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Tom Pynsent did not drink like a fiddler with John Spottiswoode. He remained the whole evening in Anna Maria's dressing-room, listening greedily to the movements of her attendants-to the tone of her voice-and to the cry of the newly-arrived object of his affections.

Christobelle is the pupil of her father, and is last of all taken up by the match-making mother, as the youngest would be naturally as well as according to the policy of such a manoeuvring and misapprehending tyraness. The girl, however, marries the man she loves and refuses a dukedom. This much may serve to introduce our other specimen, which gives us the last of Lady Wetheral, as she figures in the novel. There is something more awful and uncommon than death-bed repentance or aeven remorse,-viz. the unchanged and unchangeable addiction to long-cherished error and vice,-the image and sight of a soul as bitterly perverse and as sternly wrong as ever it was known in the pride of life. What we now copy out has been written with as unfaltering a hand as any portion of the story.

Lady Whetheral sunk into ill health and apathy, irrecoverable. Her mind and body seemed stunned into torpor, by two events which she had not foreseen, and could not parry-the refusal of a dukedom by Christobelle, and the flight of Lady Ennismore from her home. These two events were ever upon her thoughts, and in her speech, because "she had particularly arranged each splendid match, and was doomed to be foiled by her own children in their accomplishment. She knew her energies were worn down, and her strength exhausted. She could not walk three steps from her sofa without fatigue, and the least noise produced severe nervous attacks. She was a pretty specimen of maternal cares! She advised all parents to allow their headstrong daughters to marry whoever would encumber themselves with them; for marry they would, and it was hopeless to endeavour to lead their tastes in a proper channel. She expected Mrs. Higgins would let her little girl grow up in insubordination, and the child would most likely marry a bricklayer, instead of looking up to a man in a well-established grocery-business. She detested mean minds."... Lady Whetheral became indifferent to all passing events so gradually, and her mind dwelt so little upon anything unconnected with her own ease and immediate gratification, that Mrs. Daniel Higgins adventured to touch lightly upon the subject (Christobelle's marriage) during one of her visits.

"I am happy, my lady, to be hearing of Miss Chrystal's likelihood, at last, to marry Sir John Spottiswoode. Higgins thinks it a very pretty match, and he has visited Alverton more than once, and admires the place extremely. For ever and a day!- to think of Miss Chrystal's turn being come!"

"I know nothing about it, Thompson, and I don't care. The Worcestershire man shall never enter my room, though he is quite good enough for a young lady who refused a dukedom. If Julia would attract the old Duke of Forfar, now she is at liberty, I should still recover my health; but I am laid on the shelf. No one cares about my health. Lady Ennismore might easily win his Grace; only, I dare say, she would run away from him, as she did from Lord Ennismore."

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Christobelle married Sir John Spottiswoode soon after Lady Wetheral's assurance to Mrs. Higgins that she " did not care" about the affair, and no one apprised her ladyship of the actual solemnization. She never asked who was the "Lady Spottiswoode" whom people talked so much about, and always addressed her by the title of Miss Wetheral.

ART. VIII.-An Introductory Lecture on Pictorial Anatomy. By JAMES MILLER. Edinburgh: Black.

THIS lecture was "delivered to the students of the School of Design for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures." Its purpose is to impress upon the minds of those to whom it is addressed the indispensable and paramount importance of anatomy to a knowledge and to the successful and sure development of the higher branches of pictorial art. The discourse is not only enthusiastic and eloquent, but learned, critical, and tastefully elegant. We lay before our readers a specimen, where the lecturer, in support of his theoretical doctine, relies upon the actual history of art.

The ancient Egyptians, we are told, had but little knowledge of the human form; their figures were but superficial transcripts of individual nature. And while we thus learn their inferiority in art, we are at the same time made aware that they dared not touch a dead body for the purpose of dissection, and even the embalmers risked their lives from the hatred of the populace.

