dispel the gloomy melancholy of Ludovico Sforza, surnamed Il Moro, by his music. But against this unworthy destination of a great man Count von Gallenberg argues strenuously; and we agree with him, that it is more likely the able usurper of Milan, who sedulously filled his ducal court with all the genius and talent of Italy, should have invited our artist rather to enlarge and adorn their circle, than merely to play the lute to himself when troubled with the blue devils of remorse or apprehension. This conclusion, drawn from the laws of probability, is confirmed by a letter, still extant, addressed by Leonardo at Florence, to the Duke of Milan; from which it seems pretty evident that, if the prince had heard of the painter's musical abilities, he must have expressed a wish to find something more in him than a mere lutist. This letter, clearly an answer to one from the duke, is a very remarkable epistle; and, could we divest ourselves of our innate reverence for genius, we should feel inclined to say that it more resembles a Dicky Gossip's enumeration of his various qualifications than an effusion of the dignified modesty usually characteristic of genuine greatness. It is not, however, a document to be omitted. "Most illustrious signor, having satisfied myself that the experiments of those who call themselves masters of the art of making instruments of war will never produce anything superior to what are in daily use, I will now, without wishing to injure any one, open my secrets to your excellency, and, if it so please you, undertake the bringing them into execution; for I venture to entertain the confident hope that all the matters I am about to mention may be made effective in practice. “1. I can build bridges, some light, and easily transportable from place to place, with which to pursue a flying enemy; others, strong and invulnerable, that spit fire, and will be useful in war: and, again, others easily laid down or removed. I have also devised a mode of destroying and burning the enemy's bridges. "2. I have devised a way of drawing off the water from the fosse of a besieged place; and can make bridges furnished with ladders, and other instruments, useful in sieges. "3. When cannon cannot be used in a siege, on account either of the height of the ramparts or the strength of the site, I have a way of destroying any fortress, so it be not founded on a rock. "4. I have a sort of cannon very convenient and easily transportable, with which to shower a fiery hail upon the enemy, terrifying and confounding him with the smoke. 5. Item. I have a mode, by hollow, narrow, and winding ways, to reach any place without noise, even passing under ditches or rivers. 6. I can make invulnerable covered cars, which, entering an enemy's lines, in spite of his artillery, will break through any masses of cavalry; and behind which the infantry may follow, unharmed and unobstructed. 7. Item. If need be, I will make cannon, mortars, and howitzers, of beautiful, useful, and uncommon forms. I "8. Where cannon should be incapable of acting, will make other instruments of marvellous efficacy, and out of the common way; in short, according to the variety of occasion, I will make infinitely various offensive weapons. for instruments of offence and defence; and vessels "9. In case of a sea-fight, I have many devices impenetrable to artillery, and powders, and smokes. "10. In peace time, I think I can give as full satisfaction as any one in architecture, in building public or private edifices, in conducting water from one place to another. he "Item. I will undertake, in sculpture of marble, bronze, or clay, and likewise in painting, to do what can be done, in competition with any one, be he who which is to be an eternal honor and glory to your may. Also, I can take in hand that bronze horse, highness's father's blessed memory, and to the whole illustrious house of Sforza. "And, should any person deem any of these things impossible and unfeasible, I am quite ready to make experiment thereof in your highness's park, or in such other place as you please. And so, I humbly commend myself, &c. &c." The singularity of this strange epistle is still further enhanced by its being written in the Oriental fashion, from right to left, instead of from left to right. This seems to have been Da Vinci's usual practice, and is supposed to have been adopted to baffle curiosity, but must have been more efficacious in puzzling his correspondents than in securing his secrets.Ludovico Sforza, however, it should seem, managed to read the letter, for he summoned the writer to Milan, and employed him in all his professed civil capacities, as also to found an academy of painting, said to have been the first of the kind, and to act upon grand occasions as master of the revels. It were tedious to enumerate Leonardo da Vinci's various works at Milan, as artist and engineer, many of which, of both kinds, were destroyed in the subsequent wars, of which the Milanese was the subject and the theatre. The destruction of one of the productions of his genius he himself witnessed. For sixteen years he had labored at the model of an equestrian statue of the first Francis Sforza, that alluded to in his letter; and scarcely was it completed, when the French, taking possession of the city, selected this model as a target to fire at-thus, in the 15th century, setting an example duly followed by their undegenerate posterity in the 18th. This last act of wanton mischief was, however, less detrimental to the cause of art than has been commonly conceived, as will appear from the extracts we are now about to make relative to Leonardo da Vinci's acknowledged master-piece, his picture of the Last Supper. 