doned. But is the artist capable of form ing this design yet incapable of its execution? He has given proof of his powers. He has at the present moment standing in his house, finished for Westminster, the Cenotaph to the memory of the late Princess Charlotte a work of singular force, and, what is a still rarer felicity, of singular feeling. That monument, my Lord, would place any artist in the foremost ranks of sculpture. I know not where to look for a more masterly combination of vigorous thought and professional skill; it is among the noblest history pieces of national sorrow. The remainder of the speech went into observations on the injustice of retarding the artist's progress, thereby throwing a stain on his professional character, and actually defrauding the public feeling of its only tribute for the secret object of patronizing inferior abilities. The question was carried triumphantly in Mr Wyatt's favour. The fact seems to be, that the art SIR, ist's spirit and activity in the production of the Cenotaph, a work of very striking beauty, has raised paltry professional jealousies, and his having begun and completed his undertaking without asking permission of some of the official regulators of taste has given offence. If he had taken out his privilege at their boutique, no difficulty would have occurred, but his independence is an evil precedent, and the man who seeks no patrons but the public, must expect this little, sly opposition of the backstairs. The subscribers, however, have now placed him firmly on his limbs, and to judge from his models of some parts of the monument, which were shewn at the General Meeting in contrast with the Venetian bronze horse of Lysippus, and the horse's head from the Parthenon by Phidias, his performance, when complete, will be among the finest works in Europe. LETTER TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. FROM A VOLUNTEER. April 12, 1822. I congratulate you on the late trial at Lancaster, in which the bearer of the Black Ensign, who (obscure as he was in his proper station, might be called the conspicuous Gonfalonier of sedition at Manchester) sued for damages against the Commander and others of the gallant Yeomanry, for doing their duty. This cause has exhibited the events of the 16th of August, 1819, most clearly to the public eye. All men of reflection, who were not blinded by party prejudice, were already convinced of the prudence and good conduct of the Magistrates who anxiously watched over the fate of Manchester; and not less so of the Yeomanry and other troops who executed their orders. They observed with satisfaction, that the Regent and his Government bestowed due approbation on their salutary though painful efforts. Many honest persons, however, averse to the trouble of much thinking, are more disposed to be moved by clamour, than to listen to the quiet voice of reason; these either doubted of the propriety of those de-cisive measures, or conceived that the peaceable champions of Reform, with a multitudinous assemblage of their innocent wives and children, had been causelessly and cruelly cut to pieces by the citizen soldiers, or by the other military force, which they were pleased to denominate "Waterloo Butch ers." The witnesses for the defendants on this trial have given the most clear demonstration of the intentions and actions of this desperate mob, and of the views of their Orator and Leader. The public will see the arduous duty, and high responsibility, which, in such circumstances, devolved on the Magistracy of that part of Lancashire, and the judicious manner in which they preserved the opulent town of Manchester, of whose safety they were the guardians. Having been made acquainted with these facts, a degree of compassion may still be felt for those victims among the misled populace, who were hurt on this occasion; but who can sympathise with those tenderhearted philanthropists, who have loaded the table of the House of Commons with petitions to abridge the term of imprisonment of the Demagogue who seduced them, and who would have effected still greater mischiefs, had he not been so firmly and so ably resisted? In addition to these observations, Mr North, I will beg leave to offer to your Magazine a tribute to that gallant corps, which was written towards the close of the year 1819. As the late trial has turned the public attention once more to this subject, you may perhaps think it worthy a place in your widely-ranging columns. I remain, Sir, your very faithful Servant, A VOLUNTEER. TO THE YEOMANRY CAVALRY OF MANCHESTER. Yeomen! your grateful country's pride, When o'er your agitated land, By thousands march in dread array, They fled: but first these scoundrel foemer Now Calumny, with monstrous lies, Could she, when other methods fail, But if some Amazon's strong breath Now, be it known to traitors male Noctes Ambrosianae. No. II. זי (SCENE-The little wainscotted room behind-a good fire-a table covered with books and papers, decanters, and glasses. TIME-Nine o'clock in the evening:-a high wind without.) Present-Mr CHRISTOPHER NORTH, and Mr BULLER of Brasennose (seated in arm-chairs at the opposite sides of the fire-place.) MR NORTH. So-Mr Buller, you've been reading Henry Mackenzie's Life of John Home. What say you to the book? I am sure your chief objection is, that it is too short by half. MR BULLER. It is; for, to tell you the truth, I know very little about the characters with whom Mr Mackenzie seems to take it for granted that every body is as familiar as himself. Do you remember John Home? NORTH. Perfectly. I remember going out to his farm-house, in East Lothian, and spending two delightful days with him there, so far back as the year seventyseven. I was then a very stripling, but I can recal a great deal of what he said quite distinctly. After he came to live in Edinburgh, I was not much in Scotland; but I once called upon him, and drank tea with him here, I think about the 1807 or 1808-very shortly before his death. He was, indeed, a fine highly-finished gentleman-and bright to the last. BULLER. What sort of looking man was he? NORTH. A fine thinking face-extremely handsome he had been in his youth-a dark-grey eye, full of thought, and, at the same time, full of fire-his hair highly curled and powdered-a rich robe-de-chambre-pale green, if I recollect, like one John Kemble used to wear-a scarlet waistcoat-a very striking figure, I assure you. BULLER. He had been a clergyman in his early life ? NORTH. Yes, and, you know, left the kirk in consequence of a foolish outcry they were making about his Douglas. I remember him sitting in their General Assembly, however, as an elder-and once dressed in scarlet; for he had a commission in a fencible regiment. BULLER. Dr