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It was indeed expected, that the Emperor Paul would, as principal possessor of the Polish estates, either take the collection, or defray the expences of a public sale by auction, and reimburse Mr. Desenfans for his losses, should any have been sustained; but every expectation on that ground was defeated by his Majesty's

sudden demise.

A few extracts from the catalogue will shew the value of the collection, and the merits of the remarks and anecdotes.

No. 19.-The Finding of Moses.

BY CIRO FERRI.

"This artist distinguished himself in historical as well as por trait painting, and executed, with the greatest success, that of Raffaello, the most celebrated singer of his age, who himself directed the composition of the picture, in which he is singing with a music-book in his hands.

"A choir of angels are making a concert above his head, where St. Cecilia appears in the midst of them, as if angry, and with contracted brows; a label is coming out of her mouth, and on it are written two lines, which we cannot give a better translation of than the following:

"Silence, you noisy young Castrato,
"And let me hear great Raffaello !"

No. 59.-One of the Seven Acts of Mercy,

BY S. BOURDON.

"We feel confident that connoisseurs, as well as artists, will agree with us, in pronouncing this one of the best productions of a master, whose abilities have justly placed him in the rank of his countrymen, Poussin, and Le Sueur, and whose misfortunes in life, arose not from vicious habits, but from a peculiarity of character, and rugged though honest disposition.

"Bourdon had gone to Rome while very young, and continued his studies there when his reputation had flown through Europe. At his return to France, he would have been loaded with com missions, had he possessed the art too frequently necessary to painters, of courting patronage; he was besides suspected of being a protestant.

"Soon after his return to France, he retired to Montpelier, his natal place, where his poverty was so excessive, that he was unable to shew himself for want of necessary cloathing, till a taylor, who had long known and esteemed Bourdon, sent him a complete suit, with a cloak and cap.

"Bourdon who was naturally fond of employment, having at that time nothing else to do, was just finishing his own portrait when the parcel was brought, he requested the bearer to wait, and ornamenting the figure with the cap and cloak, he sent the picture to the taylor, who shortly after, furnished him with money to en

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able him to go to Sweden, were he hoped to meet with a better fortune.

"However his employment there was so trifling, that he was reduced to sleep and paint in a garret, till Queen Christina, who was ambitious of passing for a philosopher, and patroness of the fine arts, of which she understood very little, heard of him, had him brought to Court, and took him into her service; but misfortune, that had ever pursued the artist, did not permit him to continue long in it.

The Queen used to pass her leisure hours in drawing and painting, and it is needless to say that she was impressed with the highest opinion of her own talents, by those who were about her. Christina shewed her works to Bourdon who had the imprudent candour to speak his real sentiments of them; and it was in vain they informed him of the high encomiums which the nobility and court ladies had passed on them; his opinion remained directly op posite to theirs.

"If kings are impatient of contradiction, it may easily be conceived that Christina, a queen, was not less so; and the personal mortification she suffered on that occasion, was too great to suffer her to be attached any longer to Bourdon; she however continued to employ him, and now and then sat to him for her portrait; but exclusively of the humiliating remarks he used to make," whenever the queen was shewing him any of her pictures, a circumstance occurred which at last made her dismiss him from her service.

"The pictures which her father, Gustavus the second, had seized in the city of Prague, after taking it, had never been unpacked, and Christina, who pretended to a perfect knowledge of the art, one day ordered them to be so in her presence, while at tended by her ladies of honor; and after examining them, pronounced the pictures to be good for nothing, and to confirm her opinion, she sent for Bourdon, with whose difficult and severe taste, she was so well acquainted; but much to her disappointment, the painter found them beautiful, and told her so: If that is the case, said the queen piqued, they are your's, for I give them to you. Bourdon immediately represented to her Majesty, the injury she was doing herself in parting with them, and assured her they were such chef d'œuvres of art, as could hardly be matched. Among them were those pictures by Correggio which the regent of France afterwards purchased, and have been bought here, about four years ago, in the Orleans collection.

"Christina kept them, and although it was impossible for her, not to admire the disinterestedness of the artist, her vanity was so wounded at his having convicted her of ignorance, before all the ladies of the court, that it got the better of every other consideration, and Bourdon soon after, under some other pretence, was dismissed the court, and returned to his garret.

"His disgrace however was not of a very long continuance, for although the queen wanted the knowledge of pictures, she did not

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want good sense, and perhaps admired in secret the artist's honest frankness;--he was recalled, and employed as before; and as Christina was more eager to obtain for her works, Bourdon's approbation, than all the praises of ber court, some days after his return, she shewed him what she had been doing in his absence, when the artist, correcting in some measure his former liberties, did not disapprove, but being pressed for his opinion, he turned to one of the pages and said 'take back my easel and palette to my garret !'

"It were much to be wished for the sake of princes and other great men, that the artists and connoisseurs whom they consult, followed the example of Bourdon. There are doubtless some as honourable and sincere; but many more of them false; who, in expectation of insinuating themselves into favour, by their flatteries, extoll the miserable works which a proprietor submits to their opinion, and deny those of the first merit, which he does not possess.

"To what danger do not such people expose a collection, who not able to rely on his own judgment, relies on their own assurances? he casts his eyes about his rooms, and sees himself surrounded with wealth, in the finest productions of art, and calculates his resources accordingly; but should he be under the necessity of realizing, it is then he finds how cruelly he has been deceived.

