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his final rest in the arms of Immortality! Happy error! Enviable

old man!

Flaxman is another living and eminent artist, who is distinguished by success in his profession, and by a prolonged and active old age. He is diminutive in person, like the others. I know little of him, but that he is an elegant sculptor, and a profound mystic. This last is a character common to many other artists in our days-Loutherbourg, Cosway, Blake, Sharp, Varley, &c.-who seem to relieve the literalness of their professional studies by voluntary excursions into the regions of the preternatural, pass their time between sleeping and waking, and whose ideas are like a stormy night, with the clouds driven rapidly across, and the blue sky and stars gleaming between!

Cosway is the last of these I shall mention. At that name I pause, and must be excused if I consecrate to him a petit souvenir in my best manner; for he was Fancy's child. What a fairy palace was his of specimens of art, antiquarianism, and virtù, jumbled all together in the richest disorder, dusty, shadowy, obscure, with much left to the imagination, (how different from the finical, polished, petty, modernised air of some Collections we have seen!) and with copies of the old masters, cracked and damaged, which he touched and retouched with his own hand, and yet swore they were the genuine, the pure originals. All other collectors are fools to him: they go about with painful anxiety to find out the realities :-he said he had them—and in a moment made them of the breath of his nostrils and of the fumes of a lively imagination. His was the crucifix that Abelard prayed to-a lock of Eloisa's hair-the dagger with which Felton stabbed the Duke of Buckingham -the first finished sketch of the Jocunda-Titian's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine-a mummy of an Egyptian king-a feather of a phoenix-a piece of Noah's Ark. Were the articles authentic? What matter?—his faith in them was true. He was gifted with a secondsight in such matters: he believed whatever was incredible. Fancy bore sway in him; and so vivid were his impressions, that they included the substances of things in them. The agreeable and the true with him were one. He believed in Swedenborgianism-he believed in animal magnetism-he had conversed with more than one person of the Trinity-he could talk with his lady at Mantua through some fine vehicle of sense, as we speak to a servant down-stairs through a conduit-pipe. Richard Cosway was not the man to flinch from an ideal proposition. Once, at an Academy dinner, when some question was made whether the story of Lambert's Leap was true, he started up, and said it was; for he was the person that performed it:-he once assured me that the knee-pan of King James I. in the ceiling at Whitehall was nine feet across (he had measured it in concert with Mr. Cipriani, who was repairing the figures)-he could read in the Book of the Revelations without spectacles, and foretold the return of Bonaparte from Elba-and from St. Helena! His wife, the most lady-like of Englishwomen, being asked in Paris what sort of a man her husband was, made answer-" Toujours riant, toujours gai.” This was his character. He must have been of French extraction. His soul appeared to possess the life of a bird; and such was the jauntiness of his air and manner, that to see him sit to have his half-boots laced on, you would

fancy (by the help of a figure) that, instead of a little withered elderly gentleman, it was Venus attired by the Graces. His miniatures and whole-length drawings were not merely fashionable-they were fashion itself. His imitations of Michael Angelo were not the thing. When more than ninety, he retired from his profession, and used to hold up the palsied hand that had painted lords and ladies for upwards of sixty years, and smiled, with unabated good-humour, at the vanity of human wishes. Take him with all his faults and follies, we scarce "shall look upon his like again!"

Why should such persons ever die? It seems hard upon them and us! Care fixes no sting in their hearts, and their persons "present no Imark to the foe-man." Death in them seizes upon living shadows. They scarce consume vital air: their gross functions are long at an end -they live but to paint, to talk or think. Is it that the vice of age, the miser's fault, gnaws them? Many of them are not afraid of death, but of coming to want; and having begun in poverty, are haunted with the idea that they shall end in it, and so die-to save charges. Otherwise, they might linger on for ever, and "defy augury!

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MRS. DOBBS AT HOME.

"The common chat of gossips when they meet."

DRYDEN.

