within his reach-not a caricaturist, but a painter. And yet it is no trifle to be a good caricaturist. Forbid the thought, ye shades of Bunbury and Gilray!-forbid it, even thou, if thou be still in the land of the living, Good Dighton! -forbid it, charming, laughter-moving Rowlandson! Bunbury was a great genius, and would have been a great caricaturist, had he been possessed of art at all in proportion to his imagination. But he could not draw -not he. As far as faces went, he was at home and admirable; and, even as to the figure, provided he was allowed the benefit of loose breeches, and capacious coats, and grizzly wigs, and tobacco-smoke, he could get on well enough. But this is not the thing. The caricaturist should be able to represent everything; and then he can represent what he chooses in a very different style from that of a man whose ignorance, not his choice, limits the sphere of his representation. Rowlandson, again, is a considerable dab at drawing; but, somehow or other, his vein is ultra-his field is not comedy, but farce-buffoonery-and this will not do with the English temperament, except for merely temporary purposes. The Rev. Brownlow North, (worthy of bearing that illustrious name, O Christopher,) is another capital caricaturist. His "Ringing the bell," "the Boarding-School Miss returned," "the Skating Club," and some other pieces of that kind, are divine. But, like most amateurs, he wants science; and I suspect, after all, that poor Gilray did more for his best designs than the etching of them. Gilray was in himself host. He is the first name on the list of Political Caricaturists, strictly so called. George III., (honest man!) and Boney, and Fox, and Sheridan, and Pitt, and Windham, and Melville, and Grenville, are his peculiar property. His fame will repose for ever on their broad bottoms. Cruikshank may, if he pleases, be a second Gilray; but, once more, this should not be his ambition. He is fitted for a higher walk. a Let him play Gilray, if he will, at leisure hours-let him even piok up his pocket money by Gilrayizing; but let him give his days and his nights to labour that Gilray's shoulders were not meant for; and rear (for he may) a reputa tion, such as Gilray was too sensible a fellow to dream of aspiring after. It is, I cannot help saying, a thousand pities that Cruikshank did not publish his first livraison of the "Points of Humour" two or three years ago; for, if he had done so, in addition to the high character it must have gained for him in England, it would, in all probability, have been the means of putting several hundred pounds of good Scotch cash into his fob. There can scarcely be a doubt, that the distinguished connoisseurs, who took in hand to have the cupola of the New Advocates' Library here in Edinburgh painted, would have turned their patronizing eyes and liberal hands towards George Cruikshank. The caricature which they have procured for thejurisconsults of the Modern Athens, is undoubtedly a very fair caricature. These nine buxom Muses, and Glorious Apollo, with his yellow head, are good in their way. Old Homer, with his flannel petticoat and fuddled physiognomy, and Robin Burns, sitting at his knee, in corduroy breeches, velveteen waistcoat, and a spotted handkerchief, form a meritorious group-and so do Socrates, in his tunic, and Dr Paley, in his gown and cassock; each of them throwing apparently a sly glance towards Miss Urania. There is GENIUS in these juxtapositions-there is the very quintessence of WIT. It is impossible not to smile at the thing. The mixture of Roman togas and laced waistcoats, long beards and three-tied periwigs, Athenian sandals and Sanquhar hose, Ionian lyres and Parisian snuff-boxes, is certainly productive of a truly comic effect. The deities on the other side are almost as sublime as those of Blarney Castle "All sitting naked in the open air." So far as the affair goes, it is blameless and the artist and his patrons are entitled to our tribute of applause. But I must still be of opinion, Ladies and Gentlemen, that, in the hands of a Cruikshank, such a subject would have received still greater ornament. His fearless crayon would not have been restrained by certain absurd punctilios, which seem to have checked the flow of genius in that nevertheless immortal piece. Since he was to jumble Mount Olympus, Marathon, and Maybole-since he was to annihilate time and space-he would have gloried in pushing his privilege to its utmost limit. He would have introduced those great Dons who are at this moment flourishing among us as boldly as those who died twenty or even thirty years ago; and will anybody, possessing mens sana in corpore sano, deny, that this cupola would have been a still more perfect thing than it is, had the painter clapped in a few celebrated professors, poets, and critics, of the present brilliant era, among the rest of them? Since David Hume was to be represented as offering a pinch of rapee to Epicurus, why not have Joseph Hume exhibiting his smuggled silk handkerchief, or perhaps offering a thimbleful of his smuggled Fairntosh, to Marcus Tullius Cicero? Why introduce Burns, and yet omit Hogg? I am sure his maud and top-boots would have looked as picturesque every bit as his great predecessor's blue short-coat and rig-and-furrow stockings. And why, I ask, when Shakespeare was to lounge on the same sofa with Æschylus, why, Ladies and Gentlemen, should not Barry Cornwall have been allowed to draw in his chair, and sit opposite to his defunct compeers, with his "footman in green livery" at his back? These are questions which it is impossible not to ask. These are questions which it is impossible not to answer. They speak home to our business and our bosoms -they touch upon the most sacred privileges of the British Constitution. But grant that it is improper to introduce living characters, expressly and