I CONCLUDED my last paper with a panegyric on Gaspar Poussin, that first of landscape-painters, and explained the principle of composition, by the practical exercise of which he acquired such power over the space of his canvass. Hence his pencil was delightfully free, for its wildest play was directed by an intuitive knowledge, or made perfect, harmonious, and congruous in all its parts, by the application of his simple rule. Nor is this principle applicable to landscape only-it is the principle of the art, and will be found more or less in every work of known excellence. I have examined many pictures and parts of pictures, and have ascertained that much of their beauty, quoad composition, depends upon the accidental or purposed use of this principle.

Once I recollect tormenting myself with a difficulty in the composition of a picture I was painting, and could not satisfy my eye. By a dash of the brush I hit it at last, but at that time knew not why; since my discovery I have examined the work, and find it was true to the rule.

Now, it is well to know the rule beforehand; and I am very confident that any painter or sketcher who will take the trouble to examine nature and pictures, and bear in mind what I have stated in my last paper, will see the why and wherefore of beauties that he before imperfectly felt, will be enabled to admire them the more, and with some certainty of success correct the lines of his compositions.

Perhaps I should not have known Gaspar Poussin so well, had I not many years ago, while I was yet young in art, studied the prints from his works published by Pond and others. I never can forget the impression these made upon me; I had never before seen any thing at all to satisfy me; but here, and yet they were not his best compositions, was the poetry of landscape. Here was shade and shelter, seclusion and accessibility, combined; the earth was rescued as it were from the deformity of "the curse" inflicted upon

it, and from the viler tyranny of your capability Browns. Some of the original pictures subsequently fell into my possession, and I had the opportunity of comparing them continually with the prints. I happened likewise to have a set of these prints, the only perfect set I have ever seen, with a printed catalogue, and containing about six more subjects than are now met with in the common book of these plates in their retouched state. The work contains a few from Claude, one from Salvator Rosa, one from Rembrandt, one from Giacomo Cortesi detto il Borgognone, one from Filippo Lauri,the rest are, professedly, from Gaspar Poussin; I say professedly, because my long acquaintance with the works of that master, has led me to be somewhat nice and discriminating, and to reject some out of the number; of which are,-one with cattle in the water, published by Pond, in 1744, as in the possession of the Honourable Horace Walpole; one published 1741, by Knapton, in the collection of the Right Honourable Lord James Cavendish,-recumbent figures with a dog and goats in the foreground-in the second distance a town and bridge, (which latter I do not at this moment recollect ever to have seen in a picture by Gaspar Poussin;) one in the collection of the Right Hon. the Earl of Suffolk, 1741, by Knapton, a composition of distracted parts, with a preposterous rock, and figures shooting; one published by Pond, 1743, in the collection of Robert Price, Esq., in which is a river and figures bathing, two strange figures near two tall trees; this I take to be by N. Poussin.

As this work, in its incomplete state, and with the plates retouched, is still very commonly met with, and may be very cheaply purchased, it may be as well to refer the reader to an examination of some of the plates; and I have no doubt he will be thoroughly convinced of the truth of my observations on the principle of art contained in them.

Let us then take the first that

comes to hand. The book is before me. Here is a noble scene. The plate is published by Pond, October 25, 1742, in the collection of Her Grace the Duchess of Kent-Vivares sculp. This is, in truth, a most poetical piece. In its general forms it is of the simplest kind. It is rather a close scene, a home among the mountains. Nearly in the centre rises a rocky summit-the lines so rise and fall to the foreground as to make this mountain the view. The parts of which it is made flow into each other so playfully, and apparently with intricacy, that there is the greatest variety in them, yet all with perfect congruity.

