seen, that though they have often dashed off at a lucky hit, at one heat of the fancy, many of their finest designs, yet they have never neglected the charms of finished workmanship. Michael Angelo and Flaxman are the only two sculptors who, with genius for the minute as well as the grand, have dared sometimes to be remiss, and leave sentiment to make its way without the accompanying graces of skilful labour. Like other artists of his time our countryman deals in Britannias and Muses, and Historys and Minervas, but his learning and his poetry enable him to confine allegory to its own proper employment. His abstract ideas at least labour in character-Valour buries not the slain, Victory digs no graves, and Ocean never comes far inland. He makes such figures the quiet, the thoughtful occupants of a monument, looking sentiment rather than acting it. But these are labours too cold for genius like his-to express one thing by means of another is a way of getting rid of a difficulty which invention such as Flaxman's ought to despise. The sculptor, who speaks by means of ideas done in marble, works with very limited materials. What can Valour do but win a battle?-Victory can only hover over a general or perch on a standard-Wisdom can at the best sit still and look wise. The fancy of Flaxman is prolific, his works are scattered largely abroad, and, though far advanced in life, he still works with all the eagerness and enthusiasm of youth.

Westmacott has shared largely in public and in private favour, and some of the most expensive of our monuments have been confided to his talents. He has in so far profited by the wise example of West and the good sense of Flaxman, obeyed the admonition of our cold climate, and respected the blushes of our ladies and clothed some of his works in the costume of the country. He has tried the allegorical, the natural, and the poetical, and to which of them he is most devoted it is impossible to guess. His nature is rather heavy, his allegories somewhat startling, and his poetry deficient in elegance and simplicity. We like his nature the best. In his Hindoo Girl there is a certain wildness of eye; the stamp of a remote land is upon her and in his Widowed Mother and Child he has attained the pathos of truth. A little more, not of workmanship alone, but of genius, and those works would have been excellent. We would advise him to go to Westminster Abbey, and instantly remove the stick and bundle of rags from the feet of his Widowed Mother; they mingle vulgarity with her look of sorrow, and spoil the sweetest group he ever executed. His allegory we cannot endure-no man can be much gratified with what he cannot well understand, and even when we have pondered out Mr. Westmacott's meaning, our toil has no reward in pleasure. We stood and looked on his Colling

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wood stretched cold on the deck of that ship which had so often borne him to victory, and watched, as we imagined, by the guardian angel of his country; and said in our hearts-This is poetical.' But we were mistaken. It is a Fame and not an Angel that guards the admiral's body, while a large figure, a Neptune or a Father Thames, lies dry and comfortable on the sea-side gazing on the melancholy spectacle. This poverty of invention is not redeemed by any particular beauty of workmanship.

His poetical work from Horace was made rather in ignorance of the limit of his art. The vision of the poet was bold and graphic, and the images which made it glow in verse were objects beautiful for their varied colours rather than their form. But it is by form and sentiment alone that sculpture lives: the winding motion of a snake with its vivid hues, its glittering eye and poisonous tongue are all matters for poetry and not for marble; the snake of the sculptor is no longer the snake of the poet, when stript of its gorgeous emblazonry. But human character is the same in both, and men can recognize in marble the female beauty which they have felt in verse. The severity of sculpture rejects all that owes its importance to colour. A lady arrayed in gems and jewels, and all the pride of elaborate dress, shines on the painter's canvass: but transfer her to marble, and all those accessories become deformities. Her rings, rubies, diamonds, her Vandyke capes, her clasps, tags, tassels-we make sad work, we are afraid, among these toys, but we shall be understood-all these are converted into lumps of dull stone which sparkle no longer, but only pull the fair form of the lady down. She is no longer a breathing figure of flesh and blood-her diamonds catch no lustre from her skin, nor communicate any to it: the rubies in her ears no longer glitter as she goes, and the pearls and gold glance no more amidst her ringlets:-woman, woman alone, with all her pomp laid aside, is the study for the sculptor.

The statues of this artist merit some attention; they are numerous, and they are all historically correct with regard to portraiture; but their costume is of a mixed nature, sometimes of a Roman, sometimes of an English character, yet neither the one nor the other in perfection. The antique part wants graceful simplicity, the modern is inclined to be coarse; he is unable to vanquish the obstinate flaps, lappels and kneebands of English dress. The statue of Addison is not ill imagined: yet it wants somehow the general air of a gentleman, and the feet are, we fear, too heavy to be moved by the legs without pain. Of his Pitt we cannot judge; it stands so high in Westminster Abbey and in so dark a place as to be secure from criticism. The statue of Fox is a dull and clumsy performance. That of the late Lord Erskine has a manly

manly air; but the drapery is frittered into too many folds, and the feet are shapeless. Sculptors are unskilful in the management of a human foot in a shoe. They make what they call historical feet, very broad and very flat, and think them good enough for standing upon.

The renovation of the statue of Achilles in honour of Wellington and Waterloo surpasses all imaginable absurdity. By what perversity of fancy the cast of an antique figure was thought a fit visible record of English glory it is impossible to say. The statue of Achilles (if Achilles it be) had already told its story to the world, and it was a strange piece of tyranny to press it into the British service; but in our service it cannot abide; remove the inscription and the Greek is a Greek again. We hardly blame Westmacott for this: it is honourable enough to make money in an honest way, and we are obliged to the hand which extends our acquaintance among works of genius. But who would dedicate a translation of the Iliad as a national trophy to the honour of the heroes of Waterloo? We wish the cast so well as to wish it exchanged for a statue of our own great captain: and Mr. Westmacott himself has shown, in his Sir Ralph Abercrombie, that no antique mould is necessary when a British hero is to be celebrated by a British artist.

