gle face or figure. I saw Titian who dipt his pencil in the iris, and Raffaelle who unclasped the volume of light, and Michael Angelo, the giant of painting, and the patient Flemings, its slaves, the seducer Correggio, -the magician Rembrandt:-I saw them all; not face to face, indeed, not in their original hues and essence, but filtered through the graver's alembic, and yet with enough of their primal beauty to catch a young imagination, and to fix a love of the arts for ever. Well, I began to collect prints; I bought bad ones, as every one does. at first; huge staring things that had no mark or merit, except " Titian pinxit," or some such authority in the corner; but this was quite sufficient. In time I discovered the real value of this rubbish, and began to affect a little taste. I became a connoisseur-in his first state. I purchased Wille's, and Lucas Van Leyden's, Wierinx's, Strange's, Woollett's, Sharpe's-(I confess that I still like the two last)-I was beguiled by the clear wiry engravings of the French-I liked even the little country pictures after the Dutch artists; but of Marc Antonio and Julio Bonasone (fine pictorial poet) I had never heard. From prints I proceeded to pictures. My first essay was unfortunately fortunate. I bought a Holy Family by I forget who, but the picture dealer can tell, if he has not changed, as is most likely, the author's name. This was "really not so very bad," for fifteen pounds; and moreover, it covered a square yard of wall, the paper of which was discoloured and damp. One picture never contented a true lover of art, and accordingly I wandered from shop to shop, gazing, doubting, listening, admiring,-buying!-Gentle reader, if thou art stung by a love of pictures, hearken unto me. There is nothing so illusive, there is no deception so easy as to impose on eyes inexperienced in painting. The best judges are sometimes deceived, and they who are no judges, always. But a person who openly sells his wares is probably honest?-Be not deceived. If you go to a seller of pictures you will see Carracci's, Guido's, Poussin's, Domenichino's, &c. &c. as common as dust. If they are twenty years old, it is their greatest age; for like things of a dwarf creation, they reach an early maturity, without any approach to excellence. "What is this?" you will say to the vender. "Why Sir," he answers, "I won't deceive you: I really do not know. It has been called a Guido, and it is certainly very like the master. A fine expression there, Sir. Look at that eye. I had it from a gentleman in Cornwall. It had been in the family, Sir, a hundred and fifty years. I gave a great deal of money for that picture, I assure you. Stop, Sir, let me wipe it with a silk handkerchief. Now, Sir, do you see?-Look at the turn of that neck. I wish I could afford to keep it," &c. &c. But no: his eloquence is expended in vain: the picture does not suit you; and you turn to another, and another, and hear the same eulogy lavished upon each. At last, perhaps, the sanctum sanctorum is carefully opened, and a Raffaelle, or a Titian, or a Leonardo da Vinci is exposed to view. "There, Sir," the juggler says, "now that's what I call a real bit of the master." You admire. "Well, what is the price?"—He looks steadily at you, as if to measure the extent of your simplicity, and says, "Why, Sir, at one word, I can't take less than a hundred and eighty pounds." It was in this way that I once bought a "real bit" of Ruysdael. There was a pretty piece of water, and a sward as green as April, and a tree, under which a Dryad might have lived and numbered out her century. Reader, half of the picture (including the tree) was not a week old. I discovered thisthe next morning; when I viewed it in the broad day-light. I made my purchase in the evening, and rested on the picture dealer's honour! * Historical painting (as painters use the term, thereby including all Since this happened, two instances have come within my own knowledge of gentlemen having expended ample fortunes in the purchase of pictures, &c.-One of them is an exile, and both are, I believe, ruined. One purchased paintings, curiosities, and pieces of statuary, to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds. He bought—trash, and fled his country and his creditors, in despair. Shall I give another instance? poetical conceptions, and in some cases portrait) has always been my passion. I confess that I never "took much" to landscapes. There is nothing in them to satisfy an extreme craving of the spirit. They are thin food, and cannot allay a strong appetite-nor excite one. A few, indeed, may claim an exception to this dogma, but then they are marvels,anomalies. There is the famous "three trees" of Rembrandt, with its black showering cloudy sky; and another by the same hand,-I forget what it is, but the scene is flat, dwarfed and sterile; field after field is stretched out to the far horizon, differing scarcely anything from each other, save in size; and yet the whole wears an aspect near akin to the sublime. Besides these, there is one of Claude's (is it the Enchanted Castle?)