ture, as that which most pleasingly and efficaciously stimulated and exhilarated the mind, fatigued and oppressed with study, and caused again to spring up, in their wonted power and ardour, those rich susceptibilities, which are wont to slumber inactive beneath the deadening influence of uncongenial, or too-long-continued pursuits. In his younger years he had assiduously cultivated the art of musical composition; and although he chiefly valued such exercises for the more exquisite and refined discernment with which they enabled him to appreciate the noble excellencies of the great masters, yet they displayed much power and facility of invention, and an eager seeking after striking and novel effects, which could alone have occurred to one of ardent and refined musical susceptibility. While occupied in the composition of his religious discourses, he, above all, felt with deep sensibility the power of music, and eagerly resigned himself to its delicious and soothing impressions. He then loved that one of his family, whom he had early inspired with the ardour of his own refined musical passion, should perform in his hearing some of his favourite compositions of Handel, of Abel, or of Bach. These, in their rich and impressive power, he was used to say, gave a richer and more ardent activity to his susceptible mind, a more quickened and delicate feeling of the beauty of the topics which he treated, and often, in that added fervour of susceptibility which they excited, inspired him with the noblest of his conceptions, and the most overpowering and graphic touches of his vivid and pathetic description. He, throughout life, continued his ardent predilection for this delicious art; and what had so often imparted to him a pure satisfaction, and animated into more impressive exereise, the dictates of his pious mind, still bore with it the same blissful power, and continued to shed abroad within him that placid and mild unruffled serenity, which abode within him to the last.

For his varied and profound knowledge of literature, Dr Taylor was eminently remarkable. He was intimately versed in all its singular

and chequered characteristics in this country, amidst all the variety of its revolutions, and the striking diversity of its modifications. With the spirit and chaste elegance of ancient classical literature he was deeply imbued, and pursued, throughout life, with abiding ardour and relish, in the most esteemed and admirable authors, his minute knowledge and refined appreciation of its peculiar and distinctive changes, in modern times, throughout Europe. For the literature of Germany and France he ever entertained a peculiar ardour of predilection. He was accustomed to peruse the classic prose writers, especially of the latter nation, with a deep and refined susceptibility of those inimitable and touching graces of style and manner, in which they may be said so strikingly to transcend all others. And generally, before engaging in composition, he was wont to have in his hands the work of some writer of that country, which he peculiarly valued for the felicitous display of these refined and arduous characteristics; as (among others) the "Petit Carême" of Massillon,-the "Pièces Choises" of Buffon,-the "Eloges" of Thomas,

the "Sermons and Panegyrics" of Flechier, or the "Belisaire" of Marmontel. These he believed (in a deep feeling and appreciation of their excellencies) more powerfully to excite the emulous ardour of his genius; and to diffuse throughout the compositions upon which he was engaged somewhat of that chaste and emphatic vigour of pathetic colouring, and that graphic and animated ease of narrative and description, which he so ardently felt and admired.

For the enlightened study and culture of philosophy, Dr Taylor ever entertained an ardent bias. He regarded a knowledge of its profound and varying systems as inseparably allied with the liberal and enlarged studies of his own profession; as shewing the utmost energy and penetrating extent of human unaided inquiry, which receives alone its most emphatic and intelligible comment from the clear and irresistible light which the lessons of divine truth shed upon its diversified and often fanciful and fantastic doctrines.

The zealous and abiding fondness with which he ever regarded his own profession, led him, with a peculiar ardour, to cultivate that varied and profound knowledge which it so emi nently demands. He was deeply skilled in divinity, and in the history of religious controversy. And while be possessed an intimate knowledge of those revolutions and changes which have so strikingly marked the progress of religion, he ever drew that amiable and benign candour, and soft charity, which gracefully accompanied and recommended his judgments in sacred things, from his deep feeling of the inestimable value and importance of the inspired les sons of divine truth.

