Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

Poisons each thought with baleful breath!
That hell-worm is the stubborn Will—
Oh! What were man and nations worth
If each his own desire fulfil,
And law be banish'd from the earth?

"Valour the Heathen gives to story—
Obedience is the Christian's glory;
And on that soil our Saviour-God
As the meek low-born mortal trod.
We the Apostle-knights were sworn
To laws thy daring laughs to scorn—
Not fame, but duty to fulfil—
Our noblest offering—man's wild will.
Vain-glory doth thy soul betray—
Begone—thy conquest is thy loss:
No breast too haughty to obey,
Is worthy of the Christian's cross!"

From their cold awe the crowds awaken,
As with some storm the halls are shaken;
The noble brethren plead for grace—
Mute stands the doom'd, with downward face;
And mutely loosen'd from its band
The badge, and kiss'd the Master's hand,
And meekly turn'd him to depart:
A moist eye follow'd, "To my heart
Come back, my son!"—the Master cries:
"Thy grace a harder fight obtains;
When Valour risks the Christian's prize,
Lo, how Humility regains!"

[In the ballad just presented to the reader, Schiller designed, as he wrote to Goethe, to depict the old Christian chivalry—half-knightly, half-monastic. The attempt is strikingly successful; and, even in so humble a translation, the unadorned simplicity and earnest vigour of a great poet, enamoured of his subject, may be sufficiently visible to a discerning critic. "The Fight of the Dragon" appears to us the most spirited and nervous of all Schiller's ballads, with the single exception of "The Diver;" and if its interest is less intense than that of the matchless "Diver," and its descriptions less poetically striking and effective, its interior meaning or philosophical conception is at once more profound and more elevated. The main distinction, indeed, between the ancient ballad and the modern, as revived and recreated by Goethe and Schiller, is, that the former is a simple narrative, and the latter a narrative which conveys some intellectual idea—some dim, but important truth. The one has but the good faith of the minstrel, the other the high wisdom of the poet. In "The Fight of the Dragon," is expressed the moral of that humility which consists in self-conquest—even merit may lead to vain-glory—and, after vanquishing the fiercest enemies without, Man has still to contend with his worst foe,—the pride or disobedience of his own heart. "Every one," as a recent and acute, but somewhat over-refining critic has remarked, "has more or less—his own 'fight with the Dragon,'—his own double victory (without and within) to achieve." The origin of this poem is to be found in the Annals of the Order of Malta—and the details may be seen in Vertot's History. The date assigned to the conquest of the Dragon is 1342. Helion de Villeneuve was the name of the Grand Master—that of the Knight, Dieu-Donné de Gozon. Thevenot declares, that the head of the monster, (to whatever species it really belonged,) or its effigies, was still placed over one of the gates of the city in his time.]

REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. PART II

Having shown that the standard of Taste is in the Truth of Nature, and that this truth is in the mind, Sir Joshua, in the Eighth Discourse, proceeds to a further development of the principles of art. These principles, whether poetry or painting, have their foundation in the mind; which by its sensitive faculties and intellectual requirements, remodels all that it receives from the external world, vivifying and characterizing all with itself, and thus bringing forth into light the more beautiful but latent creations of nature. The "activity and restlessness" of the mind seek satisfaction from curiosity, novelty, variety, and contrast. Curiosity, "the anxiety for the future, the keeping the event suspended," he considers to be exclusively the province of poetry, and that "the painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by painting must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can have." Novelty, variety, and contrast, however, belong to the painter. That poetry has this power, and operates by more extensively raising our curiosity, cannot be denied; but we hesitate in altogether excluding this power from painting. A momentary action may be so represented, as to elicit a desire for, and even an intimation of its event. It is true that curiosity cannot be satisfied, but it works and conjectures; and we suspect there is something of it in most good pictures. Take such a subject as the "Judgment of Solomon:" is not the "event suspended," and a breathless anxiety portrayed in the characters, and freely acknowledged by the sympathy of the spectator? Is there no mark of this "curiosity" in the "Cartoon of Pisa?" The trumpet has sounded, the soldiers are some half-dressed, some out of the water, others bathing; one is anxiously looking for the rising of his companion, who has just plunged in, and we see but his hands above the water; the very range of rocks, behind which the danger is shown to come, tends to excite our curiosity; we form conjectures of the enemy, their number, nearness of approach, and from among the manly warriors before us form episodes of heroism in the great intimated epic: and have we not seen pictures by Rembrandt, where "curiosity" delights to search unsatisfied and unsatiated into the mysteries of colour and chiaro-scuro, receding further as we look into an atmosphere pregnant with all uncertain things? We think we have not mistaken the President's meaning. Mr Burnet appears to agree with us: though he makes no remark upon the power of raising curiosity, yet it surely is raised in the very picture to which we presume he alludes, Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the personages introduced after the catastrophe."

There is, however, a natural indolence of our disposition, which seeks pleasure in repose, and the resting in old habits, which must not be too violently opposed by "variety," "reanimating the attention, which is apt to languish under a continual sameness;" nor by "novelty," making "more forcible impression on the mind than can be made by the representation of what we have often seen before;" nor by "contrasts," that "rouse the power of comparison by opposition."

The mind, then, though an active principle, having likewise a disposition to indolence, (might we have said repose?) limits the quantity of variety, novelty, and contrast which it will bear;—these are, therefore, liable to excesses. Hence arise certain rules of art, that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to find the principal action. Nor must there be that "absolute unity," "which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires." Sir Joshua instances Rembrandt and Poussin, the former as having the defect of "absolute unity," the latter the defect of the dispersion and scattering his figures without attention to their grouping. Hence there must be "the same just moderation observed in regard to ornaments;" for a certain repose must never be destroyed. Ornament in profusion, whether of objects or colours, does destroy it; and, "on the other hand, a work without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which it makes pretensions, has rather the appearance of poverty." "We may be sure of this truth, that the most ornamental style requires repose to set off even its ornaments to advantage." He instances, in the dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, Shakspeare's purpose of repose—the mention of the martlets' nests, and that "where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate;" and the practice of Homer, "who, from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the brilliant."[10 - Could Sir Joshua now be permitted to visit his own Academy, and our exhibitions in general, he would be startled at the excess of ornament, in defiance of his rule of repose, succeeding the slovenliness of his own day. Whatever be the subject, history, landscape, or familiar life, it superabounds both in objects and colour. In established academies, the faults of genius are more readily adopted than their excellences; they are more vulgarly perceptible, and more easy of imitation. We have, therefore, less hesitation in referring the more ambitious of our artists to this prohibition in Sir Joshua's Discourse. The greater the authority the more injurious the delinquency. We therefore adduce as examples, works of our most inventive and able artist, his "Macbeth" and his "Hamlet"—they are greatly overloaded with the faults of superabundance of ornament, and want unity; yet are they works of great power, and such as none but a painter of high genius could conceive or execute. In a more fanciful subject, and where ornament was more admissible, he has been more fortunate, and even in the multiplicity of his figures and ornaments, by their grouping and management, he has preserved a seeming moderation, and has so ordered his composition that the wholeness, the simplicity, of his subject is not destroyed. The story is told, and admirably—as Sir Joshua says, "at one blow." We speak of his "Sleeping Beauty." We see at once that the prince and princess are the principal, and they are united by that light and fainter fairy chain intimating, yet not too prominently, the magic under whose working and whose light the whole scene is; nothing can be better conceived than the prince—there is a largeness in the manner, a breadth in the execution of the figure that considerably dignifies the story, and makes him, the principal, a proper index of it. The many groups are all episodes, beautiful in themselves, and in no way injure the simplicity. There is novelty, variety, and contrast in not undue proportion, because that simplicity is preserved. Even the colouring, (though there is too much white,) and chiaro-scuro, with its gorgeousness, is in the stillness of repose, and a sunny repose, too, befitting the "Sleeping Beauty." Mr Maclise has succeeded best where his difficulty and danger were greatest, and so it ever is with genius. It is not in such subjects alone that our artists transgress Sir Joshua's rule; we too often see portraits where the dress and accessaries obtrude—there is too much lace and too little expression—and our painters of views follow the fashion most unaccountably—ornament is every where; we have not a town where the houses are not "turned out of windows," and all the furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist's own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging from the windows. We have even seen a "Rag Fair" in a turnpike road.]

