we cannot perceive the force of the objection: it is perfectly in accordance with the poetic character of the picture, and it is so managed as not to glare upon the eye in offensive distinction from the general effect. In an assemblage of naiads, satyrs, and river-gods, Polyphemus cannot fairly be considered as an intruder. A partial opening on the right carries the eye forward to a bay, a city, and distant mountains. The next engraving has in the immediate foreground, a spring-head issuing from a bank crowned with trees and enriched with beautifully varied foliage. The lights playing on the water, catching on the weeds and branches, the pebbles lying at the bottom and on the brink, and the other accompaniments of this spot, give it exquisite beauty. On the right, where a road passes the bank, a young man, a heated traveller, stoops and drinks out of the hollow of his hand. Diogenes, who had approached the brook for the same purpose, surprised at this simple process, throws away his superfluous cup. At a short distance is seen a reclining groupe, apparently companions of the philosopher. Higher up, a river or winding lake occupies the centre; on its left bank stand trees and buildings, crowned with a showy piece of ornamental architecture; the ground on the right and in the distance rises to a considerable height, broken with rocks and knolls, and enriched with trees and buildings. Figures in different positions and occupations are seen on the verge of the water. The fourth is a singular and most interesting picture. On the left, in the foreground, from a low cavern in a rocky bank crowned by the tall stems of two trees, and beautifully fringed with weeds and shrubs, gushes a stream which forms, at the mouth of the cave, a low cascade. Across the broken ridge over which the water pours, there lies, in all the relaxation of death, a corpse, from which an enormous serpent is just unfolding his destructive coil, and raising his head in menace of another object which has just excited his anger. This is a man who, while walking along a path which skirts the stream on the right, has just caught sight of the fearful spectacle, and is hastening from the place with every demonstration of extreme terror. Higher up, in the centre, beside a basket which she has apparently set down from weariness, sits a female, so situated as not to see the reptile and his prey, from which she is not more than a few yards distant. The terrified traveller has, however, just attracted her attention, and her mingled fear and curiosity are well portrayed both in attitude and expression. A little further on, are three men lying in the shade, and one of them is roused by the exclamation which the female seems to be in the act of making, There is something extremely piquant in this scene. The man, who sees and feels

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the full extent of his danger, the woman, whose terror is partly sympathy and partly apprehension, and both mixed with uncertainty, the other individual, whose wonder only induces him to raise his head without shifting his lounging posture,-are all excellently conceived and contrasted both in character and relative position. The rest of the picture is made up of interesting details well combined: a beautiful groupe of trees on the right; a lake with fishermen and bathers in the centre; on the left, a bank with wood and water-fall, crested with towers and battlement; a distance of buildings and mountains.

There are four others of the same class; but these will be sufficient for our purpose, which has been, at once, to direct those of our readers who may need such intimations, to the highest sources of instruction, and to illustrate the most effective methods of combining landscape with characteristic embellishment. We could fill our Number with instances of blundering in this way. Waterloo, if we may trust our recollection, has introduced a hurdled inclosure into his etching of the death of Adonis ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds rightly censured Wilson for blending common-place scenery with a mythological subject.

Mr. Nicholson's instructions for colouring are good, especially as far as the first process is concerned. Had he stopped here, and contented himself with adding such incidental hints as might have led the way to subsequent improvement, he would, we think, have done better than by describing, not very distinctly, other methods to which there is no graphic illustration. The plate of successive stages is good, but the colouring might have been more carefully attended to. The remaining sections are filled with miscellaneous matter, a great part of which will be found useful to the student.

A series of ten lithographic subjects, for practice in sketching, closes the volume: they are well selected and beautifully executed.

Art. V. Recollections of Foreign Travel, on Life, Literature, and Self-Knowledge. By Sir Egerton Bridges, Bart. 2 Vols. post 8vo. Price 18s. London. 1825.

