ceilings of the churches-they fill the public places, crowd the castles, and are even to be found in the cottages of the humble.

The mistress who inspired the Italian artists, was the church of Rome. They were unto her as chief-priests, who used a new and splendid language, all imagery of the noblest or loveliest tone, to interpret her history and her character, and to commemorate the constancy and love of her servants, as well as her miracles, her legends, and her rules to the world. The ruling character, therefore, of all the painters' works is religious and devotional. But here certain facts ought to be noticed in order to trace and explain Italian art satisfactorily, and so as to account for its remarkable services in behalf even of a loudly professed Christianity.

The religion, the paganism that preceded the introduction of Chritianity, addressed itself especially to the eye, and depended mainly upon splendid and imposing external appearances. Sculpture and painting in a particular manner ministered to heathenism. The gods of this superstition were beings clothed in beauty and majesty. As man made his own gods, he made them after his own heart, and according to his own imaginations, endowing them, of course, with such appearances as are most expressive of the sentiments of the divinity within him, and if in complacent mood, with such charms and gifts as are most beloved on earth. Art being wooed to help him out with all this, she came and embodied his conceptions in a way almost divine. Temples, groves, and public places were filled with the sculptured progeny of religion and poetry; and priest and politician agreed alike to retain the aid of an auxiliary which brightened the faith of the one and strengthened the power of the other.

But Christianity vanquished paganism; Saint Paul and Saint Peter were established at Rome, to the banishment of Apollo and Pan. But still the heathen belief was not wholly extinguished. The common people, in many places, persisted in loving the gods of their fathers; and persons of more cultivated minds would naturally continue to admire the beauties of art, if not to cherish a fond remembrance of their sculptured and painted deities when paganism was in the ascendant. Nor did the merry festivals that were identified with the gods fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the tastes and desires of the people. The church could not but set her face against these lingering fancies, and which must have continued to affect belief; and accordingly she made use of the weapons of her power to correct the popular error and to root it

But forcible and directly opposing measures might fail, while a more accommodating policy would succeed to the accomplishment of the longed-for thorough conversion. The church therefore went to work in a more sagacious way. She opposed to the pagan divinities her own innumerable progeny of saints: she created them in

silver and in gold, in wood and in stone, and to each she allotted a festival, and decreed that its anniversary should fall on the day held in honour of the original god. The old divinities could not resist this: their memories died slowly away, and the divinities of the new church reigned in their stead. Thus did the Catholic church, by the aid of art, render her belief visible, and seek to make it intelligible, by sensible signs and symbols, to the illiterate barbariańs of the earth. She saw that men were slow in comprehending her miracles and her mysteries; so she made her beads, her crucifixes, her relics, and her saints, male and female, become to her what the gods of Olympus were to the ancients, and speak a language which suited an illiterate people. It is true, that those works of art were at first rude and misshapen; and had little of the external loveliness by which the heathen gods won their way to the admiration of all ages; but they became more elegant as men grew more skilful : their beauty increased with the riches of the church; and men of genius were not slow in lending their aid to a priest who could reward them with honour on earth, and with thrones and mansions in heaven.

Such is the way, at least according to Protestant authors who have written the history of Italian painting, in which the churches of the land came to be filled with the figures of saints, and that the subjects and practice of an art that was to reach the utmost earthly perfection, were first introduced.

The practice, it is admitted, under skilful and prudent management, might have been useful to man, inasmuch as it taught him a little knowledge when knowledge could be obtained through no other medium. Men were rude and barbarous; language was mutable and unfixed; and the priesthood found it necessary to speak to the nations of the earth by means of signs, easily understood, and by symbols they could comprehend. Painting and sculpture could do this. And, in fact, art very early became the religious language of Europe. But, said the reformers, not addressing itself alone to scripture history, the miracles of Christ, and the acts of the apostles, but lending its charms and power to embody legends and create strange saints, it was better to have it swept altogether away, than to have religion any longer clogged and polluted with the bastard breed.

Still, it is just and right that Rome should be viewed in her days of power and glory; and when she numbered amongst her priests, ministers, and servants of many orders, the greatest as well as the best spirits of the earth. She called them from obscurity to fame, and to all who laboured to spread and sustain her influence, she became a benefactress. Her wealth was immense, and her spirit was as magnificent as her power was enormous, and riches untellable. All this descended not to temporal sons, or those according to the flesh;

but to the adopted, who seldom were other than such as promised to uphold, strengthen, and adorn her sovereignty. For generations, too, her treasure was wisely as well as munificently expended; and good and glorious deeds did she perform. She spread a table to the hungry; she gave lodgings to the houseless; welcomed the wanderer; and rich and poor, and learned and illiterate, alike received shelter and hospitality. Under her roof the scholar completed his education; the historian sought and found the materials for his history; the minstrel chanted lays of mingled piety and love for his loaf andhis raiment; the sculptor carved in wood, or cast in silver, some popular saint, and the painter gave the immortality of his colours to some new legend or miracle. Thus, much of the talent which the earth supplied, was employed in the service of the church, and the skill and genius of artists grew, at length, so transcendant, that they were hired at princely wages to embellish the sacred edifices of Italy.

