Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 344 (Supplementary Issue) - Various - Страница 3

Edited by F.M. Reynolds, Esq

This is a magnificent affair, and is one of the proud triumphs of the union of Painting, Engraving, and Literature—to which we took occasion to allude in a recent number of THE MIRROR. Each department is unique, and the lists are like the Morning Post account of a drawing room, or Almack's—the princes of the arts, and the peers of the pen. Painters—Lawrence, Howard, Corbould, Westall, Turner, Landseer, Stephanoff, Chalon, Stothard, &c. Engravers—C. Heath, Finden, Engleheart, Portbury, Wallis, Rolls, Goodyear, &c. Contributors—Scott, Mackintosh, Moore, the Lords Normanby, Morpeth, Porchester, Holland, Gower, and Nugent; Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, Hook, Lockhart, Croker, Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Landon; and the cost of the whole eleven thousand guineas! Of course, such a book has not been the work of a day, month, or, perhaps, a year; and its literature entitles it to a permanent place in the library, where we hope to see it stand auro perennius; were its fate to be otherwise, we should condemn the public—for we hate ingratitude in every shape—and write in the first page the epitaph—For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot. A guinea to twopence—Hyperion to a Satyr—how can we extend the fame of The Keepsake!

We cannot particularize the engravings; but they are all worthy companions of the frontispiece—a lovely portrait of Mrs. Peel, engraved by Heath, from Sir Thomas Lawrence's picture. In the literary department—a very court of fiction—is, My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, a tale of forty-four pages; and, The Tapestried Chamber, by Sir Walter Scott; both much too long for extract, which would indeed be almost unfair. Next comes an exquisite gem—