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and rent clouds, afford a perfect picture of chaos. Never did the confusion of the elements appear to me more dreadful, even in the midst of a storm at sea.

"On this day, and during this dreadful storm, I met with still more fugitives than on the day before. Not a Monk, not a woman, had ventured to set out. Those who had no families with them, were conducted in bands by some of our soldiers. The poor wretches wrapped themselves up as well as they could; fortunately for them, they had the wind in their backs, and, impelled by it, they ran along the narrowest paths with extreme agility."

He now meets the curious phenomenon of a Government running away, and seems to have been rather exhilarated with the sight, notwithstanding some natural touches of feeling for those luckless fellow-sharers of the desert and the storm.

"My guide, when we set out, told me that we should meet El Rey Mata Florida. In fact, the pages of the Regency soon announced his approach. I must make my reader acquainted with those pages, who have been spoken of with so much complacency, as well as the portmanteaus containing the archives of the Regency. I saw horsemen pass me in groups of three or four together, upon horses which were lean, indeed, and ill-shaped, but excellent, for they galloped over the snow, and along the paths, with a security, I might almost say an infallibility, which was truly surprising. Their equipment was worthy of the place, of the men, and of the army to which they belonged. Some had old caps, very much worn; others rusty helmets, or little round hats, with short plumes of various colours. They had uniforms, or Catalonian jackets, sometimes pantaloons and shoes, but, for the most part, gaiters and spartillas, and no spurs. Some had no saddles, nor any other harness than a halter. We met from sixty to eighty horsemen, of whom there were perhaps twelve or fifteen well equipped, and wrapped in good blue cloaks, escorting officers," &c. &c.

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The aspect under which this unfortunate Regency appeared at last, was certainly not calculated to raise very superior ideas of its former influence. A more shattered and lonely remnant of government, could not have been easily

found in all the expulsions of Europe. Its decrepitude, contrasted with the speedy triumph of its principles, and the pomp of its military return, form a singular contrast, and seem made to forbid politicians from prophecy.

"At last I met the long-expected Regency. We were climbing a flight of steps, which, extending along the side of a hill, turned towards its summit. On a sudden, I saw a horseman at the summit of the path, who turned the point, and advanced towards us with a truly martial air. He was an old dragoon, enveloped in an immense cloak, and resembling the warriors in Wouverman's battle-pieces. After him came a foot-soldier, leading two good horses by the bridle. We were in our turn doubling the point, and descending by the opposite flight of steps, when I perceived a group who appeared to ascend it with difficulty, on foot. A man between fifty and sixty years of age, of middle stature, pale, thin, and stooping, with his eyes red, wearing a black cap and a brown great-coat, was leaning upon two other persons, and dragging himself along with the greatest difficulty. My guide, at this sight, called out to me, 'El Rey, El Rey Mata Florida!'

*

"His suite were not less characteristic-three or four mean-looking and ill-dressed individuals walked by his side; those were the great officers of the Regency. One of them, who was pretty far advanced in years, very tall, wearing an enormously large French hat, covered with oil-skin, and carrying a bundle under his arm, kept a little on one side-he was a minister, I know not of what department. Behind him was a tall Capuchin, in a long robe, who seemed to represent the altar near the throne. Lastly, a few steps behind them, came a young man in a green cloak, with several capes, dressed completely in the French fashion, rather stout, and of a very remarkable appearance. I was told that he was the son of the Marquis Mata Florida. The wind blowing violently at the moment, both parties stopped, and I had sufficient time to examine this fugitive court. They watered their horses at a little stream which issued from the side of the mountain, and which flowed under a thick covering of ice that had been broken. After this, we continued our respective routes."

Lectures on the Fine Arts.
No. I.

ON GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

sort of things he has done, to have a capital notion of the principles of grouping. Now, these things are valuable in themselves; but they are doubly, trebly valuable, as possessed by a person of rea! comic humour, and a total despiser of THAT VENERABLE HUMBUG, which almost all the artists of our day seem, in one shape or other, to revere as the prime god of their idolatry.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It is high time that the public should think more than they have hitherto done of George Cruikshank; and it is also high time that George Cruikshank should begin to think more than he seems to have done hitherto of himself. Generally speaking, people consider him as a clever, sharp caricaturist, and nothing more-a freehanded, comical young fellow, who will do anything he is paid for, and who is quite contented to dine off the proceeds of a George IV." to-day, and those of a "Hone" or a Cobbett" to-morrow. He himself, indeed, appears to be the most careless creature alive, as touching his reputation. He seems to have no plan-almost no ambition-and, I apprehend, not much industry. He does just what is sug--and yet it is precisely the chief merit gested or thrown in his way-pockets the cash-orders his beef-steak and bowl and chaunts, like one of his own heroes,

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"Life is all a variorum, We regard not how it goes." Now, for a year or two, to begin with, this is just as it should be. Cruikshank was resolved to see Life -and his sketches shew that he has seen it, in some of its walks, to purpose. But life is short, and art is long; and our gay friend must pull up.

