



Produced by Brendan OConnor, Patricia Bennett, Jonathan
Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
Journals.)










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," (rhetorician,) Quintilian. The former
chiefly valuable when he quotes--for then, as Reynolds observed, "he
speaks the language of an artist:" as in his account of the glazing
method of Apelles; the manner in which Protogenes embodied his colours;
and the term of art _circumlitio_, by which Nicias gave "the line of
correctness to the models of Praxiteles;" the foreshortening the bull by
Pausias, and throwing his shade on the crowd--showing a forcible
chiaroscuro. "Of Quintilian, whose information is all relative to style,
the tenth chapter of the XII.th book, a passage on expression in the
XI.th, 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 enquiry, and perhaps even minute examination." Still less
have we scattered in the writings of Cicero, who, "though he seems to
have had little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less
than he had taste for poetry, 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." He speaks somewhat too slightingly of Pausanias,[1] as "the
indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and legendary trash,"
considering that he praises "the scrupulous diligence with which he
examined what fell under his own eye." He recommends to the epic or
dramatic artist the study of the heroics of the elder, and the Eicones
or Picture Galleries of the elder and younger Philostratus.

"The innumerable hints, maxims, anecdotes, descriptions, scattered over
Lucian, Oelian, Athenaeus, 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, no doubt, much 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 that he copied every
figure of the Capella Sistina and the stanze of Raffaelle, 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 he had never entered
the Vatican." He is less pleased with the "rubbish of his
contemporaries, or followers, from Condior to Ridolfi, and on to
Malvasia." All is little worth "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." But for the valuable notes of Reynolds, the idle
pursuit of Du Fresnoy to clothe the precepts of art in Latin verse,
would be useless. "The notes of Reynolds, treasures of practical
observation, place him among those whom we may read with profit." De
Piles and Felibien are spoken of next, as the teachers of "what may be
learned from precept, founded on prescriptive authority more than on the
verdicts of nature." Of the effects of the system pursued by the French
Academy from such precepts, our author is, perhaps, not undeservedly
severe.

"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, become 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 on 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 instruction of his
tutor directed, he is right when 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." "To him Germany
owes the shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of their aim."
Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the "revival" at Munich, he would
have appreciated the efforts made, and still making, there. He speaks of
the works of Mengs with respect. "The works of Mengs himself are, no
doubt, full of the most useful information, deep observation, and often
consummate criticism. He has traced and distinguished the principles of
the moderns from those of the ancients; and in his comparative view of
the design, colour, composition, and expression of Raffaelle, Correggio,
and Tiziano, with luminous perspicuity and deep precision, pointed out
the prerogative or inferiority of each. As an artist, he is an instance
of what perseverance, study, experience, and encouragement can achieve
to supply the place of genius." He then, passing by all English critics
preceding Reynolds, with the petty remark, that "the last is undoubtedly
the first," says--"To compare Reynolds with his predecessors, would
equally disgrace our judgment, and impeach our gratitude. His volumes
can never be consulted without profit, and should never be quitted by
the student's hand but to embody, by exercise, the precepts he gives and
the means he points out." It is useful thus to see together the
authorities which a student should consult, and we have purposely
characterized them as concisely as we could, in our extracts, which
strongly show the peculiar style of Mr Fuseli. If this introduction was,
however, intended for artists, it implies in them a more advanced
education in Greek and Latin literature than they generally possess. Mr
Fuseli was himself an accomplished scholar. How desirable is it that the
arts and general scholarship should go together! The classics, fully to
be enjoyed, require no small cultivation in art; and as the greater
portion of ancient art is drawn from that source, Greek mythology, and
classical history and literature, such an education would seem to be the
very first step in the acquirements of an artist. We believe that in
general they content themselves with Lempriere's Dictionary; and that
rather for information on subjects they may see already painted, than
for their own use; and thus, for lack of a feeling which only education
can give, a large field of resources is cut off from them. If it be said
that English literature--English classics, will supply the place, we
deny it; for there is not an English classic of value to an artist, who
was not, to his very heart's core, embued with a knowledge and love of
the ancient literature. We might instance but two, Spenser and
Milton--the statute-books of the better English art--authors whom, we do
not hesitate to say, no one can thoroughly understand or enjoy, who has
not far advanced in classical education. We shall never cease to throw
out remarks of this kind, with the hope that our universities will yet
find room to foster the art within them; satisfied as we are that the
advantages would be immense, both to the art and to the universities.
How many would then pursue pleasures and studies most congenial with
their usual academical education, and, thus occupied, be rescued from
pursuits that too often lead to profligacy and ruin; and sacrifice to
pleasures that cannot last, those which, where once fostered, have ever
been permanent!

