Chapter I: OF SENSE.—‘Concerning the thoughts of man, I will consider (10)

This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of the most important and striking passages in the principal character have been omitted, to make room for tedious and misplaced extracts from other plays; the only intention of which seems to have been, to make the character of _Richard_ as odious and disgusting as possible. A bugbear seems to have been always necessary to the English nation, and—give them but this to vent their spleen upon—they will, either in matters of taste or opinion, ‘as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are.’ It is apparently for no other purpose than to make _Gloucester_ stab _King Henry_ on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of this character in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whining morality of the uxorious King (taken from another play);—we say _tedious_, because it interrupts the business of the scene, and loses its beauty and effect by having no intelligible connection with the previous character of the mild and well-meaning monarch. The passages which Mr. Wroughton has to recite are in themselves exquisitely pathetic, but they have nothing to do with the world that _Richard_ has to ‘bustle in.’ In the same spirit of vulgar caricature is the scene between _Richard_ and _Lady Anne_ (when his wife)—interpolated, merely to gratify this favourite propensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverse consistency, _Richard_, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up by some Galvanic process, to utter the imprecation, without any motive but pure malignity, which is so finely put into the mouth of _Northumberland_ on hearing of _Percy’s_ death. We hope that Mr. Kean, when he acts _Macbeth_, will die as Shakespeare makes him, and not with four lines of canting penitence (a common-place against ambition) in his mouth. To make room for these needless additions and interpolations, many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean to insist merely on passages which are fine as poetry and to the reader, such as _Clarence’s_ dream, &c. but those which are important to the developement of the character, and peculiarly adapted for stage effect. We give the following as instances among many others.

The first is the scene where _Richard_ enters abruptly to the Queen and her friends, to defend himself:

_Enter_ GLOUCESTER.

_Glo._ They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.
Who are they that complain unto the King,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours;
Because I cannot flatter, and look fair,
Smile in men’s faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abused
With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks

_Gray._ To whom in all this presence speaks your Grace?

_Glo._ To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace;
When have I injured thee? When done thee wrong?
Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction?
A plague upon you all!

What can be more characteristic than the turbulent pretensions to meekness and simplicity in this address?

Again, the versatility and adroitness of _Richard_ is admirably described in the following ironical answer to Brakenbury:—

_Brakenbury._ I beseech your graces both to pardon me,
His Majesty hath straitly given in charge,
That no man shall have private conference,
Of what degree soever, with your brother.

_Glo._ E’en so, and please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak not reason, man—we say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble Queen
Well strook in years, fair, and not jealous.
We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a passing pleasing tongue:
That the Queen’s kindred are made gentle folks.
How say you, Sir? Can you deny all this?

_Brak._ With this, my Lord, myself have nought to do.

_Glo._ What, fellow, nought to do with Mistress Shore?
I tell you, Sir, he that doth nought with her,
Excepting one, were best to do it secretly alone.

_Brak._ What one, my Lord?

_Glo._ Her husband, knave—wouldst thou betray me?

The feigned reconciliation of Gloucester with the Queen’s kinsmen, is also a master-piece. One of the finest features in the play, and which serves to shew, as much as any thing, the deep duplicity of _Richard_, is the unsuspecting security of _Hastings_, at the very time when the former is plotting his death.

Perhaps the two most beautiful passages in the original, are the farewell apostrophe of the _Queen_ to the Tower, where her children are shut up from her, and _Tyrrel’s_ description of their death. We will finish our quotations with them:—

_Queen._ Stay, yet look back with me, unto the Tower;
Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes,
Whom envy hath immured within your walls;
Rough cradle for such little pretty ones;
Rude, rugged nurse, old sullen playfellow,
For tender princes!

The other passage is the account of their death by _Tyrrel_:—

Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
Albeit they were flesh’d villains, bloody dogs,
Wept like to children in their death’s sad story:
O thus! quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes;
Thus, thus! quoth Forrest, girdling one another,
Within their innocent alabaster arms;
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
And in that summer-beauty kiss’d each other;
A book of prayers on their pillow lay,
Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind.
But Oh the Devil!—there the villain stopped:
When Dighton thus told on—we smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation ere she framed.