Perhaps he is not aware of the fact himself but a fact it undoubtedly is -that he possesses genius-GENIUS in its truest sense-strong, original, English genius. Look round the world of ART, and ask, how many are there of whom anything like this can be said? Why, there are not half a dozen names that could bear being mentioned at all; and certainly there is not one, the pretensions of which will endure sifting, more securely and more triumphantly than that of George Cruikshank.

In the first place, he is-what no living caricaturist but himself has the least pretensions to be and what, indeed, scarcely one of their predecessors was he is a thorough-bred artist. He draws with the ease, and freedom, and fearlessness of a master; he understands the figure completely; and appears, so far as one can guess from the trifling

Nobody, that has the least of an eye for art, can doubt that Cruikshank, if he chose, might design as many Annunciations, Beatifications, Apotheoses, Metamorphoses, and so forth, as would cover York Cathedral from end to end. It is still more impossible to doubt that he might be a famous portrait painter. Now, these are fine lines both of them

of Cruikshank, that he cuts them both-that he will have nothing to do with them-that he has chosen a walk of his own-and that he has made his own walk popular. Here lies genius ; but let him do himself justice-let him persevere and rise in his own path— and then, Ladies and Gentlemen, then the day will come when his name will be a name indeed-not a name puffed and paraded in the newspapers

but a living, a substantial, perhaps even an illustrious, English name. Let him, in one word, proceed-and, as he proceeds, let him think of Ho

GARTH.

The English artists seem in general to be very pleasant, lively, good-hearted fellows. I know a great many of them, and I love them-but I cannot compliment them much upon the extent and depth of their views as to Art. How rare a thing is the least approach to originality! How rare a thing is the least approach to what deserves the name of success! Will you forgive me for venturing upon a few hints-certainly well-meant and as certainly not hasty ones?

The dignity of Art-the importance of Art-the grandeur of Art-these are phrases that are never out of their mouths; and yet how few of them seem to take any pains upon themselves such as might become people devoted

to what is important, dignified, and grand? None, or almost none of them, appear to have considered in what sort of state the world is at present as regarding them and their art. The world is, in the first place, in possession of a vast body of masterpieces in every department; and, secondly, the world is full of light and information; and, whatever it might have done three bundred years ago, more or less, it will not now tolerate, at least it will not now applaud, any artist whose works do not announce a mind rich in general accomplishment and acquirement -a mind that has been fed with the contemplation of human thoughts and feelings, as well as human forms-a highly educated and cultivated mind.

An ignorant man, my friends, cannot succeed in our time either in Art or in Authorship. Exceptions there may be but no long-headed man goes upon the strength of exceptions; and, after all, how very, very rare are the exceptions!

Who, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the greatest painter now living?-Nobody can hesitate about the answer-WIL KIE. And what is Wilkie? Is he not a man, who, if he were a lawyer, a physician, or a divine, would be pronounced ―by any one that had spent an evening in his company-a singularly well-informed man? He is so and no wonder; for he is not a mere painter-he received the same general education which would have been bestowed upon him, had he chosen to wear a gown and cassock, or a three-tailed periwig-the education of a British gentleman. He has all along lived in the society of men of the world-and he is a man of the world. He, therefore, being possessed of this mechanical art, makes use of it exactly as he would have made use of the art of writing, or the art of speaking, had his turn happened to lie another way. He knows what the world has been, and what the world is-and he expresses by his art that understanding of, and sympathy with, the spirit of the age in which he lives without which a painter is, in point of fact, just as manc, incomplete, and ineffectual a being, as a poet or an orator.

Alas! my dear hearers, the world is a very old world now. In former days, people came very fair speed, by merely seizing on the rough traits of things, and expressing them VOL. XIV.

by pen, pencil, or chisel; but now this will not answer. First of all, these things have been so, and by such hands, expressed :- and nobody cares for having them over again. But, secondly, and still more, we wish to have the finer traits. Intelligence is now diffused and general-so much so, indeed, as to make an essential part of that Nature which all Art must imitate. It follows, that people who can only meddle with the rough work,that is to say, [for a stray Hogg, &c. here and there, are merely exceptions, all rough-hewn and illiterate people,

had better not meddle either with poetry, or painting, or sculpture, Q.E.D.

