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1250. The teftimony of Maimonides is very curious, as to the variations being numerous, and as to the cuftom, in Palef tine and Egypt, of correcting all other manufcripts by one, which had itfelf been under correction for many years. Nor was this Aber manufcript the only ftandard; becaufe Kimchi had in Spain another, to which the difagreeing copies were conformed in that country. This Hillel manufcript is fufficiently disgraced, by its wanting the two neceffary verses in Joshua. After taking notice of the feveral true readings preferved by thefe four Rabbies, our Author introduces Meir Hallevi (who died in 1244), with his pathetic lamentation over the many variations in the Hebrew manufcripts. And it is remarkable, that, at the end of Meir's work, printed but a few years ago, an account is given of an inquiry made amongst the Jews, from Italy to Conftantinople, as to the true way of writing the name of the High Priest Aaron-whether it thould in one fingle place be expreffed differently from what it was in 300 other places.

As the fifth and laft period, from 1450 to 1780, includes theprinted Hebrew text, Dr. Kennicott, under this period, takes particular notice of the five first editions of different parts, and of the first edition of the whole together. It is added, that the Pfalms, as first printed in 1477, contain above 600 variations; and that the Hebrew Bible, as firft printed in 1488, contains above 12,000. These and some other very early editions agree with the older manufcripts, much more than the editions after. the year 1500, but ftill more than that by Jacob ben Chaim in 1526; which has been, in general, the ftandard down to the prefent time. About the year 1500 began the fuperftitious regard for the Mafora; and fuch manufcripts as had been Maforetically corected, were preferred for the editions of Cardinal Ximenes and Felix Pratenfis. But the Mafora being highly ve nerated by Ben Chaim, he chofe for his text fuch manufcripts as had the Mafora moft perfect; which manufcripts were the latest and the worst. And yet this text became unfortunately the general standard for the Antwerp, Paris, and London Polyglotts; as well as of other editions of lefs note afterwards. The Jews have not, however, been fatisfied of the correctness of Chaim's edition. For Rabbi Lonzano was afterwards encouraged to visit many countries, and to collate ten manufcripts, in order to render the text more perfect: and yet this complaint of errors was again renewed, in 1635, by Manaffeh Ben Izrael. Thefe teftimonies are finally concluded with the Mantuan edition,. called Minchath Shai; in which are about 2000 various readings, collected, from manufcripts and early editions, by Solomon Menorzi, in the last century: but it was not printed till 17.4. So that, at the time when Chriftians were generally infifting on

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the perfection of the Hebrew text, the Jews were labouring to correct it, and lamenting its great imperfection in the manner following: Quis reftituet decus? Quis ejiciet raphanos et fpinas? Horror confudit me; quum viderem multitudinem variantium, quæ ceciderunt in libros!-Editores eunt obfcurati, neque lux eft eis ; neque eft qui quærit ceffationem hujus diverfitatis!-Ecce nos palpantes tanquam cæci, in obfcuritate diverfitatum! Deus auferat tenebras noftras !"

[To be continued.]

ART. III. Conclufion of the Account of Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England.

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N our last month's Review we gave an account of the Advertisement prefixed to the fourth volume of this ingenious work, with fome extracts from the firft chapter of it: we now proceed to the fecond chapter, which contains a fhort view of the architects and other artifts, in the reign of George I. Our Author introduces it in the following manner:

The ftages of no art have been more diftinctly marked than those of architecture in Britain. It is not probable that our rafters, the Romans, ever taught us more than the conftruction of arches. Those, imposed on clusters of difproportioned pillars, composed the whole grammar of our Saxon ancestors. Churches and caftles were the only buildings, I fhould fuppofe, they erected of stone. As no tafte was bestowed on the former, no beauty was fought in the latter. Maffes to refift, and uncouth towers for keeping watch, were all the conveniencies they demanded. As even luxury was not fecure but in a church, fucceeding refinements were folely laid out on religious fabrics, till by degrees was perfected the bold fcenery of Gothic architecture, with all its airy embroidery and penfile vaults. Holbein, as I have fhewn, checked that falfe, yet venerable ftile, and first attempted to fober it to measures; but not having gone far enough, his imitators, without his tafte, compounded a mongrel fpecies, that had no boldnefs, no lightnefs, and no fyftem. This lafted till Inigo Jones, like his countryman and cotemporary Milton, disclosed the beauties of ancient Greece, and established fimplicity, harmony, and proportion. That fchool, however, was too chafte to flourish long. Sir Chistopher Wren lived to fee it almoft expire before him; and after a mixture of French and Dutch uglinefs had expelled truth, without erecting any certain ftile in its ftead, Vanbrugh, with his ponderous and unmeaning maffes, overwhelmed architecture in mere mafonry. Will pofterity believe that fuch piles were erected in the very period when St. Paul's was finishing?'

