•I am indeed of a disposition neither to fear bad fortune, nor to have very ardent desires for good. Yet I lose this steadiness and indifference when I reflect, that your love to me makes you feel for every thing that happens to me. It is, therefore, from the consideration that my misfortunes would be a torinent to you, that I wish to be happy; and when I think that my happiness would be all your joy, I should lament that my bad fortune should continue to persecute me; though, as to my own particular interest, I dare promise to myself that I shall never be very much affected

by it,'

An instance occurred of those social affections in which a stoic is sometimes supposed to be deficient, which might have afforded a beautiful illustration to one of our most elegant poets. The remembrance of the happy moments which Bayle spent when young on the borders of the river Auriege, a short distance from his native town of Carlat, where he had been sent to recover from a fever, occasioned by an excessive indulgence in reading, induced him many years afterwards to devote an article to it in his 'Critical Dictionary,' for the sake of quoting the poet who had celebrated this obscure river; it was a 'Pleasure of Memory a tender association of domestic feeling!

The first step which Bayle took in life is remarkable.He changed his religion and became a Catholic; a year afterwards he returned to the creed of his fathers. Posterity might not have known the story had it not been recorded in his Diary. The circumstance is thus curiously stated.

His brother was one of these ministers; while a Catholic, Bayle had attempted to convert him by a letter, long enough to evince his sincerity: but without his subscription, we should not have ascribed it to Bayle.

For this vacillation in his religion has Bayle endured bitter censure. Gibbon, who himself changed his, about the same year of his age,' and for as short a period, sarcastically observes of the first entry, that Bayle should have finished his logic before he changed his religion.' It may be retorted, that when he had learnt to reason, he renounced Catholicism! The true fact is, that when Bayle had only studied a few months at college, some books of controversial divinity by the Catholics, offered many a specious argument against the reformed doctrines; a young student was easily entangled in the nets of the Jesuits. But their passive obedience, and their transubstantiation, and other stuff woven in their looms, soon enabled such a man as Bayle to recover his senses. The promises and the caresses of the wily Jesuits were rejected, and the gush of tears of the brothers, on his return to the religion of his fathers, is one of the most pathetic incidents of domestic life.

Bayle was willing to become an expatriated man; to study from the love of study, in poverty and honour! It happens sometimes that great men are criminated for their noblest deeds by both parties.

When his great work appeared, the adversaries of Bayle reproached him with haste, while the author expressed his astonishment at his slowness. At first 'the Critical Dictionary,' consisting only of two folios, was finished in little more than four years; but in the life of Bayle this was equivalent to a treble amount with men of ordinary application. Bayle even calculated the time of his head-aches; My megrims would have left me had it been in my power to have lived without study; by them I lose many days in every month'-the fact is, that Bayle had entirely given up every sort of recreation except that delicious inebriation of his faculties, as we may term it for those who know what it is, which he drew from his books: we have his avowal. Public amusements, games, country jaunis, morning visits, and other recreations necessary to many students, as they tell us, were none of my business. I wasted no time on them, nor in any do

mestic cares; never soliciting for preferment, nor busied in any other way. I have been happily delivered from many occupations which were not suitable to my humour; and I have enjoyed the greatest and the most charming leisure that a man of letters could desire. By such means an author makes a great progress in a few years,'

Bayle, at Rotterdam, was appointed to a professorship of philosophy and history; the salary was a competence to his frugal life, and enabled him to publish his celebrated Review, which he dedicates' to the glory of the city,' for illa nobis hæc otia fecit.

After this grateful acknowledgment he was unexpectedly deprived of the professorship. The secret history is curious. After a tedious war, soine one amused the world by a chimerical Project of Peace,' which was much against the wishes and the designs of our William III.— Jurieu, the head of the Reformed party in Holland, a man of heated fancies, persuaded William's party that this book was a part of a secret cabal in Europe, raised by Louis XIV against William III; and accused Bayle as the author and promoter of this political confederacy. The magistrates, who were the creatures of William, dismissed Bayle without alleging any reason. To an ordinary philosopher it would have seemed hard to lose his salary because his antagonist was one

Whose sword is sharper than his pen.'

