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either at the enthusiasm with which they were followed, or the success with which they were executed, defaced them, and ordered all such labours to be discontinued in future. For this conduct, it is difficult to find either an excuse or a parallel. But true genius, no power on earth can keep back-it will work its way to distinction through all the obstructions of folly or envy. It loves to expatiate in secrecy over its future plans-it contemplates its growing powers with silent joy, and prepares to come forth on the world, in the fulness of might and the freshness of beauty.

It is related at Sheffield, that during the intervals of ordinary labour, Mr Chantrey was not to be found amusing himself like other young menthat he retired to his lodgings, and light might be seen in his window at midnight-frequently far in the morning-and there he might be found working at groupes and figures with unabated diligence and enthusiasm. Of these early efforts, little is visible -except the effect they wrought. It is said, that his mother took great interest and delight in his early productions; and this venerable woman enjoys the unspeakable felicity of living to rejoice in her son's reputation.

He continued nearly three years in the employment of Ramsay, and the clandestine labours of his leisure hours began to obtain notice. Judicious counsellors seldom fall to the lot of early genius, and Mr Chantrey found friends who, in the warmth of misjudging zeal, wished to obtrude him on the world before his talents were matured, or his hand or his mind disciplined. Others, of more discernment, confirmed him in his natural and correct notions of art, and directed his enthusiasm. Among the latter, was Raphael Smith-himself a man of no common talents. He soon discovered that the young artist's powers to excel in art equalled his ambition-and he encouraged him to pursue the attainment of excellence; for in sculpture, as in poetry and painting, no one is charmed with mediocrity, though all are doomed to endure it.

Sculpture is a profession infinitely more laborious than painting, depending on shape and expression for its fascination-demanding an acquaintance not only with varied nature-but with curious and delicate mechanical operations, and with that rare talent

of combining the conceptions of genius with the niceties of acquired skill. The march therefore of the sculptor to distinction is a long one-and with much of this mechanical knowledge Mr Chantrey had to become acquainted when he went to London. He had also other obstacles to surmount-the artificial and unnatural style imported from Italy and France, and which had been supported by the ablest Sculptors of England.

Our sculpture, till lately, never sought to free itself from the absurdities and allegorical subtleties of the foreign school. Nature was working her own free way with art, and working successfully, till our literature, as well as our sculpture, was overwhelmed by a flood which accompanied Charles II. to his throne. Art then fell off from reflecting nature-began to speak an obscure language-full of dark conceits and remote personifications. The common figures of poetry or speech were exalted into monumental heroes and heroines, illustrated by symbols as unintelligible as themselves. Nor did allegory remain pure and unmixed-Death was made to extend his figurative dart at the substantial bosom of a lady, whose husband endeavoured to avert it with an arm of flesh. And the conceits of the sculptor were worse than his allegory-the Duke of Argyle expires on his monument, while the pen of Fame is writing him Duke of Greenwich-a title that awaited him,-turning the monument of a hero into the record of a contemptible conceit: and these are favourable specimens.

On a mind unschooled in the conceited pedantries of art, the impression must have been curious and bewildering. Art must not pretend to instruct nature-what is not of nature cannot be of art-nothing better can be found to be imitated, and those who wish to excel can only collect the members of beauty together which nature has scattered over creation. The true beau-ideal is only a speculation of man on the perfection of nature-its beauty must be tried by nature, and by her permission must it stand, or by her sentence it must fall. Our poetry, our philosophy, and our actions, reflect the might, and the bold and peculiar character of the people. Should the nation pass away, her works and her deeds will always command admiration and awe, and will

tell to future ages the national mind and the national might. Sculpture alone has refused to receive this strong and original stamp-it speaks with no native tongue, it wears no native garb. It grows not out of our minds and souls, nor does it claim limb or linea ment of the heroic islanders.

In his twentieth year, Mr Chantrey purchased the remainder of his engagement from Ramsay, and the separation gave mutual pleasure. In the month of May 1802, he went to London, and began to apply himself with ardent diligence to the study of sculpture. But those who expect this ardour to continue unabated must consent to be disappointed, for in June the same year, we find him on his way to Dublin, resolved to make a tour through Ireland and Scotland. With his motives for this journey, we profess not to be acquainted; these are not regions eminent for the productions of art, and likely to attract young artists. A dangerous fever arrested his progress at Ďublin, and he did not entirely recover till the ensuing summer. His illness cured him of love for travelling; he returned to London in autumn, and, with his return, his studies were recommenced.

