the same way, and make the air about it delicate. Gray has consecrated the same spot by his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College; and the finest passage in Burke's writings is his comparison of the British Monarchy to "the proud Keep of Windsor." The walls and massy towers of Windsor Castle are indeed built of solid stone, weather-beaten, timeproof; but the image answering to them in the mind's eye is woven of pure thought and of the airy films of the imagination-Arachne's web not finer!

The rooms are chill and comfortless at this time of year, and gilded ceilings look down on smoky fire-places. The view from the windows, too, which is so rich and glowing in the summer-time, is desolate and deformed with the rains overflowing the marshy grounds. As to physical comfort, one seems to have no more of it in these tapestried halls and on marble floors, than the poor bird driven before the pelting storm, or the ploughboy seeking shelter from the drizzling sky, in his sheepskin jacket and clouted shoes, beneath the dripping, leafless spray. The palace, any more than the hovel, does not always defend us against the winter's cold. The apartments are also filled with too many rubbishly pictures of kings and queens-there are too many of Verrio's paintings, and a whole roomful of West's; but there are ten or twenty pictures which the eye, having once seen, never loses sight of, and that make Windsor one of the retreats and treasuries of art in this country. These, however, are chiefly pictures which have a personal and individual interest attached to them, as we have already hinted: there are very few historical compositions of any value, and the subjects are so detached, that the young person who shows them, and goes through the names of the painters and portraits very correctly, said she very nearly went out of her mind in the three weeks she was "studying her part." It is a matter of nomenclature: we hope we shall make as few blunders in our report as she did.

In the first room the stranger is shown into, there are two large landscapes by Zuccarelli. They are clever, well-painted pictures; but they are worth nothing. The fault of this

artist is, that there is nothing absolutely good or bad in his pictures. They are mere handicraft. The whole is done with a certain mechanical ease and indifference; but it is evident no part of the picture gave him any pleasure, and it is impossible it should give the spectator any. His only ambition was to execute his task so as to save his credit; and your first impulse is, to turn away from the picture and save your time.

In the next room, there are four Vandykes-two of them excellent. One is the Duchess of Richmond, a whole-length, in a white satin drapery, with a pet lamb. The expres sion of her face is a little sulky and petted. The other, the Countess of Carlisle, has a shrewd, clever, sensible countenance; and, in a certain archness of look, and the contour of the lower part of the face, reminds one of the late Mrs. Jordan. Between these two portraits is a copy after Rembrandt by Gainsborough, a fine, sombre, mellow head, with the hat flapped over the face.

Among the most delightful and interesting of the pictures in this collection, is the portrait by Vandyke, of Lady Venetia Digby. It is an allegorical composition: but what truth, what purity, what delicacy in the execution! You are introduced into the presence of a beautiful woman of quality of a former age, and it would be next to impossible to perform any improper or unbecoming action with that portrait hanging in the room. It has an air of nobility about it, a spirit of humanity within it. There is a dove-like innocence and softness about the eyes; in the clear, delicate complexion, health and sorrow contend for the mastery, the mouth is sweetness itself, the nose highly intelligent, and the forehead is one of "clear-spirited thought." But misfortune has touched all this grace and beauty, and left its canker there. This is shown no less by the air that pervades it, than by the accompanying emblems. The children in particular are exquisitely painted, and have an evident reference to those we lately noticed in the FOUR AGES, by Titian. This portrait, both from the style and subject, reminds one forcibly of Mrs. Hutchinson's admirable Memoirs of her own Life. Both are equally history,

and the history of the female heart, (depicted, in the one case, by the pencil, in the other, by the pen) in the finest age of female accomplishment and devotion. Look at this portrait, breathing the beauty of virtue, and compare it with the "Beauties" of Charles II.'s court, by Lely. They look just like what they were a set of kept-mistresses, painted, tawdry, showing off their theatrical or meretricious airs and graces, without one trace of real elegance or refinement, or one spark of sentiment to touch the heart. Lady Grammont is the handsomest of them; and though the most voluptuous in her attire and attitude, the most decent. The Duchess of Portsmouth, in her helmet and plumes, looks quite like a heroine of romance or modern Amazon; but for an air of easy assurance, staring invitation, and alarmed at nothing but being thought coy, commend us to my lady above, in the sky-blue drapery, thrown carelessly across her shoulders! As paintings, these celebrated portraits cannot rank very high. They have an affected ease, but a real hardness of manner and execution; and they have that contortion of attitude and setness of features which we afterwards find carried to so disgusting and insipid an excess in Kneller's portraits. Sir Peter Lely was, however, a better painter than Sir Godfrey Kneller— that is the highest praise that can be accorded to him. He had more spirit, more originality, and was the livelier coxcomb of the two! Both these painters possessed considerable mechanical dexterity, but it is not of a refined kind. Neither of them could be ranked among great painters, yet they were thought by their contemporaries and themselves superior to every one. At the distance of a hundred years we see the thing plainly enough.

