vigour were given by lord Burlington and Kent-They have fucceffors worthy of the tone they gave: if, as refinement generally yerges to extreme contrarieties, Kent's ponderofity does not degenerate into filligraine-But the modern Pantheon, uniting grandeur and light nefs, fimplicity and ornament, feems to have marked the medium, where tafte mult ftop. The architect who thall endeavour to refine on Mr. Wyat, will perhaps give date to the age of embroidery. Virgil, Longinus and Vitruvius afford no rules, no examples, of fcattering finery.

This delicate redundance of ornament growing into our architecture might perhaps be checked, if our artists would ftudy the fub lime dreams of Piranefi, who feems to have conceived vifions of Rome beyond what it boafted even in the meridian of its fplendor. Savage as Salvator Rofa, fierce as Michael Angelo, and exuberant as Rubens, he has imagined fcenes that would ftartle geometry, and exhauft the Indies to realize. He piles palaces on bridges, and temples on palaces, and fcales Heaven with mountains

of edifices. Yet what tafte in his boldness! what grandeur in his wildnets! what labour and thought both in his rathnets and details! Architecture, indeed, has in a manner two fexes; its mafculine dignity can only exert its muscles in public works and at public expente; its fofter beauties come better within the compafs of private refidence and enjoyment.

How painting has rekindled from its embers, the works of many living artifts demonftrate. The prints after the works of Sir Jofhua Reynolds have fpread his fame to Italy, where they have not at prefent a single painter that can pretend to rival an imagination fo fertile, that the attitudes of his portraits are as various as thofe of history. In what age were paterual defpair and the horrors of death pronounced with more expreflive accents than in his picture of Count Ugolino? When was infantine loveliness, or embrio-palfions, touched with fweeter truth than in his portraits of Mifs Price and the baby Jupiter? What franknefs of nature in Mr. Gainfborough's landicapes; which may

Sir J. Reynolds has been accufed of plagiarifm for having borrowed attitudes from ancient malers. Not only candour but critic:fm muft deny the force of the charge. When a fingle polture is imitated from an hiftoric picture, and applied to a portrait in a different dress and with new attributes, This is not plagiarifin, but quotation: and a quotation from a great author, with a novel application of the fenfe, has always been allowed to be an inffance of parts and talle; and may have more merit than the original. When the fons of Jacob impofed on their father by a falfe coat of Jolepn, faying, "Know now whether This be thy fon's coat or not," they only afked a deceitful question but that interrogation became wit, when Richard ift. on the pope reclaiming a bishop whom the king had taken prifoner in battle, fest him the prelate's coat of mail, and in the words of fcripture afked his holinefs, whether THAT was the coat of his fon or not? Is not there humour and fatire in Sir Joshua's reducing Holbein's Iwaggering and coloffal haughtiness of Henry 8th. to the boyif jollity of matter Crewc ?--One prophecy I will venture to make; Sir Jofhua is not a plagiary, but will beget a thousand. The exuberance of his invention will be the grammar of future painters of portrait.

entitle

entitle them to rank in the noble collections! What genuine humour in Zaffanii's comic fcenes; which do not, like the works of Dutch and Flemish painters, invite laughter to divert itfelf with the naftieft indelicacy of boors!

Such topics would please a pen that delights to do justice to its country but the author has forbidden himself to treat of living profeffors. Pofterity appreciates impartially the works of the dead. To pofterity he leaves the continuation of thefe volumes; and recommends to the lovers of arts the industry of Mr. Vertue, who preferved notices of all his cotemporaries, as he had collected of paft ages, and thence gave birth to this work. In that fupplement will not be forgotten the wonderful progrefs in miniature of Lady Lucan, who has arrived at copying the most exquifite works of Ifaac and Peter Oliver, Hofkins and Cooper, with a genius that almoft depreciates thofe mafters, when we confider that they spent their lives in attaining perfection; and who, foaring above their modeft timidity, has transferred the vigour of Raphael to her copies in watercolours. There will be recorded the living etchings of Mr. H. Bunbury, the fecond Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original; and who, like Hogarth, has more humour when he invents, than when he illuAtrates probably because genius can draw from the fources of nature with more fpirit than from the ideas of another. Has any painter ever executed a fcéne, a character of Shakespear, that ap

