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epoch, that England teaches practically, to the rest of Europe, how far the pure government of equal laws can be established without interference of arbitrary power. There was a time when England fearned this lesson of Holland; not to mention that it was a stadtholder of Holland who came to our liberation at a time

when we could not have borne a republic, and when we should have looked in vain to any other quarter for a liberal sovereign. No other quarter in Europe could have grown or educated the man we wanted. We shall expect with much interest the remaining volumes of Mr. Motley's History.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

THE

GREAT DUKE AT THE SCULPTOR'S.

ONE fine morning in the month of Au- | boots, mounts the stairs which lead to gust, 1851, a venerable gentleman, on horseback, followed by his servant, was observed to leave Hyde Park by the Stanhope gate, and to wend his way towards a quiet street in the neighborhood of Portman Square, Whatever his dress might be, it was concealed by a light gray paletot, which harmonized well with his white hair and healthful and slightlybronzed complexion. The passers-by stared as they seemed to recognize the well-known features and erect military figure of her Majesty's most illustrious subject; and their surprise was increased when they saw the elderly gentleman pull up his horse, dismount without assistance, and enter a respectable but unpretentious dwelling in the quiet street.

The house at which the great Duke | alighted was the studio of a well-known sculptor, whose son had already earned celebrity as a miniature portrait-painter. The Duke had declared that he would never sit again to any body; but at the entreaty of a lady of beauty and fashion, whose receptions were then, as now, the delight of political and aristocratic circles, he waived his determination, and consented to sit for a bust to the father, while the sculptor's son painted his portrait.

The Duke, encumbered by his jack

Happening to be passing the Horse - Guards about the middle of this same month, we called and stood, hat in hand, near the Duke, while he

mounted his horse from the ground without assist ance, nach to our surprise.-ED. ECLECTIC.

the sculptor's studio with much difficulty. On coming into the room, he proceeds to take off his great coat, but seems unable to divest himself of it. The sculptor accordingly approaches him, requests permission to assist, and is about to take hold of the collar, when the Duke becomes much excited, and with great irritation of manner says he will not be touched. After much labor, the Duke succeeds in taking off his coat, and sits down upon the sofa, the muscles of the lower part of his face working in the manner usual to him when displeased, while his lips murmur something indistinctly. The Duke then begins to unbutton his jack-boot, which he kicks off with so much energy that it flies into the middle of the room, carrying his dress-shoe with it. The two artists, with much tact, abstain from offering the least assistance, and suffer the Duke to hobble after the shoe, with a jack-boot on one leg and no shoe on the other foot. The Duke stoops, with some difficulty, recovers the missing shoe, and regains his seat. He appears pleased at having been suffered to go through these operations without proffers of help, and not a little desirous to make amends for his momentary irritation. Rising from the sofa, he advances to the window, and with great good-nature and alacrity of manner, says: "Now, sir, what do you wish me to do for you?"

Being requested to sit down in the armchair placed for him, he immediately re plies: "Well, sir, but I can stand." He

is told it is not necessary; whereupon, | sir, (lifting his finger, and speaking with addressing the young painter, he says: emphasis,) because Chantrey told me." "But you will paint me, sir, standing. Why should I sit to be painted standing? What do you say, sir ?" turning to the sculptor. The sculptor points out that a higher light will fall upon the face, if he sits down, which will be an advantage to the artist. "Oh! then, that is quite sufficient, sir; I will sit."

When the business of the sitting commences, the Duke shows himself, as may well be believed, entirely au fait at the business of sitting for his portrait. His words we repeat with verbal accuracy, but how shall we convey an idea of his noble and impressive utterance? We must ask the reader to clothe the words which follow with the old man's rich yet somewhat hoarse and sepulchral voice. Every word is uttered with dignity, and the Duke's natural impressiveness of speech is aided by a frequent and graceful gesture with the right hand. We must also premise that the artist had been fortunate enough to secure the attendance of the lady at whose solicitation the Duke had consented to sit, and who, possessing great conversational talents, knew how to engage him in discourse which interested

him.