In Greece it was that art first approached perfection. And there its golden age extended from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander the Great. We find that during the same period, anatomy had begun to be cultivated, both by the physician and as a branch of general science. The anatomical observations of Thales, Pythagoras, and Alcmeon prepared the way for the more connected inquiries of Hippocrates, who gave oral instructions in anatomy, as well as the art of healing; and thus disclosed its mysteries to the world. And Diocles Carystus, the most distinguished of his successors, was as celebrated for proficiency in anatomy as for his skill in surgery. Hippocrates was all but contemporary with Phidias-Diocles with Praxiteles and Lysippus. It was not anatomy as it appeared under Vesalius in the sixteenth century. It was not sufficient for the purpose of either the physician or the surgeon; and consequently, we find the healing art then poor and impotent as compared with its present condition. It extended little farther than a knowledge of the skeleton, muscles, and larger internal organs; for all the minutiae of the science were as yet unexplored. But this was just what was most needful for art; and it was this amount of anatomical knowledge that enabled the artist to form his beautiful models, those "marble miracles of grace," in regard to which it may be said, that

"Vanquish'd Nature own'd herself outdone."

On the dismemberment of Macedonia, after the death of Alexander the Great, the arts and sciences took up their chief abode at Alexandria, under the protection of Ptolemy Soter. And here, for a short time, dissection of the human body was freely conducted under Herophilus and Erasistratus, the two great heads of the Egyptian medical school. At this time, however, letters

were cultivated in preference to art. Had other circumstances, besides anatomical knowledge, been favourable to the latter, it would, doubtless, still have retained all its highest splendour. But, as it was, one bright interval alone was granted previous to decay-the struggling gleam of the expiring taper the farewell ray of a sun, about to set as if for ever.

Art did not revive till after the dark ages. Neither did the progress of anatomy. Even Galen had no knowledge of this science, except as derived from the older authors, and from his own dissection of apes. Once he had an opportunity of examining two human skeletons preserved in Alexandria. And the Arabian surgeons had to rest contented with the writings of the Greeks on the subject of anatomy, its study being strictly forbidden by the Mahomedan religion. Art then lay dormant.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a revival commenced, chiefly, if not entirely, by imitation of the antique, many specimens of which had been brought directly from the East to Pisa. But art was still feeble.

But

Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, arose an era, bearing a striking resemblance in its leading features to that of Pericles, and adorned with the mighty names of Leonardo daV inci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael Da Vinci (a pupil of the celebrated anatomist, Marc Antonio della Torre.) with talent for every pursuit, had yet no steadiness for any one. Buonarotti to the highest gifts added indomitable perseverance, and became profoundly acquainted with anatomy. Is it unreasonable to infer, that without this he never could have reached in safety that unknown world of ideal art, into which his ardent genius forced his daring hand? Da Vinci, however, first united the science of anatomy with that of painting, and both with nature; and thus may truly be said to have prepared art for the coming greatness,a greatness which was carried to a giddy height by his brethren in the triumvirate At the same time, exactly, the labours of Vesalius, Eustachius, and Fallopius, at Padua, Pisa, and Rome, raised anatomy on a new foundation, and thereby began an era almost as bright for medical science as for art. Surely this was not a mere coincidence.

Since that time there has been little obstruction to the study of anatomy, and for that very reason, probably, it may not have been cultivated as it ought, unless by those whose peculiar calling rendered such study absolutely imperative. May not neglect of anatomy by the artist, then, be connected with decline of art in its higher departments? We will not stop to inquire, but rather hasten to a more pleasing consideration, that now, within these few years-thanks to an enlightened legislature-all obstacles to this study have been removed much that was disgusting both to the moral and physical sense has been taken away-its interesting paths are widely open to all who will enter them, and, other circumstances being favourable, may we not now hope to see an epoch in the history of art in this country, as great, perhaps greater, than any that has gone before in Italy or in Greece.

It may be true that Mr. Miller, like most enthusiasts, rides his hobby too fast and too far. The creation of the masterpieces of art implies a great number of qualities and accomplishments, some of them indescribable, but assuredly distinct from anatomical skill and the most accurate perception of muscular form and action. Our self

evident generality, however, in no degree affects the lecturer's principle, as one that lies at the very foundation of all perfect execution of that which the highest genius may have conceived, and even of the most purely ideal. A glance at the history and character of the masterpieces in painting may be acceptable.

