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feasted on my tears, and remained shut up in my room
whole hours, giving way to them.
"The birth of a son completed the measure of Charles's
happiness. He came, his heart overflowing with joy, to
give me the news, and I recognised in the expression of his
delight some of the accents of his former confidence. It was
the voice of the friend that I had lost, and brought painful
remembrances back with it. The child of Anais was as
beautiful as herself. Every body felt moved at the sight of
this tender young mother and her sweet infant. I alone
beheld them with bitter envy. What had I done that I
should have been brought to this land of exile? Why
was I not left to follow my destiny? Well, if I had been
the negro slave of some rich planter, sold to cultivate his
land, and exposed all day to the burning heat of the sun,
still, when evening came, and my toils were over, I should
have found repose in my humble cottage; I should have a
sharer in them, a companion through life, and children of
my own colour to call me mother! They would have pressed
their infant lips upon my cheek without disgust, and lain
their little heads to sleep upon my bosom. Why am I
never to experience the only affection my heart was made
for? Oh, my God! take me, I beseech Thee, from this
world-I cannot, cannot endure life any longer!"

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tended controversy, in order to reply to some farther subtle evasions adduced by the disbeliever, but lowers the dignity of truth, and brings into notice that which in a great degree might have passed almost unheeded, and with its author have sunk into deserved obscurity. It is indeed dangerous, unless a man is most firmly rooted in Christian principles, under a false notion of impartiality, to listen to the specious arguments of those reasoners, who, upon the incomprehensibility of the Deity, found doubts and denials, which are the utter destruction of present peace, and the total annihilation of future hope. What is man without Religion? he is like a wandering noisome vapour, which passeth away somewhither, and wastes itself to nothing-inconsistent, sinful, and proud, he believes himself wise, but he is foolish -but with religion, his nature becomes almost celestial, and he passes through a moment to an eternity of hapiness."

HUMAN SKILL.

"WHEN We look at any work of skill, we examine into the harmony of its parts, and the degree of exactness attained in its more minute particulars, and thence we apportion its degree of excellence; but there is no human production will bear the close examination, even of mortal, short-sighted man: not so with the infinite variety of the creations of the God of nature. There all is perfection absolute, and in no created thing is inconsistency or inadequacy found to consist."

She at last retires to a convent, where her days are spent in religious duties, mingled with many a sad thought of blighted affection, and bitter disappoint- To the young, and even to those who are more adment. The narrator tells us that soon after his inter-vanced in life, whose unstable dispositions and imperview with her she died. fect resolutions, require some additional support, this volume will be read with great advantage.

BAD HABITS.

"It is well known how weeds increase when suffered to grow spontaneously. Bad habits are not of slower growth, source, they multiply and gain strength astonishingly. No but more difficult of eradication-if not opposed at their evil must be permitted because it is a little one-it is the seed of others."

A NOBLE ACHIEVEMENT.

Best Intentions; or Reflections and Thoughts for Youth, Maturity, and Age. London: T. Boys, 1824. “BEST INTENTIONS !"-there is something so delightful in the title of this volume, that we can forego a little of professional spleen in our admiration of it. But there is no necessity of making any such compro"WHEN reading of the achievements of great men, we are mise between our duty and our inclinations. The apt to think how readily we could have joined them in their book is a collection of thoughts on a vast variety of ardour and perseverance; we all have a conquest to make, religious and moral subjects, expressed with great sim-worthy of our most strenuous exertions, and if we do but use plicity, and sent forth in the most unobtrusive manner. them as we ought, we are certain of success; we can do nothing of ourselves to help ourselves, but by the grace of God There is nothing very original nor very peculiar in the and faith, no obstacle is too great to be overcome.' opinions, and the few extracts we shall make, are rather as specimens of general manner than from any particular excellence:

FALSE NOTIONS.

DRAMA.