110 "Leonardo designed this large picture, which occupies a wall twenty-eight feet in length, in compliance with a wish of the duke, who was eager to embellish this Milanese monastery (the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie). The size of the wall obliged the artist to make his figures larger by one-half than life. * * * * "The painter has selected the moment when Christ says, 'Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.' The choice of this moment is most favorable to dramatic effect. The expression of the Redeemer is that of heart-felt sorrow, soothed by the consciousness of divine dignity and destination. The agitation produced amongst the disciples by his words is differently, ingeniously, and characteristically marked in every figure. We can trace the gradation of zeal and faith, according to the gospeldrawn character of each apostle. What a beautiful contrast between St. John, overpowered with grief, dropping his folded hands upon the table, and Judas Iscariot, whose hard countenance and attitude of defiance reveal the traitor, whilst the money-bag clutched in his right hand bespeaks his natural avarice." But, as no description can give a satisfactory idea of a picture, we will preferably turn to its history, and that of the painter's habits and feelings. First, however, we must make one remark, called forth by the description we have just translated, of the expression of the countenances. We have always esteemed the character and expression which Leonardo da Vinci gave to his heads of our Saviour to be really his chief excellence. Other artists seem to forget the divinity of the person in their deep sense of his beautiful meekness; but in looking at this painter's pictures of the Redeemer, we are irresistibly impressed with the conviction that this sublime meekness is the meekness of a superior nature. Mr. Udney, will recognise that gentleman in the un-English "Consul Odni."Upon Mr. Udney's death, his pictures were sold, we think, by auction; and these cartoons have since been again sold in the same way, as part of the late Sir Thomas Lawrence's collection. There is a story current of Leonardo da Vinci's having portrayed the prior of the monastery as Judas Iscariot, in revenge for his, the said prior's, unreasonably teazing him to make haste with the picture. The truth of this anecdote has, however, been disputed upon many and reasonable grounds; and our noble biographer gives us the following, as a more probable version of the tale, from Giraldi, a judicious and contemporaneous writer. "Da Vinci had completed the Christ, eleven of the disciples, and the body of Judas; the head only of the latter was unfinished. The prior and his monks, impatient of a delay of which they could not comprehend the motives, complained to the duke, who, thereupon, questioned the painter. He replied, that there never was a day on which he did not work at the picture; that he was constantly meditating upon it, and seeking amongst the vilest reprobates for a countenance which might answer for that of Judas; adding that, if he could find none better, he should be driven to take as his model the prior himself, who never left him at peace. He went, adds Giraldi, morning and evening, to the Borghetto, the quarter inhabited by the meanest and most ignoble people, by scoundrels and malefactors, in search of his Judas. At length he espied the very physiognomy he wanted. He portrayed it, and completed the picture." Whether this grand work of art were painted al fresco, in oil, or with some peculiar varnish, the fruit of Da Vinci's chymical skill, is another disputed question, which the reader will presently see there is now no hope of satisfactorily deciding. "He who gazes upon as much of this picture as past disasters have left us, must perceive how short a time for the production of so wondrous a creation “The total destruction of this picture is to be imof art was two or three years; especially, if he considers the care and anxiety with which Leonardo puted not so much to the gnawing tooth of all-deHis vouring time, or to a locality unfavorable to its preworked, moreover, never satisfying himself. contemporary, Luca Pacciolo, avers, that Leonardo servation, as to the ignorant negligence and the base would tremble like a child when he took up his malice of man, who for ever annihilates in the hope pencils; that he seldom finished what he began, of producing something superior. For a while the because his deep sense of the grandeur of art made Last Supper was the object of universal admiration, the glory of Leonardo da Vinci. After a lapse of him see defects where others beheld miracles accomHe had first to meditate sixteen years it was still so beautiful, and in such plished. the grouping, which, in every individual posture and perfect condition, that Francis 1. of France, would gesture, as well as in the whole, has been pronounced have made any sacrifice to transport it to France. ** by the greatest painters to be most artful and yet most natural. For this he of course first sketched -according to Pino, separate cartoons of all the heads, of the intended