The character which art has assumed in any country, is generally the character of the people of that country. It is modified, moulded, and coloured by the nature, principles, beliefs, and condition of those amongst whom it arises. It is true, that the Greeks borrowed, perhaps largely, from other lands, for example from Egypt. But then it is not less notorious that they gave the impress of their nationality to every art or even amusement which they copied from foreign parts, until it is often difficult to determine the extent of their claim to originality. And such will naturally ever be the case with a striving and enlightened people, who must thus and therefore work out for themselves a characteristic order of art. As has been well observed, with Greece, as with Italy, art was employed to embellish a political religion. In France, on the other hand, it forsook the church and dedicated itself to kings and princes, to whatever is courtly and royal, all which it has emblazoned. While in England, it is impressed with the freedom and domestic feelings of the people, -with much that is grave, social, and humorous. The reformed church refused the aid of the auxiliary of Rome; but being excluded from the altar, art sought to excite a new interest by new orders of creation, and succeeded; but not yet, and probably never, so as to rival the great masterpieces of Italy.

In painting, the Italians have excelled all modern nations. The great artists of that country approach, as near as the limited nature of art will ever permit, the illustrious poets of the earth, having stamped on their works such expressions of thought and feeling, that one may very readily forgive, in his admiration, the superstition of the peasants who kneel to such works of man's hand,-who adore the saints and the Madonnas of Raphael, and pour out before them contrition in sighs and tears, and supplicating them as divinities. And yet there is one corrective that may be easily brought home to the common apprehension of the most credulous devotees, which is painful, however, in another sense; that the paintings of Raphael and of all others will perish and pass away; whereas sculpture, receiving impressions on adamantine marble, and poetry, endlessly multiplied by means of a cheap material, may bid defiance to decay and oblivion.

But how interesting is the history as well as the character of painting in Italy. It was in this branch of the fine arts that she put forth the diversified as well as the combined strength of her untamed but mighty spirit. Learning was not, at the period to which we refer, universal; men of genius had not been taught to fear the appli

cation of other rules than those of nature; there was no querulous criticism; the world wished to be pleased and was pleased.

The productions of the Italian old masters must prove to every one's conviction, that they imagined without fear, and worked with the entire confidence of being rewarded by fame. We can read their confidence in the grandeur of their daring conceptions, and feel their pride and enthusiasm in their art, in the laborious diligence and almost superhuman rapidity with which they poured out their genius. Nothing can surpass, we think, the dashing freedom and unrestrained and unretouched vigour of their compositions. To strike off one great work, at one glowing heat of fancy, was with them a common thing. Most of the masterly works of those great men, who floursihed during the golden period of Italian art, were hastily done. The walls, and ceilings, and cupolas of new and splendid churches were covered, as if by enchantment, with miracles from Scripture, with legends of saints, and with devotional processions. The eager multitude were not compelled to wait till the genius of the land considered for years what it had been years in conceiving-till the work grew into beauty and grace, under its hand, by constant and repeated touches-till it had obtained the full advantage of all that study and care could add: for those ready and eager spirits seemed to breathe out their masterly creations at once, in full and mature beauty; they performed by the force of well-disciplined genius, what all the cold precision of mechanical knowledge cannot accomplish; and yet all is there that taste demands or admiration requires. Artists, we are afraid, work more coldly now; the fever-fit of genius is passed and gone; they are no longer daring; they aspire only to represent some domestic incident-some touch of honest feeling or vagrant humour; to paint the heroes of yesterday's gazette, or acres of hill and dale. The great and original spirit of painting is abated, we fear, throughout Europe; nor will the labour of academies, nor the patronage of the great, nor annual pilgrimages of amateurs and students to Italy, nay, nor the most diligent study of pictorial anatomy, ever, probably, revive or restore it.

Notice has been taken of the haste with which the Italians painted, the rapidity of their enchanting strokes. What is this but to say that the abundance of their works is wonderful; according to some writers and witnesses, even more marvellous than their excellence. The whole of Italy-palace, tower, and town-is filled with their productions: filled-not with the common works of common minds-with portraits of prize-oxen and full-fed divines-with lapdogs from life and windmills after nature; but filled with noble works-conceived with dignity and executed with grace, over the whole of which an ardent and lofty spirit is warmly breathed. Nor are they locked up in noblemen's or exclusive galleries. They are everywhere, and are to be seen by all. They cover the walls and

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