Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 025.djvu/198

 1? Jock Johnstonc the Tinkler.

" For the Loid of Ross is my brother, By all the laws of chivalrye ;

And I brought with me a thousand men, To guard him to my own countrye.

" But I thought meet to stay behind, And try your Lordship to waylay ;

Resolved to breed some noble sport, By leading you so far astray.

" Judging it better some lives to spare, Which fancy takes me now and then,

And settle our quarrel hand to hand, Than each with our ten thousand men.

" God send you soon, my Lord Douglas, To Border foray sound and haill ;

But never strike a tinkler again, If he be a Johnstone of Annandale."

Mount Benger, Jan. 8th, 1829.

[Teb.

SKETCHES OF ITALY AND THE ITALIANS, WITH REMARKS ON ANTIQUITIES AND FINK ARTS.

(Continued.)

XI. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ANB MISS HAKT.

1 f Rome is the chosen seat of con- templation and study, Naples is the centre of all worldly and physical gra- tifications. The contrast is striking, and I cannot yet accustom myself to this crowd of thoughtless beings, who seem to exist only for purposes of en- joyment.

Sir William Hamilton, who still resides here as English Ambassador, and who has so long been a worshipper df every thing beautiful in art and nature, has at length discovered the quintessence of nature's works, and, I may add, the perfection of fine art, in a beautiful girl who resides under his roof. She is an Englishwoman, about twenty, with lovely features and a good person. Sir William has had a Greek costume made for her, which displays the symmetry of her fine figure to great advantage. Thus attired, and her unbraided hair stream- ing over her shoulders, she exhibits, with the aid of two shawls, a succes- sive variety of attitudes, looks and ges- tures so novel and striking, that the astonished beholder fancies he is dreaming. This singular exhibition conveys at once, and with wondrous life and variety, all that innumerable

artists have vainly employed the best years of their existence in endeavour- ing to accomplish. Alternately stand- ing, sitting, kneeling, and' reclining, she displays the serious, the sad, the penitent, the gay, the joyous, the bacchanalian, the alluring, the mena- cing, the appalling, and the appalled, in rapid succession ; the various gra- dations of emotion and passion suc- ceeding, or growing out of each other. She understands also how to heighten the effect of each scene by appropriate positions and foldings of her veil, and with a single shawl contrives a hun- dred different head-dresses.

The old knight holds the candles to throw the most favourable lights, and enters with all his heart and soul into the spirit of this novel and classical exhibition. He discovers in the fea- tures of his fair one all the antique heads, all the fine profiles of the Si- cilian coins, nay, even the Belvedere Apollo himself! Whatever he may fancy, for this I pledge myself, that the joke is exquisite and unique.

The friendship of Hamilton and his fair one towards me continues una- bated. I have passed anothet day with