The Earl was nearly forty years of age when, upon the death of Fox, the Tories recovered their long possession of office, and among their good deeds may be reckoned their appointment of Lord Shaftesbury, then Mr. Cooper, to the office of Clerk of the Ordnance. To the duties of his department he applied himself with marvellous zeal, and it was always his own opinion that he there first acquired those habits of industry and method which rendered him one of the most efficient members of the Upper House. When, on the death of his elder brother, he reached the dignity of the peerage, he thought it necessary to resign the clerkship of the Ordnance, though his private fortune was scarcely sufficient for a man encumbered with an earldom and a large family. He took his seat as a peer in June, 1811, and it was not until November, 1814, that he became permanently the Chairman of Committees; the duties of which place were well done for nearly forty years by "old" Lord Shaftesbury, who was never old when business pressed. Strong common sense, knowledge of the statute law, and above all, uncompromising impartiality, made him an autocrat in his department. When once he heard a case, and deliberately pronounced judgment, submission almost invariably followed. A man of the largest experience as a Parliamentary agent has been heard to say that he remembered only one case in which the House reversed a decision of Lord Shaftesbury; and on that occasion it became necessary to prevail on the Duke of Wellington to speak in order to overcome the "old Earl." It would not be easy to cite many instances of men who have taken as active part in the business of a deliberative assembly after the age of 75; but the labors of Lord Shaftesbury were continued beyond that of fourscore. To all outward seeming he was nearly as efficient at one period of his life as at another. By the time he had reached the age of fifty,—which was about half-way through the fifteen years that Lord Liverpool's Ministry held the government,—Lord Shaftesbury's knowledge of his duties as chairman to the Lords was complete, and then he appeared to settle down in life with the air, the habits, the modes of thought and action, natural to old age. Although there are few men now alive whose experience would enable them to contrast his performance of official duties with the manner in which they were discharged by his predecessor, yet, even in the absence of any thing likedata, there seems to be a general impression that the House of Lords never could have had a more efficient chairman. He was certainly a man of undignified presence, of indistinct and hurried speech, of hasty and brusque manner, the last person whom a superficial observer would think of placing in the chair of the greatest senate that the world has ever seen; yet it cannot be said that their lordships were ever wrong in their repeated elections of Lord Shaftesbury; for in the formal business of committees he rarely allowed them to make a mistake, while he was prompt as well as safe in devising the most convenient mode of carrying any principle into practical effect. He was no theorist; there was nothing of the speculative philosopher in the constitution of his mind; and he therefore readily gained credit for being what he really was, an excellent man of business. It is well known that the Lords, sitting in committee, are less prone to run riot than the other House; still it required no small ability to keep them always in the right path, as was the happy practice of Lord Shaftesbury. In dealing with minute distinctions and mere verbal emendations, a deliberative assembly occasionally loses its way, and members sometimes ask, "What is it we are about?" This was a question which Lord Shaftesbury usually answered with great promptitude and perspicuity, rarely failing to put the questions before their Lordships in an unmistakable form. Another valuable quality of Lord Shaftesbury as a chairman consisted in his impatience of prosy, unprofitable talk, of which, doubtless, there is comparatively little in the Upper House; but even that little he labored to make less by occasionally reviving attention to the exact points at issue, and sometimes, by an excusable manœuvre, shuttingout opportunity for useless discussion. When he sat on the woolsack as speaker, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, he deported himself after the manner of Chancellors; but when he got into his proper element at the table of the house, nothing could be more rapid than his evolutions; no hesitation, no dubiety, nor would he allow any one else to pause or doubt. Often has he been heard to say, in no very gentle tones, "Give me in that clausenow;"—"That's enough;"—"It will do very well as it is;"—"If you have anything further to propose, move at once;"—"Get through the bill now, and bring up that on the third reading." He always made their Lordships feel that, come what might, it was their duty to "get through the bill;" and so expeditious was the old Earl, that he would get out of the chair, bring up his report, and move the House into another committee in the short time that sufficed for the Chancellor to transfer himself from the woolsack to the Treasury bench and back again.
