THIS palace is a very magnificent one, and, we think, has been undeservedly neglected. It is Dutchbuilt, of handsome red brick, and belongs to a class of houses, the taste for which appears to have been naturalised in this country along with the happy introduction of the Houses of Orange and Hanover. The approach to it through BushyPark is delightful, inspiriting at this time of year; and the gardens about it, with their close-clipped holly hedges and arbours of evergreen, look an artificial summer all the year round. The statues that are interspersed do not freeze in winter, and are cool and classical in the warmer seasons. The Toy-Inn stands opportunely at the entrance, to invite the feet of those who are tired of an unintentional walk from Brentford or Kew, or oppressed with thought and wonder after seeing the Cartoons.

Besides these last, however, there are several fine pictures here. We shall pass over the Knellers, the Verrios, and the different portraits of the Royal Family, and come at once to the Nine Muses, by Tintoret. Or rather, his Nine Muses are summed up in one, the back-figure in the right-hand corner as you look at the picture, which is all grandeur, elegance, and grace. We should think that in the gusto of form and a noble freedom of outline, Michael Angelo could hardly have surpassed this figure. The face too, which is half turned round, is charmingly hand

some.

The back, the shoulders, the legs, are the perfection of bold delicacy, expanded into full-blown luxuriance, and then retiring as it were from their own proud beauty and conscious charms into soft and airy loveliness

Fine by degrees, and beautifully less. Is it a Muse? Or is it not a figure formed for action more than contemplation? Perhaps this hypercritical objection may be true; and it might without any change of character or impropriety be supposed, from its buoyancy, its ease, and sinewy elas

ticity, to represent the quivered Goddess shaping her bow for the chase. But, at any rate, it is the figure of a Goddess, or of a woman in shape equal to a Goddess. The colour is nearly gone, so that it has almost the tone of a black and white chalk drawing; and the effect of form remains pure and unrivalled. There are several other very pleasing and ably-drawn figures in the group, but they are eclipsed in the superior splendour of this one. So far the composition is faulty, for its balance is destroyed; and there are certain critics who could probably maintain that the picture would be better, if this capital excellence in it had been deliberately left out: the picture would, indeed, have been more according to rule, and to the taste of those who judge, feel, and see by rule only! Among the portraits which are curious, is one of Baccio Bandinelli, with his emblems and implements of sculpture about him, said to be by Correggio. We cannot pretend to give an opinion on this point; but it is a studious, powerful, and elaborately painted head. We find the name of Titian attached to two or three portraits in the Collection. There is one very fine one of a young man in black, with a black head of hair, the face seen in a three-quarter view, and the dark piercing eye, full of subtle meaning, looking round at you; which is probably by Titian, but certainly not (as it is pretended) of himself. It has not the aquiline cast of features by which his own portraits are obviously distinguished. We have seen a print of this picture, in which it is said to be done for Ignatius Loyola. The portrait of a lady with green and white purfled sleeves (like the leaves and flower of the water-lily, and as clear!) is admirable. It was in the Pall-Mall exhibition of the Old Masters a short time back; and is by Sebastian del Piombo. The care of the painting, the natural ease of the attitude, and the steady, sensible, conversable look of the countenance, place this in a class of pictures, which one feels a

wish to have always by one to refer to, whenever there is a want of thought, or a flaw in the temper, that requires filling up or setting to rights by some agreeable and at the same time not over-exciting object. There are several soi-disant Parmegianos; one or two good Bassans; a BattlePiece set down to Julio Romano; a coloured drawing (in one corner of a room) of a Nymph and Satyr (very fine); and some of Polemberg's little disagreeable pictures of the same subject, in which the Satyrs look like paltry bits of terra cotta, and the Nymphs like glazed China-ware. We have a prejudice against Polemberg, which is a rare thing with us!

The Cartoons occupy a room by themselves-there are not many such rooms in the world. All other pictures look like oil and varnish to these we are stopped and attracted by the colouring, the pencilling, the finishing, or the want of it, that is, by the instrumentalities of the art but here the painter seems to have flung his mind upon the canvas; his thoughts, his great ideas alone prevail; there is nothing between us and the subject; we look through a frame, and see scripture-histories, and are made actual spectators of miraculous events. Not to speak it profanely, they are a sort of revelation of the subjects of which they treat; there is an ease and freedom of manner about them, which brings preternatural characters and situations home to us, with the familiarity of common every-day occurrences; and while the figures fill, raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the painter nothing. The Cartoons are unique productions in the art. They are mere intellectual, or rather visible abstractions of truth and nature. Every where else we see the means; here we arrive at the end apparently without any means. There is a Spirit at work in the divine creation before us. We are unconscious of any details, of any steps taken, of any progress made; we are aware only of comprehensive results, of whole masses and figures. The sense of power supersedes the appearance of effort. It is like a waking dream, vivid, but undistinguishable in member, joint, or limb; or it is as if we had ourselves

seen the persons and things at some former period of our being, and that the drawing certain dotted lines upon coarse paper, by some unknown spell, brought back the entire and living images, and made them pass before us, palpable to thought, to feeling, and to sight. Perhaps not all is owing to genius: something of this effect may be ascribed to the simplicity of the vehicle employed in embodying the story, and something to the decayed and dilapidated state of the pictures themselves. They are the more majestic for being in ruin: we are struck chiefly with the truth of proportion, and the range of conception: all the petty, meretricious part of the art is dead in them; the carnal is made spiritual, the corruptible has put on incorruption; and, amidst the wreck of colour, and the mouldering of material beauty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, and the broad, imminent shadows of " calm contemplation; and majestic pains!"

