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The first of these, marked A., gives the history of the king dom of Caubul, from its earliest foundation to the time of the Dooraunee monarchy.

The second article of the Appendix forms a very curious portion of the volume. It is the narrative of a Mr. Durie, the son of an Englishman by an Indian mother. He was suddenly seized with an enthusiastic desire of travelling, and without a farthing in his pocket, crossed the Indus, travelled through the Afghaun country, and intended to penetrate to Bagdad. He got as far as Candahar, and then retraced his steps to Hindostan." He communicated to Mr. Elphinstone the circumstances of his travels, which, in every more essential particular, were found by Mr. E. to correspond with his own. Mr. E. unsuccessfully attempted to retain him with him, but his anxiety to reach Bagdad was so great, that he proceeded from Poonal to Bombay with the determination of embarking on board the first Arab ship which might enable him to accomplish his purpose.

The Appendix C. communicates a concise account of some countries contiguous to Caubul. In this, the description of a sacrifice, as performed among the inhabitants of Caufiristaun, is peculiarly interesting, p. 621, 2.

In Appendix D. will be found a scientific, and at the same time perspicuous description, of the very excellent map of Caubul which accompanies this work, by Lieutenant Macartney, the gentleman who constructed it. This is a very valuable geographical memoir.

Appendix E. exhibits at considerable length a vocabulary of the Pushtoo language contrasted with the English.

There are many portions of this volume upon which we would willingly have lingered for a much longer period, and there are many others which perhaps have been passed over without any particular attention. Among the first perhaps is the curious, and indeed elegant, Dissertation on the Poetry of the Afghauns, in which some entertaining specimens are introduced in an English translation. Among the latter may be mentioned the account of the rivers of the Penjaub, the Indus, Oxus, and others. But enough probably has been said to mark our general approbation of the work, and to excite the curiosity of our readers to become more familiarly acquainted with its contents.

Besides the larger map prefixed to the volume, there is a smaller one, on a reduced scale, which will be found very useful to the reader in his progress through the volume. There are also a number of engravings, denoting the costume of the various districts of Caubul and the neighbouring provinces, and of these the greater part are portraits.

ART.

ART. III. The Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti. By R. Duppa, L.L. B. 8vo. pp. 402. 11. 1s. Longman and Co. 1816.

IT would indeed have been a difficult task to have called the attention of our readers to the life of Michael Angelo, during the time that the first rate productions of that mighty genius which formed the pride of Italy no longer decorated their native soil. Torn by the hands of rapine from the place which gave them birth, their removal into a foreign country extracted a cry of indignation from every nation of Europe, whose sense of public morality had not been entirely extinguished by the pressure of unprincipled despotism.

In analysing the life of one of the greatest men which ever illustrated Italy, how could we have avoided deploring the ruin of a prodigious quantity of monuments of every species, to the raising of which, he had so much contributed? These monuments were sacred not only by the religion of the people, but they were precious for the arts and antiquity, and for the glory of their empire.

"Complaints have been made unjustly," says a learned traveller now no more*, " by the antiquary and the Christian, of the ruins which the Reformation spread over the surface of England; and the fall of so many stately abbies, the monuments both of the piety and skill of our ancestors, has been lamented as an irreparable misfortune by the Protestants as well as Catholics. Yet how confined is the scene of devastation which England has to deplore, when compared to that vast range of havoc, to that work of destruction, which was carried on in Italy, and which, like an immense whirlpool, swallowed up in its boiling every thing that came within its rage !"

Perhaps it may be here objected, that we have admitted a very different principle in a former number, and that we have asserted that the French have conferred much political benefit upon Italy. But we beg the reader to observe, that the question here does not concern the nature and merit of the present or past government of Italy, but merely the loss of literature on account of the destruction of many of the best monuments of arts, and the removal of others by the irruption and conquest which the French made; for this reason, and on this account we may justly exclaim, conquerors have a foot of iron, they crush every thing which they meet with in their march, and the

The Rev. Chetwode Eustace, in his Letter from Paris.

dust

aust which they raise on their passage covers the few remains that they may leave behind them.

But now that the restitution of the monuments of arts has been one of the greatest consequences of the 14th March, 1814; now that Italy possesses anew the productions of her own children, which ought properly to belong to her alone; now that the works of the Italian artists have once more been restored where they were originally intended to remain; now we have no earthly reason which may lead us astray from our criticism, and we hasten to lay before our readers the result of our reflections on the life of Michael Angelo, by Mr. Duppa.

We do not wish to find any unnecessary fault with the book before us, as whatever publication shall have called the attention of the English nation to the life, the character, and the works of Michael Angelo deserves respect. Mr. Duppa is a man of taste and literature; if, however, in some points we differ from our author, he must consider our criticism as directed rather against the guide he has chosen, than against himself. Sometimes, however, Mr. Duppa must allow us to furnish him with a hint as to his own portion of the work; when for instance, he informs us in the note p. 61, that

"Vasari calls this dignitary a Bishop, (il Vescovo) but I have preferred the appellation of Monsignore, on the authority of Condivi."

We must be allowed to hint to Mr. Duppa, that in Italian there is no more difference between il Vescovo and Monsig nore, than there is in English between the bishop and his lordship; and that a bishop is addressed in Italy by the title of Monsignore, just as in England he is by that of my Lord.

