We are forry that our answer to OSMOND's offer is unfatisfactory to him. On re confideration he will probably think differently. At all events, we cannot alter the resolution we have formed of not beginning until the whole copy is ready; and to this we are more induced from a recent circumstance, attended with so much vexa tion, disappointment, and extra-expense, as have confirmed us as to the propriety and neceffity of our determination. Many poetical pieces are come to hand. Some will hereafter be inferted. Tranflations from Ovid cannot be admitted. AVERAGE PRICES of CORN from December 10, to December 17. Wheat Rye Barl. Oats Beans s. d.s. d.s. ds. ds. d. London oo 000 000 000 000 COUNTIES upon the COAST. • Effex 55 2 30 623 227 635 0 59 5 00 54 10 00 Suffolk 5 3 32 Cambrid. 47 9 00 521 722 32 9 022 INLAND COUNTIES. 518 130 2 Surry Hertford Middlefex 56 1134 426 026 11 39 10 Norfolk 431 8 Durham 52 8 00 028 523 300 0 1029 7 Northum. 50 5 38 23 923 0280 832 6 Cumberl. 55 0000 6 Weftmor. 56 6 Lancash. 26 1025 840 Derby 59 000 029 55 600 823 642 o Cheshire 53 2 Glouceft. 50 8 00 028 326 944 3 Somerfet. 55 6 00 026 824 641 8 Worcest. Salop 48 135 425 Hereford 47 432 025 47 434 426 823 844 5 Monmou. 52 8 00 8 Devon 026 641 7 Cornwall 57 500 Warwick 426 Wilts 53 400 026 50 4/00 023 822 Berks 55 800 023 25 Oxford 52 100 021 623 Bucks 54 500 024 424 VARIATIONS OF BAROMETER, THERMOMETER, &c. BY THOMAS BLUNT, No. 22, CORNHILL, Mathematical Inftrument Maker to his Majefly, 042 7 Dorfet THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, AND LONDON REVIEW, FOR DECEMBER 1803. JAMES HOUBRACKEN, [WITH A PORTRAIT.] of the art of en It feems to have been a plan of FROM the low fate of the time this accurate and industrious George Verthe, artist lived, his name is become fami, Liar to British Amateurs from the national work the "Heads of Illuftrious Perfons," which, from the above circumftance, was, almoft of neceflity, in a great measure entrusted to his execution. At prefent the ftate of the cafe would be completely reverfed. Were fuch a work now undertaken, it would not require the aid of foreign artists to produce a performance which would and the teft of a comparison with any thing that could be brought forwards in oppofition from any part of the Continent. Public encouragement and the liberality of fuch men as the Boy DELLS, have brought the art to its utmolt perfection, and relieved the country from the difgrace of being obliged to call in foreign aid to execute a work like that we are cele brating. Of the artist now before us little is known. He was born at Dordrecht, the 25th December 1698. His father, Arnold Houbracken, was a native of the fame place, a painter, and died at Amsterdam in the year 1719. Young Houbracken, it may be prefumed, was initiated in his art partly by his father, and his proficiency certainly did credit to his inftructor. He worked, how ever, for fome time with little profit and with lefs celebrity; and he had arrived at the meridian of life before he engaged in that work by which he is best known; a work, notwithstand. ing fome well-founded objections, which will reflect honour on the feveral perfous engaged in it, who proposed to give fets or claffes of eminent men; but his defign was adopted by others, and at length taken out of his hands, who, as Lord Orford obferves, was belt furnished with materials for fuch a work. The perfons who undertook and brought to a conclufion this great national work, were the two Knaptons, encouraged by the vaft fuccefs of the tranflation of Rapin's Hiftory of Eng land. They employed both Vertue and Houbracken, but chiefly the latter, and the publication began in numbers in 1744. The first volume was completed in 1747, and the second in 1752. Lord Orford obferves, that fome of Houbracken's heads were carelessly done, efpecially of the Moderns; and the engraver living in Holland, ignorant of our hiffory, uninquifitive into the authenticity of what was transmitted to him, engraved whatever was fent. "I will mention," he adds, "two inftances; the heads of Carr, Earl of Somerset, and Secretary Thurlow, are not only not genuine, but have not the leat resemblance to the perfons they pretend to reprefent." Mr. Gilpin, in his Effay on Prints fays" Houbracken is a genius, and and has given us, in his collection of Englifh portraits, fome pieces of engraving at leath equal to any thing of the kind. Such are the heads of Hampden, Schom berg, the Earl of Bedford, the Duke of Richmond particularly, and fome others. At the fame time we muft own, that he has. intermixed among his works a great number of bad prints. In his Ggg 2 beft, beft, there is a wonderful union of foftness and freedom. A more elegant and flowing line no artist ever employed." Of the petty habits, manners, family, or domeftic connexions of Houbracken, we have no farther account. He lived to a good old age, and died at Amfterdam in 1780. LEISURE AMUSEMENTS. NUMBER X. "A thing of fhreds and patches." THE practice of common-placing the fenfe of books, once fo prevalent in the literary world, was justly condemned by Dr. Felton, in his very fenfible Differtation on reading the Claffics, as an unneceffary waste of time. It must however be generally allowed, that it is of great utility to keep fome register of the more remarkable paf. fages which we meet with in the courfe of our studies. When the work is in our own poffeffion, this can be done by making a memorandum of the page or chapter in which the remarkable paffage is to be found; and it is only when the book is fcarce, or not our own property, that we must have recourfe to the tedious method of tranfcribing. It is likewife advifable to preferve the remarks which occur to ourselves in the perufal of books. A perfon who reads much, cannot remember long, even the general opinion he has formed of an author's merits, much lefs the train of his reafoning, or the points from which he diflents. To perufe books without making our remarks, is to reap no benefit from their perufal; and not to preferve those remarks, when we can fo easily do it, is certainly not what wisdom dictates. In confonance with thefe fentiments, I have always thought proper to keep a fpecies of literary memorandumbook, in which I infert any anecdote or opinion I may meet with in the courfe of reading or converfation, which I think worthy of prefervation, and which, without taking this method, might be to me irretrievably loft. From this book I have made the following extracts; and offer them for the amusement of those who honour my attempts with perufal. I may perhaps continue them in fome future number, when, as is the cafe at pre HAMLET. fent, I have not leifure to prepare any thing more fubstantial. SIMILITUDES. In D'Ifraeli's "Curiofities of Literature," the following defcription of a butterfly is very juftly commended for its beauty. It is a quotation from P. Commire, a modern Latin poet. "Florem putares nare per liquidum athe ra. "It flies, and feems a flower that floats in air." TRANS. BY D'ISRAELI. Cunningham, in one of his beautifully fimple little Paftorals, has the following ftanza : "Ah! what is't to me that the grass. hopper fings? Or what that the meadows are fair? That, like little flowrets if mounted on wings, The butterflies flaunt it in air." As it is probable that Cunningham never faw the first-mentioned quotation, I confider this as a cafual coincidence. The thought contained in the famous couplets of Denhamn, which, according to Scott in his Critical Essays, have been praifed more than they deserve, bears a ftrong refemblance to fome lines in Cowley. Thus : "O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! not dull; Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full." DENHAM'S COOPER'S HILL, |