The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 578, December 1, 1832

263. One of Lawrence's Portraits of himself.

286. Sir John Falstaff at Gad's Hill. T. Stothard, R.A. The figure has not the fleshy rotundity of the Falstaff of Shakspeare; he is like a half-stuffed actor in the part.

298. Portrait of the late King when Prince of Wales. Lawrence. The features at this period were remarkably handsome; and considering the influence of pre-eminence in birth, the expression is not over-tinged with hauteur. No persons have their portraits so frequently painted as princes; and the artist who has the fortune to paint them at all ages, as Lawrence did, must watch their personal changes with reflective interest, though he may confine them to the tablet of his memory. What an interval between the youthful vigour of the above portrait of the Prince and the artist's last, fine whole-length of the King, in dignified ease, on the sofa! Alas! lines increase in our faces as they do in the imperfect maps of a newly-discovered country.

313 and 228. Two Landscapes, by Lawrence, reminding us how strongly the artist's genius was fettered by public taste in Kneller's profitable glory of painting "the living."

In the Water-colour Room, are many interesting productions, and some curiosities in their way. We have Paul Sandby and the quaintly precise Capon beside Glover and Landseer—so that the drawings are as motley as the paintings. Here also are Lawrence's inimitable chalk portraits of his present Majesty and the Duke of Wellington, which show us how much true genius can accomplish in a few lines.

SCHOOL OF PAINTING AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION

(From a Correspondent.)

The present school of painting commenced on the 17th of September, and the students, as usual, have made numerous attempts to copy the inimitable examples of art which have been selected for their improvement. The selections consist of specimens from the Italian, Flemish, Dutch, and English schools, and afford ample variety, in style and subject, for the different tastes of the students. We are sorry to state, however, that only a very few copies can be selected as possessing a fair resemblance to the superb originals. We proceed to notice those who deserve the most praise:—

Gainsborough's Milk Girl is a most happy production of the pencil: the figure possesses great infantile beauty; and the landscape is rural, and in perfect harmony with the subject. This work has been cleverly copied by Messrs. Sargeant and Lilley in oil, and by Miss Fanny Corbaux in water-colour.

An Advocate in his Study—Ostade: an exquisitely finished cabinet picture. The expression in the advocate's face is excellent, and the various objects in his study are in proper keeping with his calling. The copy by Mr. Novice is excellent; and those of Messrs. Robson and Higham display great ability, though they are not sufficiently finished.

A Sea-shore, attributed to Backhuysen, has been studied by Mr. Dujardin.

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 sketchingThe purlicus of this ancient city,I need not tell you how much stretchingThere 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, whetherThere's water for said founts or no;—How ev'n the wonder of the ThaneIn 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'dAs that his pencil can combineTheir features in one whole with taste,—What does he do? why, without scruple,He whips the Temple up, as suppleAs were those angels who (no doubt)Carried the Virgin's House11 about,—And lands it plump upon the brinkOf the cascade, or whersoeverIt suits his plaguy taste to think'Twill look most picturesque and clever!In short, there's no end to the treacheriesOf 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 tenderIn 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 'tisOver 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.

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 100,000l.; and he contended that it was not too much to suppose that an advance of between 100,000l. and 200,000l. 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 stageA 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!"