classical subjects: amongst others, Thetis dipping the Infant Achilles; and Thetis and her nymphs ascending from the sea to condole with Achilles. For these and other works he was made an academician. His admission-gift to the academy was the figure of a fallen Titan, which has been much admired for its anatomical truth. 66 Fortunately for himself and his fame, our sculptor's next work was of a class and character to which his chisel had been altogether a stranger. Hitherto we have seen it employed only on classical compositions,groups from the antique conceived in the spirit of ancient poetry,beautiful but cold poetical abstractions: it was now to be exercised on a simple subject,-the simplest almost that nature could offer. This was a monument to the infant daughter of Sir Brooke Boothby, now in Ashbourne church, Derbyshire. Simplicity and elegance," says Dr Mavor, "appear in the workmanship-tenderness and innocence in the image. On a marble pedestal and slab, like a low table, is a mattress, with the child lying on it, both likewise in white marble. Her cheek, expressive of suffering mildness, reclines on the pillow, and her little fevered hands gently rest on each other near to her head. and only drapery is a frock, the skirt flowing easily out before, and a ribbon sash, the knot twisted forward as it were by the restlessness of pain, and the two ends spread out in the same direction with the frock. The delicate naked feet are carelessly folded over each other, and the whole appearance is as if she had just turned in the tossings of her illness, to seek a cooler or an easier place of rest." The exhibition of this work at Somerset-house did more to extend Banks's name, and procure him commissions, than all the works of infinitely greater labour, both as regards conception and execution, that had hitherto proceeded from under his chisel. The plain Banks's last work was the monument to Captain Westcott, in St Paul's. It is, like most of this class of works of that day, allegorical and unimpressive; the effect does not correspond with the execution. The same objection applies with perhaps still greater force to his monument to Sir Eyre Coote in Westminster abbey. On this subject the following remarks are so admirable that we feel great pleasure in giving to them what additional currency our pages can confer: "It is singular to find, that with the peculiar excellency which distinguishes our national sculpture, more of merit should not exist in our museums and public monuments. Perhaps boards of official trustees and committees of taste may not form the best school of arts. The events of the last thirty years ought to have led to a different result. During the late wars, the eminent men who have fallen in the service of their country have been but too numerous, and parliament has been profuse (perhaps to a fault) of monuments to commemorate their glory and their loss. Those would have opened the noblest field for the artist. The higher feelings connected with national glory, with the attachment of free citizens to a free state, would, we might hope, have stimulated the enthusiasm of the artist. Here we might have anticipated, that in those mansions where the mighty rest,' the names of our departed statesmen and warriors would have been handed down to posterity by the successful efforts of our great artists. We cannot imagine any object much more deeply interesting than a collection of monuments thus created by national gratitude for public services and for departed genius. Our shrines were worthy of being well-filled. Westminster, in all its poetic beauty, connected as it is with historical remembrances, and with those houses of parliament where our statesmen and sages had acquired their fame; St Paul's, only second to the most noble of Christian temples, round whose vault our trophies might have been placed and banners hung, and with names to commemorate like those of Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Nelson, Abercromby, Moore, and Byron,— these ought to have led to the erection of a series of monuments worthy of Great Britain. The tombs of these great men, bearing simple but expressive inscriptions, would have furnished new motives to the young, and fresh energy to those who labour for honourable distinction: non è solo per gli estinti la tomba The living would have been worshippers in a real temple of British gratitude; and the sensation which every scholar feels in visiting the tombs of the starry Galileo,' of Michael Angelo, of Machiavel, of Alfieri, Filangieri (qui gloriam literariam honestavit') in the Santa Croce, would, in our country, and under our popular institutions, have been increased a thousand fold. But our national monuments have been, generally speaking, failures. We have in the first place failed, by the extent to which the system has been injudiciously carried. The currency has been depreciated by an over-issue. The excitement produced by a great name is neutralized, on finding it succeeded