siting the chests or coffins of the sacred crocodiles, called Sukhus or Sukkis in old Egyptian, and Soukh to this day in the Coptic or vernacular language of Egypt. The halls had an equal number of doors, six openings to the north, and six to the south; and at each angle of the external walls of this labyrinth was erected an immense pyramid, for the sepulchres of its founders. The whole of the labyrinth, walls, floors and ceilings, were of white marble, and exhibited a profusion of sculpture. Each of the before-mentioned twelve halls, or galleries, were supported on columns of the same sort of marble. This splendid palace, or rather city of palaces, is also mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, who thinks it was a magnificent cemetery for the Egyptian monarchs and their families; and it is also described by Strabo and Pliny, who confirm the accounts and descriptions of Herodotus.

POUSSIN'S STUDY.

Poussin spent

EVERY hour that he could spare in the different villas in the neighbourhood of Rome, where, besides the most exquisite remains of antique sculpture, he enjoyed the unrivalled landscape that surrounds that city, where every hill is classical, where the very trees have a poetic air, and where nothing reminds one of common nature; so much is it dignified by the noble wrecks,

whose forms, and magnitude, and combinations excite in the soul a kind of dreaming rapture, from which it would not be awakened, and which those who have not felt it can scarcely understand. In those delightful scenes he continued to meditate and to study, even to extreme old age.

He restored the antique temples, and made plans and accurate drawings of the fragments of ancient Rome, and there are few of his pictures where the subject admits of it, in which we may not trace the buildings, both of the ancient and the modern city. In the beautiful landscape of the death of Eurydice, the bridge and castle of St. Angelo, and the tower, vulgarly called that of Nero, form the middle ground of the picture. The castle of St. Angelo appears again in one of his pictures of the Exposing of Moses; and the pyramid of Caius Cestius, the Pantheon, the ruins of the Forum, and the walls of Rome, may be recognised in the Finding of Moses, and several others of his remarkable pic

tures.

"I have often admired," said Vigneul de Marville, who knew him at a late period of his life, "the love he had for his art. Old as he was, I frequently saw him among the ruins of ancient Rome, out in the Campagna, or along the banks of the Tyber, sketching a scene which had pleased him; and I often met him with his handkerchief full of stones, moss or flowers, which he carried home,

that he might copy them exactly from nature.

One

day I asked him, how he had attained to such a degree of perfection as to have gained so high a rank among the great painters of Italy? He answered, 'I have neglected nothing.''

ORIGIN OF THE FABLE OF THE CENTAUR.

THE inhabitants of Thessaly being great horsemen, and their country abounding with wild bulls, they became expert in their chase, and hence acquired their name and gave rise to the fable of the Centaurs. The usual way in which they are represented by artists, is with a human head, arms, and trunk, joined to the body and legs of a horse, just above the chest. According to Pausanias, there was represented upon the ancient monument called the sarcophagus of Cypselus, a centaur, of which the fore feet were those of a man, and the hinder ones of a horse; and they have been similarly represented on various other monuments. Ancient artists were fond of introducing in their compositions the representation of imaginary beings, composed of two natures, as centaurs, tritons, and sphinxes, and probably the mermaid has the same origin. The quarrels of the centaurs and lapitha at the nuptials of Pirothous, as represented in the Phigalean marbles, have been sung by Hesiod (in Scuto Herc.) and Ovid (Met. xii.), and been commemo

rated in the sculptures of various ancient temples. Representations of centaurs are found upon a great number of ancient monuments, and in the most varied attitudes. Phidias was the first that ennobled and almost naturalized them in his sculptures of the metopes of the Parthenon. He has been followed by a great number of imitators, and none more celebrated, or nearer approaching him, than the fine sculptures of the Phigaieian frieze in the British Museum. There are very fine centaurs of both sexes also upon many of the Greek vases; and likewise in the paintings of Herculaneum. The car of Bacchus is sometimes described as being drawn by a centaur, armed with a club or lance, and another holding a lyre or some other musical instrument; and they are also occasionally affixed to the cars of other divinities, especially on medals. Zeuxis was the first on record who ventured to personify a centaur in painting, and Lucian (Zeuxis), who gives a description of this picture, regards it as one of the finest and boldest of his works. (See Lucian, vol. i. p. 579. fr. ed.) In his time Athens possessed a very correct copy of it; the original had been sent by Sylla to Italy, but the ship which conveyed it was lost, with all its other valuables. The lower part of this centaur was that of a mare, reclining on one side; the upper part was that of a fine woman, leaning on her elbow,

holding in her arms one of her two young ones, and presenting it to the breast; the other was sucking its mother in the manner of colts.

Lucian observes, that the genius of Zeuxis is displayed in this picture, of uniting in one object all his excellencies, by giving to the centaur a fierce and savage air, a bushy mane disposed with stateliness, a body covered with hair, which appear equally to belong to the human portion as well as the other. Philostratus gives a description of a painting of the same kind, representing a family of centaurs. Nonnus mentions horned centaurs, as satyrs are represented.

POUSSIN AND DOMENICHINO.

NEXT to correctness of drawing, and dignity of conception, Poussin valued expression in painting. He placed Domenichino next to Raffaelle for that quality; and shortly after his arrival in Rome, he set about copying the Flagellation of St. Andrew, painted by that master, in the church of San Gregorio. Domenichino painted it in competition with Guido, whose Martyrdom of the Saint is on the opposite side of the church. Poussin found all the students in Rome busily copying the Guido, which, though it has possibly fewer faults than its rival, wants the energy and expression that distinguish it: he was too sure of his object to be led away by the crowd, and turned his atten