us to say that the kindly affections do not exist in a cottage as well as in a lordly mansion; all we contend for is, that the poet or the painter, selecting from different models the loveliest features, and uniting them in one, keeping back at the same time all that is disagreeable or degrading, produces at last a whole that is unnatural, that is, that is not any where to be found in nature.

Is it bad criticism, then, to say of any particular sentiment, attitude, or expression of countenance, that it is out of nature, and therefore to condemn it? Not necessarily. There are two ways in which the poet and the painter, not only may but must, abide by nature. In the first place, (and this is what Sir Joshua insists upon,) to imitate any particular form, is not to imitate nature. He imitates nature truly, who, by examining many particulars, raises his mind to the perfect model after which nature works, and from which the little imperfections that characterize any individual are so many deviations. He separates the essence from the accidents, to use the language of the ancient metaphysicians. If a painter should wish to give a representation of Welsh scenery, he would not sally forth from his inn, and take the first view that presented itself on the high read. And yet he might truly affirm that this is Welsh. If a philosopher should wish to describe the English character, he would not take some counting-house clerk, or some college bedmaker as the original he was to copy. And yet he might vouch them English. But he would examine many individuals, observe the qualities common to most or many of them, and unite them in one character. This imaginary being would be the counterpart of no one Englishman, and yet would be more truly English than any one. Even so the pictures of the poet and the painter are not the precise likenesses of any thing in nature, and are therefore the more thoroughly natural. It is thus that we understand, and venture to explain, the doctrine of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

But there is another kind of naturalness after which the artist must labour, and without which his works will not please. He must appear natural. To make our meaning plain, let us consider what kind of deception is practised on the spectator by the painter or the poet. No one will affirm that we believe the things before us to be real; that, instead of twenty square feet of canvas, at the distance of á few yards, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and surrounded with a gilt frame, we really think we see, at different distances, land and water, trees and houses, and men and women, who, in my uncle Toby's' phrase, have been dead these hundred years.' No one can expect a deception of this kind. What is required is, that the imagination, not the

eye, may be thus deceived, that at the suggestion of the artist, the mind may be led away, in a pleasing reverie, from the sign to the thing signified, and quite forgetting the picture and the poem, the painter and the poet, may lose itself among the scenes and personages that they describe. To this end many individualities are admitted by the great masters of their art, which strike the imagination forcibly, and give this appearance of reality to the piece. On the other hand, the imagination is rebutted by the appearance of any thing vehemently unnatural, and, instead of the subject, considers nothing but the artist and his production.

This leads us to another subject of great importance, and which occupies the greater part of the fourth discourse. It appears that it ought to be the object of the artist, (according to the old maxim) to keep himself and his art, as much as possible, out of view, and that nothing so much destroys the effect that he should labour after, as a consciousness of the spectator that he is labouring after it. Any thing, therefore, which catches the attention, not only from unnaturalness, but from minute accuracy, any thing in short which is observed in the picture, that would not have been observed in the original, is to be avoided.

Whenever a story is related, every man forms a picture in his • mind of the action and expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this mental picture on canvass is what we call ⚫ invention in a Painter. And as in the conception of this ideal pic⚫ture, the mind does not enter into the minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action; so when the Painter comes to represent it, he contrives those little necessary concomitant circumstances in such a manner, that they shall strike the spectator no more than they did himself in his first conception of the story."*

And again :

In the same manner as the historical Painter never enters into the ⚫ detail of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions with mi⚫nute attention to the discriminations of drapery. It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With him, the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, satin, or velvet: it is drapery it is nothing more.'†

The powers exerted in the mechanical part of the Art have been called the language of Painters; but we may say, that it is but poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk. Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work.'‡

We need not say how translateable these observations are from painting to poetry, or point out to our readers the poet of the present day, whose practice they condemn. There is a passage much upon the same subject in another discourse.

*Discourses. Vol. I. 81. + Ibid. 90.

+ Idem. 94.

I remember a Landscape painter in Rome, who was known by the name of Studio, from his patience in high finishing, in which he thought the whole excellence of art consisted; so that he once endea voured, as he said, to represent every individual leaf on a tree. This picture I never saw; but I am very sure that an artist, who looked only at the general character of the species, the order of the branches, and the masses of the foliage, would in a few minutes produce a more true resemblance of trees, than this painter in as many months.'* There are several other passages in the discourses on which we had intended to have made our remarks; but the length to which this article has imperceptibly run on, compels us to break off abruptly at once. We can only, therefore, recommend the President's works to all our critical readers, assuring them that they will find there a great deal of original criticism, and a great deal of ingenicus illustration, delivered in a style pure and perspicuous and elegant.

Art. II. Journal of a Residence in India. By Maria Graham., 4to. pp. 2193 Price 11. 1s. Longman and Co. 1812,

WE agree with the fair writer of this volume in thinking, that most of our countrymen who have given us accounts of India, might have been, if not more instructive, at any rate a little more entertaining.

Though India (she says) has certainly been visited by a greater number of intelligent Englishmen than any other foreign country, and has been the subject of innumerable publications, it is remarkable that there is no work in our language containing such a popular and comprehensive view of its scenery and monuments, and of the manners and habits of its natives and resident colonists, as we are commonly furnished with, by travellers, in countries iucomparably less deserving of notice.'

