THE BIRTHPLACE OF CANOVA.-At sunset I found myself on the summit of a crest of rocks; it was the last of the Alps. At my feet stretched Venetia, immense and dazzling by its light and its vast extent. I had emerged from the mountains, but towards what point of my course? Between the plain and the peak from which I gazed, stretched a fine oval valley, protected on one side by the sides of the Alps; on the other, raised on a terrace above the plain, and sheltered from the sea winds by a rampart of green hills. Directly beneath me was a vil-ment of a beautiful destiny? lage, planted on the declivity in picturesque disorder. This poor hamlet is crowned with a vast and beautiful temple of marble, quite new, of dazzling whiteness, and seated with a proud air on the top of the hill. I do not know what was the exact idea personified, that this monument at the time struck me with. It seemed to have the air of contemplating Italy, spread before it like a map, and from that point commanding it.

the vegetation, the beauty of the human form in this part of the Alps, and the magnificence of the far-off views which the valley commands from all parts, seem made expressly to nourish the loftiest faculties of the soul, and to excite the most noble ambitions. This kind of terrestrial Paradise, where intellectual youth can bloom with all its spring sap about it; this immense horizon, which seems to appeal to the present, and to summon up thoughts of the future; are not these the two chief conditions for the fulfil

The life of Canova was fertile and generous as the sun which shone over his birthplace. Sincere and simple as a true mountaineer, he always regarded with a tender affection the village and the poor cot in which he was born. He had it very modestly embellished, and he went to rest there in the autumn of his annual labors. He then delighted himself with designing the Herculean forms of the peasants, and the truly Grecian heads of the girls. The vil lagers of Possagno say, with pride, that the chief models of the rich collection of the works of Canova have come from their valley. It is enough to pass through it, to detect there at each step the type of the cold beauty which characterizes the statuary of the empire. The chief attraction of these mountain

A workman who was quarrying in the marble of the same hill, told me that that church, of Pagan form, was the work of Canova, and that the village of Possagno, seated at its foot, was the birthplace of this great sculptor of modern times. "Canova was the son of an old quarryman," added the mountaineer," he was originally a poor laborer like my-girls-and precisely that which the marble cannot

self."

marine. Canova particularly loved the delicious softness of their fair hair, abundant and heavy. He painted them himself, before copying them, and disposed of their tresses according to the various forms of the Grecian statue.

reproduce is their freshness of color and transpaHow often has Canova seated himself on that rency of skin. It is to these that can be applied, rock, where he himself reared a temple to his own without exaggeration, the eternal metaphor of lilies memory! What looks has he cast on that Italy and roses. Their eyes have an exceeding clearwhich has decreed him so many trophies! on that ness, and an uncertain shade, at once green and world over which he has exercised the peaceful roy-blue, which is peculiar to the stone called aquaalty of his genius, by the side of the terrible royalty of Napoleon! Did he desire-did he hope for his glory? When he had cut out and cleared away a part of this rock, did he know that from that hand, accustomed to rude work, should proceed all the gods of Olympus, and all the kings of the earth? Could he divine this new race of sovereigns who were to come to light and seek immortality from his chisel? When he had the eyes of the youth, and perhaps of the lover, for the beautiful mountain girls of his valley, could he imagine such a thing as the Princess Borghese in nature's own dress before him?

The valley of Possagno has the form of a cradle; it seems made for the birthplace of the man who issued from it. It is worthy of having served as such for a genius; and one can conceive the sublimity of intelligence unfolding itself with ease in a country so beautiful and under a sky so pure. The clearness of the streams, the warmth of the sun, the strength of

The girls have generally an expression of sweetness and naïveté, which, reproduced with finer lineaments and more delicate forms, have been able to inspire Canova with the delicious head of Psyche. The men have the colossal head, the prominent forehead, hair thick and fair-eyes large, lively, and bold-the face short and square; nothing thoughtful nor delicate in the physiognomy, but with a frankness and boldness which recall the expression of the antique statues.

