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tention, when the studied beauties of fine writing would fail altogether of producing the slightest impression. It is not art, but its real or apparent absence, that lends to Mr. Forsyth's style its chief and prominent attractions-it has all the life and vivacity of high-toned conversation every object is presented to you through a clear and transparent medium that permits you to form an idea of its outline and essential qualities as correct, nearly, as if you actually beheld it;--were we disposed to raise any objection, we should, perhaps, be tempted to say that the composition is too uniformly ambitious and brilliant, and maintains an elevation to which the minds of readers in general, are not always disposed to soar-it may be, that Mr. Forsyth is too constantly splendid-it is possible that he sacrifices a little too much to the desire of dazzling the imagination-and that the web of his diction would be improved were its rich and sparkling materials interwoven with threads of a less gorgeous tint ;—we cannot be always roving on the mountaintops-we love occasionally to descend into the valleys-to repose our wearied limbs, and refresh our exhausted faculties, in the calm and humble shades of their solitary retreats;-Mr. Forsyth was a man of unusually comprehensive and original intellect-habituated to depend upon the dictates of his own judgment—and rarely drawn aside by prejudice or false enthusiasm and this temperament of his mind is evinced in almost every subject upon which he touches. Seldom is it that he leans upon the crutches of another's opinion,-where he has nothing valuable to offer of his own, he is usually silent-and the treasures of others are rarely rendered subsidiary to a mind wealthy even to overflowing in its own resources.-This intellectual independence, it is admitted, makes occasional inroads upon the grace and suavity of the general style-and here and there the self-love of the reader is a little revolted by bursts of disdainful observation, and the splenetic eruptions of a conscious superiority :-but really, when we consider how frequently we are offended by the unbounded and baseless arrogance of modern writers, with all the pride, but none of the pretensions of genius-and turn in disheartening retrospect to the quantity of inane and impertinent trash which is almost diurnally disgorged from the press in every Protean shape of instinctive vanity-we do feel disposed to exercise a more than common patience and lenity towards a writer whose extraordinary claims to our atten

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tion may well be pled in apology for an occasional and involuntary acerbity or even haughtiness of manner.

A short biography of the author is prefixed, from which we shall extract such passages as we think necessary to let our readers into a knowledge of the habits and dispositions of Mr. Forsyth.

Joseph Forsyth was a native of Elgin, in the county of Moray, in Scotland. His parents were respectable-his father was a merchant of long and reputable standing. Joseph was early sent to the grammar school of Elgin, where his progress was so rapid that his master pronounced him, when only twelve years of age, fit for the university. He was accordingly entered at King's College, Aberdeen, and here the superiority of his exercises, and the gentleness of his disposition soon won the attention of his tutor, Professor Ogilvy. "As he successively passed under the care of the professors, he found himself the object of their approbation and solicitude. Returning every summer to the bosom of his family, he devoted his whole time to study, and thus laid the foundation of that eminent knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics, which it was the business and chief pleasure of his life afterwards to complete. On concluding the four years usually employed in the Scotch universities, his parents left to himself the choice of a profession, but with a secret hope that he would prefer the church; his natural diffidence, and the little prospect he then saw of obtaining a patron, determined him on trying to turn his classical acquirements to some account in that universal mart-London." There he entered into an engagement with the master of a respectable academy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis-where for some time he officiated as assistant-but subsequently purchased the establishment

and for thirteen years conducted it "on his own account with the highest reputation and success. The drudgery and irksomeness of this business were too much for his strength and spirits. Having a tendency to pulmonary complaints, he was, during this period, twice reduced by them to the brink of the grave. Seeing the impossibility of struggling longer with such incongruous duties as the care of his health, and the conscientious superintendance of the education of nearly an [a] hundred boarders, he resigned the charge, and retired to Devonshire in the spring of 1801, to recruit his constitution.

The remainder of the memoir we should injure by abbreviation-it embodies the regrets of a relation-and the sacred

name of a brother forbids its curtailment. We give it entire.

