rest, the highest privilege of the art, which their works appear to have inspired.*

We have a great example of that simple principle, in the composition and effect of most of the pictures in the most sublime and impressive of all modern productions of the art; the ceiling of the Cappella Sistina, by M. Angelo; particularly in the picture of "The Almighty imparting life to Adam." There, is no introduction of extraneous matter; the attention of the observer is undividedly called to the consideration of that only, which is necessary for the elucidation of the subject; and the mind of the great artist being directed to that one point, undisturbed by the consideration of complex chiaro-oscuro, or the difficulties of producing varied and splendid colouring, was the better enabled to bring to full effect, the potent feelings of his sublime imagination.

As Greece fell a sacrifice to the boundless ambition of Rome, she lost her energies and her

Those who desire more precise information upon this subject, will find a considerable mass in the library; in the works of Pausanias, of Pliny, of Winkelman, L'Abbé du Bos, Franciscus Junius, Montfaucon, and Turnbull; in the description of paintings found at Herculaneum, &c.; in the "Lives of Ancient Painters, by Carlo Dati;" and many interesting remarks are spread through the works of ancient authors, which are enumerated by Mr. Fuseli in his introduction to his Fourth Lecture.

arts. The productions of her genius and her taste were carried away by the conquerors, who, having too much occupation in securing their conquests and extending their dominion, never cultivated those arts which add splendour to conquest, with any tolerable degree of success; at least, if architecture and sculpture attained a degree of eminence among them, while they were upheld by the maintenance of rank and the necessities of the heathen religion, yet painting languished; till at length all three sunk under the miserable barbarism of those who, by their vices, disgraced and weakened the empire, and the rude nations who overthrew it; aided, I regret to add, by the mistaken prejudices and influence of the leaders of the Christian Church.

Very few citizens of Rome are known to have practised the art of painting.

That which the Greeks had held honourable, and by public decree forbade to be exercised by any under the rank of freemen; for which Polygnotus was declared free of all the cities of the Athenian state, and wherever he went had all things provided for him at the public expense; for which Apelles received all but the homage of the proud conqueror Alexander; the Romans, then unprepared by learning and philosophy to comprehend its advantages, deemed discreditable in their fellow citizens, and had recourse to the

Greeks for artists to adorn their houses; so that the mind of Greece maintained predominance, even in Rome, over all that was elegant and ornamental.

The plunder of that once glorious country, which the Romans despoiled of pictures and statues to an enormous extent, enriched Rome, but did not stimulate her citizens to emulate their authors; the first great proof that the cultivation and growth of national character in art, are not the necessary result of collections, however honourable and proper it may be for a state to possess them. They depend infinitely more upon the impulse given to the talents of men by employment; by their being called into action through a series of years; when their very errors are conducive to their improvement, opportunity being given for enlarged experience.

The result of those violent inroads made upon the fair and cultivated provinces of the empire of Rome, from the fourth to the seventh century, and which, aided by its own internal convulsions, completed its overthrow, was an abandonment of learning and of the arts, except in a few scattered instances.

This, strengthened by the growth of superstition in religion, rendered the minds of men barren of taste; and, obliging them to live by the sword, deprived them of the means of main

taining civilisation; "a proud but disgraceful triumph of barbarism over all that does honour to humanity."

It is not in times, or under circumstances like these, that the arts find genial nourishment. Painting, though for a time employed in the decoration of palaces, baths, and houses, was at length preserved only in the seclusion of the cloister or the tomb, or employed in the adornment of missals.

We cannot contemplate this lamentable degradation of man from such a state of cultivation of mind as that of the Greeks, and at a time when it might have enjoyed the advantages derivable from the pure sources of revelation, and the doctrines of the Christian religion, but with sensations of the deepest humility and regret. Centuries elapsed ere the dawning of that degree of civilisation, which alone cherishes the fine, the liberal arts, was restored to Italy.

In the interim, the power of that portion of the Christian Church over which the Bishops of Rome claimed superintendence, extended and strengthened itself. Its rites and ceremonies were multiplied; splendour and magnificence gradually superseded the simplicity of the primitive worship of its Divine Author; and to this it was owing, that religion became a second time the foster-parent of art. Painting does not ap

pear to have been employed for religious purposes, except in the little we know of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and of the Eleusinian mysteries, till long after the introduction of Christianity; and not at all efficiently in after ages, till its restoration among the Italians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Then, the second commandment of the Decalogue, which controls the Christian as well as the Jewish Church, acted in its favour, by repressing the use of sculpture, which became almost entirely confined to architectural purposes, and to monumental records of the deceased; whilst painting, in its turn, was engaged as the subject and the object of religious feeling.*

Among the heathen, painting was at first the

* I shall here interrupt for a short time the thread of my discourse, to state to you, that there is at present existing in the island of Ceylon, a peculiar and valuable application of the art of painting; the time of its introduction there being unknown.

To encourage good and repress evil, pictures are painted upon the walls of the temples dedicated to Budhoo, representing various incarnations of that divinity, when he is sup posed to have mixed with mortals for beneficent purposes. Upon these pictures the priests expatiate to the people, and inculcate, by the examples exhibited, the value of a virtuous and religious life, or exhibit the evils attendant upon a wicked

one.

By the politeness and kindness of Sir Alexander Johnston, some time resident at Ceylon in a high judicial capacity, I am enabled to lay before you copies of two of those pictures.

In the one Budhoo assumes the character of a good rajah,