We earnestly recommend the whole of these remarks to the attention of every artist who wishes to produce, and the concluding part of them to every collector who possesses, fine paintings-and we take our leave for the present of Mr Buchanan, with repeating our wish that he may proceed diligently in the larger Treatise, which he has promised in the concluding sentence of our last quotation. From the contents of his present book, we certainly think that the New National Gallery, (late Mr Angerstein's,) which as yet consists, in a great measure, of pictures imported by Mr Buchanan, would gain much, if his personal services could be secured to it in a permanent way, and should be most happy to hear of his being in that method rewarded for the benefits which he unquestionably has conferred on the art of England. We are mistaken if there be any great choice of equally accomplished superintendants for such an institution-an institution which, from various but obvious enough circumstances, can scarcely fail to swallow up, ere very many years pass away, a prodigious proportion of the masterpieces of art already in England; and which, we also hope and trust, will compete successfully against all competitors, whether royal or imperial, wherever works of real importance come into the market on the Continent. An institution, we may be permitted to add, which many centuries hence will continue to be associated in the grateful minds of Britons with the name and memory of the most accomplished, as well as liberal and munificent patron of the Fine Arts that has sat upon the throne of these realms since the days of Charles I.*

We certainly owe an apology to Mr Buchanan for having named at the head of one article his respectable octavos, and a little duodecimo, entitled,

"BRITISH GALLERIES OF ART." We wished, however, to have the opportunity of saying, in a couple of sentences, that a whole litter of catchpennies of this description, are at present infesting the shop-windows, and that these Cockney under-scrubs, who are doing everything in their power to disgust people with the very name of Art, must be put down effectually. They have long been creeping about in the shape of Catalogues Raisonnees, newspaper paragraphs, Magazine articles, and the like; but are becoming a little too impudent in this new affair of books. The puppy who has perpetrated the thing before us, surprised us exceedingly by saying in his preface, that he is in the habit of contributing essays on pictorial matters to Messrs Colburn and Campbell's periodical. If this be true, what a pleasant occupation the author of Hohenlinden and O'Connor's Child, must have of it, in keeping a sharp eye after the commas and semicolons of this worthy! The creature is evidently a Cockney of the very lowest class. His ignorance is truly a thing by itself. Conceive only of a connoisseur who writes whole books on Art, informing the world, as this hero does in the 53d page of his work, that the pictures in the Titian Gallery at Blenheim" are almost as little known and visited as if they were of no value at all"!!! Sixty miles is no doubt a terrible journey from the Monument; yet we really did not expect to find the achievement set forth with quite so many airs. "Little known,” indeed!

It would, of course, be absurd to think of criticising a creature of this order; but we shall make our printer transfer to our pages a few little morceaus of his composition, enough to give our readers a laugh, and to extinguish the abortion. What, then, can be more perfectly intolerable than such stuff as

I.

"The flood of voluptuous expression that seems to pour from the back of Venus, and the essence of the same expression that is concentrated in her eager look, are very fine."

Or,

II.

"There is a bit of sky-blue drapery about the neck (I think) of the Cupid, which produces a singular effect. It looks like a little fragment of the heaven from which he may be supposed to have just descended; as if the very element itself had clung to him in fondness, and would not be shaken off." But what follows?

"The old man who shows the pictures told me that this bit of drapery was added by the artist who was employed many years ago to clean and put them in order. I can scarcely believe this."

III.

"The Dejanira is magnificent. She sits across his knees, with one arm passed round his neck; and from every point of her form there seems to exude, as it were, an atmosphere of desire, which spreads itself on all the objects present, steeping them all in the pervading sentiment of the scene. The lovers are seated on the lion's skin which Hercules has thrown off; and the extremity of this is made to curl up above their heads, as if supporting an imaginary canopy over them. SUCH, AT LEAST, IS ITS EFFECT TO ME!! At the same time it seems self-supported, and instinct with life; and thus calls up an image of the lordly beast that once wore it in this fashion, as he sought his mate in their native woods."

IV.

