idea that is erroneous, and not the artist's,-and whether the vehemence of Knox was not greater than his elevation.

It will be seen that the kind of qualification we have implied in our admiration of these two paintings, is less as to design, than as to detail; less as to impression, than as to expression; less as to degree, than as to character of excellence. It is said the English artists cannot paint historically. We wait for a moment to look at the other two pictures, ere we discuss this question, which is one of degree; for, undeniably, these two paintings prove that they can, and we will add (as bearing on the influence of engraving upon the art), that there are not two native historical paintings, that we are aware of, better than these.

But now in respect to the other two, we speak in terms of unqualified admiration and approval. Not that we consider there is a greater degree of artistic skill in them than in the others, but that the subjects more bring out the characteristic powers of the English school. In one sense they are all equal-in general excellence of painting; and where we are disposed to make a choice, it is the depth of emotion pourtrayed, and the intensity of feeling excited, which govern our selection, rather than the artistic skill employed. In one word, it is because in the two last the artists have chosen subjects better calculated to display their powers, than the others are deficient in those powers. This is what we endeavoured (perhaps rather obscurely) to express above, by saying, that we thought the difference more in detail than design. In design, the two first are superior,-they are more impressive, more striking; in execution there is more artistic power probably in their " John Knox," than in the two last; but in the "Hawking," less power is only more incontestably and indisputably exhibited; because it is thrown upon subjects on which the English pencil is more AT HOME, and therefore more triumphantly displays its power; and the "Only Daughter" comes more strongly over the heart than the " Coronation," though with not a tithe of its magnificent profusion of power, because the artist had a better field to manifest the power in which his school is unrivalled. To sum up all in a sentence, there have been many grander historical paintings than those two first-but among the old masters only; there have never been two finer paintings of their kind, than the two domestic pictures. And we arrive at the conclusion, that ours is the DOMESTIC SCHOOL. And this is what we meant by saying, that when the national taste was first excited for art, it would sooner influence the subjects, than the style. Subjects are within the scope of popular taste; style requires connoisseurship. The English character is homeliness. Its artists succeed most triumphantly in the home subjects. Few painters, ancient or modern, ever surpassed Landseer in the cherub loveliness of his children-(of course we except the imperishable immortality of colouring, which we fear

has gone from the art for ever)-nor excelled Wilkie, in deep-thinking intensity of domestic emotion. Oh, how could we describe that soul-striking, heart-harrowing painting of his! One gazes on it with breathless silence, as though the solemn stillness of the sick-room breathed from the picture. One looks from countenance to countenance of those four inmates of the suffering girl's chamber, as though to learn her fate; and the atmosphere of death seems to come over us as we look! And if a painting's excellence is to be measured by its power over the heart, to Wilkie's Only Daughter must be the palm awarded, among these four illustrious-we may say, we believe most illustrious-of the English paintings. His Knox, and Parris's Coronation, are great, grand, and as great and grander than his other and Landseer's; but these are UN

RIVALLED.

But will our historical school improve under the present engraving publishing system? It will-it must. A nation are the best formers of it: a people its best patrons. The age, indeed, for what perhaps is often understood exclusively by the term historical-the heroic, is gone by-the heroic, whether in painting or poetry. But understanding by the term, whatever gives an enduring existence to some event evolving human feeling and human passions, we think the historical school is gradually forming and rising, and that the tendency of the system adopted, of making the people patrons of painting, is to form and raise that school. The nation stamps its character on its arts,—a love for the homely, and domestic: as home is the best nurse of true genuine sentiment, it must beget a thorough truthfulness of feeling, the expression of which gives its power to the historical;—the historical, indeed, implies a degree of exaltation above the mere domestic; but elevation is gradual, especially in a national taste; and though the heroic will never re-appear, seeing the "heroic age" is fled; yet as the school improves, and the nation's taste rises, by the reciprocally elevating influence of each upon the other. Just as the public virtues are but expansions of the private, so are the attributes of the historic school elevations of the homely. Of all painting, pre-eminently so in the highest, expression is the soul: the power of expression varies and ascends with the style and nature of the imaginative conceptions: these are wrought upon, and influenced by the character of the national mind, and the nature of its impulses: as these become more and more elevated, the arts will rise with them; as they become grander, our painters will be greater; they will bring the powers of expression, which they now so triumphantly display in the homely school, to the formation of the historical; they already possess many of the requisite powers of composition and design. Conscious of ability they will take gradually a higher range of subjects; finding their expressive talent equalling their designing, they will at last from the domestic expand into the

dignified. Of both, the model is art's parent, nature; and slow and patient must be the successive touches which bring either to maturity. In the first, this has already been done, and the result is, success unrivalled. Let not our painters, in their haste to be grand, forget the secret of greatness, which in the more modest, we think scarcely less really elevated school, they have already discovered. Let it not be thought that there may not be a great homely in painting, as Wordsworth has immortally discovered in poetry. The arts, like the virtues, ascend; and by degrees, -from the common source of truth,—its basis, nature. The imagination, alike in poetry as in painting, has in the age we live, found its noblest triumphs in forsaking the fictitious for the real; actual life supplies it with its strongest and its finest food; in this course our artists must advance, though we hail not an heroic age; but human life will ever afford interest to human nature; and they will become greater in pursuing its track, than in vain endeavours to catch the spirit of a departed age. There is nothing like an illustration to convey one's meaning: we could point to the most striking painting, and the best historical in the exhibition this year- the "Banquet scene in Macbeth"; it is a great painting, but inferior to all the four we have mentioned— in what?-not in magnificent conception and grand design, but in power of expression;—and which of the four supplies the greatest contrast? The very one of which the subject is most homely-the Only Daughter-every countenance of which, and the whole air and appearance of the scene, is perfect; literally bursting with the most poignant intensity of truthfulness;—and why? because the artist had the full mastery of the chords he meant to strike, and the conclusion is irrefragable;-that the natural course is from the realities of the imaginative power, to its grander, wilder, and more heroic creations. There is in the anguish that pervades the Only Daughter, a thousand-fold more quiet silent sublimity, than in the horror of Macbeth, or the marble-heartedness of the queen in the other. Let English artists do what is in their power, and they will gradually acquire the ability to do what is their desire.

