46 REVIEW.-Macqueen on the Condition of the Country. [July, actual cost of this is 2d. a day each person. At Clonmell, the diet in their house of industry was, for breakfast 1lb. oatmeal among three, and half a pint of new milk to each; dinner, 1 stone of potatoes to five infirm paupers, or four vagrants, and 1 pint of sour milk to each; supper lb. of bread, and half a pint of sour milk to each." Thus by the most palpable cruelty and folly is a poor helpless, innocent person palmed off with 1d. a day, while a rascal is comforted with twenty times the amount. One half of the public money expended upon Howardian gaols in the county of Gloucester alone, would have thrown bridges over the Severn at Newnham and Tewkesbury, have cut most beneficial roads, and enriched the country. They who best know how to manage rascals are the officers in the Navy; and the best way of treating them is to make them useful drudges, and keep them in order by severe discipline. A barn of a workhouse is deemed sufficient for old, decrepid, virtuous labourers; but a palace is to be erected for worthless scoundrels. Philosophers know that the only way to effect permanent reform is suffering. Salt and potatoes, spring water, hard work, and a cat-onine tails, and (to prevent escape) hulks for prisons, would at a cheap rate deter from crime; and a few barns would do for women and children. What is the cause of all this expensive folly? Nothing but unphilosophical religionism, which is always promising golden ages, i. e. races of men without vice or misery, by methods which remove suffering from the former, and leave the latter for the innocent. Mr. Macqueen then makes an elaborate estimate of the respective advantages of each of our colonies for convicts and emigrants. He conceives that our criminals ought to be sent to the worst places, as Bermuda, the Cape or Trinidad, and even the West Indies; and if complaint is made that it is virtually sending them to destruction, Mr. Macqueen observes, that our gallant soldiers and sailors are obliged to go there, as well as thousands of inoffensive young people seeking a maintenance. Of all the colonies Mr. M. prefers Australia, and he wishes to relieve it, as far as possible, from the imputation of being a convict colony, and seems to hint a desire that it should be made a place of punishment only for those who have been driven to evil courses by sheer want and destitution. -pp. 32, 33. Besides the known products of the colony, he states that the clive tree here produces superior oil; that hemp and fax may be grown sufficient to render us independent of foreign countries. Tobacco thrives well; and wine will shortly become a staple article of export. Mr. M. concludes with the subject of emigration; which he shows to be absolutely necessary, in the manner following: numbers, that every unemployed family, "We may say, for the sake of round consisting of a man and his wife and four children, is a dead weight upon the country of 401. per annum ; in other words, consuming annually 401. which would otherwise be beneficially employed. If then you place this family in a condition where they can consume and pay for 201. worth a-year of home manufacture, you are actually increasing the national wealth in a ratio of 60l, for every family so provided."—p. 35. This statement, and the circumstance of thus augmenting the nursery for seamen, is a sufficient reply to the objections against emigration. We shall conclude with Mr. Macqueen's summing up: "The principal difficulty to surmount is the number of able-bodied paupers wholly destitute of remunerative labour. A judicious attention to emigration would, however, soon obviate this evil; and when a fair balance be once struck between home demand and employment, then there can be no objection to provide against a recurrence of future and similar danger; thus the common argument will be removed, that as fast as one swarm of population be thrown off, another will be produced. As to the plan of cultivating waste lands in England, after the most careful consideration I am convinced of the utter fallacy of such doctrine. One of the most prominent causes of the existing evil has been the bringing into cultivation portions of land, which can only bear tillage during high prices for produce. The expense of settling a man, his wife, and three children, on waste land at home, has been estimated before the Emigration Committee, by Mr.Cowling the surveyor, at 751. "The main objection to Mr. Wilmot Horton's plan of emigration was its complex machinery. I doubt not that parishes would gladly defray the outfit and a portion of passage expenses to their surplus population, say, twelve months average expense of a family; which I have already shown to be 40. If an office were established under the 1830.] REVIEW.-Cunningham's Lives of British Sculptors. authority of Government, in which contracts for workmen and labourers could be registered by colonists in want of such assistance, and undertaking to indent the emigrant for a certain number of years, at moderate wages, but paying down the moiety of the passage money on his arrival; then indeed much of the present difficulty would be overcome. What is principally required is a reciprocal system, by which the overstocked parish of England could meet the understocked district of Australia, dividing the expenses of transmission, and insuring the comforts and prosperity of the emigrant. "I will not now enter upon any calculation as to the present or future resources of the colony. All doubt is now removed, that it possesses the means, if properly developed, of rendering the most material service to the Mother Country. Probably when the higher latitudes are explored, mineral wealth and precious stones will be discovered; whether such discovery may tend to the benefit of the country, is a different subject. But the wealth derivable by good management in that new and virgin portion of the globe may do as much for England