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least one of my chief arguments, is, that the painters who have succeeded splendidly in past times, and more especially in the present time, have all done so. Michael Angelo was a great poet. Raphael a most elegant scholar. What would the other two Carraccis have done with all their manual skill, but for what Mr D'Israeli so properly calls "the profound meditations" of Ludovico? Albert Durer was a dungeon of middle-age lore. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the author of his charming Lectures. Greek Williams has put forth recently a delightful and most classical volume of Travels. Turk Allan, too, has written a very pretty little book about a Circassian lovestory-besides being responsible for I know not how many comic interludes, &c. wherewith, to this blessed hour, the private theatres of the Ukraine, Crim-Tartary, and several other outlandish regions, are enlivened. Haydon appears to have written his own catalogues. Sir Henry Raeburn was!-alas! was, one of the best informed men in the North,—a true Scottish gentleman of the old schoolas true a one as ever kingly sword laid knighthood on! As for Mr Thomson of Duddingstone, perhaps after Turner, the finest landscape painter now extant-he is a highly accomplished member of the clerical profession. In my opinion, he ought to be made a Principal. His Aberlady Bay is a perfect jewel. Sir Thomas Lawrence is another extremely well-read painter-he is a complete gentleman, and man of the world, and one of the handsomest men in London into the bargain. And what is the result? Nobody but himself could have painted that picture of Lady Blesington-nobody since Titian.

The same sort of thing may be said with equal propriety as to the actors. Garrick was a glorious farce-writera glorious song-writer-the pupil and friend of the celebrated Dr Samuel Johnson. Old Cibber's Apology, and some of his comedies stand in the very first order of meritoriousness-John Kemble was a prime black-letter scholar-and possessed besides all the learning of the sacred profession for which he was originally destined. Mrs Siddons is the author of an abridgement of Milton's Paradise Lost. Charles Young is as accomplished a gentleman as any L.L.D. A.S.S. within the four

seas; and Charles Matthews is (can praise go higher ?) the principal `author of several of his own entertainments. Dan Terry was bred an architect, and is learned in all the learning of the Palladios-and, moreover, he has dramatized the Heart of Midlothian, &c. As for Liston, the exquisite, inimitable Liston, who does not know that he was at one time a teacher of youth, and that he discovered where his true forte lay, from observing, that all the dread of a brushing could not keep the boys from dying of laughter whenever he was spouting ex cathedra, the Soliloquy of Hamlet, or the Speech of Moloch? Mrs Bellamy's life of herself is a chefd'œuvre of libel and libidinousness, and, to wind up with a stomacher, MoLIERE and SHAKESPEARE were play

ers.

I am of opinion, that George Cruikshank is one of the many young gentlemen, whose education, (like that of the English opium-eater,) has been neglected. But there is no time lost; he has, I hope, a long life and a merry one before him yet; and he may depend upon it, his life will be neither the shorter nor the duller for his making it something of a studious one. He should read-read-read. He should be indefatigable in reading. He should rise at six in the morning. If he can't work till he has had something to settle his stomach, (my own case,) he may have a little coffee-pot placed on the hob over night, and take a cup of that and a single crust of toast-and he will find himself quite able for anything. What a breakfast he will be able to devour about nine or half-past nine, after having enriched his mind with several hours of conversation with the greatest and the wisest of his species! He may rely upon it, this hint is worth taking-Then let him draw, etch, and paint, until about two o'clock P. M., then take a lounge through the streets to see if anything is stirringstep into Westminster-hall-the Fives court, the Rev. Edward Irvine's chapel, (if it be Sunday,) or any other public place, jotting down à la Hogarth all the absurd faces he falls in with upon his finger nails. A slight dinner and a single bottle will carry him on till it is time to go to the play, or the Castle Tavern, or the House of Commons, or the evening preaching, or the Surrey Lecture, or the like. At first sight, it

may appear that I am cutting short the hours of professional exertion too much-but this I am convinced is mere humbug. Does the author of Waverley eat, or drink, or ride, or talk, or laugh, a whit the less because he writes an octavo every month? no such things. Does Jeffrey plead his causes a bit the worse because he is the editor of the Edinburgh Review? Does Wordsworth write worse poems, for collecting the taxes of Cumberland, or Lamb, worse Elias, for being clerk to the India House? The artists are all of them too diligentthat is the very fault I want to cure them of. Their pallets are never off their thumbs their sticks are eternally in their fingers. They are like the old race of kings, who are represented as lying in their beds all in full fig, with crown, globe, and sceptre. Such doings are not adapted for the present enlightened state of society. Such kings are exploded-the kings hujusce avi wear top-boots, hessians, and Wellingtons, military uniforms, neat blue surtouts-black stocks-in short, they dress no better than their subjects or worse. Painters, poets, &c. who all think themselves at least as great as if they were kings, ought without question to behave like their brother potentates-conform themselves to the customs of the world -be educated and literate, since all other people are so-and eat and drink, that their soul, (that is their genius,) may live.

