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I had business there: I will not say what. I could at this time do nothing. I could not write a line-I could not draw a stroke. "I was brutish;" though not "like warlike as the wolf, nor subtle as the fox for prey." In words, in look, in deeds, I was no better than a changeling. Why then do I set so much value on my existence formerly? Oh God! that I could but be for one day, one hour, nay but for an instant, (to feel it in all the plenitude of unconscious bliss, and take one long, last, lingering draught of that full brimming cup of thoughtless freedom,) what then I was-that I might, as in a trance, a waking dream, hear the hoarse murmur of the bargemen, as the Minster tower appeared in the dim twilight, come up from the willowy stream, sounding low and underground like the voice of the bittern-that I might paint that field opposite the window where I lived, and feel that there was a green, dewy moisture in the tone, beyond my pencil's reach, but thus gaining almost a new sense, and watching the birth of new objects without me-that I might stroll down Peterborough bank, (a winter's day,) and see the fresh marshes stretching out in endless level perspective, (as if Paul Potter had painted them,) with the cattle, the windmills, the red-tiled cottages, gleaming in the sun to the very verge of the horizon, and watch the fieldfares in innumerable flocks, gambolling in the air, and sporting in the sun, and racing before the clouds, making summersaults, and dazzling the eye by throwing themselves into a thousand figures and movements —that I might go, as then, a pilgrimage to the town where my mother was born, and visit the poor farm-house where she was brought up, and lean upon the gate where she told me she used to stand when a child of ten years old and look at the setting sun.—I could do all this still, but it would be with different feelings. As our hopes leave us, we lose even our interest and regrets for the past. I had at this time, simple as I seemed, many resources. I could in some sort "play at bowls with the sun or moon;" or, at any rate, there was no question in metaphysics that I could not bandy to and fro, as one might play at cup and ball, for twenty, thirty, forty miles of the great north road, and at it again, the next day, as fresh as ever. I soon get tired of this now, and wonder how I managed formerly. I knew Tom Jones by heart, and was deep in Peregrine Pickle. I was intimately acquainted with all the heroes and heroines of Richardson's romances, and could turn from one to the other as I pleased. I could con over that single passage in Pamela about "her lumpish heart," and never have done admiring the skill of the author and the truth of nature. I had my sports and recreations too, some such as these following:

"To see the sun to bed, and to arise,

Like some hot amourist, with glowing eyes,
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence while those lovers sleep.
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,
Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare,

When Mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn:

And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has nought beside
To answer their small wants.

To view the graceful deer come tripping by,
Then stop and gaze, then turn, and know not why,
Like bashful younkers in society.

To mark the structure of a plant or tree,

And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.

I have wandered far enough from Burleigh-House, but I had some associations about it, which I could not well get rid of, without troubling the reader with them. The Rembrandts disappointed me quite. I could hardly find a trace of the impression which had been inlaid in my imagination. I might as well

"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."

Instead of broken wrinkles and indented flesh, I saw hard lines and stained canvass. I had seen better Rembrandts since, and had learned to see Nature better. It was painting my old woman's head and verifying the dim floating notions I had before, that put me up to the right thing. Was it a disadvantage then, that for twenty years I had carried this fine idea in my brain, enriching it from time to time from my observations of nature or art, and raising it as they were raised ; or did it much signify that it was disturbed at last? Neither. The picture was nothing to me: it was the idea it had suggested. The one hung on the wall at Burleigh, the other was an heir-loom in my mind. Was it destroyed, because the picture after long absence did not answer to it? No. There were other pictures in the world that did, and objects in nature still more perfect. This is the melancholy privilege of art; it exists chiefly in idea, and leads to nothing beyond itself. If we are disappointed in the character of one we love, it breaks the illusion altogether, for we drew certain consequences from a face. If an old friendship is broken up, we cannot tell how to replace it, without the aid of habit and a length of time. But a picture is nothing but a face, it interests us only in idea. Hence we need never be afraid of raising our standard of taste too high; for the mind rises with it, exalted and refined, and can never be much injured by finding out its casual mistakes. Like the possessor of a splendid collection, who is indifferent to or turns away from common pictures, we have a selecter gallery in our own minds. In this sense, the knowledge of art is its own exceeding great reward. But is there not danger that you may become too fastidious, and have nothing left to admire? None for the conceptions of the human soul cannot rise superior to the power of art; or if they do, then you have surely every reason to be satisfied with them. The mind, in what depends on itself alone, soon rises from defeat unhurt," though its pride may be for a moment "humbled by such rebuke,"

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"And in its liquid texture mortal wound

Receives no more than can the fluid air."

