ums in collections of statuary; it made, during this session, a large and indefinite vote for the formation of a picture gallery; and it has since paid sixty thousand pounds for a distinguished collection of old and foreign pictures. We are far from blaming these steps taken to supply a national deficiency; but we at the same time conceive, that they ought to be combined with employment to living artists. The same sum thus judiciously employed, would produce, we apprehend, quite as fine a collection, with much greater glory to the nation, and a more powerful impulse to its mind and genius.

The question must first be treated, whether portrait painting, for which there is no want of private encouragement, can really be considered as the highest branch of the art. Portrait painting, it is said, is the real historypainting. It may be premised, that the term history, applied to every picture, not a mere portrait, which contains human figures, is much too vague and limited. In many cases, the paintings called historical, belong more properly to poetry; and making allowance for the somewhat subordinate instruments of the art, to poetry of the highest class. Even when strictly ranking as history, and merely presenting to the eye those great events and scenes in human existence, which few can actually witness, surely this lively portraiture of these, and all the variety of thought, emotion, and passion, to which they give birth, is something not a little superior to the merely making a correct portrait of a single individual. But the painter does not confine himself to mere realities. Taking the wings of the poet, he presents to us scenes touched with more than mortal interest, and even the ideal grandeur of superior natures. Admitting each the masterpiece in its kind,

can any one level the Prophets and the Cartoons with the Coppenol and the Burgomaster Six. Portrait at best can rank only with biography, having the disadvantage of not presenting its subject in action, but always in one fixed and immutable position. If, indeed, the artist could make his selection of the happiest subjects, and particularly of those on whose features "the strong divinity of mind" was stamped, a truly interesting gallery might be formed, which might rise to the dignity of biographical history. But it is manifest, that, in the case of the professional portrait painter, the selection must rest solely upon one principle, that of a heavy purse. Provided this essential feature exist in his subject, meanness, vulgarity, and deformity, must not be considered as any ground of exclusion. As for the great historical painters being equally portrait painters, this is true only in a very limited sense. Raphael and Rubens painted fine portraits; but we think few, and those of patrons and favourites, not of persons employing them as portrait-paint

ers.

We have no recollection of a portrait by Michael Angelo, and have no idea that he could have earned a subsistence by such an employment. Of the great bulk of masters of the first class, the Carraccis, Guido, Correggio, Poussin, Le Brun, Le Sueur, West, &c., portraits are rarely seen, and then only on the amateur principle. Titian, Rembrandt, Vandyck, Reynolds, are the only very great artists we recollect of, who fully united both; but with the exception, perhaps, of the first, it was with the sacrifice of the highest place as historypainters, to which their talents would otherwise have raised them. In the present state of society, it would seem out of the question for a well-employed portrait-painter to pursue any other

branch of his art, unless as a limited and occasional relaxation.

But it may be said, if government furnishes models, and endeavours to inspire a taste for the arts, why should not the public support this, like any other employment, by purchasing its productions? It is not disputed, that the purchases of the private collector and amateur may support a certain class and scale of subjects, the merit of which is not denied ;-which may afford an innocent relaxation and elegant ornament. But the truly great style, founded on those high conceptions which elevate the nature of man, has never flourished unless under the shade of public patronage. It is not merely that the requisite scale and time are beyond the reach of what private patrons can furnish; it is the feeling that his work is a national object, which fires the emulation, and ennobles the conception of the artist. This feeling was experienced, in its most intense degree, among the sculptors of the great days of Athens, whose imperfect fragments are still the wonder of modern times. It was in the regu. lar employment of Julius and Leo, and with the eyes of the Roman people fixed upon them, that the two princes of modern art covered with their great works the walls of the Vatican. The other Italian schools were equally fostered by the favour of princes or senates. Louis XIV., by magnificent patronage, created the French school of painting, or, at least, raised it to the height which, under him, it attained. The present school of English art is evidently in a great measure due to the patronage of George III., to the constant employment afforded by whom, West was solely indebted for the means of devoting himself entirely to historypainting, and of raising it to that perfection which his last productions dis

play. It will always perhaps be found, that when the arts are transferred, from public to private, patronage,, though still, in some measure, sup ported by wealth and habit, they sink into a lower sphere and meaner taste. Thus we see the French school, after being, under Louis XIV., formed al most upon the purest Roman model, successively descend through Coypel, Vanloo, and Le Moine, to the Cupids of Boucher, and the masquerades of Watteau. The Dutch school is the one which has been all along maintained almost solely by individual patronage; and it is needless to say, amid the extraordinary merits of a humble nature which that school dis plays, how remote it is from everything which is lofty in art. Rustic merry-makings, fighting boors, fat burgomasters; and in the accessories, silk gowns, fur caps, pots and pans; these are the objects, upon certainly the very faithful delineation of which all its glory rests.

It can be stated with the greatest truth, that these observations are not written by an artist, nor at the prompt ing of any artist, and most particularly not of Mr Haydon. That gentleman is in no degree personally known to us, and is not even so much admired, as he is by some others. His attitudes and expressions appear to us often outrés, and sometimes false. We could point out in this northern part of the empire, an artist, who unites a high degree of animation with greater purity of taste, and truth of nature. Still there is in Mr Haydon's compositions, a boldness and power, not rivalled perhaps by any other living artist; there is a rich depth of colouring, belonging rather to the Venetian than the English school. His faults are chiefly those of excess, to which a young artist is liable, and which time and experience bid fair to correct.

rhopes rest peculiarly on that ensiastic and exclusive devotion to highest branch of art, which is de the subject of derision by its mon patrons. It isnot surely well-timed, en the British legislature boasts of magnificent exertions which it is ut to make for the promotion of nting, to deride the artist who makes ry his chief aim; to tell him that must depend solely upon the taste private amateurs and collectors, I that it is foolish to think of anyng but how to turn his talents to best pecuniary account. Upon whole, we conceive that if an atapt is to be made to form a high ool of painting, Mr Haydon promises it to be its main prop; and that, erefore, the nation are, to a certain tent, throwing a pearl away, when ey force him to descend into a lower anch of the art.

It may be proper to repeat, that we every far indeed from not applaud g the design of forming a national llery of the works of established asters. The benefit to be anticipated, >wever, consists rather in affording to

the nation a refined gratification, and improving its taste, than in prompting to the production of new works, to which it may even in some respects oppose an obstacle. Its insufficiency to produce this result, is clearly proved by the inferior schools, which succeeded, both at Rome and in France, after the galleries of both had just been filled with models of the purest and highest character. Vienna and Dresden have long possessed collections superior to those which Raphael and Michael Angelo found when they began to paint; yet neither of these cities have produced even a second-rate artist. We should certainly then consider it much to be regretted, if, while the British government is preparing to spend hundreds of thousands in the promotion of art, they should overlook the only effectual means of raising it to a high character; and while they fill their galleries with the productions of foreign and deceased artists, should leave living genius to the precarious and imperfect support of private patronage.