EXTRACTS.

FROM THE MAN OF TWO LIVES.

"The book which excited so much attention, I had bought at Frankfort in the fortieth year of my age, because it had been written at the very period when I was at the university, and gave a very exact topography of places highly interesting to me. It was adorned with engravings very ac- curately and boldly executed, which by their spirit and truth reviving, at that time, the impressions of my youth, might contribute, not a little, to the vivid,and indeed graphic portraits to which so much wonder was

attached. •

" It was at length recommended to me, (I forget by whoni,). to take some lessons of the pencil, and the celebrated Paul $anclby condescended to direct my. Stndies. They were a soorce of gratification scteongeniattn; my. fanciful disposition, that:the merely manual power.. was rapidly ac- quired; and ne sooner did my band obey my wishes, • and my touch be come broad and expressive, than I 'filled rny sketch-hooks withviews which I derived from meniorY, though they were uniformly attributed to the fer- tility of my fancy, and a balmy turn to, composition, Sandby spoke of them as extraordinary ; arid it was a day of triumph, when some of my sketches were submitted to the inspection of two great men in the art, Mr. West; and Mr. Fuseli. The first said of thein, Here is nature in every touch ;' the second, and the character of the'scenery, German'

" ' Has our young friend ever visited Germany?' Said Mr. West. " ' Certainly not,' replied my father. " 'Then,' exclaimed Fuseli, with a warmth which was characteristic of him, 'then Your son never made the sketches The decisive tone in which he spoke this, produced a wish for the grounds of his opinion, and he thus continued the subject—' The localities are known to me ; they are too accurately made out to be the work of fancy ; the artist who drew therh has seen the places!' - " Granting this,' said my mother, they may be copies.' ' "The two great artists, at the same instant, pronounced the monosyl- lable, ' No '. After a slight pause, Mr. West said, ' This is a matter which a man must he an artist to know. In the touch there is the feeling of an impression made upon the eye by actual objects' " He then besought me to apply without delay to the human figure. that once mastered, the rest I have remarked to be without much diffi- culty. Mr. Fuseli, perhaps, may tell us why.'

" 'The art,' replied that singular man, 'follows the nature. In man creation is consummated' 'You always, my dear sir, say strong things,' exclaimed West, and usually just ones.' " ' Come, come,' rejoined Fuseli, with a peculiar laugh, we must divide that compliment between us. I take the first half as my share, is both nature and art,•and leave you just, as I found you. " West returned his strong friend's laugh with high good humour, and both artists were, perhaps, satisfied with the mode in which their own works represented the genius of Michael Angelo and Raffaele." * 4. * s * * * • * * " J hastened to put the advice I had received into practice. • The use of the weapon I already. possessed ; its direction was now different, and I was rather Mortified at first, to see how little I could achieve when Fuseli

himself placed me before the Apollo of .Belvedere. The east used on this occasion was one of the best that has been made. I laboured with. great assiduity, and but,slender.success. In any reduction of the -figure, the drawing exhibited the god too short, or too heavy ; one half of thefigure seemed loaded, the other thin and poor. Such was my disappointment in regard to the mere,figuye ; but the meaning of the expression in its noble countenance defied me at every point. I felt the exquisite beau idgal of the Greek artist,.yet my best efforts to fix it upon paper were abortive, and I should have thrown away the crayon in despair, had not any illus- trious guide assured- me, that he had seen many thousand drawings from •

the statue, and all of them more -or less imperfect. Shall we never, then, have a drawing from it,' exclaimed I, equal to the statue?' ' Yes,' replied Mr. 'FilSelf, ''you may, whenever the artist before it is mentally equal to the.sculptor: but then, though perhaps equal, it will be somewhat different."

" Reconciled thus sensibly to my task, my proficiency became consider- able ; the proportions of the parts were mechanically assigned at once, and the power of drawing the human 4pure operated like an instinct, and acquired the certainty Of. one The style of countenance too seemed amid endlesS variety to admit of clasiifiCation, which I likened to declension in language ; .nature herself submits to the limitations of art. Physiog- nomy, with respect to design, never admits of doubt or dispute. The con-• sent of the great masters as to the personages of sacred history, is no de- ference to one genius of their own order, but a conviction arising from the study of human nature. The exterior bears the moral character of the being. We are formed to be guided by this sympathy between the mind and the body. If a Judas could be found in life with the lovely fea- tures of St. John, the artist who should so design him in picture would sin against instinctive truth. Art frames the features to an abstract character, and takes off the mask by which society is deceived.

