domestic duties) could have no admittance, this is no little praise; he told me himself, that "his very heart seemed broken, that he felt himself utterly incapable of all exertion, and the sight of every thing which brought her to his mind, affected him to such a degree, that after hastily placing his poor children at school, he set out for Scotland," whither he had an invitation from a noble family. Pursuing his way, as a landscape-painter generally does, by stopping at every place where the charms of nature claim his attention, he reached a village on the borders of a lake, where his heart in the contemplation of nature appeared to gain a respite from the tortures of memory: and his mind recoiling from the idea of the splendid society which awaited him, he postponed his engagement for some months, and settled himself in lodgings, far from all that had so long attracted, wounded, or interested him, seeking only for apathy that he might endure wretchedness. Youth and its hopes were passed, fortune and her promises were flown, and all that fame had given was a name to adorn a catalogue, or awaken a sigh in the jovial circle from which his aching heart recoiled in disgust. Miss W.-I fear, except among the woods and waters, poor Ibbetson would not find at the Lakes the comfort that he sought. Mrs. M.-You are mistaken; he found it in a creature as pure and unsophisticated as either; and that aided their effects by finding employment for all his mind. This was the daughter of a respectable neighbour, who, very young, and an entire stranger to the world, was astonished and delighted with his drawings, his books, and his conversation, so far as she could gain it: her naiveté, her genuine taste, her aptitude of learning, the novelty of her remarks, the charm of simplicity, combined with a solidity of understanding such as he had rarely met with, interested him exceedingly, and while it drew him from the contemplation of his sorrows, rendered him more capable of pursuing his art. He found himself, in short, too much attracted by this lovely girl, and he suddenly resumed his first purpose, and set out for Edinburgh. Miss W.-He acted very wisely in my opinion. Ib Mrs. M.-He intended to act wisely, but wisdom in many subjects may be screwed to a high pitch with more ease than kept at a proper one. betson staid some weeks, perhaps months, at the northern metropolis; then set out for ours, and (in his way) returned to the Lakes. Miss W.-Poor man! it was all over with him; so young a girl was not a wife for him, especially at a time when he was unsettled; but of course when he talked of love she refused him, and how could he avoid it? Mrs. M.-I can neither tell you the how, nor the when; but this I know, that after maturely deliberating the matter with a prudence beyond her years, she yet did venture on the awful task of taking a man of genius, with all the miseries attendant on uncertain gains, irregular habits, much-injured health, a heart still bleeding for the past, a mind unequal to grapple with the future, connections broken, patrons offended, and three children unprovided for. Here I must pause. When I contemplate so young a woman pursuing steadily with cheerful and even playful kindness one single object, the restoration of her husband to his powers of happiness and respectability; weaning him from every pernicious habit, awakening him to every virtuous pro pensity, restoring all that was defaced, improving all that was excellent; with liberal economy arranging her household, yet by incessant reading improving her mind, and rendering herself such a companion to a man of extraordinary intelligence, as to supply the world he had so many years enjoyed, I feel proud of my sex, and- -but I will say no more; she lives, though he is gone, and I must compel myself to be silent rather than wound that delicacy, which is as remarkable as her virtues and abilities. Miss W.-I suppose they went to London immediately? Mrs. M.-No; to that scene of his popularity, his trials, and his temptations, Ibbetson never returned; a circumstance which will ever be regretted by all lovers of the arts, as it is generally considered that there was a gradual falling off in the style of his pictures, from the time when he no longer compared his own works with those of others, and became a copyist of himself; but so far as regarded his personal happiness this was most desirable. After residing about two years at Ambleside, which is the finest school for a landscape-painter which nature ever opened, Ibbetson was so happy as to obtain the patronage of Mr. Danby, of Swinton, near Masham, and in one countrygentleman of taste, liberality, and fortune, found a happy substitute for the many in the metropolis who had partially helped him. The remainder of his life was spent at Masham, which is a place of such singular beauty as to be highly interesting to an admirer of nature; and being surrounded by gentlemen's seats, and at a great distance from the metropolis, it was not surprising that he found as much employment as enabled him to live comfortably in a cheap place, even during those years of depression when many men of great talents were suffering for the want of employment. Unfortunately, beyond his immediate wants, Ibbetson did not look; nor could he be