The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 322, July 12, 1828

17. The harmony of the whole should be studied; if the piece strikes you as defective in this respect, place it at evening in some situation where it will not be reached by a strong light, when the misplaced lights and shadows will strike you more forcibly than in the glare of day.

18. To stain your paper with a slight reddish or yellowish tint, adds to the harmony of a sketch, yet it is a mere matter of taste; but, when it is desired, it had better be done after the drawing is completed, otherwise the colour risks looking patched from the rubber.6

19. In colouring, the sky gives the ruling tint to the landscape; it is absurd to unite a noonday sky, with a landscape of sunset glow.

20. From the three virgin colours, red, blue, and yellow, all the tints of nature are composed.7 There is not in nature a perfect white, except snow, and the petals of some flowers.

21. Sketch nothing but what you can adorn, (for the purpose of showing to friends, &c.) but do not adorn your first, or rough sketch; make another, and refer to your original draught, as you would do to the view itself, for it contains your general ideas—your first and freshest, which may be lost by endeavouring to refine and improve upon them in the original sketch.8

22. In adorning your sketch, figures, both animate and inanimate, may be introduced, but sparingly; touch them slightly, for an attempt at finish offends.

I shall take the liberty of adding—endeavour to get a free and flowing outline; be not too minute either in detail or finishing; use pen or brush for your rough sketch in preference to pencil; you will gain confidence, and correctness will be your aim in your adorned copy. Finally, study nature, art, and good writers.

M.L.B

FINE ARTS

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

Sir,—I have made repeated visits this season to the exhibition of the works of the old masters at the British Institution, for the express purpose of presenting you with a few remarks on some of the most excellent paintings. As I have strictly adhered to the notes which I made at the institution, the accuracy of the subjoined may be depended upon:—

BRITISH INSTITUTION

The present exhibition consists of the works of the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and Dutch masters. There are one hundred and ninety pictures, which have chiefly been contributed to the institution by his Majesty and the nobility.

No. 5, Innocent the Tenth, by Velasquez, is an uncommon fine portrait; it is very boldly executed, combining at the same time a sufficient degree of finish and great beauty of colour. His holiness is represented in quite a plain habit. The beauties of Guido's pencil will be traced in No. 6, Hippomenes and Atalanta. Claude, in his Embarkation of St. Paul; Sea Port, Evening, &c., charms us with his exquisite effects, which are so truly natural, that, while we view his representations, we may almost fancy ourselves transported to the magnificent scenery of Italy. In No. 42, Titian's Daughter, are seen the genuine tints adopted by the Venetian school of painting. No. 56, St. Appolonia, by Sebastian del Piombo, is a most admirable specimen of the master. No. 74, Landscape and Cattle, by Paul Potter, contains all that beauty of touch and delicacy of colour which render this famous artist so difficult to imitate. There are several very capital pictures by the younger Teniers; No. 77, his own portrait, and No. 95, portrait of the painter and his son, are truly excellent; as is No. 94, Figures playing at Bowls. A remarkable and very forcible effect is found in No. 93, The outside of a House with Figures—painted by De Hooge. Nos. 121 and 123, Flowers and Fruit, by the celebrated Van Huysum, are extremely elaborate in their execution. No. 161, The Battle between Constantine and Maxentius, is a sketch by Rubens, possessing wonderful fire and spirit, as well as great mellowness of colour.

Besides the above pictures, there are many beautiful productions by Jan Steen, Cuyp, Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Guercino, Domenichino, Murillo, Albano, Vandyke, Ruysdael, Houdekoeter, Wouvermans, &c.

G.W.N

ANCIENT ROMAN FESTIVALS

JULY

The Caprotinia, or feasts of Juno Caprotina, were celebrated on the 9th of July, in favour of the female slaves. During this solemnity they ran about, beating themselves with their fists and with rods. None but women assisted in the sacrifices offered at this feast. Kennet says, the origin of this feast, or the famous Nonae Caprotinae, or Poplifugium, is doubly related by Plutarch, according to the two common opinions. First, because Romulus disappeared on that day, when an assembly being held in the Palus Capreae, or Goats'-Marsh, on a sudden happened a most wonderful tempest, accompanied with terrible thunder, and other unusual disorders in the air. The common people fled all away to secure themselves; but, after the tempest was over, could never find their king. Or, else, from Caprificus, a wild fig-tree, because, in the Gallic war, a Roman virgin, who was prisoner in the enemy's camp, got up into a wild fig-tree, and holding out a lighted torch toward the city, gave the Romans a signal to fall on; which they did with such good success, as to obtain a considerable victory.

