the additional temptation also influencing him of affording gratification to Elizabeth. But lest a doubt should remain on this subject with posterity, he has himself assured us, immediately after the lines here cited, that the Players were

-"The abstract, and brief chronicles of the times."
Act II. Scene II.

And he adds, with evident reference to Mary-
"After your death, you had better have a bad epitaph,
Than their ill report while you live.

instance of the great, yet various powers of the poet. The invocation to Venus; the description of her influence over the whole inanimate as well as animate creation; and her power even to sooth the unruly passions of the god of battles; form an example of the beautiful in poetry, which can never be sufficiently | admired ;-nor is it easy to conceive any thing more truly sublime than the passage that follows. Those two lines

"Quæ caput a coli regionibus ostendebat, He moreover makes the very design of the Piece, the "Horribili super adspectu mortalibus instans." type of his own measures. The king is exposed to convey to the mind a picture of superstition, more the representation of a play; and by a play he ex-striking and perfect, than the most elaborate descripposes the guilt of the Queen of Scotland

"The Play's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Act II. Sc. II. Could an audience at this day avoid making the application, if with such events as had taken place, fresh in their minds, they were to hear this passage

P. King. "None wed the second, but who killed the first.
Ham. That's wormwood!
Act III. Sc. II.

And afterwards

MR. EDITOR, Amongst the ancient Latin poets there is one, who at the present day is but little read; and with whom but few are much acquainted, though none of them can afford a better compensation to the labours of those, who take the pains to study their works. The writer, to whom I allude is Lucretius; whose poem "de rerum natura," though so much of it is occupied by his philosophical speculations, (of a great part of which it must be owned, that the common opinion as to their merits is but too well founded) yet exhibits to us notwithstanding, passages of the most brilliant poetry; abounding with the most bold and striking metaphors; and with descriptions, some the most sublime, others the most beautiful of any, which any age in the history of literature has produced.

That this encomium on the merits of Lucretius, is such as he really deserves, and that it is not the effect of any unfounded prejudice in his favour, it can be only necessary to read the commencement of his poem to be convinced. The first hundred lines at the opening of the first book, furnish us with a striking

tion could have done. The picture of Epicurus himself is not less finely conceived, or brilliantly executed. The philosopher is represented to have been one,

Quem nec fama deûm, nec fulmina, nec minitanti "Murmure compressit cœlum."

but, who in despite of every thing that opposed him would proceed towards the attainment of truth; and for whom it was reserved, to lay open the mysteries of nature, and put an end to the reign of superstition. The reader of Lucretius cannot but remark and admire, the high strain of enthusiasm with which the Greek philosopher is always introduced; and how highly poetical, not to say sublime, is every passage that relates to him.

The short episode on the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis, that succeeds to the above description of Epicurus, does not less merit notice, though in a very different style of poetry. The fillet around the brow of the victim;-her father bending in sorrow over the altar;-the priests concealing the fatal blade from his view; the multitude around shedding tears at the sight;-Iphigenia herself sinking to the earth in a swoon; and the reflection, which succeeds, that just at the marriageable age, she was led to the altar, "non ut solenni more sacrorum,

Perfecto, claro posset comitari hymenæo❞— but that she might yield her life, the unfortunate victim of superstition ;-all these circumstances tend to render the picture more interesting and pathetic; and it is difficult to conceive any description of them, that could form one more so.

I shall offer no other observations on the poem itself, than these, which I have already made; not because there are not many passages in it equally deserving of notice, as those to which they relate; but that, whoever can be induced to read, and attend to the beauties of the first hundred lines of it, can hardly be supposed not to feel an inclination to read the rest of the work. If therefore any observations of mine, can have any effect in inducing those of my readers, who hitherto are but little acquainted with Lucretius, to become more so, those which I have made must be sufficient. It is worth while however, to make some remarks on a subject, respecting this writer, which has not that I know of been much attended to. Though to the world in general, he is much less known than he deserves to be, yet we have the strongest of proofs that his reputation has stood high with his brother poets, in this circumstance; that, with some of the most eminent of those who have

where he expresses his wish to be acquainted with the laws, which regulate the operations of nature; the Again we have in the Georgics, Lib. ii. v. 363 motions of the heavenly bodies; and the causes of earthquakes and tides; but in the prosecution of which enquiry he complains that his powers fail him; Virgil seems evidently to allude to Lucretius; and not only that, but to have confessed that he would willingly follow his footsteps, were he capable of doing so, when he adds

Amongst our own English poets there are none, We might quote several similar instances of pas-in whom there are such frequent imitations of Lucresages in Virgil, copied from passages in Lucretius;tius as in Virgil; several are nevertheless to be found we will however mention but a few from amongst the even in those, who are amongst the most eminent. number, which might be adduced. The former of This paper already exceeds the length that it was these poets, speaking of showers of rain, thus meta-intended to be of at its commencement; we will phorically expresses himself, in Georg. Lib. ii, v. 325. therefore be contented with noticing only two or three "Tum pater omnipotens, fœcundis imbribus, Ether of the most striking instances that our own poets -The fol "Conjugis in gremium lætæ descendit."afford, and then draw it to a conclusion.lowing from Dryden is very remarkable:

the art.