The advantage of a little proper reading may be illustrated by the history of George Cruikshank-as well as by that of any other individual I have the pleasure of not being personally acquainted with. I admit, that he shewed great talent in "The Matrimonial Ladder," the "House that Jack built," and, indeed, in all his earlier performances. His caricatures of the Chancellor, and Lord Sidmouth in particular, were quite admirable; and so, when he was working on the other lay, were some of his caricatures of Burdett, Grey Bennet, Waddington, Mackintosh, Carlisle, Joseph Hume, Hone, Brougham, and Peter Moore. All these were in their several ways excellent things. But what a start did he make when his genius had received a truer and a diviner impulse from the splendid imagination of an Egan! How

completely-how toto cœlo did he outcruikshank himself, when he was called upon to embody the conceptions of that remarkable man in the designs for Tom and Jerry? The world felt this and he himself felt it.

Again, no disparagement to my friend Pierce Egan, (who is one of the pleasantest as well as one of the greatest men now extant; and with whom, last time I was in town, I did not hesitate to crack a bottle of Belcher's best,) Cruikshank made another, and a still more striking stride, when he stept from Egan to Burns, and sought his inspiration from the very best of all Burns's glorious works, "The Jolly Beggars." It is to this work (the "POINTS OF HUMOUR") that I am now to speak. It was for the purpose of puffing it and its author, and of calling upon all, who have eyes to water, and sides to ache, to buy it, that I began this leading lecture. It is, without doubt, the first thing that has appeared since the death of Ho garth. Yes-Britain possesses once more an artist capable of seizing and immortalizing the traits of that which I consider as by far the most remarkable of our national characteristics-the HUMOUR of The People. EX PEDE HERCULEM: The man who drew these things is fit for anything. Let him but do himself justice, and he must take his place inter lumina Anglorum.

As for describing a set of comic etchings I must beg to be excused

it is not at all in my line-but I pity the man, woman, or child, who does not feast upon them propriis oculis. You, Ladies and Gentlemen, you are more fortunate-here they are.The first of the series represents the old soldier, with the wooden-leg, in this attitude:

"An' aye he gied the Tozie Drab
The tother skelpan kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab,
Just like an awmous dish;
Ilk smack still did crack still,

Just like a cadger's whip; Then, staggering," &c. &c. The lines are worthy of being written in letters of gold-they are worthy of having inspired Cruikshank to the highest triumph his genius has ever yet achieved, and that is far better. The old fellow's face, you observe, is round, and drawn to a point at the nose; his eyes are almost quite shut; his firm lip

[graphic]

Mark our jovial ragged ring!
Round and round take up the chorus-
And in raptures let us sing.

Now the chorus, audience!

A fig for those by laws protected,
Liberty's a glorious feast;
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.

projects about an inch beyond his pim-"See the smoking bowl before us!
pled proboscis, and conceals two-thirds
of his bristly chin. His three-cornered,
iron-bound hat is cocked half fiercely,
half" jauntily," on the right ear. The
stump of that dexter arm stands out as
in a vain but violent effort to clasp that
time-worn fair. And she!—what a sim-
per-what quiet luxury about her heavy
eyelids, and that indescribable, ineffa-
ble muzzle! The great toe of her right
foot is curled up in an ecstasy of "no-
thing loath"-she shews, after all she
has come through, a plump and juicy
calf-her right hand is fumbling about
his breast-plate, and the left, half un-
consciously, as it were, is fiddling about
the tankard on the table there behind
her. As Wordsworth says, in compli-
menting a painting by Sir George
Beaumont,

"Oh! 'tis a passionate work!"
The Bank of England to a mealy
potatoe, it is worth all the paintings,
either of his own, or of other people's
manufacture, that Sir George Beau
mont possesses..

