་ Ba-a-a-a-a-a was the answer of my ascetic auditor to this appeal; while I, expecting conviction to follow it, felt the current of my enthusiasm chilled, and the fire of my imagination extinguished by this interjection. During the former part of my speech, he had continually interrupted me by some such expression as better for ye wear a red coat than none-better be confined to a prison-house of wood than rubbing your eye-brows against the bars of a jail window, and crying Pity the poor confined debtors, having no allowance.'" But, during the latter part of it, he sate, with eyes glaring, mouth half open, and lip twisted, while his long thin visage was stretched forward with such a mixture of contempt and astonishment, as must have placed a full stop to my oration, had not my eyes been fixed, as it were, on my mind. He did not disturb me until I had ended, when the monsyllable, which he converted into one of six, slowly broke from his lips. Humph! stuff humph! nonsense," he repeated perhaps half a dozen times," and do you really think, young man, that this stuffand nonsense will enable you to live? Would the baker give you a loaf for a sonnet, or the butcher take an ode in exchange for a mutton chop? Or have you any other prospect than that of being a beggar all your life?"-"Well, Sir," I replied, Homer was a beggar, but posterity has done him justice, and he is immortal. Camoens lived in poverty and died in want, but his name from one end of the earth to the other is echoed with wonder and delight. And are not such worthies raised to endless felicity in another, world? "Because on earth their names "What would have been the feelings of the author of the Arcadia, could he have left his tomb, for a short space, to have read on the sepulchre of his tutor, as his highest honour, that he was the tutor of Sir Philip Sydney.' And on that of his friend, Lord Brooke, Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sydney? Could Dante have beheld, after his death, cities quarrelling to possess his bones. Could Shakspeare have seen the poor house, in which he dwelt, visited by millions as a sainted shrine,-would they not have been amply recompensed for years of sorrow or of suffering?"-"For my own part," I continued, "I could be satisfied to wander through the world without a resting place, and exist on the poor pittance the hand of charity might fling to me; if by so doing I could gain myself a name which should be coeval with my country, and be remembered in the page that records the history of its greatness." Stop, stop, stop, young man," said he, " you forget that Dante says ; 11 "How salt the savour is of others bread, "And Dante proved and felt what he wrote,—but you, doubtless, have more poetry or more philosophy than the bard of Florence ;and you would have laughed at him, when he exclaimed, in the bitterness of want and anguish-I have been a vessel without sail and without steerage, carried about to divers ports, and roads, and shores, by the dry wind that springs out of poverty.' All your ideas may be very pretty in theory, young man, but I fear you would find them rather hard in practice; and be very apt, like poor Nash, who was really a poet, to call to mind a cobler who was worth five hundred pounds; an hostler who had built a goodly inn; a carman who had whipt a thousand pounds out of his horses tail'-and, then, on viewing your own state, you would, like him, the air in which you breathe,' and curse the hour of your birth-ban exclaim with him, "Ah! worthless wit, to train me to this woe, "Ah! ah! believe me, 'one ounce of discretion is worth a pound of wit; and,to quote from the only poet worth reading a little learning is a dangerous thing.'"-"Very true, Sir," I replied, "but may not one possess both discretion and wit? and is it not necessary to have a little learn ing before we have much-to taste of the spring before we drink deeply ofits waters ?". "Well, well, young man," he answered, "I perceive this is a subject on which we should never agree. You asked me for my criticism, I have given it; for my advice, you have had it: I know you despise them both. I leave you, therefore, to pursue your own plans; and, knowing that 'experience bought is better than experience taught.' I leave you to buy, and I hope you will not purchase it at too high a price.". Thus ended my interview with the Ascetic. TO THE ÆOLIAN HARP. HARP of the Zephyr whose least breath, o'er When thankless flowers in silence bend, Thou hailest the freshness of heaven with song; Thou hast accents of bliss for the calmest hour, Harp of the breeze! whether gentle or strong, When shall I feel thy enchantment again? Hark! harke'en the swell of my own wild song It is not an echo-'tis far too sweet To be born of a lay so rude as mine ; But, Oh! when terror and softness meet How pure are the hues of the wreath they twine! None should dare open thy mystic treasures; And mine may not mingle with thy blest measures. B. THE FINE ARTS. THE BRITISH INSTITUTION. THE three months during which the gallery of the BRITISH