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MODERN MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE.

female, who, whether intended or not to represent Melpomene, closely resembles the personifications of that muse. Behind her are two more females; one of whom holds a lyre, the other a palette and pencils, thereby denoting that they are the representatives of of poetry and the fine arts. The group to the right of Apollo consists of a woman with an ear of corn in one hand and a heart in the other, attended by two females; the first of whom is carrying a sleeping infant, the second tying up a vine to a palm-tree. Now, without doubt as a mere composition and an exercise of art, this piece of sculpture is replete with merit; but, to the majority of persons it must be quite enigmatical, and appear rather to be taken from some antique tomb, than expressly formed for that of an English lady who died in the year 1817. As far as meaning or the want of it goes, it is little better than an elegant puzzle in marble; and it is likely to puzzle and mislead future antiquaries most strangely, for should it happen to be met with by them 2000 years hence, they will either conclude it to be the work of classical times, or else appeal to it as incontrovertible evidence that paganism and its mythology continued in full vigour during the nineteenth century. The latter mistake will be all the more likely to take place; because the machinery and costume of ancient sculpture is kept up in by far the greater number of modern productions of the art, a pretty clear acknowledgment that either the art itself has no sympathy whatever with modern ideas and habits, or

MODERN SCULPTURE.

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that those who exercise it are quite at a loss how to make it conform to them, and familiarise it with them.

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For us, therefore, sculpture speaks only in a dead language, which, even to those who may be acquainted with it, must seem cold and formal, and incapable of giving utterance to more than a set of borrowed expressions, that have besides lost half of their original significancy. For the same reason, the art, which in itself very limited in its powers and resources, is now contracted within a still narrower compass, being unable to attempt any subject which cannot be strained so as to admit of being put into ready-made classical masquerade. So long as poetry continued to keep up a mixture of the antique and the modern, of paganism and Christianity, the same incongruity in sculpture was less offensive and extravagant, the other arts being similarly infected. But now, when Cupid has been very properly banished to valentines and valentine poetry, and the Muses with all their lumber driven to the very lowest regions of literature, the retaining such equivocal characters in sculpture has a nauseating smack of petty school-boy learning, and renders us quite cold and indifferent to the art, even when it does not cause us to turn away from it, as being no better than unmeaning affectation, and solemn frivolity.

To many the above remarks will, doubtless, be offensive, as tending to cast disparagement upon that very art which has preserved for us the most brilliant achieve

ments of Grecian genius and taste; but the question is not so much, whether the view I have just taken of the matter be unfavourable, as whether it be correct. If not, there can be little difficulty in showing the error into which I have fallen: whereas, should it, on the other hand, appear that the position in which sculpture is now placed is as unfortunate as to me it appears to be, I ought not, in reason, to be censured for calling attention to an inconvenience which I am in nowise accessary to, and which it is for those who follow the art either to mitigate or remove.

Before finally taking leave of this church, I should state, that although it was founded in the year 1000, the present structure is by no means so ancient; for the earlier works were consumed by three fires, which oc curred within a comparatively short interval, namely, in the years 1216, 1219, and 1235; and the third of these was so extensive a conflagration, that it destroyed nearly the whole of the town. The general calamity, however, did not abate the zeal either of the Bishop Boniface, and his successor, Jean de Cossonay, or of the inhabitants; for such was the alacrity with which the building was resumed and carried on, that although not completed, the church was so far advanced as to admit of its being dedicated by Pope Gregory X., in the year 1275. After the edict promulgating the Reformation in 1528, the clergy of the church of Berne refused to pay their annual tribute to Lausanne; besides

which the people of that canton invaded the Pays de Vaud, and in a short time compelled it to abjure Catholicism. Of the treasures then carried off from the cathedral some account has already been given; but in return for the vain and useless splendour of which their church was then robbed, the inhabitants have obtained the possession of liberty of conscience—a liberty that extends a healthy influence throughout the whole organisation of society, wherever it is recognised and established.

There is an English church here, of which the Rev. Mr. Blackwell is clergyman.

Formerly capital punishments took place, and, singular enough, the inhabitants of one particular street were constituted sole judges; and, in the country, horrid spectacles were presented by carcasses exposed on gibbets, bleached by the winds of heaven, and attacked by the fowls of the air. Such 'sanguinary laws are now abolished, and solitary confinement with hard labour substituted. This extends to the crime of murder; and, when I was here, a person had been sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for poisoning another.

Before leaving Lausanne, it may be proper to mention that the house of Gibbon is pointed out, where he composed his elaborate works. One half of his library sold here for 10007.; the other still remains, consisting of works on theology, jurisprudence, poetry, eloquence, tracts on craniology, travels, &c.

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A MORNING of propitious beauty, for the serenity of the weather and brilliancy of the sun, beheld us embark on board a steamer for Geneva. This vessel, the the speculation of an American, was first launched on the Lake in 1823, when it made its first voyage from Geneva to Vevay. Coasting along the northern shore of the lake, frequently quite close to land, so that we had a distinct view of the country and its principal features on that side, two hours brought us to Morges, a small town, whose environs are of a more homely character than those of Lausanne, cultivation in the form of extensive garden-grounds and vineyards stretching upwards to a considerable height. One of the adjacent eminences, however, is marked by a very commanding and romantic object; namely, the Castle of Vufflens, or Wufflens, one of the most ancient and best preserved structures of the kind, that have been preserved to modern times. The earliest, or northwestern portion of it, was erected in the ninth century,