WE have found some difficulty in coming to a satisfactory

decision with regard to the genuineness and real object of these volumes. We had not read far before the suspicion was awakened, that an unwarrantable use had been made of Sir Egerton's name, by some tale-writer of the day, for the purpose of dressing out two volumes of light reading. Not having the

honour of Sir Egerton's acquaintance, we were unable to ascertain how far the character attributed to the imaginary memoirwriter corresponds to the supposed original; but it seemed to us that we could detect, mingled with the playfulness of fancy, the severity of satire in the portrait which is here presented to us. Our readers shall judge for themselves.

• An intense love of books from very childhood, and the pursuits for which they engendered a flame in an imaginative mind, made me always a lover of retirement, and of the scenes where it could be most peacefully enjoyed. This was increased by so extraordinary a degree of native shyness, as to take away all self-possession in society, and to make company often in the highest degree painful and irritating to me. The first eight years of my life, spent entirely in a country mansion, placed secludedly on a wooded hill, (though in a populous neighbourhood of gentry,) confirmed this timidity of disposition and temper so strongly, that it has never since been conquered, though somewhat abated. For many years, in the early part of my life, it totally took away all power to make any way in the world; and threw me out of the paths of ambition, and even of the opportunity to make common acquaintance. The most precious years of my life were passed in unprofitable and stagnant solitude. I say stagnant, because I am convinced that emulation and comparison are necessary for the nutrition of abilities as well as knowledge. From this defect, I soon had the mortification to see, in all directions, "boobies " (to use Dr. Sneyd Davies's expression)" mounting over my head." When I left college in 1783, and went to the Temple, I had scarce an acquaintance among lawyers, and was incapable of making any. I went down to the courts at Westminster; but at that time the language talked there seemed to me an unintelligible jargon; and so I continued to write sonnets, instead of copying pleas, and to solace myself by despising what I could not understand. I read Blackstone, whom I did seem to myself to comprehend, but who did not at all assist me in affixing meaning to the arguments I heard in court. What, however, I liked better than all the rest of Blackstone, was his Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse, which I transcribed into the first blank leaf. Had I spent but three months in a special pleader's office, all my difficulties would have vanished of themselves, almost even without a mental effort. The ordinary course of the business of life has taught me these things since, without study or professional aid. And I now persuade myself, too late, that there is no knowledge which I could have more easily mastered than that of the law. When I was young, I was capable of great labour, and loved it. I did not want amusement or exercise; I did not even like exercise; it fatigued rather than refreshed me; and I could read and write from morning even till midnight. Now I can neither read nor write after the freshness of the morning is over. How deeply I lament that I threw away this capacity of labour, when it would have opened to me a passage through life so beneficial and gratifying, without paying the price of any painful cost.

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I was born a younger brother, and continued so till the age forty-five; my father also remained a younger brother till his age sixty-eight, and only survived his elder brother seven months; and yet more, the whole branch of my ancestors was of a remote juniority. My grandfather has been dead one hundred and twelve years, at the early age of thirty-one years and nine months. My father retired early from college to a country life, and refused to take orders for the family living of the parish where the mansion was situated. I have spent nearly forty-four years since his death in fitful energies, which have led to nothing.' Vol. I. pp. 7-11.

I can remember one event when I was aged exactly three years and a half, at which Gray the poet was present, (but whom, I confess, I do not recollect,) and many scenes, events, feelings, and even conversations, the next year, 1767, which happened at Margate, where we spent that autumn. The next year, I remember the person and even the chariot of an uncle, who died in December 1769; and the messenger who announced the death of another relation, (my godmother,) in the following year, 1770. Thence I scarce remember any thing till the day I was first carried to school in July 1771: that event has made an impression on me as distinct as if it happened yesterday. The picture, too, of every field about Wootton, every tree, every hedge, every look of the sky, will remain as long as my faculties last. I might well love home, for among strangers my little understanding was totally lost; I could not speak, and if I was spoken to, tears came into my eyes. I got through my lessons when I first went to school, but otherwise I scarcely ever opened my lips; I was left alone in all plays and amusements, and mixed scarcely at all with other boys. On Saturday and Sunday, a family in the neighbourhood, who lived in a very elegant manner, in a beautiful spot commanding a grand view of all the Weald of Kent, generally took me to their house; there I saw much company, but no one could ever get me to talk; I was therefore stared at, and generally considered of mental imbecility; yet I remember my kind hosts, the house, the garden, the manners, many of the incidents, the scenes of the road by which I returned, and my feelings on quitting the place to return to school, as if the whole were occurrences past not a week ago.

