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The characters of women Chaucer has divided into two classes, the Lady Prioress and the Wife of Bath. Are not these leaders of the ages of men? The Lady Prioress in some ages predominates, and in some the Wife of Bath, in whose character Chaucer has been equally minute and exact, because she is also a scourge and a blight. I shall say no more of her, nor expose what Chaucer has left hidden. Let the young reader study what he has said of her. It is useful as a scarecrow. There are such characters born-too many for the peace of the world.

I come at length to the Clerk of Oxenford. This character varies from that of Chaucer as the contemplative philosopher varies from the poetical genius. There are always these two classes of learned sages, the poetical and the philosophical. The painter has put them side by side, as if the youthful Clerk had put himself under the tuition of the mature poet. Let the philosopher always be the servant and scholar of inspiration, and all will be happy.

Such are the characters that compose this picture, which was painted in self-defence against the insolent and envious imputa tion of unfitness for finished and scientific art,—and this imputation most artfully and industriously endeavoured to be propagated among the public by ignorant hirelings. The painter courts comparison with his competitors, who, having received fourteen hundred guineas and more from the profits of his designs in that well-known work, Designs for Blair's Grave, have left him to shift for himself, while others, more obedient to an employer's opinions and directions, are employed at great expense to produce works in succession to his, by which they acquired public patronage. This has hitherto been his lot, to get patronage for others and then to be left and neglected, and his work, which gained that patronage, cried down as eccentricity and madness-as unfinished and neglected by the artist's violent temper. He is sure the works now exhibited will give the lie to such aspersions.

Those who say that men are led by interest are knaves. A knavish character will often say, 'Of what interest is it to me to do-so and so?' I answer, 'Of none at all, but the contrary, as you well know. It is of malice and envy that you have done this therefore I am aware of you, because I know that you act,

not from interest, but from malice, even to your own destruction.' It is therefore become a duty which Mr. B. owes to the Public, who have always recognized him, and patronized him, however hidden by artifices, that he should not suffer such things to be done, or be hindered from the public exhibition of his finished production by any calumnies in future.

The character and expression in this picture could never have been produced with Rubens' light and shadow, or with Rembrandt's or anything Venetian or Flemish. The Venetian and Flemish practice is broken lines, broken masses, and broken colours. Mr. B.'s practice is unbroken lines, unbroken masses, and unbroken colours. Their art is to lose form. His art is to find form and keep it. His arts are opposite to theirs in all things.

As there is a class of men whose sole delight is in the destruction of men, so there is a class of artists whose whole art and science is frabricated for this purpose of destroying art. Who these are is soon known. By their works ye shall know them.' All who endeavour to raise up a style against Raphael, Michael Angelo, and the Antique, those who separate Painting from Drawing, who look if a picture is well drawn, and, if it is, immediately cry out that it cannot be well coloured-those are the men.

But to show the stupidity of this class of men, nothing need be done but to examine my rival's prospectus.

The five first characters in Chaucer, the Knight and the Squire he has put among his rabble, and indeed his prospectus calls the Squire the 'fop of Chaucer's age. Now hear Chaucer :

Of his stature he was of even length,

And wonderly deliver, and of great strength,
And he had been some time in Chivauchy,

In Flanders, in Artois, and in Picardy,
And borne him well, as of so litele space.'

Was this a fop?

'Well could he sit a horse, and faire ride,
He could songs make, eke well indite
Joust, and eke dance, portray, and well write."
Was this a fop?

'Curteis he was, and meek and serviceable,
And kerft before his fader at the table.'

Was this a fop?

It is the same with all his characters. He had done all by chance, or perhaps his fortune-money, money! According to his prospectus he has three Monks. These he cannot find in Chaucer, who has only one Monk, and that, no vulgar character, as he has endeavoured to make him. When men cannot read they should not pretend to paint. To be sure, Chaucer is a little difficult to him who has only blundered over novels and catch-penny trifles of booksellers, yet a little pains ought to be taken even by the ignorant and weak. He has put the Reeve, a vulgar fellow, between his Knight and Squire, as if he was resolved to go contrary to everything in Chaucer, who says of the Reeve:

'And ever he rode hindermost of the rout.'

