Catholics refuse to grant what the State requires; and it is abundantly obvious, from the innumerable demands put forth by the Association, that the removal of the disabilities would not change the state of Ireland in the least. Why this Association is suffered to `exist we know not; but that it ought to be suppressed, is a matter of which no one is ignorant. To speak of Conciliation-to prevent the dressing of the statue-to put down the Orange processions-to make attack upon attack on the Orangemen ; and then to tolerate the monstrous proceedings of this monstrous body, exhausts all that can be called partiality and injustice. When this Association is suffered to fill every corner of Ireland with its false and poisonous assertions respect ing tyranny and bondage-when it daily addresses everything that is inflammable to the inflammable people —when it not only winds up the feelings of its own followers to fury, but goads those of the Protestants to madness-when it robs of their bread the starving peasantry to support itself in this iniquity;—when it is suffered to do all this, what does this cant mean respecting tranquillizing Ireland and putting down party spirit? Will the suffering of the Catholics to heap every kind of insult and outrage on the Protestants divest either the one or the other of party animosity? Speak of Conciliation!-A single glance at Ireland is sufficient to render the word infamous for ever!

It is the opinion of every one, that if this Association be not put down, it will wrap Ireland in rebellion and blood. Every one believes that it is producing the most fearful evils in Ireland, and that it is even doing great injury to the cause of the Catholics. The Catholics themselves say, that it must be dissolved, or the disabilities must be removed of necessity. Then, why is it suffered to exist? Is it that these sluggish days of peace may be enlivened by an Irish war? or, is it that we may be bullied and terrified into the granting of that which ought only to be conceded from a conviction of its justice and expediency? If the latter be the object, it will miscarry. When the Catholics in a body are putting forth principles, and following conduct worthy of the worst of their ancestors, neither one Association, nor ten, will enable them to triumph. Compromise and concession themselves

would not dare to grant exclusive privileges and immunities to such a faction as they now form.

We will now turn to the bright side of the picture. The Catholic Association has effectually cleared the character of the Orange Societies. No one who reads its speeches-who looks at its deeds-who remembers its attacks on the School and other Meetings will now charge the party madness of Ireland upon the Orangemen. Every one must now see, that if no Orangemen existed, the Catholics would be precisely what they now are. This is one point gained towards the dissipation of public delusion.

But the most important matter is this: the Roman Catholic clergy, by their late conduct, convince us that they believe the conversion of the people to Protestantism to be a very practicable matter. They have, in effect, stated this to be their belief, and they are much better acquainted with the matter than those Protestants who rail against proselytism. On this point we think with them, and we further think, that if the Protestants and the government do their duty, great and glorious changes will ere long take place in Ireland. All accounts concur in stating, that a spirit of inquiry has taken hold of the lower orders-that they gladly, whenever they dare, accept the Scriptures and religious tracts, and send their children to the schools. To discourage this, not to encourage it to the utmost, would be little short of fratricide. We have long thought, that if any events should take place which should involve the Protestant and Catholic clergy in active religious controversy, and which should deeply interest the feelings of the people at large in the controversy, they would produce incalculable good to Ireland. Such events have unexpectedly-we would almost say providentially-taken place, and we trust to Heaven that the most will be made of them. We hope, that if the clergy have been unable to accomplish anything by preaching, they will now accomplish much by writing. We hope that the Protestant ministers of all denominations, will literally cover the surface of Ireland with pamphlets and tracts on this question; respecting the reading of the Scriptures, and the right of opinion and action. Argument, reason, truth, justice, religion, and the interests of the people, are clearly with

We have no painter in the present day entitled to be placed within fifty miles of Hogarth for originality, or (taking the word in any intelligible sense whatever) for genius. Neither have we any one to be compared with Sir Joshua Reynolds for elegance of conception, ease of execution, and the charm of unaffected good taste. He also was, in spite of all the sarcasms of the underbred creatures who carp at him, a man of true genius, and his fame will live entire so long as any of his great works remain unfaded.

