and his breadth of chiaroscuro, however solemn, with diversified detail, with Dutch minuteness, and Venetian charms of colour, which being more mechanical, must be comparatively facile of acquisition to a great mind labouring to acquire them.In the first start and whirl of feeling, when his soul seems rushing out of its mortal habitation to grasp sublimity of idea, and

KEATES.

a painter may not have time nor coolness to stop to gather up minor subjects; but when he comes afterward to reflect and to condense, upon the canvass, his imaginations to form and visibility, he must be needlessly impatient, and too scornful of his materials, if he cannot then bestow time and diligence to eke them out with all the beautiful finish nature herself paints her sublimest substances with.-He may lay as much stress as he pleases upon expression, and we will join him in maintaining it as the highest endowment of the art, he may urge, and we will with him urge, the superior importance of composition, and in short of all the fine qualities of the Roman palette, but why should he disdain the humbler, but still important qualities that distinguish the northern schools, and take advantage of the hints he may receive from more mechanical labours.

Painters minds undoubtedly differ one from another; though their feelings may be generally alike,

they vary in certain points; one may have a strong feeling for colour, another for composition, and so on; but we have an idea that a painter of true genius, and of good education, would have that general feeling for the beauties of nature and the intentions of art, that would not suffer him to slur over any thing which with any degree of application he could thoroughly make out. That feeling would hang like a weight upon his mind were he unable to effect his wishes; and no doubt it does hang heavy on many minds, and painters are often obliged to slur because their education has been imperfect, and they have ventured upon the public stage, before they were qualified; and this is the reason why we see so many painters of the present day, men of talent, sending out their works before the public, in truth but half finished, anatomical marking neglected because not understood, shadows without reflection, and where a limb comes in shadow an unvaried mass covers it, when by means of reflection every bone, tendon, and muscle, should have been as thoroughly made out, though more delicately, as if it received distinctness from the immediate ray of light.

These sentiments we seriously and earnestly lay upon the attention of professional spectators of these exhibitions, particularly of the young and the rising, who, more likely to be disencumbered from the drag of long fixed habitual prejudice, have time and space enough to reduce any new impression they may receive to practice. We advise those

who are feeling their way, instead of rooting themselves, with obstinate unprofitable immobility, in the dark corners of error, to hold these lights above their heads, that their paths may at least be clear and perceptible, and bear on it the reflected face of truth. We advise the student to plough deep into things, to abstract himself from the thin ideas that float on the top of existing time, and assimilate his notions to the original thinkings of earlier and less sophisticated ages. These great painters cherished a noble epic idea of their art, it carried them onwards with a ponderous might, like a machine of their own constructing; they walked through cotemporary matter into the shadowy extent of unpeopled time, engraved their names on the adamantine brow of futurity, and sealed to themselves the eulogium of unborn generations. Time has passed by them unswept with his wing, from a mysterious impulse, that they were unconnected with his office, or unassailable by his power; the rolling flood of ages has buoyed them above its surface, and to future generations have they become at once a praise, a precept and a guide..

A word before we close, touching the public examination of these chef d'oeuvres. The care taken of them in the first place, the value set upon them, and the importance attached to them, should create a like feeling in the mind of the people, and teach them to set an importance upon the art, to hold its professors in the esteem which these men, when living, were held in, and to patronize them as they were

patronized. If they shew to what perfection the art may be carried, every facility should be put by the country into the hands of its own painters to enable them as much as external aid can enable them to attain to that of perfection; for by fostering and encouraging living native genius, their own countrymen may produce collections to rival, nay, surpass the best examples of former days; and then instead of the money of our nobles and amateurs being laid out in purchasing exotics, commissions given to living merit would blow into a flame, many a spark of genius dying for want of the nourishing breath of patronage. It should be remembered that those works which we admire as so excellent were not painted by men withering in the shade of neglect, but under the golden influence of patronage and employment; and the painter was conscious that when he had finished his labours those labours would not have been spent in vain; that his merits would be appreciated, his name honoured, and his art cherished with the ray of public estimation.

But a dawning comfort beams upon us, a twofold comfort, for we perceive not only that galleries of English pictures are forming by our liberal and enlightened patrons, but that pictures by English painters begin to relieve themselves from the background of mediocrity, and stand out to our view in the attractive dress of unquestioned and substantial merit, overtaking with rapid strides the leaders of the continental schools. Galleries of the old masters will always be necessary and of value to

the painter, but the latter should endeavour to render them as unnecessary as he can to the public in the formation of their taste, by producing paintings that in themselves will be as sufficient a guide to establish them in a sound taste and a reasonable preference to himself, Much yet remains to be done both on the part of painters and their country, in furtherance of the cause of high art; but if the latter will not encourage and give employment to the former, the art must remain struggling in unassisted impotency, or be at last extinguished to the disgrace of those whose duty it is to keep it alive, and fall to a decay, endangering whatever may be dependant upon it. ECHION.

ART. VI. Extract of a Letter from Göethe, the celebrated German Poet, to Mr. Haydon; on receiving the drawings of the Theseus and the Fates; made at the British Museum by his Pupils Messrs. Bewick and C. Landseer, for the Poet. (The letter is written in English, which we give verbatim from the original, by permission.)

You must feel great satisfaction to have had it in your power to bring your pupils acquainted with such excellent models, as those which your country of late has had the good fortune to acquire.

Those of us at Weimar, who love and admire the arts, share your enthusiasm for the remains of the most glorious period, and hold ourselves in