All the parts are again kept together by the unity of the view or subject, constituting them merely as parts contained under the great simple leading lines. A little way down the mountain is an old town, rising out of, or rather growing out of the rock; below it and around it on every side is a thick wood, (the trees, as usual with him, of no great growth,) that leads down to a ravine, the depth of which is hid by the foreground, a broken bank, which descends in a line, corresponding, in a contrary direction, to the general rising lines of the hill. From hidden sources, water is pouring over the broken ground, to form a mountain torrent below, and by various passages finds its way into the ravine. The lines of the rock and wood, lead your eye directly into this deep ravine, into which some figures are looking and pointing, as if something unseen but by themselves attracted their attention. Thus curiosity is raised, and a desire to look into the depth, and an interest created by the incident. There is a path leading within, but is lost, and at the edge where it is lost are the figures mentioned. There are other paths about the picture, which, though broken from the eye, connect themselves with this, and communicate to the town and every part of the scene, for there is no part utterly inaccessible. There are, in all, five figures, two on the edge of the path in its descent, looking into the ravine, one more in the foreground pointing to them; on a path above are two more ascending in friendly converse. How well the accessibility of the whole is kept up by these two fi

gures! Three are turned towards the ravine, but the two more distant are quietly winding round to the summit, thus connecting the height with the depth; and the figures are so placed, that the eye cannot but connect them with each other; that is, the two above and the one nearer the foreground are directors or pointers to the two immediately above the ravine. Here is scope enough for sweet sequestered retirement-no lack of green boughs, cool shade, and sheltering rock-all is silvan quiet, and repose,-all the free boon and gift of beneficent nature to love and friendship. The mountain freedom of the scene is delightful; you would not question the freshness, and purity, and sweet life of the air, that, as an unseen spirit, animates with gentle breath and motion the whole scene, and influences the hearts of all that are under its protection.

But let me speak of the art of composition by which so much is effected, for that is the main thing to which I would direct the reader's attention. As in the other picture remarked upon in my last paper, so here, the highest point is in trees rising immediately from the bank of the foreground; and as in that instance, as is the distance from the height of the picture to the top of the tree, so is that of the lower part of the bank from the bottom, the space below being filled up with mere herbage, and large leaves in shade. The next highest point is the opposite side of the picture, which is similarly broken in its height and depth, by the sky above and bushes below. But though these are the highest points, they are not the principal; their height is only to give greater depth to the ravine. Between them rises, as the principal object, the rocky summit, which, with all its subordinate parts, including the ravine, forms the picture. The eye, then, is directed by the subtending character of the lines, immediately from this height to a point under it, where are the pointing figures, formed by the figures, and some light upon the adjacent bank, and corresponding, in its distance from the bottom, to the space above, occupied by the sky. There are more distant hills, on the one side, rising above the fall of the line of the

mountain, on the other side, somewhat more towards the corner of the picture, and falling into that general mass; and this is so managed, for the purpose of raising a tree that breaks the woody range between the two points. The clouds incline to the mountain mass, and immediately above an elevated tower is the lower space of the clouds, as was the notch in the clouds of the picture described in my last. To enclose the town, and, as it were, give it a unity in itself, there is a rise and fall in the wood, so that the highest part of the buildings is immediately above the lowest point of that circular range. The grouping of the masses of foliage in the wood is precisely on the same principle. The beautifully broken bank forming the foreground runs down remarkably to the figures under the high point of the mountain; and from thence, at a similar angle, the line is carried up on the other side of the picture, so as to make that point, where are the two figures looking into the ravine, important, by which the eye may measure the height of the whole. The light trees, on a grassy bank rising out of the foreground, bending over the ravine, and corresponding, as it were, with the foliage on the opposite bank, act on the same principle, enclose the ravine, and direct the eye into the deep shaded woody hollow.

Having discussed the art of composition of this great master, as exemplified in two of his pictures, let me now pay a tribute of praise to those faithful engravers who admirably performed their task, and enabled us to examine so well the excellence of the painter which themselves so felt. Their works should be, like, school-books, in every one's hand who would learn at once both the rudiments and excellences of the art. It is true their style of engraving has, in a great measure, been superseded, not surpassed; for all can admire high finish, few execution.