Drawing back his head, and fixing his eyes on one spot, the Duke exclaims: "Now I've had great experience in this sort of thing. I know how to sit very well; Lawrence taught me. You see I keep my eyes on one spot, and then the artist always sees the same thing. If I don't keep my eyes on one spot of course he don't see the same thing. And these gentlemen (the artists) ought to be considered, for they have a great deal to do. They have not only to observe and to imitate, but (with emphasis) to verify what they do, and I suppose they proceed by doing one feature first, correcting that, and then going on to another. That, indeed, is the way in which all difficult undertakings should be accomplished. Do one thing first; verify that, and then proceed to another."

Then turning round to the sculptor, the Duke went on: "One thing, sir, I wish you particularly to observe, because Chantrey told me of it. Flat here, sir, (placing his hand on his forehead;) flat here, sir, (placing it on his right temple;) flat here, (removing it to his left temple;) three sides of a square. That I know,

The

The sculptor shortly remarks that he should like to verify the accuracy of his bust by measurement. "Whatever is necessary, sir, while I am here." sculptor takes advantage of the permission to make the most minute and frequent measurement by the compasses of every feature and every part of the Duke's face and head. As the sculptor and painter work simultaneously, one side of the face is seen by the sculptor in shadow. His Grace is aware of the fact, although it has not been mentioned to him; and when the sculptor wishes to examine the side of the face that is in shadow, the Duke immediately and unasked turns it round to the light for him.

A beautiful, intelligent, and sprightly little girl is present. She takes up the artist's pencils, and amuses herself by drawing upon a bit of paper some horizontal and vertical lines, which she calls "windows." When a window is finished, the little sylph pulls the Duke's sleeve. "Look here, Mr. Duke, at my windows!" "Mr. Duke" good-naturedly takes up the paper, and pretends to compare it critically with the opposite window, of which it is said to be a representation. He then says, in a soft, deep, and gentle tone of voice: "Ah! my dear-very meritorious." The little girl then takes her paper, is busy with her lines and shading, and is soon pulling the Duke's sleeve again. The old gentleman is this time engaged in earnest conversation. He is so deaf that the child can not make him hear; so she has to pull his sleeve more than once. "Ah! my dear-very ingenious," says the indulgent critic, after a brief survey. Again the child plies her pencil, and comes to "Mr. Duke" for praise and encouragement. This time it is "very meritorious;" then it is "very ingenious." The Duke does not trouble himself to find any other adjectives of commendation; and the interesting little sketcher is too happy at gaining the Duke's attention to find fault with the poverty of his critical vocabulary.

"Children are generally very fond of me," he says, after one of these interruptions. "I was at Lord -'s the other day. (This nobleman was then high in the councils of his sovereign.) There is a fine little fellow there, who had been told I was coming, and who was on the

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look-out for me. He called soldiers 'rub- | you running to, sir?"" a-dubs;' and as soon as he saw me he monious inquiry the Duke delivers in his ran up to me and said: "They told me you gruffest, hoarsest tones.) "The fellow were a rub-a-dub; you are not a rub-a- said: 'Why, sir, I am running to see dub at all. You have not got a red where you are going to. Well, then,' coat." And the Duke laughed heartily I said, 'I am going through Stanhope at having been regarded as a distinguish-gate! So I didn't put these things on to-day, and I came round the other way, (through Grosvenor Square,) for I don't like to be followed."

ed impostor by the child, and no rub-adub at all.

"I don't always get on so well with children, though," adds the Duke; "for I was in the house of a French marquis once, and a child was brought in, in the arms of its nurse, to see me. I held out my hands for the little thing to come to me, but it seemed frightened and would not come; so I said to the little thing, 'Pourquoi?' and she said, 'Il bat tout le monde.' I suppose she had heard her nurse say so, and was afraid I should beat her. There was a large party present, and it excited a great deal of interest,' the Duke modestly and naïvely adds.

One of the artists then asks his Grace if he will stand for a little time. He replies, with great promptitude and energy: "As long as you please, sir."

The veteran warrior stands up, draws himself up to his full hight, throws out his chest, folds his arms, holds up his head, and assumes an attitude of dignity and command perfectly wonderful in an old man of eighty-two. The artists stand mute with surprise and admiration. Here "stands before them the hero of a hundred battles; the victor in many a hard-fought field; the soldier who had often gazed unawed upon the face of death; the iron frame and physical endurance which, conjoined with dauntless courage and genius, had saved Europe. Still the artists look at each other and at the Duke, and still no nerve quivers and no muscle loses its power of tension. In an artistic point of view, the Duke's commanding attitude is of little value; for what painter would dare to represent an old man in possession of so vigorous a physique, and of such heroic mien? The young painter has selected a more familiar attitude, and silently waits in the expectation that the Duke will resume his usual bearing. But the Duke stands like a statue, scarcely moving his eyes, for more than ten minute, until the artists tell him they will not trouble him any longer.