prevailed upon to paint any pictures on speculation, although his character in some respects was so highly established that there could be no doubt that a lucrative disposition of his pictures would one day take place. So admirable were his cattle, that Mr. West, long ago, designated him the British Berghen, and his rustic figures have a sweetness and natural elegance that prove the superiority of his taste. But, alas! indolence was that foible which even love could not conquer; Dr. Johnson calls it the vice of human nature, and I fear it will never yield to human efforts; it must, however, be allowed in extenuation of this fault, that poor Mr. Ibbetson grew so large that he could not wander out in search of subjects; and this at least is certain, that he died in pursuing his profession by taking a severe cold while he drew the portrait of a favourite horse for Lady Augusta. Miss W.-What children did he leave? Mrs. M.-By his first wife there are three living; the eldest, who is married, is an artist settled at Richmond in Yorkshire; the next (a daughter) is well married in the west of England, and the youngest is also settled in business. By his widow he had a daughter in the first year of their marriage, and one son born about a year before their father's death, of course there is a difference of 12 or 13 years in their age; but they are both fine and promising children. Miss W.-And both, with their mother unprovided for. Alas! how often is this the fate of those allied to genius. Mrs. M.-We will not say unprovided for; they are in the hands of the worthy-the rich; they are in the hands of Him who is a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow. ON MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS. ནལ་༠་༠་མ་་ས་འ༠་བ་ To the Editors of the Northern Star. THE numerous monuments which are to be met with in all our churches, and indeed in most other places of public worship, have often given rise to discussions on the utility or disadvantage of such erections: by some it has been urged that tombs and their inscriptions are most commonly used as vehicles for gratifying the pride of the living by fulsome panegyric and un merited encomia on the dead; whilst on the other hand it has been argued, that the instances of piety, heroism, or other virtues there recorded, tend to excite in the mind of him who observes them, that enthusiastic zeal so necessary to produce an imitation of the striking examples thus offered to his view. In both these opinions there is, perhaps, nearly an equal degree of truth; but, before a decision is made upon the subject, it may be as well to enquire when these honours to the dead first became general. Without entering into a minute investigation of the precise period when tombs and monumental inscriptions were first made use of, it may be sufficient to remark that they are of high antiquity: that the Greeks and Romans adopted them at a very early period, appears from the frequent mention made of them by poets of both nations. The most simple and ancient monuments were stone pillars, called by the Greeks nλ, on which were engraved the name, family, and virtues of the deceased; to inscribe on them verses in praise of the departed was, also, a common practice with friends and relatives;-thus Erinna (a cotemporary with Sappho) wrote on the pillar erected to her friend Julia,– "I mark the spot where Julia's ashes lie: This simple column, graced with many a tear, Anthology. whilst, on others, no name, but in its place some short moral apothegm, appeared; though, in this case, the pillar was surmounted by an urn containing the ashes of the deceased, or by his statue, whilst bass-reliefs of some memorable transaction in his life surrounded the column from base to capital; of this description is Trajan's Pillar, at Rome, though barbarity and superstition have displaced the ashes of the hero to make room for the statue of a saint; and it is also in imitation of those pillars that head-stones are now generally placed on graves in our cemeteries. In process of time the pillar gave way to erections more complex in design and more eleborate in execution, but perhaps a better description of them cannot be given than from the poetess I before quoted: "Say, ye cold pillars, and thou, weeping urn, Here we see an almost exact description of a modern tomb; in fact there is no difference, if we except the syrens, for which winged children are now substituted, with what propriety it is not in our present purpose to enquire, though it appears that, as the mournful melody of the sirens' song has. been long celebrated by poets, their figures would still harmonize with the other emblems of our woe: on these tombs it was also customary to place the arms or implements used by the deceased, as is noticed by Virgil in the 6th Æneid, "To solemnize the warrior's doom The pious hero raised a lofty tomb; The tow'ring top his well-known ensigns bore, His arms, his once-loved trump, and tapering oar.” The antiquity of monuments and their inscriptions being thus established, it remains to be decided whether they are of an advantageous tendency, or the reverse; for my own part, as examples, I entertain a favourable opinion of their utility. We know that those, whose memory they record, are no ways affected either by