instance, the taking of Troy, are represented by a comparatively small number of persons. This effect is obtained by their being all placed in an architectonicsymmetrical order in the foreground, so

that in their attitudes and characters, the expression of the whole moral intention of the subject can be clearly manifested. The relations of space, the scenery are but generally intimated."*

Assuredly some astonishment must be felt that the opportunities of studying the principles and execution of ancient art, in the rich importations which we are for ever adding to our galleries and museums, should have produced so little effect upon our English school of painting, and give life to such few specimens of high excellence. But we know that a great love of art, and knowledge of its cause of excellence, and admiration of its beauties, may exist without a corresponding power of creation-without a kindred genius; and we may be now in painting in England, what the schools of Alexandria were of old in literature-we may admire and store up with care and curiosity the productions of former genius, but we may fail altogether in emulating their excellence.

A writer of considerable knowledge of art, and who himself was no mean proficient in it, tells us, in one of his works, that when the French commissioners took the famous St. Jerome of Corregio from Parma, the Duke offered 80,0001. to be allowed to keep it. The general in chief said, that it would remain a proud distinction to the French capital, and would produce other chef-d'œuvres of the same kind. Vain hope! not a ray of the sentiment of beauty contained in this picture dawned upon a French canvas, during the twenty years it remained there, nor ever would to the end of time. A collection of the works of art is a noble ornament to a city, and attracts strangers: but works of genius do not beget other works of genius, however they may inspire a taste for them, and furnish objects for curiosity and admiration. Corregio, it is said, scarcely ever saw a picture. Parma, where his works had been treasured up and regarded with idolatry for nearly three hundred years, had produced no other painter before him. A false inference has been drawn from works of science to art, as if there could be a perpetual addition and progression both in one and the other; but science advances because it never loses any of its former results, which are definable and mechanical; whereas art is wholly conversant with undefinable and evanescent beauties, and can never get beyond the point to which individual nature and genius have carried it. The accumulation of models, and the multiplication of schools, after the first rudiments are conquered, and the language is, as it were, learnt, originate indolence, distraction, pedantry, and mediocrity. No age nor nation can ever ape another: the Greek sculptors copied Greek forms; the Italian painters embodied the sentiments of the Roman Catholic religion. How is it possible to arrive at the same excellence without seeing the one or feeling the other? True, that when men begin to borrow from others instead of themselves, and to study rules instead of nature, the progress of art ceases. In Italy there has not been a painter worthy of the name for the last hundred and fifty years. It was not amiss, in one point of view, that the triumphs of human genius should be

* See C. Lamb's Last Essays of Elia, " On Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Productions of Modern Art," p. 166, for some most solid reflections on the subject, expressed with great justness and eloquence. His observations on Mr. Martin's Belshazzar's Feast, and similar pictures, and contrast with the design and style of the old masters, are in full accordance with Dr. Waagen's sentiments.

collected together in the Louvre as trophies of human liberty, or to deck out the stern form of the republic, which was declared incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity, with the richest spoils of war. Otherwise, these works would make most impression, and are most likely to give a noble and enthusiastic impulse to the mind, in the places which gave them birth, and in connexion with the history and circumstances of those who produced them:-torn from these, they lose half their interest and vital principle. Besides, the French love nothing but what is French. Barbarism and rusticity may, perhaps, be instructed, but false refinement is incorrigible. They have no turn for the fine arts, music, poetry, and painting. They have, indeed, caricatured and ill-copied the Greek statues, as they have paraphrased the Greek drama; but that is all. This people are born to converse, to write, and live with ease; but they are qualified for nothing that requires the mind to make an arduous effort, or to soar beyond its ordinary flight. Give them David's * pictures, and they are satisfied, and no other country will ever quarrel with them for the possession of the prize.†

We must reluctantly close our observations on this very entertaining and instructive work, with a remark, we trust not misplaced, on a passage which occurs in Dr. Waagen's description of his visit to Sir Thomas Baring's, at Stratton.

