66

1

66

and in 1761 he writes thus to Baretti. “ The | a little more than two years, when another artists have established a yearly exhibition of establishment was secretly organized and the pictures and statues, in imitation I am told, of casts and other materials of art, which grew foreign academies. This year is the second out of the collected earnings of the whole body exhibition. They please themselves much with of artists were by a majority vote removed to the multitude of spectators.” This exhibi- the New Royal Academy, thus depriving a tion has filled the heads of the artists and highly respectable minority of the very matelovers of art,” &c.

rials their own money had paid for. The exhibitions continued to prosper, pro

Joshua Reynolds kept aloof, but the King ducing a clear average income of about thirty- succeeded in drawing him over by conferring five hundred dollars, till the institution had ac- the title of knighthood upon him, to assist in cumulated about fifteen thousand dollars, when giving consequence and dignity to the post of they determined on establishing a public Aca- President of the Academy, to which the artists demy of Arts.

had elected him. But the King's favour stopped The treasurer of this Artist's Society it was

here, for he never employed him in the exerbefore stated was the same Dalton, the King's cise of his profession, unrivalled as he was in

the field of portraiture.
librarian, who lately returned from his Italian
expedition, victorious over Robert Strange. After the death of Reynolds, West was chosen
He had entered into a print speculation, had to succeed him as the head of the institution,
purchased some auction rooms which he altered and the same title was offered to the Pennsyl-
into galleries, and over the door he inscribed vania Quaker; but West declined the knight-
the words “Print Warehouse." But the busi- hood as an empty honour. He continued to
ness turned out a failure, and its projector fill this eminent station of President (with but
becoming involved, the King was called on for slight interruption) till his death in 1820, at
help, and his mode of affording it was to " pa-

the
age of 82.

The position was one he was
tronise” the Society of Artists and give them a fully entitled to, and in accepting it he rather
royal charter. A scheme was concocted by conferred than received honour.
which Dalton's rooms were taken off his hands

West's style of composition was noble and digby the Society, and the institution was ho- nified. Some of his works are so well-disposed noured with the title of Royal Academy." in every respect, that it is difficult to imagine These words were painted over the door in how they could be improved, and his facility place of “ Print Warehouse" obliterated, and in planning the general structure of a picture the rooms, when not otherwise occupied, were

is surprising, while the drawing of the parts wholly or in part rented out for Mr. Dalton's is equally just and true. What they want is private emolument, for the use of dancing- intensity; they command admiration, but they schools, auctions, &c. But the royal institution

never thrill you as Allston's or Haydon's not only charged its shilling at the door, but sometimes do. They never violate the supbegged subscriptions for its support. Disgust posed proprieties of art; are full of learned and bad feeling arose amongst the members, lines, and graceful or happy thoughts, but and another plan was matured by West, Cham- mostly fail to rouse the glow of enthusiasm, or bers, and two other artists under the eye of stir the passions, except in the very gentlest the King, (who himself wrote some of the

His facility in composition was by-laws,) which resulted in the present Royal somewhat hurtful, for it helped him to pass Academy of London.

rapidly from one great work to another beWest arrived from Italy in 1763, and soon

fore he had made all he could of the last. became a director, and it is the association Hence the thin painting observable in the large just described that he alludes to when writing pictures in the Pennsylvania Academy and as follows to Charles Wilson Peale. Those elsewhere, which were executed at the later exhibitions became an object of attraction period of his life. The colour always has a to men of taste in the fine arts; the young tendency to sink into the ground on which it is sovereign was interested in their prosperity, painted, and therefore should be laid on, in and the artists were by his royal charter large pictures, with considerable body, esperaised into the dignity, the independence, cially in the lights. The want of sufficiently and, as it were, the municipal permanency solid painting has caused the original ink outof a body corporate; and in this body I line, drawn on the canvass with the reed, to apfound myself a member and director," &c. pear distinctly through the thin paint; in every The charter, here referred to so reverentially, part of the pictures we see this black boundary was granted the 26th of January, 1765, up to line obtruding on the attention, and the consewhich time the Society was highly prosperous, quence is, the slighted look, without the energy but after the royal interference it hobbled on and fiery spirit of a sketch. Those pictures

manner.

