The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-03 00:00:00

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

The " Literary Retrospect of the Departed Great"
is by far the best article in this number. It is written
by one who evidently was well acquainted with the
best painters and sculptors of the day, and though,
perhaps, a little overcharged and somewhat romantic,
gives a real picture of Wilkie, and Lawrence, and
Northcote ; and possibly also does justice to Chantrey,
but certainly it does not ten 4 to raise him in public
estimation. The article, however, chiefly relates to
Wilkie, and some of the anecdotes and particulars of
his life are so graphic and correct that they cannot
fail to be of use to some future biographer. The
history of the " Blind Fiddler" is interesting : it is
told by the widowed mother of the artist, in her
Doric dialect, while she was residing with her son at
Kensington, and bears all the marks of truth. In
answer to the question whether Sir David had early
displayed much talent in drawing :
" Aweel,' said she, ' I mind that he was aye scrawl-
ing, and scratching, I did Ea ken what, and he had an
idle fashion o' making likenesses and caricatoores like of
all the folk as came. And there was an auld blind mon,
Willie, the fiddler, just an idle sort of a beggar-mon, that
used to come wi' his noise, and set all the women ser-
vants a jigging wi' his scratching and scraping ; and
Davie was ae taking o' this puir bodie into the hoose,
and gieing him a drap o' toddy ; and I used to cry shame
on the lad for encouraging such lazy vagabonds about
the hoose. Weel,' pursued the old lady, but ye maun
ken he was an ill-favoured, daft sort of a creatur, that
puir blind bodie, weel eno' in his way, but not the sort
o' folk to be along wi' Davie ; yet the lad was always
a-saying to me, " Mither, gie's a bawbie for puir blind
Willie.' This,' she added with a sigh, Sir, was when
we lived at the Manse.'
"‘ A-weel, Sir, they told me—it was mony years after
the puir blind body was gane hame, Sir—that Davie had
painted a grand pictur ; and he wrote me to _go to Edin-
burgh to see it ; and I went, and sure eno' there was
puir Old Willie, the very like o' him, his fiddle and a'.
I was wud wi' surprise : and there was Davio standing
a laughing at me, and saying, Maher, mony's the time
that ye ha heard that fiddle to the toon o' the Camp-
bells are coming.'"
There is also a life of the Rev. Sydney Smith, with
a good portrait, taken some thirty years ago, detailing
the more remarkable incidents of his life, from the
time he wrote his first article for the Edinburgh
Review (the life of Parr), in the sixth story of a
house in Buccleuch-place, till he ended his career, as
Canon of St. Paul's. In the life of this admirable
writer and thorough reformer, it is curious to observe
how he changed his tone on church reform when the
cathedrals of which he was installed a defender were
attacked by Lord John Russell and the Bishop of
London. lie still however admitted the necessity of
reform, but thought the department to which be be-
longed was the least liable to complaint, and that the
Bishops with their princely incomes and gorgeous
pageantry should have led the way by cutting down
their incomes and patronage to an amount befitting
the age of reform. He could not see why every suc-
cessor of Charles James should have a house in St.
James's square, a palace at Fulham, and 10,0001.
a year, nor why the domestics of Archbishop Howley
should stand with swords and hag wigs round pig
and turkey and venison, to defend, as it were, the
orthodox gastronome from the fierce Unitarian, the
fell Baptist, and all the famished children of dissent.
The other articles are much in the usual style, but
require no particular notice.