30 Old Pictures. [Juxy, 
The other picture, we have named above, is nature itself: but still 
refined up to that exquisite pitch of perfection which, of its sole self, 
nature could never attain: like the “white wonder” of a court lady’s 
hand. 
No. 18. The Death of Regulus ; No. 19. Landscape, with Travellers ; 
No. 25. Landscape, with Mercury and the Woodman. Sauvaror Rosa. 
—It would be difficult to meet with, in any one collection, three so fine and 
characteristic productions of this artist, as the above-named. We greatly 
prefer either of them to the one which is better known, and which is 
also in this collection— The Job (No. 61)—The first displays, in a scene 
of many figures, that moral energy with which the soul of Salvator was 
ripe ; the second shews the uncompromising truth with which he loved 
to delineate what he actually saw; and the last presents us with a fine 
example of that wild grandeur of imagination with which (when the 
mood was on him) he could work up a scene of external nature into 
one bearing all the air of romance, without materially departing from its 
actual truth. 
No. 32 and 36. Landscape, and Sea Port. CuaupE.— This is a 
lovely pair of pictures, small and simple, but beaming and glowing with 
all the exquisite characteristics of this most refined and natural of senti- 
mentalists. They are as true as they are ideal: for, paradoxical as it may 
sound,-Claude combined in his works these seemingly opposite but really 
identical attributes. That which is ideal must necessarily be true—or 
it is nothing. The creations of Mr. Martin’s pencil—fine, and, in many 
respects, extraordinary and unrivalled as they are—are not ideal; because 
they are not true. This is their great and crying sin. They appeal to 
and delight the imagination, just as the Arabian Nights do, and on the 
same principle; but they touch not the sensibilities and the heart, as the 
last-named works do—because they have less of that which is true 
mixed up with them. The works of Claude touch us at once more nearly 
and more vividly than any, or than all these ; because they are truth 
itself. Nay, we will not shrink from saying, that, for the most part, 
they touch us more nearly and vividly than the actual scenes of exter- 
nal nature itself do, because they consist of the details of those scenes, 
arranged and selected merely, but in no other way changed, by the hand 
of perfect taste and consummate art. In short, they affect us on the 
same principle that the Venus de Medici does, which is the most ideal 
work in existence, simply because it is the most true. 
No. 33 and 35. St. Rufina and St. Justin. Murii10.—It is a pity 
to call two such charming realities as these by the name of saints. They 
are among the most brilliant single figures that we have any where 
seen of this, in some respects, most exquisite of all painters. Indeed 
they combine, so far as a single figure can, more of the two charac- 
teristic beauties of his manner than any we remember; namely, the 
touching truth of his intellectual expressions, and the airy grace, light- 
ness, and elegance of his handling. In colouring, too, they are exqui- 
sitely sweet and tender—but somewhat cold. If the student of art 
would learn what the ideal in intellectual expression is not, and what the 
same quality in colouring and handling zs, he may look at the best speci- 
mens of this class of Murillo’s works, who probably never painted a face 
that was not a copy from nature, or a cloud, a drapery that was. 
No..39. The Madonna. Sasso FERRAr0.—This may be pointed out 
as one of the most unaffected and natural productions of a school that, 