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"TAKING mankind in the aggregate, it is much better King's Theatre. The repetition of the same pieces, and that a mind be not contaminated with the knowledge of the appearance of the same persons throughout the week, evil, more than that which is unavoidable, than that it has left us little to say about this Theatre. Of these we should depend upon its own strength for overcoming it. To have nothing to change in the opinions we have already exall ordinary men it is certainly much the best, that they pressed, and nothing to add to them. Indeed, the Opera should not even listen to the barefaced false assertions of is by no means a fertile field for criticism. It is only a matthe Atheist; for although a man is at present steadfast inter of twice a-week. The alterations of the performance our most holy Christian faith, yet I think he is putting a do not occur more than twice a month. It is altogether a temptation in his own way, to give ear to the deceitful and business of fashion, and were the current to set strongly in sophisticated falsehoods of such dangerous Infidels.-If any its favour, the same piece might be repeated every night in man is possessed of a powerful understanding, and for the the season to crowded houses. Music, to be sure, will bear sake of the glory and service of God, undertakes to over- repetition better than a sentiment or witticism, and in this throw and contravene the pernicious dissemination of the the Opera has the advantage over the Drama. Madame poison, by the exhibition of truth and sound doctrine, that Pasta has repeated Tancredi, and continues to be a great man is fully warranted in examining into the nature of the favourite with the public. This is said to be her best chaargument, and will doubtless be rewarded by the approba-racter, and yet the music of Tancredi is not precisely adapttion of his own conscience, and does that which is an honoured to her voice. But what with the tutoring of the orchestra to the cause he espouses, and that which entitles him to the thanks and praise of his fellow men-but I think that having once given a complete and decided refutation of the false notions and opinions, first promulgated, even he, by any ex

and the infinite skill with which she manages her powers, she continues to make it a most delightful performance. The great purity of her intonation and originality of her style, give her very superior advantages. One thing we

upon art, to serve the private interest of the proprietors, by increasing the sale of their publications.

greatly admire in her singing, is its chasteness. There is no one on the stage who is less embroidery and confectionary than she. Her graces are thrown in at the proper times The art of printing from stone is well known to be a and places, and whilst they enrich her execution, they do modern discovery. Repeated attempts were made to bring not encumber its facility. Ronzi de Begnis, in Amenaide,it into notice in England, without success. For although is full of the most exquisite sensibility. She strikes us as many artists of eminence presented a gratuitous essay, by possessing more feeling than any other singer we ever heard. sketching a loose composition upon the surface of a prepared Curioni, in Argyrio, is extremely good-and Benetti, in block of stone, at the instance of the ingenious proprietors, Orbazzano, extremely bad. who first brought the invention hither; yet, they were so carelessly wrought, and were generally so deficient in interest, that the matter was abandoned, and engraving on stone, as it was improperly designated, was considered nothing more than an amusing novelty, that tended to no purpose beneficial to art.

Rossini's new opera Ugo Re d'Italia has been announced in the bills as being on the eve of representation. It is rather late in the season for a new opera, and yet we doubt if it be composed. Rossini is remarkable for his dilatoriness. He never sits down resolutely to work until a few days before the actual representation of a piece. This is one reason why there is so much carelessness and so many repetitions in his works. Ugo will, we suspect, be little else than a cento from former operas. Stendahl, in his memoirs, predicts something of that sort from Rossini. But there is room for hope.

Covent Garden.-A new melo-drama has been produced here, called the Castellan's Outh. It is a translation from the French, and as wishy-washy as any thing we have seen for a long time past. The thing was successful and that was all.

Drury Lane.-This house seems to be monopolized by benefits, and benefits are exempted from criticism. Liston last night produced for his benefit a new piece founded on the Greek Revolution. We are unable to give any account of it this week. Amongst the changes which have taken place in the theatrical establishments of the metropolis, we ought not to omit congratulating the public on the accession of Mrs. F. Yates (late Miss Brunton) to the corps dramatique of this house. The talents of this young lady are already favourably known to the public, and at the present moment, she may be considered as having no rival

her line of characters.

ENGRAVING ON STONE.

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We do not affect more sagacity than our neighbours, in general matters of speculation, either upon the sciences or arts; but we may aver with truth, that we had always held that the capacities of this new discovery were much greater than they were supposed to be, by the experiments generally made. For one of the earliest attempts that was attempted upon stone in this country, A Cottage Scene in Bedfordshire, from which we saw the first impression taken, approached in many parts so near to the effect of an etching on copper, both in cleanness of line and spirit, that we felt assured, perseverance and skill alone were wanting, to render the discovery subservient to some useful purposes of art. This impression from stone we have now before us, which justifies the opinion then formed.