WHAT! shall the Morning Post proclaim
For every rich or high-born dame,
From Portman Square to Cleveland Row,
Each item-no one cares to know;
Print her minutest whereabouts,
Describe her concerts, balls, and routs,
Enumerate the lamps and lustres,
Shew where the roses hung in clusters,
Tell how the floor was chalk'd-reveal
The partners in the first quadrille-

How long they danced, till, sharp as hunters,
They sat down to the feast from Gunter's;
How much a quart was paid for peas,
How much for pines and strawberries,
Taking especial care to fix

The hour of parting-half past six ?-
And shall no bard make proclamation
Of routs enjoy'd in humbler station?
Rise, honest Muse, to Hackney roam,
And sing of "Mrs. Dobbs at Home."

He who knows Hackney, needs must know
That spot enchanting-Prospect Row,
So call'd because a view it shows

Of Shoreditch Road, and when there blows
No dust, the folks may one and all get
A peep-almost to Norton Falgate.

Here Mrs. Dobbs at Number Three

Invited all her friends to tea.

The Row had never heard before

Such double knocks at any door,

And heads were popp'd from every casement,
Counting the comers with amazement.

VOL. VI. No. 33.-1823.

28

Some magnified them to eleven,
While others swore there were but seven,
A point that 's keenly mooted still,
But certain 'tis that Mrs. Gill

Told Mrs. Grub she reckoned ten :

Fat Mrs. Hobbs came second-then

Came Mesdames Jinkins, Dump, and Spriggins, Tapps, Jacks, Briggs, Hoggins, Crump, and Wiggins.

Dizen'd in all her best array,

Our melting hostess said her say,

As the Souchong repast proceeded,
And curtsying and bobbing press'd
By turns each gormandizing guest,
To stuff as heartily as she did.
Dear Mrs. Hoggins, what-your cup
Turn'd in your saucer, bottom up!-

Dear me, how soon you've had your fill,
Let me persuade you-one more sup,
"Twill do you good, indeed it will:-
Psha now, you 're only making game,
Or else you tea'd afore you came.

Stop Mrs. Jinkins, let me stir it,
Before I pour out any more.—
No, Ma'am, that 's just as I prefer it.-
O then I'll make it as before.

Lauk! Mrs. Dump, that toast seems dry,

Do take and eat this middle bit,

The butter 's fresh, you may rely,

And a fine price I paid for it.—

No doubt, Ma'am,-what a shame it is!
And Cambridge too again has riz !

You don't deal now with Mrs. Keats?

No, she's a bad one :-Ma'am, she cheats.-
Hush! Mrs. Crump's her aunt.-Good lack!
How lucky she just turn'd her back!

Don't spare the toast, Ma'am, don't say no,
I've got another round below,

I give folks plenty when I ax 'em,
For cut and come again 's my maxim,
Nor should I deem it a misfort'n,

If you demolish'd the whole quart'n,

Though bread is now a shameful price,-
Why did they 'bolish the assize?

A charming garden, Mrs. Dobbs,
For drying.-Ain't it, Mrs. Hobbs ?
But though our water-tub runs o'er,
A heavy wash is such a bore,
Our smalls is all that we hang out.-
Well, that's a luxury, no doubt.

La! Mrs. Tapps, do only look,
Those grouts can never be mistook;
Well, such a cup! it can't be worse,

See, here's six horses in a hearse,

And there's the church and burying-place,

Plain as the nose upon your face:

Next dish may dissipate your doubts,

And give you less unlucky grouts:

One more-you must-the pot has stood,
I warrant me it's strong and good.

There's Mrs. Spriggins in the garden;
What a fine gown, but, begging pardon,
It seems to me amazing dingy-

Do you think her shawl, Ma'am, 's real Injy?-
Lord love you! no:-well, give me clo'es
That's plain and good, Ma'am, not like those.
Though not so tawdry, Mrs. Jacks,

We do put clean things on our backs.

Meat, Ma'am, is scand'lous dear.-Perhaps
You deal, Ma'am, still with Mrs. Tapps.-
Not I; we know who's got to pay,

When butchers drive their one-horse chay.-
Well, I pay nine for rumps.-At most
We pay but eight for boil'd and roast,
And get our rumps from Leadenhall
At seven, taking shins and all.

Yes, meat is monstrous dear all round;
But dripping brings a groat a pound.

