countenance its violation in making Othello smother his wife with a "sol, fa," or Juliet die with a do, re"?

If the performer really gives us the action and the expression of passion, it is only the more to be lamented that he does not give us the language of Nature; for can anything be more tiresome and ridiculous than a continued dunning of "recitative" throughout three long acts of an opera? How any one with a fine ear for music can endure the jargon, is surely inexplicable.

The songs in the opera were delightfully performed, and the acting of the two young ladies intrusted with the parts of Romeo and Juliet, together with that of Signor Somebody, who played old Capulet, was positively worthy the diction of Shakspeare. It irked me, nevertheless, to see the young gallant of Verona represented by a female, and it was the more irksome here, in being done so well. She played her part with an energy and vigour which would have done honour to manhood, turning

two mincing steps

Into a manly stride."

Mrs. Capulet walked about with eight waiting gentlewomen. Her daughter, as I opine, thought one waiting gentleman sufficient.

Between the acts of the opera we had a tragic ballet, in which an actress celebrated for her dumb show performed. "It is impossible," said an Italian gentleman, "for any but the most obtuse understanding, to misconceive the meaning of her actions ;" and then he very goodnaturedly went on to explain them to me!

She played the character of a lady who loses her wits because her husband kills her lover, and was terribly effective. The impression made by insanity on a beholder, is in proportion as the nature of its subject is violated by the transition. An intoxicated female is perhaps the most disgusting thing on earth,-a deranged woman, the most appalling. A furious lion or mad bull is nothing so terrible.

The dancing seemed to come more particularly home to the feelings of the audience than the rest of the performance, and every sudden twist of the limbs or extravagant contortion of body, was followed by a burst of applause, such as in our theatres is awarded to the electrifying transitions of Kean, or the impassioned bursts of Macready. Alas! that ever I should have to mention intellectual prowess in the same page with the whirl of a tetotum, and the power of showing how much larger an angle than is either necessary or decent may be formed betwixt the right leg and the left. People say it is graceful,-then, of course, the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus di Medici are not. All the celebrated

representations of figure and attitude either on canvass or in marble are characterized by ease and simplicity. Why did Titian paint his Venus recumbent? What a stiff, formal thing the admirers of operatic grace must think the Danzatrice of Canova! The extravagant creations of a Fuseli are positively tame, when compared with the occasional disposition of an opera dancer's limbs. For my own part, I do like to have "a little something" left to the imagination, though it be ever so little; and I would wish to think as favourably even of an opera-dancer as a moderate man should do.

LEAVES FROM MY POCKET-BOOK. No. II.

"Je dors par nuit, je rêve par jour."

CARYATIDES.-While the beauty of anthropostyle pillars is generally admitted, the propriety of employing them is as generally questioned, on the score of its being not a little objectionable, if not altogether absurd, to employ human figures, of either sex, as component parts of a building, and for the purpose of supporting an entablature. What consistency or decorum is there, it is asked, in making female figures perform the office of columns;—is it either becoming or natural? or rather is it not a palpable incongruity to which not even the precedent the Greeks have left us, can reconcile us? Such objections certainly appear tolerably rational and well-grounded; and were there indeed the slightest appearance of deception being intended, it must then fairly be admitted that, notwithstanding the degree of architectural pomp and variety arising from them, pillars of this description are at variance with good taste. Upon looking, however, a little more attentively at such "common sense" objections, we discover them to be the mere cavils of hypercriticism, and to originate in mistaken, confined views of Art, and of the limits separating what is reconcilable with the conditions prescribed by it, from what is repugnant to its principles. In reply to those fastidious persons who discover something incongruous in the substitution of statues for columns, it is allowed that such would undoubtedly be the case, could we for an instant imagine similar figures to be living beings. Then, indeed, we might allow ourselves to be shocked at seeing them degraded to so servile and painful an office. But if any one can carry his sensibility so far as to commiserate the figures so em

ployed, he ought, in consistency, to feel similarly affected at beholding statues of any kind placed where it would be impossible for real persons to continue,-in a niche, for instance, or on acroteria and balustrades. If we come to the commonsenseness of the matter, how can we reconcile ourselves to seeing an equestrian figure on a lofty pedestal, which no horse could ascend, nor continue there with safety? Or, again, how is it possible to tolerate such an egregious absurdity as a bust, -a head separated from its trunk?-Wipe the dust of prejudice off your spectacles, gentlemen, and take another look: you will then find that your supersensibility and ultra common sense have played you a scurvy trick, and scared you out of your consistency by a paltry bugbear, which you have mistaken for something truly formidable.—It is rather surprising, indeed, that modern architects should not more frequently have had recourse to caryatic figures, where richness and variety are aimed at. Our surprise however is somewhat abated upon looking at what they have attempted with them. Inigo Jones's idea for a circular court with a caryatic order, in his designs for Whitehall Palace, certainly does not offer the happiest adaptation and combination of which they are susceptible. Human figures, the height of an entire story of a building, are themselves rather too preposterous, at the same time that they tend, by the comparison they force, to render the other features petty and trivial. In Egyptian architecture, indeed, colossal statues and anthropostylė pillars of most extraordinary dimensions are not unfrequent; yet such a scale is not suited to either Grecian or modern architecture. When caryatides are employed, they should always be considerably less than the columns; neither can they be substituted indiscriminately for the latter. An anthropostylar portico could hardly be made to produce a pleasing effect. The small caryatic structure forming a part of the Triple Temple at Athens, and which has been imitated in the lateral vestibules at the eastern extremity of St Pancras Church, is rather a species of pseudoporticus, than what is generally understood by the term portico in its usual modern acceptation, and therefore cannot be quoted as an anthropostyle example of one. Caryatides do not look well standing upon a floor; and if in order to correct this, and also to give them greater elevation without enlarging their dimensions, they are placed upon separate pedestals, the effect, so far from being improved, is rendered still more objectionable. Such figures always require to be placed upon a continuous stylobate. They are admirably adapted for interior decoration, particularly where an ornamental tribune or gallery, or some aperture of the kind, is required in the upper part of a wall. On the top of a screen wall, again, about double their own height, in vestibules, &c. VOL. III.-No. 12.

