in this quarter, and hearing that it was the intention of Monsieur le R. and some of his friends to leave Paris in the course of a couple of days for Amsterdam, I had my passport vise by the minister of police for Brussels, and set off the following afternoon in a light travelling calesh, accompanied by Mrs B. and my servant Antoine, an old campaigner. We travelled all night, as is usual in France, and the following morning stopped for a couple of hours at Cambray, to see the British troops reviewed by the Duke of Wellington, having just reached that place as his Grace had got upon the ground. The day was beau tiful, and the troops made a most brilliant

appearance.

"From Cambray we passed over much ground, celebrated in the annals of war, and got by the afternoon to Valenciennes, the siege of which occupied so much attention at an early period of the Revolution. From thence, the next point which brought us up was the Hotel Royal of Brussels.

"After waiting on old Gaumare, the banker, I took the earliest opportunity of calling upon Monsieur Van Reyndaers, to see his two celebrated pictures by Hobbima, which I have the pleasure to inform you I purchased, along with a fine Philip Wouvermans, and a Backhuysen, for 40,000 francs, which, although it may appear a good price to give off hand, yet, next to Mr Gray's large Hobbima, at Hornsey, I consider these to be about the best pictures of the master which I have seen; and there was no time to lose, as I was only a few hours a-head of several connoisseurs, who had set off like myself on a voyage of discovery, and carried heavy metal. This, to begin with, I consider to be a pretty little acquisition.

"Being exceedingly anxious to get to Antwerp to see the picture of the Chapeau de Paille, and three other fine pictures, by Rubens, which are soon to be sold, we left Brussels after dinner, intending to remain at Antwerp during the night; but, on considering the risk I ran of losing the opportunity of seeing Hoguer's pictures a day previous to the sale, in order to enable me to form a judgment on their merits, I determined on passing through Antwerp without stopping. We arrived at that city in time to gain admittance, although the gates had been shut, and were re-opened to us per favour; but at the post-house we were informed that no one could get out without an order from the Governor of the place; being determined, however, to make the attempt, and having agreed to pay for the hire of fresh horses whether we should

or should not succeed in passing the gates, we obtained them, and drove up to the post, when I handed out to the guard of the night my passport, and a small piece of paper enclosing a Napoleon, saying rather loudly, Voilà, Monsieur, mon passeport, et l'ordre du Gouverneur.' The order was instantly recognized, and the massive gates moved on their hinges. The following morning we breakfasted at Breda, at an early hour, and by the route of Gorcum and Utrecht we arrived at Amsterdam the same evening.

"It now became a matter of some importance to see the collection of Van Hoguer privately, without encountering my Parisian friends. This I easily succeeded in doing through the means of the bankers on whom I had credits; while, to keep competitors in the dark as to my intentions, I adopted the following projet.—

"Antoine, as I have already said, is an old campaigner, and a fellow of much humour and drollery, with a countenance of most immovable muscle. He was well known as Antoine to all my Parisian friends; but when tolerably rouged, with a suit of black clothes, and a well-powdered wig, no one could imagine he had ever before seen Monsieur Jolli. My own attendance at the sale, as a bidder, would have been imprudent, and was likely to meet with opposition from more quarters than one; I therefore determined on relinquishing the contest to Monsieur Jolli, who, having received his instructions, acquitted himself à merveille, and had the honour of seeing his name entered in the sale-roll of the Burgomaster Hoguer as the purchaser of the famous young bull of Paul Potter, for 7925 guilders; and of being congratulated by many of the dilettanti present, as a gentleman of most undoubted taste and good judgment.+

"The aid which this auxiliary afforded, enabled me to enter the room as an indifferent observer. The first person who caught my eye was Monsieur le R. whom I had so lately left in Paris. We recognized each other with a laugh- Eh bien, Monsieur, comment vous trouvez vous des eaux du Mont-d'Or ?' Et vous, Monsieur, que dites vous de la belle Statute de Jeanne d'Acre sur la place d'Orleans ?" "

Many people, however, will think that the most valuable part of this book is its Appendix, where Mr B. gives us some of the results of the long attention he has paid to the manuel part of the art-if we may speak We are happy to see, that he

So.

The army of occupation.

means to give us a larger work on these subjects, and have no doubt such a book would have very great success both at home and abroad. The following passages will, we are sure, excite in our readers a desire for more of the same diet.

"It must always be interesting to the connoisseur as well as to the painter, to know something of the manner in which the great painters executed those works which have at all periods been regarded as the chefs-d'œuvre of art.