"After restoring his health by a residence of some months in Devonshire, he came, in July, 1801, to Elgin, to visit his aged and beloved mother, and remained until autumn. During this interval of 'learned leisure,' his mind was anxiously bent on enjoying the grand object of all the wishes and hopes of his life-a tour through Italy. His intimate acquaintance with the poets and historians of that classic country, both in its ancient and modern state, had already familiarized him with every scene, and almost with every building it contained. But at this period an insuperable barrier was interposed by Buonaparte : :—no Briton might tread with safety the soil over which he bore sway. Thus, in the midst of leisure, renovated health, and easy circumstances, was his ardent imagination left, almost in despair, to languish over his favourite object. It may be easily conceived with what rapture he hailed the unexpected happiness which the peace of Amiens brought to every heart. That event took place on the 1st October, was known at Elgin on the 7th, and Mr. Forsyth was already on his journey to London for Italy on the 12th. He was in France at the celebration of the extravagant and tumultuous festival that took place in honour of that hollow treaty. After spend ing a few weeks in Paris, where he had been twice before, he pushed on to the land of promise, and arrived at Nice on Christmas day, 1801. Here his Remarks' will best enable those who may feel an interest in his progress through life to trace it for the two succeeding years.

"In consequence of the rupture between England and France in 1802, and that cruel and unjust order of Buonaparte to arrest all British subjects travelling in his dominions, Mr. Forsyth was seized by the police, at Turin, on the 25th of May, 1803, while on his return home through Switzerland, and with no intention whatever of entering France. He was carried to Nismes, and found his situation there as pleasant as under restraint it could be. There were soon collected from Italy and the southern provinces of France a great many English at this depôt and, in this early stage of their confinement, a considerable degree of relaxation and indulgence was granted. Feeling themselves unjustly detained, many of the more adventurous made their escape in different directions; and Mr. Forsyth, encouraged by the general practice, withdrew to Marseilles with the inVol III.-No. L

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tention of passing, in an American ship, to Malta and thence to England. Here, however, the broker who negotiated for his passage, sold him to the police; by whom he was arrested when stepping on board, and conveyed, under guard, back to Nismes. For this venial transgression he was visited with a dreadful punishment. In the depth of a most severe winter he was marched from one extremity of France to the other, (a distance of 600 miles,) to that most execrable dungeon, Fort de Bitché. His confinement at first was intolerably strict, but, by degrees, was softened into something more bearable. His mild and gentle demeanor, the extent and variety of his information, and his facility in the French language, at length procured him the notice and esteem of the commandant, who afterwards paid him particular attention. He continued there two years; but in consequence of earnest applications to the French government by some of his friends who had been removed from Bitché to Verdun, he was at last permitted to join them; where he remained five years. The dissipation and riot, in which the English prisoners in general indulged, were so repugnant to his habits and feelings, that he lived almost in solitude. He was well known by the more regular part of his countrymen there, who esteemed him for that fund of intelligence he possessed, and for his benevolence to hundreds of our poor prisoners whose allowances scarcely afforded the means of existence. At this time his most anxious desire, next to the recovery of freedom, was to be permitted to reside in Paris. The easy access to the society of learned Erenchmen, the public institutions, the museums, the National Library, and, above all, the glorious collection in the Louvre, were his excitements. After many fruitless endeavours, he at last accomplished his wish in the spring of 1811, through the influence of a lady in the suite of the king of Holland, then a kind of state prisoner at Paris. His permission was no sooner granted, than he set off for the capital, and found himself established in every respect, except his darling object liberty, to his heart's content. Four months had scarcely elapsed, when an order from government was secretly issued to send off instantly every Englishman from Paris to his respective depôt.

Mr. Forsyth's astonishment and disappointment were extreme when two gend'armes drew aside his curtain at four o'clock in the morning of the 22d July, presented their order, and desired him to

dress immediately and follow them. He waited on two friends, members of the National Institute, who accompanied him to the Minister of Police, and who, by way of special indulgence, gave him two days to prepare for his departure, with the choice of Verdun or Valenciennes as his future residence. He fixed on the latter, and after three years' abode was well pleased with the preference which he had given it. Here he enjoyed the advantage of riding into the country, and even of living, during the summer months, in a cottage several miles from the town. These favours seem to have been conceded from the estimation in which he was held by the commandant, by whom he was appointed one of the five commissioners who superintended the appropriation of the allowances given to the mass of prisoners by the French government, and the patriotic fund at Lloyd's.

