The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-01 00:00:00

MON TIILY MAGAZINE.

From the grave, meditative countenance of
John Milton, which is prefixed by way of an il-
lustrative frontispiece to this Magazine, ore
would be apt to imagine that it was wholly of a
learned, poetic, and philosophical character, in-
stead of which it is full of "quips and cranks,"
odd stories, brief sententious essays, scraps of
queer verse, in many instances of the flood ge-
,,ius—in fact, about as decidedly anti-Miltonic
as it is possible to conceive. The proper pic-
torial prefix should have been a death's head
grinning through a horse-collar, etched for the
occasion by Cruickshank or Seymour. But the

head of the sublime Milton, the poet, the theolo•
gist I— Pshaw, the bare idea is a joke, and pos-
sibly was meant as such. One of the mos►
amusing bits of gossip in the Number is the
" Old Actors." The following (which, by the
bye, is not altogether new) will convey an idea
of its character :
" Macklin, who in his century played many Inas, was,
when they happened to be in the same theatre, logo
to Quin's Othello; but the resemblance between them
was too complete to make their agreement cordial. Quin,
whose excellence lay in keen, biting sarcasm, upon some
occasion is recorded to have said, Mr. Macklin, by the
lines—l bee your pardon, I should say by the cordage in
your face—if Nature writes a legible hand, you must be a
consummate villain.' To this Macklin, who knew the
inferiority of his own powers, in what was the great ex-
cellence of his opponent, made up by the pungency of his
fist for the ace,-bicy of his opponent's tongue, and knocked
Othello down. The hero started like Anteus upon his
lees, and they had a regular set to a la mode deßroughton
(the fistic hero of that time), in which Charley would
have been victorious, if Manager Rich had not separated
and fixed them in different pieceivhere each could have
every thing his own way."

" Coursing in Greece" is a broad, graphic
sketch, whose only fault—a rare one—is, its
brevity. " Anecdotes of a Detenu" repeat
some of the best jokes of that venerable wag,
Prince Talleyrand, whose recorded witticisms
would go far to finish a new Encyclopaedia of
Wit—a work much wanted. The anecdote of
David, the painter, notorious for his connexion
with the Robespierre administration, will amuse:

" I had frequent opportunities of visiting David during
his residence at Brussels. A friend of mine, Mr. P—,
had requested him to paint the full length portrait of his
mother—a lady near eighty years of ege ; who, however,
wished to he represented in the splendid attire she wore
when first presented at the Court of Louis XV. It is
well known that David had the greatest aversion to paint
persons in the costume of modern times. I have beard
him say, that he had once intended to have exhibited Na-

poleon, in his painting of "fhe crossing of the Alps,'
without a cocked hat, which might, be observed, b:• sup-
posed to have been blown off by a gust of wind ; then,
said he, the fine bead of the hero would have been seen to
much greater advantage. I will not prostilt amy
pencil in drawing falbalas, hoops, and powdered per:wigs,'
exclaimed David with violent rage, when my friend re-
quested him to humour the whim of the old lady ;—' Sir,
und' r somewhat similar circumstances I once gave great
offence to N,poleon, to the Pope, to Talleyrand, and to
Cardinal Caprara; but notwithstanding solieitation., and
even menaces, I carried the point. These are the facts :
At the period of Napoleon's coronation, while the Pope
was in Paris, I received an order from the Emperor to
paint a large picture of the coronation. 1 represented
Cardinal Caprara, the Pope's minister, bareheaded. It
was, in the opinion of every one, a striking resemblance ;
but the Cardinal, only anxious about his vile perruque,
begged of me, in the most pressing terms, to paint him
wearing it. I will never consent to do so,' said Ito the
Cardinal. I have depicted your head as God made ir,
and I will not spoil his work.' The Cardinal applied to
Talleyrand, who was then minister for foreign affairs, and
several diplomatic notes passed between them on the oc-
casion. The f,rmer insisted upon appearing with his
wig, and he assured the Minister that to him it was a
matter of great political importance. The Pope alone
does not wear a wig ; and it might appear that, in the
event of the papal chair becoming vacant, he had some
pretensions to fill it. Talleyrand sent for me, and told me
that it was the Emperor's wish that I should represent the
Cardinal with his wig. Ido not care,' said 4 who
requests me to put on his wig : he is without one, and
without one he shall remain.' In order to conciliate all
parties, Talleyrand sent for another painter, and ordered
him to adapt a periwig to the head of the Cardinal. This
was accordingly done. Napoleon, the Pope, and Caprara,
were all satisfied ; but no sooner had his Holiness left Paris
than the wig disappem.ed—having only been painted in
colours it la gouache, which a little water easily effaced.",

" Percy Bysshe Shelley" is an extravagant
eulogium on a poet who now bids fair to be as
much over-rated as he once was under-rated.
His very incomprehensibilities are now discovered
to be but so many sublimities in disguise. Such
is public caprice ! " Military Organization of
Prussia" is a clever digest of what the Journals
have been repeating for the last ten or twelve
months. The force that Prussia can bring into
the field, or, as the author quaintly says, " mo-
bilise," without detriment to her home service,
is estimated at three hundred thousand men.
" Goethe's Songs" are pleasant reading: the
majority, however, have already appeared in an
English dress. " The Three Presidents" con-
sists of a slight notice of the works now exhi-
biting in Pall-Mall, of Sir Joshua Reynolds and
Benjamin West. The criticism on Sir Joshua
is sound, and even erudite, but we do not oee
why Lawrence should be made to act as his foil.
If the one was a loftier painter, the other was a
more accomplished one : if Lawrence had not
Reynolds's power, neither had Reynolds Law-
rence's elegance. Let each, then, stand on his
own deserts—the ground is quite solid enough
to uphold him.