The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 576, November 17, 1832

41 and 227. Dead Game, &c. Blake. Among the finest compositions of their class. It is worth while to compare these pictures, with what Smith, in his Life of Nollekens, tells us of Blake's colouring: "his modes of preparing his grounds, and laying them over his panels for painting, mixing his colours, and manner of working, were those which he considered to have been practised by the early fresco painters, whose productions still remain in many instances vividly and permanently fresh. His ground was a mixture of whiting and carpenters' glue, which he passed over several times in the coatings; his colours he ground himself and also united with them the same sort of glue, but in a much weaker state; he would in the course of painting, pass a very thin transparent wash of glue-water over the whole of the parts he had worked upon and then proceed with his finishing."

43. The Captive, Jackson. One of the finest pictures in the room. In colouring it approaches the olden school nearer than any recent specimen.

44. Carnarvon Castle, Moon-rising. E. Childe. A clever picture, and altogether an interesting scene.

53. Portrait of the late Queen Caroline, and the Princess Charlotte. Lawrence. One of the painter's early productions. The attitude of the Queen beside a harp is majestic, and her figure is not of such bulky proportion as she attained in after-life; the features are, too, more intelligent than many beneath a crown: the figure of the darling Princess in sportive mood, half clambering and reclining upon a chair, is pretty. Indeed, the picture, as well from its characters as from its merit and size, must command considerable interest in the collection. It may have associations of melancholy tendency; for the princesses and the painter have been numbered with the dead within a score of years.

55. The Benevolent Squire. Morland. A small oval picture of touching truth and nature. In the foreground is a widow, with two children, seated beside a cottage door. They have just divided a small loaf with hungry zest: in the distance is an old English 'squire on horseback, who is instructing his groom with undrawn purse to relieve the wants of the widow, while the good Samaritan casts an eye of true compassion at the almost starving group.

58. Portrait of Opie. Opie: showing, as Mr. Cunningham observes, "a noble forehead and an intellectual eye," with much of his country, Cornish air. The picture is but of few inches dimension, in a homely, broad, flat, oaken frame, somewhat resembling that of a miniature, with the name "Opie," plainly cut in capitals. It is noticeable for its unadornment.

64. The adjourned Debate. T. Clater. A cobbler, despite the ancient saw, ne sutor ultra crepidam, intently devouring the "folio of four pages."

67. The Sisters. John Wood. One of the painter's most successful productions, and deservedly so.

74. Diana and Actaeon. Another of Wilson's classic compositions of captivating loveliness, proving the painter, as Mr. Cunningham observes, to have wrought under historical and poetic influence.

80. Portrait of the late James Perry, Esq. Lawrence. The likeness is striking, and the colouring that of a master hand. The "head and front" bear intellectuality in an eminent degree.

82. Henry III. of France. Bonington. One of the lamented artist's most celebrated pictures. The personal elegance of the sovereign, and the luxurious details of the scene are in fine keeping with the minuteness of history in these matters.

89. The Trial Scene in the Merchant of Venice. Zoffani. With Macklin,

—The Jew
That Shakspeare drew;

his daughter as Portia, in the habiliaments of "the learned lawyer;" Clark, Bensley, &c.

100. Portrait of Bishop Hoadley. Hogarth.

102. Banks of the Tiber. Wilson.

118 and 187. Portraits of the Princesses Sophia and Mary, when children.

125. Battle of Cressy. West.

137—138—151. Captain Macheath—the Grave-diggers—and the Ghost Scene in Hamlet—all gems in their way, by Liverseege, of Manchester; they are full of point, and so rich in promise of future excellence as to add to our regret for the premature death of the artist.

134. The First Study for the Niobe Landscape. Wilson. Peculiarly interesting to artists.

To be continued.

