THE PEDESTRIAN. NO. 1. DULWICH COLLEGE & PICTURE GALLERY. : DR. JOHNSON extolled the luxury of a PostChaise:-but Dr. Johnson was heavy, unwieldy,. and by constitution indisposed to activity:-for myself, being light-made, in tolerable health, and withal somewhat younger than the literary colossus at the period when he could solace himself with posting, I prefer travelling, on every occasion where it is practicable, as a Pedestrian. 'Tis true, I travel not often and my excursions (though not many years back thirty miles per diem were no great exertion to me) have been shorter latterly, having seldom extended beyond three or four miles from the metropolis. Luckily for the Londoner, who enjoys as I do the exercise of his walking powers, the environs of the metropolis afford a great variety of charming rambles: of which the latest I indulged in was to the pretty village W of DULWICH, and included a visit to its College, and delightful Picture Gallery. The approach to this very pleasing village, by the winding road that conducts to it from the line of citizens' boxes on Herne Hill, has all that trimness in the midst of rural appearances, that generally distinguishes the country to some distance from the immediate neighbourhood of great cities. The village itself presents a pretty combination of houses at irregular distances, with numerous trees, and a broad and well-kept road-way. The College is at its farther extremity, facing the spectator as he advances, and, though without architectural graces of any kind, has an aspect that immediately creates interest. It looks, as it is, a building of various dates: ancient as to its foundation, modern in every approach to embellishment and handsome appearance. God's Gift College (for by that name it is called) was founded in the year 1619, by Edward Alleyne, a Player of much celebrity in his time, characterised by Heywood as "Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue;" and who, by the exercise of his profession, had acquired means to purchase the manor of Dulwich, and shortly afterwards to erect this institution. He conveyed the manor, with other estates, to the use of the college for ever; and admitted upon his foundation a master, warden, four fellows, six poor brethren, six sisters, and twelve scholars :-the exact number of each of which description of inmates has been religiously preserved to the present period, notwithstanding that the original revenues amounted annually to about eight hundred pounds, and may now net not quite so many thousands. According to the statutes, the master and warden must be of the blood and surname of the founder, or, for want of such, (as in the case of those officers at present,) of his surname only:-a proviso, by which the said founder gave an example of that laudable ambition to shew posterity that he had done as he pleased with his own money, which has been seen to prevail in such a multitude of similar institutions. The principal front composes three sides of a quadrangle, approached by an ornamental garden, and contains the chapel, the school, and the Fellows' and Poor Brethren's apartments. In the rear-front are the Master's and Warden's apartments, looking upon their and the Fellows' very tasteful private garden. But the building that principally demands attention, is that whose rear runs nearly along one entire side of the last-mentioned inviting pleasure ground, while its front faces the road to Norwood. This, though contrived, on its erection about ten years back, to comprise the Poor Sisters' apartments, is, in all its main features, the Gallery, and a structure, in every part of which is legible, SOANE, ARCHITECT,— although it is one, which, to my poor taste, presents abundantly little (if I may so Hibernianize in expressing myself) to admire. Within, however, the construction of the edifice, with reference to its peculiar purpose, merits every praise; nor are there many collections more felicitously brought bofore the eye of the spectator, than the Dulwich.-I proceed to express my admiration as I best can-without much regard to the order of arrangement upon the walls-of a very few out of the three hundred and fifty-six more or less delicious examples of the pictorial art here deposited. The landscapes by Flemish artists are among the chief riches of the collection; and perhaps the richest of these are the works of Cuyp"the elegant-minded, the imaginative, the poetical Cuyp-poetical and imaginative notwithstanding the absolute truth with which he treated his subjects, and the exceedingly limited range of them." Here, particularly in the first room, are many of this painter's most charming efforts, "suffused with a rich golden light, and steeped in a thin air, glowing and flickering with the heat which has rarefied it"-light, water, and sky, blended together, and melted into each other-distances stretching away, till they seem to quiver through the mist-as objects appear to do when seen beyond an extended, open space, from which the heat is rising-and at last uniting with the atmosphere in such a manner that scarcely a visible distinction is left between them. Next to these in interest, in the first room, are the pictures of Teniers, of a tone, though cold, exceedingly sweet and silvery. His representations of domestic and rural subjects appear not to have any thing like colour upon them-they seem the objects themselves, only "in little." A piece (numbered 10) by Adrian Brauwer, also takes the fancy exceedingly: it represents the interior of an ale-house, with Dutch Boors regaling. Every successive grade of inebriety is here admirably expressed; from the first rise of the mirthful mood, to the glorious height of drunkenness, and the stupid calm of complete satiety. The finest things in the second room, are some yet sweeter delineations, in his most peculiar style, by Teniers; an admirable por |