As an illustration of the same thing, there are two Claudes at Burleigh, which certainly do not come up to the celebrity of the artist's name. They did not hit me formerly: the sky, the water, the trees

seemed all too blue, too much of the colour of indigo. But I believed, and wondered. I could no longer admire these specimens of the artist at present, but assuredly my admiration of the artist himself was not less than before; for since then, I had seen other works by the same hand,

"Inimitable on earth

By model or by shading pencil drawn,”—

surpassing every idea that the mind could form of art, except by having seen them. I remember one in particular that Walsh Porter had (a bow-shot beyond all others)-a vernal landscape, an "Hesperian fable true," with a blue unclouded sky, and green trees and grey turrets and the unruffled sea beyond. But never was there sky so soft or trees so clad with spring, such air-drawn towers or such halcyon seas: Zephyr seemed to fan the air, and Nature looked on and smiled. The name of Claude has alone something in it that softens and harmonises the mind. It touches a magic chord. Oh! matchless scenes, oh! orient skies, bright with purple and gold, ye opening glades and distant sunny vales, glittering with fleecy flocks, pour all your enchantment into my soul, let it reflect your chastened image, and forget all meaner things! Perhaps the most affecting tribute to the memory of this great artist is the character drawn of him by an eminent master in his Dream of a Painter.

"On a sudden I was surrounded by a thick cloud or mist, and my guide wafted me through the air till we alighted on a most delicious rural spot. I perceived it was the early hour of the morn, when the sun had not risen above the horizon. We were alone, except that at a little distance a young shepherd played on his flageolet as he walked before his herd, conducting them from the fold to the pasture. The elevated pastoral air he played charmed me by its simplicity, and seemed to animate his obedient flock. The atmosphere was clear and perfectly calm and now the rising sun gradually illumined the fine landscape, and began to discover to our view the distant country of immense extent. I stood awhile in expectation of what might next present itself of dazzling splendour, when the only object which appeared to fill this natural grand and simple scene, was a rustic who entered, not far from the place where we stood, who by his habiliments seemed nothing better than a peasant; he led a poor little ass, which was loaded with all the implements required by a painter in his work. After advancing a few paces, he stood still, and with an air of rapture seemed to contemplate the rising sun; he next fell on his knees, directed his eyes towards Heaven, crossed himself, and then went on with eager looks, as if to make choice of the most advantageous spot from which to make his studies as a painter. This,' said my conductor, is that Claude Gelée of Lorraine, who nobly disdaining the low employment to which he was originally bred, left it with all its advantages of competence and ease to embrace his present state of poverty, in order to adorn the world with works of most accomplished excellence.''

There is a little Paul Brill at Burleigh, in the same room with the Rembrandts, that dazzled me many years ago and delighted me the other day. It looked as sparkling as if the sky came through the frame. I found or fancied I found, those pictures the best that I remembered before, though they might in the interval have faded a little to my eyes, or lost some of their original brightness. I did not see the small head of Queen Mary by Holbein, which formerly struck me so forcibly; but I have little doubt of it, for Holbein was a sure hand, he