by one memorable only for a coronet, a mitre, or a prebendal stall. Our second mistake has been in the character of the usual designs. Our monuments want all individuality. They seek to personify abstract feelings, rather than to record particular greatness or worth. The veiled form of allegory suits not any strong emotion. The figures of Courage or Wisdom, however well-drawn or mythologically represented, speak a much less eloquent language to the heart than the forms of Nelson or of Romilly. The shaft of death, the trumpet of fame, and even the anchor of Britannia herself, deserve to be laid upon the shelf, with the darts, torches, crooks and pipes, which are banished by sense and taste even from the verses of school-boys. Toutes les glaces du nord,' observes Boileau on a similar subject, ne sont pas plus froides que ces pensées.' Who that has admired the simple statue of Newton in Trinity Chapel, would wish to see it replaced by an Urania with her sphere, even though her eight sisters were summoned to her assistance? Who would prefer the inflated bombast of the French school, as furnishing a design for the monument of Napoleon, to the following picturesque lines of Manzoni? 'O! quante volte el tacito 1 Edinburgh Review, vol. XLII. pp. 509-10. George Steevens. BORN A. D. 1736.—died a. D. 1800. THIS celebrated annotator on the writings of our great dramatist received his classical education at Kingston-upon-Thames and Eton, and at King's college, Cambridge. In private life he appears to have been of a capricious and unamiable temper. The grand and almost exclusive aim of his life was the illustration of Shakspeare. In 1766 he published twenty of Shakspeare's plays, in four volumes, 8vo. In 1773, with the assistance of Dr Johnson, he published an illustrated edition of the poet's whole works, in ten volumes 8vo, of which a second edition appeared in 1785, and a third, in fifteen volumes, in 1793. Mr Steevens possessed that knowledge which qualified him, in a superior degree, for the illustration of Shakspeare; and without which the most critical acumen would have proved abortive. He had, in short, studied the age of Shakspeare, and had employed his persevering industry in becoming acquainted with the writings, manners, and laws of that period, as well as the provincial peculiarities, whether of language or custom, which prevailed in different parts of the kingdom, but more particularly in those where Shakspeare passed the early years of his life. This store of knowledge he was continually increasing by the acquisition of the rare and obsolete publications of a former age, which he spared no expense to obtain. In the preparation of the edition of 1793 for the press, he gave an instance of editorial activity and perseverance almost without example. To this work he devoted a period of eighteen months; and during that time he left his house every morning at one o'clock, with the Hampstead patrole, and proceeded, without any consideration of the weather or the season, to his friend Isaac Read's chambers, in Barnard's Inn, where he was allowed to admit himself, and found a room prepared to receive him, with a sheet of the Shakspeare letter-press ready for correction. There was every book which he might wish to consult, and to Mr Read he could apply, on any doubt or sudden suggestion, to a knowledge of English literature perhaps equal to his own. This nocturnal toil greatly accelerated the printing of the work; as while the printers slept the editor was awake; and thus, in less than twenty months he completed his last splendid edition of Shakspeare, in fifteen large octavo volumes. Mr Steevens was a good classical scholar. He possessed a very handsome fortune, which he managed with discretion, and was enabled by it to gratify his wishes, which he did without any regard to expense, in forming his distinguished collections of classical learning, literary antiquity, and the arts connected with it. The latter years of his life he chiefly passed at Hampstead, in unvisitable seclusion, and seldom mixed with society but in booksellers' shops, or the Shakspeare gallery, or the morning converzatione of Sir Joseph Banks. He bequeathed his valuable Shakspeare, illustrated with near 1500 prints, to Lord Spencer; his Hogarth perfect, with the exception of one or two pieces, to Mr Windham; and his corrected copy of Shakspeare, with 200 guineas, to his friend Mr Read. Besides his edition of Shakspeare, Mr Steevens made several contributions to Hogarth's Biographical anecdotes, and the 'Biographia Dramatica.' He was also the author of a poem entitled 'The Frantic Lover,' which appeared in Dodsley's Register. Daines Barrington. BORN A. D. 1727.