The injuries done to paintings by the accumulation of filth, had excited the industry of some of the chemists and artists in France to devise a method of removing it; and no little progress had been made in The acquisition of the fine paintings in Italy, most of which were very much obscured by filth and otherwise decayed, gave an additional motive to make new efforts to perfect the art of cleaning and restoring damaged or decayed pictures. The administration of the Museum, requested the minister of the Interior to recommend the affair to the National Institute. The class of physical and mathematical sciences appointed to this task Guyton and Bertholet, chemists; and the class of Literature and Fine Arts, Vincent and Taunay, painters. They have carried the art so far, that the painting, the canvass of which is decayed, or the pannel worm-eaten, may be transferred to a fresh cloth. We shall give, in what follows, the most important part of the report of these commissioners of the Institute.

fant Jesus, St. John, and several other figures of dif ferent sizes. It was painted on a pannel of 11⁄2 inches in thickness: a crack extended from the circumference to the left foot of the infant Jesus; it was 4 lines wide at its upper part, and diminished progressively to the under: from this crack to the right hand border, the surface formed a curve whose greatest bend was 2 inches 54 lines, and from the crack to the other border, another curve bending 2 inches. The picture was scaling off in several places, and a great number of scales had already detached themselves; the painting was, besides, worm-eaten in many

parts.

"It was first necessary to render the surface even: to effect this, a gauze was pasted on the painting, and the picture was turned on its surface. After that, Citizen Hacquins made, in the thickness of the wood, several grooves at some distance from each other, and extending from the upper extremity of the bend to the place where the pannel presented a more level surface. Into these grooves he introduced little wooden wedges; he then covered the whole surface with wet cloths, which he took care to remoisten. The action of the wedges, which swelled by the moisture against the softened pannel, compelled the latter to resume its primitive form: both edges of the crack before mentioned being brought together, the artist had recourse to glue, in order to unite the two separated parts. During the desiccation, he laid oak bars across the picture, for the purpose of keeping the pannel in the form which he wished it to assume.

"The desiccation being effected slowly, the artist applied a second gauze on the first, then successively two thicknesses of grey blotting paper.

"This preparation (which the French artists call cartonnage) being dry, he laid the picture with its face downward on a table, to which he carefully confined it; he next proceeded to the separation of the wood on which the painting was fixed.

:

:

"The first operation was executed by means of two saws, one of which acted perpendicularly; and the other horizontally the work of the two saws being terminated, the pannel was found to be reduced to the thickness of 4 lines. The artist then made use of a plane of a convex form on its breadth with this instrument he planed the pannel in an oblique direc tion, in order to take off very short shavings, and to avoid the grain of the wood: by these means he reduced the pannel to of a line in thickness. He then took a flat plane with a toothed iron, whose effect is much like that of a rasp which reduces wood into dust; in this manner he contrived to leave the pannel no thicker than a sheet of paper.

"The restoration may be divided into two parts; the one, which is composed of mechanical operations, whose object is to detach the painting from the ground on which it is fixed, in order to transfer it to a fresh one; the other, which consists in cleaning the surface of the painting from every thing that can tarnish it, in restoring the true colouring to the picture, and in repairing the parts destroyed, by tints skilfully blended with the primitive touches. Thence the distinctive division of the mechanical operation, and of the art of painting, which will be the object of the two parts of this report. The former particularly engaged the attention of the Commissioners of the class of Sciences; "In that state, the wood was successively moistand the latter, which required the habit of handlingened with clear water, in small compartments, which a scientific pencil, fell to the share of the commis-disposed it to detach itself: then the artist separated sioners of the class of Fine Arts.”

FIRST PART.

it with the rounded point of a knife-blade.

"The picture, thus deprived of all the wood, presented to the eye every symptom of the injury which it had sustained. It had formerly been repaired; and in order to fasten again the parts which threatened to fall off, recourse had been had to oils and varnishes. But those ingredients passing through the intervals left by such parts of the picture as were reduced to

3

f

curling scales, had been extended in the impression to the paste, on which the painting rested, and had rendered the real restoration more difficult, without producing the advantageous effect which had thence been expected.

