rition, "will remain with thee till the day of thy death, in dreadful remembrance of my misery; therefore neglect not this amazing remedy, but use it as the means of salvation; while thou art yet able, change thy garment, and therewith change thy mind also, so as thou mayest escape from the anger of thy Creator." To this the living man returning not a word, the spectre looked upon him with a more stern countenance, and said, "miserable wretch! if thou doubtest, turn thee and read this writing." And thereupon he stretched out his hand, which was all over written with black characters, in which Satan and all the legions of hell were made to return thanks to the whole ecclesiastical order, for that, while they indulged without restraint in their own pleasures, they only suffered the souls of such as were subjected to their care, through their neglect, to descend to hell in such numbers that no former ages had ever seen the like. After which, the apparition vanished. The living man immediately distributed all his goods to the church and to the poor, and took upon him the holy habit at the monastery of Saint Melan, admonishing all present of what he had seen and heard; who, seeing his sudden conversion, exclaimed, “Behold what the hand of the most High hath wrought!" III.-The Character and Death of Walter, Bishop of Durham. Under the year 1075. IN those days, Walter, Bishop of Durham, occupying himself in secular concerns to the prejudice of the Pontifical Dignity, bought the Earldom of Northumberland of the King, and, acting in the capacity of Sheriff of the county, presided in the Courts of Laical Jurisdiction, and violently extorted immense sums of money out of all the inhabitants of his province, alike nobles and serfs; so that, at the last, the people, seeing themselves reduced to extreme penury by his extortions and those of his servants, became greatly indignant thereat, and meeting together in secret council, unanimously ordained one and all to attend the county court, armed to repel injuries, should necessity demand it. Shortly after, they came to the court accordingly, with spirits determined to exact justice for their several wrongs, of which they made their complaint, demanding redress; but the Bishop arbitrarily replied, that he would do them no justice for any wrong of which they so complained, until they should have paid down to him four hundred pounds of lawful money. Then one, speaking for the rest of them, asked license of the bishop to consult together about the bishop's demand, that they might return their answer the more advisedly; which license being obtained, while they were consulting together, one, on whose judgment they had all great reliance, hastily said, in the language of his country, "Short rede, good rede, slea ye the byshoppe;" whereupon they all of one accord flew to arms, and the bishop was cruelly slain, with a hundred men of his train, on a spot close by the river Tine, where this fatal court had been held by him. IV.-Foundation of the Church of Lin coln by Saint Remigius. Anno 1085. By this time the Normans had accomplished the will of God over the whole English nation, and hardly one nobleman of English birth remained in the kingdom, all being reduced to a state of servitude, in such sort, that it became a disgrace to be called an Englishman. Then did unjust imposts and the worst customs spring up over the land; and, the more those in authority gave judgment according to law and justice, the greater was the oppression. They who were called justiciaries were the authors of all injustice. To steal a deer or wild goat was punished with the loss of sight; nor was there any man to resist such oppressive laws. For this cruel king loved beasts of chase as if he had been the father of them; so that, at the last, following his evil counsels, he enacted that, even in towns where men hold discourse together, and in the churches themselves which are consecrated to the worship of God, wild deer and other animals should be suffered to run about unrestrained. Whence it is proverbially asserted, that for thirty miles and more the fruitful country was converted into a forest, and into the haunts of wild beasts. In the construction of castles, also, this king exceeded all his predecessors. Normandy had come to him by hereditary right; Maine he 1819. Extracts from Matthew Paris. had acquired by the force of his arms; he had reduced Armorick Britain to his vassalage; he reigned alone in England; he held Scotland and Wales under his yoke; but he was so great a lover of peace, that a maiden carrying a weight of gold might have walked securely through the whole island. A short time before this, he had given the bishopric of Dorchester to Remigius, a monk of Fescamp; but it displeased that bishop to have so inconsiderable a town assigned him for his see, when in the same diocese was the city of Lincoln, so much more worthy to be an Episcopal residence; wherefore, having purchased some lands on the top of the hill, he built a church on that spot. And although the archbishop of York as serted that the city belonged to his diocese, Remigius made little account of his claim, and pursued the work he had so commenced with such diligence that he completed it, and filled it with a clergy most approved for This Remigius doctrine and morals. was low of stature, but great in mind; dark in colour, but not in works; once he had been accused of a conspiracy against the king, but one of his servants undertaking the purgation of his lord by undergoing the ordeal of red hot iron, he was thus restored to the love of the king, and wiped clean from the stain of pontifical disgrace. Thus was founded the modern church of Lincoln. V.