Novelty, Variety, and Contrast are required in Art, because they are the natural springs that move the mind to attention from its indolent quiescence; but having moved, their duty is performed—the mind of itself will do the rest; they must not act prominent parts. In every work there must be a simplicity which binds the whole together, as a whole; and whatever comes not within that girdle of the graces, is worse than superfluous—it draws off and distracts the attention which should be concentrated. Besides that simplicity which we have spoken of—and we have used the word in its technical sense, as that which keeps together and makes one thing of many parts—there is a simplicity which is best known by its opposite, affectation; upon this Sir Joshua enlarges. "Simplicity, being a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined." But it is possible, even in avoiding affectation, to convert simplicity into the very thing we strive to avoid. N. Poussin—whom, with regard to this virtue, he contrasts with others of the French school—Sir Joshua considers, in his abhorrence of the affectation of his countrymen, somewhat to approach it, by "what in writing would be called pedantry." Du Piles is justly censured for his recipe of grace and dignity. "If," says he, "you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn in such an attitude that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and as it were to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of me—I am the invincible king, surrounded by majesty.' 'I am the valiant commander who struck terror every where,' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics.' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'" This is indeed affectation, and a very vulgar notion of greatness. We are reminded of Partridge, and his admiration of the overacting king. All the characters in thus seeming to say, would be little indeed. Not so Raffaelle and Titian understood grace and dignity. Simplicity he holds to be "our barrier against that great enemy to truth and nature, affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, and ready to drop and poison every thing it touches." Yet that, "when so very inartificial as to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious virtue." Sir Joshua dwells much upon this, because he thinks there is a perpetual tendency in young artists to run into affectation, and that from the very terms of the precepts offered them. "When a young artist is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted; that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace and animation; that his outline must be undulating and swelling, to give grandeur; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours; when he is told this with certain animating words of spirit, dignity, energy, greatness of style, and brilliancy of tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules too far. It is then that the aid of simplicity ought to be called in to correct the exuberance of youthful ardour." We may add that hereby, too, is shown the danger of particular and practical rules; very few of the kind are to be found in the "Discourses." Indeed the President points out, by examples from Raffaelle, the good effect of setting aside these academical rules. We suspect that they are never less wanted than when they give direction to attitudes and forms of action. He admits that, in order "to excite attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified manner," he had perhaps left "an impression too contemptuous of the ornamental parts of our art." He had, to use his own expression, bent the bow the contrary way to make it straight. "For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it is not enough that a work be learned—it must be pleasing." Pretty much as Horace had said of poetry,

"Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto."

To which maxim the Latin poet has unconsciously given the grace of rhyme—

"Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto."

He again shows the danger of particular practical rules.—"It is given as a rule by Fresnoy, that 'the principal figure of a subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest.' A painter who should think himself obliged strictly to follow this rule, would encumber himself with needless difficulties; he would be confined to great uniformity of composition, and be deprived of many beauties which are incompatible with its observance. The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to extend, no further than this: that the principal figure should be immediately distinguished at the first glance of the eye; but there is no necessity that the principal light should fall on the principal figure, or that the principal figure should be in the middle of the picture." He might have added that it is the very place where generally it ought not to be. Many examples are given; we could have wished he had given a plate from any one in preference to that from Le Brun. Felebein, in praising this picture, according to preconceived recipe, gives Alexander, who is in shade, the principal light. "Another instance occurs to me where equal liberty may be taken in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice is to make a large mass about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of the rule be preserved." We have marked in italics the latter part of the sentence, because it shows that the rule itself must be ill-defined or too particular. Indeed, we receive with caution all such rules as belong to the practical and mechanical of the art. He instances Paul Veronese. "In the great composition of Paul Veronese, the 'Marriage of Cana,' the figures are for the most part in half shadow. The great light is in the sky; and indeed the general effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts: but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a space containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted, to all appearance, with as much facility, and with attention as steadily fixed upon the whole together, as if it were a small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration, the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged." We suspect that the rule, when it attempts to direct beyond the words Sir Joshua has marked in italics, refutes itself, and shackles the student. Infinite must be the modes of composition, and as infinite the modes of treating them in light and shadow and colour. "Whatever mode of composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable." All that is absolutely necessary is, that there be no confusion or distraction, no conflicting masses—in fact, that the picture tell its tale at once and effectually. A very good plate is given by Mr Burnet of the "Marriage of Cana," by Paul Veronese. Sir Joshua avoids entering upon rules that belong to "the detail of the art." He meets with combatants, as might have been expected, where he is thus particular. We will extract the passage which has been controverted, and to oppose the doctrine of which, Gainsborough painted his celebrated "Blue Boy."

"Though it is not my business to enter into the detail of our art, yet I must take this opportunity of mentioning one of the means of producing that great effect which we observe in the works of the Venetian painters, as I think it is not generally known or observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow red or yellowish white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support and set off these warm colours; and for this purpose a small proportion of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reversed; let the light be cold, and the surrounding colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious." Le Brun and Carlo Maratti are censured as being "deficient in this management of colours." The "Bacchus and Ariadne," now in our National Gallery, has ever been celebrated for its harmony of colour. Sir Joshua supports his theory or rule by the example of this picture: the red of Ariadne's scarf, which, according to critics, was purposely given to relieve the figure from the sea, has a better object. "The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchantes a little blue drapery." As there is no picture more splendid, it is well to weigh and consider again and again remarks upon the cause of the brilliancy, given by such an authority as Sir Joshua Reynolds. With regard to his rule, even among artists, "adhuc sub judice lis est." He combats the common notion of relief, as belonging only to the infancy of the art, and shows the advance made by Coreggio and Rembrandt; though the first manner of Coreggio, as well as of Leonardo da Vinci and Georgione, was dry and hard. "But these three were among the first who began to correct themselves in dryness of style, by no longer considering relief as a principal object. As these two qualities, relief and fulness of effect, can hardly exist together, it is not very difficult to determine to which we ought to give the preference." "Those painters who have best understood the art of producing a good effect, have adopted one principle that seems perfectly conformable to reason—that a part may be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, whether the masses consist of light or shadow, it is necessary that they should be compact, and of a pleasing shape; to this end some parts may be made darker and some lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would warrant." He instances a "Moonlight" by Rubens, now, we believe, in the possession of Mr Rogers, in which Rubens had given more light and more glowing colours than we recognize in nature,—"it might easily be mistaken, if he had not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun." We stop not to enquire if that harmony so praised, might not have been preserved had the resemblance to nature been closer. Brilliancy is produced. The fact is, the practice of art is a system of compensation. We cannot exactly in all cases represent nature,—we have not the means, but our means will achieve what, though particularly unlike, may, by itself or in opposition, produce similar effects. Nature does not present a varnished polished surface, nor that very transparency that our colours can give; but it is found that this transparency, in all its degrees, in conjunction and in opposition to opaque body of colour, represents the force of light and shade of nature, which is the principal object to attain. The richness of nature is not the exact richness of the palette. The painter's success is in the means of compensation.

This Discourse concludes with observations on the Prize pictures. The subject seems to have been the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. All had copied the invention of Timanthes, in hiding the face of Agamemnon. Sir Joshua seems to agree with Mr Falconet, in a note in his translation of Pliny, who would condemn the painter, but that he copied the idea from the authority of Euripides; Sir Joshua considers it at best a trick, that can only with success be practised once. Mr Fuseli criticises the passage, and assumes that the painter had better reason than that given by Mr Falconet. Mr Burnet has added but two or three notes to this Discourse—they are unimportant, with the exception of the last, wherein he combats Sir Joshua's theory of the cold and warm colours. He candidly prints an extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence, who differs with him. It is so elegantly written that we quote the passage. Sir Thomas says,—"Agreeing with you in so many points, I will venture to differ from you in your question with Sir Joshua. Infinitely various as nature is, there are still two or three truths that limit her variety, or, rather, that limit art in the imitation of her. I should instance for one the ascendency of white objects, which can never be departed from with impunity, and again, the union of colour with light. Masterly as the execution of that picture is (viz. the Boy in a blue dress,) I always feel a never-changing impression on my eye, that the "Blue Boy" of Gainsborough is a difficulty boldly combated, not conquered. The light blue drapery of the Virgin in the centre of the "Notte" is another instance; a check to the harmony of the celestial radiance round it." "Opposed to Sir Thomas's opinion," says Mr Burnet, "I might quote that of Sir David Wilkie, often expressed, and carried out in his picture of the 'Chelsea Pensioners' and other works." It strikes us, from our recollection of the "Chelsea Pensioners," that it is not at all a case in point; the blue there not being light but dark, and serving as dark, forcibly contrasting with warmer light in sky and other objects; the colour of blue is scarcely given, and is too dark to be allowed to enter into the question. He adds, "A very simple method may be adopted to enable the student to perceive where the warm and red colours are placed by the great colourists, by his making a sketch of light and shade of the picture, and then touching in the warm colours with red chalk; or by looking on his palette at twilight, he will see what colours absorb the light, and those that give it out, and thus select for his shadows, colours that have the property of giving depth and richness." Unless the pictures are intended to be seen at twilight, we do not see how this can bear upon the question; if it does, we would notice what we have often observed, that at twilight blue almost entirely disappears, to such a degree that in a landscape where the blue has even been deep, and the sky by no means the lightest part of the picture, at twilight the whole landscape comes out too hard upon the sky, which with its colour has lost its tone, and become, with relation to the rest, by far too light. It is said that of all the pictures in the National Gallery, when seen at twilight, the Coreggios retire last—we speak of the two, the "Ecce Homo" and the "Venus, Mercury, and Cupid." In these there is no blue but in the drapery of the fainting mother, and that is so dark as to serve for black or mere shadow; the lighter blue close upon the neck is too small to affect the power of the picture. It certainly is a fact, that blue fades more than any colour at twilight, and, relatively speaking, leaves the image that contains it lighter. We should almost be inclined to ask the question, though with great deference to authority, is blue, when very light, necessarily cold; and if so, has it not an activity which, being the great quality of light, assimilates it with light, and thus takes in to itself the surrounding "radiance?" A very little positive warm colour, as it were set in blue, from whatever cause, gives it a surprising glow. We desire to see the theory of colours treated, not with regard to their corresponding harmony in their power one upon the other, nor in their light and shadow, but, if we may so express it, in their sentimentality—the effect they are capable of in moving the passions. We alluded to this in our last paper, and the more we consider the subject, the more we convinced that it is worth deeper investigation.

