Illus. 3. The CORINTHIAN order, possessing an exuberance of richness, marks an age of luxury and magnificence, when pomp and splendor, without extinguishing the taste for the sublime and beautiful, had become the ruling passions. But this union of these characters satisfies not the chastened judgment; nor does it please, except where the taste has been corrupted by the ingredients of luxury and magnificence.

644. The TUSCAN and COMPOSITE orders are both of Italian origin; the former, nearly allied to the Grecian style, possesses an inferior degree of elegance; and the latter, as its name imports, shows that in the three original orders the Greeks had exhausted all the principles of grandeur and of beauty; and that it was not possible to form a fourth order without a combination of the former.

645. The GOTHIC Architecture presents no contradictions to the foregoing definitions and illustrations. It must, however, be allowed, that the effect which it produces cannot be entirely accounted for by the rules of symmetry or harmony in the proportion between the several parts; but depends chiefly on certain ideas of vastness, gloominess, and solemnity, which are reckoned powerful ingredients in the sublime.

646. GARDENING is now improved into a fine art (Art. 264. Illus. 1 and 2.); and when we talk of a GARDEN, without any epithet, we mean not the garden of Alcinous, described by Homer, but a pleasure garden; a spot of ground which the "prophetic eye of taste" (Art. 269. and its Illustrations) has laid out for beauty solely, and which, beside the emotions of beauty from regularity, order, proportion, color, and utility, can raise the emotions of grandeur, of sweetness, of gayety, of melancholy, of wildness, and even of surprise or wonder. But we have anticipated, under the head of IMAGINATION, Chapter IX. Book II., what might here become the materials of a train of reasoning on gardening.

647. As to PAINTING and ENGRAVING, the best service I can here render the reader will be to sketch the state of those arts in the age of Leo X.

648. The human mind seems to take, in certain periods, a strong bent to one class of pursuits in preference to all others, as in the age of Leo X. to the fine arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture. This direction of the human mind may be, in part, accounted for from moral causes; such as the peaceful state of a country, the genius or taste of its sovereigns, their liberal encouragement of those arts, the

general emulation that arises where one or two artists are of confessed eminence, and the aid which they derive from the studies and works of each other.

649. Under the ruins of the Roman empire, the arts of painting and sculpture were buried in the west, and gradually declined in the later ages, as we may perceive by the series of the coins of the lower empire. The Ostrogoths, instead of destroying, sought to preserve the monuments of taste and genius, and became the inventors of some of the arts dependent on design, as the composition of Mosaic. But, in the middle ages, those arts were at a very low ebb in Europe. They began, however, to revive a little towards the end of the thirteenth century. A Florentine, named Cimabue, beheld the paintings of some Greek artists in one of the churches, and began to attempt similar performances. He soon excelled his models, and his scholars, Ghiotto, Gaddi, Tasi, Cavallini, and Stephano Fiorentino, formed an academy at Florence, in 1350.

650. But the works of these early painters, with some fidelity of imitation, had not a spark of grace or elegance; and such continued to be the state of the art till towards the end of the fifteenth century, when it arose at once to perfection. Raphael at first painted in the hard style of his master Perugino; but soon deserted it, and at once struck into the noble, elegant, and graceful, imitation of the genuine antique. This change was the result of genius alone; for the ancient sculptors were familiar to the early painters, though they had looked on them with cold indifference. But they were now surveyed by the eyes of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, geniuses animated by a similar spirit of taste, and a similar solidity of judgment, that formed the Grecian Apelles, Xeuxis, Glycon, Phidias,

and Praxiteles.

651. Italy, however, was not alone thus distinguished; for Germany, Flanders, and Switzerland, produced in the same age artists of consummate merit.

652. Before we notice these, we shall briefly characterize the schools of Italy. First in order is the school of Florence, of which the most eminent master was Michael Angelo, born in 1474. His works are distinguished by a profound knowledge of the anatomy of the human figure, perhaps chiefly formed on the contemplation of the ancient sculptures. His paintings exhibit the grand, the sublime, and the terri

ble; but he drew not its simple grace and beauty from the antique.

Second.-Raphael d'Urbino, born 1483, founded the Roman school. This great painter stands unrivalled in invention, grace, majestic simplicity, and forcible expression of the passions: he united almost every excellence of the art, far beyond all competition. From the antique he borrowed liberally, but without servility.

Third.-The most eminent artists of the school of Lombardy, or the Venetian, were Titian, Giorgione, Corregio, and Parmeggiano.

Illus. 1. Titian is most eminent as a portrait-painter, and chiefly in the painting of female beauty. Such is the truth of his coloring, that his figures look nature itself. It was the testimony of Michael Angelo to the merits of Titian, that, if he had studied at Rome or Florence, amidst the masterpieces of antiquity, he would have eclipsed all the painters in the world. Giorgione, with similar merits, was cut off in the flower of his youth. Titian lived to the age of an hundred. Corregio, superior in coloring, and knowledge of light and shade, to all that have preceded or followed him, owed every thing to study. In other painters, those effects are frequently accidental, as we observe they are not uniform: thus, Parmeggiano, imitating the graceful manner of Raphael, carried it to a degree of affectation.