These are those wonderful bursts of feeling, done to the very height of nature which our Shakespeare alone could give. We do not insist on the repetition of these last passages as proper for the stage; we should indeed be loth to trust them with almost any actor; but we should wish them to be retained, at least in preference to the fantoccini exhibition of the young Princes, bandying childish wit with their uncle.

We have taken the present opportunity to offer these remarks on the necessity of acting the plays of our great Bard, in spirit and substance, instead of burlesquing them, because we think the stage has acquired in Mr. Kean an actor capable of doing singular justice to many of his finest delineations of character.

FINE ARTS—THE LOUVRE

_The Morning Chronicle_] [_March 24, 1814._

‘If Blücher, if the Cossacks, get to Paris,—to Paris, the seat of Bonaparte’s pride and insolence,—what mercy will they shew to it, or why should they shew it any mercy? Will they spare the precious works of art, to decorate the palace of a monster whom they justly detest? Will they treat the Thuileries more tenderly than the French Officers, only eight months ago, openly threatened to treat Berlin? Is Paris, Bonaparte’s Paris, more sacred than Moscow? or are the slaves of the Corsican more inviolable than the brave and virtuous citizens of Hamburgh? No, no; the indignant warriors will cry,—

“Away to Heav’n respective Lenity,
And fire-eyed Fury be my conduct now.”

‘There is no other mode by which the Parisians can disarm the vengeance which now so closely impends over them, than by disclaiming for ever him whose crimes have been the just cause of that vengeance. Paris under the white standard, returning to loyalty and virtue, may be spared by a generous conqueror;—but Paris, identified with Bonaparte, must partake all the vindictive sentiments which are attached to that hateful name.

[Yet some time ago this writer assured us that if the French people identified themselves with Bonaparte, they ought not to be separated from him.]

‘In what momentous times do we live! Perhaps, the famous city of which we speak may even now be laid in ashes! Perhaps and more welcome be the omen, it may have returned to its allegiance, and proclaimed its native Sovereign, and set a price on the head of that wicked rebel who still dares to call himself the Emperor of France.’—_Times_, March 17.

‘Nay, if you mouth, I’ll rant as well as you!’

It is a pity to spoil this morsel of Asiatic eloquence, so worthy of the subject and the sentiments; but the evident meaning of it is, that the French must expect to do penance in sack-cloth and ashes, or consent to put on the old livery jackets, made up for them by our army-agents long ago, and which have unfortunately lain on hand ever since. If so, they must needs be ‘pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall.’ Yet we hardly know what to say to the chivalrous and classical politicians of the Stock Exchange. They are not driven to the extremity of Gothic rage by the ranking inveteracy, and old unsatisfied grudge of the Pitt-school. Yet surely no pitiable enthusiast that

‘Scrawls
With desperate charcoal on his darken’d walls,’

can be more incorrigible to reason. They are always setting out on their way to Paris from Moscow, while the Pitt-school studiously return to join Lord Hawkesbury in the year 1793, or they think the whole ceremony incomplete! The treaty of Pilnitz does not stand between our modern popular incendiaries and their just revenge! They live only in ‘this present ignorant time!’ They see the white standard of the Bourbons waving over the walls of Paris, unspotted with the blood of millions of Frenchmen! They do not seem ever to have known, or (with our poet-laureat) they forget, that the same standard to which our milky politicians advise the French people, sick of destruction, and panting for freedom, to fly for deliverance and repose, is that very standard, which, for twenty years, hovering round them, now seen like a cloudy speck in the distance—now spreading out its drooping lilies wide, has been the cause of that destruction—has robbed them at once of liberty and of repose!