We subsequently were presented with a quarto book of Rustic Figures, executed on Stone, by Mr. Thomas Barker, of Bath, which was a work of considerable merit, and useful to the student of landscape painting, as it contained single figures and groups, drawn from nature with great spirit, and composed with his superior feeling for the picturesque. This work, we are concerned to say, for all its merit, was not injustly appreciated. The art lithographic, after many efforts to survive, appeared with us to die a natural death.

THERE is nothing farther from the object of our exertions, than that of supporting the prevailing rage for novelties in art, for mere fashion's sake. Our labours, on the contrary, have been directed to the exposure of every species of quackery and false pretension that has a tendency to corrupt the public taste, and to the upholding of whatever is legitimate in painting and engraving, and creditable to the character of our native school. In short, to support all that is orthodox in the graphic art.

These exertions, however, have not been narrowed by that exclusive prejudice for what is already known and established, which would shut out experiment in new modes of art, from the mere dread of innovation. We live in an age of improvement, and hail every new discovery, that can throw additional light upon what we already know, or add anything that is meritorious in its own nature to the common stock of useful knowledge. It would tend to no moral good, because we love our old friends, to forbid the approaches of new ones; so with art, it would be weak to say, we have sufficient of what is good already, and we need nothing more.

We have already reprobated that general indifference, which has so long submitted to be led by the cunning of certain printsellers and publishers, who, by puffing advertisements and effrontery, have so successfully imposed their specious trash upon the public, at the expense of works of real merit; and, were we not assured that this system of impostureship no longer a thriving game, we should express our opinions upon this discreditable assistance which the conductors of certain periodical works have afforded to these impostors, in opposition to all just notions

On the continent, however, there was no lack of that spirit of perseverance, which was wanting here, to investigate its capacities. In Germany and in France, many ingenious artists gave their thoughts to stone engraving, and the result of their experiments went even farther than we had ventured to anticipate. They proved, that the discovery was worthy of farther cultivation; indeed, that it might become of general importance to the professors of the graphic arts, not only by its facilities in multiplying fac similies of their original thoughts, but in spreading at a small expense, copies of the finest compositions, and thereby diffuse more extensively that knowledge which creates, as well as improves public taste.

We know that the advances which have been made of late in improving this new method of multiplying prints from pictures and drawings, by the comparative case and rapidity with which any composition is transferred to the stone, has excited the anxiety of many considerate patrons of art, lest its success may not be ultimately injurious, if not fatal to the interests of our engravers. Equally alive to every kind feeling for the welfare of our school of engraving, which has such high claims to the protection of the nation, we entertain no apprehension on the subject, feeling satisfied, that the more it is encouraged, the more will it spread a love for the pursuits of art. The love of art will create taste-taste will improve, and the more generally sterling taste shall prevail; in the same ratio will be the increasing desire for collecting the more elaborate and more accomplished works of art. The science of connoisseurship, like all other sciences, is an affair of mental cultivation. Lithography will help to create the science, and lead it on. Its powers, however, of necessity are limited. Hence as the knowledge of fine art improves, the higher must be the means for its gratification. The intrinsic qualities of an exquisitely finished engraving on copper or steel, then, of course, combining so much of these

for proofs on India paper, were proposals issued for engraying the same fine animal studies, by James Ward, R. A. in the elegant line manner by Scott. "As a good horse," to repeat what is not new, is of any colour,' so is a work of art estimable in any, and in every style, so that it be original, well conceived, and by the hand of a master.

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excellencies which are beyond the possibilities of what can seurship to comprehend the painter-like spirit and intenbe wrought on stone, will secure to the distinguished cal- tion of the lithographic studies of horses by Mr. Ward, will cographer the entire honours and superior rewards becom- rejoice at the discovery of this new art. The same knowing his art. ledge would lead to a commensurate admiration, on standWe learn from indisputable authority, that in populous ing before the incomparable pictures of the noble animals, districts, in various parts of the empire, where the provin- || by this great painter, from which these lithographs are cial bookseller had hitherto met with little encouragement drawn; and the same taste would impel one thus enlightin the sale of books on the rudiments of drawing, engravedened, to be the first to set his name on the subscription list, on copper, that a great and increasing demand has been, and still is, resulting from the works printed from stone. These preceptive books exhibit plain and simple examples in a broad and comprehensive style, and being published at considerable less expense, they have found their way into circles that hitherto had scarcely given a thought to such pursuits. Hence numberless young persons of each sex are cultivating the science of drawing with ardour, and the || love of art is spreading with that rapidity, which must shortly produce a new and superior æra for the culture of the human mind. The rage for drawing is extending itself to the manufacturing districts, and the interest is spreading among the children of parents, whose means can supply ample funds for works, commensurate with the improving taste of those in whose mental acquirements they feel a parental pride, and for whose accomplishments they will grudge no expense.