avowedly as such, in an historical picture, or in an historical caricature, why, I must still demand of the patrons and performers of that masterpiece-why was not advantage taken of that ingenious plan of which Mr Haydon has made such glorious use in several of his finest chefs-d'œuvre? Does any man pretend to tell me, that the real features of Euripides, Empedocles, and the rest of these antique gentry, are known? No-the assertion would be absurd. If, then, their real physiognomies are long since obliterated from the recollection of the human race, why did not this artist replace them by likenesses of existing kindred spirits-inheritors of the same divine genius-masters of the same heavenly arts-possessors, now and hereafter, of the same lofty fame? As Haydon, in his great picture of "The Entrance into Jerusalem," made a Wordsworth bow down for the good centurion, a Voltaire turn up his nose for a certain sneering Sadducee, and a Hazlitt sit for the countenance of St John, &c. &c.-why did not this painter seek similar advantages for the use of similar ingenuities? Why, in a great literary Caricature, painted and paid for in Edinburgh in the 19th century of the present era, must future ages look, and look in vain, for the least corporeal representation, either of the author of Waverley, or of the author of the Chaldee Manuscript, or of the author of the article "Beauty" in Macvey Napier's Encyclopædia?-Proh! Deûm et hominum fides!-I call upon Mr Clerk and his Zeuxis for a reply. The moment their papers are lodged, I am willing to abide the decision of the Director General of the Fine Arts for Scotland. To return from this digression, which, under all the circumstances of the case, may not, I should humbly hope, be regarded as unpardonable, I have now to submit that Mr George Cruikshank ought on no account whatever to petition parliament for public patronage to his "Points of Humour." An artist, above all such an artist as Cruikshank, ought to stand upon his own bottom. That the public will, in the proper style, shape, and form, patronize him,-most effectually, most strenuously, patronize him, I cannot entertain the shadow of a doubt. I am sure they will purchase his work"To buy or not to buy that is the ques tion." SHAKESPEARE. But, if they do not, the real truth of the matter is, that parliament cannot help it. We have recently terminated a glorious war in which we have achieved the freedom of England, and rescued Europe from the most iron and despotic thraldom that ever insulted the annals of the world. This is true; but we have still something to do. We still owe much to ourselves, and to our children, and to our children's children. Our finances are yet labouring under the effects of those noblesacrifices, which duty, patriotism, religion, and honour, so imperatively demanded at our unhesitating hands. And, to go further still, the spirit of tumult and turbulence is yet abroad in the world. It agitates either hemisphere. In the sublime language of Milton, it perplexes monarchs with fear of change. British statesmen, in a word, whether we look to the east or to the west, to the north or to the south, to India or to Persia, to Turkey, to Greece, to Naples, to Spain, to Portugal, to Wirtemberg, to Mexico, to Brazil, to Poyais, to Russia, to France, or to ill-fated, unhappy, disunited Ireland, whichever way we cast our eyes, I repeat it, we shall find that those persons in whom fate, fortune, or merit, have reposed the sway of the affairs of this great empire, have, as the saying is, their hands full of business. England lost but the last year one of the first of her statesmen from excess of business. The weight of business must not be unnecessarily increased-the public burdens, too, must be diminished. The tax on the carriage of stones coastways has been abolished that on barilla has been re-established. But this is not all. Improvement must not hesitate nor stumble in her majestic march. The spirit of Hume walks. Ere long, as Mr Henry Cockburn lately remarked to Lord Rosslynn, it is to be hoped that this great man will even thrust his hand into the pockets of the sinecurists of Scotland. And is this a time for calling upon the legislature of this mighty empire to embarrass themselves with the capaciousness of canvas, the cost of casts, the paucity of picture-purchasers, and the waste and desert baldness of whitewashed church-walls, destitute of gilded frames, and resplenden esplendent with no rapture-raising representations of Hiram, Habakkuk, and Holofernes? The supposition is monstrous, and will certainly receive no sanction either from the representatives of the British nation in parliament assembled, or from the Director General. Apply the principle elsewhere, and consider for a moment what would be the infallible result. Painters are not the only artists whose works fail at times to invest them with a lordly proportion of the perishable good things of this sublunary and imperfect world. There are poets-there are prosers too, who, in their own opinion, bene meruerunt Reipublicæ, (far be it from us to assert that their opinion is wrong as to this matter,) and whose performances, nevertheless, are monthly, weekly, daily and hourly, received with hesitation by the bookseller-and with neglect by the book-buyer. Can these things be new to any lady or gentleman who has cast an observant glance upon the course of affairs in the present crisis? No-they are universally knownthey are palpable-they are acknowledged truths. And what is to be the consequence, if whenever Dr Southey publishes a quarto poem, and nobody buys it, he is to apply to his friend Mr Brougham to petition Parliament for redress? What is Parliament to do? Suppose Parliament buys up one edition and makes a bonfire of it, will not this munificence encourage the poet to put forth another quarto, equally bulky and equally unpopular, in the Spring of the immediately succeeding year. What?