In correcting the miftaken, becaufe often fecond-hand opinions of the old work, Mr. Fufeli has uniformly paid much attention to the real character of the artift. Of this we might give abundance of examples, but it cannot be neceffary to be prolix in our extracts from a work which will foon probably be in general circulation. Of leffer inftances, we may notice, that where Pilkington in the life of Gafpar de Crayer, fays, "he had fomewhat lefs fire in his compofition than Rubens, but his defign is frequently more correct," Mr. Fufeli fubjoins, "Let not this high ftrain of commendation feduce the reader to imagine that Crayer was a painter of the fame rank with Rubens. If he was more equal, the reason lay in his inferiority. Rubens had the flights, the falls, and the neglects of genius. Crayer fteered a middle course, and preferved dignity by caution." When it is remarked that Denner finnished fome portraits fo minutely, that even the pores of the skin are vifible. Mr. Fufeli adds, that "Denner was born to be a fac-fimilift, not a painter. With the most anxious tranfcription of parts, he miffed the whole, and that air of life which is the refult of imitation." In the article of Holbein, Mr. Pilkington gives the Abbe du Bos's remarks on the altar piece at Bafle, painted by Holbein, and endeavours to answer them. Mr. Fufeli's note upon this is,

"Mr. Pilkington difputes about a golden tooth: there is no altar piece of Holbein at Bafle: an admirable figure of a dead man, not indeed of a Saviour, painted on pannel, is preserved there in the public library, and has been miferably engraved by Mechel, who has likewife given a feries of engravings from the original defigns of our Saviour's paffion, formerly in the poffeffion of Rubens, now in that of W. Y. Ottley. From these, and the celebrated death's-dance, chiefly known from the wood-prints published by Frellon at Lyons, we ought to form our estimate of Holbein's hiftoric powers, which he had no opportunity of fhewing in England. Holbein's title to this death's-dance would not have been called in queftion, had the ingenious author of the differtation written on that fubject, been acquainted with the German edition. It is likewife to be obferved, that the death'sdance at Bafle, engraved by Matthew Merian, is a work much older than Holbein's, perhaps of the time of our Henry IV. and towards the end of the fixteenth century, has been retouched by Hugh Glauber."

The article of Rembrandt, written by Pilkington, is long and well-compiled, but totally eclipfed by the following brilliant eulogy which Mr. Fufeli has fubjoined in a note.

"Rembrandt Van Ryn was a meteor in art. Difdaining to ac

know.

knowledge the ufual laws of admiffion to the temple of fame, he boldly forged his own keys, entered and took poffeffion of a moft confpicuous place by his own power. He was undoubtedly a genius of the first clafs in whatever is not immediately related to form or tafte. In fpite of the moft portentous deformity, and without confidering the fpell of his chiaro-fcuro, fuch were his powers of nature, fuch the grandeur, pathos, or fimplicity of his compofition, from the moft elevated or extenfive arrangement to the meaneft or moft homely, that the most untutored and the beft cultivated eye, plain common fenfe and the most refined sensibility, dwell on them equally enthralled. Shakespeare alone excepted, no one combined with fo much tranfcendent excellence fo many in all other men unpardonable faults, and reconciled us to them. He poffefled the full empire of light and fhade, and of all the tints that float between them. He tinged his pencil with equal fuccefs in the cool of dawn, in the noon-tide ray, in the vivid flash, in evanefcent twilight, and rendered darkness vifible. Though made to bend a ftedfaft eye on the bolder phænomena of nature, yet he knew how to follow her into the calmeft abodes, gave intereft to infipidity or baldnefs, and plucked a flower in every defart. Few like Rembrandt kucw to improve an accident into beauty, or give importance to a trifle. If ever he had a master he had no followers; Holland was not made to comprehend his power: the fucceeding fchool confifted of colourifts content to tip the cottage, the hamlet, the boor, the ale-ot, the fhambles, and the haze of winter, with orient hues, or the glow of fetting fummer funs. F." P. 435

The reader will be gratified with criticifms equally striking and original en Tintoretto, Rubens, Raffaello, Titian, and Domenichino. On thefe great mafters Mr. F. has collected his whole force of ftyle, which is rich, various, and in unifon with the fubject. Sometimes, indeed, it appears harfh, the idioms unufual, and the fearch for novelty too obvious, yet we hnow not any writer of late years who has enriched pictorial criticifm with terms more happily and ftrikingly appropriate.

