landscapes; which may entitle them to rank in the nobleft collections! What genuine humour in Zoffanii's comic fcenes 3 which do not, like the works of Dutch and Flemish painters, invite laughter to divert itself with the naftieft indelicacy of

boors!'

Sir Joshua Reynolds has been accused of plagiarifm, for having borrowed attitudes from ancient mafters. Not only candour, but criticism, our Author fays, muft deny the force of the charge. When a fingle pofture is imitated from an hiftoric picture, and applied to a portrait in a different drefs, and with new attributes, this, we are told, is not plagiarifm, but quotation: and a quotation from a great Author, with a novel ap plication of the fenfe, has always been allowed to be an inftance of parts and taste; and may have more merit than the original. One prophecy, fays Mr. Walpole, I will venture to make; Sir Joshua is not a plagiary, but will beget a thousand. The exuberance of his invention will be the grammar of future painters of portrait.'

He goes on to tell us, that fuch topics would please a pen that delights to do justice to its country; but that he has forbidden himself to treat of living profeffors, leaving to pofterity the continuation of these volumes; and recommending to the lovers of the liberal arts, the induftry of Mr. Vertue, who preferved notices of all his cotemporaries.

In that fupplement, continues he, will not be forgotten the wonderful progrefs, in miniature, of Lady Lucan, who has arrived at copying the most exquifite works of Ifaac and Peter Oliver, Hofkins, and Cooper, with a genius that almoft depre ciates those masters, when we confider that they spent their lives in attaining perfection; and who, foaring above their modest timidity, has transferred the vigour of Raphael to her copies in water-colours. There will be recorded the living etchings of Mr. H. Bunbury, the fecond Hogarth, and firft imitator who ever fully equalled his original; and who, like Hogarth, has more humour when he invents (for inftance, in his prints to Triftram Shandy), than when he illuftrates; probably because genius can draw from the fources of nature with more fpirit than from the ideas of another. Has any painter ever executed a fcene, a character of Shakespear's, that approached to the prototype fo near as Shakespear himself attained to nature! Yet is there a pencil, in a living hand, as capable of pronouncing the paffions as our unequalled poet; a pencil not only inspired by his infight into nature, but by the graces and tafte of Grecian artifts-But it is not fair to excite the curiofity of the public, when both the rank and bashful merit of the poffeffor, and a too rare exertion of fuperior talents, confine the proofs to a narrow" circle. Whoever has feen the drawings, and bas-reliefs, de

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figned and executed by Lady Diana Beauclerc, is fenfible that. these imperfect encomiums are far fhort of the excellence of her works. Her portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, in several hands, confirms the truth of part of these affertions. The nymph-like fimplicity of the figure is equal to what a Grecian ftatuary would have formed for a dryad, or goddess of a river. Bartolozzi's print of her two daughters, after the drawing of the fame lady, is another specimen of her fingular genius and taste. The gay and fportive innocence of the younger daughter, and the demurer application of the elder, are as characteristically contrafted as Milton's Allegro and Penferofo.

Little is faid here but hiftorically of the art of gardening. Mr. Mason, in his first beautiful canto on that fubject, has fhewn, that Spenfer and Addifon ought not to have been omitted in the lift of our authors who were not blind to the graces of natural tafte. The public muft with, with the Author of this work, that Mr. Mafon would complete his poem, and leave this effay as unneceffary as it is imperfect.

