scapes; such as you may behold from every hill, within a certain circuit of every city and populous town, all over our heaven-protected isle.

In this family prevails, as happy a domestic government as the wisest moral philosopher might approve enough of wealth to purchase all that can be wanted in its sphere, and an application of that wealth that mixes elegance with comfort, and makes home the seat of all the social virtues. The theme is good.

It is not often in this commercial bustling city, -is it, my worthy Mister Alderman?-that we beguile an hour in social chat over our wine, either in Austin-friars, or in Tokenhouse-yard, or within ten minutes' walk o' the Change, and sit beside a poet one, too, who had his education at a desk, where ledgers were the books, and invoices and almanacks the only framed graphic works, to decorate the ink-splashed walls! But the more rare, the higher the biddings with works of art; and it would be no news to tell in the great city of Trinnobantes, that our poet was one, who, rather late in life, shut up his city ledger, the gallant bachelor, || and opened an account with the Muses-ladies; who rarely go a shopping so far east. But, "let us to business," as they say at Lloyds.

eth forward to become an annual record of the FINE ARTS, a description of the merit of the prints that adorn The Social Day come more legitimately under its consideration, than the merits of its rhymes; hence, our pages will rather dwell upon the graphic excellencies of the work, than its poetic beauties. We shall presume sometimes to offer our opinions somewhat critically upon Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving, feeling ourselves more competent to speak upon those matters. But, touching the Art Poetic, we shall leave the critical chair in undisturbed possession of those enlightened scholars, whose rhetorical superiority is acknowledged no less by ourselves than by the rest of his Majesty's good subjects, who daily improve by their weekly, monthly, and quarterly lucubrations.

Prefixed to Mr. Peter Coxe's elegant volume is a portrait of Mr. Peter Coxe. This, courteous reader, if you should happen not to know the worthy poet, is, as near as may be, to what he would say of himself. And lest you should not know the author, nor have chanced to see his book, we offer to open it for you, and there you may read, by way of apology for the appearance of the said portrait, or rather to deprecate the censure of the cynic, or the First, then, The Social Day is printed in a hand-waggery of the wags, upon the score of his vanity, some octavo volume, and is composed of three cantos, each canto having a vignette, and most of the leading subjects of the poem being illustrated by an engraved design, with an appropriate quotation from the rhymes.

he writes a few lines, and ends in the good-humoured
and playful words of Taylor, the water poet—

"There's many a head stands for a sign,
Then, gentle reader, why not mine?"

MY GREAT UNCLE ZACHARY'S
SCRAP-BOOK.
THESE following scraps, upon

almost every

sub

And here the genii of the arts, whether to tempt another adventurer from the commercial desk, to Jembark upon the precarious sea of literature, or as a reward for the bold enterprise of him, the last that made the poetic voyage, (for certain they have|ject, were collected by my great uncle Zachary, the interposed their kind offices,) for never more inge-retired trader, of whom there is some account in aious, nor more friendly hands, were yet employed WINE and WALNUTS. They were copied out in a to offer help to any sister art, nor laboured with a fair hand by the worthy old citizen, between the more generous zeal, to bring his poetic bark safely year 1730 and 1780, in the course of his multito anchor. Almost all the designs, taken for The farious reading, and are half bound in fifty thin cial Day, were offerings, painted con amore by folios, being one for every year-ending in 1780, the author's social friends, and presented by each the memorable epoch of the RIOTS, and of his n testimony of his particular esteem. death. Many of these curious scraps are accompanied with his own remarks, to which are added some notes by, gentle reader, his surviving nephew, and your very respectful servant,

Of the friendship of such distinguished artists, who might not well feel proud? 'Tis good to hold wch friends-'tis better to deserve them. Our Labor has not been wanting in acknowledgment, Caving blazoned forth the deed in grateful numbers; wa. in prose as well as verse.

INTRODUCTION.

