day, when already two sentences of death had received his signature; Baron Mednianski died on the gallows, and with him Gruber on the 5th of June at Pressburg. The former as commandant, and the latter as artilleryman, had taken an active part in the defence of Leopoldstadt. . . . Hardly had the pale look of horror disappeared from men's countenances, when the sentence of death was passed and executed (June 18th) on the priest Razga. . . . Ever since that time the hangman has had full employment wherever Haynau's courts-martial have been held.' The murders of Batthyany, Kiss, Damianich, and others, were perpetrated in accordance with a system introduced into the country by Marshal Haynau. No doubt the Austrian court recommended and exulted in these atrocities; but this is no reason why the general himself should be let off free. bravo who is hired to assassinate is enveloped in the same odium as he who hires, and justly so. In all countries, indeed, the tools of princely vengeance have been even more hated than princes themselves; for mankind seem instinctively to have understood that the amount of evil inflicted upon them by tyrants will never be limited except by failure of willing instru

ments.

The

ART. II.-Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A. Recollections of his Life, Practice, and Opinions. By George Jones, R.A. London: Edward Moxon. 1849. Post 8vo. Pp. 304.

a book whose heart of the Results there

THIS is a very slender record to exalted merit;' scope and mission it is hard to discover. The mystery' is not to be got at; for there is none. are; but infinitely few and small. Perhaps the most definite notion of the book is conveyed, when we say, it is the very antithesis of what a book or biography should be a chaotic nothing, without system, sequence, or central idea. Or, it may pretty accurately be described as one vague blotch of ink, inno- . cent of form or character, save that strongly defined one, of nonentity; with here and there the accidental occurrence of a fact, or partial glimpse of a reality; in despite, rather than in consequence of our biographer. Mr. Jones's attempts at art had led us to expect no incommensurable individuality in their author. But the fact exceeds our anticipations. One of the only things whereof we do here get a rumour, is this very slender

individuality; something kin to those infinitesimally minute particles of dust which torment us on a windy day, obscuring vision, a thing through which we cannot see, yet amounting to naught visible itself. The infliction is tedious as dulness can make it; exasperating, as summer flies. The unfortunate reviewer has in his progress all the sensations of intense drowsiness, without the relief of actual slumber. There is just nimbleness and buz enough going on to deny him this luxury. After all deductions, the pioneer has indubitable claim, we think, on the gratitude of his readers, for accomplishing the journey in their behalf. He is enabled both to give report of what little he has seen by the way; and to warn others against a like rash enterprise.

One merit must not be withheld from the book-in such case, a rare and inestimable one. Speaking abstractedly, rather than relatively, it is short. One loosely-printed volume comprises the whole. And Mr. Jones seems to have been rather puzzled to find material for even that; though after all, the tale is left untold.' Nothing would have been lost had it been further reduced, to half its present size.

The subject of the biography did not claim extended treatment. As referring to an artist of the second or third rank, interesting from extrinsic circumstances,-prosperity, fame, connexion with celebrated men,-as much as from intrinsic; letters, anecdotes, and similar memoranda, would have made an attractive volume, or couple of volumes, of the ordinary market-stamp. Or failing such material, a brief recapitulation of his uneventful life, with an intelligible summary of his works, and of his character as artist, published at a cheap rate, would have formed an acceptable companion to Allan Cunningham's Lives.

A successful sculptor or painter does not necessarily possess individuality calculated to make any great figure in a biography; either in substance or in strong definement, in suggestiveness or fresh reality. An original, intense, and earnest mind like Constable's secures this interest. The impetuous erring will of Haydon-unsuccessful as artist, yet an unmistakably powerful mind-would secure it. Such, again, will be supplied by the large mental grasp and self-relying strength of Turner, when recorded.

Chantrey had none of these things. But he was precisely one, of whom we should have predicted a memoir; of that note and stamp to ensure it, in these days of general private desk delivery, and lock and seal breaking; this age of biographic loquacity, when a Coleridge remains without a biography of any approximate mark, and the whole host of popular literateurs, secondrate artists, noisy politicians, sectarians, orators, impostors, and obscure persons, have instant and full honours in this kind.

Chantrey was just the man; neither great enough to defy scanning, nor too little to be seen. Yet far were we from foreseeing the way in which the debt to his reputation would be paid. He is not, however, the only celebrity who has fallen into the hands of literary incompetents. The miscellaneous quality of present biographical literature is even more noticeable than its quantity. The prevailing notion would seem that any one, however incapable of anything else, is qualified to draw up the life of his relative or friend.

Until another biographer rescue him, Chantrey must rank among a class more numerous aforetime than now; of whom too much, and also too little, have been said; Mr. Jones's achievement being quite beside the mark. He gives what we do not want, and withholds what we do. We have bald, disconnected statements of biographic facts, averaging one to every twenty pages or so, a few picked out here and there, and given at random; and the deliberate elaboration of mediocre criticisms. No clear idea is given of anything, of the progress of the sculptor's art, or the dates of his more remarkable works; but a great deal of flourish and repetition about his tendency to the simple and the tender,' and the child, the mother, the mourner, and the afflicted.' While reading, it scarce appears as Chantrey had a life, or was an entity based upon realities and the firm earth at all. All that seems a vague sketch, a fanciful, portraitpainter-like background, to a stalking-horse for.' opinions.'