" I had no intention to become a painter by these studies, except as mere indulgence of taste ; and besides, few arts are followed passionately without a view to profit ; and a public practice of the art for the delight of others I should have disdained. My inducement to persevere was, that my hand might obey the suggestions of memory, and bring again visibly before me persons of great and various interests in the existence of Frederic Werner. I became a good deal absorbed in this visionary indul- gence, and frequently blotted with tears theunconscious resemblance of a deceased or distant friend. I sometimes laboured to express the beauti- ful featutes and lovely form of a lady perishing in the prime of her exist- ence, a victim to desertion, and its own passive melancholy. But an agony of passion obliterated immediately the fancy's creation; or if its striking resemblance saved it from destruction, I would turn it down- wards in the portfolio, that it might not shock me by surprise. I thought a history attached to it, in which 1 felt myself implicated; and though, like Macbeth, I assumed the courage to exclaim,' There's no such thing;' I could equally with him have sworn, If I stand here I saw her I' Ano- ther form,.a mature and venerable lady, often solicited my pencil, and in attitudes of deep interest expressed the most intense feelings. Some- times her features looked earnest reproof; at others awful yet tender for- giveness.. The eye seemed unwilling to lose the object it was contem- plating, and something more than human beamed through its dewy lustre. When I could at all succeed in this maternal delineation, an almost convulsive grief announced the triumph, abut not the reward of art Unlike all other beings, in the very frame of my mind I appeared to court occasions of pain, and laboured after wretchedness with all the eagerness that others fly from it. The stillness of midnight, the deep shadows of my lamp, the unrestrained indulgence of fancy, and the anx- ious attention to the work before me, stole away not merely the hue of youth and health, but added an untimely care to my'expression, which eveh alarmed myself, when I beheld in any glass, by accident, the singular and devoted being before it.

"As it had happened with the local scenery, so in the human subjects of my pencil, the character was decidedly German :I cannot say that this excited any surprise in those around me—it rather appeared a thing of course, in One so strongly impressed as I had been by some of the cities my of l.ermany. I shall not describe m stUdies minutely, where they bore no reference to the singularity of my xni.nd. I must however remark, that when by earnest entreaty I obtained a German master, the rapidity with which.I acquired the language exceeded all previous example; if I found difficulty, it was to make the organization keep up with the con- ception. ''Tfiewoida-ratlier awakedin me, than were acquired by study -I-+tosspeakand:pronounce well demanded correction; and time atid,habit; hut,even here the quickness of my perception aided .rne greatly. My master solved it like a German philosopher, by saying there was Saxon blood in my veins. Through how many strainers it had passed, my father told him was matter of history. By degrees my predilection for what was Gerina.n was no longer noticed at home ; I was permittedto follow, the bent of, my mind, and take my own course in my studies and amuse-. ments. The reader will of hiniself supply the only other favourite study music. The picture sense certainly adds much to the general interpreter, language. But musieexpresses the very moods of the mind; and its tran sitions from one passion, or humour, to another ; and it effects this by its two resorts, melody and harmony. I became well grounded in the science, by which I mean its principles. The facility of making instruments, capable of distinct rapidity, has given to modern music a character of brilliant and pressing hurry, which confounds. the mind ; while the hearer, breathless and astonished, is afraid of failure, and impatient for, the end.

" It will readily be imagined that a student like myself preferred com- positions that accorded with my own temperament : strains that were solemn and mysterious, sweet and unearthly. The great poet Milton, a fine musician; has displayed the charm by a metaphor so chaste, so ele- gant, as to be worth a volume of meaner verse- ' At last a soft and solemn breathing sound Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes.' —Comm While, indeed, he confirms Shakspeare's own word sound ' in a much disputed passage of Twelfth Night,' where his commentators are for reading south, (i. e. south wind.) • ' 0, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets' " As I greatly preferred the organ to all other instruments, so • I found it had stops so lulling and gentle as scarcely to interrupt the state of reverie in which I would often court its aid ; and its harmonies , without care, grew out of the mental feelings, which they composed therefore in a double sense, by setting them to music, and abating their keenness. My fond mother often stole in upon me at such moments, and placed herself at a distance from my observation, where she would listen in tears to the strange and melancholy inspirations of her unconscious son. One even- ing, I remember, she herself sat down to the instrument, and after play- leg, fora theme, the exquisite symphony which ushers in one of Purcel's aerial charms in the Tempest;' she broke away into accompaniments so suited to the subject, such a history of mental dejection and poignant re- gret, that every hearer was affected.

" In the name of heavenly sorrow,' exclaimed my father, where did you-get those additions to Parcel ?'

" From Edward here,' replied my mother, who, I'll answer for it, kneW as little that he composed as that I heard him play them. I believe I have not lost a note of them, and I hope I never shall.

" That I will put at an absolute certainty,' said I; for, though I could not myself repeat those strains whith you say are mine, I will note them down from your playing, and take them out of the reach of acci- dent, merely because they give you pleasure. This I readily and truly accomplished, and so placed upon the same paper the reveries of a juve- nile amateur, associated with the ideas of Shakspeare, and the music of Parcel.

