NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



this be true, the shop-keepers in forlorn, though once flourishing Fleet 

 Street, should get up an Earthquake. As a climax to the gloomy 

 grandeur of the scene, " Mr. Hirst's hall-door bell rang!" Is it possi- 

 ble? "We however," says the Editor, " knew nothing of the phenome- 

 non until the next morning ?" The Earthquake, therefore did not 

 vouchsafe him a visit it, uncourteously, omitted to ring his " hall- 

 door bell ! " Honoured Mr. Hirst ! Unhappy Mr. Editor ! The 

 Earthquake evidently et cut him." Naughty boys ! not to make 

 your explosion ring the Editor's hall-door bell ! 



THE MAN OP THE TOWN. We are very sorry to see any gentle- 

 man make a fool of himself, and more especially so if he happen to be 

 a friend. This is the position in which a writer in a clever weekly 

 paper is placed. He accuses us of " a true and geniune ignorance/' 

 and in his libel, Scottice speaking, not only acquits us of the unwar- 

 rantable charge, but fixes it indelibly on himself. He is so considerate 

 so benevolent so bountiful so much above any selfish feeling 

 so anxious for the due administration of critical justice, that he po- 

 litely offers us a rotten egg to be duly hurled at his own head. Here 

 it is. In a critique on an article, in our last number, he says : 



" ' Our Wood Engravers' is a clever article, though we think, most unne- 

 cessarily and unjustly severe on the venerated Northcote ! It is absolutely 

 slanderous, besides partaking of a true and genuine ignorance o/the method in 

 which artists study, to assert that Northcote was no animal painter, because 

 he confessed to a friend of the writer that he went down to the academy to 

 copy the figure of a tiger. How was Northcote to draw his ' spotted pard ?' 

 Was it not better to be guided by Rubens' picture, than to enter into the me- 

 nagerie and copy from a half-starved confined brute, who had few of his 

 proper lineaments left in him ? and yet this would be called studying from 

 nature. Which do artists generally prefer doing, if they want a lion to sit to 

 them ? do they attend upon Wombwell's, or do they place before them a 

 model from Flaxman's design, who has stamped identity on the regal beast, 

 while he has poetized him by his treatment ? Why, they study a lion from 

 Flaxman as Northcote did a tiger from Rubens." 



My good fellow, they do no such thing ! Blood and 'oons ! do 

 you think, man, the Landseers or Harvey go to Flaxman or Rubens 

 when they can get at the same sources as those artists themselves ? 

 Where did Flaxman get his lion, and Rubens his tiger ? Out of a 

 menagerie to be sure, and to a menagerie, every artist who wished 

 to paint a lion or tiger, au naturel, would doubtless go to make his 

 sketches. Did a lion, in the deserts, ever sit to Flaxman, or a tiger 

 to that renowned old ass Northcote ? Even if they had, one glance, 

 one rude sketch from nature, even in a menagerie, would be more 

 valuable than the finest translations into art, either of the one or the 

 other. There are numerous capital engravings extant, of nearly fifty 

 animals, unknown in this country, but which, hearing that they were 

 to be seen there in a living state, Harvey specially went to France to 

 pourtray, in order, honestly, to execute the embellishments of a work 

 on which he was engaged for a firm in Fleet Street. The Landseers 

 were there at the same time, on nearly a similar errand. The latter, 

 in fact, some time ago published a set of engravings, for the purpose 



