IRISH ARTISTS. -NO. 11.

WHEN last I communicated with you, my dear F, on the subject of Irish Art, we found the new Academy destitute of all immediate opportunity for assuming its functions and prosecuting its views. Although instituted by royal charter, and composed of members well qualified to realize the considerable expectations in which we must believe that illustrious recognition to have originated, it was still without exhibition-room, or council-room, or house of refuge; in fact, a "name," only, cut off from the sterling as well as poetical appendage of "local habitation." You may, perhaps, call to mind other circumstances, which I believe I also stated, and which served to heighten a dilemma, in itself sufficiently perplexing. You may remember it was proposed and hoped to induce from the guardians of an unappropriated fund, formed to commemorate his Majesty's visit to Ireland, some aid for the houseless artists; and lastly, that this hope was crossed by the interference of a connoisseur association of private gentlefolk, who sought to get themselves nominated as the dolers out, at will and pleasure, of any relief to be so obtained. And this was our last glimpse of Irish Art; unsheltered on the common of society; hopeless of any shelter of the kind she could safely or honourably accept; and rather in danger of sacrificing her independence to her necessities.

I have now to change the picture, and you may advise your amateur tastes and more elegant feelings of a coming gratification, so far as the previous topic may have interested you; or so far as the question of Art in its ramification to the land of Barry, of Hamilton, and of Shee, can be supposed to interest the sovereign connoisseur. I have seen laid, since my recent return to Dublin, the first stone of what is to be a fine edifice for the reception of the Irish Academy, and, indeed, for the abundant accommodation of all its wants and purposes; and, let me add, the patronage under which this national temple of art rears its head, is of a happier kind than I recollect to have been afforded to the lifting up of the arts in any other country.

France's great Louis was, no doubt, munificent in his efforts to advance and dignify her painting and sculpture; but he was also the man that exacted from the graphic muse an enfeebling and enslaving adulation. He rescued her from a state of nature, only to put her into a levee suit, teach her to bow, and keep her at court for his royal honour and glory; just as his Majesty might have dealt with an amiable savage, reclaimed into a beef-eater. Italy was more fortunate in her Lorenzo; or else in the stuff and spirit of those of her sons who wielded the pencil and chisel; certainly, Michael Angelo was too rough and energetic, and Raphael too natural and amiable for a courtier: still, however, in Italy, the patronage was despotic and condescending; and the artists were too much bound to be obliged. England, so far as we have yet seen, obtained her Royal Academy under yet better auspices: here was no flourish of princely donation; for, except a loan of a few thousand pounds, since paid hack, I believe, the British academicians remair to this day unloaded with any overwhelming burden of gratitude; unless we go the doubtful length of imposing upon them that fardel, on account of the unfurnished and incommodious apartments which, in

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common with various public clerks and agents, they occupy in a very large house. Yes, I beg pardon; there was one thing done for them, at the time of their inauguration, that neither they nor I should ever forget; and as the anecdote is not generally known-though I take it on the best authority, that of a distinguished royal academician,-you shall forthwith hear it. Some lordly connoisseurs would argue that the council could never go right unless they were admitted as honorary members-oh, these honorary members! The council properly referred to the advice of George the Third; and when their delegate mentioned the matter to the royal ear-" No, no, no,-keep them out— keep them all out!"-was the wise and vivacious answer.

Perhaps, after this, you expect to hear that the young Hibernian Academy has fallen in for a legacy of twenty or thirty thousand, so that the usual event, which must have preceded the reading of the will, fortunately frees them from all shew of gratitude to the patron, in this world. Or you may conjecture that some eastern vizier or pacha, too far removed to tax them to any extent or continuance, has enclosed a brilliant, not inferior to the Pitt or Pigott diamond, or Aladdin's lamp, or Fortunatus' purse, or some goose with a golden egg, may glance into your speculations. The patronage extended, however, bears little resemblance to any of those cases, if we except its novelty and unprecedentedness; and to come to the point at once, or, you will say, at last, an individual of their own body is the Mæcenas. A brother academician steps forward, and out of his especial purse, dedicates little less than twenty thousand pounds to the erection of a fit home for the arts of his country. Mr. Francis Johnson is the name of this high-minded man; a name already belonging to posterity, as the specimens of his architectural power, among the beautiful public buildings of Dublin, abundantly testify. But the new glory which this act flings around him, must, while it renders Mr. Johnson the most endearing and interesting object the eye of his contemporaries can fix upon, ensure him an immortality beyond question and beyond praise.