Moscow is, however, the watch-word of the renegados of _The Times_. It seems to them just that Paris should be sacrificed to revenge the setting fire to Moscow by the Russians, and that the monuments of art in the Louvre ought to be destroyed because they are Bonaparte’s. No; they are ours as well as his;—they belong to the human race; he cannot monopolize all genius and all art. But these madmen would, if they could, blot the Sun out of heaven, because it shines upon France. They verify the old proverb, ‘Tell me your company, and I’ll tell you your manners!’ They, no more than their friends the Cossacks, can perceive any difference between the Kremlin and the Louvre. There is at least one difference, that the one may be built up again, and the other cannot. For there, in the Louvre, in Bonaparte’s Louvre, are the precious monuments of art—the sacred pledges which human genius has given to time and nature;—there ‘stands the statue that enchants the world;’ there is the _Apollo_, the _Laocoon_, the _Dying Gladiator_, the _Head of the Antinous_, _Diana with her Fawn_, and all the glories of the antique world;—

‘There is old Proteus coming from the sea,
And wreathed Triton blows his winding horn.’

There, too, are the two _St. Jeromes_, Correggio’s and Dominichino’s; there is Raphael’s _Transfiguration_, the _St. Mark_ of Tintoret, Paul Veronese’s _Marriage of Cana_, the _Deluge_ of Nicholas Poussin, and Titian’s _St. Peter Martyr_;—all these, and more than these, of which the world is scarce worthy. Yet all these amount to nothing in the eyes of those virtuosos the Cossacks, and their fellow-students of _The Times_! ‘What’s Hecuba to them, or they to Hecuba?’ But we must be allowed to see with our own eyes, and to have certain feelings of our own. We will not be brayed by these quacks _like fools in a mortar_. We too, as Mr. Burke expresses it, have ‘real feelings of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms.’ ‘We look up with awe to Kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility.’ But all this is a machine that goes on of itself, and may be repaired if out of order. We bow willingly to Lords and Commoners, though we know that ‘breath can make them as a breath has made.’ Blücher, Wittgenstein, Winzingerode, and Ktzichigoff, are true heroes; their names become the mouth well, and rouse the ear as the sound of a trumpet; but they are the heroes of a day, and all that they have done might be as well done by others to-morrow. But here it is: once destroy the great monuments of art, and they cannot be replaced. Those mighty geniuses, who have left their works behind them an inheritance to mankind, live but once to do honour to themselves and their nature. ‘But once put out their light, and there is no Promethean heat that can their light relumine.’ Nor ought it ever to be re-kindled, to be extinguished a second time by the harpies of the human race. What have ‘the worshippers of cats and onions’ to do with those triumphs of human genius, which give the eternal lie to their creed? We would therefore recommend these accomplished pioneers of civilisation and social order, after they have done their work at the Louvre, to follow the river-side, and they will come to a bare inclosure, surrounded by four low walls. It is the place where the Bastille stood: let them rear that, and all will be well. And then some whiffling poet who celebrated the fall of that monument of mild paternal sway—that sacred ark of the confidence of Kings—that strong bulwark of ‘time-hallowed laws,’ and precious relic of ‘the good old times,’ in an ode, may hail its restoration in a sonnet!

WILSON’S LANDSCAPES, AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION

_The Champion._] [_July 17, 1814._

The landscapes of this celebrated artist may be divided into three classes;—his Italian landscapes, or imitations of the manner of Claude, his copies of English scenery, and his historical compositions.

The first of these are, in our opinion, by much the best; and of the pictures of this class in the present collection, we should, without any hesitation, give the preference to the _Apollo and the Seasons_, and to the _Phaeton_. The figures are of course out of the question—(Wilson’s figures are as uncouth and slovenly as Claude’s are insipid and finical)—but the landscape in both pictures is delightful. In looking at them we breath the very air which the scene inspires, and feel the genius of the place present to us. In the first, there is all the cool freshness of a misty spring morning: the sky, the water, the dim horizon all convey the same feeling. The fine grey tone, and varying outline of the hills, the graceful form of the retiring lake, broken still more by the hazy shadows of the objects that repose on its bosom; the light trees that expand their branches in the air, and the dark stone figure and mouldering temple, that contrast strongly with the broad clear light of the rising day, give a charm, a truth, a force and harmony to this landscape, which produce the greater pleasure the longer it is dwelt on.—The distribution of light and shade resembles the effect of light on a globe.

