1826.] 
books with delight, sure of enjoying over 
the pages which he pens a calming, en- 
livening, inspiring pleasure. We forget 
them, indeed, but we can read them again 
and again; and this is, perhaps, the next 
best glory to that of printing imperishable 
thoughts upon us. As almost a confuta- 
tion of “ourselves, we give the following 
happy morgeau. We read it in its place, 
after being engrossed for more, than an 
hour by the previous portion. Whether 
the reader’s mind require the same pre- 
paration to taste the passage we cannot 
say: for our own. parts, the feeling it 
awoke rose to the highest pitch of enjoy- 
There are tw6 persons who always appear to me 
to have worked under this involuntary, silent im- 
pulse more than any others; I mean Rembrandt 
and Correggio. It is not known that Correggio 
ever saw a picture of any great master. He lived 
and died obscurely in an obscure village. We have 
few of his works, but they are all perfect. What 
truth, what grace, what angelic sweetness are there ! 
Not one line or tone that is not divinely soft or ex- 
quisitely fair; the painter's mind rejecting, by a 
natural process, all that is discordant, coarse, or 
unpleasing. The whole is an emanation of pure 
thought. The work grew under his hand as if of 
itself, and came out without a flaw, like the dia- 
mond from the rock. He knew not what he did; 
and looked at each modest grace as it stole from 
the canvass with anxious delight and wonder. Ah! 
gracious God! not he alone; how many more in all 
time have looked at their works with the same 
- feelings, not knowing but they too may have done 
something divine, immortal, and finding in that 
sole doubt ample amends for pining solitude, for 
want, neglect, and an untimely fate. Oh! for one 
hour of that uneasy rapture, when the mind first 
thinks it has struck out something that may last for 
ever; when the germ of excellence bursts from 
nothing on the startled sight! Take, take away the 
gaudy triumphs of the world, the long deathless 
shout of fame, and give back that heartfelt sigh 
with which the youthful enthusiast first weds im- 
mortality as his secret bride! And thou, too, Rem- 
brandt! who wert a man of genius, if ever painter 
was a man of genius, did this dream hang over you 
as you painted that strange picture of Jacub’s Lad- 
der? Did your eye strain over those gradual dusky 
clouds into futurity, or did those white-vested, 
beaked figures babble to you of fame as they ap- 
proached? Did you know what you were about? 
or did you not paint much as it happened? Oh! if 
you, lad thought once about yourself, or any thing 
but the subject, it would have been all over with 
“« the glory, the intuition, the amenity,” the dream 
had fied, the spell had been broken. The hills 
would not have looked like those we see in sleep— 
that tatterdemalion figure of Jacob, thrown on one 
side, would not have slept as if the breath was fairly 
taken out of his body. So much do Rembrandt’s 
pictures savour of the soul and body of reality, that 
the thoughts seem identical with the objects—if 
there had been the least question what should have 
been done, or how he should do it, or how far he 
4 had succeeded, it would have spoiled every thing. 
‘Lumps of light hung upon his pencil and fell upon 
wn over his back grounds by the dull, obtuse 
‘darkness than could only be felt ! 
2 sal 2 
Damestice and Fi oreign. 
calivas like dew-drops: the shadowy veil was. 
of light, making darkness visible by still 
207 
Les Aventures du dernidre Abencerage, 
par M. le Comte de Chateaubriand... 1826. 
—The Viscount de Chateaubriand. must, 
in some shape or other, be eternally. before 
the public. If he cannot be the minister 
of a powerful people, he must write ‘six- 
penny political pamphlets ; and when his 
pamphlets can no longer find readers, he 
is at no loss for expedients; he can rub up 
an old speech, or a forgotten tale, and give 
us the sweepings of his portfolio, and be— 
the great object of life—be still talked of 
in the cafés and the saloons of Paris. The 
noble Viscount, we are sorry to learn, is 
poor again, and is projecting a scheme for 
collecting his published and unpublished 
writings, to the tune of twenty-five or twen- 
ty-seven volumes, at 10s. 6d. a volume, 
Of the published writings, we question if 
the world wishes to hear any more; and 
from the unpublished, of which himself once 
despaired, what is to be expected? The 
prospectus announces an Introductory Es- 
say on French History, which will, of 
course, be too vague or too sublime for 
mortal to grasp; Travels in America, and 
Italy and Spain, which must be far out of 
date; Scraps of Natural History, with 
nothing new or rare; a tale or two, taken 
from any thing but nature; and, God save 
us, a new tragedy—Moses and Aaron, we 
believe—and some poetry. 
In addition to these masses of treasure, 
the indefatigable seribbler is strenuously 
engaged in writing his own memoirs, whic’ 
may possibly, nay will, awaken considerable 
interest. ‘They must carry us where we 
like to go—over the ground of the reyo- 
lution again. We have yet much to learn. 
He has seen much; has been every where ; 
has been always busy; sometimes confi- 
dentially and highly employed, and, what 
is most to the present purpose, is “ so 
loose of soul,” he mzst tell all. He is an 
honest man too—zealous, that is, in main- 
taining his political tenets ; not very clear- 
sighted, and, we fear, easily duped. Let 
him, howeyer, give us, freely and fully, his 
impressions, and we must judge for our- 
selves: we only deprecate any more of his’ 
tasteless jargon about the Christian religion. 
Of re-entering into office we suppose 
he despairs. He is neither royalist enough, 
nor liberal enough, to be acceptable to any 
existing party—a whimsical jumble of mo= 
dern views and ancient prejudices. He 
is for a constitutional monarchy, which in 
France, by a strange solecism, means a 
denation of the monarch, and not the will 
of the nation ; yet he has glimpses of inde-- 
finite improvement in the condition of so- 
ciety and the principles of government; ~ 
quite sufficient to exclude him from all ‘ 
hope of a share of power; and that exclus” 
sion will, of course, help still farther’ to 
illuminate. Still nothing can maké addled 
brains sound. - Ke 
In presenting the existing generation 
_ with this romance, the main object appears - 
