sculpture, unlike that which imbodies action and sentiment, is exhausted by a few words-the reader wearies of accounts of dead game, and flowers, and garlands, and wishes for intercourse with man. To Evelyn and to Walpole we owe almost all we know, and we must be content with that little all. The latter curious inquirer informs us, that in Thoresby's collection he saw an Elijah under the Juniper Tree, supported by an angel, six inches long and four inches wide, from the chisel of Gibbons, and that he himself had at Strawberry Hill a point cravat from the same hand, the art of which" arrives even at deception." We are informed from other sources that Nahum Tate wrote verses in praise of one of our artist's marble busts; and also of a circumstance still more unfriendly to his fame, that the fire of Chiswick consumed some of the fairest of his works. While stringing together these unconnected things, we may state that at Houghton two chimneys are adorned by Gibbons's foliage; that at Southwick, in Hampshire, there is a whole gallery embroidered in panels by his hand; and that the altar-piece of Trinity College, Oxford, is justly considered one of his happiest works.

Petworth, that celebrated residence of the LovainPercys, from whom it has descended to the present munificent Earl of Egremont, rivals Chatsworth in the varied boldness and rich elegance of its ornamental carving. A noble apartment, sixty feet long, twenty-four feet wide, and twenty high, is profusely enriched with carved panels, and corresponding festoons formed of fruits, flowers, shells, birds, and sculptured vases. The splendour of these carvings would make this magnificent room worth a pilgrimage, even were it not also adorned by many exqui site paintings from the pencils of the first masters. The quantity of ornament is immense, but the quality is equally wonderful. One of the vases thus

pendent among birds and flowers is of an antique fashion, "with a bas-relief," says Walpole, "of the purest taste, and worthy of the Grecian age of cameos." While these embellishments were in progress, the house caught fire, and Selden, a favourite disciple and assistant of Gibbons, lost his life in saving the festoon which contains that beautiful

vase.

It only remains to be related, that in 1714 our artist was appointed Master Carver in wood to George the First, with a salary of eighteen pence per day; that he enjoyed that moderate bounty for seven years-and died at his own house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, on the 3d of August, 1721.

Of the other works of Gibbons there exists no accurate account. The font in St. James's Church, representing Adam and Eve, John the Baptist, and Philip and the Eunuch, was from his hand; and at Stanstead, the seat of the Earl of Halifax, is one of his chimney-pieces, ornamented richly with flowers and antique vases. At his death his collection—and it was not inconsiderable—of pictures, and models, and patterns, was dispersed by auction. "Among other things," says Walpole, "were two chimneypieces of his own work, the one valued at £100, the other at £120-his own bust in marble by himself, but the wig and cravat extravagant-and an original of Simon, the engraver, by Sir Peter Lely, which had been damaged by the fall of Gibbons's house. There are two different prints of Gibbons by Smith, both fine; the one, with his wife, after Closterman, the other from a picture at Houghton by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who has shown himself as great in that portrait as the man who sat to him."

Of the personal character of the first of our English sculptors who shall inform us, since contem porary biographers have been silent? We may surmise from the Diary of Evelyn, that he was modest,

:

and remembered acts of kindness; and we may suspect, from the extravagant cravat and pompous wig in which he dressed his own bust, that he was a little vain. His portrait by Kneller supports this suspicion the splendour of the flowing wig, the encumbrance of the robe, and the hands placed for effect and not for labour, may be imputed indeed to the painter; but the bust from his own hand has much of the same conceited and fantastic air. Concerning his numerous pupils not much can be said. The labours of his favourite, Selden, are lost in those of the master, and even the carvings of Watson at Chatsworth must owe much of their excellence to the presiding spirit of Gibbons, with whose own actual handywork they are intermingled. With him ornamental carving rose to its highest excellence in this country. No one has since approached him in the happy boldness and natural freedom of such productions. Under his chisel stone seemed touched with vegetable life, and wood became as lilies of the valley and fruit from the tree. One may be pardoned for wishing, with such things before us, that architecture would once more condescend to cover its nakedness with an ornamental leaf or two. There is a penury of embellishment in our public edifices Our architects should remember that it is only exquisite beauty which can afford to go in plain attire. We miss the massive splendour and picturesque effect of Gibbons's festoons. Our eyes grow weary gazing on naked walls and unadorned entablatures; bald simplicity, in short, has few sincere admirers.

In the grace and elegance of his workmanship, he excelled all artists who preceded as well as those who have followed him; nevertheless, in felicity of grouping, and vivid richness and propriety of appli cation, he was far surpassed by those intrepid artists who embellished our old abbeys and cathedrals. In

comparing his works with those Gothic carvings the remark of Gilpin is confirmed, that "Gibbons was no adept at composition;" but in execution he has no rival. There was an impediment in his way, I apprehend, which some men of taste will be reluctant to admit-the Grecian architecture, which he was called upon to enrich, refuses to wear with grace a profusion of garlands; whereas the grove-like stateliness and harmonious variety of the Gothic carry fruits and flowers as naturally as trees bear leaf and bloom.

CAIUS GABRIEL CIBBER.

THE ready wit and energetic style of the Careless Husband and the Apology have secured for the name of Cibber a permanent station in our literature; but the poetic statues of Madness and Melancholy had previously crowned it with merited distinction in another department.

Caius Gabriel Cibber, one of those artists whom England, before she addressed her own faculties to sculpture, imported from foreign parts, was son to the cabinet-maker of the King of Denmark. He was by all accounts born at Flensburg, in Holstein, in the year 1630. Of his early history little is related by Vertue,—and Walpole pauses in the midst of praise to censure the son, Colley Cibber, for being silent respecting it. "That singularly pleasing biographer," says. Orford, "who has dignified so many trifling anecdotes of players by the expressive energy of his style, has recorded nothing of a father's life, who had so much merit in his profession." He discovered-it is not said at what agesuch talent for sculpture, that the King of Denmark sent him, at his own expense, to pursue his studies in Rome. There, or elsewhere, he acquired much skill in art, and coming to London not long before the revolution, obtained employment from John, the son of Nicholas Stone, a name very favourably mentioned among the artists of those days. A sculptor in the times of the Stuarts took rank with architects and masons, and the three employments

* Over the entrance o Bedlam, London.