size.'These thirteen drawings,' continues Pino, were long in the possession of the Conti Arconati, who made them over to Marchese Gasnedi. From him they passed into the hands of the Venetian Sagredo family; after the extinction of which, the heirs sold them to the English Consul Odni.'” cartoons. Such of our readers as are old enough, and in their youth were fortunate enough, to have seen the beautiful collection of "Armenini, who saw it in the middle of the 16th century, even then lamented its having lost half its red that the colors faded so rapidly, that very soon it original splendor; and the Milanese Lomazzo averwould be possible to appreciate the merit of the drawNot long aftering only from the outlines. wards, Cardinal Borromeo mourned over its decay; and, observing that the evil must increase, inasmuch as it proceeded from the crumbling of the mortar or plaster upon which this celebrated Last Supper was painted, he employed a good artist to copy it. The copy, when finished, was compared with the cartoons then still at Milan, and was found to be faithful. * * Scanelli, who saw the Last Supper in 1642, says, 'Scarcely a trace remains of the figures; and the naked portions, as heads, hands, feet, have all but disappeared.' Ten years later, the Dominicans, seeing it in so miserable a plight, abandoned it to its fate, and even scrupled not to enlarge the refectory door by cutting off the feet of the Saviour and of one Apostle." Ambrogio Mazzente, who died at an advanced A. D. 1635. age, thirteen volumes in folio and quarto, of Leonardo da nardo's. We must here pause to observe, that it is sheer calumny to charge these poor friars, as they are often charged, with thus mutilating the picture whilst in its and had seen in the house many perfection. On the contrary, they seem writings, drawings, instruments, and books of Leoto have been duly sensible that the paint differing in taste from their book-loving father, and, The children of Francesco Melzi, ing was the pride of their monastery, and through professional or public avocations, engrossed to have endeavored honestly, if not very by other objects, neglected these treasures, and left judiciously, to preserve it. At different them at the discretion of the first comer. Lelio Gatimes they paid considerable sums to art-vardi took what he pleased of them, and carried ists who undertook to revive the colors. that the Grand Duke Francesco de Medici, who was thirteen volumes to Florence, in the confident hope The first attempt is said to have been eager for such works, would give a great price for temporarily successful; the last to have them. . . .. When Gavardi reached Florence the consummated its ruin. Hence it was the duke was dying, and he came disappointed to Pisa. less material, that when the First Consul he blushed; and, as I was then returning to Milan, I could not conceal my disapprobation of his conduct; occupied Milan, having finished my studies at Pisa, he gave me the books, and requested that I would return them to the Melzi family. "Although his orders were precise to spare this refectory, cavalry were quartered in it, who gave the picture the coup-de-grace." (They are said, emulating their forefathers, to have selected parts as marks to fire at.) "Amoretti visited the remains of the picture, when writing Leonardo's Life. Upon entering the room, he hastened up to the picture, to look at it more closely, and saw nothing. He fell back to some distance, and then the destruction seemed less complete. He now perceived that a sort of mould, or rather a saltpetre excrescence, that covered the whole wall, in fact veiled the painting from those who stood immediately under it." Thus it is only through the copies early made that this magnificent work can now be known and it is some comfort to learn that of these there are at least twenty extant. After the fall of Sforza, Leonardo was appointed by Cæsar Borgia his head architect and engineer, and fortified several castles and towns by his desire. He was recalled to Milan by Louis XII. of France, to complete the canals he had begun but it was to the artist-courting Francis I. that he more particularly attached himself; and him, in the year 1516, he accompanied to France. There, in less than three years, he died; but not, we grieve to say, according to common report, in the arms of his royal patron. At least, Leonardo's intimate friend, Francesco de Melzi, says nothing of the kind in the letter in which he announces the event to the artist's brother, and he surely would not have omitted so flattering an incident. We shall conclude with an anecdote relative to Leonardo da Vinci's MSS. and drawings, many of which he bequeathed to his friend and pupil, the above-named Melzi. The anecdote is related by Gian "I performed my commission, delivering the whole to Dr. Orazio Melzi, the eldest. He was utterly amazed at my having taken so much trouble about such things, and freely gave me the books, acknowledging that there were many more writings and drawings of this great artist's in some corner of his country-house." We wonder that a Mazzente did not beg for them, and wish he had. His thirteen volumes are now in the Ambrosian Library. ART. XII.