The Temple of Canova is an exact copy of the Pantheon of Rome. It is of beautiful white marble, traversed by red and rose-colored veins, but soft and already mouldering by the frost. Canova, with a philanthropic aim, had erected this church with

trembling, in a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet-st.-appeared in all the glory of print; on which occasion, by-the-by-how well I recollect it!-I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there. I told my visitor of the coincidence, which we both hailed as a good omen, and so fell to business. The idea propounded to me was, that the monthly something should be made a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour, and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable humorous artist, or of my visitor (I forget which), that a "Nimrod Club," the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing these.

the view of attracting a concourse of strangers and travellers to Possagno, and thus procuring some additional trade and income to the inhabitants of the mountain. He intended to make it a kind of museum of his works. The body of the church was to be surrounded by sacred subjects, the product of his chisel, and the galleries were to be devoted partly to the reception of profane subjects. He died before he was able to accomplish his purpose, leaving considerable sums behind for the completion of the work. | But although his own brother, the Bishop Canova, was charged with the superintendence of the building, a sordid economy or a monstrous bad faith has presided over the execution of the last wishes of the sculptor. Excepting the fabric of marble, on which there was no further time to speculate, his executors have most sordidly attended to the necessity of filling it. In place of the twelve colossal marble statues which were to occupy the dozen niches of the cupola, I objected, on consideration, that, although born there are erected twelve grotesque giants, which an and partly bred in the country, I was no great able painter has ironically designed, it is said, to sportsman, except in regard of all kinds of locomorevenge himself on the sordid shuffling of the direction; that the idea was not novel, and had been altors of the undertaking. Very little of the sculpture ready much used; that it would be infinitely better of Canova adorns the interior of the monument. for the plates to arise naturally out of the text; and Some bas-reliefs of small size, but of a most pure that I should like to take my own way, with a freer and elegant design, are incrusted round the chapel. range of English scenes and people, and was afraid You have seen them at the Academy of the Fine I should ultimately do so in any case, whatever Arts at Venice, and regarded them with admiration. course I might prescribe to myself at starting. My You have seen there, also, the group of Christ in the views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, tombs, which certainly embodies the coldest of Ca- and wrote the first number, from the proof-sheets of nova's ideas. The bronze of this group is in the which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club, Temple of Possagno, as also the tomb which con- and that happy portrait of its founder, by which he tains the mortal remains of the sculptor; it is a is always recognised, and which may be said to Greek sarcophagus, very simple, and very beautiful, have made him a reality. I connected Mr. Pickexecuted after his own designs. wick with a Club, because of the original suggestion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour.

Another group of Christ in his shroud, painted in oil, decorates the high altar. Canova, the most modest of sculptors, had pretensions to being a painter. He passed many years in retouching this picture, happily the sole child of his old age, and which, through affection for his virtues and respect for his glory, his heirs ought sacredly to preserve amongst them and enshrine in their tenderest regards. -George Sand.

I

We started with a number of 24 pages instead of 32, and four illustrations in lieu of a couple. Mr. Seymour's sudden and lamented death before a second number was published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in agitation; the number became one of 32 pages, with 2 illustrations, and remained so to the end. My friends told me it was a low, cheap form of publication, by which I should ruin all my rising hopes; and how right my friends turned out to be everybody now Boz," my signature in the Morning Chro nicle, appended to the monthly cover of this book, and retained long afterwards, was the nickname of my pet child, a younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honor of the Vicar of Wakefield, which being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and being shortened, became Boz. "Boz" was a familiar household word to me long before I was an author, and so I came to adopt it."

knows.

PICKWICK, BOZ, AND OTHER MATTERS." In the course of the last dozen years," says Mr. Dickens, in the preface to the new edition of his works, "I have seen various accounts of the origin of these Pickwick Papers, which have, at all events, possessed for me the charm of perfect novelty. As I may infer, from the occasional appearance of such histories, that my readers have an interest in the matter, I will relate how they came into existence. was a young man of three-and-twenty, when the present publishers, attracted by some pieces I was at that time writing in the Morning Chronicle newspaper (of which one series had lately been collected LITERARY PROVISION.-Mr. Albany Fonblanque and published, in two volumes, illustrated by my es- is to succeed Mr. Porter in the Statistical departteemed friend, Mr. George Cruikshank), waited ment of the Board of Trade. The whole liberal upon me to propose a something that should be pub-party will feel grateful to Ministers for this recognilished in shilling numbers; then only known to me, or, I believe, to anybody else, by a dim recollection of certain interminable novels in that form, which used, some five-and-twenty years ago, to be carried about the country by pedlars, and over some of which I remember to have shed innumerable tears before I served my apprenticeship to life.

