never transport ourselves in imagination to the climes represented. Humboldt dwells eloquently on the magnificence of tropical landscape; but unless a Turner could visit the scenes he describes, and scarcely then, no European could receive anything like an impression of their splendour. The time may come when such scenery shall be truly painted, but this will not be till civilisation and genuine Art are established in the midst of it, and even then a thorough appreciation of its beauties will only dwell with those who are native to it.

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SECTION XVI.

On Portrait.

As often as I hear the annual protest against the preponderance of portraiture in the Academy,* I am inclined to say that the interest of the Exhibition can only be affected by the quality and not by the quantity of such Art; for I never saw so delightful a display of pictures as the assemblage of the works of Reynolds, in 1813, at the British Gallery; nearly all being portraits. Such Art as his requires, indeed, the highest powers of mind, hand, and eye; and I do not believe that when Raphael or Titian occasionally quitted History for Portrait, it occurred to them that they were descending to a lower sphere; and I am sure they did not find it easier to satisfy themselves. Art was not then classed as it now is. The great masters considered themselves as painters, not of this

* When the Exhibition is condemned on account of the quantity of portrait, it is forgotten that if the painters of indifferent works of this class had employed themselves on subjects from poetry or history, or on landscape, the interest would not be greater. When bad portraits are better placed than good pictures of other classes, it is a just cause of complaint; and when indifferent pictures of other classes take the precedence of good portrait, the complaint is equally just.

or that, but of everything; and as Poussin said of himself, they "neglected nothing."

There has never existed a great painter of History or Poetry who has not been great in portrait. Even Michael Angelo is no exception. There may not remain any painted portraits of known persons by his hand, but there are sculptured portraits by him, and it is impossible to look even at the engravings of the Prophets and Sibyls, without seeing that they are from a hand practised in portrait-a hand, too, that had acquired its power by the practice of literal exactness. "Fuseli distinguishes the styles—epic, dramatic, and historic-beautifully," says Mr. Haydon. But I think, as I do of such distinctions generally, that these are entirely imaginary; and that the style of Michael Angelo is distinguished, as are all others, by the peculiar mind of the artist only. Haydon adds that, "the same instruments are used in all styles, men and women; and no two men or women were ever the same in form, feature, or proportion. After Fuseli has said, 'the detail of character is not consistent with the epic,' he goes on to show the great difference of character between each Prophet, as decided as any character chosen by Raphael in any of his more essentially dramatic works. Nor are the Sibyls,' continues Fuseli, 'those female oracles, less expressive or less individually marked." Thus, though Haydon was unwilling to abandon the classifications of Fuseli, the contradiction involved in them did not escape him.

There cannot be a doubt that Michael Angelo, had he devoted himself to portrait only, would have been

a superlative portrait-painter; for in his works we find everything in perfection that portrait requires— dignity, the expression of character, the highest perception of beauty, in man, woman, and child; and not only in the unfinished marble that adorns our Academy library, but in the smaller compartments of the Sistine ceiling, the most natural and familiar

A GROUP BY MICHAEL ANGELO.

domestic incidents treated in the most graceful manner. It is right this should be remembered, because painters (as they fancy themselves) of High Art, who really have not the talents portrait requires, must not be allowed to class themselves with Michael

Angelo, as long as they cannot do what he, in perfection, could do.

Conspicuous as he stands among great portraitpainters, Vandyke is not first of the first. The attitudes of his single figures are often formal and unmeaning; and his groups, however finely connected by composition, are seldom connected by sentiment. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, stand or sit beside each other, as they stood or sat in his room, for the mere purpose of being painted; and it is therefore the nicely-discriminated individual character of every head, the freshness and delicacy of his colour, and the fine treatment of his masses, that have placed him high among portrait-painters. The Countess of Bedford at Petworth, his Snyders at Castle Howard, his whole-lengths at Warwick and at Windsor, the noble equestrian picture at Blenheim, of Charles I., with its magnificent landscape background, and the whole-length of Charles in the Louvre, are among the masterpieces of Vandyke; but he has nowhere shown such dramatic powers as are displayed by Velasquez, in his portrait picture of "The Surrender of Breda."

The governor of the town is presenting its keys to the Marquis Spinola, who (hat in hand) neither takes them, nor allows his late antagonist to kneel. But, laying his hand gently on his shoulder, he seems to say, "Fortune has favoured me, but our cases might have been reversed." To paint such an act of generous courtesy was worthy of a contemporary of CerIt is not, however, in the choice of the subject, but in the manner in which he has brought the

vantes.