In the same room with the portrait of Lady Digby, there is one of Killigrew and Carew, by the same masterly hand. There is spirit and character in the profile of Carew, while the head of Killigrew is surprising from its composure and sedateness of aspect. He was one of the grave wits of the day, who made nonsense a profound study, and turned trifles into philosophy, and

philosophy into a jest. The pale, sallow complexion of this head is in wonderful keeping. The beard and face seem nearly of the same colour. We often see this clear uniform colour of the skin in Titian's portraits. But then the dark eyes, beard, and eye-brows, gave relief and distinctness. The fair hair and complexions, that Vandyke usually painted, with the almost total absence of shade from his pictures, made the task more difficult; and, indeed, the prominence and effect he gives in this respect, without any of the usual means, are almost miraculous.

There are several of his portraits, equestrian and others, of Charles I. in this collection, some of them good, none of them first-rate. Those of Henrietta (his Queen) are always delightful. The painter has made her the most lady-like of Queens, and of women.

The family picture of the Children of Charles I. is certainly admirably painted and managed. The large mastiff-dog is inimitably fine and true to nature, and seems as if he was made to be pulled about by a parcel of royal infants from generation to generation. In general, it may be objected to Vandyke's dresschildren, that they look like little old men and women. His grown up people had too much stiffness and formality; and the same thing must quite overlay the playfulness of infancy. Yet what a difference between these young princes of the House of Stuart, and two of the princes of the reigning family with their mother, by Ramsay, which are evident likenesses to this hour!

We have lost our count as to the order of the pictures and rooms in which they are placed, and must proceed promiscuously through the remainder of our Catalogue.

One of the most noted pictures at Windsor is that of the Misers, by Quintin Matsys. Its name is greater than its merits, like many other pictures which have a lucky or intelligible subject, boldly executed. The conception is good, the colouring bad; the drawing firm, and the expression coarse and obvious. We are sorry to speak at all disparagingly of Quintin Matsys; for the story goes, that he was originally bred a blacksmith, and turned painter to

gain his master's daughter, who would give her to no one but on that condition. Happy he who thus gained the object of his love, though posterity may differ about his merits as an artist! Yet it is certain, that any romantic incident of this kind, connected with a well-known work, inclines us to regard it with a favour able, instead of an unfavourable eye, by enhancing our pleasure in it; as the eccentric character, the wild subjects, and the sounding name of Salvator Rosa have tended to lift him into the highest rank of fame among painters.

In the same room with the Misers, by the Blacksmith of Antwerp, is a very different picture, by Titian, of two figures also, viz. Himself and a Venetian Senator. It is one of the finest specimens of this master. His own portrait is not much: it has spirit, but is hard, with somewhat of a vulgar, knowing look. But the head of the Senator is as fine as any thing that ever proceeded from the hand of man. The expression is a lambent flame, a soul of fire dimmed, not quenched by age. The flesh is flesh. If Rubens's pencil fed upon roses, his was carnivorous. The tone is betwixt a gold and silver hue. The texture and pencilling are marrowy. The dress is a rich crimson, which seems to have been growing deeper ever since it was painted. It is a front view. As far as attitude or action is concerned, it is mere still-life; but the look is of that kind that goes through you at a single glance. Let any one look well at this portrait, and if he then sees nothing in it, or in the portrait in general, let him give up virtù and criticism in despair.

This room is rich in valuable gems, which might serve as a test of a real taste for the art, depending for their value on intrinsic qualities, and not on imposing subjects, or mechanical arrangement or quantity. As where "the still, small voice of reason" is wanting, we judge of actions by noisy success and popularity; so where there is no true moral sense in art, nothing goes down but pomp, and bustle, and pretension. The eye of taste looks to see if a work has nature's finest image and superscription upon it, and for no other title and passport to fame. There is MARCH, 1823.

a Young Man's Head (we believe) in one corner of this room, by Holbein, in which we can read high and he roic thoughts and resolutions, better than in any Continence of Scipio we ever saw, or than in all the Battles of Alexander thrown into a lump. There is a portrait of Erasmus, by the same, and in the same or an adjoining room, in which we see into the mind of a scholar and of an amiable man, as through a window. There is a head by Parmegiano, lofty, triumphant, showing the spirit of another age and clime-one by Raphael, studious and self involved-another, said to be by Leonardo da Vinci (but more like Holbein) grown crabbed with age and thought—and a girl reading, by Correggio, intent on her subject, and not forgetting herself. These are the materials of history; and if it is not made of them, it is a nickname or a mockery. All that does not lay open the fine net-work of the heart and brain of man, that does not make us see deeper into the soul, is but the apparatus and machinery of history painting, and no more to it than the frame is to the picture.

We noticed a little Mater Dolorosa in one of the rooms, by Carlo Dolci, which is a pale, pleasing, expressive head. There are two large figures of his, a Magdalen and another, which are in the very falsest style of colouring and expression; and Youth and Age, by Denner, which are in as perfectly bad a taste and style of execution as any thing we ever saw of this artist, who was an adept in that way.

We are afraid we have forgotten one or two meritorious pictures we meant to notice. There is one we just recollect, a portrait of a Youth in black, by Parmegiano. It is in a singular style, but very bold, expressive, and natural. There is (in the same apartment of the palace) a fine picture of the Battle of Norlingen, by Rubens. The size and spirit of the horses in the foreground, and the obvious animation of their riders, are finely contrasted with the airy perspective and mechanical grouping of the armies at a distance; and so as to prevent that confusion and want of positive relief, which usually pervade Battle-pieces. In the same room (opposite) is Kneller's Chinese converted to Christianity-a portrait of which he was justly proud. It is a

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