JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER


By William Makepeace Thackeray



* Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by permission
of Mr. John Murray.



We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable,
old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had as
children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was
Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum
Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with
starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers;
there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and
bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there
was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody
Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and
grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful
to the present day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch,
and dancing before a black background,--a melancholy museum indeed.
Smirke's delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general
gloom. We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and
plenty of lights and company were in the room.

Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the children