conceptions had swelled in the interval. It was the centre of all that was most imposing in art, acting, and literature, and he panted to be a spectator of the wonders of which he daily heard. While the novelty lasted he was not disappointed, but, when the scene became familiar and the excitement had subsided, he felt himself alone. In his desolate lodgings he sighed for the social sympathies of his happy home-circle, and he would gladly have returned to his place behind Mr. Bradford's counter if he had not thought it due to the gentlemen who had furnished him with funds to fulfil his part of the compact. In the meanwhile he made some valuable acquaintances, and among the number was Allston. This artist carried one of his juvenile works to Sir William Beechey, to ask his opinion of it. Sir,' said the blunt Academician, that is not flesh but mud; it is as much mud as if you had taken it out of the kennel and painted the picture.' He afterwards came to excel in colour, and it was he who initiated his young friend into its principles. He directed my attention,' says Mr. Leslie, 'to the Venetian school, particularly to the works of Paul Veronese, and taught me to see through the accumulated dirt of ages the exquisite charm that lay beneath. Yet for a long time I took the merit of the Venetians on trust, and, if left to myself, should have preferred works which I now feel to be comparatively worthless. I remember when the picture of "The Ages," by Titian, was first pointed out to me by Allston as an exquisite work. I thought he was laughing at me.' No one can read this passage and not be reminded of the description given by Sir Joshua Reynolds of his disappointment when he first saw the works of Raphael in the Vatican. In literature, just as much as in painting, the best taste is always an educated taste. The untutored eye and understanding can only perceive gross and glaring effects. The more refined and exquisite beauties are imperceptible until training has taught us to distinguish them. The humour of Addison charms by its subtlety, but the very subtlety which is its merit prevents many who would relish a farce from perceiving that it is humour at all; and Milton would sound less sublime to the audience of a minor theatre than the rant of their favourite melo-dramatic heroes. The second or third year that Leslie was in London, Allston fell ill, and went for change of air to Clifton, where his uncle, Mr. Vanderhorst, resided. This gentleman entertained a rabid antipathy to the faculty, and exhorted his nephew not to let one of those rascals enter his door.' Allston, nervous, and in awe of his uncle, kept secret that he was visited twice a day by an eminent surgeon, 6 Mr. King. The poor patient lived in constant apprehension of detection, but recovered through the skill of his medical attendant without his imperious relative suspecting that one of the rascals' had crossed the threshold. The elated Mr. Vanderhorst consequently took to himself the entire credit of the cure-duped, as always happens to despots, by others, and, like all vain men, the dupe of his own conceit. Leslie accompanied Allston to Clifton, and the journey brought him acquainted with one of the celebrities of the age. At Salt Hill the invalid became too ill to proceed. There was an affectionate friendship between him and Coleridge, and it was determined to send for the poet. He immediately obeyed the summons, and took with him a physician. Mr. Leslie appeals to this incident as an answer to the sweeping sentence pronounced upon him, that he was a good man, but that whenever anything presented itself to him in the shape of a moral duty he was utterly incapable of performing it.' To persons, indeed, who had family ties or pressing business it would have been some sacrifice to have been suddenly summoned from home to spend several days at an inn in attendance upon a sick friend. But there was nothing in the world that Coleridge loved better than a jaunt, with good cheer at the end of it. His foible was that he could only yield to duty in so far as it was pleasant. The moment he was called upon to thwart his inclinations he declined the task, and appeared one of the most helpless and reckless of mortals. There could be no stronger illustration of it than the circumstance which immediately followed his trip to Salt Hill. He was engaged to lecture upon Shakspeare at Bristol. His admirers had made great efforts to obtain him subscribers, the day was settled, and he was hourly expected, when a gentleman announced that he had travelled part of the way with him from London, and that he had gone on to North Wales. The sole cause of this strange proceeding was his discovery that a lady in the coach was the sister of a friend, and he at once resolved to accompany her to her home. His engagement to the public, his responsibility to his supporters, his pecuniary interests were all flung aside in an instant, and without one word of notice to his expecting audience, he gave himself up to the passing whim. His principal patrons, having accidentally learned the truth, hurried round to the ticket-holders, and informed them that the lectures were postponed until further notice. When the truant at last appeared a fresh day was fixed. The hour and the subscribers arrived, but Coleridge was not there. A hue-and-cry was raised for him, 4 and he was discovered sitting unabashed over | ceedingly indolent,' he says, 'that he never a bottle of wine. He was led off to his im- even pares his nails. His servant, while he patient audience, and his apology to them is reading, takes up one of his hands, and was that he had met with an unavoidable when he has performed the operation lays it interruption. The unavoidable interruption, down, and then manages the other-the pain the first instance, had been the desire to tient in the meanwhile scarcely knowing prolong a stage-coach flirtation, and, in the what is going on, and quietly pursuing his second, to prolong the pleasures of the table. studies.'