"If ever I should condescend to prose,

I'll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede, beyond all doubt, all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I'll call my work 'Longinus o'er a Bottle,
Or Every Poet his own Aristotle.""

The other poet speaks without irony, and gives us the simple advice by which he guided himself. We warmly echo it as our own, and with it will close both our advice and our remarks.

"You cannot learn, nor can I show,

To paint with Thomson's landscape glow,
Or wake the bosom-melting throe,

With Shenstone's art;

Or pour, with Gray, the liquid flow
Warm on the heart.

"Yet all beneath the unrivalled rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Though broad the forest monarch throws
His army shade;

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows
Adown the glade.

"To give my counsels all in one,
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan,
Preserve the dignity of man,
Unmoved, erect;

And trust the universal plan

Will all protect."

FLAXMAN'S OUTLINE DRAWINGS.

(CONCLUDED.)

1. Compositions from the Works, Days and Theogony of Hesiod. Designed by JOHN FLAXMAN, R.A., P.S. Engraved by WILLIAM BLAKE. Published by LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, & BROWN. London, Jan. 1, 1817.

2. Compositions by JOHN FLAXMAN, Sculptor, R.A., from the Divine Poem of Dante Alighieri, containing Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. With quotations from the Italian, and translations from the version of the Rev. H. BOYD, to each Plate. London. Published May 1, 1807, by LONGMAN, HURST, REES & ORME, Paternoster Row.

HESIOD, says Cunningham, was Flaxman's favorite author. "He loved the days of innocence and the age of gold, when philosophers went barefooted, kings held the plough, princesses washed their own linen, and poets sung like the northern minstrel for food and raiment." This affection, like his love. for Homer and Dante, embodied itself in the thirty-seven illustrations of the Works and Days, and the Theogony, which we are now about to examine. It is worthy of remark in this place, that the engraving of these plates is vastly inferior to that of the Homer, Eschylus and Dante. These last are all engraved in one uniform style-the shadows marked by bold, dark lines, and the lighter portions bounded by lines equally bold, but exquisitely delicate and fine in character. In the Hesiod, however, there is no distinction of shade, and with one or two exceptions, the lines, instead of being firm and continuous, are merely executed in a sort of characterless stipple, rendering the engraving singularly insipid, and devoid of that expression of relief, which is conveyed by the other three series. This manner of treatment serves, indeed, as a strong test of the value of the drawings, since it reduces them more nearly to the character of actual bas-reliefs, and permits us to judge more accurately of their worth as subjects for sculpture; but it renders them less agreeable as objects of study, removing as it were their only substitute for color which they possessed, and presenting them in the light of representations of pure form. We have, in fact, found by experience, that they

are the least attractive to the public of all Flaxman's designs, though really deserving the most faithful study.

The "Hesiod" was engraved by William Blake, a man of real genius, whose life, by Cunningham, is a most delightful story, with a deep undertone of sadness. Blake was an engraver of rare ability, a man of transcendent imagination, who invented designs and engraved them himself, tinting them by a peculiar process, which he asserted had been revealed to him, in the most circumstantial manner, by the spirit of his dead brother. "His method of coloring," says Cunningham, "was a secret which he kept to himself, or confided only to his wife; he believed that it was revealed in a vision, and that he was bound in honor to conceal it from the world." Blake was original in every thing he performed. He was original in his early studies, and exhibiting his genius for painting and poetry, as he did, as early as his tenth year, he may safely be added to our list of men who have proved by their marvellous youths that genius is not acquired, but inborn in the soul. He was original in his poetry, and in his method of writing. All his designs were accompanied by verses, and his biographer tells us that, "as he drew the figure, he meditated the song which was to accompany it, and the music to which the verse was to be sung was the offspring, too, of the same moment." He was original in his method of obtaining a wife, and nothing could have been happier for him than the result of his choice. His wife's character, as recorded by Cunningham, reminds us of Mrs. Flaxman. We discover in it the same ardent and unwavering affection, the same devotion to her husband's interests, the same active and constant assistance in practical affairs, and nearly the same accomplishments. In his designs, he exhibits all the wild imagination that belongs to true genius, but uncurbed by the regulating hand of knowledge. All that could be accomplished by imagination and enthusiasm, with

* "When he was six-and-twenty years old, he married Katharine Boutcher, a young woman of humble connections; the dark-eyed Kate of several of his lyric poems.

