erful decision of contrast, which, distinguishing Rembrandt and Spagniolet in the departments of portrait and history, gave occasion to Sir Joshua Reynolds to declare, that a single picture of Rubens were sufficient to illumine the darkest gallery in Europe. His style, however, though more striking for the moment, is yet far less permanently attractive than the magic wand of the mild and fascinating Claude :—the one having all the captivating character of elegy; the other all the fire, the strength, and transition of the lyric: Rubens being the Pindar of landscape;-Claude the Simonides.

was

WATERLOO was a great admirer of woodland scenery. His trees are beautifully grouped. His subjects are lanes, copses, a river with cattle, cottages, a church, a bridge, or a ruin :— but always a tree, and, for the most part, several. RUYSDAEL an ardent lover of Nature, in her most beautiful and picturesque attitudes :-his woods, rivers, cottages, mills, and torrents, being scenes of reality, that had charmed his taste during his rural and extended rambles. His waterfalls are beautiful; and he never painted a picture without a river, or a pool of water, shaded by trees. GOYEN of Leyden excelled in rural and marine landscapes. Peasants at their labour animated the one; fishermen drawing their nets enlivened the other. His subjects were well selected; the perspective was well managed; and the whole indicated a lightness and a freedom of touch, which never failed to captivate. Being, however, too rapid a painter to be always a master, some of his pieces would scarcely do honour to the worst of his pupils. Many of this artist's pictures embody to the eye those forms in pastoral life, which Barthelemy describes so beautifully :— exhibiting "shepherds, seated on a turf, on the brow of a hill, or beneath the shade of a tree, who sometimes tune their pipes to the murmurs of the waters; and sometimes sing their loves, their innocent disputes, their flocks, and the enchanting objects by which they are surrounded."

VAN OORT,-frequently celebrated above his merits,

derives his principal claim to the notice of posterity, from being the master of Jordaens and Rubens. He degraded his art by painting merely for wealth; and corrupted his taste by the affectation of aspiring to have a manner of his own. He was ungrateful to Nature:-for though she had endowed him with a considerable share of talent, he presumed to neglect her; and would rather sketch from his own imagination, than take a lesson from the best study, she could any where present. To be an imitator of man shows a poverty of fancy, and serves to the degradation of genius; to imitate one's self is the essence of vanity, and one of the worst species of pedantry!

REMBRANDT's landscapes are such as might be expected from a Dutchman, who had never been out of his own country. In the wild and awful scenes of Switzerland, MEYER of Winterthur studied his fascinating profession. He seldom walked without his pencil; and it were singular if the romantic scenes before him had not made him a master of his art.

MURANT of Amsterdam, being a disciple of WoUVERMANS —who introduced into his pieces some admirable subjects of hunting-acquired that harmony and brilliancy of colouring, by which his master was so eminently distinguished. He was a minute painter;-minute even to tediousness :-yet his ruins and castles and villages are beautifully conceived, and naturally executed.

VROOM was made a painter of sea pieces in a singular manner. He had finished several scripture pieces, and was on his voyage from Holland to Spain, when he was wrecked upon the coast of Portugal. In this distress, he was relieved by several monks, who resided among the rocks. Having obtained refreshment, he went to Lisbon; where a brother artist engaged him to paint the storm, he described in so lively a manner. This picture was executed so well, that a Portuguese nobleman gave him a high price for it; and this success flattered him so much, that, upon his return to Holland, he entirely devoted himself to marine landscape.

BACKHUYSEN of Embden was,-next to Vanderveldt,-the most eminent painter of marine landscapes. His storms are admirable. It was his practice to hire resolute and undaunted seamen to take him out in the midst of a tempest; or at a time, when he knew it was approaching:—and being tied to the mainmast, he would, like Lamanon, contemplate, at leisure, the most awful and magnificent scene, it is possible to behold. In this perilous school he studied: the result was excellence. As to VANDERVELDT, he was so eminent in the delineation of marine perspectives, that he acquired the honour of being associated with Claude.

The paintings of ALBANO, as Malvasia says of him, breathe nothing but content and joy! His beautiful and virtuous wife, Doralice, was his model for graces and nymphs; and his children sate for his cherubs and cupidsa; in the drawing of which he had all the grace and elegance of Correggio. Gifted with a force of mind, that conquered every uneasy feeling, his pencil wafted him from Paphos to Cithera; from the abodes of love and delight, to those of Apollo and the Muses.

