is in the expressions thrown into the faces of these creatures, that the wonderful power of the picture consists. Though any thing but human, yet unquestionably their effect arises from some recondite resemblance that they bear to something that we have either seen or dreamt of in human faces. Teniers must, I think, have been an opium-eater, or he never could even have imagined, much less embodied, such expressions as we find in this and some other of his pictures on the same subject; for "such tricks hath strong Imagination" only when she is under the influence of some adventitious circumstances. That these expressions do owe their power upon us to some resemblance they bear to what we have previously seen with the mind's eye, I am convinced from the fact, that upon general spectators they have no effect at all-except that of mere strangeness. To be affected by them, and consequently to appreciate the astonishing skill displayed in them, demands an imagination akin at least to that from whence they have sprung. Not that I am disposed to rank the value of this skill higher in consequence of its effects not being generally intelligible; on the contrary: but I merely refer to the fact as explanatory.-To shew the variety of his power, the artist has depicted the seeming lady, who forms the principal object in the picture, with a grace and dignity of deportment which cannot be surpassed, and which could little be expected to proceed from his pencil, by those who do not know that, whatever he could see, that he could depict-any one thing as well as any other; and that he adopted one particular line of Art, not because he excelled in it, but because he preferred it.

There is another picture in this collection on the same subject with the above, and of almost equal merit, but on a much smaller scale.— There is also one which deserves to rank with the very finest he ever painted, in his own peculiar class,-a Village scene. It is of a large size, and yet includes but few figures; but for skilful composition, truth and harmony of colouring, and rich touches of nature and character, it merits to be called a noble production. It represents a bagpiper standing on a tub before an alehouse door, and playing to three or four couples who are amusing themselves about him I adopt the following passage from a Catalogue Raisonné of this collection, which has been printed but (I believe) not published; as I could not vary the description with any advantage. "The most conspicuous parts in the detail of this fine work are-first, the couple who are dancing in the centre. There is an indescribable expression of half shame-faced, half chuckling delight in the woman, which is peculiarly rich and striking; but so far from moving on the light fantastic toe,' she lifts up her feet as if weights were tied to them. The tipsy dance and revelry' that looks out from the face of her partner, is equally rich and fine. The figure next in merit, on account of the truth as well as imagination which its expressions combine, is that of the old man who is watching the young couples romping, and rejoicing over them as if the sight renewed the very spirit of youth within him, and made him able to 'fight his (love) battles o'er again.' The bagpiper elevated on the tub, and at once playing his tune and partaking in the game that is going forward below him, is also wonderful."

The next picture that I shall notice is perhaps, upon the whole, the most perfect in this collection, and, to my mind, the very best that I

have ever met with of the master. Indeed it has raised my opinion of his talents to a height that it had never approached before. It is a picture by Berghem, which was formerly in the gallery of the Duke de Praslin, and known there by the name of L'embarquement des Vivres. The scene is the Gulf of Genoa, with various figures and cattle on the shore in front, about to embark in a passage-boat; and buildings and shipping occupying different points of the distance. The manner in which these latter are steeped in air, and as it were blended with it, is truly admirable, and in no degree inferior to some of Claude's best efforts in the same class; and the objects in the foreground are equally effective in a different way. There is a man seated at the head of the passage-boat, whose whole character might be written from his face and air. He cares no more about his customers than if he was to get nothing by them, because he knows that they must come to him; and instead of dancing attendance upon them, there he sits as if they were coming to his levee. In the centre is a woman counting her money, with a prospective eye to the amount of its increase by her marketing expedition. On the left are two men spelling the contents of a postingbill; and near the boat are two boys, one pushing and the other dragging a goat that they want to embark, but that seems to feel an instinctive horror of its fate, and will not stig a step. The boys are urging it with an expression made up of half fun half anger. But the general effect of this picture is its great charm; and this seems to arise chiefly from the extreme lightness and elegance of the handling, and the exquisite harmony and sweetness of tone that is preserved through the different gradations of the perspective and the colouring. This charming picture, if it does not evince so high and rare a degree of power as some others that I have noticed, is, I repeat, the most faultless work in the whole collection.