"She lived near his father's house, and was noticed by Blake for the whiteness of her hand, the brightness of her eyes, and a slim and handsome shape. corresponding with his own notions of sylphs and naïads. As he was an original in all things, it would have been out of character to fall in love like an ordinary mortal: he was describing one evening, in company, the pains he had suffered from some capricious lady or another, when Katharine Boutcher said, 'I pity you from my heart.' you pity me?' said Blake, then I love you for that.' And I love you,' said the frank-hearted lass, and so the courtship began.

· Do

"He tried how well she looked in a drawing, then how her charms became verse; and finding, moreover, that she had good domestic qualities, he married her. They lived together long and happily."-Cunningham, Painters and Sculptors, Vol. II. page 129.

out scientific knowledge, he performed, but it was this want which has rendered his name an inferior one in the annals of Art.

"The

Cunningham says that many of his figures exhibit all the freedom and power of Michael Angelo; that he is never tame, and needed only a systematic and severe training to have rendered him as great in painting as his friend Flaxman was in sculpture. Blake had a curious theory of art. great and golden rule of art," he says, "is this:-That the more distinct, and sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art; and the less keen and sharp this external line, the greater is the evidence of weak, imitative plagiarism and bungling: Protogenes and Apelles knew each other by this line." We have quoted this passage for the sake of remarking that, in the "Hesiod," Blake has shown the truth of his theory with regard to at least one portion of art; for the great fault of these plates is, as we have stated, the absence of a sharp, well-defined outline.

Flaxman loved Blake, and generously assisted him with advice and money. He joined with a gentleman by the name of Matthews, in the expense of printing Blake's Lyrical Poemsthe sheets of which they presented to the artist-poet, to dispose of, for his own advantage. Many of these poems are remarkable for a certain wild, natural force and sweetness, a union of qualities, which was no less noticeable in the man himself, and in which he strongly resembled Flaxman. Blake used to call his friend, "Dear Sculptor of Eternity;" and, at another time, in one of his exalted moods, he writes, "You, oh! dear Flaxman! are a sublime archangel, my friend and companion from eternity."

We have chosen to introduce this episodical account of Blake because he was nearly related to Flaxman in his daily life, more nearly, perhaps, than any other man, and because, moreover, the painter and the sculptor were very like in their genius and manner of development. It may serve a useful purpose, in addition, to show even in so slight a manner as this sketch enables me, the difference which training, and the want of it, bring about in the results of two lives of nearly equal advantages. Flaxman and Blake resembled one another personally; the same high, broad forehead, the same luminous, liquid eyes, the same sweet smile and pensive expression, and the same small figure, belonged to each; added to these resemblances, there was the same enthusiasm, the same dignity and reserve, and the same slightly irritable temper, joined to gentle

and unassuming manners. Each, moreover, was industrious, and produced many important works; yet how different is the award of posterity to the two friends. Flaxman is universally acknowledged as the greatest of modern sculptors, and every vestige of his genius is religiously preserved. His writings on Art are quoted as authority, and his designs for bas- reliefs multiplied indefinitely on costly vases and urns, as well as on the humbler china in daily domestic use, meet our eyes at every turn. Blake, on the other hand, born Flaxman's equal in every attribute of genius, wasted his strength in inventions so mingled with imagination and absurdity, as to fall dead from his hands, and never to penetrate into the domain of public appreciation, but destined to gratify the curious and the learned alone, who chance to meet them in the library or the portfolios of the collector of rarities. His writings on Art, if we may judge by the specimens given in Cunningham's Biography, are vague, visionary, and useless, tending always to mystical rhapsody and episode, and "darkening counsel, by words without knowledge."

The title-page of the "Hesiod" represents the Muse sitting listening to a musical contest between Hesiod and another poet. In this, and in the next design, Hesiod is represented as a much older man than in some of the following drawings, where he is presented to us as a noble and graceful youth. This is a matter of small importance. We object, however, to his being shown in the second plate as a grey-beard advising his brother Perses, a boy of about sixteen years, who in reality was several years his senior. There is great expression in the two figures. Hesiod, old, bearded, and bent, addresses the boy with earnestness and gesture. The crook and the spade which he holds suggest the subjects on which it pleases him to enlarge; the scales of Justice, enwreathed with amaranth, denote the object of his worship, and the end of his aspirations. The youth Perses listens with seriousness to the admonitions of his brother. His fine face, and round head, graceful with clustering hair, are full of the sentiment of youth. It is surprising to see how much roundness and solidity are expressed by the bare boundary line of this figure. It would seem that the body and limbs must first have been fully drawn in the desired position, and the mantle folded round them; the feeling of substance, the recognition of every limb, as existing underneath the cloak, which the mere outline conveys, seems impossible of attainment in any other way.

"Pandora Gifted," the third drawing, embodies the open