1832.]

has also consulted the advantage of beginners by explaining, with more particularity, and more in detail than is customary, the technicalities of logic. For a masterly exposition, however, of the nature and object of Logic, and for a complete defence of it against the misrepresentations of Locke, Dugald Stuart, and others, we must refer our readers to the very able treatise on the "Elements of Logic," by the present Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately. Mr. Wesley's book has an appendix on the forms of disputation in use at Cambridge, which we have no doubt will be found serviceable to the members of that University.

The Rev. Dr. Croly's Sermon, preached at Northfleet, Kent, in aid of the funds of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign parts.

THIS is a fervent and eloquent appeal to the intellect and the heart; possessing the best qualities of pulpit oratory-the sobriety of investigation, and the animated earnestness of one impressed with the full conviction of the truths he is delivering, and of their paramount importance on the temporal conduct and eternal happiness of man. From the text, Matthew xxvi. v. 16 to 20, the preacher explains the great commission of Christianity;" the command-the doctrine-the comfort and support-"Go forth, baptise and teach" and "lo, I am with you to the end of the world." He then explains the object of his address :

"A great institution (he says) this day stands beside your altar, appealing to you by every name that awakes a pulse in the human bosom; by kindred and country, by the noble memories of your fathers, by the blessing which awaits the posterity of the merciful, by national honour, and still more by Christian duty, to sustain it in its illustrious task, to enable it to go forth on its sacred pilgrimage with the vigour due to the work of God; to do your Christian part in supplying your poor and remote fellowcreatures with a wealth more invaluable than the wealth of worlds, with holy truth, with moral dignity, with peace of heart, and with the hope of glory. It is to send into the wilderness a great mission, the track of whose footsteps is virtue and light, the true representative of our Lord; giving eyes to the blind, and voice to the dumb; feeding spiritual hunger with the bread of which, who eats, shall never die; refreshing the GENT. MAG. January, 1882.

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withered heart with the waters of eternal, life; raising the dead in trespasses and sins from the more than grave; extinguishing every vanity and every violence of our nature, smoothing the thorny ways of life, divesting the deathbed, painful and inevitable as it is, of its chief pain; and pouring down, even into the sullen recesses of the grave, a light borrowed from above."

The early history of our holy religion, in which every part of the text is beau tifully illustrated, is given in the same eloquence of language and reach of thought; a glance at its corruption follows, to be succeeded to use the words of Milton-" by the bright and blissful Reformation;" of which Dr. Croly speaks in a strain worthy of an, event, in which the arm of God was as visible as His promise was unchangeable.

The field of missionary labours is laid open the good already effected, and the "vast task" yet to be undertaken, are explained-and an appeal, warm, affectionate, and powerful, calls upon every Christian to do his duty. We cannot resist extracting the closing passages of this truly pastoral address, worthy of the best days of pulpit oratory; and we are the more readily tempted to this, seeing that the least timid, and also the most unreflecting, are predicting evil days for our Church.

"We live in a time of universal trial. Great changes threaten all things. Whether those changes arise from the caprice of the time, or from the mere progress of empire, as of man, to maturity, the pulpit is, for other enquiries. But it may be fearlessly pronounced, that the Church of England has it in her competence to be the great security of England; that, whatever thundercloud may gather over the land, it is in the church must be erected the conductors. Among her twelve thousand clergy--a hody the most educated, the most conversant in all the better parts of human intercourse, and the least liable to personal imputation of any clergy of Europe; neither corrupted dependents on public life, nor ascetics of the cloister, nor sullen refugees from society; there must be minds capable of leading in any cause that ever tasked the faculties of man.

"We must look to no humbler influence than religion for the permanent peace of empires. All the statutes that ever loaded the shelves of legislation, and all the weapons

that ever enforced them, could not fa+ bricate a peaceable community out of an irreligious people. The heart is the spring of good and evil; the Scriptures alone can

reach it. From the pulpit, in its wise and honest zeal-in its eloquenee-chastened courage, and scriptural integrity, must go forth the spirit that reconciles and heals, and this must be the pulpit of the Established Church. In all our history, there is no fact more thoroughly demonstrable, than the vital connexion of British prosperity

with that Church. The hour that sees her shaken, will see more than the tarnishing of crosiers and mitres. All sectarianism is republican.

