from their own boyish days, on the dawning of new prospects. He appears to have now secluded himself from the society of his family, for the purpose of study, which became intense; nor was this zeal unproductive, he at this time confined himself to painting copies of the prints he possessed, and his imitations soon became equal to the originals, and he succeeded at length in painting a beautiful picture, which produced him the delightful tribute of parental || praise for talent and application, which had till now been withheld, in anxious solicitude for the welfare of a dear child, who was considered in the inexperience of the fond parents, as devoting much precious time, on pursuits of doubtful value. Mr. West's arrival in London was in the year 1763. During the period included between that date and the year 1791, he continued in the full exercise of his high powers, and in the enjoyment of the highest and most honourable patronage. At that time he was called to the dignified station of President to the Royal Academy, on the demise of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mr. West's great pictures of the landing of Agrippina at Brundusium; the departure of Regulus from Rome; his death of Epami nondas; Hannibal; the death of Bayard; Penn's treaty with the Indians; and his death of General Wolfe, stamped his fame imperishably, and may be considered as forming the grand era of the national taste and advancement in works of art. Mr. West's grand designs from holy writ are well known, and were alone sufficient to Mr. West was shortly after this taken to Philadelphia by a friend, where still ardently pursuing his darling object of study, he attracted the notice, and received the encou-have placed him in the highest rank of his ragement of persons competent to appreciate his rising genius; his studies were much forwarded by the instructions and advantages derived from this extension of his sphere of action, and we find him soon after this time actually studying the delineation of the human figure from life. The breaking out of the American war introduced the young painter, then little more than sixteen years old, to a military life, which, it appears, he followed for a considerable time. He next took up his residence in the city of New York, in the exercise of his now avowedly professional powers, and thence, by the fortunate interference and advice of a friend, he visited Italy. Mr. West's health did not permit a long residence in Rome, and under medical advice, he successively visited Leghorn, Florence, and the other principal cities of Italy. From this seat of the arts he proceeded to France, and shortly after to England, where his career was destined to be not of the transient character which had marked his appearance in the other countries in which he had studied, but to labour during half a century, with exemplary assiduity and an almost unexampled success in the cultivation of the noblest branch of his art, and of which, his exaltation of historical painting will continue to exhibit the most brilliant proofs, while our monuments of art shall remain. profession; his exertions for the promotion of the higher departments of art, in his official capacity of President of the Royal Academy, justly procured him the honourable appellation of "The Reviver of Historical Painting," and will be gratefully remembered and acknowledged while the art of painting is in estimation among men. The later years of this venerable artist were equally distinguished by a diligence and anxiety for the prosperity of the arts in his adopted country, and his later works afforded abundant proof, that neither his conceptions or his powers of execution had declined from the vigour of his earlier life. His studies had been for some years directed to scripture subjects, to which we may well believe, he felt himself directed by a much higher feeling than popular approbation. We cannot close this sketch of Mr. West's honourable and useful life better than by adverting to the extraordinary grandeur of his last design. In his seventieth year Mr. West proposed to illustrate the four ages of Revelation; devoting a picture on the largest scale to the Patriarchal Era, one to the Jewish, one to the Christian, and the last to the Apocalypse. Of this magnificent design, Mr. West, unfortunately for us, executed but the two latter. He died in London, March 10, 1820, in the eighty-second year of his age. ON THE SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING THE AGENCY OF FAIRIES. and the tide turning against her, the crew, except three old men, went on shore to stretch their limbs, and take a supply of fresh water from a rill that sparkled along the dark THE Isle of Tyree, one of the smallest, but most fertile of the Hebrides-the native place of the celebrated mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, was, soon after the Excise was established in Scotland, the scite of ingenious im-browed rocks, until absorbed in the briny posture, which we communicate because it flood. The young adventurer eagerly pulled affords a striking coup d'oeil of the notion con- his oar to reach land, for he had descried the cerning Tays, Glashtis, and Water Sprites, same swan skimming the waves with a beauso long believed among the Gael to have great tiful lady on her back. The lady