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from the continental excess of gesticulation, and yet a real Caratterista, original and impressive. His voice is deep, flexible, melancholy, as agreeable as it is peculiar. Curioni is the principal lover and offender; and Ambrogetti is very powerful in a veteran, who bullies the king, busies himself in every thing, talks to all, makes a noise for all, and slaps every one on the shoulder. There is one Quartett which is of a very superior order to the general material of the work; if it be not a pirated or contraband article, it indicates that Pacini may hereafter be welcomed in a higher capacity than that of a dealer in second-hand notes. We were glad to hail the substitution of Il Turco in Italia, the delightful medley of the real Rossini-so rich, so laughing, so gay, so animated. We can safely recommend it as a specific against all the blue devils which infest our metropolis.

BONS-MOTS AND EPIGRAMS,

BY CELEBRATED MODERN CHARACTERS.

No. 1.

Ego anditor tantum."-JUVENAL. Sat. 1. 1.

Mr. CANNING, and another gentleman, were looking at a picture of the Deluge; the ark was in the middle distance; in the fore-ground, or, rather, in the fore-sea, an elephant was seen struggling with his fate: "I wonder," said the gentleman, "that the elephant did not secure an inside place in the ark ;"-" He was too late;" replied Canning," he was detained packing up his trunk."

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Mr. Rogers was requested by Lady Holland to ask Sir Philip Francis, whether he was the author of Junius. The poet approached the knight, "Will you, Sir Philip, -will your kindness excuse my addressing to you a single question ?"-" At your peril, sir!" was the harsh. and the laconic answer. The intimidated bard retreated to his friends, who eagerly asked him the result of his application. "I don't know," he answered, "whether he is Junius; but, if he be, it is certainly Junius Brutus.”

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My dear Tom," said the elder Sheridan to his son, "I wish you would take a wife."-"I have no objection, sir; whose wife shall I take?"

A party was very uncharitably discussing Mr. Banks' History of Rome ;-" Really," said Jekyll, "you all appear to be very hyper-critical and censorious; for my part, I like his Rome-better than his company.'

"What must I do," said the Hon. J. W. Ward to Lord Byron, "What must I do, to be re-whigged ?"— "You must first," answered the noble poet, "be re-warded."

ON MR. ROGERS' POEM OF HUMAN LIFE.

Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.

Cries Sam," All human life is frail,

E'en mine may not endure;

So lest it suddenly should fail
I'll hasten to insure."

At Morgan's office he arrives,

Reckoning without his host,

"Avaunt!" exclaims the judge of lives,
"We can't insure a ghost.”

"Zounds! its my poem-not my face;
Listen, while I recite it."

Quoth Morgan-"Try some other place
We, Sir, can't underwrite it."

ON THE HON. J. W. W

BY S. ROGERS.

W—d has no heart they say; but I deny it,
He has a heart-He gets his speeches by it.

"Have you read Pybus's Epistle to the Emperor Paul?" said a gentleman to Rogers. "Yes."-" What do you think of it?" "There is only one good verse in the whole poem." "Which is that?" "Give to St. Petersburgh one Peter More"-and I wish he was there, with all my heart."

In Madame de Stael's novel of Delphine, the authoress is supposed to have designed her own character in the heroine, and that of Talleyrand, in the person of M. de Vernon. Talleyrand was asked, if he had read the novel, "Non, Monsieur, mais j'ai oui dire que nous sommes tous les deux déguisés en femme."

It was observed to the Rev. Sidney Smith, that Lord must have felt himself considerably astonished

at becoming the father of a clever son.

"Yes," replied

the reverend jester," he must have felt, like a hen, that had hatched a duck, and saw it suddenly take water."

THE BRITISH GALLERY.

THAT good pictures do not always attract the attention due to their merits is an observation of which we see the truth in every exhibition of this as well as all other institutions. Perhaps this is no more attributable to a want of discrimination in the visitors, than the neglect of a pale beauty in a throng of painted ones. The eye

is naturally arrested by colours, and that which is to receive its admiration from thence must, for the most part, depend upon its hues, or remain in the shade till time and research have brought its perfections to light. Indeed, so sensible are artists themselves of this hard fate of retiring excellence, that, unless our information deceives us, it has occasionally been the practice of the Royal Academy to re-touch such of their pieces as have been placed in the vicinity of others more vividly coloured; and we have been eye-witnesses of the alteration of many clever performances, which, altogether overlooked in Somerset-house, have only obtained praise when they no longer deserved it by being made worse for the British Gallery.

Amongst those of the present exhibition, whose merits we could have wished to see more fully rewarded, are some admirable efforts of the best contributors. We will only particularize the two Barkers; convinced as we are, that the comparative neglect of these will form no feeble excuse for others, whose excellence has shared

the same fate. The picture of the Boy extracting a thorn from his foot-No. 95, by T. Barker; and the Scene from Nature, 292, by B. Barker, bear the strongest evidence of the abilities of these artists, who in their separate styles are decidedly unsurpassed. The first piece is one of Mr. Barker's most finished productions it has all the taste, simplicity, and breadth of Gainsborough, with a solidity and transparent sobriety of colouring peculiarly belonging to the hand which painted it. There is a pensive sweetness and patient submission in the countenance of the boy; as of one initiated early in the labours of a hard life, to which he is unfitted, but unavoidably destined. There is a nature, a poetical feeling throughout the performance, which places the author in a rank with the inimitable Crabbe; indeed, whatever we see of these kindred geniuses, is but the common thought expressed by different means. Beautiful, however, and faultless as this picture is, it is not, by any means one by which the powers of Mr. Barker may be calculated. The grand characteristics of his mind are strength, rapidity, and versatility; his pencil has the potency of a wizard's wand, and his creations start into life as it were at a single touch.“Black spirits and white spirits, red spirits and grey,” pay him equal obedience; and the pathos of the Mother and Infant perishing in the snow from the cruelty of a hard father, the wildness of the Maniac*, and the fury of the Fighting Horses, form a contrast to the grotesque garb of rustic comedy, in which he appeared with the

* This picture was returned to Mr. B. by the gentleman who first pur. chased it, from his inability to sustain the daily contemplation of such an affecting reality.

The Scene in the Tyrol-No. 245, was painted some years ago, and sold. Mr. B. afterwards bought it himself at the hammer of a celebrated auctioneer, who warranted it a true Morland.

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