defatigable walking:" having made one of his usual tours in very hot weather, he was attacked with pleurisy, and perished in his fifty-eighth year, about 1652.

MENGS'S AND CORREGGIO.

MENGS considered the St. Sebastian of Correggio as one of his best productions before he was employed at Parma. In this instance, however, he does not seem to have manifested his usual discernment; for the whole character of the piece, and in particular the management of the chiaroscuro, seem to assign it to a more advanced period, when the painter had attained his last and best style. This opinion is corroborated by historical evidence; for, according to the Chronicle of Lancillotto, as quoted by Pungileoni, the church of the community of St. Sabastian was not rendered fit for divine service till 1524; and it is not likely that the picture would have been ordered and painted, seven years before the church, for which it was designed, was ready for its reception. Here we find it soon after the death of Correggio; for it was one of the pictures copied by Girolamo Carpi, before the middle of the sixteenth century.

CAPABILITY BROWN.

THIS eminent landscape gardener, who was so justly famed for his knowledge of design, having often remarked in his neighbourhood a ruinous

cottage, where the lines came in just as painter could wish, and admitted a fine breadth of light and shadow, he resolved to make a drawing of it; while he was at work, an old woman came out and dropping a very low curtsey, said "I am very glad your honour is come to look at it yourself; I have told the steward over and over again that the house would fall down about my ears, but he did not mind me. I hope your honour will order it to be done soon."

CHARACTERS OF THE LEADING SCHOOLS OF ITALY, FLANDERS, HOLLAND, AND GERMANY.

The Italian Schools.

THE works of the Italian painters are generally distinguished, and classed, under a particular denomination, according to the style and manner adopted by the artist in composition and colouring; each school having a character in some measure peculiar to itself. Some of the celebrated masters have, however, blended the several excellencies, and to such it is difficult to assign a place which may not be disputed.

The schools of Florence, Rome, Venice, and Lombardy, are the most eminent: they are characterized from the manners adopted, and in a great measure established, by the masters who founded hem.

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The FLORENTINE SCHOOL, which is the mother of all the rest, is distinguished by a certain severity and gigantic grandeur, which gives elevation and majesty to the compositions of its artists superior to all others. The ROMAN SCHOOL, formed by the study of the antique, exhibits scientific design, a supreme beauty of form, and justness of expression; but in colour it is inferior to the rest. The VENETIAN SCHOOL is distinguished for its knowledge of colours; and the SCHOOL of LOMBARDY for grace, tasteful design, delicacy of pencilling, and harmonious arrangment in the chiaro scuro. Each of these schools has produced masters who are exceptions to its general character, but the above distinctions serve for the purpose of classification.

The Flemish, Dutch, and German Schools.

These three schools, justly admired for the richness of their colouring, and their exquisite harmony, are no less distinguished for the admirable precision with which they have imitated the several objects of nature. In the last, some of them have reached the utmost perfection.

The FLEMISH SCHOOL, of which Rubens is the principal master, to brilliancy of colour and the magic of chiaro scuro added a great knowledge of design, grandeur of composition, and in portraits a striking air of nature, with a noble expression.

Yet, on the whole, it only produced a sort of natural beauty, partaking neither of the Antique, nor of the Italian mode of representing it.

The DUTCH SCHOOL, speaking of it in general, did not possess the advantages of the Flemish; far from aiming at the beauties of form and expression, the Dutch artists delighted in the delineation of the lowest, and often the most disgusting objects. The truth of their representations, and the harmony of their colouring and chiaroscuro, have been thought by many a full compensation for their defects in taste; and there certainly is a charm about their pictures that attracts the most refined amateurs, even while they cannot but condemn the subject of their admiration.

Of the GERMAN SCHOOL little can be said, seeing that it offers no connected series of artists to make up the idea of a school. The earlier masters were dry and hard in their manners, though some of them arose superior to their Italian contemporaries in the splendour of their colouring. The latter masters have followed the schools of Italy and Holland, and consequently belong rather to them than to that of their native country.

ISABELLA OF VALOIS, AND BECERRA THE

SCULPTOR:

BECERRA, the Spanish sculptor, was commissioned by Isabella, of Valois, to carve a wooden

image of the Lady of the Solidad, for the convent of San Francisco de Paulo. He applied himself with diligence to the work; and after the labour of a year, completed an image to his entire satisfaction. He presented it to the Queen with assurance of success, but unfortunately, his image did not reach the ideas of the Queen, the expression did not please her, and she commanded him not only to make a better, but do it in less time. Becerra executed his order a second time, and produced an image which gained universal admiration ; even the fathers of the convent acknowledged it to be an exact representation of nature. It was submitted to the Queen, who condemned it as falling short of her conceptions of our Lady of the Solidad. The unhappy artist was threatened to be superseded in the commission by some abler master; but anxious to maintain his pre-eminence, and fulfil her Majesty's wishes, he again applied with ardour to the task. He racked his imagination without ceasing, to form some visage, and to devise some form, which Isabella might confess bore a resemblance to the image in her mind. Wearied with tormenting investigation, the exhausted artist one day fell into a profound sleep, and saw, or thought he saw, a female figure present herself at the foot of his bed. He looked, in hopes perhaps to have obtained a model for his image; but the lady, unluckily, concealed her face; at length addressing him in the most