We have thus entered upon the subject of engraving on stone, with the view of representing fairly what are the capacities of this new discovery, what has been done by its means, and what is likely to be the result of a more extensive cultivation of its properties, as it affects the general interests of the arts. Our opinion is not involved in doubt upon the question, as we feel satisfied that if artists of superior capacity give their designs to the world through the medium of lithography, that the consequences must be beneficial to the whole profession: for the more the prin ciples of taste are diffused, the greater will be the demand Were the knowledge of the fine arts more generally dif- for examples of every species of art, which will be apprefused, what would it avail the unprincipled publisher to ciated in the exact proportion which the superiority of their speculate in graphic impostorship? The fraud would ex- respective authors may merit. Paintings and engravings, pose itself. The success of such speculations has entirely of sterling merit, among true connoisseurs, will ever be depended upon the prevailing ignorance of the public in || estimated like precious gems, each according to its intrinsic matters of taste. The lithographic press may be made, value! and indeed already has been instrumental to the dispelling Mr. Ward's series of lithographic studies of horses is now much of this ignorance-and should it become more general before us, and we are gratified in having another opportuamongst artists of talent, to transfer suitable compositions nity of expressing our admiration of these masterly evito stone, we shall soon behold a rising generation of ama- dences of the utility of this style of multiplying the compoteurs, from whom we may expect an extent of connoisseur-sitions of a distinguished painter, by the ingenuity of his ship, that will furnish patronage to the full measure of the own hand. It is proclaimed abroad, to the reproach of our talent of every professor of merit, in every department of school, that drawing in England is neither practised nor the English school. We repeat then, that this new art may well understood. In the delineation of the horse, however, create that taste, which will naturally induce a desire for we have long been able to boast of the superiority of our still higher intellectual gratification; and that those who painters over those of all nations, ancient or modern for commence by collecting the spirited emanations of the artist that anatomical knowledge of the noble animal, without in lithography, will become the best supporters of the higher which the strength, character and beauty of his proportions excellencies manifested in the inimitable works of our able can never be truly and gracefully represented, originated professors of the calcographic art! with the English school, in the taste and scientific research of the late Mr. Stubbs, whose magnificent folio volume on the horse, engraved by himself, is a production that stands alone in art. We must allow in candour to foreign artists, however, that this work is held in no less estimation by them than by ourselves. This publication by Mr. Ward, will, in like manner, assist in spreading the fame of English art to foreign nations!

The lithographic works of Prout, alone, we feel assured, have created a very extensive love for topographical draw-| ing. The bold and picturesque features of these masterly imitations of his pencil sketches are too obvious to be misunderstood. Many young persons, the children of the wealthy, diffident of their talents, who would not have dared to attempt to copy more elaborate works, struck with the simplicity of his style, have set sedulously to work "to draw from Prout; and from these their willing essays, having exceeded their own expectations, and those of their friends, have proceeded with a zeal and interest in the pursuit, that has led them to attempt to draw similar objects from nature-and have thus become enthusiastic in the de

THE PANORAMA.

WE have in a former number ascribed the invention lightful study of topography. Amateurs like these become of the Panorama, to Sir George Beaumont, Bart. and the friends and patrons of the professors, and purchase their until some one steps forward with indisputable prefinest pictures and drawings, to improve themselves in art. Those, moreover, who commence by admiring the pic-tensions, to claim the honours of a previous discovery, turesque charms of these bold sketches, will proceed, until the merit will of course continue to appertain to this they feel the refined sentiment, and comprehend the beauty distinguished gentleman. and skill displayed in the elaborate engravings of the Cookes, the Le Keuxs, of Pye, and many others of our school of engravers, whose faithful and elegant calcographic copies of the compositions of our most distinguished painters, are constantly adding invaluable treasures to the portfolio of

the virtuoso and the connoisseur!

