would be an "Exposition des Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture, Gravure, Lithographie, et Architecture, des Artistes vivans."

Now curiosity is to the full as much alive in the good city of Paris as vanity; accordingly much was said, and thought, and expected from this grateful display of talent.

On the day of Louis XVIII. the sun rose in more than usual brilliance; a long succession of lovely weather had afforded ample time and opportunity for preparations; a few seasonable showers had in the course of the preceding week washed the dust from every leaf and flower throughout the gardens of the Thuilleries and the Champs Elysées; the oleanders, the pomegranates, the myrtles, and the orange trees rivalled each other in a rich profusion of beautiful blossoms; a gentle breeze filled the air with their fragrance, while in mid air the flag of the Bourbons waved, contrasting its pure and dazzling white with the deep clear blue of a cloudless sky. But neither these nor the multifarious and innumerable amusements prepared had attractions sufficient to eclipse the feast of art provided within the walls of the Louvre. Accordingly, the moment the doors were opened, a crowd (composed for the greater part of materials which in England would have constituted a mob, including the various dangers and consequences therewith connected) entered with all that politesse and attention to mutual accommodation, in which France stands unrivalled. In less than a quarter of an hour about a dozen rooms, more or less spacious, were completely filled, without the slightest breach of order or decorum on the part of a single individual.

It is impossible to attempt a detailed criticism of about 2500 works of art. Amidst a glare of glowing tints it requires time for the mind to settle into sober observation, and the eye to repose with tolerable calmness upon the vast field spread out before it. It may be remarked, first, that the pictures, as far as relates to num bering, are very badly arranged;– the names of the artists being placed in the catalogue alphabetically, with a list of their works numerically inserted below, it is impossible to dis

cover a particular picture, the whole being scattered abroad, according to size, subject, or caprice, over the wide extent of the various rooms; with this limitation only, that the paintings are in great measure separated from the drawings, the drawings from the engravings, these again from the lithographic productions; and, lastly, in spacious rooms below are collected the models and sculptured marbles. To such as had not visited the Louvre in all its former glory, or even in its more recent state, shorn of its radiance, the present exhibition must have inflicted the miseries of the cup of Tantalus. Immediately on entering, full in front, a sentry paced before the gates leading to the galleries of ancient sculpture. "On n'entre pas ici" was the reply to many an anxious intruder, who saw before him in their vaulted chambers ranks of gods and demi-gods, in every attitude of dignity and grace, like the senators of Rome awaiting in silence the rush of the Gauls. Above stairs a similar disappointment awaited him; a suite of rooms in the old Louvre contained the greater part, but the anti-room and about thirty yards of the grand gallery were opened for the remainder. A barrier like a gulph separated the ancient and modern schools of perfection and imperfection, beyond which the eye was lost in the interminable vista, where all was silence and solitude. Not so on the modern side of the barrier,—a dense crowd filling up every foot of vacant space, and the air vibrating with the loquacious murmurings of we know not how many thousand French tongues.

The first glance is, however, sufficient to convey a tolerably accurate idea of the French school; it is like their character-we seek in vain for rest and quiet, there is an indes cribably vivacious bustle in their general style; a spectator fully enters into the perils of Prince Bahman in ascending the mountain of speaking stones; the idea of tongues in trees and in the running brooks becomes familiar. There is, generally speaking, neither depth nor solidity in their touch, yet they have merits of no ordinary stamp, peculiar to themselves; there is a sharpness and lightness very fascinating, and sometimes

a Canaletti sort of clearness which actually cuts the eye, like a fresh stereotype print on a sheet of shining hot-pressed vellum paper. That they have not neglected the opportunities circumstances have placed within their reach is very evident in the touch and style. A slavish imitation of the old school is observable throughout one old master, how ever, it is as evident they have too much neglected; one far antecedent to Cimabue and Giotto, visible in the works of the best, but superior to all -Nature. I have heard some even of our British artists maintain seriously that Nature ought not to be too closely imitated. This is incomprehensible doctrine to those who are disposed to look on painting as the representation of nature. Amateurs may be accused (and perhaps justly) of superficial views, and incapacities of entering into the depths of the subject; but, however, such as we are, we have our pleasures, and amongst them there is none greater than this double power of enjoying nature in pictures, and pictures in nature. It may almost be called a sixth sense-it gives to every kind of scenery its peculiar charm; whether in the brightness of a summer's sun, or the gloom of winter's storm, whe ther on the mountain top or the flat wide heath, we discover alike a series of beautiful pictures in the varied styles of our best artists; we trace the catching lights of Dewint-of Turner-of Callcott. In human life again we may equally pick out our groups after the manner of Wilkie, of Mulready, of Leslie. And in this view of the subject it is that the grand difference-superiority I would say of the English, in contradistinction to the French school, is so remarkable. In France no scenery recalls an artist's peculiar touch. The absence of nature is more or less perceptible in all. Where, but amongst opera dancers and the stiff formal characters of the French tragedy, has David sought the figures which stand in formal attitudes on his canvas? But this deficiency is most glaring where forest scenery is concerned; and I gladly allude to it because it affords an op

