about as well how to fteer his courfe in it, as a romping, unfufpicious girl of thirteen: fo that upon his firft fetting out, the brifk gale of his fpirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of fone body's tackling; and as the grave and more flow-paced were ofteneft in his way you may likewife imagine, 'twas with fuch he had generally the ill luck to get the moft entangled. For aught I ,know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of fuch Fracas:-For, to fpeak the truth, Yorick had an invincible difJike and oppofition in his nature to gravity; not to gravity as such; for where gravity was wanted, he would be the moft grave or ferious of moral men for days and weeks together; -but he was an enemy to the affectation of it, and declared open war againft it, only as it appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly; and then, whenever it fell in his way, however theltered and protected, he feldom gave it much quarter. Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that gravity was an arrant fcoundrel; and he would add- of the moft dangerous kind too, because a fly one; and that, he verily believed, more honeft, well meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking, and fhoplifting, in feven. In the naked temper which a merry heart difcovered, he would fay, there was no danger,- but to itfelf;· whereas the very effence of gravity was defign, and confequently deceit; 'twas a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more fenfe and knowledge than a man which definition of gravity Yorick, with great imprudence, would fay, deferved to be wrote in letters of gold. But, in plain truth, he was a man unhacknied and unpractised in the world, and was altogether as indifcreet and foolish on every other fubject of discourse where policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impreffion but one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of; which impreffion he would ufually tranflate into plain English without any periphrafis,--and too oft without much diftinction of either perfonage, time, or place ;-fo that when mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous proceeding,- he never gave himfelf a moment's time to reflect who was the hero of the piece, what his ftation, or how far he had power to hurt The man was a dirty fellow, his his jibes and his jefts about him.They were not loft for want of gathering." An enquiry into the beauties of Painting. By Daniel Webb, Efq. TH HE ingenious work before us, feems to be the fruit of an exquifite tafte, of much experience, together with mature think ing on the fubject of which it treats. The author's feelings are fine, and his reasonings often profound. The language is clear and elegant; and would be ftill more fo, had it not been for the hard and affected ufe of fome terms peculiar to himfelf. The word Chiaro ofcuro is as well understood and founds lefs harth than "the clear obfcure." As the author has given us an English term not in ufe, for a foreign one adopted into the language, and therefore more intelligible, fo he has introduced a foreign word without any apparent neceflity, that has never been before heard of in English, I mean the word nud inftead of naked. The work is thrown into a dialogue between A. and B. But as neither of the fuppofed perfonages fuftain a character, the difpofition would, we imagine, have been more pleafing in fome other form. Thefe are, however, flight faults, on which it would be unpardonable to dwell where we have fo much more to praife than blame. The author's defign is expreffed in his preface. Heobferves that the judges of painting are few; he affigns the caufes of this paucity; and the purpose of the book is to point out methods for removing thefe, and for establishing more folid criterions of the me rit of painting and fculpture. The caufes which he affigns for the almoft general want of judgment in painting are the four following: Firft, the impatient curiofity, which hurries young travellers through galleries and churches, bewildering them with a multiplicity of objects, instead of affording them proper leifure to confider a few good pictures, and to arrange and establish the ideas which they excite. 2dly, The habit of eftimating pictures by the general reputation of the artift, without bringing them to the teft, either of the judgment or tafte, but rather regulating the judgment and tatte by them; for the beft works of middling arifts frequently excel the middling works of the belt. ' If,' fays he, every one can, in a certain degree, perceive grace and propriety of figure, character, and motion, in the objects of nature, why should not every one, in the fame degree, perceive and diftinguith the fame qualities and properties in the painted reprefentation of the fame objects, by exerting the fame faculties?' 