In noticing modern artifls, particularly thofe of our own country, Mr. Fufeli, we fufpect, will be found to differ from many of their furviving admirers, and we fhall not conceal, that in fome refpects, we have been accustomed to hold a more favourable opinion. We fhall, however, without farther comment, extract his articles of Gainfborough, Mortimer, and Romney.

Gainsborough. Landscape,

Portrait. Died

1788, aged 61.-He was born in 1727, and very early

difcovered

"Neither the limits nor the defign of this work permitted

the

difcovered a propenfity to painting. Nature was his teacher, and the woods of Suffolk his academy. Here he would pafs in folitude his mornings, in making a sketch of an antiquated tree, a marshy brook, a few cattle, a fhepherd and his flock, or any other accidental objects that were prefented. From delineation he got to colouring; and after painting feveral, landscapes from the age of ten to twelve, he quitted Sudbury (his,. native place), and came to London, where he commenced por trait-painter. His portraits will pafs to futurity with a repu tation equal to that which follows the pictures of Vandyck; and his landfcaps will eftablish his name on the record of the fine arts with honcurs fuch as never before attended a native of this ifle. Thefe fubjects he painted with a faithful adherence to nature; and it is to be noticed, that they are more in approach to the landfcapes of Rubens than to thofe of any other matter. At the fame time we must remark, his trees, fore-ground, and figures, have more force and fpirit: and we may add, the brilliancy of Claude, and the fimplicity of Ruyfdael, appear combined in Mr. Gainsborough's romantic fcenes. While we lament him as an artist, let us not pafs over thofe virtues which were an ho nour to human nature, that generous heart, whofe ftrongest propenfities were to relieve the genuine claims of poverty. If he felected, for the exercife of his pencil, an infant from a cottage, all the tenants of the humble roof generally participated in the profits of the picture; and fome of them frequently found in his habitation a permanent abode. His liberality was not confined to this alone needy relatives and unfortunate friends were further incumbrances on a spirit that could not deny; and owing to this generofity of temper, that affluence was not left to his family which fo much merit might promife, and fuch real worth deferve." P. 206.

"John Hamilton Mortimer. Hiftory, Landscape, Portrait, &c. Died 1779, aged 38.-Mortimer was born at Eaft-bourne in the county of Suffex. He learned to paint under Hudson, and to draw at the Duke of Richmond's gallery. He painted at a very early period a large picture of the Converfion of the Britons by St. Paul, which is now placed over the altar at the church of Chipping-Wycombe. He lived partly in London, partly at

the infertion of the prolix extract tacked to his life, by the writer of the Supplement. The difcourfes of Reynolds, are, or ought to be, in the hands of every student or dilettante of this country. Of the account itfelf not a word has been altered, though it be fcarcely on this fide of idolatry.' Pofterity will decide whether the name of Gainsborough deferves to be ranked with thofe of Vandyck, Rubens, and Claude, in portrait and in Landscape. F."

Aylesbury,

Aylesbury, in Bucks, employed in painting or etching his degns, but died in the vigour of life.

"In the prolix account of Mortimer, as an artist and a man, inferted in the Supplement to the former edition of this work, it is faid that His knowledge of anatomy was fuch, that at any time,

to amufe his friends, he would draw with a common pen and ink, ⚫ and with the most critical exactnefs, the human skeleton in any ⚫ attitude; and afterwards with a different coloured ink, clothe it with muscles; and that every object in nature impressed itfelf fo ftrongly on his imagination, that he never used nor had ⚫ occafion for an archetype, and that he rivalled nature in every department of imitation from his imagination only. The fame writer further adds, that he formed himfelf on the antique, and that by a judicious union of its ideal with his obfervations on living nature, he gave fuch noblenefs, truth, and inexhauftible vivacity to the countenances of his figures, that in all his numerous paintings and drawings there never appeared two that were not different."