INSTITUTION is annually kept open for the benefit of young artists of both sexes, in order to enable them to study at leisure the works which, having formed a part of the preceding exhibition, are liberally left for that purpose by their respective proprietors, terminated this year in the latter end of October; and the public were then admitted to see the result; but not in sufficient time to allow of any notice in the last number of the European Magazine. Nearly two hundred studies of various descriptions were made in the course of the season; some as large as the original pictures; some diminished in size even to miniature; some comprehending the whole subject; some (as we last year took the liberty strongly to advise) confined to a part; just as the taste or object of the student prompted. Sir Joshua Reynolds had evidently been the favourite master. His" Sleeping Girl," and his "Portrait of Miss Gwathir," both of them certainly delightful pictures, were surprisingly multiplied. After Sir Joshua, Vandervelde and Cuyf appeared to have attracted the greatest number of imitators. Of some vessels by the former there were copies enough to form a large fleet; and a flock of sheep by the latter was repeated to an extent that would have filled all the pens in Smithfield market. Before the admission of the public the studies were arranged in clusters close to the original pictures from which they were made. We heard some objections to this mode of marshalling them, as giving a polygraphic air to the rooms; but we remember that when, in former years, the studies were divided and separated, it was alleged that they were injudiciously scattered. The fact is, as Mr. Young the keeper of the Institution has in all probability found out long ago, it is impossible to please every body. The plan of the Eur. Mag. Nov. 1823. present year had this important adVantage, that, although the immediate neighbourhood of the original picture was a severe test, yet the assembling of all the studies round it gave an admirable opportunity of ascertaining their respective merits by comparison; an opportunity of which divisions and subdivisions would have deprived the visitor. For the reasons which we assigned on a similar occasion last year, we think it right to abstain from any particular remarks or criticisms on a collection of works of art so formed. But, while we maintain the reserve which under the circumstances of the case delicacy seems to require with respect to individuals, we will take leave to make a few general observations; with no other view than the advancement of the Fine Arts; our only object, indeed, in all our notices on the subject. Premising that among the various studies there were specimens of talent highly creditable to the young artists by whom they were produced, and sufficient to show that nothing was wanting to their future excellence but diligence on their part and due encouragement on the part of those whose duty it is to seek out merit, and to foster it, we must be permitted to express our regret at seeing so many new candidates for the honours of the palette, and at beholding, mingled with, and almost smothering, the successful efforts to which we have already alluded, a mass of attempts, indicating the merest mediocrity of powers, and some of them not even approaching to mediocrity. We are convinced, and the conviction is the result of many years observation on the condition and progress of the Fine Arts; in this country, that we have a great superabundance of artists, or rather of individuals, who" profess and call themselves" artists. The corn is choked by the weeds. The tree of art wants extensive though judicious pruning. It ought to be divested of the dead wood which 3 G keeps the sun and air from its green and living branches. All the unnecessary foliage, all the dwindling and withering produce ought to be clipt off, that its sap may no longer be wastefully and perniciously diverted from passing to the nourishment of its sound, wholesome, and well-flavoured fruit. There is no human being who, in most cases, is more exposed to selfdelusion, and to the injurious effects of the mistaken appreciation of ignorant friends, than a young man who imagines he has a genius for painting, There is no one more liable to the sad error of fancying that inclination and power are convertible terms. Surrounded in all probability by persons as little acquainted as he is himself with the high and various qualifications which are necessary to constitute a genuine artist, he advances with rash confidence in a path that must inevitably lead him to disappointment, and, perhaps to ruin.. To such an individual, we would, unhesitatingly say, "Pause, ere you proceed in the career you have commenced. Conquer your pride or your diffidence. Take one of your performances to Sir Thomas Lawrence, or to some other man, if you can find him, of equal talents, attainments, experience, and kindness. Ask his opinion of your ability. If his answer be decidedly favourable, pursue your studies with enthu siasm; if, on