as any of her colonies has done in former periods of her history. The wealth poured into Britain from the West Indian islands, supported her finances during the American war. The treasures of the East enabled our Exchequer successfully to contend with revolutionary France. The yet untried sources of wealth, considering industry and employment only as wealth, which may be drawn from Australia, may yet extricate this country from the difficulties with which she is now embarrassed,-may afford plentiful means to thousands, who, from destitution and misery, are daily merging into crime, and may tend to the accomplishment of that great and manifest intention of Providence, to carry civilization to the uttermost part of the universe." Well does Mr. Macqueen say, THAT OUR CRIMINAL CODE REQUIRES REVISION. Philosophers do not care a straw about the religious opinions of sectaries; but they know what havoc they made in the time of Charles the First to propagate nonsense, and they abhor their interference in public concerns. No rational man builds large houses and keeps expensive establish ments for profligate children, or patronises thieves. He subjects them to adversity and suffering. In a ship of war mulcts of grog, and a cat-o'-nine tails, produce most efficient and speedy reforms, and render a rogue a service able drudge. In Germany and Russia criminals work mines, and repay the state by earning more than their cost. In England, sectaries pour in 47 petitions against flogging, a most indispensable instrument of maintaining order and obedience, but do not send in a single one in behalf of Mr. Be the poor. Their heads are full of bub cher's plans to preserve the virtue of bles only, which are known to convert Christianity into a civil and political evil; and much mischief have they done the country by dabbling in state affairs. The Lives of the most eminent British Painters, IN vol. XCIX. ii. p. 51, we spoke with approbation of the volume of the Family Library which contained the lives of the most eminent Painters, and we are now to offer an opinion on that dedicated to Sculptors. Mr. Cunningham is here on his own ground; his opinions are delivered ex cathedrâ; and, so far as we can judge, he brings to his work an enthusiastic love of art, a fine feeling for its capaci ties, a critical acquaintance with its nicest beauties, and a taste formed upon the purest and most classic models. There is something tangible, something definite and practical in all he writes on sculpture; he knows what he is talking about, and they who hear him feel and understand it too. His opinions are not barren and empty generalities; he praises, with the skill of a man who has a true relish for the work which has kindled his enthusiasm; he objects, and his criticisms are referable to principles, and to a standard of taste at once accurate, elegant, and discriminating. There is one complaint, which is uttered by Mr. Cunningham whenever an opportunity offers; to which, though we readily yield an assent, we are not quite sure if it proceeds with dignity from his pen. We of course allude to those querulous observations on the want of encouragement given to his art in architectural embellishments, whether applied to churches, to public edifices, externally or internally, to private mansions of the great, in cornices, chimney-pieces, &c., or to scattering vases about the gardens of palaces. We are, however, disposed to think that the patronage of this art is more general than at any former period, and although it may not exhibit itself in a demand for costly and elaborate workmanship, 48 REVIEW.-Cunningham's Lives of British Sculptors. by which the reputation of the artist is secured, yet there is scarcely a sculptor of name who is not transmitting to posterity the busts of men of great and small and no account, in duplicate and triplicate, to the bustle of his studio, and the great advantage of his purse. We hope we shall not be understood as deeming it of little importance in what branch of his art the sculptor is employed; but the public will take the liberty of deciding for itself, and no one can tell better than Mr. Cunning: ham, how much (in the present state of society) beyond the reach of the most princely fortunes would be the encouragement of sculpture to the extent of which many of its professors are quali fied to conduct its exertions. The lives in this volume are nine: they include Gibbons, Cibber, Roubiliac, Wilton, Banks, Nollekens, Bacou, Mrs. Damer, and Flaxman.' The work is a history of sculpture from almost the close of the seventeenth century to the present day. For so much of the biography as relates to the domestic lives of the artists, the author is indebted to the labours of their respective historians, collected with diligence and compiled with care. His opinions of their labours are the result of his own observation; he criticises freely, but with much candour and impartiality. Of Gibbons but little is known; and for that little we are indebted to Evelyn and to Walpole. Amongst his most celebrated works are the altarpiece of Trinity College, Oxford, and his carvings at Chatsworth. His style is well characterised by Mr. Cunningham: "In the grace and elegance of his workmanship he excelled all artists who preceded, as well as those who have followed him; nevertheless in felicity of grouping and vivid richness and propriety of application, he was far surpassed by those intrepid artists who embellished our old Abbeys and Cathe drals. In comparing his works with those gothic carvings, the remark of Gilpin is confirmed, that Gibbons was no adept at composition,' but in execution he has no rival. There was an impediment in his way, I apprehend, which some men of taste will be reluctant to admit; the Grecian architecture which he was called upon to enrich, refuses to wear with grace a profusion of garlands, whereas the grovelike stateliness and harmonious variety of the Gothic carry fruit and flowers as naturally as trees bear leaf and bloom."