-one of Salvator Rosa's (now at Dulwich)-one of Gaspar Poussin's, (a close umbrageous scene, with nymphs bathing in a deep and shady lake) and one of his brother Nicolo's, which is now also in the Dulwich gallery. This last has a foreground occupied by a level grassy road, which runs under the shade of "melancholy boughs," and loses itself at the walls of some antique city. On each side are tanks of water, and masses of marble, carved, or in ruins, each diminishing in size as they re cede; and at the back are obelisks and towers, with hanging rocks overhead, and in the extreme distance the blue mountains. The light which pierces through the trees, and throws the massy foliage into fine relief, has a magnificent effect; and the whole picture breathes a classical repose.-These are all which I remember as having interested me much without the aid of story. My great desire has always been to see the wonders and varieties of the human countenance; the power of the human figure,-where a hand speaks, and a foot is eloquent. I delight to look upon the fine flowing outlines of Raffaelle, and the "terrible style" of Michael Angelo; to repose on the languishing and voluptuous sweetness of Correggio, and to unravel the dark secrets of Rembrandt. I am no bigot in my taste. I admire all that I think good in each, the sober beauty of Ludovico Caracci,-the waving elegance of Parmegiano,-the bravery of Rubens,-and the mellow golden lights of Titian.* I am enchanted with the quaint graces of da Vinci, and I love to soar with the winged fancies of Julio Romano, and to luxuriate with the exquisite Bonasone. For the rest (except Giorgione, indeed), I care but little; but I may, nevertheless, be wrong in my taste. In landscape, I like a close sequestered The Spanish painters do not, I confess, altogether please me; though the Boys of Murillo at Dulwich are, undoubtedly, very fine; and so were two pictures in the last exhibition of the old masters; the one, an elderly Spanish lady, by Velasquez; and the other, a young man in a clerical dress, and called a Spagnoletto. Yet the arts were honoured and patronized in Spain. I am no lover of the Emperor Charles: his cold calculating policy freezes up my admiration, and I never could well forgive him for having been the father of Philip the Second. But his treatment of Titian was magnificent. The parchment which made the great painter a Count of the empire (it is addressed, dilecto Tiziano de Vecellis, equiti aurato) is worth anything; and so is the conduct of Charles towards his stupid swarthy courtiers, who found fault with Titian, because he was not a noble-in Spain. But he was elsewhere, and everywhere else, a noble of the first rank, and could afford to dispense with the sullen respect of these dullards of "the Pen insula." Philip, whom I have mentioned above in terms of reprobation, behaved, nevertheless, in a princely way to Zucaro, who had been sent for (from Italy) to paint the Escurial. This artist seems to have had vanity enough to outweigh ten times his talent, and Philip knew how to check it. The following story is taken from Cumberland's anecdotes of the Spanish painters." Senor," said Zucaro to Philip, as he was displaying a painting of the Nativity for the great altar of the Escurial," you now behold all that art can execute: beyond this the powers of painting cannot go." The king was silent for a time, and so unmoved, that neither admiration nor contempt could be determined from the expression of his countenance. At last, preserving still the same indifference, he asked if those were eggs which one of the shepherds, in the act of running, carried in his basket; the painter answered him, that they were. "'Tis well he did not break them," said the king, and turned away; and the picture was dismissed.