"The elaborate, and at the same time perfectly natural and graceful involution of the limbs, produces an admirable effect; and it seems also to have some mysterious connexion with, or reference to, the mingled and involved feelings of the beautiful but betrayed Ariadne, as these are represented in her face and action. She seems perplexed and hampered," &c.

V.

There is another back-of which he seems to be particularly enamoured.

"The next, and last picture but one, is Jupiter, Juno, and Io. Neither my notes made at the time of seeing these works, nor my memory, enable me to give a description of the composition of this picture, or the attitudes of the figures. Perhaps (for now-a-days one is expected to be able to account for everything)-perhaps this has arisen from the absorbing effect of one particular point in the picture, which fascinated my senses at the time, and has dwelt upon my memory ever since, to the exclusion of all the rest. This is THE BACK of

There is great profundity in the two following:

"Titian was the least in the world of an egotist-in his works, I mean. He sought to exhibit and impress the merits of his subject, not of himself; and his subject, in the present instance, was the influence of female beauty-not the beauty of the human form, but of the female form: and those who can visit these pictures, in however cursory a manner, and not carry away the sting of that beauty in their minds, there to remain for ever, are not made of penetrable stuff.' Probably there are existing at present, and have been at any given time, forms and faces that are more beautiful than any pencil or chisel ever pro

duced."

The modesty of the following is equally distinguished. The humble scribe hopes only to rival one of the most exquisite poems in Wordsworth, or indeed in the English language.

"To those who have not already seen the princely domain of the Earl of Egremont at Petworth, I would fain convey such a notion of it, that till they set out and visit it for themselves, it may thus dwell in the distance before them, like a bright spot in the land of promise; secure that, when they do visit it, I shall not, in so doing, have anticipated the impressions they will receive from it, but only have prepared the way for those impressions, and thus render. ed their effect more certain and more lasting. And yet it is presumptuous in me to reckon on being able to accomplish this. The utmost I can hope to do is to furnish another YARROW UNVISITED' to those who will never see Petworth but in hope and intention."

IX.

The next is a grand burst indeed.

"On now entering the gate nearest to the back of the Swan Inn, I need not call upon him to dismiss from his mind all memory of that which has just been occupying it; for the scene of enchantment and beauty

that will burst upon his delighted senses is not of a nature to permit anything else to interfere with it ;-like a lovely and beloved bride on her bridal day, it must and will. hold and fix, not only his feelings and affections, but his fancy—his imagination-his whole soul undividedly. Oh! there is a set of chords in the human mind which cannot choose but vibrate and respond to the impressions which come to them from external nature-which cannot choose but do this independently of all previous knowledge, of all habit, of all association! Take a savage from his native spot-who has never seen anything but his own cabin, the glen in which it stands, the mountain stream where he slakes his thirst, and the eternal woods through which he pursues his prey; and place him in the presence of such a scene as that which will greet the spectator when he has entered a few paces within the walls of Petworth Park; and if he be not moved, rapt, and inspired with feelings of delight, almost equivalent to in degree, and resembling in kind, those in stinctive ones which would come upon him at the first sight of a beautiful female of his own species, then there is no truth in the knowledge which comes to us by impulse, and nothing but experience can be trusted and believed."

X.

What think you of the following description of a clump of firs, in a new ring of paling?

"It rises in this way for a considerable distance, in a rich semicircular sweep of lawn, with only one clump of firs and larches placed at about the middle of it, surrounded by a regular white fence, and looking like a single jewelled brooch placed on the forehead or the breast of a rural beauty."

XI.

Here is a touch of modesty again "These ladies whose presence (for it is like their actual presence!!!) beautifies this room, must allow their names to grace my page also, in order that the existence they owe to Vandyck-or rather, which he repaid them in return for the immortality which they bestowed on him-may not be entirely confined to the frames which contain their pictures!!!"

XII.

