The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-10 00:00:00

TILE MAN OF PROMISE.

" Perhaps those iinlucky sham Druids led Proctor into
trouble ; for ten years a crape veil of mist and premature
oblivicn shuts him from our sight—all we know is, that
among other low, material vexations, such as milk scores
and angry, `nagging' landladies, he had to dig a hole in
the floor of his room, so as to enable it to contain his enormous
model of Diomedes thrown to his Horses. that ho had fed
on Human Flesh.' It was too big for his house—and it
proved too big for the houses of the cognoscenti, for ne one
bought it; and Procter, unable to pay for hire of a ware-
house, broke it to pieces with his own hand, his heart
aching at each blow.
" 0 ye who have dreamed for years over some thought,
which with sweat of brain ye have, at last, transformed to
book, or statue, or picture, suddenly to see it snipped to
pieces by critics' poisoned scissors, or left unheeded by the
crowd who pugegcu tv 000 tllO lgrit juggler biirS

feathers on his nose, imagine, as no others can, the agony
of this destruction 1

" Ten years have passed since the shining gold medal
was placed in the swarthy brown hand of Procter ; and
that useful body, the Royal Academy, have left their man
of promise to starve in obscurity—to break up the work of
his lone midnights in the paroxysm of despair."
_ _

Meanwhile the period arrives when a student is to
be sent to Rome by the Academy. Remembering
the promising winner of the gold medal, they re-
solve to send Procter, and commission Mr. West to
search him out from the dingy and hopeless locali-
ties, where the victims of disappointed ambition,
and inexorable poverty crouch from the sight of
the gayer and happier world. The rest of the
story we leave our author to tell in his own
words :

"At the time that Mr. West, with kind but yet tardy
zeal, is searching for the entombed genius, singularly
enough, Fortune, also rather tardy, has sent another
friend, Mr. Riding, a painter and picture-dealer, formerly
an intimate friend of Procter's, is also looking for him, and
finds him. The clouds break for Procter; the blue shows.
Riding observes his friend's disturbed and restless manner ;
he sees that he is entangled in a Nessus net of debts, and
that his one wish is to become free. Riding put forth
all his strength to help him. He goes privately to a man
who holds a note against Procter for money lent. It is a
weapon that may be at any moment used against the man
of promise. He goes and represents his poor friend's dis-
tress. He appeals to the lender, and touches his heart.
He so wins him over that the note is thrown on the fire,
and flies a red tinder up the chimney, the mischievous devil
that lurked in it being exorcised by that process. It is late
at night when the devil is dismissed ; and early next morn-
ing Riding will rise and tell Procter. Happy at his suc-
cess, Riding goes home to sleep lightly, as good men can
do.
" In the meantime, Mr. West has dug up Procter, and
been to his lodgings in Maiden-lane. llefindshim cower-
ing over a heap of clay, in the obscure lodging, in a deplor-
ably reduced state—weak, helpless, and desponding. The
well-dressed, comfortable man looks at him with eyes of
pity, relieves him, invites him to dinner, offers him letters
of introduction to Roman friends, and determines to send
him as tutor to his own (West's) son to Rome, He leaves
him, brushing his cocked hat, and blandly expressing his
regret at Procter's genius having been so long neglected.
He shakes him by the hand, and wishes him 'good
night.'
" The next morning dawns hopeful and bright, and with
it, to the humble door opposite the Cider Cellar in Maiden-
lane comes Riding. He pushes back the dirty, careless
drudge, who knows nothing about Mr. Procter—he is up-
stairs in a moment ; he thrusts open the bed-room door—
no answer ; he calls anxiously ; he shouts his good tid-
ings—no response; he runs to the bed, draws down the
tawdry, tucked-in curtains, pulls back the sheet—there is
the great black fell of hair on the pillow, but the face pale,
and the jaw sunk. The man of promise has died before he
became a man of performance."

