As the British Gallery is for a considerable period devoted to works of English art, and as so many other exhibitions offer them in such profusion, we would suggest that it would be more beneficial to art, and to the success and improvement of British painters, if the original intention of the governors of the institution were adhered to, of exhibiting annually the choicest works of the old schools.
MARSTON, OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
PART III.
"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
Shakspeare.
The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had been thrown into prison, on suspicion of being worth robbing. All was bankruptcy.
The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."
A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while; at length she resumed—"We must not return to our own country, at least until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her. The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand; it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance—an Arcadian festival. It was sent round the room with universal admiration; and the ice thus once broken, a succession of proficients followed, bringing the produce of their talents; some, miniatures—some, sketches of French and Swiss scenery—some, illustrations of Racine and the French theatre; and, of course, many with embroidery, and the graceful works of the needle. Strangers are too apt to conceive that Paris is France and that the frivolity of life in the capital was always its model in the provinces. I here saw evidence to the contrary, and was not a little surprised to see performances so seldom to be found among the French arts, as admirable oil-paintings, carvings in ivory, marble busts, and bas-reliefs, casts of antique vases and groups, and even models of the chief temples and palaces of antiquity. The leisure of the chateau was often vividly, and even vigorously employed; and while the youths of the great families were solely directed to military prospects, the females often acquired solid and grave accomplishments. In short, we had among us as many artificers, not a few of them delicate and lovely, as could have furnished a Tower of Babel, if not built it; but our fabric would have had one exception, it would have had no "confusion of tongues;" for tongues there were none to be heard among us—all was silence, but when some work of striking beauty, and this was not unfrequently the case, was handed round with a murmur of applause.