Literature, as art, if less directly, more intelligibly and widely reflects the character of the people. In the present age of knowledge diffusion, it is a language almost all can read, and its universality does away with its unity. In respect to the arts(we speak more particularly throughout of painting and engraving conjoined)-even when as widely influential as at present, the circle they influence is so much more restricted than that which in some mode or other owns the sway of literature, that have more of uniformity, a consistency, a oneness of character, and form something like a general school. Art (in this country) is literature's younger sister; her votaries are not so numerous, the priests that minister at her shrine are fewer, and have more of distinctive

ness about them as a class. To speak plainly, artists and their styles are less numerous, far than authors, whose endless diversity of works is but a type and representation of what it necessarily corresponds to the endless diversity of literary taste. We know not whether, when the arts shall have gained as wide a sway, their varieties may not be as numerous. At present, as literally the nation (with but one exception of the very lowest orders; and the march of knowledge is fast spreading among the most ignorant of them, and will soon we trust leave no ignorance among them,) are a nation of readers; whereas it is only figuratively-(and in reality only a portion of them,) that the nation can now be said to be lovers of art. Every class, every grade in society, has its school of literature. Literature in this age as faithfully reflects the motley and the changing conformation of the national character, as does a placid stream the various and the ever-varying clouds of heaven's firmament.

But it is only works that bear upon, or are connected in some way with the imaginative faculties, that materially reflect or influence the national character. And we cannot help observing, that we think literature more reflects than influences that character is not so much the offspring, as the parent-differing therein from the art of painting, and the art of multiplying paintingsas their combination, has now created, the system of which we have been speaking. It may be doubted whether we have not incorrectly narrowed the circle within which literature may be taken as the test, or as the type of the people's character, by rerestricting it to imaginative works. But that, if an error at all, will be found to be the error of too wide an interpretation given by us to the term imagination, and the too large sphere thereby ascribed by us to its influence. If, however, the subject is examined, we do not think it can be denied that the range which the imaginative faculties really take, is far more extensive than is frequently or commonly fancied. The general idea is, we are aware, a most unfounded one, and which is gradually passing away (with the perversions of those faculties that gave rise to it), that imaginative works are works of fiction; in other words, that imagination can have nought with realities. We glanced, in our preceding remarks, on the vast value, alike in art and literature, of building on the real, and we shall see it as strongly, if not more strongly, in the latter, if as in the former case that consideration must be superficial, which fails not to discover, that of all which mere learning or science supplies, nothing, till worked upon and imbibed by the imagination, will be really imbued into the mind and identified with character. We know not, indeed, whether literature includes works of mere science or mere learning for, under those heads, we think whatever is discovered, is to be classified with the sciences they belong to, whether it be of grammar or geology, physic or philology. The moment you

leave the boundaries of utterly dry learning, you arrive directly or indirectly at the imaginative. Before reaching that point, all is of facts; and facts, though they may, when woven together and abstracted from particulars into generals, from details into principles, be constructed into system, they only form knowledge still, and knowledge of itself, is cold, dry, barren, lifeless, valueless-the body without the soul. Science even, withall its grand discoveries and noble truths, is, when left to cold and isolated demonstration, but a naked skeleton, on whose framework, majestic though may be its proportions, nought of sensation or life will exist, till imagination has thrown upon it the warmth of her vitality. And how is this? We give our answer in language nobler and truer than ever yet hath been employed on the subject; and if immortal Wordsworth had written nothing beyond the prefaces to his poems, the heritage to society would have been a valuable one:

"The knowledge both of the poet and the man of science is pleasure ; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence our natural and invaluable inheritance: the other is a personal and individual acquisition-slow to come by us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy, connecting us with our fellow beings. The man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor-he cherishes and loves it in his solitude. The poet singing a song, in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth, as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge: it is the impassioned expression in the countenance of all science: it is the first and last of knowledge: it is as immortal as the heart of man."

Now undoubtedly this is not an authority for the whole of the principle which is implied, in what we are arguing; that without the imaginative faculties, nought of the knowledge which man can attain unto will be so engrafted into his mind and feelings, as to be incorporated with the elements of his moral nature, and to become ingredients in his character. For mere acquisition of knowledge is but collecting materials: on how they are dealt with and operated upon, depends their effect and influence. Memory is a storehouse-but a storehouse only; and imagination "digs from its mine the useless ore, and stamps it with a diadem," acts upon all that memory presents-operates by its own agencies on the awakened elements-evolves its own creations-educes its own shapes-transmutes through its own medium-and transfers into its own currents. Wordsworth, in the passage just quoted, speaks of a poet; but in the description he elsewhere gives of the attributes of a poet, we think imagination occupies the principal and mainly distinctive quality. How intimately blended the imagination is with all that savours of vitality in knowledgewith all that brings it into contact with human ideas; whence arise those trains of human feelings, and habits of human association, which make up the distinctiveness of moral conformations, and all the individuality of character, we will attempt to show