The museum of Delaware — Wilmington, Del., 1804-11-10 00:00:00, page 3

JERVASE THE PAINTER, AND CARTER
THE SCULPTOR.
A very pleasing anecdote ,
FROM THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.
Carter, the Statuary, or as he was
then termed, the stone-cutter, when a
very young man, had a shed near the
Chapel in May-Fair, indeed I think
upon the very spot where the fair was
formerly celebrated.—His business
was then confined to what may be lite
rally termed the lower branches of his
profession, such as tomb stones, grave
slabs, See. ; for it is well known, in the
common run of architecture of those
days, sculpture was sparingly introdu
ced.
On this spot and in this manner,
Carter used to labour from day to dav,
from the rising until the setting of the
sun. As he was one morning at
work, he observed a Gentleman rather
in years, whom he had frequently seen
pass by, and sometimes stop at his
window, enter his shop.
The Gentleman asked him some
questions respecting his business ; and
the Sculptor, thinking he wished to
employ him, displayed his small col
lection of models, and directed his at
tention to pile works he had in hand.
The Gentleman, commending his in
dustry desired he might not hinder
him ; so after some apology, he began
to chip his stone.—Mis visitor stood
a short time observing him, and then
departed.
Probably Carter was disappointed at
this termination of die visit; however,
he went on with his work. In a dav
or two the stranger, at a very early
hour, called upon him again. The
Sculptor scarcely lifted his eyes from
the block, till a question fromhis guest,
who asked, Whether he was a married
or single man ? attracted his attention.
He replied that he was married to
the be st woman in the world.
The. stranger smiled:
Have you
anv children ?"
" One of the beautifullest infants
tit»: ever was seen."
kin-.) » -i- d, null
continu. d : " You seem a most indus
trious young man."
" Industrious !" said Carter ; " one
had need to lie so in these times : you
see I cannot even afford to keep a la
bourer constantly ; I do almost every
thing myself."
" Do vou avant any money ?"
Carter stan d : " Want money ?
Lord love me ! yes ! I believe I do.
1 1
" Would a hundred pounds be of
service to you ?"
" A huadn-d pounds 1" said the as
tonished Sculptor ; Lord love me !
why it would be the making of me for
ever."
" How so ?"
" Ilcadv mony would enable me to
purchase materials at a cheaper rale ;
to employ u journeyman ; to extend
xu y business : in fact it would make a
man of me,"
" Do you know Clarges street ?"
said the stranger.
" Lord love me Î to be sure I do ;
it is but just by.
"You must breakfast with me to
morrow* morning at nine o'clock."
" Who must 1 enquire for ?"
" Mr. Jervase," replied the Gentle
— man.
" You wanton job done ?"
" Many," returned Jervase ; there
fore. be p
" Ah!" said the Sculptor,
there's
no doubt ol that."
Whatsoever Carter, who had little
connection with artists, and therefore
did not know him, thought of his visi
tor, is uncertain. He however, in ex
pectation of employment took care to
be punctual and found that he resided
in a very elegant house.—Jervase re
ceived him with the greatest pleasure
and politeness : during the course of
their breakfast, he said " Mr. Carter,
I have fjr some time observed and
■Pj as a young man of consi
maruto
deral'le taie.hjs and unremitted indus
try, driving, I fear, rather against the
1 am happy that Providence
stream.
has put it into mv power to assist your
efforts. Here is the hundred pounds
that you seemed to think would be so
serviceable to you. Hut as I know
the necessity there is for capital in your
profession, I by no means intend to li
mit my assistance to this sum. 1 have
numerous friends and connexions, and
will recommend you ; and as votir bu
siness increases, shall always be ready
to second your endeavours both with
my purse and advice.
ii
It would be a vain effort to attempt
to describe the astonishment and the
gratitude of the sculptor to his friend,
whom he regarded almost as a super
natural being. He took the hundred
pounds ; and Jervase had the satisfac
tion to find, in a short time, that his
bread was not cast upon the water.
Every thing succeeded with Carter, his
business extended, and I think, he en
gaged in some of the new erections in
May-lair and its vicinity. Thus, by
his ingenuity and industry, he realized
what in those days was termed a large
fortune.