* To assert broadly that Gibbon With the excuse of a sick friend, he would was 'exceedingly indolent' was absurd. His only have been too happy to repeat the ex- History alone would prove that his industry periment of making a second journey into must have been prodigious. The very stateWales. ment of Malone shows that Gibbon was not indolent, but pre-occupied, and if he was insensible to the paring of his nails, it was because he was absorbed in his book. The individual instance of negligence appears ridiculous, and would indeed have been foolish if it had been isolated, but it was part of a general inattention to ordinary affairs that he might devote himself exclusively to the gigantic labours, without which we could never have possessed the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' The apology is inapplicable to the case of Coleridge, who instead of neglecting little things for great, neglected great things for little. He could not,' pleads his amiable advocate, 'direct his extraordinary powers to the immediately useful occupations of life, unless he was perpetually urged on by some kind friend.' As an example Mr. Leslie instances the tragedy of IRemorse,' which, he says, would never have been completed except for the importunity of the Morgans in whose house the poet then resided. In other words he could not direct his extraordinary powers to literary composition, which was his proper pursuit a pursuit which he did not eschew for any higher calling, but for sauntering, talking, and the pleasures of sense. If he was to be excused it must have been from some constitutional infirmity which may often press heavily, though the symptoms are not apparent in the general health. His example was not one that was ever likely to mislead, and happily at present it is not the fashion for silly people to attempt to pass for gemuses by copying their defects. Affectation,' it was well said by Fuseli, is the action of a lie. It is generally a composition of conceit and deceit an effort to gain a superiority by false pretences.' Incidents like these prove that Mr. Leslie is mistaken in his notion that Coleridge's want of success in all worldly matters may be attributed to the mastery possessed over him by his own wonderful mind.' It was not the wonderful part of his mind which inastered him, but the inferior part of his selfindulgent nature. It was not his genius but his subjection to his appetites and amusements which led him to sport with the most solemn obligations, enthralled by a bottle of wine, or by a female passenger in a coach. There is truth, however, in the observation which Mr. Leslie subjoins, that common men as often succeed by the qualities they want, as great men fail by those they have.' He reports a remark which he heard made by Sir Walter Scott, which points to one of the causes why the ablest persons are not always the best adapted to get on in life. never,' he said, 'knew a man of genius, and I have known many, who could be regular in all his habits, but I have known many a blockhead who could.' The reason is obvious. If the understanding is occupied by high thoughts, and is steadily working out a subject with earnestness, it has not the leisure to attend to numberless matters which are the main employment of the majority of mankind. Whoever,' wrote Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment he rises till he goes to bed.' Such concentration of purpose, and the excellence which is the consequence of it, implies neglect of other things, and this neglect is often manifested in the exact particulars which are necessary to secure worldly advantages. People in general instinctively take themselves as their standard in their judgments of character, instead of attempting to penetrate into the individualities of natures different from their own, or we should less often hear wonder expressed that a man of letters is not as methodical as a clerk, and that he falls short in a variety of particulars which are duly performed by those who make them their business. Malone commits the common mistake in speaking of Gibbon. He is so ex 6 The lectures on Shakspeare were given at Bristol in the year 1814, during the fortnight that Leslie was staying at Clifton, and he was present at three of them. He subsequently attended the course which Coleridge delivered on the Great Dramatist at the Royal Institution in 1817. The artist, in addition, enjoyed his friendship, heard his talk when his intel * Life of Malone, by Sir James Prior, p. 382. Ject was in its