FIRST PLATE. View of the BRITANNIA on leaving CANDIA, (Canto the First, page 43:) "Majestically slow before the Breeze She moved triumphant o'er the yielding Seas:" SCENE, Sunrise, with an hazy Morning: the Ship is seen from the westward, her Sails all set, with a very light breeze; to the NE. appears the Isle of STANDIA, and to the right CANDIA. SECOND PLATE. The Ship having reefed Topsails a second time, they are left on the Cap to await the coming of a tremendous Squall: (Canto the Second, page 58:) "Their Task above thus finished, they descend, This throws the Vessel on her side, and splits the Mainsail; the Mizen is hauled up, the Helm a-weather, and the Ship is veering from the Wind. THIRD PLATE. I am unable to notice this View without expressing my admiration at the force and accuracy of its composition: (Canto the Third, page 127:) "Ah Heaven!-behold her crashing ribs divide! She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the Tide." The Ship, having hauled to the wind with her head to the westward, is dismasted, and wrecked a little to the eastward of Cape COLONNA; of which a correct View is now for the first time given from a Drawing by Mr. GELL: "Where marble columns, long by time defaced, Moss covered on the lofty Cape are placed." The height of this Cape has not hitherto been sufficiently expressed. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF WILLIAM FALCONER. IF the Lives of literary men afford but scanty materials to their Biographer, the deficiency does not arise from a want of interesting events, since the natural progress of Genius must be always interesting; but because the events that happened were not deemed of sufficient importance to be preserved, nor the progress of genius towards maturity of sufficient consequence to be described, until Death had repressed the malevolence of Envy, and thus overcome, what BEATTIE so admirably termed, the unconquerable bar of Poverty. It, on this account, becomes the duty of Literary Men, who have published works of sufficient importance to attract public notice, to bequeath as a kind of legacy to their Country, an account of their lives and writings, and of the gradual progress of their minds: nor should any writer be taxed with • Minstrel. vanity* for doing this; since it would tend to enlarge our knowledge of an history, of all others the most interesting-the history of the human mind. Memoirs of living Authors, published by persons who have never lived in habits of intimacy with them, are of little service to the cause of Literature, unless Minutes of the leading particulars in each Life are furnished by the individuals themselves: for otherwise, a scope is afforded to wound the feelings of many a worthy man, and to increase the flippant conceit of many a successful Impostor. Splenetic Curiosity frequently devours, what Principle, and Honour should lead men to reject with indignation. Biography in the present day affords only a suspicious, and a very questionable mode of information; whilst many a Character, owing to the strange state in which this branch of Literature is suffered to remain, will descend to Posterity, so changed from the original, that all deductions which the Historian, or Critic, may draw from a consideration of it, must necessarily prove defective. * Ac plerique suam ipsi vitam narrare, fiduciam potius morum, quàm arrogantiam arbitrati sunt. (TACITUS VITA AGRIC.) + It behoves the Royal, and Antiquarian Societies, and also the Royal Academy, to procure from the relatives of any deceased Associate, or Member of celebrity, a biographical Memoir of his literary Life, which should be regularly published in their Transactions. |