The NINTH DISCOURSE is short, and general in its character; it was delivered at the opening of the Royal Academy in Somerset Place, October 16, 1780. It is an elegant address; raises the aim of the artist; and gives a summary of the origin of arts and their use. "Let us for a moment take a short survey of the progress of the mind towards what is, or ought to be, its true object of attention. Man in his lowest state has no pleasures but those of sense, and no wants but those of appetite; afterwards, when society is divided into different ranks, and some are appointed to labour for the support of others, those whom their superiority sets free from labour begin to look for intellectual entertainments. Thus, while the shepherds were attending their flocks, their masters made the first astronomical observations; so music is said to have had its origin from a man at leisure listening to the strokes of a hammer. As the senses in the lowest state of nature are necessary to direct us to our support, when that support is once secure, there is danger in following them further; to him who has no rule of action but the gratification of the senses, plenty is always dangerous. It is therefore necessary to the happiness of individuals, and still more necessary to the security of society, that the mind should be elevated to the idea of general beauty, and the contemplation of general truth; by this pursuit the mind is always carried forward in search of something more excellent than it finds, and obtains its proper superiority over the common sense of life, by learning to feel itself capable of higher aims and nobler enjoyments." This is well said. Again.—"Our art, like all arts which address the imagination, is applied to a somewhat lower faculty of the mind, which approaches nearer to sensuality, but through sense and fancy it must make its way to reason. For such is the progress of thought, that we perceive by sense, we combine by fancy, and distinguish by reason; and without carrying our art out of its natural and true character, the more we purify it from every thing that is gross in sense, in that proportion we advance its use and dignity, and in proportion as we lower it to mere sensuality, we pervert its nature, and degrade it from the rank of a liberal art; and this is what every artist ought well to remember. Let him remember, also, that he deserves just so much encouragement in the state as he makes himself a member of it virtuously useful, and contributes in his sphere to the general purpose and perfection of society." Sir Joshua has been blamed by those who have taken lower views of art, in that he has exclusively treated of the Great Style, which neither he nor the academicians of his day practised; but he would have been unworthy the presidential chair had he taken any other line. His was a noble effort, to assume for art the highest position, to dignify it in its aim, and thus to honour and improve first his country, then all human kind. We rise from such passages as these elevated above all that is little. Those only can feel depressed who would find excuses for the lowness of their pursuits.

The TENTH DISCOURSE.—Sir Joshua here treats of Sculpture, a less extensive field than Painting. The leading principles of both are the same; he considers wherein they agree, and wherein they differ. Sculpture cannot, "with propriety and best effect, be applied to many subjects." Its object is "form and character." It has "one style only,"—that one style has relation only to one style of painting, the Great Style, but that so close as to differ only as operating upon different materials. He blames the sculptors of the last age, who thought they were improving by borrowing from the ornamental, incompatible with its essential character. Contrasts, and the littlenesses of picturesque effects, are injurious to the formality its austere character requires. As in painting, so more particularly in sculpture, that imitation of nature which we call illusion, is in no respect its excellence, nor indeed its aim. Were it so, the Venus di Medici would be improved by colour. It contemplates a higher, a more perfect beauty, more an intellectual than sensual enjoyment. The boundaries of the art have been long fixed. To convey "sentiment and character, as exhibited by attitude, and expression of the passions," is not within its province. Beauty of form alone, the object of sculpture, "makes of itself a great work." In proof of which are the designs of Michael Angelo in both arts. As a stronger instance:— "What artist," says he, "ever looked at the Torso without feeling a warmth of enthusiasm as from the highest efforts of poetry? From whence does this proceed? What is there in this fragment that produces this effect, but the perfection of this science of abstract form?" Mr Burnet has given a plate of the Torso. The expectation of deception, of which few divest themselves, is an impediment to the judgment, consequently to the enjoyment of sculpture. "Its essence is correctness." It fully accomplishes its purpose when it adds the "ornament of grace, dignity of character, and appropriated expression, as in the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many others." Sir Joshua uses expression as will be afterwards seen, in a very limited sense. It is necessary to lay down perfect correctness as its essential character; because, as in the case of the Apollo, many have asserted the beauty to arise from a certain incorrectness in anatomy and proportion. He denies that there is this incorrectness, and asserts that there never ought to be; and that even in painting these are not the beauties, but defects, in the works of Coreggio and Parmegiano. "A supposition of such a monster as Grace begot by Deformity, is poison to the mind of a young artist." The Apollo and the Discobolus are engaged in the same purpose—the one watching the effect of his arrow, the other of his discus. "The graceful, negligent, though animated air of the one, and the vulgar eagerness of the other, furnish a signal instance of the skill of the ancient sculptors in their nice discrimination of character. They are both equally true to nature, and equally admirable." Grace, character, and expression, are rather in form and attitude than in features; the general figure more presents itself; "it is there we must principally look for expression or character; patuit in corpore vultus." The expression in the countenances of the Laocoon and his two sons, though greater than in any other antique statues, is of pain only; and that is more expressed "by the writhing and contortion of the body than by the features." The ancient sculptors paid but little regard to features for their expression, their object being solely beauty of form. "Take away from Apollo his lyre, from Bacchus his thyrsus and vine-leaves, and from Meleager the boar's head, and there will remain little or no difference in their characters." John di Bologna, he tells us, after he had finished a group, called his friends together to tell him what name to give it: they called it the "Rape of the Sabines." A similar anecdote is told of Sir Joshua himself, that he had painted the head of the old man who attended him in his studio. Some one observed that it would make a Ugolino. The sons were added, and it became the well-known historical picture from Dante. He comments upon the ineffectual attempts of modern sculptors to detach drapery from the figure, to give it the appearance of flying in the air; to make different plans on the same bas-relievos; to represent the effects of perspective; to clothe in a modern dress. For the first attempt he reprehends Bernini, who, from want of a right conception of the province of sculpture, never fulfilled the promise given in his early work of Apollo and Daphne. He was ever attempting to make drapery flutter in the air, which the very massiveness of the material, stone, should seem to forbid. Sir Joshua does not notice the very high authority for such an attempt—though it must be confessed the material was not stone, still it was sculpture, and multitudinous are the graces of ornament, and most minutely described—the shield of Hercules, by Hesiod; even the noise of the furies' wings is affected. The drapery of the Apollo he considers to have been intended more for support than ornament; but the mantle from the arm he thinks "answers a much higher purpose, by preventing that dryness of effect which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended almost at full length; to which we may add, the disagreeable effect which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle." He conjectures that Carlo Maratti, in his love for drapery, must have influenced the sculptors of the Apostles in the church of St John Lateran. "The weight and solidity of stone was not to be overcome."

