he has partially adopted a smaller scale than in the cupola of St. John. The subject is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. She is represented with an air, in the highest degree indicative of devotion and beatitude, as rising to meet Christ in the clouds surrounded by the heavenly choir of saints and angels; while beneath, the apostles behold her reception into glory with the most dignified expression of reverence and astonishment. Over the whole is an effusion of light, which produces an impression truly celestial.

The figures, which are depicted in the upper part of the dome, are foreshortened with consummate skill. Mengs, who saw them near, and judged of them as an artist, appears astonished at their boldness, which he calls "sconcia terribile," particularly that of Christ, which occupies the centre.

the effect, when seen from below, proves that the painter had deeply studied this delicate branch of the art; for nothing can exceed the bold and exquisite management of the light and shade, and the beautiful proportion in which the figures appear to the eye, except the life and spirit with which they are animated, and the general harmony of the whole.

He

In decorating the lower part of the cupola, Correggio has displayed undiminished resources. has figured a species of socle, or cornice, which runs round the whole cupola, yet at such a distance

as to afford a space between the windows for the apostles, who appear, some single, some in pairs, surrounded with angels, and delineated in the same grand style as those in the cupola of St. John. Yet, although placed on the very lines of the angles, formed in the dome, they are so artfuly disposed and foreshortened, as to appear painted vertically on the cornice. To unite these with the principal figures, he has distributed above, and on the socle groups of angels, some with torches, others bearing vases and censers, and of an intermediate size, between the gigantic figures of the apostles, and the light and airy forms of the celestial choir above.

But a striking proof of his taste and skill is manifested in the four lunettes between the arches supporting the cupola. Here he has feigned the architecture to form four capacious niches or shells, in which he has introduced the patrons of the city, St. John the Baptist, St. Hilary, St. Thomas and St. Bernard degli Uberti, in magnitude equal to the Apostles, resting on clouds and attended by angels. Depicting the light, as transmitted from

groupes above, he has so naturally thrown it upon these figures and their angelic suite, that they appear as if detached from the wall, and animated with more than human spirit and grace.

HOGARTH'S NEW CARRIAGE.

HOGARTH was one of the most absent of men. Soon after he set up his carriage he had occasion

to pay a visit to the Lord Mayor; when he went the weather was fine, but he was detained by business till a violent shower of rain came on. Being let out of the mansion-house by a different door from that at which he had entered, he immediately began to call for a hackney coach. Not one could be procured, on which Hogarth sallied forth to brave the storm, and actually reached his house in Leicester-fields without bestowing a thought on his own carriage, till Mrs. Hogarth, astonished to see him so wet and hurried, asked him where he had left it.

SALVATOR ROSA'S RECEPTION AT THE PALAZZO PITTI.

THE character, in fact, the manners, and the talents of Salvator Rosa came out in strong relief, as opposed to the servile deportment and more professional acquirements of the herd of artists of all nations. then under the protection of the Medici. He was received at the Palazzo Pitti not only as an artist, but as a guest; and the Medici, at whose board Pulci (in the time of their Magnifico) had sung his Morgante Maggiore with the fervour of a rhapsodist, now received at their table another Improvisatore, with equal courtesy and gracious⚫ness. The Tuscan nobility, in imitation of the court, and in the desire to possess Salvator's pictures, treated him with singular honour.

BEGARELLI AND CORREGGIO.

In order to overcome the difficulties which the peculiar shape and angles of the Cupola at Parma presented, many of the figures are supposed to have been painted by Correggio from models in chalk, said to be formed by his friend Begarelli, whose skill for a statuary received the praise even of Michael Angelo. It is also a curious fact, that a model of this kind was found towards the close of the last century, on the soffit of the cupola, by Giuliano Traballese, a Florentine painter, and director of the Royal Academy at Milan.

IRISH GRAND JURY.

THE grand jury of the county of Tipperary in Ireland had lately under consideration the propriety of building a new county jail at Clonmel, and came to the following resolutions, which were published in the newspapers:

1.-Resolved, That the present jail is insufficient, and that another ought to be built.

2.-Resolved, That the materials of the old jail be employed in constructing the new one.

3.-Resolved, That the old jail shall not be taken down until the new one be finished.

GIOTTO.

THE children of this famous painter were remarkably ugly. Dante asked him how it happened that he, who made the children of others so hand

some, should have made his own so ugly? "Mine," replied the painter, "were made in the dark."

STATUES IN ANCIENT ROME.

THE Romans had a peculiar method of increasing these treasures in art, namely, the custom of Ediles, when they exhibited their games, of adorning their theatres and other places with statues and pictures, bought or borrowed all over Greece, and even from Asia. Scaurus had no less than three thousand for mere ornament, in the theatre built only for four or five days. The same Scaurus brought to Rome all the pictures of Sicyon, one of the most eminent schools of Greece for painting, on pretence of a debt due to the Roman people.

From these public methods of drawing the works of the best ancient artists into Italy, it grew at length to be a part of private luxury to adorn their houses, porticos, and gardens, with the statues and pictures that could be procured out of Greece and Asia. None went earlier into this taste than the Luculli, and particularly Lucius Lucullus, who is censured by Plutarch for his excessive fondness for pictures and statues, which he got from all parts at an immense expence. The Julian family fell into the same excess. Julius Cæsar was a great collector, and as fond of gems as his successor Augustus was of Corinthian vases.