3dly, The impatient ambition to diftinguith the feveral mafters, which frequently precedes and holds the place of all other knowledge, though it arifes not from a nice difcernment of the beauties, or imperfections of a picture, but of fome accidental and infignificant peculiarities in the colouring, fhading, attitude, or drapery, which therefore engrofs the attention that ought to be employed in the fearch of real and abfolute excellence and beauty: And, 4thly, The affectation of many to detect minute faults, for which their eye is perpetually fearching, inftead of comprehending the whole, and diftinguithing general excellence. The The book is divided into four parts; the first contains a general plan of the work; the fecond treats of our capacity to judge of painting; the third of its antiquity and utefulness; the fourth of defign; the fifth of colouring; the fixth of the clear obfcure, or thadowing; and the feventh of compofition. This author, in his first chapter, confiders painting and fculpture as having two objects. Ift, The reprefentation of fuch images as are actually before the eye. 2dly, The reprefentation of fuch images as are formed by the fancy. The firft he calls the mechanic, or executive part; the other the ideal, or inventive. It is certain that the great difference among eminent painters arifes from their different excellencies in invention and execution; thofe whofe merit is confined to execution, will be fervile copiers of the works of nature; thofe whofe merit is confined to the invention, will, for want of fufficient ikill in the execution, to express their own ideas with propriety and grace, produce rather rough draughts than pictures; fo that to excel in painting, it is neceffary to poffefs the powers both of invention and execution. Of all the mode'ns, fays the author, Raphael approached neareft to this perfection, and Correggio approached neareft to Raphael. The fecond dialogue treats of our capacity to judge of painting; the enquiry is curious, and we shall give it at large. Were "The learned, fays Quintilian, know the principles of an art, the illiterate its effects*. He has, in these words, fixed the boundaries betwixt taste and science. I to define the former, I fhould fay, † that tafte was a facility in the mind to be moved by what is excellent in an art; it is a feeling of the truth. But fcience is to be informed of that truth, and of the means by which its effects are produced. It is eafy to conceive, that different as thefe principles may be in their fetting out, they muft often unite in their decifions; this agreement will occafion their being miftaken one for the other, which is the cafe,when it is affirmed, that no one but an artift can form a right judgment of fculpture or painting. This maxim may hold, indeed, with refpect to the mechanic of an art, but not at all as to its effects; the evidence and force of which are what determine both the value of the art, and merit of the artist. What Tully obferves of an excellent orator, may juftly be faid of an excellent painter: his fuperiority * Docti rationem artis intelligunt, indocti voluptatem. Lib. ix. 4. Many writers have oppofed judgment to taste, as if they were distinct faculties of the mind; but this must be a mistake: the fource of tafte is feeling, fo is it of judgment, which is nothing more than the fame fenfibility, improved by the study of its proper objects, and brought to a jutt point of certainty and correctnefs. Thus it is clear, that thefe are but different degrees of the fame faculty, and that they are exercited wholly on our own ideas; but fcience is the remembrance or affemblage of the ideas of others; and hence it sometimes Lappens, that men the most remarkable for this kind of knowledge, are not equally fo for their fenfibility. Id enim ipfum eft fummai oratoris, fummum oratorem populo videri. In Bruto. will be evident, even to the leaft intelligent judges. But neither authority nor argument give a weight to our opinions, touching any art we treat of, equal to the illuftrations and examples which they lend each other. Happily, the near affinity that is obferved between the polite arts, they being, indeed, all but different means of addreffing the fame paffions, makes this at once the most effectual and ready method of conveying our ideas. I find in Dionyfius Halicarnaffus, an observation on mufic much to my purpofet. "I have learned, fays he, in theatres, filled with a promifcuous and illiterate crowd, what a kind of natural correfpondence we all have with melody, and the agreement of founds: having known the moft admired and able musician to be hiffed by the whole multitude, when he has ftruck a single ftring out of tune, to the difturbance of harmony: yet, put this fame inftrument into the hands of one of thefe fimpletons, with orders to exprefs that note, which he would exact from the artist, he cannot do it. Whence is this? The one is the effect of fcience, the lot but of a few; the other of feeling, which nature has beftowed on all." This applies it felf to our prefent fubject: the eye has its principle of correfpondence with what is juft, beautiful, and elegant: it acquires, like the ear, an habitual delicacy and anfwers, with the fame fidelity and