one of the favourite sky-blue attitude' of Lady Pentweazle. A Resurrection, by Vandyke, affords ample proof that his excellence was not limited to portrait*.” Walpole, however, appears to have been of a different opinion. "Fame," says he, "attributes to his master (Rubens) an envy of which his liberal nature was, I believe, incapable, and makes him advise Vandyke to apply himself chiefly to portraits. If Rubens gave the advice in question, he gave it with reason, not maliciously. Vandyke had a peculiar genius for portraits; his draperies are finished with a minuteness of truth not demanded in historic compositions; besides, his invention was cold and tame; nor does he any where seem to have had much idea of the passions and their expressionportraits require none." This, it must be confessed, is but a cold acknowledgment of the talents of this celebrated man, whose portraits have so long excited the wonder of an admiring world. In the square before the palace are the two marble horses, with their attendant figures, which some suppose to be Castor and Pollux; while others will have it that the one is a copy from the other, and that each group is a representation of Alexander taming Bucephalus. If we may believe the inscriptions, which are as old as Constantine, in whose baths they were found, they are the work of Phidias and Praxiteles. But this we cannot believe, if we suppose them to represent Alexander * Mathews. taming Bucephalus; for, according to Pliny's account, Phidias flourished in the eighty-third Olympiad, while Alexander was not born till the hundred-and-sixth Olympiad, ninety-two years afterwards. From the same authority we learn that Praxiteles flourished in the hundred-andfourth Olympiad, eight years before the birth of Alexander: we can hardly suppose, therefore, that the former lived to execute a statue of the latter. From a coin of Maxentius's, bearing on the reverse two similar groups, with the legend æternitas, the conjecture that the two figures were intended for Castor and Pollux seems the more probable. That they are really the works of Phidias and Praxiteles is, to say the least, very unlikely; for the two groups seem evidently to have been contemporary works, whereas about a century elapsed between the time of Phidias and Praxiteles. "These groups," says Mathews, " are full of spirit and expression; but are not the men out of proportion? They appear better able to carry the horses, than the horses them. The Egyptian Obelisk, which is placed between them, was brought hither, at an enormous expense, by Pius VI. from the mausoleum of Augustus; and as this was done at a time when the poor of Rome were suffering much from distress, the following sentence, taken from scripture, was placarded underneath the obelisk: Di che queste pietre divengano pane. This was surely mal-à-propos; for Pius VI. could not well have adopted a better method of supplying the poor with bread, than by furnishing them with employment." ROSPIGLIOSI PALACE.-On the ceiling of a pavilion annexed to this palace is painted Guido's celebrated Aurora-one of the few frescos that have withstood the attacks of time. Guido's Morghen's engraving, admirable as it is, falls far short of the matchless original. This charming composition is admired for its movement. The torch of Lucifer is blown back by the velocity of his advance; Aurora seems borne by her own buoyancy through the air; and the Hours that surround the radiant car of Phoebus look as though they were actually moving forward. Aurora is often compared with the rival fresco of Guercino at the Villa Lodovisi. "But the work of Guido is more poetic, and luminous, and soft, and harmonious. Cupid, Aurora, Phoebus, form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the clouds on which they dance. At such ceilings you gaze till your neck becomes stiff and your head dizzy. They detain you like the glorious ceiling of the Caracci, the sole object left to be admired at the Farnese Palace, except the palace itself." Should the reader think this notice of Forsyth's savours too much of panegyric, he may take the following critique of Simond's as a fair set-off against it. "I shall only mention the Palazzo Rospigliosi," says he, " on account of the celebrated fresco of Aurora by Guido, the prints of which are very generally known, and in which Apollo is represented in a chariot-and-four, attended by seven swift nymphs. No artist, I presume, would undertake to defend the drawing; few would praise the expression: the colouring is crude and cold; and the draperies, all in a flutter, are unnatural, and in bad taste: the horses are ill-broken cart-horses, of the true antique breed; yet the picture has a name, and it is admired on trust." FARNESE PALACE.- This palace, the work of Michael Angelo, contains the far-famed ceiling above alluded to, painted by Annibal Caracci and his scholars, for which, after eight years' incessant labour, that great man was rewarded, by the munificence of Cardinal Farnese, with— five hundred crowns. All the subjects are taken from the heathen mythology. On one part of the ceiling is represented the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, whose cars are drawn by Tigers, and surrounded by a train of Satyrs, Fauns, and Bacchanals, led on by old Silenus. Two other portions, exhibiting the triumph of Galatea, and Aurora carrying off her beloved Cephalus, are by Agostino Caracci, whose cultivated taste and poetic imagination are said to have been of great use to his brother in the composition of the whole work. "The story of Cephalus and that of Galatea are so exquisitely told," says Lanzi, "that they look as though they had been dictated by a poet, and executed by a Greek artist. It was noised about at the time, that, in the frescos of the Farnese, the engraver surpassed the painter; and Annibale, no longer able to endure the stings of envy, under feigned pretences dismissed his brother from the work." THE VATICAN. The kindled marble's bust may wear More poesy upon its speaking brow Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear; Or deify the canvass till it shine With beauty so surpassing all below, That they who kneel to idols so divine Break no commandment, for high heaven is there THE Vatican is a huge pile of dissimilar edifices, heaped together with very little regard to effect, and looking, as Miss Waldie phrases it, "less like a palace than a company of palaces, jostling each other for place or precedence." Its vast extent may be inferred from the number of rooms said to be contained in it, which seems to border on the marvellous; for while some accounts restrict that number to between four and five thousand, others make it amount to no less than thirteen thousand! But what the Vatican wants in beauty, it compensates in wealth. In this grand repository "we may trace the sculpture of ancient Rome from its dawn to its declinefrom the old Doric tomb of Scipio Barbatus, in plain Alban stone, to the porphyry sarcophagi of St. Constantia and St. Helen, where men stand erect under horses' bellies. Here ancient and modern art seem to contend |