ON CERTAIN INCONSIDERATE CRITICISMS. 241 



in the pfrincipal censor's judgment, improprieties ; and where beauty 

 is displeasing, it is not unreasonable to suppose homeliness would 

 be welcome. The censor erroneously supposed this subject was ex- 

 hibited as a representation of a real occurrence and real agents* 

 Having this mistaken notion, he expected to find iii it persons and 

 things which exist only in his own mind.' But the actors, circum- 

 stances, and every part, are all a daring and vigorous stretch of in- 

 vention — the pouring out of a young and ardent genius, overflowing 

 with poetical abundance and variety. The entire is a fiction, and 

 entitled to the ample license which, in all ages, from the times of 

 Hesiod and Homer, has been allowed to works of fancy. Moore's 

 Captain Rock, and Mc^Clise's Installation of the Captain, are crea- 

 tures of the pen and pencil. The picture was never offered to the 

 public as a representation of reality. That the captains of the pre- 

 dial bands, in Ireland, are sworn in with the utmost secrecy, by a 

 select committee, is, I believe, a fact. But that any such formal 

 installation, coupled with a wake of the newly-elected leader's 

 predecessor, ever took place, is denied. Even if we were, for a mo- 

 ment, to suppose that such a crowded investiture and wake had 

 taken place together, as none of the agents were, or are, known, it 

 is surely unreasonable to expect a representation of persons, dresses, 

 and incidents, as if the captain and all the agents were living and 

 well known, and the ceremonial as established a form as the instal- 

 lation of a knight of the garter. There is something so strange in 

 this expectation, that it shifts the charge of incongruity from 

 Mc*Clise to the too rigid critic. It is rather probable he forgot the 

 extent of an artist's license : — 



" Pictoribus atque poetii^ 



Quidlibet audendi semper fuit sequa potestas." Horace. 



" Painters and poets our indulgence claim. 



Their daring equal, and their art the same."— i^'ranm. 



In a picture of the coronation of George the Fourth, or his pre- 

 sent majesty, this sort of critical scrutiny would be perfectly just. 

 A correct likeness of the king — of the archbishop who crowned him 

 — of the principal nobility and gentry present at the ceremony — 

 and of the interior of Westminster Abbey, ought to be painted with 



January, 1836 — vol. hi., no. xiv. k 