After the sitting had lasted two hours, the Duke examines what has been done, and, to the surprise and delight of the artists, says he will come again. He puts on his gray paletot without assistance, and by this means conceals from the gaze of the crowd his evening dress and decorations, which the kind old man had put on, in order to assist the artists as much as possible. The day next but one (Monday) was fixed for the second sitting.

Punctual to the minute, the Duke, followed by his groom, arrives at the door. The painter observes to his Grace that he does not wear his decorations to-day. The Duke, without replying, draws a small parcel from his pocket, in which, wrapped up in a crumpled piece of white paper, were the illustrious badges of the Golden Fleece of Spain and the Order of the Garter. The Duke puts the red ribbon in its proper place on his neck, and fastens the Garter round his knee, with the manner of a man who is accustomed to do these things for himself. He is now again in evening dress. He then says: "I did not put them on today. The worst of coming out in these things is, that I find people generally think I am after something. As I was coming here on Saturday, as soon as I got out of my house, there was a fellow running by my side. I saw he was following me; so I turned my horse round to him, and I said: "Where the

In the November following, the Duke having arrived in town from Walmer Castle, heard that the bust was not cast or the picture engraved; and sent word that he would come again and give the artists another sitting.

This last visit was paid on the eighteenth November. Future events are mercifully hid from us, or what awe would have seized the parties to this interview, had they known that on that day twelvemonth, the mightiest and grandest assemblage of human beings ever gathered together in Great Britain would bare their heads in solemn reverence as that are venerable frame, cold in death, passed

by to its last resting-place in St. Paul's | placed. The sun was shining on my back Cathedral.

and upon the troops; but I saw them distinctly, and subsequent information proved that I was correct. I can now, when I am Walmer, in clear weather, always tell by the naked eye when they light up on

To all appearances, his Grace had, on this November morning, many years of life and vigor before him. He was look-at ing remarkably well, and it was remarked that the slight traces of wrinkles that had the opposite coast." been observed upon his forehead had dis- The Duke gives two hours and three appeared. The sculptor thought the cir-quarters to this sitting. He examines the cumstance so remarkable, that he called picture (since engraved) and approves of the attention of Mrs- (who was again it, but points out that in one particular present) to the fact that the Duke's fore- it is not accurate. The artist has placed a head was then actually without a wrinkle. glove in his left hand, and "I never wear The Duke, in reply to a remark, says, gloves," says the Duke; "but it is of no with emphasis, he has been very well, and consequence; I don't wish it altered; I that he has been reading without glasses. ought to have them." Mrs.--observes: "You were probably nearsighted when you were young.' "By no means," emphatically replied the Duke; "I could see troops, when I was in India, with the naked eye, twenty miles; distinguish the cavalry from the infantry; the troops that were in motion from those that were stationary." With his usual honesty and candor, he hastens to add: "It is very true that I was favorably

The bust and picture in which the Great "Duke took so much interest, were not unworthy of the unusual opportunities enjoyed by the artists- -the Messrs. Weigall. The bust, verified by actual measurement, exhibits the massive proportions of the lower portion of the face, which lent so much steadfastness, determination, and force of character, to the Duke's aspect.

WELLINGTON AND WATERL00.

IN connection with the portrait of this | great modern warrior, and partly as an illustration of it, we give a brief sketch of the cartoon drawing by Mr. Maclise which is soon to be painted in fresco upon the wall in the chamber of the House of Lords. It is to commemorate a great event. The battle of Waterloo, as every one knows, was one of the great battles of this world's history, memorable in all coming time. We wandered over the field with feelings of intense excitement, almost fancying the thunders of battle were just dying away in the distance, and went and stood upon the spot where Wellington is said to have stood when he gave the final order to the Imperial Guards which decided the terrible conflict. Soon after this the scene represented in the cartoon occurred. Let us, then, stand at once in front of the cartoon which is placed on the wall of the chamber of the House of Lords. A cartoon, some of our reader may not be

aware, is a drawing made with chalk upon large sheets of paper stretched on a frame, and in precisely the same size as that of the picture which is to be painted from it. There is rarely or ever any color in such a work; mostly it is a mere outline which may, by the process of tracing, be transferred, part by part, upon the wall which is to bear the picture. The necessity for such a drawing arises from the very nature of the process of fresco painting, which being executed piecemeal, so to speak, can only progress so far as from part to part, so much being set out to suffice for each day's work as the artist feels confident of being able to accomplish. The outline of each day's work, thus selected, is traced upon the fresh plaster that forms the ground and substance of the picture, that portion of the cartoon which is thus employed being removed immediately.

