the royal family; and he was engaged by the Queen, to paint for her a view of the Tribune of the Gallery of Florence. He was somewhat of a humorist; and it is said of him, that whilst he was engaged painting in the Florentine Gallery, the Emperor of Germany visited the Grand Duke; and coining up to Zoffani, in the Gallery, was much pleased with his performance, and asked him his name; and on hearing it, inquired what countryman he was, when he answered, "An Englishman."--"Why," said the Emperor, "your name is German!"--"True," returned the painter. "I was born in Germany, that was accidental; _I call that my country where I have been protected!_" He was a member of the Royal Academy, and died in 1808.

P.T.W.

* * * * *

_Watching for the Soul._--Margaret of Valois, Queen of Navarre, being present at the death-bed of one of her maids of honour, continued to fix her eyes on the dying person with uncommon eagerness and perseverance till she breathed her last. The ladies of the Court expressed their astonishment at this conduct, and requested to know what satisfaction her majesty could derive from so close an inspection of the agonies of death. Her answer marked a most daring and inquisitive mind. She said that having often heard the most learned doctors and ecclesiastics assert, that on the extinction of the body the immortal part was set at liberty and unloosed, she could not restrain her anxious curiosity to observe if such separation were visible or discernible; that none had she been able in any degree to discover. She was suspected of Hugonotism, and was so devout as to compose hymns.

_Harvest-home._--This custom a Correspondent believes to be exclusively English; and its rapid disuse in many parts of England cannot be but a source of regret to those who study the moral enjoyment of the labouring classes of society. The social meal is now recompensed by a trifling sum of money, which is either the resource of drunkenness and debauchery, or at best is but comparatively ill-spent.

_All things by Comparison._--Aristippus being reprehended of luxury by one that was not rich, for that he gave six crowns for a small fish, answered, "Why, what would you have, given?" The other said, "Some twelve pence." Aristippus said again, "And six crowns is no more with me."

P.T.W.

* * * * *

_Epitaphs._--At Castle Camps, in Cambridgeshire, is the following quaint epitaph on a former rector--

Mors mortis morti mortem nisi morte dedisset,
Aeternae Vitae Janua clausa foret.

The translation is obviously, "unless the Death of Death (Christ) had given death to Death by his own death, the gate of eternal life had been closed." A poetic specimen of declension!

At Babraham, in Cambridgeshire, is this on Orazio Palovicini, who was the last deputed to this country to collect the Peter-pence; but instead of returning to Rome, he divided the spoil with the Queen, and bought the estate at Babraham.--

Here lies Orazio Pulovicin,
Who robb'd the Pope to pay the Queen.
He was a thief:--A thief? thou liest!
For why?--He robb'd but antichrist.
Him Death with besom swept from Babraham,
Unto the bosom of old Abraham;
Then came Hercules, with his club,
And knocked him down to Beelzebub.

INDAGATOR.

* * * * *

THE ANNUALS FOR 1833.

With our next Number, a SUPPLEMENT,
CONTAINING THE
Spirit of the Annuals for 1833:
With a fine Engraving, &c.

* * * * *

_Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by G.G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; CHARLES JUGEL, Francfort; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers._

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