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torical painter might have had access, to collect mate-the worst dressed and most incorrectly decorated of rials for his compositions. The paucity of such matters, renders the study of this high department of painting still more arduous; for in getting together the robes, the armour, the military missiles, and a variety of other objects, indispensable to the forming of characteristic groups, descriptive of certain features of remote history, the difficulties and expences frequently amount to obstacles almost insurmountable.

anv productions, ancient or modern, exhibited on our metropolitan stages. It is true, that the late Mr. Kemble, (whose classical mind revolted from the barba risms which even a Garrick had tolerated) abolished the bag wig of Brutus, and the gold laced waistcoat of Macbeth. and combatted the prejudices by which he was surrounded, with the taste, talent, and intrepidity which distinguished the whole of his brilliant career; but, from what causes we will not pretend to determine, the alterations made in the costume of plays, founded on English history, in particular, while they rendered them more picturesque, added but little to their propriety, the whole series, King Lear included, being dressed in the habits of the Elizabethan age, the third reign after its termination.

For a long series of reigns-indeed from the period of the Anglo-Saxons, to the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a vast collection of various regal, clerical, and civil costumes, preserved in the Royal Wardrobe, a range of buildings expressly erected for the purpose, in the City of London, the site of which gave the existing name to a well known spot near Aldermary Church Yard. This treasury of The object of the present publication is to render ancient costumes remained until the accession of King the dresses and decorations of Shakspeare's plays, if James the First, who having no reverence for such possible, worthy of them. The editor laments that matters, himself disdaining all regal state, gave the the work has not been attempted by abler hands, but national wardrobe to his lord-chamberlain, who sold || having vainly waited for a "consummation so devoutly them as the perquisites of his office. Part of them for to be wished," he has at length volunteered his humble aught we know might have found their way to the but zealous services, and the specimen laid before the Globe, the Curtain, the Red Bull, or some others of proprietors of Covent Garden Theatre having received the Theatres coeval with Shakspeare, and clothed Master their unqualified approbation, and fixed the determiAllen, Dick Burbage, and others, who strutted their nation of Mr. Charles Kemble to commence the reforhour upon the stage. mation he had long been anxious to introduce in dramatic costume, the first number is now presented to the public, in the respectful hope of obtaining its approval and patronage.

None of our painters perhaps were so well versed in the costume of our country, as the late venerable President of the Royal Academy. The critical zeal with which he sought amongst past records at the As the difficulty of the editor's task has been consiTower of London, at the Herald's College, and other derably heightened by the numerous errors existing in repositories of ancient lore, during the period which nearly every work yet published on the subject, its he was engaged upon the series of pictures which he utility will, he trusts, be increased in a corresponding painted for our late sovereign, taken from the History degree. To the historical painter, this publication is of King Edward the Third, is without example in the earnestly recommended, as not only presenting in itself history of English art. That most interesting compo- the precise costume of the period; but containing such siton, the marriage of King Edward with the fair references to indisputable authorities, that the artist Philippa alone, is sufficient evidence of this fact. The may easily and immediately turn to them for complete good taste of his royal employer, helped to stimulate confirmation, or additional instruction. The price, too, Mr. West to pursue these researches, as his Majesty will, it is expected, prove another though a minor rewas himself well acquainted with the early customs commendation of the "Dramatic Costume" to the and habits of the country, and took a great interest in public. It now only remains for the editor to announce, the science of heraldry. His Majesty would not tole- that should his hopes be realized, it is his intention to rate anachronisms in painting-he loved truth in all supply the gaps which Shakspeare's plays may leave in things, and would frequently point out chronological particular eras, with illustrations of the best dramatic errors in certain pictures in the royal collection. His productions, ancient or modern, embracing those peMajesty would smile, as he passed The Angel deliver-riods, and thereby to form a complete chain of authoing Peter from Prison, and direct the spectator's attention rities for the civil and military costume of every nation, to the muskets and pistols of the sleeping guards, and at every period, as nearly as can be ascertained, from the cards, clubs, spades and diamonds that lay scattered the earliest ages down to the present century, an atupon the pavement. tempt to which he has been invited and encouraged by one of the first antiquarians in this kingdom, whose advice and assistance he is proud to acknowledge, and to whom, as also to many other literary friends and acquaintances, he here begs leave to offer his most sincere and grateful thanks.

