in Cambridgeshire, was accompanied by some improper | was embalmed, for which operation Edward Phillips, and unfair conduct towards the vendor, Sir John apothecary, received 407. 4s. 8d. The bowels were buried Skynner, one of whose letters we have already quoted. in the church of the parish where Sutton died; but the This report was legally investigated, with the conclusion body, enclosed in a leaden coffin, remained at his residence (proofs of which yet remain) that the whole affair had been until the roads were in a fit state to admit of the funeral conducted with that integrity and honour which distin- procession. On the 28th of May, 1612, the interment guished all Mr. Sutton's dealings. This man, Harring- took place with great pomp, under the direction of Mr. ton, also basely endeavoured to secure Sutton's fortune Camden, Clarencieux king-at-arms, in Christ Church, to the Duke of York, in order to make his own court to where the body remained till the chapel at the CharterJames I. He holds out the bait of a peerage for such a House could be prepared to receive it. This ceremony legacy, but Sutton, with characteristic honesty and was attended by persons of the highest rank, together courage, addresses the following letter to the Lord Chan- with a long train of knights and gentlemen. It is cellor Ellesmere, and to the Lord Treasurer Salisbury: stated that no less than six thousand persons followed May it please your lordships, I understand that his majesty the corpse, and that the procession occupied six hours in is possessed by Sir John Harrington, or by some other by moving from the house of Dr. Lawes, in Paternoster his means, that I intend to make his highness's son, the Duke Row, to Christ Church. On the 12th of December, of Yorke, my heire; whereupon, as it is reported, his high- 1614, the anniversary of Mr. Sutton's death, the body ness proposeth to bestowe the honour of a baron on me, was removed on the shoulders of his poor pensioners, whereof as I am most unworthy, so I vowe to God and and finally deposited in a vault on the north side of the your lordships, I never harboured the least thought, or proude chapel at the Charter-House, under the tomb erected desire of any such matter. My mynde, in my younger times, hath been ever free from ambition, and now I am to his memory by Mr. Nicholas Stone. going to my grave, to gape for such a thing were mere dotage in me, so unworthie allso, as I confess unto your lordships; that this knight hath been often tampering with me to that purpose, to enterteyne honour, and to make the noble duke my heire is true, to whom I made that answer, as had he either witte or honestie, (with reverence to your lordships be it spoken,) he never would have engaged himself in this business so egregiously to delude his majesty and wrong me. My humble suit unto your lordships is, that, considering this occasion hath brought me into question and in hazard of his highness's displeasure, having never given Sir John Harrington, nor any man lyvinge, either promise or semblance to do any such act, but upon his motions grew into utter dislike with him for such idle speeche, your lordships will vouchsafe me this favour to informe his highnesse aright howe things have proceeded directly without my privitie; and withall that my trust is in his gracious disposition, not to conceite the worst of me for other men's follies; but that I may have free liberty with his princely leave, wherein I rest most assured, to dispose of myne owne, as other his majesties loyal subjects. And so most humbly recommending my dutie and service to your lordships, for the increase of whose honours and happiness I shall ever pray, I rest, your lordships' poor beadsman, THOMAS SUTTON. On the 17th of June, 1602, Sutton sustained the loss of the most precious of all earthly treasures-a faithful and affectionate wife. This lady left a character for superior sense and discretion. She is described as a person devotedly attentive to the duties of her station, and whose charities were so conspicuous that her house appeared "like an open hospital." In a letter to her husband, written about a month before her death, she says: There is in all of the wheate dressed xv. quters 3 bushells since you went, and now they are about yor. best wheate: good Mr. Sutton, I beseeche you remember the firste for the poore folkes, and God will reward you. After her death Mr. Sutton reformed his house, and "became frugal that he might be the more magnificent to many." When Mr. Sutton had finally determined on the situation of his charity, he began in earnest to secure it by those legal barriers which have proved its safe-guard, even to the present time. That he had some expense as well as trouble in effecting this part of his intentions there are existing documents to prove; and he had no sooner taken possession, when the Lady Berckley solicited permission to reside in the Charter-House during the summer of 1611, and to bring with her ten servants, stating as a reason for this request that her house in Barbican was too close and unhealthy for the season. The benevolent intentions of Sutton with respect to the Charter-House had scarcely been carried into effect, when this worthy man received his final summons. He died at Hackney, at the age of seventy-nine, and in accordance with the manners of the times his body THAT man must daily wiser grow, Are pride and self-importance checked.-GAY. This ancient site appears to correspond to the Sinna of Ptolemy, and the Sina or Sinna of Assemanni, which was a Chaldean metropolis situated between Edessa and Amida. The crosses sculptured upon the portals of the tombs, and the architecture of the churches, attested that it had been a Christian city.