-Der Englische Schweiss. Ein ärztlicher Beitrag zur Geschichte des Fünfzehnten und Sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von Dr. J. F. C. Hecker. (The English Sweating Sickness. A Medical Fragment of the History of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. By Dr. Hecker.) Berlin, 1834. THIS work is the third of a series of essays, by which the author has endeavored to illustrate a class of diseases which are among the most awful visitations that afflict the human race. Dr. Hecker, who had long been sensible of the necessity of a truly philosophic investigation into the causes of those mighty events, was induced by the ravages of the cholera to publish the first of the series of essays on the epidemics of the middle ages-Der Schwarze Tod-The Black Death. In the preface to that work, Dr. Hecker Our explains his views of an intimate connec- | known to us by name as a fatal and rapidtion between convulsions of nature and the ly spreading disorder, which visited Engsudden and rapid propagation of pesti- land in the fifteenth and sixteenth cenlences. He has, it is true, some notions turies, being first introduced in the train respecting the influence of unknown of the victorious army of Henry VII. and powers in heaven and earth which, how- damped the joy of the nation after the ever ingenious, appear to us too vague to glorious battle of Bosworth-field. serve for the foundation of a sound theory, own chronicles give many particulars of though the facts which he adduces deserve this visitation. Five times did it afflict the most serious attention. The Black this country: first in 1485; secondly, in Death is so well known to the English 1506, when it was of short duration; and reader from the spirited translation of it then in 1517, 1528 and 29, and 1551. It by Dr. Babington, published soon after its is very extraordinary that this epidemic appearance, that it is unnecessary to dwell was confined to England, even Ireland on it here. The second of the series, and Scotland being exempt from it. Only "Die Tanzwuth," or, "The Dancing once it visited Germany, namely in 1529, Mania," presents to our view a less aw- when Hamburg was the first place where fully destructive, but in one respect a it appeared. But its duration there was more affecting picture of the calamities to short, only twenty-two days, in which, which the human frame is liable. Here however, 1100 persons fell victims to it. we have not the destroying angel, sweep- It broke out almost simultaneously in ing away hundreds of thousands with his Lübeck, where its ravages were such as to flaming sword-it is not the arrow that remind people of those of the Black Death flieth by day, or the pestilence that in 1349. Zwickau, at the foot of the Erzgewalketh in darkness. The subject of this birge, fifty German miles from Hamburg, treatise is diseases founded on mental de- was next attacked; and at the beginlusion, caused by the instinct of imitation, ning of September it appeared almost on "propagated," as the Doctor says, on the same day at Stettin, Danzig, Augsthe beams of light, on the wings of burg, Cologne, Strasburg, Frankfort on-thethought, convulsing the mind by the ex- Maine, Marburg, Göttingen, and Hanover citement of the senses." We rejoice to Thus it was spread over the greater part learn that the approbation bestowed on of Germany, and extended also to Holthe English version of the Black Death, land, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. has induced Dr. Babington to publish a But though its ravages were dreadful, translation of the Dancing Mania, a copy they could not be compared with those of of which has just been put into our hands. the Black Death. To this essay Dr. Babington has prefixed a translation of an address, by Dr. Hecker, to the physicians of Germany, requesting their attention to this important subject, and endeavoring to impress on them the conviction of the absolute necessity of a more comprehensive view of this subject than has ever yet been taken. We will quote a few lines from this address. "Amid the accumulated materials which past ages afford, the powers and the life of one individual, even with the aid of previous study, are insufficient to complete a comprehensive history of epidemics. The zealous activity of many must be exerted if we would speedily possess a work which is so much wanted, in order that we may not encounter new epidemics with culpable ignorance of analogous phenomena. How often has it appeared, on the breaking out of epidemics, as if the experience of so many centuries had been accumulated in vain! Men gazed at the phenomena with astonishment, and, even before they had a just perception of their nature, pronounced their opinions, which, as they were divided into strongly opposed parties, they defended with all the ardor of zealots, wholly unconscious of the majesty of all-governing Nature." The English Sweating Sickness, which is the subject of this third essay, is indeed In treating of the causes which in so remarkable a manner confined the disease to England, Dr. Hecker mentions the nature of the climate of England, subject to frequent fogs, and the general intemperance of the people. The year 1485 was, besides, not only remarkable for the quantity of rain that fell, but it was the sixth of a series of such years, the last dry But though the Sweating Sickness was and hot summer having been that of 1749. confined (with one exception) to England, the continent of Europe was afflicted during the same period with various fatal contagious disorders, of which the author gives as particular an account as the recorded information