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Untitled Article
A schoolboy scrawls strange shapes , while looking every moment at his copy . ' Where is he or she who has not looked upon the lovely miniature engraving of Selirn and Zuleika ? Those who have not , have a new and unknown pleasure in store . Those who have , will place it where their vision may often rest upon it ; for it is a
treasure of no ordinary delight to those upon whom the perception of beauty has descended . Full of faults , still it is a gem , rich in silent poetry . Had I but possessed it when a child , it would have been to me a priceless treasure . Mark how beautiful looks that gentle girl , with her soft upward-turned gaze , of full , confiding , strong , but passionless affection 1 Look at that exquisitely rounded arm and left hand , with the taper fingers extended to touch her
lover ' s cheek , softly as a zephyr kissing the lips of a just opening rose ! The eyes have speculation in them , and discourse eloquent music , while the sweet , closed lips are motionless . See the dark hair , parted from the fair forehead , and floating in rich wavy curls over her symmetric shoulder , half burying the clasping hand of
her lover 1 That throat , that * gently budding breast , ' that waist , which it were worth an empery to clasp ; the graceful bend of the lower limbs , kneeling in affectionate devotion , and the flow of the drapery of her white robe , all combine to form an altar-piece for the worship of pure love , freed from all grosser taint ! And her lover , with his Greek face , and noble throat , and his muscular but
not coarse frame , his tasteful garments , and above all his manly and protecting glance , while his hand so gently clasps her , as though he feared to crush her fair form ;—in sooth he is a lover worthy of a noble-minded woman ' s devotion .
Yet is this exquisite morsel of dumb poetry full of faults . It is painful to name them , but it were injustice to artists of such wondrous power to omit it . The slight inward bend from the straight line , which should -have marked the outline of the nostril of Zuleika , we can forgive ; it perhaps gives her an expression of more child-like devotion to the idol of her heart ; but it was
unpardonable not to pair her right hand with her left ; still more so to make it as long as the entire fore-arm . This is a defect ' past all surgery ; ' besides , it looks as if it were dislocated ; and then if the artist had not a shapelier foot in his studio , it were better to have suffered the skirt of the robe to hide it . And Selim ! He was a Turk , or Moor ; therefore he should not be represented as a renegade Greek . And why , in addition , disfigure him
needlessly by giving him the lip and chin of a misshapen Spanish Bourbon ? His turban , too , resembles a huge pumpkin . There doubtless are such ; but why not select a handsome pattern , when no violence would have been done to the keeping' by so doing , a $ d much service to the effect ? And where got he the weapon by his side ? No Turk or Moor wrought it . It is indeed ' a brand of foreign blade and hilt / very like a Roman sword ; but as
Untitled Article
1 £ On the State of the Fine Arts in England .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/12/
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