And now I challenge your acquiescence to my assertion, that Irish art has chanced on a patronage, unprecedented as it is felicitously coincident. The patron, himself a brother, has experienced all the finer feelings and peculiar spirit of sturdy independence, which, perhaps, exist in no bosom so strongly as in the bosom of an artist; and he will respect and cherish in others what he has been able to appreciate in himself. He will neither seek for, nor receive, any undue requital. He will not meanly grasp at a dictatorship in more than self-recompense for acting right and doing good. He will impose no holiday restrictions; no rules and regulations applicable, nay applied alike to the subjects of a mendicity association and the professors of a high art. He will not seem to encourage the spirit and effort of genius, and, in a breath, wrench from it, in a kind of tribute, the very essence of that spirit and effort. He will insist on no knee-bending, no Mandarin expertness of neck, no willow-backed suppleness and readiness. He will not, in fact, require the arts to go on in his own way, but wisely and delightfully satisfied with just having led them to the starting-post, he will bid God bless them, and let them run their natural and irresistible

career.

And in the manly gratitude of his associate brethren; in what

he knows to be the real and hearty expression of it; and, above all, in the rapid advance of his loved profession, attributable, first, to his munificence, and secondly, to his policy, he will, every day and hour, receive and feel a gratification above all the flattering unction that, on a day of official reports and enactments, the hobbyhorsical connoisseur can pretend to lay to his heart. Can he walk amid the classic shadows of the temple he will have erected-can he pass its gate-can he meet a brother, by him made successful and happy, and not experience a luxury of self-approbation and self-thankfulness, that still must outdo all the rest?-of that temple, of which the very echoes will strive to syllable his name!—and is it not written, "no music is so pleasant to the ear as the voice of him who owns you for a benefactor?"

I think I understand the happiness of this good and accomplished man, on the very recent occasion I have alluded to; namely, the laying of the first stone of the promised edifice. It was laid by himself, accordant, in course, with the solicitation of his brethren. They all accompanied him in procession-academicians, associates, and all; whiteheaded old men, whose lives had passed in the almost hopeless dream of such a day, and younger members, who, with sparkling looks and improved importance of step, seemed to date, from that moment, a new professional and social existence. They presented him with a silver trowel, on which were devices executed by Mr. Mossop, the gentleman who has done the medallion of Grattan's head that you and I saw together, and I need say no more to apprise you of the superior eminence of the artist: he is also an esteemed academician. Another, at the vote of the Academy, is to paint, for a place in their council-room, Mr. Johnson's full-length portrait. Then, before this day of days, there were addresses, and answers, and every thing harmonious and happy : and with it there came a dinner, at which the patron was the honoured guest of his fellow academicians, and, we may surely add, happiness and harmony still the accompaniment. Yes! I am sure I understood his feelings the full, deep content of heart; the conscious spirit, and pride, and virtue of soul; and the surpassing conviction that all he heard and saw around him was truth, fitness, congeniality.

A good cohort of workmen are now proceeding with all due and pleasant clamour and bustle, towards the completion of the good work Mr. Johnson has begun. The building is to be forty-two feet in front, and of unusual depth: it will afford two exhibition-rooms; one fiftysix feet by thirty-nine; the other, thirty-nine by twenty-two: the council-room will be thirty by twenty; and an ante-room, on the same floor, twenty by ten. The apartments for the accommodation of a keeper and servants, will also be numerous and commodious. front is to be cut-stone, executed in the best style.

The

Should the wealthy and educated of Mr. Johnson's countrymen feel liberally disposed to imitate an example--they are now only too late to regret they had not anticipated; should they feel, what is the truth, that an individual, no matter how munificent and ardent, cannot possibly extend to Art all the salutary assistance of which she stands so much in need; this is the season to shew a sense of such considerations. They owe it to their rank, to their education, to themselves, to their country and posterity, not to neglect the present and passing opportunities for establishing native Art, as she ought to be established, and as

she only can be established, in their native land. They owe it to their descendants, to their children's children, not to have it said by a future people-"Are these the offspring of the great, the titled, and the affluent, among our forefathers, without whose assistance the arts of the country forced their way through disheartening neglect and accumulated diffiN. M.

culties?"