The hiftoric compofitions offered for St. Paul's, by fome of our first artifts, feemed to difclofe a vifion of future improvement-a period the more to be wifhed, as the wound given to painting, through the fides of the Romish religion, menaces the arts, as well as idolatry-unless the Methodists, whofe rigour feems to foften, and adopt the artifices of the Catholics (for our itinerant mountebanks already are fond of being fainted in mezzotinto, as well as their St. Bridgets and Terefas), fhould borrow the paraphernalia of enthusiasm, now waning in Italy, and fuperadd the witchery of painting to that of mufic. Whitefield's temples, incircled with glory, may convert ruftics, who have never heard of his or Ignatius Loyola's peregrinations: if enthufiafm is to revive, and tabernacles to rife as convents are demolifhed, may we not hope at least to fee them painted? Le Soeur's Cloyfter, at Paris, makes fome little amends for the imprifonment of the Carthufians. The abfurdity of the legend of the reviving Canon is loft in the amazing art of the painter; and the laft fcene of St. Brun's expiring, in which are expreffed alt the stages of devotion, from the youngest mind impreffed with fear, to the composed resignation of the Prior, is perhaps inferior to no fingle picture of the greatest master. If Raphael died young, fo did Le Soeur; the former had feen the antique, the latter only prints from Raphael: yet, in the Chartreufe, what airs of heads! what harmony of colouring! what aerial perfpective! How Grecian the fimplicity of architecture and drapery! How diverfified a fingle quadrangle, though the life of a hermit be the only fubject, and devotion the only pathetic! In fhort, till we have other pictures than portraits, and painting has ampler fields to range in than private apartments, it is in

vain to expect the art fhould recover its genuine luftre. Statuary has ftill less encouragement. Sepulchral decorations are almost difufed; and though the rage for portraits is at its highest tide, both in pictures and prints, bufts and ftatues are never demanded. We seem to with no longer duration to the monuments of our expence than the inhabitants of Peru and Ruffia, where edifices are calculated to laft but to the next earthquake or conflagration.

The above advertisement, we find, was written in October laft. We could not deny ourselves the pleasure of laying before our Readers what muft afford fo much entertainment to every lover of the liberal arts; efpecially as it can fcarce be fuppofed, that many of them will have an opportunity of perufing a work of this kind.

The volume now before us is divided into feven chapters; the first of which contains an account of painters in the reign of George the Firft, a monarch void of tafte, and not likely, at an advanced age, to encourage the embellishment of a country to which he had little partiality, and with the face of which he had few opportunities of getting acquainted; though had he been better known, he must have become, Mr. Walpole says, the delight of it, poffeffing all that plain good-humoured fimplicity, and focial integrity, which peculiarly diftinguishes the honeft English private gentleman.

As no reign, fince the arts have been in any esteem, has produced fewer works that will deserve the attention of pofterity, Mr. Walpole is as brief as poffible in his obfervations on what he calls fo ungrateful a period.- In his account of Michael Dahl, he takes occafion to give the following character of the famous Queen Christina.

'As Dahl worked on her picture, she asked, what he intended she should hold in her hand? He replied, A fan. Her majefty, whofe ejaculations were rarely delicate, fcented a very grofs one, and added, A fan! give me a lion, that is fitter for the Queen of Sweden. I repeat this without any intention of approving it. It was a pedantic affectation of spirit in a woman who had quitted a crown to ramble over Europe, in a motley kind of mafculine masquerade, affuming a right of affaffinating her gallants, as if tyranny, as well as the priesthood, were an indelible character; and throwing herself for protection into the bofom of a church The laughed at, for the comfortable enjoyment of talking indecently with learned men, and of living fo with any other men. Contemptible in her ambition, by abandoning the happiest opportunity of performing great and good actions, to hunt for venal praises from those parafites the literati, fhe attained, or deferved to attain, that fole renown which neceffarily accompa nies great crimes, or great follies, in persons of fuperior rank.

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Her letters discover.no genius or parts; and do not even wear that now trite mantle of the learned, the affectation of philofophy. Her womanish paffions and anger difplay themselves without referve; and she is ever mistaking herself for a queen,' after having done every thing he could to relinquish and disgrace the

character.'

We entirely agree with Mr. Walpole in what he fays of this celebrated lady, excepting what regards her genius and parts, in which we are far from thinking her defective. Some of her letters and maxims appear to us to be not only ingenious, but to mark a fuperior understanding. Be this however as it may, fuch is the agreeable manner in which our Author enlivens his account of this ungrateful period.

