which he could not pay. It is true, that the understanding cannot in any class of men be too much enlarged; but it may be too much refined; it may be misapplied to subjects of little use to the possessor, in the situation in which he is destined to live; this must lead to the neglect of substantial duties, consequently to the degradation of the character of the individual. A youth may be warned of this danger, but he should not be discouraged from cultivating a taste for painting, poetry, or for any of the fine arts or liberal sciences; provided his taste do not lead him into extravagance, and provided he possess in theory, and apply in practice, the knowledge that is peculiarly requisite to a master of a family, a landlord, a magistrate, a grand juror, an elector, and in the most comprehensive sense of the word, a good subject. The range of knowledge requisite to fulfil these duties with propriety is much more extensive than can be conceived by men of contracted views. To be a good landlord and a good magistrate, a man must not only have a desire to serve his tenants and to do justice to all who appeal to him, but he must know how to be just and benevolent; otherwise he will be, as the proverb says, "quanto buon che val "niente," so good as to be good for nothing. The more conscious he is of right intentions, the more positive and active he will be in maintaining his opinions and enforcing his authority; and the more obnoxious and dangerous he must consequently be to that portion of the community over which his power and influence extend. An opulent country squire might, for instance, encourage his tenants to improve their condition, by introducing intricate modes of agriculture, by directing industry. into new channels, by bounties to foster infant manufactures, by charitable donations to those who have large families of children, by restraints upon emigration, by regu lating markets, by raising or lowering the wages of labour: but a man who attempts any of these things, a man who attempts any one operation in political economy without understanding the principles of that science, runs the hazard of doing evil; he can do only partial good, and that merely by chance. Persons who have no knowledge on these subjects are apt to mistake the very signs of prosperity in states for symptoms of decay, and are alarmed by alterations, which are incident and necessary to countries in certain circumstances. For instance, the, changes in the rate of interest, the putting down monopolies, the lowering the price of provisions, or the disposition of tenantry to emigrate, have all been the subject of loud lamentation with short sighted persons. A landlord, who should act in consequence of his prejudices in these particulars, would injure not only his private interest and that of his tenants, but as far as in him lay, would tend to retard the progress of civilization in his country. These subjects are so intricate, and it is so hazardous to meddle with them, that even if the study of political economy were only to teach country gentlemen to refrain from rash interference, it would be of material service. ON IDEAL BEAUTY IN PAINTING: [From Mr. OPIE's Lectures, delivered at the Royal Academy.] ΤΟ "O know an art thoroughly, we must know its object, which, in regard to painting, is not quite so easy as it appears at first; for though all agree that its purpose is to imitate nature, yet the vast superiority possessed by many works of art over others equally challenging to be considered as true and faithful representations of nature, shows that some limitation and explanation of this very extensive and complicated term is necessary to our forming a correct idea of it's meaning in respect to art; without which it will be vain to hold it up as a standard or measure of the various merits of the different works in painting. The gross vulgarity and meanness of the Dutch; the pert frivolity and bombast of the French; the Gothic, dry, and tasteless barbarism of the old German, as well as the philosophic grandeur of the Roman school, may all be equally defended on the ground of their being strong and faithful representations of nature of some sort or other. In real objects also, the base and the refined, the dross and the metal, the diamond in its rough pebble state, as well as when polished, set, and presented in its brightest blaze, the goitre of the Alps, as well as the most perfect beauty, are all equally nature-but who ever thought them equally proper subjects for the pencil? In taking a general view, and comparing the productions of art, they will be found easily divisible into three distinct classes, formed upon three distinct principles or modes of seeing nature, and indi. cative of three distinct ages, or stages of refinement, in the progress of painting. First those of which the authors, agreeing with Dryden, that "God never made his works for man to mend," and understanding nature as strictly meaning the visible appearance of things (any alteration of which would at least be unnecessary and impertinent, if not profane), have in consequence, confined themselves to the giving, as far as in them lay, an exact copy or transcript of their originals, as they happened to present themselves