Now, this was the very worst plan mortal man could have hit on, for giving an idea of one like Chantrey; this careful collection, -with some eking out from the biographer's own store,-of the scattered life-long crumbs falling from the table of the portraitsculptor. It was not opinions, whether his own, or any one's else, we wanted of Mr. Jones; but facts. Mr. Jones was not altogether the man to report the former; had they been of value. They might lose something by the way. The vehicle is much in these cases. Socrates demanded his Plato and Zenophon. It would not have done for Johnson to have gone lower than his Boswell. But the æsthetic views of a Chantrey we should have argued before hand, to be just the least significant portion of the whole man; a notion more than confirmed.

The subject is one of some interest; as connected with an error general among artists and the public. Because a man can execute an able discriminative portrait-bust, or paint an effective portrait on canvass, or even a tolerable, ineloquent sketch of some important subject,' or battle-piece, free enough from military errors to satisfy a soldier, it does not follow, his notions about the early Italian painters, or the Phidian sculptures, or art in the abstract, will be of general worth. Much more than

a competence to discuss technic merit goes to make up such qualification: knowledge, thought, ability for wide and central views. A man may carve the most perfect portraits, paint the most plausible sketches, all his life, without being a whit the nearer these things. As critics, in the extended sense, ordinary successful artists have generally little to offer; matter of fact in spirit, sticking to detail, restricted in their tastes and likings; by no means open to the highest inspirations of genius, genius departing from the beaten track, genius opposed to their own, of whatever kind. A good artist, however, when he can express himself articulately, almost necessarily can say some pertinent things on the practice of art. The niceties of artistic language, in composition, chiaroscuro, colour, a painter of feeling can alone discuss con amore, and to best effect; his speech flowing from real knowledge; just as an intelligent versifier will enter into the niceties of the poetic art in metre, music, diction, in a spirit foreign to the general reader. And those artist-critics like Haydon, who rise to real power, are characterised by the especial appositeness and point,-joined often to false general views-of all they say pertaining to the language of their art, and of all grounded on observation and practical insight; rather than by wideness of range. This will apply to Professor Leslie himself; who, for the acumen and fresh significance of his criticisms, occupies at present, a place altogether his own; just as he is a painter and poet altogether by himself. The true artist's point of view is peculiarly interesting, as wholly distinct from that of the general thinker. Both are necessary to the adequate illustration of art.

A few grains of pertinent observation,-of the gold-dust of common sense, peep out occasionally in Chantrey's case. These and the more characteristic anecdotes are mostly supplied Mr. Jones by friends-Mr. Leslie and others. Such are the canons, 'that every good statue should produce a chiaroscuro, that would be perfect in painting, and the one art might be considered a good rule for the other in this;' that 'superfluous ornament is concealment of inability,' and in architecture, truly fine buildings, 'if divested of their ornaments, would still from their bare quantities produce a good effect;' that the difference between a good (portrait) artist and a bad, consists in this, a good artist retains his likeness while he softens the peculiarities, and a bad artist, secures his by exaggerating them.' In these, and a few like, we see the character of the man. They or rather a much larger proportion would have well assisted a real biography. But a completer wild goose chase than the running after Chantrey's opinions to make a volume, could scarce be. Their paucity was a characteristic of the man; a man averse to

all display, all set theories or fine sentiment. The few he did form, were decided, and quite such as to be expected of one taking much on trust, yet possessing shrewd common sense.

The meagre criticisms Mr. Jones rakes up from the tour of 1819,-most of the facts of the life given having been despatched in twenty-two pages-are inconclusive enough. After all written on works of art in Italy, sufficient, as Dickens well puts it, to bury the whole,-and in more senses than the literal, were they read,-our interest is not delirious when we are told in general terms, Chantrey admired this, and didn't admire that that such and such a portico gave him entire satisfaction,' and the villas in the neighbourhood he thought elegant;' or that Michael Angelo's Prophets' excited his highest respect.' The fact is, Chantrey went to Italy on business, to secure a supply of good marble from Carrara, but, as any other businessman might, contrived to pick up a little pleasure; went on with a party' to Rome; made a note or two in his guide-book; and in after years could, like other travelled men, hold a part in conversation when turning on Italy. Scraps of such scanty leavings, vague remembrances of vaguer chit-chat, Mr. Jones serves up in his own forcible and eloquent way: the result, to the reader, is a feeling as he had eaten of chopped hay.

A

Chantrey's own few observations were on matters of detail. Mr. Jones atones for deficiencies by taking matters into his own hands, giving his opinions, under cloak of Chantrey. suspicion here presents itself. Did our Keeper of the Academy get up the book to the express end of making a handle of his friend, and communicating to the world-an obtuse, inexorable world, that might not listen to him otherwise-his matured views of Michael Angelo and the Italian masters, and of that great institution to which he, Mr. Jones, has the honour to belong?

However this may be, Chantrey and Jones for many a weary page walk seemingly hand in hand; the two harmonized by notices now and then, that Chantrey's opinions on such and such a topic, series of sculptures, or paintings, were nearly as follows,' or that he concurred in the following.' Then, a voice is raised to inform us, that this figure is too near,' that in a 'too perpendicular line,' this piece replete with good forms,' that worthy of the best times of art.' In these days of Ruskins and Lord Lindsays, it much profits us to be told such things about Ghiberti, Raphael, &c.; that some figures in the latter's 'frescos cartoons, are admirable,' some beautiful,' and to some 'objections may be made.'

Confused pragmatic speech in the biographer's own acknowledged person, directed against erring compatriots, is