MANNERS AND MORALS; THE FINE ARTS AND THE DRAMA. UNLESS the English stage receive some || —they can never be surpassed, they can never even be overtaken in their course. An arithmetical ratio can never compete with a geometrical ratio. new and forceful impetus, its motto soon will be-Fuit Ilium. Unless our theatrical managers become convinced of their tasteless imbecility, their stupid injustice, their It is admitted that the English drama multitudinous errors and absurdities, and of the present age is far less licentious adopt a system in accordance with the than that of the past-than that of a cenhigh-toned feeling of what is really the tury, or even half a century ago. Strange public mind, they will be compelled, ere and unnatural as it may seem, and painful the lapse of many more seasons, to close as is the reflection which the fact induces, their doors in bankruptcy, without even a our most immodest dramatic writers forknowledge of the cause of their ruin. merly were women; Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs. This may be deemed a startling position; || Behn, &c.; and, even within these few but time will nevertheless establish its || years, the plays of Mrs. Inchbald have truth. It is the attribute of genius to lead,|| obtruded on the public ear more grossness not to follow. Formerly, the theatre, under and indecency, that those of any other the guidance of our master poets, tended writer of the time. Can such a charge be nobly to the civilization of the human brought against the female writers of the mind. It painted virtue in her loveliest, present day? Thank heaven, no. The most attractive garb-vice in all the names of Porter, Hemans, Edgeworth, hideousness of her native deformity; as a Baillie, Benger, cum multis aliis, furnish a pillar of light in the desert, it marshalled proud negative in answer. But these the way-it encouraged us to follow in women, it may be alleged, are not writhe glorious track. It is not so now. ters for the stage. Certainly not; for the Public genius, public taste, public senti- best of all possible reasons: it is not in ment, are no longer the followers of the the nature of such women to submit to the stage: they ought to be, they must be- caprice of vulgar and insolent managers, come, its leaders, or the stage itself will of still more vulgar and more insolent pass into utter oblivion. players. Upon the same ground, men of talent and of principle withhold their services from the stage. || Our theatres, as Boaden said many years ago, have been converted into wildernesses. We view spectacles in them; but we cannot hear the impassioned recitation of the soul's poetry—we cannot see the eye's eloquence, the brow's commanding inspiration. Our moral and poetical sense-ay, and our religious sense, tooour love of literature and the fine artsand the feelings which that love inspires || -have enabled us to outstrip the theatres in all that is greatly and nobly intellectual. || Whilst the theatres have advanced SLOWLY -for we may concede the point that, in the cause of decency at least, they have advanced-literature and the arts have advanced RAPIDLY; and, unless the latter || should stand still-of which, thank heaven, there is not the remotest probability in prospect; for, like the bounding avalanche, they are acquiring velocity, and power, and extent in their progress-or unless the theatres receive some new, and as yet unlooked-for, unhoped-for impulse Amidst our boasted advancement in decency, the question may perhaps be asked-how are we to account for the coarse and vulgar oaths-oaths frequently which the author never assigned to his characters-by which our ears are almost nightly insulted and disgusted at the theatre? Not by the taste of the town; for the taste of the town is comparatively pure. Oaths may be heard from the mouths of carmen and scavengers, but they have been banished from decent society. Gentlemen no longer swear. With certain exceptions, however, our actors are NOT gentlemen; consequently they have no gentlemanly or high-toned moral feeling: their manners, their use and interpolation of oaths in stage dialogue, their general deportment, are all essentially vulgar. Our managers seem blind to this, and to more than this. The saloons, and even the boxes-the dress-boxes alone except ed—have the language and the air of|| little, the occupation may be said to have places not to be named. What is the consequence? Why, generally speaking, respectable persons in the higher and middle classes have abandoned the theatres. The fashionable world is not now a pillar of the stage. High prices, and the lateness of our dinner hours, have been mentioned amongst the causes-but they are only minor causes of the desertion to which our theatres have been subjected. These unquestionably operate to a certain extent: the quality of our stage entertainments is not such as to compensate for exorbitant charges, or to