had her face, influence in human affairs. Information was bosom, and polished arms exposed, but the given to the Revenue Board that vessels had sun made no impression on them, for the been repeatedly hovering near the Isle of purest snow drift was not more fair than her Tyree; and that strange figures, in fiery gar- complexion, delicately tinged with a rosy hue ments, had chaced two persons who attempted on her cheeks. Her lips were red as ripe to watch a boat approaching the shore. A wood-berries, and her eyes the deep blue of strong party of excise officers was sent to a clear moonlight sky. From her waist to explore the island; but they made no dis- her ankles was veiled by green mist, gracecovery, and none could be expected, unless || fully wreathing and floating in the breeze. by patient and unsuspected observation: But Her pretty white little feet sometimes apto induce a Highlander to undertake the exe- peared to view, or dipped in the sea; accordcrated office of a spy was extremely difficult. ing as the swan arose on a swelling billow, At length, one of the inferior excisemen found or yielding to its subsiding surface: whenever a poor Highland woman, lost to all that gives they touched the beach the swan and its rider value to the sex; who, for a considerable sprung-sprung over hill and dale, heath and bribe, undertook to go from Edinburgh to cultivated field; while the stripling of DrogTyree as a beggar. She returned in some heda impetuously traced their progress. At weeks with intelligence, that several lads a green Tompan the swan made a full stop from Ireland came each to meet a leannon shi, the lady alighted, and taking her leannon and she had heard one lad relate, how he first elect by the hand, the swan flapped its wings; engaged the notice of his elvish innamorata, the summit of the Tompan rolled aside, a He was going along the bank of Lough Tyree, curtain of green mist ascended like the fog of in Connaught, when a swan of extraordinary a summer dawn: the youth found himself size and beauty, attracted his admiration. treading on air; yet sinking gradually to She swam close to the margin, and when he depths unfathomable, and the beautiful lady extended his arm to caress her, she glided talked, laughed, and frolicked, with gay unaway; but always returned, as if still solicit- concern-yet she firmly held his hand, as if ing his favour. He threw off his clothes, and fearful he might escape the net of allurement leaped into the lough to lay hold of her, and she had spread for him: As they passed along, having seized her right wing, she bent down hosts of fairies ranged on each side; passing her finely arched neck, while a lovely human homage to their chieftainess. The diminutive countenance seemed attached to it, and a figures, supernatural aspect, and sprightly voice of music softly whispered, Nory of gesticulation of those elves, divided the attenDrogheda, meet fortune and pleasure in the tion of the youth from his enchanting conducScottish Isle of Tyree." The youth imme-tress, and he was able to reflect a little on his diately set out for Ballycastle, where he had some acquaintance among the seamen, and found a wherry ready to sail for Kintyre. Contrary winds, commissioned no doubt by water sprites, forced the wherry near Tyree, " own situation. He could not help saying that his compagnons de voyage would miss him: The lady replied first by a peal of laughter, and then said, "Novice, don't you know all the young fellows have a leannon shi in this Isle as well as yourself, and I have supplied your places by effigies that can handle the helm, or reef a sail with the best of you? But I must tell you how your messmates are duped. Each believes his own charmer to be the fairy chieftainess—a title exclusively partaining to me." The youth could not help considering in secret that if false appearances imposed on young men of some experience, a stripling-such as he, might be as much deluded. His doubting thoughts were however soon dispelled by dazzling || myrmidons seize him, his wife, and family; splendors. A drapery of green mist studded with tiny crescents of light, twinkling like stars, arose to sounds of harmony, and a hall glittering with gems of every colour and shade || appeared to view. His rational melodies had often delighted Rory of Drogheda; but here they thrilled his soul; and all his hastily summoned precautions were forgotten. He was easily tempted to partake of a sumptuous banquet; which, when finished, intoxicated his senses." Rory of Drogheda, said the lady, every atom you have beheld or tasted, has cost toil and torture to excisemen. They are scourges of the earth; and we generous fairies are the avengers of those harpies; and the more vile reptiles employed by them as spies and informers. Follow me, and I shall shew you how they fare, by the high behest of your chieftainess. Will it not gladden your heart to know that not one exciseman escapes, my power. No sooner has a man engaged as a slave to the Revenue Board, than my and they are spirited away to the Tempans, to exist a thousand centuries our despised and tormented drudges." The youth, exulting in this doom of excisemen, and no longer intimidated by the mere effigies the fairy had substituted for the real and living servants of taxation, attended the chieftainess with