FROM THE ENqC'IRER.
OX THE ILLUSIONS OF FANCY.
No single faculty of the mind affords
materials lor such various and curious dis
quisitions as the far.cv, or imagination.—
The metaphysician views it as the mimic
of the senses, whose functions it sometimes
so aptly performs, as to impose on the mind
fiction for truth. In thus substituting the
pictures or imngies of its own creation, for
those of nature, lit perceives that it only se
parates or combines those ideas which were
imparted by the senses and reposited in the
memory : That it can generate no simple
idea, but is merely the intellectual artificer
who makes a fabric of the materials with
which it is furnished by the senses. In the
course of his enquiry into the principles of
its operation, he is astonished to find that
even this power of separating or combining
lias its limits ; and that, with all the seeming
irregular and discursive movements ot the
fancy, there are but two or three natural
relations, which as nous volons enable it to
pass from one region of thought to another ;
and that the mind can never shift itself from
idea to idea, unless there is - r
time or place ; n semblance or contrast be
tween them. Thus this lively faculty,
whose anomalies seemed at first view to de
f y the powers of human investigation, is
found to act upon principles at once tegu
lar, simple, and few. Different persons
possess in different degress the power of per
ceiving what is contiguous intime or place,
and what is like or unlike ; according to
which degree they are said " to have an
active, or a dull imagination," and some
times " to possess or to want fancy."
Since eloquence and poetry owe their
highest ornaments to the imagination, it na
turally becomes one of the principal topics
of literary criticism. As it is the object of
the orator to persuade, and of the poet to
please, the critic eon aiders the fancy merely
as an instrument for these purposes, and de
rives a set of ruies lor the laws of nature,
by which he ascertains the means to theends.
He points out where a loose should be given
to tin-native impetuosity of the imagination,
and where its unlimited sallies should be
curbed : shews wliat passages possess the
awlul grandeur of the. sublime and want tue
attractive loveliness of beauty, and distin
guishes those pictures of fancy which
il re
dissonant to nature from those which are hit
off'in the spirits ol her finest models. In a
word, guided at one and the same time by
the most liberate feelings of the heart and
the nicest dictates of reason, he praises or
blames the works of imagination according
to the judgment of taste.
Nor is this busy faculty unworthv the
consideration of the moralist. Our desires
and aversions either derive new vigor from
the imagination or owe their existence to it
altogether. It is sometimes their parent
and always their nurse. By its extensive
influence over our pleasures and our pains it
goes far towards regulating
our moral con
duct, and according to the direction it may
take, gives birth to the subliment heroism
or
the most unnatural depravity.
To shew the full extent of its influence
on human happiness would lead me into
too wide a field of moral and metaphysi
cat speculation ; but as a branch of-.he
ject, 1 propose to shew how much it tends
to substitute falsehood for truth, by
enumc
rating the most ordinary illusions of fancy :
in which enumeration, the examples arc ei
ther the result of my own observations
, or
are believed to be in a strict analogy with
the acknowledged principles of the human
nature.
Sometimes the suggestions of the imagi
nations are mistaken lor those of the me
mory. Tiiis propensity is almost always
to be perceived in children of "ery tender
They prattle of visits they
years.
never
made ; repeat conversations they t
never
heard, and describe objects they never
saw
—all tit's too without t ie smallest consci
ousness of falsehood,
The same predomi
nance ut fancy over memory
is occasionally
seen in ;ro'.vn
persons vv ,•> deal much in
narrative. Tile foible of these people never
luils to incur the contempt of die w . Id, and
generally imputed to vanity ; but where
it is united to a character odicrwise irre
proachable. as 1 have sometimes seen it, it
is fair to presume tlu t it procee
|iom in
imbecility of the mind rather than obliquity
ot the heart. Every man who watches the
operations of his intellect, mist have disco
vered that he occasionally had formed a
association of ideasat the very time he thinks
he is tiieiely Jctruci/te all association /iri vi
uudit formed.
