was illustrated in the daily assassinations which were devised with the guile, and perpetrated with the fury of an Indian tribe. The whole country smoked with the traces of devastation-blood was shed at noon upon the public way-and crimes even more dreadful than murder made every parent tremble. Such was the situation of the county of Limerick, when the learned Serjeant arrived to administer a remedy for these frightful evils. The calendar presented almost all the possi ble varieties which guilt could assume, and might be designated as a hideous miscellany of crime. The court-house exhibited an appalling spectacle. A deep and awful silence hung heavily upon it, and the consciousness that lay upon every man's heart, of the frightful crisis to which the county seemed rapidly advancing, bound up the very breath of the assembly in a fearful hush. The wretched men in the dock stood before the judicial novice in a heedless certainty of their fate. A desperate independence of their destiny seemed to dilate their broad and expanded chests, and their powerful faces gave a gloomy token of their sullen indifference to death. Their confederates in guilt stood around them with much stronger intimations of anxiety in their looks, and as they eyed their fellow conspirators in the dock, seemed to mutter a vow of vengeance for every hair that should be touched upon their heads. The gentry of the county stood in the galleries with a kind of confession in their aspect, that they had themselves been participant in the production of the crimes which they were collected to punish, but which they knew that they could not repress. In this assembly, so silent that the unsheating of a stiletto might have been heard amidst its hush, the learned Serjeant rose, and called for the piece of parchment in which an indictment had been written. It was duly presented to him by the clerk of the crown. Lifting up the legal scroll, he paused for a moment, and said, "Behold! in this parchment writing, the causes of all the misery with which the Lord has afflicted this unhappy island are expressed. Here is the whole mystery of guilt manifestly revealed. All, all is intimated in the indictment. Unhappy men, you have not the fear of God before your eyes, and you are moved by the instigations of the Devil." This address went beyond all expectation-the wretches in the dock gazed upon their sacred monitor with a scowling stare-the Bar tipped each other the wink-the parsons thought that this was a palpable interference with my Lord the Bishop-the O'Grady's thrust their tongues into their cheeks, and O'Connel cried out "leather!" I have no room to transcribe the rest of this remarkable charge. It corresponded with the specimen already given, and verified the reference to the fabulist. So, indeed, does every charge delivered from the Irish Bench. Each man indulges in his peculiar propensities. Shed blood enough, cries old Renault. Be just, be humane, be merciful, says Bushe. While the learned Serjeant charges a confederacy between Beelzebub and Captain Rock, imputes the atrocities of the South to an immediate diabolical interposition, and lays at the Devil's door all the calamities of Ireland.

THE LORD OF VALLADOLID.*

THE Monarch of Arragon hied to the field,
The flower of his warriors round,

*

When a stranger knight, with no arms on his shield,
Approach'd from the distant ground:

Far flash'd his blue mail in the sunbeams bright,
As his war-horse career'd the plain,
With foam-cover'd bit and an eye of light,

And nostrils distended, that breathed in their might
Thick smoke round his bridle's chain.

The courtiers were still-not a whisper was heard-
All eyes on the strange knight gazed;
From his horse he alighted-no visage appear'd,
His plume-shaded beaver was raised:

He moved t'ward the presence of majesty,
With the air of a noble graced;

All were awe-struck and dumb as he slowly drew nigh,
And, lifting his steel-cover'd fingers on high,

His beaver and helmet displaced.

Peranzules, the traitor to Arragon's king-
'Tis he that stands hoary there,

Where the ancient oak, aloft wavering,

Shoots its stately gnarl'd boughs in air:
And his knee to the monarch he lowly bends,
His hand a vile halter bears ;-

Distrusted, alone, unsupported by friends,
On the rock of his courage and truth he depends,
In the wane of his glorious years.

"O king! I once swore to be true to thy cause
With the blood in every vein,

And I tender it now for my breach of the laws,
To wash out the forfeited stain !

O king at thy footstool this worn life I lay,

But thou ne'er canst take from me

That which I more cherish, my honour, away,

Nor blacken a name with foul treachery,

That ne'er hath been treacherous to thee.