But although we have no first-rate originating genius like Hogarth, and no portrait-painter at all comparable to Sir Joshua, we certainly have at this time a far greater number of admirable living artists than Britain ever possessed at any one former period; and there is no sort of doubt that we have infinitely more of them than all the other countries in the world put together. Turner is decidedly the greatest landscape painter that has appeared in the world since Claude. Wilkie has all the truth of Teniers's nature, quite as much richness of colouring, and at the same time a general power of expression, and, above all, a capacity for blending pathos with humour, of which his master had no notion. Sir Thomas Laurence is not indeed a Sir Joshua, but he stands infinitely nearer him than any portrait-painter that Europe has produced since, and ranks (after him) next to Vandyke and Velasquez. He has an exquisite perception of grace, and wants perhaps little, except repose, to be, in so far as his theory goes, unexceptionable. He is, perhaps, the most pains-taking, indefatigable ́artist now living; so that it must be some radical defect in his powers that keeps him, even in his happiest efforts, at so great a distance from that magical airiness of effect, which, in regard to mere execution, forms the principal charm of all Sir Joshua Reynolds' masterpieces. When Sir Thomas was in Rome, he perfectly astonished the Italians of

these degenerate days, and his merits are acknowledged all over Europe as they ought to be. Landseer is, at the age of three-and-twenty, an animalpainter not inferior to Sneyders himself, and, if he lives and thrives, he will be hereafter immeasurably his superior. In each of these departments, too, we have many other artists of undoubted merit, of great diligence, and of daily rising reputation. Leslie (an American) produced a picture at the last exhibition, which for design, and indeed for everything but a certain antique richness of handling, came close upon Wilkie's best pieces. Allan would stand perhaps nearer still to Wilkie, if he could be persuaded to paint with more warmth; as to drawing, he is perhaps the very first of his time. Newton (another American) bids fair to be an English Watteau, when experience shall have added more firmness and decision of touch to the elegance and grace which he already possesses in a degree scarcely inferior even to Sir Thomas himself. Haydon is perhaps, after Wilkie, the cleverest man of all these; and, without question, he might stand by the side of the highest of them, if he had sense and taste in proportion to his talent. As it is, his Judgment of Solomon, painted ten years ago, (or more,) is still the best historical picture that has appeared in our time, and his head of Lazarus the finest head. But he has (with the exception of that one head in the Lazarus picture) retrograded rather than advanced, both in execution and in reputation, since the time when he painted his Solomon; and indeed his last effort, Silenus preaching to Ariadne, was bad beyond belief-a complete Cockneyism in conception, and a daub of daubs in its most coxcombical execution. Calcott, Martin, Thomson, Williams, are distinguished masters in their several styles of landscape painting—and, indeed, there is a whole host in that department. We have admirable engravers by the dozen.

In a word, there can be no doubt that England at no preceding time ever possessed such a group of flourishing artists as she can produce at this moment; and, what is more, there is not one of those we have named that has passed the vigour of life, while far the greater part of them are men in the very prime of years, enthusiasm, and industry; so that it can scarcely be doubted that they will, one and all, produce works superior to any they have as yet exhibited, ere they close their career.

It can scarcely admit of a doubt, that we are considerably indebted for all this to the Elgin Marbles, and in a still greater degree to the vast number of old masterpieces of painting which have been introduced into this country in consequence of the French Revolution. The greater part of the Orleans Collection came to London at the very beginning of that convulsion, and many English amateurs (in particular Lord Gower, now Marquis of Stafford, from his official situation at Paris,) were enabled to lay hands on a great variety of excellent pictures besides, which the distressed condition of the proprietors made them willing to part with during the early period of the struggle. The fine collection of the ex-minister, M. Calonne, and that which an American, by name Turnbull, had formed during the miseries of Paris, were both of them sold in London in 1795. Mr Bryan's collection, formed in Holland during its first troubles, came to the hammer in 1798, and some of its chefs-d'œuvre formed the foundation of the rich collection of Dutch and Flemish pictures now at Carlton House., The gallery of the Fagel family of the Hague was sold here in 1801. The fine Venetian collection of the Vitturi had been purchased several years earlier, and was sold about the same period.

The

French army, in overrunning Italy, seized on whatever pictures best pleased them, that could be called in any shape public property, and their cruel exactions rendered the private nobility so poor, and threw all property into such a state of uncertainty, that English adventurers, of various orders, were enabled to get possession, in a quiet way, of a very great number of firstrate Italian pictures during that distressing period. Genoa, Venice, Bologna, Rome, and Naples, all furnish