Bayle only rejoiced at this emancipation, and quietly returned to his Dictionary. His feelings on this occasion he has himself perpetuated.

'The sweetness and repose I find in the studies in which I have engaged myself, and which are my delight, will induce me to remain in this city, if I am allowed to continue in it, at least till the printing of my Dictionary is finished; for my presence is absolutely necessary to the place where it is printed. I am no lover of money, nor of honours, and would not accept of any invitation, should it be made to me; nor am I fond of the disputes and cabals, and professorial snarlings, which reign in all our academies: Canam mihi et Music.' He was indeed so charmed by quiet and independence, that he was continually refusing the most magnificent offers of patronage: from Count Guiscard, the French ambassador; but particularly from our English nobility. The Earls of Shaftesbury, of Albermarle, and of Huntingdon, tried every solicitation to win him over to reside with them as their friend; and too nice a sense of honour induced Bayle to refuse the Duke of Shrewsbury's gift of two hundred guineas for the dedication of his dictionary, 'I have so often ridiculed dedications that I must not risk any,' was the reply of our philosopher.

The only complaint which escaped from Bayle was the want of books; an evil particularly felt during his writing the Critical Dictionary; a work which should have been composed not distant from the shelves of a public library. Men of classical attainments, who are studying about twenty authors, and chiefly for their style, can form no conception of the state of famine to which anhelluo librorum' is too often reduced in the new sort of study which Bayle founded. Taste when once obtained may be said to be no acquiring faculty, and must remain stationary; but Knowledge is of perpetual growth, and has infinite demands. Taste, like an artificial canal, winds through a beautiful country; but its borders are confined, and its term is limited; Knowledge navigates the ocean, and is perpetually on voyages of discovery. Bayle often grieves over the scarcity, or the want of books, by which he was compelled to leave many things uncertain, or to take them at second hand; but he lived to discover that trusting to the reports of others, was too often suffering the blind to lead the blind. It was this circumstance which induced Bayle to declare, that some works cannot be written in the country, and that the metropolis only can supply the wants of the literary man. Plutarch has made a similar confession; and the elder Pliny who had not so many volumes to turn over as a modern, was sensible to the wants of books, for he acknowledges that there was no book so bad by which we might not profit.

Bayle's peculiar vein of research and skill in discussion first appeared in his Pensées sur la Comete.' In December, 1680. a comet had appeared, and the public yet trembled at a portentous meteor, which they still imagined was connected with some forthcoming and terrible event! Persons as curious as they were terrified teased

Bayle by their inquiries, but resisted all his arguments.

They found many things more than arguments in his amusing volumes: I am not one of the authors by profession,' says Bayle, in giving an account of the method he meant to pursue, 'who follow a series of views; who first project their subject, then divide it into books and chapters, and who only choose to work on the ideas they have planned. I, for my part, give up all claims to authorship, and shall chain myself to no such servitude. I cannot meditate with much regularity on one subject; I am too fond of change. I often wander from the subject, and jump into places of which it might be difficult to guess the way out; so that I shall make a learned doctor who looks for method quite impatient with me.' The work is indeed full of curiosities and anecdotes, with many critical ones concerning history.

At first it found an easy entrance into France, as a simple account of comets; but when it was discovered that Bayle's comet had a number of fiery tails concerning the French and the Austrians, it soon became as terrific as the comet itself, and was prohibited!

