FINE ARTS. 413 



Other nations in the remote ages of antiquity, as powerful as the Egyp- 

 tians, and even more enlightened — yet, of these nations no vestige 

 remains ; their buildings and other public works are totally effaced. The 

 country, which they cultivated and embellished is, at present, a barren 

 desert, destitute of every remain that might mark its ancient state, and 

 inhabited^ or rather ravaged, by wandering barbarians." — (Travels 

 through Arabia and other Countries in the East. Vol. I. sect. v. chap. 1.) 



It is not possible to contemplate the wonders of creation without an 

 awful sense of the Creator, nor to behold the beauties of nature with 

 true feeling, without thereby acquiring a more refined taste and a keener 

 relish for the beauties of art. On the ramble in the country, which 

 called forth these detached rhymes, my mind was warmed by the mild 

 splendour of a fine day and the surrounding prospects, just before I 

 entered the truly classical tem^ile of taste, in which the fine pictures 

 adverted to, are collected. I was, just then, in a mood to enjoy them. 

 But, instead of looking at art through the medium of nature, and 

 forming their taste by the latter, too many persons of otherwise highly 

 cultivated minds, are so corrupted by the false principles and jargon of 

 virtu, disseminated by a certain class of talkers on the arts, that they 

 constantly look at nature through the medium of old pictures. This 

 mistaken practice is not confined to amateurs. Many artists of great 

 merit in other respects, grow up in this error. They form their system 

 of colouring on the landscapes of the old masters, which either represent 

 the arid scenery of the East, or of which, in their European views, the 

 darker shades, in the course of centuries, have acquired a blackness and 

 absorbed the finer qualities of the vivid colours. In the greater number 

 of those pictures the demi-tints and lights also, are changed to a dark 

 imbrowned tone, in general harmony with the shadows, but proportionally 

 at the expense of the truth and freshness of nature in the original state 

 of the colouring when first painted. It is also to be recollected, that 

 many of the old masters painted on canvass primed with a very dark 

 ground, which, in a few years, impaired the clearness and brilliancy of 

 their works. When a few artists, who have thus turned their backs 

 upon nature, and adopted the colouring of old pictures, are in the habit 

 of much association together, they keep each other in countenance, and, 

 like persons companioning in the plague, their amendment is almost 

 hopeless. Hence it is that we see so many landscapes, which have been 

 sketched and painted from views in England and Ireland, and profess 

 to be English or Irish views, without a particle, or very little, of the 

 verdure, which characterises the local colouring of the champaign and 

 woodland scenery in these islands. These leather-coloured English and 

 Irish landscapes are so frequently obtruded on the public, that instances 

 here are unnecessary. 



But to return to the subject immediately under notice. In my observa- 

 tions on the magnificent paintings by the old masters, no more than the 

 general spirit of the impression produced by a rapid glance at the whole is 

 implied, without any intention to particularize separate pictures. It is only 

 a very faint abstraction of the sublime associations of thought which arose 

 at the moment. The admiration and delight, with which I viewed the 

 master-pieces of art, were mingled with melancholy ideas of so many 

 conquerors and generations in the grave, the might and grandeur of their 

 innumerable myriads lost in the darkness of eternity. But there was a 

 consolation in the reflection that if dynasties and nations have perished 

 and are nameless, the great painters of the 15th and I6th centuries, 

 whose works were before me, are immortalized by their genius. It 

 would require more than a month to make anything like an exact 

 reference, however brief, to so many fine productions. 



NO. VI, 3 I 



