claim I had to such a distinction. The advantage, however, of having visited the National Gallery before will enable me to make a few observations that may not be useless to the reader who is a stranger to the place. With upright intentions and kindly feeling, a very little knowledge may be turned to a good account.

There are those who, catalogue in hand, can go through a picture gallery in a straightforward way, beginning at number one, and proceeding without omission to the end; but my pleasure is doubled in feeling at liberty to rove where I list, to wander as freely as I would in a flower garden. I am now opposite Hogarth's pictures of Marriage à la Mode. Hogarth has been called a moralist among painters, aiming, by his productions, to rebuke and benefit mankind; but good and evil are too often blended together. In the six paintings before me, great skill is conspicuous, and the lesson, that a course of profligacy leads to ruin and destruction, is strikingly set forth ; but the pencil of Hogarth, like that of many other painters, was not so chaste as a Christian spectator might desire, though in the series before me it has evidently been under stricter control than ordinary. It would be a difficult task to draw a boundary line for a painter not to pass, and a certain degree of freedom must be permitted, perhaps, to the pencil; but, with every desire to avoid prudery and hypercritical remarks, it seems

H

to me, that, in a picture where the artist's object is a moral one, the very appearance of evil, if not necessary to point the moral, should be avoided. It is an adage, that

"Vice to be hated needs but to be seen."

But this adage is too frequently misunderstood. When vice is seen in connexion with all its degradation, sinfulness, and punishment, it may be hated; but when seen in an alluring shape, without these accessaries, no hatred is excited by its representation.

This is the celebrated picture of the raising of Lazarus, painted by Sebastian del Piombo-the most valuable in the whole collection. Though painted by Sebastian, it was designed by Michael Angelo, who, it is thought, in his impatience to see his vivid conception embodied, snatched the pencil from the hand of Sebastian, and, in a kind of impetuous enthusiasm, dashed on the canvass the admirable figure of Lazarus, leaving untouched the remainder of the group.

How little can we understand the feelings of those who are influenced by emotions we have never experienced ! The enthusiasm of the painter, and the fervour, and almost frenzy of the musician and poet, are perfectly unintelligible to those who are strangers to the power of music, painting, and poetry.

For this picture, it is said, Napoleon Buonaparte

offered the sum of ten thousand guineas, which was refused. Its worth has been estimated at fifteen thousand; but the value of paintings is frequently nominal, and especially in cases where there is no desire to part with them.

This picture, though by no means a pleasing one it its general character, has in it some splendid painting, independent of the figure of Lazarus; and the Christian spectator will not fail, while he gazes on the shadowy representation, to ponder also on the reality of the miracle performed by our Saviour, of raising the dead to life. See how impatient Lazarus is to get rid of his grave-clothes! while his hand is putting off a part of them, one of his feet is busy too, in stripping from his legs the bandage with which they are bound. How sublime and simple is the New Testament record of this miracle! when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go," John xi. 43, 44.

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"And

And am I really gazing on a portrait by Raphael, the first of portrait painters ? Yes. Between three and four hundred years ago, the eye of Raphael, now turned to dust, was lighted up with enthusiasm; and his hand, now mingled with the clay, was actively employed in painting

this portrait of Pope Julius 11. Julius was the patron of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and a libcral supporter of literature and the fine arts; but perhaps this picture, even more than all the actions he ever performed, has contributed to hand down his name to posterity.

The pictures by Parmegiano, Annibale and Ludovico Caracci, Guido, Correggio, Dominichino, Gaspar and Nicholas Poussin, Both, Paulo Veronese, Salvator Rosa, and Rembrandt, are highly valued. I remember once reading an anecdote of the latter artist, wherein it was asserted, that on a certain occasion he used his colours so freely in painting a portrait, that the painted nose stood almost as high above the canvass as the real nose did on the face of the person whose portrait he was painting.

The visitor of the gallery must pause on the paintings of Vandyke, Teniers, and Cuyp; nor hastily pass those of Wilson, Gainsborough, and Copley, though of a more modern date. The varied excellencies of their different styles will excite pleasure, and call forth a disposition to compare one master with another.

There are, in the gallery, nine or ten pictures of Claude de Lorraine, a costly group, most of them of the highest excellence. One of them represents the halting of Rebecca and her attendants, awaiting the arrival of Isaac. The best judges of Claude are the loudest in his praise.

The general warmth, the sunny glow, that pervades many of the paintings of this accomplished master, is truly astonishing. Claude, thou wert, indeed, a painter !

The vigour and vivid colouring of some of the pictures of Rubens are also wonderful. There is so much of bloom upon the flesh, so much of breathing life and buoyant spirit imparted to the figures, that we seem to be holding communion with the living rather than with the dead.

The painter's pencil with his ardour glows.
And life and spirit on the canvass throws.

The olden masters have an excellent auxiliary in father Time, for he mellows their dazzling colours, harmonizes their strengthy lights and shades, and imparts a richness, a tone, and a finish, that a modern painting cannot possess. The eye sees less in many old pictures than the mind feels in gazing on them.

There is much to be seen here besides the paintings. Groups of living beings, visitors full of character and originality. Three sailors have just walked in with blue jackets. There! I

have hit off a sketch of one of them-a veteran, in a canvass hat, as he now sits, with one leg flung across the other, looking as independent as a lord. He is gazing on the Holy Family, by Murillo. Well, a tough sailor has some tender touches of feeling in his heart, and that painting