is Pliny when he speaks from himself, or perhaps from the hints of some dilettante; but when he delivers an extract, his information is not only essential and important, but expressed by the most appropriate words. Such is his account of the glazing-method of Apelles, in which, as Reynolds has observed, he speaks the language of an artist; such is what he says of the manner in which Protogenes embodied his colours, though it may require the practice of an artist to penetrate his meaning. No sculptor could describe better in many words than he does in one, the manoeuvre by which Nicias gave the decided line of correctness to the models of Praxiteles; the word circumlitio, shaping, rounding the moist clay with the finger, is evidently a term of art. Thus when he describes the method of Pausias, who, in painting a sacrifice, foreshortened the bull, and threw his shade on part of the surrounding crowd, he throws before us the depth of the scenery, and its forcible chiaro-scuro; nor is he less happy, at least in my opinion, when he translates the deep aphorism by which Eupompus directed Lysippus to recur to Nature, and animate the rigid form with the air of life.

"In his dates he seldom errs, and sometimes adjusts or corrects the errors of Greek chronology, though not with equal attention; for, whilst he exposes the impropriety of ascribing to Polycletus a statue of Hephestion, the friend of Alexander, who lived a century after him, he thinks it worth his while to repeat that Erynna, the contemporary of Sappho, who lived nearly as many years before him, celebrated in her poems a work of his friend and fellow-scholar, Myron of Eleutheræ. His text is, at the same time, so deplorably mutilated, that it often defies conjecture and interpretation. Still, from what is genuine, it must be confessed, that he condenses in a few chapters the contents of volumes, and fills the whole atmosphere of art. Whatever he tells, whether the most puerile legend, or the best attested fact, he tells with dignity.

“Of Quintilian, whose information is all relative to style, the tenth chapter of the twelfth book, a passage on expression

in the eleventh, and scattered fragments of observations analogous to the process of his own art, is all that we possess ; but what he says, though comparatively small in bulk with what we have of Pliny, leaves us to wish for more. His review of the revolutions of style in painting, from Polygnotus to Apelles, and in sculpture from Phidias to Lysippus, is succinct and rapid; but though so rapid and succinct, every word is poised by characteristic precision, and can only be the result of long and judicious inquiry, and, perhaps, even minute examination. His theory and taste savour neither of the antiquary nor the mere dilettante; he neither dwells on the infancy of art with doating fondness, nor melts its essential and solid principles in the crucibles of merely curious or voluptuous execution.

"Still less in volume, and still less intentional, are the short but important observations on the principles of art and the epochs of style, scattered over nearly all the works of Cicero, but chiefly his Orator and Rhetoric Institutions. Some of his introductions to these books might furnish the classic scenery of Poussin with figures; and though he seems to have had as little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less than he had taste for poetry, he had a conception of nature; and, with his usual acumen, comparing the principles of one art with those of another, frequently scattered useful hints, or made pertinent observations. For many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius, with whom, though his rival in eloquence, he lived on terms of familiarity, and who was a man of declared taste, and one of the first collectors of the time.

“Pausanias, the Cappadocian, was certainly no critic, and his credulity is at least equal to his curiosity; he is often little more than a nomenclator, and the indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and legendary trash; but the minute and scrupulous diligence with which he examined what fell under his own eye, amply makes up for what he may want of method or of judgment. His description of the pictures of Polygnotus at Delphi, and of the Jupiter of Phidias at Olympia,

are perhaps superior to all that might have been given by men of more assuming powers,- mines of information, and inestimable legacies to our arts.

"The Heroics of the elder, and the Eicones, or Picture Galleries, of the elder and younger Philostratus, though, perhaps, not expressly written for the artist, and rather to amuse than to instruct, cannot be sufficiently consulted by the epic or dramatic artist. The Heroics furnish the standard of form and habits for the Grecian and Troic warriors, from Protesilaus to Paris and Euphorbus; and he who wishes to acquaint himself with the limits the ancients prescribed to invention, and the latitude they allowed to expression, will find no better guide than an attentive survey of the subjects displayed in their galleries.

