We are surrounded by an external world, which it has pleased the great Maker of the universe to clothe with infinite beauty, cognisable to us through the senses, yet scarcely ours, until, by a more intimate appropriation through the mind, we have added ourselves to it, made it a part of, and in some no inconsiderable degree subject to, the will of our own nature. The inventive faculties of the mind gather all within their reach, which it is their province to combine, and remodel, and revivify with human feeling; and thus, by becoming to a limited extent creative ourselves, we are the more enabled to look up, and in admiration adore the divine power that has made all things out of nothing, and the divine goodness which has given us a perception of a portion of His works. Through the senses we know indeed but imperfectly—more imperfectly than those who have not considered the subject will allow. They minister first to our actual wants, presenting few charms and enticements but such as barely suffice to refresh the mind under the weariness of its daily experience. The bulk of mankind are under a hard necessity, which limits their senses to the work of life: were they enlarged to a greater capacity, that work would be the more irksome. The senses are then, like the air we breathe, reduced from an extreme fineness and purity, for the temporary use of yet unpolished humanity. But they are not intended to continue ever in this state of imperfection.

The great business—the providing for the first wants of life—done, industry is rewarded not by absolute rest and idleness, but by the succession of new and higher wants, which the growing mind demands; and it accordingly taxes the senses, and gives them command to be purveyors, and cultivates them for the purpose of enlarged gratification. They are thus capable of great extension, and, as it were, of an influx of living power to awaken and spiritualise their dormant or inert matter. All life is in progression: sciences must be discovered; arts must be created; and could we conceive an entirely sluggish and uncultivated social state, how few would see what may be seen, or hear what may be heard! The earth, teeming with sights of wonder, and breathed over with a divine music, would be to its inhabitants, in such a condition, but a waste and thankless wilderness. And which is nature—the bare, the imperceptible, for any beauty it contains, or the riches of the mind's discovery, the imaginative creation? We are inventive, that we may discover what nature is; nor is that the less, but rather the more, nature which is art. Art is but nature discovered—the hidden brought to light, and home to us, and acknowledged and felt—more or less felt as we cultivate reciprocally the mind through the senses, and the senses through the mind. With this view, all the artificial enchantments of life are nature—all arts, all sciences: for how could they be to embellish society,—indeed without which there would be no society—had they not an independent existence somewhere in the great storehouse of infinity, and were they not bountifully thrown out to us as truths to gather, as fruits to nourish and to gratify? We would wish to vindicate all nature, and unfetter it from that petty distinction which many are fond of drawing between nature and art. These make but one whole. For why should we separate ourselves, with all our faculties, perceptive and inventive, from our intimate and purposed connexion with the great universe? It is nature, because it is every where man's doing, to write and act plays, to compose music, and to paint pictures, raise noble edifices, and make marble seem to live in statues. And besides, as man himself is the chief work of nature, so is that which he does, even out of a partial imitation of other nature, the more natural, as it to a certain degree recedes from its model, and participates in and adopts the feeling of him that makes it. It is this nature which makes beauty perfect—which renders the music of Handel better than the sounds of winds and waters, and of a higher nature than they, as it is of a more extensive power, in all variety of movement, to touch our feelings, and stir us at will. And such is poetry, which influences us where fact fails. And all this not by mere imitation, which some are so fond of thrusting forward as the means; for there is nothing quite like to itself. With such means of exquisite enjoyment within our reach—by this enlargement of the boundary of our senses, of entering upon the improved faculties of our minds—it does seem strange that any gifted with leisure and understanding should neglect the cultivation of arts and sciences, which offer in the pursuit and in the attainment such unlimited riches. It is as if an heir to a large and beautiful estate, a mansion opulent in treasures, should willingly turn his back upon his inheritance, and be content to live in a hovel, and habitate with swine that feed him. And so it is when life, that might be thus embellished and enjoyed, is worse than wasted in low pursuits, and in those meaner gratifications which the untutored senses supply.