E. HARDCASTLE.

To begin, GOD is the best foundation that can be

As the Somerset-House Miscellany humbly look-laid, as testifieth both by experience, example, and

Irving, Rev. E. Letter on the Qualifications and Ortho-Raleigh's, Sir Walter, Instructions to his Sonne and to doxy of his Doctrines, 362

Landscape Painting, and Effect in Water Colours, by Cox, Rome, Proceedings in, 346

Musical Scrap Book, 67, 84, 104, 119, 133, 170, 199, 223, Stradella Alessandro, Curious Account of, 201 239, 255, 270, 286, 333

WEEKLY MISCELLANY OF FINE ARTS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LITERARY CHIT CHAT.

By Ephraim Hardcastle.

THE OCTOBER FIRE-SIDE.

No. 1.

I KNOW of no recreation more interesting, or more tranquillizing to the mind and body, than that of going to my books again, when the social month of October returns, said my great uncle Zachary; for as my old friend Jonathan Richardson used to observe, of all the months in the year, commend me to October, for then you have summer days and winter evenings.

Well! gentle reader, if my great uncle Zachary, with his excellent friends Jonathan Richardson and others so long departed, and so dearly prized, so rationally enjoyed this Tenth Month, now that it is returned once more, and with such a manifestation of God's mercy to this island, so long the birthplace of the wise and good,-why not enjoy it in our day?

Yes, the mercy of God to us is great: the times seem to have returned to that happy state, that the rising generation have heard their grandfathers laud so much-the days of PEACE and PLENTY, when bread is cheap, meat is cheap, and coals are cheap;

when the industrious can find employ, and the virtuous poor can sit at their humble board and see their children thrive!

I cannot endure the month of March, says one; the month of November is horrible, says another. Now my great uncle Zachary used to say, I do not know that I have any great preference for any particular month, for every one has some attribute that brings with it a blessing.

Moreover, he used to add, in June, July, August, and September, your friends, particularly the artists, are rambling about, from the time the town begins to thin of your fashionables; some, your limners, to the watering places, as at the Bath, and other great and populous towns, to paint the faces of their patrons; and the landscape painters, to the Lakes to Wales, and other romantic spots on the isle of late, much to their improvement; whilst the others of our friends, who have nothing else to do, are running to the sea-side for the recruit of their health-to face the coming winter enemy in the Monsieur Roquet,* the honest Swiss, was always play-houses, the punch-houses, and what not.in good humour with the world, and consequently, This is a sort of sketch from my great uncle's being moreover a virtuous and ingenious man, and common-place book, and it is much the same now; in health, in good humour with himself. Such a for, on the return of this tenth month, as the sober man is apt to be the cause of it in others. Poor quakers term it, our friends begin to flock home-Friar Pinet used to be hipped at the approach of ward; and I know not but us metropolitans might well designate it, The FRIENDLY MONTH.

November, and constantly complaining at the damps and fogs. To be sure, the gloomy atmosphere of Now my great uncle, though of the old school, the eleventh month is the " antipathy of a face and a bachelor to boot, was as free as any man, painter," as Sir Godfrey Kneller was wont to obeven the married man, civilized and improved by serve. So, Pine was complaining of the climate to the copartnership of a good wife; yea, he was as Roquet, at the club at Old Slaughters', which was entirely free from those crooked prejudices which only a step from his painting-room, when the Swiss stood in the way of the comfortable fire-side. For, shrugging his shoulders observed, with his original said he, to his jocose friend Bonnel Thornton, as naïveté, "mine Gote, mine friend Mistare Pines, they took their mutton together with Garrick, at my for vot shall you complain alway at the climate of uncle's chambers in the Temple, on St. Crispin, England. Vat! if you have short summare! is it 25th October, being the first after the accession of not made amend-have you not the long wintare?" our late venerable King. How can folks talk of a-Friar Pine laughed ready to crack his fat sides; comfortable fire-side, where there is a polished grate and no coals!

Indeed, I can remember more than once dining with the worthy man, and eating Michaelmas goose, with a cheerful fire in the room; but it should be observed, he always celebrated that feast, old style, which again brings us to the tenth of the said comfortable month of October.

No. I.

and I verily believe the oddity of the circumstance,
which had nothing else to recommend it, cost the
club another bowl of punch-and another hour of
watching, to the good ladies at home; to wit,
Mistress Hogarth, Mistress Hayman, Mistress Friar
Pine, Mistress Garrick, and other worthy dames,
the wives of these renowned clubbists.
What a picturesque series would the Twe're

sons.