-DIED A. D. 1800. THE honourable Daines Barrington was the fourth son of John Shute, first Lord-viscount Barrington. He studied at Oxford, and was afterwards called to the bar, where he was esteemed a sound lawyer but no pleader. He received a number of government appointments in succession, and might probably have risen to a high judicial station, had he manifested any ambition that way; but his love of literature withdrew him in a great measure from public life, and he ultimately retired from the practice of the law in order to devote himself to his favourite studies. His first publication was his Observations on the Statutes,' 1766, 4to. In 1773 he added an English translation and notes to Mr Elstob's edition of the Saxon translation of Orosius, ascribed to King Alfred. In 1775 he published some Tracts on the Probability of reaching the North Pole; and in 1781, 'Miscellanies on various subjects.' He was also the author of several papers in the Archæologia,' and in the Philosophical Transactions.' 6 He died on the 11th March, 1800. A particular enumeration of all his works is given in the 3d volume of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes.' His Observations upon the Statutes' is an exceedingly able performance. Its object was to obtain the repeal of obsolete and useless statutes, and to digest and consolidate all acts relating to the same subject, into one uniform statute. His tracts on the North-west passage were republished by Colonel Beaufoy in 1818. Thomas Dimsdale. BORN A. D. 1711.-DIED A. D. 1800. THOMAS DIMSDALE, Baron of the Russian empire, was the son of an apothecary near Epping in Essex. He studied medicine and surgery in the London hospitals, under Symonds and Girle, and commenced the practice of his profession at Hertford about the year 1734. In 1745 he attended the duke of Cumberland's army in the campaign against the Scottish rebels. In 1761 he took his degree as physician. In 1768 he was invited to the Russian court to inoculate her imperial majesty, Catherine, and her son the grand-duke. He obeyed the requisition, and was most munificently rewarded by a gift of £10,000, an annuity of £500, and the title of a Baron of the empire, with perpetual descent to his family. He was strongly urged to take up his abode in Russia, but declined the liberal overtures which were made to him with this view; he was also treated with great condescension by Frederick III. of Prussia, while passing through Berlin on his return home. In 1776 he published observations on the method then in use of inoculating for small-pox. In 1780 he was chosen a representative in parliament for the borough of Hertford. In 1781 he was again called to the Russian court to inoculate the two sons of the grand-duke, and was again most liberally rewarded for his trouble. In 1790 he retired from public life. He spent the remaining ten years of his life in the midst of his family and a few select friends; and expired at the advanced age of eighty-nine, on the 30th of December, 1800 Hester Chapone. BORN A D. 1727.—died a. D. 1801. THE maiden-name of this popular authoress was Mulso. Her family was a respectable one in Northamptonshire. She was born in 1727, and is said to have attempted the composition of a romance before she had finished her tenth year. Richardson, the novelist, admired her greatly, and took every opportunity of introducing her to public attention as an accomplished and highly moral writer. The first productions of hers which were given to the world were, the interesting story of Fidelia, in 'The Adventurer;' and a poem prefixed to her friend Mrs Carter's translation of Epictetus; but her name only became known on the publication of a deservedly popular work, 'Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, addressed to a Young Lady. "This was printed in 1778, and will long, it is to be hoped, maintain its place in the library of young women. It is distinguished by sound sense, a liberal as well as a warm spirit of piety, and a philosophy applied to its best use, the culture of the heart and affections. It has no shining eccentricities of thought,-no peculiarities of system,it follows experience as its guide, and is content to produce effects of acknowledged utility by known and approved means. On these accounts, it is perhaps the most unexceptionable treatise that can be put into the hands of female youth. These letters are particularly excel-lent in what relates to regulating the temper and feelings. Their style is pure and unaffected, and the manner grave and impressive. Those who choose to compare them in this respect with another widely circulated publication addressed about the same time to young women, (Dr Fordyce's sermons,) will probably be of opinion, that the dignified simplicity of the female writer is much more consonant to true taste, than the affected prettinesses and constant glitter of the preacher. Mrs Chapone soon after published a volume of Miscellanies,' containing one or two moral essays, and some elegant poems. The poemswhich have the merit of many beautiful thoughts and some original images-seem not to have been sufficiently appreciated by the public; for they were not greatly noticed, owing perhaps to the mode of their publication," Mrs Chapone died on the 25th of December, 1801, 6 |