"On the removal of many of the fine pictures from Italy to Paris, it was found, on inspection, that the painting in many of these was beginning to separate from the impression, or ground of the picture, and that it became absolutely necessary to have the same secured to prevent the total ruin of these magnificent works. Monsieur Hacquin of Paris, a most distinguished artist for his skill in removing ancient pictures from the canvas or pannel on which they had been painted, was applied to by the directors of the French Museum to transfer several of those works to fresh canvas, which he executed with great ability and judgment; among others, the St Peter martyr, of Titian, the St Cecilia of Raphael, the Holy Family, by Raphael, where an angel scatters flowers, and many others of the first importance. Having succeeded so well in those which he did for the Museum, he was likewise employed by Monsieur Bonnemaison to transfer those capital pictures, which are mentioned in this work at page 39, from their ancient pannels to canvas; and as in the course of this operation he had an opportunity of seeing what was actually the first process of painting made use of in these composi

tions, so the author of these sketches requested him to state what were the appearances which presented themselves when he had removed the whole of the wood, and the greatest part of the white ground which received the impression of the picture, and on which the same had originally been painted.

"All the pictures of that period were prepared with grounds composed of pipeclay highly burned, and finely pounded, mixed with a proportion of chalk, and formed into a substance with boiled parchment, or the skins of fish. For the better understanding how this could be got at, it is necessary to explain, that when such an operation is about to be performed, the picture itself is covered with a very fine gauze, laid over it with a thin paste, so as perfectly to secure the paint itself. It is then turned face downwards, and the wood planed away until at arrives at the ground or preparation on which the picture itself has been painted. This ground itself being, as already stated, of pipe-clay, is removed in various

ways, according to its substance or quality; sometimes by liquids, sometimes by reducing it with pumice-stone, or instruments,

until there at last remains the thin shell of paint only which constitutes the picture, and which must again be secured by a glutinous application to a fresh canvas; after which, the gauze and paste which have covered the front, are carefully removed with lukewarm water, cautiously and sparingly applied.

"Mr. Hacquin mentioned, that in all the works of Raphael which he had transferred from the old pannels to canvas, there appeared on the white ground of the picture a very fine but firm line in black crayon, or, what he termed pierre d'Italie; that this fine line, or first tracing of his subject, was afterwards strengthened with the pencil by a transparent brownish, or bistery colour, called by the French painters stil du grain; and that in some instances he had hatched in the shadows with a black crayon, resembling the lines of an engraving, before he commenced any colour whatever on his picture. He then appeared to have passed a thin transparent glazing over this preparation, generally of a warm hue, somewhat like mummy, over which he painted his picture.

"The following particulars of the appearance which several of these capital works presented are copied verbatim from Mr. Hacquin's own memoranda, which he was so obliging as to permit the author of these sketches to copy from his manuscripts.

I.

"LA STE. FAMILLE DE RAPHAEL.

"Peinte sur une impression blanche, layés dans de la colle de parchemin. composeé de craie et blanc d'Espagne, de

"Avant de peindre sur ce fond blanc, il avait passé dessus un legér glaci de blanc et de jaune à l'huile. Sur se glaci il dessiné son sujet avec un crayon noir; puis, il a suivi ce trait avec un pinceau fin, trempé dans du stil de grain.

"Attendu de glaci dont j'ai parlé cy dessus, l'ebauche etait peu visible, mais assez cependant pour voir qu'en terminant le dessin de son tableau, Raphael a relevé

des bras de l'ange qui repand des fleurs. Ce repentir etoit très visible, le double trait se remarquait aisément.'"

II.

"LA VIERGE AU DONATAIRE DE RAPHAEL-DITE DA FOLIGNO.

“La même impression qu'au precedent, mais sans glaci a l'huile dessus. Le trait fait au crayon noir, recouvert avec du stil de grain, et ebauché avec le plus grand soin. Cette ebauche sans aucun repentir presentait l'aspect d'un tableau terminé.'"

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 morçeaus 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

"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

the Juno; which, as a piece of painting of human flesh, kindling with all the internal glow of health, and the external bloom of youth and beauty, surpasses anything I ever saw. No Nature itself was ever finer ; and, what is more, it is no finer than Nature is. In fact, it is to all intents and purposes the same as Nature, as far as regards the faculty of sight."

VI.

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

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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 Egre mont 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 me. mory 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!"

XIV.

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 as 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!"

XV.

We are afflicted by hearing from such authority (at p. 127,) that it has not

"Hitherto been the fashion to examine and criticise the productions of painting in the same manner as it has those of the sister art, poetry; though both evidently proceed upon the same principles, and aim at the same end."

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