precifion, to the fineft impreffions: verfed in the works of the best painters, it foon learns to diftinguith true expreffions from falfe, aud grace from affectation; quickened by exercife, and confirmed by comparifon, it outftrips reafoning; and feels in an inftant that truth, which the other developes by degrees. B. You have been defcribing, what Tully calls a learned, and we, I think, may term a chafte eye. But, do you not, in this process, make the growth of tafte to be little more than a fenfitive vegetation, withdrawing it wholly from. its dependency on fcience? A. Let us obferve its advances in poetry, as we have before in mufic: this too will be the more decifive, as poetry is an union of the two powers of mufic and picture. In this, the imagination, on its first fetting out, ever prefers extravagance to juftnefs, or falte beauties to true; it kindles at the flathes of Claudian; and flutters at the points of Statius; this is its childhood. As it grows in vigour, it refines in Omnes artes, quæ ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quafi cognatione inter fe continentur. Sic pro Archia poeta. † Εγινε καὶ εν τοις πολυανθρωπολατοις θεάτροις, ο συμπλήςοι παντοδαπος καὶ αμέσος, όχλος, έδιξα καλαλαθεῖν, ως φυσικε τις ετιν άπαντων ήμων οικείτους προς ευμέλειαν τε καὶ ευρυθμίαν. Κιθαρισην τε αγαθόν σφόδρα ευδοκιμεντα ιδων θορυβη θεντα ύπο της πλήθος, ότι μιαν σχορδην ασύμφωνον εκρυσε, καὶ έφθειρε το μέλος καιται είτις κελεύσεις τον ιδιώτην τέτων τι ὧν εξεκαλει τοις τεχνίταις ὡς ἡμαρτημένων, αυτόν ποίησαν λαβοντα τα όργανα, εκ αν δύναιτο. τι θε ποτε; ότι τετο μεν επι στήμης εσιν, ως ο πάντες μετειληφαμεν εκείνο δε παθος, ὁ πασιν απέδωκεν ἡ φύσις. Dion. Halicarn. De Stru&t. Orat. fe&t. 11. Confuetudo oculorum. Cic. lib. iv. Acad. quæft. feeling; feeling; till, fuperior to its firft attractions, it refts on the tender pathetic of Virgil, or the manly fpirit of Lucretius. Exactly parallel to this, is the progrefs of the eye in painting; its first affections are always ill placed: it is enamoured with the fplendid impofitions of Rubens, or the theatrical grace of Guido *; this lafts not long; it grows chafte in its purfuit; and flighting thofe falfe beauties, dwells on the native and mellow tints of Titian; on the unforced attitudes, and elegant fimplicity of Raphael. Was this change, in both cafes, the refult of reafoning, or produced by a growing knowledge of the rules of each art, we should mark its advances; the contrary of which is alinoft ever the cafe; fo that we are often surprised at this alteration in ourselves, and wonder, that the ideas and objects which affected us fo warmly at first, should, in a fhort courfe of time, act fo coldly upon us: nay, fome men there are, and thofe too very capable of judging in other matters, who never rife to this change; but continue, to the aft, under the influence of the fame boyish and wanton imagina tion. C. The greateft difficulty in your fyftem would be, to deduce the different degrees, as well as diverfity of our taftes, from this fame univer fal principle of feeling. A. The first, I should think, may be accounted for, from the different proportions of that fenfibility, as beftowed on us by nature, or improved by ourselves: the fecond, from the diverfity of our imaginations, in the direction given them by education, and the conftitutional or temporary flow of the animal fpirits. But as this is an enquiry quite beyond my reach, I fhall leave it to those who can trace the progrefs of our ideas; and can determine, and account for the va rious influences of outward objects on our fenfes. Inftead of lofing our time in fuch endless difquifitions, let us found our knowledge on facts; and pass from them to natural and useful conclufions. "The † Lacedemonians, fays Athenæus, are no where reprefented as being themfelves muficians; yet the purity of their taste in this art is univerfally acknowledged: they hav The grace of Guido is rather technical than ideal; by the first is meant a certain flow of Contour, invariably applied to every character, and on every cccafion. Thus the daughter of Herodias receives the head of St. John, with the Studied dignity of an actress; and the victorious St. Michael treads on the body of his antagonist, with all the precifion of a dancing-mafter. By an ideal grace, I understand that particular image, which in the inftant ftrikes a polite imagina. tion, as peculiar to the action and character before it. Of this the Santa Ce cilia of Raphael, and the Magdalen in the St. Jerome of Corregio, are the happielt examples; the gracefulness of these figures is not only proper to their characters, but gives a fingular force and beauty to the expreffion. It was from this happiness, that the Venuftas of Apelles became proverbial; as, among us, any action that is fingularly graceful, is termed Correggiefque. ηδη σεσωκέναι + Λακεδαιμονοι, ει μεν εμαίθανοι, την μεσικεν δεν λέγεσιν ότι δε ται καλως την τεκνην ὁμολογείται παρ αυτών γαρ φασι τρις lepaperar atın. Athenæus, lib. xiii. Deipnofuph, c. 6. |