52 



The Chronicle of 



and the latter, principally, with the fifh. The engravers are 

 Fox, Cooke, Richardfon, and other eminent hands ; and the 

 editor, Sir Harris Nicolas, aflifted by feveral competent autho- 

 rities, vvhofe names he designates in his Preface. 



The biographies extend to two hundred and twelve pages. 

 The notes are of a moft elaborate character — pedigrees of 

 Walton, Cotton, and others are given, and a comprehenfive 

 index is added, extending to thirty-fix pages. 



Such are the materials that go to make up thefe very 

 noticeable volumes, which were ifiued 1 at the patrician price of 

 fix guineas for ordinary impreflions, and ten guineas for proofs. 



The fentiment infpired by a curfory furvey of them is, no 

 doubt, one of pleafure and admiration ; but the after and more 

 permanent impreflion refults, we are pained to confefs, in a 

 fenfe of comparative failure. The book, footh to fay, is a 

 pompous book, and with much that is overdone in it. We 

 feek for our modefr. king-cups and pimpernels, and find them 

 buried beneath a heap of learned and heterogeneous lumber. 

 We turn the pages over with a feeling of difproportion, a 

 perception of incongruity and unfitnefs. Infkipp's fifh, indeed, 

 have all the force and freflinefs of nature, and rejoice the eye ; 

 but Stothard's plates feem to us weak and filly, infignificant, as 

 regards the fize of the work in which they figure, and un- 

 worthy, alike, both of it and the artift. 



Stothard was probably felected for this tafk lefs for his 

 eligibility, than from the fact of his being the painter a la 



1 In numbers, commencing 1835. 