When I opened my door in Furnival's Inn to the managing partner who represented the firm, I recognised in him the person from whose hands I had bought, two or three years previously, and whom I had never seen before or since, the first copy of the magazine in which my first effusion-dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and

tion of services to which that party is so deeply indebted. It would not be easy to name any single agency through which liberal principles have been so successfully recommended to the educated classes as they have been through the writings of Mr. Fonblanque. Nor is this so much the effect of that exquisite style which will place his collected writings amongst the classics of our language, as it is owing to the unswerving consistency, the integrity, and manliness which have characterized the career of the conductor of The Examiner. We heartily join in thanking Lord John Russell for this acknowledgment, inadequate though we may think it, to one to whom we all owe so much.-Morning Chronicle.

AFFECTATION.-Amongst the whole number of Rochefoucauld's "Maximes," there is none more constantly verified by what we see in every-day life than this one-" On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualités que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir."["People are never so ridiculous in consequence of qualities they really possess, as of those which they affect to have."] If a thorough conviction of the truth of this maxim could by any means be Again, take the tone of voice and accent as an impressed on every one to whom it is applicable, example. If anything will sicken and disgust a it would go a good way towards revolutionizing the man, it is the affected, mincing way in which some manners of half the population. But those to whom people choose to talk. It is perfectly nauseous. If it is most applicable, are precisely those unthinking those young jackanapes, who screw their words persons on whom all reasoning would be utterly into all manner of diabolical shapes, could only feel wasted. There are, however, a very large number how perfectly disgusting they were, it might induce who have sense enough to see the truth, if they can them to drop it. With many it soon becomes such only be induced to pay attention to it, and whose a confirmed habit, that they cannot again be taught tendency to affected habits would be easily checked, to talk in a plain, straightforward, manly way. In if they could be made to see them in the same light the lower order of ladies' boarding-schools, and inas others do. Of the motives which regulate our or- deed too much everywhere, the same sickening dinary life, there is none greater than the desire of mincing tone is often found. Some specimens I our neighbor's respect, or fear of his ridicule. have heard, which make me feel sick even to think Wounded vanity or diminished self-respect is the of them. Do, pray, good people, talk in your nabitterest and most unforgiving enemy you can raise tural tone, if you don't wish to be utterly ridiculous up. A man may know that you hate him, and yet and contemptible; for there is nothing which more become your friend afterwards; but if he knows inevitably marks a coxcomb and a fool than this that you despise him, he is, and will be, your enemy same sentimental mealy-mouthedness. They fancy for life. Now, of all the defects and infirmities un- that it is "aristocratic!" I have not the entrée at der which a person labors from natural causes, or Devonshire House myself, but I would refer the others over which he has had no control, there is men to the Houses of Lords and Commons, and the none which brings the person into contempt. ladies to our Queen, believing in neither will they Sometimes, it is true, children and others may find any precedent for their fooleries. All travellaugh at some of those mistakes or accidents occa- lers amongst the native Indians of America remark sioned by these things-as, for instance, at a deaf the gracefulness and dignity which characterize person's making an irrelevant answer to a question, their actions. There is no reason why ours should &c.; but this is unaccompanied by the slightest par- not be the same. Only be natural, and you avoid ticle of disrespect. But if the individual having most of what is ungraceful; and by being content these imperfections endeavors foolishly to conceal with your own natural character and appearance, them, they become forthwith objects of ridicule. you will certainly escape that contemptuous ridicule Now, nobody would attempt this concealment, unless which invariably falls on every species of Affectahe imagined that he was gaining in respect by it; tion.- Chambers's Journal. whereas the natural imperfections would never have raised a sneer, whilst the attempts at hiding them are just what people laugh at. But the great Carr was in Glasgow, about the year 1807, he was mass of the affected have no such excuse as the de- asked by the magistrates to give his advice concernsire to cover over natural defects. These are gene-ing the inscription to be placed on Nelson's monurally purely gratuitous attempts to make one's-self ment, then just completed. The travelling knight look very grand, or very handsome, or very wise: whilst every bystander is exclaiming, "What an ass that fellow is making of himself!" It is really astonishing how quickly everything like showing off is detected. Insolent and vulgar people take a wicked pleasure in mortifying all such affected persons to their faces (and really sometimes they deserve THE WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. it); whilst better-mannered spectators are quietly The following table relative to the wars between laughing" in their sleeve." Let us take a few England and France, and the periods of their duraexamples in illustration. Perhaps one of the most tion, since the war which commenced in 1116 and frequent, though trifling causes of people making lasted two years, will be read with interest:themselves ridiculous, is dress. Now, I have often

recommended this brief record-"Glasgow to Nelson." "True," said one of the bailies, "and as there is the town of Nelson near us, we might add, Glasgow to Nelson ix. miles,' so that the column might serve both for a milestone and a monument."

1557 lasted 2 years