prime, and bears the same thing but jealous in his nature, and is made testimony as Wordsworth and Southey to its so only by the machinations of Iago, while surprising affluence. But he also testifies Leontes, in the "Winter's Tale," requires no that the specimens which were published by prompter but his own suspicious mind.' Coleridge's nephew are an exact representa- There are grades of jealousy as of temper, and tion of it, and this enables us to ascertain Leontes may have been more prone to the with certainty, what other circumstances passion than Othello, but he who imbibes a would lead us to suspect, that its intrinsic base insinuation is jealous in his degree, as value was extremely disproportioned to the well as the man whose suspicions originate impression which it left upon his hearers. with himself. The Moor has hardly any faith Much of the fascination was due to his de- in his experience of the lofty, noble disposilivery, for Mr. Leslie confesses that he was tion of Desdemona. He sucks in the first held a willing listener by the mere melody drop of poison which lago pours into his of the magician's voice and the impressiveness mind, where a person with a fiftieth part of of his manner, even when he got past all the spirit which he shows on other occasions, comprehension, lost in the clouds of meta- would have instantly knocked down the offiphysics. To the charms of voice and man- cious defamer. He says, to be sure, of himner he added an unbroken fluency, and these self, that he is not easily jealous,' which is three qualities have again and again procured what is said by all jealous people, but Iago the praise of unrivalled eloquence' for calls him a credulous fool,' and adds, that it speeches, of which the eloquence could not is thus that many worthy dames, all guiltbe perceived apart from the speaker. Ex-less, meet reproach. As to any reports contemporaneous harangues, like the words of a cerning your conduct and behaviour,' Burke song in an opera, depend upon other circum-wrote to Barry, 'you may be very sure they stances for their effect than their sterling ex- could have no kind of influence here, for none cellence. Gerard Hamilton exaggerated when of us are of such a make as to trust to any he characterised the oratory of Pitt as lan- one's report for the character of a person guid elegance,' and that of Fox as 'spirited whom we ourselves know. Such is the lanvulgarity,' but neither Pitt nor Fox, we be-guage and feeling of all generous minds; and lieve, has left a single sentence which has become incorporated into the literature of the country, and which is quoted for its peculiar felicity or power. if those who accept 'trifles light as air, for confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ,' when the constancy and purity of the good are in question, be not jealous, they are at The fragments preserved by Mr. Leslie, of any rate, persons of an unsafe distempered Coleridge's conversation, are of the same nature, with whom no one could be bound up stamp with those in the Table-Talk' on kin- without the perpetual risk of becoming the dred subjects, and might easily have proceeded object of degrading suspicions and miserable from any well-read, thoughtful man. He injustice. There are many similar examples stated that his object in his disquisitions on in the criticism of Coleridge, of what appear Shakspeare was to efface the impression that, to us to be mistaken refinements. His rebecause his genius was great, he must neces-mark, reported by Mr. Leslie, on the scene sarily have great faults. Whoever may have maintained that his faults were necessary, there were at least many who maintained that they existed. The tribe of critics and rhapsodists, who almost asserted his infallibility, did considerable service, for the confiding and patient study of the effusions of genius always reveals beauties which are hidden from less reverent and careful readers. This idolising school, however, often allowed their judgment to be lost in their admiration, and, like the elder Scriblerus, they extolled the very rust upon the shield. Coleridge was never hurried into the indiscriminate panegyric which was adopted by some of his followers, but we do not think, on the other hand, that he has thrown much new light upon Shakspeare. His opinions are often fanciful subtleties which are not borne out by his text. 'Othello,' Mr. Leslie heard him say, and it was one of his favourite observations, 'is any where Falstaff brags of his feats at Gadshill, is in a better vein, and seems both good and sound. The old knight,' he said, begins with the intention of imposing on the Prince and Poins, but, quickly perceiving that they do not believe him, he goes on buffooning, and adds to the "buckram men," until they amount to eleven, merely to make the Prince laugh.' This explains why Falstaff indulges in such transparent fables, and is confirmed by the fact that immediately before he commences his multiplication of the original 'two rogues in buckram suits' he breaks out with, I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie spit in my face, and call me horse'-a protestation which gains additional force by the supposition that it is drawn forth by a gesture of incredulity in the Prince. Of the miscellaneous