Adam Fergusson, too, was in the church at first, I think? NORTH. He was and he went out chaplain to the 42d, in the Seven Years War. Colonel David Stewart tells a fine story of his heroism at the battle of Fontenoy. He could not be kept back from the front line. BULLER. Ἱερευς μεν αλλα Μαχητης, like somebody in Homer-The Scotch literati of that time seem to have been a noble set of fellows. Good God! how you are fallen off! NORTH. We may thank the Whigs for that-transeat cum ceteris. BULLER. I don't exactly understand your meaning. Do you allude to the Edinburgh Review? NORTH. Certainly, Mr Buller. They introduced a lower tone in every thing. In the first place, few of them were gentlemen either by birth or breeding-and VOL. XI. 30 some of the cleverest of them have always preserved a sort of plebeian snappishness which is mighty disgusting. What would David Hume, for example, have thought of such a set of superficial chattering bodies? BULLER. David Hume appears in a very amiable light in this volume. He was, after all, a most worthy man, though an infidel. NORTH. He was a man of the truest genius-the truest learning and the truest excellence. His nature was so mild that he could do without restraints, the want of which would have ruined the character of almost any other man. I love the memory of David Hume-the first historian the modern world has produced-primus absque secundo, to my mind! His account of the different sects and parties in the time of Charles I. is worth all the English prose that has been written since. At least, 'tis well worth half of it. Why are not his letters published? The few that have been printed are exquisite, one or two very fine specimens in this very volume-and what a beautiful thing is that notice of his last journey to Bath by the poet a few such pages are worth an Encyclopædia. NORTH. What a sensation was produced in England when that fine constellation of Scotch genius first began to blaze out upon the world! You thought us little better than Hottentots before. BULLER. And yet Dr Johnson always somehow or other kept the first place to himself. NORTH. He could not, or would not, make so good books as other people, but God knows there was a pith about old Samuel which nothing could stand up against. His influence was not so much that of an author as of a thinker. He was the most powerful intellect in the world of books. He was the Jackson of the literary ring-the judge-the emperor-a giant acknowledged to be a Saul amongst the people. Even David Hume would have been like a woman in his grasp; but, odd enough, the two never met. BULLER. Your Magazine once had a good essay on Johnson and Warburton. NORTH. Yes; I wrote it myself. But after all, Warburton was not Johnson's match. He had more flame but less heat. Johnson's mind was a furnace-it reduced every thing to its elements. We have had no truly great critical intellect since his time. BULLER. What would he have thought of our modern reviewers? NORTH. : Why, not one of the tribe would have dared to cry mew had he been alive. The terror of him would have kept them as mum as mice when there's a cat in the room. If he had detected such a thing as Jeffrey astir, he would have cracked every bone in his body with one worry. BULLER. I can believe it all. Even Gifford would have been annihilated. NORTH. Like an ill-natured pug-dog flung into a lion's cage. BULLER. He did not like your old Scots literati. NORTH. He hated the name of Scotland, and would not condescend to know what they were. Yet he must have admired such a play as Douglas. The chief element of John Home's inspiration seems to have been a sort of stately elevation of sentiment, which must have struck some congenial chords in his own great mind. BULLER. What is your opinion of John Home as a poet? NORTH. I think nobody can bestow too much praise on Douglas. - There has been no English tragedy worthy of the name since it appeared. 'Tis a noble piecebeautifully and loftily written; but, after all, the principal merit is in the charming old story itself. Douglas is the only true forerunner of the Scotch imaginative literature of our own age.-Home's other tragedies are all very indifferent-most of them quite bad. Mr Mackenzie should not have disturbed their slumbers. BULLER. The natural partiality of friendship and affection NORTH. Surely; and it is most delightful to read his Memoir, simply for its overflowing with that fine strain of sentiments. He is like Ossian, "the last of all his race," and talks of his peers as they should be talked of. One may differ from his opinions here and there, but there is a halo over the whole surface of his language. 'Tis to me a very pathetic work. BULLER. Mackenzie is himself a very great author. NORTH. A discovery indeed, Mr Buller! Henry Mackenzie, sir, is one of the most original in thought, and splendid in fancy, and chaste in expression, that can be found in the whole line of our worthies. He will live as long as our tongue, or longer. BULLER. Which of his works do you like the best? NORTH. Julia de Roubigné and the story of La Roche. I thought that vein had been extinct, till Adam Blair came out. But Nature in none of her domains can ever be exhausted. BULLER. But an author's invention may be exhausted, I suppose. NORTH.; Not easily. You might as well talk of exhausting the Nile as a true genius. People talk of wearing out a man's intellectual power, as if it were a certain determinate sum of cash in a strong box. 'Tis more like the income of a princely estate-which, with good management, must always be improving, not falling off. A great author's power of acquisition is in the same ratio with his power of displaying. He who can write well, must be able to see welland his eyes will feed his fancy as long as his fingers can hold the pen. BULLER. At that rate we shall have three or four more new Waverley Romances every year? NORTH. I hope so. There's old Goethe has written one of the best romances he ever did, within the last twelve months-a most splendid continuation of his William Meister-and Goethe was born, I think, in the year 1742. I wish Mackenzie, who is a good ten years his junior, would follow the example. BULLER. Voltaire held on wonderfully to the last too. NORTH. Ay, there was another true creature! Heavens! what a genius was Voltaire's! So grave, so gay, so profound, so brilliant-his name is worth all the rest in the French literature. BULLER. Always excepting my dear Rabelais. NORTH. A glorious old fellow, to be sure! Once get into his stream, and try if you can land again! He is the only man whose mirth exerts the sway of uncontrollable vehemence. His comic is as strong as the tragic of Æschylus himself. We are Pygmies! BULLER. 14 |