On my return, I spent an hour very pleasantly in the National Academy, in the same building as the National Gallery. Many of the paintings here are of a fine order. Oliver Cromwell looking upon the headless corpse of King Charles I., appeared to draw the greatest number of spec
tators. A scene from "As You Like it," was one of the best executed pieces we saw. This was "Rosalind, Celia, and Orlando." The artist did himself and the subject great credit. Kemble, in Hamlet, with that ever memorable skull in his hand, was one of the pieces which we viewed with no little interest. It is strange that Hamlet is always represented as a thin, lean man, when the Hamlet of Shakspere was a fat, John Bull-kind of a man. But the best piece in the Gallery was "Dante meditating the episode of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, S'Inferno, Canto V." Our first interest for the great Italian poet was created by reading Lord Byron's poem, "The Lament of Dante." From that hour we felt like examining everything connected with the great Italian poet. The history of poets, as well as painters, is written in their works. The best written life of Goldsmith is to be found in his poem of "The Traveller," and his novel of "The Vicar of Wakefield." Boswell could not have written a better life of himself than he has done in giving the Biography of Dr. Johnson. It seems clear that no one can be a great poet with
out having been sometime during life a lover, and having lost the object of his affection in some mysterious way. Burns had his Highland Mary, Byron his Mary, and Dante was not without his Beatrice. Whether there ever lived such a person as Beatrice seems to be a question upon which neither of his biographers have thrown much light. However, a Beatrice existed in the poet's mind, if not on earth. His attachment to Beatrice Portinari, and the linking of her name with the immortality of his great poem, left an indelible impression upon his future character. The marriage of the object of his affections to another, and her subsequent death, and the poet's exile from his beloved Florence, together with his death amongst strangers—all give an interest to the poet's writings, which could not be heightened by romance itself. When exiled and in poverty, Dante found a friend in the father of Francesca. And here, under the roof of his protector, he wrote his great poem. The time the painter has chosen is evening. Day and night meet in mid-air: one star is alone visible. Sailing in vacancy are the shadows of the lovers.
The countenance of Francesca is expressive of hopeless agony. The delineations are sublime, the conception is of the highest order, and the execution admirable. Dante is seated in a marble vestibule, in a meditating attitude, the face partly concealed by the right hand upon which it is resting. On the whole, it is an excellently painted piece, and causes one to go back with a fresh relish to the Italian's celebrated poem. In coming out, we stopped a short while in the upper room of the Gallery, and spent a few minutes over a painting representing Mrs. Siddons in one of Shakspere's characters. This is by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and is only one of the many pieces that we have seen of this great artist. His genius was vast, and powerful in its grasp. His fancy fertile, and his inventive faculty inexhaustible in its resources. He displayed the very highest powers of genius by the thorough originality of his conceptions, and by the entirely new path that he struck out in art. Well may Englishmen be proud of his name. And as time shall step between his day and those that follow after him, the more will his works be appreciated.
We have since visited his grave, and stood over his monument in St. Paul's.
LETTER XI.
York Minster—The Great Organ—Newcastle-on-Tyne—The Labouring Classes—The American Slave—Sheffield—James Montgomery.
January, 1850.
Some days since, I left the Metropolis to fulfil a few engagements to visit provincial towns; and after a ride of nearly eight hours, we were in sight of the ancient city of York. It was night, the moon was in her zenith, and there seemed nothing between her and the earth but glittering gold. The moon, the stars, and the innumerable gas-lights, gave the city a panoramic appearance. Like a mountain starting out of a plain, there stood the Cathedral in all its glory, looking down upon the surrounding buildings, with all the appearance of a Gulliver standing over the Lilli