Page 108

108               Original Papers: Shield of  Eneas. 
misery and want; and in their squalor they present to the visitor a melan-
choly contrast with tle delicacy and beauty of the fabric upon which the
ill- 
paid operative is engaged. 
The weavers of Norwich, like their predecessors of Ghent and Bruges, have
ever been ready to resist by physical force any real or imaginary invasion
of 
their rights, and during the present century this city has been several times
a 
scene of disorder. It is, however, but just to say, that the same intrepidity
of 
character and buoyancy of disposition have supported them during successive
years of low wages and distress; and the same tact and shrewdness of character
have availed them in producing from their looms the most difficult creations
of fancy. 
As a body they are intensely political, alive to all matters of public interest,
temperate in their habits, patient amidst unparalleled sufferings, and in
their 
craft perhaps still unsurpassed by any artisans in Europe. 
To the manufacturers of Norwich, if it is permitted us to offer advice, we
would say,-Exhibit yet greater enterprise, acquaint yourselves more inti-
mately with the products of the Continent, give your wages as remunerative
as possible, let emulation (not competition) be your maxim, cultivate sym-
pathy between yourselves and your workmen, enlist their efforts and their
interest in your success, unite your own energy and talents with their ready
co-operation, relax not your endeavours until Norwich beneath your influence
becomes the Lyons of England, and give a practical evidence of all this in
Hyde Park in 1851. 
SHIELD OF XNEAS. 
WE would call attention to this noble work, as one which we should greatly
like to see completed for the great Exhibition of 1851. It was designed and
modelled by W. Pitts, left incomplete by him at his death in electrotype
deposit, and was exhibited last year at the Society of Arts by Messrs. Hunt
and Roskill in this state. 
Apart from the melancholy interest which attaches to this work *of art in
consequence of the sad life and death of its most talented author, there
are many 
other points of view in which it should be regarded with the greatest enthu-
siasm. In the first place, it is, after Flaxman's chef-d'aeuvre (as far as
we have 
had any opportunity of judging), the finest piece of modelling for metal-work
which has ever been produced in England. In the second, it embodies one of
the finest pieces of painting-in-words that poetry has ever brought to the
aid of 
sculpture. In the third, it is a monument of what may be achieved by indomit-
able will, under the most adverse circumstances. And, in the fourth, it may,
perchance, reveal the story to some of those who are in the habit of trading
in 
men's brains, without any consideration for their bodies, that the fire of
genius 
must be kept gently alight,-that they cannot and must not tax the energies
of 
the soul in the same ratio in which they are accustomed to exact labour from
the hands,-and that, if they persevere in so doing, the blood be upon their
heads. 
It is a sad loss for the country that poor Pitts did not live to complete
this great national monument in silver, since the plaster model he left must
be 
regarded as only an indication of what the finished work would have been.
When we recollect that even the cast bronze doors at Florence occupied Luca
della Robbia and Ghiberti for years in the finishing and chasing, and when
the 
most cursory glance shews what they must have gained in refinement from this
mode of treatment, how much may we not imagine that this shield would have
benefited by the careful elaboration and pertinacious study that must have
been 
gone through, in order to produce it in silver, by the process of rkpoussage,
or 
beating up from the back? Every figure and every detail would have been,
as 
it were, redesigned; every slight imperfection would have been done away
with, 
and the work have at last received, from the most delicate tooling, the perfection
of texture and refinement of relief. 
Under existing circumstances, it is impossible to compare this work with