jocund alacrity, though the brilliant scenery gradually faded to dismal twilight, and shrieks and moans filled the rueful space. (To be continued.) PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENTS OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY. THE throne of Russia owes its foundation || borders of the Euxine, and of the Baltic, felt to those warlike adventurers, who come from no inclination to unfurl their victorious ensigns Scandinavia, and who, perhaps, in our com- over the capricious waves. mercial age, would be denominated pirates. The national spirit of these audacious men conducted them rapidly over the immense plains of Russia to the shores of the Black Sea; at seeing its agitated billows they gave a shout of joy, and soon a thousand boats were manned to attack Constantinople. But this handful of foreigners, who were placed at the head of a great and ancient nation of the Rhos or Roxalans, would necessarily be confounded amongst the multitude of those people their valour had conquered. The Russian Princes yet spoke before Constantinople, the Scandinavian language; and twenty years later, even the proper names of their princes were Selavonian, or Russian. Situated at a dis-officers. But the maritime population of the tance from the sea, the empires of Kiovia and Muscovy took from that period the character of an agricultural and pastoral state, which they have always preserved. After a lapse of ten centuries, the Russians having gained the Peter the Great entertained a different opinion, and boldly opposed it against nature and his people; he undertook to establish a navy, for which he thought he possessed all the elements in his vast dominion. These firtrees, said he to himself, must quit their forests, and be made masts of; this hemp must he worked into sails and cables; we will forge anchors with our iron, we will found cannon with our copper; but how shall we make a sailor out of a peasant? This great essential was wanting to the Navy of Peter I. and was long wanting to his successor. Holland, Denmark, and still later, England furnished them with able ship builders and brave nation was always inconsiderable, and even among the corps of officers, composed of heterogeneous elements, the true marine spirit was only found animating a few individuals. Catharine II made grand and successful efforts to ameliorate her navy; thanks to some excellent schools, a few campaigns, and the strength of the commercial navigation, Russia might truly be said to rank amongst the secondary naval powers. The three little provinces of Courland, Livonia, and Ethonia, which furnished the empire with more generals and more diplomatists, then the immense mass of all the Russian provinces, became also a nursery of seamen. The Russians themselves at Archangel, at Kamschatcha, and in America, proved themselves continually better and better as navigators. Gustavus III. paid dear for his contempt of the naval skill of the Russians, who, by being two against one, finished in the total defeat of the Swedish navy. It is by the exertions of Alexander I. that the tuition of young boys intended for the navy, the art of building men of war, their method of arming and equipping them, have arrived at that perfection, which can place a Russian vessel on even grounds with one of the other maritime nations. The inestimable acquisition of Finland has bestowed on Russia a population of sailors. The Russian, as well as the Grecian colonies, have formed on the Black Sea, a commercial marine, which may, in time, furnish crews for a whole squadron. In short, the Russian American company, by subjugating many people of fishermen, one after the other, have extended its dominion on an extent of coast equal to that of Europe on the Mediterranean, and although now a desert, capable of being made at a future day a considerable establishment. But national vanity is the most dangerous enemy of national honour; to which boasting always gives a deadly wound. We are acquainted with Russians, who fancy their country destined to become a great naval power, because Russian and Livonian seamen have performed a safe voyage round the world in vessels built in England. Russia, however, in naval power holds only a secondary rank. Her ports are blocked up by ice six months in the year; her seas are closed up, and easy to blockade in mass; but above all, the small number of her sailors scarce sufficient to man a fleet of twenty-five sail of the line, form natural obstacles which neither science nor courage can over come. GEOGRAPHICAL GARDEN. A LEVEL and verdant plain of a very few acres, might easily be converted into a map of the world of great and singular interest. Invention is too often stretched to lay out ground with taste, in the gardens of opulence, for such a project to be considered either absurd or unuseful. Its execution, would be pleasant,|| instructive, and healthful, especially in the actual operative arrangements, and give learners an expertness in geography, much beyond what they acquire from books and maps. Let a spot of level ground, 360 yards in length from east to west, and 180 yards in breadth from north to south, be enclosed by a wall of a very small height; let thirty-six marks be made on the east and west wall, and eighteen be made on the north and south walls, to fix the