currence of circumstances, just where his fit ambition would have gladly made the deposit.

Instead of which, had it been executed, as at first intended, in marble, for the embellishment of Hafod*, it would, like others of his best performances, have served only to adorn those shades which are but too beautiful already. And surely every true lover of the finest department of art must sincerely regret, that, of the labours of his classical chissel, many are fixed in the oblivious aisles of distant village churches; others, in the solitude of country retreats; and above all, that his CUPID, a statue that would have been highly valued in the very best

* At this place, there is already as beautiful a specimen of his power in grouping statues, as this is of his talents for executing that difficult task, a colos. sal one. It is Thetis plunging Achilles, when a child, in the river Styx, to render him invulnerable; a group now destined to ornament Mr. Johnes's magnificent conservatory. There also will be found a fine bust of Oliver Cromwell, and others, much valued by the proprietor.

times of art, and might have stood, without fearing a competition, even on the steps of the Roman Capitol, was destined to vanish amid those impenetrable fogs, which extend their opaque curtains from the gulf of Finland to the Sarmatian lakes *

YES, Sir, I rejoice, and your readers will rejoice with me, that THIS EPITOME OF THE ILIAD, was destined to fill the honourable seat it now holds. A better choice could not have been made from HOMER, although Phidias had dictated the selection; for, if the wrath of Achilles was considered by that great poet as a just foundation for so grand an epic poem, in which way could his divine

*During Mr. Banks's residence in Rome, he completed a statue in marble, of Cupid seizing a butterfly, emblematic of the power of love over the soul. This beautiful piece of sculpture, which so de licately portrayed the divine elegance, and supple activity, of the youthful deity it was to represent, was purchased by the Empress Catherine II, of Russia, for the embellishment of a temple in her royal gardens at Zsarsco Zelo, near Petersburg.

performance be better commemorated, than by selecting the moment, when that hero's sufferings were most acute?

In this statue, his godlike origin is well marked by his superior size and nobleness of contour; his strength, by the exertions the attitude demands: and the agony of his exalted thoughts, by the active energies, its, almost, motion unfolds. But when we examine the character of his heroic countenance, then we plainly read,

"His towering thoughts on their own breast o'erturn'd, "And piercing to the heart!"

By some uncultivated minds, it may be objected, that this colossal figure, not being executed in marble by the fingers that modelled it, we ought not to speak of it as a statue from his hand. To such I shall only reply, that among genuine artists this very circumstance renders it of more value; for under the present mechanical mode of transferring the model to the marble, we all know, that very inferior hands must

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always be employed, to uncover the kernel of the artist's composition; and that no care is sufficient at all times to prevent those errors of the " poco troppo," which, when they have happened, no zeal, no genius, can happily correct; and it is equally true, that where this does not happen, in gliding with reflexion over the last touches with a masterly hand, many graces are seized, which in modelling escaped the eye; but it quite as often happens, that with the view of enriching his first thoughts, the Artist's chissel often polishes down a real beauty, and gives grace at the expense of energy and soul.

LET us therefore consider this work as it is, a fine statue-(for the material has nothing to do with sculpture, except the name) and then we shall see the subject of the Iliad nobly personified, and the wrath of a royal, heroic, warrior—

"Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring "Of woes unnumbered-"

POPE'S ILIAD.

and feel in the air of abandonment,

and wild but tender despair, the genuine image of the distracted son of THETIS, who

"Bathed in tears of anger and disdain,
"Thus loud lamented to the stormy main."
POPE'S ILIAD.

Every thing indeed is touching-his youth-his heroic form-his agitated motion-the passion he so cruelly labours under his loss-of all privations the least possible to bear, while possessing the emotions and feelings of that time of life, and scarcely supportable at any period of manhood; a passion, which, while it strips him of the hero's ornaments for the moment, and dissolves his soul in lamentations and tears, only renders those very tears and cries more affecting to the bosom of humanity: for BRISEIS, the virgin object of a man, inflamed, we may be allowed to suppose, with more than mortal desires, was torn from his embraces, to gratify a rival in glory, and one, whom he thought scarcely an equal.