To place figures on different plans is absurd, because they must still appear all equally near the eye; the sculptor has not adequate means of throwing them back; and, besides, the thus cutting up into minute parts, destroys grandeur. "Perhaps the only circumstance in which the modern have excelled the ancient sculptors, is the management of a single group in basso-relievo." This, he thinks, may have been suggested by the practice of modern painters. The attempt at perspective must, for the same reason, be absurd; the sculptor has not the means for this "humble ambition." The ancients represented only the elevation of whatever architecture they introduced into their bas-reliefs, "which is composed of little more than horizontal and perpendicular lines." Upon the attempt at modern dress in sculpture, he is severe in his censure. "Working in stone is a very serious business, and it seems to be scarce worth while to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a fashion, of which the longest existence scarcely exceeds a year;" and which, he might have added, the succeeding year makes ridiculous. We not only change our dresses, but laugh at the sight of those we have discarded. The gravity of sculpture should not be subject to contempt. "The uniformity and simplicity of the materials on which the sculptor labours, (which are only white marble,) prescribe bounds to his art, and teach him to confine himself to proportionable simplicity of design." Mr Burnet has not given a better note than that upon Sir Joshua's remark, that sculpture has but one style. He shows how strongly the ancient sculptors marked those points wherein the human figure differs from that of other animals. "Let us take, for example, the human foot; on examining, in the first instance, those of many animals, we perceive the toes either very long or very short in proportion; of an equal size nearly, and the claws often long and hooked inwards: now, in rude sculpture, and even in some of the best of the Egyptians, we find little attempt at giving a character of decided variation; but, on the contrary, we see the foot split up with toes of an equal length and thickness; while, in Greek sculpture, these points characteristic of man are increased, that the affinity to animals may be diminished. In the Greek marbles, the great toe is large and apart from the others, where the strap of the sandal came; while the others gradually diminish and sweep round to the outside of the foot, with the greatest regularity of curve; the nails are short, and the toes broad at the points, indicative of pressure on the ground." Rigidity he considers to have been the character of the first epochs, changing ultimately as in the Elgin marbles, "from the hard characteristics of stone to the vivified character of flesh." He thinks Reynolds "would have acknowledged the supremacy of beautiful nature, uncontrolled by the severe line of mathematical exactness," had he lived to see the Elgin marbles. "The outline of life, which changes under every respiration, seems to have undulated under the plastic mould of Phidias." This is well expressed. He justly animadverts upon the silly fashion of the day, in lauding the vulgar imitation of the worsted stockings by Thom. The subjects chosen were most unfit for sculpture,—their only immortality must be in Burns. We do not understand his extreme admiration of Wilkie; in a note on parallel perspective in sculpture, he adduces Raffaelle as an example of the practice, and closes by comparing him with Sir David Wilkie,—"known by the appellation of the Raffaelle of familiar life,"—men perfect antipodes to each other! There is a proper eulogy on Chantrey, particularly for his busts, in which he commonly represented the eye. We are most anxious for the arrival of the ancient sculpture from Lycia, collected and packed for Government by the indefatigable and able traveller, Mr Fellowes.

The ELEVENTH DISCOURSE is upon Genius, the particular genius of the painter in his power of seizing and representing nature, or his subject as a whole. He calls it the "genius of mechanical performance." This, with little difference, is enforcing what has been laid down in former Discourses. Indeed, as far as precepts may be required, Sir Joshua had already performed his task; hence, there is necessary repetition. Yet all is said well, and conviction perpetuates the impressions previously made. Character is something independent of minute detail; genius alone knows what constitutes this character, and practically to represent it, is to be a painter of genius. Though it be true that he "who does not at all express particulars expresses nothing; yet it is certain that a nice discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have, (and I do not mean to detract from it,) never did confer on the artist the character of genius." The impression left upon the mind is not of particulars, when it would seem to be so; such particulars are taken out of the subject, and are each a whole of themselves. Practically speaking, as we before observed, genius will be exerted in ascertaining how to paint the "nothing" in every picture, to satisfy with regard to detail, that neither its absence nor its presence shall be noticeable.

Our pleasure is not in minute imitation; for, in fact, that is not true imitation, for it forces upon our notice that which naturally we do not see. We are not pleased with wax-work, which may be nearer reality; "we are pleased, on the contrary, by seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inadequate means." If this be sound, we ought to be sensible of the inadequacy of the means, which sets aside at once the common notion that art is illusion. "The properties of all objects, as far as the painter is concerned with them, are outline or drawing, the colour, and the light and shade. The drawing gives the form, the colour its visible quality, and the light and shade its solidity:" in every one of these the habit of seeing as a whole must be acquired. From this habit arises the power of imitating by "dexterous methods." He proceeds to show that the fame of the greatest painters does not rest upon their high finish. Raffaelle and Titian, one in drawing the other in colour, by no means finished highly; but acquired by their genius an expressive execution. Most of his subsequent remarks are upon practice in execution and colour, in contradistinction to elaborate finish. Vasari calls Titian, "giudicioso, bello, e stupendo," with regard to this power. He generalized by colour, and by execution. "In his colouring, he was large and general." By these epithets, we think Sir Joshua has admitted that the great style comprehends colouring. "Whether it is the human figure, an animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius." He condemns that high finish which softens off. "This extreme softening, instead of producing the effect of softness, gives the appearance of ivory, or some other hard substance, highly polished. The value set upon drawings, such as of Coreggio and Parmegiano, which are but slight, show how much satisfaction can be given without high finishing, or minute attention to particulars. "I wish you to bear in mind, that when I speak of a whole, I do not mean simply a whole as belonging to composition, but a whole with respect to the general style of colouring; a whole with regard to light and shade; and a whole of every thing which may separately become the main object of a painter. He speaks of a landscape painter in Rome, who endeavoured to represent every individual leaf upon a tree; a few happy touches would have given a more true resemblance. There is always a largeness and a freedom in happy execution, that finish can never attain. Sir Joshua says above, that even "unpromising" subjects may be thus treated. There is a painter commonly thought to have finished highly, by those who do not look into his manner, whose dexterous, happy execution was perhaps never surpassed; the consequence is, that there is "a largeness," in all his pictures. We mean Teniers. The effect of the elaborate work that has been added to his class of subjects, is to make them heavy and fatiguing to the eye. He praises Titian for the same large manner which he had given to his history and portraits, applied to his landscapes, and instances the back-ground to the "Peter Martyr." He recommends the same practice in portrait painting—the first thing to be attained, is largeness and general effect. The following puts the truth clearly. "Perhaps nothing that we can say will so clearly show the advantage and excellence of this faculty, as that it confers the character of genius on works that pretend to no other merit, in which is neither expression, character, nor dignity, and where none are interested in the subject. We cannot refuse the character of genius to the 'Marriage' of Paolo Veronese, without opposing the general sense of mankind, (great authorities have called it the triumph of painting,) or to the Altar of St Augustine at Antwerp, by Rubens, which equally deserves that title, and for the same reason. Neither of these pictures have any interesting story to support them. That of Paolo Veronese is only a representation of a great concourse of people at a dinner; and the subject of Rubens, if it may be called a subject where nothing is doing, is an assembly of various saints that lived in different ages. The whole excellence of those pictures consists in mechanical dexterity, working, however, under the influence of that comprehensive faculty which I have so often mentioned."

The power of a whole is exemplified by the anecdote of a child going through a gallery of old portraits. She paid very little attention to the finishing, or naturalness of drapery, but put herself at once to mimic the awkward attitudes. "The censure of nature uninformed, fastened upon the greatest fault that could be in a picture, because it related to the character and management of the whole." What he would condemn is that substitute for deep and proper study, which is to enable the painter to conceive and execute every subject as a whole, and a finish which Cowley calls "laborious effects of idleness." He concludes this Discourse with some hints on method of study. Many go to Italy to copy pictures, and derive little advantage. "The great business of study is, to form a mind adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions, to which all nature is then laid open, and which may be said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches."

Mr Burnet has supplied a plate of the Monk flying from the scene of murder, in Titian's "Peter Martyr," showing how that great painter could occasionally adopt the style of Michael Angelo in his forms. In the same note he observes, that Sir Joshua had forgotten the detail of this picture, which detail is noticed and praised by Algarotti, for its minute discrimination of leaves and plants, "even to excite the admiration of a botanist."—Sir Joshua said they were not there. Mr Burnet examined the picture at Paris, and found, indeed, the detail, but adds, that "they are made out with the same hue as the general tint of the ground, which is a dull brown," an exemplification of the rule, "Ars est celare artem." Mr Burnet remarks, that there is the same minute detail in Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."—He is right—we have noticed it, and suspected that it had lost the glazing which had subdued it. As it is, however, it is not important. Mr Burnet is fearful lest the authority of Sir Joshua should induce a habit of generalizing too much. He expresses this fear in another note. He says, "the great eagerness to acquire what the poet calls

'That voluntary style,
Which careless plays, and seems to mock at toil,'

and which Reynolds describes as so captivating, has led many a student to commence his career at the wrong end. They ought to remember, that even Rubens founded this excellence upon years of laborious and careful study. His picture of himself and his first wife, though the size of life, exhibits all the detail and finish of Holbein." Sir Joshua nowhere recommends careless style; on the contrary, he every where urges the student to laborious toil, in order that he may acquire that facility which Sir Joshua so justly calls captivating, and which afterwards Rubens himself did acquire, by studying it in the works of Titian and Paul Veronese; and singularly, in contradiction to his fears and all he would imply, Mr Burnet terminates his passage thus:—"Nor did he (Rubens) quit the dry manner of Otho Venius, till a contemplation of the works of Titian and Paul Veronese enabled him to display with rapidity those materials which industry had collected." It is strange to argue upon the abuse of a precept, by taking it at the wrong end.

