residence of artists, and still retained his studio there; but on marrying for a second time (the lady in this case being a daughter of his fellow-academician, the late James Ward), he had settled in St. John's Wood, and the increase of his popularity promised an access of fame and fortune. Unhappily, he took a violent cold in travelling by night, on the outside of a stage-coach, when visiting his native county. He had engaged a place inside the coach, but found it occupied by a stubborn person, who refused to yield it up, and, with characteristic good nature, he submitted to the injustice, and took a seat upon the roof, while the rain fell incessantly. The consequence was a fever, which for six months almost totally disabled him from painting. Yet he made an effort to attend the funeral of his early patron, Lord Mulgrave, and, it was thought, increased his illness to a fatal degree. The last few weeks of his life were consoled by the offices of friendship, and cheered by the blessings of religion. He hailed the attendance of his minister as a messenger from heaven; and that minister was wont to relate in his family that nothing could be more touching than the scene which the dying painter's room presented, on the dawn of a summer's morning, the light just faintly, but purely, glancing from the trees into the chamber, while the last memorials of a Saviour's death were offered to the sick man's lips, and received in humble faith. Thus died John Jackson, on the 1st day of June, 1831, having just completed his fifty-third year. A few words may be added on the general character of Jackson's works, and their position in the school of British art. It is probable that the merit even of his best performance will never obtain a wide or just acknowledgment. His style was too genuine and unaffected to command attention or excite surprise; for in the language of a judicious critic, this painter was one of the most honest of the children of flattery.' His sitters were certain to have no more than justice done to them, and to find themselves reflected on the canvas without the addition of airs and graces foreign to their persons. It must be owned that Jackson was frequently too careless in the treatment of his figures, which are slovenly and heavy in many instances; according to Allan Cunning ham, they are sometimes even corpse-like.' His attitudes are tame and lifeless, and wanting in what the German critics call 'animated motives.' Lawrence, and most of his contemporaries, excelled in this very particular where Jackson failed; and their portraits are far more popular in consequence. Our artist concentrated all his care upon the head; on that master-piece of nature, itself a world of beauty, feeling, and intelligence, he lavished all the resources of his skill; and when he was happy in his subject, and happy in his work, he rarely failed to do honour as well as homage to the 'human face divine.' It is a liberal education in art to live much in the presence of a work by such a master. POEMS OF SAMUEL WESLEY, Jun.* It is just two hundred years since Bartholomew Westley, in company with two thousand honest men, quitted the erastian Church of England, though we believe it is not from that circumstance that the day of their departure became known as 'Black Bartholomew.' This good man was the founder of the family of the Wesleys, the last members of which survived within the memory of the present generation; for Samuel Wesley, the infant prodigy and refined musician, did not quit the stage of life till the year 1837. (We remember to have seen him in our childhood, as he tottered to the organ-seat where he had promised to preside.) In the long interval of these dates most of the members of this family were distinguished by unusual piety and genius, and some by a rare adversity of fortune. But John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, was the most eminent of his race. For more than sixty years he encountered the labours and obloquy of a religious reformer, in a century of peculiar dulness and *Poems on Several Occasions. By Samuel Wesley, Jun., A.M. A new Edition, including many pieces never before published. Edited by the late James Nichols; with a Life of the Author, by William Nichols. Simpkin and Co. 1862. infidelity. His extraordinary merits are generally acknowledged now by all enlightened and candid men; but even still he is comparatively unappreciated; and it is only the other day that our Saturnine contemporary amused its readers by travestying the love-passage which disturbed for a time the calm and devoted course of this reformer, not knowing that the stifled affections of such men are among the most pathetic incidents of human history, and claim to be approached with almost filial reverence and tenderness. Our attention is called, by the interesting volume put forth by Mr. Nichols, to the personal merits of Samuel Wesley, Jun. He was the elder brother of John and Charles, to both of whom he acted the part of a father and protector, when the good old Rector of Epworth-enlarged in his family and proportionately straitened in his circumstances—was unable to bestow more than a patriarch's blessing on the lads. Samuel was a strict Churchman, and a Tory of the school of Oxford. With Harley himself he was on familiar terms; with Pope, and Swift, and Prior, he maintained an occasional correspondence; while his strong sympathy with Atterbury, the scheming and unfortunate Bishop of Rochester, could only have sprung from personal attachment of the most unselfish sort—since nothing is known to impeach the loyalty of Wesley, and his manly uprightness of character was equally removed from fawning and intrigue. To his party predilections Wesley no doubt sacrificed many chances of advancement which his talents and connexions fairly promised. He was content with independence in a modest station, and pleased to indulge his wit for the amusement of his friends, and the discomfiture of his political opponents. For twenty years he occupied the post of Chief Usher at Westminster School, where he had received his own education as a King's scholar. At the close of that period, the office of Second Master became vacant, and Wesley, whose sound learning and talents were beyond dispute, naturally looked for the appointment as his due. When this was withheld, he thought right to accept an offer from another quarter, and spent the last seven years of his life as Head Master of the Free Grammar School at Tiverton. The poems of Samuel Wesley are racy of the times in which he lived. It is a pleasant change to turn from the delicate abstractions of the modern muse to one of those lastcentury wits, who wrote verses only on occasional themes, who used his talents at the instance of affection or for party purposes, and whose collected writings have the charm of petty history and biography. It does not appear that Wesley had any model for his compositions; but Mat Prior was his personal acquaintance, and some of the pieces in this collection-the story of 'The Pig,' for example, and that of 'The Mastiff'―are quite in the manner of that frail, good-natured poet. Our author also wrote Anacreontics, but they were unquestionably addressed to his own wife. This is one of them : 'Dear, and ever dear, whom I Faithful, blest, without a lie!" One of his contemporaries at Westminster was the amiable 'Vinny Bourne,' not more exquisite in his Latin verses than slovenly as an usher and a man. "I have seen," said Cowper," the Duke of Richmond set fire to his greasy locks, and box his ears to put it out again." Wesley translated his colleague's poem of Melissa, with a beauty and concinnity of phrase quite worthy of the original. In return, it was the last effort of the muse of Vinny Bourne to give a Latin dress to the Song of the Three Hebrew Children,' which Wesley had boldly rendered from the Apocrypha. He could hardly claim to be of the family of Wesley, if our author did not indite some noble Christian hymn. The four hymns on the Trinity, comprised in this collection, are not inferior to the best of his brother Charles. In sublimity and condensation they rival the Athanasian Creed itself, while the united ease and energy of their language closely resemble Dryden. But the most characteristic pieces in this volume-those which reveal the author in his daily life and habit—are in the form of epigram and satire. He is never weary of complimenting a friend in some happy turn, or of girding at a political opponent with a pointed wit. His honey and his gall are both in readiness-one, to soothe the exile and bereavement of the fallen Atterbury; the other, to give a pungent sense of hatred to the coarse and pampered Walpole. He describes the manners of the age in a very effective style, and the following verses may be taken as a specimen of his more elaborate satire :: "The snuff-box first provokes our just disdain, |