A favourable opportunity occurs to the Parisian connoisseur, of comparing the relative merits of Albano, Breughel, and the Carrache, by examining the manner in which they have respectively treated the subject of the four elements, in their separate pictures, entitled L'Air, La Terre, L'Eau, and Le Feu.

BOURDON decorated his pieces with objects of Gothic architecture; POUSSIN, called the Raphael of France, with those of the Roman; BOUWER of Strasburgh with buildings near Frescati, Tivoli, and Albano. Loveliness prevailed in all the paintings of GASPAR POUSSIN the scenes he delineates, therefore, are truly captivating in their effect. There is an air of lively tranquillity in some; of tranquil motion in others; and though the objects of architecture, he exhibits, are not equal

a Felibien, tom. iii. p. 524. His best pieces are at Bologna.

to those of Bourdon, he compensates for their regularity, by shading them with woods and rocks; and by placing them on picturesque and agreeable elevations.

MARIA HELENA PANZACCHIA, correct in her outline, fascinated by her colouring;-while DANDINI of Florence, like Antigenides, who could suit himself to every musical mode, had the power of imitating to perfection the style of every school, and the colouring of every master. Maria Helena had the faculty of exciting the imagination of her observers in no common degree. This is one of the most delightful effects, which the art of painting is capable of producing. For it is not the actual scenes, presented to the eye, that constitute the principal charm; it is the fine conceptions, which they awake in the mind; and which float, as it were, in the imagination, in endless variety of forms and fascinations of colour.

GIACOMO BASSANO painted villages with happy peasants, pursuing their various occupations. Without elegance of manner, or grandeur of conception, his touch was waving, spirited, and free. A lover of Nature, he painted her as she generally chooses to exhibit herself;—in rural drapery: but, as he painted, generally, with a violet tint, his morning pieces were not so faithful as his evening ones; characterizing, as they did, that lovely season of the day,

-When languid Nature droops her head,
And wakes the tear 'tis luxury to shed ".

WILSON, upon his arrival in Italy, choosing not to confine himself merely to the study of art, which would have made him an imitator, or a mannerist, studied Nature in her finest attitudes, and among her grandest forms: and, having examined a picture in the morning, would compare its fidelity with Nature in the evening. It was this that enabled him to acquire his bold and original style. On his return to his

a Helen Maria Williams.

native country, the imagery of Italy still hovered in his imagination; and he could never, in the sketching of landscapes, so far forget the lofty character of that lovely country, as to content himself with delineating English scenes, merely as they were. The slopes were too tame and uninteresting for his classic pencil. The result of all which was, that though he never failed to sketch a good picture, he always failed to give a faithful portrait of the scene he intended to portray a.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS painted only four regular landscapes; but it was not unusual with him to decorate the back-grounds of his portraits with some masterly sketches of rural scenery. In general landscape, he was, undoubtedly, inferior to GAINSBOROUGH; and yet the rural decorations alluded to were far superior to any similar ornament of that excellent artist. In clear, well defined landscape, and architectural embellishment, Gainsborough was, beyond all question, the first artist of his age. And so enamoured was he of his art, that on the bed of death he exclaimed, "we are all going to Heaven, and Vandyke will be of the party."

In the exhibition of moonlight pieces, WRIGHT of Derby had no competitor, worthy of himself. His picture of the Lady in Comus is one of the finest specimens of modern art. And here we might indulge in stating the merits of Ambrosio Lorenzetto, who first carried the art of landscape painting into repute in Italy; of Mignon of Frankfort, whose insects and drops of dew are so exquisitely natural; of Swaneveldt, Jordaens, Watteau, and Tintoret;-of Paul Brill; Herman of Italy; Vandermeulen, Vernet, Julio Romano, and Bourdon : --but we must close our observations with a consideration of the merits of those three masters, whom we may style the com

a What English connoisseur can see, without pride and pleasure, the following works of this excellent artist? His Phaeton; the Boar Hunt; Cicero at his Villa; Ceyx and Alcione; Solitude; Celadon and Amelia; and his Witches in Macbeth.