on them would allow; connecting them, as he goes along, with extraordinary phenomena of nature, storms, earthquakes, eruptions of Vesuvius, &c. But, while the Sweating Sickness was confined to England, a new and destructive epidemic, the spotted (petechial) fever appeared in Southern and Central Europe, which first manifested itself in 1490, in Granada, where it threatened to destroy the army of Ferdinand the Catholic, and was very fatal to the Moors. It will appear from these remarks that the work gives a great deal more than the title implies, and, even in the part which relates to England, much light is thrown on what has been hitherto imperfectly known, as it is connected with the history of epidemics in general, by the author's illustrations from the history of other contagious disorders. We select the following as a specimen of his style. "The events which are now about to engage our attention prove, by their surprising development, that the fate of nations is at times guided far more by the laws of physical life than by the will of the mighty of the earth, and by all the efforts of human energy, which oppose in vain the unchained powers of Nature. These powers, inscrutable in their operation, destructive in their effects, arrest the course of events, baffle great projects, and paralyze the spirit in its boldest flights. They have often annihilated mighty armies by the sword of the destroying angel, when victory was ready to place the laurel on their brows. To wipe off the stain of Pavia, Francis I., in league with England, Switzerland, Rome, Genoa, and Venice, sent a fine army to Italy against his haughty rival. The imperial troops everywhere retreated before the French, and victory seemed to declare in favor only of the colors of France and the valiant Lautrec. Every thing promised a glorious issue. Naples alone, feebly garrisoned by German landsquenets and Spaniards, remained to be subdued. The siege was opened on the 5th of May, 1528, and the General pledged his honor for the reduction of this strong city, which had once been so fatal to France. It seemed an easy matter, with 30,000 warlike troops, to vanquish the Imperialists, and a small body of Englishmen appeared to have come only to participate in the triumph. Scarcity reigned in the city, which was blockaded by Doria and his Genoese galleys: it also suffered from want of water, Lautrec having turned aside the supply from the aqueducts of Poggioreale; and the plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans since the plundering of Rome, began to rage among them. other countries, collected with great industry and judgment from a variety of sources. The author, indeed, gives at the conclusion a list of the works which he has himself actually consulted, extending to thirteen pages. ART. XIII.-Memoires sur la Guerre de l'Isle de Java, de 1825 à 1830. Par le Major F. V. A. de Stuers. 1 vol. 4to and atlas. Leyde. THE Conquest of the island of Java by the British army in the year 1811, and the knowledge which we acquired of its importance during the time that it remained in our possession, till it was restored to the attention of the public in an extraorthe Dutch at the general peace, excited dinary degree; and the valuable work of Sir Stamford Raffles, only tended to increase the general regret, that so fair a Possession, which had derived immense benefit from the more judicious and enlightened system of administration under the British government, had been restored to its former masters, who, there was every reason to apprehend, would replace it under the same narrow system of colonial policy which had so long oppressed the inhabitants, and cramped the resources of the island, by rendering everything exclusively subservient to the interests of the mother country. It is not possible accurately to ascertain the measures that the Dutch government has adopted since it regained possession of the country. That men of great ability and irreproachable characters have been sent out to govern it cannot be denied, and the name of Barou van der Capellen, is a sufficient proof of this assertion. We will therefore take it "The security of the French army, however, was fatal to the excellent discipline which had been observed among them, and nature herself soon began to be destructive to the victorious troops. In the course of seven weeks, a small band of a few thousand emaciated forms, scarcely able to bear the weight of their arms, and obey the voice of their enfeebled leaders, were all that remained of this brave host. On the 29th of August, the siege was raised, the brave Lautrec having fallen a victim to chagrin for granted that such men acted in conand disease. The army took their departure amid a formity with their own honorable sentiviolent storm of thunder and lightning, many were ments. The Major, speaking of the cesmade prisoners by the Imperialists, and but few eversion made by the native princes of some returned to their own country." fine provinces to the English government, says, that the observance of the ancient laws and customs of the country had been much relaxed, in consequence of the increase of European power in Java, and of the liberal principles of the new system of administration, first, though but partially, under Marshal Daendels, then under the English, and lastly under the Dutch government. The latter, however, has had to contend with various insurrections, es |