Part of what he fays concerning Mr. Jervas we fhall lay before our Readers: No painter of fo much eminence as Jervas, is taken fo little notice of by Vertue in his memorandums, who neither specifies the family, birth or death of this artift. The latter, as well as I remember, happened at his house in Cleveland-Court, in 1739, or 1740. One would think, Vertue forefaw how little curiofity pofterity would feel to know more of a man who has bequeathed them fuch wretched daubings. Yet, between the badnefs of the age's tafte, the dearth of good mafters, and a fashionable reputation, Jervas fat at the top of his profeffion; and his own vanity thought no encomium difproportionate to his merit. Yet was he defective in drawing, coJouring, compofition, and even in that moft neceffary, and perhaps moft easy, talent of portrait-painting, likeness. In general, his pictures are a light flimfy kind of fan-painting, as large as life. Yet I have feen a few of his works highly coloured; and it is certain, that his copies of Carlo Maratti, whom most he ftudied and imitated, were extremely juft, and fcarce inferior to the originals. It is a well-known ftory of him, that having fucceeded happily in copying (he thought, in furpaffing) a picture of Titian, he looked firft at the one, then at the other, and then with paternal complacency cried, Poor little Tit how be would ftare!

But what will recommend the name of Jervas to inquifitive. pofterity was his intimacy with Pope, whom he inftructed to draw and paint, whom therefore thefe anecdotes are proud to boaft of, and enrol among our artifts, and who has enshrined the feeble talents of the painter in the lucid amber of his glowing lines. The repeated name of Lady Bridgewater in that epiftle was not the fole effect of chance, of the lady's charms, or of the conveniency of her name to the meafure of the verfe. Jervas had ventured to look on that fair one with more than a painter's eyes; fo entirely did the lovely form poffefs his imagination, that many a homely dame was delighted to find her

picture

picture resemble Lady Bridgewater. Yet neither his prefumption nor his paffion could extinguifh his felf-love. One day, as fhe was fitting to him, he ran over the beauties of her face with rapture, but, faid he, I cannot help telling your ladyship, that you have not a handfome ear. No! faid Lady Bridgewater; pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handfome ear? He turned afide his cap, and fhewed her his own.'

His obfervations on portrait-painting, with which he concludes his account of Jervas, will entertain our Readers:

Portrait-painting has increased to fo exuberant a degree in this age, that it would be difficult even to compute the number of limners that have appeared within the century. Confequently, it is almoft as neceffary that the representations of men fhould perish, and quit the scene to their fucceffors, as it is that the human race fhould give place to rifing generations. And indeed the mortality is almoft as rapid. Portraits that coft twenty, thirty, fixty guineas; and that proudly take poffeffion. of the drawing-room, give way in the next generation to those of the new-married couple, defcending into the parlour, where they are lightly mentioned as my father and mother's pictures.. When they become my grandfather and grandmother, they mount to the two pair of stairs; and then, unless dispatched to the manfion-house in the country, or crowded into the housekeeper's room, they perifh among the lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags before a broker's fhop at the Seven Dials. Such already has been the fate of fome of thofe deathless beauties, who Pope promifed his friend fhould

Bloom in his colours for a thousand years.'

The account of Jervas is followed by that of Jonathan Richardfon, who, Mr. Walpole fays, was undoubtedly one of the beft English painters of a head, that had appeared in this country. There is ftrength, fays he, roundnets, and boldnefs in his colouring; but his men want dignity, and his women grace. The good fenfe of the nation is characterifed in his portraits. You fee he lived in an age when neither enthufiafm nor fervility were predominant. Yet, with a pencil fo firm, poffeffed of a numerous and excellent collection of drawings, full of the theory, and profound in reflections on his art, he drew nothing well below the head, and was void of imagination. His attitudes, draperies, and back-grounds are totally infipid and unmeaning; fo ill did he apply to his own. practice the fagacious rules and hints he beftowed on others. Though he wrote with fire and judgment, his paintings owed little to either. No man dived deeper into the inexhauftible ftores of Raphael, or was more fmitten with the native luftre of Vandyck. Yet, though capable of tasting the elevation of the ope, and the elegance of the other, he could never contrive to