—AINSWORTH's Researches in Asia Minor, SPARE MINUTES. RESOLVED MEDITATIONS AND PREMEDITATED RESOLUTIONS. WHEN a storm drives me to shelter me under a tree, I find that if the storm be little, the tree defends me; but if the storm be great the tree not only not defends me, but poureth on me that wet which itself had received, and so maketh me much wetter. Hence instructed, I resolve that if improvidently I fall into some small danger of the laws, I will presume to seek shelter under the arm of some potent friend; but if the tempest of my trouble be too potent for my friend, I will rather bear all myself, than involve my friend in the danger. It would be bad enough for me to be drenched with, or distressed by the storm of the law's anger only: it would be worse to be drowned with the anger of my storming friend also. My conscience of my ill-deserving towards the laws would enforce a patience; my remembrance of my well-deserving to my friend would make the just addition of his anger intolerable. CONTENT is the mark we all aim at, the chief good and top of felicity, to which all men's actions strive to ascend: but it is solely proper to God's wisdom to engross all true content into his own hand, that he may sell it to saints by retail, and enforce all men to buy it of him, or want it. Hence is it, that a godly man, in his mean estate, enjoys more content in God than a king or emperor in his earthly glory and magnificence. I will then strive to purchase me a patent of content from him that hath the monopoly thereof; and then, if I have little in estate, I shall have much in content; godliness shall be my great riches, whilst I am contented with what I have. POPULAR applause, and vulgar opinion, may blow up and mount upward the bubble of a vain-glorious mind, till it burst in the air, and vanish; but a wise man builds his glory on the strong foundation of virtue, without expecting or respecting the slender props of vulgar opinion. I will not neglect what every one thinks of me; for that were impudent dissoluteness. I will not make it my common care to hearken how I am cared for of the common sort, and be over-solicitous what every one speaks of me; for that were a toilsome vanity. I may do well and hear ill, and that's a kingly happiness: I may do ill and hear well, and that's an hypocrite's best felicity. My actions shall make me harmony in my heart's inner chamber: I will not borrow the voices of the vulgar to sweeten my music. WHEN I see the husbandman well contented with the cold of frost and snow in the winter, because though it chilleth the ground, yet it killeth the charlock; though it check the wheat somewhat in growing, yet it choketh the weeds from growing at all; why should I be moved at the winter of affliction? Why vexed at the quaking fit of a quartan ague? Why offended at the cold change of affection in my summer friends? If as they seem bitter to my mind and body, they prove healthful to my bettered soul: if my wants kill my wantonness, my poverty check my pride, my disrespected slighting quell my ambition and vain-glory, and every weed of vice being thus choked by affliction's winter, my soul may grow fruitful for heaven's harvest; let my winter be bitter, so that I be gathered with the good corn at reaping time into the Lord's barn. in September, the beginning of winter, as in March, the As oft as I hear the Robin-red breast chant it as cheerfully approach of the summer, why should not we, (think I) give as cheerful entertainment to the hoary-frosty hairs of our age's winter, as to the primroses of our youth's spring? Why not to the declining sun in adversity, as (like Persians) to the rising sun of prosperity? I am sent to the ant, to learn industry: to the dove, to learn innocence; to the serpent to learn wisdom; and why not to this bird, to learn equanimity and patience; and to keep the same tenour of my mind's quietness, as well at the approach of calamity's winter, as of the spring of happiness? And, since the Roman's constancy is so commended, who changed not his countenance with his changed fortunes, why should not I with a Christian resolution, hold a steady course in all weathers, and though I be forced with cross-winds to shift my sails, and catch at side winds, yet skilfully to steer, and keep on my course, by the cape of good hope, till I arrive at the haven of eternal happiness? THE same water which being liquid is penetrated with a horse-hair, will bear the horse himself when it is hardfrozen. I muse not then that those precepts and threats of God's judgments enter not into the hardened hearts of some old men, frozen by the practice of sin, which pierce and penetrate deep into the tender hearts and melting consciences of younger folks, thawed with the warmth of God's fear. Hence see I the cause why the sword of the Word, so sharp that it serveth in some to divide the joints and inarrow, in others, glanceth or reboundeth without dent or wound, from their crystal, frozen, and adamantine hearts. I cannot promise myself to be free from sin, I were then no man: but I will purpose in myself to be free from hardness of heart; by custom and continuance in sin, I may err in my way, I will not persist and go on in my errors, till I cannot return again into my way. I may stumble, I may fall, but I will not lie still when I am fallen. THE rancour of malice is the true nature of the devil, and the soul possessed therewith is his dearest darling. For where envy, hate, and revenge take up the whole heart, there God hath no room at all left to be in all his thoughts. I may meet a mad man, and avoid him; I may move a choleric man, and pacify him; I may cross a furious drunk- | ard, and shun him; but a malicious man is more dangerous, implacable, and inevitable, than they all. Malice omits no WHEN