The _Phaeton_ has the dazzling fervid appearance of an autumnal evening; the golden radiance streams in solid masses from behind the flickering clouds; every object is baked in the sun;—the brown foreground, the thick foliage of the trees, the streams shrunk and stealing along behind the dark high banks, combine to produce that richness, and characteristic propriety of effect, which is to be found only in nature, or in art derived from the study and imitation of nature. The glowing splendour of this landscape reminds us of the saying of Wilson, that in painting such subjects, he endeavoured to give the effect of insects dancing in the evening sun. His eye seemed formed to drink in the light. These two pictures, as they have the greatest general effect, are also more carefully finished in the particular details than the other pictures in the collection. This circumstance may be worth the attention of those who are apt to think that strength and slovenliness are the same thing.

_Cicero at his Villa_ is a clear and beautiful representation of nature. The sky is admirable for its pure azure tone. Among the less finished productions of Wilson’s pencil, which display his great knowledge of perspective, are _A Landscape with figures bathing_, in which the figures are wonderfully detached from the sea beyond; and _A View in Italy_, with a lake and a little boat, which appear at an immeasurable distance below:—the boat is diminished to

‘A buoy almost too small for sight.’

_A View of Ancona_; _Adrian’s Villa at Rome_; a small blue greenish landscape; _The Lake of Neimi_; a small, richly-coloured landscape of the banks of a river; and a landscape containing some light and elegant groups of trees, are masterly and interesting sketches. _A View on the Tiber_, near Rome, a dark landscape which lies finely open to the sky; and _A View of Rome_, are successful imitations of N. Poussin. _A View of Sion House_, which is hung almost out of sight, is remarkable for the clearness of the perspective, particularly in the distant windings of the River Thames, and still more so for the parched and droughty appearance of the whole scene. The air is adust, the grass burned up and withered: and it seems as if some figures, reposing on the level, smooth shaven lawn on the river’s side, would be annoyed by the parching heat of the ground. We consider this landscape, which is an old favourite, as one of the most striking proofs of Wilson’s genius, as it conveys not only the image, but the feeling of nature, and excites a new interest unborrowed from the eye, like the fine glow of a summer’s day. There is a sketch of the same subject, called _A View on the Thames_.

_A View near Llangollen, North Wales_; _Oakhampton Castle, Devonshire_; and _The Bridge at Llangollen_, are the principal of Wilson’s English landscapes. They want almost every thing that ought to recommend them. The subjects are not fit for the landscape-painter, and there is nothing in the execution to redeem them. Ill-shaped mountains, or great heaps of earth, trees that grow against them without character or elegance, motionless water-falls, a want of relief, of transparency, and distance,—without the imposing grandeur of real magnitude (which it is either not within the province of the art to give, or which is certainly not given here), are the chief features and defects of these pictures.—The same general objections apply to _Solitude_, and to one or two pictures near it, which are masses of common-place confusion. In near scenes, the effect must depend almost entirely on the difference in the execution, and the details: for the difference of colour alone is not sufficient to give relief to objects placed at a small distance from the eye. But in Wilson there are commonly no details; all is loose and general; and this very circumstance, which assisted him in giving the massy contrasts of light and shade, deprived his pencil of all force and precision within a limited space. In general, air is necessary to the landscape-painter: and for this reason, the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland afford few subjects for landscape-painting. However stupendous the scenery of that country is, and however powerful and lasting the impression which it must always make on the imagination, yet the effect is not produced merely through the eye of the spectator, but arises chiefly from collateral and associated feelings. There is the knowledge of the distance from which we have seen the objects, in the midst of which we are now placed,—the slow, improgressive motion which we make in traversing them,—the abrupt precipice,—the torrent’s roar,—the dizzy rapture and boundless expanse of the prospect from the highest mountains,—the difficulty of their ascent,—their loneliness, and silence;—in short, there is a constant sense and superstitious awe of the collective power of matter, of the gigantic and eternal forms of nature, on which from the beginning of time the hand of man has made no impression, and which by the lofty reflections they excite in him, give a sort of intellectual sublimity even to his sense of physical weakness. But there is little in all these circumstances that can be translated into the picturesque, which depends not on the objects themselves, so much as on the symmetry and relation of these objects to one another. In a picture a mountain shrinks to a molehill, and the lake that expands its broad bosom to the sky, seems hardly big enough to launch a fleet of cockle-shells.