attract company from the more social enjoyments of the table. The root of the evil, however, lies much deeper. Men of refined manners, and of good moral feelings, will not suffer their wives, or their sisters, or their daughters, to witness the orgies of vulgarity and vice. been positively useful, in a physical sense at least; and, negatively, with respect to the mind also. Perhaps it kept the employed from the perpetration of some petty mischief. The worthy Doctor, however, seems to have forgotten the possibility-we do not mean to insinuate harsh things against the fair-that a circle of ladies engaged in needle-work, a pursuit in which no calls are made upon the mind, might have suggested the idea of a school for scandal, quite as readily as that of a school of virtue. The cultivation of literature, while it is not obnoxious to the same suspicion, produces more important results: it is eminently useful in informing, expanding, and elevating the mind. The fine arts seem to go yet farther: they are physically as well as mentally beneficial-the practice of them, if not the theory. By the Employment, mental as well as cor- practical cultivation of the fine arts, poreal, is essential to the conservation of articles of intrinsic and marketable value health. Our women are not less, but more are produced-produced, not at the exactive now than they were formerly. It|| pense, but through the actual improveis true they do not destroy their sight, ment, of the mind. Thus painting, while nor enfeeble their limbs, nor bring on a it preserves the memory of our friendshost of diseases, to shorten their own lives, of the nation's heroes and statesmen, poets and to entail upon posterity, by an unre- and divines-while it ornaments and furmitting attention to tapestry, and em- nishes our houses, and tends to the cmbroidery, and lace-work, and patch-work; bellishment of our public buildings-innor do they deeply, very deeply, study the creases our general love of beauty and of more sublime art of cookery, with its virtue. A moment's reflection will shew ramifications of pastry, preserves, pickles, || this to be an incontrovertible truth: distilled waters, liqueurs, &c. No; they strictly speaking, beauty and virtue can have wisely abandoned the former to those exist only with each other; and, as we who may be under the necessity of pur- have more than once had occasion to resuing them as means of subsistence; and mark, it is impossible to arise from the they have as wisely resigned the latter to study of a fine poem, a fine picture, or a the operative" pupils of the late Dr. fine piece of sculpture, without being at Kitchiner, Mrs. Rundell, &c. once wiser and better-without feeling our minds enlarged and elevated towards the great author of beauty and of virtuewithout feeling ourselves in some degree more fitting for that better world which we hope to inherit. Relinquishing such elegant studies, our women now take more exercise in the open air, and devote more of their hours of retirement to mental pursuits. Employment, per se, is good, even upon Lord Castlereagh's plan of digging holes and then filling them up. How much better is it when the result is physically beneficial to ourselves and to others! How much better still is it, when it is MENTALLY, as well as PHYSICALLY beneficial! Thus Dr. Johnson, in seeing a circle of ladies employed at needle-work, hailed the assemblage as a school of virtue. Straining the point a There are other advantages attendant on the cultivation of literature and the arts, by both sexes. By these elegant and enlightening pursuits, woman, without touching upon, or interfering with the province of man, more highly qualifies herself for his companion-for the associate of his softer, for the better angel of his severer hours. By the improvement of her mind she is enabled to perform the numerous duties of her station with more grace and with more effect-to render the home of her husband the bower of his and of her own happiness. Man, on the other hand, by his attention to literature and the arts, becomes a wiser, a more interesting, and a more valuable member of society abroad; while at home he learns more duly to estimate the best of all characters short of the angelic-that of woman-and accomplishes all the great purposes of his nature with superior credit and honour. This is no exaggeration: mental pursuits are those alone which invariably and in- || fallibly tend to elevate the nature of our species towards that of the Creator. Literature and the arts are inseparably connected; they mutually promote each other's interest; their characteristics are essentially the same. Analyse the composition of an essay, of a tale, of a poem,|| of a drama, of a picture-historic or poetic -or of a piece of sculpture; and in all their essentials, a resemblance, amounting to identity, will be discovered. More of this presently. A time of peace has been, is, and ever must be found favourable to intellectual pursuits, to virtue, and to religion. Peace subdues, though it may not extinguish the harsher, more ferocious feelings of our nature; it cherishes and nurtures those of a mild and benevolent class. It soothes, yet strengthens and expands the human mind; and the mind, in proportion to its enlargement, becomes more and more enamoured of peace, more and more averse from war, unless it be a war of defence. According to the trite quotation from Cowper, war is a game which,|| were the people wise, kings would not play at." On this point, however, as well as upon many others, both the rulers and the ruled seem to be gaining wisdom every day.