The National Register.
London, England, 1812-03-15 00:00:00

172

to our strictures upon the performances exposed in the British Gallery,
we have been careful not to fill our columns with common-place obser-
vations and hackneyed criticisms which, like the slippers of the inn, or
the saddle of the livery-stables that fit every traveller's feet, or every
horse's back, might be indiscriminately applied to any production of
the art; and we are thankfully proud to find that our readers hate been
Xrinch pleased with their painted and appropriate tendency. We have
blown the blast of the storm against the sturdy oaks and scattered away
their dryed leaves, because they were lofty and strong ; but we have
even spared the gentle breath of zephir to the bending reeds, because
they were humble and- feeble. We went still farther; we did not con-
tent ourselves with a dry de4cription of the piece, but constantly inter-
tnixed, with it, observations and hints useful to the art in general. This
plan wa have adopted from the beginning, and will keep strictly to,
till our task is over ; conscious to have entertained many, offended none,
and even happy to think that we have instructed some of the votaries
of the chromatic muse ; and that the few of our subscribers, who may
happen not to be much conversant with the intrinsic merit of paintings,
have still found, in our descanting upon the art, a constant source of
ITYRlstnient.
No. 121. Chety-chase. BY MR. E. BIM—We are not the only ones
who have questioned whether Addison was serious when he passed so
high an encomium upon the old ballad of lc chevy-chase ;" and indeed
we cannot thee that he was in earnest when lie compared sonic of the
finest passages in the Eneid to the plain, home-spun strophes of that old
poem. We know and confess that, on the one hand, age entitles it to
respect, and that on the other, its simplicity and naivete will give it a
passport to the farthest posterity ; but the great mind of Addison seems
to have been first jocosely brooding upon it, and to have eventually
hatched it into a glory of life which it did not appear to he entitled to.
However, the passage which Mr. Bird has embodied upon the canvas,
is particularly praised by the author of the Spectator, who says : " What
can be more natural or more moving than the circumstances in which
the author describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their
husbands on that fatal day ?" and we are bold enough to assert that the
painter has even done more honour to the poet than the eulogium of the
writer ever could do. The principal figure is a woman distracted at
the sight of her slain husband, whose head and shoulders recline on her
1 ap. She stares, she raves, she holds her troubled and aching head in
her hand, and her madeoing grief is most happily contracted by the
consoling countenance of an old man in the best style of Caledonian
features and dress. Some ether groups in the half.shade have great
effect, and the friar holding the cross of salvation to the dying warrior is
extremely well delineated, and the action impressively pathetic. The
so dead march," that winds away down the hill; the sad countenances
of the surviving heroes, the lowering skies, which arc exactly as inei-
gination fancies them to be on the morning following the day of con -
filet and slaughter, all contribute to assign to this painting a high rank
in the estimation of the spectators. Althongli highly finished, all the
parts unite in general h.tritiony, and csestitete both a iilea,ing object to
'the patriotic eye, and a ns.Ht intereiting scene to the inettraive mind.
No. 82. Ariderus and E c•idiec. By .k. l'eaLee L.—Wise we to find
the strength of the elephant In the elegantly shaped roebuck, the fierce-
ness of the eagle in the d'ive, and the lo:Ig life of the osk in the variegated
tulip, surely we should stand enwrapped with admiration, and exclaim—
" Nature has ontd•)r.e lu,rself In the subject under our consideration,
a woman exhibits to the a;tonished mind of the behol:ler, a specimen of
courage, intrepidity, a:ld esi7,na,kn, at which we should wonder, even
it it were produced by the stronger sex Euridice, lamenting ever the
body of her murdered lois:mod Arida:us, a natural son of Phil r, and
crowned king of M:tet don al.tcr tar death of Alexander the Great, re-
teives, with the utmo.t placidity of countenance, the instrument of her
destruction, sent to her by the haughty and revengeful Olympias. This
fact, which is handed down to us by Diodorus and Justin, is treated here
with an uncommon kior.vledge of what constitutes historical painting.
The foreshortening of the dead body, which meets the eyes of the srec-
tator in an inverted situation, is managed kith great art; the figure Of
I; uridice is elegant, and full of the required expression of silent grief, and
finitude, and t' e whole pleasingly and classically colon. eel.
N. -6. 774 S,reir ?made &le ric Garrison of Gan-attar, in Novensber,
it I). Tuossituta...—lt would be difficult to do justice to this