Wilson’s historical landscapes, the two _Niobes_, _Celadon and Amelia_, _Meleager and Atalanta_, do not, in our opinion, deserve the name; that is, they do not excite feelings corresponding with the scene and story represented. They neither display true taste nor fine imagination; but are affected and violent exaggerations of clumsy, common nature. They are all made up of the same mechanical materials, an overhanging rock, bare shattered trees, black rolling clouds, and forked lightning. The scene of _Celadon and Amelia_, though it may be proper for a thunder-storm, is not a place for lovers to walk in. The _Meleager and Atalanta_ is remarkable for nothing but a castle at a distance, very much ‘resembling a goose-pye.’ The figures in the two other pictures are not like the children of _Niobe_, punished by the Gods, but like a groupe of rustics, crouching from a hail-storm. In one of these, however, there is a fine break in the sky worthy of the subject. We agree with Sir J. Reynolds, that Wilson’s mind was not, like N. Poussin’s, sufficiently imbued with the knowledge of antiquity to transport the imagination two thousand years back, to give natural objects a sympathy with preternatural events, and to inform rocks, and trees, and mountains with the presence of a God.[13]

The writer of the Preface to the Catalogue of the British Gallery, says—‘Few artists have excelled Wilson in the tint of air, perhaps the most difficult point of attainment for the landscape-painter: every object in his pictures keeps its place, because each is seen through its proper medium. _This excellence alone_ gives a charm to his pencil, and by judicious application may be turned to the advantage of the British artist.’—This praise is equivocal: if it be meant that ‘the tint of air’ is the only excellence of Wilson’s landscapes, the observation is not true. He had also great truth, harmony, and richness of local colouring: he had a fine feeling of the proportions and conduct of light and shade; and, in general, an eye for graceful form, as far as regards the bold and varying outlines of indefinite objects—as may be seen in his foregrounds, hills, etc.—where the mind is left to chuse according to an abstract principle, as it is filled or affected agreeably by certain combinations,—and is not tied down to an imitation of characteristic and articulate forms. In his figures, trees, cattle, buildings and in every thing which has a determinate and regular form, Wilson’s pencil was not only deficient in accuracy of outline, but even in perspective and actual relief. His trees, in particular, seem pasted on the canvas, like botanical specimens.

We shall close these remarks with observing, that we cannot subscribe to the opinion of those who assert that Wilson was superior to Claude as a man of genius: nor can we discern any other grounds for this opinion, than those which lead to the general conclusion, that the more slovenly the performance, the finer the picture; and that that which is imperfect is superior to that which is perfect. It might as well be said, that a sign-painting is better than the reflection of a landscape in a mirror; and the only objection that can be made in the latter case cannot be made to the landscapes of Claude, for in them the Graces themselves have, with their own hands, assisted in disposing and selecting every object.—Is the general effect in his pictures injured by the details? Is the truth inconsistent with the beauty of the imitation? Are the scope and harmony of the whole destroyed by the exquisite delicacy of every part? Does the perpetual profusion of objects and scenery, all perfect in themselves, interfere with the simple grandeur, and immense extent of the whole? Does the precision with which a plant is marked in the foreground, take away from the air-drawn distinctions of the blue, glimmering distant horizon? Is there any want of that endless airy space, where the eye wanders at liberty under the open sky, explores distant objects, and returns back as from a delightful journey? There is no comparison between him and Wilson. The landscapes of Claude have all that is exquisite and refined in art and nature. Every thing is moulded into grace and harmony; and at the touch of his pencil, shepherds with their flocks, temples and groves, and winding glades, and scattered hamlets, rise up in never-ending succession, under the azure sky, and the resplendent sun, ‘while universal Pan,