portunity of qualifying the censure passed. If a French artist does not pay that attention to nature which she justly merits, may it not be that, in many instances, it is for want of opportunity of making acquaintance with her? Few countries, considering its vast and varied extent, possess so little of what is really picturesque in forest scenery. A traveller may traverse the " gay regions" in various directions without meeting with a single instance of a genuine mass of picturesque foliage. In France, there is a deficiency of hedges, and consequently of hedgerow timber, to which we in England are indebted for some of our finest specimens of woodland beauty. Their forests are not like ours-cider and charcoal divide the honours of the field.-Accordingly the traveller's eye is wearied with avenues of apple trees, and as, in a country devoid of coal, wood becomes a prominent feature in domestic economy, from orchards it seeks relief in vain among groves formally planted with the regularity of a Roman Quincunx, "omnia paribus numeris dimensa," which if allowed to rise above the rank of underwood, are composed of naked stems, every lateral branch being lopped off when large enough to cut up into a billet. With this impression upon the mind, I looked over the rooms in vain for a fair tepresentation of this finest feature in natural landscape. An ample supply indeed of well finished and tolerably touched middle distances, but not one specimen of a well represented tree in a foreground could I discover. Again, a French artist has no conception of wandering about the country in search of the rural and piċturesque. A cabriolet may take him in every direction, north, south, east, or west of Paris, for a day's jaunt, but it will not bring him into contact with any thing deserving a minute's exercise for his pencil. He may pace up and down the gardens of the Thuilleries, and Champs Elysées, amidst clipped avenues and formal shrubs; but neither there nor elsewhere will he see the massive groups of elms which adorn Hyde Park,

the rich foliage of Kensington Gardens, or the beauties of a Richmondhill, or, in a word, the countless pictures of nature in her loveliest forms, which are scattered with profusion in every direction round London. As it has been before observed, his peculiar excellence lies in that which is forced upon his observation, and is, if we may so say, ever above, below and round about him-atmospheric clearness. We will venture to pronounce that no man ever had or can have an idea of the truth of Canaletti's pictures until he has crossed the Channel. Whether from clouds, vapours, coal fires, we presume not to decide, but so it is that England is shrouded by an atmosphere most triste and sombre. Nothing can form so striking a contrast as the view of Paris from the heights of Montmartre or Nôtre Dame, and of London, from Highgate-hill or St. Paul's. The former presents a picture clear and vivid beyond conception; the golden dome of L'Hôpital des Invalides glitters as though the gilding of Napoleon were the work of yesterday; every tower and turret rises up clean and sharp to meet a clear bright sky in which the clouds float as distinct appendages In the view from Highgate-hill, the scene below may be matchless, innumerable spires and steeples here and there rising from a boundless mass of fog or smoke may remind the spectator of the extent and wealth buried below, but after all it is "ignotum pro magnifico." * Again, let an observer stand at the bottom of Portland-place, or Wimpole-street, and look before him: the distance, if he be a pedestrian, seems infinite and appalling; but when the attempt is made, a few minutes bring him to the end of the apparently boundless space. How different in Paris! who has not lost his patience and strength in accomplishing what appeared to the eye but a step? In fact, in Paris on a clear day there is no such thing as middle distance; the

most remote points are as distinctly made out and defined as the nearest buildings, and seem as tangible as the moving scenes of a camera obscura. It may be a question how far on the whole this is favourable to a painter's eye. It certainly takes off from that diversified appearance which shades and partial obscurities afford; it operates as a check to imagination, and induces a sort of matter-of-fact style which must tend more or less to render painting an art more of knack than genius: nothing can be more dangerous than this; and the consequences I conceive to be sufficiently exemplified in our views of the French school. Accordingly, there we find much of this excellence throughout (I mean the brightness and clearness of their atmosphere), but nothing beyond it. Many of their productions have so much of what is really excellent in this point, that the indifferent handling of the rest frequently excites astonishment. It would seem as if there was a certain point beyond which they could not pass. After all, it might be a curious discussion, and one worth the attention of more experienced judges, how far they have really profited by their superior opportunities. It is impossible to look round the room without perceiving how much they are indebted to the old masters, and how little to their own unassisted genius. With the same encouragement and favourable circumstances, might not the British school have ranked higher in the nobler regions of Scriptural and historical painting? for on the subject of encouragement, a doubt may arise whether painting in our country has that share of patronage, either public or private, which, as an art, she is entitled to expect. Our neighbours have, at all events, one source of patronage of which we are unfortunately destitute. The spirit of the Catholic religion is not, like ours, adverse to the introduction of paintings within its cathedrals and minor places of worship.