But as costume affects the drama, referring to the title of this little publication, the author says, "It has long been a subject of regret to the lovers and patrons of the theatre, that the greater number of the plays of Shakspeare, the grandest dramatic productions which this or any other nation can boast, should be decidedly

The figures which are given in this work, are suffi

ciently well drawn to answer the intended purpose, and carefully coloured. As a specimen of the descriptions with which each figure is accompanied, we take the first that occurs in the second part, which represents King Henry the Fourth :

KING HENRY IV.-FIRST DRESS.

His effigy, in the Chapel of St. Thomas a Becket, Canterbury Cathedral.

"This character has been generally dressed from the picture in Kensington Palace, and, as far as fashion goes, there is little to complain of; but it is shrewdly suspected, was not painted till the reign of Henry VII., and, consequently, that is no authority whatever. I am the more inclined to believe this, from the fact, that though the costume is certainly similar, in some respects, to the dress of Henry the Fourth's time, it is perfectly unlike that in which he is represented in the screen of York Cathedral, in the Regimine Principis of Occleve, (Bod. Lib. Digley, 283), or in any other effigy, or painting of him, which I have met with. It may, however, still be worn by the actor with propriety, for the reason above stated; but, as my object is to present the public with copies of the most authentic specimens, I have chosen the effigy in Canterbury Cathedral, for the subject of the first plate of this number.

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"Henry IV.,' says Camden, was the last of our kings that did bear Seme of flowers de liz, quartered with his lions of England, as you may note on his seal; and, for his device, used a fox's tail, dependent, following Lysander's advice-if the lion's skin was too short, to piece it out with a fox's case!'-Remains, p. 219. Sandford gives him for his supporters, a swan and an antelope.-Vide Genealogical History. The former he had from the De Bohuns; and it was borne as a badge, by his son Henry, while Prince of Wales.-Vide Archæologia, vol. 20, notes.

KING HENRY IV.-SECOND DRESS.

garb of the actors; and Garrick, with his advice and by his assistance, began that which Kemble so successfully followed and improved.

This work has reached a second part, comprising the costume of King Henry the Fourth, which is superior to the preceding, and much surpasses the modest Pretensions set forth by the author. We are pleased with the design of the work, which directly tends to every purpose it proposes. It is very useful, contains much valuable information, and is very cheap. We hope, then, as these two parts have been so well received by the public, that the author will proceed with his plan, and that his meritorious efforts may continue to meet with the success they deserve.

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G. and W. B. Whittaker, 1824. THE progress which the study of the Fine Arts is making in this country, is so rapid and extensive, that the wishes of the most sanguine of their admirers are in the course of being gratified, and the scornful sneers of foreign criticism are utterly put to flight. We take some credit to ourselves for having contributed in no inconsiderable degree to this important result, The Somerset House Gazette was the first weekly periodi"The great seal of this monarch is supposed, with much cal entirely devoted to the Fine Arts of Great Britain, probability, by Sandford, to be that of Richard II., with and it has been animated by the most unfeigned zeal merely a new legend. I have, therefore, represented the for their interests, and conducted in a spirit of the most King in a suit of gilt armour, (for the formation of which I unremitting perseverance for their advancement. At this am indebted to the monumental brasses of Sir George Fel- moment the patronage afforded to art in this country, and bridge, and Sir Nicholas Dagworth, 1400-1, the best specimen of the military costume of this period), with the jupon, particularly to Painting, exceeds that of any former period. girdle, &c., the former embroidered with the royal arms,The number of public and private galleries is immense, and his bascinet surrounded with a crown, as are those of his predecessor, in the French Metrical History, Harleian Lib. 1319, and of the royal personages figured in the Chronique de St. Denis,-Sloane, Lib. 2433, written at the commencement of the fifteenth century. In the back ground is a knight holding the royal banner, and displaying on his shield and jupon the arms of Sir Walter Blount, the king's standard-bearer; viz. barry nebulee of six pieces, or and sable."-Vide Lyson's Magna Brit. Derby.