proached to the prototype fo near as Shakespear himf If attained to nature? Yet is there a pencil in a living hand as capable of pronouncing the paffions as our unequalled poet; a pencil not only infpired by his infight into nature, but by the graces and tafte of Grecian artifts-but it is not fair to excite the curiofity of the public, when both the rank and bafhful merit of the poffeffor, and a too rare exertion of fuperior talents, confine the proofs to a narrow circle. Whoever has feen the drawings, and. bafreliefs, defigned and executed by Lady D ana Beau clerc, is fenfible that these imperfect encomiums are far fhort of the excellence of her works. Her portrait of the Duchefs of Devonshire, in feveral hands, confirms the truth of part of thefe affertions. The nymph like fimplicity of the figure, is equal to what a Grecian ftatuary would have formed for a dryad or goddess of a river. 'Bartolozzi's print of her two daughters, after the drawing of the fame lady, is another fpecimen of her fingular genius and tafte. The gav and fportive innocence of the younger daughter, and the demure application of the elder, are as characterifti. cally contrafted as Milton's Allegro and Penferofo.

The hiftoric compofitions offered for St. Paul's by fome of our first artists feemed to difclofe a vifion of future improvement-a period the more to be wifhed, as the wound given to painting through the fides of the Romith religion menaces the arts as well as idolatry

unless the Methodists, whofe rigour feems to foften and adopt the

For inftance, in his prints to Triftrain Shandy. VOL. XXIII.

artifices

decorations are almost difufed; and though the rage for portraits is at its highest tide both in pictures and prints, bufts and ftatues are never demanded. We feem to wish no longer duration to the monuments of our expence, than the inhabi tants of Peru and Ruffia, where edifices are calculated to laft but to the next earthquake or conflagration."

artifices of the Catholies [for our itinerant mountcbanks already are fond of being fainted in mezzotinto, as well as their St. Bridgets and Terefas], fhould borrow the Paraphernalia of enthufiafin now waning in Italy, and fuperadd the witchery of painting to that of mu fic. Whitfield's temples encircled with glory may convert ruflics, who have never heard of his or Ignatius Loyola's peregrinations. From thefe extracts our readers If enthusafm is to revive, and ta will perceive that Mr. Walpole has bernacles to rife as convents are lot nothing of that lively and demolished, may we not hope at fpirited manner, which foftrongly lealt to fee them painted? Le mark all his writings. The Effay on Sueur's cloyfter at Paris makes Gardening, which we have given at fome little amends for the impri- large in the former part of this vo fonment of the Carthufians. The lume, will afford a lafting proof of abfurdity of the legend, of the re- his taste and judgment. viving canon is loft in the amazing art of the painter; and the last fcene of St. Bruno expiring, in which are expreffed all the tages of devotion from the youngest mind impreffed with fear to the compofed refignation of the prior, is perhaps inferior to no fingle pic ture of the greatest matter. If Raphael died young, fo, did Le Sueur; the former had feen the antiqué, the latter only prints from Raphael: yet in the Chartreufe, what airs of heads! what harmony of colouring! what aerial perfpective! How Grecian the fimplicity of architecture and drapery! How diverfified a fingle quadrangle, though the life of a hermit be the only fubject, and devotion the only pathetic! Jn fhort, till we have other pictures than portraits, and painting has ampler fields to range in, than private apartments, it is in vain to expect the art thould recover its genuine luftre. Statuary has till lefs encouragement. Sepulchral

It

Befides the four volumes which we have now gone through, Mr. Walpole publifhed fome time ago a fupplemental volume on engrav ing, of which, as it completes the author's plan, it may be neceffary to infert here a fhort account, is entitled-A Catalogue of Engra vers who have been born or refided in England; digefted by Mr. Horace Walpole, from the MSS. of Mr. George Vertue; to which is added, an Account of the Life and Works of the latter. 4to.

As Mr. Vertue was of this profeflion himself, we may have the greater confidence in the industry and fidelity with which these materials have been collected. Such particulars of the lives of the feveral artists, as their general obfcurity has fuffered to remain, are recorded; and as accurate lifts of their works, whenever they could be obtained, together with an: account of their merits, are added, this work must be of fingular use to the collectors of this fpecies of

Virtù.