On this page

• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    lha institution might be of great service to literature and art ; even now , impaired as its utility is l > y the action of personal regards and literary partisanship , it is of service in maintaining a Higher acknowledged standard of taste and morals , than vroirid be nraintained without it by the staple action of unaided public opinion ; and so far as it a © € 3 this service it is by being administered in a strictly judicdal spirit . And as our national experience of the value of judicial integrity and strict impartiality has developed among us such a regard for these qualities , that it would surprise us to hear of a man being offended with a judge for giving a decision against him , so in time the same feeling might he expected to grow up about literary criticisms : and , personal regards once habitually banished from the literary judgment seat , we should find poets and painters no more offended with the individuals who pronounced

    unfavourable judgments on their works , than in their civic capacity th . ey would be angry ¦ with the judge who found the law opposed to their claims , and gave judgment against them . If we valued as we ought the influence of literature and art upon the nation , if we remembered that bad books displace good ones , for a time at least ; that faculties uselessly exercised on literary employment might do the State good service if properly suited with occupation ; that the standard of excellence is lowered by the toleration and laudation bestowed upon bad books and stupid writers , —we should , perhaps , begin to see that a strict judicial temper of criticism was no unimportant element in the vigorous and sound mental health of the nation , and should look upon the critic who ignorantly or wilfully misplaced his praise and blame , as we do upon the judge who , from ignorance of the law or corrupt intention , perverts justice and undermines the bulwarks of social order and prosperity .

    Untitled Article

    LIPE OF MICHAEL ANGELO . The Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti ' , with Translations of many of his Poems and Letters . Also , Memoirs of Savonarola , Raphael , and , Vittoriw Colonna . By John S . Harford , Esq ., D . C . L ., F . R . S . 2 vols . Longman and Co . That Mi \ Harford lias spared no pains in collecting the materials of this biography will very soon be apparent to the reader ; but that he has little more than diligence and love of the subject to qualify him for the task he has undertaken , will be equally apparent . In every higher quality demanded by such a subject he is found somewhat wanting . His style is conventional ; his mode of grouping facts , without felicity ; his criticisms vague and commonplace . We regret to be forced thus to qualify the praise which his diligence elicits ; but for the reader ' s sake we are bound to indicate the

    dettpon-his tn « ric , that Had He passed it even in tha slightest degree ^ there trouldhtere Keen a clanger of rtthring the -whole ; since any Rash , isgury , ttnt ikB tire case ofTrflft * in piaster or stucco , would have been irreparable *" We may close our notice with the following story : —* It is often , expedient , on public occasions , to humour the little caprices of selMni * portant but amiable functionaries . A pleasant anecdote of this kind is told of th © gonfaloniere Pietro Soderinl . When , on the appointed day , the ceremonial of elevating the statue into its proper position had been gone through in the presence of a vast crowd of spectators , Michael Angelo himself superintended the removal of the guard-boards . Soderini , who was at this moment just beneath the statue , expressed

    himself as perfectly enchanted : — "There is , however , " he added , " one slight defect , which can easily be corrected , —the nose is rather too thick . " Michael Angelo saw that the worthy magistrate was so placed as to be incapable of really judging of thi » feature , but , as there was no time for discussion , he seemed to assent to the criticism , and catching up , unperceived , some marble dust , and mounting a temporary bridge on the side of the statne , ajffected to work lightly on the nose with a file , letting fall at the same moment some of the dust in his hand on the head of Soderini . He then called out , " How does it took now ? " " I am perfectly satisfied , " replied the gonfaloniere . " You have actually imparted life to it . " The artist descended quite as much pleased with the success of his stratagem as the worthy functionary with his own critical discernment .

    ficiencies in this biography , which , in spite of its varied materials , presents no pioture of the great artist , no picture of his times , not even a satisfactory account of bis works . . The volumes are illustrated with many portraits , with copies of the cieling of the Sistine Chapel , of the pulpit of the Baptistery at Pisa , of the Basilica , and of St . Peter ' s as it actually is and as Michael Angelo designed it . They contain , moreover , memoirs of Savonarola , Vittoria Colonna , and ¦ Raphael , which , although misplaced , will not be without interest . Had Mr . Hai-ford , instead of inserting separate memoirs , bethought him of painting an historical picture , in which , these celebrated persons might be seen standing in their real relation to Michael Angelo , he would have conferred a boon on the reader , who now will only regard these memoirs as so many interruptions .