This is undoubtedly true. It is a circumstance, too, the causes of which merit some consideration. The account of it, which is rendered by our author, is as follows:

The chief reason probably is, that few people go to this remote region as mere idle or philosophical observers; and that of the multitude of well educated individuals who pass the best part of their days in it, the greater part are too constantly occupied with the cares and duties of their respective vocations as statesmen, soldiers, or traders, to pay much attention to what is merely curious or interesting to contemplative speculator.'

Of our countrymen who spend the greater part of their lives in India, it is indeed remarkable how small a portion return with any considerable stock of knowledge respecting the region which they have left. Nor is this, perhaps, the worst part of Disc. Vol. II. 58. ЗА

VOL. X.

the case; for, however miserably supplied with knowledge, they all come back with an abundant cargo of opinions, to which, because they profess to have been formed upon the spot, the superficial part of mankind generally pay implicit regard, and for which their authors, at least, never fail to claim an unbounded respect, as if they were the immediate objects of their senses; whereas, in the great majority of cases, their opinions are only borrowed from one another, and have been originally drawn from partial and incomplete observation.

In general, the relaxation of the climate, the pursuits of avarice and ambition, ignorance of the languages, the difficulty of associating with the natives, who fly the polluting contact of a stranger, effectually shut out our countrymen from a knowledge of the natives. They see a few outside appearances, which are totally insufficient to form a ground-work for any just conclusions, if they were ever so well qualified to draw them; and they are in general so little qualified to draw just conclusions, that if their knowledge of facts were far more extensive, they would generally be found in error. Yet their readiness to contradict, and to contradict with contumely, all those, who, upon the most careful survey and collation of facts, of the very facts to which they themselves bear witness, arrive at different conclusions from theirs, was probably never matched in any other instance... Witness the arrogance of the pamphlets which have been written upon the Hindu side of the missionary controversy, asserting the Hindus to be absolutely unchangeable, and their revolt against the English, if they preached to them Christianity, as absolutely certain. Witness the similar arrogance of those who advocated the Company's monopoly, and desired to shut their fellow-subjects out of India; proclaiming the certainty of Hindu insurrection and rebellion, if Englishmen at large were allowed to trade and to settle in the country.

The writer of this volume arrived in India early in 1809, and left it early in 1811. In this time, however, (which she em ployed far more actively in collecting knowledge than most of the male residents) she saw a large portion of the coast of India, and of the people who inhabit it. She modestly undertakes only to relate what she saw, and rarely indulges in the display of her opinions, unless it be where she now and then hints her inability to adopt some of the conclusions of other writers.-Some of the most remarkable of these instances are, when she declares her dissent from the panegyrical representations with which we are so often treated of Hindu morality and Hindu happiness.

Most certainly the writer (she says) did not go far enough to meet with any of those remnants of the age of gold-any of those combinations of innocence, benevolence, and voluptuous simplicity, with which the imaginations of some ingenious authors.

the cottages of the Hindus. What she saw certainly suggested that materials of a very opposite picture,'

Aware of the importance of truth for all the beneficent purposes of government, and of the necessary subservience to bad government of all error and misrepresentation, she properly adds:

In the sketch which she has attempted to exhibit, therefore, of this singular people, she flatters herself that she may have afforded some entertainment, and some matter of useful meditation even to the reflecting reader, and ventures to hope that she may perhaps contribute, in some instances, to direct the attention of those in whose hands so much of their destinies is placed, to the means of improving their moral and intellectual condition, as well as of securing them from political or civil injuries.'

This lady is not of the opinion of those, who declare that so much has been done for the moral, and intellectual, and civil and political condition of our fellow subjects among the natives of India, that nothing more remains to be done. And for our parts we are from the heart persuaded that she has most abundant grounds for her dissent. Nothing can be more suspicious than the circumstances in which these panegyrics upon the government and condition of the Hindus are pronounced. They are pronounced by those who have the highest interest in pronouncing them; while those who alone can have an interest in refuting them, if they are not true, cannot be heard; nay more, while those, whom if untrue they injure, are not allowed to speak.

It is only upon some extraordinary emergency that any thing is allowed to transpire, which may be taken as a specimen of what exists on the opposite side of the account. Now and then, however, accidents of this sort occur. For example, there seems at present to exist in India a judge, who has more regard for the interests of justice, than for the praises of his countrymen in India, In the last parcel we received of Calcutta Gazettes, several instances are produced in which this magistrate, we mean the Chief Justice, Sir William Burroughs, has spoken out-has spoken facts, which have a comprehensive operation, We shall quote only one instance, and for facility of reference, it shall be one which has appeared very recently in the English papers. We allude to the trial of Ensign Thomas Soady, of the company's service, committed for the murder of Joy Sing, a native.

It appeared in evidence, that Ensign Soady and others were sailing in a pinnace up the Ganges, when they were met by a native boat, which impeded for a moment the track rope of the pinnace: Ensign Soady first called out to the people in the boat to disengage the rope, which they said they would do: but not doing it on the instant, he threw the fan of the oar at the boat By this time the