236 On Means and Ends. [SEPT. 



can do well. I rather wonder, therefore, that Raphael took such pains in 

 finishing his draperies and hack-grounds, which he did so indifferently. 

 The expression is like an emanation of the soul, or like a lamp shining 

 within and illuminating the whole face and body ; and every part, charged 

 with so sacred a trust as the conveying this expression (even to the hands 

 and feet), would be wrought up to the highest perfection. But his inanimate 

 objects must have cost him some trouble ; and yet he laboured them too. 

 In what he could not do well, he was still determined to do his best ; and 

 that nothing should be wanting in decorum and respect to an art that he 

 had consecrated to virtue, and to that genius that burnt like a flame upon 

 its altars ! We have nothing that for myself I can compare with this 

 high and heroic pursuit of art for its own sake. The French fancy thek 

 own pedantic abortions equal to it, thrust them into the Louvre, " and 

 with their darkness dare affront that light !" thus proving themselves with- 

 out the germ or the possibility of excellence the feeling of it in others. 

 We at least claim some interest in art, by looking up to its loftiest monu- 

 ments retire to a distance, and reverence the sanctuary, if we cannot 

 enter it. 



" They also serve who only stare and wait."* 



W. H. 



PYRAMUS AND THISBE I 

 AN OPERATIC TRAGEDY. 



Dramatis Persona. 



PYRAMUS, a Cobbler's Son, in love with Thisbe, and in liquor with his Father's Beer. 



THISBE, the Daughter of a respectable Char- Woman. 



COBBLER, Fa her of Pyramus, heard but not seen. 



LEO, a Lion, 15 feet from the snout to the tail, aud 16 feet, cfec. 



NINNY, a Ghost. 



LEON A, the Lion's Lady. 



ACT I. 

 SCENE I. A Junction Wall between the Garrets O/PYRAMUS and THISBE. 



Pyr. Some folks maintain that grief is very dry; 

 That's not my case it always makes me cry. 

 Here Feyther thumps and bumps me all about j 

 Some day, I'm 'fear'd, he'll knock my soul clean out. 



* Zoffani, a foreign artist, but who, by long residence in England, had got our habits of 

 indolence and dilatoriness, was employed by the late King, who was fond of low comedy, 

 to paint a scene from Reynolds,^ SPECULATION ; in which Quick, Munden, and Miss Wallis 

 were introduced. The King called to see it in its progress ; and at last it was done 

 " all but the coat." The picture, however, was not sent ; and the King repeated his visit 

 to the artist. Zoffani with some embarrassment said, " It was done all but the goat." 

 " Don't tell me," said the imp atient monarch ; " this is always the way : you said it was 

 done all but the coat the last time I was here.'' " I said the goat, arid please your 

 Majesty." " Aye," replied the King, " the goat or the coat, I care not which you call 

 it; I say I will not have the picture," and was going to leave the room, when Zoffani, 

 in an agony, repeated, " It is the goat that is not finished," pointing to a picture of a 

 goat that was bung up in a frame as an ornament to the scene at the theatre. The King 

 laughed heartily at the blunder, and waited patiently till the goat was finished. Zoffani, 

 like other idle people, was careless and extravagant. He made a fortune when he first 

 came over here, which he soon spent : he then went out to India, where he made another, 

 with which he returned to England, and spent also. He was an excellent theatrical portrait- 

 painter, and has left delineations of celebrated actors and interesting situations, which 

 revive the dead, and bring the scene before us. 