The first in order is the Death of Ananias; and it is one of the noblest of these noble designs. The effect is striking; and the contrast between the stedfast, commanding attitude of the Apostles, and the convulsed and prostrate figure of Ananias on the floor, is finely imagined. It is much as if a group of persons on shore stood to witness the wreck of life and hope on the rocks and quicksands beneath them. The abruptness and severity of the transition are, however, broken and relieved by the other human interests in the picture. The Ananias is a masterly, a stupendous figure. The attitude, the drawing, the expression, the ease, the force, are alike wonderful. He falls so naturally, that it seems as if a person could fall in no other way; and yet of all the ways in which a human figure could fall, it is probably the most expressive of a person overwhelmed by and in the grasp of Divine vengeance. This is in some measure, we apprehend, the secret of Raphael's success. Most painters, in studying an attitude, puzzle themselves to find out what will be picturesque, and what will be fine, and never discover it: Raphael only thought how a person would stand or fall naturally in such or such circumstances, and the pic

turesque and the fine followed as matters of course. Hence the unaffected force and dignity of his style, which are only another name for truth and nature under impressive and momentous circumstances. The distraction of the face, the inclination of the head on one side, are as fine as possible, and the agony is just verging to that point, in which it is relieved by death. The expression of ghastly wonder in the features of the man on the floor next him is also remarkable; and the mingled beauty, grief, and horror in the female head behind can never be enough admired or extolled. The pain, the sudden and violent contraction of the muscles, is as intense as if a sharp instrument had been driven into the forehead, and yet the same sweetness triumphs there as ever, the most perfect self-command and dignity of demeanour. We would hazard a conjecture that this is what forms the great distinction between the natural style of Raphael and the natural style of Hogarth. Both are equally intense; but the one is intense littleness, meanness, vulgarity; the other is intense grandeur, refinement, and sublimity. In the one we see common, or sometimes uncommon and painful, circumstances acting with all their force on narrow minds and deformed bodies, and bringing out distorted and violent efforts at expression; in the other we see noble forms and lofty characters contending with adverse, or co-operating with powerful impressions from without, and imparting their own unaltered grace, and habitual composure to them. In Hogarth, generally, the face is excited and torn in pieces by some paltry interest of its own; in Raphael, on the contrary, it is expanded and ennobled by the contemplation of some event or object highly interesting in itself; that is to say, the passion in the one is intellectual and abstracted; the passion in the other is petty, selfish, and confined. We have not thought it beneath the dignity of the subject to make this comparison between two of the most extraordinary and highly gifted persons that the world ever saw. If Raphael had seen Hogarth's pictures, he would not have despised them. Those only can do it (and they are welcome!) who,

wanting all that he had, can do nothing that he could not, or that they themselves pretend to accomplish by affectation and bombast.

Elymas the Sorcerer stands next in order, and is equal in merit. There is a Roman sternness and severity in the general look of the scene. The figure of the Apostle, who is inflicting the punishment of blindness on the impostor, is grand, commanding, full of ease and dignity: and the figure of Elymas is blind all over, and is muffled up in its clothes from head to foot. A story is told of Mr. Garrick's objecting to the natural effect of the action, in the hearing of the late Mr. West, who, in vindication of the painter, requested the celebrated comedian to close his eyes and walk across the room, when he instantly stretched out his hands, and began to grope his way with the exact attitude and expression of this noble study. It may be worth remarking here, that this great painter and fine observer of human nature has represented the magician with a hard iron visage, and strong uncouth figure, made up of bones and muscles, as one not troubled with weak nerves, nor to be diverted from his purpose by idle scruples, as one who repelled all sympathy with others, who was not to be moved a jot by their censures or prejudices against him, and who could break with ease through the cobweb snares which he laid for the credulity of mankind, without being once entangled in his own delusions. His outward form betrays the hard, unimaginative, self-willed understanding of the Sorcerer.-There is a head (a profile) coming in on one side of the picture, which we would point out to our readers as one of the most finely relieved, and best preserved, in this series. The face of Elymas, and some others in the picture, have been a good deal hurt by time and illtreatment. There is a snuffy look under the nose, as if the water-colour had been washed away in some damp lumber-room, or unsheltered out-house. The Cartoons have felt "the season's difference," been exposed to wind and rain, tossed about from place to place, and cut down by profane hands to fit them to one of their abodes; so that it is altogether wonderful, that "through their

looped and tattered wretchedness," any traces are seen of their original splendour and beauty. That they are greatly changed from what they were even a hundred years ago, is evident from the heads in the Bodleian library at Oxford, which were cut out from one of them that was nearly destroyed by some accident, and from the large French engravings of single heads, done about the same time, which are as finished and correct as possible. Even Sir James Thornhill's copies bear testimony to the same effect. Though without the spirit of the originals, they have fewer blots and blotches in them, from having been better taken care of. A skeleton is barely left of the Cartoons: but the mighty relics, like the bones of the Mammoth, tell us what the entire and living fabric must have been!