England may justly be proud of Chantrey; his works reflect back her image as a mirror; he has formed his taste on no style but that of nature, and no works of any age or country but his own can claim back any inspiration which they have lent him. He calls up no shapes from antiquity: he gives us no established visions of the past; the moment he breathes in, is his; the beauty and the manliness which live and move around him are his materials, and he embodies them for the gratification of posterity. He seems to work as if he were unconscious of any other rival but nature-the antique is before him, but he prefers flesh and blood, and it would certainly cost him far more labour to imitate the work of another school, than to create an image from the impulse of his own feeling. Robert Burns said, that the muse of his country found him as Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over him-and the same may be said of Chantrey it was in a secluded place, a nameless spot, into which art had never penetrated, that the inspiration of sculpture fell upon him: the desire of the art came over him before he knew to what toil he was tasking his spirit. Nature had taken possession of his heart and filled it with forms of English loveliness before he knew that the works of Greece existed;-and to this we attribute his success and his fame. An air of freedom and ease— 12

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of vigour which comes not from the muscle but from the mindof sentiment making action her auxiliary, and a look of life and reality are stamped on all his statues, busts and groups. He courts repose he seems not averse to gentle action, but has never yet sought in violent motion for elements either of sadness or solemnity. We call this not only the true but the classic sculpture of our country. The Greeks charmed the whole earth by working exactly in this spirit. But the liberties which the Greeks took with their Olympus gave them an advantage over modern sculptors. A Christian artist allows not his fancy to invade the sanctities of heaven-he presumes not to embody its shapes-he dares not define the presence of God. Our best sculpture is therefore of a grosser nature-less ætherial in form, and less god-like in sentiment.

The works of Chantrey are all of a domestic or historical kind; he has kept the preserve of pure poetry for the time when his hand may have uninterrupted leisure, and the cares of providing for existence shall no longer have any right to interfere with fancy. His statues are numerous, and we like his sitting ones the best. Meditation and thought are at their freedom when the body is at rest; and though some of our poets have conceived and composed in the act of walking, we hold that a man who thinks seated will always look more like a man in grave thought than one who stands, let him think ever so stoutly. James Watt is still living as far as sculpture can prolong life; his perfect image meditating on the extraordinary power which man wields so easily and profitably is preserved to the world. The statue of Chief Baron Dundas is graceful and unaffected; that of Dr. Anderson is the literal and perfect image of the happy and benevolent old man; and that of Dr. Cyril Jackson must please all who knew the Dean, or love flowing draperies and the memory of Christ Church Walk. Of his erect figures Washington is our favourite; the hero of American independence seems the very personification of one wrapt up in thought a man of few words, of prompt deeds, with a mind and fortitude for all emergencies. Grattan is a being of another class-earnest, voluble, in motion more than any other of the artist's works, and yet with something both of dignity and of serenity beyond what the orator possessed. Horner is anxious, apprehensive, and mildly grave; you look, expecting him to speak. General Gillespie is a fine manly martial figure.

In all these works we admire a subordinate beauty-a decorous and prudent use of modern dress. All its characteristic vulgarities are softened down or concealed. There is no aggravation of tassels,

sels, no projection of buttons. Though we are conscious that there is an art used in hiding these deformities, the skill of the sculptor has contrived to conceal it in nature.

Mr. Chantrey's groups, though the most admired, are not perhaps the happiest of his works. The Two Children, the Two Females on Wildman's monument, and the Mother and Children on that of David P. Watts are our favourites. The pathos of his Two Children goes to the heart of every mother; the exquisite sweetness of workmanship is subdued by the sentiment. His Lady Louisa Russell is one of those fair and happy images of youth, which even old age might go a long journey to worship.

Chantrey is a very prolific genius; his marble progeny are numerous. His busts first brought him into notice, and laid the foundation of his fame; and they are besides the most admirable productions of that kind in the world. Of his statues and groups there are scores, but of his busts hundreds. We must name some few of our chief favourites:-Horne Tooke, Rennie, Watt, Wordsworth, Scott, John Hookham Frere, Raphael Smith, Professor Playfair, the Bishop of London, The King-but we must have done. Of all these, perhaps that of Sir Walter Scott is the best. The poet has a face as changeable and various as the characters he draws in his works, and an expression which nothing but genius something akin to his own can hope to seize. In this remarkable bust the brow is full of thought, the eyes look through one, and there is a grave humour about the mouth which seems ready to escape in speech. The whole face is finished with the most fascinating skill. The poet sat whilst the sculptor chiselled; and there was many a merry word between them.

Bailey studied under Flaxman. His conceptions are in general just, and his workmanship almost always good. His Eve is lovely; and Poetry inspiring Painting, a group of considerable promise. Painting is breathing of enthusiasm, but Poetry seems rather a severe instructress-the grouping is skilful and natural. We would advise him to seek fame in works of softness, and grace, and find the subjects at home. With his knowledge of nature, and his skill in using it—and with his feeling for the antique as an inspirer, and no more-he cannot fail of success.

The excellence of our present school of sculpture, and the general regard which its works command, have had an influence on the youth of our island; and among many aspirants, F. Smith, Behnes, Joseph, and Scoular, seem to be the most hopeful.

The genius of England has never yet flowed out so freely in sculpture as it has done in poetry. There is, indeed, less room for its ardour, less fame when perfection is attained, and less chance,

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