In his manner and delivery as a preacher, this ancient clergyman was earnest, grave, and impressive. A mild and simple unostentatious dig nity, touched with a bland and soft benignity, ever accompanied his demeanour, and imparted an added charm of persuasion and of power to his impressive and eloquent instructions. He little sought the aids of studied and varied action. He rather relied alone, for the depth of a tender devotional impression, upon the fervid and strikingly-contrasted views of his own gifted mind, delivered with an earnest and finely-chastened gravity and sobriety. He thought such exterior oratorical aids apt, of ten insensibly, to trespass, in their growing excess, upon the earnest apostolic gravity and simplicity which be conceived most suitably to adorn the sacred character; that however much such blandishments of man ner might enforce, embellish, or recommend, the arguments and to pics of erring human ingenuity and belief, they could yet, in truth, add little to the beauty, or the impress sive and sacred efficacy, of divine and immutable truth. The discourses of Dr Taylor were ever characterised by the justness and originality of their profound views, by a lucid clearness of arrangement and dis cussion, and by that persuasive charm and interest, which his creative and susceptible mind knew, with such felicitous skill, to impart to every topic which he treated, and every view which he impressively held out. He zealously desired the welfare

VOL. XVI.

and elevated instruction of his people; and he ever rightly considered, that, in such sacred exercises, it was not sufficient alone to satisfy and convince the judgment; but that there should be superadded to this the effective and irresistible influence of the moved heart and affec tions, touched with the susceptibi lity of a lofter belief, of a more ar dent love of the beauty, and inestimable value of sacred truth and of virtue. He was, indeed, a preacher eminently distinguished for his pathetic, eloquent, and persuasive powers; his natural and deep sensibility, and his ardent and finelychastened fancy, ever at once suggested to him the most energetic and touching mode of enforcing those divine lessons which he inculcated, and of adding a novel interest and power to those great and marked scriptural characters, moving amidst such great and awful events of the olden time, which he delineated; or to those sublime and impressive situations, big with instructive power, which he so adequately and emphatically depicted. He was remark able for a power of glowing and vis vid description, ever guided by the refined dictates of the most chaste and elegant taste, which yet took nothing from the richness of its fa vouring accompaniments, or the en ergy and emphatic power of its colouring. Whatever touching circum stances and associations-whatever recollections, deeply imbued with poetic feeling, and flowing naturally from the impressive subject he treats ell, were eagerly seized upon with a masterly hand, to add to the force of a deep and pathetic impression. He possessed a rare power of felicitous and apposite illustration; and the licit embellishments of his style, the elegant graces of his language and expression, and the graphic and impressive vein of his finely-chequered and striking imagery, were at all times reared upon the stable and noble basis of the soundest and most enlightened truths, and the most elevated, and just, and consoling religious views. His discourses on public occasions were especially vaÎued and admired for the striking and appropriate character of their topics, and the invariable beauty,

3 N

and pathetic and persuasive interest, which he ever threw around their vigorous and luminous discussion. In that ardent, affectionate, and amiable reverence with which his people ever regarded him, he had at no time to lament the inconstancy of human friendship and attachment. The bland and engaging benignity of his virtues, and the abiding, pure, and ardent integrity of his character, seemed ever securely to establish and confirm that affection which it gently and efficaciously conciliated, and to kindle within others that unshaken stedfastness and constancy of regard which characterised his own wise and stably-founded friendships. He had, it is true, often, in his venerable and far-advanced years, to lament friendships broken, and attachments dissolved; but they were those which death alone, in its destroying power, had severed, and the endeared objects of which the tenderness of his regrets, and the strong grasp of his ardent affection, could not detain. Can his people, in the ardour of their amiable regrets, ever forget that earnest and fond paternal solicitude with which he watched over their most sacred interests?-that eloquent and abiding ardour with which he ever guided and hallowed their devotions that benign dignity, so finely allied with the ardour of enlightened and affectionate zeal, with which he enforced his touching and impressive instructions? Perhaps there is no sight more nobly edifying and instructive than that of a people who, in the ardour and constancy of their well-grounded attachment, cling to their aged pastor to the last-whom the delusions of no novel or shifting religious doc trines draw aside from the path in which they have so long gladly and securely walked-and with whom the errors of no vain or dispiriting belief turn, so to say, into bitterness the waters of that pure and ever-springing fountain, from which they have so long drawn healing, and gladness, and refreshing,-with whom the feebleness and debility of venerable years, and the mournful and swift decays of nature in their