The contest between the Tinker and the Fiddler (turn over two or three leaves, my hearers,) is scarcely inferior-and the Balladmonger upri sing to chant (on a few pages more, Ladies,) is as good. I think, upon looking at it for a few minutes more, it is even better. Yes it is the best of the whole-it is the gem-the star -the glory of the book. What a profound sense of the glorious felicity of whisky is manifested in this halfsleepy, half-enthusiastic, fat, bald, freckled, leering, squinting, gaping, roaring physiognomy,

"He rising, rejoicing,

Between his two Deborahs, Looks round him, and found them Impatient for the chorus." There is more persuasion, and more triumph too, in the style in which that dexter hand is expanded, than in all the fists that ever thumped a velvet-cushion. The uncertain, staggering stride-the ineffectual staff-the leather-breeches, (Ladies and Gentlemen) the shirtless arm-they are all perfect. It is from such a glorious fellow, and no other, that Burns would have cut off a year of his life, to hear the strain sung-that inimitable strain -that true ballad of the best."-I shall try it myself, however,―

"What is title, what is treasure,

What is reputation's care?
If we lead a life of pleasure,
"Tis no matter how or where.

A fig, &c.

"With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night, in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, &c.
"Does the train-attended carriage
Does the sober bed of marriage
Through the country lighter move?
Witness brighter scenes of love?

A fig, &c.

"Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum,
Who have characters to lose.

A fig, &c.

"Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets ;
Here's to all the wandering train;
Here's our ragged brats and callets,
One and all, cry out, Amen!
A fig," &c.

To proceed. This sketch of the whole party in the acme of their revel -and this counterpart of them starting in the morning when they are all shrivelled, bundled up, blind, lazy, melancholy, moping-are both quite exquisite and the notion of the contrast may be classed with anything that even the wit of Hogarth has bequeathed to us. Cruikshank here steps beyond his author, turns poet himself, and completes what Burns began, as well as Burns himself could have done.

There are several etchings in this little book besides these excellent, no doubt, but still inferior-those of Frederick and Cardinal Bernis far the best. Seriously, Cruikshank must attend to the hint we have been giving him, and learn to respect himself. He must give up his mere slang drudgery, and labour to be what nature has put

within his reach-not a caricaturist, but a painter.

And yet it is no trifle to be a good caricaturist. Forbid the thought, ye shades of Bunbury and Gilray!-forbid it, even thou, if thou be still in the land of the living, Good Dighton! -forbid it, charming, laughter-moving Rowlandson! Bunbury was a great genius, and would have been a great caricaturist, had he been possessed of art at all in proportion to his imagination. But he could not draw -not he. As far as faces went, he was at home and admirable; and, even as to the figure, provided he was allowed the benefit of loose breeches, and capacious coats, and grizzly wigs, and tobacco-smoke, he could get on well enough. But this is not the thing. The caricaturist should be able to represent everything; and then he can represent what he chooses in a very different style from that of a man whose ignorance, not his choice, limits the sphere of his representation. Rowlandson, again, is a considerable dab at drawing; but, somehow or other, his vein is ultra-his field is not comedy, but farce-buffoonery-and this will not do with the English temperament, except for merely temporary purposes. The Rev. Brownlow North, (worthy of bearing that illustrious name, O' Christopher,) is another capital caricaturist. His " Ringing the bell," "the Boarding-School Miss returned," "the Skating Club," and some other pieces of that kind, are divine. But, like most amateurs, he wants science; and I suspect, after all, that poor Gilray did more for his best designs than the etching of them. Gilray was in himself a host. He is the first name on the list of Political Caricaturists, strictly so called. George III., (honest man!) and Boney, and Fox, and Sheridan, and Pitt, and Windham, and Melville, and Grenville, are his peculiar property. His fame will repose for ever on their broad bottoms. Cruikshank may, if he pleases, be a second Gilray; but, once more, this should not be his ambition. He is fitted for a higher walk. Let him play Gilray, if he will, at leisure hours-let him even pick up his pocket money by Gilrayizing; but let him give his days and his nights to labour that Gilray's shoulders were not meant for; and rear (for he may) a reputa

tion, such as Gilray was too sensible a fellow to dream of aspiring after.

It is, I cannot help saying, a thousand pities that Cruikshank did not publish his first livraison of the "Points of Humour" two or three years ago; for, if he had done so, in addition to the high character it must have gained for him in England, it would, in all probability, have been the means of putting several hundred pounds of good Scotch cash into his fob. There can scarcely be a doubt, that the distinguished connoisseurs, who took in hand to have the cupola of the New Advocates' Library here in Edinburgh painted, would have turned their pa tronizing eyes and liberal hands towards George Cruikshank. The caricature which they have procured for the jurisconsults of the Modern Athens, is undoubtedly a very fair caricature. These nine buxom Muses, and Glorious Apollo, with his yellow head, are good in their way. Old Homer, with his flannel petticoat and fuddled physiognomy, and Robin Burns, sitting at his knee, in corduroy breeches, velveteen waistcoat, and a spotted handkerchief, form a meritorious group-and so do Socrates, in his tunic, and Dr Paley, in his gown and cassock; each of them throwing apparently a sly glance towards Miss Urania. There is GENIUS in these juxtapositions-there is the very quintessence of wIT. It is impossible not to smile at the thing. The mixture of Roman togas and laced waistcoats, long beards and three-tied periwigs, Athenian sandals and Sanquhar hose, Ionian lyres and Parisian snuff-boxes, is certainly productive of a truly comic effect. The deities on the other side are almost as sublime as those of Blarney Castle

“All sitting naked in the open air.”