-It is right to add, that though Philip erased Zucaro's paintings from the Escurial, and discarded him, he rewarded him in a princely manner. scene, umbrageous, sylvan; or one of mere bareness and sublimity. I do not understand the medium. Corn fields, and villas, and vineyards confound me; they seem like so many maps. But, independently of. other advantages, the human figure seems to me to have more power, strictly speaking, than any other object. The Coliseum is stupendous, and so are Athos and Olympus, and so is the Nile, and so is the Arabian Desart; but the men of Michael Angelo seem mightier than all. They could move a world, or bear it. Yet I like to gaze upon mountains and great rivers. I like to look upon the mad ungovernable ocean, and to listen to its hollow music. The raging and noise, how fine they are! but the face of man, ploughed up and torn by stormy passions, is finer and more terrible still. In painting I never saw any thing like a mountain, or a huge precipice, or the great curling billows of the sea. Extreme altitude, and depth, and vastness, seem manageable in poetry only. The slighter Pegasus of the sister muse will not bear so severe a burthen. Indeed, how can man expect to thrust into some three feet of canvas the torrent of the wide stretching Amazon, or to take the fulllength likeness of "Teneriff or Atlas?" And so farewell to painting. If I have trespassed on the preserve of Mr. Weathercock-(By the bye, why does not Mr. Weathercock go on with his pleasant lectures on prints and painters? Why does he, like a coy and beautiful virgin, shun the eye of his lovers, the "admiring public? Is there not much still to speak of,-fields that remain to be won? Let him write again, and again)—If I have trespassed on Mr. Weathercock's preserve, I trust that gay and gentle critic will excuse it. I will not (as I have already run to such length) trouble the reader with the pleasures of hunting. Let him go himself to the sport in the dewy morning. Let him listen to the hound and the winding horn, to the woody echoes, the trampling of horses, the shouts, the cries, the raging, the tearing of the chase. Let him see "the field " go down gently to cover, like a flock to the pasture, or as Sir Walter did Like the slow motion of a summer cloud, and then behold the hunters and their train, roused and sublimated from their seeming lethargy. Let him join in the noise, and the mad emulation of the day, and return at night hungry and victorious, tired, but not sad, to talk over the perils and enjoyments that he has known, and he will do better than by even attending to my minute and melancholy story. Gentle or fair reader, lend me your attention a little longer, and I shall have done. I have no more pleasures to speak of. About this time an accident befel me, with which (if you answer my presuming, and are either gentle or fair, or both) you will, I think, deeply sympathize. I fell -"How-where-what-be quick, Mr. Hypochondriac, and spare us?"Why then, then, Sir, I fell in love. -"Gramercy!"-Yes: my fall was as deep as Powerscourt (150 feet, if I remember)—and it lasted as long: i. e. all the winter season. A pair of eyes, as blue-as blue-as-Prussian blue, looked on me, and took all the "carnation" from my cheeks. I was like a picture full of tender lights, hung up beside the gorgeous colouring of Rubens. I was smitten' annihilated-lost. How I recovered is the marvel. But I did recover, as this narrative will surely be sufficient to testify.-How I have gone on since is a holy secret, not to be divulged. I have spoken of scars; but should I ever be seriously wounded, I confess that I shall probably keep the pleasant affliction to myself. sures of the Hypochondriac exceed -Let no one suppose that the pleathe measure of his pains. He has no there is always a sting. If he is torunalloyed happiness. In the honey mented, it is enough; and if he is delighted, he has an eye to the consequences. His imagination is like an evil prophet. His hopes are spectral,-vanishing as soon as born; his fears only are firm, dark, terrible, enduring. His prospects are never sunny,-never smiling; but Over his head appears the skye, And Saturn, lord of melancholie. For my own part I have always, even in the most magnificent visions, had a sense of pain. If I dreamt of flowers or spices, their aromatic odour seemed impregnated with poison-(I believe that I must have repeatedly fainted from the excess of such pleasures). If I walked among obelisks, or towers, or mountains, or forests, a feeling of intolerable awe took possession of my spirit, and bore it down. They seemed ready for ever to topple down or overwhelm me; and I had no power to resist or fly. My soul seemed prostrate in these dreams, and I myself weak, worthless, and contemptible. Does any one wish to dream as I have done?