       *       *       *       *       *

The FIRST LECTURE is a summary of ancient art--one rather of research
than interest--more calculated to excite the curiosity of the student
than to offer him any profitable instruction. The general matter is well
known to most, who have at all studied the subject. Nor have we
sufficient confidence in any theory as to the rise and growth of art in
Greece, to lay much stress upon those laid down in this lecture. We
doubt if the religion of Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of
the people, artists, or their patrons, which is implied in the
supposition, that it was an efficient cause. A people that could listen
to the broad farce of Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt
thrown upon the deities they professed to worship, were not likely to
seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious
liberty--if liberty it deserved to be called--was of too watchful a
jealousy over greatness of every kind, to suffer genius to be free and
without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer through his
conjectures on the mechanic processes. It is more curious than useful to
trace back the more perfect art through its stages--the "Polychrom," the
"Monochrom," the "Monogram," and "Skiagram"--nor from the pencil to the
"cestrum." Polygnotus is said to be the first who introduced the
"essential style;" which consisted in ascertaining the abstract, the
general form, as it is technically termed the central form. Art under
Polygnotus was, however, in a state of formal "parallelism;" certainly
it could boast no variety of composition. Apollodorus "applied the
essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by
investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes of
human qualities and passions." He saw that all men were connected
together by one general form, yet were separated by some predominant
power into classes; "thence he drew his line of imitation, and
personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,
and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being
absorbed." Zeuxis, from the essential of Polygnotus and specific
discrimination of Apollodorus, comparing one with the other, formed his
ideal style. Thus are there the three styles--the essential, the
characteristic, the ideal.

Art was advanced and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes, and
refined under Eupompus, Apelles, Aristides, and Euphranor. "The
correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of Zeuxis. He
circumscribed the ample style, and by subtle examination of outline,
established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to
the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
He gave to the divine and heroic character in painting, what Polycletus
had given to the human in sculpture by his Doryphorus, a canon of
proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod of the Homeric Jupiter the
characteristic of majesty, _inclination of the head_. This hinted to him
a higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the front,
and the increased perpendicular of the profile. To this conception
Parrhasius fixed a maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate
line of celestial beauty, the angle within which moves what is inferior,
beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the
proportions of the neck, the limbs, the extremities; from the Father to
the race of gods; all, the sons of one, Zeus; derived from one source of
tradition, Homer; formed by one artist, Phidias; on him measured and
decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this principle, adhered to
by the succeeding periods, lies the uninterrupted progress and the
unattainable superiority of Grecian art."

In speaking of Timanthes as the competitor with Parrhasius, as one who
brought into the art more play of the mind and passions, the lecturer
takes occasion to discuss the often discussed and disputed propriety of
Timanthes, in covering the head of Agamemnon in his picture of the
sacrifice of Iphigenia. He thinks it the more incumbent on him so to do,
as the "late president" had passed a censure upon Timanthes. Sir Joshua
expressed his _doubt_ only, not his censure absolutely, upon the
delivery of the prize at the Academy for the best picture painted from
this subject. He certainly dissents from bestowing the praise, upon the
supposition of the intention being the avoiding a difficulty. And as to
this point, the well-known authorities of Cicero, Quintilian, Valerius
Maximus, and Pliny, seem to agree. And _if_, as the lecturer observes in
a note, the painter is made to waste expression on inferior actors at
the expense of a principal one, he is an improvident spendthrift, not a
wise economist. The pertness of Falconet is unworthy grave criticism and
the subject, though it is quoted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He assumes that
Agamemnon is the principal figure. Undoubtedly Mr Fuseli is
right--Iphigenia is the principal figure; and it may be fairly admitted,
that the overpowering expression of the grief of the father would have
divided the subject. It might be more properly a separate picture. Art
is limited; nothing should detract from the principal figure, the
principal action--passion. Our sympathy is not called for on behalf of
the father here: the grief of the others in the picture is the grief in
perfect sympathy with Iphigenia; the father would have been absorbed in
his own grief, and his grief would have been an unsympathetic grief
towards Iphigenia. It was his own case that he felt; and it does appear
to us an aggravation of the suffering of Iphigenia, that, at the moment
of her sacrifice, she saw indeed her father's person, but was never
more--and knew she was never more--to behold his face again. This
circumstance alone would justify Timanthes, but other concurrent reasons
may be given. It was no want of power to express the father's grief, for
it is in the province of art to express every such delineation; but
there _is_ a point of grief that is ill expressed by the countenance at
all; and there is a natural action in such cases for the sufferer
himself to hide his face, as if conscious that it was not in agreement
with his feelings. Such grief is astounding: we look for the expression
of it, and find it not: it is better than receive this shock to hide the
face. We do it naturally; so that here the art of the painter, that
required that his picture should be a whole, and centre in Iphigenia,
was mainly assisted by the proper adoption of this natural action of
Agamemnon. Mr Fuseli, whose criticism is always acute, and generally
just and true, has well discussed the subject, and properly commented
upon the flippancy of Falconet. After showing the many ways in which the
painter might have expressed the parent's grief, and that none of them
would be _decere, pro dignitate, digne_, he adds--'But Timanthes had too
true a sense of nature to expose a father's feelings, or to tear a
passion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learned of Rome to steel the
face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man, he made him also
feel it as a man. It became the leader of Greece to sanction the
ceremony with his presence: it did not become the father to see his
daughter beneath the dagger's point: the same nature that threw a real
mantle over the face of Timoleon, when he assisted at the punishment of
his brother, taught Timanthes to throw an imaginary one over the face of
Agamemnon; neither height nor depth, _propriety_ of expression was his
aim.' It is a question whether Timanthes took the idea from the text of
Euripides, or whether it is his invention, and was borrowed by the
dramatist. The picture must have presented a contrast to that of his
rival Parrhasius, which exhibited the fury of Ajax.