-Is the House of Commons to buy up this quarto too?-Is the British Parliament to buy up the opera omnia of Platonist Taylor? - Are the public repositories of this empire to be crammed with Mr Macvey Napier's dissertation on the Scope and Tendency of Bacon? Are the two Houses to take in the supererogatory copies of the Edinburgh Review-and thereby make up to its industrious compilers for that deficit of individual favour which begins to throw a shade of disgrace upon the whole intellectual character of the incomprehensible age in which we have had the misfortune to be born? Is the House of Lords to be compelled to sustain the sinking pinions of a certain member of their own noble eyry? Are they to pass a bill, declaring that "Christian, or the Island," is as good a poem as "The Bride of Abydos," and inflicting the pains and penalties of a high crime and misdemeanor upon all who took in the brochures of John Murray, and yet hesitate to take in the equally wellprinted brochures of John Hunt? No - De maximis non curat Prætor. We are a free people, we received the holy bequest of liberty from our forefathers, and we will hand it down untarnished to our posterity. It is the sacred privilege of Britons to admire, and therefore to purchase, just what pictures, and what books, they choose. That privilege is inborn and inalienable, and the minister who dares to trench upon it, owes his head to the block, and his name to the execration of the world. I propose in my next Lecture to pursue this subject, and to direct the attention of my hearers, 1st, to the merits of Julio Romano, as a caricaturist;-and, 2dly, to those of Mr Geddes, and, in particular, to his truly excellent caricature of the "Discovery of the Scottish Regalia," a performance which, if Mr Cruikshank is to admit any designs but his own, appears almost worthy of being transferred to copper for the use of the "Points of Humour."* Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to wish you, respectfully, a good evening! * The "Points of Humour" are to appear in occasional Numbers. No. I. contains about a dozen etchings, and 50 pages of very well written letter-press. The work is published by C. Baldwyn, Newgate Street, London, and the price, per Number, is only 8s., which is dog-cheap, as things go. NEW POETICAL TRANSLATIONS-WIFFEN-ROSE-GOWER. * a long while encountered a volume more entitled to the praise of ELEGANCE. First of all, it is, as to externals, one of the most chaste and beautiful specimens of typographical art and embellishment that ever issued from the English press. And, what is of greater moment, the jewel is quite worthy of the rich casket in which it is placed. Mr Wiffen's own No branch of literature seems to have been cultivated during the season that has just expired, with more distinguished success than that of poetical translation. So much, indeed, has been done in this department, that we find it quite inconsistent with our limits to draw the attention of our readers into the various meritorious works that have accumulated upon our table. We cannot, however, per-prose introduction is a model of that mit the month, which may be considered as the last of the book-buying portion of the year, to pass away without saying a few words concerning each of three publications, which we think more especially entitled to the attention of the lovers of polite litera ture. The first of these is a complete translation of the Poetical Works of Garcilasso De La Vega, by Mr J. H. Wiffen. It is strange enough to find an English Quaker attempting to transfuse the beauties of one of the most stately and chivalric of Castilian bards. Mr Wiffen, however, has contrived to lay aside his drab suit, and to wear the lofty plume and embroidered mantle of the gallant Spaniard, as naturally as if he had never been accustomed to figure among humbler habiliments. We really have not for * species of composition, full, clear, yet concise, and above all, entirely unaffected. Of the poetical versions themselves, we shall only say, that the Odes and Lyrical Pieces are much superior to the Eclogues; and that they are so just because Garcilasso's originals were in these cases more worthy of inspiring Mr Wiffen's muse. translator is a perfect master of the language in which Garcilasso wrote; and he renders him into English with the ease, the gracefulness, and the majestic flow, of an English poet. Our Garcilasso was, as almost all the great Spanish geniuses have been, a soldier; ; he was noble, brave, courteous, amorous, the mirror of Castilian honour and Castilian love; he died, after a life of enterprize, misfortune, and glory, at the early age of thirty; he is the Surrey, and more 1. The Works of Garcilaso de la Vega, surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, translated into English Verse; with a Critical and Historical Essay on Spanish Poetry, and a Life of the Author. By J. H. Wiffen. London; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. 1823. 2. The Orlando Furioso, translated into English Verse, from the Italian of Ludovico Ariosto; with Notes. By William Stewart Rose. London; Murray. 1823. 3. Faust; a Drama. By Goethe. And Schiller's Song of the Bell; translated by Lord Francis Leveson Gower. London; Murray. 1823. than the Surrey of Spanish letters. We should willingly allot many pages to him and his worthy translator,but, for the present, we must confine ourselves to a couple of specimens. The following Ode was addressed by Garcilasso to a young Neapolitan lady, (called the Flower of GNIDO, from the quarter of the city of Naples in which she lived,) at the time when a friend of the poet's was enamoured of her. Nothing, we apprehend, cau be more perfectly elegant THE FLOWER OF GNIDO. Consults not now, it can but kiss 6. "Through thee, my dearest friend and |