I to rally's sinstit CAF order, and of the preference of that style in others. They prefer to represent, and to see represented, that which is not, because they cannot see, and therefore cannot feel, the whole value and beauty of that which is. They are not satisfied with the truth, simply because they do not see it all; and not being satisfied with what their s their senses present to them, they resort to their imaginations. But they are destined still to remain unsatisfied; because nothing but the truth, as it is in Nature, is adapted to satisfy the natural wants of the human mind, and therefore nothing else can satisfy them. It would probably be admitted on all hands that it betrays an effeminacy of taste to prefer Guido to Titian. It would not be so readily admitted that it betrays the same deficiency to rank the Apollo Belvedere above the Elgin marbles 11011161 in marbles in point of style this arises from the second examples b being in a higher class art respectively than the first. The same principle applies equally to these as to the former. The Apollo is a magnificent work; but om the power required to conceive, and to produce was not so high or so rare as that displayed in some of the sculptures from the Parthenon broved for the latter stop at the exact point V where Nature stops, whereas the former goes beyond Nature, without improving upon it. The subject of the next picture is Pluto and Proserpine. The whole ghest degree attitude and expression of these two figures are in the voluptuous; but it is the voluptuousness of the imagination rather than The Hercules and Dejanira is the next in order. This is among the very finest. There is prodigious power of imagination, as well as of passion, in every part of it in the most apparently insignificant details, as in the principal figures themselves: indeed more so in the former than the latter for the figure of Hercules includes nothing either fine in itself, or characteristic of the subject. The Dejanira is magnificent. She sits across his knees, with one arm passed round his neck; and from every point of her form there seems to exude, as it were, an atm an atmosphere of desire, which spreads itself on all the objects present, steeping them aids to noisicoquos odi to nitqitesh & ovig of om eldens YOMON XIX X 07 .ITT J07 all in the pervading sentiment of the scene. The lovers are (I think) seated on the lion's skin which Hercules has thrown off; and the extremity of this is made to curl up above their heads, as if supporting an imaginary canopy over them. Such, at least, is its effect to me. At the same time it seems self-supported, and instinct with life; and thus calls up an image of the lordly beast that once wore it in this fashion, as he sought his mate in their native woods. On the ground at their feet, too, a little Cupid is bestriding the huge club which Hercules has thrown aside-hugging it with all his limbs, and at the same time looking up at them. In fact, every object is made to play a double part; at once aiding the general harmony of the colouring, by blending the different parts together, and heightening the general expression or sentiment of the whole, without in the least degree disturbing its unity. The Ceres and Vulcan (which, I think, follows-passing round in the same direction) is not good. Both the figures are represented as considerably beyond the middle period of life; and this alone, in connexion with the subject of the picture, is enough to destroy all proper sympathy with it. The imagination, as well as the senses, revolts from any connexion between age and love; still more when to the former is added deformity. To love, is the nature of youth and the effect of beauty; and the associations called up by almost any representation of these, however voluptuous, will therefore be in a certain sense pure, to all but the impure. But "crabbed age" and love "cannot live together," without destroying the characteristic qualities of each, any more than "crabbed age and youth" can: for, in fact, what is youth but love, and love but youth ?-The very thought of the above union seems to have paralyzed the imagination of the painter; for this is by far the worst picture of the set, in every respect. Ceres is represented as sitting with her back to the god, her head turned over her shoulder, looking round at him coyly; and he is looking in her face, and chucking her under the chin mincingly. The next is Bacchus and Ariadne Here the painter is in his own and in love's element again; and they work together and in concert accordingly. The elaborate, and at the same time perfectly natural and graceful involution of the limbs, produces an admirable effect; and it seems also to have some mysterious connexion with, or reference to, the mingled and involved feelings of the beautiful but betrayed Ariadne, as these are represented in her face and action. She seems perplexed and hampered between her lingering love for her lost Theseus,-after whom she is pointing away into the distance with her hand, and her rising passion for the bright