2. In these three original Italian schools-the character of the Florentine is grandeur and sublimity, with great excellence of design, but a want of grace, of skill in coloring, and effect of light and shadethe character of the Roman is equal excellence of design, grandeur, tempered with moderation and simplicity, a high degree of grace and elegance, and a superior knowledge, though not an excellence, in coloring-the character of the Venetian is the perfection of coloring, and the utmost force of light and shade, with an inferiority in every other particular.

653. The second Roman school succeeded the school of Raphael, and was called the school of the Caraccis, three brothers, the most excellent of whom was Annibal. His scholars were, Guercino, Albano, Lanfranc, Dominichino, and Guido. Though all eminent painters, the first and last of these were the most excellent. . The elegant contours of Guercino, and the strength, the sweetness, and the majesty of Guido, are the admiration of all true judges of painting.

654. The Flemish school, in the same age, was of a quite different character, and inferior to the Italian; but it shone with great lustre.

655. In the fifteenth century, oil-painting was invented by the Flemings; and, in that age, Heemskirk, Frans Floris, Quintin Matsys, and the German, Albert Durer, are very

deservedly distinguished. Of the Flemish school Rubens is the chief ornament, though a painter of a much later age. His figures, though too corpulent, are drawn with great truth and strict observance of nature, and he possesses inexhaustible invention, and great skill in the expression of the passions. Switzerland produced Hans Holbein, an artist of great eminence in portrait-painting, and remarkable for truth of coloring. Of his works, from his residence at the court of Henry VIII., there are more specimens in Britain than of any other foreign painter. Holland had likewise its painters, whose chief merit was the faithful representation of vulgar nature, a perfect knowledge of the mechanism of the art, the power of colors, and the effect of light and shade.

656. But with the art of painting, sculpture and architecture were likewise revived in the same age, and brought to high perfection; and Michael Angelo's universal genius shone equally conspicuous in all the three departments. Michael's statue of Bacchus, Raphael judged to be the work of Phidias or Praxiteles.

657. The Grecian architecture was first revived by the Florentines, in the fourteenth century; and the cathedral of Pisa was partly constructed from the materials of an ancient Greek temple. The art reached the highest perfection in the age of Leo X., when the church of St. Peter's at Rome, under the direction of Bramante, San Gallo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, exhibited the noblest specimen of architecture in the universe.

658. We date the invention of the art of engraving on copper by Tomaso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, about 1460; and from Italy it travelled into Flanders, where it was first practised by Martin Scoen, of Antwerp. Albert Durer, his celebrated scholar, engraved with excellence both on copper and on wood. Etching on copper, by means of aquafortis, was discovered by Parmeggiano, who executed in that manner his own beautiful designs.

Illus. 1. No art underwent, in its early stages, so rapid an improvement as that of engraving; for, in the course of 150 years from its invention, it nearly attained perfection; and there has been but little proportional improvement in the last century, since the days of Audran, Poilly, and Edelinck.

2. The art of engraving in mezzotinto is, however, of much later date than the ordinary mode of engraving on copper, and was the invention of Prince Rupert, about IC50. It is characterized by a soft

ness equal to that of the pencil, and a happy blending of light and shade, and is, therefore, peculiarly adapted to portraits, in which those requisites are highly essential.

Obs. The age of Leo X. was likewise an era of very high literary splendor; but to take notice of the writers of distinguished merit in that period, would compel us to launch forward into a View of the Progress of Literature and of the Sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

659. MUSIC has a place among the fine arts, and 'tis fit it should, from its commanding influence over the human mind, in conjunction with words.

Illus. Objects of sight may indeed contribute to the same end, but more faintly, as where a love poem is rehearsed in a shady grove, or on the bank of a purling stream; but SOUNDS, which are vastly more ductile and various, readily accompany all the social affections expressed in a poem, especially emotions of love and pity.

660. MUSIC may, no doubt, be made to promote luxury and effeminacy; but with respect to its pure and refined pleasures, music goes hand in hand with gardening, architecture, and sculpture, her sister arts, in humanizing and polishing the mind. They may doubt this who have never felt their charms; but the soldier, whose courage has been roused by music performed upon instruments without a voice, knows the all-powerful charms of music; the lover, whose grief and pity have been raised by melancholy music, or by association of sounds, reminded of the mistress whose siren voice once ravished his soul, does not require the authority of Polybius to believe how dear was music to the Arcadians, under those great teachers, Timotheus and Philoxenus.*

Illus. 1. But no disagreeable combination of sounds is entitled to the name of music; for all music is resolvable into melody and harmony, which imply agreeableness in their very conception.

2. The agreeableness of vocal music differs from that of instrumental; the former, being intended to accompany words, ought to be expressive of the sentiment which they convey; but the latter, having no connection with words, may be agreeable without any relation to sentiment. Harmony, properly so called, though delightful when in perfection, hath no relation to sentiment; and we often find melody without the least tincture of it.

3. In vocal music, the intimate connection of sense and sound rejects dissimilar emotions, those especially that are opposite. Similar emotions, produced by the sense and the sound, go generally into union; and at the same time are concordant or harmonious; but dissimilar emotions, forced into union by these causes intimately connected, obscure each other, and are also unpleasant by discordance.

* Polyb. Lib. IV. Cap. III.