"At table, he says, the conversation turned on the mode of treating religious subjects in works of art, and the propriety of admitting such works into the Churches. The clergyman was very decidedly opposed to both, and gave it as his opinion that art usually excited only unworthy ideas on such subjects. I would willingly have broken a lance with the reverend gentleman on this head; but as I proceedas awkwardly with the English as an old horse

in broken ground, I merely said that I could not find that Raphael in his celebrated cartoons, excited an unworthy idea of the Apostles. Satisfied that my opponent did not venture to deny this, I left the further defence of religious art to Mr. Collins (the painter), who conducted it with zeal, and was seconded by Sir Thomas, who is, however, very strict in his religious opinions."

Dr. Waagen then gives us the reasons on paper, which he was unable to anglicise at table, with which he would oppose one of the favourite common-places, that the Protestants, by their religious doctrine, are excluded from the exercise of the fine arts on religious subjects. If this were really the case, he says, they would labour under a great disadvantage; for the arts, far from desecrating religion, afford one of the most important means of exciting a religious feeling in the largest circles, and in the most worthy, impressive, and intelligible manner. He adds that it affects such an excitement by means of a dignified representation of religious subjects, exercising a very general and powerful influence in cultivating the sense of beauty, and thus contributing decisively to the improvement of the human race.

* This celebrated artist, looking at some fine Caraccis no longer in the Louvre, said to a friend who was with him, "Don't you remember the time when we were sufficiently absurd to admire these daubs?"-his own works now fill up the vacancy. † See Hazlitt's Life of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 439, &c.

‡ What would Dr. Waagen say to a picture of Rubens which we have seen at Antwerp, over the altar of the Dominicans. Jesus Christ is represented between two persons of the Trinity, as having pronounced condemnation on the world, and as preparing to execute his judgment. He stands in the attitude of Jupiter, ready to launch the avenging thunderbolt. The Virgin and many Saints standing near Christ intercede for the world, but in vain; but St. Dominic covers the world with his cloak and rosary: Does not this give what the clergyman meant by unworthy ideas?

He then shews that Protestants would not in fact labour under any disadvantage from their choice of subjects being limited, by mentioning, that in Germany, of late, the cultivation of religious art has been awakened as well in the Protestant as Catholic Church; and the spirit manifested in the religious pictures of both are nearly of equal excellence, and prove that both possess the talent nearly in equal degree. He thinks that in England this new union of religion with the arts will in time be better understood and confirmed, and that it must not be refused nourishment, when it may find the most elevated gratification, namely, in the Church.

Now, as regards the first proposition, the propriety of admitting religious pictures within our churches, we should say that it has been conceded by universal consent; for painted windows have always been considered a desirable ornament to Protestant Churches; so much so, that the Continent has been ransacked to procure the finely stained glass of France and Flanders; and we should suppose no one would consider that the material on which a picture is formed, whether glass, or wood, or canvas, would affect the question of the propriety of its admission; or that the production of Mr. Williment's fine taste and genius-" his genial alchemy's creative heat," should find admission, when a work from Mr. Hilton's or Howard's pencil would be rejected. Where are the strict principles of the Protestant religion more carefully preserved than in the Universities? and yet the subject of the Nativity was expressly painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to adorn the chapel of one of the Colleges. And there is scarcely a new church or chapel erecting, in which some painted window does not cast its "dim religious light" upon the floor. That pictures therefore are admitted into Protestant Churches, cannot be a subject of doubt or dispute. But we must hesitate as to the second proposition; that by their representations of beauty and holiness, they may so influence our imagination as to enforce our religious feelings and contribute to our improvement. If the walls of our churches are to be decorated, let it be on the same principle as the windows are for the rich and beautiful effects which they produce-for the dark illuminations which they fling around,

'Twixt light and shade the transitory strife,
And features blooming with immortal life-

and not for any assistance they can lend to the inculcation of virtuous principles, or the improvement of religious faith.

