Library / Literature & Fiction
John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character
by William Makepeace Thackeray
- Pages
- about 18
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 20 min at 250 wpm
From the opening
* 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
of the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is put out
of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your grandmother or
grandaunts took you there and said the pictures were admirable. You saw
"the Woodman" in worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the
snow; the snow bitter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful: a
gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large dingy pictures
of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors with limbs strongly knitted;
there was especially, at the end of a black passage, a den of lions,
that would frighten any boy not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and
accustomed to them.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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