Our Author goes on to give a fhort account of Gibbs, Campbell, James, Chriftian Reifen, &c. and then enters, in his third chapter, upon a more fhining period in the hiftory of arts, upon a new æra, viz. the reign of George the Second, in which he tells us, that, though painting made but feeble efforts to

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wards advancement, yet architecture revived in antique purity; and an art unknown to every age and climate not only ftarted into being, but, advanced with mafter-steps to vigorous perfection, he means, the art of gardening, or rather, the art of creating landscape, as he chufes to call it.

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Ryfbrac and Roubiliac, fays Mr. Walpole, redeemed ftatuary from reproach, and engraving began to demand better painters, whose works it might imitate. The King, it is true, had little propenfity to refined pleasures; but Queen Caroline was ever ready to reward merit, and wished to have their reign illuftrated by monuments of genius. She enshrined Newton, Boyle, and Locke; the employed Kent, and fat to Zincke. Pope might have enjoyed her favour, and Swift had it at firft, till infolent under the mark of independence, and not content without domineering over her politics, the abandoned him to his ill-humour, and to the vexation of that mifguided and disappointed ambition, that perverted and preyed on his excellent genius.

To have an exact view of fo long a reign as that of George the Second, it must be remembered, that many of the artists already recorded lived paft the beginning of it, and were principal performers. Thus the file that had predominated both in painting and architecture in the two preceding reigns, ftill exifted during the first years of the late King, and may be confidered as the remains of the fchools of Dahl and Sir Godfrey Kneller, and of Sir Christopher. Wren. Richardson and Jervas, Gibbs and Campbell, were still at the head of their refpective profeffions. Each art improved, before the old profeffors left the ftage. Vanloo introduced a better ftyle of draperies, which by the help of Vanaken became common to and indeed the fame in the works of almost all our painters; and Leoni, by publishing and imitating Palladio, difencumbered architecture from fome of the weight with which it had been overloaded. Kent, Lord Burlington, and Lord Pembroke, though the two first were no foes to heavy ornaments, restored every other grace to that improving science, and left the art in poffeffion of all its rights-yet ftill Mr. Adam and Mr. Chambers were wanting to give it perfect delicacy, The reign was not closed, when Sir Joshua Reynolds ranfomed portrait-painting from infipidity, and would have excelled the greatest masters in that branch, if his colouring were as lafting as his tafte and imagination are inexhauftible-but I mean not to fpeak here of living masters, and this is the reason why no account is given here of that able mafter Mr. Scott, painter of fea-pieces, who ought to make a principal figure in this reign.'

Mr. Walpole now proceeds to give a fhort account of a great number of inferior artifts,-Huyffing, Collins, Dandridge, Damini, Philip Mercier, Barrett, Wootton, Amiconi, John Baptift Vanloo, Jofeph Vanaken, Canalletti, &c. &c.

Speaking of Lambert, he fays, it is extraordinary, that in a country fo profufely beautified with the amenities of nature, we have produced fo few good painters of landscape. As our poets warm their imaginations with funny hills, or figh after grottos

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and cooling breezes, our painters, fays Mr. Walpole, draw rocks and precipices, and caftellated mountains, because Virgil gafped for breath at Naples, and Salvator wandered amidst Alps and Apennines.

Our ever verdant lawns, continues he, rich vales, fields of haycocks, and hop-grounds, are neglected as homely and familiar objects. The latter, which I never faw painted, are very picturefque, particularly in the feafon of gathering, when fome tendrils are ambitioufly climbing, and others dangling in natural feftoons; while poles, defpoiled of their garlands, are erected into eafy pyramids that contraft with the taper and upright columns. In Kent fuch fcenes are often backed by fand-hills that enliven the green, and the gatherers difperfed among the narrow alleys enliven the picture, and give it various diftances.

Lambert, who was inftructed by Haffel, and at first imitated Wootton, was a very good mafter in the Italian ftyle, and followed the manner of Gafpar, but with more richness in his compofitions. His trees were in a great tafte, and grouped nobly. He painted many admirable fcenes for the playhoufe, where he had room to difplay his genius; and, in concert with Scott, executed fix large pictures of their fettlements for the Eaft-India Company, which are placed at their house in Leadenhall-street.'