We are now at Windsor Castleand of course sneer as we please at both nobles and princes. Conceive of the following from some Grub-street grub:

"Here is Holbein's capital portrait of Lord Surrey. There he stands, over the door, with his legs boldly planted wide apart, not crossed mincingly-his arms aVOL. XVI.

kimbo-his hat on one side-all in crimson,-doublet, trunkhose, and all. Nothing was ever done in its way more spirited than this portrait. It looks as little of the fine gentleman as can be, and as much of the lord. There is an air about it mixed up of the court and the camp, but without a touch of the club-house. I should admire to see such a peer of the realm' as this walk into White's Subscription-room, without taking his hat off, and plant himself pleasantly before the fire! How my Lord A would quiz his queer dress, and Sir B. C. turn pale at his plebeian gait, and the Hon. Mr D decamp at once without waiting to inquire who he was!"

Of a portrait of Aretine at Windsor we are informed, that

"It seems to flicker before the eye with apparent motion,-so instinct is it with the very life of mind."

And farther, we are informed, that

It is a full front face, very thin and shrunken, but lightly touched all over with the carnations of bodily as well as mental health. It is remarkable, too, that Sir Joshua Reynolds seems to have chosen it

us the model from which he has made out his strange head of Ugolino-in his picture of that name, from Dante. At least my memory greatly deceives me if there is not a remarkable resemblance between the two heads-both in shape, position, and general character. If I am right, this may account for that work being so complete a failure as it is!"

XVI.

The following is simply and unaffectedly good.

"There is no denying that these 'old masters' had a something in them which we, of the present time, may in vain hope to imitate. But we can, if we please, do what is perhaps almost as good a thing: we can duly admire and appreciate their exquisite works."

XVII.

He is always great in describing gentlemen's places. Take the following about Knowle Park

"Immediately you pass the lodges, there rises before you, at a distance of about a hundred yards, a noble mass of foliage, consisting of oaks, beeches, and chesnut trees, finely blended and contrasted toge ther in point of shade and colour, but wearing the appearance of a solid impenetrable body, rising like a green wall, to shut out all intruders from the imaginary scene beyond. The bright gravel road,-which in tersects the rich turf between this mass of trees and the spot where you enter the park, -branches into two, just as it reaches the trees, and pierces into the thick of them in opposite directions."

The following is clear and philosophical :

"I should say, of the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de' Medici, that the former is the finest work in the world, as it respects the art and the spectator, and the latter the finest as it respects the artist-that the former is calculated to do most good in

the world now it is produced, and is there

fore the most valuable; but that the lat ter required, not only greater natural genius in the artist who produced it, but greater knowledge, taste, and practical skill."

in default of a wearer, could stand alone. and go to court by themselves,-80 stiff, stately, ruffling, and alive, does the very imagination of them seem."

XXI.

The visitors of Dulwich College are thus admonished :

"Let them, as they pursue the gracefully winding and picturesque road that leads to the village, watch (through the unclothed hedge-rows) the various changes in the prospect on either hand-which they cannot do in summer, and which would scarcely look more lovely if they could ;let them listen to the low call of the robinredbreast, as he flits pertly from the roadside at their approach, or sings wildly sweet as he perches himself on the topmost twig of YONDER THORN, that has been suffered to outgrow the rest of the close-cut hedge; -FINALLY, let them, as they arrive at and are about to enter the Gallery, turn to the little upland that faces it at a short distance, heaving its green bosom into a gentle sweep, and looking as bright and happy beneath the winter sun as it does beneath the sum

mer!

"The reader must not think that I am heedlessly calling upon him to attend to these objects of external nature, instead of leading him at once to those of which we are more immediately in search. I have purposely asked him to fix the former on his memory, and to yield himself for a mo. ment to their influence exclusively, in order that, by a pleasing and not abrupt contrast, he may be the better prepared to appreciate the blush, the bloom, the burning glow of beauty that will fall upon his senses from the rich summer of Art that greets him on his entrance to this exquisite Gallery: for whatever season may obtain without, within these walls a perpetual summer reigns, and diffuses its sweet influence through all that come, in virtue of those exquisite works of the Flemish landscapepainters which form the staple of this collection."