The TWELFTH DISCOURSE recurs likewise to much that had been before laid down. It treats of methods of study, upon which he had been consulted by artists about to visit Italy. Particular methods of study he considers of little consequence; study must not be shackled by too much method. If the painter loves his art, he will not require prescribed tasks;—to go about which sluggishly, which he will do if he have another impulse, can be of little advantage. Hence would follow, as he admirably expresses it, "a reluctant understanding," and a "servile hand." He supposes, however, the student to be somewhat advanced. The boy, like other school-boys, must be under restraint, and learn the "Grammar and Rudiments" laboriously. It is not such who travel for knowledge. The student, he thinks, may be pretty much left to himself; if he undertake things above his strength, it is better he should run the risk of discouragement thereby, than acquire "a slow proficiency" by "too easy tasks." He has little confidence in the efficacy of method, "in acquiring excellence in any art whatever." Methodical studies, with all their apparatus, enquiry, and mechanical labour, tend too often but "to evade and shuffle off real labour—the real labour of thinking." He has ever avoided giving particular directions. He has found students who have imagined they could make "prodigious progress under some particular eminent master." Such would lean on any but themselves. "After the Rudiments are past, very little of our art can be taught by others." A student ought to have a just and manly confidence in himself, "or rather in the persevering industry which he is resolved to possess." Raffaelle had done nothing, and was quite young, when fixed upon to adorn the Vatican with his works; he had even to direct the best artists of his age. He had a meek and gentle disposition, but it was not inconsistent with that manly confidence that insured him success—a confidence in himself arising from a consciousness of power, and a determination to exert it. The result is "in perpetuum."—There are, however, artists who have too much self-confidence, that is ill-founded confidence, founded rather upon a certain dexterity than upon a habit of thought; they are like the improvisatori in poetry; and most commonly, as Metastasio acknowledged of himself, had much to unlearn, to acquire a habit of thinking with selection. To be able to draw and to design with rapidity, is, indeed, to be master of the grammar of art; but in the completion, and in the final settlement of the design, the portfolio must again and again have been turned over, and the nicest judgment exercised. This judgment is the result of deep study and intenseness of thought—thought not only upon the artist's own inventions, but those of others. Luca Giordano and La Fage are brought as examples of great dexterity and readiness of invention—but of little selection; for they borrowed very little from others: and still less will any artist, that can distinguish between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. Raffaelle, who had no lack of invention, took the greatest pains to select; and when designing "his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons," he had before him studies he had made from Masaccio. He borrowed from him "two noble figures of St Paul." The only alteration he made was in the showing both hands, which he thought in a principal figure should never be omitted. Masaccio's work was well known; Raffaelle was not ashamed to have borrowed. "Such men, surely, need not be ashamed of that friendly intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the dead, and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn. The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. 'Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.'" The fact is, the most self-sufficient of men are greater borrowers than they will admit, or perhaps know; their very novelties, if they have any, commence upon the thoughts of others, which are laid down as a foundation in their own minds. The common sense, which is called "common property," is that stock which all that have gone before us have left behind them; and we are but admitted to the heirship of what they have acquired. Masaccio Sir Joshua considers to have been "one of the great fathers of modern art." He was the first who gave largeness, and "discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the art afterwards arrived." It is enough to say of him, that Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga, formed their taste by studying his works. "An artist-like mind" is best formed by studying the works of great artists. It is a good practice to consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his "Sergius Paulus," from Masaccio. Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing, which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if Raffaelle could have improved; but "he had the address to change in some measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character." For a serene composed dignity, he has given animation suited to their employment. "In the same manner, he has given more animation to the figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is introduced in the picture of Paul preaching, of which little more than hints are given by Masaccio, which Raffaelle has finished. The closing the eyes of this figure, which in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not in the least ambiguous in the Cartoon. His eyes, indeed are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence, that the agitation of a mind perplexed in the extreme is seen at the first glance; but what is most extraordinary, and I think particularly to be admired, is, that the same idea is continued through the whole figure, even to the drapery, which is so closely muffled about him, that even his hands are not seen: By this happy correspondence between the expression of the countenance and the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think from head to foot. Men of superior talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able to make out and finish what was only in the original a hint or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking such hints, which escape the dull and ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable part of that faculty of mind which is called genius." He urges the student not even to think himself qualified to invent, till he is well acquainted with the stores of invention the world possesses; and insists that, without such study, he will not have learned to select from nature. He has more than once enforced this doctrine, because it is new. He recommends, even in borrowing, however, an immediate recurrence to the model, that every thing may be finished from nature. Hence he proceeds to give some directions for placing the model and the drapery—first to impress upon the model the purpose of the attitude required—next, to be careful not to alter drapery with the hand, rather trusting, if defective, to a new cast. There is much in being in the way of accident. To obtain the freedom of accident Rembrandt put on his colours with his palette-knife; a very common practice at the present day. "Works produced in an accidental manner will have the same free unrestrained air as the works of nature, whose particular combinations seem to depend upon accident." He concludes this Discourse by more strenuously insisting upon the necessity of ever having nature in view—and warns students by the example of Boucher, Director of the French Academy, whom he saw working upon a large picture, "without drawings or models of any kind." He had left off the use of models many years. Though a man of ability, his pictures showed the mischief of his practice. Mr Burnet's notes to this Discourse add little to the material of criticism; they do but reiterate in substance what Sir Joshua had himself sufficiently repeated. His object seems rather to seize an opportunity of expressing his admiration of Wilkie, whom he adduces as a parallel example with Raffaelle of successful borrowing. It appears from the account given of Wilkie's process, that he carried the practice much beyond Raffaelle. We cannot conceive any thing very good coming from so very methodical a manner of setting to work. Would not the fire of genius be extinguished by the coolness of the process? "When he had fixed upon his subject, he thought upon all pictures of that class already in existence." The after process was most elaborate. Now, this we should think a practice quite contrary to Raffaelle's, who more probably trusted to his own conception for the character of his picture as a whole, and whose borrowing was more of single figures; but, if of the whole manner of treating his subject, it is not likely that he would have thought of more than one work for his imitation. The fact is, Sir David Wilkie's pictures show that he did carry this practice too far—for there is scarcely a picture of his that does not show patches of imitations, that are not always congruous with each other; there is too often in one piece, a bit of Rembrandt, a bit of Velasquez, a bit of Ostade, or others. The most perfect, as a whole, is his "Chelsea Pensioners." We do not quite understand the brew of study fermenting an accumulation of knowledge, and imagination exalting it. "An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study, and exalted by imagination;" this is very ambitious, but not very intelligible. He speaks of Wilkie attracting the attention of admirers and detractors. It is very absurd to consider criticism that is not always favourable, detraction. The following passage is well put. "We constantly hear the ignorant advising a student to study the great book of nature, without being biassed by what has been done by other painters; it is as absurd as if they would recommend a youth to learn astronomy by lying in the fields, and looking on the stars, without reference to the works of Kepler, Tycho Brahe, or of Newton." There is indeed a world of cant in the present day, that a man must do all to his own unprejudiced reason, contemning all that has been done before him. We have just now been looking at a pamphlet on Materialism (a pamphlet of most ambitious verbiage,) in which, with reference to all former education, we are "the slaves of prejudice;" yet the author modestly requires that minds—we beg his pardon, we have no minds—intellects must be trained to his mode of thinking, ere they can arrive at the truth and the perfection of human nature. If this training is prejudice in one set of teachers, may it not be in another? We continually hear artists recommend nature without "a prejudice in favour of old masters." Such artists are not likely to eclipse the fame of those great men, the study of whose works has so long prejudiced the world.