"At length the long wished for moment" of deliverance approached. The appearance of the allies on the northeastern frontier of France, in the end of 1813, made it necessary that the English depôts should be removed farther into the interior. They were ordered first to Mons, then to Orleans, and lastly to Blois. At Orleans, on the 6th April, 1814, Mr. Forsyth first heard the welcome news of the allies having entered Paris on the 31st March. His chains were now broken, freedom and home burst upon him with all their endearing force, and for two days he seems to have been almost wild with joy. The first moments of recollection were devoted to his journey to Paris; there he had the satisfaction of finding himself in the midst of the deliverers of Europe, and surrounded by the most extraordinary assemblage of princes, statesmen, and soldiers, that had ever before met on one spot. In May he arrived in England; and after an absence of thirteen years, came to Elgin, in July, to visit his only surviving brother, and the friends of his earliest days. Fearing to encounter the severity of a northern winter, he returned to London in October, and spent that season in a family of a friend in Queen square, Bloomsbury, where every attention that kindness or affection could dictate was paid to his comfort. His time was employed chiefly in the reading-room of the British Museum, and in intercourse with men of letters. In April, 1815, he came down again to Elgin, to establish himself with his brother, and take possession of his extensive collection of books, from which he had been divorced for the last fourteen years. After so long a privation, he seemed almost to devour them by the eagerness of his enjoyment, and his incessant devotion to them. It was, however, evident, that his constitution, originally delicate, had been undermined by the harassing confinement which he had undergone, and that the irritation of so painful a cause of distress to a mind of the greatest susceptibility, had fatally injured the body. His relations observed, particularly in the summer of 1815, a weakness of nerve, and a lassitude of mind that gave them the greatest alarm. With the view of rousing his spirits, and improving his health, by moderate exercise and varied scenery, his brother accompanied him in an excursion through the Highlands of Invernessshire and Argyll to the island of Staffa. The grandeur and sublimity of the objects which present themselves in that tour, and the wonders of Staffa, delighted and interested him exceedingly, and he returned home ap

"Mr. Forsyth's favourite pursuits during his detention seem to have been the classics, Italian poetry, and architecture: but the anxiety which he incessantly felt to be delivered from restraint, absorbed every other consideration, and prevented the application of his mind to any fixed subject, or to composition of any kind. His correspondence at this time shows unwearied applications to his friends at Paris, to the government, and even personally to the emperor, but without any effect. Nor were his friends in Britain less anxious or less zealous in the same good cause; yet, although persons of high rank and influence lent their earnest assistance, no beneficial effect resulted from it. Having seen some of the détenus obtain their release in consequence of appearing before the public in the character of authors-(Buonaparte affecting to be considered the patron and protector of literature)-Mr. Forsyth was induced to prepare the notes he had made while on his tour in Italy, and publish them in England, copies of which were forwarded to the leading members of the National Institute at Paris, with solicitations in his favour by some of the most eminent literary characters in London. Even this last effort for freedom failed, and he never, to his dying day, ceased to regret that it had been made. He considered his 'Remarks' as not sufficiently worthy of himself, put together as they were on the spur of the moment, to attain a particular object, dearer to him than fame itself. Had he imbodied his whole mind, with his ample store of materials, in a period of personal satisfaction and self-possession, his work would have displayed his erudition and talents in a far more favourable

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parently invigorated in body, and cheered in mind. How uncertain is the tenure of any temporal good! This amiable man, and most accomplished scholar, who was now thought to have laid the foundation of better health, was on the very eve of removal to another and a better world! On Friday night, the 17th September, a few days after his return, having spent the evening with more than usual gayety, he was struck speechless and nearly insensible by a fit of apoplexy, in which he lingered till Monday the 20th, and then died, to the irreparable loss of his relations, and the sincere regret of all who had an opportunity of admiring his highly cultivated talents, and the amiable and polished expression of the heart which shone so conspicuously in him."