"If this ftrain of affertions would be scarcely allowable were it applied to the powers of Raphael, or Michelangiolo himself, ir muft provoke our merriment or indignation, to find it lavished on capacities far inferior to thofe of Pietro Tefta or Salvator Rofa. It is difficult to fay what He would have excelled in at a more advanced period, who was unrivalled in nothing at the meridian of his powers.' The ftyle of Mortimer's defign was neither ideal, nor that of genial [general] nature, though he was not deficient in anatomical knowledge, and had ftudied or at leaft copied the antique. On his colour no encomiat of his ever chofe to dwell long and if it be allowed fomething of a negative character, it is furely as much as it can pretend to. The verfatility which he poffeffed is feldom a companion of genius, nor will it fereen him from the imputation of manner. He grouped rather than compofed, and from any claim to expreffion, the heads which he etched on a confiderable fcale, of fome of Shakespeare's most celebrated characters, muft exclude him whilft they laft, Mortimer was the Hayman riformato' of his day. F." P.350.

"" George Romney. Portrait, Hiftory. Died 1802, aged 68.— George Romney, who for a confiderable time engroffed much of public attention in this metropolis as a portrait-painter, was the fon of a cabinet-maker at Dalton, in the county of Lancaster ; where, after a long ftruggle with neceffity and unfavourable cir cumstances, he at laft gave way to his favourite paffion, and commenced painter. His own talent and obftinate perfeverance, more than the random leffons of the dauber to whom he had been bound, procured him in time that fuccefs in the country which encouraged him to try his fortune in London, where he fettled in 1762, and entered on a courfe of promifcuous practice in history and portrait, "In 1764 he went to Paris, and after an interval of fome years,

vifited

vifited Italy in company with Ozias Humphrey, one of the most eminent miniature-painters of the time. His refidence at Rome was diftinguished by affiduous and folitary study, and at his return he feemed inclined to devote himfelf entirely to hiftoric painting; but the opinion of his friends, his own fears, and the taste of the public, foon determined him to abandon that purfuit, and the unprofitable vifions of Michelangiolo and Shakspeare foon gave way to the more fubftantial allurements of portrait, his rooms were now thronged with Nobles, Squires, Minifters, the Elegantes, the Belles and Literati of the day, and he divided the tributes of fashion with Gainsborough and Reynolds: hiftory, if not abfo lutely abandoned was referved for that diftant moment when fatiety of gain fhould yield to the pure defire of glory, a moment which never came. Exhaufted by a long courfe of obftinate application, reduced to unavailing wishes, weak and opulent, he retired to Kendal in 1799, and died in a state of languor at the clofe of the year 1802.

"To Romney as a portrait-painter the public have bore [borne] ample teftimony; he was made for the times and the times for him. If he had not genius to lead, he had too much originality to follow, and whenever he chofe was nearer to the first than to the last of his competitors. Practice had given him a rapidity of execution, and nature an eye fufficiently juft for form and not ungenial for colour. His women have often naivété, fometimes elegance with an artless bloom and freshness of tint. His men in general havemore fpirit than dignity, and more of pretence than reality of character. When he attempts to produce effects by oppofition of colour without deeided maffes of light and fhade, he is not always happy in the ba lance, he becomes livid without freshnefs, and foxy without glow. Thofe who wish to form an idea of his hiftoric powers may confult the pictures of the Storm from the Tempeft, the Caffandra from Troilus and Creffida, and the Infant-Shakspeare of the Boydell gallery. Romney, as artift and as man, is entitled to commendation and esteem, but his life furnishes a fignal proof of the futility of the idea that genius is of a paffive quality, and may be laid by or taken up as a man pleases. F." P. 464.

These articles, whatever be their merit as criticisms, afford us occafion to remark that there is but little life in them. This, indeed, is a very general defect in the original work, where, for example, a painter excelled as an engraver, which was the cafe with not a few, it ought to have been part of the author's plan to notice that more particularly. A few have united poetry and painting, as Salvator, but of this we have no memorandum. Vermander, if we mistake not, was another, but we do not find an account of him in either cha rafter, in this volume. Raffaello and Michael Angelo wrote fonnets. But perhaps our objection may appear trivial, and

we