"For the encouragement of the Church, she has only to revert to days, when, though every step was through the ashes of her martyrs, she made good her victory, alike for king and people. With the liturgy for her language, the articles for her law, the virtues of her Halls and Latimers for her example, the Scriptures for her faith, the good of man for her desire, and God for her dependence, the Church of England cannot fail. To all taunting questions, What she has done for England? we answer by pointing to the illustrious institutes for education which she has founded; to the countless establishments for charity; to the myriads of the people which she has brought from the depths of ignorance and vice, into knowledge and virtue; to the myriads which she is still bringing; to the innumerable temples that she has raised, and is still raising, through the land; to her unwearied diffusion of the Scriptures; to this Society, a mission for mankind!!"

We congratulate the Church, that the genius, learning, and superior talents of Dr. Croly are now laid upon her altar, and exercised for her weal. A more zealous advocate, and a warmer friend, is not among the many of her distinguished sons.

Anecdotes of William Hogarth; written by himself: with Essays on his Life and Genius, and Criticisms on his Works; to which are added lists of his Paintings and Prints, with an acccount of their variations; Parts I. and II.-8vo. Nichols and Son.

THE more we read about Hogarth and his works, the more we must esteem him as a man and admire him as an artist. As an individual moving in a public sphere of life, he was good and benevolent-as a satirist, he was morally severe and amusingly instructive-and as a painter, he ranks much higher than the class of "clever" tists. To support this opinion of the moral painter we need not quote authorities; though the interesting volume before us furnishes us with abundant evidence-for no man who is at

ar

all acquainted with the history of his life, or who has been accustomed to contemplate the productions of his powerful mind, but must have felt its truth.

The autobiographical sketch is particularly valuable and interesting; in

asmuch as it lets us into the secret of his feelings during the struggles of early life, and furnishes us with particulars relative to his method of study; his own estimate of his powers; his opinions respecting the Royal Academy as the means of encouraging the arts; the origin of his quarrel with Wilkes the politician, and Churchill the satirist; and his correspondence with Lord Grosvenor relative to the celebrated historical picture of Sigismunda, an engraving of which appears in the first part of Mr. Nichols's book.

The following extract on the subject of portrait-painting furnishes us with the origin of the beautiful portrait of Capt. Čoram, presented by the artist to the Foundling Hospital :

"With respect to portrait-painting, whatever talents a professor may have, if he is not in fashion, and cannot afford to hire a drapery-man, he will not do; but if he is in vogue, and can employ a journeyman, and place a layman in the garret of his manufactory, his fortune is made; and as his two coadjutors are kept in the back-ground, his own fame is established.

"If a painter comes from abroad, his being an exotic will be much in his favour; and if he has address enough to persuade the public that he had brought a new discovered mode of colouring, and paints his faces all red, all blue, or all purple, he has nothing to do but to hire one of these painted tailors as an assistant, for without him the manufactory cannot go on, and my life for his

success.

Vanloo, a French portrait painter, being told that the English were to be cajoled by any one who had a sufficient portion of assurance, came to this country, set his trumpeters to work, and by the assistance of puffing, monopolised all the people of fashion in the kingdom. Down weat at once *-, -&c. &c. &c. painters who, before his arrival, were highly fashionable and eminent; but by this foreign interloper were driven into the greatest distress and poverty.

* * *

"By this inundation of folly and fuss, I must confess, I was much disgusted, and determined to try if by any means I could stem the torrent, and by opposing end it. I laughed

* Vanloo came to England, with his son, in 1737.-Walpole's Anecdotes.

1832.]

at the pretensions of these quacks in colouring, ridiculed their productions as feeble and contemptible, and asserted that it required neither taste nor talents to excel their most popular performances. This interference excited much enmity, because, as my opponents told me, my studies were in another way. You talk, added they, with ineffable contempt of portrait painting; if it is so easy a task, why do not you convince the world by painting a portrait yourself. Provoked at this language, I one day, at the Academy in St. Martin's-lane, put the following question: Supposing any man at this time were to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, would it be seen or acknowledged, and could the artist enjoy the benefit, or acquire the reputation, due to his performance?

They asked me, in reply, if I could paint one as well? and I frankly answered, I believed I could.' My query as to the credit I should obtain if I did, was replied to by Mr. Ramsay, and confirmed by the president and about twenty members present: Our opinions must be consulted, and we will never allow it.' Piqued at this cavalier treatment, I resolved to try my own powers, and if I did what I attempted, determined to affirm that I had done it. In this decided manner I had a habit of speaking, and if I only did myself justice, to have adopted half words would have been affectation. Vanity, as I understand it, consists in affirming you have done that which you have not done, not in frankly asserting what you are convinced is truth.