"The same process would not serve for separating the parts of the impression which had been indurated by varnishes, and those where the paste had remained unmixed: it was necessary to moisten the former for some time in small compartments: when they were become sufficiently softened, the artist separated them with the blade of his knife: the others were more easily separated by moistening them with a flannel, and rubbing them slightly. It required all the address and patience of Citizen Hacquins to leave nothing foreign to the work of the original painter: at length the outline of Raphael was wholly exposed to view, and left by itself.

rated with a ground more durable than the original one, and guarded against the accidents which had produced the injuries. It was then subjected to restoration, which is the object of the second part of this report.

"We have been obliged to confine ourselves to pointing out the successive operations, the numerous details of which we have attended; we have endeavoured to give an idea of this interesting art, by which the productions of the pencil may be indefinitely perpetuated, in order only to state the grounds of the confidence that it has appeared to us to merit. SECOND PART.

"After having given an account of the mechanical operations, employed with so much success in the first part of the restoration of the picture by Raphael, it remains for us to speak of the second, the restoration of the painting, termed by the French artists "In order to restore a little suppleness to the paint-restauration pittoresque. This part is no less interesting, which was too much dried, it was rubbed all ing than the former. We are indebted to it for the over with carded cotton imbibed with oil, and wiped reparation of the ravages of time and of the ignorance with old muslin: then white lead, ground with oil, of men, who, from their unskilfulness, had still was substituted in the room of the impression made by added to the injury which this master-piece had alpaste, and fixed by means of a soft brush. ready suffered.

"After being left to dry for three months, a gauze was glued on the impression made by oil; and on the

latter, a fine canvas."

This essential part of the restoration of works of painting, requires, in those who are charged with it, a very delicate eye, in order to know how to accord "When this canvas was dry, the picture was dethe new tints with the old, a profound knowledge of tached from the table, and turned, in order to remove the proceedings employed by masters, and a long the cartonnage from it with water; this operation experience, in order to foresee, in the choice and use being effected, the next proceeding was to get rid of of colours, what changes time may effect in the new the appearance of the inequalities of the surface arising from the curling up of its parts; for that pur-would be the result of those changes. tints, and consequently prevent the discordance which pose, the artist successively applied on the inequalities flour-paste diluted. Then having put a greasy paper on the moistened part, he laid a hot iron on the parts curled up, which became level: but it was not till after he had employed the most unequivocal signs to ascertain the suitable degree of heat, that he ventured to come near the painting with the iron."

"It has been seen that the painting, disengaged from its impression made by paste and from every foreign substance, had been fixed on an impression made by oil, and that a level form had been given to the uneven parts of its surface. This master-piece was still to be solidly applied on a new ground: for that, it was necessary to paste paper over it again, detach it from the temporary gauze which had been put on the impression, add a new coat of oxyde of lead and oil, apply to it a gauze rendered very supple,

"The art of restoring paintings likewise requires the most scrupulous nicety to cover no other than the damaged parts, and an extraordinary address to match the work of the restoration with that of the master, and, as it were, replace the first priming in all its integrity, concealing the work to such a degree that from the hand of the artist from what belongs to that even an experienced eye cannot distinguish what comes of the master."

West rumb's Process for extracting upwards of 440 Quarts of best Brandy from 800 Pounds of Corn.* Take eight hundred to eight hundred and twenty pounds of corn, good weight, and make it sprout: for this purpose either pure wheat or rye may be employed, or add one-third of malted barley, and mix thein before they are ground.

and on the latter, in like manner done over with a preparation of lead, a raw cloth, woven all in one To form the first paste after the corn is ground, the piece, and impregnated, on its exterior surface, with water should not be hotter than 30° of Reaumur. If a resinous substance, which was to confine it to a that liquid contain carbonic acid it should be heated to ebullition, and afterwards suffered to cool to the similar canvas fixed on the stretching frame. This last operation required that the body of the picture, that acid, mix three parts of that liquid, when boildegree specified. When the water contains none of disengaged from its cartonnage, or paper facing, and furnished with a new ground, should be exactly ap-ing, with one part of cold water, and let it stand to plied to the cloth done over with resinous substances, at the same time avoiding every thing that might hurt it by a too strong or unequal extension, and yet compelling every part of its vast extent to adhere to the cloth strained on the stretching-frame. It is by all these proceedings that the picture has been incorpo

cool a few moments.

Take three parts of this water to two parts of ground corn, according to a measure corresponding to the weight, and mix the water well with the corn, to form an equal paste, free from lumps. In this manner the first distillation is begun

* From his Observation for the Use of Distillers.