    Interesting the volumes certainly are . They contain so many details about a great man that we cannot read them unmoved- Even the wellknown anecdotes find welcome . We like again to read of the impetuous student , so diligent amidst his impetuosity , so careful even of details that His biographers mention , among other instances of his assiduous application , his special care in attending to the minutest details which entered into his subjects : for instance , in painting a picture founded on a design of Albeit Durer , or Martin Schoens , representing the temptations of St . Anthony ( to which he had added many grotesque figures of demons and monsters ) , ho had to introduce a . group of fishes , and wishing to be true to nature , he went to the fish-market , and made drawings of the eyes and fins of various species both living and dead , which he transferred with the greatest effect to his canvas . It was thus that , even in his early youth , he aimed at uniting vigour of design with correctness of detail . This love of truth is the distinguishing mark of a real genius . Only your second-rate men believe that ' imagination' is superior to truth . Michael Angelo liad imagination enough , and yet we read : —

    _ He was intimate with the prior of the monastery of Santo Spirito , and about this time executed for its church a crucifix in wood of a size rather less than the natural . The prior , who highly appreciated his talents , accommodated him with an apartment for the prosecution of liis anatomical studies . Ho soon took to the dissecting knife ; but the iiao of it so painfully affected hia nervous system , that for a time it seemed as though he mnst cast it away for ever . Nothing but an unquenchable desire to render himself a complete master of design , could have enabled him to overcome this difficulty . At length lie was able to use it with more indifference and with almost surgical precision , and subjects were frequently supplied to him from the hospital of the monastery . " We have in this great master , " as Sir C . Bell justly observes , " a proof of the manner in which genius submits to labour in order to attain perfection . Ho patiently , and painfully to himself , underwent the severe toil of the anatomist , to acquire a power of design such as it is hnrdly to be supposed co \ ild be duly appreciated either then or now . " ^ u

    Bell adds , that ho made careful examinations of the anatomical studies of Michael Angelo while at Florence , and found that he had avoided the errors of artists of less genius , who , in showing- their learning , deviate from living nature . He recognised the utmost accuracy of anatomy in his studies , particularly in his pen-and-ink sketches ot the knee ; for example , every point of bone , muscle , tendon , and ligament , was marked and perhaps a little exaggerated . But lie found , « n surveying the limbs of tho statues or which Rome of these drawings had been mwlo , that this pecmharity was not visible : there were none of tho details of anatomy , but only the ellects of muscular action . The following anecdote , which is ne w to us , woll illustrates Michael Angelo b mastery : —• ¦ Blaaio < li Vignere , who lind been admitted to his studio , hma left beliindhim the toUowing graphic description of tho energy anil certitude of stroke with which Michael Angelo was wont to pursue his sculptural labours :

    I may say that J have Been Michael Angelo at work aftor ho had passed his sixtieth year , and although he was not very robust , ho cut away as many scales from a . block of very hard marble iu a quarter of an hour , as three young sculptors would have effected in three or four hours , —a thing almost incredible to ono who had not actually witnessed it . Such was the impetuosity nnd fire witli which ho pursued his iabour , that I almost thought the whole work iuuh ( , have gone- to pieces ; with a single stroke ho brought down fragments three ov four lingers thick , and ho close

    Untitled Article

    HENRIETTA MARIA . Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria , including her Private , Correspondence with Charles the First . Edited by Mary Everett Green . Bentley . It would not be easy to overpraise the industrious zeal of Mrs . Everett Green . This volume , not large or pretentious , is the result of toil and patience , of a kind very uncommon in our days . Mrs . Green has ransacked the public archives and private libraries of England and France- First , while searching the French . State-paper Office , sne exhumed a variety of the Queen ' s letters ; others were furnished by individuals interested in her literary objects , but the greater part of the correspondence has been dug out of the Harleian collection , in the British Museum . Here she found a volume containing the letters to Charles I ., ninety-nine folios , transcribed by an English copyist totally unacquainted with the French language , partly in the ordinary character , but principally in cypher . The scribe had obviouslycopied from the originals as they lay in a heap before him , without regard to date , place , or unity : —