I see two game cocks, at first sight, without preoccasion to do mischief: and if it miss thy body and sub-meditated malice, fight desperately and furiously, the one stance, it prosecutes thy shadow. "My soul, come not thou to maintain the injury offered, the other to revenge the into their secrets; unto their assembly, mine honour, be injury received by the first blow, and to maintain this not thou united." I must not turn anger out of my nature, quarrel not only dye the pit with their blood, but die in the I must not turn my nature into anger; I must give place pit with their mutual bloody wounds, methinks I see the to wrath, but not a resting-place, but a place to let it pass success of those duellers of our time, which being ambitious by, that I may let go displeasure. I may give entrance to of Achilles' praise, desperately and furiously adventure their anger on just cause, I may not give it entertainment on any lives here, and endanger their souls hereafter, only for the cause, till it sour with the leaven of malice. I must be vain terms of false honour. I will not say but that, being flesh angry with sin, but I must be angry and sin not. and blood I may be careless of my flesh and blood to revenge injurious indignities offered me: yet since as a tenant my soul must answer her landlord for reparations of the house she dwells in, and I have no warrant of God or man for such revenge, I will not kill my own soul to kill another man's body. I will not pull the house of my body on my soul's head in a fury, that God may make them both fuel for the fury of hell-fire. [ARTHUR WARWICK, 1637.] WHEN I plant a choice flower in a fertile soil, I see nature good TENIERS AND HIS WORKS. II. THE variety of style and manner, observable in a large collection of pictures, forms a pleasing diversity to the eye, and an agreeable amusement to the connoisseur. Every painter of genius, when pursuing the study of the art without an instructor, gradually acquires a method of his own, and one best suited to delineate the impressions which nature makes on his mind; in proportion to the rapidity of his ideas, so will follow the movement of his hand; and the operations will either be free and spirited, or neat and laborious. If, however, his style be derived from tuition, or a school, it then partakes of the peculiarities of the master or school from whence it owes its origin; these will be manifested, either in the drawing or composition, colour, or handling; and by one or more of these signs a connoisseur will define the school to which a painter belongs when he may be quite at a loss to name the painter. Thus Teniers, being a pupil of his father, naturally imitated his manner; but possessing a very superior genius, he gradually abandoned the brown and heavy tones of colour used by him, and adopted those of a clear and silvery kind. His handling is also infinitely more spirited and free than that of his instructor. He could doubtless have invented a style of his own had he been so disposed; but he chose rather to improve upon the one he had attained, as he found it so well suited to express with facility whatever he desired to represent, No painter ever exercised the pencil with greater freedom and address-a few hours sufficing for the production of a picture containing several figures perfectly formed and full of animation. With these capabilities, aided by a lively imagination, he was enabled to execute an incredible number of pictures, many of which contain from twenty to one hundred figures, and a few of his productions have triple that number*. Under the patronage of royalty, the name of Teniers stood high in the world, and wealth poured in upon him abundantly. His residence at the village of Perke, or Perck, situated between Malines and Vilvorde, at the house known as the Château with three Towers, was the constant resort of distinguished company; and no stranger of any consideration arrived in Flanders without visiting the entertaining artist. Here also Prince John of Austria condescended to lay aside the princely etiquette of the German Court, became his scholar, and lived with him on terms of the utmost familiarity. In this neighbourhood Teniers studied his village feasts and fairs, and here he painted the greater number of his best works. He studied nature in every shape with a most curious and critical observation, and as he generally composed his subjects from persons in low stations, he accustomed himself to frequent their meetings at sports, feasts, and pastimes; and thus had frequent opportunity of remarking the simplicity of their manners, and the various actions, attitudes, characters, and passions of every age and sex. By long practice the pursuit of his art had become an agreeable amusement, which he could follow with the same freedom and success in the midst of company as when alone. Some idea may be formed of the extraordinary number of his pictures by a remark of his own, "that it would require a gallery two leagues in length to contain all his pictures." Continually surrounded by friends and in the possession of ample means to support a handsome establishment, his life glided smoothly along in the delightful occupation of the pencil, varied by the enjoyment of domestic pleasures. He died at the advanced age of eighty. Teniers was twice married. His first wife was Anne Breughel, daughter of the artist of that name (the soft• SMITH, Catalogue of Dutch Painters.; ness of whose style procured for him the surname of Velvet) and the adopted daughter of Rubens; his second wife was Isabella de Frene, daughter of a counsellor of Brabant. He had children by his first marriage, but not one of them followed his father's profession. been the portrait of a lawyer, represented sitting in his