Bayle's Critique generale de l'histoire du Calvinisme par le Pere Maimbourg,' had more pleasantry than bitter. ness, except to the palate of the vindictive Father, who was of too hot a constitution to relish the delicacy of our author's wit. Maimbourg stirred up all the intrigues he could rouse to get the Critique burnt by the hangman at Paris. The lieutenant of the police, De la Reynie, who was among the many who did not dislike to see the Father corrected by Bayle, delayed this execution from time to time, till there came a final order. This lieutenant of the police was a shrewd fellow, and wishing to put an odium on the bigoted Maimbourg, allowed the irrascible Father to write the proclamation himself with all the violence of an enraged author. It is a curious specimen of one who evidently wished to burn his brother with his book. In this curious proclamation, which has been preserved as a literary curiosity, Bayle's Critique' is declared to be defamato ry and calumnious, abounding with seditious forgeries, pernicious to all good subjects, and therefore is condemned to be torn to pieces, and burnt at the Place de Greve. All printers and booksellers are forbidden to print, or to sell, or disperse the said abominable book, under pain of death; and all other persons, of what quality or condition soever, are to undergo the penalty of exemplary punishment. De le Reyne must have smiled on submissively receiving this effusion from our enraged author; and to punish Maim. bourg in the only way he could contrive, and to do at the same time the greatest kindness to Bayle, whom he admired, he dispersed three thousand copies of this proclama tion to be posted up through Paris: the alarm and the curiosity were simultaneous; but the latter prevailed. Every book collector hastened to procure a copy so terrifically denounced, and at the same time so amusing. The author of the Livres condamné au feu' might have inserted this anecdote in his collection. It may be worth adding, that Mainbourg always affected to say that he had never read Bayle's work; but he afterwards confessed to Menage, that he could not help valuing a book of such curiosity. Jurieu was so jealous of its success, that Beanval attributes his personal hatred of Bayle to our young philosopher overshadowing that veteran.

The taste for literary history we owe to Bayle; and the great interest he communicated to these researches spread in the national tastes of Europe. France has been always the richest in these stores, but our acquisitions have been rapid; and Johnson, who delighted in them, elevated their means and their end, by the ethical philosophy and the spirit of criticism which he awoke. With Bayle, indeed, his minor works were the seed-plots; but his great Dictionary opened the forest.

It is curious, however, to detect the difficulties of early attempts, and the indifferent success which sometimes attends them in their first state. Bavle, to lighten the fatigue of correcting the second edition of his Dictionary, wrote the first volume of Responses aux Questions d'un Provincial,' a supposititious correspondence with a country gentleman. It was a work of mere literary curiosity, and of a better description of miscellaneous writing than that of the prevalent fashion of giving thoughts and maxims, and fanciful characters, and idle stories, which had satiated the public taste: however the book was not well received. He attributes the public caprice to his prodigality of literary anecdotes, and other minutiae literaria, and his frequent quotations! but he defends himself with skill. It is against the nature of things to pretend that in a work to prove and clear up facts, an author should only make use of his own

thoughts, or that he ought to quote very seldom. Those who say, that the work does not sufficiently interest the public, are doubtless in the right; but an author cannot interest the public except he discusses moral or polincal subjects. All others with which men of letters in their books are useless to the public and we ought to cutsider them as only a kind of frothy nourishment in them selves; but which, however, gratify the curiosity of many readers, according to the diversities of their tastes. What is there for example, less interesting to the public than the Bibliothèque Choisie of Colomies (a small bibliographi cal work:) yet is that work looked on as excellent in its kind. I could mention other works which are read, though containing nothing which interests the public. Two years after, when he resumed these letters, he changed his plan; he became more argumentative, and more sparing of ine rary and historical articles. We have now certainly ob tained more decided notions of the nature of this species of composition, and treat such investigations with more skill; still they are caviare to the multitude.' An acch mulation of dry facts, without any exertion of taste or discussion, forms but the barren and obscure diligence of title-hunters. All things which come to the reader with out having first passed through the mind, as well as the pen of the writer, will be still open to the fatal objection of insane industry raging with a depraved appetite for trash and cinders; and this is the line of demarcation which will for ever separate a Bayle from a Prosper Marchand, and a Warton from a Ritson: the one must be satisfied to be useful, but the other will not fail to delight. Yet some thing must be alleged in favour of those who may sometimes indulge researches too minutely; perhaps there is 1 point beyond which nothing remains but useless curiosis; yet this too may be relative. The pleasure of these pursuits is only tasted by those who are accustomed to them, and whose employments are thus converted into amusements. A man of fine genius, Addison relates, trained up in all the polite studies of antiquity, upon being obliged to search into several rolls and records, at first found this a very dry and irksome employment; yet he assured the, that at last he took an incredible pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the reading of Virgil and Cicero.