H

they may be introduced so as to combine a high degree of scenic effect with no small share of convenience. In external composition, likewise, a screen of this kind behind a range of columns would be neither without beauty nor without novelty to recommend it. In the Rotunda and one or two other apartments of the Bank, Soane has introduced caryatides in the lanthorns of their domes in ceilings; but those in the lanthorn of the Rotunda are too small, considering the height at which they are placed, to be sufficiently conspicuous and important, or, in fact, to be distinctly seen at all.

RELICS AND OPINIONS OF A NEGLECTED ARTIST.

It was after a ramble in the summer of 18—, that I returned rather late in the autumn to a lodging in the neighbourhood of Fitzroy Square, recommended by a friend as suitable to my town pursuits and miscellaneous occupations. On arriving at which, I cut short, what I feared, a long speech from my landlady, by

"Show me your apartments, my good Madam, and let me judge for myself, by what quiet they afford; for I have gone over more ground these last four days, than I hope I shall again for the next four years." The rooms answered the recommendations I had of them from my

The fatigue I had undergone made rest a perfect enjoyment, and I sunk into an arm-chair, placed my feet upon the fender, and directed my eyes to the mantel, over which hung a Rembrandt-like head. It was near the close of the day, and not having sufficient light to discern its character and quality, my fondness for the Art overcame my desire for rest; -I laid hands on the picture, and bearing it to the window, was greatly surprised at the weight of it, which far exceeded the apparent size of the canvas. I was not however the wiser for my inspection, as to the master or the school to which it might have belonged.

Returning it to its place, I was examining the cast of the features, the effect of light and shade, and other characteristics, when my landlady entered with the tea equipage; and seeing my attention attracted to the portrait, (for such it was,) began to inform me of its history,-which I give in her own words.

'Aye, Sir! you are looking at the picture of my late lodger, poor Mr. Pencilum! and very like him it is, for all he has made himself look like a Turk, with his lip and whiskers and his face blacked on one side. 'I can never think,' says I one day to him,' what it is you mean by making

your face all dirty, with a dark spot under the nose, that looks like snuff.' He only smiled, and said he did it to please the connyshures. I did not know then what he meant; but I afterwards found they were only old gentleman who came to see his Venus pictures, and that were so fond of dirty faces.

:

'Poor Mr. Pencilum expected a great deal from these picture judges, but nothing ever came,-picture after picture was painted, but all to no purpose. One day, however, he brings in that very old canvas, where his head now is, and has got dozens at the back of it :—' La, Sir,' says I, 'Mr. Pencilum, how can you paint over that pretty landskip? The picture-men are not coming again, are they?' So, as I was saying, Sir, he painted on that old canvas the head of Mary Magdalen, with her eyes swimming in tears, and her hair spreading all over her shoulders. Well, Sir, he keeps this picture a little while, and what he did to it I cannot tell, but it looked as if it had been a hundred years old.

"These old-master men (as he sometimes called them) came again, and I verily thought they would have gone to loggerheads about who should buy it; and they were so loud in their praises of it, that I could hear every word they said. Some called it Guydo, some Raffle, others Dolseye, and I don't know how many other names. Well, Sir! instead of selling this picture, with so many fine names, he quietly tells them it was his own painting. I was near the room at this time, I thought I should have dropped, (for he owed me a little money at this time). I saw, however, the cake was all dough.

"After this, out came the gentlemen's snuffboxes, and what passed after I cannot tell, but they did not stop long, nor did they ever come again, and I verily believe it cost my poor lodger a fit of illness, which took him soon after."

"Shall I put in some more water, Sir? You seem as fond of tea as my poor lodger. You must know, Sir, this illness had liked to have finished him; and seeing him, as I thought, so bad, and the doctors coming so often, I asked him if I should send for a clergyman, there being one in our neighbourhood. He made no objection to this. Well, said I to myself, you have some religion after all, though you used to work on a Sunday.

"The clergyman came, and was with him some time; and on his coming down stairs, I asked him, what he thought of the sick person? "Why, Madam,' says he, I hardly know what to think; he is certainly delirious, for in the midst of my conversation with him, he desired that I would not move my head, it was the finest light and shadow he had ever seen, and would make a most excellent Rembrant.''