and they contain some of the choicest specimens of the ancient masters, and many productions of living British artists, not at all (in some walks,) their inferiors. Amongst these galleries, that of Dulwich College is one of the richest. In Poussins, Murillos, and Cuyps it is the most opulent of any in England. The little work before us is intended to form a "useful and pleasant companion" to the visitor of this noble collection. It is not meant to be an indispensable guide, nor does it affect to notice all the pictures in a gallery consisting of three hundred and fifty. It merely points out the beauties of the more remarkable specimens, and dwells on the characteristics of each master. As an example of the mode in which this is done, we give the follow

We must make an observation upon what is herein said of Garrick. We can inform the writer, that although Garrick did tolerate these absurdities, yet the reformation of the costume of the stage commenced under him, and was much advanced during the latter period of his management. Hogarth had exposed the burlesque appropriation of the bag wig to ancient heroes,ing notice of Cuyp. No. 3:and other anachronisms, and had suggested improvements to his friend Garrick, which he adopted. It was, however, to De Loutherbourg that the stage was most obligated for the splendour of the scene, not only as to the paintings, but as to the more appropriate

No. 3. CUYP.

"This picture I have always considered as among the very finest efforts, not only of the artist, but of the art itself in this particular department of it: I do not mean in the landscape department generally, but in those land

scapes which are scarcely any thing in themselves, but which derive their chief power of affecting us from the manner in which they are treated. Many, and indeed, most of Claude's landscapes, would convey very pleasing impressions to us, even if they were depicted by the most ordinary skill, and in the most common-place manner. But the landscape before us would be a mere impertinence, treated by almost any other hand than that of Cuyp. It represents a broken foreground, entirely bare of trees, with a centre group of two men and two cows; another group of cows and figures in the half distance on the right; a dark rock rising on the extreme right; a dazzling sun-set in the extreme left; and all the rest retires into a misty distance. The whole is suffused with a rich golden light, and steeped in a thin air which seems to be glowing and flickering with the heat which has rarefied it. There is a fascination about this picture which is unaccountable on any received principles of art, and which is at the same time indescribable. There are no marks of the pencil about it. You cannot tell how it got there, unless it has been breathed there; and you cannot be sure that it will stay before you -that it is not an illusion of the mind-a vision of the golden age, and that, when you take your eyes off it, it will not, when they return again, have disappeared. I confess that this picture, and one or two others that I have seen by the same artist, (one, in particular, at Petworth.) give me a more apt idea of the Golden Age of the poets than all the classical ones expressly intended to typify iteven those of Claude and Poussin themselves. The truth is, Cuyp had more imagination than any other landscapepainter; and he also blended together imagination and absolute reality in a manner which no one else did."

And another :—

No. 322. MURILLO.

others. I would not lay much stress on this; but does it not seem to have been introduced purposely, that we might compare the expression of this third animal with that of the two others, and see that they are all animal alike, and that they are all intended to be so?

"I conceive this picture to be, in its way, entirely faultless, and to have acquired as rare a faculty to produce it(as rare, but not as valuable)-as perhaps any thing else in art."

The critical opinions occasionally introduced are in the main correct, though sometimes a little too obscurely expressed. The author is fond of analysing every thing to its extremest elements, and his investigations sometimes terminate in a conclusion which is so split up and balanced in its parts as to leave nothing conclusive. But these instances are rare, and the general character of the work is that of utility. It is written in a fluent, easy, and well informed style, and the author, if not a practitioner, is at least very well acquainted with the principles and history of painting.

REVIEWS.

The Improvisatrice, and other Poems. By L. E. L. London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. 8vo. 1824.