With this explanation, we may take the

reader before the drawing-for this it is, | between the wounded in the foreground and nothing more. The subject is the and these last, one sees the meeting of meeting of Wellington and Blücher at two horsemen - the generals, each of the battle of Waterloo, a theme for the whom is surrounded by his staff. Blüchgreatest artist-the closing scene and cli-er, with a wide German grin of congratmax of a whole epos of the world's histo- ulation, grasps the hand of Wellington: ry-the finale of a drama men hoped there throughout the whole day he has ridden, would be no need to play again. In a straining his ears and his eyes, and pushmoment one recognizes the most signifi- ing on more speedily as every fresh hight cant fact of the work inself-that, indeed, of the undulating road was overcome, and there has been employed no patent means every fresh blast of the wind brought of addressing the vulgar eye. Through- nearer and nearer, and louder and yet out its forty feet of surface, covered with more loud, the sounds of the desperate figures, crowded together as they are on contest that so terribly excited him. He this battle-field, there is no frowning, self- has just now gained the assurance that important, self-conscious model-no, not his old enemy, Napoleon, has at last been one such either amongst the principals or defeated, and yet that not so utterly but the supernumeraries. Both in detail and he may find fuel for his ancient hatred in in the whole, it is altogether distinct from finishing the victory, and bear no light those acted pieces, better or worse, with part in making it a permanent overthrow which the artist has presented us for the and utter destruction to the scourge of last twenty years. Indeed, it is as much his country. superior to these last as they were to the How eager he is for the task is clear galvanized mummy and marionette per- enough by the vigor of his clutch of Welformances of the artist's dilletante prede- lington's hand, and the sparkle of his eyes cessors, from which he had so large a that gleam under the shade of his Prussian hand in delivering the world. It is a traveling cap. These evidences of paswork not merely of fanciful ingenuity and sionate excitement are true to the element artistic dexterity-comparatively, in fact, of physical activity that so largely pervadit is one of true imagination, a subject not ed his nature, affected as it must be at given to us, as in other cases, as a mere this moment of entering upon so momenttranscript of an elaborately got-up rehear-ous a struggle. Equally true to the rule sal of the event, but the event itself revived clearly to the mind's eye of the painter, and set down on that surface by whatever aids might have been required, with perfect freedom from all affectation, and with consummate skill.

We forget soon that it is a picture-we think ourselves breathing in the time when our fathers were young men on that day and on that spot when and where the destinies of Europe were being settled. There, at the end of that long day of Waterloo, when three hundred thousand men had contended to decide whether one being and his will should be dominant, or the rest of Europe be in peace to work out higher destinies, is the scene brought before us. It makes one's eyes moist to look over the wreck of human beings that crowd the foreground of the picture; one can almost, in fancy, hear the guns still firing-hear the shouting and the sounds of the fierce struggle that passes on beyond the ridge, on which the strife is still living between the guards, who are attacking the retreating French artillery and its drivers; while in the mid-distance,

of a different nature are the countenance and action of Wellington, who looks subdued by his long anxiety-his long witnessing of the circumstances of the scene

their misery, agony, and horror. He is full enough of vigor of a kind equal to many duties, but he can spare no outward display of violent evidences of emotionhe could be taken for none but a successful general at the very moment of victory crowning his life; but he is tired, and withal very sad, so that one recognizes and sympathizes with and honors him infinitely, as the man who shortly after the stern rigor of his battle-strung nerves had melted away, shed tears at the agony of the poor maimed wretches that lay dismembered, wounded, and torn about the field in thousands.

Just behind the heads of the generals is the sign of the inn, "La Belle Alliance,” appropriately written upon a board fixed against the wall of the house. Blücher's trumpeters stand to the left of the picture, trumpet at lip, ready to sound the signal of advance. Behind Wellington are his aides-de-camp, all regarding the main in

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