being who is before her. Perhaps upon the whole,-for individual expression, colouring, and design, and at the same time an harmonious union of all these with the rest of the work,—this figure of Ariadne is the finest in the collection. The Bacchus is not by any means so good. There is an elevation of character wanting, which nothing else can in this instance compensate for ; there is, indeed, but little expression of any kind, in either the figure or face. We have here, as usual, a little rosy Cupid with grapes, connecting the two tones of the flesh together. The next, and last picture but one, is Jupiter, Juno, and Io. Neither my notes made at the time of seeing these works, nor my memory, enable me to give a description of the composition of this VOL. VII. NO. XXIX. picture, or the attitudes of the figures. Perhaps (for now-a-days one is expected to be able to account for every thing)—perhaps this has arisen from the absorbing effect of one particular point in the picture, which fascinated my senses at the time, and has dwelt upon my memory ever since, to the exclusion of all the rest. This is the back of the Juno; which, as a piece of painting of human flesh, kindling with all the internal glow of health, and the external bloom of youth and beauty, surpasses any thing I ever saw. No Nature itself was ever finer; and, what is more, it is no finer than Nature is. In fact, it is to all intents and purposes the same as Nature, as far as regards the faculty of sight. It differs from the rest of the flesh in these pictures, in having more carnations mixed with it than they have. Probably this heightening was an after-thought of the painter-being rendered necessary by the patch of pure white which he had introduced into the centre of the picture, in the form of the cow's head (Io)—which intervenes between Jupiter and Juno. There is in this, as in most of the others, a Cupid above; and there is a blue drapery below-perhaps to balance the effect of the white on the one hand, as the carnations in the flesh do on the other. The last picture in this collection represents Neptune and Amphitrite. The female figure is here, as usual, by much the finest part; and wonderfully fine in this instance it is. It is instinct with imaginative passion in every portion of it. She is but partly seated on the knees of Neptune, while her long arms are earnestly stretched out above him at a distance, as if anxious, yet afraid, to let them fall round him. Her hair flows loosely down her back; probably to correspond with this flowing and outspread attitude. On the ground, at their feet, there is a Cupid and a dolphin. The general harmony and particular truth of colouring in this picture, are, I think, equal to most of the others; and it may rank, upon the whole, as among the best. I have little to add in the way of general observations. The most obvious that occurs to me is the immeasurable superiority of the female figures, over the males, in these pictures. The latter, with the exception of the Cupid and the Apollo, seem to be introduced chiefly as foils to set off the charms of the former. They are in no instance made so inferior as to produce a positively bad effect, even as it regards themselves alone; but they are all (with the exceptions I have named) kept in complete subservience to their companions. I question whether this is, upon the whole, to be regarded as a judicious mode of treating individual subjects of this kind; though, perhaps, it is the only one which ensures the success aimed at by the artist in these works, namely, of fixing and concentrating the attention to one point, as to a focus. If Titian had thrown as much of his genius and skill into the male figures as he has into the female, the works would have been finer in themselves; but their effects, individually and collectively, on the spectator, would have been very different from what they now are, and, in proportion, less what they were intended to be. Titian was the least in the world of an egotist-in his works I mean. He sought to exhibit and impress the merits of his subject, not of himself; and his subject, in the present instance, was the influence of female beauty-not the beauty of the human form, but of the female form: and those who can visit these pictures, in however cursory a manner, and not carry away the sting of that beauty in their minds, there to remain for ever, are not made of "penetrable stuff." Parts of these pictures are the most eloquent commentary that ever was written on the maxim that "Beauty is Truth-Truth Beauty." They put to flight in a moment the endless jargon about the ideal, and leave nothing to be said on the subject.