is an “insubstantial pageant” of “the immortal Shakspeare,”
“cheated of feature by dissembling nature,”
through the operation of time.
“Such were the forms that o’er th’ incrusted souls
Of our forefathers scatter’d fond delight.”
Price, and Alison, and Knight, have generalized “taste” for high-life; while those of the larger circle have acquired “taste” from manifold representations and vehicles of instruction, and comprehend the outlines, if they do not take in the details of natural objects. This is manifested by the almost universal disuse of the “images” described. With the inhabitants of every district in the metropolis, agreeable forms are now absolute requisites, and the demand has induced their supply. There are, perhaps, as many casts from the Medicean Venus, Apollo Belvidere, Antinous, the Gladiator, and other beauties of ancient sculpture, within the parish of St. George, in the East, as in the parish of St. George, Hanover-square. They are reposited over the fire-places, or on the tables, of neighbourhoods, wherein the uncouth cat, and the barbarous parrot were, even “in my time,” desirable “images.” The moulds of the greater number of these deformities, are probably destroyed. It was with difficulty that the “cat” could be obtained for the preceding column, and an “image” of the “parrot” was not procurable from an “image-man.” Invention has been resorted to for the gratification of popular desire: two plaster casts of children, published in the autumn of 1825, have met with unparalleled sale. To record the period of their origin they are represented in the annexed [engraving], and, perhaps, they may be so perpetuated when the casts themselves shall have disappeared, in favour of others more elegant.
The “common people” have become uncommon;
A few remain, just here and there, the rest
Are polish’d and refined: child, man, and woman,
All, imitate the manners of the best;
Picking up, sometimes, good things from their betters,
As they have done from them. Then they have books;
As ’twas design’d they should, when taught their letters;
And nature’s self befriends their very looks:
And all this must, and all this ought to be—
The only use of eyes, I know of, is—to see.
*
Street Images in 1826.