Mr.Thomas Wright Hill, eminent in England for some of the most important improvements that have been made in the means of education during this century, died on the 9th of June, at the age of eighty-eight. Hazelwood School, near Birmingham, established by Mr. Hill, was the most successful, as it was the first large experiment as to the practicability of governing boys by other principles than that of terror, of extending the range of scholastic acquirements beyond a superficial knowledge of the learned languages, and of making the acquisition of sound knowledge not only a duty but a delight. The views of Mr. Hill were set forth inPlans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in large numbers, drawn from Experience, first published in 1823; and a very elaborate paper in theEdinburgh Reviewof Jan. 1825, brought the system into general notice.
TheLondon Buildercontains a brief notice ofMelchior Boisserée, brother to Sulpize Boisserée, whose death is much regretted throughout Germany. It was so far back as the year 1804, that three young men, citizens of Cologne, conceived the idea of collecting and resuscitating the mediæval art-relics of the Rhine-lands. But what was, probably, but contemplated as a provincial undertaking, soon attracted the eyes of Europe, and became a great fact of modern art-history. When, about 1808, Sulpize Boisserée determined to devote himself entirely to the work on the Cologne Cathedral, Melchior and his brother Bertram continued the research and collection of ancient paintings. But already in 1810, the old pictures had outgrown the scanty spaces appropriable to them at Cologne. They were transferred first to Heidelberg, and in 1819 the three brothers migrated with them to Stuttgardt, where the king afforded room to this unique gathering of mediæval art. It was Melchior who chiefly attended to the restoration of the pictures, and enriched the collection during his travels in the Netherlands, in 1812 and 1813. Having found some of the pictures of Hemling and Memling, it was he who first attracted notice to these excellent, hitherto hardly known artists. In 1827 the collection was sold to Ludwig of Bavaria, and as the Pinakotheka (where they were to be placed) was not ready, the pictures were conveyed to Schleissheim. In this retirement, Melchior Boisserée devoted his whole attention to the art of glass painting, which at that time was nigh considered as lost. If now such great things are accomplished at Munich in this department of Art, it was Melchior (conjointly with his brother Bertram) who paved the way by this collection of old specimens, seen with astonishment by travellers from the whole of Europe. When Bertram had died (about 1830), Melchior joined his brother Sulpize at Bonn, where Melchior, in the prosecution of his favored Art-studies, concluded his life in serene quiet and contentment.
In the death ofChristian Tieck, German sculpture has lost one of its most illustrious ornaments, a man of rare intelligence, of long experience, and of profound artistic cultivation. He was born in Berlin, on the 14th of August, 1776, and early destined for a sculptor. The poetic genius and rare qualities of his brother Lewis Tieck, the poet, his elder by three years, and the graceful artistic and literary accomplishments of a sister, afterward the Baroness Knooring, inspired the young sculptor with the warmest interest in the then young and hopeful German literature and art. This taste he never lost. Perhaps no artist, so distinguished as an artist, was ever so devoted to various study, to the last moment of his life.
In 1797, he went to Paris as Royal Pensioner, and although a sculptor, entered David's studio, and in the year 1800 took the prize for sculpture. In 1801 he returned to Berlin, and his distinguished talent was acknowledged. Goethe immediately summoned him to Weimar, and employed him in the adorning of the Ducal palace, and in the moulding of a series of busts. Of this latter an idealized head of Goethe and of the philologist Frederic August Wolf, are the best. The young Tieck continued in the closest correspondence with his brother, who was then pursuing his poetical studies at Jena and Dresden, and they went with Rumohr to Italy, in the year 1805, and there by his beautiful busts, won the friendship of William Von Humboldt, a man of the most delicate and accurate artistic taste, as well as of the noblest character and intellectual ability. Madame de Staël invited Tieck to execute sculptures at Coppet, for the Neckar family, and in 1809 the Prince Royal of Bavaria, Louis, selected Tieck to mould the busts for the projected Walhalla. He did them, and in 1812 passed into Switzerland. He lived in Zurich, where Rauch was then engaged upon his noble work, the reclining statue of Queen Louisa, now at Charlottenburg, and a warm friendship was formed between the sculptors. In 1819 he returned to Berlin, was elected into the Senate of the Academy, and appointed Professor by the Grand Duke of Weimar. He then quietly devoted himself to his art, and Berlin is beautiful with Tieck's sculptures. Named, in 1830 director of the Gallery of Sculpture, he did not relax his artistic activity, and after a long illness he died gently in the spring of his year, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
His elder brother Lewis, the most deservedly famous of the living illustrations of German literature, the only worthy translator of Shakspeare, the most genial friend, the most single-hearted of poets, whom the King honors and who loved Novalis—now seventy-eight years old, awaits in continued and patiently endured illness the gentle guiding of death to his best friend and brother.