-The ideal, if it has any meaning at all, means the perfection of the true. It is, not what may be, but what has been, or what is. And it may safely be said to have never yet equalled its prototype. Probably there are existing at present, and have been at any given time, forms and faces that are more beautiful than any the pencil or the chisel ever produced. The only other observation that it occurs to me to make is, that the artist has, in these pictures, balanced the charms of expression and of colouring more fairly than he usually did in works of this nature. He generally made one or other of these entirely predominate; witness those two splendid and unrivalled pieces of colouring at the Cleveland Gallery-the Diana and Acteon, and Diana and Calisto. In those pictures the expression goes for almost nothing. They are appeals to the senses alone. You can actually, as it were, taste the flavour of them on the palate. And if you remember them at all in absence, it is as a kind of harmonious chaos of colour, "without form and void;" or like a chord in music-one sweet sound made up of many-harmony without melody. But the works before us appeal equally to the senses and the imagination; like a melody and a harmony united. Whether they are the more or the less valuable on this account, I shall not determine. Certain it is, that by appealing to both in an almost equal degree, they do not act so strongly and permanently as they might otherwise do on either. The relative value of each style remains to be measured by the sum of pleasure it produces. I understand it has been said that these pictures are not painted by Titian! If so, they are even more extraordinary works than I take them to be; for they prove that we have had as great a painter as Titian in the world, without knowing it for if they are not by Titian, they are not by any one else that we have ever heard of. SONNET FROM PETRARCH. "I'vo piangendo i miei passati tempi." 1 MOURN the wreck of years untimely spent Without a wish to rise, though Heaven had lent Immortal and invisible-present Aid to my weakness, to my wants supply, If I have lived in tempests, let me die In peace, and in the harbour-if my stay Through the short remnant of my sinking day; tool 1001 yhound tod THE HOUNDSDITCH ALBUM. sleten 1971 volk. Third Letter from Miss Hebe Hoggins.w979q of Merg h 1 CADMUS had not greater difficulty in civilizing his Boeotians, than I have found in introducing a comparative gentility to our domestic circle in Houndsditch, although I have finally succeeded, as far as the nature of the obstacles will admit. An unconditional assent h has been given to three articles in which I was personally interested; I am to put on a white gown every day, not to go to afternoon church on a Sunday, and never to wear pattens. My father, after a severe struggle, has consented to exchange his bob-wig for a fashionable crop; and my mother has conformed to all the external modifications I could wish, though she remains incurably afflicted with that infirmity of speech to which Mrs. Malaprop was subject. Upon questions of grammar we are perpetually at variance, for I am so often in the accusative case that Mrs. Hoggins cannot keep out of the imperative mood, and not unfrequently interrupts me with exclamations of "Psha! child, don't worret one so; I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself; I knew nothing of genders and conjunctions when I was your age, but I thinks girls talks of every thing now a-days." As to mending her cacophony, (as my Lord Duberly says) it is a hopeless attempt; silence is the only corrective, and to this alternative I was particularly anxious to reduce her last night, when I obtained her consent to my giving a literary conversazione, which I am happy to say passed off with the greatest possible success and éclat. Exclusively of the members of our society, some of the most celebrated characters in the world of letters honoured our coterie. The gentleman who wrote the last pantomime for one of our minor theatres, distinguished himself by some excellent practical jokes, which he played off with infinite adroitness. Mr. Grope, index-maker to one of the first publishers in the Row, astonished us by the alphabetical aécuracy of his genius; Mr. Grub, who inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine a most interesting account of a Roman tooth-pick, dug up at the mouth of the Thames, was profound in antiquarian research; Miss Sphinks, who writes all the charades and rebuses for the Lady's Pocket-book, captivated the company with some capital conundrums; while we were all highly delighted with the caustic satire and biting irony of Mr. Fungus, a young man of great future celebrity, who, noto having completed his studies, has not yet attained the art of writing books, and therefore contents himself for the present with reviewing] them. no a todom oft eini ny ay sumo dtío) e It is well known that absence of mind has been an invariable accompaniment of genius, and it is therefore not without complacency that I record a ludicrous incident arising from one of those fits of literary abstraction to which I have been recently subject. While presiding at the tea-table I inadvertently substituted a canister of my father's snuff for the caddy, infusing eight large spoonfuls of the best Lundy Foot into the tea-pot; nor did I discover my mistake until the wry faces, watery eyes, and incessant sneezing of the company, were explained by |