If I do not pass over Leonardo da Vinci's "Laughing Boy," it will be more in respect to its celebrity than in conformity with my own opinion of its merits-which strike me as being very limited indeed. It is a small upright picture, representing a very young child amusing itself with a toy; and the expression of infantine simplicity which beams from the happy countenance is extremely pleasing and appropriate. But to hold the picture up as.a distinguished effort of high art, is to betray an ignorance or an indifference as to the true import of the phrase. It is a pleasing specimen of a natural expression most naturally depicted; and nothing more.

As it was not my intention to notice in detail any objects of the Fonthill Gallery but those of surpassing merit, I shall conclude this notice by merely naming a few others which remain upon my memory, and adding a few words on the general character of the whole collection.

Of the Flemish school of finishing there are several most exquisite specimens, and one or two that are perhaps unrivalled. Of these latter, a lady in a satin and fur cloak, feeding a grey parrot, by F. Mieris, is the best. There is another on the same subject, by the same master, which is extremely beautiful in its way. G. Dow's "Poulterer's Shop" is also inimitably rich and elaborate; and its expressions are more natural and characteristic than this master usually took the trouble of making them: for his care was chiefly applied to tangible

things. Among the gallery pictures is an Adoration of the Shepherds, by Philip de Champagne, which possesses extraordinary merit in the design and the chiaro-scuro; among the portraits, there is an admirable one by Bronzino, and two by Sir Anthony More which are little inferior to Titian; and finally, there is a charming set of pictures by Watteau, representing the Four Ages of Man, and two others by the same artist in his usual courtly style.

In taking leave of the Fonthill Gallery, I should not give a fair impression of its character to those who have not seen it, if I did not add, generally, that it is (or, by this time, was) more miscellaneous in point of merit than any other great collection that I could point out. It contains (as I have shewn) a few fine works-but those, with one or two exceptions, not of the finest class; many that do not reach to mediocrity; and some that are totally bad. Whether this argues a want of taste, or only a want of means, is more than I shall determine. It must be confessed, however, that it might be difficult to say where four hundred fine pictures are to be found. In fact, the mistake of picturebuyers is to limit themselves in price rather than in number. Oh, for the two best rooms in Fonthill Abbey, and a hundred thousand pounds to furnish them with! With this space and this sum alone one might, even in the present day, collect together a finer private gallery than any one now in existence ;-bartering his paltry gold for the "riches fineless" of truth and beauty; and (if that were his appetite) acquiring a lasting fame at the same time. The late Mr. Angerstein was known all over Europe, and will not soon be forgotten, for no other reason than that he possessed ten of the finest pictures in the world!

SOLITUDE.

SEEK not for loneliness 'midst leaves and flowers,
But on the sands that void and voiceless lie,
Where not a shade reveals the passing hours,
And Time seems lost into Eternity!
And where-like wrecks upon a sullen sea,
Making the solitude more sad-we tread
O'er cities long lost from the things that be,

Where, towering like tall phantoms of the dead,
Haunting their desert tomb dim columns rear their head.

But when the stars look down through night's dun veil,

And o'er the Arab's slumber shed their beams

As soft as Beauty's eye at Sorrow's tale,

Then is the desert peopled with his dreams

With fairy scenes creative fancy teems;

He sees the blue-robed daughters of the skies
Wave on his spirit-where the crystal streams

Stray through cool shades, and every air that sighs
Wafts o'er immortal bowers the songs of Paradise!

M.

CONJUGALISM,

Or the Art of making a good Marriage.