The THIRTEENTH DISCOURSE shows that art is not imitation, but is under the influence and direction of the imagination, and in what manner poetry, painting, acting, gardening, and architecture, depart from nature. However good it is to study the beauties of artists, this is only to know art through them. The principles of painting remain to be compared with those of other arts, all of them with human nature. All arts address themselves only to two faculties of the mind, its imagination and its sensibility. We have feeling, and an instantaneous judgment, the result of the experience of life, and reasonings which we cannot trace. It is safer to trust to this feeling and judgment, than endeavour to control and direct art upon a supposition of what ought in reason to be the end or means. We should, therefore, most carefully store first impressions. They are true, though we know not the process by which the first conviction is formed. Partial and after reasoning often serves to destroy that character, the truth of which came upon us as with an instinctive knowledge. We often reason ourselves into narrow and partial theories, not aware that "real principles of sound reason, and of so much more weight and importance, are involved, and as it were lie hid, under the appearance of a sort of vulgar sentiment. Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this minute it is required to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling." Sir Joshua again refers to the mistaken views of art, and taken too by not the poorest minds, "that it entirely or mainly depends on imitation." Plato, even in this respect, misleads by a partial theory. It is with "such a false view that Cardinal Bembo has chosen to distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the name divine. The same sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation as it is a sort of deception." It is, undoubtedly, most important that the world should be taught to honour art for its highest qualities; until this is done, the profession will be a degradation. So far from painting being imitation, he proceeds to show that "it is, and ought to be, in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature." Civilization is not the gross state of nature; imagination is the result of cultivation, of civilization; it is to this state of nature art must be more closely allied. We must not appeal for judgment upon art to those who have not acquired the faculty to admire. The lowest style of all arts please the uncultivated. But, to speak of the unnaturalness of art—let it be illustrated by poetry, which speaks in language highly artificial, and "a construction of measured words, such as never is nor ever was used by man." Now, as there is in the human mind "a sense of congruity, coherence, and consistency," which must be gratified; so, having once assumed a language and style not adopted in common discourse, "it is required that the sentiments also should be in the same proportion raised above common nature." There must be an agreement of all the parts with the whole. He recognizes the chorus of the ancient drama, and the recitative of the Italian opera as natural, under this view. "And though the most violent passions, the highest distress, even death itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I would not admit as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions on account of their being unnatural." "Shall reason stand in the way, and tell us that we ought not to like what we know we do like, and prevent us from feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of art? It appears to us that imagination is that gift to man, to be attained by cultivation, that enables him to rise above and out of his apparent nature; it is the source of every thing good and great, we had almost said of every virtue. The parent of all arts, it is of a higher devotion; it builds and adorns temples more worthy of the great Maker of all, and praises Him in sounds too noble for the common intercourse and business of life, which demand of the most cultivated that they put themselves upon a lower level than they are capable of assuming. So far, therefore, is a servile imitation from being necessary, that whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art, either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as Shakspeare expresses it, beyond the ignorant present, to ages past. Another and a higher order of beings is supposed, and to those beings every thing which is introduced into the work must correspond." He speaks of a picture by Jan Steen, the "Sacrifice of Iphigenia," wherein the common nature, with the silks and velvets, would make one think the painter had intended to burlesque his subject. "Ill taught reason" would lead us to prefer a portrait by Denner to one by Titian or Vandyke. There is an eloquent passage, showing that landscape painting should in like manner appeal to the imagination; we are only surprised that the author of this description should have omitted, throughout these Discourses, the greatest of all landscape painters, whose excellence he should seem to refer to by his language. "Like the poet, he makes the elements sympathize with his subject, whether the clouds roll in volumes, like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa—or, like those of Claude, are gilded with the setting sun; whether the mountains have hidden and bold projections, or are gently sloped; whether the branches of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their trunks, or follow each other with only a gentle inclination. All these circumstances contribute to the general character of the work, whether it be of the elegant or of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the powerful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the artist has complete dominion, to vary and dispose them as he pleases—to diminish or increase them, as will best suit his purpose, and correspond to the general idea of his work; a landscape, thus conducted, under the influence of a poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton's "Allegro" and "Penseroso" have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a picture would make a more forcible impression on the mind than the real scenes, were they presented before us." We have quoted the above passage, because it is wanted—we are making great mistakes in that delightful, and (may we not say?) that high branch of art. He pursues the same argument with regard to acting, and condemns the ignorant praise bestowed by Fielding on Garrick. Not an idea of deception enters the mind of actor or author. On the stage, even the expression of strong passion must be without the natural distortion and screaming voice. Transfer, he observes, acting to a private room, and it would be ridiculous. "Quid enim deformius, quum scenam in vitam transferre?" Yet he gives here a caution, "that no art can be grafted with success on another art." "If a painter should endeavour to copy the theatrical pomp and parade of dress and attitude, instead of that simplicity which is not a greater beauty in life than it is in painting, we should condemn such pictures, as painted in the meanest style." What will our academician, Mr Maclise, say of this remark? He then adduces gardening in support of his theory,—"nature to advantage dressed," "beautiful and commodious for the recreation of man." We cannot, however, go with Sir Joshua, who adds, that "so dressed, it is no longer a subject for the pencil of a landscape painter, as all landscape painters know." It is certainly unlike the great landscape he has described, but not very unlike Claude's, nor out of the way of his pencil. We have in our mind's eye a garden scene by Vander Heyden, most delightful, most elegant. It is some royal garden, with its proper architecture, the arch, the steps, and balustrades, and marble walks. The queen of the artificial paradise is entering, and in the shade with her attendants, but she will soon place her foot upon the prepared sunshine. Courtiers are here and there walking about, or leaning over the balustrades. All is elegance—a scene prepared for the recreation of pure and cultivated beings. We cannot say the picture is not landscape. We are sure it gave us ten times more pleasure than ever we felt from any of our landscape views, with which modern landscape painting has covered the walls of our exhibitions, and brought into disrepute our "annuals." He proceeds to architecture, and praises Vanburgh for his poetical imagination; though he, with Perrault, was a mark for the wits of the day.[11 - The reader will remember the supposed epitaph,"Lie heavy on him, earth, for heLaid many a heavy load on thee."] Sir Joshua points to the façade of the Louvre, Blenheim, and Castle Howard, as "the fairest ornaments." He finishes this admirable discourse with the following eloquent passage:—"It is allowed on all hands, that facts and events, however they may bind the historian, have no dominion over the poet or the painter. With us history is made to bend and conform to this great idea of art. And why? Because these arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses; but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us. Just so much as our art has of this, just so much of dignity, I had almost said of divinity, it exhibits; and those of our artists who possessed this mark of distinction in the highest degree, acquired from thence the glorious appellation of divine.

Mr Burnet's notes to this Discourse are not important to art. There is an amusing one on acting, that discusses the question of naturalness on the stage, and with some pleasant anecdotes.