We hold that a real taste for the Fine Arts is the acme of a nation's civilisation, and a greater, a more general happiness, the certain result. We hold, too, that it is a creature of growth—that it may spring up where once sown and tended with care, in apparently the most unpromising soils. The revival of arts and of letters took place in "Agresti Latio." And how is the whole world benefited by that era of cultivation! There is no country under the sun that so much stands in need of an education in the Arts as our own. With energy to produce, and wealth at command, where shall we look for more favouring national circumstances? This country has been the mart where the finest productions of the genius of other times have found the most liberal purchasers, neglected sadly by our governments; individual collectors have enriched the nation. If we have suffered too many of the finest works—the purchase of which would have been as nothing out of the public purse—to leave our shores, and now to be the ornament of foreign galleries; yet our private collectors are so numerous, that at least a love for the arts has been more generally disseminated. But we have had no previous education to qualify us for the taste which we would possess. There have been no great works, to which the public eye could be directed, growing up amongst us. Hitherto we have had no Vaticans to embellish, and our temples have been closed against the hand of genius; yet are we now, as it were, upon the turning-point of the character of our cultivation: there is a general stir, a common talk about art, an expressed interest, an almost universal appetence in that direction. We are perfectly surprised at the very large sums which have been recently given for works of even moderate pretensions. There is much to observe that indicates the general desire, but less that indicates a general knowledge. There is an incipient taste, but there is a great want,—education—education for art and in art. How is this to be promoted? The lectures of academies are thought to be exclusively for the professors or rather students, and are too often neglected by them. The lectures of Sir Joshua, of Fuseli, and others, contain much valuable matter, but they scarcely reach the public. The most interesting foreign publications remain untranslated. Vasari is as yet unknown in our language. Transcripts, in outline or in more full engraving, of the finest works, exist not among us: these are the things that should be before the eyes of all, together with a systematic reading education upon the principles. Whatever has been done that is great, that is ennobling, should be, as far as is possible, seen and known. As yet, in all this, there is a great deficiency. The public is left to, at best, an incipient taste; which, to judge from the kind of productions that find the readiest market, is not good—at all events is not high, and scarcely improving. The love is at present for picture imitation, that lowest condition in which art may be said to flourish. We want an education in its principles, that its just aim and proper influence may be understood. The Fine Arts should be a part of our literature, and thus become a branch of general education. We hail with pleasure every work of the kind we see announced; we rejoice in the publication of our "hand-books," and the many volumes on the arts, as they flourished in other countries, which now begin in some measure to interest the reading public. But is nothing done towards a foundation for education in the principles of the arts? We are happy to say there is much done. If the commission on the Fine Arts had done nothing more than the drawing up their "reports" by their secretary, in that they have done much. Valuable, however, as these "reports" are, they were nearly a dead letter: the title was not enticing; few looked to reports as other than statistical accounts; whereas, in reality, they contained deep research, accurate knowledge, and clearly set forth the principles upon which, as a foundation, true taste must rest. We are happy that these most able essays have been rescued from the common fate of "reports," by their being now preserved in a collected form, together with other most valuable treatises from the pen of the secretary to the commission, under the title of Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts. Mr Eastlake has conscientiously imposed upon himself an arduous undertaking, beyond the implied condition of his secretaryship. In so doing, he deserves the greatest commendation, for he has greatly increased the utility of the commission. Not content with promoting the arts by these excellent theoretical treatises, he has addressed the artists themselves, and led them to the best practical views. He has, with great industry, labour, and patient investigation, cleared away the common errors respecting the "Old Masters." We have already noticed his History of Painting in Oil—that is, the first volume, which treats of the practice of the Flemish school. It is now no matter of conjecture what colours or what vehicles were in use—we have sure documentary evidence before us. It remains to make known the alterations and additions to that practice by the Italian schools, and this will be the subject of his forthcoming volume. In the first work, indeed, we have glimpses of the Italian method, and recipes of the varnish supposed to be used by Correggio; but we look to certain information, which is the fair promise of the second volume.

In the Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts, in addition to the essays on painting, sculpture, and architecture, taken from the "reports," we have Mr Eastlake's review of Passavant's Life of Raphael, extracted from the Quarterly Review; notes from Kugler's Hand-Book, on the subject of the paintings in the Capella Sistina; extracts from the translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours, on the Decoration of a Villa; and, perhaps the most interesting of all, if we may not say the most important, a fragment on "The Philosophy of the Fine Arts," not noticed in the chapter of contents. To this last, being so entirely speculative upon the very cause of beauty, and so new in matter, we should feel disposed to invite discussion on the side of doubt—partly because, it being professedly a fragment, by suggesting the difficulties attending his theory, a clearer exposition in the further prosecution of it may be the result.

If it were not, so to speak, for the genius of materials—or if genius be not allowed, we may say the characteristics of materials—poetry, painting, and sculpture would be subject but to one order of criticism, under one set of rules. But though each has its agreement with the others in the same leading principles—the foundation of general taste, and mostly arising from moral considerations—yet have they, individually, their own diverging points, from which they seem freed from the "commune vinculum." It requires a nice discrimination to ascertain for each art these points of deviation from the general rules. These rules are, from observation and from books, more easily comprehended, and the common scope of all the arts understood; but, to an inquiring mind, difficulties will often present themselves, when seeming differences and contradictions occur; for undoubtedly all these arts must be reconciled with each other, and made akin. It becomes, therefore, an important step in the education of taste, to learn the necessarily different modes by which they each approach their ends—the same as far as the general principles are concerned, but with a variance according to the characteristics of each. Mr Eastlake has been very successful in pointing to these distinctions, in showing the rules which guide all, and those which necessitate the differences. We were particularly struck with this discrimination in his Treatise on Sculpture, than which we have never read any thing more clear and convincing. We quote a passage with this bearing:—

"The first question, then, in examining the style of a given art, is, in what does this difference of means, as compared with nature, consist? The answer may for the present be confined to sculpture. It is agreed, then, or it is a convention, that a colourless hard substance shall be the material with which the sculptor shall imitate the perfection of life. His means are, by the primary condition, effectually distinguished from those of nature; and it remains for him to cheat the imagination (not the senses) into the pleasing impression that an equivalent to nature can be so produced. He may, therefore, imitate the characteristics of life closely. His select representation, however faithful, is in no danger of being literally confounded with reality, because of the original conventions, viz., the absence of colour, and the nature of his material. But it is not the same with the imitation, in this art, of many other surfaces. As already observed, a rock in sculpture and a rock in nature can be identical; it may, therefore, be sometimes necessary to imitate the reality less closely, or even, in extreme cases, like that now adduced, to depart from nature. The reason is obvious: the degree of resemblance to reality which is attainable in the principal object of imitation—the surface of the living figure—is, from the established convention, limited; and it is desirable that the spectator should forget this restriction. He is, therefore, by no means to be reminded of it by greater reality in other, and necessarily inferior, parts of the work. In painting, it is sometimes objected that inferior objects are more real than the flesh. The defect is great; but there is this difference between the two cases—in painting, the inferiority in the imitation of the flesh may be only from want of power in the artist; in sculpture, the perfect resemblance of the flesh to nature is impossible, in consequence of the absence of colour. The literal imitation of subordinate objects is, for this reason, more offensive in sculpture than in painting. A manifest defect in the art seems more hopeless than a defect in the artist."

