mixture of long-grass and green foliage, brown heath and beautiful wild flowers, adds to the impressive effect of this secluded scene.' The interior of this Hebridian grotto, which is not to be surveyed without some unpleasant and even hazardous scrambling, exhibits various fantastic configurations, in the form both of stalactites and stalagmites; among which may be particularized, the monk, the nun, the golden fleece, &c. We are, moreover, conducted into a splendid saloon, and to the brink of a large fountain or pool which the visitors cross on a plank. On the right of this spacious hall, about eight feet above the surface of the pool, the wall recedes a little, forming a narrow bench for the reception, as it seems, of an admirable group of figures in alto relievo, which are placed upon it. These are six in number, as large as life, and white as alabaster. They are Caryatides and Persians, in graceful attitudes, the drapery flowing in the most accurate stile. The prominent figure is Persian, who seems to hold in his hand a roll of parchment. This assemblage of figures is encompassed with a multitude of ornamental festoons of leaves, and garlands of corymbiated spar. They are whimsically diversified, and occupy an intercolumniation of pillars, which are chiefly engaged, though some are insulated and embellished with shining crystallizations and stalagmites of great beauty.' To the courage and persevering zeal of Mrs. Gillespie, a resident of Skye, the public are indebted for the discovery of this singular excavation; for this lady appears first to have explored it in June 1808, accompanied by a boat's crew. Her report afterward induced the proprietor, attended by herself and her husband, to penetrate its recesses; and the farther they advanced, the more were they gratified and astonished. The length of this cave, from its entrance to its termination in a passage too narrow and steep for farther research, is reckoned at about 250 feet; its width, in some places, is eight or ten feet: but the circumference of the saloon is sixty-seven feet, and the roof of this last is too lofty to be distinctly visible. The measurements, however, are rather vaguely stated; and the whole account is somewhat desultory and pedantic. We really can scarcely extend our toleration to such words as exudate, coruscant, cornial, superfice, and stirious. The confusion of these and those may be overlooked on the north of the Tweed: but no such geographical boundary will justify the violation of the well-known concord of noun and verb, a violation of which various instances might be quoted within the compass of this small volume. The Mermaid, written during a journey to the Hebrides, by a gentleman well known in the literary world, possesses considerable poetical merit, though the story rather offends against probability. Granting, however, that a marine syren may lock up a living mortal in the chambers of the deep, we see no good reason why she should lose her prisoner in a very silly manner; but the verses, it must be allowed, are pretty, simple, and pathetic. Let the concluding stanzas exemplify the rest: An oozy film her limbs o'erspread, In the last stanza but one, sea, it will be observed, is made to rhyme with itself; and in another, we have remarked green corres ponding to beam: but the versification, in general, is smooth and correct. CORRESPONDENCE. The letter from the author of "Observations on Virgil's fourth Eclogue" is transmitted to the gentleman, under whose consideration that work at present remains. P. Q. will see that we have not been unmindful of M. de Montgaillard's political work, just published, which he thinks is likely to attract some notice; and we are sorry that we were not able, after that time of the month at which it appeared, to conclude our report of it in the present number. A friend of the Dilettanti Society' is informed that we propose to give an account, in our next Review, of the splendid volume of Specimens of antient Sculpture which that learned body some time since offered to the lovers of the Arts. NOTICE. The APPENDIX to Vol. lxvi. of the M. R. is published with this Number, and contains, as usual, a number of articles on interesting FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS; with the General Title, Table of Contents, and Index, for the volume. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For FEBRUARY, 1812. ART. I. Specimens of Antient Sculpture, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman, selected from different Collections in Great Britain. By the Society of Dilettanti. Vol. I. Folio. pp. 209. with 75 Plates, and 3 Vignettes. Price 181. 18s. half-bound. Payne. IF the remark of the elegant Ovid be correct, which has been so often quoted that we dare not repeat it, respecting the influence of the Fine Arts on the manners of society, their culture must be desired as one among the safe-guards against barbarism, and their advanced state must be received as an evidence of the civilization of the empire in which they flourish. We have pleasure, therefore, in announcing that a truly splendid production is here offered to the lovers and professors of this science, worthy of appearing under the auspices of the Dilettanti Society, and exhibiting numerous fine examples of Antient Sculpture from various collections in this country. Though, however, the volume is issued under the authority of this learned body, yet, as in the instance of other works bearing the name of a Society, the selections, as well as the text, are evidently the labour of one individual; whom we easily recognize, but whose name we do not feel ourselves at liberty to mention until the appearance of the promised second volume. We may, nevertheless, congratulate the public on being here presented with the investigations of an accomplished writer, whom nothing has deterred from an unceasing endeavour to explore the Mysteries and to discover the sentiments which guided the antient Greeks, in the beautiful representations of nature that were exhibited by the unrivalled powers of their chissel. The account of their sculpture has been judiciously divided into two parts; the first, which constitutes the present volume, treating of it only as a work of Art, and the second being intended to elucidate the Mysteries. :> A general history of Antient Art, in the form of an Introduction, leads us to the succeeding plates, which it serves to elucidate. This arrangement renders the whole design highly interesting, and, added to the learning and discrimination which are displayed in the text and the beautiful representations of wellselected subjects which are given in the engravings, will always VOL. LXVII. I make