Our author appears to have espoused the opinion that Condivi and Vasari are the only, or at least the best biographers of Michael Angelo; he has closely followed the production of the latter, and in so doing he has paid to the Italian biographer a greater deference than he seems to deserve. Like Monsignore Bottari, Mr. Duppa has taken up the gauntlet in defence of his guide, and has overlooked or neglected all the criticism which the learned have passed on " Le vite dè più eccellenti Architetti Pittori e Scultori Italiani descritte da Giorgio Vasari Pittore Aretino," whom "molti han tacciato di parziale e molti altri d'invidioso per la negligenza, per l'infedeltà e per l'inesattezza."

Ved. Opere di Mengs. Bassano, 1783, 8vo. Annotaz. sulle Memorie convernent. la vita e le Oper. di Anton. Allegri denominat. il Correggio, vol. ii. p. 200—1, et seq.

We

We shall give an instance.

The justly celebrated Count Mazzucchelli, who in the "Vite degli Scrittori Italiani," has left an excellent and sufficiently detailed account of the life of Michael Angelo, asserts him to have died in the year 1564, at the age of 90*. This opinion is followed by Tiraboschi, in his classical work of the "Storia della Letteratura Italiana +." The famous Milizia, who has written a very learned book on the lives of the architects, both ancient and modern, has asserted the same in the "Memorie di Michel Angelo Bonarroti ." In short, all the biographers of any note, without excepting even the Biographical Dictionaries, fix the death of Michel Angelo in the year 1564, at the age of 90.

Now Mr. Duppa, p. 308, fixes on the 17th Feb. 1563 for the day of his death; and that the reader should not mistake his age, at the bottom of the portrait of Michael Angelo, which faces the title page, he puts the following inscription: born March 6, 1474, died Feb. 17, 1563, aged 88 years, 11 months," and 15 days.

We know not on what authority Mr. Duppa has grounded his assertion. But even if he had seen the certificate of his death in the Church of the S. Apostoli in Rome, we should have imagined that a note on this difference of date would have been rather more necessary than the note we have just alluded to on the appellation of il Vescovo and Monsignore. However not to tire the patience of our reader we will no longer delay to present him with a short account of the life of Michael Angelo, reserving to ourselves, in its proper place, to point out any misconception we may find in Mr. Duppa.

Descended from the noble family of the counts of Canossa, this celebrated painter, sculptor and architect, was born on the 6th March, 1474, in the castle Caprese in Tuscany, where his father was Potestà, or governor. Although intended for a learned profession, from his most tender years, drawing was his amusement and his study. On this account he was often treated harshly by his father and his uncles, who making no distinction between an artist and a mason, imagined that the arts would degrade the dignity of the family, if followed as a profession. Yet such was his success and his partiality for that mode of employing his time, that his father at length was obliged to yield, and to place him three years under Domenico Ghirlandaio, or Grillandaïo, who was at that time one of the most celebrated

* Mazzucchelli vit. degli Scrit. Ital. tom. ii. part 4. p. 2343, &c. + Tiraboschi Stor. della Letter. Italian. 4to. Roma. 1785, tom. vii. part 3. p. 437,

Milizia Memor. degli Archit. antic. e mod. quarta ediz. 8vo. i. P. 189-196. Bagrano, 1789. tom.

painters

painters of Italy. Here he soon surpassed all his fellow stu-' dents, and it seems that he felt himself superior even to his master. One of the pupils copying a female portrait from a drawing by Ghirlandaio, Michael Angelo, with a stronger pen, described round it an outline to shew him its defects; and though the act was thought confident and presumptuous, yet the superior style of the contour struck dumb both the pupil and

the master.

At this period Lorenzo dè Medici having established a school for the advancement of sculpture, some of Ghirlandaïo's pupils, who were desirous of drawing from the antique were allowed to study there. Michael Angelo, who was of the number, being particularly interested with a mutilated head representing an old laughing faun, wished to try his skill in marble, and though this was his first essay in sculpture, in a few days he brought his task to a conclusion, having from his own invention supplied what was imperfect in the original. At seeing the head Lorenzo was surprised at the extraordinary work of the young artist, but as Michael Angelo had restored to the faun not only his tongue, but also all his teeth, he observed that in old people some teeth are generally wanting. Our young sculptor saw the justice of the observation, broke a tooth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to give the appearance of its having fallen out. This seems to have been the first stone which Michael Angelo laid to his future fame, for as soon as Lorenzo saw the alteration, he was so delighted with the aptness and simplicity of the scholar, that he took him under his own immediate patronage, assigned him a room in his own palace, made him sit at his table as his own son, and extended even to his father the protection which he had so liberally bestowed on Michael Angelo.

The superiority of the young artist could not fail to excite that envy which his sarcastic and over-bearing disposition too often called into action. Of this Michael Angelo too often experienced the sad truth, on one of these occasions especially, when he received from a contemporary student the brutal Pietro Torrigiano such a blow on his nose that broke the cartilage, and marked him for life.

By the death of Lorenzo de Medici, the arts and Michael Angelo lost a real patron and a generous protector. Piero his son, with the possessions, had not inherited the merit of his father. Corrupt and over-bearing he applied his wealth to indulge his senseless and degrading follies, and considered the arts as ministers to his idle pleasures. Under his patronage Michael Angelo was called upon to make statues of snow to ornament the cortile of the Medici's palace. He continued in his apartments, and dined at the same table, but the estimation in which his

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