"In pursuing the analogies here I considered, it is necessary to compare mere art with art—the form, as such, of the one, with the form of the other. Thus, in comparing sculpture and poetry together, the parallel conditions are to be sought in the strictly corresponding departments. As sculpture, in reference to nature, (to repeat an observation before made,) gives substance for substance, so poetry gives words for words. Accordingly, the form of poetry is by agreement or convention (similar in principle to that which dictates the conditions of sculpture) effectually distinguished from the form of ordinary language. And it will now be seen that the limitations of poetry, in such outward characteristics, are more definite and more comprehensive than those of sculpture; for whereas the material of marble may sometimes coincide literally with that of substances in nature, the form of poetry never can entirely coincide with that of ordinary language. This greater liability of sculpture to be confounded with reality certainly adds to its difficulty, since the doubtful cases, which may be left to the taste of the sculptor, are often settled by an immutable rule for the poet."

Whoever would desire a knowledge of the original causes of the differences of alto, basso, and mezzo relievo, should read the admirable treatise on the subject. They are not to be confounded as arising from the same conditions, and subject to the same rules. The differences of position and light, by their distinct requirements, separate the three styles of relievo, the alto, basso, and mezzo. It is not, as many suppose, that the basso, the lower relief, is less finished than the alto, or high relief; the finish of each is differently placed. "In the highest relief, however decided the shadows may, and must of necessity be, on the plane to which the figure is attached, the light on the figure itself is kept as unbroken as possible; and this can only be effected by a selection of open attitudes; that is, such an arrangement of the limbs as shall not cast shadows on the figure itself. In basso-relievo, the same general effect of the figure is given, but by very different means: the attitude is not selected to avoid shadows on the figure, because, while the extreme outline is strongly marked, the shadows within it may be in a great measure suppressed; so that the choice of attitudes is greater. Mezzo-relievo differs from both; it has neither the limited attitudes of the first, nor the distinct outline and suppressed internal markings of the second: on the contrary, the outline is often less distinct than the forms within it, and hence it requires, and is fitted for, near inspection. Its imitation may thus be more absolute, and its execution more finished, than those of the other styles."

In all relievo, as the shadows fall upon the background, the peculiar adaptation to architecture is manifest. As they are intended for minute inspection, gems are generally in mezzo-relievo. The workers in bronze and the goldsmiths—the former from the facility in casting, the latter for the minuteness and less distinctness of their works—adopting the flattest kind of mezzo-relievo, fancifully deviated from the original purity of the style, by introducing landscape and building backgrounds. An artist of the greatest genius fell into this error—Lorenzo Ghiberti, in the beautiful bronze doors of the baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence. In these celebrated compositions he attempted the union of basso-relievo with the principles of painting. His excellent workmanship and skill in composition was such as led the sculptors of the fifteenth century to consider this innovation upon the old simplicity an improvement. In inferior hands the failure would have been manifest, for the practice is in violation of the principle which the character of the material should determine. That Ghiberti was led into the error is not surprising, as he learned his art from a goldsmith. In his case it was a singular instance of ill-constituted judges choosing well. The judges who selected Ghiberti from his many competitors, were goldsmiths, painters, and sculptors—the majority were likely to favour that which approached nearest to their own practice. It is to the credit of our Flaxman that he revived the purer taste. This whole essay on relievo should be read attentively: it is so connected in all its parts that it is impossible to give its true character by either a few quotations or an at tempt at analysis.

In the essay entitled "Painting," Mr Eastlake keeps in view throughout the main object of the commission—the decoration of public buildings. He has to show how certain principles of art adjust themselves to the conditions imposed by the dimensions, light, and general character of the buildings for which works are required. At first view it might appear that, whether a picture be large or small, there should be no difference in the manner of painting it—that the small magnified, or the large reduced, could answer every purpose. But not so: a moment's consideration will show that the spectator's eye must be consulted, which sees not minutiÆ of form or colour at the distance from which large works are to be seen, and that it seeks for those as the objects are brought nearer. It becomes necessary, then, in large works, lest they be indistinct, that masses be strongly preserved, and, accordingly, that neither forms nor colours be much broken. Hence, the larger the work, in general, the lighter, for the sake of distinctness, it should be: and such is the character of the great fresco works, which are, besides, in this respect, mainly aided by the materials of fresco, which is non-absorbent of light. We believe this also to be true to nature; for if we reduce any scene of nature by a diminishing glass to very small dimensions, the quantity of colour, which is never lost, becomes concentrated, and therefore more intense. The Flemish masters were great observers of nature; and we find in their smallest pictures the greatest depth and intensity of colour. Colour, in this view, even contends powerfully with perspective itself, and is often in distance, by being to the eye reduced, of an intensity that would seem to contradict aËrial influence. The phenomenon of the strength of bright colour in distance is extremely curious: every one must have noticed that a lighted candle may be seen miles off, where, according to perspective rules, it would not be possible to draw its dimensions; nay, it shall appear larger than when at a moderate distance, and that not from its being a magnified light reflected from the walls of a room, for the same effect will be observed if we see the single light in the midst of a dark wood, where it is reflected not at all, and even seen in a space which, without the candle, would be too small to be discernible. But the contrary effect takes place with regard to form, which becomes indistinct at a very small distance. A bright colour is frequently very distinct, where the form to which it belongs is lost. But to return to the essay. Mr Eastlake clearly shows the principles, with regard to colour, upon which the great Venetian masters worked—how, by what artificial means, they preserved colour without losing light. To their practice and modelling in fresco were the Venetians indebted for the largeness of their system of colouring, and probably to the rich specimens of painted glass, for which Venice was celebrated, for their brilliancy and illumination. This little treatise is peculiarly useful to those who would aspire to undertake public works of large dimensions, and could not have been offered to their notice by a more fit person than the Secretary to the Commission of the Fine Arts. The following is excellent:—"To conclude: the resources, whether abundant or limited, of the imitative arts, are, in relation to nature, necessarily incomplete; but it appears that, in the best examples, the very means employed to compensate for their incompleteness are, in each case, the source of a characteristic perfection, and the foundation of a specific style. As it is with the arts, compared with each other, so it is with the various applications of a given art: the methods employed to correct the incompleteness or indistinctness, which may be the result of particular conditions, are, in the works of the great masters, the cause of excellencies not attainable to the same extent by any other means. In the instance last mentioned—the school of the Netherlands—it is apparent that no indirect contrivances or conventions are necessary to counteract the effects of indistinctness; on the contrary, all that would be indistinct in other modes of representation is here admissible, with scarcely any restriction. The incompleteness to be overcome, which is here the cause of peculiar attractions, therefore resides solely in conditions and imperfections of the art itself, which, on near inspection, are in greater danger of being remembered. These are—a flat surface, and material pigments; and these are precisely the circumstances which, by the skill of the artists in the works referred to, are forgotten by the spectator. The consequences of the difficulty overcome are, as usual, among the characteristic perfections of the style."