degrees of longitude and latitude at ten degrees or 600 miles asunder, let four pieces of oak timber be made thirty feet long, and eight inches square, with holes at the distance of three inches, or five miles from one another; thus thirty-six inches, or three feet, on this piece, (which may be called a scale,) are a degree, and the whole scale will comprise ten degrees, or six hundred miles in length. These scales being placed upon the ground, at any of the large divisions of ten degrees made on the walls and opposite to each other, afford an opportunity, by cross loglines, of pack thread of determining the particular town, city, &c. to be marked on this map, in the same manner as we operate with a Gunter's scale and a pair of compasses on paper. The continents and islands may be made in turf, the sea in gravel, the boundary may be a hard terrace of mortar, pieces of slate fixed in mortar, or a border of box may be planted. At particular places on this ocean of gravel, posts may be set up, indicating particular circumstances of trade-winds, currents, &c. prevailing in particular parts, the contemplative owner, looking on the surface of this map will feel the powers of his mind expand, and have a clear idea of the subject. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HISTORICAL GLEANINGS. THE INDIAN LOTOS OR LILLY OF THE EAST. (From Sir R. Porter's Travels in Georgia, &c.) fire, to act mutually on each other, so that, at the return of certain seasons, moisture should spread over the land, from the clouds or the rivers, the air should dry the ground, the sun's the call of all united in the genial breath of Spring, pour forth her increase. Hence, as the Sovereigns of the East have always been revered, according to a tradition of their being the express vicegerents of the Deity, it is not surprising to see the same emblematic flower carried in a procession to their honours, which would be found breathing sweet incense' amongst the symbols of an entirely religious festival." "THIS flower was full of meaning to the ancients, and occurs all over the east. Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and India, present it every where in the decorations of their architecture, in the hands, and on the heads of their sculp-beams fructify it, and the grateful earth, at tured figures, whether in statue or in bas relief. We also find it in the sacred vestments and architecture of the tabernacle, and temple of the Israelites; and see it mentioned by our Saviour, as an image of peculiar beauty and glory, when comparing the works of nature with the decorations of art. It is also represented in all pictures of the Salutation of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary; and, in fact, has been held in mysterious veneration by people of all nations and times. The old heraldic work of "The Theatre of Honor," published in France, about two hundred years ago, gives this curious account of the Lotos, or Lilly ;"It is the symbol of divinity, of purity, and abundance, and of a love most complete in perfection, charity, and benediction; as in the Holy Scripture, that mirror of chastity, Susanna, is defined Susa, which signifieth the lilly flower; the chief city of the Persians bearing that name for its excellency. Hence the lilly's three leaves in the arms of France mean Piety, Justice, and Charity." So far the general impression of a peculiar regard to this beautiful and fragrant flower; but the early Persians attached a particular sanctity to it. "Water, according to their belief, was held in the next degree of reverence to fire; and the white flower, which sprung from the bosom of the colder element, was considered an emblem of its purity, submissiveness, and, above all, of its fecundity, when meeting the rays of the great solar flame. These symbols, united in the lilly their joint properties had produced, represented to the poetical conceptions of the east, first, the creative and regenerating attributes of the Supreme Being himself; and, secondly, the imparted powers of the great elements of earth, air, water, and No. 157.-Vol. XXV. THE RUSSIAN CZAR IVAN. Ivan, in the habit of a peasant, walking one day alone in the environs of Moscow, entered a village, where he requested the rites of hospitality; and he was welcomed as Jupiter and Mercury were, by Philemon and Baucis, "a thousand dwellings, where there were but not one open to the gods." The Czar was about to quit the village with indignation, when he saw at a distance a little wretched looking hut: the approach of night invited the traveller to seek an asylum; the Emperor knocked gently at the door of the cot, which was instantly opened by a countryman, who asked him what he wanted. "I am dying with hunger and thirst," said Ivan, “cannot you give me a lodging for the night." "Alas!" replied the villager, "you will be badly off, you happen to take me at at unlucky time; my wife is now in labour, and is crying out dreadfully, you will not be able to sleep a wink, but, come in, at all events you will be sheltered from the cold, and you shall partake of our supper." So saying, he took the Czar by the hand, and led him into a very small room, almost full of children; in one cradle two lay sleeping; a little girl, about three years of age, was sleeping on a mat, beside her brothers, while the C |