deserved encomium or unmerited praise; if therefore the pride or ignorance of surviving relatives load the memorials of frail mortality with pompous genealogies or strained adulation, the imposition commonly betrays itself, and the only feelings we experience are those of pity and contempt: but when we view the glorious atchievements of the mighty dead, when we behold the banner waving over the grave of its once brave possessor, and the sword hanging rusty and unused, whilst the hand that wielded it lies mouldering into dust beneath; but above all, when we read the virtues of the deceased, described with all the persuasive eloquence of simplicity and truth, it is then that we are tempted to go and do likewise, it is then that the emotions of piety, of patriotism, and virtue, burst at once upon the soul, call into full activity its noblest energies, and give it a new pulse unknown before.' Wakefield, July 20, 1818. S. I. LAW. ADVANTAGES OF AN ACCOMPLISHED EDUCATION. To the Editors of the Northern Star. THE faculties of the human mind are like wax, susceptible of the most tender impressions, and at all times actively alive to every succeeding beauty, and every new representation of things. A child first gains ideas by the im pressions of events and things upon his feelings through the medium of his senses; in the course of time he acquires a habit of arranging, of combining and associating these ideas, of framing a proposition, and drawing a con clusion. He looks upon creation, and discovers the existence of a beautiful symmetry, a moving impulse, and a generating influence in every thing, which, by some secret and divine inspiration which it is not in his ow!! power to suspend, moves his senses into action. But the multiplicity of beauty and grandeur which nature presents, is not properly calculated to nourish and strengthen the infant faculties without the application of some comprehensive means which may at first give them ideas that will create a habit of reflection, and a just method of associating those impressions which the works of nature and the manners and customs of men may excite. It is by stealing on the attention without being perceived, by unfolding the mind without seeming to interfere, by administering to the soul without appearing to desire it, that the physician, or framer of the mind, will be most effectually enabled to accomplish this desirable purpose. It is a happy thing that the mind can be stored with a few of those light and pleasing acquisitions, which, at the same time that they are alluring, are innocent and rational. The youth of either sex fly to drawing, music, or dancing, when they would otherwise be engaged in those debasing pursuits which are a degradation to human nature; and happy indeed is the mind that can at all times retire within itself for a feast of consolation, when disappointments, poverty, or disease, would otherwise poison every pleasure of existence; that can retire within its own secret recesses, and trace the poet, the painter, or the philosopher, through all his toils and pleasures, his cares and perplexities, to the goal of immortality! This is the intellectual food of the wise, the accomplished, and the good: this is the ambrosia upon which they feast, while the world is drenched with folly, and intoxicated with madness; they are the employments by which they are elevated, and which daily support that flame of intellectual fire which the cold hand of ignorance and inelegance will in vain endeavour to extinguish. No knowledge, of what description soever it may be, should be neglected in the spring-tide of life. All depends upon the improvement which is made in this season; and upon the foundation that is laid in the infancy of the mind, that superstructure must be raised which is to discover the character to the world. The benefit which is to result from every fresh accession of knowledge, and from every succeeding idea, will entirely depend upon those impressions which are already implanted; with these it will meet and be associated. It is the natural consequence of a knowledge of the arts and sciences, to correct the taste, refine the judgment, and give a finishing lustre to the understanding. It is by the application of the graphic art that children become early acquainted with realities, and it is by a representation of things rather than their terms, that a knowledge of them is more quickly imparted to the minds of youth. Nor is music less serviceable to the rising generation, for "it both awakens and calms the passions of the breast; it can rouse the soul to deeds of heroic valour, and excite the ardour of devotion." These accomplishments are, indeed, productive of two grand objects; the one is, that they are large, and fruitilize the understanding; the other, that they recreate and invigorate it when satiety has blunted its edge. The former assists us in the acquisition of knowledge during our youth, and the latter renews our application to it in after-life. The more these accomplishments are made objects of attention, and the more they are cultivated by youth, in the same proportion will man become refined, dignified, virtuous, generous, and brave. They are the light of the juvenile world; the spirit by which the soul is fired and actuated to immor VOL. III. C |