FOR more than a year past we have been in the "Spanish Peasant Boys.-This miracle of successful art is habit of admiring in the columns of one of our most beyond all praise and all price, and may be regarded as one of the finest pictures of its kind in existence. The class enterprising and best conducted periodicals, the poeitself is not the first; but this is, perhaps, the first in its tical communications of L. E. L. Independent of the class. It represents two Spanish beggar boys-for such great beauty and sweetness of these productions, we they should probably be called-not Peasant Boys. One were struck with their variety and number. It must of them is half lying on the ground, looking up at his companion with an intense and yet vacant expression of delight be a genius more than commonly fertile, which can, in his countenance; while the other is standing munching week after week, pour forth such a ceaseless stream of a great piece of bread, which he can scarcely hold in his exquisite poetry. The present volume contains some mouth, and looking down at him on the ground, as if halfmore elaborate pieces, and of (if possible) a higher displeased at the cause of the other's pleasure The merit of these two faces consists in the absolute, the undisguised order. The Improvisatrice " is an attempt to illustrate and unadorned truth of their expression, and its wonderful that species of inspiration common in Italy, where the force and richness; and also in the curious characteristic-mind is warmed from earliest childhood by all that is ness of it. By the truth of expression, I mean the fidelity beautiful in nature, and glorious in art. The character with which the painter has represented what he intended to represent; and by its characteristicness, I mean the depicted is entirely Italian,-a young female, with all adaptation of that expression to the circumstances. The the loveliness, vivid feeling, and genius of her own persons represented are of that class and condition of life impassioned land."-The heroine of the tale tells her in which the human qualities of our nature scarcely develope themselves at all-in which man can scarcely be reown story, which is full of melancholy interest. garded in any other light than the most sagacious of the Thus it begins:animal tribe of beings. Accordingly, the expressions of these boys respectively,-rich, vivid, and distinct as they are, are almost entirely animal. There is nothing in the least degree vulgar about them; for vulgarity is a quality dependent on a certain state of society; and these have no share in society, and are consequently without any of its results, good or bad. In fact, their wants and feelings are merely animal, and the expressions which these give rise to are correspondent. The delight of the one is that of the happy colt, sporting on its native common; and the sulkiness of the other is that of the ill-conditioned cub, growling over its food.

"At the feet of the boy who is eating, stands a dog, looking up expectantly: and there is nearly as much expression in his countenance as there is in either of the

"I am a daughter of that land,

Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand
Are most divine,-where earth and sky
Are picture both and poetry-

I am of Florence. 'Mid the chill
Of hope and feeling, oh! I still
Am proud to think to where I owe
My birth, though but the dawn of woe!

My childhood passed 'mid radiant things,
Glorious as Hope's imaginings;
Statues but known from shapes of the earth,
By being too lovely for mortal birth;
Paintings whose colours of life were caught
From the fairy tints in the rainbow wrought;

3.

Music whose sighs had a spell like those
That float on the sea at the evening's close;
Language so silvery, that every word
Was like the lute's awakening chord;
Skies half sunshine, and half starlight;
Flowers whose lives were a breath of delight;
Leaves whose green pomp knew no withering;
Fountains bright as the skies of our Spring;
And songs whose wild and passionate line
Suited a soul of romance like mine.

My power was but a woman's power;
Yet, in that great and glorious dower
Which Genius gives, I had my part:
I poured my full and burning heart
In song, and on the canvass made

My dreams of beauty visible;

I know not which I loved the most

Pencil or lute,-both loved so well."

There is an exquisite description of her studies in painting, and of two pictures-one of Petrarch and Laura,--the other of Sappho ;—and then comes a burst of intense love for the old glories and monuments of her native land. The tale is intermixed with beautiful episodes, natural to the scenes, and illustrative of her own impassioned feelings. She falls in love with a youth whom she pourtrays in these lines :

"His cheek was pale; or toil, or care,
Or midnight study, had been there,
Making its young colours dull,
Yet leaving it most beautiful.
Raven curls their shadow threw,
Like the twilight's darkening hue,
O'er the pure and mountain snow
Of his high and haughty brow;
Lighted by a smile, whose spell
Words are powerless to tell.

Such a lipoh, poured from thence
Lava floods of eloquence
Would come with fiery energy,
Like those words that cannot die.
Words the Grecian warrior spoke
When the Persian's chain he broke;
Or that low and honey tone,
Making woman's heart his own;
Such as should be heard at night,
In the dim and sweet starlight;
Sounds that haunt a beauty's sleep,
Treasures for her heart to keep.
Like the pine of summer tall,
Apollo, on his pedestal

In our own gallery, never bent
More graceful, more magnificent;
Ne'er look'd the hero, or the king,

More nobly than the youth who now,

As if soul-centred in my song,

Was leaning on a galley's prow.