For in the first place, we think that in this kind of food for religious luxury, there may be danger, lest all but the strong-minded and the really devout may be detained by the instrument from the worthier end and purpose, and an abuse may arise of so extensive a nature, as to overpass the presumed utility. The learned and refined spectator will look at the picture with the eyes of the critic and connoisseur, while the vulgar will be sure to admire the naturalness of the representation, and this would be a sad interruption to the growth of any religious impressions. Secondly, supposing that strong religious feelings are generated and encouraged by such representations, yet, being unconnected entirely with real duties, and leading necessarily to no active exertion, they will soon die away and disappear. You gaze with admiration at a picture of Christ feeding the Multitude, but do you leave it with a heart yearning to exercise a similar beneficence, or a hand more open than before to melting charity? Generally speaking, do not the effects produced on the mind by a picture, like

the scenic effects of a play, terminate soon after you withdraw? The mind is amused, employed, moved, affected; but such emotions and affections may exist without the slightest thought of bringing them into action: in the same way that you hear the inhabitants of a village or town praise the clergyman for his generosity and kind attentions to the poor and sick, without the slightest attempt on their parts to imitate the virtues they commend with their lips. Lastly, pictures, from the very purpose and intent of the art, must keep out of view all that is common, disgusting, and repulsive; and must select everything that can ennoble and dignify their subjects. A picture cannot represent the truth of nature, -it can only give the truth of art, and this art stands on the very summit of all imaginary refinement and elegance; but Christian duties are not so to be learned. The enchanting forms and ideal beauty of Parmigiano and Corregio, will not tend to make more pleasing the intercourse with " coarse complexions," vulgar manners, and forms and minds ignorant, sensual, and low. One might gaze with ever growing rapture on the heavenly painting of Raphael's Madonnas, till we become disgusted and shocked at our descent into the grossness of ordinary life. The best of our preachers would be poor indeed in comparison to the great Apostle standing on the hill of Mars, with all the learning of Athens listening at his feet. What useful connexion is there, we may ask, between the gorgeous procession of the Eastern Kings arrayed in all their Asiatic magnificence, and the simple offering of the three Wise Men at the manger? What have the marble columns and arcades, the golden ewers and flaggons-vasa cœlata-the black Ethiopian slaves and dwarfs of grotesque dress and stature-the fountains, the Persian greyhounds and birds of foreign plume-all borrowed from the rich corridors and luxurious palaces of Venice and Verona, to do with the solemn, simple, and affecting scene of the farewell supper in the village of Bethany? The Massacre of the Innocents would be a scene in reality too horrible for nature to bear; the picture of Le Brun in the Louvre may move the mind, and perhaps excite a momentary compassion, but leaves behind no importunate sorrow nor abiding affliction. "It is beautiful in a picture (says a writer of the purest and truest feeling)to wash the Disciples' feet, but the sands of the real desert have no comeliness in them to compensate for the servile nature of the occupation."* Let those, then, who advocate the admission of paintings into religious edifices, do it on the single ground of encouragement to art. Let them, if they please, observe that it is the only one of the fine arts that is excluded, (except in the partial instance above mentioned), from being one of the handmaids of devotion. To Poetry is entrusted the record of departed worth, and the memorials of affectionate regret; Music is called in to swell the harmony of praise, and elevate the mind with its sublime emotions; while the sister art of Sculpture is permitted to embody in stone the varied allegories and emblems of Heathen mythology. On what grounds Painting should be excluded, it is not easy to say; but the benefit to be derived from its admission is another question.

* See Newman's Sermons (xxx. on the feast of St. Luke), p. 414.

ON PARADOXES.

† “Οτι πᾶς ἄφρων μαίνεται"-a bitter invective against Cicero's mortal enemy, Clodius, and apparently, as the critic Sciopius maintains, only a fragment of a more extensive article.