SUCH is the attractive title of one of those Parisian publications, which from their union of a refined and piquant style with great licentiousness of matter-from their abundance of caustic satire, or playful bantering, with the most barefaced want of principle-and from the employment of a cultivated, subtle, and even delicate intellect to inculcate the grossest sensuality, may be pronounced eminently and emphatically French. From the profligate romance of Louvet, down to that most heartless and detestable of all productions Les Laisons Dangereuses, the literature of France, however poor in other respects, leaves not a single niche unoccupied in what may be termed her national Temple of polished Libertinism: while England, so superior to her rival in all the nobler departments of mental power, has fortunately seldom deigned to compete with her on this unhallowed and forbidden ground. One remarkable coincidence between the prurient writers of both countries is the common hypocrisy and cant with which they set themselves up for moralists and saints whenever they are about to be particularly scandalous. We could mention certain British mawworms who never venture upon an indecent or abusive article without a preface of pretended horror at the irreligion, indecorum, and personality, of some unacceptable contemporary. Thus the Viscount de S, which is the nom de guerre assumed by the author of "Conjugalism," while in the spirit of the misogynist Swift he wallows in the most revolting nastiness of detail, is careful to add, that there is no security for female virtue or conjugal happiness unless it be grounded upon our holy religion; and at the very moment that he suggests means of the basest artifice, fraud, and forgery, to lovers of both sexes, for the attainment of their object, he piously warns them that there is no medium so likely to succeed as the practice of strict honour and unsullied morality. Upon other occasions, however, he forgets all his theoretical integrity, inculcates falsehood, treachery, and cheating, without deeming them worthy of even a passing apology, or, if he condescends to excuse them at all, revives the controversy of Thwackum and Square; assures us that, if the end be the happiness of the parties, it completely sanctifies the means; quotes the old adage, that in Love and War all stratagems are allowable; and finally tells the reader very cavalierly, that if any objections be made to the sordid duplicity which he advises, he rests his whole defence upon the title of his book, which he has called the art of making a good marriage. Without farther stigmatizing the pernicious tendency of this unprincipled work, we shall proceed to give such extracts from its unobjectionable passages as may afford amusing specimens of the author's style and power of observation, as well as of the Parisian fashions, habits, and modes of thinking upon that universally interesting subject-Marriage.

The very first paragraph of the preliminary reflections is strikingly characteristic of the nation. Whoever is in the slightest degree conversant with French literature must have observed the slavish conceit with which every individual, for many ages, identified his own persona VOL. VI. No. 35.-1823.

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vanity with that of the grand monarque, to which we may attribute their custom of ransacking ancient and modern history for bon-mots and fine sayings, that they might father them upon their own kings and princes. Every history of Henry the Fourth begins with the established anecdote, that, when in the plenitude of his power he was counselled to avenge himself upon some of his former opponents, he exclaimed "It does not become the King of France to punish the injuries done to the Duke de Vendôme." The good folks of France repeat this trait of magnanimity without dreaming that the words were originally uttered by a Roman Emperor under somewhat similar circumstances. Nobody without being suspected of Carbonari principles could object to this loyal plagiarism, so long as it was exercised for the benefit of crowned heads; but it behoves us to get ready our spring guns and steel traps when our neighbours begin to poach upon our private manors, in the style of the following opening paragraph"Mademoiselle Sophie Arnould, of cynical memory, amid a crowd of smart sayings and free sallies which have obtained for her the honour of a scandalous celebrity, compared Marriage to a bag full of venomous serpents, among which there were one or two good eels; you put your hand into this bag, said she, with your eyes bound, and you must be born under a singularly lucky star to avoid some of the cruel serpents, and pick out the good eel." Unfortunately for Miss Sophie Arnould, we are told by so old a writer as Camden, that this was a favourite saying of Sir John More, the father of the celebrated Sir Thomas, who notwithstanding ventured to put his hand three times into the bag, and, so far from having his life shortened by his three wives, lived to the age of ninety, and then died in a very Anacreontic manner, of a surfeit occasioned by eating grapes.

After having decided in his first chapter that Marriage, besides its political, religious, social, sentimental, and patriotic considerations, has also its gymnastic division, and that mannikins, pigmies, as well as all rickety and deformed cripples, ought to be prohibited by law from sullying by their abortions the noble and superb theatre of propagation, our author reminds his readers that the wedding-day is like the day of judgment, when poor mortals must be exhibited in their true colours, without veil or disguise; and subsequently compares the same period to Ash Wednesday, when the Carnival-folks, having no longer any body to deceive, finish by throwing off the mask. Women in search of a husband are audaciously likened to criminals, who, knowing that they must be ruined by the truth, conceal it by the most complicated subterfuges; the slanderer does not hesitate to state that they have recourse to pads and mechanical stays to hide their crookedness, and that, as to their mental defects, the veriest Fury will put her claws into lambskin, and exhibit honey upon her lips while her heart is rankling with gall. This being established, craft becomes justifiable on the part of the wooer; marriage, like diplomacy, has its Machiavelism, and as it occasionally becomes indispensable to sacrifice a rustic and ridiculous frankness to the interests of the heart, or of a good establishment, the following instructions are to be diligently studied if the mother of your intended should fortunately happen to be one of those blue-stocking dames who deal in metaphors and romance, or are continually spouting. their own rumbling stanzas.