‘Knit with the Graces, and the hours in dance
Leads on the eternal spring.’—

There is a fine apostrophe in a sonnet of Michael Angelo’s to the earliest Poet of Italy:

‘Fain would I to be what our Dante was,
Forego the happiest fortunes of mankind;’

What landscape-painter does not feel this of Claude![14]

ON GAINSBOROUGH’S PICTURES

_The Champion._] [_July 31, 1814._

There is an anecdote connected with the reputation of Gainsborough’s Pictures, which rests on pretty good authority. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the Academy dinners, speaking of Gainsborough, said to a friend, ‘He is undoubtedly the best English landscape-painter.’ ‘No,’ said Wilson, who overheard the conversation, ‘he’s not the best English landscape-painter, but he is the best portrait-painter in England.’ They were certainly both wrong; but the story is creditable to the variety of Gainsborough’s talents.

Of his portraits, in the present collection at the British Gallery, the only fine one is _A Portrait of a Youth_. This picture is from Lord Grosvenor’s collection, where it used to look remarkably well, and has been sometimes mistaken for a Vandyke. There is a spirited glow of youth about the face, and the attitude is striking and elegant. The drapery of blue satin is admirably painted. The _Portrait of Garrick_ is interesting as a piece of biography. He looks much more like a gentleman than in Reynolds’s tragi-comic representation of him.—There is a considerable lightness and intelligence in the expression of the face, and a piercing vivacity about the eyes, to which the attention is immediately directed. Gainsborough’s own portrait, which has, however, much truth and character, and makes a fine print, seems to have been painted with the handle of his brush. There is a portrait of _The Prince Regent leading a horse_, in which it must be confessed the man has the advantage of the animal.

Gainsborough’s landscapes are of two classes, or periods; his early and his later pictures. The former are, we imagine, the best. They are imitations of nature, or of painters who imitated nature;—such as a _Woody Scene_; another, which is a fine imitation of Ruysdale; and a _Road Side, with figures_, which has great truth and clearness. His later pictures are flimsy caricatures of Rubens, who himself carried inattention to accuracy of detail to the utmost limit that it would bear. Lord Bacon says, that ‘distilled books are, like distilled waters, flashy things.’ The same may be said of pictures.—Gainsborough’s latter landscapes are bad water-colour drawings, washed in by mechanical movements of the hand, without any communication with the eye. The truth seems to be, that Gainsborough found there was something wanting in his ‘_early manner_,’—that is, something beyond mere literal imitation of natural objects, and he seems to have concluded, rather hastily, that the way to arrive at that _something more_, was to discard truth and nature altogether. He accordingly ran from one extreme into the other. We cannot conceive anything carried to a greater excess of slender execution and paltry glazing, than _A Fox hunted with grey-hounds_, _A romantic Landscape with Sheep at a Fountain_, and many others. We were, however, much pleased with an upright landscape, with figures, which has a fine, fresh appearance of the open sky, with a dash of the wildness of Salvator Rosa; and also with _A Bank of a River_, which is remarkable for the elegance of the forms and the real delicacy of the execution. _A Group of Cattle in a warm Landscape_ is an evident imitation of Rubens, but no more like to Rubens than ‘I to Hercules.’ _Landscape with a Waterfall_ should be noticed for the sparkling clearness of the distance. _Sportsmen in a Landscape_ is copied from Teniers with much taste and feeling, though very inferior to the original picture in Lord Radnor’s collection.