Now what are the painters in general? Capital fellows, no doubt, in their way—a little addicted to turning up their noses at each otheramicably open in their vanities-but, upon the whole, pleasant peoplemost assuredly so. But what do they know of the world, past, present, or to come? They have never read anything worth speaking of that, indeed, they scarcely ever pretend to have done-So much for the past. They live among themselves-they marry [most commonly as the modern Pygmalion would fain have married] or they are bachelors-men of the third floor and the mutton chop-cheerful over ale or gin-twist "of an evening,"

smokers of shag, frequenters of the pit, emergers into sunshine on "cleanshirt day"-dry, yellow, absurd men, with fantastic curls or picturesque baldness-the solemn smile of a recluse-the ease of an actor off the stage-a shuffling lounging gait-and too often green spectacles. So much for the present. As for the future world, I strongly suspect it is far from occupying anything like a due proportion of their attention. They seldom go to church at all, the more is the shame to them; and, when they do so, it really is not much better, for, instead of attending to the divine truths which the eloquent preacher is uttering, they are generally studying some effect about the chandeliers or the window-curtains, or scratching down the heads of the church-warden and his lady on the fly-leaf of the little red Prayer-book.

My drift in short is, that all painters of talent ought to be diligent students of other things besides their own particular art. And my argument, at

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least one of my chief arguments, is, that the painters who have succeeded splendidly in past times, and more especially in the present time, have all done so. Michael Angelo was a great poet. Raphael a most elegant scholar. What would the other two Carraccis have done with all their manual skill, but for what Mr D'Israeli so properly calls "the profound meditations" of Ludovico? Albert Durer was a dungeon of middle-age lore. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the author of his charming Lectures. Greek Williams has put forth recently a delightful and most classical volume of Travels. Turk Allan, too, has written a very pretty little book about a Circassian lovestory-besides being responsible for I know not how many comic interludes, &c. wherewith, to this blessed hour, the private theatres of the Ukraine, Crim-Tartary, and several other outlandish regions, are enlivened. Haydon appears to have written his own catalogues. Sir Henry Raeburn was!-alas! was,-one of the best informed men in the North,—a true Scottish gentleman of the old schoolas true a one as ever kingly sword laid knighthood on! As for Mr Thomson of Duddingstone,—perhaps after Turner, the finest landscape painter now extant-he is a highly accomplished member of the clerical profession. In my opinion, he ought to be made a Principal. His Aberlady Bay is a perfect jewel. Sir Thomas Lawrence is another extremely well-read painter-he is a complete gentleman, and man of the world, and one of the handsomest men in London into the bargain. And what is the result? Nobody but himself could have painted that picture of Lady Blesington-nobody since Titian.

The same sort of thing may be said with equal propriety as to the actors. Garrick was a glorious farce-writera glorious song-writer-the pupil and friend of the celebrated Dr Samuel Johnson. Old Cibber's Apology, and some of his comedies stand in the very first order of meritoriousness-John Kemble was a prime black-letter scholar-and possessed besides all the learning of the sacred profession for which he was originally destined. Mrs Siddons is the author of an abridgement of Milton's Paradise Lost. Charles Young is as accomplished a gentleman as any L.L.D. A.S.S. within the four

seas; and Charles Matthews is (can praise go higher?) the principal `author of several of his own entertainments. Dan Terry was bred an architect, and is learned in all the learning of the Palladios—and, moreover, he has dramatized the Heart of Midlothian, &c. As for Liston, the exquisite, inimitable Liston, who does not know that he was at one time a teacher of youth, and that he discovered where his true forte lay, from observing, that all the dread of a brushing could not keep the boys from dying of laughter whenever he was spouting ex cathedra, the Soliloquy of Hamlet, or the Speech of Moloch? Mrs Bellamy's life of herself is a chefd'œuvre of libel and libidinousness, and, to wind up with a stomacher, MoLIERE and SHAKESPEARE were play

ers.