TO NEWTON'S STUDY.*

THOU lonely relic of a name
Emblazon'd on the roll of fame
In an immortal line;

Wert thou the consecrated place

(Some ten feet square thy cabin'd space)
Of one almost divine?

Was it within thy narrow room
Where Newton's wisdom pierced the gloom
That Science had conceal'd?
Was it within thy narrow cell
He sat and broke the secret spell
That gravitation veil'd?—
Where, while corporeally at rest,
The labouring genius in his breast
Begat prophetic thought;

Or, leaving its cribb'd mansion here,
Sprang upward to some nobler sphere,
With inspiration fraught-

Or round the eternal heavens career'd,
Nor the sun's burning influence fear'd,
Nor bearded comets pale:

But o'er the orbits where they fly
On lightning pennons through the sky,
Steer'd his triumphant sail!

What stately halls can rival thee
In thy unobtrusive dignity,
Temple of thought sublime!
Thy inmate scann'd within thy wall
A thousand worlds, and there his call
Subdued both space and time.

The palace owns more glittering things,
Lords, courtiers, parasites, and kings,"

The visible alone,

And not the best that earth can boast-
While thou hast held th' invisible host

Round a great spirit's throne.

Not Pharaoh's massy pyramid,
Not Angelo's dome in radiance hid

Of heaven's refulgence wide,

Can outshine thee in worth and note,

Where Newton reason'd, thought, and wrote,

Of vision, time, and tide.

Whate'er his name might consecrate,

Is safer from the rage of fate

Than pyramid or dome,

Still to be seen on the roof of his house in St. Martin's-street, Leicester-square,

nearly in the same state as he left it.

Though one may shrine a monarch's clay,
In t'other popes and prelates sway,

The plagues of ruin'd Rome.

The humblest spot where science grew,
Whence knowledge, born of genius, threw
Its glory on the mind,

Like thine is e'er a sacred site,
Circled around with holy light,
A Pharos to mankind.

Yet still, what passengers gone by
Cast not on thee the uplifted eye,
Nor noted if they saw :

Of London's million souls but few
Mark thee as I for ever do,

With reverence and awe.

In Italy thou wouldst be known-
As Petrarch's house at Arqua shewn,

Or as Voltaire's in France :

Here the 'Change walls move more than thine,
Where knavery, traffic, gold, combine

To lead the sordid dance.

Yet do these sober walls to me
For ever speak thy dignity,
Philosophy refined!

And tell me of what mighty worth
In intellect on this low earth

Was Newton's wondrous mind!

NATIONAL PREJUDICES.

Does it not seem, at this moment, rather late in the day, when every whipster amongst us has contrived to run over the Continent,-is it not absurd now to attempt a description of the character or peculiarities of a nation? Every one knows France. I first beg leave to deny the fact, and out-top it by asserting, that we know really less of it than we did before fourteen. Prior to that epoch, we all had one fixed, certain opinion respecting French character, and that, upon the whole, a juster one, than the mangled, contradictory, and affectedly liberal reports brought home by the yearly ebb of travelled dandies. Surely there can be no better way of deciding this point than by examining the volumes of those writers, whose professed object is a true representation of characters and manners, according to the age, personage, nation, &c. of their ideal productions. The truth and justice of French character, valets, dandies, fine ladies, or mousquetaires, in our ancient comedy and novel, we may allow, seeing that such characters are but echoes of the same as represented by French writers and actors. But look at our novels (now our only drama) since the peace, and reflect or demand, according as it be in your power, if the representations of the French at all resemble the originals. Examine, first of all, the Marquis de Hautlieu of Quentin Durward: his bad French, his mild and uninfuriated mention of his losses and misfortunes, his high principles, no revenge or Machiavelism in them, his attempt, too, at taste and criticism --and ask, has this being the least resemblance to any one modern emisse or ultra? I am not deep in novel-reading, but there is "Percy Mallory" I have looked over, a clever-written imbroglio, that I defy