Thus on swift wing the moments flew,
Until 'twas time to say adieu,
When each prepared to waddle back,
Warm'd with a sip of Cogniac,
Which was with Mrs. Dobbs a law,
Whene'er the night was cold and raw.
Umbrellas, pattens, lanterns, clogs,
Were sought-away the party jogs,
And silent solitude again

O'er Prospect Row resumed its reign,
Just as the Watchman crawl'd in sight,
To cry-"Past ten-a cloudy night!"

MEMOIRS OF A HAUNCH OF MUTTON.

"I, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you; so you may continue and laugh at nothing still."-The Tempest.

THIS is the age for memoirs, particularly of royalty. Napoleon is making almost as much noise after his death as he did in his life-time; Marie Antoinette, by the assistance of Madame de Campan, has obtained a revival of her notoriety; and Louis Dix-huit has effected his escape to Coblentz only to fall into the claws of the critics, by proving that every king is not a Solomon. This epidemic is understood to be spreading among the rulers of the earth, and several of the London booksellers have already started for different capitals of Europe for the purpose, it is said, of treating with crowned authors. Fortunately there is no royal road to biography any more than to geometry; the right divine does not include all the good writing, nor has legitimacy any exclusive alliance with Priscian. Men who have brains inside may scribble as well as those who have crowns outside; beggars and thieves have given their own lives to the public; nay, even things inanimatea wonderful lamp, a splendid shilling, a guinea, have found historians ;

why then should the lords of the creation have all the memoirs to themselves?

"All our praises why should Lords engross?

Rise, honest Muse, and sing"

"The Haunch of Mutton," which, for aught that appears to the contrary, may claim a rectilinear descent from the Royal Ram eternized by Mother Bunch, and so be entitled to rank with the best imperial or kingly records that are now issuing from the Row. Into this investigation, curious as it would be, it is not my purpose to enter; it would be irrelevant to my title, which has only reference to sheep after they are dead, and designated as mutton; but I cannot refrain from noticing that even in this point of view the subject I have chosen is poetical, for a poet, like a Merino or South Down, is annually fleeced and sheared, and at last cut up by the critical dissectors; but he is no sooner dead than he acquires a new name, we sit down to his perusal with great satisfaction, make repeated extracts which we find entirely to our taste, and talk complacently of his rich vein, ready flow, his sweetness, tenderness, and so forth.

Suffice it to say, that the sheep from which our hero, i. e. our haunch was cut, drew breath in the pastures of Farmer Blewett, of Sussex, whose brother, Mr. William Blewett, (commonly called Billy,) of Great St. Helen's, in the city of London, is one of the most eminent Indigo brokers in the Metropolis. The farmer having a son fourteen years of age whom he was anxious to place in the counting-house of the said Billy, very prudently began by filling his brother's mouth before he opened his own, and had accordingly sent him an enormous turkey at Christmas, a side of fat bacon at Easter, and at Midsummer the identical haunch of South Down mutton, whose dissection and demolition we have undertaken to immortalize. Ever attentive to the main chance, the broker began to calculate that if he asked three or four friends to dine with him he could only eat mutton for one, while he would have to find wine for the whole party; whereas, if he presented it to Alderman Sir Peter Pumpkin, of Broad-street, who was a dear lover of good mutton, and had besides lately received a consignment of Indigo of which he was anxious to propitiate the brokerage, he might not only succeed in that object, but be probably asked to dinner, get his full share of the haunch, and drink that wine which he preferred to all others-videlicet, that which he tippled at other people's expense. Whether or not he succeeded in the former aim, our documents do not testify, but certain it is that he was invited to partake of the haunch in Broad-street, (not being deemed a presentable personage at the baronet's establishment in Devonshire-place); Mr. Robert Rule, Sir Peter's bookkeeper and head clerk, who presided over the city household, was asked to meet him, as well as his nephew, Mr. Henry Pumpkin, a young collegian, whose affection for his uncle induced him to run up to London whenever his purse became attenuated, and who in his progress towards qualifying himself for the church, had already learnt to tie a cravat, drive a tandem, drink claret, and make bad puns. Four persons, as the baronet observed, were quite enough for a haunch of mutton, and too many for one of venison.

"I shouldn't have waited for you, Harry," exclaimed the baronet,

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