considered this peculiarity in his manner, and the power it possesses in exciting surprise, as a beauty in his works may be inferred from the eager desire which we know he always expressed that his pictures at the exhibition should be seen near as well as at a distance." The President, however, weakens this vindication a little, when, in the succeeding sentences, he says, "the imagination supplies the rest, and perhaps more satisfactorily to the spectator if not more exactly, than the artist with all his care could have done." Sir Joshua, no doubt, felt all this; but a.tists must not count on eyes and imaginations such as fell to the lot of the President.

There is a charm about the children running wild in the landscapes of Gainsborough, which is more deeply felt by comparing them with those of Reynolds. The children of Sir Joshua are indeed beautiful creations,-free, artless, and lovely; but they seem all to have been nursed in velvet laps, and fed with golden spoons. There is a rustic grace, an untamed wildness about the children of the latter which speak of the country and of neglected toilets. They are the offspring of nature, running free among woods as wild as themselves. They are not afraid of disordering their satins and wetting their kid shoes. They roll on the green sward, burrow like rabbits, and dabble in the running streams daily.

In this the works of Reynolds and Gainsborough are unlike each other-but both differ more materially from the great painters of Italy. The infants of Raphael, Titian, or Correggio are not meant for mortals, but for divinities. We hardly think of mothers' bosoms when we look at them. We ad mire-we can scarely love them so much as we do the healthy children of our two eminent countrymen.

END OF VOL. I.