CHARACTERS. 
. 
fondness forinnovation, or a dan- 
gerous propensity totamper with 
the constitution, by trying new and 
hazardous experiments. 
Although the high and preposte- 
rous notions once prevalent respect- 
ing the authority of the church had, 
in common with the old opinions 
relative to civil government, gra- 
dually fallen into disrepute, the to- 
ries of the present reign have been 
invariably characterized by the 
strength of their attachment to the 
ecclesiastical establishment, which 
they are delighted to applaud and 
extol as a model of purity and per- 
fection. Any suggestion of the ex- 
pediency of a reform in the church, 
whether in relation to the irregula- 
rities of its discipline, or the errors 
of its doctrine, as exhibited in a set 
of obsolete and unintelligible ar- 
ticles of faith, are received by this 
class of men with a sort ofhorror, as 
Jeading to foul suspicions of sectarian 
heresy, or atheistical profaneness ; 
while the dissenters of al] denomina- 
tions are; on the contrary, viewed 
by them with eyes of jealousy and 
hatred, and assiduously held up on 
all occasions as the inveterate ene- 
mies of at least one part of the con- 
stitution, and as the doubtful friends 
at best of the other : and every idea 
of enlarging the limits of the tolera- 
tion allowed them by law, and much 
more of extending to them the com- 
mon privileges of citizens, they 
have uniformly exclaimed aygaint 
with affected terror and real ma- 
lignity, 
Description of the several Merits of 
Albert Durer, Michael Angelo 
and Leonardo da Vinci, by Mr. 
Luseli ; from Seward’s Anecdotes. 
[*7 
ALBERT DURER. 
HE indiscriminate use of the 
4 words genius and ingenuity 
has, perhaps, no where caused 
more confusion than in the classifi- 
cation of artists, Albert Durer 
was a man of great ingenuity with- 
out being a genius. He studied, 
and, as far as his penetration 
reached, established certain propor- 
tions of the human frame, but he 
did not create astyle. He copied, 
rather than imitated, the forms that 
surroun ed him without remorse, 
and tacked deformity and meager- 
ness to fullness and beauty. He 
sometimes had a glimpse of the sub- 
lime, but it was only a glimpse, 
The expanded agony of Christ on 
the Mount of Olives, and the mystic 
mass of his figure of Melancholy, 
have much sublimity, though the 
expression of the last is weakened by 
the rubbish he had thrown about 
her. His Knight attended by Death 
and the Fiend is more capricious 
than terrible; and his Adam and 
Eve are two common models shut 
up in a rocky dungeon, Every 
work of hisisa proof that he want- 
ed the power of imitation, of con- 
cluding from what be saw to what 
he did not see. Copious without 
taste, anxiously precise in parts, and 
unmindful of the whole, he bas ras 
ther shown us what to avuid, than 
what we are to foliow, Though 
cailed the father of the German 
school, be neither reared scholais, 
nor was imitated by ihe German 
artists of his or the succeeding cen- , 
tury. That the importation of his 
works into Italy should have eff ct- 
ed a temporary change in the prin- 
ciples ,of some Tuscans, who had 
studied Michael Angelo, is a fact 
which proves, that minds at certain 
periods may be subject to epidemic 
[*A 4] influence 