That an individual of such varied ac

complishments should be thus suddenly arrested in his career, who will not regret? That the results of the last pilgrimage he made in quest of that health, which, alas! he was never to enjoy, should not have been laid before the public, who will not deplore?-Let us be thankful, however, for the exquisite specimen of his pre-eminent talents, of which even the languor of imprisonment and disease have not been capable of depriving us.

After inspecting the (formerly) great museum of Paris, he proceeded to Lyons, and took his passage at Marseilles in a felucca for Nice; but being driven into Toulon, he left the vessel, and crossed overland to Nice-and the few lines he bestows upon this celebrated spot, show, thus early, his peculiar talents for lively and identifying description.

"On Christmas day, 1801, I arrived at Nice, where a soft and balmy air, oranges glowing in every garden, lodgings without a chimney, and beds with mosquito curtains, presented the first signs of Italy."

Hence he proceeded to Genoa, past Noli, where he landed, and crossed over the mountains through Savona, Cogureto, &c. on his way to the former capital of the Ligurian Republic. His description of Doria's palace, and the hospitals of Genoa, are the first examples of that lofty and unshackled spirit to which we have alluded. After noticing the mass of noble mansions, he proceeds

"Prince Doria's palace is detached from the throng and commands attention as an historical monument. Though magnificent when viewed from the bay or the mole, the mansion itself is patched and neglected; the titles of the immortal Andrew, which extended two hundred feet in front, have been

effaced by the late revolution: the gardens are unnaturally pretty; colossal statues rise over cut box; nothing corresponds with the majesty of the site.

loon in Europe. This celebrated object is "The Serra palace boasts the finest sathian, the walls are covered with gold and oval in plan, the elevation a rich Corinlooking glass; the floor consists of a polished mastic stained like oriental breccia. Surfaces so brilliant as these would deaden any pictures, except those of a ceiling, which require a bright reflection from the walls. Here then the ceiling alone is painted, and borrows and lends beauty to the splendour

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laces in magnificence, and seem more than "The hospitals of Genoa vie with its pasufficient for all the disease and misery that should exist in so small a state. They are crowded with honorary statues; but I write only from recollection, and one seldom re

collects things so pompous and so uniform as the effigies of rich men. At the Albergo de Poveri is a sculpture of a higher order, a dead Christ in alto relievo by Michael Angelo. The life and death which he has thrown into this little thing, the breathing tenderness of the Virgin, and the heavenly composure of the corpse, appeared to me beauties foreign to the tremendous genius of the artist. At the hospital of Incurables f found priests and choristers chanting bepious noise would not suffer to die in peace. tween two rows of wretches, whom their The very name of such hospitals, forbidding the patient to hope and the physician to struggle, cuts off at once two sources of re

covery."

From Genoa he proceeded to Pisa ;gray-deserted-silent--and melancholy the rival of Florence possesses but little to attract the curiosity of the traveller.-The famous Leaning Tower, of course, his description of this apparent phenomedrew the attention of Mr. Forsyth; and non, and his striking delineation of the Campo Santo, it would be unjust to with

hold from our readers.

"The Leaning Tower. Here are eight circles of columns supporting arches, which are smaller and more numerous in proportion as you ascend. Such a profusion only betrays that poverty of effect, which must ever result from small columns and a multi

tude of orders.

surprised that two opinions should still exist "As to the obliquity of this tower, I am on its cause. The Observatory in the next street has so far declined from the plumb line as to affect the astronomical calculations of the place. A neighbouring belfry declines to the same side, and both these evidently from a lapse in the soft soil, in which water springs every where at the depth of six feet. This great tower, therefore, leans only from the same cause, and

leans more than they, because it wants the support of contiguous buildings. Many Pisans, however, are of the old opinion. One of their literati took pains to convince me that the German architect contrived this declination, which his Italian successors endeavoured to rectify.