Passavant's Life of Raphael[15] is by far the most satisfactory account of that great and too short-lived painter. It deservedly engaged the attention of Mr Eastlake, who, in his review, has, in an able summary, connected the genius of this extraordinary man with the influence of his times and the place of his birth. Hitherto the school of Umbria has been too much overlooked. Yet Urbino, at the time of Raphael's birth, more than rivalled in art Rome and Florence. The palace built there by Duke Federigo was not only magnificent in itself, but was adorned with treasures of art. Federigo was to this "Athens of Umbria" what Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici were to Florence. It is not the least interesting fact, that Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, was the historian of its greatness, which he celebrates in a poem, in which the painters of fame are not omitted. It is probable that the early mind of Raphael grew there under the influence of classic art, for many were the treasures of Grecian sculpture there collected. The idea is ably combated by Mr Eastlake, that Italian art was independent of this classic influence, as attempted to be proved by the German school, who wrote to establish the entire independence of early Christian art. The classic influence was felt by Raphael, and by him promoted. It was indeed Giotto who, a century before, had set the example of emancipating art from the previous formal types—animating, as it were, the "dead bones" of art.

The young Raphael, an orphan at twelve years of age, had probably been an early scholar with his father, Giovanni Santi, and was, soon after his father's death, placed with Perugino. He must have seen at Urbino a work of Van Eyck's, which Duke Federigo had procured. Giovanni Santi calls the inventor of oil-painting "Il gran Johannes." Among the painters celebrated by Santi is Gentile, of whom Michael-Angelo said, when he had seen a Madonna and Child painted by him, that "he had a hand like his name." The young Raphael was then favourably circumstanced in his earliest years. He remained at Urbino and in Perugia till twenty-one years of age, 1504; was then at Florence till 1508; and from that time to his death, 1520, with the exception of a visit to Florence, he was at Rome.[16] A very interesting account of many of the works of this great man is added. The "Raphael ware," so commonly believed to be designed by Raphael, was nevertheless not his work. These designs were executed twenty years after his death. Raffaello del Colla was one employed in these designs. The name probably gave rise to the surmise that they were from the hand of Raphael.

Of the nature of the intercourse between Raphael and the Fornarina, whatever may be the conjectures, not only is no additional information brought forward, but there is every reason to believe the previous statements to be fable, manufactured according to the love for romance so common both to readers and authors. Whether the name La Fornarina implies that she was a potter's or a baker's daughter, there is still a doubt. Nor does it much concern the history of art, nor the real character of the biography, as it should be, of such a man, to sift the gossip of the idle or curious of any age. Passavant clearly vindicates the life of Raphael from the general impurities which such gossip has ever been as busy as desirous to attach to the names of men of genius. The jealousy said to have existed between M. Angelo and Raphael, probably had some origin in the impetuous temper of M. Angelo, who confounded the gentle Raphael with his architectural rival, Bramante. That Raphael owed something to M. Angelo cannot be doubted, but no unfair imitation has been proved—nay, we would venture to assert, that unfair imitation is almost impossible to genius, for it will make its own, whatever, to an indiscriminating eye, it seems only to borrow. It was not possible that Raphael should not be influenced even in his style by that of M. Angelo. No painter can come to any perfection in his art utterly ignorant or uninfluenced by the works of others, whether predecessors or contemporaries. Nor was Raphael slow to express himself as happy in being born in the age of M. Angelo. "Whatever Raphael knew in the art, he knew from me," said M. Angelo. We do not view this as a censure, but a praise; for it shows an admission on the part of that giant of art, that the genius of Raphael was worthy the affiliation. We have sufficient evidence, we think, of the originality, of the greatness, and of the more tender virtue—gentleness—of Raphael in his works. To those who would seek more, we would refer to the letter of Raphael himself, and more especially to the touching pictures of his genius and character as we find them in Vasari, and in the heartfelt regretting, at his death, of his friend Castiglione.