the contrary, the utmost effects of his politeness can afford you no more than lukewarm approbation, return home, listen not to your mother and your sisters, who would fain persuade you that you have been consulting an adviser who wishes to repress rising genius, but throw your colours and pencils into the fire; go to the bar, walk the hospitals, seat yourself at the desk of a counting-house, turn writer of criticisms on the Fine Arts, in short, do any thing but pursue a profession which, besides the qualities necessary to success in the ordinary occupations of life, demands, to use the energetic language of Mr. Shee, Whate'er of worth, or Muse, or Grace inspires; A zeal for truth, a power of thought intense; That marks the muse on each resplendent part, A hand, with more than magic skill endow'd, Though mountains rise, though Alps on Alps appear: Connected with the evil to which we have adverted, and in some measure springing from it is the strange neglect many of our veteran artists, though happily not all, are experiencing from the public. We will "name no parties," as Sir Giles Overreach says; but the fact is obvious to all who have eyes to see what is passing around them, and painful to all who have hearts to feel for deserted merit. What would be thought of the horticulturist, who, after having, by artificial warmth and other adventitious aid, reared some precious plant through the various stages of its growth to maturity, should, just as it was about to flower, expel it from the green-house, and suffer it to decay and perish in the inclemency of the external air, in order that he might supply its place with some new favourite, to experience in its turn the same early kindness, and the same ultimate abandonment? Yet such is precisely the conduct of many persons who would be thought patrons of art. They are constantly running after novelty. They praise and flatter rising talent; and as soon as they have deluded it into an earnest devotion of itself to a pursuit to which, even in a cultivated and refined country, only few are capable of apportioning its proper merit, they hurry off, in quest of some fresh prodigy, and leave the unfortunate victim of their ostentatious selfishness to struggle for existence amidst the vulgar and insensible minds by which, in all probability, he finds himself surrounded. To what do these observations tend? To the discouragement of individual, and to the recommendation of public patronage. Until some national establishment be founded, on a very different and much more extensive scale than any which has hitherto existed in this country; some establishment, which shall give to art and artists the same protection and advantage that the University of Oxford or Cambridge now affords to learning, and` to learned men; some establishment that shall at once instruct the young, and furnish ample means of liberal occupation to the mature;—until some such establishment be created, it is in vain to expect that to the other triumphs of which Great Britain has to boast she will add that of proud pre-eminence in the Fine Arts. The day will come when this truth will be felt. The day will come when our statesmen will be sensible of the incalculable value of the arts to a great country. The day will come when it will be generally acknowledged, that to no object could a portion of the national wealth be more advantageously directed. The day will come, when, to speak once more in the emphatic language of the able and ardent writer whom we have already quoted in this notice, it will be discovered, that "it is a mistake unworthy of an enlightened government to conceive that the arts, left to the influence of ordinary events, turned loose upon society, to fight and scramble in the rude and revolting contest of coarser occupations, can ever arrive at that perfection which contributes so materially to the permanent glory of a state." CHARACTER OF THE LATE SIR HENRY RAEBUrn, r.a. THE death of this eminent and excellent person which happened on the 8th of July, at St. Bernard's, Stockbridge, near Edinburgh, is an event that all friends of worth and genius must deeply regret. As an artist we could judge of him only by the works which he used to send annually to Somerset House, and which afforded us the means of forming an estimate of his merits and defects, more correctly perhaps than could be accomplished by those who were in the daily habit of visiting his painting-room. Without entering into any minute and invidious comparisons, we have no hesitation in saying, and we are sure the opinion will be confirmed by the unanimous voice of the world of art, that Sir Henry Raeburn stood in the highest rank of his profession. The first impression made on the spectator of his pictures was by the striking effect of his head. They were drawn, and painted in a style original, and exclusively his own: broad, square, firm; clear and brilliant in colour; surprisingly powerful in light and shade, and chiaro-scuro. He appeared to possess the rare, and in a portrait painter, the inestimable fa |