The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-19 00:00:00

The reys.—This family, though not numerous or powerful, have recently invented an alphabet for wri• ting their own language, and are enjoying the bless ings of a written system, for which they are entirely indebted to their own ingenuity and enterprise. This is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable! achievements of this or any other age, and is itself enough to silence for ever the cavils and sneers of those who think so contemptuously of the intellectual endowments of the African race. The characters used in this system are all new and were invented by the people themselves within the last twenty years. A specimen of the characters is given (p. 95). It resembles shorthand, and as an invention of the African mind is extremely curious. In their native state the Africans are ignorant of written language, but seem quickly to acquire it. The Bible has been printed in many native languages. All seem capable of reduc tion to grammatical rules, and exhibit the regularity of original design. In the Mandingo dialect, for example, the plural is formed by adding /u to words ending in o in the singu lar; and by changing the termination of singular words ending in some other sound into olu. Surely there is more system here than could be expected from the chance acquirement of language by a barbarous people. They have but one distinct religious idea. That one, however, is fundamental and im portant : The belief in one great Supreme Being, who made and upholds all things, is universal. Nor is this idea imper- fectly or obscurely developed in their minds. The impres sion is so deeply engraved upon their moral and mental nature, that any system of atheism strikes them as too absurd and preposterous to require a denial. Every thing which transpires in the natural world beyond the power of man, or of spirits, who are supposed to occupy a place somewhat higher than man, is at once and spontaneously ascribed to the agency of God. All of the tribes in the c itintry with which the writer has become acquainted (and they are not few) had a name for God, and many of them hsve two or more, significant of his character as a Maker, Preserver, and Benefactor. In all his travels among strange tribes, and into► the interior of the country, the author states that he never carried, and never found the want of, any weapon to protect himself. The notices of natural history in the volume are exceedingly amusing. We may refer par ticularly to the chapter on Southern Guinea (pp. 361 to 378), for some most curious details on the economy of African ants. The whole volume is full of instructive matter, and con tains the best account of the present state of Western Africa that has fallen under our ob servation. Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. By the late G. W. Fulcher; Edited by his Son. Lon don: Lougmans. WE wish we had more books of this kind. It is small, but full of matter. Though only seventy years have passed since Gainsborough was laid in his grave, in Kew churchyard, and though he lived at a time when genius and accomplishment met in London in most easy and delightful intercourse, yet few memorials have been preserved of him. Gainsborough was, in fact, too completely devoted to his art to be a sociable man. He cared nothing for books. His book, he said, was nature ; and when he indulged in convivial intercourse, it was that he might completely unbend, not that ho might take part in the conversation of Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke. Still he had great ready wit ; and a few instances of his keenness in reply have been preserved : He was once examined as a witness on a trial respect ing the originality of a picture, and a counsellor en deavoured to puzzle him by saying, " I observe you lay great stress on a ' painter's eye '—what do you mean by that expression ?" " A painter's eye," answered Gainsborough, "is to him what a lawyer's tongue is to you." The materials for a memoir of him being so scanty, we are the more obliged by the publi cation of this pleasing volume, in ,which so many amusing traits of his character are pre served. His career was that of genius. He was, in the first instance, completely self-taught. Like poets who have lisped in numbers, his pot hooks and hangers were drawings. The covers of his books were filled with sketches; and " while ho was engaged in sketching some well-remembered landscape, or laughter " loving face, his schoolfellows busied them " selves in preparing his arithmetical excr- THE PRESS. " cises." Desiring a holiday one day, he pre sented to his schoolmaster (his uncle) a paper apparently in his father's hand—" Give Tom a " holiday." The holiday granted, he went, according to his wont, into the woods, and employed the day in making numberless drawings. On his return home, his exact imitation of his father's hand was