"I was bound by my knighthood, by justice, by ties,
More worth than these sinews dry;

More worth than the fast ebbing tide that supplies
This old heart with its pulses high:---
By the law of Castile and my country's command,
When its Queen you divorced from your throne,
She took back the cities I held at your hand-
She took her dominion again o'er the land,
Her forefathers' right and her own.

"I blush for my country!-this insult of thine
To the blood of proud Castile

Might cancel all bonds of my vassals and mine,

All service of homage and steel

But Peranzules no traitor shall shield with his name-

Though faithless,-it was to be just!

To his Queen he has acted as duty became,
And now is before thee unsullied in fame,
To pay with his life for his trust."

* See a striking Fragment of Spanish History, page 309 of this work.

The courtiers shrink back from the space where stands
Valladolid's grey lord alone,

Grasping firmly the cord with his clinging hands,
And his black bright eyes flung down ;-

As if o'er the waves of a stormy sea,

He clung for his last inch of life,

To the only stay that on earth he could see,

That would save him from shame-from the agony

Of his bosom's speechless strife.

When the King thus address'd him (unchanged was his mien,
His sight on the ground yet lay :)—

"Peranzúles an upright judge hast thou been

Of princes in open day—

Thou hast justly judged-but let none like thee
E'er presume to cast a crown,

That dare not as boldly the loser see

That dare not uphold his judgment free,

In the shade of the Monarch's frown!"

J.

BRITISH GALLERIES OF ART.NO. IX.

Fonthill.

A WORK of high art deserves to be traced and followed to whithersoever the chances and changes of time may carry it-its biography is worthy of being recorded and read, even when itself, from the perishable nature of the materials which form it, may have passed away from among existing things. We have few volumes more interesting than that would be which should duly trace the history of what once formed the treasures of the Louvre,-hinting, in its progress, at the causes and consequences of the events referred to; and its value and interest would be greater rather than less, now that the principal objects of its notice are again scattered abroad over the face of Europe. It is on this account that I have thought it worth while to give a short notice of the Fonthill Gallery,-although, by the time this paper is before the public, it will no longer exist as such. But the few, the very few works which compose its principal ornaments, will exist, and will even (in imagination) keep their places on the walls where they have once hung, when nothing else belonging to the spot is cared for or remembered. I, for one, could walk up to the bare walls which the objects I am about to notice lately covered, and mark out with a pencil the identical space which each of them occupied. In fact, for me, and for those who have seen and duly appreciated them, there they will continue to hang, till we shall chance to see them in some other place; as the image of a lost friend for ever occupies the spot where we last saw him.

It has been said that the works now forming the Fonthill Gallery are not the same of which it consisted before this singular spot was opened to public inspection. It may, or it may not be so. With this

I shall not concern myself. The true lover of art cares not to whom a fine picture may belong; he, and he alone, is the possessor of it, who is sufficiently impressed with its beauties to be able to enjoy the memory of them; and he sees no difference in those beauties, whether

they look upon him from the walls of a palace or of a picture-dealer's shop-nay, he scarcely thinks the worse of them for having an auctioneer's lot-mark in the corner-since this does not oblige him to read the description appertaining to it!

A paper which appeared in the last number of this work has superseded any thing that I might have to say on the place which contains the Gallery I am now to notice. I shall, therefore, proceed at once to the pictures themselves ;-arranging them without any reference to their relative situation, but merely in the order in which they may happen to present themselves to my recollection; which will probably be nearly correspondent with what I conceive to be their respective merits. In pursuance of this plan, the first that returns to me, in all the freshness of its beauty, and as if it were actually before me while I write, is one of almost miniature size, but for rich purity of colouring, severe sweetness of expression, and inimitable truth and delicacy of finishing, equal to any thing of the kind I am acquainted with. It is by Albert Durer, and represents the Virgin and Child, in an interior, with a distant landscape seen through a window on the right. The infant Jesus is eagerly looking out of the picture, and straining forward towards the point to which his eyes are directed; while the Virgin-mother is tenderly restraining him with one hand, which encircles his body, and presses into the soft flesh in front. This hand of the Virgin, and indeed the whole picture, may be offered as a perfect specimen of what finishing ought to be-of how far it ought to be carried, and at what point it should stop. We have here all the details of the actual object, in their most delicate minutæ, producing all the force and spirit of general effect which is so usually frittered away, or diluted into mawkishness, in attempts of this kind. But the chief charm, in the detail of this rich little gem, is the expression of the Virgin: it is the perfection of a divine humanity; blending together, into one lovely whole, all the attributes with which the imagination invests this most interesting of historical characters.