It could not in the nature of things otherwise be than that men of the noblest enterprise, and conscious of the highest power,—in short, that persons of the greatest genius would enlist themselves to serve the church militant; and nowhere was such honour and rewards to be won as in the walks of art. It was this auxiliary indeed that most palpably could not only embody the full belief and feeling of its mistress, but by contemplating the story of the Redeemer and his apostles, elevate itself into something superhuman. To work in the spirit of scripture, and the legends of the church, became a passion as well as a duty; the noblest edifices were raised, that they might display on their walls the whole wonders of art: crowds of enthusiasts flocked daily in to gaze and admire the saints, the madonnas, and the miracles of scripture-nor was this all. The illiterate crowds who beheld such productions for the first time, half imagined them the prophets and virgins whom they represented, and were willing to confer on them the same homage which they had before yielded to works which, at least in form and sentiment, were far less miraculous. Thus genius, receiving the highest rewards which the world could bestow, threw out the most wonderful performances, with a prodigality and power which art has never since equalled. Many, indeed, of the great artists, painted scenes of domestic happiness, of fireside joy, and copied the persons, and recorded the deeds of some of their patrons; whilst others allowed their pencils, for a time at least, to go astray among heathen gods and scenes of human festivity. But the great and prevailing character was religious; and during the proudest days of the popedom, it was according to the wish of the church that Michael Angelo carved, and Raphael painted.

With regard to pictorial anatomy, as a fundamental branch of study indispensable for all who expect to succeed in the higher walks of

art, there can be no doubt; although many reasons and facts may be used with powerful effect, to enforce the truth of the doctrine. Painting represents nature,-poetical nature it should be; and therefore addresses itself to the feeling and imagination of man, rather than to his visual perceptions only as it were, or to the materialities that may engage thought. But though it deals in nature exalted by genius, embellished by art, and purified by taste, still it is nature, working its appeals to the men of this world, who applaud or condemn, according to their own felt reasons. And hence every man has a faith within him, and becomes a judge even of that which is ideally truthful; every man, although he be ignorant of the secrets of art, being capable and ready to appreciate nature. There is, no doubt, a mystery in the creation of great works,—that is, the mystery of genius; but there is no mystery in feeling their excellence, and experiencing the exalted and purified sentiments they catch and touch. The Italian masters knew by what spells, by what exquisite combinations, yet simple appeals, all this was wrought; and, perhaps, no one will ever share fully with them the skill and the secret. But one thing is clear, the wonder never will be achieved by the violation, even by the neglect, of essential truth; and therefore never especially by one ignorant of the conformation of the tenement which holds man's soul,-of any of the minutest part of that which is the index of all feeling and sentiment.

ART. IX.-A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Edited by W. SMITH, Ph. D. Taylor and Walton.

LEMPRIER'S Classical Dictionary is a work that probably cannot be superseded as a book of reference, if a similar scale allotted to the articles, and a mere statement of facts be contemplated. But if the purpose, the spirit, and the manner of expression, as well as illustration are to be in harmony with the criticism, the philosophical disquisition, and at the same time the popular demands of the present age, Dr. Smith's Dictionary has had no predecessor in this country, and will hereafter, we are convinced, meet with no rival or equal.

This work has not been compiled by one person, but is the production of some twenty different hands, each of them eminent in a classical and scholarly sense, as any one may easily satisfy himself, seeing that the names are given, each with his distinctive mark to his own contributions. Dr. Smith himself is one of these individuals, besides being responsible for the general plan. The articles are in alphabetical order, and are illustrated by numerous engravings on wood. There is also an elaborate index, which will be found to simplify and expedite the process of reference.

Contributors to a dictionary with the character of the one before

us, have at the present day many advantages and facilities which Lempriere could not possess or command; for, there have in recent times arisen a host of scholars, especially in Germany, who have not only devoted themselves with unprecedented diligence and industry to critical investigations, and without allowing themselves to be satisfied by any prior author; but have been guided by that philosophical spirit and systematic science which have found their way into the regions of criticism, even where the department is surrounded with antiquarian distance and darkness. But not merely have science and philosophy been happily brought to bear upon classical investigations, for the zeal with which old manuscripts have been ransacked, and the number of travellers who have visited, explored, and interpreted ancient ruins, have had the most beneficial results, clasically speaking.

The manner and shape in which these results have come to be published to the world must not pass unnoticed. There are two features here to be pointed out. First, there is not only the bold, fearless, and irreverent character of modern investigation, as respects preceding theories, and alleged facts, but the liberal and free tone in which the whole is conducted. And secondly, as a necessary consequence of this unstraitened spirit, practical ends are contemplated, and life-giving ideas or suggestions are sought for. Philosophical criticism indeed has discovered, as well as patient research into the actual, that the ancients, that the people in classical times, were flesh and blood like ourselves; and that their social condition may properly, and without any unnecessary or false stretch of sympathies, be brought into communion with us and our times. Accordingly, classical studies can be, and are now, by many teachers, turned to practical and living purposes.

Facts are now not alone demanded; dry information not alone given; but such lights and interpretations are found legitimately to attach to the study of the Greeks and Romans, mirrored in their languages, their manners, institutions, and every-day existence, as come home to our own social condition, and lend us valuable hints or pleasing corroborations; at the same time that the very requirements as well as fruits of classical studies are identified with refinement of taste.

Dr. Smith's Dictionary amply proves, and beautifully illustrates all this. To the student of classical literature the book is indispensable, seeing the multitude and the variety of subjects on which it dilates, elucidating innumerable allusions in the classics to extinct habits and usages. To the students of ancient art the volume also will prove a treasure, were the wood-cut illustrations alone considered-being all taken from antiques of unquestionable antiquity; and being in themselves beautiful, as well as characteristic relics. We observe that a large portion of these illustrations have been taken from the