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

EFFECTS OF FASHIONABLE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS UPON SERVANTS AND TRADESMEN

[Much has been said of late years respecting the degeneracy of a very useful and generally respectable class of persons, termed "gentlemen's servants;" and the unjustifiable practices of tradesmen towards people of fashion. As is usual in hasty judgments, the many have been stigmatized with the vices of the few: the misconduct of reckless servants has been held forth as bespeaking the habits of the whole class, and the misdealing cupidity of a few purveyors of fashionable luxuries has been set down as the almost uniform rule of conduct of the worthiest classes in the empire. Such has been the exaggeration of a certain description of evils and abuses, which appertain rather to the manners and customs of fashionable life than to the sphere of the useful or industrious classes; and in support of this position of ours, we may be allowed to quote the following pertinent observations from no less aristocratic authority than the Quarterly Review. They occur in a notice of a few of the most recent novels of fashionable life; in which the writer argues that there remains to be produced a much more useful class of novels than has yet emanated from the silver fork school. The immediate objects of the present remarks are, however, to show that the artificial or even dissipated habits of servants and the bareweight honesty of tradesmen, are brought about by the corrupt manners of persons of fortune, who believe themselves to be the only sufferers by such evil courses.]

Society is so infinitely intersected and convolved,

"Cycle and epi-cycle, orb in orb,"

that observers who should be endowed with a sufficient portion of perspicacity, might no doubt trace the consequences of the vices and virtues prevailing in any section of it, through the entire social chain. But, hitherto, those who have undertaken to describe the ways of fashionable life, have not followed it even to its more direct and contiguous relations with other classes of mankind. This is a defect which it might be worth the while of any duly qualified writer to supply. It might be well, for instance, if any such writer would so far extend the sphere of his contemplations, as to observe and exhibit the effects of fashionable manners and customs upon the class of servants, and the class of tradesmen.

Under the former head, there may be found, perhaps, little to find fault with on the score of mere manner and outward demeanour. To use servants with harshness, or to be wanting in that species of consideration for them which consists in a certain mildness and amenity of manner, would ruffle and deform that smooth surface of things which it is agreeable to the taste of people in high life to see around them. Nor do they, perhaps, interfere with the comfort of their dependents, by any undue or onerous exactions of service; for their establishments, being for the most part calculated for show, are more numerous than is required for use, and are therefore necessarily underworked, except, perhaps, in the case of some poor drudges at the bottom, who slink up and down the back stairs unseen, and whose comfort, therefore, does not engage the attention of a family of this class; and even these will not be oppressed with their labours, unless when some impoverished people of fashion may find it necessary to dock the tails of their establishments in order to keep the more prominent portions entire. Nevertheless the exceptions which may be taken against fashionable life, as affecting the class of servants, are of a very grave description. Late hours and habits of dissipation in the heads of a family make it almost impossible, especially in London, to exercise that wholesome household discipline which is requisite to secure the well-being of a servant. Luxury and ostentation require that the servants of these people should be numerous; their number unavoidably makes them idle; idleness makes them debauched; debauchery renders them often necessitous; the affluence or the prodigality, the indolence or indulgence; or indifference of their masters, affords them every possible facility for being dishonest; and, beginning with the more venial kinds of peculation, their conscience has an opportunity of making an easy descent through the various gradations of larceny, till the misdemeanant passes into the felon. In the meantime, the master, taking no blame to himself, nor considering that servants are for the most part what their masters make them, that they are the creatures, at least, of those circumstances which their masters throw around them, and might be moulded in the generality of cases, with almost certain effect, by the will and conduct of the master—passes over, with an indolent and epicurean censure, the lighter delinquencies which he may happen to detect, laughs perhaps at his own laxity, and, when at length alarmed, discharges the culprit without a character, and relieves himself, at the expense of he knows not whom, by making of a corrupted menial a desperate outcast. If it be said that a man cannot be expected to change his mode of life for the sake of his servants, it might be answered, that any mode of life by which each individual indulging in it hazards the perdition of several of his fellow-creatures, ought to be changed, and cannot be persevered in without guilt. But even if no such sacrifice were insisted upon, there remain means by which the evil might be mitigated.