"The Campo Santo. The portico of this vast rectangle is formed by such arcades as we find in Roman architecture. Every arch is round, and every pillar faced with pilasters; but each arcade includes an intersection of small arches rising from slender shafts like the mullions of a Gothic window. This, however, looks like an addition foreign to the original arcades, which were open down to the pavement.

"Such cloistered cemeteries as this were the field where painting first appeared in the dark ages, on emerging from the subterranean cemeteries of Rome. In tracing the rise and genealogy of modern painting, we might begin in the catacombs of the fourth century, and follow the succession of pictures down to those of St. Pontian and Pope Julius; then, passing to the Greek imagemakers of the tenth and eleventh centuries, we should soon arrive at this Campo Santo which exhibits the art growing, through several ages, from the simplicity of indigence to the simplicity of strength.

"Here the immensity of surface to be covered forbade all study of perfection, and only required facility and expedition. The first pictures show us what the artist was when separated from the workman. They betray a thin, timid, ill-fed pencil; they present corpses rather than men, sticks rather than trees, inflexible forms, flat sur, faces, long extremities, raw tints, any thing but nature. As you follow the chronology of the wall, you catch perspective entering into the pictures, deepening the back ground, and then adjusting the groups to the plans. You see the human figure first straight, or rather stretched; then foreshortened, then enlarged: rounded, salient, free, various, expressive. Throughout this sacred ground, painting preserves the austerity of the Tuscan school: she rises sometimes to its energy and movement, she is no where sparing of figures, and has produced much of the sin gular, the terrible, the impressive ;-but nothing that is truly excellent.

"All the subjects are taken from Scripture, the Legends, or Dante; but in depicting the life of a patriarch or a saint, the artists have given us the dress, the furniture, and the humours of their own day. A like anachronism has introduced some portraits of illustrious Tuscans, which are rather forunate in such works as these. But how many anachronisms disfigure the first paintings in Italy! How painful it is to see, in

"A similar progress may be traced in the sculpture called Etruscan, which passed from the meagre style to the round, and from the attitudinarian to the natural.

the finest Nativities and Crucifixions, a St. Francis, or St. Dominic, or the donatore, or the painter himself, or the painter's mistress, looking out of the picture and impudently courting your remark !*

"Some of these frescos have been exposed to the open air for 500 years, and the earliest works are mouldering away from moisture. What pity that a country full of antiquaries and engravers should let such monuments perish without a remembrance! How superior these to the coarse remains of Anglo-Gothic art, which our draughtsmen are condemned to search out for those old mumbling collectors who are for ever picking the bare bone of antiquity!

His observations upon the University of Pisa are also well deserving of attention.

"This University is now reduced to three colleges; yet still allots a chair to each faculty. Many of these, indeed, have lost their old scholastic importance, and left their professors idle; for the students attend only the classes necessary to their future degree.

"Universities being, in general, the institution of monkish times, are richest in objects related to church or state. Divinity and law engrossed the manors of the pious founders, and left little or nothing to the improvement of natural science. In this university, however, physics found the earliest protection: it boasts the first anatomical theatre, and the first botanical garden in Europe; both created before the middle of the sixteenth century. The botanical chair is now admirably filled by the learned and amiable Santi; yet, in general science, Pisa is declined much below the fame of Pavia.

"The library is full of civil and canonical law, polemics, councils, fathers, and me, taphysics; but in science or polite literature I saw nothing very curious or rare. On the classical shelves are some early Italian edi. tions, the remains, I presume, of the Aldine legacy. The Observatory is adjoining, and includes a school for astronomers; but no student intrudes at present on Dr. Slop's repose.

"The lectures were formerly given in Latin from the chair, and were recapitulated in Italian under the portico of the schools; but this stoic exercise, and the Latin, are both fallen into disuse. That censorial discipline which once expelled members

"This practice was ancient: Pliny reprobates Arellius for introducing his mistresses into sacred pictures.

"This climate, however, is favourable even to the materials of art. The outside marble of the Duomo has, in seven hundred years, contracted very little of the lichen, which would blacken an English tombstone in fifty. The bronze door of 1184, is not yet corroded with patina. The iron griffons of the Strozzi palace, wrought in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, are still as sharp as when they came from Ca parra's smithy.

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