ed considerable contributions, and throughout the war there was a continual importation-hazardous and clandestine of course-of fine pictures into this country from Italy. The French invasion of Spain was attended with consequences nearly similar in that country. The palaces of the King and the rich churches were plundered by Napoleon's generals and agents, and private noblemen and monasteries were glad to dispose of some of their pictures, whenever they could do it in a way not likely to attract too much attention. Our own successes in Spain enabled us, in another manner, to acquire many masterpieces of Flemish, Italian, and, above all, of Spanish art, which last was, until about this time, very little known, and most inadequately appreciated, either here or in any country but Spain itself. Monsieur de Brun and General Sebastiani had formed fine collections in Spain during her troubles, and these successively found their way into England. The great collection of Talleyrand himself followed 'more lately, and a very considerable part of Lucien Buonaparte's gallery was also disposed of here after his brother's first downfall. Finally, there is every likelihood that Marshall Soult's Spanish pictures will be sold here ere long. And all this is independent of a prodigious variety of smaller consignments, which were continually arriving in England down to the time when the continental tranquillity was quite re-established, in consequence of the results of the battle of Waterloo. Since that time, the Italian proprietors of pictures have resumed their old reluctance to parting with them; so have the Spanish and the Flemish people; and now, when a good picture is offered for sale anywhere on the Continent, it is almost always picked up by the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, the Crown Prince of Bavaria, or the Prince of Orange; the agents of these insatiable collectors being at work everywhere, and furnished with the means of dri ving almost all private speculators out of the market.

The "Memoirs of Painting," named at the head of our paper, form, in fact, something like a history of the different importations now alluded to, and may be said to be very decently executed. The writer, Mr Buchanan, is, we believe, a younger brother of the

member for Dumbartonshire, who abandoned early in life his profession of the law for that to make plain words serve the turn-of a picturedealer. His enthusiasm was boundless-his knowledge was respectable, and became great. He seems to have had considerable command of credit; and it is not going a bit too far to say, that he has been, throughout the last twenty years, out of all sight, the most extensive importer of pictures in England. He alone has been the means of bringing infinitely more first-rate pictures into England than any other individual ever brought into that country. He ran great risks, and frequently incurred severe losses from vessels being captured, and the like accidents. And, on the whole, he appears to have found the trade none of the bestsince, throughout his book, he embraces many opportunities of letting us know, that, in his opinion, his services and their results have been such as to entitle him to some public remuneration—a hint which we presume would not have been so often repeated, had Mr Buchanan employed his capital, commercially speaking, with any considerable measure of suc

cess.

Now, when we consider that in reality a prodigious proportion of the finest pictures at this hour in this country would never have been in it had no such person as Mr Buchanan existed, it is quite impossible for us to hesitate about conceding to him, that, in one sense of the phrase, England, and the art of England, are under signal obligations to him. But it is a very different question indeed, whether he, or any person in similar circumstances, has any right whatever to expect a public reward in the shape of pounds, shillings, and pence. He tells us, that he began his career in picture-buying from a most enthusiastic passion for art-and we believe him to the letter; but, laying what he says out of view, what does the public see, what can it see in him, but a mercantile speculator, who bought and sold pictures, just as any other merchant buys and sells any other marketable commodity? Many of the pictures he bought, were, according to his own book, sold at enormous profits-others, no doubt, fared differently: but still people must, in all concerns, take the good and the evil together; and we really cannot VOL. XVI.

see that the nation is obliged to make up to Mr Buchanan the deficit in one page of his books, any more than Mr Buchanan is to share with the community at large the good things indicated by a different arrangement of Arabic numerals in another page of it. Besides, admit the principle, and where are we to stop? Will not the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin claim a parliamentary reward for having been the means of bringing in so many Alduses and Elzevirs ?-What are we to say to Bullock, when he frames a petition, touching his Mexican, and all other curiosities ?-Nay, to take an example among matters more intelligible to all men, upon what grounds are we to refuse "a place or a pension" (Mr Buchanan's own terms) to the authors of unsuccessful translations of Tasso and Schiller-or even to the importers of Hocks and Burgundies, that have not happened to gratify the palatal organs of John Bull quite so much as had been expected when the invoice arrived in Augusta Trinobantum? No lack of gentlemen, in each and all of these departments, who will make bold to consider and to represent themselves as public be nefactors, at least as much as Mr Buchanan-aye, even if he had introduced to the English market twice as many Titians, Rubenses, and Murillos, as the catalogue of his achievements does in reality einbrace. But, keeping within his own sphere of matters, if he who bought pictures to sell them be entitled to the things he hints at, pray what are we to say to those who bought the pictures from him? Had there been no Lord Staffords, and Mr Angersteins, and Mr Hopes, no Mr Buchanan could have dared to buy the pictures in Italy and Spain-or if he had, they must have travelled back to the continent as fast as they left it. We, however, do not consider these wealthy persons entitled to statues on account of their pictures: they gratify, or seek to gratify, their vanity as well as their taste; and they take their chance as to these, just as poorer people do, and must do, as to other things. A very indifferent painter, we must say, provided he be a man of diligent and decent life, has a thousand times more right to petition Parlia ment for "a place or a pension," than any gentleman whose connexion with art, however splendid in its results,

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