I am of opinion, that George Cruikshank is one of the many young gentlemen, whose education, (like that of the English opium-eater,) has been neglected. But there is no time lost; he has, I hope, a long life and a merry one before him yet; and he may depend upon it, his life will be neither the shorter nor the duller for his making it something of a studious one. He should read—read—read. He should be indefatigable in reading. He should rise at six in the morning. If he can't work till he has had something to settle his stomach, (my own case,) he may have a little coffee-pot placed on the hob over night, and take a cup of that and a single crust of toast-and he will find himself quite able for anything. What a breakfast he will be able to devour about nine or half-past nine, after having enriched his mind with several hours of conversation with the greatest and the wisest of his species! He may rely upon it, this hint is worth taking-Then let him draw, etch, and paint, until about two o'clock P. M., then take a lounge through the streets to see if anything is stirringstep into Westminster-hall-the Fives court, the Rev. Edward Irvine's chapel, (if it be Sunday,) or any other public place, jotting down à la Hogarth all the absurd faces he falls in with upon his finger nails. A slight dinner and a single bottle will carry him on till it is time to go to the play, or the Castle Tavern, or the House of Commons, or the evening preaching, or the Surrey Lecture, or the like. At first sight, it

may appear that I am cutting short the hours of professional exertion too much-but this I am convinced is mere humbug. Does the author of Waverley eat, or drink, or ride, or talk, or laugh, a whit the less because he writes an octavo every month? no such things. Does Jeffrey plead his causes a bit the worse because he is the editor of the Edinburgh Review? Does Wordsworth write worse poems, for collecting the taxes of Cumberland, or Lamb, worse Elias, for being clerk to the India House? The artists are all of them too diligent that is the very fault I want to cure them of. Their pallets are never off their thumbs-their sticks are eternally in their fingers. They are like the old race of kings, who are represented as lying in their beds all in full fig, with crown, globe, and sceptre. Such doings are not adapted for the present enlightened state of society. Such kings are exploded-the kings hujusce avi wear top-boots, hessians, and Wellingtons, military uniforms, neat blue surtouts-black stocks-in short, they dress no better than their subjects or worse. Painters, poets, &c. who all think themselves at least as great as if they were kings, ought without question to behave like their brother potentates-conform themselves to the customs of the world -be educated and literate, since all other people are so-and eat and drink, that their soul, (that is their genius,) may live.

The advantage of a little proper reading may be illustrated by the history of George Cruikshank-as well as by that of any other individual I have the pleasure of not being personally acquainted with. I admit, that he shewed great talent in "The Matrimonial Ladder," the "House that Jack built,” and, indeed, in all his earlier performances. His caricatures of the Chancellor, and Lord Sidmouth in particular, were quite admirable; and so, when he was working on the other lay, were some of his caricatures of Burdett, Grey Bennet, Waddington, Mackintosh, Carlisle, Joseph Hume, Hone, Brough am, and Peter Moore. All these were in their several ways excellent things. But what a start did he make when his genius had received a truer and a diviner impulse from the splendid imagination of an Egan! How

completely-how toto cœlo did he outcruikshank himself, when he was called upon to embody the conceptions of that remarkable man in the designs for Tom and Jerry? The world felt this--and he himself felt it.

Again, no disparagement to my friend Pierce Egan, (who is one of the pleasantest as well as one of the greatest men now extant; and with whom, last time I was in town, I did not hesitate to crack a bottle of Belcher's best,) Cruikshank made another, and a still more striking stride, when he stept from Egan to Burns, and sought his inspiration from the very best of all Burns's glorious works, "The Jolly Beggars." It is to this work (the "POINTS OF HUMOUR") that I am now to speak. It was for the purpose of puffing it and its author, and of calling upon all, who have eyes to water, and sides to ache, to buy it, that I began this leading lecture. It is, without doubt, the first thing that has appeared since the death of Hogarth. Yes-Britain possesses once more an artist capable of seizing and immortalizing the traits of that which I consider as by far the most remarkable of our national characteris

tics-the HUMOUR of The People. EX PEDE HERCULEM: The man who drew these things is fit for anything. Let him but do himself justice, and he must take his place inter lumina Anglorum.

As for describing a set of comie etchings-I must beg to be excused -it is not at all in my line-but I pity the man, woman, or child, who does not feast upon them propriis oculis. You, Ladies and Gentlemen, you are more fortunate-here they are.— The first of the series represents the old soldier, with the wooden-leg, in this attitude :

"An' aye he gied the Tozie Drab

The tother skelpan kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab,

Just like an awmous dish; Ilk smack still did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip; Then, staggering," &c. &c. The lines are worthy of being written in letters of gold-they are worthy of having inspired Cruikshank to the highest triumph his genius has ever yet achieved, and that is far better. The old fellow's face, you observe, is round, and drawn to a point at the nose; his eyes are almost quite shut; his firm lip

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