In the first place, the adherence to honesty on the part of the masters might be exemplary; whereas their actual measure of honesty would perhaps be indicated with sufficient indulgence, if they were described (in the qualified language which Hamlet applies to himself) to be "indifferent honest." There is a currency of untruth in daily use amongst fashionable people for purposes of convenience, which proceeds to a much bolder extent than the social euphemisms by which those of the middle classes also, not perhaps without some occasional violation of their more tender consciences, intimate a wish to be excused from receiving a guest. Fashionable people, moreover, are the most unscrupulous smugglers and buyers of smuggled goods, and have less difficulty than others and less shame, in making various illicit inroads upon the public property and revenue. It is not to be denied that these practices are, in point of fact, a species of lying and cheating; and the latter of them bears a close analogy to the sort of depredation in which the dishonesty of a servant commonly commences. To a servant it must seem quite as venial an offence to trench upon the revenues of a duke, as to the duke it may seem to defraud the revenues of a kingdom. Such proceedings, if not absolutely to be branded as dishonest, are not at least altogether honourable; they are such as may be more easily excused in a menial than in a gentleman. Nor can it ever be otherwise than of evil example to make truth and honesty matters of degree.

But there is a worse evil in the manners of this country in regard to servants. It is rarely that they are considered in any other light than as mechanical instruments. It unfortunately belongs very little to our national character to feel what the common brotherhood of humanity requires of us in a relation with our fellow-creatures, which however unequal, is so close as that of master and servant. We are not accustomed to be sensible that it is any part of our duty to enter into their feelings, to understand their dispositions, to acquire their confidence, to cultivate their sympathies and our own upon some common ground which kindness might always discover, and to communicate with them habitually and unreservedly upon the topics which touch upon that ground. This deficiency would perhaps be more observable in the middle classes than in the highest, who seem generally to treat their inferiors with less reserve, but that in the latter the scale of establishment often removes the greater part of a man's servants from personal communication with him. Whether most prevalent in the fashionable or in the unfashionable classes, it is an evil which, in the growing disunion of the several grades of society is now more than ever, and for more reasons than one, to be regretted.

(To be concluded in our next.)

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S EXPERIENCE IN NEWGATE

(From Fraser's Magazine.)

Although in the present day, notwithstanding the severity of the laws, the different modes of committing crime are almost endless, the principal actors in criminality may be classed under the following heads:—

Classification of Rogues.

The whole of these are carried on by confederacies of small parties, and at other times by gangs, when their operations become more extensive. The forger and the highwayman are exceptions; the latter offence is generally committed by one or more, in a fit of need and state of desperation, without any system or plan for carrying on the practice; and it may be affirmed, that, in almost every case of this nature, the criminal never committed the like offence before. There have been some few instances of five or six individuals associating for the purposes of committing forgeries, but the cases are rare.

Boy Burglars.

I can name several boys now in custody, who have been actors in some of the most complicated schemes of burglary, and from whom much on this head might be elicited. One in particular, who began his career by robbing a gentleman in Mark Lane of plate to a considerable amount; and as it shows one method of committing a robbery, I will relate how it was accomplished. The boy was under sentence of death when I got the history of his life from him, he having been nine years in the successful commission of crime; and although nearly eighteen years of age, his appearance gave him credit for only being fourteen. Whilst in custody, his constant theme of regret was that he had left the parties in whose services he had been so long and securely employed, to join some of his own age, embarking in business for themselves; by which he was "nicked" (taken up). He was an orphan, and had been brought up in the poor-house, whence he was apprenticed to a sweep in the city. He was a remarkably sharp boy, which no doubt was noticed by those who are always on the lookout for agents to aid them in their schemes. He was met one morning early, with the soot-bag on his back, by a man who pretended to be his uncle, and who gave him a half-crown piece, making another appointment for a meeting; the result of which was, before he had served sixteen months of his time he had given information by which fifteen robberies had been committed. He, of course, had been paid for his services, which soon made him disgusted with the sooty business; and he made an agreement with the man who drew him into crime, to leave his master's service, and to commit with him a robbery on their private account before he left. The house fixed on was the one above alluded to in Mark Lane. The premises had before been surveyed, and deemed impregnable; that is to say, was considered too well guarded to be robbed without detection. They, however, got possession of the plate in the following manner:—The boy was a favourite with the cook of the house, and she would have no other to sweep her kitchen-chimney; a matter of business which was performed the last Saturday in every month. It was concerted between the man and the boy, that the former should dress himself in the character of a sweep, and accompany the latter as his over-looker, or assistant. The real sweep-over-looker, of course, must be kept out of the way; and here laid all their difficulty. It cost the boy (to use his own expression) six months' longer punishment as a sweep, and the man six appearances, at an early hour of the morning, in the same character, before the object could be carried, namely, to get rid of the real sweep.

