It is a sort of enchanted ground, an Arcadia, alive with beings bright as the "stars" which he worships, and as far removed as they from "earth-born jars" and "human frailties." Like his Chaldean, he clothes" the poetry of heaven" in the hues of an exquisitely graceful imagination; and, to borrow his own expressive language, (for he, too, is sometimes a "truant from the pencil to the lyre,") Fancy-wrapt, sees in the fleecy clouds Mysterious shapes that wait upon the moon, In her swift course, or rise from ocean's lap Continuous. The first time we had the gratification of visiting him in his painting-room, he was, by a fortunate coincidence, surrounded by several of the most exquisite productions of his pencil. There was the sun darting its earliest rays upon a sea not unworthy of Claude himself; and, the most glorious of all his visions, his Pleiades, floating, like clustering thoughts in a dream, above its surface. On the opposite side of the room hung a group of Fairies on the Sea Shore, dancing in the moonlight and appearing to bend like a bed of flowers to every breath of air that passed over them. There was his Hylas and the Nymphs (so charmingly engraved by Mr. Heath); his Four Angels; his Solar System; his Iris and her Train; and several of the series of pictures which he has painted in illustration of his favourite poem, the Comus of Milton. There, too, were his Oberon squeezing the juice of the flower into the eyes of the sleeping Titania (the perfection of grace and beauty); his Morning chasing away the Shades of Night; his May, scattering her cowslips and primroses over the earth; his Naiads glassing themselves in a Fountain; his splendid Birth of Venus; and his Girl in a Florentine Costume, vying in simplicity, and greatly excelling in beauty of feature, grace of position, and brilliancy of colour, the celebrated Jocunda of Lionardo; Her dark hair clustering round her pensive face, Her cheek soft blushing like a rose in June ; placed amid the ethereal visions we have just described, as if to show that there are creatures "breathing thoughtful breath," more captivating than any that imagination can suggest. Beautiful, however, as are the productions of Mr. Howard's pencil, they belong, for the most part, to a world with which the utilitarian spirit of the present age has little in common. Hence it is, that he has not been so well understood and appreciated as some of his far less gifted contemporaries. The picture from which the accompanying print has been engraved, is a transcript from real life; and was exhibited last year with considerable éclat both at the Royal Academy and British Institution. The attitude of the infant is beautiful and characteristic in the extreme: its apprehension of the coming plunge is exhibited even to its feet. The elder sister is awaiting the event with something like a mischievous impatience. BIRDS IN SUMMER. BY MARY HOWITT. I. How pleasant the life of a bird must be, II. They have left their nests in the forest bough, C 4 III. "Come up, come up, for the world is fair, Where the merry leaves dance in the summer air!" And the birds below give back the cry, "We come, we come, to the branches high!” How pleasant the life of the birds must be, Living in love in a leafy tree, And away through the air what joy to go, IV. How pleasant the life of a bird must be And then wheeling away to its cliff-built home! By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn, And pierce like a shaft the boundless space! V. To pass through the bowers of the silver cloud, Right on through the arch of the sun-lit bow, And to see how the water-drops are kissed Into green, and yellow, and amethyst! |