The strong and superb stuffs of winter are quite superseded by ball dresses, at the various watering places. Theélégantesseektoiletteswhich, without being rich, are remarkable for lightness and tasteful patterns. We commend a white mousseline dress, with three flounces, simply hemmed; a long sash of ribbon of colored taffeta; natural flowers in the hair and on the front of the dress; a dress of colored taffeta, white or straw ground, or blue or pink ground; these stuffs are striped, or running and small patterns, or great branches with detached bouquets. Barèges are also much worn, with white ground sprinkled with little rose-buds; silk barège, with wreaths of flowers, are newer. The shape of the bodies of evening dresses has not undergone much change.Berthesare still worn, forming a point in front, only varying in the disposition of the ornaments, interspersed with small ribbons or lace and mousseline. Natural flowers will be worn for headdresses and bouquets. Walking dresses are much in vogue of barèges and mousseline, the body skirted, open in front, and lower down than in winter. We must mention a new dress, namedAlbanaise, made of barège. It is of several shades, but the mostrecherchéaregris poussière, or dust gray. Five dull silk stripes begin from the bottom of the dress; then an intervening space and four other stripes; another space and, to finish, three more stripes ending right in the belt, always diminishing in size. We have also seen a jaconet dress, embroideredà l'Anglaiseas an apron to the waist; the body embroidered at the edge flat, as well as in the skirts and sleeves; and three knots of blue taffeta fastened the bodice. For the country, dresses of Chinese nankeen and Persian jaconet are worn; and to protect from the sun, a kind of hood, of similar stuff. There are a great many black laceschales, embroidered muslins, printed barège, square or long, with cashmere patterns.
The scarfmanteletis also much in fashion, and the article which permits of the most frequentchange; a point scarcely perceptible in the middle of the back makes it still more graceful. It is made in all shades, but the mostcomme-il-fautare black; it is more suitable, and sets off the freshness of the dress. It is trimmed with lace, fringe, or net, covered with small velvet dots. We have seen some quite covered with common embroidery; others embroidered with arabesques intermingled with braid and silk, and black jet.
For the seaside there are also worn manymantelets, which remind us of the winter by their shape; but the materials are somewhat lighter, chiefly of thin summer cloth, or felt of gray shades.
ThePromenade Dress, on the preceding page, is of a rich plain chocolate-colored silk, made perfectly simple. Pardessus of a damson-colored brocaded silk, the lower part of which, as well as the large sleeves, being decorated with a magnificent double fringe, the under and deepest being of black, and the upper composed of long silk tassels, put at equal distances. Leghorn bonnet, trimmed with pink silk, cut the width of a broad ribbon, and pinked at the edge; the interior having a fulling of the pink silk encircling the face, with brides to match.
Coarse strawchapeaux, though principally intended for the country, are employed, though not much, for morningneglige, in town, and will be very much in request for the watering-places; they are of thecapoteform, in open-work, and lined with taffeta, of one of the colors of the ribbon that trims them. The ribbon is always plaided, and the most fashionable has a great variety of colors; the knots are large, and formed of severalcoques, divided in the middle by a torsade of ribbons; some are decorated with ribbons only, but small flowers and foliage may be employed to trim the interior of the brim. Fancychapeauxare composed of bands ofpaille dentelle, alternating with rose-colored taffetabiais, &c. Rice straw is also employed a good deal for fancychapeauxthat are formed of more than one material.
The following figures are copied from Parisian fashion plates for 1811. The shortness of the frocks should certainly satisfy the most extreme innovators of the present time.
LADIES' FASHIONS IN PARIS FORTY YEARS AGO.LADIES' FASHIONS IN PARIS FORTY YEARS AGO.