One of the greatest difficulties I have had in life has been to free myself from too strong local attachments. I was more than thirty years old, before I could feel that I could be happy in any residence but the spot of my nativity; and when that could not be, I settled as near it as I was able; a most unfortunate predilection to which I attribute many of the disasters and miseries of my life. I was not calculated for a narrow neighbourhood, its provincial habits, and its petty intrigues; I was soon singled out like a struck deer, to be sued and hunted down; and when, in a work of fiction, I laid open a little of the character of my persecutors, in pictures too delicate and general to give any just cause of offence, this slight retribution was charged as an unpardonable crime.

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I never visited the Continent till I took a short trip to Brussels and Waterloo, in September, 1816. Two years afterwards I came

to Paris and Switzerland, and have been in Italy, or at Geneva, ever since; and now, in my old age, my local attachments are completely effaced. A residence on the Continent is, in various important respects, far preferable to England. I think John Bull very greatly over-estimates his own good qualities as well as as his own advantages; nor does his wealth do him all the good he supposes. A foreigner takes his plan below his means, and is, generally, in this respect, far more at his ease than an Englishman; he does not sacrifice so much to senseless show of establishments and equipages; and though there is a species of hospitality which habit has made necessary to an Englishman, and which, therefore, recompenses the cost, it is not only not necessary to others, but is fatiguing rather than pleasant to them. The political governments on the Continent are, no doubt, many of them bad; but I wish to refrain from mixing politics with literature, or the morality of private life, especially party politics, which are always coarse, vulgar, and deceitful: it is in the looks and the comforts of the peasantry, that the superiority of England over the Continent is to be found. The police of every city of Europe which I have seen, is far better than that of England. English literature is fashionable abroad, but its superiority may rationally be questioned; it excels in piquancy and fantasticality, if these be recommendations.

An Englishman, from robust exercise, from grosser food, and from a cold climate, is less spiritual than the people of southern Europe: when he has genius, and exerts it, it is more deep and grand; but all the lighter literature, especially of biography, memoirs, and literary history, is better done by the Italians and French.' Vol. I. pp 25-9.

On my father's death, my mother, who was left with a good jointure and a large disposable fortune, retired to Canterbury; and eighteen months afterwards took a lease from Lord Dudley of a mansion a mile from the town, which had been the seat of the famous admiral Sir George Rooke, whose son married Lord Dudley's aunt, and died issueless. It was a pleasant and respectable old house; and there, in the autumn of 1782, I wrote my earliest sonnets, which my classical friend, who now presides over the common law of England, made nie correct, with a severity little suited to my natural haste and carelessness. I added others, written at the same place in the autumns of 1783 and 1784, and published them in March, 1785. I find nothing in them which I would wish to alter or recall. I never varied but two words in any subsequent edition, “askest thou" instead of “ask'st thou," as too harsh, which necessitated the omission of a monosyllabic epithet: and "store to strew??: instead of “treasure strew," in the sonnet on Echo and Silence, to cure the ellipsis of " to." I did not altogether belong to a poetical family, though my eldest sister wrote verses with facility, and had most of the popular English poets by heart. My brother had known Gray, the poet, who had shown great attention to him at college, and he was therefore proud of talking of him; but this was an accidental rather than an inherent taste; he had not enough of deep energy to relish him truly; he liked