This plate, from which I have made my remarks, and which is still before me, is by Vivares. Examine the texture of every part; it is not mere light and shade, it is rocky and leafy, or mixed just as and where it should be. How free the foliage, how characteristic of the master! and how admirable is the general keeping where exactness of tint and light and shade is not intended, and, previous to modern inventions, was scarcely practicable; yet with what ease the imagination incorporates with what is given, all that is omit ted! My acquaintance with the works of Gaspar, instead of making me less relish the labours of these engravers, renders me more sensible of their great merit. I see Gaspar the better through them, and them through Gaspar. And is not this praise? There is no vain toil and labour after effect, and no visible sacrifice, no attempt to astonish, for that the original painter in his copy of the modesty of nature avoided; and his engravers seem to have known this, All is even, flowing, easy, apparently unambitious, but worked evidently with an intense feeling of the mind and intention of the master. There is no mechanical stiffness, no dexterous display of handling, no flourishes of the graver.* Vivares was, I believe, self-taught; that is, at least, he was not bred to the art. Nor was his employer Pond an artist, or in "the Trade." He was, I think, an attorney, and Vivares a tailor. It was on carrying home some clothes to an engraver that he was struck with a copperplate; whenever he repeated these visits of business, he requested a sight of the plates in progress; and conceived at length the idea that he could do the same; he tried and succeeded. His etchings, and indeed these plates are mostly etched, having but little of the mark of the graver in them, are exquisite, light, free, and wonderfully expressive of the character of every object. Though a tailor, etch

ing was his best needle-work. His second nature acquired by the needle was better than his first. The arts are infinitely indebted to the engravers of the plates in this work published by Pond and others. They all had excellent feeling,-Vivares, Wood, Chatelain, and Mason. And yet they all differ from each other in their manner and handling; Chatelain is perhaps the broadest, Vivares the most exact in the detail and individual character of objects. But they all seem to have worked together in happy fellowship, and to have improved by attending to, and occasionally adopting, the peculiar merits of each other. How strange that men living in the heat and turmoil, and sooty atmosphere, of some obscure parts of the crowded and reeking metropolis, who, perhaps, scarcely saw nature in her green, variegated, and refreshing beauty, should at once, as it were quodam intuitu, have such feeling for romantic landscape, throwing off from them the infectious low vulgarity that so thickly surrounded them! It is more wonderful than the lover's love at first sight, for it is falling in love at the portrait merely. But so it was. Well, then, were these men justly appreciated? No. Are they justly appreciated now? No. I have conversed with some well-known and admired artists both in painting and engraving, who were ignorant of their works. It is strange that mere mechanical labour should be more admired than expressive execution, wherein the mind works with and directs the hand. Ignorance ever likes the display, the flourish,-would prefer the caperings of a human baboon, to the sweet and gentle movement of the Graces.

the free expressive handling of such men as Vivares, Chatelain, Wood, and Mason? But certain it is, the progress has been onward in a wrong direction, in imitation rather of Woollet. Tone, not character and texture of objects, has been mostly attended to. And it must be confessed, Lowry's improvements, inventions of rulers, and diamond points, &c., have given modern artists a wonderful facility, and astonishing things they are now thereby enabled to do in all that concerns tone. But still it is too much tone-too exclusively tone; and I question, in looking at our present day's engravings, if, after the first surprise, we are not disappointed that so little is left to the imagination. We want to fill up a little in tone and colour; we want to think of the pictures; for engraving does not profess to be in itself a perfect work, but to give you some idea of another. Where too much is done, that other work to which it should refer, is abstracted from the contemplation of the mind's eye. We want to think of the original pictures, and the engravings, by doing too much, will not let us. Nay, they too often set us wrong, and sacrifice colour, (I speak not in the engraver's technical meaning of the word as of tone,) and we have often masses of soot for green shade, and, what is worse, for air.