66

that he painted at an earlier period of his life, I true merit, as in the earlier part of his career are not equally liable to this objection. The he was esteemed above it. “ Paul and Silas” is for the most part firm and The engraving in the last number of this Magabold, and the “King Lear in the Tempest,” zine of “Christ Blessing Little Children,” the which belongs to the Boston Atheneum, is original picture of which is in the collection of painted in a very vigorous style, loaded with the Foundling Hospital at London, before recolour, and in the masses of light thickly im- ferred to, will, to those who are unacquainted parted. Washington Allston, who was no less with the character of his style in art, convey a competent to judge than he was just and impar- tolerable idea of it. This picture may be safely tial, said of him, that of late years he had pronounced the best of the subject that has been placed by the public as much below his been produced by any master.

HENRY THE EIGHTH AND HERNE THE HUNTER.

BY

MRS.

MARY

8.

V.

And yet, they say there's harshness in thy tone!Hast thou appeared, the advocate of pure

It may become the vain, who boast their lore Unshrinking liberty of life and faith.

In other tongues, though smatterers in their own, And yet, thy virtues puritan secure

To vaunt the value of their foreign store, No stern monopoly. No cant bewrayeth

And sneer at the harmonious chords which pour In merriment the preacher, nor gainsaith

Alike the solemn organ-notes that swell That hearty humour, which, as all thine own,

The song of Paradise, while saints adore, Through Addison, Swift, Sterne, and Goldsmith playeth, The Doric strains of Burns, and those that dwell Nor is thy playfulness for such alone;

With Cowper, Coleridge, Gray, and Wordsworth’s heavenly But every merry thought can find in thee a tone.

shell;

VI.

And for the gentle heart, that would express

The suffering, by which 'tis called to grieve, Thou hast a key of tender plaintiveness

Soft as the zephyr of a summer eve,

Which even the heaven-ascending sigh to leave.
Such gwan-like melodies, young Bruce, were thine;

Such, pensive White, the fabric thou didst weave
Of kind-affectioned words; such the divine
Fragments of dying Keats, and Tighe's enchanting line.

XII.
Which, from the warblings of unhappy Clare,

And the sweet minor of a Tannahill,
To fiercest wailings of sublime despair,

Which to the sweeping touch of Byron thrill

The bosoms, which they horrify and fill
With all a Titan's suffering, command

The diapason of the heart and will;
But elsewhere seeketh not the master's hand
For keys to speak the true, the lovely, or the grand.

THE W I ZA R D.

BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.

FIGURE 1. Full Dress Visiting Toilette.-Bonnet of velvet | lops. The three upper rows are interrupted by the openépingle, vert Président, which is a shade of vert oeillet or ing of the corsage, but the two below pass across it over carnation green, a little less gray than the natural colour the beautiful lace guimpe which fills it. Upon the front of the foliage of the carnation. The face is a little full at of the skirt are a like number of rows of similar trimming, the top, enclosing well the cheeks, and embracing the each composed of three volants of graduated widths and chin. Around the edge of the face is affixed a strip of lengths, those toward the lower edge being longer and frizzed feathers, and on each side a noeud of three feathers, wider than those above. one rising upon the face and the other two falling in rolls Sleeves a little wide, demi-long, with the seam toward below the cape. These are of the same colour as the the side, along which and around the lower part, pass two bonnet. Under-trimming, two noeuds of white riband, rows of trimming like that described above, and a third from which proceed two small white plumes, which give row around the lower part only. Under-sleeves of three an air of great sweetness to the expression of the counte- rows of lace, falling extremely large and full over the nance.

hand. Dress of violet silk. Corsage high, open in front, almost FIGURE 2. Pull Dress Home Toilette. — Robe of light green to the waist, with five rows of trimming, composed each silk, with corsage opening square in front, and the opening of two narrow volants of violet riband with rounded scal-edged with festooned dents of silk of a deeper green. At