no relish for high art in the productions of the great masters. He turned away from them as from something foreign and irrelative to him, and his calling. He knew he had neither part nor portion in them. Cozen him into the Stafford or the Angerstein Gallery, he involuntarily turned away from the Baths of Diana—the Four Ages of Guercino—the Lazarus of Piombo—to some petty piece of modern art that had been inconsistently thrust into the collection through favour. On that he would dwell and pore, blind as the dead to the delicacies that surrounded him. There he might learn something. There he might pilfer a little. There was no grappling with Titian, or Angelo.
The narrowness of his domestic habits to the very last, was the consequence of his hard bringing up, and unexpected emergence into opulence. While rolling up to the ears in Russian rubles, a penny was still in his eyes the same important thing, which it had with some reason seemed to be, when a few shillings were his daily earnings. When he visited England a short time before his death, he reminded an artist of a commission, which he had executed for him in Russia, the package of which was "still unpaid." At this time he was not unreasonably supposed to have realized a sum little short of half a million sterling. What became of it was never known; what gulf, or what Arctic vorago, sucked it in, his acquaintance in those parts have better means of guessing, than his countrymen. It is certain that few of the latter were any thing the better for it.
It was before he expatriated himself, but subsequently to his acquisition of pictorial honours in this country, that he brought home two of his brother Academicians to dine with him. He had given no orders extraordinary to his housekeeper. He trusted, as he always did, to her providing. She was a shrewd lass, and knew, as we say, a bit of her master's mind.
It had happened that on the day before, D. passing near Clare Market by one of those open shambles, where tripe and cow-heel are exposed for sale, his eye was arrested by the sight of some tempting flesh rolled up. It is a part of the intestines of some animal, which my olfactory sensibilities never permitted me to stay long enough to enquire the name of. D. marked the curious involutions of the unacquainted luxury; the harmony of its colours—a sable vert—pleased his eye; and, warmed with the prospect of a new flavour, for a few farthings he bore it off in triumph to his housekeeper. It so happened that his day's dinner was provided, so the cooking of the novelty was for that time necessarily suspended.
Next day came. The hour of dinner approached. His visitors, with no very romantic anticipations, expected a plain meal at least; they were prepared for no new dainties; when, to the astonishment of them, and almost of D. himself, the purchase of the preceding day was served up piping hot—the cook declaring, that she did not know well what it was, for "her master always marketed." His guests were not so happy in their ignorance. They kept dogs.
I will do D. the justice to say, that on such occasions he took what happened in the best humour possible. He had no false modesty—though I have generally observed, that persons, who are quite deficient in that mauvais[e] honte, are seldom over-troubled with the quality itself, of which it is the counterfeit.
By what arts, with his pretensions, D. contrived to wriggle himself into a seat in the Academy, I am not acquainted enough with the intrigues of that body (more involved than those of an Italian conclave) to pronounce. It is certain, that neither for love to him, nor out of any respect to his talents, did they elect him. Individually he was obnoxious to them all. I have heard that, in his passion for attaining this object, he went so far as to go down upon his knees to some of the members, whom he thought least favourable, and beg their suffrage with many tears.
But death, which extends the measure of a man's stature to appearance; and wealth, which men worship in life and death, which makes giants of punies, and embalms insignificance; called around the exequies of this pigmy Painter the rank, the riches, the fashion of the world. By Academic hands his pall was borne; by the carriages of nobles of the land, and of ambassadors from foreign powers, his bier was followed; and St. Paul's (O worthy casket for the shrine of such a Zeuxis) now holds—all that was mortal of G. D.
THE LATIN POEMS OF VINCENT BOURNE
(1831)
A complete translation of these poems is a desideratum in our literature. Cowper has done one at least, out of the four which he has given us, with a felicity almost unapproachable. Few of our readers can be ignorant of the delightful lines beginning with:—
"There is bird, which by its coat——"
A recent writer has lately added nine more to the number; we wish he would proceed with the remainder, for of all modern Latinity, that of Vincent Bourne is the most to our taste. He is "so Latin," and yet "so English" all the while. In diction worthy of the Augustan age, he presents us with no images that are not familiar to his countrymen. His topics are even closelier drawn; they are not so properly English, as Londonish. From the streets, and from the alleys, of his beloved metropolis he culled his objects, which he has invested with an Hogarthian richness of colouring. No town picture by that artist can go beyond his Ballad-Singers; Gay's Trivia alone, in verse, comes up to the life and humour of it.
Quæ septem vicos conterminat una columna,
Consistunt nymphæ Sirenum ex agmine binæ;
Stramineum capiti tegimen, collumque per omne
Ingentes electri orbes: utrique pependit
Crustato vestis cœno, limoque rigescens
Crure usque a medio calcem defluxit ad imum.
Exiguam secum pendentem ex ubere natam
Altera; venales dextrâ tulit altera chartas.
His vix dispositis, pueri innuptæque puellæ
Accurrunt: sutor primus, cui lorea vitta
Impediit crines, humili, quæ proxima stabat,
Proruit è cellâ, chartas, si forte placerent,
Empturus; namque ille etiam se carmine multo
Oblectat, longos solus quo rite labores
Diminuit, fallitque hybernæ tædia noctis.
Collecti murmur sensim increbrescere vulgi
Auditi, et excurrit nudis ancilla lacertis.
Incudem follesque et opus fabrile relinquens,
Se densæ immiscet plebi niger ora Pyracmon.
It juxta, depressum ingens cui mantica tergum
Incurvat, tardo passu; simul ille coronam
Aspectat vulgi, spe carminis arrigit aures;
Statque moræ patiens, humeris nec pondera sentit.
Sic ubi Tartareum Regem Rhodopeïus Orpheus
Threiciis studuit fidibus mulcere, laboris
Immemor, Æolides stupuit modulamina plectri,
Nec sensit funesti onera incumbentia saxi.
Sæbe interventus rhedæ crepitantis, ab illo
