THIS writer has, it must be confessed, but petit features, and withal, a little foppery in his dress; but he looks like a gentleman, and he was so. Indeed, he has the character of having been a kind, and also a spirited man in his conduct. His verse is perhaps more blameable. We do not admire his dramas; but his verses, "written at Southampton," are pleasant, and look exceedingly like the original of Cowper's "Lines on his Mother's Picture." They are not quite so good as those of the modern poet: nevertheless, they do not suffer much in comparison, and this is no scanty praise. No. 101. GILBERT WEST. From an original Picture, in the Collection of Lord Lyttelton. GILBERT WEST, well known as the translator of Pindar, has a plain and unaffected, but not very intellectual look. He does not bear the marks upon him of having had close converse with the Theban the "learned Theban," of having plunged into the mysteries of dithyrambics, and lit his English torch at the Pythian's shrine. He is more like one of the Quakers (those republicans of religion) or a native of the enfranchised states across the Atlantic. He is as straight as a stick and yet, with this rigid and unbending person, he passed through almost all professions. He was educated for the church, went into the army, then turned politician, then wrote a tract on the "Resurrection," (for which he was made an LL.D.) and finally died treasurer of Chelsea Hospital. G 82 COLLEY CIBBER. No. 102. COLLEY CIBBER. 2 From a Picture by Grisoni, in the Collection of Charles Mathews, Esq. THIS fantastic, self-sufficient rogue is quite a model for a beau. He is beyond a beau ideal; and looks as though he had been dipped (heel and all) into the very Helicon of foppery and fashion. This gentleman of the pinch of snuff and a laced suit, is my lord Foppington, whose vitals were " stapped" so frequently a century ago. He is the personification of a new suit of clothes and clean linen. He lives in immortal fashion, 66 ever young,”—as pungent as the snuff he takes-as graceful as the cut of his velvet coat-as languid as a beau without stays, and as full of affectation as a lady's maid, or a milliner. Colley Cibber was an inimitable fop upon the stage, and off. He was the hero of Farquhar, of Vanbrugh, and the rest; and lifted up their exquisite frippery, till it hung flauntingly between earth and the skies.-There has never been a beau like Cibber upon the English stage. Lewis, though excellent in his way, was almost too mercurial for a fop; and the same may be said of our pleasant living actor, Jones. Farley, though amiable in Osric, and big with importance in French hair-dressers, is not on the highest grade. Liston does not represent the class of fops, but is a fop individual. Penley looks as though a good gust of wind would blow all the coxcomb out of him his folly hangs about his person as loosely as the powder in his hair. Elliston, a rich comedian, thrives better as the worm than the butterfly of fashion. He is admirable in Lackland, in Jeremy Diddler, in the Liar, and Tag, (forlornest of poets,) rather than in the airier follies of the last, or the dashing absurdities of the living age. Charles Kemble is inimitable in Benedick, in Falconbridge, in Charles Surface, in Mirabel, and in all the proud and spirited walks : of comedy; but we should not like to see him quit his fine humour and stinging wit, to endeavour to make us laugh either as Tom Shuffleton, or Lord Foppington. So that, after all, Cibber must be allowed to have worn the frippery of wit better than any of his successors. Let the reader look but for a moment at his exquisite portrait, or read his "Apology," and he will not wonder that it should be so. Foppery was born and engrafted in him, like the colour in the leaf. No. 103. ALLAN RAMSAY. From a Picture by Aikman, in the Collection of Sir George Clerk, Bart. THE English reader cannot of course appreciate the merits of ALLAN RAMSAY'S "Gentle Shepherd." As a true picture of humble pastoral life, we are content to believe it superior to the pastorals of our own language; but we can see sufficiently through the mist of the Scotch dialogue to be quite certain that it is very inferior to several others in point of poetical composition. Ramsay did not live in the best times of poetry; and it is no little praise, that he shares, with Thomson and a few others, the merit of having ventured upon truth and simplicity, at a time when they were proscribed through all the regions of poetry. The head of Ramsay, which is here given, is rather striking; but it has little of a pastoral or a poetical look: it was painted, we suppose, after his residence at Castle-hill, in Edinburgh. In the dialogue between Peggy and Jenny, who persuades the former not to marry, there are some tender lines which even the Scotch cannot obscure. Peggy, who loves the gentle shepherd, is speaking: "Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife, When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife; Gif I'm sae happy, I shall have delight To hear their little plaints, and keep them right. 84 ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE. Wow, Jenny! can there greater pleasure be, Is to be made of, and obtain a kiss? Can there be toil in tenting day and night The like of them, when love makes care delight?" This is English (we hope) in its sentiments, however foreign the idiom may be. No. 104. SIR C. H. WILLIAMS. From a Picture by R. Mengs, in the Collection of the Earl of Essex. THIS knight, who was formerly our Minister at the courts of Berlin and Petersburgh, is said to have borne only one poetical blossom." Walpole said that " he was in flower only for one ode." This ode, we suppose, was the one entitled "To a Great Number of Great Men, newly made;" as it contains the passage about the "black funereal Finches," which Lord Orford quotes with satisfaction somewhere or other in his Letters or Memoirs. Sir C. H. WILLIAMS was a writer of Anacreontics, love-verses, and political rhymes. His portrait is not one of the most agreeable in our collection; but if the reader will receive it as the likeness of a politician instead of a poet, we may safely recommend it to his notice. No. 105. ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE. From an original Picture in the possession of Mrs. Browne. THIS pleasant looking person, with the lively countenance and comical eye, wrote, like several other of our wits, upon the virtues of tobacco. There is a humorous curve in his lip, as the reader will see, which might assist him to blow a pipe, perhaps, as well as LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. 85 to praise it. We are sorry to say, however, that there is something on record, touching our author, which somewhat diminishes the value of his eulogies. It is said that he " never felt the merit of Milton, before hearing Sheridan pronounce his exordium." Browne's second imitation, (of Ambrose Phillips) where he addresses the "Little tube of mighty power, Charmer of an idle hour," is amusing, as well as his mimicry of Thomson, Swift, and Pope. He was a man of fortune and a senator. No. 106. LADY M. W. MONTAGUE. From an enamel Miniature, by Zink, in the possession of Charles Colville, Esq. THIS print is at once magnificent and graceful. The richness of the silken dress, the wealthy turban, and oriental jacket, are of themselves a fine picture. There is a somewhat shrewd look about the eyes of the portrait, also, yet scarcely equal to the reputation of the original. Lady M. W. MONTAGUE was a lively and often a witty writer; and we do not understand how it was that Horace Walpole, who himself wrote in a style not very dissimilar, should not have appreciated her letters. Perhaps, however, it was on this very account. "She was always a dirty little thing," says he. Is it to be believed that this phrase can apply to the gay and elegant instance of orientalism before us? She looks rather like some amphibious Turk, some dark-eyed Fatima or Leila, who has lived half her days amidst the luxuries of baths, and walks " redolent" of perfumes, like June or the breathing Spring. |