-Death of William the Conqueror. Anno 1087. THIS same year, king William made resolved to avenge the insult he had Robert, the eldest son of the conqueror, was in France, engaged in the war against his father at the time of his death; and William Rufus hastened to England, while he was yet alive, conceiving that it would be more for his advantage to undertake that voyage immediately than to wait and attend his father's funeral. Henry alone, of all his children, was present at that solemnity, and paid, of his own money, 100 pounds of silver to a certain knight (whose patrimony extended to to the spot in which the body of the king was interred), in order to restrain his tongue from uttering any reproach. However, William was neither slow nor niggardly in the spending of money. He soon brought forth all the treasure which his father had accumulated at Winchester, and charitably assigned to the monasteries large sums of gold, together with five shillings of silver to the parish churches, and one hundred pounds to every county, to be distributed among the poor. After a time, moreover, he caused his father's tomb to be ornamented with a profusion of gold and silver and precious stones. After these things he was received by all men willingly for their king, and reduced all England under his subjection, and obtained the keys of all the treasures; in doing which, Lanfranc was of no small assistance to him; by whom he had been educated, and consecrated a knight, during his father's life-time. By him also he was crowned king of England, on the day of the holy martyrs Cosmus and Damian; and he afterwards spent the remaining part of the winter in peace. Soon afterwards, however, the nobles of the realm, almost all of them (not without the sin of perjury), made war against him, although crowned king, and, adopting his elder brother, Robert, to govern in his stead, committed the greatest ravages all over the country. VI.-A German Count devoured by Mice. Anno 1089. In these days, a certain German count, who had been a bitter enemy to the emperor, while he was sitting one day at table in a melancholy mood, attended by his servants, was on a sudden so surrounded by a multitude of mice, that there appeared to be no means of escaping from them. So great was the number of those little animals, that one might have thought no country on earth had held so many; and the servants, though they armed themselves with clubs and sticks to drive them away, could do nothing at all to get rid of them. They seized on the count by their teeth, and tore him in a terrible manner; and, notwithstanding all the clubs and staves, not one of them was hurt; for the servants were unable, with all their endeavours, to strike or wound any of them. Even when they carried him in a ship out to sea, still could he nowise avoid the fury of the mice; for a multitude of them immediately plunged themselves into the water, and swam after him, and gnawed the bottom and sides of the ship, till they made it leak, and threatened all on board with certain shipwreck. When the servants found this, they made again for the shore as fast as possible; but the mice had landed before them, and fell upon him again as they last he was entirely torn to pieces by were bringing him from the ship. At them, and made a feast to satisfy the cravings of their horrible hunger. VII.-Death and Character of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anno 1089. IN the same year died Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. This prelate, among other pious works, repairterbury, built offices for the monks, ed the greater church of Christ at Canwhich had fallen into neglect under restored the dignities of the church his predecessors, recovered many lands which had been alienated from it, (among others, 25 several manors,) and constructed two inns for strangers ed out of his own possessions a suffiwithout the city, to which he assigncient yearly revenue for their maintenance. Rochester, and ordained Hernost, a He repaired the church of monk of Bec, to be Bishop thereof; at whose consecration was that verse found upon the altar, "Cito proferte bishop interpreted to predict his apstolam primam," &c. which the archhe died that same year, and was sucproaching death. And so, in effect, ceeded by Gundulph, a monk of Bee, who continued there to the time of king Henry. He reduced to its forthe blessed proto-martyr of England. mer state the Abbey of Saint Alban, During the king's absence, he governed his realm; yet withal found ample time for study, to which he applied himself intensely. He endeavoured to Testament, corrupted by the errors of correct the books of the Old and New transcribers, and by the light of his emendations, the church of England, and that of France also, do to this day possess the benefit of being enlightened. After his death, king William rechurches and monasteries of England, tained in his own hands almost all the despoiling them of their possessions, and farming them as it were to persons of the laity. Transactions of the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh, No I. Viator's Letters on the History and Progress of the Fine Arts. [The Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh had, for some time, entertained the idea of publishing annually a separate volume of their Transactions. It would appear, however, that they have now come to the resolution of laying their lucubrations before the public through the medium of this Journal-a resolution which our readers will easily believe has afforded us the most sincere pleasure. Whether the whole of the labours of these ingenious gentlemen may be such as to tend to the edification of our readers, remains yet to be proved. With regard to the very interesting paper which follows we cannot have the least apprehension. EDITOR.] MR NORTH, LETTER I. CONSIDERING the excellence which the ancients attained in the fine arts, it is astonishing how little has been transmitted to posterity respecting the works and methods of their most distinguished artists; of the methods of their sculptors we literally know nothing; indeed I believe that many a learned fellow imagines that Phidias and Praxiteles actually worked with the chisel and mallet in their hands, hewing out the statue within the block, with no other guide or model than the idea in their own minds. I recollect to have read somewhere, that Michael Angelo laboured with such enthusiastic fury to get his statues extricated from the encasing rubbish, that it was quite marvellous to see him! Nothing, however, can be more ridiculous than the supposition of this species of the Cæsarian operation in sculpture; an art which requires the utmost patience and minute carefulness, and in which the merit of the artist consists in preparing the clay model. It is the artizan who fashions the marble; a humble species of mechanical industry scarcely removed from the toil of the common stone-cutterthe task of the labourers in the workshops of Canova and Chantry. But what renders the methods of the ancient sculptors still more curious as an object of inquiry, is, that, without tools of steel or tempered iron, they should have been able to work with so much felicity not only in marble, but even in the harder substance of the precious stones. Their dexterity appears still more extraordinary when we reflect that it is necessary to employ the magnifying