網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

THE INTENDED

SUPPLEMENTAL NUMBER

For the First Volume is necessarily deferred until the next Month, in order to give it a most distinguished character, by an extraordinary rich Embellishment, and a greater variety of Classical Criticisms.

IN order to render this Work as perfect as possible, it has been suggested to the Proprietors, that 2 REVIEW and CRITICAL ACCOUNT of the Literature of the day was necessary, as well from the want of a Work of this kind upon a principle of selection and elegance, as from the necessity of supplying the Subscribers of this Magazine with an Account of NEW BOOKs, which they would otherwise have to seek in the common Reviews. -The Proprietors, therefore, have been induced to offer to the Public a SUPPLEMENTAL NUMBER, to be published Half Yearly, which will be delivered with every Six Numbers of the Magazine, and conclude the Volume to which it is attached. The SUPPLEMENT will contain a Review of Literature for the previous six months, and will proceed upon the plan which has been so deservedly popular in the Edinburgh Reviews.Its general principle will be the selection of such Books as, from their pretensions, the novelty of their subjects, and the reputation of their Authors, are most likely to interest the Public. As the Works selected will be most conspicuous for Literature, so the method of the Review, it is trusted, will be equally conspicuous for its candour and impartiality. The extracts from Books will be very sparing indeed, never more than will be sufficient to give a general sample of their character and style, as the object of the Editors is to confine their Criticisms chiefly to ORIGINAL DISCUSSION, and to trespass as little as possible upon the ordinary functions of a Review.

As the SUPPLEMENT will always conclude the Volume to which it is appended, it will, of con sequence, contain a PREFACE and general INDEX to the previous Numbers; and the Decorative Parts will be of a character and quality far superior to what has hitherto appeared in any periodical Works, and which, when considered with a reference to the Ornaments of the other Numbers, will uniformly render the SUPPLEMENT more estimable than any of the preceding.

In the SUPPLEMENTAL NUMBER to be published, will be given a FRONTISPIECE, characteristic of the Work, and a suitable appendage to the Volume-The most EMINENT ARTIST of the modern age, the man to whom the British School is chiefly indebted for the present renown and lustre of its character, has presented the Proprietors of this Work with a DESIGN for the FRONTISPIECE, which will be engraven in a style of excellence correspondent with its merits. A greater quantity of the Supplemental Number will be published than of any of the preceding, in order that the Public in general may be supplied, as well as the Subscribers.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

AN extraordinary influx of very excellent matter with which we have been favoured from different Correspondents this month, after our necessary supply for the present Number has been printed, demands our immediate and grateful acknowledgments. Favours received, and not inserted in this Number, shall appear or be particularly noticed in

our next.

[graphic][merged small]

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCESS ELIZABETH.

Engraved copri foly for La Belle Asemblie Bells Court & Tukiemeller s Tub. for Cohen Be!! Weekly Messenger Effice Southampton Street Strand br

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For JULY, 1806.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Sirth Number.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRIN- || by many impediments which do not opeCESS ELIZABETH, third daughter of their rate among those of the lower orders.present gracious Majesties, was born May 22, 1770.

It is a gratification of no ordinary kind to us, that when we are called to the review of the lives of persons of the highest rank and quality, we are cheered with the most flattering prospects, with talents directed to the interests of society, and virtue communicating its influence to all within its sphere. The education of such as are born to a pre-eminence in the state, is a matter of public concern, and of no slight difficulty in the hands of the instructor. The great are the guardians of the morals of the state; it is they who make virtue general and effective by their example, who give a tone to manners, and purify the sources of action; whose business it is to effect that by their conduct and example, which law can only accomplish in an imperfect degree-to hold up to imitation the virtues of domestic life, and exhibit patterns of morality, temperance, chastity, and prudence.

"Wretched is the state which has only law for its government," said a great observer of human life:-unless good morals and decent manners concur to give a vigour to legal institutions, a state may be miserably wicked, however well governed.

The education of the great is obstructed No. VI. Vol. I.