At the conclusion of the first volume we have a
series of sketches in dramatic form not strictly be-
longing to the work. They are styled" Last Hours
of the Painters," and are not restricted to the death-
beds of our insular celebrities. Brauwer, the
Edgar Poe of another Art, is there, dying in the
Antwerp hospital ; Fra Angelico, the saintly,
closing his blameless life in the chapel of the Vati-
can ; Beaujean, the follower of Watteau, rashly
ending his own existence in the stormy days of
the Reign of Terror ; and the fervid young Italian,
whose graceful pencil loved to perpetuate the
evanescent glory of the flowers, perishing, also
self-slain, in angry impatience of his fate. At the
end of the work we have several chapters of criti-
cism on the various Schools of Art—Grecian,
Moorish, Gothic. A knowledge of the outward
forms of art, as well as an appreciation of its subtle
inner spirit is apparent, however much the reader
may be disposed to differ from occasional
theories. In one page, speaking of the
new school of painting which has lately become
so famous, the writer expresses a truth that the
votaries of every Art would do well to bear in mind,
if they would touch the hearts and sway the
thoughts of their fellow-men. " They will learn,"
he says, " when they once get out of the hot air of
clique flattery, that the great public have no sym-
pathy now for knights in gilded tinsel, in mystic
ladies of Shalotte, in nuns digging graves, or in
melancholy princesses sitting at twilight windows
with golden cushions on their laps ; they will find
that all that antiquarian frippery suits only the
drawing-room and student race, not the wide
corduroy world. The large world want the old
heart-ache painted, mothers parting from children,
death-beds, lovers joining hands, and all the old
humours and passions of the abstract man. A great
picture should translate into every language, and
require no book comment to eke out its meaning."
In his chapter on the English caricaturists he pays
a genial and well-merited tribute to him whom he
styles in affectionate admiration—King Cruikshank
—certainly a worthier claimant of the regal dignity
than many another King George. But what does
Mr. Thornbury mean by his allusion to the author
of " The Tower of London ?" " Peace to his
manes," he says, "he is forgotten, so after a
fitful fever he sleeps well." Whether this
is meant in the usual acceptation of the term, or in
a literary sense it is equally untrue, and the mis-
take incomprehensible. But notwithstanding this
slip of the pen the author has evidently
bestowed far more care on these volumes than
on most of his later works. He often,
it is true, entangles himself and the reader
in interminable sentences, and in trying to be too
smart and effective in his manner, is sometimes only
stilted and strained. But whatever its occasional
deficiencies, the work is graphic in design and
brilliant in style, and can scarcely fail to find
favour with the lovers of British literature as well
as of British art.

Etudies from Life. One vol. By the Author of
" John Halifax," &c. Hurst and Blackett.
This is a collection of different essays and articles,
by the gifted authoress of so many delightful works.
They are for the most part written with the
greatest skill and care, and cannot but prove
attractive to the general reader. There is a good
deal of variety in the style of these papers, and
therefore they can suit different tastes. An amus-
ing sketch is that of " Going out to Play." It is
always interesing to dwell upon the sports and
pastimes of childhood. This sketch informs the
reader of the desire that dwelt in the minds of a
set of children to go out and play by moonlight.
In order to accomplish this, they went to bed in
their clothes, but were unhappily prevented from
accomplishing their design. "Alas ! we were igno-
miniously discovered, and made to undress and go
to bed properly, like good children ; and though,
since then, we have, each and all of us, kept many
a night-watch, sleeping roofless under foreign
stars, or seeing the English dawn break mourn-
fully from sick-room windows, never, never have
we been among the number of those fortunate
little boys and girls, who came out to play when
the moon did shine as bright as day." " Silence
for a Generation" contains some striking truths on
the folly of overwriting, and the evil effects that
ensue therefrom. It begins by quoting a sentence
of Dr. Johnson's :—" Sir," said he, "the one thing
wanted in the world is silence. I wish all the
talkers had their tongues cut out, and all the
writers had their pens, ink, and paper, tools and
manuscripts, thrown into the Thames, and
there were silence for a generation." It
would be well for themselves and for others
if the authors of the present day, who will
write to a degree painful to their own feelings and
prejudicial to their fame would deeply ponder on
these words of advice. " Providence allows to
every intellect only a certain amount of develop-
ment, limited by certain laws, spiritual and physical,
known or unknown, yet not one which can be
broken with impunity. The brain is like a rich
quarry, you may work it out in a year, and you
may, with care and diligence, make it last a lifetime ;
but you cannot get out of it more than is in it ; and
work as you will you must get to the end of it some
day. So does our author, but still he writes on."
Further on, there is an eloquent passage de-
scriptive of the rare gifts of the author's genius,
and the supremacy he holds over the feelings and
passions of his fellowmen, " whether the sound be
small or loud, clear or harsh, he is the living voice
of the world. Then in God's name let him dare
not ever to open his mouth unless he has something
to say." " Want something to Read," furnishes
hints as to the propriety of children having a
variety of entertaining books to instruct them in
the path of usefulness, and to afford them that
self taught information which the learning by rote
of schools and the precepts of teachers can never im-
part. The writer gives an amusing account of the
early days at home, and tells of their dawn of
literature. In that time children's books were notas they are now, and in recent days some childish
sketches have been found coarsely printelan paper
iaalf covers with " cuts" instead of "plates.k"
tt
dinary cuts some of themortrse:vviaaoc
table with the ugliest of but' it was i ngh
bless
us,
of that syorotu.
feared, might "fright® n"„
we were never frightened al. anything
We had no nursemaid to telius orrible tales of
Bogie" or the " Black Alan,„ —ahll we ever heard
or learned for the early years of our lives came
direct from the fountain-head, the fountain of all
tenderness, and s.afetyt and loving kindness, whose
incessant gu.ardianship made our poverty more
blessed than if we had been heirs to—
"All the wealth that fills the breeze'
When Coromandel's skips return from Indian seas."
"Literary Ghouls" is another suggestive article
which will repay perusal. It relates to a high and
holy theme, and calls attention to a solemn strain
of thought. Some just strictures are passed on the
publicity that has of late been given to the private
doings of ceiebrities. " Suppose," it says, " that
we had been aware that upon us living a greedy
biographer would seize, rake up all our doings,un-
doings, and misdoings in various incorrect forms,
in which we have no power to set right, every
careless and foolish word we said, with an apparent
! motive for saying it, we should have doubted our
ne%regt and dearest, end retired in disgust from the