The more cultivated the taste, the more numerous will be the sources from which the amateur will derive delight. He that is sufficiently advanced in the science of connois

The late Thomas Girtin, of topographical fame, of whose works we have so frequently spoken, was one of the first who painted a panoramic scene: though, indeed not properly so denominated, as the picture did not comprehend an entire circle. The subject which he chose for pictorial representation, was the British metropolis, as viewed from the top of the Albion

Mills, a lofty structure so called at the eastern corner of the Surry side of Blackfriar's Bridge. This, however, though admirably painted, was not sufficiently illusive in effect, nor on a large scale.

sive as taxation at home.

Burford's brushes. The scene is absolutely alive, vivid, and true; we feel all but the breeze, and hear all but the dashing of the wave. Travellers recognize the spot where they plucked grapes, picked up fragments of tiles, and fell sick of the miasmata; the draughtsman would swear to the To Messrs. Barker and Son, who erected the great very stone on which he stretched himself into an ague; the building in Leicester Square, for the subsequent exhibiman of half-pay, the identical casa in which he was fleeced tions of these circular pictures, must be awarded the into a perfect knowledge that roguery abroad was as expenentire honour of making grand panoramic scenes effec- "All the world knows the story of Pompeii; that it was tive, not only by the vast scale on which they designed a little Greek town of tolerable commerce in its early day; their subjects, but by the bold and masterly style with that the sea, which once washed its walls, subsequently left which they were painted, leaving nothing that could be ture for the dissolution of all industry in the Italian dwelit in the midst of one of these delicious plains made by nawanting to render the scenes thus brought to view, per- ler, and for the commonplaces of poetry in all the northern fectly illusive, and as satisfactory to the critical eye of abusers of the pen; that it was ravaged by every barbarian, the painter, with all his science, as to the gaze of those, who in turn was called a conqueror on the Italian soil, and who knowing nothing of the principles of linear per-until at last the Augustan age saw its little circuit quieted was successively the pillage of Carthaginian and of Roman; spective, might more easily be surprised by power- into the centre of a colony, and man, finding nothing more ful effect, from not being able to develope the cause. to rob, attempted to rob no more. The Panorama, doubtess, may be reckoned among the most interesting and astonishing of all human inven

tions.

We were about to enlarge on this subject, when recollecting that in the number of Black wood for April, there was a paper upon the exhibition of POMPEII, we sought it, and opening at page 472, again read, what will bear to be re-perused by our readers, should they, like ourselves, have seen it before, for it is a sketch drawn by the hand of a master :

"Panoramas are among the happiest contrivances for saving time and expense in this age of contrivances. What cost a couple of hundred pounds and half a year half a century ago, now costs a shilling and a quarter of an hour. Throwing out of the old account the innumerable miseries of travel, the insolence of public functionaries, the roguery of innkeepers, the visitations of banditti, charged to the muzzle with sabre, pistol, and scapulary, and the rascality of the custom-house officers, who plunder, passport in hand, the indescribable desagremens of Italian cookery, and the insufferable annoyances of that epitome of abomination, an Italian bed.

"When man had ceased his molestation, nature comcurious fate, to be at once extinguished and preserved, to menced hers; and this unfortunate little city was, by a perish from the face of the Roman empire, and to live when Rome was a nest of monks and mummers, and her empire and the whole host of barbarian names that were once as torn into fragments for Turk, Russian, Austrian, Prussian, the dust of her feet. In the year of the Christian era 63, an earthquake shewed the city on what tenure her lease was held. Whole streets were thrown down, and the evidences of hasty repair are still to be detected.

