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of political knowledge, opinions, and habits in France, may afford to M. Guizot and his friends a much fairer excuse than can be reasonably urged in behalf of some conspicuous desertions of the popular party in our own country. The contests going on in the two countries are of a totally different nature. În France it is anarchy and absolutism against order and constitutional government. In England it is (to use the words of Niebuhr* on a similar subject) a continuation of the old struggle between the aristo'cracy and the commonalty; the latter, feeling that it is come of age, and ripe for a share in the Government; the former, striving to keep it in subjection and servitude. But the contest is unequal, 'for a spreading growing power encounters one that is hemmed in,' and decreasing in relative weight. In England, political habits are so settled, and the forces on each side so accurately estimated, that sudden changes are almost impossible. In France, it may perhaps be reasonably thought that the political balance requires almost as nice an adjustment as that of a spirit-level,any undue inclination may cause the whole body of society to gravitate precipitately towards one point. M. Guizot's eye seems ever on the watch to keep the balance even:- Semper Rostris Curiam, in senatu populum defendere: multitudinem cum principibus, equestrem ordinem cum senatu conjungerem.'†

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History of Rome, vol. II., p. 351.

+ Cic. In Pisonem.

2 B

VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXVI.

ART. VI.--Works of Art and Artists in England. By G. F. WAAGEN, Director of the Royal Academy at Berlin. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1838.

IT T is of great importance both to artists and collectors that the performances of the one class, and the acquisitions of the other, should be occasionally brought to the test of impartial and enlightened foreign criticism. Artists associating constantly with each other, and surrounded on all hands by productions of their own national school, are apt to identify the favourite painter of the day, or, at all hands, the school itself, with the idea of perfection. The collectors of pictures, in like manner, often form an overweening estimate of the merits of their galleries;—are sensitive if the merits of a picture are called in question, and receive with an indifference, about as genuine as that of Sir Fretful' in` the play, the information communicated by some officious connoisseur, that their favourite Titian is only a respectable copy, or their copper Otho a genuine Bristol farthing. And yet these unpleasant truths must be told sooner or later, unless the cause of art is to be sacrificed to the delicate sensibilities of individuals; nor are they ever likely to be told in a way more calculated to convince, or less likely to offend, than when a foreigner, fully master of his subject, sits down in a spirit of candour and fairness to take a general review of the state of the arts in Britain; and, removed from the influence of personal or party feelings, to express an independent, well-considered, and properly qualified opinion.

In this point of view, we think the work of Dr Waagen is likely to be useful; as the production of a well-informed foreigner, on the whole exceedingly free from prejudices, and writing not for effect, but, in as far as we can discover, with a conscientious anxiety to state the truth, without reserve and without exaggeration. The book, no doubt, might have been rendered much more piquant and amusing, and might have appeared to possess a much higher degree of originality, if a more dashing style of criticism had been adopted;-if the author had always dogmatized instead of doubted, dealt out eulogy instead of modified praise, and sarcasm instead of censure; but such is not the turn of Dr Waagen's mind. In fact, a little knowledge and experience of the mistakes into which even the ablest artists themselves have fallen, in their conjectures as to the genuineness of pictures, must soon convince men of sense of the absurdity of attempting to play the dictator in criticism. Thus our Watteaus, in the National

Gallery, purchased under the direction of the ablest judges, and unquestioned till lately, are now said to be the works of Lancret; the Christ on the Mount of Olives, for which Mr Angerstein gave two thousand pounds, on the assurance of Mr West and Sir Thomas Lawrence that it was the original, turns out to be only an ancient and excellent copy. The original is in the collection of the Duke of Wellington, who obtained it from the King of Spain. Dr Waagen holds it to be clear that the Erminia with the Shepherds, in the National Gallery, originally attributed to Annibal Caracci, is now rightly assigned to Domenichino. Mr Irvine, who made the purchase for Mr Buchanan, and one of the best judges of pictures whom this country has produced, is equally clear that it is a Caracci and no Domenichino. Instances like these throw a doubt over all pictorial criticism, so far as it pretends to detect with certainty the manner of a particular artist, or to distinguish an able copy from an original. Of this Dr Waagen must be well aware; and hence, though in one or two cases he pronounces a positive opinion, his views are generally stated doubtfully rather than decidedly; and we are, therefore, the more inclined to adopt his conclusions in those instances where, as in the case of the so-called Titians at Blenheim, the Leonardos, and the Christ on the Mount of Olives, in the National Gallery, he indicates a distinct opinion against the genuineness of the pictures. Then, he is the very reverse of an exclusionist in taste: with a just leaning toward the higher and more poetical schools of Italy, he can admire and do justice to the homelier nature of the Spanish and the Flemish. Scarcely any portion of the book, indeed, seems written more completely con amore than the notice of Sir Robert Peel's collection, most of the masterpieces of which are of the Flemish school. He is enthusiastic on the subject of the Chapeau de Paille (certainly a strange misnomer for a black beaver hat), delighted with the Wouvermans, Ostades, and Cuyps, and declares the sum of four thousand guineas, paid for a picture of a man on a grey horse, followed by two dogs, by Isaac Van Ostade, the brother of Adrian, to be in his opinion reasonable ' in comparison with others.'