glass to inspect the minute beauty of many of their gems, cameos, intoglios, and medals. It is almost inconceivable how such works could have been produced with VOL. VI. out the aid of spectacles or the magnifying lens. That they possessed the magnifying mirror is extremely probable, for their looking-glasses being made of metal, it was almost a necessary result that they should discover the magnifying power of a polished concave surface. By some reflex application of the concave mirror their gem engravers may have been assisted; and I think it would not be difficult still to ascertain in what manner this was done. It has been supposed that in some instances they employed a drop of pellucid water in the perforation of a piece of metal; but I cannot, however, form any very distinct notion of the manner in which this magnifying power could be rendered useful to an engraver. But a pretty discovery of an ingenious friend of mine, and which I would recommend to the attention of our opticians, has suggested a better idea. He has discovered, that by nicely perforating a bit of paper, or any superficial substance, a plate of metal serving the best of all for the purpose,-that in proportion to the size of the hole, a very considerable magnifying power is obtained over objects closely under the eye, and that distant objects are brought apparently nearer, and seen much more distinctly than by the unaided sight. It is therefore possible, that the ancient gem engravers may have made use of some contrivance of this nature. Our information with respect to the methods of the painters of antiquity is also almost a blank. Their excellence both in drawing and in colouring cannot be questioned; for with such evidence as we possess of their attainments in sculpture, it is almost impossible, without a denial of the force of ocular demonstration, to refuse our acknowledgments to their superiority. We are told, indeed, that Zeuxis M formed the composition of his Juno from the peculiar beauties of all the most beautiful women in Agrigentum; and that Apelles made use of burnt ivory mixed with varnish to augment the effect of his colours, and to defend them from the action of the air. But with the exception of these two solitary facts, the one in the art of design, and the other in that of colouring, we possess no practical information respecting the methods of the ancient painters. The use of the black or burnt ivory by Apelles has been questioned by many writers on the fine arts as an improbable misconception; but Mr West has, within these few years, employed it with so much success, that the colouring of his late pictures, compared with that of his earlier, does not appear to have been produced by the same hand. It serves to tune, if the expression may be allowed, the various tones of colouring into one consistent frame of harmony. At this time, when a taste for the fine arts has been so earnestly excited in the metropolis of Scotland, it may be useful both to the public and to artists to bring occasionally together some of the most authenticated notices respecting their progress and history, and for this object I would now and then beg admission into a corner of your agreeable Miscellany. Without prescribing to myself any precise rule either of theoretical investigation or of historical research, I propose, from time to time, to send you the substance of such memoranda as I have happened to accumulate in my common placebook, either from books or conversation with artists. What I have gleaned from the latter will perhaps possess some originality. It will, however, be necessary now and then to advert to two or three circumstances with which every school-boy is acquainted, but things never become trite until they have been previously admired, and it should be recollected that the art of teaching by apologues has given rise to many fables which are still referred to as beautiful, although the original application of them is no longer remembered. For example, few cursory readers are aware that the elegant fable of the daughter of Debutotes sketching the profile of her sleeping lover by his shadow on the wall, is a parable invented to Pliny lib. xxix. Cap. ix. Genesis, chap. xxxi. and xxxv. inculcate the principles of the art of portrait-painting. It may even be said, that it inculcates the principles of individual statuary; for Pliny mentions that she afterwards persuaded her father to make an image in clay of the likeness, and that it was preserved as a curious illustration of the progress of art, till the Consul Mummius destroyed Corinth.-These principles are founded on resemblance and characteristic expression; but this beautiful mythological tale teaches more: It implies, that in order to render the portrait or the statue peculiarly interesting, it is necessary that the situation should be chosen in circumstances where the original was seen to most advantage by the parties for whom the work was designed. To the eye of a fond and tender lover, the most affecting situation is that which is associated with the defenceless confidence of sleep. But I do not propose to enter into any explanation of the classic apologues respecting the arts. I have only adverted to this one, for the present, to shew, that although they have been rendered trite by the incessant reference to them in college verses, they are still curious lessons, and contain more than meets the ear. Historians differ about the birthplace of sculpture. But the art was undoubtedly early cherished in Asia. Laban, we are informed, adored idols‡ abominated by Jacob. Some, however, are of opinion, that the Ethiopians were the first who employed visible symbols as objects of adoration,§ and that of course they were the inventors of sculpture. Others ascribe the invention to the Chaldeans, and refer, in proof of their hypothesis, to the statue erected by Ninus in honour of his father. But the Greek philosophers considered Egypt as the cradle of the arts; and Plato says, that works of painting and sculpture may be found in Egypt executed ten thousand years ago. Pausanius thought that at first the priests exhibited a stone, or the trunk of a tree, as the emblems of their gods. Herodotus, the father of profane history, says, that the ancient Egyptians were accustomed to carve the one end of a stick into the form of a head, and, with scarcely more art, to trace a few imperfect lines on the other into a resemblance of feet. In this state they transmitted the art of sculp + Cavaliere Ferro, vol. i. p. 41. § Contarino il Vago, p. 420. |