and disproportioned; a stump of a tree is too small, and the weeds are too large; and both are introduced with as much formality as if they were principal objects. Upon the whole, the single figure of the woman holding a hare, in Mr. Hope's collection, is worth more than this large picture, in which perhaps there is ten times the quantity of work.

THIRD ROOM.

Noli me tangere, of Barocci. The figures have not much grace; the Magdalen looks as if she was scratching her head; it is, however, finely coloured. There is a print of this picture.

A Holy Family, of Raffaelle: Christ and St John attending to each other, the Virgin sitting on the ground looking at Elizabeth; St. Joseph behind, with both hands on his staff; which altogether make a very regular pyramid. The Virgin is beautiful, as are likewise the children; indeed the whole is to be admired; but the colouring has a disagreeable yellow cast: it is in his first manner.

An immense picture of the Ascension of the Virgin, by Carlo Cignani; heavy, and in no point excellent a proper companion for the large picture of Gaspar de Crayer.

Susanna and the two Elders, by Domenichino. She is sitting at a fountain, the two elders are behind a balustrade; her head is fine, as are those of the old men; but it is upon the whole but a poor

barren composition. There is as much expression in the Susanna as perhaps can be given, preserving at the same time beauty; but the colour is inclinable to chalk, at least it appears so after looking at the warm splendid colours of Rubens: his full and rich composition makes this look cold and scanty. She is awkwardly placed by herself in the corner of the picture, which appears too large for the subject, the canvass not being sufficiently filled.

Here are many Luca Giordanos, which are composed in a picturesque manner and some very ordinary pictures of Paolo Veronese.

At the further end are two picturesque compositions of Luca Giordano, the Feeding of the Multitude, and the Elevation of the Cross; where he has disposed of a vast mob of people with great skill, in Tintoret's manner; and if they had his, or rather Paolo Veronese's colouring, these would be considered as very extraordinary pictures; but there is here a want of briskness and brilliancy of colour; a kind of clay colour seems to predominate in his pictures. When one looks at Luca Giordano, and sees a work well composed, well drawn, and with good keeping, one wonders how he has missed being a great name.

A Crucifixion, of Tintoret, with a great number of figures, but ill composed, and full of small spots of light parts of this picture, however, are not ill painted.

A fine portrait of Vesalius, the anatomist, when

young, by Tintoret. He has a skirrous bone in his left hand, the other holds a compass: he looks at the spectator with a most penetrating eye. It is apparently the same countenance as the engraved portrait prefixed to his works, but much younger.

Christ putting in the Sepulchre, by Annibale Caracci. This appears to have been one of his best works it is finely drawn and composed; and the Christ is in graceful attitudes.

Under this picture is an Ecce Homo, a head only; said to be of Corregio: but apparently of Domenico Feti. It 'should seem by this mistake that there is a resemblance in the manner of Domenico Feti to that of Corregio; what there is, which is very little, lies in the colouring; there is something of a transparent and pearly tint of colour in this head, but the character is much inferior to Corregio it is in heads or small parts of pictures only, that perhaps some resemblance may be discovered; in the larger works of Domenico Feti nobody can be deceived.

A Carlo Dolci; Madonna and Bambino with a lily. This is one of his best works: the expression of the Virgin is very beautiful; the Christ, which is a little figure at length, though not excellent, is still better than his children generally are.

Two portraits dressed in rags, like beggars, by Luca Giordano, in imitation of Spagnoletto's manner; well painted. They are said to be his own

and his father's pictures. I have seen a portrait by Caravaggio, painted by himself, in the same style: it is difficult to find out the wit or humour of this conceit of being drawn in the characters of beggars. A Holy Family, by Camillo Procaccini, his best; finely coloured: the Christ's head admirable.

St. Jerome, said to be by Paolo Veronese, but certainly by Giacomo Bassan.

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FOURTH ROOM.

The most distinguished pictures in this room are the Vanderwerfs, which are twenty-four in number. Three of them are as large as life; a Magdalen, whole-length, and two portraits. The Magdalen was painted as a companion to the St. John, of Raffaelle, but it was not thought even by his friends and admirers, that he had succeeded however, he has certainly spared no pains; it is as smooth and highly finished as his small pictures; but his defects are here magnified, and consequently more apparent. His pictures, whether great or small, certainly afford but little pleasure. Of their want of effect it is worth a painter's while to inquire into the cause. One of the principal causes appears to me, his having entertained an opinion that the light of a picture ought to be thrown solely on the or none on the ground or sky. This gives great coldness to the effect, and is so contrary to nature and the practice of those painters with whose

figures, and little

works he was surrounded, that we cannot help wondering how he fell into this mistake.

His naked figures appear to be of a much harder substance than flesh, though his outline is far from cutting, or the light not united with the shade, which are the most common causes of hardness; but it appears to me, that in the present instance the hardness of manner proceeds from the softness and union being too general; the light being every where equally lost in the ground or its shadow: for this is not expressing the true effect of flesh, the light of which is sometimes losing itself in the ground, and sometimes distinctly seen, according to the rising or sinking of the muscles: an attention to these variations is what gives the effect of suppleness, which is one of the characteristics of a good manner of colouring.

There is in nature a certain proportion of bluntness and sharpness; in the medium between these two extremes, the true and perfect art of imitating consists. If the sharp predominate, it gives a dry manner; if the blunt predominate, it makes a manner equally removed from nature; it gives what painters call woolliness and heaviness, or that kind of hardness which is found in those pictures of Vanderwerf..

In describing Vanderwerf's manner, were I to say that all the parts every where melt into each other, it might naturally be supposed that the