revered instructor, only more tenderly awaken their solicitude, and more affectionately kindle the ardour of their constant and abiding affection; and who, when the last disastrous stroke falls, which closes for ever his useful and zealous pastoral labours, regard his departure, amidst the depth of their reverence and affection, with somewhat of the intense feeling and embittered sorrow of a severe domes tic affliction. Such may with truth be said to be the emotions, in the midst of his constant and endeared people, with which the death of this pious and enlightened individual has been justly attended. The amiable ardour of their regrets are, indeed, the fitting tribute to the excellence of his worth, and the value of his edifying and richly-consoling instruc tions. And although his people shall no longer hear the well-known accents of that voice which has so often forcibly and deliciously aroused their finest and noblest sensibilities, or experience that amiable and affectionate solicitude of venerable years which has so often touched them into reverence and regard, or behold that aged hand, stretched forth in mild, earnest, apostolic fervour, to bliss them; yet, assuredly, his sacred and efficacious instructions have sunk with a deep and enduring power, worthy their value, upon the hearts of his people; and the rare worth of him they have lost shall hallow in their sight their tender and fondlycherished recollections. The voice of sacred truth, when breathed by the pious and devout, does not, in virtuous minds, speedily die. His people shall long, with endeared affection, recall the memory of one whose virtues were so gracefully and inseparably linked with the elevated and divine doctrines which he taught, and the lustre of whose talents, and the rich and impressivelycoloured beauty of whose zealous and impressive instructions, received their most fitting and admirable comment in the excellence of his own individual worth, and the persuasive and forcible charm of his own most amiable, and bland, and benign virtues.

stoun gray

When the sun hangs low and red, To gaze on the ravages of decay, And to muse on the days that have passed away,

And the long-forgotten dead.

Not a tread is heard in thy lonely hall, Nor a groan from thy dungeon deep, For thy captives are bound in stronger

1

thrall

Than thy roofless tower, and thy mouldering wall,

In the narrow house they sleep.

Thy grandeur and pride have flitted away

"Like a tale that has been told," For thy banners are furl'd for ever and aye,

And Death has broke the firm array

Of thy ancient warriors bold.

Death soils in the dust the plumage and

crest

Of the boldest son of breath, For who among men this foe may resist,Who may e'er in hope set lance in the rest,

Or enter the lists with Death?

"Tis in vain now the summer sunbeams

stream

Through thy grateless windows gay, For no fair lady veils her from the beam, And no burnish'd mail flings back the gleam

From thy walls so rude and gray; And vainly may rave the winter wind

Through thy loop-holes piping shrill, For it chills no blood, it damps no mind, No shivering shred of human kind Breathes here, for all is still.

Still scuds the hare, as timid and shy,
From brake to brake unseen,—

Still wheels the crow round thy battlements high,

With as wild a scream as when warfare was nigh,

And carcases heap'd the green :

But here now awakes no maddening cry,
No shout, no shriek, no groan,-
No dismal war-cloud obscures the sky,-
No freezing gore-streams the fair daisie's
dye,

Red crusting sward and stone.
Still round thee Levern sweeps and sings
O'er his peebles as of yore,➡
Still o'er its stream the hazel hings,—
Still on its bank the wild rose springs,

The rowan and the hawthorn hoar :

But no yeoman here cuts his arrow-shafts now,

Or hums his rude roundelay, Where the peasant boy, with the sunburnt brow,

Seek the grey-linnet's nest, from bough to bough,

And wastes the long summer day;

And no lovely maid o'er thy drawbridge strays,

When the western sky is bright, To tread alone the greenwood maze, On her own sweet form in the stream to gaze,

And sigh for some absent knight:

For thy knights have approv'd their knighthood well,

And return'd with trophies home; But minstrels their deeds have forgot to tell,

And snow-white breasts have ceas'd to swell

All are crumbling in the tomb.