From this period, occasional warnings were given in slight shocks; until, in the year 79, Vesuvius poured out all his old accumulation of terrors at once, and on the clearing away of the cloud of fire and ashes which covered Campania for four days, Pompeii, with all its multitude, was gone. The Romans seem to have been as fond of villas as if every soul of them bad made fortunes in Cheapside, and the whole southern coast was covered with the summer palaces of those lords of the world. Vesuvius is now a formidable foundation for a house whose inhabitants may not wish to be sucked into a furnace ten thousand fathoms deep; or roasted sub aere aperto; but it was then asleep, and had never flung up spark or stone from time immemorial. To those who look upon it now in its terrors, grim, blasted, and lifting up its sooty forehead among the piles of Now the affair is settled in a summary manner. The perpetual smoke that are to be enlightened only by its mountain or the sea, the classic vale or the ancient city, is bursts of fire, the very throne of Pluto and Vulcan together, transported to us on the wings of the wind. And their lo- no force of fancy may picture what it was when the Roman cation here is curious. We have seen Vesuvius in full roar built his palaces and pavilions on its side. A pyramid of and torrent, within a hundred yards of a hackney-coach three thousand feet high, painted over with garden, forest, stand, with all its cattle, human and bestial, unmoved by vineyard, and orchard, ripening under the southern sun, the phenomenon. Constantinople, with its bearded and zoned with colonnades, and turrets, and golden roots, and turbanned multitudes, quietly pitched beside a Christian marble porticos, with the eternal azure of the Campanian thoroughfare, and offering neither persecution nor prose-sky for its canopy, and the Mediterranean at its feet, glitlytism. Switzerland, with its lakes covered with sunset, tering in the colours of sunrise, noon, and evening, like an and mountains capped and robed in storms; the adored of infinite Turkey carpet let down from the steps of a throne, sentimentalists, and the refuge of miry metaphysics; the all this was turned into cinders, lava, and hot water, on Demisolde of all nations, and German geology-stuck in a (if we can trust to chronology) the first day of November, corner of a corner of London, and forgotten in the tempting || Anno Domini 79, in the first year of the Emperor Titus. vicinage of a cook-shop; and now Pompeii, reposing in its The whole story is told in the younger Pliny's letters; or, slumber of two thousand years, in the very buzz of the if the illustration of one who thought himself born for a deStrand. There is no exaggeration in talking of those things scriber, Dio Cassius, be sought, it will be found that this as really existing. Berkley was a metaphysician; and eruption was worthy of the work it had to do, and was a therefore his word goes for nothing but waste of brains, handsome recompense for the slumber of the volcano. The time, and printing-ink; but if we have not the waters of the Continent, throughout its whole southern range, probably Lake of Geneva, and the bricks and mortar of the little felt this vigorous awakening. Rome was covered with the Greek town, tangible by our hands, we have them tangible ashes, of which Northern Africa, Egypt, and Asia Minor, by the eye-the fullest impression that could be purchased, had their share; the sun was turned into blood and darkby our being parched, passported, pummelled, plundered, ness, and the people thought that the destruction of the starved, and stenched, for 1200 miles east and by south, world was come. could not be fuller than the work of Messrs. Parker's and

At the close of the eruption, Vesuvius stood forth the

naked giant that he is at this hour-the palaces and the rock; and that again covered with two villages and a royal gardens were all dust and air-the sky was stained with palace; and the whole under the protection of a still surer that cloud which still sits like a crown of wrath upon his guard, Neapolitan stupidity, poverty, and indolence. The brow-the plain at his foot, where Herculaneum and Pom- || Panorama gives a striking coup-d'œil of one of the two great peii spread their circuses and temples, like children's toys, excavations of Pompeii. The Forum, the narrow streets, was covered over with sand, charcoal, and smoke; and the the little Greek houses, with their remnants of ornamental whole was left for a mighty moral against the danger of painting, their corridores and their tesselated floors, are trusting to the sleep of a volcano. seen, as they might have been seen the day before the eruption. The surrounding landscape has the grandeur that the eye looks for in a volcanic country. Wild hills, fragments of old lavas, richly broken shores, and in the centre the most picturesque and sublime of all volcanoes, Vesuvius, throwing up its eternal volumes of smoke to the heavens."

All was then at an end with the cities below; the population were burnt, and had no more need of houses. The Roman nobles had no passion for combustion, and kept aloof; the winds and rain, robbers, and the malaria, were the sole tenants of the land; and in this way rolled fifteen hundred years over the bones of the vintners, sailors, and snug citizens of the Vesuvian cities. But their time was to come; and their beds were to be perforated by French and Neapolitan pick-axes, and to be visited by English feet, and sketched and written about, and lithographed, till all the world wished that they had never been disturbed. The first discoveries were accidental, for no Neapolitan ever struck a spade into the ground that he could help, nor harboured a voluntary idea but of macaroni, intrigue, monkery, or the gaming-table. The spade struck upon a key, which, of course, belonged to a door, the door had an inscription, and the names of the buried cities were brought to light, to the boundless perplexity of the learned, the merciless curiosity of the blue-stockings of the 17th century, and all || others to come, and the thankless, reckless, and ridiculous profit of that whole race of rascality, the guides, cicerones, abbes, and antiquarians.