In his way from Berlin to England Dr Waagen revisited his native city of Hamburgh, after an absence of twenty-eight years. The impressions produced by this visit are simply and pleasingly recorded. He was rejoiced to find that, after travelling in Germany, France, and Italy, Hamburgh with its lofty towers still had in his eyes a very stately appearance.' He visited the places where he had played as a boy, the houses where his grandmother and parents lived, and was surprised to see how little and confined they appeared. Many almost effaced recollections of

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my earliest years were renewed. In particular, I could not look without emotion at the house in which the early sight of the various works of art which my father possessed gave my ' mind that impulse which was afterwards to determine the direction of my life.' As he approached the English coast he was powerfully struck, as all foreigners are, by the countless vessels whitening the sea, steering to or from the entrance of the Thames, and reminding the stranger that he is approaching the centre of the commerce of the world. Bright sunshine alternating with a clouded sky and flying showers, afforded him an opportunity of commencing his professional studies, by tracing on the shipping in the river all the favourite effects of the Dutch marine painters, Van de Velde and Backhuysen. Now for the first time I fully understood the truth of these pictures in the varied undulation of the water, ❝ and the refined art, with which, by shadows of clouds, intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a distance, and ships to ani' mate the scene, they produce such a charming variety in the uniform surface of the sea.' Greenwich he dismisses with faint praise, as an asylum for invalid seamen, the splendid buildings of which are adorned with numerous pillars. He observes, as he drives through the endless streets, groups at work in the shops of the smiths and shoemakers, which in picturesque arrangement and striking light and shade, recall to his recollection the pictures of Adrian Ostade, or Schalken. Of the modern street architecture of London, with its composition ornaments, and architectural decorations of pillars and pilasters ;—and in particular, the abnormities-to use Dr Waagen's expression-of Nash, and the lately erected monument to the Duke of York, he thinks very poorly. The street architecture is condemned as destitute of those continuous simple main lines, indispensable to general effect in architecture, and to which all decoration must be subordinate. Farther, the decorations are introduced without regard to their own meaning, or the destination of the edifice ;-a fault particularly observable in the columns, which, instead of being used as the supports of a wall, are frequently ranged before it like unprofit"able servants.' The Duke of York's monument is but a bad imitation of Trajan's pillar-a kind of monument first introduced by the Romans, and unknown to the purer taste of the Greeks-necessarily rendering the statue on the top 'little and puppet-like,' and, in this case, unrelieved even by those bas-reliefs on the shaft, which give to Trajan's pillar, and to the Parisian imitation of it, a richness of effect, arising from the lavish profusion of art, and reconciling the spectator to the want of architectural propriety in the isolation of the column.

On the other hand, he is powerfully impressed by the beauties of our parks, with their picturesque groups of trees, their broad sheets of water, and backgrounds of stately or venerable architecture; the rural air of their more retired pastures, sprinkled over with cows and sheep; the gaiety and brilliancy of those thoroughfares through which the tide of London life pours in such restless motion;-by the magnificence, external and internal, of the clubrooms, and the evidence of boundless wealth which every where presents itself to the eye of the traveller. With the society of England he is still more captivated; and, indeed, it could hardly be otherwise, considering the courtesy and kindness with which he was every where received. Galleries and collections, with scarcely an exception, are thrown open to him-he passes from the Duke of Devonshire's to Sir Robert Peel's, from the Duke of Wellington's to Lord Lansdowne's; he spends his mornings in the contemplation of the treasures of art, and he adjourns in the evening to some ball or fête, to behold the conceptions of Guido and Vandyke realized in the living beauties of the English aristocracy.

We shall arrange the remarks we have to offer upon the work,— which, as it follows no other arrangement but the order of time, is of a very desultory kind, and might advantageously have been reduced to a more systematic form,-under two heads: first, The English School of Painting; and second, The treasures of foreign art contained in the numerous galleries and collections of which England has to boast.

The estimate formed by Dr Waagen of the English school of painting, as the result of his examination of the different collections, ancient and modern, appears to us to be just; though it will certainly disappoint those enthusiastic partizans who think Turner equal to Claude and Canaletti united, and Etty the rival of Titian. Let me tell you, sir,' says Carmine, in Foote's farce of Taste, he that took my Susannah for a Guido gave no mighty 'proofs of his ignorance, Mr Puff.' The opinion of Carmine, we fear, is shared by not a few of our English artists. Vanity or ignorance blinds them to the vast difference which still separates the best specimens of the modern, from the master-pieces of the older schools; and those who hesitate about placing modern and ancient art on an equality, are suspected of a groundless and prejudiced admiration for what is old, merely because it is so. these Dr Waagen's view of the arts in England will not give satisfaction. He concedes to the English School the merit of effective and brilliant colouring, but denies its claims to the higher and more spiritual part of painting-pure design and elevated composition. It is great, as a whole, in the secondary qualities of

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