-Let him banish so poor an ambition. Let him do things waking, which may be of use to himself, his friends, or his country, and he will see the seventh heaven in his dreams, for they will be full of happiness, radiant,-but not alarming. Yet, let him not study too much, nor ride, nor walk, nor drink, nor eat, nor taste pleasure:-it is the "too much which brings the pain: a little of each is good. " The character of the Hypochondriac's mind is extreme susceptibility -he is chameleon-like, and takes his hue from the veriest trifle. "Tis something, nothing," and yet it bears upon him like a fate. There are certain things so sensitive as to seem anomalies among their species. If the stamina of the barberry are pricked, they move. If the sensitive plant is touched, it curls itself up and contracts its leaves. So it is with the Hypocondriac: he cannot endure an innocent joke, and a fierce assault of ridicule destroys him. He loves idleness, perhaps?-it is bad: or solitude?-that is worse. What then is left for him?-Why, every thing-in moderation. Wine, indeed, or such stimulants, I would counsel him to give up altogether, and to live very plainly, very temperately, very regularly. "Good air and gentle exercise," as the doctors say, and (as I say) a resolution to withstand temptation, and excess of all sorts, and he will go on well. Patient reader, farewell. Were I to tell thee more, our friend, the Editor, might think that I was overstepping modesty on this subject. He might think that I grew too explicit, and thou mightest esteem me a little tedious. While we are good friends, therefore, let us part. I have suffered-Oh! far more than I have ventured to disclose to thee. What is right to tell, I have told: the rest must remain my own unprofitable secret. Besides, the melancholy things which I have told thee have passed away; and I am now recovering. If I have not quite the buoyant spirit which becomes me, I have Hope, at least, to cheer me; I have a few books, a few pictures, and one or two-(have I not?) friends. Their looks are ever gentle and bright towards me,—not too radiant, But shedding a delicious lunar light, and sufficient, if I do not grow discontented, to make graceful the future, and yield me some requital for the past. The Early French Poets. JEAN BERTAUT. THE edition of Bertaut's poems, which I met with in the old French library, was entitled, Recueil des Oeuvres Poetiques de J. Bertaut, Abbé d'Aunay, et premier Aumonier de la Royne. Seconde Edition. Paris, 1605. The reader will not expect much imagination in copies of verses written on such subjects as The Conversion of the King, The Reduction of Amiens, A Discourse presented to the King on his going to Picardy to fight against the Spaniard, A Discourse to the King on the Confer ence held at Fontainebleau; and there is about as much poetry in them as in those by Waller, Dryden, and Addison, on similar occasions. The poem on the death of Ronsard, (though it has much mythological trifling about Proteus, and Nereus, and Thetis, and Jupiter, and Mercury in the shape of the Cardinal du Perron) becomes exceedingly interesting towards the conclusion, where Bertaut expresses his affection for the departed poet, and the zeal which he had early felt to imitate him: Je n'avois pas seize ans quand la premiere flame Dont la Muse m'eprit s'alluma dans mon ame: Car deslors un desir d'eviter le trespas Mon âge que fleury ne faisoit qu'arriver Depuis venant à voir les beaux vers de Que l'Amour et la Muse ornerent en tant Ce desir s'augmenta, mon ame presumant N'a rien si difficile à se voir exprimer Lors à toy revenant, et croyant que la De t'oser imiter ne seroit pas si vaine, encor Avec mes vers de cuivre egaler les tiens d'or. Si bien que pour jamais ma simple outrecuidance, En gardant son desir, perdit son esperance. Alors vos escrits seuls me chargerent les mains: Seuls je vous estimay l'ornement des humains: A toute heure, en tous lieux, je senty vostre image Devant mes yeux errante exciter mon cou rage: Je reveray vos noms, reveray vos hostels, mortels, Voyant la palme Grecque en vos mains reverdie: Bref je vous adoray (s'il faut qu'ainsi je die); Rendre l'evenement conforme à ton presage; Et ne permittent point que j'aye acquis en vain L'heur d'avoir veu ta face, et touché dans ta main. Cependant prens en gré, si rien de nous t'agrée, Ces pleurs, qu'au lieu des fleurs, ou qu'au lieu d'eau sacrée, Avec toute la France atteins d'un juste deuil, Scarce sixteen years I number'd when my breast A common doom so early I eschew'd, Fond that I was, who had not learn'd before Once more to thee I turn'd, and thought my pain In imitating thee would prove less vain ; |