" In alluding to these domestic amusements, or studies, whichever the reader is pleased to style them, I am gratefully to remember the works of that eminent divine of our second Charles, Dr. Isaac Barrow, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, among whose students it was intended that I should complete my education. From his writings I maybe said to have laid•a foundation of moral science, compared with which the gleanings from the poets were but a trifle. It applied a timely corrective to my in- tercourse with the world, and taught me also to estimate truly that other self, whose past conduct pressed so unaccountably upon me. The being of whom he was so distinguished a servant, seems to have revealed to Barrow the whole of that astonishing mystery, the nature of man. Ser- mons are commonly constructed to explain doctrine, or enforce duty, and these objects are accomplished by him in the most satisfactory manner ; but he does not stop there ; as if, like a dramatic writer, his aim and end had been to display character, he lets in day upon the closest conceal- ments of man, and drags him forth as a spectacle to his kind, to escape, if he can, the condemnation of his own reason. To accomplish such purposes, the means given were adequate and unequalled. There is a fulness of conception in this writer which belongs to himself alone ; and language hurries on to clothe his ideas, with terms precise as philosophy would demand, and harmonious beyond the metrical arrangements of our verse. All that follow him appear weak and meagre in their composi- tion. Yet the body of Barrow's eloquence has nothing tumid in its ful- ness ; it is always firm, elastic, and forcible. I have often been surprised that his writings were not chosen for the pleasure they afford, even by those, i f such there could he, insensible to the higher profit ; that they were not selected as the most abundant source of ingenious recreation. The subtlety of this astonishing writer is a feat ire so singular and perfect, that his reader rejoices in the triumph of his master ; though he is himself the captive, whose self-love is baffled, disgraced, and cast down. Such is the pungency of his attack. But he always disdains the short cut to suc- cess, the feminine appeal to the passions. Writing for a learned body, he applies constantly to their reason ; and their religion is shown to need no other support.. His mode of stating, as it were, the account be- tween the Creator and the creature, calls forth the uncommon magnifi- cence of his mind—it is so exact, as to admit of no hesitation or dispute; and we are compelled to see the folly, the meanness, and the wickedness of seeking to delay the easy settlement demanded from us. This pro- found author constantly lay upon my table.

" Thus though J freely confess my youth to have been abstracted and whimsical, I can deliberately affirm, that I had ereat application ; and was commonly considered as not meanly accomplished. What I said car- ried, for the most part, greater weight than is commonly allowed to juve- nile remarks. I had, literally, no relish for the dissipations of life, and my abstinence therefore claims no praise as virtue. Admonition of any kind I seldom experienced, for I offended no decorum, neglected: no duty. Obedient at home, assiduous to oblige,•and averse even to horror from

every thing uncharitable; no one bore to the strange enthusiast, as I was called; and some very grave persons' ventured to express a deli- , berate opinion, that if 1 fell, in the course of existence, into barely tube-. rable connexions, I should be distinguished alike for wisdom and for virtue."

A caaireid—Persevering,, steady, crafty, and possessing, to an olnineni gree, that happy art of " canting" which is the great nerd of earning character and consequence in England, the rise and reputation of MI'. Vavaiw, r I\ Tordaont qpeareil less to be wondered at than envied ; yet even enVy.wits only fur thou: whocould not look beyond the snrfaee of things. He was at hearten anxious and unhappy man. The evil we do in the world is often paid had( in the bosom of home. Mr. Vavasour Mordaunt was, like Cranford, what Might be termed a mistaken Utilitarian : he had lived utterly and invariably for self; but inStead' of uniting self7interest with the interest of others, he considered thein_as per fectly incompatible ends. But character was among the greatest of all objects to hie' ; so that, though he had rarely deviated into what might fairly, be termed .a virtue, lie had never transgressed what might rigidly he called a pro- priety. He had not the genius, the wit, the moral audacity of Crauford: he could not have indulged in one. offence with impunity, by a mingled courage and hypocrisy, in veiling others—he was the slave of the formula which Crauford subjugated to himself. He was only so far resembling Cranford as one man of the world resembles another in selfishness and dissimulation : he could be dishonest, not villanuus, much less a villain upon system. He was a canter, Cranford an hypocrite : his uttered opinions were, like Cranford's, differing from his conduct ; but he believed the truth of the former even while sinning in the latter : he canted so sincerely that the tears came in his eyes when he spoke. Never was there a man more exemplary in words : people who departed from him went away impressed with the idea of an excess of honour—a plethora of conscience. " It was almost a pity," said they, " that Mr. Vavasour was so romantic ;" and thereupon they named him as executor to their wills, and guardian to their sons.—The Disowned.