First came Woollet, with his surprising dexterity in the use of the graver. He introduced, it is true, more tone, but then texture was lost. For loose, free, flexible foliage, you had tinfoil, hard-cut leafage, moulded, metallic. However, his style pleased, and the public taste has never yet gone back to the admiration of his betters. And even among professed connoisseurs, is it not strange that eyes that can enjoy the beautiful etchings of K. du Jardin, Berghem, Rembrandt, Waterloo, and many others, should not fully enjoy

I will not deny that the art of engraving has wonderfully advanced, but the art of etching has retrograded. We have poor scholars in the latter, excellent masters in the former art. And, it must be owned, that the improvements in engraving are admirably calculated to represent the works of modern artists, whose aim is more to surprise than permanently to please; they would take you by storm, not attract you by gentle persuasion. They must vie with each other, like tumblers at a fair, to perform astonishing feats, do wonderful things, unattempted things, cose non dette mai in prosa ne in rima." Trickery and gambol have succeeded to former nobler simplicity; display and show is every thing, and yet there is oftentimes poverty enough-a gorgeous poverty -a staring, flaunting, vulgar, bedizened meanness-with which, to the common eye, unobtrusive excellence

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would bear no comparison, and, indeed, would suffer materially from any juxtaposition, like modesty in evil company.

But these improvements in the machinery of the engraver, are admirably calculated to do justice to presuming efforts, sometimes the aim of men of real and great genius, and better it were they were always of those of none. Would I wish these improvements had never been invented? By no means. I admire much they do, not all they do, but that arises from the misuse of them. The public taste has run mad after effects, wonders, and novelties, and will perform or look to little else. And this is particularly vile in landscape, in which we want true pastoral in the painter, and the characteristic execution of our old etchers.

How could I wish the improvements never had been invented, when I see how accurately they represent the effects of Turner, his skies,his town views, their stir, and bustle, and vapour; all which, I nevertheless think, astonish too much, and I confess I seldom look at them twice. But this may be a defect in me, and my taste may exclusively look for landscape, and effects are not landscape. Nay, it must be a fault when effects are made the principal, which should only be the adjunct to the subject, as the manner of shewing it off. This manner may be too obtrusive for the subject; it strikes me as very often so, especially in landscapes that pretend to the superior merit of composition. Still I delight in the power, however the application of it may offend. We do not want every thing in art to be this vapoury softness, contrasted with sudden sharp lights and spots of utter blackness, or either of these in opposed masses. Give me, however, the real landscape-painters, and their admirers and translators, the etchers as of old. I will stand stupified a few required moments at works of the other character, and then content edly retire to be pleased in my own way. My taste is as yet too healthy, I trust, to require strong and sudden excitement. My eye is not under paralysis requiring the galvanic shock. Yet I would not depreciate facilities, and delight in the prospect of their - proper direction, and in the means

of disseminating taste more generally; for taste wages perpetual war with vulgarity, and vulgarity is a step in the ladder of bad morals. The public ought, therefore, to be congratulated on the acquisition of the cheap one-shilling numbers of the engravings from pictures in the National Gallery. I rather lament a loss, than repine at the acquirement of a new power. I want more characteristic engravers, whose uncontaminated fingers have not yet been irremediably dipt in the sooty Acheron. In both painting and engraving, the vigorous masculine energy of the old artists is no more. There is an affectation of the exquisite. For the simple dignified walk, we have the pirouette; and put on manliness by the stamp and the frown. The real poverty of limb and motion is attempted to be hid under the fluster and flicker of silk and satin: all which is detestable. Taste is first indignant, and though the price of admission has been paid, quits the tawdry theatre and its trickeries, and walks away in disgust to some refreshing, cool, inoffensive, unobtrusive dell, (that has chanced to have escaped the beautifier,) and listening to the lecture of some eloquent brook, culls "sermons from stones, and good from every thing."

The theatrical has corrupted even our engravers. The finnikin nicety, the tinsel, the glare, the stare, the start, the maudlin affectation of feeling, are all transferred to another art. Some men of undoubted genius have led the way to this, and I cannot but think against their better judgments. They have been too ambitious of shewing their own manual skill, not of transferring to the plate the great ideas of their originals. They become vitiated by this evil desire, and like our political panders, had rather please the mass, "the people," by shewing them the falsities which alone their senseless heads can admire, than secure to themselves a future and more permanent fame, by teaching them what they ought to admire. Now, in this respect, I cannot but think Raphael Morghen himself to have been a delinquent, e. g. the magnificent Transfiguration. Are we not offended with the soft powder-puff clouds,the minikin theatrical cottony and