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and his adoption of their advice, are at least in some measure justified. In what measure, and in what respects, we will briefly endeavour to explain, in the way of summary, or result of the above discussion.

The left hand quarter of the composition, where Echo, Narcissus, and the Sleeping Naiad are introduced, is a sort of retired and rocky nook, with perpendicular banks; and though those banks are not lofty where the rock is visible and they are not overgrown with trees, we may indulgently suppose them to be sufficiently so, to reverberate sound. And here "in close covert, where no profaner eye may look," is a well-spring-sufficient warrant rising with its waters, for the introduction of the Sleeping Naiad ; if not for that of Narcissus and Echo.

The perfect stillness and quietude of the pure liquid here, afford the self-enamoured youth the finest opportunity of admiring his own beauties. The liquid mirror is perfect; and the analogy between reflected forms and colours, and reverberated sounds, catches, and interests, attention agreeably, and needs neither ghost nor poet to explain its mysteries further.

Good and sufficient warrant then here is, for Claude's introduction of the Sleeping Naiad, who is here so conspicuously, and in an attitude elegantly conceived, supinely reclined, and resting her left arm on her situla; but, truth to say-she has the longest limbs and body of any Naiad whom we ever had the pleasure of seeing; for which we humbly conceive that there is not sufficient analogical authority, considering the short course which her streamlet has to run ere it arrives at the sea. However, as this female is "of a race unknown to nature, but created

and rendered credible by Art," criticism will probably not object to allow more than ordinary longitude, as well as occasional wider latitude than usual, to the graphic power.

Of the little waterfall or cascatella (as the Italians say) which is seen at a short distance-just within ear-shot--above and beyond the figure of Narcissus, what shall we say,-or what will the reader think? All else in the scene, appears perfectly silent, and whether the soft music of its falling waters, was in the painter's contemplation, as affording an engagement for the nymph Echo, we cannot be certain: yet on the whole we probably ought to give him credit for entertaining this idea.

A river then, somewhat copious and abundant in its flow of waters, and which may be understood as intended for the Cephisus-passes across the midground, and beneath the foot-bridge which is mentioned above; and here we may recognise an allusion to the proper subject of this picture, which poetry and criticism will readily acknowledge, in the circumstance of its being broken into a short cascade, just so near as to be heard, yet so far off as to be heard but faintly, from the fore-ground, or from the station of Echo. All else in the picture is perfectly quiet; and were there no sound (suggested) there could exist no echo. The solitary sound that is suggested is that of distant waters,

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LANDSCAPE, WITH THE DEATH OF PROCRIS.

CLAUDE OF LORRAINE.

THIS picture presents us with such a wild scene on the skirts of a forest, with a decayed stump fringed with parasitic foliage near the fore-ground, as is to be seen in all woodland countries, which have been in any degree abandoned to the picturesque operation of neglect and accident. We place it next after the Narcissus, in our Claude procession, because it stands in that order in the Liber Veritatis, and appears to have been produced during that period of the career of this great artist, when he painted his own figures; while, like that of Narcissus and Echo, it affords an instance of what the professor Phillips has remarked, that “the idea which governed the introduction of Claude's figures, almost invariably excels their execution."

The figure of Cephalus in the present composition is rather finely conceived; and his general action as he rushes forward to his dreadful discovery, is strongly expressive of the astonishment, and overwhelming sentiment of despair, which seizes him as he perceives that in hurling his unerring dart he has mortally wounded his beloved wife.

It appears necessary to the correct understanding of this picture that we should refer to the classic history of Cephalus and Procris, which carries us back to a period anterior to the Homeric ages, and which Lempriere has ably extracted from Hesiod, Ovid, and Hyginus, as follows:

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Cephalus, King of Thessaly, married Procris,

daughter of Erectheus, King of Athens. Aurora fell in love with him and carried him away, but he refused to listen to her addresses, and was impatient to return to Procris. The goddess sent him back, and to try the fidelity of his wife, she made him put on a different form, and he arrived at the house, or palace, of Procris in the habit of a merchant. Procris was deaf to every offer; [but one:] she suffered herself to be seduced by the gold of this stranger, who discovered himself the very moment that Procris had yielded up her virtue. This circumstance so ashamed Procris, that she fled from her husband, and devoted herself to hunting in the island of Eubœa, where she was admitted among the attendants of Diana, who presented her with a dog always sure of his prey, and a dart which never missed its aim, and always returned to the hands of its mistress of its own accord. Some say that the dog was a present from Minos, because Procris had cured his wounds. After this Procris returned in disguise to Cephalus, who was willing to disgrace himself by some unnatural concessions to obtain the dog and the dart of Procris. Procris discovered herself at the moment that Cephalus showed himself faithless, and a reconciliation was easily made between them. They loved one another with more tenderness than before, and Cephalus received from his wife the presents of Diana. As he was particularly fond of hunting, he frequently repaired very early in the morning to the woods, and when tired with excessive toil and fatigue, he laid himself down in the cool shade, earnestly calling for Aura, or the refreshing breeze. This ambiguous word, was mistaken for the name of a mistress, and some cruel informer reported to the

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jealous Procris, that Cephalus daily paid a visit to a mistress whose name was Aura. Procris too readily believed the information, and secretly followed her husband into the woods. According to his custom, Cephalus retired to enjoy the cooling shade, and invoked Aura. At the name of Aura, Procris eagerly lifted up her head to see her expected rival. Her motion occasioned a rustling among the leaves of the bush that concealed her; and as Cephalus listened, he thought it to be a wild beast, and he let fly his unerring dart. Procris was struck to the heart, and expired in the arms of her husband, confessing that ill-grounded jealousy was the cause of her death."

The classic legend, and Claude's picture, are in pretty good accordance, with a few exceptions, as to the details, which we seem called upon to notice. First, The figure of Procris, according to Lempriere, was concealed from the view of her husband by a bush; Claude has no such bush, and his Cephalus must have been as blind and precipitate, as he was jealous, not to have perceived that his wife was no "wild beast," but a jealous-pated animal like himself. The far off buildings may pass for his palace, or for the skirts, or a suburb, of his Thessalian metropolis. Next, by introducing at a short distance, a deer descending a hill, Claude seems to have understood, and to give his admirers to understand, that Cephalus (like the English Tyrrel, who shot William Rufus) had taken aim at one of the denizens of the forest, and the artist not to have been informed of the fable of the unerring dart. Thirdly, How so accurate an observer of nature as Claude, came to omit, in this instance, the forward-cast shadows from a sun not far above the horizon, which kind of sha

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