"Such are the most prominent features of ancient criticism, and those which we wish the artist to be familiar with; the innumerable hints, maxims, anecdotes, descriptions, scattered over Lucian, Ælian, Athenæus, Achilles, Tatius, Tatian, Pollux, and many more, may be consulted to advantage by the man of taste and letters, and probably may be neglected without much loss by the student.

"Of modern writers on art Vasari leads the van; theorist, artist, critic and biographer, in one. The history of modern art owes much, no doubt, to Vasari; he leads us from its cradle to its maturity, with the anxious diligence of a nurse,but he likewise has her derelictions; for, more loquacious than ample, and less discriminating styles than eager to accumulate descriptions, he is at an early period exhausted by the superlatives lavished on inferior claims, and forced into frigid rhapsodies and astrologic nonsense to do justice to the greater. He swears by the divinity of M. Agnolo. He tells us himself that he copied every figure of the Capella Sistina and the Stanze of Raffaello; yet his memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his account of both is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion; and one might almost fancy that he had never entered the Vatican. Of Coreggio he leaves us less informed than of

Apelles. Even Bottari, the learned editor of his work, his countryman and advocate against the complaints of Agostino Caracci, and Federigo Zucchero, though ever ready to fight his battles, is at a loss to account for his mistakes. He has been called the Herodotus of our art, and if the main simplicity of his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle him, in some degree, to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to question the credibility of the Tuscan.

"What we find not in Vasari it is useless to search for amid the rubbish of his contemporaries or followers from Condivi to Ridolfi, and on to Malvasia, whose criticism on the style of Lodovico Caracci and his pupils in the cloisters of St. Michele in Bosco, near Bologna, amount to little more than a sonorous rhapsody of ill-applied or empty metaphors, and extravagant praise, till the appearance of Lanzi, who in his 'Storia Pittorica della Italia', has availed himself of all the information existing in his time, has corrected most of those who wrote before him; and though, perhaps, not possessed of great discriminative powers, has accumulated more instructive anecdotes, rescued more deserving names from oblivion, and opened a wider prospect of art, than all his predecessors.

"The French critics composed a complete system of rules. Du Fresnoy spent his life in composing and revising general aphorisms in Latin classic verse; some on granted, some on disputable, some on false principles. Though Horace was his model, neither the poet's language nor method has been imitated by him. From Du Fresnoy himself we learn not what is essential, what accidental, what superinduced, in style; from his text none ever rose practically wiser than he sat down to study it if he be useful, he owes his usefulness to the penetration of his English commentator; the notes of Reynolds, treasures of practical observation, place him among those whom we may read with profit. What can be learnt from precept, founded on prescriptive authority, more than

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on the verdicts of nature, is displayed in the volumes of De Piles and Felibien; a system as it has been followed by the former students of their academy, and sent out with the successful combatants for the premium to their academic establishment at Rome, to have its efficacy proved by the contemplation of Italian style and execution. The timorous candidates for fame, knowing its rules to be the only road to success at their return, whatever be their individual bent of character, implicitly adopt them, and the consequence is, as may be supposed, that technical equality which borders on mediocrity. After an exulting and eager survey of the wonders the place exhibits, they all undergo a similar course of study. Six months are allotted to the Vatican, and in equal portions divided between the Fierté of M. Agnolo, and the more correct graces of Raffaello; the next six months are, in equal intervals, devoted to the academic powers of Annibal Caracci and the purity of the antique.

"About the middle of the last century the German critics established at Rome began to claim the exclusive privilege of teaching the art, and to form a complete system of antique style. The verdicts of Mengs and Winkelmann became the oracles of antiquaries, dilettanti, and artists, from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of Europe; have been detailed, and are not without their influence here. Winkelmann was the parasite of the fragments that fell from the conversation or the tablets of Mengs. A deep scholar, and better fitted to comment a classic than to give lessons on art and style, he reasoned himself into frigid reveries, and Platonic dreams on beauty. As far as the taste or the instructions of his tutor directed him, he is right whenever they are; and between his own learning and the tuition of the other, his history of art delivers a specious system, and a prodigious number of useful observations. He has not, however, in his regulation of epochs, discriminated styles and masters with the precision, attention, and acumen, which, from the advantages of his situation and habits, might have been expected; and disappoints us as often by meagreness, neglect, and confusion, as