We left Canova just established in Rome, and preparing his designs for the tomb of Ganganelli. In this employment, nearly two years of unremitting labour were consumed; for Canova, though his character as a sculptor of distinguished talent was already fixed, was still obliged to perform all the more mechanical labours of his art with his own hand, being unable to pay for the services of an assistant. On this occasion,

also, he realized the plan he had long meditated, of executing the original models in a similar manner, and of the same dimensions with the finished work; a system which he found to be highly conducive to improvement in statuary, and which, after this essay, he never afterwards abandoned.

The difficulty of composing and modelling, without assistance, figures of the colossal magnitude required for

the purpose was extreme; and Canova, more than once, almost gave way to despondency during his labour. Such was his unremitting as siduity, however, that, dissatisfied with the result of his first essays, he entirely remodelled the statues he had composed for the tomb of Clement. At length, in 1787, the long-expected work was exposed to public inspection, and the effect it produced is thus graphically described by Milizia, whom Cicognara styles the Aristarchus of the arts.

"A singular phenomenon, my dear Count, wherefore I write to you,-what a proem! In the church of the Holy Apostles, near the entrance to the sacristy, and fronting down one of the side aisles, the sculptor Antonio Canova, a Venetian, has erected a Mausoleum to Pope Ganganelli. The basement is divided into two plinths. Upon the first sits a beautiful female, called Meekness, -meek as the lamb which reposes at her side. Upon the second division is the urn, over which, on the opposite side, reclines Temperance, another beautiful figure. From behind rises a pedestal supporting a seat of antique form, where, full of dignity, and clothed in a most be coming manner, (papalissimamente,) is seated his Holiness, with the right arm and hand extended horizontally, in atti tude of commanding of pacifying of protecting. Such is the monument. The whole is of white marble, except the lower basement, the pedestal and chair, which are of a greyish colour, (Lumacello.) The harmony is delightful, the light proceeding from above, and in moderated splendour, whence every part comes out with great sweetness. The composition is of that simplicity which seems facility itself yet is the very essence of difficulty. What repose, what elegance, what disposition! The sculpture and the architecture, in the whole, as also in the details, is in the style of antiquity. Canova is an ancient, I know not whether of Athens or of Corinth; I feel assured, however, that if in Greece, and during the happiest ages of Grecian art, it had been required to sculpture a Pope, the subject would not have been

treated in a manner different from the present. During the twenty-six years which I have passed here, in questa urbe del orbe, I have never witnessed any work so generally applauded. Of all the pro. ductions of modern sculpture, this is declared, by the most liberal and intelligent artists, to approach nearest to the antique.

Even the ex-Jesuits themselves cannot forbear praising and admiring this marble Ganganellia circumstance surely to be regarded as a miracle of that Pope, who will henceforth derive no less glory from this monument, than from having suppressed that order! It is indeed a perdoubts, they would be dispelled by the fect work, of which, were there any very censures of the Michael-Angelists, the Berninists, the Borominists, who, Heaven pity them! regard as defects the greatest of its beauties,-exclaiming against the drapery, the form, the expressions as antique! Our friend, Pietro Vitali, is now employed upon an engraving of this monument. I congratulate myself, then, with all the Venetians. I earnestly wish that the young artists may follow the noble career of Canova, and that the Fine Arts may again be restored.

A similar monument to Rezzonico, (Clement XII.) to be erected by immediately entrusted to Canova, the nephews of that pontiff, was who, as an Italian critic observes, "thus seemed to begin where other sculptors conclude their labours, with such grand and colossal undertakings as are very rarely confided to those whose reputation a long course of years, and a numerous series of works, have not established." His success, however, never seems to have impaired his industry or his caution. Nearly five years were devoted to the present beautiful production, and the same care in modelling and execution bestowed on it as on the former. The general design resembles that of the tomb of Ganganelli. The basement, divided in the centre by a door, is, like the former, composed of two gradations, on which are placed the same number of emblematical figures, with the sarcophagus between : above rises the plinth, or pedestal, supporting the kneeling figure of the aged Pontiff: On the left reclines a winged ge nius of Death, supporting his head on the inverted torch, and fixing a mournful look on the entrance to the division of the base, reposes a sleeptomb; while at his feet, on the first ing lion.

"guardando

A guisa di leon quando si posa." To the right stands Religion, erect and firm, bearing in the one hand a cross, while the other, stretched out gently, rests against the urn. This is solid