"A watchmaker may say, "The watch which I have made for you, is as good as Quare, or Tompion, or any other man could have made. If it really is so, he is neither called vain, nor branded with infamy, but deemed an honest and fair man, for being as good as his word. Why should not the same privilege be allowed to a painter? The modern artist, though he will not warrant his works as the watchmaker, has the impudence to demand twice as much money for painting them, as was charged by those whom he acknowledges his superiors in the art.

"Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait-painting, I had not the most exalted opinion, and thought that, if I chose to practice in this branch, I could at least equal my contemporaries, for whose glittering productions I really had not much reverence. In answer to this, there are who will say with Peachum in the play, 'all professions berogue one another'-but let it be taken into the account, that men with the same pursuits are naturally rivals, and when put in competition with each other, must necessarily be so what racer ever wished

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that his opponent might outrun him? what boxer ever chose to be beat in pure complaisance to his antagonist? The artist who pretends to be pleased and gratified when he sees himself excelled by his competitor, must have lost all reverence for truth, or be totally dead to that spirit which I believe to be one great source of excellence in all human attempts; and if he is so polite and civil as to confess superiority in one he knows to be his inferior, he must be either a fool or an hypocrite; perhaps both. If he has temper enough to be silent, it is surely sufficient; but this I have seldom seen, even amongst the most complaisant aud liberal of the faculty.

"Those who will honestly speak their feelings must confess that all this is natural to man; one of the highest gratifications of superiority arises from the pleasure which attends instructing men who do not know so much as ourselves; but when they verge on being rivals, the pleasure in a degree ceases. Hence the story of Rubens advising Vandyke to paint horses and faces, to present, as it is said, his being put in competition with himself in history painting. Had either of these great artists lived in England at this time, they would have found men of very moderate parts-mere face painters, who, if they chanced to be in vogue, might with ease get a thousand a year; when they, with all their talents, would scarcely have found employment.

To return to my dispute with Ramsay, on the abilities necessary for portrait painting; as I found the performances of professors in this branch of the art were held in such estimation, I determined to have a brush at it. I had occasionally painted portraits, but as they required constant practice to take a likeness with facility, and the life must not be rigidly followed, my portraitures met with a fate somewhat similar to those of Rembrandt. By some they were said to be nature itself, by others declared most execrable; so that time only can decide whether I was the best or the worst face painter of my day; for a medium was never so much as suggested.

"The portrait which I painted with most pleasure, and in which I particularly wished to excel, was that of Captain Coram, for the Foundling Hospital; and if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies assert, it is somewhat strange that this, which was one of the first I painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years' competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place, notwithstanding the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their talents to vie with it.* To this I refer Mr. Rams

́eye,† and his quick-sighted and impartial coadjutors.

"For the portrait of Mr. Garrick in Richard III. I was paid two hundred pounds (which was more than any English artist ever received for a single portrait), and that too by the sanction of several painters who had been previously consulted about the price, which was not given without mature consideration.

R

"Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were not my province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch of my art, for the practice brought the whole nest of phizmongers on my back, where they buzzed like so many hornets. All these people have their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call my women harlots, my Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition and engraving contemptible.

This so much disgusted me, that I sometimes declared I would never paint another portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I found by mortifying experience, that whoever would succeed in this branch, must adopt the mode recommended in one of Gay's fables, and make divini

ties of all who sit to him. Whether or not this childish affectation will ever be done away, is a doubtful question; none of those who have attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless portrait painters in general become more honest, and their customers less vain, is there much reason to expect they ever will."

One of the striking features of the truly acceptable book now before us

To

is its selection of criticisms on the artist's life, genius, and productions: -thus doing for the great pictorial dramatist what Dr. Drake has done for the dramatic "Bard of Avon," in his Memorials of Shakspeare. prove that the selection has been made with taste and discrimination, we need only enumerate the names of the eminent writers whose opinions are here brought together-Walpole, Gilpin, Lamb, Ireland, Christie, &c. are the chief.

That contradictions may be discerned in this mass of interesting criticism is not to be wondered at;

for men of powerful minds-of different education-of different situations in life and accustomed by the vigour and nerve of their intellect to think for themselves-cannot be expected to view through the same mental lens ;but it is impossible to rise from a perusal of this display of their feelings and tones without an increase of admiration for the artist whose peculiarly original talents have elicited them.

Each part contains twelve plates, and eighty pages of letter-press. This is intended as a supplementary volume to Major's new edition of Dr. Trusler's "Hogarth Moralized;" to which book it must necessarily be annexed.

Of the plates we shall have occasion to speak under the "Fine Arts."

But see the consequence,

This succeeded to a tittle,