Whether the invention was or was not the merit of Euripides, certainly
this is not the only instance wherein he has turned it to dramatic
advantage. No dramatist was so distinct a painter as Euripides; his mind
was ever upon picture. He makes Hecuba, in the dialogue with Agamemnon,
say, "Pity me, and, standing apart as would a painter, look at me, and
see what evils I have,"

     [Greek: Oichteiron hemas, os grapheus t apostatheis,
     Ida me chanathreson, oi echo chacha.]

And this Hecuba, when Talthybius comes to require her presence for the
burial of Polyxena, is found lying on the ground, _her face covered_
with her robe:--

     [Greek: Aute pelas sou, not echous epi chthoni,
     Talthubie, keitai, sugchechleismene peplois.]

And in the same play, Polyxena bids Ulysses to cover her head with a
robe, as he leads her away, that she might not see her mother's grief.

     [Greek: Komiz, Odysseu, m'amphitheis peplois chara.]

But in the instance in question, in the Iphigenia, there is one
circumstance that seems to have been overlooked by the critics, which
makes the action of Agamemnon the more expressive, and gives it a
peculiar force: the dramatist takes care to exhibit the more than common
parental and filial love; when asked by Clytemnestra what would be her
last, her dying request, it is instantly, on her father's account, to
avert every feeling of wrath against him:--

     [Greek: Patera ge ton emon me stugei, posin te son.]

And even when the father covers his face, she is close beside him,
_tells him that she is beside him_, and her last words are to comfort
him. Now, whether Timanthes took the scene from Euripides or Euripides
from Timanthes, it could not be more powerfully, more naturally
conceived; for this dramatic incident, the tender movement to his side,
and speech of Iphigenia, could not have been imagined, or at least with
little effect, had not the father first covered his face. Mr Fuseli has
collected several instances of attempts something similar in pictures,
particularly by Massaccio, and Raffaelle from him; and he well
remarks--"We must conclude that Nature herself dictated to him this
method, as superior to all he could express by features; and that he
recognized the same dictate in Massaccio, who can no more be supposed to
have been acquainted with the precedent of Timanthes than Shakspeare
with that of Euripides, when he made Macduff draw his hat over his
face." From Timanthes Mr Fuseli proceeds to eulogize Aristides; whom
history records as, in a peculiar excellence, the painter of the
passions of nature. "Such, history informs us, was the suppliant whose
voice you seemed to hear, such his sick man's half-extinguished eye and
labouring breast, such Byblis expiring in the pangs of love, and, above
all, the half-slain mother shuddering lest the eager babe should suck
the blood from her palsied nipple."--"Timanthes had marked the limits
that discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the
line that separates it from disgust." Then follows a very just criticism
upon instances in which he considered that Raffaelle himself and Nicolo
Poussin had overstepped the bounds of propriety, and averted the
feelings from their object, by ideas of disgust. In the group of
Raffaelle, a man is removing the child from the breast of the mother
with one hand, while the other is applied to his nostrils. Poussin, in
his plague of the Philistines, has copied the loathsome action--so,
likewise, in another picture, said to be the plague of Athens, but
without much reason so named, in the collection of J. P. Mills, Esq. Dr
Waagen, in his admiration for the executive part of art, speaks of it as
"a very rich masterpiece of Poussin, in which we are reconciled by his
skill to the horrors of the subject."

