mons; and, after an animated difcuffion, the Houfe declared, by a very large majority, that the African flave trade is contrary to juftice, humanity, and found policy, and pledged itself to take effectual measures for its abolition, with all practicable expedition. This refolution was then fent up to the Lords, and a conference demanded, upon a matter, in which the reputation of the country, for juftice, humanity, and found policy, is deeply interested.' Accordingly, after this conference, the Lords joined in the fame refolution, on the motion of Lord Grenville, by a large majority of votes.

The laft ftep taken in this great work, was an addrefs from the Houfes of Parliament to the King, befeeching him to take fuch measures, as may appear moft effectual for obtaining, by negotiation, the concurrence and concert of foreign powers in the abolition of the flave trade, and the execution of the regulations adopted for that purpose.

During the whole of the debates on the general queftion, to which thefe different motions gave rife, the fubject was difcuf fed with uncommon temper; and the warm fupport of Goverrment, as well as the apparent improvement in the feeling of the Upper Houfe, gave univerfal fatisfaction to all the friend's of the cause. Some fingular arguments were indeed ufed in its favour, by eminent perfons not formerly propitious to the abolition-arguments by which we hope no one will ever be influenced to vote for any innovation in our commercial economy. It was faid, that the foreign flave trade, carried on by our erchants, fhould be ftopt, not because it is juft, humane, and tic to diminish, by every poffible means, that abominable traffic, but because it was faid to be an undoubted principle in political economy,' to prevent foreign nations from cultivating, and your own traders from fupplying them with your ftaple articles." So the flave trade is a favourite with fome perfons for its own fake. It is to be cherished like the woollen trade. It is to be made an object of national prejudice and legiflative protection. Then it is to be protected by restrictive laws preventing its extenfion, as you would protect the growth of corn by prohibiting its exportation. Such were the grievous blunders of thofe diftinguifhed perfons, upon what they termed, with the familiarity of old acquaintance, the known principles of political fcience; and fo curiously did they contrive to defend the reftriction of the flave trade, upon the only ground on which it is abfolutely inde fenfible; for if you call that traffic a ftuple, and a good in itself, furely every principle of political fcience is at war with all attempts at ftunting its growth from jealoufy of rivals. But it feems to be the fate of the best measures, never to attract the efteem of some men, unless they can be fupported upon bad principles;

principles; and you go far to bring them over to your fide, if you permit them to fight for you with unlawful weapons.

While we freely cenfure fuch narrow views as those just now alluded to, it is a matter of real fatisfaction to us to fee the oppofite arguments of the abolitionists fo cordially fupported by the whole of his Majefty's minifters. The whole of their conduct in this momentous bufinefs has been pure, fteady, and zealous. They have propofed the wifeft plans for attaining the most virtuous and falutary object which a great nation ever struggled to accomplish; and they have defended their schemes by the most fair and liberal arguments, combining, in all their difcuffions, a thorough knowledge of the question before them, with an extenfive appeal to the best principles of political science, and a sensibility to the great doctrines of public juftice. They have reaped the reward of their enlightened exertions. While the general resolutions which they have carried give a folemn pledge to the world of a total abolition of the traffic next feffion of Parliament, the le giflative measures already adopted have checked the growth of the evil at home, and greatly diminished its magnitude abroad. The 38,000 flaves exported annually from Africa in British veffels, are only in a small proportion deftined for the ufe of our own colonies above 22,oco are ftated, by the friends of the trade, to be intended for the foreign fettlements. To this must be added a large number of flaves carried by British veffels under cover of the neutral flags. From certain documents which we have had an opportunity of confulting, we cannot eftimate thefe at lefs than 8000; and the fupply of the conquered colonies confiderably exceeds 10,000 annually; fo that, in the courfe of one feffion of Parliament, a flave trade has been abolished, which used to carry over yearly above forty thousand innocent and miferable perfons, from their peaceful homes, through the multiplied horrors of the voyage, to perpetual bondage and wretchednefs in the Weft Indian plantations; and a ftop has been put to all the murders, torture and plunder, which were daily and hourly defolating the continent of Africa, for the supply of fo enormous a confumption of human flesh.

For fo great a bleffing, humanity itfelf-the name of man all over the world, refcued from fuch a stain,-is deeply indebted to the exertions of the British Parliament. Nor let us, the while, forget our obligations to those private individuals who first brought the evil to light, and ceased not, until they had purfued it to judgment. Most of all, let our gratitude be teftified to that man, who has begun and led this glorious ftruggle-who has devoted to its fuccefs all his days, and all his talents who has retired from all recompenfe for his labours, fave the fatisfaction of doing good to his fellow-creatures, who, giving

up

up to mankind what others have facrificed to party, has preferred the glory of living in the recollection of a grateful world, to the fhining rewards of a limited ambition. Had he failed as entirely as he is now likely to fucceed in the great object of his exertions, his name would have equally merited a place among the benefactors of our fpecies. But men will always judge by the event; and we now rejoice to contemplate this diftinguished perfon, ftanding, as it were, on the brink of his final triumph, in the greatest battle ever fought by human beings, and an object, we really think, of just envy to the most ambitious of mortals.

ART. X. Efays on the Anatomy of Expreffion in Painting. By Charles Bell. 4to. pp. 186. Longman & Co. London. 1806.

THIS

HIS we think is a very elegant and interesting publication; and though the want of engravings will prevent us from giving our readers a complete conception of its contents, we think they will be gratified by a pretty full account of its leading doctrines.

