1792. Rubens and Shakespeare campared. 337 
-¢hants of Lyons exhibit; and I with that they would 
‘leave those magnificent, but costly works of genits, to 
-great states and monarchs, who have superfluous revenues, 
and who can gratify the highest vanity without oppref- 
sion. One apartment of this palace is filled with pieces 
which are said to be the works of my favourite Rubens, 
-the Shakespeare of Flemith painters. Many of them are 
genuine and charming. His picture of the last judgement, 
is exquisite, beyond exprefsion, or description. The,va- 
tious joyous faces, and happy figures of those who rise to 
be saved, contrasted with-the wretched contortions of those 
ewho sink to be damned, display all the powers of superior 
genius. The old devil seizes two fine wenches, struggling 
chard to escape his clutches, while, at the same time, he is 
Kicking a German baron before him over the precipice of 
perdition. This devil is an object perfectly curious; 2 
wild, wasted, gra.-lefs figure! He personifies the rich 
description of our «croic puet Milton, in those wonderful 
;emphatic lines: 
Round he throws his baleful eyes, 
Which witnefs’d huge affliction and dismay, 
Mix’d with obdurate pride, and stedfast hate, 
_ But there is a distinction to be observed between the 
-Adeas of the poe. a.dthe painter. in Miton, the devil 
wa. newly fallen 
———___——_ c above the rest, 
In fhape and gesture proudly eminent, 
Stood like a tower 3 his form had not yet lost 
All her original brightneis, Nor appe:.’d 
Lefs then archangel ruin’d. 
But, in Rubens, he is an old desperate reprobate, who 
is supposed to have existed tothe time of the last judge- 
Ment; a very uncertain period. The painter has also ra. 
