1800]. State of the Manners, ec. of the Metropolis of England. 
oppreffed with melancholy bordering on 
def{pondency, flies to the broad outline of 
boifterous mirth: the finer and more deli- 
cate minutice of fentiment, and the fweer, 
the interetting, realities of domettic life, 
with their richer adornments of fighs and 
tears, may foften mental pain, but 
will not extra&t the deeply driven thorns 
of difappointment. 
abforbed in the contemplation of public 
events, has no leifure to. cherifh the me- 
liorating powers of fober, rational delignt 
—lIt is in the folitude of peacefui thought 
alone that, man becomes fomething far 
above the common hord of humanity. 
37 
proof of a bold and capacious imagina- 
tion*®. 
The travels of Mr. Flaxman have cul- 
tivated a tafte, pure and expanfive. His 
cafts, after the antique, are executed with 
an effect and precifion which will embelliffa 
our public buildings and our private gal- 
The mind which is, 
From. the theatres the mind naturally 
turns to thofe exhibitions in which the 
painter and the fculptor difplay their rival 
excellence, Inhey, alfo, aré the delinea- 
tors of men andof manners. ‘They give 
the features, the} cofiume, the f{cenery, of 
differené nations. They reprefent the 
aStions of great men, the victories of the 
brave, the harmonies of domettic life, and 
the fafcinations of perfonal beauty, with 
an effect at once pleafing and powerful. 
The, portraits of Sir Jofhua Reynolds, 
(who prefented not only the form, the fea- 
ture, but the mind, on his magically 
breathing canvafs,) willlive with thofe of 
Vandyke and’ Rubens; while the Jand- 
feapes of Gainfborough, Loutherbourg, 
‘Turner, and Sir George Beaumont, may, 
without peril by comparifon, embellith the 
fame gallery with thofe of Claude de 
Lorraine and Carlo Maratti. 
A public exhibition is one of the moft 
foftering {pheres for the expanfion of ge- 
nius. But, in the world of painting as 
well as of letters, prejudice and partiality 
fhould be diveited of its potfons, left they, 
‘in time, contaminate and blaft the very 
root of genius. We have feen pictures 
of peculiar excellence placed in fo wufa- 
vourable a light, that they have not only 
loft their effect, but have even been pre- 
cluded from obfervation; while the coarfe 
daubings of more powerful artifts have 
glared through their day of expofure like 
the broad fign-pofts of arrogance and folly. 
Yet among the ornaments oi the art we have 
to boaft a Northcote,a Weftall, a Lawrence, 
a Fufeli, and a Porter. The laft mentioned 
artift is now rifing rapidly on the horizon 
of genius ; and it is honourable to the 
tafte and cultivation of the age we live in, 
that a young man under twenty-two years 
of age has produced a picture, which is 
ah ornament to the art, and a {piendid 
oo 
leries for centurics to come. It is greatly 
to be lamented that this majeftic art has 
hitherto been little ‘cherifhed in Britain. 
Statues, buits, and vafes, which almot 
univerfally embellifh the public edifices, 
and the private habitations of the nobility, 
and even of the middling claffes, in Italy, 
are feldom feen in the halls or galleries of 
Englifh houfes. There are, indeed, col- 
leétions of the very firft order in the pof- 
feffion of individuals in thiscountry. Wil- 
ton, the feat of the Earl of Pembroke; 
Stourhead, the princely palace of Sir 
Richard Hoare; and Mr. Townley, . of 
Park-{treet, Weftminfter, have many ex- 
quifite and valuable aztique {amples of the 
{culptor’s art: but (whether from the 
faftidious delicacy of falle tafte, or the 
force of habit, is yet to be decided) we 
feldom fee this wonder-moving power of 
giving the human form with all its grace 
and fymmetry encouraged, or even ap- 
proved, by the mats of organized fociecy. 
Why cannot the Britith iculptor exercife 
that divine fpirit of emulation which im- 
mortalized the Grecian art? Why does 
not a flaxman, by an origina] mafter- 
piece, dilpute the wreath of iame with the 
moft celebrated {culptors of antiquity? To, 
the labours and the tafte of Mr. Flaxman, 
however, the public will ever be indebted ; 
his exertions promife to awaken that guft 
forthe art in which he excels, which has not 
only been dormant, but has fcarcely ever 
been cherifhed into vigour, inthis country, 
The beft public fpecimens of modern 
feulpture are thofe which embellifi the 
gothic aiiles of Weltminiter Abbey. Yet 
even there they are fo crowded together, 
fo mingled with awkward, uncouth, and 
heavy defigns, ill executed and ill ar- 
ranged, that more than haif their beauty 
is loft in the chaos of inconfiftency ; and it 
is a difgrace to the fculptor’s art, as well 
as to the fineft monument of gothic archi-. 
tecture, that Wefiminfter Abbey exhibits, 
even in thefe enlightened days, a qwax- 
work puppet-fhew of kings and queens, 
a 
_* The Storming of Seringapatam, now ex- 
hibiting at the Lyceum. 
which 
