deep sounding bell was tolled, no fearful silence held. It seemed a period of mirth and joy, instead of weeping and bewailing, the followers jumped and sported as they passed along, and talked and laughed with other in high festivity. The procession was closed each by five robust negro fishermen, who followed behind playing antic gambles, and dancing all the way to the grave.

At the gate of the burying ground the corpse was taken from the hearse, and borne by eight negroes, not upon their shoulders, but upon four clean whitenapkins placed under the coffin. The body was committed to the grave immediately on reaching it, without prayer or ceremony, and the coffin directly covered with earth: In doing this, much decent attention was observed; the mould was not shovelled in roughly with the spade, almost disturbing the dead with the rattling of stones and bones upon the coffin, but was first put into a basket, and then carefully emptied into the grave; an observance which might be adopted in England, very much to the comfort of the afflicted friends of the deceased.

During this process an old negro woman chanted an African air, and the multitude joined her in the chorus: It was not in the strain of a hymn, or so lemn requiem, but was loud and lively, in unison with the other gaities of the occasion.

Many were laughing and sporting the whole time with the fishermen, who danced and gambolled during the ceremony, upon the neighbouring graves. From the moment the coffin was committed to the

earth, nothing of order was maintained by the party. The attendants dispersed in various directions, retiring, or remaining, during the filling up of the grave, as inclination seemed to lead.

When the whole of the earth was replaced, several of the women who had staid to chant, in merry song over poor Jenny's clay, took up a handful of the mould, and threw it down again upon the grave of their departed friend, as the finishing of the ceremony; crying aloud "God bless you, Jenny! good by! remember me to all friends t'other side of the sea, Jenny! tell 'em me come soon! good-by Jenny, good-by! see for send me good-to night Jenny, good-by, good night, Jenny, good-by!" All this was uttered in mirth and laughter, and accompanied with attitudes and gesticulations expressive of any thing but sorrow or sadness,

From the grave-digger we learned, that poor Jenny had been a washerwoman, and that the females who had so merrily sounded her requiem, had been her sud associates. They had full faith in Jenny's transmigration to meet her friends, at her place of nativity; and their persuasion that death was only a removal from their present to their former home-a mere change from a state of slavery to a state of freedom did not barely alleviate, but wholly prevented, the natural grief and affliction arising from the loss of a friend. They confidently expected to hear from poor Jenny, or to know her influence in the way they most desired, before morning.

ON THE WANT OF PATRONAGE TO BRITISH ARTISTS,

In better times, ere pride had yet suppress'd,
The generous love of country in the breast;
Ere philosophic lights had clearly shewn,
'Tis vulgar prejudice prefers our own;
That pure benevolence impartial glows,
Alike for Albion's, and for Afric's woes;
High scars on philanthropic flight refin'd,
In birds eye view embracing all mankind;
In better times when better feelings rul'd,
The patriot kindled, ere the critic cool'd;
Though candour freely spoke, yet kindness chear'd,,
And fann'd the embers while a spark appear'd;

In wit or war, whate'er the field of fame,
Each honest heart upheld his country's claim,
And deem'd with equal wound the treason harms,.
That stabs her arts, or counteracts her arms.
But now those narrow local views unknown,
We learn to prize all countries but our own;
Find wit, and art, and taste, and genius given,
To every happy nation under heaven,
Save just at home! there nature's bounty fails,
And critic pride o'er patriot worth prevails;
O, dead to shame, to life's best feelings lost!
Whose taste can triumph at his country's cost..
Painting, dejected, views a vulgar band,
From every haunt of dulness in the land;
In heathen homage to her shrine repair..
And immolate all living merit there.

THOUGH painting is evidently a subject less within the grasp of the unpractised amateur, than perhaps any other object of criticism, yet there is no topic

upon which the ignorant are less reserved, or the superficial more confident.

The objects of art are supposed to be familiar to every eye. The forms of animals, the effects of light and shade, the varieties of colour, the characteristics of passion, offer themselves on every side to our contemplation; and no man willingly admits his eyes around him through life, and yet observes nothing. We find also, that what is supposed to be received from nature, is more subject of vanity than that which we bestow upon ourselves, we may perhaps, be content to be thought deficient, in those things which depend upon our own exertions, but do not like to be ranked amongst nature's neglected children, to be supposed ungraeed with those qualities by which she usually distinguishes her favourites. Thus, he whose vanity never affects the praise of learning, does not so easily resign his pretensions to taste; he may admit that he has little wealth of his own acquiring, but he puts in his claim to that which he considers his inheritance: Hence it is, that all descriptions of people would be thought critics in painting, and that the professor encounters in all societies, with those who unceremoniously contend with him in his proper province, and seem as little disposed to respect his judgment, as to encourage his skill. Dissent, indeed, may be hazarded with impunity, where an ipse dixit decides; and there is no great fear of conviction before a tribunal, the competence of which, it seems the privilege and boast of criticism to question.

To study an art systematically, to trace it by long and laborious efforts from its rudiments to it refinements, has been generally considered the most effectual means of acquiring not only skill but judgment; indeed a plain understanding would suppose that the former included the latter; and that the same process which improved the one, must necessarily refine the other. In the pursuits of taste, however, this opinion has been often doubted; and with respect to painting in particular, it is now unreservedly denied. Lookers-on, we are gravely told, know more of the game than those who play it; and strange to say! the judges of art are not to be found amongst those who devote to it their lives, but those who bestow upon it their leisure! not amongst those who pursue it as an amusement! What the dull artist cannot hope to obtain by years of assiduous application, divided between the study of art, and the contemplation of nature, the enlightened critic receives by inspiration, acquires without an effort-by lounging a few idle mornings in an auction room-poaching in Pliny and Pausanius, for classic scraps, that he may

"With learning lard the leanness of his sense,"

or by a pop visit to the Louvre and the Vatican. The moment

"Some demon whispers-Strephon have a taste;

all the mysteries of art are unfolded to his view, he falls in love at first sight with the old masters:

"Insanit veteres tabulas Damasippus emendo."