    Several which evidently occupied different sheets of paper , are separated in the transcripts , and the commencement and termination are many pages apart ; sometimes the sense of a letter will break off abruptly , without any seeming break in the MS ., the copyist having proceeded with an entirely different letter , as though it were a continuation of the same . Added to this , the words are often run into one another , or one wore is divided into two : those letters of the alphabet which the queen formed somewhat alike , as v and r , are perpetually interchanged , and the misspellings are abundant . Mrs . Green had to compile her keys from the decipheredpassages , but aa three or four cyphers were used , this process was tedious in the extreme . She then translated the letters , arranged them chronologically , and published them -with slight annotations . Her laborious and conscientious performance of this task deserves the warmest commendation and the most unreserved encouragement .

    The letters themselves are important materials of history . They illustrate much that was previously indistinct in tlie annals of the period , but they do not serve to qualify in the least the judgment that had been passed by all competent writers on the character of Henrietta Maria . The ( laughter of Henry IV . was a vain , arrogant , selfish intriguer 5 cold-blooded , vicious , and animated by that sensuous pride which degrades its possessor . She was the evil genius of her husband ' s court , the instigator of some of the king ' s worst crimes , the flatterer , of his follies , the self-seeking accomplice of his treasons . Her first thought after his death , as expressed in her letters , was in connexion with her own personal loss—not of her husband , "but of her dignity . She had been " unqueened , " she did not say " widowed . " Not only was it her constant effort to fortify Charles in his obstinacy , she frequently urged him only to make such compacts as he could annul and disavow upon a

    favourable opportunity . Mrs . Green is justified in saying that in strength and decision of character Charles was far surpassed by Henrietta Maria ; the husband and the -wife , however , were probably equal in the -wickedness of their designs . Their correspondence , as now published , commenced in the spring of 1 G 42 , when tho queen went to Holland to obtain the assistance of the Prince of Orange , and to pawn her own jewels , as well as those of the Crown , embezzled for that purpose , among the opulent Low Country merchants . From that moment it becomes apparent how she goaded on the king in his course of illegality and violence . " My whole hope lies in your firmness and constancy , and when I hear anything to the contrary 1 am mad . " The king ' s pearl buttons , and ruby collar , and tho queen ' s chain ami cross , were haggled i ' av by the Jews of Amsterdam , while Henrietta Maria continued to apply the spur : " lie-member your own maxim , that it is better to follow out a bad resolution than to change it so often : to begin , and

    then to stop , is your ruin : "I understand they are willing to give you tonnngo and poundage for three years . I repeat to you , that if you cannot have it as you ought , that is to say , in your own . power to dispose of it , you pass a thing against yourself : you see it by experience , for all that has been hitherto done with it , has been against you . While Hull was being invested , she wrote : — You must have Hull , and if the man who ia in it does not submit , you have already declared him a traitor , you must liave him alive or Head ; for this is no longer a mere play . You must declare yourself ; you have testified your gentleness enough , you must show your justice . Go on Loldly : ( iod will assist you . And again , still more vigorously : — I have wished myself in the place of James in Hull ; I would have fiang the rascal over tho walls , or ho should have done the same thing to me ;

    She supplied tho king actively with money , men , horses , cannon , pistols , carbines , muskets , and gunpowder ; she was the living incentive of the civil war ; she objected to every compromise . " When Charles informed her that ho had been counselled to send and ask the advice of the judges , sho told him that , without jealousy , she considered such a plan ridiculous ; tho throne was the fountain of legality ; neither the legislature , nor any court ,

    Untitled Article

    ¦ &BBXUX * TR 188 T . T " JBf IIAMB , asg

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 7, 1857, page 135, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2179/page/15/