AURORA.

In this picture the author has shewn himself highly poetical, as he exhibits Aurora raising the veil of Night, surrounded by a vivid light which she diffuses over the earth, and letting fall from her fingers the roses she brings forth. But to give light to mankind is not the only thought of the goddess.

M. Guerin, in placing Cupid by her, displays the excessive love she entertained for Cephalus. The sleep in which this son of Mercury is plunged, calls to mind that all the promises of Aurora could not tempt Cephalus to be unfaithful to his wife Procris. The goddess had no other resource than to carry off her beloved when she found him sleeping on mount Hymetus; but the affection of Cephalus remained unchangeable; and Aurora, in despair at his unshaken constancy, was obliged to set him free; however, in doing so, she imbued his mind with a jealousy which rendered him miserable.

M. Guerin, so correct in drawing, has evinced himself in this picture more of a colourist than usual; it was exhibited at the Louvre in 1810, and belongs to M. de Sommariva the ceil, ing of whose bed-chamber it decorates; it has been engraved by M. Forster.

Height, 8 feet 5 inches; breadth, 6 feet 4 inches.

Dans ce tableau, l'auteur s'est montré grandement poète, puisqu'il présente l'Aurore soulevant le voile de la Nuit, environnée d'une vive lumière qu'elle répand sur la terre, et laissant échapper de ses doigts les roses qu'elle fait naître. Mais le soin d'éclairer les humains n'est pas la seule pensée de la déesse.

M. Guérin, en plaçant Cupidon près d'elle, fait voir l'amour extrême que cette immortelle eut pour Céphale. Le sommeil dans lequel est plongé ce fils de Mercure rappelle que toutes les promesses d'Aurore ne purent engager Céphale à être infidèle à son épouse Procris. La déesse n'eut d'autre ressource que d'enlever son amant lorsqu'elle le trouva endormi sur le mont Hymette; mais la tendresse de Céphale ne changea pas d'objet, et Aurore, désespérée de la constance de celui qu'elle aimait, se vit obligée de le renvoyer; elle ne le fit pourtant qu'en lui inspirant une jalousie qui le rendit malheureux.

M. Guérin, dessinateur si correct, s'est montré dans ce tableau plus coloriste que de coutume; son tableau, placé au salon de 1810, appartient à M. de Sommariva, et décore le plafond de sa chambre à coucher; il a été gravé par M. Forster. Haut., 8 pieds; larg., 6 pieds.

ΙΟΙ. L.

ACHILLES.

This statue of a warrior entirely naked, the head covered with a grecian helmet, and the hand resting on his lance, is supposed to represent Achilles. The ring seen at the bottom of his right leg, is the attribute by which Visconti demonstrates the figure to be neither the god Mars, nor a simple warrior; it is the son of Thetis, who was plunged by her into the Styx to render him invulnerable, and the proof of this is found, says he, in a bas-relief of the Capitol Museum, where the goddess, plunging her son into the flood, holds him precisely at the part which is here covered with a ring.

From the foregoing observation it may be presumed that Achilles, invulnerable in all those parts of the body that had been dipped in the waters of the Styx, had deemed it prudent to take precautions against being wounded in the part alluded to.

This statue, in Parian marble, has had nothing new but the lower part of the left arm; its numerous inequalities make it appear as the work of an artist who, in copying, has occasionally fallen below the original. After having long been at the palais Borghèse, towards the end of the last century it was transported to the villa Pinciana, and was conveyed from thence to Paris, with all the antiquities forming the collection of the prince Borghèse.

Height, 6 feet 9 inches.