discovered; on which the worthy man (he was a respect. able clothier of Sudbury) exclaimed, in horror at his son's clever forgery, " Tom will be " hanged !" But, when the boy showed the drawings which had been the produce of his day's holiday, the father changed his tone, and said, " Torn will be a genius." Tom was one morning early out sketching when he observed a rogue looking wistfully at the ripe pears in his father's orchard. Tom transferred the features of the wistful gazer to his paper The fellow afterwards climbed the tree, stole some of the fruit, and decamped before Tom could give the alarm. But his likeness was preserved, and, when apprehended, it was vain for him to deny his own features. Gainsborough's evidences of talent were so strong that his father decided on allowing him to follow his inclination. He went to Loudon to study in his fifteenth year, and two or three years afterwards set up for himself, selling landscapes to the dealers for what they would give, and painting portraits of any persons who would honour him with a sitting, at from three to five guineas each. Patronage, how ever, was slow, and the young artist was com pelled to return to his native place. Here he painted the portrait of a young lady of the place, of extraordinary beauty. She was charmed with the picture, and Gainsborough still more charmed with the original. She seems to have been the natural daughter of some person of quality, as Tom received with her an annual income of 2001. At the time of their marriage Gainsborough was only nine teen, and the lady a year younger. They commenced housekeeping on a frugal scale, dwelling in a house of six pounds a year. While Gainsborough was awaiting patronage, he became acquainted with Mr Thicknesse, one of the most eccentric per sonages of the last century, excessively petu lant and quarrelsome, yet not wanting in good nature. The " Memoir" is unduly harsh towards him, and underrates the benefits which there is no reason to doubt he conferred on the young painter at the commencement of his career. The commencement of their acquaintance may be told in Mr. Thieknesse's own words : " Soon after Mr. Gainaborough's removal to Ipswich," says Thicknesse, " I was appointed Lieut. Governor of Landgnard Fort, not far distant, and-while I was walking with the then printer and editor of the Ipswich Journal, in a very pretty town garden of his, I perceived a melancholy faced countryman, with his arms locked together, leaning over the garden wall. I pointed Fitn out to the printer, who was a very ingenious man, and he, with great gravity of face, said the man had been there all day, that he pitied him, believing he was either mad or miserable. I then stepped forward with an intention to speak to the mad man, and did not perceive, till I was close up, that it was a wooden man painted upon a shaped board. Mr. Creighton ( I think that was the printers name) told me that I hail not been the only person this inimitable decep tion had imposed upon, for that many of his acquaintance had been led even to speak to it, before they perceived it to be a piece of art ; and upon finding the artist himself lived in that town, I immediately procured his address, visited Mr. Gainaborough, and told him 1 came to chide him for having imposed a shadow instead of a substance upon me, Mr. Gainsborough received me in his painting room, in which stood several portraits, truly drawn, per fectly like, but stiffly painted, and worse coloured, among them was the late Admiral Vernon's, for it was not many years after ho had taken Porto Bello, with six ships only ; but when I turned my eyes to his little landscapes and drawings, I was charmed, these were the works of fancy, and gave him infinite delight." " Soon after my introduction to Mr. Gainaborough," continues Thicknesse, " the late King passed by the garri sons under my command, and as I wanted a subject to employ Mr. Gainsborough's pencil in the landscape way, I desired him to come and eat a dinner with me, and to take down in his pocket•book the particulars of the fort, the adjacent hills, and the distant view of Harwich, in order to form a landscape of the yachts passing the garri- sons under the salute of the guns, of the size of a panel over my chimney piece ; he accordingly came, and in a short time after brought the picture. I was much pleased with the performance, and asking him the price, he modestly said, lie hoped I would not think fifteen guineas too much. I assured him that in my opinion it would (if offered to be sold in Loudon) produce double that sum, and accordingly paid him, thanked him, and lent him an excellent fiddle; for I found that he had as mach taste for SATURDAY, music as he had for painting, though he had then never touched a musical instrument, for at that time he seemed to envy even my poor talents as a fiddler, but before got my fiddle home again, he had made such a proficiency in