The Lucaria was an ancient feast, solemnized in the woods, where the Romans, defeated and pursued by the Gauls, retired and concealed themselves; it was held, on the 19th of July, in a wood, between the Tyber and the road called Via Salaria.

The feast of Neptunalia was held on the 23rd of July, in honour of Neptune.

The Furinalia were feasts instituted in honour of Furina, the goddess of robbers among the Romans; they took place on the 25th of July. This goddess had a temple at Rome, and was served by a particular priest, who was one of the fifteen Flamens.9 Near the temple there was a sacred wood, in which Caius Gracchus was killed. Cicero takes her to be the same as one of the Furies.

P.T.W

NOTES OF A READER

CAPTAIN POPANILLA'S VOYAGE

Who has not read Vivian Grey, in five broad-margined volumes, with space enough between each line to allow the indulgence of a nap, when the poppy of the author predominated? Affectation, foppery, and conceit, have protracted the memoirs of this renowned personage to such an extent; but in spite of all that unfashionable critics have said, Vivian Grey has just produced a volume under the title of the Voyage of Captain Popanilla, with as much of the aforesaid qualities as the most listless drawing-room or boudoir reader could require. Nevertheless, "the voyage" has many touches of wit, humour, and caustic satire, and it has the soul and characteristic of wit—brevity; for we read the volume in little more than an hour; and, although Vivian may regard our analysis of his voyage like showing the sun with a lantern, we are disposed to venture upon the task for the gratification of our readers.

To say that Popanilla resembles Swift's "Tale of a Tub," or Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," would be an advantageous comparison for our modern voyager, but it would not sufficiently illustrate the character of his work, since the latter books are so much less read than talked of. Swift wrote "for the universal improvement of mankind," but Popanilla publishes for the benefit of the people of England, whom he represents as living in a too artificial state. He tells his story as the native of an Indian isle, whose men combine "the vivacity of a faun with the strength of a Hercules, and the beauty of an Adonis," and whose women "magically sprung from the brilliant foam of that ocean, which is gradually subsiding before them." This favoured spot he calls the Isle of Fantaisie, about the shores of which appears a remarkable fish, or rather a ship, to the no small terror of the islanders. The ship is wrecked, and Popanilla "having in his fright, during the storm, lost a lock of hair which, in a moment of glorious favour, he had ravished from his fair mistress' brow," is next introduced in search of this precious bijou. "The favourite of all the women, the envy of all the men, &c. &c, and—you know the rest,—Popanilla passed an extremely pleasant life. No one was a better judge of wine—no one had a better taste for fruit—no one danced with more elegant vivacity—and no one whispered compliments in a more meaning tone. What a pity that such an amiable fellow should have got into such a scrape!"

