Stray Thoughts On The Origin And Progress Of The Fine Arts.

they say you are married . ; if so , you are ruined for an artist , sir . " Elaxman went home , sat down beside his wife , and taking her hand , with a smile , said : — " I am ruined for an artist . " " John , " said she , "how has this happened ? " "Who has done it ? " "It happened , " he replied , " in the church , and Ann Denman has done it , " He then told her what Sir J . Reynolds has said . But

, although this unfavourable opinion , coming from such an authority , seemed like a cloud to Elaxman ' s happinessit soon passed away—for sage experience taught him that " wedlock is for a man ' s good , rather than his harm . "His wife was his best friend , she was versed in Erench , Italian , and Greek literature , and was an enthusiastic

admirer of the arts . With such a wife , who could be unhappy . Elaxman , five years after his marriage , set out for Rome , accompanied by his wife ; in Rome he lived seven years , admiring , studying and labouring . On his return to England , he established himself in Buckinghamstreet , Eitzroy-square , and at once drew attention by his

monument in memory of the Earl of Mansfield , for which he received the sum of £ 2 , 500 . In 1797 , he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy , and in that year he sent to the Exhibition three sketches in bas-relief , the subjects taken from the New Testaments , along with the monument of Sir Wm . Jones : this monument now stands in the Chapel of University College , Oxford . In the

year 1810 , after some circumlocution , the Royal Academy created a Professorship of Scul p ture , aud Elaxman was the Professor . He delivered his first lecture in 1811 , on English Sculpture , and subsequently delivered nine others on Egyptain Sculpture , Grecian Sculpture , Science , Beauty , Composition , Style , Drapery , Ancient Art , and Modern Art . Flaxman ' s chief works arc tho Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan ; and the Shield of Achilles . The detail of the numerous designs worked upon the

surface of the Shield of Achilles , will be found in the 18 th book of Homer ' s Iliad . I will only mention a- few more of Elaxman ' s more eminent works : viz ., his Psyche , Pastoral Apollo ; Michael Angelo ; Raphael ; Meeting of Hector and Andromache ; the colossal figure of Sir John Moore , and the statue of Pitt , both erected in the City of Glasgow . Elaxman died in 1820 , and was

buried in the Churchyard of St . Giles-in-the-Eields . His works were of four kinds , Religious , Poetic , Classic , and Historical ; in each of these , he has left specimens which give him high rank amongst the sons of genius ; he had much to battle against , but his strength of mind and fertility of genius made him unsurpassed in purity and simplicity by any modern sculptor . It

would be altogether out of place to enumerate the many successors and contemporaries of Elaxman , who have pursued the art of sculpture with varying success ; since his death the art has not retrograded . At the present day our country can boast of sculptors , of painters , and of architects of no mean genuis . The

beautiful specimens of art , which are being daily brought before the juiblic , show what a high degree of excellence our artists have attained ; the taste for art treasures is every day becoming more widely diifused , and a powerful stimulus is being given to the exertions of our sculptors , & c . An important and essential step towards this

desirable state of things was taken , in the early part of the century , by the purchase of some of the most celebrated works of ancient art and their public exhibition in our National Museum ; since that period , when the works of Phidias were placed before British artists , every department of sculpture has been improved . For the

commemoration of individual excellence or public worth , there is no art so frequently brought into requisition as that of the sculptor , and rightly so . The imago of the wise man or the warrior cannot be too distinct , and

Stray Thoughts On The Origin And Progress Of The Fine Arts.

though our history cannot provide the sculptor with subjects , such as the beautiful mythology of ancient Greece offers , still he cannot want matter for his skill , until the whole line of British sages and British heroes becomes extinct .

Visit To Stratford-On-Avon And Its Vicinage.

VISIT TO STRATFORD-ON-AVON AND ITS VICINAGE .

Br BRO . GEORGE MAEKITAM TWEDDELI , , Author of "ShaJespere : Ms Times and Contemporaries , " Sfc . ( Continued from f age 366 . J I think the rain could scarcely have fallen fuller or faster on the roof of Noah ' s Ark , when " the waters oi the flood were upon the earth" and " all the fountains

, of the great deep broken up , and the windows of heaven were opened ; " or on the heads of Deucalion and Pyrrha in doomed Thessaly , under the wrath of Jove , so beautifully described by Ovid , * than it fell as I jiassed through the Roman Mancunium , yet here , in the immediate neighbourhood of the Roman road called Ihening

or Ikenild-strect , the land was as dry as one could desire it to be on the morning of a gala day , and " the heaven ' s breath , " as Shakespere has it , " swells wooingly here : " for we have reached the old Saxon village of Alveehiirch .

The quaint appearance of the houses in this part of the country , with their old-fashioned casements and peaked flag-stone roofs—so different to the red-tiled and blue slated roofs and sash windows to which I had been generally accustomed , soon attracted my attention , and I found it necessary to curb my imagination—for already could I plainly perceive ( with " my mind ' s eye , '

Horatio ! " ) fat and Jovial Sir John Ealstaff , Prince Hal , Nym , Bardolph , Pistol , and the latter ' s wife , Dame Quickly , beginning to surround me . But avaunt , Reverie!—thou art my constant companion w hen I smoke the pipe of peace after the cares and labours of the day ; be content , therefore , with the eventide for thy time of power , and leave " the garish day " for Observation .

But we have reached the comfortable-looking village of Eedditch , with its remarkable needle factories , which the particular season I had chosen for my visit ( being holiday time ) prevented me from inspecting , as I could have wished , —for I take immense interest in all that concerns the people , and I would fain see all their workshops comfortable and healthy insideand ornamental

, structures to the places where they stand . Eor , notwithstanding the hosh which , it has now become quite fashionable for respectacle men to mouth at the annual tea-drinkings of mechanics' institutes , about us all becoming Lord High Chancellors , and Archbishops , and Lord High Admirals , and Eield-Marshals , and Million-