with out choice or selection of any kind as to the manner of their being. Secondly, those in which the artists departing a little from this bigotry in taste, have ventured to reject what they considered as mean and uninteresting in nature and endeavoured to choose the most perfect models, and render them in the best point of view. The third class would consist of the works of those who, advanced another step in theory, have locked upon nature as meaning the general principles of things rather than the things themselves, who have made the imita tion of real objects give way to the imitation of an idea of them in their utmost perfection, and by whom we find them represented not as they actually are but as they ought to be, This last stage of refinement, to which no modern has yet completely arrived, has been called the ideal, the beautiful, or the sublime style of art. It founds its pretensions to superiority on the very sa perior powers required to excel in it, and on the infinitely greater effect, effect, both as to pleasure and improvement, which it is calculated to produce on the mind of the spectator; and hence the pure, simple, energetic and consistent principle on which it rests is indubitably to be considered as the true and real interpretation of the term nature, always to be kept in view, not only by all who would excel in painting, but by all who wish to attain the highest style in any of the imitative arts. Many painters and critics, from observing the difficulty of settling the proper meaning of the term Nature, have thought fit to substitute beauty in its stead, as the immediate object of the great style of art. But beauty being a word to the full as indefinite, if not as complex, as the word nature, we shall not be surprized to find that many painters of no mean abilities have been led into very fatal mistakes from erroneous and inadequate conceptions of its meaning: we shall not be surprized at the namby pamby style of many of the works of Albano; we can hence account for the manner and affectation of Gnido, who, understanding the term in too confined a sense, thought he was of course to paint on every occasion, the handsomest woman possible; and taking accordingly, in his opinion, the most beautiful antique statue for his model, he constantly repeated in his works the same face, without variation of expression or character, whatever was the subject, situation, or action represented; whether a Venus or a milkmaid, the Assumption of the Virgin, the Death of Cleopatra, or Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes. This principle has also evidently been the great stumbling-block of the whole French school, to which it owes the larger share of its absurdity and insipidity, its consumptive langour, and its coquetish affectation. I will not undertake the perilous task of defining the word beauty? but I have no hesitation in asserting that when beauty is said to be the proper end of art, it must not be understood as confining the choice to one set of objects, or as breaking down the boundaries and destroying the natural classes, or ders, and divisions of things (which cannot be too carefully kept entire and distinct); but as meaning the perfection of each subject in its kind, in regard to form, colour, and all its other associated and consistent attributes. In this qualified, and, I will venture to say, proper acceptation of the word in regard to art, it may be applied to nearly all things most excellent in their different ways. Thus we have various modes of beauty in the statues of the Venus, the Juno, the Niobe, the Antinous, and the Apollo; and thus we may speak, without exciting a confusion of ideas, of a beautiful peasant, as well as of a beautiful princess, of a beautiful child, or a beautiful old man; of a beautiful cottage, a beautiful church, a beautiful palace, or even of a beautiful ruin. The discovery or conception of this great and perfect idea of things, of nature in its purest and most essential form, unimpaired by disease, unmutilated by accident, and unsophisticated by local habits and temporary fashions, and the exemplification of it in practice, by get ting above individual imitation, rising from the species of the ge nus, and uniting, in every subject, all the perfection of which it is capable in its kind, is the ultimate exertion of human genius. Hi therto therto shalt thou go, and no further every step in every direction from this pole of truth is alike retrograde for, to generalize beyond the boundaries of character, to compose figures of no specific age, sex, or destination, with no predominant quality or particular end to be answered in their construction, is to violate propriety, destroy in -terest, and lose the very essence of beauty in contemptible nothingness and insipidity. Conceptions of beauty or perfection take place involuntarily in the mind, through the medium of that wonderful and powerful principle, the association of ideas: but they will be very far from distinct or correct, unless we also employ much study of the laws of nature, investigate closely her methods of attaining her purposes, observe ac◄ curately her rules of proportion, and how they are varied in every department of character, develope the connexion