Instead of the dear lock, Popanilla finds a chest saved from the wreck, and filled with "Useful Knowledge Tracts," books on "the Hamiltonian system," &c. which our adventurer, like Faustus and his bible, turns to bad account; he falls asleep, is swallowed by a whale, and spouted forth again. "The dreamer awoke amidst real chattering, and scuffling, and clamour. A troop of green monkeys had been aroused by his unusual occupation, and had taken the opportunity of his slumber to become acquainted with some of the first principles of science. What progress they had made it is difficult to ascertain. It is said, however, that some monkeys have been since seen skipping about the island, with their tails cut off; and that they have even succeeded in passing themselves for human beings among those people who do not read novels, and are consequently unacquainted with mankind. As for Popanilla, he took up a treatise on hydrostatics, and read it straight through on the spot. For the rest of the day he was hydrostatically mad; nor could the commonest incident connected with the action or conveyance of water take place, without his speculating on its cause and consequence." So much for the first steps of "intellect;" now for the "march." Popanilla soon becomes a man of science: his wit flies off in tangents, and he tries to prove his sovereign a lantern, and himself a sun,10 by undertaking to re-shape all the institutions of Fantaisie. Then follow a string of dogmas about utility, &c.; and man being a developing animal, till he decides that "there is no such thing as Nature; Nature is Art, or Art is Nature; that which is most useful is most natural, because utility is the test of Nature; therefore, a steam-engine is in fact a much more natural production than a mountain." Here, observing a smile upon his majesty's countenance, Popanilla tells the king that he is only a chief magistrate, and he has no more right to laugh at him than a constable. This is "too bad" for the royal mind; Popanilla is cut; rather crest-fallen, he sneaks home, and consoles himself for having nobody to speak to, by reading some very amusing "Conversations on Political Economy." But he sinks to rise again. He obtains many pupils, who had no sooner mastered the first principles of science, than they began to throw off their retired habits and uncommunicative manners. "Being not utterly ignorant of some of the rudiments of knowledge, and consequently having completed their education, it was now their duty, as members of society, to instruct and not to study; and on all occasions they seized opportunities of assisting the spread of knowledge. The voices of boys lecturing upon every lecturable topic, resounded in every part of the island. Their tones were so shrill, their manners so presuming, their knowledge so crude, and their general demeanour so completely unamiable, that it was impossible to hear them without the greatest, delight, advantage, and admiration." The king at last becomes impregnated with the liberal spirit of the age; Popanilla is "sent for" to court; he is overpowered with promotion, told that "with the aid of a treatise or two," he will make "a consummate naval commander," although he has "never been at sea in the whole course of his life," and at length thrust into a canoe, with some fresh water, bread, fruit, dried fish, and a basket of alligator pears. "Unhappy Popanilla! and all from that unlucky lock of hair!" His fright is ludicrously sketched. "Poor fellow! how could he know better? He certainly had enjoyed a seat at the Admiralty Board of Fantaisie, but then he was a lay-lord." Among his discoveries, on the second day, at 25 m. past 3 p.m., though at a considerable distance, he saw a mountain and an island: he called the first Alligator Mountain, in gratitude to the pears; and christened the second after his mistress; but the happy discoverer further found the mountain to be a mist, and the island a sea-weed. At length, on the third day, after being in a valley formed by two waves, each 3,000 feet high, and in as tremendous a tempest as ever raged in Chelsea or Battersea-reach, "great, square and solid, black clouds drew off like curtains, and revealed to him a magnificent city rising out of the sea. Tower and dome, arch, and column, and spire, and obelisk, and lofty terraces, and many-windowed palaces, rose in all directions from a mass of building, which appeared each instant to grow more huge, till at length it seemed to occupy the whole horizon." On his landing he is pestered with questions from the natives; but, thanks to the Hamiltonian system, "Popanilla, under these circumstances, was more loquacious than could have been Capt. Parry." He announces himself as the "most injured of human beings;" the women weep, the men shake hands with him, and all the boys huzza: he then narrates his ill-fortunes at Fantaisie, not forgetting the never-enough-to-be-lamented lock of hair. Other danger awaits him, for "to be strangled was not much better than to be starved; and certainly with half a dozen highly respectable females clinging round his neck, he was not reminded, for the first time in his life, what a domestic bowstring is an affectionate woman." He is next joined by an "influential personage," who informs him that he is in Hubbabub (London)—the largest city, not only that exists, but that ever did exist, and the capital of the Island of Vraibleusia, the most famous island, not only that is known, but that ever was known. "He provides himself with a purse, and exchanges his money with a banker, who offers him during his stay in Vraibleusia, the use of a couple of equipages, a villa, an opera box; insists upon sending to his hotel some pineapples and very rare wine; and gives him a perpetual ticket to his picture-gallery. Popanilla leaves his gold and takes the banker's pink shells, for "no genteel person has ever anything else in his pocket." Then follow some quips on the shell question (currency), and Mr. Secretary Perriwinkle, the most eminent conchologist, and the "debt" of the richest nation in the world; although, "a golden pyramid, with a base as big as the whole earth and an apex touching the heavens, would not supply sufficient metal to satisfy the creditors." "The annual interest upon our debt exceeds the whole wealth of the rest of the world; therefore we must be the richest nation in the world."