His application was great, and his progress was rapid and visible. He had already conceived the character of his works, and wanted only opportunity to invest them with their present truth and tenderness. One of his earliest works is a bust of his friend, Raphael Smith, created with a felicity at that time rare in bust sculpture. Surrounded, as it now is, with the busts of more eminent men, it is usually singled out by strangers as a production of particular merit. Akin to this is his bust of Horne Tooke, to which he has communicated an expression of keen penetration and clear-sighted sagacity. A colossal head of Satan belongs to this period; and, in the attempt to invest this fearful and undefined fiend with character and form, he has by no means lessened his own reputation. Eclipsed, as it is now, with more celebrated works, its gaze of dark and malignant despair never escapes notice.

Sometime in 1810, he fixed his residence in Pimlico, and constructed a study of very modest dimensions. The absolute nature and singular felicity of his busts procured him immediate and extensive employment. Their fidelity

to the living image, and the power and ease with which the character is expressed, the free and unconstrained attitude, have been often remarked and acknowledged. In this department of art his earliest busts placed him beyond rivalship, and there he is likely to continue. His name and his works were already known beyond the limits of London, when he became the successful candidate for a statue of George III. for that city. Competition among artists in finished works is the fair race of reputation, and public criticism compels genius to finish her labours with an elegant and scrupulous exactness. Not so with sketches and drawings. Simplicity is the presiding star of art-a simple design has a mean look, and a man may make imposing sketches on paper, who has not the capacity to follow them to finished excellence. Gentlemen, whether of the city or the plain, may be imposed upon by handsome sketches, as Fluellan was by the valour of ancient Pistol ;"He spoke as brave words, look you, as a man would wish to hear on a summer day." In truth, genius must feel reluctance at thus measuring its might in the dark with inferior minds, and the field of adventure is usually occupied either by men of moderate or dubious merit, or youths, who are willing to risk a chance for distinction. Thus an inferior hand has been permitted to profane the dust of the illustrious Robert Burns. A statue of the inspired peasant from the hand of his fellow-plowman, Chantrey, was what his fame deserved, and what Scotland, had she consulted her fame, would have given.

A curious circumstance had nearly deprived London of the fine statue of the king. To the study of sculpture, it seems Mr Chantrey had added that of painting, and some of his pictures are still to be found: of their merits, we are unable, from personal inspection to speak, but we have been told, by one well qualified to judge, that they do his sculpture no discredit. His pencil portraits are esteemed by many as admirable as his busts, and are still more difficult to be obtained. When he presented his design for the king's statue, it was approved of in preference to others, but a member of the Common Council observed, that the successful artist was a painter, and therefore incapable of executing the work of a sculptor. Sir William Cur

I feel it my duty also, as a member of the Government by which those measures were advised. Upon occasions of such trying exigency as those which we have lately experienced, I hold it to be of the very essence of our free and popular Constitution, that an unreserved interchange of sentiment should take place between the representative and his constituents: and if it accidentally happen, that he who addresses you as your representative, stands also in the situation of a responsible adviser of the crown, I recognise in that more rare occurrence, a not less striking or less valuable peculiarity of that reviled Constitution under which we have the happiness to live; by which a minister of the crown is brought into contact with the great body of the community; and the service of the king is shown to be a part of the service of the people.

Gentlemen, it has been one advantage of the transactions of the last Session of Parliament, that while they were addressed to meet the evils which had grown out of charges heaped upon the House of Commons, they have also, in a great measure, falsified the charges themselves.

I would appeal to the recollection of every man who now hears me, of any the most careless estimator of public sentiment, or the most indifferent spectator of public events, whether any country, in any two epochs, however distant, of its history, ever presented such a contrast with itself as this country, in November, 1819, and this country in January 1820? What was the situation of the country in November, 1819?-Do I exaggerate when I say, that there was not a man of property who did not tremble for his possessions? that there was not a man of retired and peaceable habits who did not tremble for the tranquillity and security of his home? that there was not a man of orderly and religious principles who did not fear that those principles were about to be cut from under the feet of succeeding generations? Was there any man who did not apprehend the Crown to be in danger? Was there any man attached to the other branches of the Constitution, who did not contemplate, with anxiety and dismay, the rapid and, apparently, irresistible diffusion of docrines hostile to the very existence of Parliament as at present constituted, and calculated to excite, not hatred and contempt merely, but open and

audacious force, especially against the House of Commons?-What is, in these respects, the situation of the country now? Is there a man of property who does not feel the tenure by which he holds his possessions to have been strengthened? Is there a man of peace who does not feel his domestic tranquillity to have been secured? Is there a man of moral and religious principles who does not look forward with better hope to see his children educated in those principles? who does not hail with renewed confidence the revival and re-establishment of that moral and religious sense which had been attempted to be obliterated from the hearts of mankind?