Mr. Walpole clofes this chapter with a fhort account of Thomas Worlidge, who died at Hammerfmith, Sept. 23, 1766. He inferts a compliment to Mrs. Worlidge, on feeing her copy a landscape in needle-work, printed in the Public Advertiser, and bestows a very high and deserved encomium on Caroline Countess of Ailefbury, fome of whofe performances have appeared in our public exhibitions.

The fourth chapter contains an account of Hogarth, and a catalogue of his Prints.- Having dispatched the herd of our painters in oil, fays our Author, I referved to a clafs by himself that great and original genius, Hogarth; confidering him rather as a writer of comedy with a pencil, than as a painter. If catching the manners and follies of an age living as they rife, if general fatire on vices, and ridicules, familiarized by itrokes of nature, and heightened by wit, and the whole animated by proper and juft expreffions of the paffions, be comedy, Hogarth compofed comedies as much as Moliere ; in his Marriage à-la-mode there is even an intrigue carried on throughout the piece. He is more true to character than Congreve; each perfonage is diftin&t from the reft, acts in his fphere, and cannot be confounded with any other of the dramatis perfona. The Alderman's footboy, in the laft print of the fet I have mentioned, is an ignorant ruftic; and if wit is ftruck out from the characters in which it is not expected, it is from their acting conformably to their fituation, and from the mode of their paflions, not from their having the wit of fine gentlemen. Thus there is wit in the figure of the Alderman, who, when his daughter is expiring in the agonies of poison, wears a face of folicitude, but it is to fave her gold-ring, which he is drawing gently from her finger. The thought is parallel to Moliere's

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where the mifer puts out one of the candles as he is talking. Moliere, inimitable as he has proved, brought a rude theatre to perfection. Hogarth had no model to follow and improve upon. He created his art; and ufed colours inftead of language. His place is between the Italians, whom we may confider as epic poets and tragedians, and the Flemish painters, who are writers of farce, and editors of burlefque nature. They are the Tom Browns of the mob. Hogarth resembles Butler, but his fubjects are more univerfal; and, amidst all his pleafantry, he obferves the true end of comedy, reformation there is always a moral to his pictures. Sometimes he rofe to tragedy, not in the catastrophe of Kings and Heroes, but in marking how vice conducts infenfibly and incidentally to mifery and fhame. He warns against encouraging cruelty and idleness in young. minds, and discovers how the different views of the great and the vulgar lead by various paths to the fame unhappiness. The fine lady in Marriage à-la-mode, and Tom Nero in the Four Stages of Cruelty, terminate their story in blood.... she occasions the murder of her husband, he affaffinates his miftrefs. How delicate and superior too is his fatire, when he intimates, in the college of phyficians and furgeons that prefide at a diffection, how the legal habitude of viewing fhocking fcenes hardens the human mind, and renders it unfeeling. The Prefident maintains the dignity of infenfibility over an executed corpfe, and confiders it but as the object of a lecture. In the print of the Sleeping Judges, this habitual indifference only excites our laughter.

It is to Hogarth's honour, that, in fo many fcenes of fatire and ridicule, it is obvious that ill-nature did not guide his pencil. His end is always reformation, and his reproofs general. Except in the print of The Times, and the two portraits of Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Churchill that followed, no man, amidst fuch a profufion of characteriflic farce, ever pretended to discover or charge him with the caricatura of a real perfon; except of fuch notorious characters as Chartres and mother Needham, and a very few more, who are acting officially and fuitably to their profeflions. As he must have obferved fo carefully the operation of the paffions on the countenance, it is even wonderful that he never, though without intention, delivered the very features of any identical perfon. It is at the fame time a proof of his intimate intuition into nature: but had he been too fevere, the humanity of endeavouring to root out cruelty to animals would atone for many fatires. It is another proof that he drew all his ftores from nature and the force of his own genius, and was indebted neither to models nor books for his ftyle, thoughts, or hints, that he never fucceeded when he defigned for the works of other men. I do not speak of his early performances at the time that he was engaged by bookfellers, and rofe not above thofe they generally employ; but in his maturer age, when he had invented his art, and gave a few defigns for fome great authors, as Cervantes, Gulliver, and even Hudibras, his compofitions were tame, fpiritlefs, void of humour, and never reach the merits of the books they were defigned to illuftrate. He could not bend his talents to think after any body elfe. He could think like a great genius rather than after one. I have a fketch in oil that he gave me, which he intended to engrave.

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