Of the fancy pictures, on which Gainsborough’s fame chiefly rests, we are disposed to give the preference to his _Cottage Children_. There is, we apprehend, greater truth, variety, force, and character, in this groupe, than in any other. The colouring of the light-haired child is particularly true to nature, and forms a sort of natural and innocent contrast to the dark complexion of the elder sister, who is carrying it. _The Girl going to the Well_ is, however, the general favourite. The little dog is certainly admirable. His hair looks as if it had been just washed and combed. The attitude of the _Girl_ is also perfectly easy and natural. But there is a consciousness in the turn of the head, and a sentimental pensiveness in the expression, which is not taken from nature, but intended as an improvement on it. There is a regular insipidity, a systematic vacancy, a round, unvaried smoothness, to which real nature is a stranger, and which is only an idea existing in the painter’s mind. We think the gloss of art is never so ill bestowed as on subjects of this kind, which ought to be studies of natural history. It is perhaps the general fault of Gainsborough, that he presents us with an ideal common life, whereas it is only the reality that is here good for any thing. His subjects are softened and sentimentalised too much, it is not simple, unaffected nature that we see, but nature sitting for her picture. Gainsborough, we suspect, from some of the pictures in this collection, led the way to that masquerade style, which piques itself on giving the air of an Adonis to the driver of a hay-cart, and models the features of a milk-maid on the principles of the antique. The _Girl and Pigs_ is hardly liable to this objection. There is a healthy glow in the girl’s face, which seems the immediate effect of the air blowing upon it. The expression is not quite so good. The _Fox-dogs_ are admirable. The young one is even better than the old one, and has undeniable hereditary pretensions. The _Shepherd Boys_ are fine. We do not like the _Boys with Dogs fighting_. We see no reason why the one should be so handsome and the other so ugly, why the one should be so brown and the other so yellow, or why their dogs should be of the same colour as themselves: nor why the worst-looking of the two should be most anxious to part the fray. The sketch of the _Woodman_, the original of which was unfortunately burned, fully justifies all the reputation it has acquired. It is a really fine study from nature. There is a picture of Gainsborough’s somewhere of _A Shepherd Boy in a Storm_, of which we many years ago saw an indifferent copy in a broker’s shop, but in which the unconscious simplicity of the boy’s expression, looking up with his hands folded, and with timid wonder, the noisy chattering of a magpye perched above him, and the rustling of the coming storm in the branches of the trees, produced a romantic pastoral impression, which we have often recalled with no little pleasure since that time. We have always, indeed, felt a strong prepossession in favor of Gainsborough, and were disappointed at not finding his pictures in the present collection, all that we had wished to find them.

He was to be considered, perhaps, rather as a man of taste, and of an elegant and feeling mind, than as a man of genius; as a lover of the art, rather than an artist. He pursued it, with a view to amuse and sooth his mind, with the ease of a gentleman, not with the severity of a professional student. He wished to make his pictures, like himself, amiable; but a too constant desire to please almost necessarily leads to affectation and effeminacy. He wanted that vigour of intellect, which perceives the beauty of truth; and thought that painting was to be gained, like other mistresses, by flattery and smiles. It is an error which we are disposed to forgive in one, around whose memory, both as a man and an artist, many fond recollections, many vain regrets must always linger. Peace to his shade![15]

MR. KEMBLE’S PENRUDDOCK

_The Champion._] [_Nov. 20, 1814._

Mr. Kemble lately appeared at this theatre in the character of Penruddock, and was received (not indeed with waving handkerchiefs, and laurel garlands thrown on the stage, but what is much better) with heart-felt approbation and silent tears. His delineation of the part is one of his most correct and interesting performances, and one of the most perfect on the modern stage. The deeply rooted, mild, pensive melancholy of the character, its embittered recollections and dignified benevolence, were given by Mr. Kemble with equal truth, elegance, and feeling. This admirable actor appeared to be the unfortunate, but amiable individual whom he represented; and the expression of the sentiments, the look, the tone of voice, exactly true to nature, struck a correspondent chord in every bosom.—The range of characters, in which Mr. Kemble shines, and is superior to every other actor, are those which consist in the developement of some one sentiment or exclusive passion. From a want of rapidity, of scope, and variety, he is often deficient in expressing the bustle and complication of different interests, nor does he possess the faculty of overpowering the mind by sudden and irresistible bursts of passion. But in giving the habitual workings of a predominant feeling, as in Penruddock, Coriolanus, and some others, where all the passions move round a central point, and have one master key, he stands unrivalled. In Penruddock, he broods over the recollection of disappointed hope, till it becomes a part of himself, it sinks deeper into his mind the longer he dwells upon it, and his whole person is moulded to the character. The weight of sentiment which oppresses him never seems suspended, the spring at his heart is never lightened, his regrets only become more profound as they become more durable. So in Coriolanus, he exhibits the ruling passion with the same continued firmness, he preserves the same haughty dignity of demeanour, the same energy of will, and unbending sternness of temper throughout. He is swayed by a single impulse. His tenaciousness of purpose is only irritated by opposition: he turns neither to the right nor to the left: but the vehemence with which he moves forward increases every instant, till it hurries him to the catastrophe. In Leontes, in the Winter’s Tale, the growing jealousy of the king, and the exclusive possession which it at length obtains of his mind, are marked in the finest manner, particularly where he exclaims—