m•isic, that I would as soon have painted against h►m as to have attempted to fiddle against him. I believe, h ow . ever, it was what I hal said about the landscape, and Thomas Peartree's head, which first induced Mr. Gai ns . borough to suspect ,for he only suspected it) that he had something more in him, which might be fetched out ; he found he could fetch a good tone out of my fiddle, and wby not out of his own palate. The following wi►►t. went to London, and I suspected, tor, like Mr. Gains. borough, I only suspected, that my landscape had un common merit, I therefore took it with me, and as Mr. Major, the engraver, was then just returned from Paris, and esteemed the first artist in London in his way, I showed it to him ; he admired it so much, that I urged him, for both their sakes ss well as mine, to engrave a plate from it, which he seemed very willing to undertake, but doubted whether it would by its sale (as it was only a perspective view of the fort) answer the expense; to üb viate which, I offered to take ten guineas' worth of im pressions myself : he then instantly agreed to it. The im pression will show the merit of both artists ; but, alas! the picture, being left against a wall which had been made with salt-water mortar, is perished and gone. That en graving made Mr. Gainaborough's name known beyond the circle of his country residence." Not long after, Thicknesse persuaded the painter to go to Bath, where he established himself in handsome rooms, but so expensive that his faithful, loving wife trembled for her 2001. a year. The result disproved her fears. Orders poured in upon Gainsborough more rapidly than he could execute them. At first he charged five guineas fora head, then eight; and so went on advancing till his prices were fixed at forty guineas for a half, and a hundred guineas for a whole length. His fortune was now made. When he removed to London he took part of what bad been Duke Schornberg's house in Pall-mall. His rent was 2001. a year, and he wrote himself that he lived at the rate of full a thousand pounds a year. His income was made up wholly by portraits. He painted landscapes only for amusement, and they served but to line his staircase and passages. Not until near his death was his great merit as a landscape-painter recognised. Though excessively generous, he was not free front the irritability which painters, above all men, seem most susceptible to in what concerns their art. One of his most famous pictures was hung at the Academy in a different line from that which he desired; he accordingly withdrew his works, and would never exhibit there more. His fertility was wonderful. He resem bled in this respect the greatest masters of the pencil. He seems, in his way, to have painted as freely as Rubeus himself, and, hi Rubens, was in the habit of making presents of Iris masterpieces, so little store did he set by them. The list of his works at the end of this volume (though imperfect) excites aston ishment at its number. He knew no enjoy ment equal to the exercise of his art. There had been some coldness between him and Reynolds, but it was happily re moved na the life of Gainsborough drew near its close : Towards the close of July, Gainsborongh became rapidly worse. There was one whom he felt he had not treated with courtesy—it was Sir Joshua Reynolds. The president's unfinished portrait seemed to look reproach fully upun him ; and the feeling that there was between them, the relationship of genius, induced him to write to Sir Joshua, desiring to see him once more before he died. "If any little jealousies had subsisted between us," says Reynolds, " they were forgotten in those moments of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was engrossed by the tame pursuits, and who deserved his good opinion, by being sensible of his excellence." It is a solemn scene, that death•chamber—the two great painters, side by side, forgetful of the past, but not unmindful of the future. Gainsbnrough says that he fears not death ; that his regret at losing life is principally the regret of leaving his art., more especially as he now began to see what his deficiencies were, which he thought in his last works were in some measure supplied. The wave of life heaves to and fro. Reynolds bends his dull ear to catch Gainsborough's failing words: "We are all going to Heaven—and Vandyke is of the company." A few days after, at about two o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of August, 1788, in the sixtysecond year of his age, Gains borough died. Some curious particulars are given of his family. Two of his brothers manifested great mechanical ability. One of them " Scheming Jack," was continually on the eve of great discoveries, but had not perseverance to per- fect his inventions. Always poor, and Always scheming, he was indebted to his brother Thomas fur relief. In his old age, he would occupy himself with drawing figures on tho