But Italian vigour is of all things the most easily exhausted, where it has not the lash or the bribe to feed its waste, and the cities slumbered for twenty years more, till, in 1711, a duke, who was digging for marbles to urn into mortar, found a Hercules, and a whole heap of fractured beauties, a row of Greek columns, and a little temple. Again, the cities slumbered, till, in 1738, a King of Naples, on whom light may the earth rest, commenced digging, and streets, temples, theatres opened out to the sun, to be

at rest no more.

ARTISTS' BENEVOLENT FUND.

The following Address was read at the Anniversary Dinner of the Artists' Benevolent Fund, June 5, 1824, by F. BALMANNO, Esq. the Honorary Secretary.

It may be proper to state for the information of some here present, that the Artists' Fund was finally established in the year 1810, after many preceding attempts had failed. An association was then formed for the laudable independent purpose of insuring each other against distress, arising from those calamities to which all mankind are subject-it was named THE ARTISTS' JOINT STOCK FUND, supported by subscriptions from members, all being professionally

artists.

This admirable association took its rise for the purpose of rescuing the profession from the necessity of applying to the public for relief, should unlooked for calamity overtake them-and wisely formed:-for how often is it we see the highly gifted and delicate mind, rather pine in secresy and sorrow, and even descend into the grave than consent to make an appeal to public liberality, or even to private friendship. Many cases in point will occur to all, yet so differently, sometimes, will different minds view the same subject, that this very institution, formed for the sole purpose of rescuing the high minded independent Artist from such necessity, has been condemned, as being beneath the dignity of the profession-and but for the wisdom and firmness of its early friends, might have been overturned. In such an association it may be supposed that a limited number only were blessed with the gifts of fortune, and they followed the counsel of judicious friends, in establishing a Benevolent Fund, for the relief of those they might leave behind them. Acting on that advice, (after having, from the most independent motives, rescued each other from ever being burdensome to the public, by means of the Joint Stock Fund,) they acceded to the proposition, and consented to receive donations and subscriptions from the public for the relief of their Widows and Orphans, and as a beginning, one and all agreed to subscribe annually to that fund also! We are now met for the purpose of celebrating the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Benevolent Fund, and when we refer to our subscription lists, and find enrolled so many eminent names, in every rank of life, from Royalty downwards-when we see Anniversary after Anniversary patronized as they always are, and certainly none more brilliant than the present, with that illustrious Prince in the chair, who is united to us by every tender tie-when we see that transcendant Artist, whom the unanimous voice of his contemporaries and our gracious Sovereign has tending, enforcing, and inciting by his generous example; can we doubt that this institution is founded on sound principles, and dispensing more general benevolence than its unassuming title might seem to convey? It has been open to every Artist of merit in the United Kingdom, foreign or native, since its first establishment in 1810; all have been,

"So few details of the original catastrophe are to be found in historians, that we can scarcely estimate the actual human suffering, which is, after all, almost the only thing to be considered as a misfortune. It is probable that the population of, at least, Pompeii had time to make their escape. A pedlar's pack would contain all the valuables left in Pompeii; and the people who had time thus to clear their premises, must have been singularly fond of hazard if they staid lingering within the reach of the eruption. But some melancholy evidences remain that all were not so successful. In one of the last excavations made by the French, four female skeletons were found lying together, with their ornaments, bracelets, and rings, and with their little hoard of coins in gold and silver. They had probably been suffocated by the sulphureous vapour. In a wine-cellar, known by its jars ranged round the wall, a male skeleton, supposed to be that of the master, by his seal-ring, was found as if he had perished in the attempt at forcing the door. In another, a male skeleton was found with an axe in his hand, beside a door which he was breaking open. In a prison, the skele tons of men chained to the wall were found. If it were not like affectation to regret agony that has passed away so long, it might be conceived as a palliation of that agony, that it was probably the work of a moment, that the vapour of the eruption extinguished life at once, and that these unfortunates perished, not because they were left behind in the general flight, but were left behind because they had per-placed at the head of the arts of an admiring country, atished.

"A large portion of Pompeii is now uncovered. This was an easy operation, for its covering was ashes, themselves covered by vegetable soil, and that again covered by verdure and vineyards. Herculaneum reserves its developement for another generation; its cover is lava, solid as

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