of mind with matter, trace their reciprocal effects on each other, and learn, in all cases, to distinguish the harmonious, consistent, and energetic, from the absurd, superfluous, and inefficient combinations of parts and principles. As the most fashionable and approved metaphysicians of the present day seem inclined to deny the existence of general ideas, I shall not contend for the propriety of applying that term to ideas formed on the principles I have been mentioning; but under whatever denomination they may be classed, it cannot be denied that they are the true and genuine object of the highest style of painting. Poetry, though unlimited in its field of description, and omnipotent as the vehicle of relation and sentiment, is capable of giving but faint sketches of form, colour and whatsoever else is more immediately addressed to the sight; and the Drama, however impassioned and interesting, can only exhibit form and motion as they actually exist : but the utmost conceivable perfec tion of form, of majesty, of charac ter, and of graceful and energetic action, have no physical existence; they are born, bred, and reside in the human imagination only, never to be drawn from thence but by the hand of the consummate artist, working on the sublimest principles of his art. Here it may be necessary to notice that the term ideal, like those of nature and beauty, has probably been the source of very great and grievous errors. Instances have occurred of some, who have even been so absurd as to think colouring, chiaro scuro, and all that contributes to illusion in painting, as beneath their attention; who, because they have heard that nature might be improved upon in some particulars, have fondly imagined that their compositions approached the heroic and poetical in proportion as they receded from nature, and became muddy, tame, and monotonous in the effect; forgetting that the ideal has reference to the forms, charac ter, choice and congruity only of things, and not at all to the rendering the appearance of them with truth, vivacity, and energy to the eye: in which art is so f... from being capable of excelling nature, that, with her best efforts, she must ever remain at an immeasur able distance behind. How colouring and effect may and ought to be managed, to enli ven form and invigorate sentiment and expression, I can readily com prehend, and, I hope, demonstrate; but wherein these different classes of of excellence are incompatible with each other I could never conceive: nor will the barren coldness of David, the brick-dust of the learned Poussin, nor even the dryness of Raffaele himself, ever lead me to believe that the flesh of heroes is less like flesh than that of other men; or that the surest way to strike the imagination, and interest the feelings, is to fatigue, perplex, and disgust, the organ through which the impression is made on the mind. Let it therefore be always understood that the end of painting, in its highest style, is twofold: first, the giving effect, illusion, or the true appearance of objects to the eye; and, secondly, the combination of this with the ideal, or the conception of them in their utmost perfection, and under such an arrangement, as is calculated to make the greatest possible impression on the spectator. With such purposes in view, consisting of such a multiplicity of parts, and requiring such an uncommon assemblage of powers, mechanical and mental, of hand, of eye, of knowledge, of judgment, of imagination, and of indefatigable perseverance in study and practice, to enable a man to perform any one part with tolerable success, it can be no wonder that the art has not as yet, in modern times at least, reached the desired perfection; nor ought we to be surprized to find even the most celebrated masters materially defective in some one o more of its branches,-those who possessed invention, having been frequently deficient in execution; those who studied colouring, having often neglected drawing; and those who attended to form and character, having been too apt to disregard composition, and the proper management of light and shadow. The whole together, indeed, seems almost too great for the grasp of human powers, unless excited, expanded, and invigorated, by such enthusiastic and continued encou ragement as that which exclusively marks the bright æra of Grecian taste." ON GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. [From the Works of the late JAMES BARRY, Esq.] THE THE manner of building called Gothic, is generally believed to have been the invention of the Goths, as the name imports, and to have been brought into Italy by those barbarians, after they had established themselves upon the ruins of the Roman empire. There are others, who believe that this method of building came into EuTope from the east. As to the former of those opinions, I am per suaded that it would be difficult to produce positive proofs that the northern people had any species of architecture at all before their intercourse with the Romans, or that their habitations were other than holes in the earth, or built of wood, or of mud and chaff, as is still practised in parts of England and Ireland. The Irish historians say, that the Domliag of St. Kianan, built |