The FOURTEENTH DISCOURSE is chiefly occupied with the character of Gainsborough, and landscape painting. It has brought about him, and his name, a hornet's nest of critics, in consequence of some remarks upon a picture of Wilson's. Gainsborough and Sir Joshua, and perhaps in some degree Wilson, had been rivals. It has been said that Wilson and Gainsborough never liked each other. It is a well-known anecdote that Sir Joshua, at a dinner, gave the health of Gainsborough, adding "the greatest landscape painter of the age," to which Wilson, at whom the words were supposed to be aimed, dryly added, "and the greatest portrait painter too." We can, especially under circumstances, for there had been a coolness between the President and Gainsborough, pardon the too favourable view taken of Gainsborough's landscape pictures. He was unquestionably much greater as a portrait painter. The following account of the interview with Gainsborough upon his death-bed, is touching, and speaks well of both:—"A few days before he died he wrote me a letter, to express his acknowledgments for the good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke of him; and desired that he might see me once before he died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to be thus connected with the dying testimony which this excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail upon myself to suppress that I was not connected with him by any habits of familiarity. If any little jealousies had subsisted between us, they were forgotten in these moments of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who deserved his good opinion by being sensible of his excellence. Without entering into a detail of what passed at this last interview, the impression of it upon my mind was, that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of leaving his art; and more especially as he now began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were; which, he said, he flattered himself in his last works were in some measure supplied." When the Discourse was delivered, Raffaelle Mengs and Pompeo Batoni were great names. Sir Joshua foretells their fall from that high estimation. Andrea Sacchi, and "perhaps" Carlo Maratti, he considers the "ultimi Romanorum." He prefers "the humble attempts of Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates in the great historical style." He gives some account of the "customs and habits of this extraordinary man." Gainsborough's love for his art was remarkable. He was ever remarking to those about him any peculiarity of countenance, accidental combination of figures, effects of light and shade, in skies, in streets, and in company. If he met a character he liked, he would send him home to his house. He brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, &c. He even formed models of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which, magnified, became rocks, trees, and water. Most of this is the common routine of every artist's life; the modelling his landscapes in the manner mentioned, Sir Joshua himself seems to speak doubtingly about. It in fact shows, that in Gainsborough there was a poverty of invention; his scenes are of the commonest kind, such as few would stop to admire in nature; and, when we consider the wonderful variety that nature did present to him, it is strange that his sketches and compositions should have been so devoid of beauty. He was in the habit of painting by night, a practice which Reynolds recommends, and thought it must have been the practice of Titian and Coreggio. He might have mentioned the portrait of Michael Angelo with the candle in his cap and a mallet in his hand. Gainsborough was ambitious of attaining excellence, regardless of riches. The style chosen by Gainsborough did not require that he should go out of his own country. No argument is to be drawn from thence, that travelling is not desirable for those who choose other walks of art—knowing that "the language of the art must be learned somewhere," he applied himself to the Flemish school, and certainly with advantage, and occasionally made copies from Rubens, Teniers, and Vandyke. Granting him as a painter great merit, Sir Joshua doubts whether he excelled most in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures. Few now will doubt upon the subject—next to Sir Joshua, he was the greatest portrait painter we have had, so as to be justly entitled to the fame of being one of the founders of the English School. He did not attempt historical painting; and here Sir Joshua contrasts him with Hogarth; who did so injudiciously. It is strange that Sir Joshua should have characterised Hogarth as having given his attention to "the Ridicule of Life." We could never see any thing ridiculous in his deep tragedies. Gainsborough is praised in that he never introduced "mythological learning" into his pictures. "Our late ingenious academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods and goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no means prepared to receive such personages. His landscapes were in reality too near common nature to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this mistake, in a very admirable picture of a storm, which I have seen of his hand, many figures are introduced in the foreground, some in apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by lightning: had not the painter injudiciously, (as I think,) rather chosen that their death should be imputed to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the children of Niobe." This is the passage that gave so much offence; foolish admirers will fly into flame at the slightest spark—the question should have been, is the criticism just, not whether Sir Joshua had been guilty of the same error—but we like critics, the only true critics, who give their reason: and so did Sir Joshua. "To manage a subject of this kind a peculiar style of art is required; and it can only be done without impropriety, or even without ridicule, when we adopt the character of the landscape, and that too in all its parts, to the historical or poetical representation. This is a very difficult adventure, and requires a mind thrown back two thousand years, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In the picture alluded to, the first idea that presents itself is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so uncommon a situation as that in which Apollo is placed: for the clouds on which he kneels have not the appearance of being able to support him—they have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle of a human figure, and they do not possess, in any respect, that romantic character which is appropriated to such an object, and which alone can harmonize with poetical stories." We presume Reynolds alludes to the best of the two Niobes by Wilson—that in the National Gallery. The other is villanously faulty as a composition, where loaf is piled upon loaf for rock and castle, and the tree is common and hedge-grown, for the purpose of making gates; but the other would have been a fine picture, not of the historical class—the parts are all common, the little blown about underwood is totally deficient in all form and character—rocks and trees, and they do not, as in a former discourse—Reynolds had laid down that they should—sympathize with the subject; then, as to the substance of the cloud, he is right—it is not voluminous, it is mere vapour. In the received adoption of clouds as supporting figures, they are, at least, pillowy, capacious, and round—here it is quite otherwise; and Sir Joshua might well call it a little Apollo, with that immense cloud above him, which is in fact too much a portrait of a cloud, too peculiar, too edgy, for any subject where the sky is not to be all in all. We do not say it is not fine and grand, and what you please; but it is not subordinate, it casts its lightning as from its own natural power, there was no need of a god's assistance.

"Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus;"

and the action does not take place in a "prepared" landscape. There is nothing to take us back to a fabled age. Reynolds is not unjust to Wilson's merits, for he calls it, notwithstanding this defect, "a very admirable picture;" which picture will, we suspect, in a few years lose its principal charm, if it has not lost it; the colour is sadly changing, there is now little aerial in the sky. It is said of Wilson, that he ridiculed the experiments of Sir Joshua, and spoke of using nothing but "honest linseed"—to which, however, he added varnishes and wax, as will easily be seen in those pictures of his which have so cracked—and now lose their colour. "Honest" linseed appears to have played him a sad trick, or he to have played a trick upon honest linseed. Sir Joshua, however, to his just criticism, adds the best precept, example—and instances two pictures, historical landscape, "Jacob's Dream"—which was exhibited a year or two ago in the Institution, Pall-Mall—by Salvator Rosa, and the picture by Sebastian Bourdon, "The Return of the Ark from Captivity," now in the National Gallery. The latter picture, as a composition, is not perhaps good—it is cut up into too many parts, and those parts are not sufficiently poetical; in its hue, it may be appropriate. The other, "Jacob's Dream" is one of the finest by the master—there is an extraordinary boldness in the clouds, an uncommon grandeur, strongly marked, sentient of angelic visitants. This picture has been recently wretchedly engraved in mezzotinto; all that is in the picture firm and hard, is in the print soft, fuzzy, and disagreeable. Sir Joshua treats very tenderly the mistaken manner of Gainsborough in his late pictures, the "odd scratches and marks." "This chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of magic at a certain distance, assumes form, and all their parts seem to drop into their places, so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chance and heavy negligence." The heavy negligence happily describes the fault of the manner. It is horribly manifest in that magnitude of vulgarity for landscape, the "Market Cart" in our National Gallery, and purchased at we know not what vast sum, and presented by the governors of the institution to the nation. We have a very high opinion of the genius of Gainsborough; but we do not see it in his landscapes, with very few exceptions. His portraits have an air of truth never exceeded, and that set off with great power and artistical skill; and his rustic children are admirable. He stands alone, and never has had a successful imitator. The mock sentimentality, the affected refinement, which has been added to his simple style by other artists, is disgusting in the extreme. Gainsborough certainly studied colour with great success. He is both praised and blamed for a lightness of manner and effect possessed "to an unexampled degree of excellence;" but "the sacrifice which he made, to this ornament of our art, was too great." We confess we do not understand Sir Joshua, nor can we reconcile "the heavy negligence" with this "lightness of manner." Mr Burnet, in one of his notes, compares Wilson with Gainsborough; he appears to give the preference to Wilson—why does he not compare Gainsborough with Sir Joshua himself? the rivalry should have been in portrait. There is a long note upon Sir Joshua's remarks upon Wilson's "Niobe." We are not surprised at Cunningham's "Castigation." He did not like Sir Joshua, and could not understand nor value his character. This is evident in his Life of the President. Cunningham must have had but an ill-educated classic eye when he asserted so grandiloquently,—"He rose at once from the tame insipidity of common scenery into natural grandeur and magnificence; his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples worthy of gods,"—a passage, we think, most worthy the monosyllable commonly used upon such occasions by the manly and simple-minded Mr Burchell. That Sir Joshua occasionally transgressed in his wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in his "Holy Family" in the National Gallery. But we doubt if the critique upon his "Mrs Siddons" is quite fair. The chair and the footstool may not be on the cloud, a tragic and mysterious vapour reconciling the bodily presence of the muse with the demon and fatal ministers of the drama that attend her. Though Sir Joshua's words are here brought against him, it is without attention to their application in his critique, which condemned their form and character as not historical nor voluminous—faults that do not attach to the clouds, if clouds they must be in the picture (the finest of Sir Joshua's works) of Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse. It is not our business to enter upon the supposed fact, that Sir Joshua was jealous of Wilson; the one was a polished, the other perhaps a somewhat coarse man. We have only to see if the criticism be just. In this Discourse Sir Joshua has the candour to admit, that there were at one time jealousies between him and Gainsborough; there may have been between him and Wilson, but, at all events, we cannot take a just criticism as a proof of it, or we must convict him, and all others too, of being jealous of artists and writers whose works they in any manner censure.

The FIFTEENTH DISCOURSE.—We come now to Sir Joshua's last Discourse, in which the President takes leave of the Academy, reviews his "Discourses," and concludes with recommending the study of Michael Angelo.

Having gone along with the President of the Academy in the pursuit of the principles of the art in these Discourses, and felt a portion of the enthusiasm which he felt, and knew so well how to impart to others, we come to this last Discourse, with a melancholy knowledge that it was the last; and reflect with pain upon that cloud which so soon interposed between Reynolds and at least the practical enjoyment of his art. He takes leave of the Academy affectionately, and, like a truth-loving man to the last, acknowledges the little contentions (in so softening a manner does he speak of the "rough hostility of Barry," and "oppositions of Gainsborough") which "ought certainly," says he, "to be lost among ourselves in mutual esteem for talents and acquirements: every controversy ought to be—I am persuaded will be—sunk in our zeal for the perfection of our common art." "My age, and my infirmities still more than my age, make it probable that this will be the last time I shall have the honour of addressing you from this place." This last visit seemed to be threatened with a tragical end;—the circumstance showed the calm mind of the President; it was characteristic of the man who would die with dignity, and gracefully. A large assembly were present, of rank and importance, besides the students. The pressure was great—a beam in the floor gave way with a loud crash; a general rush was made to the door, all indiscriminately falling one over the other, except the President, who kept his seat "silent and unmoved." The floor only sunk a little, was soon supported, and Sir Joshua recommenced his Discourse.