No inconsiderable vigour of character is required to counteract the pernicious influence of domestic luxury, and the corrupting softness of domestic indulgence. Severity of study, and closeness of application, are seldom to be expected from those who are momentarily called off by some enticement of pleasure, and to whom the task is no further necessary than as conferring some personal ornament, which their flatterers will instruct them they can well do without-that the highest nobility have their equals, their competitors, and even superiors; but those who are born within the sphere of royalty are destitute of such extrinsic means of emulation, and must be wholly indebted for whatever excellence they acquire, to the soundness of their principles, and the rectitude of their habits.

We trust that these remarks will not be deemed superfluous, when the subject of our present biographical sketchs is considered; a Princess, whose noble zeal for learning, and those particular branches of it, the fine arts, has only been equalled by the indefatigable assiduity with which she has hitherto applied herself to them, and the admirable proficiency she has

made.

England has always been renowned for PP

females of royal rank, who have been conspicuous for their intellectual attainments and literary talents. The memorable example of Queen Elizabeth will here present itself. Of the erudition of that princess we have a particular account from Roger Ascham, who, from the known qualities of his character, cannot be suspected of flattery; and who, from his learning, was fully competent to pronounce. He tells us, that when he read over with her the orations of Eschines and Demosthenes in Greek, she not only understood at first sight the full force and propriety of the language, and the meaning of the orators, but that she comprehended the whole scheme of the laws, customs, and manners

ately attached to this noble art from the first years in which she could distinguish its excellencies, she has scarcely omitted a day in which she has not laboured to improve herself in it. It was a maxim of the celebrated Greek painter, nulla dies sine lineá; her Royal Highness seems to have adopted this precept in the full extent of its meaning, and scarcely ever to feel a more perfect pleasure than when the pencil is in her hand. An accomplishment of this kind is sufficiently rare in the female sex, and more particularly among those whose rank will always be accepted as an excuse for idleness, and upon whom flattery is ever ready enough to bestow the praises which are due to merit.

The love and encouragement of the arts amongst those of exalted rank and talent may truly be esteemed a national benefit. The arts are naturally dependent for support upon the great; it is their patronage only which can advance them to perfection, and give them popularity. more necessary to insist upon this, because

of the Athenians. She possessed an exact and accurate knowledge of the scriptures, and had committed to memory most of the striking passages in them. She had also learned by heart many of the finest parts of Thucydides and Xenophon, especially those which relate to life and manners. Thus were her early years employed, and with such zeal did she pursue her educa-there is a species of patronage which has

tion, that she was not only esteemed the most learned woman of her age in Europe, but the best and wisest monarch that ever sat on the British throne.

In the present æra the attainments of an Elizabeth would be termed pedantic; and it must be confessed that the mode of female education does not require such heavy and useless literature. The more elegant sciences, and fine arts, best become the natural disposition of the sex, and render them more amiable and agreeable. The illustrious namesake of the above-mentioned sovereign seems to have acted upon this persuasion, and whilst she has wisely disregarded that species of literature in which Elizabeth excelled, she has cultivated another branch of it, more congenial to her sex and the manners of the age, in which neither that celebrated princess, nor any that have succeeded her, could pretend to a similar proficiency.Her Royal Highness has been devoted from her infancy to the study of the fine arts. In music she is said to have a most excellent taste and delicate ear, but the study she has chiefly cultivated, and in which her skill has kept pace with the zeal of her industry, is painting. Passion

It is

lately sprung up in these kingdoms, which has any thing else in view but the advancement of the art of painting; we mean that mercantile and sordid traffic which has been carried on to such an extent, and which, whilst it only answered the ends of a few commercial speculators, disgraced the arts which it affected to patronize, and exhibited those feeble, slovenly, and disgraceful works to the eyes of Europe, which passed under the name of the British school, whilst in truth they were only the offspring of rashness, of mercantile temptation and fraud-frequently of vanity, and too often, perhaps, of want.

The late President of the Royal Academy, in an admirable lecture which he delivered to the students upon the subject of patronage, has made a very happy distinction between the different kinds, between that which is spurious and merely commercial, and that which has in view the true dignity of the arts, and the honour of the profession. He laments, and with too much justice, the want of proper encouragement amongst the nobility of this kingdom; he adds, however, that we have a compensation for this in the munificence and truly princely taste of

« 上一頁繼續 »