remarks of Coleridge reported by Mr. Leslie, there is none equal to his rejoinder to the lady who asked him if he believed in ghosts. No, madam, I have seen too many to believe in them.' He made an admirable reply again of another kind when Allston, whose system had been disordered by grief at the death of his wife, was distressed by the 'diabolical imprecations' which crowded unbidden into his mind. Leslie went at his request to consult their common friend, and found him walking in the garden with his hat in his hand, where he usually preferred to carry it, in consequence of the habit he had contracted of going bare-headed when a blue-coat boy. He was ready with his answer. Allston should say to himself, Nothing is me but my will! these thoughts therefore that force themselves upon me are no part of me, and there can be no guilt in them.' The saintly Baxter was once troubled by the same cause, till it occurred to him that ideas which he loathed and turned from with disgust could not be laid to his charge. Coleridge, who was familiar with this narrative, may probably have remembered the passage, when he sent the wholesome advice to Allston which chased away the black shadows that flitted over his brain. 'Oh then,' replied Lamb, 'you are a silly fellow.'. Charles, my dear Charles!' remonstrated Wordsworth, and there was an awful pause, which was only broken by the further question from the comptroller, 'Don't you, sir, think Newton a great genius? Again Lamb was roused from the doze into which he had relapsed, and seizing a candle, exclaimed, Sir, will you allow me to look at your phrenological development?' The undaunted comptroller kept the field and told Wordsworth he had had the honour of some correspondence with him. 'With me, sir?' said the poet, not that I remember.' The correspondence had been 'common official forms in Wordsworth's capacity as distributor of stamps for the county of Westmoreland, and before the poet could reply to the explanation, Lamb sung forth by way of comment, Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle. My dear Charles!' said Wordsworth. 'Diddle, diddle, dumpling; my son John!' said Lamb, and then rising added, 'Do let me have another look at that gentleman's organs.' Here he was hurried out of the room, and as he was carried off struggling was heard repeating from an adjoining apartment, Who is that fellow? allow me to see his organs once more.' 'His fun,' says Haydon, 'in the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory, was like the sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion.' From Coleridge to Lamb is a natural transition. The traits which Mr. Leslie records of him are characteristic of the quaint and frolicsome whim in which he habitually indulged. He was returning to town in a stagecoach with some fellow-guests, after a dinner at Highgate, when a woman inquired of the The acquaintance of Lamb was a later coachman if he was full inside. Lamb took acquisition, and we left the young artist newly the reply on himself, and leaning out of the settled in London. He was admitted a stuwindow, exclaimed, Yes, I am quite full dent in the Antique Academy while the inside that last piece of pudding at Gill- sarcastic Fuseli was keeper. An engraving man's did the business for me.' A friend from his 'Hamlet and the Ghost' had scared. carried a dignified clergyman to see him, and Leslie from the window of a print-shop in he invited them to stay and share his beef- Philadelphia, and I still,' he adds, contemsteak. Lifting off the cover from the dish plate that matchless spectre with something he clapped it upon the bald head of the of the awe it then inspired.' Allan Cunningepiscopal-looking stranger, and with all possi- ham says of it, that it is indeed strangely ble gravity said, I crown thee.' These sallies wild and supernatural, and that if ever a spirit appeared so natural in him that nobody would visited earth it must have appeared to Fuseli. have dreamt of resenting them. In his con. His pictures were a mixture of power and vivial moments, which were many, he was extravagance, and in general the extravagance much less guarded. Haydon has sketched predominated. The same incongruity ap him to perfection, as he appeared after dinner peared in his character. He was a combinawhen the bottle had been circulating freely. tion of learning and profanity, of agreeable Ritchie, the traveller, came in, and was intro- manners and brutal violence. Archbishop duced as a gentleman going to Africa.' Howley, one of the meekest of men, and who Lamb, who was lapsing into oblivion, took possessed that best of all wisdom, the wisdom some time to realise the idea, and then sud- which proceeds from absolute rectitude of denly roared out, Which is the gentleman purpose conjoined to perfect benevolence, had we are going to lose?' A comptroller of once been intimate with him, and was comstamps arrived to tea, and addressing Words-pelled to withdraw from his society in conseworth, said, 'Don't you think, sir, Milton was a great genius? Pray, sir,' inquired Lamb, waking up from his doze before the fire, 'did you say Milton was a great genius?' No, sir, I asked Mr. Wordsworth if he were not?' quence of the virulence of his temper, which vented itself in insult upon