The doubts raised a few years since respecting the place of Raphael's burial have been removed. The tomb has been found, as described by Vasari, behind the altar of the church of Sta Maria Bella Rotonda, (the Pantheon,) "in a chapel which he himself had built and endowed, and near the spot where his betrothed bride had been laid." The tomb was opened in the presence of the members of the academy of St Luke, who were not a little interested in the investigation, having been long in possession of a supposed skull of Raphael, which the character-casting phrenologists had, in their zeal for their theory, held up to admiration, and as a test of the accuracy of their science. It must have been to their no small mortification that their relic was discovered to have "belonged to an individual of no celebrity." We reluctantly pass over the interesting notes from Kugler's Hand-Book "on the subjects of the paintings in the Capella Sistina."

To the artist, the "Extracts from the translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours will be most valuable. The usual diagrams of the chromatic circle are shown to have one great defect. "The opposite colours—red and green, yellow and purple, olive and orange—are made equal in intensity; whereas the complemental colour, pictured on the retina, is always less vivid, and always darker or lighter than the original colour. This variety undoubtedly accords more with harmonious effects in painting." To indirect opposition of colours—the opposition should not only be of the colours, the hues, but in their intensity—"the opposition of two pure hues of equal intensity, differing only in the abstract quality of colour, would immediately be pronounced crude and inharmonious. It would not, however, be strictly correct to say that such a contrast is too violent; on the contrary, it appears that the contrast is not carried far enough, for, though differing in colour, the two hues may be exactly similar in purity and intensity. Complete contrast, on the other hand, supposes dissimilarity in all respects. In addition to the mere difference of hue, the eye, it seems, requires difference in the lightness or darkness of the hue." Artists who are so partial to extreme light—a white light—and, at the same time, of exhibiting vivid, strong, and crude colours, are far more unnatural in their effects than those who prefer altogether the lower scale. In fact, it is the lower scale which can alone truly show colours,—very vivid light and colour cannot co-exist. Colour is called by Kircher "lumen opacatum." That increase of colour supposes increase of darkness, so often stated by Goethe, may be granted without difficulty. To what extent, on the other hand, increase of darkness—or rather diminution of light—is accompanied by increase of colour, is a question which has been variously answered by various schools. The reconcilement of Goethe's theory with the practice of the best of the great Venetian colourists, is shown with much critical discrimination.

Leonardo da Vinci, the obscurity and want of arrangement of whose treatises are so much to be regretted, had, as is shown by the juxtaposition of passages, borrowed largely from Aristotle. It is agreed by both, that when light is overspread with obscurity, a red colour appears; the why remains for the more accurate investigation of philosophers. The blue of the sky arises from the interposition of white against the black. The following from Leonardo is curious,—"This (effect of transparent colours on various grounds) is evident in smoke, which is blue when seen against black, but when it is opposed to the light, (blue sky), it appears brownish and reddening."

The letter "On the decoration of a villa" comes very opportunely. Architecture, with all its accompanying decoration of furniture and ornament, has been with us for nearly two centuries in abeyance. The taste is reviving, and with it knowledge. The science is studied, and with the extension of the science, convenience, which had long been the sole aim, and inadequately pursued, is in advance. There is much to be done, not only in villas and mansions, the houses of the rich, but in those of the moderate citizens. It too often happens that families are weary of their homes, they know not why—fly off to watering-places for a little novelty—establish themselves in inconvenient lodging-houses—all, in reality, because they lack a little variety at home. We have seen houses, where most of the rooms are not only of the same dimensions, but are, as near as possible, coloured, papered, painted and furnished alike: the eye is wearied with the perpetually obtruding sameness, and the eye faithfully conveys this disgust to the mind. We may be thought to have whimsical notions in this respect, yet we venture to the confession of a somewhat singular taste. Had we wealth at command, we would borrow something from every country and climate under the sun. We would enter subterranean palaces with the ancient Egyptians, all artificially lighted. Arabians, Greeks, and Romans should contribute architectural designs. Our house should represent, in this sense, a map of the world: we would inhabit Europe, Asia, Africa, America—(no, scarcely the latter)—yet without being shocked by too sudden transitions; though we would retain somewhat of this electrifying source of revivifying the too slumbering spirits. We would be able to walk "the great circle, and be still at home." We would create every gradation of light, and every gradation of darkness, to suit or to make every humour of the mind. We would have gardens such as few but Aladdin saw; and who less than a genie, or most consummate of geniuses, should complete our last unfinished window?—unfinished; for, with all this, it would still be a blessing to have something to do. And a pleasant thing to be the lord, master, emperor, in an architectural world of acres. Who does not love the lordly spirit of Wolsey? but we would go beyond him—would, as well as the imperial palace, have the poet's house, the painter's house; and in their works, all their works, (we are becoming as ambitious as Alnaschar,) be in daily familiarity with the great and wise of every age. Our libraries—we speak plurally, in the magnificence of the great idea—our picture-galleries, statue-galleries, should tax the skill of purveyors and architectural competitors without end. None that have ever yet been built or supplied with treasures would suffice, for they are for cramped positions. We would have no lack of space, and would not mind building a room for a single work. The idea of magic to construct, only shows the real want of man. Magic is but a prenomen to genius. Did we learn all this extravagance from our early story-books of princes and princesses, and their fairy palaces—from Arabian tales, and, in later time, from the enchantments of Boyardo and Ariosto? Whatever were the sources—though it should turn out to have been but an old nurse—we are heartily thankful for these variable, fanciful treasures; and, had we the riches, in reality would add a further extravagance of cost and fancy—a mausoleum to her bewitching bones. We remember thinking Menelaus, as pictured in the Agamemnon of Æschylus, happy even in his grief for the loss of Helen, in that he paced his galleries gazing upon her statues.

"Ma ritorniamo al nostro usato canto."

For more practical views and uses, we refer those who would build and decorate houses of pretensions and taste to the good sense contained in Mr Eastlake's Reply.