He spoke not when the others spoke,

His heart was all too full for praise;

But his dark eyes kept fixed on mine,

Which sank beneath their burning gaze."

But Lorenzo is betrothed to another, and marries her.|| How the young poetess loved him, and how she suffered, are told in the following passage :—

"I loved him as young Genius loves,
When its own wild and radiant heaven
Of starry thought burns with the light,
The love the life, by passion given.

I loved him, too, as woman loves-
Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn:
Life had no evil destiny.

That, with him, I could not have borne! I had been nurst in palaces;

Yet earth had not a spot so drear,
That I should not have thought a home
In Paradise, had he been near!
How sweet it would have been to dwell,
Apart from all in some green dell

Of sunny beauty, leaves and flowers;
And nestling birds to sing the hours!
Our home, beneath some chesnut's shade,
But of the woven branches made:
Our vesper hymnn, the low lone wail
The rose hears from the nightingale;
And waked at morning by the call
Of music from a waterfall.

But not alone in dreams like this,
Breathed in the very hope of bliss,
I loved my love had been the same
In hushed despair, in open shame.
I would have rather been a slave,
In tears, in bondage, by his side,
Than shared in all, if wanting him,

This world had power to give beside!
My heart was withered,-and my heart
Had ever been the world to me;
And love had been the first fond dream,
Whose life was in reality.

I had sprung from my solitude
Like a young bird upon the wing
To meet the arrow; so I met

My poisoned shaft of suffering.
And as that bird, with drooping crest
And broken wing, will seek his nest,
But seek in vain; so vain I sought
My pleasant home of song and thought.
There was one spell upon my brain,
Upon my pencil, on my strain;
But one face to my colours came;
My chords replied but to one name-
Lorenzo!-all seemed vowed to thee,
To passion, and to misery!

I had no interest in the things

That once had been like life, or light; No tale was pleasant to mine ear,

No song was sweet, no picture bright.

I was wild with my great distress,
My lone, my utter hopelessness!
I would sit hours by the side

Of some clear rill, and mark it glide,
Bearing my tears along, till night
Came with dark hours; and soft starlight
Watch o'er its shadowy beauty keeping,

Till I grew calm:-then I would take The lute, which had all day been sleeping Upon a cypress tree, and wake

The echoes of the midnight air

With words that love wrung from despair."

His wife dies, and he returns to tell the story of his predestined marriage, and to pour forth the vows of his affection for her. But in vain: for her heart had already broken, and she dies also. The rest is here:"There is a lone and stately hall,— Its master dwells apart from all. A wanderer through Italia's land, One night a refuge there I found. The light'ning flash roll'd o'er the sky, The torrent rain was sweeping round:

These won me entrance. He was young,

The castle's lord, but pale like age;
His brow, as sculpture beautiful,

Was wan as Grief's corroded page.
He had no words, he had no smiles,

No hopes:-his sole employ to brood
Silently over his sick heart

In sorrow and in solitude.
I saw the hall where, day by day,
He mused his weary life away;-
It scarcely seemed a place for woe,
But rather like a genie's home.
Around were graceful statues ranged,
And pictures shone around the dome.
But there was one-a loveliest one!-
One picture brightest of all there!
Oh! never did the painter's dream
Shape thing so gloriously fair!
It was a face!-the summer day

Is not more radiant in its light!
Dark flashing eyes, like the deep stars
Lighting the azure brow of night;
A blush like sunrise o'er the rose;

A cloud of raven hair, whose shade
Was sweet as evening's, and whose curls
Clustered beneath a laurel braid.
She leant upon a harp:-one hand

Wandered, like snow, amid the chords;
The lips were opening with such life,
You almost heard the silvery words.
She looked a form of light and life,-
All soul, all passion, and all fire;
A priestess of Apollo's, when

The morning beam falls on her lyre;
A Sappho, or ere love had turned

The heart to stone where once it burned,
But by the picture's side was placed
A funeral urn, on which was traced
The heart's recorded wretchedness;-
And on a tablet, hung above,
Was 'graved one tribute of sad words-

⚫ LORENZO TO HIS MINSTREL LOVE.""