Well, Gentlemen, and what has intervened between the two periods? A meeting of that degraded Parliament, a meeting of that scoffed at and derided House of Commons, a concurrence of those three branches of an imperfect constitution, not one of which, if we are to believe the Radical Reformers, lived in the hearts, or swayed the feelings, or commanded the respect of the nation; but which, despised as they were while in a state of separation and inaction, did, by a co-operation of four short weeks, restore order, confidence, a reverence for the laws, and a just sense of their own legitimate authority.

Another event, indeed, has intervened, in itself of a most painful nature, but powerful in aiding and confirming the impressions which the assembling and the proceedings of Parliament were calculated to produce. I mean the loss which the nation has sustained by the death of a Sovereign, with whose person all that is venerable in Monarchy has been identified in the eyes of successive generations of his subjects; a Sovereign, whose goodness, whose years, whose sorrows and sufferings, must have softened the hearts of the most ferocious enemies of kingly power;-whose active virtues, and the memory of whose virtues, when it pleased Divine Providence that they should be active no more, have been the guide and guardian of his people through many a weary and many a stormy pilgrimage;-scarce lessa guide, and quite as much a guardian, in the cloud of his evening darkness as in the brightness of his meridian day.

That such a loss, and the recollections and reflections naturally arising from it, must have had a tendency to revive and refresh the attach

his ardour; and the power of imagining something noble and original is swallowed up in the contemplation. This may be true of second-rate minds; but the master-spirits rise up to an equality of rank, and run the race of excellence in awe, and with ardour. French sculpture profited little by the admirable models which the sweeping ambition of Bonaparte reft from other nations. The inordinate vanity of the nation, and the pride of the reigning family, encouraged sculpture to an unlimited extent. Yet with all the feverish impatience for distinction which rendered that reign remarkable, not a single figure was created that deserves to go down to posterity. The French have no conception of the awful repose and majesty of the ancient figures, and into native grace and simple elegance they never deviate. Their grave and austere matrons are the tragic dames of the drama, and their virgins the dancing damsels of the opera.

On Mr Chantrey's return from France, he modelled his famous group of Children, now placed in Lichfield Cathedral, and certainly a work more opposite to the foreign style could not well be imagined. The sisters lie asleep in each other's arms, in the most unconstrained and graceful repose; the snow-drops, which the youngest had plucked, are undropped from her hand. Never was sleep, and innocent and artless beauty, more happily expressed. It is a lovely and a fearful thing to look on those beautiful and breathless images of death. They were placed in the exhibition by the side of the Hebe and Terphsicore of Canovathe goddesses obtained few admirers compared to them. So eager was the press to see them, that a look could not always be obtained-mothers stood over them and wept; and the deep impression they made on the public mind must be permanent.

A work of such pathetic beauty, and finished with such exquisite skill, is an unusual sight, and its reward was no common one. The artist received various orders for poetic figures and groups, and the choice of the subject was left to his own judgment. Such commissions are new to English sculpture. The work selected for Lord Egremont has been made publicly known-a colossal figure of Satan: The sketch has been some time finished; and we may soon expect to see the fiend invested with the visible and aw.

ful grandeur of his character. A subject selected from Christian belief is worthy of a Christian people. A guardian angel, a just man made perfect, must be dearer to us than all the dumb gods of the heathens. They exist in our faith and our feeling-we believe they watch over us, and will welcome our translation to a happier state. But the gods of the Greeks have not lived in superstition these eighteen hundred years. We do not feel for them-we do not love them, neither do we fear them. What is Jupiter to us, or we to Jupiter. They are not glorious by association with Paradise, like our angels of light-nor terrible, like those of darkness. We are neither inspired by their power, nor elevated by their majesty. Revelling among forgotten gods has long been the reproach of sculptors. The Christian world has had no Raphaels in marble.

A devotional statue of Lady St Vincent is a work created in the artist's happiest manner. The figure is kneeling-the hands folded in resignation over the bosom-the head gently and meekly bowed, and the face impressed deeply with the motionless and holy composure of devotion. All attempt at display is avoided—a simple and negligent drapery covers the figure. It is now placed in the chancel of Caverswell-church, in Staffordshire.