At length, one Saturday, by pretending to forget the job until all the men were gone out about other work, the boy, affecting suddenly to recollect it, persuaded the master to let him go alone, saying he himself could perform the duty. It was five o'clock in the morning when he and the disguised robber reached the house; the cook opened the door, having nothing on save a blanket thrown over her shoulders. The arch young rogue said, "It's only me and Harry; it's a very cold morning; if you like to go to bed again, cookey, we will do it well, and leave all clean, and shut the door fast after us." She went to bed, and they went to the plate depository, which had been well noted oft times before. They put the whole of its contents into the soot-bag, and fearlessly walked through the streets with it on their backs. The boy, a few hours afterwards, was so metamorphosed, being dressed in the smartest manner, with cane in hand and fifty pounds in his pocket, that he walked the streets in full confidence that not even his master or his fellow-apprentices would know him.

Pickpockets.

The qualifications for a pickpocket are a light tread, a delicate sense of touch, combined with firm nerves. These boys may be known by their shoes in the street; they generally wear pumps, or shoes of a very light make, having long quarters. There is about their countenance an affected determination of purpose, and they walk forward, as if bent on some object of business: it is a rule with them never to stop in the street. When they want to confer for a moment they drop into some by-court or alley, where they will fix on an object of attack, as the people pass down a main street; when they start off in the same manner, the boy going first, to do what they call "stunning," that is to pick the pocket. The first rate hands never, on any occasion, loiter in the streets, unless at a procession or any exhibition, when there is an excuse for so doing. Many have a notion that instruments are used in disencumbering the pockets: this is a false idea; the only instrument they use is a good pair of small scissors, and which will always be found on the person of a pickpocket when searched; these they use to cut the pocket and all off, when they cannot abstract its contents.

To these qualifications they unite a quick sight, and a tact of observing when the attention is engaged, or of devising some means to engage it themselves, until the act is done. They are most busy in foggy weather. When in prison, they will be heard to say on such days, "What a shame to lose such a fine day as this!" On great public days, when the streets are expected to be crowded, and much business is anticipated, several parties of them will unite for the day, under special contract, either to divide all gains between them, or for each one to retain what he gets, agreeing, under every circumstance, to mutually assist each other in the bustle of the crowd. The wary and superior pickpocket, however, seldom runs this risk, but steadily pursues his course, surveying every day the objects around him, and sending off his emissaries to fetch in the plunder, or, by detection, to be handed off to prison. Pickpockets are the least faithful to each other of all known rogues, and are the most difficult of all biped animals to tame, or make any thing of in the way of improvement when caught.

NEW BOOKS

THE JUVENILE FORGET-ME-NOT FOR 1833

(Edited by Mrs. S.C. Hall.)

This is a delightful little book for the improvement of the mind and heart, as well as for the amusement, of young persons. It is full of prose and poetic story, pretty incident and anecdote—all which convey some useful moral, and point to some really good end and purpose. It is still a book for the play-room, notwithstanding it treats of botany and zoology. Travelling on the Ice, by Dr. Walsh, explains "what put it into Captain Parry's head to go to the North Pole;" the Poet's Invitation, by Allan Cunningham, is sweet and simple; the Shamrock, by L.E.L., consists of some clever lines, accompanying a portrait of two fairy sisters and a little laughing brother—

The image of a happy child
Doth link itself with all
That natural loveliness, which least
Reminds us of our fall.
Somewhat of angel purity,
Somewhat of angel grace,
Ere longer years bring shade and toil.