Our traveller being now settled at a splendid hotel in Hubbabub, Skindeep, his "gentleman in black," drives him about the city in an elegant equipage. The western migrations of fashion are humorously sketched, and the architecture of our metropolis comes in for a share of the author's banter. "In general, the massy Egyptian appropriately graced the attic stories; while the finer and more elaborate architecture of Corinth was placed on a level with the eye, so that its beauties might be more easily discovered. Spacious colonnades were flanked by porticoes, surmounted by domes; nor was the number of columns at all limited, for you occasionally met with porticoes of two tiers, the lower one of which consisted of three, the higher one of thirty columns. Pedestals of the purest Ionic Gothic, were ingeniously mixed with Palladian pediments; and the surging spire exquisitely harmonized with the horizontal architecture of the ancients. But, perhaps, after all, the most charming effect was produced by the pyramids, surmounted by weathercocks."

A lively sketch of "the aboriginal inhabitant" introduces some smart satire on the agriculturists, and proves that, "between force, and fear, and flattery, the Vraibleusians paid for their corn nearly its weight in gold; but what did it signify to a nation with so many pink shells." Popanilla is next introduced to an eminent bookseller, who craves the honour of publishing a narrative of his voyage: he informs the "mercantile Mecaenas" that he does not know how to write; who replies that "he never had for a moment supposed that so sublime a savage could possess such a vulgar accomplishment, and that it was by no means difficult for a man to publish his travels without writing a line." This is a stale affair; but Popanilla's drinking a dozen of the bookseller's wine smacks more of novelty. His voyage is published, and contains a detailed account of every thing which took place during the whole of the three days, forming a quarto volume! Then we have a shower of squibs on converzazioni—as dukes imbibing a new theory of gas, a prime-minister studying pinmaking, a bishop the escapements of watches, a field-marshal intent on essence of hellebore. "But what most delighted Popanilla was hearing a lecture from the most eminent lawyer and statesman in Vraibleusia, on his first and favourite study of hydrostatics. His associations quite overcame him; all Fantaisie rushed upon his memory, and he was obliged to retire to a less frequented part of the room, to relieve his too excited feelings." The hostess too declares it "impossible for mankind ever to be happy and great, until, like herself and her friends," her company are "all soul!"

Popanilla is now constituted ambassador from Fantaisie, and goes through all the courtly scenes of diplomacy, for which we have not room; but their gist will be readily understood among the stars of St. James's, especially the authors allusions to Navarino and the late ministry, which are in good set terms. The "Aboriginal," too, tells Popanilla "some long stories about a person who was chief manager, about five hundred years ago, to whom he said he was indebted for all his political principles."

During Popanilla's sight-seeing career, he, of course, visits our theatres, and a tolerably broad caricature he gives of them. "To sit in a huge room hotter than a glass-house, in a posture emulating the most sanctified Faquir, with a throbbing head-ache, a breaking back, and twisted legs, with a heavy tube held over one eye, and the other covered with the unemployed hand, is, in Vraibleusia, called a public amusement." In one morning's lionizing, too, he acquires "a general knowledge of the chief arts and sciences, eats three hundred sandwiches, and tastes as many bottles of sherry."

The frauds and fooleries of the joint stock company mania are, perhaps, among the least successful portion of the volume. The "literature" is somewhat better, as the establishment of a "Society for the Diffusion of Fashionable Knowledge"—its first treatise, Nonchalance—dissertations "on leaving cards," "cutting friends," "on bores," &c.—and a new novel called "Burlington"—the last a scratch at Popanilla's publisher. The "Clubs" are next recommended for those fond of solitude, and their satin luxuries humorously quizzed; but "the Colonial System," which follows, has more causticity. Popanilla, like all other great foreigners who visit England, falls ill; his disorder is "unquestionably nervous;" he is to count five between each word he utters, never ask questions, and avoid society, and only dine out once a day. This regimen brings on a slow fever; but his disorder is neither "liver," nor "nervous," but "mind." He next falls in with an Essay on Fruit, from which he learns that thousands of the Vraibleusians are dying with dyspepsia from eating pine-apples, which are denounced as "stupid, sour, and vulgar."