-p. 16. [July, this volume is Caius Gabriel Cibber, the father of the celebrated dramatic writer; his reputation as a Sculptor is built upon the celebrated figures of Madness and Melancholy, which once appropriately distinguished the entrance of Bedlam, and which are now preserved in the new establishment in St. George's Fields. Of these statues Mr. C. says, with much feeling, (p. 27,) "I remember some eighteen or twenty years ago, when an utter stranger in London, I found myself, after much wandering, in the presence of those statues, then occupying the entrance to Moorfields. Sculpture was then to me at that time an art unknown, and it had to force its excellence upon my mind without the advantage of any preparation, either through drawings or descrip tions. But I perceived the meaning of those statues at once, felt the pathetic truth of the delineation, and congratulated myself on having discovered a new source of enjoyment. The impression which they made upon me induced me to expect too much from the rest of our sculpture. In St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, I found much finer work, but less fervour of poetic sentiment, than what Cibber had stamped on those rough stones, which he is said to have cut at once from the block without the aid of models." Cibber is designated as the "forerunner of whatever is poetic in the sculpture of Great Britain." The third in order of time is Roubiliac. Of his life but little is known; but of his works, as they were numerous, so are they highly extolled by his biographer. He was a reformer," says Mr. Cunningham, "who gave powerful assistance in abolishing the literal fidelity of Sculpture, and establishing in its stead the poetic personations of sentiment and feeling." A well-written account of the style of Sculpture, as it obtained in churches soon after the Norman Conquest down to the century preceding Roubiliac, introduces very appropriately the merits of this reformation. Mr. Cunningham's remarks on the monument of John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, give a very lively picrure of his style of criticism. Of the statue of Newton it is well said, "Newton is represented standing, holding up a prism, and between his hand and the thought stamped upon his brow, there is a visible connexión and harmony; he exhibits a calm colossal vigour of intellect, such as we have reason to believe was the The next Sculptor commemorated in character, of the living man; touched too, 1830.] REVIEW. Cunningham's Lives of British Sculptors. and that not a little, with those amenities enumerated by his friend Thomson.” "On looking at this noble statue," the author continues, "the worthy image of one of the loftiest of human beings, we may ask with the poet of the Seasons, when dwelling on the greatness of Newton's discoveries, and pointing out the wondrous harmony of their combinations, ⚫ Did ever poet image aught so fair?'" Mr. Cunningham's evidence on the comparative merits of the Theseus and the Neptune in the Elgin collection, and the Apollo Belvidere, is conceived in the spirit of an artist, and executed with the fervour of a poet. Mr. Cunningham has a great contempt for allegory in Sculpture, and, if we mistake not, has done his best to purify the tastes of his contemporaries from such abortions. Of course the celebrated_monument to Mrs. Nightingale by Roubiliac is exposed in this respect to an unsparing criticism; yet still, despite its allegorical drawback, it is honoured by very glowing praise. "The dying woman," he says, "would do honour to any artist. Her right arm and hand are considered by sculptors as the perfection of fine workmanship. Life seems slowly receding from her tapering fingers and her quivering wrist. Even Death himself, dry and sapless though he be, the very fleshless cheeks and eyeless sockets, seem flashing with malignant joy.” Roubiliac died in 1762, and from his time the art of which he was so bright an ornament and so intelligent a restorer, has been progressing towards a rivalry (with reverence be it spoken) of the classic antique. Of Wilton and Banks, the immediate followers of Roubiliac, our limits will not permit us to speak; of the former, it is said that his genius was humble, that his merit was not original, and that he often attempted what Sculp ture is unable to perform. Of Banks, his epitaph records his character in a few but expressive words. "In memory of Thomas Banks, esq. R.A. Sculptor, whose superior abilities in the profession added a lustre to the arts of his country, and whose character as a man reflected honour on human nature." We have so recently reviewed the "Life of Nollekens," presented to us by his "ungentle executor," Mr. Smith, that a slight notice may now suffice. A truer picture of the man and the sculp GENT. MAG. July, 1830. 49 tor, and one more honourable to his character, is given by Mr. Cunningham. It is true, indeed, that the author Is considerably indebted to Mr. Smith's pages; but the exaggeration and caricature are suppressed. We have the sobriety of truth, and not the vituperas tion of disappointment. The progress of carving a bust, of which Mr. C. is so excellent a judge, is explained with correctness and animation: "In transferring the likeness of the plaster to the stone, much depends on the accuracy of those who rough-hew the bustmuch more on the skill of him who carves, and not a little on the quality of the marble. If the marble is something dull and opaque, close copyism will do, because the materials resemble each other; but if the marble is more transparent, a bolder mode of treatment is demanded-for the lucid beauty of the stone gives something of the effect of carving in crystal-the markings of thought and touches of sentiment are lost in lightdeeper and grosser lines and touchings are necessary. Such must frequently be the difference of the marble from the model-but the difference between the model itself and the living