‘Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh, a note infallible
Of breaking honesty? horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours minutes? the noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web, but theirs; theirs only
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why then the world and all that’s in ‘t is nothing.
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, if this be nothing.’

In the course of this enumeration every proof tells harder, his conviction becomes more rivetted at every step of his progress, and at the end his mind is wound up to a frenzy of despair. In such characters, Mr. Kemble has no occasion to call in the resources of invention, or the tricks of the art; his excellence consists entirely in the increasing intensity with which he dwells on a given feeling or enforces a predominant passion. In Hamlet, on the contrary, Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails from a want of flexibility, or of that quick sensibility, which yields to every motive, and is borne away with every breath of fancy, which is distracted by the multiplicity of its reflections, and lost in its own purposes. There is a perpetual undulation of feeling in the character of Hamlet (though it must be confessed, much of this, which is the essence of the play, is left out on the stage), but in Mr. Kemble’s acting ‘there is no variableness nor shadow of turning.’ He plays it like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy of purpose, in one undeviating strait line, which is as remote from the natural grace and easy susceptibility of the character, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts to produce an effect, which Mr. Kean introduces into it. Mr. Kean’s Hamlet is, in our opinion, as much too ‘splenetic and rash,’ as Mr. Kemble’s is too deliberate and formal. In Richard, Mr. Kemble has not that tempest and whirlwind of the passions, that life and spirit, and dazzling rapidity of motion, which, as it were, fills the stage, and burns in every part, which Mr. Kean displayed in it till he was worn out by the managers. Mr. Kean’s acting, in general, strongly reminds us of the lines of the poet, when he describes

‘The fiery soul that working out its way
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o’erinformed the tenement of clay.’

Mr. Kemble’s manner on the contrary has always something dry, hard and pedantic in it. ‘You shall relish him more in the scholar than the soldier.’ But his monotony does not fatigue, his formality does not displease, because there is always sense and feeling in what he does. The fineness of Mr. Kemble’s figure has perhaps led to that statue-like appearance which his acting is sometimes too apt to assume; as the diminutiveness of Mr. Kean’s person has probably forced him to bustle about too much, and to attempt to make up for the want of dignity of form by the violence and contrast of his attitudes. If Mr. Kemble were to remain in the same posture for half an hour, his figure would only produce admiration—if Mr. Kean were to stand still only for a moment, the contrary effect would be produced.

To return to Penruddock and the Wheel of Fortune. The only novelties were Miss Foote in Emily Tempest, and her lover, Mr. Farley, as Sir David Daw. The latter, who is a Welch Adonis of five-and-twenty, from the natural advantages of his person, and the artificial improvements which were added to it, was a very admirable likeness, on a reduced scale, of the Prince Regent. We do not know whether the burlesque was intended, but it had a laughable effect. We acknowledge that Mr. Farley is one of those persons whom we always welcome heartily when we see him. What with laughing at him and laughing with him, we hardly know a more comic personage. Miss Foote played and looked the part of Emily Tempest very naturally and very prettily, but without giving to the character either much interest or much elegance. Her voice is in itself as sweet as her person, and when she exerts it, she articulates with ease and clearness: but we should add, that she has a habit of tripping in her common speaking, that is, of dropping her voice so low, except where a particular emphasis is to be laid, as to make it difficult for the ear to follow the sense.