Popanilla is ordered by his physician to Blunderland, where the women are "angelic," and the men "the most light-hearted, merry, obliging, entertaining fellows;" and where "instead of knives and forks being laid for the guests at dinner, the plates are flanked by daggers and pistols." A "row" springs up; "all the guests lay lifeless about the room;" "Popanilla rang the bell, and the waiters swept away the dead bodies, and brought him a roasted potato for supper." He next enjoys the pleasures of the chase, and in revenge for a sharp fire, "burns two villages, slays 2 or 300 head of women, and bags children without number;" and in the evening Popanilla's powers of digestion are improved. He now returns to Vraibleusia, where all are panic-struck, and his friend, the banker, unlike his "perpetual ticket," has stopped payment, and all our traveller's resources. Popanilla consoles him with the joke that "things were not quite so bad as they appeared," till they get worse, by two gentlemen in blue, with red waistcoats, arresting the ambassador for high treason. This completes his "amusements." He fears "confined cells, overwhelming fetters, black bread, and green water, in the principal gaol in Hubbabub;" but becomes ensconced in Leigh Hunt's "elegantly furnished apartment, with French sash-windows and a piano. Its lofty walls were entirely hung with a fanciful paper, representing a Tuscan vineyard; the ceiling was covered with sky and clouds; roses were in abundance; and the windows, though well secured, excited no jarring associations in the mind of the individual they illumined, protected as they were by polished bars of cut-steel."

"Next to being a plenipotentiary, Popanilla preferred being a prisoner. His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season; a marble bath was ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and his old friends, the most eminent physician, and the most celebrated practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and look at his tongue. These attentions authorized a hope that he might yet again be an ambassador; that his native land might still be discovered, and its resources still be developed; but when his gaoler told him that the rest of the prisoners were treated in a manner equally indulgent, because the Vraibleusians are the most humane people in the world, Popanilla's spirits became somewhat depressed."

"He was greatly consoled, however, by a daily visit from a body of the most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most virtuous females in Hubbabub, who tasted his food to see that his cook did his duty, recommended him a plentiful use of pine-apple well peppered, and made him a present of a very handsome shirt, with worked frills and ruffles, to be hanged in. This enchanting committee generally confined their attentions to murderers, and other victims of the passions, who were deserted in their hour of need by the rest of the society they had outraged; but Popanilla being a foreigner, a prince, and a plenipotentiary, and not ill-looking, naturally attracted a great deal of notice from those who desire the amelioration of their species."

"Popanilla was so pleased with his mode of life, and had acquired such a taste for poetry, pine-apples, and pepper, since he had ceased to be an active member of society, that he applied to have his trial postponed, on the ground of the prejudice which had been excited against him by the public press. As his trial was at present inconvenient to the government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds."

In the meantime, up jumps a public instructor, Flummery Flam, who ascribes all the debt and distress to "a slight over-trading," chatters about demand, supply, rent, wages, profit, and, as a temporary relief, suggests "emigration." "Flummery-Flammism triumphs, and every person, from the managers down to the chalk-chewing mechanics, attend lectures on that enlightening science."

At length Popanilla's trial comes on; the indictment is read; he is accused of stealing 219 camelopards; perceives that he has all the time been mistaken for another person: he is, however, detained, on the judge of Fort Jobation informing him, that in order to be tried in his court for a modern offence of high treason, he must first be introduced by fiction of law as a stealer of camelopards, and then being in praesenti regio, in a manner, the business proceeds by a special power for an absolute offence. This flummery is too much; but every body with whom Popanilla had conversed while in Vraibleusia is subpoenaed against him: the judge is about to sum up, when a trumpet sounds, and a government messenger presents a scroll, and informs him, that a remarkably clever young man, recently appointed one of the managers, had last night consolidated all the edicts into a single act. The judge then compliments the young consolidator, compared to whom, he said, Justinian was a country attorney. Popanilla is found "not guilty, and kicked out of court, amidst the hootings of the mob, without a stain upon his reputation." He then falls senseless on the steps of the Asiatic club-house, is recovered by the smell of mulligatawney soup, and moralizes till he perceives "it is possible for a nation to exist in too artificial a state." He then sees the opposite house lit up, and the words "Emigration Committee" written on a transparent blind. He enters, finds the last Emigration squadron is about to sail in a few minutes; is presented with a spade, blanket, and hard biscuit, and quits the port of Hubbabub: what became of him will "probably be discovered, if ever we obtain 'Popanilla's' second voyage"—and thus shuts to the scene.