As for our Bayle, he exhibits a perfect model of the real literary character. He, with the secret alchymy of human happiness, extracted his tranquillity out of the baser metals, at the cost of his ambition and his fortune. Throughout a voluminous work, he experienced the enjoyment of per petual acquisition and delight; he obtained glory, and he endured persecution. He died as he had lived, in the same uninterrupted habits of composition; for with bis dying hand, and nearly speechless, he sent a fresh proof to the printer!

CICERO VIEWED AS A COLLECTOR.

Mr Fuseli, in the introduction to the second part of his Lectures, has touched on the character of Cicero, respect ing his knowledge and feeling of Art, in a manner which excites our curiosity. Though,' says that eloquent lecturer, Cicero seems to have had as little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less than he had taste for poetry, he had a conception of Nature, and with his usual acumen frequently scattered useful hints and pertinent observations. For many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius, with whom, though his rival in eloquence, he lived on terms of familiarity, and who was a man of declared taste, and one of the first collectors of the time.' The inquiry may amuse, to trace the progress of Cicero's taste for the works of art; which was probably a late, but an ardent pursuit with this celebrated man; and their actual enjoyment seems with him rather to have been connected with some future plan of life.

Cicero, when about forty three years of age, seems to have projected the formation of a library and a collection of antiquities, with the remote intention of secession, and one day stealing away from the noisy honours of the republic. Although that great man remained too long a victim to his political ambition, yet at all times his natural dispositions would break out, and amidst his public avocations he often anticipated a time when life would be unvalued without uninterrupted repose: but repose, destitute of the ample furniture, and even of the luxuries of a mund occupying itself in literature and art, would only for him have opened the repose of a desert! It was rather his provident wisdom than their actual enjoyment, which induced him, at a busied period of his life, to accumulate

from all parts, books, and statues, and curiosities, without number; in a word, to become, according to the term, too often misapplied and misconceived among us, for it is not always understood in an honourable sense, a collector!

Like other later collectors, Cicero often appears ardent to possess what he was not able to command; sometimes he entreats, or circuitously negociates, or is planning the future means to secure the acquisitions which he thirsted after. He is repeatedly soliciting his literary friend Atticus to keep his books for him, and not to dispose of his collections on any terms, however earnestly the bidders may crowd; and, to keep his patience in good hope (for Atticus imagined his collection would exceed the price which Cicero could afford.) he desires Atticus not to despair of his being able to make them his, for that he was saving all his rents to purchase these books for the relief of his old age.

This projected library, and collection of antiquities, it was the intention of Cicero to have placed in his favourite villa in the neighbourhood of Rome, whose name, consecrated by time, now proverbially describes the retirement of a man of elegant tastes. To adorn his villa at Tusenlum formed the day-dreams of this man of genius; and his passion broke out in all the enthusiasm and impatience which so frequently characterize the modern collector. Not only Atticus, on whose fine taste he could depend, but every one likely to increase his acquisitions, was Cicero persecuting with entreaties, on entreaties, with the seduction of large prices, and with the expectation, that if the orator and consul would submit to accept any bribe, it would hardly be refused in the shape of a manuscript or a statue. In the name of our friendship,' says Cicero, addressing Atticus, suffer nothing to escape you of whatever you find curious or rare,' When Atticus informed him that he should send him a fine statue, in which the heads of Mercury and Minerva were united together, Cicero, with the enthusiasm of a maniacal lover of the present day, finds every object which is uncommon the very thing for which he has a proper place. Your discovery is admirable, and the statue you mention seems to have been made purposely for my cabinet.' Then follows an explanation of the mystery of this allegorical statue, which expressed the happy union of exercise and study. 'Continue," he adds, to collect for me, as you have promised, in as great a quantity as possible, morsels of this kind.' Cicero, like other collectors, may be suspected not to have been very difficult m his choice, and for him the curious was not less valued than the beautiful. The mind and temper of Cicero were of a robust and philosophical cast, not too subject to the tortures of those whose morbid imagination and delicacy of taste touch on infirmity. It is, however, amusing to observe this great man, actuated by all the fervour and joy of collecting. I have paid your agent-as you ordered, for the Megaric statues-send me as many of them as you can, and as soon as possible, with any others which you think proper for the place, and to my taste, and good enough to please yours. You cannot imagine how greatly my passion increases for this sort of things; it is such that it may appear ridiculous in the eyes of many; but you are my friend, and will only think of satisfving my wishes.' Again- Purchase for me, without thinking further, all that you discover of rarity. My friend, do not spare my purse.' And, indeed, in another place he loves Atticus both for his promptitude and cheap purchases: Te multum amamus, quod ea abs te diligenter, parvoque curata sunt.

