38 The Carlton- House Pictures. [JuLV, 



mittee" of the nineteenth century tolerating such an enormity it is clean 

 out of tlie question ! No ; before Rembrandt's style of portrait painting can 

 come into repute again, we must either recede or advance (which you will) 

 to that barbarous period when sitters either had the spirit to insist on being 

 painted as they were, or artists had the spirit to insist on so painting them. 



This collection contains seven pictures by Rubens two of them land- 

 scapes, two belonging to the historical class, and the remaining three 

 portraits. But none of these works, nor indeed the whole together, are 

 of a nature to convey any adequate impression of the talents of this truly 

 great painter. Still they are admirable in their way. The largest land- 

 scape is, as a landscape, a capital production grand, vigorous, and 

 instinct with the very breath and spirit of nature. But we must think 

 (and therefore must say) that the allegorical figures (of Saint George and 

 the Dragon, &c.) which are introduced into it, and occupy the whole of 

 the foreground, are " weeds which have no business there." Rubens was 

 the worst allegory maker in the world, because the most off-hand, careless, 

 and profuse. An allegory, to be at all tolerable, should be perfect and 

 answerable in all and every of its parts; and this requires a degree of 

 elaborate study and reflection which Rubens could not submit to. He 

 had invention enough for it, or for any thing ; but he could not condense, 

 select and expunge. He has been truly called "the prince of painters;" 

 and princes are not persons to keep to themselves nine out of every ten of the 

 fine things that occur to them ; and the consequence is, that by saying all, 

 they say nothing. Allegory, whether in painting or in poetry, is mere 

 wit put into figures ; and every body knows (to their cost) that an inef- 

 fectual attempt at a witticism is ten times worse than none at all. There is" 

 great depth and grandeur in the shadows of this picture; and the expres- 

 sion of the horses, in the right hand corner, at the sight of the dead body 

 lying at their feet, is extremely fine. 



Of the other " Landscape, with Figures and Cattle, by Rubens/ 1 we 

 shall (finding it in this collection) constrain ourselves from saying any 

 thing. But not so if we should ever chance to meet with it elsewhere. 

 The Assumption of the Virgin, by the same artist (and the only one of 

 this class) is small in size, but a most admirable and perfect production in 

 its way. Nothing can possibly be finer than the effect produced by the 

 astonishing variety, grace, and invention displayed in the attitudes of the 

 cherubs who are bearing up the virgin. They seem to float-over and 

 about each other, like roseate clouds attendant on the setting sun. Each 

 seems to be itself, and yet part of another, and of the whole. And there 

 is an appearance given to them which amounts in effect to that of actual 

 motion. This effect is aided, and perhaps in a great degree created, by 

 the attitudes of the figures composing the other portion of the picture. 

 They are straining, and, as it were, yearning after the ascending pageant, 

 as if it had just escaped from their touch, and w T ere changing from a seem- . 

 ing reality into a dream. The unity of effect in this picture that highest 

 and rarest achievement of the art is very fine ; and its grandeur of cha- 

 racter is scarcely at all impaired by the smallness of the scale on which it 

 is executed which is another infallible test of high genius. 



Of the three portraits by Rubens, that of himself Is the most striking. It is 

 the well known one, of which there are many copies (and some repetitions) 

 extant ; so that it need not be particularly described. The two others are, 

 one of his first wife, and one of a man with a hawk. This latter is remark- 

 able for the singular beauty of its back-ground, which consists of a fresh 

 landscape, touched with infinite grace, elegance, and sweetness, and 