Along with many other productions, his next important work was a statue of Louisa Russel, one of the Duke of Bedford's daughters. The child stands on tiptoe, with delight fondling a dove in her bosom, an almost breathing and moving image of arch-simplicity and innocent grace. It is finished with the same felicity in which it is conceived. The truth and nature of this figure was proved, had proof been necessary, by a singular incident. A child of three years old came into the study of the artist-it fixed its eyes on the lovely marble child-went and held up its hands to the statue, and called aloud and laughed with the evident hope of being attended to. This figure is now at Woburn-abbey, in company with a group of the Graces from the chisel of Canova.

Many of Mr Chantrey's finest busts belong to this period. His head of John Rennie, the civil-engineer, is by many reckoned his masterpiece; and we have heard that the sculptor seems not unwilling to allow it that preference. Naturally it is a head of evident exten

of Magistrates, or concurrence of inhabitants, or reference to the comfort and convenience of the neighbourhood. Now may not the peaceable, the industrious inhabitant of Manchester say, "I have a right to quiet in my house; I have a right to carry on my manufactory, on which not my existence only and that of my children, but that of my workmen and their numerous families depends. I have a right to be protected in the exercise of this my lawful calling. I have a right to be protected, not against violence and plunder only, against fire and sword, but against the terror of these calamities, and against the risk of these inflictions; against the intimidation or seduction of my workmen; against the distraction of that attention and the interruption of that industry, without which neither they nor I can gain our livelihood. I call upon the laws to afford me that protection; and if the laws in this country cannot afford it, depend upon it, I and my manufactures must emigrate to some country where they can." Here is a conflict of rights, between which, what is the decision? Which of the two claims is to give way? Can any reasonable being doubt? Can any honest man hesitate? Let private justice or public expediency decide, and can the decision by possibility be other, than that the peaceable and industrious shall be protected, the turbulent and mischievous put down?

But what similarity is there between tumults such as these, and an orderly meeting, recognised by the law, for all legitimate purposes of discussion or petition? God forbid, that there should not be modes of assembly by which every class of this great nation may be brought together to deliberate on any matters connected with their interest and their freedom. It is, however, an inversion of the natural order of things, it is a disturbance of the settled course of society, to represent discussion as every thing, and the ordinary occupations of life as nothing. To protect the peaceable in their ordinary occupations, is as much the province of the laws, as to provide opportunities of discussion for every purpose to which it is necessarily and properly applicable. The laws do both; but it is no part of the contrivance of the laws that immense multitudes should wantonly be brought together, month after month and day after day, where the very bringing together of a multitude

is of itself the source of terror and of danger.

It is no part of the provision of the laws, nor is it in the spirit of them, that such multitudes should be brought together at the will of unauthorised and irresponsible individuals, changing the scene of meeting as may suit their caprice or convenience, and fixing it where they have neither property, nor domicile, nor connexion. The spirit of the law goes directly the other way. It is, if I may so express myself, eminently a spirit of corporation. Counties, parishes, townships, guilds, professions, trades, and callings, form so many local and political subdivisions, into which the people of England are distributed by the law; and the pervading principle of the whole is that of vicinage or neighbourhood; by which each man is held to act under the view and inspection of his neighbours; to lend his aid to them, to borrow theirs; to share their councils, their duties, and their burdens; and to bear with them his share of responsibility for the acts of any of the members of the community of which he forms a part.

Observe, I am not speaking here of the reviled and discredited statute law only, but of that venerable common law to which our Reformers are so fond of appealing on all occasions, as well as of the statute law by which it is modified, explained, or enforced. Guided by the spirit of the one, no less than by the letter of the other, what man is there in this country who cannot point out the portion of society to which it belongs? If injury is sustained, upon whom is the injured person expressly entitled to come for redress? Upon the hundred, or the division in which he has sustained the injury. On what principle? On the principle, that as the individual is amenable to the division of the community to which he specially belongs, so neighbours are answerable for each other. Just laws, to be sure, and admirable equity, if a stranger is to collect a mob which is to set half Manchester on fire; and the burnt half is to come upon the other half for indemnity, while the stranger goes off unquestioned, by the stage!

That such was the nature, such the tendency, nay, that such, in all human probability, might have been the result of such meetings, as that of the 16th of August, who can deny? Who that weighs all the particulars of that

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