the sun--the figure too, the size of life--will, in some measure,
prepare him for this effect, which we confess ourselves at a loss to
describe. Its very grandeur impresses us with awe, and our
afterthought becomes tinged with melancholy from associating the fate
of the illustrious original with the towering cliff,--the vasty
sea,--the dying splendour of the sun, and the specky sail of the guard
ship fluttering in its last light. Yet how delightful is it to reflect
that such effects are within the span of a few square yards of
canvass, and how ennobling is the recollection that genius,
(ill-fostered as it has been in the case of the painter before us)
enables one man to produce such sublime and agreeable impressions on
his fellows. To step from the busy _pavé_ of New Bond-street and its
busy whirl of fashion to this placid meer of reflection is a contrast
almost too severe for some of the puling votaries of London gaiety:
yet the scene teems with deep-souled poetry. Some such feelings as
those so touchingly expressed in Lord Byron's Ode to Napoleon, on his
first exile, flit through the memory:--

Then haste thee to thy sullen isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand
That earth is now as free.

Perhaps we ought not to mention an idea we sometimes entertain--that
our readers may imagine we are partial to Mr. Haydon, and that we pay
an undue share of attention to his works. The truth, however, is that
his pictures always work upon us with greater intensity than those of