study surrounded with books, parchment, and papers. When engaged on this picture he observed jokingly to his sitter, that he had all his life used ivory black in painting, but on this occasion he had substituted his last tooth which had just fallen out. One of the last works of Teniers is stated to have The great charm which pervades the works of Teniers arises, first, from their truth, and secondly, from the great skill with which he worked. It is true (says Cunningham) that some artists, and Lawrence amongst them, excluded his sketches from their collections, and refused to rank him with those distinguished men whom Academies consented to call The Masters; but as Pope said of his Homer, in comparison to that of Tickell, if he had not the court he had the mob on his side. The honours withheld from him by professors had no influence on the world, and his name stands deservedly high with all those who admire original talent and variety of character. He may be safely classed with those who have contributed largely to the amusement, nay, to the happiness of mankind. According to Pilkington, his pencil is free and delicate; the touching of his trees is light and firm; his skies admirable, and though not much varied yet clear and brilliant. The expression of his figures, whether mirthful or grave, in anger or in good humour, is strongly marked, striking, and natural. He possessed the art of relieving his lights by other lights without employing deep shadows, and yet produced the intended effect in a very surprising manner. "There is," says Bryan, "a silvery charm in the colouring of his best pictures which is peculiar to himself." Teniers has been accused of making his figures short and clumsy; but he cared little, as Cunningham remarks, for the elegance of his figures: in truth, much of the character which he desired to depict lay in the squat shapes and ludicrous proportions of his rustics; academic forms and the graces of outline would have been wasted on such clods of the valley-nay, would have lessened the jollity and rustic conviviality of his groups. Had he changed his Dutch-built boors into Adonises he would have quenched all mirth, and extinguished all humour. The small landscapes of Teniers please by their light and airy effect, and by the animating charm of rustic happiness depicted in the enjoyments of the peasantry; but he did not confine himself to the scenes familiar to the peasant and the artisan. His genius led him into almost every branch of art:-his conversational and musical parties of persons of distinction show that he was well acquainted with the customs and manners of polished society-and whenever he represented himself and his family in his village feasts, &c., each person was designated by a suitable characteristic of gentility. The pictures of Teniers are very numerous in this country, and also in Holland, in the houses of the nobility and gentry. The public collections were robbed by the French under Napoleon, who selected a large number and carried them to Paris. The most perfect catalogue of the works of Teniers, is that given by Mr. Smith in the work before cited. This gentleman has taken considerable pains to ascertain, identify, and authenticate the early works of the younger Teniers. He finds that they invariably partake of a brown tone of colour; and such appear to have been painted previously to his thirtieth year, about which period he gradually quitted those predominant brown tints, and adopted a much more clear, and what is termed silvery manner of colouring. Many of his finest works are dated 1647. In his latter time his handling became feeble and tremulous, and his colouring less transparent, with a tendency to a yellow brown. The vehicle or medium used by him in painting was evidently of the same kind as that with which Rubens, Breughel, and other artists of that school, worked; and, whatever this medium may have been, it is plain that it possessed two very important qualities, namely, of giving transparency to the colours, and being a convenient texture for its application; for nothing short of these, in conjunction with a perfect knowledge of the principles of the art, could have enabled him to produce so incredible a number of pictures. Teniers is said to have rendered great service to the landscape painters of his time in decorating their works with his admirable figures. He also executed a number of etchings-they are in a slight but spirited style, and are usually marked with the cypher as are those of the elder Teniers, which renders it difficult to identify their prints. Teniers had a younger brother named Abraham, whom he instructed in the art. He painted Flemish festivals in the style of his brother, and though his pictures are very inferior, both in colouring and execution, yet, from the similarity of subject, they are sometimes mistaken by the inexperienced for the productions of his brother. HOWARD THE PHILANTHROPIST. "I CANNOT name John Howard," exclaimed Mr. Burke, "without_remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe,-not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals or collate manuscripts;-but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country; I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by seeing all its effects fully realised in his own. He will receive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevo lence hereafter." John Howard, the subject of this well-deserved eulogy, was born at Hackney, in the year 1726. His father, who kept a carpet warehouse near Smithfield, died whilst he was an infant, and his guardians bound him apprentice to Mr. Newman, a wholesale grocer in the city of London. His constitution, however, was delicate, and having an aversion to trade, he purchased