The next picture that I shall notice, is one of corresponding and perhaps equal merit with the above, but in altogether a different class of art; the first being, notwithstanding its truth, all ideal, and the second being a piece of actual unmingled nature. But I place them thus, side by side, because they seem to have been dictated by the same spirit, and to proceed on the same principles: each being actually true in every particular; but the one being true to the imagination, and the other to actual knowledge and observation. The exquisite work to which I now allude is by Metzu, and represents a woman scraping fish on a table, before the door of a cottage; on the table are placed some parsnips, and a brass kettle, with a kitten seated on the top of it. Among all the specimens that I have seen of the Flemish school of finishing, this is without exception the very best, with reference to the ostensible object of all finishing-viz. to produce natural impressions. Any thing which proceeds beyond this-(which much of the Flemish finishing frequently does-that of Vanderwerf, W. Mieris, and G. Dow, for example) is distinct from the purpose of painting-which was and is as 'twere" to hold the mirror up to nature." The reader will, perhaps, pardon me, if I direct his attention in a particular manner to this last illustration, because it precisely explains what I mean, with reference to

pictures of the class now in question. Their perfection, in fact, consists in representing objects, not as they actually appear when presented directly to the eye, but as they would appear if reflected from a concave mirror. Looked at in this point of view, the little work before us is the most purely natural effort of the pencil that I have ever seen; so much so, as to have required nothing less than genius to produce it -which is more than I should be disposed to say of any other similar work, that I am acquainted with, of the Flemish school.

As an illustrative contrast to these two charming works, I would have pointed out, had the collection remained entire, an execrable picture by W. Mieris, which was (strange to say) considered as among the chief boasts of the gallery. The subject is the Judgment of Solomon; and the whole scene (with the exception of the real mother) is the ideal of what a work of art should not be--whether regarded as a composition, a piece of colouring, or an effect of high finish. To convey a notion of the spirit in which the work is composed, I will mention that the false mother is standing, with a smile on her countenance, holding out her apron to receive her share of the infant!

As a fine contrast to the above, in point of style, I will here notice a noble gallery picture, by Ludovico Carracci,-the only one in the collection, of this class, which is worthy of particular mention. It is a long low picture-the figures larger than life-representing the Libyan Sibyl, seated on the ground, and giving forth her oracles ; while youths are attending her on either side, with tablets, taking down what she delivers. The figure, attitude, and whole expression of the Sibyl, are grand in the highest degree; but grand from the pure and severe simplicity of their conception and execution; for any thing like the adventitious aid of art or refinement is totally abandoned. She is sitting on the ground, self-collected, as it regards her attitude, and involved in a noble drapery, which seems to wrap itself about her like a solemn thought; but her eyes are gazing forth into the void space before her, as if searching for inspiration from the elements or the clouds. The youths who are holding the tablets on which her words are to be recorded, are no less fine, but in a different way. As specimens of anatomical design, they are admirable; one in particular-that on the right of the Sibyl, holding the pen and looking round towards her-includes an astonishing union of power and truth. The colouring of this picture is correspondent with the conception and design; and it is altogether a noble specimen of what truly merits to be called the grand style in Art.

In as highly imaginative a class of Art as the above, though at the very opposite extremity of the scale in point of style and subject, is the Temptation of Saint Anthony, by D. Teniers. This is one of those grotesques in which Teniers had no rival, and, indeed, no imitator ; and in which he displayed a force of conception, a vividness of imagination, and a truth and facility of hand, that have never been united in any other person, either before or since. The saint, with a fine solemn, self-possessed, but anxious countenance, is seated in his cell, looking towards a seeming lady who is gliding onwards to offer him a cup of wine which she holds in her hand; while all around him are seen nondescript creatures, composed "of every creature's worst," making the most hideous mops and mows, to "fright him from his propriety." It