Our collectors may not be displeased to discover at their head so venerable a personage as Cicero; nor to sanction their own feverish thirst and panting impatience with all the raptures on the day of possession, and the 'saving of rents' to afford commanding prices-by the authority of the greatest philosopher of antiquity.

A fact is noticed in this article which requires elucidation. In the life of a true collector, the selling of his books is a singular incident. The truth is, that the elegant friend of Cicero, residing in the literary city of Athens, appears to have enjoyed but a moderate income, and may be said to have traded not only in books, but in gladiators, whom he let out, and also charged interest for the use of his money circumstances which Cornelius Nepos, who gives an account of his landed property, has omitted, as, perhaps, not well adapted to heighten the interesting picture which he gives of Artiens, but which the Abbé Mongault has detected in his curious notes on Cicero's letters to Atticus. It is certain that he employed his slaves, who, 'to the foot

boy,' as Middleton expresses himself, were all literary and skilful scribes, in copying the works of the best authors for his own use; but the duplicates were sold, to the common profit of the master and the slave. The state of literature among the ancients may be paralleled with that of the age of our first restorers of learning, when printing was not yet established; then Boccaccio, and Petrarch, and such men, were collectors, and zealously occupied in the manual labour of transcription; immeasurable was the delight of that avariciousness of manuscript, by which, in a certain given time, the possessor, with an unwearied pen, could enrich himself by his copy; and this copy an estate would not always purchase! Besides that a manuscript selected by Atticus, or copied by the hand of Boccaccio and Petrarch, must have risen in value, associating it with the known taste and judgment of the collector.

THE HISTORY OP THE CARACCIS.

The congenial histories of literature and of art are accompanied by the same periodical revolutions; and none is more interesting than that one which occurs in the decline and corruption of arts, when a single mind returning to right principles, amidst the degenerated race who had forsaken them, seems to create a new epoch, and teaches a servile race once more how to invent! These epochs are few, but are easily distinguished. The human mind is never stationary; it advances or it retrogrades; having reached its meridian point, when the hour of perfection has gone by, it must verge to its decline. In all Art, perfection lapses into that weakened state too often dignified as classical imitation; but it sinks into mannerism, and wantons into affectation, till it shoots out into fantastic novelties. When all languishes in a state of mediocrity, or is deformed by false tastes, then is reserved for a fortunate genius the glory of restoring another golden age of invention. The history of the Caracci family serves as an admirable illustration of such an epoch, while the personal characters of the three Caraccis throw an additional interest over this curious incident in the history of the works of genius.

The establishment of the famous accademie, or school of painting, at Bologna, which restored the art in the last stage of degeneracy, originated in the profound meditations of Lodovico. There was a happy boldness in the idea; but its great singularity was that of discovering those men of genius, who alone could realize his ideal conception, amidst his own family circle; and yet these were men whose opposite dispositions and acquirements could hardly have given any hope of mutual assistance; and much less of melting together their minds and their work in such unity of conception and execution, that even to our days they leave the critics undetermined which of the Caraccis to prefer; each excelling the other in some pictorial quality. Often combining together in the same picture, the mingled labour of three painters seemed to proceed from one pallet, as their works exhibit which adorn the churches of Bolog

na.