Ever fince we recollect any thing, we have been moved by the lamentations of young artifts, complaining of the want of fome book, which might teach them the elements and the uses of anatomy. The difficulty was to find a skilful anatomift, who understood and fympathized with their wants and diftreffes, and who could not only detect the errors into which they were led by their ignorance, but could accommodate his inftructions to their tafte and capacity, and render his lessons at once intelligible and attractive. Hitherto they have not been favoured, at leaft in this country, with fuch an inftructor; and the poor painter has been obliged, either to perfuade himself that there was no ufe in anatomy, or to make a defperate attempt to acquire a knowledge of it from catalogues of hideous names, and dry tabular plans of bones and blood-veffels; relieved, occafionally, with furgical and nofological obfervations, and remarks upon every thing but the application of this learning to his profeffion. *

VOL. VIII. NO. 16.

Bb

Mr

* We do not think that the accuracy of this general statement will be much affected, by referring to any of the publications which have hitherto been given to the world under fimilar titles with the work now before us. The famous work of Le Brun has been abandoned as worfe

than

Mr Bell has not propofed, in the work before us, to remedy the whole of these evils: what he has now executed is but a prelude, we hope, to a more extenfive and systematic production, in which, on the one hand, the operation of the mind on the body, will be fully and minutely investigated, and on the other, the whole anatomical knowledge which is requifite for the artist, will be delivered in a ftyle as perfpicuous and engaging as that of the fpecimens which are here offered to the public. In the prefent volume of Effays, it feems rather to have been the author's defign to point out the infinite importance of anatomical study to the painter, and to fhew to what a variety of pleasing and im portant difcoveries it will infenfibly conduct him. In the execution of this task, he has not only given new proofs of his intimate acquaintance with his profeffional fcience, but has indicated a tafte and a feeling, for the excellences both of fculpture and of painting, that is not always to be met with in a regularly bred artist; and entered, at the fame time, into all the difficulties and perplexities of the ftudent, with a zeal and a fympathy which cannot fail to be very gratifying. He has found occafion, too, to scatter over his 'work many traits of a delicate moral fenfibility; and not only to embellish it with claffical allufions, but to give it dignity and authority, by appealing to the leffons of a philofophy, which is not often reforted to by the votaries of fuch ftudies.

With all thefe merits, the work has confiderable defects. It is not perfectly well written; there is fomething cumbrous and overloaded in the diction; and occafional paffages of falfe eloquence. The arrangement is not always happy; and in treat

ing

than ufelefs, by every fludent who had been led to refort to it. His view of the anatomy is by no means fcientific or precife; and many of his sketches of the paffions are inaccurate in this very particular. There is a work publifhed by Dr Brisbane, in 1769, under the name of the Anatomy of Painting; but it containg little more than the fix tables of Albinus, with a confeffion of the author's ignorance of the art of defign," and a wish that fome perfon, qualified for the task, would undertake the work he announces. His book contains no feparate plate of the mufcles of the face, nor any one remark on their action. A kind of abstract of the lectures of Profeffor Camper upon this fubject, has been lately tranflated from the Dutch by Dr Cogan. The greater part of this work, however, is occupied with his peculiar theory as to the direction of the facial line; there is no intelligible view of the muscles of the face; and his reprefentations of the feveral paffions are fo coarfely and inaccurately drawn, that it is abfolutely impoffible for the artift to derive the leaft affiftance from them.

ing of the more abstract and difputable parts of the fubject, it appeared to us that there was a want of fimplicity and perfpicuity in the statements. The author feems to have felt this himself in fome places; and to remedy it, he has fallen into a worfe error-that of repetition, and detached recapitulation. Moft of these faults, however, appear to arife from inexperience in writing on fubjects of general fpeculation; and as they are not accompanied with the flighteft appearance of conceit or prefumption, they give but little offence to the reader, and will probably be easily corrected.

The introductory Effay, after fhortly explaining the extent of the fubject which the author propofes to illuftrate, treats at fome length of the errors into which artists are apt to be betrayed, both by the study of the antique, and by that of the academy figure, and of the falutary corrective which anatomical knowledge has provided for thefe errors.

By anatomy, he obferves, as applied to the arts of defign, I underftand, not merely the study of the human muscles and organs of motion,

I confider it as including a knowledge of all the peculiarities and characteristic differences which mark and diftinguish the countenance, and the general appearance of the body, in fituations interefting to the painter or ftatuary. The characters of infancy, youth, or age; the peculiarities of fickness or of robuft health; the contraft of manly and muscular strength, with feminine delicacy; the appearances of diseases, of pain, or of death; the general condition of the body, in fhort, as marking to the eye of the beholder interefting fituations: All these form as neceffary a part of the anatomy of painting, as the tracing of the muscles of expreffion in their unexerted ftate, and of the changes induced upon them as emotions arife in the mind. '

p. 2.

With regard to the danger of an indifcriminate imitation of the antique, he obferves, that almoft all we know of it is ferved in fculpture; and that much of that fculpture is employed in embodying perfonifications of deities, and supernatural beings; from both which circumftances, it may become a fource of error to the ftudent of painting. He obferves, with great truth, that the ancient fculptors appear to have considered a certain grave fimplicity, and fedate tranquillity, as neceffary to the grandeur and effect of their finer compofitions; an air of stillnefs and repofe, accordingly, is the grand characteristic of ancient sculpture; and even in the expreffion of paffion, they feem to have found it neceflary, in order to preferve the beauty and dignity of their works, to avoid that minute and fharp reprefentation of the features, and thofe convulfions and distortions of the muscles that are strictly natural. The painter, however, it is obvious, is bound down by no fuch limitations.

Bba