* It is an honour and a glory to the fine arts in this country, that, with few exceptions, those who practise them have never shewn themselves the pandars of vice. On the contrary, our ablest painters and sculptors have almost uniformly given their support to virtue. Yet some of * This was written before the news of the battle of Navarino had arrived. them, without intending evil, have occasionally erred in judgment. A picture as well as a poem, a tale, a novel, a drama-should always have a moral; not a moral appended to it in form, as Æsop's fables have, but a moral to be inferred. At all events, the object displayed, insinuated, or enforced, should not be evil or offensive. On the score of policy even, leaving the cause of morality out of the question, it is injudicious in artists to paint only for a class-especially for a class that is not numerous-instead of for the public at large. On these principles we object to Richter's beautiful painting of the Widow, exhibited two or three years ago in the Suffolk Street Rooms, and to his coarsely-conceived, and as coarsely-executed pictures of the Poet writing a Dedication, and Lubin and Annette, in the same gallery; also to Sharp's Bottle of Champagne, in last year's spring show at the British Institution; and to Newton's very clever scene from the Beggar's Opera, at Somerset House. In all these, the sentiment, the moral feeling, is more or less bad. They may excite a laugh, but that laugh is at the expense of decorum-we had almost said of decency. Many persons would not look at such pictures—many, on looking at them, would almost involuntarily express the strongest disgust and indignation-many, if betrayed into a chuckle of approbation, at the first glance, by a perception of the ludicrous, would not suffer such pictures to be in their houses: it is only the few—the very few-who would patronise them or their authors. Richter's Widow, though not offensive to the eye, for the figures and all the accessories are beautiful, induces a painful feeling-a feeling injurious to the character of woman. This is wrong. Unless it be for the purpose of beneficial satire, of castigating vice, and consequently of elevating virtue, let us paint woman as she ought to be-as, in the aggregate, SHE IS-pure, virtuous, constant-mild, yet heroic-firm, though timid. To tell her that we expect her to be this-that we believe her to be this-is it not to make her this? Nothing excites emulation like goodness-even when the example, as in Clarissa Harlowe, Sir Charles Grandison, &c., may be almost more than human. Modestly veiled in light and simple robe, or to Pickersgill's Medora, doomed, in her • Thomson's Juliet was in the Somerset House Exhibition for 1825; Pickergill's Medora, in that of 1826. Engravings from both these pictures appear in one of the Annuals for 1828; but far, very far, are they from rendering justice to the admirable originals.--For a poetical illustration of Thomson's Juliet, from the pen of L. S. S., vide LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE, vol. i. page 255. || pense can be more gracious—more becoming-more popular-can tend more directly to bless him that giveth, and him who receiveth, than that which is directed to adorn and dignify our country-which does honour to her valour and her virtuewhich calls forth the energies of her genius, and directs them to the celebration of her fame?" Feelings like these had begun to operate before they were thus expressed. The || beneficial effects of the late King's patronage of the Royal Academy, and of the chief professors of painting, were not, for a long time, extensively experienced. Previously, indeed, to the commencement of his reign, the fine arts seem scarcely to have been viewed by the public as a national object, or to have received from the state that paternal protection to which they are at all times, and under all circumstances, so well entitled. The propriety of the King's views, however, and the liberality of his patronage, were at length acknowledged; for several years, its invigorating spirit was slowly but gradually diffusing itself over the country; it is duly and highly estimated in all its numerous bearings now; and its salutary influence will be hailed and blessed for ages