It seems to be scarcely a fable that beauty (as often personified in romantic poetry) is hid in an enchanted castle that few can reach; and those fortunate few either see but the skirts of her robe, as she majestically passes from corridor to corridor, or are so bewildered with the sight, that, having worshipped with downward eyes, they can give but a poor account of that "vultus nimium lubricus aspici;" while many of the adventurers are at once overcome by the monsters of error that in every shape sentinel the bridge and turret; while others, scarcely on the verge of the precincts, gather a few flowers, and come away under the delusion that they have entered the true garden of all enchantment. Some are fascinated with the "false Duennas" that assume a shape of beauty, and lead them far away, to their utter bewilderment; and these never return to the real pursuit.—There are who meet with fellow adventurers, accompany each other but a short way, dispute about the route they should take, breathe a combative atmosphere in the byepaths of error, and had rather slaughter each other than continue the adventure. Such seems to have been the thought of Mr Eastlake, in the commencement of his fragment "On the Philosophy of the Fine Arts," which he has clothed in more sober prose becoming the combatant for Truth—for Truth and Beauty are one. He has been out upon the adventure—yet scarcely thinks himself safe from the weapons of combatants, old or new, the discomfited or the aspirant, and expects little credit will be given to the discoveries he professes to have made. "To hint at theories of taste," he asserts, "is to invite opposition. The reader who gives his attention to them at all is eager to be an objector; he sets out by fancying that his liberty is in danger, and instinctively prepares to resist the supposed aggression." We would by no means break a lance with one so skilful, and of such proof-armour, as that which this accomplished combatant wears; but we may venture to gather up the fragments of the broken lances that strew the field, and patch them up for other hands—nay, offer them, with the humility of a runner in the field, to Mr Eastlake himself, who will, on good occasion, show of what wood and metal they are made. To carry on this idea of enchantment, it is possible that Mr Eastlake may resemble the happy prince in search of the ninth statue. Eight had been set up (we are not quite sure of the number): there they stood on their pedestals of finest marble, but they were cold to the touch. The prince in the tale found the ninth he was commanded to discover to be a living beauty. If we mistake not, Mr Eastlake considers beauty but the type of life. "Life is pre-eminently an element of beauty: the word itself presents at once to the imagination the ideas of movement, of energy, and of bloom: the fact itself constitutes the greatest and most admirable attribute of nature." Again, establishing the curve, though not the precise curve of Hogarth, as the line of beauty, "a variously undulating curve may therefore be proposed as the visible type of life: such a form is constantly found in nature, as the indication and concomitant of life itself. It was this which Hogarth detected in various examples, without tracing it to its source. His illustrations are often excellent, but the type itself he adopted was singularly unfortunate. His "line of beauty" constantly repeats itself, and is therefore devoid of variety or elasticity—the never-failing accompaniments of perfect vitality." Variation, whether of line or of other elements, has on all hands been admitted as an ingredient of beauty. Mr Burke's illustration of the dove is good: "Here we see the head increasing insensibly to the middle, from whence it lessens gradually until it mixes with the neck; the neck loses itself in a larger swell, which continues to the middle of the body, when the whole decreases again to the tail. The tail takes a new direction, but it soon varies its new course; it blends again with the other parts, and the line is perpetually changing above, below, upon every side." Burke adds to this the other element—softness—which, we suspect, Mr Eastlake will admit only in a minor degree; for Mr Burke considers not only softness, but a certain degree of weakness—a delicacy almost amounting to it, at least—as necessary to the idea of beauty; and they would ill agree with the perfect "vitality" of our author.

But simply as to lines, we are inclined to believe with Burke, that though the varied line is that in which beauty is found most complete, there is no particular line which constitutes it. Mr Eastlake, in referring that line to its resemblance to life, or to the antagonistic principles that make and destroy life, if we mistake not, cautiously abstracts this line of beauty from ideas of association; whereas his whole argument, in form and matter, appears to be one of association only. But such an association of life may be, if it existed, often destructive of that impression which a beautiful object is intended to make. Lassitude, death itself, may be beautiful in form. When Virgil compares Euryalus dying to the flower cut down—to the poppies drooping, weighed down with rain—he has in his eye objects beautiful in themselves; rather than life, they express Burke's idea of a certain weakness and faintness.

Perhaps Mr Eastlake may reply, that the simile expresses privation of life, and therefore shows the matter capable of receiving it; but this appears further to involve the necessity of association, which denies the beauty of the line per se. The idea of privation is a sentiment; but the question is, if there be a line of beauty independent of sentiment or association. Let us attempt to answer it by another—the opposite. Is there a line of ugliness? We think there is not: if there be, what line? certainly not a straight line, (we must not here refer any to an object.) Perhaps we may not be very wrong in saying that a line per se is one of "indifference"—similar to that state of the mind before, as Burke says, we receive either pain or pleasure. May we not further say that, very strictly speaking, there is no one line but the straight—that every figure is made up of its inclinations, which are other or equivalent to other lines? If there be any truth in this, the "line of beauty" (here adopting for a moment the word) is not a single but a complicated thing: the straight line has no parts, until we make them by divisions: the curved line has parts by its deviations, which constitute a kind of division, without the abruptness which the divided straight line would have. The organ of sight requires a moving instinct: that instinct is curiosity; but that is of an inquiring, progressive nature. Without some variety, therefore, in the object, it would die ere it could give birth to pleasurable sensation. It is too suddenly set to rest by a straight line per se; but when that line is combined with others, the sense is kept awake, is exercised; and it is from the exercise of a sense that pleasure arises. Too sudden divisions, by multiplying one object, distract; but in the curve, in the very variety, the unity of the object is preserved. A real cause may possibly here exist for what we will still call a "line of beauty," without referring it at all to so complicated a machinery of thought as that of life, with its antagonistic principle, with which it continually contends. This is, doubtless, physically and philosophically true; but it is altogether a thought which gives beauty to the idea of the line after we have contemplated it—not before. The line may rather give rise to and illustrate the philosophical thought, than be made what it is by that thought, which it altogether precedes.