"Justum et tenacem propositi
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

He compliments the Academy upon the ability of the professors, speaks with diffidence of his power as a writer, (the world has in this respect done him justice;) but that he had come not unprepared upon the subject of art, having reflected much upon his own and the opinions of others. He found in the art many precepts and rules, not reconcilable with each other. "To clear away those difficulties and reconcile those contrary opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the greater truth, as it may be called, from the lesser truth; the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the more narrow and confined: that which addresses itself to the imagination, from that which is solely addressed to the eye. In consequence of this discrimination, the different branches of our art to which those different truths were referred, were perceived to make so wide a separation, and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. The different rules and regulations which presided over each department of art, followed of course; every mode of excellence, from the grand style of the Roman and Florentine schools down to the lowest rank of still life, had its due weight and value—fitted to some class or other; and nothing was thrown away. By this disposition of our art into classes, that perplexity and confusion, which I apprehend every artist has at some time experienced from the variety of styles, and the variety of excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should hope, in some measure removed, and the student better enabled to judge for himself what peculiarly belongs to his own particular pursuit." Besides the practice of art, the student must think, and speculate, and consider "upon what ground the fabric of our art is built." An artist suffers throughout his whole life, from uncertain, confused, and erroneous opinions. We are persuaded there would be fewer fatal errors were these Discourses more in the hands of our present artists—"Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ."—An example is given of the mischief of erroneous opinions. "I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my life, with a student of the French Academy, who appeared to me to possess all the qualities requisite to make a great artist, if he had suffered his taste and feelings, and I may add even his prejudices, to have fair play. He saw and felt the excellences of the great works of art with which we were surrounded, but lamented that there was not to be found that nature which is so admirable in the inferior schools,—and he supposed with Felebien, Du Piles, and other theorists, that such an union of different excellences would be the perfection of art. He was not aware that the narrow idea of nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works of those great artists, would have destroyed the grandeur of the general ideas which he admired, and which was indeed the cause of his admiration. My opinions being then confused and unsettled, I was in danger of being borne down by this plausible reasoning, though I remember I then had a dawning suspicion that it was not sound doctrine; and at the same time I was unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to what I was unable to confute." False and low views of art are now so commonly taken both in and out of the profession, that we have not hesitated to quote the above passage; the danger Sir Joshua confesses he was in, is common, and demands the warning. To make it more direct we should add, "Read his Discourses." Again, without intending to fetter the student's mind to a particular method of study, he urges the necessity and wisdom of previously obtaining the appropriated instruments of art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly colouring, before any thing more is attempted. He does not think it, however, of very great importance whether or not the student aim first at grace and grandeur before he has learned correctness, and adduces the example of Parmegiano, whose first public work was done when a boy, the "St Eustachius" in the Church of St Petronius, in Bologna—one of his last is the "Moses breaking the Tables," in Parma. The former has grandeur and incorrectness, but "discovers the dawnings of future greatness." In mature age he had corrected his defects, and the drawing of his Moses was equally admirable with the grandeur of the conception—an excellent plate is given of this figure by Mr Burnet. The fact is, the impulse of the mind is not to be too much restrained—it is better to give it its due and first play, than check it until it has acquired correctness—good sense first or last, and a love of the art, will generally insure correctness in the end; the impulses often checked, come with weakened power, and ultimately refuse to come at all; and each time that they depart unsatisfied, unemployed, take away with them as they retire a portion of the fire of genius. Parmegiano formed himself upon Michael Angelo: Michael Angelo brought the art to a "sudden maturity," as Homer and Shakspeare did theirs. "Subordinate parts of our art, and perhaps of other arts, expand themselves by a slow and progressive growth; but those which depend on a native vigour of imagination, generally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty." Correctness of drawing and imagination, the one of mechanical genius the other of poetic, undoubtedly work together for perfection—"a confidence in the mechanic produces a boldness in the poetic." He expresses his surprise that the race of painters, before Michael Angelo, never thought of transferring to painting the grandeur they admired in ancient sculpture. "Raffaelle himself seemed to be going on very contentedly in the dry manner of Pietro Perugino; and if Michael Angelo had never appeared, the art might still have continued in the same style." "On this foundation the Caracci built the truly great academical Bolognian school; of which the first stone was laid by Pellegrino Tibaldi." The Caracci called him "nostro Michael Angelo riformato." His figure of Polyphemus, which had been attributed to Michael Angelo in Bishop's "Ancient Statues," is given in a plate by Mr Burnet. The Caracci he considers sufficiently succeeded in the mechanical, not in "the divine part which addresses itself to the imagination," as did Tibaldi and Michael Angelo. They formed, however, a school that was "most respectable," and "calculated to please a greater number." The Venetian school advanced "the dignity of their style, by adding to their fascinating powers of colouring something of the strength of Michael Angelo." Here Sir Joshua seems to contradict his former assertion; but as he is here abridging, as it were, his whole Discourses, he cannot avoid his own observations. It was a point, however, upon which he was still doubtful; for he immediately adds—"At the same time it may still be a doubt, how far their ornamental elegance would be an advantageous addition to his grandeur. But if there is any manner of painting, which may be said to unite kindly with his (Michael Angelo's) style, it is that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his colours are left on the canvass, appears to proceed (as far as that goes) from congenial mind, equally disdainful of vulgar criticism. He is reminded of a remark of Johnson's, that Pope's Homer, had it not been clothed with graces and elegances not in Homer, would have had fewer readers, thus justifying by example and authority of Johnson, the graces of the Venetian school. Some Flemish painters at "the great era of our art" took to their country "as much of this grandeur as they could carry." It did not thrive, but "perhaps they contributed to prepare the way for that free, unconstrained, and liberal outline, which was afterwards introduced by Rubens, through the medium of the Venetian painters." The grandeur of style first discovered by Michael Angelo passed through Europe, and totally "changed the whole character and style of design. His works excite the same sensation as the Epic of Homer. The Sybils, the statue of Moses, "come nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demigods, and heroes; those Sybils and prophets being a kind of intermediate beings between men and angels. Though instances may be produced in the works of other painters, which may justly stand in competition with those I have mentioned, such as the 'Isaiah,' and 'Vision of Ezekiel,' by Raffaelle, the 'St Mark' of Frate Bartolomeo, and many others; yet these, it must be allowed, are inventions so much in Michael Angelo's manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered as so many rays which discover manifestly the centre from whence they emanated." The style of Michael Angelo is so highly artificial that the mind must be cultivated to receive it; having once received it, the mind is improved by it, and cannot go very far back. Hence the hold this great style has had upon all who are most learned in art, and upon nearly all painters in the best time of art. As art multiplies, false tastes will arise, the early painters had not so much to unlearn as modern artists. Where Michael Angelo is not felt, there is a lost taste to recover. Sir Joshua recommends young artists to follow Michael Angelo as he did the ancient sculptors. "He began, when a child, a copy of a mutilated Satyr's head, and finished in his model what was wanting in the original." So would he recommend the student to take his figures from Michael Angelo, and to change, and alter, and add other figures till he has caught the manner. Change the purpose, and retain the attitude, as did Titian. By habit of seeing with this eye of grandeur, he will select from nature all that corresponds with this taste. Sir Joshua is aware that he is laying himself open to sarcasm by his advice, but asserts the courage becoming a teacher addressing students: "they both must equally dare, and bid defiance to narrow criticism and vulgar opinion." It is the conceited who think that art is nothing but inspiration; and such appropriate it in their own estimation; but it is to be learned,—if so, the right direction to it is of vast importance; and once in the right direction, labour and study will accomplish the better aspirations of the artist. Michael Angelo said of Raffaelle, that he possessed not his art by nature but by long study. "Che Raffaelle non ebbe quest' arte da natura, ma per longo studio." Raffaelle and Michael Angelo were rivals, but ever spoke of each other with the respect and veneration they felt, and the true meaning of the passage was to the praise of Raffaelle; those were not the days when men were ashamed of being laborious,—and Raffaelle himself "thanked God that he was born in the same age with that painter."—"I feel a self-congratulation," adds Sir Joshua, "in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of Michael Angelo." They were his last words from the academical chair. He died about fourteen months after the delivery of this Discourse. Mr Burnet has given five excellent plates to this Discourse—one from Parmegiano, one from Tibaldi, one from Titian, one from Raffaelle, and one from Michael Angelo. Mr Burnet's first note repeats what we have again and again elsewhere urged, the advantage of establishing at our universities, Oxford and Cambridge, Professorships of Painting—infinite would be the advantage to art, and to the public. We do not despair. Mr Burnet seems to fear incorrect drawing will arise from some passages, which he supposes encourages it, in these Discourses; and fearing it, very properly endeavours to correct the error in a note. We had intended to conclude this paper with some few remarks upon Sir Joshua, his style, and influence upon art, but we have not space. Perhaps we may fulfil this part of our intention in another number of Maga.

THE YOUNG GREY HEAD

Grief hath been known to turn the young head grey—
To silver over in a single day