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THE LION'S HEAD.

SEVERAL Correspondents have written to us on the Article in our last Number upon the Drama. Some declare that it contains an ex parte and prejudiced statement. Others, that it is the production of persons interested in the success of Covent Garden Theatre. We can only say, that we believe we have written under, and not over the facts of the case, and that we are quite prepared to meet any authorized answers to our statement, with evidence of their truth. We think we need not repeat that we have no interest to serve in writing upon either Theatre.

The Lady's Magazine has, with that tenderness peculiar to its sex, adopted one of our children as its own, not from any supposed cruelty or neglect on our part we are sure,-nor from any extraordinary liberality on her's, but, as we conjecture, from that extravagance which often springs up in those who are themselves destitute of offspring. Her Ladyship has clipped the locks of one of our favourites, straitened its shape, given it a new name, and passed it off as her own.. Now really this literary kidnapping is not to be endured. The fact is, for we must speak plainly on the point, The Lady's Magazine has pilfered one of the Tales of Lyddalcross (the Tale of Haddon Hall)-cut a little off the head of the Introduction, omitted the Ballads, christened it "The Elopement," and sent it forth as an original production!--We trust this notice of the abuse will be sufficient.

Eleven of our Editors protest that the following Stanzas are "from the elegant pen of the greatest lyrist of the day;" but there is one stubborn soul on the jury that will hold out-and we are therefore compelled to submit it, with its misleading signature, to our readers. Our Eleven, as Maryle-bone cricketers call themselves, pin their faith upon the passages in italics.

STANZAS ON LEAVING ENGLAND.

Farewell to thee, Albion! blest land of

my sires,

I saw thy white cliff like a pearl on the billore,

When sunk were thy meadows, thy walls, and the spires

That I hoped would have gleam'd o'er my turf-cover'd pillow.

And thou, whose remembrance will ever awaken

E'en warmer ideas than the isle of my birth,

Dearest girl! though awhile by thy lover forsaken,
His prayers will be thine from the ends of the earth.

May the wrinkle of care never wither thy brow,

Or, if grief should impress his rude scal upon thee,

May it vanish as fast as the circles that now

Spread and fade round my tears as they fall in the sea.
Yet with nought but the desolate ocean around me,
So dreadful beneath, and so dreary above,
Still a thousand sweet objects of pleasure surround me,
Rekindling my heart, when I think on my love.

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Where the branches of coral beneath me are growing,
Pellucid as crystal, but rubies in hue,

I remember thy lips, how deliciously glowing,
When fondly they promised they'd ever be true.
While the breezes of eve in soft murmurs are dying,
As over the smooth rosy waters they sweep,
I believe that I hear my fond Isabel sighing,

Ere blushing she sinks, overpower'd in sleep.

In the depth of the night, as the maid of the ocean
Attunes her lone voice to the wild swelling wind,
Oh! I think of the strain that with tender emotion
Oft melted my soul, on the shore left behind.

When the beam of the moon on the billows, which, darkling,
Lie blue as the air, sheds her holiest light,

Can I fail to reflect on that azure eye sparkling,

My beacon of hope, that made noon-day of night?

No. Thus, though the sun of thy presence hath faded,
The twilight of memory beams on me yet,

And Hope gently whispers, "though now overshaded,
"That sun shall arise brighter e'en than it set."

F. A. B. B.

With some omissions, and allowing for some objectionable lines, the following is simply and feelingly written:

THE YOUNG POET DYING AT A DISTANCE FROM HOME.

O bury me not in yon strange spot of earth

My rest never sweet, never tranquil can be!

But bear me away to the land of my birth,

To a scene, O how dear, and how pleasant to me!
If you saw how the sunbeams illumine the mountains
How brightly they lie in the glen that I choose-
Could the song of its birds, and the gush of its fountains
Through your souls the rapture and freshness diffuse,
Which erst, in life's morning, they shed over mine—
O, your hearts would confess, it is all but divine.

*

*

I know it the grave which to me you assign,

Is black in the shade of your dreary church-wall,
Where nettle and hemlock their rankness combine,
And the worm and the sullen toad loathsomely crawl.
O! where is the primrose, so meet for adorning

The grave of a minstrel cut off in his bloom?
O! where is the daisy, to shed in the morning

The tear it has gather'd by night, for my doom?

And lastly-but dearer than anguish can tell-
Where, where are the friends that have loved me so well?

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See! one aged mourner comes, trembling, to place
A weak, wither'd hand on the grave of her son—
See! Friendship, to tell how I strove in the race,
But died ere the chaplet of glory was won-

And Beauty-I plaited a wreath for that maiden

When warm was my heart and my fancy was high-
See! Beauty approaches, with summer-flowers laden,

And strews them when nought but the blackbird is nigh!
Thus, thus shall I rest, with a charm on my name,
In the shower-mingled sunshine of love and of fame!

R.S.

We have occupied all our room, and there are before us at least two dozen more letters and papers requiring answers; but one word will suffice for the whole.

THE

London Magazine.

N° XXXVI. DECEMBER, 1822.

VOL. VI.

MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION OF PICTURES. Oh! Art, lovely Art! "Balm of hurt minds, chief nourisher in life's feast, great Nature's second course!" Time's treasurer, the unsullied mirror of the mind of man! Thee we invoke, and not in vain, for we find thee here retired in thy plenitude and thy power! The walls are dark with beauty; they frown severest grace. The eye is not caught by glitter and varnish; we see the pictures by their own internal light. This is not a bazaar, a raree-show of art, a Noah's ark of all the Schools, marching out in endless procession; but a sanctuary, a holy of holies, collected by taste, sacred to fame, enriched by the rarest products of genius. For the number of pictures, Mr. Angerstein's is the finest gallery, perhaps, in the world. We feel no sense of littleness: the attention is never distracted for a moment, but concentrated on a few pictures of first-rate excellence. Many of these chef-d'œuvres might occupy the spectator for a whole morning; yet they do not interfere with the pleasure derived from each other-so much consistency of style is there in the midst of variety!

We know of no greater treat than to be admitted freely to a Collection of this sort, where the mind reposes with full confidence in its feelings of admiration, and finds that idea and love of conceivable beauty, which it has cherished perhaps for a whole life, reflected from every object around it. It is a cure (for the time at VOL. VI.

least) for low-thoughted cares and
uneasy passions. We are abstracted
to another sphere: we breathe em-
pyrean air; we enter into the minds
of Raphael, of Titian, of Poussin, of
the Caracci, and look at nature with
their eyes; we live in time past, and
seem identified with the permanent
forms of things. The business of the
world at large, and even its pleasures,
appear like a vanity and an imperti-
nence. What signify the hubbub, the
shifting scenery, the fantoccini fi-
gures, the bustle, the idle fashions
without, when compared with the soli-
tude, the silence, the speaking looks,
the unfading forms within? Here is
the mind's true home. The contem-
plation of truth and beauty is the pro-
per object for which we were created,
which calls forth the most intense
desires of the soul, and of which it
never tires. A capital print-shop
(Molteno's or Colnaghi's) is a point
to aim at in a morning's walk-
a relief and satisfaction in the motley
confusion, the littleness, the vulga-
rity of common life: but a print-
shop has but a mean, cold, meagre,
petty appearance after coming out of
a fine Collection of Pictures.
want the size of life, the marble
flesh, the rich tones of nature, the
diviner expanded expression. Good
prints are, no doubt, better than
bad pictures; or prints, generally
speaking, are better than pictures;
for we have more prints of good
pictures than of bad ones: yet they
are for the most part but hints, loose

2 N

We

memorandums, outlines in little of what the painter has done. How often, in turning over a number of choice engravings, do we tantalise ourselves by thinking "what a head that must be," in wondering what colour a piece of drapery is of, green or black,-in wishing, in vain, to know the exact tone of the sky in a particular corner of the picture! Throw open the folding-doors of a fine Collection, and you see all you have desired realised at a blow-the bright originals starting up in their own proper shape, clad with flesh and blood, and teeming with the first conceptions of the painter's mind! The disadvantage of pictures is, that they cannot be multiplied to any extent, like books or prints; but this, in another point of view, operates probably as an advantage, by making the sight of a fine original picture an event so much the more memorable, and the impression so much the deeper. A visit to a genuine Collection is like going a pilgrimage-it is an act of devotion performed at the shrine of Art! It is as if there were but one copy of a book in the world, locked up in some curious casket, which, by special favour, we were permitted to open, and peruse (as we must) with unaccustomed relish. The words would in that case leave stings in the mind of the reader, and every letter seem of gold. The ancients, before the invention of printing, were nearly in the same situation with respect to books, that we are with regard to pictures; and at the revival of letters, we find the same unmingled satisfaction, or fervid enthusiasm, manifested in the pursuit or the discovery of an old manuscript, that connoisseurs still feel in the purchase and possession of an antique cameo, or a fine specimen of the Italian school of painting. Literature was not then cheap and vulgar, nor was there what is called a reading public; and the pride of intellect, like the pride of art, or the pride of birth, was confined to the privileged few!

We sometimes, in viewing a celebrated Collection, meet with an old favourite, a first love in such matters, that we have not seen for many years, which greatly enhances the delight. We have, perhaps, pampered our imaginations with it all

that time; its charms have sunk deep into our minds; we wish to see it once more, that we may confirm our judgment, and renew our vows. The SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS at Mr. Angerstein's was one of those that came upon us under these circumstances. We had seen it formerly, among other visions of our youth, in the Orleans Collection,— where we used to go and look at it by the hour together, till our hearts thrilled with its beauty, and our eyes were filled with tears. How often had we thought of it since, how often spoken of it! There it was still, the same lovely phantom as ever-not as when Rousseau met Madame de Warens, after a lapse of twenty years, who was grown old and spiritless-but as if the young Jewish beauty had been just surprised in that situation, crouching down in one corner of the picture, the face turned back with a mingled expression of terror, shame, and unconquerable sweetness, and the whole figure (with the arms crossed) shrinking into itself with bewitching grace and modesty! It is by Ludovico Caracci, and is worthy of his name, from its truth and purity of design, its expression and its mellow depth of tone. Of the ELDERS, one is represented in the attitude of advancing towards her, while the other beckons her to rise. We know of no painter who could have improved upon the Susannah, except Correggio, who, with all his capricious blandishments, and wreathed angelic smiles, would hardly have given the same natural unaffected grace, the same perfect womanhood.

There is but one other picture in the Collection, that strikes us as a matter of taste or fancy, like this; and that is the Silenus teaching a Young Apollo to play on the Pipe-a small oblong picture, executed in distemper, by Annibal Caracci. The old preceptor is very fine, with a jolly, leering, pampered look of approbation, half inclining to the brute, half conscious of the God; but it is the Apollo that constitutes the charm of the picture, and is indeed divine. The whole figure is full of simple careless grace, laughing in youth and beauty; he holds the Pan's-pipe in both hands, looking up with timid wonder; and the expres

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