So far as the affair goes, it is blameless-and the artist and his patrons are entitled to our tribute of applause. But I must still be of opinion, Ladies and Gentlemen, that, in the hands of a Cruikshank, such a subject would have received still greater ornament. His fearless crayon would not have been restrained by certain absurd punctilios, which seem to have checked the flow of genius in that nevertheless immortal piece. Since he was to jumble Mount Olympus, Marathon, and Maybole--since he was to annihilate time and space-he would

have gloried in pushing his privilege to its utmost limit. He would have introduced those great Dons who are at this moment flourishing among us as boldly as those who died twenty or even thirty years ago; and will anybody, possessing mens sana in corpore sano, deny, that this cupola would have been a still more perfect thing than it is, had the painter clapped in a few celebrated professors, poets, and critics, of the present brilliant era, among the rest of them? Since David Hume was to be represented as offering a pinch of rapee to Epicurus, why not have Joseph Hume exhibiting his smuggled silk handkerchief, or perhaps offering a thimbleful of his smuggled Fairntosh, to Marcus Tullius Cicero? Why introduce Burns, and yet omit Hogg? I am sure his maud and top-boots would have looked as picturesque every bit as his great predecessor's blue short-coat and rig-and-furrow stockings. And why, I ask, when Shakespeare was to lounge on the same sofa with Eschylus, why, Ladies and Gentlemen, should not Barry Cornwall have been allowed to draw in his chair, and sit opposite to his defunct compeers, with his "footman in green livery" at his back? These are questions which it is impossible not to ask. These are questions which it is impossible not to answer. They speak home to our business and our bosoms -they touch upon the most sacred privileges of the British Constitution.

in his great picture of "The Entrance into Jerusalem," made a Wordsworth bow down for the good centurion, a Voltaire turn up his nose for a certain sneering Sadducee, and a Hazlitt sit for the countenance of St John, &c. &c.-why did not this painter seek similar advantages for the use of similar ingenuities? Why, in a great literary Caricature, painted and paid for in Edinburgh in the 19th century of the present era, must future ages look, and look in vain, for the least corporeal representation, either of the author of Waverley, or of the author of the Chaldee Manuscript, or of the author of the article "Beauty" in Macvey Napier's Encyclopædia?-Proh! Deum et hominum fides !-I call upon Mr Clerk and his Zeuxis for a reply. The moment their papers are lodged, I am willing to abide the decision of the Director General of the Fine Arts for Scotland.

To return from this digression, which, under all the circumstances of the case, may not, I should humbly hope, be regarded as unpardonable, I have now to submit that Mr George Cruikshank ought on no account whatever to petition parliament for public patronage to his "Points of Humour." An artist, above all such an artist as Cruikshank, ought to stand upon his own bottom. That the public will, in the proper style, shape, and form, patronize him,-most effectually, most strenuously, patronize him, I cannot entertain the shadow of a doubt. I am sure they will purchase his work

tion."-SHAKESPEARE.

But, if they do not, the real truth of the matter is, that parliament cannot help it.

But grant that it is improper to introduce living characters, expressly and avowedly as such, in an historical pic-"To buy or not to buy-that is the questure, or in an historical caricature, why, I must still demand of the patrons and performers of that masterpiece-why was not advantage taken of that ingenious plan of which Mr Haydon has made such glorious use in several of 'his finest chefs-d'œuvre? Does any man pretend to tell me, that the real features of Euripides, Empedocles, and the rest of these antique gentry, are known? No-the assertion would be absurd. If, then, their real physiognomies are long since obliterated from the recollection of the human race, why did not this artist replace them by likenesses of existing kindred spirits-inheritors of the same divine genius-masters of the same heavenly arts-possessors, now and hereafter, of the same lofty fame? As Haydon,

We have recently terminated a glorious war in which we have achieved the freedom of England, and rescued Europe from the most iron and despotic thraldom that ever insulted the annals of the world. This is true; but we have still something to do. We still owe much to ourselves, and to our children, and to our children's children. Our finances are yet labouring under the effects of those noble sacrifices, which duty, patriotism, religion, and honour, so imperatively demanded at our unhesitating hands. And, to go further still, the spirit of tumult and turbulence is yet abroad

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