These are to be found in works of all ages. Thus we have Verrio’s Periwigged Spectators of Christ Healing the Sick; Abraham about to shoot Isaac with a pistol; Rubens’ Queen-mother, Cardinals, and Mercury; Velvet Brussels; Ethiopian King in a surplice, boots, and spurs; Belin’s Virgin and Child listening to a Violin; the Marriage of Christ with St. Catherine of Siena, with King David playing the Harp; Albert Durer’s flounced-petticoated Angel driving Adam and Eve from Paradise; Cigoli’s Simeon at the Circumcision, with “spectacles on nose;” the Virgin Mary helping herself to a cup of coffee from a chased coffee-pot; N. Poussin’s Rebecca at the Well, with Grecian architecture in the back-ground; Paul Veronese’s Benedictine Father and Swiss Soldiers; the red Lobsters in the Sea listening to the Preaching of St. Anthony of Padua; St. Jerome, with a clock by his side; and Poussin’s Deluge, with boats. In our time, West, the President of the Royal Academy, has represented Paris in a Roman instead of a Phrygian dress; and Wilkie has painted Oysters in the Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo—in June!
MOVING EARS.
Not one in ten thousand, perhaps, Mr. John Bell says, can move his ears. The celebrated Mr. Mery used, when lecturing, to amuse his pupils by saying that in one thing he surely belonged to the long-eared tribe; upon which he moved his ears very rapidly backwards and forwards. And Albinus, the celebrated anatomist, had the same power, which is performed by little muscles, not seen. Mr. Haydon tried it once in painting, with great effect. In his picture of Macbeth, painted for Sir George Beaumont, when the Thane was listening in horror before committing the murder, the painter ventured to press the ears forward, like an animal in fright, to give an idea of trying to catch the nearest sound. It was very effective, and increased amazingly the terror of the scene, without the spectators being aware of the reason.
RUSSELL, THE CRAYON PAINTER.
This ingenious R.A. was a native of Guildford, and the eldest son of Mr. John Russell, bookseller, of that town. In early youth he evinced a strong predilection for drawing, and was placed under the tuition of Mr. Francis Coates, an academician of great talent, after whose decease “he enjoyed the reputation of being the first artist in crayon painting, in which he particularly excelled in the delineation of female beauty.” In 1789, Russell was chosen a member of the Royal Academy; and soon after appointed crayon-painter to the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York. Notwithstanding this constant succession of professional employment, he devoted considerable attention to astronomical pursuits; and his Selenographia, or Model of the Moon, which occupied the whole of his leisure from the year 1785 until 1797, affords a remarkable instance of his ingenuity and perseverance. At the time of his decease he had finished two other drawings, which completed his plan, and exhibit an elaborate view of the moon in a full state of illumination. Mr. Russell died at Hull in 1806.
WILKIE’S MISTAKEN ANALOGY.
On the birth of the son of a friend (afterwards a popular novelist), Sir David Wilkie was requested to become one of the sponsors for the child. Sir David, whose studies of human nature extended to everything but infant human nature, had evidently been refreshing his boyish recollections of kittens and puppies; for, after looking intently into the child’s eyes, as it was held up for his inspection, he exclaimed to the father, with serious astonishment and satisfaction, “He sees!”