artist by operating on her carriage, and adjusting her proportions, can give the appearance of height, when nature has refused it. Still, however, art is most successful when it dextrously avails itself of the bounties of nature; and as intellectual cultivation succeeds best when bestowed on a bright genius, and as all the ploughing in the world is nothing to a rich bed of manure, so bodily cultivation produces the most striking results when bestowed on a figure of some natural symmetry. Having determined by a close inspection, what are the laudable points in a girl's structure, or, to use Brown's well-imagined phrase, what are "her capabilities," the great object of cultivation is to make the most of them; to bring every attention to bear upon displaying what is good, and concealing what is defective; upon forcing nature in her favourable dispositions, and averting the mischievous energies of her misplaced bounty. In every variation of the human frame, nature has a specific aim, and the business of art is to conform to her views, and to develope her designs. To this end, the professor commences a series of operations "upon scientific principles," as he terms it, by which the most extraordinary changes are effected. By diet, compresses, and various other artifices, "too tedious to enumerate," flesh is absorbed from one part of the person, in order to be accumulated on another and the em peror of all the conjurors is not more dextrous in conveying his balls from cup to cup, than our artist in removing a tumid ancle, and transferring the peccant superfluity to some more desirable point of redundance. If a young lady is destined to operate on the hearts of her admirers by a "vis a tergo,” and like the Parthian, to shoot her arrows as she flies, the skill of the artist is exhibited in giving a plumpness and polished undulation to the shoulders, at the expense of a bosom, of which, perhaps, he can make nothing. At the same time, by a peculiar method of moving the body on the haunches, and by bandages well applied, all other fulnesses in front are repressed, while a jutting protuberance is favoured behind, which might put the Venus Callipygia to the blush of inferiority. If, on the contrary, the lady is not formed for "backing her friends," and it is not intended, in the language of the military martinet, that she should "front to the rear," that rear is abandoned without protection, and all the disposable forces accumulated in the van. The head is elevated, the chest thrown forward; a rich and succulent diet is brought to act secundem artem upon the bosom, whose form is either dipartited, or disposed in conglomerated magnificence, according as the osteolegy of the parts afford "ample scope and verge enough," or crib and confine the softer organs within a narrow compass. In these operations, the artist is much assisted by the milliner and the staymaker. Frills and flounces are added or taken away, as fulness is or is not desirable, or as concealment or exposure tend most to the effect in contemplation: gatherings of silk and velvet add to the natural developement of the favourite organ; while tight lacing and straight garments compress the wanton exuberance of an anathematized superfluity. But the great skill of the cultivator is exhibited in giving and maintaining the requisite rotundity to the mature charms of full-blown matrons in the meridian of life. The art bestowed in cooking cutlets and steaks, and in brewing ale, expressly ad hoc, as illustrated in the elaboratory of the divine Miss Prescott of magnetizing memory, would alone suffice to set up an alchemist. The conciliation of high health, with that quantity of indolence which is necessary to prevent a waste of the animal juices, requires a combination of skill and refinement, that, otherwise applied, might serve to discover the longitude. Yet Í am told that it cost a celebrated beauty twenty years of steady application to bring her person to the vast developement necessary for effecting her object. My design, however, in the present article is merely to announce the discovery,-not to demonstrate its details; and I refer such of your readers, as are curious either for physiological facts or mechanical illustrations of the system, to the professors themselves, who are to be heard of at the stage-door of the Opera House, and at the principal "genteel boarding-schools," and fashionable dress-makers, west of Temple Bar. In the mean time, I have the honour to remain, &c. &c. PROVINCIAL BALLADS.-NO. I. The Children in the Snow. The incident upon which these lines are founded, is that, during the winter of 1819-20, two apprentice boys were lost in a snow-storm, in that part of Dartmoor, in which the scene of the ballad is laid. Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, a few miles distant from the town of Ashburton. of the Dart. One of the Torrs in the district of the Moor. *Few will need to be informed that the mountainous masses which rise along this extensive platform of moorland, are denominated Torrs. Widdecombe, i. e. wide valley. The boys were really buried at Ashburton; but, as the author was desirous to confine his tale to the limits of the Moor, he has represented the interment as having taken place at Widdecombe. A party of twelve men carried the coffins over the snow, relieving each other by turns. At Hazle Torr they were met by another party from Ashburton, who bore the poor children to their last earthly home. The winds, that howl'd o'er many a heap The blighted flowers reposing there!— Should any such your board maintain, Nor wring their hearts for guilty gain: The tide of grief and hardship too; J. MADAME DE KRUDNER. BENEVOLENCE loses much, not only of its charm, but of its intrinsic merit, when it comes forth with ostentatious publicity; the character of true charity, more especially when exercised by women, ought ever to be qualified by humility. In vain do they tell us how much they regret obscurity, what sacrifices they are making for the welfare of mankind, in thus consenting to stand forth in the face of the world. All these phrases, worn and hackneyed as they are by the female professors of philanthropy of the present day, convince us not a whit the more for their frequent repetition. The world cannot be duped for any length of time; for, however a plausible show or loud profession may gain its point for a season, truth, and truth only, is ultimately persuasive; truth alone can aspire to that noblest and most precious of all recompense-public approbation. In proportion as we blame those females who borrow the language of humility as a cloak for their vanity, are we ready to render the homage of justice and of admiration to those, who, contenting themselves with the exercise of domestic virtue, labour to promote the happiness of all around them, and who do not neglect their first duties-those of wife and mother-under the extravagant pretence of reforming society. Error concealed beneath the mask of religion, becomes doubly dangerous, making numerous proselytes, and spreading rapidly; while those who would endeavour to arrest its progress, are exclaimed against for its impiety. Its supporters appeal to their divine missions, to their inspirations, and even to passages from the holy scriptures, which they have either purposely distorted, or ill understood; religion, in short, is no more than a mask to cover the designs of ambitious dissemblers or converted sinners, to whom the excitement of intrigue and agitation is still necessary, and who think an ostentatious confession a full atonement for their former sins. Madame de Krudner is in the latter class. After having passed through the vicissitudes of a wild and irregular youth, a fancy to become inspired took possession of her; and she resolved to offer up, in sacrifice and expiation for her own faults, the reason of credulous multitudes, whom she would soon have driven as mad as herself, had she continued her pretended mission. Madame de Krudner having been much spoken of, although in reality little known, the following is at sketch of her life. Vol. IX. No. 49.-1825. |