is a sort of courtesy and law of combat here, as well as in more deadly encounters. You are not to strike an enemy on the ground, and never below the waist; you are to desist the instant he gives out; there are never to be two against one; and other rules, which soften the brutality of the art, and give to the very lowest, in their violence, some sort of generosity and honourable feelings. When two men are disposed to come to blows, nobody thinks of preventing them; but the populace make a ring, and see fair play. I was conducted a few days ago to Jackson's, a professor of pugilism, who keeps a school for the fashionables of London. He is the finest figure of a man I ever saw; all muscle; I could not clasp with my two hands the upper part of his arm, when the biceps was swollen by the contraction of the limb. This art has, like all others, its technical language. It is said of a pugilist that he is game, or has bottom, when he possesses in a high degree passive courage or fortitude; which consists in bearing blows and wounds, attended with the most dreadful sufferings, without flinching or yielding, as long as there is breath. A nose beaten flat, an eye out of its socket,-broken ribs,-the skin and flesh torn and streaming with blood, and still to stand and make head, shews a man to be game.* Game is literally sport, and jest; therefore this is understanding a jest! It is worth remarking, that these pugilists are obliged to live regularly, and with sobriety; and that, before a great battle particularly,

* Gymnastic games, requiring strength and constancy, the possession of these qualities is expressed by the word game, which becomes an adjective; and a tried cock, dog, or man, is game. Therefore, although game literally is play and sport, it is here a very serious thing.

126 LONDON-PUGILISM-EXHIBITION OF PICTURES.

they spend several weeks in preparations, called training, abstaining from all strong liquors, even beer, and practising continually, but without excess. The windows of print shops are decorated with engraved full length portraits of the favourites of the pugilistic art, in learned attitudes, and in uniform, that is to say, naked; displaying their well-formed limbs, the fine entrelacement of their muscles, and the graces of strength. For such is. the versatility of grace, that it is equally discernible in the exertion or the repose of manly strength, the restless impotence and awkwardness of childhood, and the fearful modesty of a young beauty. It might be difficult, however, to make Hercules sleep gracefully, or a delicate nymph wield his club; and grace may probably be said to consist in the temperate and characteristic exercise of natural and peculiar qualities.

I remember to have seen on the stage in France two English pugilists introduced. They set to very amicably; one of them receives such a good hit on the mouth, that he stops (which shews our ignorance of the art, for boxers would not stop for such a trifle,) to spit out half a dozen teeth, one after the other, and between each time turning to his friend, with a look of lively and sincere congratulation, exclaims, ah! le beau coup de poing!

The great annual exhibition of pictures in Somerset House is opened, and we are just returned from it. I own I did not expect so much mediocrity. I recollect an immense picture of Mr. Fuseli, about Hercules, Theseus, and Pluto, and every thing that is bad in drawing, colouring, composition, and taste. Mr. Copley has furnished another colossal production, the Prince of Wales on horseback, certainly not good. Mr. West's is not better.

LONDON-EXHIBITION OF PICTURES.

127

Portraits swarm, and this uninteresting branch of the art is the best here. We saw several delightful portraits by Owen and Phillips, and a good miniature by Mr. Robertson. A good landscape by Loutherbourg. We were in hopes of seeing something of Mr. Wilkie; but he has quarrelled with this establishment, and there is nothing of his. Cossé has a very pretty picture, representing boys returning from school, not equal, however, to his "Asking in Marriage" at the other exhibition. There is here a mixture of water-colours and oil-paintings which has a paltry appearance. The English do not deceive themselves as to the state of the art in their country, and do not speak of the exhibition more favourably than I do. They seem to wish to see the fine arts flourish among them, and are disposed to give every encouragement, but they do not pretend to have acquired much excellence, nor indeed to attach any exaggerated importance to the thing. It is, after all, a mere ornament of the great social fabric; the solid and majestic style of its architecture does not absolutely require it. The most curious thing we saw there was young Betty, the infant Roscius, whose premature reputation filled England some years ago;-not his picture, but himself. He is a great calf; ill made,-knock-kneed,-a pretty face, fresh, round, and rosy, without expression, or any perceivable trace of sentiment or genius. I suspect there must have been much exaggeration in the fashionable enthusiasm displayed on the occasion, as well as a great fund of bad taste. The cleverest child that ever was can at best mimic passions which he never felt; and at the height of your fallacious raptures, his face and figure, merely, afford you irrefragable proofs that you are the dupe

of a shallow counterfeit and perfect mystification of sentiment.

The military asylum at Chelsea is a very fine establishment for orphan children of soldiers who have lost their lives in the service of their country. This edifice is remarkable for the noble simplicity of the architecture, which is, however, the least merit of the establishment. Seven or eight hundred male children, and half that number of girls, all looking clean and healthy, are brought up here by Lancaster's method. The kitchen is à la Rumford. The whole work of the house is done by themselves, and the current expense but little, compared to the utility. The building itself cost L. 80,000 sterling. We saw the boys go through their exercises with great precision and activity; the young officers, wholly promoted by merit, seemed very proud of their situation:-the general in chief was an old soldier. Although brought up militarily, these boys are allowed at a certain age to choose another profession,-but they generally choose the military. This establishment does honour to the Duke of York, its founder.

May 6.-I have just seen the originals of which Matthews gave us a faithful copy a few days ago, in Hit or Miss,-the very barouche club; the gentlemen-coachmen, with half-a-dozen great coats about them,--immense capes, a large nosegay at the button-hole,-high mounted on an elevated seat, with squared elbows,-a prodigious whip, -beautiful horses, four in hand, drive in a file to Salt-hill, a place about twenty miles from London, and return, stopping in the way at the several public-houses and gin-shops where stage-coachmen are in the habit of stopping for a dram, and for parcels and passengers; the whole in strict imita

LONDON-STAGE-COACHES.

129

tion of their masters, and making use, as much as they can, of their energetic professional idiom. All this is, no doubt, very ingenious and amusing. But let these gentlemen remember, that the lowering of the superior classes, the fashionable imitation of the vulgar, by people of superior rank in France, under the name of Anglo-mania, was one of the things that contributed to bring about the revolution. The influence of rank owes much to the delusion of distance, and should not be brought too near the vulgar eye.

Some English stage-coaches are made like a vessel, and carry all their passengers inside. I have counted on the top of others as many as seventeen persons. These carriages are not suspended, but rest on steel springs, of a flattened oval shape, less easy than the old mode of leathern braces on springs. The consequence of this accumulation of weight on the top is, a dangerous tendency to overturn. If a double tier of passengers is necessary, the lower should at least be very near the ground. This has been in part attended to, for some of these stage coaches carry their baggage below the level of the axletree.

I have again seen Mrs. Siddons twice; in Henry VIII. and in Macbeth, two tragedies of Shakespeare. Henry VIII. is a good easy sort of a tyrant, who suffers himself to be grossly imposed upon by his minister, and knows nothing of what is going on in the state, till his queen brings him word, telling him about certain commissions, and taxations, and exactions, which are on the point of producing an insurrection. The good man turns in anger to his minister, Cardinal Wolsey, another simple character, who excuses himself by