his indentures, and made a tour in France and Italy. In the year 1756 he embarked for Lisbon, in order to view the ravages committed by the earthquake in that city. On her passage, the Hanover frigate, in which he sailed, was taken by a French privateer; and his sufferings during his confinement in France strongly awakened his sympathies for prisoners in general. "Before we reached Brest," he says in his work On Prisons, "I suffered the extremity of thirst, not having for above forty hours one drop of water, and hardly a morsel of food. In the castle of Brest I lay six nights upon straw." Seeing how cruelly they were used there and at Morlaix, he entered into correspondence with the English prisoners, and learned that they were treated with such barbarity that many hundreds had perished, and that thirty-six were buried in a hole at Dinant in one day. On his return to England, he represented these circumstances to the commissioners of sick and wounded seamen; remonstrances were made in consequence to the French government, and our sailors had redress. * See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., Being appointed high sheriff of Bedfordshire, the duties his office brought the distress of prisoners more immediately under his notice. He constantly visited the county jail, where he discovered great abuses, and ascertained the sources of much distress and suffering, which he exerted himself to remove. In this benevolent spirit, he extended his visits to the principal prisons in England, the further he proceeded the more shocking were the scenes presented to his view. One grand object with him in this tour of humanity was to put a stop to that infectious dis temper the jail-fever, which raged in some places like the plague, and being communicated from the prisons to the courts of justice, proved fatal to judges, magistrates, lawyers, and persons attending the trials, as well as to the families of discharged prisoners. Another object with him was to procure the immediate release of prisoners, who, after being acquitted, were frequently detained, because they were unable to pay the accustomed fees. But his principal object was to introduce a thorough reform of morals into our prisons, where he found the most flagrant vices prevailing to such a degree that those who were discharged from them became more injurious to society than they had been before their commital. In the prosecution of these humane objects Mr. Howard spared no pains or expense, and cheerfully exposed himself to inconvenience and hazard, from that malignant distemper of which he saw many dying in loathsome places, into he says, "what precautions I used to preserve myself from which few would venture. "I have frequently been asked," infection in the prisons and the hospitals which I visited. I here answer, next to the goodness and mercy of the Author of my being, temperance and cleanliness are my preservatives. Trusting in divine Providence, and believing myself to be in the way of my duty, I visit the most noxious cells, and while thus employed I fear no evil." He had the satisfaction to see his humane endeavours crowned with success, particularly in regard to the healthiness of prisons, some of which were rebuilt under his inspection. Through his interference better provision was made for the instruction of prisoners by the introduction of Bibles and pious books into their cells, and a more constant attendance of clergymen. But to render his efforts for the reformation of criminals more effective, he determined to visit foreign countries, in order to see the plans there adopted, and in the hope of collecting information which might be useful in his own. For this purpose he extended his travels to every country in Europe, not excepting Turkey, bestowing commendation, advice, or reproof, as he saw occasion, and speaking his mind even to crowned heads with a freedom to which they were not accustomed. His voyage to the Levant was undertaken with a view to collect information concerning the best methods of preventing the spreading of the plague, which he intended to apply to other infectious disorders. In the execution of this design, caught the plague; but, as he piously remarks, he was continually exposing himself to danger, and actually "That merciful Providence which had hitherto preserved him, was pleased to extend his protection to him in this journey also, and to bring him home once more in safety." Not content with what he had already done, he announced in his Account of Lazarettos his intention of revisiting Russia and Turkey, and extending his tour in the East. "I am not insensible," says he, of the dangers that must attend such a journey. Trusting, however, in the protection of that kind Providence which has hitherto preserved me, I calmly and cheerfully commit myself to his disposal of unerring wisdom. Should it please God to cut off my life in the prosecution of this design, let not my conduct be uncandidly imputed to rashness or enthusiasm, but to a serious deliberate conviction that I am pursuing instrument of more extensive usefulness to my fellowthe path of duty, and to a sincere desire of being made an creatures, than could be expected from the narrower circle of a retired life." In this tour it "did please God to cut off his life;" for in visiting an hospital at Cherson, a town of Russia, then recently founded, on the Black Sea, he caught a malignant fever, which carried him off in January 1790, after a illness of about twelve days. His remains were buried in the garden of a villa in the neighbourhood, and a monument, erected at the national expense in St. Paul's, commemorates the virtues of one who devoted his time and fortune, and finally sacrificed his life, in the pursuits of humanity. |