AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO FRANKNESS.
Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, tells the following:—“Some years ago, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one. Little H—— the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy. If any one says so again, I’ll break his head. Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come and give me your real opinion of it?’ ”
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Southey’s Life of John Bunyan.
[2] In his Comic Miscellanies.
[3] Supported by the following note, written by Dr. Parr, in his copy of “The Letters of Junius:”—“The writer of ‘Junius’ was Mr. Lloyd, secretary to George Grenville, and brother to Philip Lloyd, Dean of Norwich. This will one day or other be generally acknowledged.—S. P.”
[4] Personal Recollections of the late Daniel O’Connell, M.P. By William J. O’N. Daunt.
[5] See, also, an ensuing page, 120.
[6] Johnson, by the way, had a strange nervous feeling, which made him uneasy if he had not touched every post between the Mitre Tavern and his own lodgings.
[7] The house has been destroyed many years.
[8] “The Dyotts,” notes Croker, “are a respectable and wealthy family, still residing near Lichfield. The royalist who shot Lord Brooke when assaulting St. Chad’s Cathedral, in Lichfield, on St. Chad’s Day, was a Mr. Dyott.”
[9] “I have seen,” says a Correspondent of the Inverness Courier, “a copy of the second edition of Burns’s ‘Poems,’ with the blanks filled up, and numerous alterations made in the poet’s handwriting: one instance, not the most delicate, but perhaps the most amusing and characteristic will suffice. After describing the gambols of his ‘Twa Dogs,’ their historian refers to their sitting down in coarse and rustic terms. This, of course, did not suit the poet’s Edinburgh patrons, and he altered it to the following:—
’Till tired at last, and doucer grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down.’
Still this did not please his fancy; he tried again, and hit it off in the simple, perfect form in which it now stands:—
‘Until wi’ daffin weary grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down.’ ”
[10] Campbell’s alterations were, generally, decided improvements; but in one instance he failed lamentably. The noble peroration of Lochiel is familiar to most readers:—
“Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe;
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.”
In the quarto edition of Gertrude of Wyoming, when the poet collected and reprinted his minor pieces, this lofty sentiment was thus stultified:—
“Shall victor exult in the battle’s acclaim,
Or look to yon heaven from the death-bed of fame.”
The original passage, however, was wisely restored in the subsequent editions.
[11] Abridged from “Practical Essays on the Fine Arts,” by John Burnet, F.R.S., an acute and amusing work.
[12] See Haydon’s graphic letter in Brownlow’s “Memoranda; or, Chronicles of the Foundling Hospital.”
[13] Peg Woffington was for some time President of the Club; and often, after she had been portraying on the stage
“The fair resemblance of a martyr queen,”
she was to be seen in the Club-room, with a pot of porter in her hand, and crying out, “Confusion to all order! let liberty thrive!”
[14] The Germans are great admirers of English art, and a picture by Wilkie has long graced the Gallery of Munich.
[15] There hangs in the Long or Zoological Gallery of the British Museum a portrait of Charles I., when Prince of Wales. The artist by whom this picture was executed is unknown. Neither in the features, nor in the thoughtful expression of countenance, does it resemble the portraits taken in his maturer age: the melancholy which Vandyke has thrown into the celebrated picture of the King, at Windsor Castle, is here wanting; yet this portrait is known to have been amongst those that were sold by order of the Commissioners of the Commonwealth, from the collection at Whitehall.
| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| just by by chance=> just by chance {pg I,98} |
| snm of four hundred=> sum of four hundred {pg I,110} |
| had a great gout=> had a great goût {pg I,124} |
| proved his downfal=> proved his downfall {pg II,88} |
| have no hesitatation=> have no hesitation {pg II,126} |