In the commencement of the lecture, there are offered some definitions
of the terms of art, "nature, grace, taste, copy, imitation, genius,
talent." In that of nature, he seems entirely to agree with Reynolds;
that of beauty leaves us pretty much in the dark in our search for it,
"as that harmonious whole of the human frame, that unison of parts to
one end, which enchants us. The result of the standard set by the great
masters of our art, the ancients, and confirmed by the submissive
verdict of modern imitation." This is unphilosophical, unsatisfactory;
nor is that of grace less so--"that artless balance of motion and
repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls
short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to
execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which
it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest,
that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little
grace. It is evident that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory
of lines, as _per se_ beautiful or graceful, and altogether disregarded
Hogarth's line of beauty. Had Mr Hay's very admirable short works--his
"Theory of Form and Proportion"--appeared in Mr Fuseli's day, he would
have taken a new view of beauty and grace. By taste, he means not only a
knowledge of what is right in art, but a power to estimate degrees of
excellence, "and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement."
This, too, we think inadequate to express what we mean by taste, which
appears to us to have something of a sense, independent of knowledge.
Using words in a technical sense, we may define them to mean what we
please, but certainly the words themselves, "copy" and "imitation," do
not mean very different things. He thinks "precision of eye, and
obedience of hand, are the requisites for copy, without the least
pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice,
directed by judgment or taste, constitutes the essence of imitation, and
alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an
artist." We do not exactly see how this judgment arises out of his
definition of "taste." But it may be fair to follow him still closer on
this point. "The imitation of the ancients was, _essential_,
_characteristic_, _ideal_. The first cleared nature of accident, defect,
excrescence, (which was in fact his definition of nature, as so
cleared;) the second found the _stamen_ which connects character with
the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the
highest degree of unison." This is rather loose writing, and not very
close reasoning. After all, it may be safer to take words in their
common acceptation; for it is very difficult in a treatise of any
length, to preserve in the mind or memory the precise ideas of given
definitions. "Of genius, I shall speak with reserve; for no word has
been more indiscriminately confounded. By genius, I mean that power
which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers new
materials of nature, or combines the known with novelty; whilst talent
arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of genius." Definitions,
divisions, and subdivisions, though intended to make clear, too often
entangle the ground unnecessarily, and keep the mind upon the stretch to
remember, when it should only feel. We think this a fault with Mr
Fuseli; it often renders him obscure, and involves his style of
aphorisms in the mystery of a riddle.

       *       *       *       *       *

SECOND LECTURE.--This lecture comprises a compendious history of modern
art; commencing with Massaccio. If religion gave the impulse to both
ancient and modern, so has it stamped each with the different characters
itself assumed. The conceptions the ancients had of divinity, were the
perfection of the human form; thus form and beauty became godlike. The
Christian religion wore a more spiritual character. In ancient art,
human form and beauty were triumphant; in modern art, the greater
triumph was in humility, in suffering; the religious inspiration was to
be shown in its influence in actions less calculated to display the
powers, the energies of form, than those of mind. Mere external beauty
had its accompanying vices; and it was compelled to lower its
pretensions considerably, submit to correction, and take a more
subordinate part. Thus, if art lost in form it gained in expression, and
thus was really more divine. Art in its revival, passing through the
barbarity of Gothic adventurers, not unencumbered with senseless
superstitions, yet with wondrous rapidity, raised itself to the noblest
conceptions of both purity and magnificence. Sculpture had, indeed,
preceded painting in the works of Ghiberti Donato and Philippo
Brunelleschi, when Massaccio appeared. "He first perceived that parts
are to constitute a whole; that composition ought to have a centre;
expression, truth; and execution, unity. His line deserves attention,
though his subjects led him not to investigation of form, and the
shortness of his life forbade his extending those elements, which
Raffaelle, nearly a century afterwards, carried to perfection." That
great master of expression did not disdain to borrow from him--as is
seen in the figure of "St Paul preaching at Athens," and that of "Adam
expelled from Paradise." Andrea Mantegna attempted to improve upon
Massaccio, by adding form from study of the antique. Mr Fuseli considers
his "taste too crude, his fancy too grotesque, and his comprehension too
weak, to advert from the parts that remained to the whole that inspired
them; hence, in his figures of dignity or beauty, we see not only the
meagre forms of common models, but even their defects tacked to ideal
torsos." We think, however, he is deserving of more praise than the
lecturer was disposed to bestow upon him, and that his "triumph