vVoipen have always been observed to
liave'liviiiier imaginations than men. A na
tural consequence of this superior facility
of associating ideas, is, they are h ss accu
rate in reciting matte' s of fact. Not
only
the merits ofa favorite, the splendor of an
exhibition,or the horrors ofa calamité, aie
exaggerated by the force of their imagina
tions, but what consists i.I mere number or
quantity is apt to be increased or diminished
by the same cause. One L Jy boasting of
the beaux who bad led her daughter oat to
dance, will convert twelve into twenty :
while an envious neighbor by an opposite
deception, will diminish the number to h\e
or six: and yet both of these ladies in av be
ignorant of voluntary falsehood,
t:
fact
is tint! each listened to that suggestion of fan
cy which was most agreeable to her feel
ings.
1 once knew two ladies to dispute, and at
length beton the height of their respective
g "ants, who were very well known to both.
The gentlemen turned out to he of equal
height, hut each lady ha 1 been confident
that her own favorite was at least two in
ches taller than the other.
Very ardent lovers have observed that
when they first meet after a long separation,
they let! disappointed in each other's appcai
ance. It is because the picture of the belo
ved object was not ill the mind merely as
memory had drawn it—imagination had
superadd.d the colors oi her own In gin pen
cil. '
Sometimes we see the imagination so live
ly, so completely master of the mi.id, that
it. prevails over the plain and direct commu
nication of the senses.
On occasion ofa riot, Gov. C
o!
New-York, put himself at the head of a
chosen party to quell the tumult. The
sword lie carried was by some accident bro
ken off year the hilt. With this fragment
in his band he pushed on, and endeavored
to force his way through the crowd. One
man, feeling the pressure of the mutilated
weapon, looked back, and fixed his eyes on
the spot, exclaimed " a dead mai.,
senseless on the ground, under a tempory
coovitgniu that he was run through the bo
Major H. whose life was spent in mis
chievous waggery, having given a strolling
fidici some liquor, pressed him to repeat his
draught with great earnestness. By winks
and nods to the bystanders, suspicions were
artfully excited in tile poor fidici—at length
he was tolil with a face ot'gravity ami con
dolence, that he hud taken an emetic, which
would lie good for his health. \\ al
wa
ter was accordingly prepared, and the cre
dulous kv. oi Orpheus was made to vomit
as freely by the energy of his own imagina
tion as he could have been by tlte most pow
erful drugs of pharmacy.
A clergyman and his daughter were once
viewing the face of the full moon,
The
young wortian was clear she saw in it the
figure of a young man ; but the. futhei
le
bukiug the daughter iui not seeing a t
ki i . 7/,
says, " why child, don't you sec the stee~
1 o ordinary palates good wine at the fe
hle ofa poor man will seem bad, and ordi
nary wine at the house of a reputed epicure,
has a most exquisite flavour.
Æsop, by wav of characterising the blind
partiality of a mother, makes the owl, in
describing her young to the eagle, dwell
with great emphasis on their pretty faces.
Persons who feel a dread of a pa rations
need but meet with a white cow or linen
garment, and their fancy supplies whatever
is wanting to complete a picture of horror—
gives it form, color, motion, nay even a dis
tinct and articulate voice. Ghosts were ne
ver yet seen by those who did not previous
ly have a dread or belief of them.
W hen Wilkes was in the zenith of his
popularity, one of liis most enthusiastic fe
male admirers would not admit that he
squinted. Yielding to the effect of a
nenr
■ inspection, she replied to her triumphant
' .
adver ary, " Well, 1 am sure it it is so, Uc
squints no more than a gentleman ou dit to
do.' 1
The wretch who lias been for years the
helpless victim of disease, has imagined him
self cufeJ by the touch of an iron bodkin :
and on one occasion J knew a rheumatic pa
tient to lie scratched with a quill (imposed
on con lor one of Perkin's points) till in'
was able " to take up bis bed and walk.
It is a similar illusion of fancy which :
iro
cures the reedy sale of the nostrums of l
Clll
pities, arid vouches with sec'i grate Ini zeal
lor the cures they have wrought.
d. ggn and ventriloquists owe thfirsuc
!y to the ... luded imaginations of
cess I i at
tneir beholders.