Months afford to the pencils of a Turner or Calcott,
a Constable or a Collins, or to the talents of the four
conjointly, each taking to himself one of the sea-
Who would not desire to possess twelve
cabinet landscapes, composed of the horticultural
and agricultural attributes of each month-the joint
labours of worthies like these? Or peradventure,
||
the dilletanti, cognoscenti, connoisseurs, and others,
whom these matters concern, taking up the thought,
night ask, "and why not cast about, and find a
native genius for each month?" Well! be it even
so, and it please your reverences, so the thing be
done; and if it be done, when it be done, it were
well done if it were done quickly. And more
quickly would it be done, and better done, by twelve
than one, or times be strangely altered.

Thus much being despatched then, gentle reader, we have now to name the twelve. Firstly, then, there can be no offence in naming Turner, as the first. Secondly, I would venture to wager a new shilling, that nineteen out of twenty already anticipateth Calcott as the second. Be it even so, and if it be your pleasure to arrange the following as they strike your better judgments, doubtless they will be justly marshalled; whilst I cannot do better than by setting them forth alphabetically. Here, then followeth the twelve:

Calcott,

Leslie,
Turner,

Constable, Cooper, Hoffland,
Linnell,
Mulready, Stothard,
Ward,
Westall, Wilkie.

Yea, and as many more could be named, could we
add twelve more months to our calendar. But,
"all in good time," as good old Pick-a-back was
wont to say, and Apollo will cut out work for these.
Indeed, as my great uncle Zachary once said to
George Lambert, (who by the way was an excellent
landscape painter, though now so little known ;) it
was upon the same subject, when Hogarth had made
a drawing, or rather a sketch, of a shepherd-boy,§|
for one of his little pastoral pictures, entitled MAY,
-for George was no hand at painting figures-" I
like your theme," said my great uncle; "I wish
some of you notable designers would give us the
characteristics of the months-their very names, as
handed down to us from those picturesque Saxon
ancestors of ours, convey agreeable and rural
associations, which conjure up pictures before the
imagination."

I cannot divine how you may feel upon this subject, gentle reader, but somehow, I never dip into the history of the Saxon times but I think of

uncle Zachary's designation,
"The PICTURESQUE
SAXONS." In short, every thing Anglo-Saxon from
my earliest days has been music to my ears, and
painting to my eyes.

Who, indeed, that has any Picturesque blood in
his veins, said my facetious old friend Captain
Grose, who indeed would not go ten miles out of
the road to see an Anglo-Saxon monument of art,
whether in the shape of a church, or a porch, or
even a window, with its zig-zag frieze? Though,
alas! Dr. James Bentham, and that still more
illustrious antiquary Thomas Gray, have been wont
to tell us- -(would I could prove they were wrong,
for all my respect for their memories)—that
of what we have taken for Anglo-Saxon is Anglo-
Norman!" My stars!-but to the point, we know
they named the months-and thus they were
named:-

THE SAXON MONTHS.

"most

January was named ÆFTER-YULA, or, after Christmas.

February, SOL-MONATH, from the returning sun. March, RHEDE, or RETH-MONATH, rough or rugged month.

April, EASTER-MONATH, from a Saxon goddess (Easter).

May, TRI-MILCHI, from the custom of milking thrice a day.

June, SERE-MONATH, the meads in bloom. August, WEOD-MONATH, from the luxuriance of weeds.

September, HÆRFEST-MONATH, the harvest month.

October, WINTER-FYLLETH, winter approaching with the October full moon.

November, BLOT-MONATH, from the blood of cattle killed for store.

December, MIDWINTER-MONATH.

There is extant a Saxon manuscript, a sort of English Georgics, with drawings, describing the rural occupations of each month, which nearly correspond with the agricultural and horticultural seasons of the present time.

In the portfolios of the collector too, may be found etchings and engravings of the months by various of the Dutch and Flemish masters. A very curious set was in the possession of the late Samuel Shelley, the miniature painter of worthy memory, at least two hundred years old; among which was the rural occupation of hiving of bees, wherein was represented good housewives tinging of brass pans, and the men with the hives, having their faces