They still disputed about a picture, to ascertain which of the Caraccis painted it; and still one prefers Lodovico for his grandiocita, another Agostino for his invention, and others Annibale for his vigour or his grace.*

His

What has been told of others, happened to Lodovico Caracci in his youth; he struggled with a mind tardy in its conceptions, so that he gave no indications of talent; and was apparently so inept as to have been advised by two masters to be satisfied to grind the colours he ought not otherwise to meddle with. Tintoretto, from friendship, exhorted him to change his trade. 'This sluggishness of intellect did not proceed,' observes the sagacious Lanzi, 'from any deficiency, but from the depth of his penetrating mind: early in life he dreaded the ideal as a rock on which so many of his contemporaries had been shipwrecked.' hand was not blest with precocious facility, because his mind was unsettled about truth itself; he was still seeking for nature, which he could not discover in those wretched mannerists, who boasting of their freedom and expedition in their bewildering tastes, which they called the ideal, relied on the diplomas and honours obtained by intrigue or purchase, which sanctioned their follies in the eyes of the multitude, Lodovico,' says Lanzi, would first satisfy his own mind on every line; he would not paint till painting well became a habit, and till habit produced facility.'

Lodovico then sought in other cities for what he could not find at Bologna. He travelled to inspect the works of the elder masters; he meditated on all their details; he * Lanzi, Storia Piucrica, V. 85.

tered into the higher circles; he ridiculed his refined manners, and even the neat elegance of his dress. To mortify Agostino, one day, he sent him a portrait of their father threading a needle, and their mother cutting out the

Returning to Belogna, he found his degraded brothers in art still quarrelling about the merits of the old and the new school, and still exulting in their vague conceptions and expeditious methods, Lodovico, who had observed all, had summed up his principles in ons grand maxim,-that of combining a close observation of nature with the imitation of the great masters, modifying both, however, by the disposition of the artist himself. Such was the simple idea and the happy project of Lodovico! Every perfection seemed to have been obtained: the Raffaeleschi excelled in the ideal; the Michelangioleschi in the anatomical: the Venetian and the Lombard schools in brilliant vivacity or phi losophic gravity. All seemed pre-occupied; but the secret of breaking the bonds of servile imitation was a new art: of mingling into one school the charms of every school, adapting them with freedom; and having been taught by all, to remain a model for all; or, as Lanzi expresses it, dopo avere appresso da te tutte insigno a tutte. To restore Art in its decline, Lodovico pressed all the sweets from all the flowers; or, melting together all his rich materials, formed one Corinthian brass. This school is described by Du Fresnoy in the character of Annibale,

Quos sedulus Hannibal omnes

In propriam mentem atque morem mira arte coegit. Paraphrased by Mason,

From all their charms combined, with happy toil, Did Annibal compose his wondrous style; O'er the fair fraud so close a veil is thrown, That every borrow'd grace becomes his own.* Lodovico perceived that he could not stand alone in the breach, and single-handed encounter an impetuous multitude. He thought of raising up a party among those youthful aspirants who had not yet been habitually depraved. He had a brother whose talent could never rise beyond a poor copyist's, and him he had the judgment, unswayed by undue partiality, to account as a cipher; but he found two of his cousins, men capable of becoming as extraordinary as himself.

These brothers, Agostino and Annibale, first by nature, and then by their manners and habits, were of the most opposite dispositions. Born amidst humble occupations, their father was a tailor, and Annibale was still working on the paternal board, while Agostino was occupied by the elegant works of the goldsmith, whence he acquired the fine art of engraving, in which he became the Marc Antonio of his time. Their manners, perhaps, resulted from their trades. Agostino was a man of science and literature: a philosopher and poet, of the most polished elegance, the most enchanting conversation, far removed from the vulgar, he became the companion of the learned and the noble. Annibale could scarcely write and read; an inborn ruggedness made him sullen, taciturn, or if he spoke, sarcastic; scorn and ridicule were his bitter delight. Nature had strangely made these brothers little less than enemies. Annibale despised his brother for having en

D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, II. 68.