Mr Eastlake objects to Hogarth's line that it repeats itself. We are not quite satisfied of the validity of this objection: for we find a certain repetition the constant rule of nature—a repetition not of identity, but similarity—an imitation rather, which constitutes symmetry—which, again, is a kind of correspondence, or, to clothe it with a moral term, a sympathy. To this symmetry, when a freedom of action is given, it but makes a greater variety; for we never lose sight of the symmetry, the balancing quantity always remaining. Thus, though a man move one arm up, the other down, the balance of the symmetry is not destroyed by the motion. We know that the alternation may take place,—that the arms may shift positions: we never lose sight of the correspondence, of the similarity. Every exterior swell in the limb has its corresponding interior swell. The enlargement by a joint is not one-sided. Every curve has its opposite. The face exemplifies it, which, as it is the most beautiful part, has the least flexible power of shifting its symmetry. Mark how the oval is completed by the height of the forehead and the declination of the chin. In nature it will be mostly found that, when one line rises, there is an opposite that falls,—that where a line contracts to a point, its opposite contracts to meet it. And this is the pervading principle of the curve carried out, and is most complete when the circle or oval is formed, for then the symmetrical or sympathetic line is perfected. Let us see how nature paints herself. Let us suppose the lake a mirror, as her material answering to our canvass. We see this repetition varied only by a faintness or law of perspective, which, to the eye, in some degree changes the line from its perfect exactness. As we see, we admire. There is no one insensible to this beauty. Nay, we would go further, and say that the artist cannot at random draw any continuous set of lines that, as forms, shall be ugly, if he but apply to them this imitation principle of nature, which, as it is descriptive of the thing, may be termed the principle of Reflexion, and which we rather choose, because it seems to include two natural propensities not very unlike each other—imitation and sympathy. We say "not very unlike each other," because they strictly resemble each other only in humanity. The brute may have the one—imitation, as in the monkey; but he imitates without sympathy, therefore we love him not: and it is this lack which makes his imitation mostly mischievous, for evil acts are the more visible,—the good discernible by feeling, by sympathy. The sympathy of the symmetry of nature is its sentiment, and may therefore be at least an ingredient in beauty, and thus exhibited in lines. Lines similar, that approach or recede from each other, do so by means of their similarity in a kind of relation to each other; and by this they acquire a purpose, a meaning, as it were, a sentient feeling, or, as we may say, a sympathy. A line of itself is nothing—it has no vital being, no form, until it bear relation to some other, or, by its combination with another, becomes a figure; and because it is a figure, it pleases, and we in some degree sympathise with it, as a part, with ourselves, of things created. Thus the curve, or Hogarth's line of beauty, which we assume to be made up of straight lines, whose joining is imperceptible, is the first designated figure of such lines, and in it we first recognise form, the first essential of organic being and beauty. It is like order dawning through chaos,—life not out of death, but out of that unimaginable nothing, before death was or could be. It is the Aphrodite discarding the unmeaning froth and foam, and rising altogether admirable. Now again as to Hogarth's line—carried but a little further, it would be strictly according to this principle of Reflexion. Divide it by an imaginary line, and you see it as in a mirror. If the serpentine line, then, as Hogarth called it, be a line of beauty, let us see in what that line is rendered most beautiful. Let us take the caduceus of Hermes as the mystic symbol of beauty. Here we see strictly the principle of reflexion, (for it matters not whether lateral or perpendicular,) and here, as a separation, how beautiful is the straight line! Take away either serpent, where is the beauty? We have a natural love of order as well as of variety,—of balancing one thing with another. If we remember, Hogarth falls into the error of making it a principle of art to shun regularity, and recommends a practice, which painters of architectural subjects have, as we think, erroneously adopted, of taking their views away from a central point. The principle of reflexion of nature would imply that they lose thereby more than they gain, for they lose that complete order which was in the design of the architect, and which, by not disturbing, so aids the sense of repose—a source of greatness as well as beauty. But to return to this Reflexion. It has its resemblance to Memory, which gives pleasure simply by reflecting the past,—by imitating through sympathy. We are pleased with similitudes, when placed in opposition. They are, like the two sides of Apollo's lyre, divided only by lines that, through them, discourse music,—harmony or agreement making one out of many things. The painter knows well that he requires his balancing lines to bring all intermediate parts into the idea of an embracing whole. If any of Hogarth's lines, as given examples in his plate, (though he gives the preference to one,) had its corresponding, as in the caduceus, it would at once become a beautiful line.

We took occasion some years ago, in a paper in Maga, to notice the practice, according to this principle of nature, followed by perhaps as great a master of composition (of lines) as any that art has produced—Gaspar Poussin; and we exemplified the rule by reference to some of his pictures; and we remarked that, by this his practice, he made more available for variety and uniformity the space of his canvass. We have since, with much attention, noticed the lines of nature, when most beautiful,—have watched the clouds, how they have arched valleys, and promoted a correspondence of sentiment,—and how, in woods, the receding and approaching lines of circles have made the meetings and the hollows, which both make space, and are agreeable. We are not setting forth our line of beauty. We would rather suggest that it is possible the idea of the wave or curve, right in itself, may be carried to a still greater completeness. It may, in fact, only be a part of beauty, which must scarcely be limited to a single line, or rather figure. We should have hesitated, lest we should seem to have hazarded a crude theory, if it had appeared to be entirely in opposition to Mr Eastlake. We think, upon the whole view, it rather advances his, and reconciles it as a part only with that of Burke and Hogarth. The thing stated may be true, when the reason given for it may be untrue, or at least insufficient. The notion of life and its antagonism is true; but its application may be more ingenious, and in the nature of a similitude, than an absolute foundation; for many similar referable correspondences of ideas may be given, as the range of similitude is large. But the objection to them is that they are mental, and will not, therefore, apply unconditionally in a theory from which we set out by abstracting association.

