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BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCXXXVIII. DECEMBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
to the end of each article.



                          CONTENTS.


        LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.                         691
        SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.                                 709
        THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.  714
        LOVE AND DEATH.                                        717
        THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.                              717
        THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.  719
        COLLEGE THEATRICALS.                                   737
        LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.                     749
        TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. CONCLUSION.                     753
        NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.   766
        ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. II.                           777
        DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.                     798
        GIFTS OF TEREK.                                        799
        MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI.      801

        INDEX TO VOL. LIV.                                     815

       *       *       *       *       *




LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

HENRY FUSELI.


At a time when the eye of the public is more remarkably, and we trust
more kindly, directed to the Fine Arts, we may do some service to the
good cause, by reverting to those lectures delivered in the Royal
Academy, composed in a spirit of enthusiasm honourable to the
professors, but which kindled little sympathy in an age strangely dead
to the impulses of taste. The works, therefore, which set forth the
principles of art, were not read extensively at the time, and had little
influence beyond the walls within which they were delivered. Favourable
circumstances, in conjunction with their real merit, have permanently
added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the standard literature
of our country. They have been transferred from the artist to the
scholar; and so it has happened, that while few of any pretension to
scholarship have not read the "The Discourses," they have not, as they
should have, been continually in the hands of artists themselves. To
awaken a feeling for this kind of professional reading--yet not so
professional as not to be beneficial--reflectingly upon classical
learning; indeed, we might say, education in general, and therefore more
comprehensive in its scope--we commenced our remarks on the discourses
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which have appeared in the pages of Maga. There
are now more than symptoms of the departure of that general apathy which
prevailed, when most of the Academy lectures were delivered. It will be,
therefore, a grateful, and may we hope a useful, task, by occasional
notices to make them more generally known.

The successors of Reynolds labour under a twofold disadvantage; they
find that he has occupied the very ground they would have taken, and
written so ably and fully upon all that is likely to obtain a general
interest, as to leave a prejudice against further attempts. Of
necessity, there must be, in every work treating of the same subject,
much repetition; and it must require no little ingenuity to give a
novelty and variety, that shall yet be safe, and within the bounds of
the admitted principles of art. On this account, we have no reason to
complain of the lectures of Fuseli, which we now purpose to notice. Bold
and original as the writer is, we find him every where impressed with a
respect for Reynolds, and with a conviction of the truth of the
principles which he had collected and established. If there be any
difference, it is occasionally on the more debatable ground--particular
passages of criticism.

In the "Introduction," the student is supplied with a list of the
authorities he should consult for the "History and Progress of his Art."
He avoids expatiating on the books purely elementary--"the van of which
is led by Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Durer, and the rear by Gherard
Lavresse--as the principles which they detail must be supposed to be
already in the student's possession, or are occasionally interwoven with
the topics of the lectures;" and proceeds "to the historically critical
writers, who consist of all the ancients yet remaining, Pausanias
excepted." Fortunately, there remain a sufficient number of the
monuments of ancient art "to furnish us with their standard of style;"
for the accounts are so contradictory, that we should have little to
rely upon. The works of the ancient artists are all lost: we must be
content with the "hasty compilations of a warrior," Pliny, or the
"incidental remarks of an orator," (rhetor