In this manner he has jumbled his dumb dollies together, and is praised by his equals for it, for both himself and his friend are equally masters of Chaucer's language. They both think that the Wife of Bath is a young, beautiful, blooming damsel, and H-says, that she is the 'Fair Wife of Bath,' and that 'the Spring appears in her cheeks. Now hear what Chaucer has made her say of herself-who is no modest one:

'But Lord when it remembreth me
Upon my youth and on my joleity,
It tickleth me about the hearte-root,
Unto this day it doth my hearte boot
That I have had my world as in my time,
But age, alas, that all will envenime,
Hath me bereft my beauty and my pith.
Let go! Farewell! The Devil go therewith,
The flour is gone; there is no more to tell,
The bran, as best I can, I now mote sell,

And yet to be right merry I will fond

Now forth, to tell about my fourth husband.'

She has had four husbands; a fit subject for this painter. Yet

the painter ought to be very much offended with his friend H, who has called his 'a common scene,' and 'very ordinary forms,' which is the truest part of all, for it is so, and very wretchedly so indeed. What merit can there be in a picture of which such words are spoken with truth?

But the prospectus says that the painter has represented Chaucer himself as a knave who thrusts himself among honest people to make game of and laugh at them; though I must do justice to the painter and say that he has made him look more like a fool than a knave. But it appears in all the writings of Chaucer, and particularly in his Canterbury Tales, that he was very devout, and paid respect to true enthusiastic superstition. He has laughed at his knaves and fools, as I do now, but he has respected his True Pilgrims, who are a majority of his company, and are not thrown together in the random manner that Mr. S has done. Chaucer has nowhere called the Ploughman old, worn out with 'age and labour, as the prospectus has represented him, and says that the picture has done so too. He is worn down with labour, but not with age. How spots of brown and yellow smeared about at random can be either young or old I cannot see. It may be an old man; it may be a young man; it may be anything that a prospectus pleases. But I know that where there are no lineaments there can be no character. And what connoisseurs call touch, I know by experience must be the destruction of all character and expression as it is of every lineament.

The scene of Mr. S's picture is by Dulwich Hills, which was not the way to Canterbury, but perhaps the painter thought he would give them a ride round about because they were a burlesque set of scarecrows not worth any man's respect or

care.

But the painter's thoughts being always upon gold, he has introduced a character that Chaucer has not, namely, a Goldsmith, for so the prospectus tells us. Why he introduced a Goldsmith, and what is the wit, the prospectus does not explain. But it takes care to mention the reserve and modesty of the painter. This makes a good epigram enough:

"The fox, the mole, the beetle, and the bat

By sweet reserve and modesty get fat.'

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But the prospectus tells us that the painter has introduced a 'Sea-Captain.' Chaucer has a Ship-man, a Sailor, a trading Master of a vessel, called by courtesy Captain, as every master of a boat is; but this does not make him a Sea-Captain. Chaucer has purposely omitted such a personage, as it only exists in certain periods: it is the soldier by sea. He who would be a soldier in inland nations is a sea-captain in commercial nations.

All is misconceived, and its mis-execution is equal to its misconception. I have no objection to Rubens and Rembrandt being employed, or even to their living in a palace. But it shall not be at the expense of Raphael and Michael Angelo living in a cottage, and in contempt and derision. I have been scorned long enough by these fellows, who owe me all that they have. It shall be so no longer.

'I found them blind: I taught them how to see;
And now they know neither themselves nor me.'

IDENTITY.

IN eternity one thing never changes into another thing. Each identity is eternal. Consequently Apuleius' Golden Ass and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and others of the like kind are fable; yet they contain vision in a sublime degree, being derived from real vision in more ancient writings. Lot's wife being changed into a pillar of salt alludes to the mortal body being made a permanent statue, but not changed or transformed into another identity, while it retains its own individuality. A man can never become ass or horse. Some are born with shapes of men who are both. But eternal identity is one thing, and corporeal vegetation is another thing. Changing water into wine by Jesus and into blood by Moses relates to vegetable nature also.

The nature of visionary fancy or imagination is very little known, and the eternal nature and permanence of its everexistent images is considered less permanent than the things of vegetable and generative nature. Yet the oak dies as well as the lettuce, but its eternal image or individuality never dies, but renews by its seed. Just so the imaginative image returns by the seed of contemplative thought. The writings of the Prophets illustrate these conceptions of the visionary fancy, by their various sublime and divine images as seen in the world of vision.

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