Impertinent world, to leave our bones mouldering
unmolested in some African desert or American
cave ; or we should have carefully arranged our
whole life with a view to posthumous publication.
' We should never have made a remark without
considering how it would look in Smithiana."
Further on it is truly and powerfully urged how
and in what manner the record of the lives of
earth's immortal ones should be treated; how those
on whom falls the trust of biographer should act so
as to make manifest all that should be known, and
be silent on what need not be spoken of.
"Yet understand us; we ghosts do not wish to
lay an embargo on all biographers, thereby
annibiliating the natural wish of the human heart
to be remembered after death, and causing the
worth and beauty of good men's histories to be
indeed " interred with their bones.' Not so—every-
thing great and noble, virtuous, and heroic in any
author's life—in the life of any man or woman—by
all means after a decent time has elapsed let it be
faithfully related for the comfort, instruction, and
example of later generations. The world has a
right to bear and exact such chronicles of its gene-
rations gone by. But let us be chronicled not as
authors, because we have written a book or so
worth reading, but because we have lived a life
worth remembering ; the story of which will have
a beneficial influence on lives yet to come. If any
incense poured upon, or:sweet odours arising from
our mortal dust, can reach and delight us in our
immortality it must be thus to know that neither
our doings nor our sufferings have been in vain,
and for all concerning us that was purely personal
in noways differing from the rest of our species,
which can neither " point a moral" nor "adorn a
tale," but only minister to an idle and spurient
curiosity, in charity's name, let it be buried with
us. The last essay is on the subject of " Lost,"
and it is an appropriate conclusion to a work of
this sort. It states that "Itis a grave reflection
what a number of people there must be in the world
who are not figuratively or poetically but literally
lost,' who by some means or other, accident, inten-
tion, carelessness, misfortune, or crime, have step-
ped out of the home circle, or the wider round of
friendship and acquaintanceship, and never reap-
peared more; whose place has gradually been filled
up, whose very memory has almost been forgotten,
and against whose name in the family Bible
stands neither the brief momentous annotation
" married," nor the still briefer and often
much safer and happier inscription,
Died'—
nothing save the ominous pathetic blank, which
only the unveiled secrets of the last day will ever
fill up." The fondest and best of mothers may live
to miss from her Christmas table some one child
whom she knows, and knows that all her other
children know, is more welcome in absence than in
presence, whom to have laid sinless in a baby's
coffin and buried years ago would have been as
nothing—nothing. Yet all these things must be,
and we must bear them, that in the mysterious
working of evil with good we may come out purified
as with fire. The comfort is that in its total
account of gains and losses, every honest and tender
soul will find out sooner or later that the irreme-
diable catalogue of the latter is, we repeat, far
lighter than it first seems. For, who are the
lost ? Not the dead, who " rest from their
labours," and with whom to die is often to
be for ever beloved. Not the far away, who,
keeping and kept in fond remembrance, are
often nearer than those who sit at hearth and
board beside us, not even the temporarily
estranged, for faith and piitience will often bring
them back again and teach us—
" How like a new gift is old love restored ;
How seems it richer though the very same."
Never need those fear to be either lost or losers who
in the words of our English Prayer-book, can pray,
and pray together, that " amidst all the chances
and changes of this mortal life our hearts may
surely there be fixed where true joys are to be
found." When, whatever may be the tongue of
men or of angels, " that we shall have learned to
speak with then, we may be quite sure that there
shall be in it no such word as- lost." There is
much to attract notice in this interesting little
volume, and it can be truly and earnestly recom-
mended to those who at all care to dwell on the
thoughtful and refined subjects of literature. Small
and brief as some of these sketches appear, they
are not really so, for they contain the germs of
deep feeling, and reveal the depths of truth, while
they exemplify the lessons of wisdom that lead
through Nature up to Nature's God. " Studies
from Life" is a correct title to this work, and the
studies are pleasing as well as profitable, ornamen-
tal in execution while useful in design; and while
they tell of the most important things here, they
are not unmindful of these which appertain to the

life that is to come. Many readers will rejoice to
renew their acquaintance with one who has given
to our literature some of the most successful novels
of the day as regards their peculiar style, and this
volume is a welcome gift at Christmas to her
numerous admirers.

TILIS DA F'S MARKETS.

CORN EXCHANGE.

IMPERIAL WEEKLY AVERAGES. ^ 'Wheat, 56s 3d;
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