The curious reader of taste may refer to Mr Fuseli's Se. cond Lecture for a diatribe against what he calls the Eclectic School; which, by selecting the beauties, correcting the faults, supplying the defects, and avoiding the extremes of the different styles, attempted to form a perfect system.' He acknow. ledges the greatness of the Caraccis; yet he laughs at the mere copying the manners of various painters into one picture. But perhaps, I say it with all possible deference, our animated critic forgot for a moment that it was no mechanical imitation the Caraccis inculcated; nature and art were to be equally stu died, and secondo il natio talento e la propria sua disposizione. Barry distinguishes with praise and warmth. Whether,' says he, we may content ourselves with adopting the manly plan of art pursued by the Caraccis and their school at Bolog na, in uniting the perfections of all the other schools; or whether, which I rather hope, we look further in the style of de sign upon our own studies after nature; whichever of these plans the nation might fix on,' &c II. 518. Thus three great names. Du Fresnoy, Fuseli, and Barry, restricted their notions of the Caracci plan to a mere imitation of the great masters; but Lanzi, in unfolding Lodovico's project, lays down as his first principle the observation of nature, and, secondly, the imi. tation of the great masters; and all modified by the natural disposition of the artist

ear, when he met him walking with a nobleman, not to forget that they were sons of a poor tailor! The same contrast existed in the habits of their mind. Agostino was slow to resolve, difficult to satisfy himself; he was for pos lishing and maturing every thing: Annibale was too rapid to suffer any delay, and often evading the difficulties of the art, loved to do much in a short time. Lodovico soon perceived their equal and natural aptitude for art; and placing Agostino under a master, who was celebrated for his facility of execution, he fixed Annibale in his own study, where his cousin might be taught by observation the Fes tina lenti; how the best works are formed by a leisurely haste. Lodovico seems to have adopted the artifice of Isocrates in his management of two pupils, of whom he said, that the one was to be pricked on by the spur, and the other kept in by the rein.

*

But a new difficulty arose in the attempt to combine together such incongruous natures; the thoughtful Lodovico intent on the great project of the reformation of the art, by his prudence long balanced their unequal tempers, and with that penetration which so strongly characterizes his genius, directed their distinct talents to his one great pur pose. From the literary Agostino he obtained the philosophy of critical lectures and scientific principles; invention and designing solely occupied Annibale; while the softness of contours, lightness and grace, were his own acquisition. But though Annibale presumptuously contemned the rare and elevated talents of Agostino, and scarcely submitted the works of Lodovico, whom he preferred to rival, yet, according to a traditional rumour which Lanzi records, it was Annibale's decision of character which enabled him, as it were, unperceived, to become the master over his cousin and his brother; Lodovico and Agostino long hesitated to oppose the predominant style, in their first Essays; Annibale hardly decided to persevere in opening their new career by opposing works to voices and to the enervate labours of their wretched rivals, their own works, warm in vigor and freshness, conducted on the principles of nature and art.

The Caraccis not only resolved to paint justly, but to persevere in the art itself, by perpetuating the perfect laste of the true style among their successors. In their own house they opened an Accademia, calling it degli Incamminati, 'the opening a new way,' or 'the beginners.' The academy was furnished with casts, drawings, prints, a school for anatomy, and for the living figure; receiving all comers with kindness; teaching gratuitously, and, as it is said, without jealousy; but too many facts are recorded to assent to the banishment of this infectious passion from the academy of the Caraccis, who, like other congregated artists, could not live together, and escape their own endemial fever.

It was here, however, that Agostino found his eminence as the director of their studies; delivering lectures on architecture and perspective, and pointing out from his store, of history and fable subjects for the designs of their pupils, who, on certain days, exhibited their works to the most skilful judges, adjusting the merits by their decisions. To the crowned sufficient is the prize of glory,' says Lanzi: and while the poets chanted their praises, the lyre of Agos tino himself gratefully celebrated the progress of his pu pils. A curious sonnet has been transmitted to us, where Agostino, like the ancient legislators, compresses his new laws into a fow verses, easily to be remembered. The sonnet is now well known, since Mr. Fuseli and Barry have preserved it in their lectures. This singular produc tion has, however, had the hard fate of being unjustle depreciated: Lanzi calls it pittoresca veramente piu che poetico; Mr Fuseli sarcastically compares it to a medical prescription.' It delighted Barry, who calls it 'a beautiful poem.' Considered as a didactive and descriptive poem, no lover of art, who has ever read it, will cease to repeat it till he has got it by heart. In this academy every one was free to indulge his own taste, provided he did not violate the essential principles of art; for, though the critics bave usually described the character of this new school to have been an imitation of the preceding ones, it was their first principle to be guided by nature, * D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, II. 47-081