In the Gate Beautiful there is a profusion of what is fine, and of imposing contrasts. The twisted pillars have been found fault with; but there they stand, and will forever stand to answer all cavillers with their wreathed beauty. The St. John in this Cartoon is an instance of what we have above hinted as to the ravages of time on these pictures. In the old French engraving (half the size of life) the features are exceedingly marked and beautiful, whereas they are here in a great measure defaced; and the hair, which is at present a mere clotted mass, is woven into graceful and waving curls,

Like to those hanging locks
Of young Apollo.

Great inroads have been made on the delicate outline of the other parts, and the surface has been generally injured. The Beggars are as fine as ever they do not lose by the squalid condition of their garb or features, but remain patriarchs of poverty, and mighty in disease and infirmity, as if they crawled and grovelled on the pavement of Heaven. They are lifted above this world! The child carrying the doves at his back is an exquisite example of grace, and innocence, and buoyant motion; and the face and figure of the young woman directly over him give a glad welcome to the eye in their

fresh, unimpaired, and radiant sweetness and joy. This head seems to have been spared from the unhallowed touch of injury, like a little isle or circlet of beauty. It was guarded, we may suppose, by its own heavenly, feminine look of smiling loveliness. There is another very fine female head on the opposite side of the picture, of a graver cast, looking down, and nearly in profile. The only part of this Cartoon that we object to, or should be for turning out, is the lubberly naked figure of a boy close to one of the pillars, who seems to have no sort of business there, and is an obvious eye-sore.

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is admirable for the clearness and prominence of the figures, for the vigorous marking of the muscles, for the fine expression of devout emotion in the St. Peter, and for the calm dignity in the attitude, and the divine benignity in the countenance of the Christ. Perhaps this head expresses more than any other that ever was attempted, the blended meekness, benevolence, and sublimity, in the character of our Saviour. The whole figure is so still, so easy, it almost floats in air, and seems to sustain the boat by the secret sense of power. We shall not attempt to make a formal reply to the old objection to the diminutive size of the boats, but we confess it seems to us to enhance the value of the miracle. Their load swells proportionably with it, and the waves conspire to bear them up. The storks on the shore are not the least animated or elevated part of the picture; they exult in the display of divine power, and share in the prodigality of the occasion.

The Sacrifice at Lystra has the marks of Raphael's hand on every part of it. You see and almost hear what is passing. What a pleasing relief to the turbulent, busy scene, are the two children piping at the altar! How finely, how unexpectedly, but naturally, that innocent, rustic head of a girl comes in over the grave countenances and weighty thoughtful heads of the group of attendant priests! The animals brought to be sacrificed are equally fine in the expression of terror, and the action of resistance to the rude force by which they are dragged along.

A great deal has been said and written on the St. Paul preaching at Athens. The features of excellence in this composition are indeed so bold and striking as hardly to be mistaken. The abrupt figure of St. Paul, his hands raised in that fervent appeal to him who" dwelleth not in temples made with hands," such as are seen in gorgeous splendour all around, the circle of his auditors, the noble and pointed diversity of heads, the one wrapped in thought and in its cowl, another resting on a crutch and earnestly scanning the face of the Apostle rather than his doctrine, the careless attention of the Epicurean philosopher, the fine young heads of the disciples of the Porch or the Academy, the clenched fist and eager curiosity of the man in front as if he was drinking sounds, give this picture a superiority over all the others for popular and intelligible effect. We do not think that it is therefore the best; but it is the easiest to describe and to remember.

The Giving of the Keys is the last of them: it is at present at SomersetHouse. There is no set purpose here, no studied contrasts: but it is an

aggregation of grandeur and high feeling. The disciples gather round Christ, like a flock of sheep listening to some divine shepherd. The figure of their master is sublime: his countenance and attitude "in act_to speak." The landscape is also fine and of a soothing character. Every thing falls into its place in these pictures. The figures seem to stop just where their business and feelings bring them: not a fold in the draperies can be disposed for the better or otherwise than it is.

It would be in vain to enumerate the particular figures, or to explain the story of works so well known: what we have aimed at has been to show the spirit that breathes through them, and we shall count ourselves fortunate, if we have not sullied them with our words. We do not care about some works; but these were sacred to our imaginations, and we should be sorry indeed to have profaned them by description or criticism. We have hurried through our unavoidable task with fear, and look back to it în doubt.

W. H.

Benhall, March 31, 1823.