Nor can we go so far as to carry this idea of "life" into the theory of colour.

"Colour," says Mr Eastlake, "viewed under the ordinary effects of light and atmosphere, may be considered according to the same general principles. It is first to be observed that, like forms, they may or may not be characteristic, and that no object would be improved by means, however intrinsically agreeable, which are never its own. Next, as to the idea of life: creatures exhibit the hues with which nature has clothed them in greatest brilliancy during the period of consummate life and health. Bright red, which, by universal consent, represents the idea of life, (perhaps from its identity with the hue of the blood,) is the colour which most stimulates the organs of sight."

We doubt if any one colour, as we doubted of any one line, is the colour of beauty; and as to red representing life, possibly by resemblance to blood, speaking to the eye of Art, we should not say that redness is the best exponent of the beautiful flesh of human life. If so, it is most seen in earliest infancy, when it positively displeases. The young bird and young mouse create even disgust from this too visible blood-redness.

What is beauty? is quite another question from that of whether there is a line of beauty. Lines may be pleasing or displeasing, in a degree independent of the objects in which they happen to be. Lines that correspond in symmetry, as well as colours which agree in harmony, may exist in disagreeable objects, leaving yet the question of beauty to be answered; though beauty, whatever it is, may require this correspondence of parts, this order, this sympathy in symmetry.

Burke has separated the sublime from the beautiful. Mr Eastlake has, we suppose intentionally, with a view to his ulterior object, in this fragment omitted any such distinction. He may be the more judicious in this, as Burke admits ugliness into his Sublime.

It has been supposed that the ancient artists studied the forms of inferior animals for the purpose of embellishing the human. The bull and lion have been recognised in the heads of Jupiter and Hercules. Mr Eastlake lays stress upon the necessity in avoiding, in representing the human, every characteristic of the brute; and quotes Sir Charles Bell, who says, "I hold it to be an inevitable consequence of such a comparison, that they should discover that the perfection of the human form was to be attained by avoiding what was characteristic of the inferior animals, and increasing the proportions of those features which belong to man."

This is doubtless well put; but there is an extraordinary fact that seems to remove this characteristic peculiarity from the idea of beauty, however it may add it to the idea of perfection. Man is the only risible animal: risibility may be said, therefore, to be his distinguishing mark. If so, far from attributing any beauty to it, even when we admit its agreeability, we deny its beauty,—we even see in it distortion. Painters universally avoid representing it. They prefer the

"Santo, onesto, e grave ciglio."

Some have thought the smile, so successfully rendered by Correggio, the letting down of beauty into an inferior grace.

Perhaps the sum of the view taken by Mr Eastlake may be best shown by a quotation:—

"We have now briefly considered the principal Æsthetic attributes of the organic and inorganic world. We have traced the influence of two leading principles of beauty—the visible evidence of character in form, and the visible evidence of the higher character of life. We have endeavoured to separate these from other auxiliary sources of agreeable impressions—such as the effect of colours, and the influences derived from the memory of the other senses. Lastly, all these elements have been kept independent of accidental and remote associations, since a reference to such sources of interest could only serve to complicate the question; and render the interpretation of nature less possible.

A third criterion remains; it is applicable to human beings, and to them only. Human beauty is then most complete, when it not only conforms to the archetypal standard of its species, when it not only exhibits in the greatest perfection the attributes of life, but when it most bears the impress of mind, controlling and spiritualising both." "The conclusion which the foregoing considerations appear to warrant, may be now briefly stated as follows:—Character is relative beauty—Life is the highest character—Mind is the highest life."

We confess, in conclusion, that we are not yet disposed to admit, from any thing we have read, that Burke's "Sublime and Beautiful" is superseded. We can as readily believe that the sublime and beautiful may be reunited in one view, as that it is optional to separate them. The sublime and the beautiful both belong to us as human beings, making their sensible impressions all sources of pleasure, greatly differing in kind. It is inseparable from our condition to have a sense of a being vastly superior to ourselves: sublimity has a reference to that superior power over us, and to ourselves, as subject to it: while it renders us inferior, it lifts our minds to the knowledge of the greater. Beauty, on the contrary, seems to look up to us for aid, support, or sympathy. It thus flatters while it pleases, and, in contradiction to the subduing influence of the sublime, it makes ourselves in some respects the superior, and puts us in good humour both with the object and ourselves.

We are loath to quit this most interesting subject. We thank Mr Eastlake for bringing it so charmingly before us. We feel that our remarks have been very inadequate, both with regard to the nature of the subject, and as "The Philosophy of the Fine Arts" may seem to demand. But we are aware that to do both justice would require larger space than can be here allowed, and an abler pen than we can command. We almost fear a complete elucidation of beauty is not within the scope of the human mind. It may be to us not from earth, but from above; and we are not prepared to receive its whole truth. Burke somewhere observes that—"The waters must be troubled ere they will give out their virtues." The allusion is admirable, and justifies disturbing discussions. On such a subject, where the root of the matter grows not on earth, it may be added, in further allusion, that the stirring hand should be that of an angel.