Hypochondria, delirium, and madness,
though remotely caused by ccpon u! dis
ease, are til : irunatiiif, effects of an imagina
tion stimulated to p>eternatural vi.,uv.
The false promhes of hope are nothing
but the judgir*-t la I asfui- by the imagi
A l ii t if it. »a. J. dees its strength
nation.
from one species of mental illusion, and a
varice from another. Jealousy, envy, re
venge, m ike the imagination convert beauty
into defiumity and virtue into vice, while
love, pity and admiration, cause an opposite
metamorphosis. When parly spirit runs
high, the sain essay, the same speech is
thought to have or want merit, accordino
to the sentiments they express. This pre
judice, as it is commonly called, or thi? il
. is old -
i isiuii of tsuuiv
ext , i •/. most 1 ii—
uicrou -'y to the , ut of a
1 . tue uir of a
'pular song, or even to a color dial lum
pe is to be the badge ofa p-.rry. A f
years
:k ta
• ui
cited
pioliaiily oife
thm n streit inuid r,
ho. tor at i
and I vvr'ly have iiioiigi.' the very liainbow
hid
ii- from its resemblance to die tricolor
a u (la.
if imagination is capable rot oalv of sub
stituting its I a n copies oi t veepho.-.s of
sense for those of liemoiy, but
c> en of
cheating us out of these |icii.-ptiout. tiiem
selvcs, how mii'.li ..lii ii vw .lie.
• last it
p-rvert the judgment ! How liai 1 " is every
chain of reasoning '0 be turned this o'" that
way from the right line of truth, when eve
ry link is so likely to be (listen led ! i-ewr
are tlte opinions we can form w inch arc not
connected with some se ntiment of pleasure
or pain, and these sentiments are always
nourished mor
Is
i-ei these considerations teat
charity and
moderation
to zc. lois of every
desci mtion,
and let thin
hat the
recoiled
opinions of
whose truth they ii.n » the deepest convic
tion, if they wen- formier whe
the mind
was much excited by f cling, arc less 1 M .jy
to be the demonstrations of.i.
trill tl.dll tlic
Util ■ i ( t\ tii
X.
-vxiiCl'
THE MENDICANT AND SA1I.OR.
A fellow well known in the (''strict,
lame, having also but one win
and dossed
in the habit ofa sailor, vv
( on other day
with mich vociferation, lv; - :
er-hi!l. A t -.r, who hi.it in
ome cut -it
a public hoin
tvheie he had pin! ably n. id
his laickonini
for a
aiy;
i i unhn:
note, was, a
ms ido
liy witii more attention than is usu.i! to
persons of his :lr<cri|>tion. V> hin lie was
thus usefii il v et
i, the he
t! him,
;ar
and, thrusti
Ins .».it before i
vciair.i
ml.
Bk
t*d,
your noble heart, my
voit
Y
nirssmate. spare a few ro >i tw for pur
• i
sUimped in the staibouid-ai rn ; hi
braces shot away, .iiid turned out ol ti.» ser
vice without a smart tkl t."
The sailor, still intent tinnn
tion, which indeed seem, d > require die ut
most stretch of hi rit.i 'iatie
T.iliva,
hillir
th re
:u:e fellow, flu it
mg aw i
r him. brau
SllCt Cî i-î
II! 'Cm
" l'ilesF y" >, n.y noble muster !
I la
Oil
: >
r, t .
to; ;
no nunc
/trend
ill it
I'ty. X
n iiial*
said tue
Aw. t. •..miner a
ins; iiprii b;
as tin* !x
. ;ar w s in
Don't veer out
it
st him a
*]
sheer off while yo
re well.
you th- shi
.'itl'gq, ;
ged for lhe fo/t o-/tun
[/
It
The following; curi.K«> piece o*' hu. ,•
tion is given in a left r firm Plyn.riini:
14 Sailed three t n,
iisi'ihs and htons for the squadron où i u'
rol."
A gentleman having a pad tin t started
and broke his wife's neck, a ncighborii g
squire told him lie w islied tu piiveil, sc it for
his vite to mie upon,
sc vs d.e
other, " 1 will not sell the little fellow, Ot
causL 1 intend to marry «'Jain myself."
Ù