Our extracts will furnish some evidence of the delicacy and sweetness of L. E. L.'s poetry. It is all over impregnated with touches of the deepest and purest feeling, and cannot be read without a lively sympathy in the story, and the most unqualified admiration of the author's genius.

To this poem, which consists of about 1500 lines, are annexed a great many minor pieces, of a different nature, but all entitled to the highest praise. These lines are from Rosalie, the story of a young and confiding female, whose innocence had faded away before the temptations and artifices of a heartless seducer. She is returning to the home of her infancy :

"It must be worth a life of toil and care,-
Worth those dark chains the wearied one must bear
Who toils up fortune's steep,-all that can wring
The worn-out bosom with lone-suffering-
Worth restlessness, oppression, goading fears,
And long-deferred hopes of many years,-
To reach again that little quiet spot,

So well loved once, and never quite forgot;-
To trace again the steps of infancy,
And catch their freshness from their memory!
And it is triumph, sure, when fortune's sun
Has shone upon us, and our task is done,

To show our harvest to the eyes which were
Once all the world to us! Perhaps there are
Some who had presaged kindly of our youth.
Feel we not proud their prophecy was sooth?
But how felt Rosalie ?-The very air

Seemed as it brought reproach! there was no eye
To look delighted, welcome none was there!

She felt as feels an outcast wandering by

Where every door is closed! She looked around;-
She heard some voices' sweet familiar sound.

There were some changed, and some remembered things:-
There were girls, whom she left in their first springs,
Now blushed into full beauty. There was one
Whom she loved tenderly in days now gone!
She was not dancing gaily with the rest:

A rose-cheeked child within her arms was prest;
And it had twined its small hands in the hair
That clustered o'er its mother's brow: as fair
As buds in spring. She gave her laughing dove
To one who clasped it with a father's love;
And if a painter's eye had sought a scene

Of love in its most perfect loveliness-
Of childhood, and of wedded happiness,
He would have painted the sweet Madeline!
But Rosalie shrank from them, and she strayed
Through a small grove of cypresses, whose shade
Hung o'er a burying-ground, where the low stone
And the gray cross recorded those now gone!
There was a grave just closed. Not one seemed near,
To pay the tribute of one long-last tear!
How very desolate must that one be,
Whose more than grave has not a memory!
Then Rosalie thought on her mother's age,-
Just such her end would be with her away:
No child the last cold death-pang to assuage-
No child by her neglected tomb to pray!
She asked-and like a hope from Heaven it came!-
To hear them answer with a stranger's name.

She reached her mother's cottage; by that gate
She thought how her once lover wont to wait
To tell her honied tales!-and then she thought
On all the utter ruin he had wrought!
The moon shone brightly, as it used to do
Ere youth, and hope, and love, had been untrue;
But it shone o'er the desolate! The flowers
Were dead; the faded jessamine, unbound,
Trailed, like a heavy weed, upon the ground;
Which had not even one rose, although the breeze,
And fell the moonlight vainly over trees,
Almost as if in mockery, had brought
Sweet tones it from the nightingale had caught!

She entered in the cottage. None were there!
The hearth was dark,-the walls looked cold and bare!
All-all was changed; and but one only thing
All-all spoke poverty and suffering!
Kept its old place! Rosalie's mandolin
Hung on the wall, where it had ever been.
There was one other room,-and Rosalie
Sought for her mother there. A heavy flame
Gleamed from a dying lamp; a cold air came
Damp from the broken casement. There one lay,
Like marble seen but by the moonlight ray!
And Rosalie drew near. One withered hand
Was stretched, as it would reach a wretched stand
Where some cold water stood! And by the bed
She knelt-and gazed-and saw her mother-dead!”

The poetry of L. E. L. is almost entirely of a sad and mournful character. If it speaks of love-that love is either unhappy in its outset, or melancholy in its termination. This is somewhat blameable, for the

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