only wanted effect, and this picture looked through you. One of my old favourites was the head of an angel by Guido, nearly a profile, looking up, and with wings behind the back. It was hung lower than it used to be, and had, I thought, a look less aerial, less heavenly; but there was still a pulpy softness in it, a tender grace, an expression unutterable-which only the pencil, his pencil, could convey. And are we not then beholden to the art for these glimpses of Paradise? Surely, there is a sweetness in Guido's heads, as there is also a music in his name. If Raphael did more, it was not with the same case. His heads have more meaning, but the others have a look of youthful innocence which his are without. As to the boasted picture of Christ by Carlo Dolce, if a well-painted table-cloth and silver-cup are worth three thousand guineas, the picture is, but not else. Yet one touch of Paul Veronese is worth all this enamelling twice over. The head has a wretched mawkish expression, utterly unbecoming the character it professes to represent. But I will say no more about it. The Bath of Seneca is one of Luca Jordano's best performances, and has considerable interest and effect. Among other historical designs, there is one of Jacob's Dream, with the angels ascending and descending on a kind of stairs. The conception is very answerable to the subject, but the execution is not in any high degree spirited or graceful. The mind goes away no gainer by the bargain. Rembrandt alone perhaps could add any thing to this subject. Of him it might be said, that "his light shone in darkness." The wreaths of flowers and foliage carved in wood on the wainscoats and ceiling of many of the rooms, by the celebrated Grinling Gibbons in Charles the Second's time, shew a wonderful lightness and facility of hand, and give pleasure to the eye. The other ornaments and curiosities I need not mention, as they are carefully pointed out by the housekeeper to the admiring visitor. There are two heads, however, (one of them happens to have a screen placed before it) which I would by no means have him to pass over, if he is an artist, or feels the slightest interest in the art. They are, I should suppose unquestionably, the original studies by Raphael of the heads of the Virgin and Joseph in his famous picture of the Madonna of the Cradle. The Virgin is particularly beautiful, and in the finest preservation, as indeed are all his genuine pictures. The canvass is not quite covered in some places; the colours are as fresh as if newly laid on, and the execution is as firm and vigorous as if his hand had just left it. It shews how this artist wrought. The head is, no doubt, a highly-finished study from nature, done for a particular purpose, and worked up according to the painter's conception of that purpose, but still retaining all the force and truth of individuality. He got all he could from Nature, and gave all he could to her in return. If Raphael had merely sketched this divine face on the canvass from the idea in his own mind, why not stamp it on the larger composition at once? He could work it up and refine upon it there just as well, and it would almost necessarily undergo some alteration in being transferred thither afterwards. But if it was done as a careful copy from Nature in the first instance, this was the only way in which he could proceed, or indeed by which he could arrive at such consummate excellence. The head of the Joseph (leaning on the hand and looking down) is fine, but

neither so fine as the companion to it, nor is it by any means so elaborately worked up in the present sketch.

I am no teller of stories; but there is one belonging to BurleighHouse, of which I happen to know some of the particulars. The late Earl of Exeter had been divorced from his first wife, a woman of fashion, and of somewhat more gaiety of manners than "lords who love their ladies like." He determined to seek out a second wife in a humbler sphere of life, and that it should be one who, having no knowledge of his rank, should love him for himself alone. For this purpose, he went and settled incognito (under the name of Mr. Jones) at Hodnet, an obscure village in Shropshire. He made overtures to one or two damsels in the neighbourhood, but they were too knowing to be taken in by him. His manners were not boorish, his mode of life was retired, it was odd how he got his livelihood, and at last, he began to be taken for a highwayman. In this dilemma he turned to Miss Hoggins, the eldest daughter of a small farmer, at whose house he lodged. Miss Hoggins, it might seem, had not been used to romp with the clowns: there was something in the manners of their quiet, but eccentric guest that she liked. As he found that he had inspired her with that kind of regard which he wished for, he made honourable proposals to her, and at the end of some months, they were married, without his letting her know who he was. They set off in a post-chaise from her father's house, and travelled across the country. In this manner, they arrived at Stamford, and passed through the town without stopping till they came to the entrance of Burleigh-Park, which is on the outside of it. The gates flew open, the chaise entered, and drove down the long avenue of trees that leads up to the front of this fine old mansion. As they drew nearer to it, and she seemed a little surprised where they were going, he said, "Well, my dear, this is Burleigh-House, it is the home I have promised to bring you to, and you are the Countess of Exeter!" It is said the shock of this discovery was too much for this young creature, and that she never recovered it. It was a sensation worth dying for. The world we live in was worth making, had it been only for this. Ye Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Night's Entertainment! hide your diminished heads! I never wish to have been a lord, but when I think of this story.

SONNET.

DARKNESS! I love thee, for methinks my soul
Steps from its earthly threshold forth at large
Into thee, fleet and free, as is the barge
To whom th' horizon is the only goal.
Darkness! I love thee, for thou art the birth
Of infant thought; and though thy hue be sad
And thy dusk form in sombre garment clad,
Still there are in thee worlds of dreamy mirth.
E'en when the weary thoughts are sleeping, then
The tingling minutes sound like tiny bell
From distant sheep-fold heard, and to the ken
Is dimly ministrant the vision's spell.

Darkness! I love thee, and to be all thine
In death, methinks I would not much repine.
& G

VOL. IV. NO. XVII.

Y.

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