original must be much greater still. In all busts-I speak of works of the most eminent the eyes are deeper sunk, the hollows on each side of the nostrils deeper, and the corners of the mouth more strongly given than in life. Nay, it is seldom indeed that the measurements of what would seem most important parts correspond with the flesh and blood. An artist who knows his profession never aggravates any of the deformities of nature-a wide mouth he never widens, a long nose he never lengthens, nor does he make a narrow forehead narrower. There are other differences yet. A swarthy face and dark eyes will, when copied in marble, face, if it had a fair complexion and light differ in most material points from the same eyes. To get the full effect of the black eye-lash and the dark eye, the sculptor must cut much more deeply into the stone than if he were seeking for the expression of the other. The contrast between the swarthy glance and the white material calls for deep shadows. No one knew the resources of his art better than Nollekens-but he did not always work successfully. He had less mastery in his treatment of the eye than in any other part of the human frame." Amongst the artists of the latter part of the last century, Bacon held a ble modeller of images for a pottery he very prominent place: from the humrose to eminence and fortune as a sculp works are the statues of Johnson, tor. Perhaps the most elevated of his '50 Kater and Lardner's Natural Philosophy. Towards the Hon. Mrs. Damer, the author has been sufficiently gallant; yet not permitting himself to overstep the truth. Quoting the eulogium of Horace Walpole, he adds, "A colder account must be rendered of her genius and her works by one who has never been cheered by her wit nor charmed by her beauty." To be sure the folTowing estimate of her talents is cold enough. "Those works which we know to have been actually carved by her own hand, are all rude in execution; there is no ease of hand, none of that practised nicety of stroke, that undulating rise and fall of flesh which every one feels to be necessary, and which no knowone can hope to reach without great ledge and practice." Of her head of Nelson, it is added, "It is an image of death rather than of the heroic; there are marks enough of the chisel, but any one can see the hand that held it was unskilful: the mouth-that place where ignorance stops and knowledge triumphs, looks like a crevice in a rock, and the eyes have no speculation.' care, 6 The last in the volume, and the highest in estimate, is Flaxman. On this life Mr. Cunningham has bestowed much and narrated it in a kindred spirit. With the following well written remarks on the classical style of Flaxman, we close our notice of this elegant volume, which we think will do higher honour to Mr. Cunningham's any previous work which he name than has given to the world. "The classic compositions of Flaxman include his Homer, Eschylus, Hesiod, Dante, and the Shield of Achilles. It is wonderful, while he pencilled these, how much he lived in the past, and how little in the present. All things of this age-all shapes which he found in nature-all feelings for existing loveliness were dismissed from his mind; and obtaining the prayer of Homer to his muse, things past became present, and the days of the "Tale of Troy divine" came back with all their warriors. The Shield of Achilles is one of the worthiest of all these works-the very way in which he made it was peculiar he modelled it roughly in clay, had it cast into plaster of Paris, and then finished it for the silver moulder. It was in this way that he made his chief works-no one could work so felicitously in plaster as himself; it carried a softness and a beauty from his touch which it could derive from no other hand. Of the twelve wondrous scenes which adorn the shield, there is not one which is not re [July, plete with beauty of its own. All is moving and breathing-there is the gentleness of peace, the tumult of war, and the charm of wedded love.” Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. Natural THROUGH Natural Philosophy intellect has become a scientific power, in action assimilating deity, while man in a natural state is in character lowered into a cart or a wheelbarrow, a mere passive machine. Through science new limbs and organs are added to the species; but it is waste of rooin and time to expatiate upon the blessing derived from Natural Philosophy. That indeed is a science of which 'évery man, who values his time, money, or happiness, ought to have an elementary knowledge, were it only to warn him against impostures and impracticabilities, and show him how to surmount difficulties. To circulate this knowledge, by means of diminishing the expense of acquiring it, may have also the effect of producing an important change in the public mind. It may generate a taste for that which is really useful, and increases the happiness and well-being of the species. Such a work as this, conducted by such men as the authors, is a national benefit; for if a common book of arithmetic has often been the means of making a capital mathematician, who can tell what may be the results of a scientific auxiliary, which is a far more powerful lever, because it confers more copious information, and carries a student much further on his road. The extracts which we shall give will refer to the uses which we have been in the habit of making of philosophy, namely, of opposing it to the trash which, under the holy name of religion, menaces the ruin of the national character for common sense. It is not that we care for the opinion of A, B, or C, but when forming the nucleus of a party they bear upon civil or political good, and we are sure, from history, that nonsense never did produce any other than evil. When publications of the latter character daily issue from the press, all determining the actions of the Almighty according to the personal opinions of the respective authors, it may warn the |