"His pictures are sent to Paillet's, in Paris, or to Pall-Mall, in London, and there the true gold is extracted from the dross. It is there that the admirers of his pretended Raphael's and Correggio's turn their back on them; and there all his Italian copies, laughed at by Le Brun, and brow-beaten by Tassaert,* notwithstanding the zeal of the auctioneer, will not produce the hundredth part of what they had been calculated at.'

No. 158.-A Landscape and Figures.

BY WYMANTS.

"Whenever Wymants, in his infancy, committed a fault, his mother always threatened him with ghosts, and would frequently repeat the most frightful stories of them, in his hearing, for the purpose of intimidating him, which made so strong an impression on his mind, that even an advanced age could not efface it.

"He would often awake suddenly in the night, believing that he had been struggling with spirits, and as soon as the evening approached, he would not enter a room without being accompanied by his wife; we may readily suppose who was the domestic commander in chief; but we can with difficulty, reconcile so much pusillanimity with the boldness of design and the spirit which reigns through his works.

Messrs. Tassaert and Le Brun are equally well known in France and England as connoisseurs,

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No. 161.-The Interior of a Spanisp Corps de Garde.

BY LE DUC.

"It is the composition of seven figures;-on the right, two men are seated at play, whilst the others stand round them as spectators of the game; and amongst them, in the centre of the. picture, is an officer: a drum is suspended on the wall, on the left, which is also occupied by a cask and several utensils.

"The unrivalled excellence of the artist in these subjects, is universally known, and this work is in every respect, worthy the high reputation he is held in.

ON PANNEL.

"We have not been able to find the natal place and the year of this master's birth, nor any account of him whatever, in the different authors we have consulted. We only recollect having read in an old French magazine, that he was born in Holland, a relative of John Le Duc the landscape-painter from whom he had the first rudiments in the art, and that notwithstanding his great abilities, he was so addicted to drinking, as to neglect frequently his profession, which made him labour under much distress at times.

"While Le Duc (says the magazine) lived at Amsterdam, he went once to a tavern, where he bespoke a good dinner, and had the best liquors in the house; but when his bill was brought, the hostess finding that he had no money, fell into a violent fit of passion, and getting hold of the artist by the beard, swore she would pluck every hair of it, if she was not paid.

"The noise soon brought the landlord, with the waiters and other servants of the family; so that the poor painter was beset from every quarter, till he thought of an expedient to extricate himself.

"He requested half a sheet of paper, which was immediately brought, with pen and ink, as they imagined he was going to apply to a friend for some money; but as Le Duc had not a single friend on whom he could draw, he drew two or three figures on that paper, and had it carried to a collector, who chearfully paid for it, four ducats, at the sight of which both the landlord and landlady became equally amazed and civil.”

The justice of Mr. Desenfan's observations on the ostentatious and expensive fashion of framing pictures, in our modern collections, will be felt by the true connoisseur. He says, 66 There is

now so great a rage for large frames, that our picture galleries are more filled with the work of carvers and gilders than of painters, which new fashion is entirely owing to those who, being possessed of inferior pictures, endeavour to give them an air of consequence through the help of a frame."

At the present moment, when the capital of France possesses so many attractions in this and other branches of the arts, we sincerely trust, that this valuable collection, or at least that the

principal

principal articles which it contains, will be retained in the country by the royal munificence, or by the public spirit of individuals.

Thesaurus Juridicus; containing the Decisions of the several Courts of Equity upon the suits therein adjudged, and of the high Court of Parliament upon Petitions and Appeals. To which are added, the Resolutions of the Barons of the Exchequer in Matters touching the Revenues of the Crozon, from the Period of the Revolution to the end of Easter Term 1798. Systematically digested by Richard Whalley Bridgman, Esq. royal 8vo. vol. 1 and 2, 15s. boards.

The compiler of this very elaborate work steps forward with a professed design "to promote as well the attainment of legal knowledge as to facilitate the pursuit of legal investigation, by contracting the reading of the law into a narrower co pass and method for ordinary study." This is a design so truly meritorious, and a work which has been so earnestly recommended by the sages of the law, in every age, and so long sought for, that, notwithstanding the vast pile of learning already erected by Mr. Viner, it is hard to say whether the student or the profession shall be most indebted to the compiler for his good intentions; and it becomes a part of our care to examine how far this laudable purpose has been carried into effect.

We should have noticed this publication at a much earlier period, but that we were desirous to see the third volume, which we concluded, from the nature of the compiler's arrangement, must necessarily embrace some very important matter.

We are concerned to find that the publication of the third volume is deferred; for we have lately seen a circular letter from the compiler, in which he laments, in common with other authors, the advanced price of paper and printing, operating almost as a prohibition of all literary productions; and he laments the little encouragement he has met with in the sale of his work, after so laborious an exertion on his part, and a great expenditure of time and money.

It is to contain the important titles of devise and estate, in which all the adjudged cases, both at law and in equity, will be taken. Each distinct title, subdivided as it is, into several sections, forms a complete digest of the cases on every subject which the compiler proposes to embrace; and we may, therefore, venture to pronounce the work as finished and complete, protanto, at the close of each respective title.

The practical heads, such as, abatement, amendment, answer, appearance, affidavit, bill, commission, contempt, costs and decree, seem to be correctly taken; but whether they are practically correct or not, the daily course of the courts, and the enquiries of practisers, will very readily discover.

The cases under the several heads of award, abeyance, american, Loyalist, appeal, average, action, alien, assignment, account, annuity,

banishment,

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