make the performance a desirable object of attainment. Students of antient art will be aware that the plan followed in this undertaking was attempted by the celebrated Winckelmann, in his History of the Arts: we say attempted, because that production is so desultory, although it displays great learning, that few persons can derive much satisfactory knowlege from the perusal even of so elaborate a treatise. By keeping the parts separated, however, as in the present publication, the writer has been enabled to give to each a due share of attention, and to afford the reader more advantageous information on the several subjects;-information, which is not only the result of the ingenious writer's own extensive knowlege, but the value of which is greatly enhanced by the benefit which he derived from an intimate acquaintance with the late Mr. Charles Townley, whose whole life was devoted to this study. We reserve any farther remarks to our notice of the work in detail; beginning with the Introduction, from which we shall feel it to be both our duty and our pleasure to borrow very copious quotations. It is well observed, at the commencement, that - In those Arts, which peculiarly and immediately belong to imitation, we may discover some rude efforts in the rudest state of original nature; there being scarcely any nation or tribe hitherto discovered, that had not made some attempts to imitate, by lines or forms, the natural objects which surrounded them. Feeble and imperfect as these primitive efforts are, the principle of them is always good. The artist appears, indeed, to have been destitute of the skill as well as of the implements and materials belonging to a civilized state of life; but he was, at the same time, destitute of the artificial habits and corrupt prejudices of it. He looked at Nature attentively and at Nature only; and as he saw her through no medium, he saw her without any disguise. Hence, though his knowledge was defective, his taste was just; and while his hand erred, his eye was correct. This is observable in all the specimens of savage art, that have come under our observation. The intention is good, though the execution is bad; and rudely and indistinctly as the limbs and features are marked, they are nevertheless placed in the manner best adapted to express the action, passion, or sentiment meant to be signified. The direct reverse of this is observable in the earliest specimens of civilized art that we know of: both the Egyptians and Hindoos having apparently ceased to look at Nature, otherwise than through the corrupt and distorted medium of their own fanciful imitations of her, long before any examples of their art now extant were produced. Yet many of these examples of that of the former people are of extremely remote antiquity; when the mechanism of art which supplies the means of its more liberal and scientific exertions was in its infancy. The hard material, indeed, in which many of the hierogly phical sculptures of Upper Egypt are wrought, as well as the extreme sharpness and neatness of finish, observable both in them and in those of the Obelisks brought from that country, abundantly prove that the art of hardening metal was well known to the antient Egyptians; at the same time that their works in brass show them to have have been wholly ignorant of the more obvious art of casting figures, in that material, in a mould taken from a plastic model. Plate I. of this volume represents a statue of Jupiter Ammon two feet high, made out of three pieces of copper beaten together till the tangent surfaces fitted each other, and then hammered and hewn into the shape of a human body with a ram's head. This must have been a work of great labour, though of little effect, the parts having been finished with much care and nice precision, though the whole has but a clumsy and heavy appearance.. The eyes were probably of glass or gems, made to imitate nature; such as still remain in the bronze figure of Osiris engraved in plate II. but which are not often observ. able in monuments of Egyptian art. In works of less sanctity and magnificence, they not only spared themselves the expence of these splendid decorations, but also that of the quantity of metal, by plating it upon wood instead of hammering it solid. In this manner was a small figure of Osiris executed; the head of which, with the remains of the original wood in it, is exhi bited in the vignette, fig. 1. At what period the Egyptians began to cast figures of their deities and sacred animals in brass, of which im. mense numbers in the smaller sizes are still extant, it is scarcely pos. sible even to conjecture; for as their works are all in the same style, their art admits of no epochs. Imitations of them, too, continued to be made under the Macedonian kings and Roman emperors, with such skill that they cannot be always disinguished from the originals; partieularly under Hadrian and the Antonines, when the later Ægyptian worship began to prevail over the whole empire; and household gods made after the Egyptian fashion were every where received as objects of private devotion. This Ægyptian style or fashion of work is very peculiar; and, amidst innumerable faults and defects, has two distinguished merits of very opposite kinds, breadth and sharpness; which place it in a rank far above that of either the Chinese or Hindoos; whose figures are equally void of all symmetry of form, grace of action, or truth of expression, without having any of the more austere and less obvious excellencies of art to compensate for the deficiencies. In the head of the Jupiter Ammon above cited, there is an air of severe dignity above the ordinary character of the animal; and in the bend of the horns, and in the line of the nose, there is an easy flow which approaches towards elegance. In the head of green basalt engraved in plate III. and the bronze figure in plate II., both the breadth and sharpness of the Egyptian style are beautifully marked. Nothing can exceed the firmness and unity expressed in the swell of the cheeks, or the even steadiness, with which the brows are arched, and the lips opened; though without any of that muscular play or instantaneous action which even the inferior artists of Greece infused into their works. The surface is that of a human body; but of a human body motionless and unorganised, without joint or sinews, or any other means or power of action or exertion. • This torpid state, in which the art of sculpture continued during so many ages in Egypt, is not so much to be attributed to the genius of the people, as to the constitution of their government, both civil and ecclesiastical, All trades and professions being hereditary, the I 2 way |