his companions. His knowledge of art was extensive, but he read at the Academy while his pupils drew, and seldom opened his lips. I believe,' says 6 Mr. Leslie, he was right. For those students | him as a painter. In both respects he was who are born with powers that will make mistaken in his estimate. The man was simthem eminent, it is sufficient to place fine ple, natural, and amiable, and the painter's works before them. They do not want in- copies from Reynolds were done to such perstruction, and those that do are not worth it. fection that even Northcote, familiar as he Art may be learnt, but cannot be taught.' was with every mark of his master's brush, He once told Chantrey that he had a young was sometimes deceived by them. Years friend who would be glad to study with him. afterwards Leslie saw the very picture which 'I can teach him nothing,' answered Chan- was the subject of the seemingly daubing trey, let him come to the Academy. He process he had witnessed at the British Indoes, but how is he to learn the use of the stitution, and says that unless he had known chisel? Any stonemason can teach him its source he might have mistaken it for a that better than I can. He must become a genuine Sir Joshua. The once fine original workman before he can be a sculptor. One has faded away; the admirable fac simile is great fault of our sculptors is that few of in the National Portrait Gallery, and forms them are workmen.' What Leslie affirmed a triple tribute to Hunter, Reynolds, and of painting and Chantrey of sculpture is true Jackson. One aphorism of the latter, excelof every pursuit under the sun. 'The great lent for its terseness and wisdom, shows that art of education,' it has been justly and admi- he had a mind for other things than art. rably said, is to teach others to teach them- Whatever,' he said, 'is worth doing for the selves. Nor did Constable intend to contra- sake of example, must be worth doing for its dict the maxim when he asserted that a self- own sake.' Mr. Leslie illustrates and sets off taught man had a very ignorant fellow for the maxim by contrasting it with the sophishis master,' for by self-taught he meant a tical reasoning of Horace Walpole:-'I go person who should have no opportunity of to church sometimes in order to induce my seeing what his predecessors had accom- servants to go to church. A good moral plished, and who would therefore be reduced sermon may instruct and benefit them. I to the results of his own discoveries. only set the example of listening, not of believing.' It is curious that a man should be impressed with the benefit to be derived from sermons, and yet should make it his boast that, Landseer was among the fellow-pupils of Leslie, and was a great favourite with Fuseli, who looking round would call out, Where is my little dog boy?' The name of the little dog boy occurs in another part of the 'Recollections,' not as the greatest of animal painters, but as 'the best of mimics.' He was placed by Chantrey after dinner in his chair at the head of the table, while the sculptor stood before him. 'Come, young man,' said Landseer, turning to his host and copying his voice and manner, 'you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself useful and ring the bell.' The butler on entering was bewildered at hearing his master's voice ordering more claret from the head of the table, and seeing his master's outward form in another part of the room. No matter who may be the object of the versatile painter's skill in this department, the illusion is perfect, and combines the nicest perception of character with the exactest mechanical imitation. 'Whoe'er was edified, himself was not.' He certainly did not consider that he was too vile to be capable of amendment, and he must therefore have thought either that he was too perfect to need exhortation, or that faults were venial in the master which he found extremely inconvenient in those who served him. An The remark of Jackson suggests the importance of preserving stray observations, which are otherwise like water spilt upon the ground that cannot be gathered up again.' The world would be greatly enriched if intelligent persons would not think it useless to note down the striking truths they may have heard, merely because they are few, and insufficient of themselves to fill a volume. In the autumn of 1813, during the early invaluable book might be made by merely days of his artist-life, Leslie made the ac- picking out the scraps of wisdom which lie quaintance of Jackson. They were both en-scattered among matter of less durable intergaged at the British Institution in copying Reynolds' portrait of John Hunter. Jackson was dressed in knee-breeches and brown silk stockings, which led Leslie to suppose that he was an affected, conceited man, and he smeared asphaltum and lake over his canvas in what appeared to be a random fashion, which equally led Leslie to think meanly of est. Mr. Leslie, for example, in his 'Life of Constable' has printed several letters from Archdeacon Fisher, which, though they do not contain much of permanent interest, furnish one weighty passage instructive to multitudes who might never take up the Memoirs of a landscape painter. Southey had advanced the plausible theory that the Methodist |