yet to come. To shew, in the most striking light, the advantages resulting from the support and encouragement given to the fine arts, especially to painting, by his late Majesty, it is sufficient to remind the reader, that, half a century ago, our artists were not || sufficiently numerous annually to fill, by their productions, one good-sized room— that, if a sufficient number of pictures could have been painted for the accomplishment of that object, they would never have been able to find purchasers-that, in the course of a few years, the annual number of pictures, &c., became so great, as not only to fill, but to crowd every room allotted for their exhibition at Somerset House-that, amongst the consequences of such an increase of artists, and of the produce of their labours, the encouragement of which, from the public, experienced a proportionate yearly increase, a new society, practising a new department, as it may be termed, of the pictorial art, branched off from the parent institution—that, very soon afterwards, Much as has already been done, infinitely more remains in prospect. We seem only at the commencement, as it were, of the great course. A tendency is universally evinced-in the King, in his nobles, in the state, in the people at large -to encourage the arts, to reward their professors, and to diffuse, through every part of the kingdom, their salutary and intellectual operation. Thus, His Ma another new and important establishment (the British Institution) was formed, chiefly for the encouragement of young artists, by affording additional facilities for their studies and for the sale of their pictures-that, within these three four years, our painters and sculptors, still finding the accommodation offered by existing establishments inadequate to the sale and display of their efforts, founded another society (that of the Bri-jesty most kindly favoured the British In or tish Artists) in Suffolk Street, Charing Cross-that the walls of all these institutions are now annually covered with productions, many of them of a very high order of merit, which could never otherwise have met the public eye, or have been satisfactorily disposed of amongst the encouragers and promoters of the arts. Regarding this only in a commercial and political light, as opening new, or at least of incalculably extending old sources of employment and profit, it is of vast national importance; but, if contemplated in a yet more philosophical view, with reference to its improvement of the mind, its melioration and diffusion of all the best, the noblest, the most generous feelings of our nature, we are acquainted with no terms that are worthy to express our sense of its value. stitution with the loan of his valuable collection of pictures, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish schools-the galleries of the Marquess of Stafford, Earl Grosvenor, and other noblemen, are, at stated periods, thrown open gratuitously to the publicthrough the liberality of Parliament, a magnificent national collection is forming -we have a fine free collection also at Dulwich-and, besides the regular yearly as well as chance exhibitions in the metropolis, Leeds, Bristol, and other great provincial towns, now also have their annual exhibitions. Under these animating and delightful circumstances, we close by repeating the position we commenced with-that, unless the English stage receive some new and powerful impulse, its motto soon will beFuit Ilium. H. COUNT RAVENSTEIN. "WAR, with all its stormy grandeur, cannot bestow upon its votaries one moment of pure and unalloyed pleasure! What are the feelings of the conqueror, exulting over a well-fought field, compared with the full tide of rapture that rushes through || the heart of the parent, when he sees before him the wife of his bosom, arrayed in all her smiles and loveliness, and clasps in his arms his first born-the child of prayers and promises, the dear pledge of blissful hours, the theme of his nightly dreams, and the subject of his waking reveries? On such a man, the heavens look down with peculiar beauty; nature wears a more benignant aspect; and this dull cold world becomes a paradise. "Oh, years that have fled for ever!—ye return not—but the memory which retains your perished joys, like the spirit of man, is undying, and survives the wreck of time, and the overthrow of human hopes. Maximilian! I was a happy husband, a fond and doating father, and I beheld with rapture a young and lovely family rising in strength and beauty around me. In my eldest son, Ivan, I beheld all those shining qualities which promise to realize the hopes of an anxious parent; and my girls, like their mother, shewed the fair earnest of a lovely spring. You, Maximilian, my youngest but not least beloved, were an infant in your mother's arms, when the trumpet again roused the land to war. I obeyed the summons with a feeling heart; and, for the better security |