now is not quite abrogated, is an absurd one, for truth is sacrificed thereby to mere pictorial display, and the union, so to speak, of Christian men and women with heathen gods and goddesses is as contrary to reason as it is, too often, offensive to good taste. The first pictures exhibited at the Academy by its first president were of this class: portraits of the Duchess of Manchester and her son, as "Diana disarming Cupid;" of Lady Blake, as "Juno receiving the Cestus from Venus;" and of Miss Morris, as "Hope nursing Love." Like Reynolds's female portraits, almost without exception, these were distinguished by elegance of design and beauty of colour; but the association of living women with fabulous personages is an error unredeemable, in our opinion, by any excellences of art, if we are to regard such works as portraits only; if as compositions, a different verdict might be pronounced on them. Johnson seems to have met this question but half way when he wrote "I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in renewing tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead."

The picture of "Ugolino" is one of Reynolds's best known ideal works. The date of this work is 1773, and it was purchased at the price of 400 guineas by the Duke of Dorset, whose heirs have it still in their possession. The subject, borrowed from Dante's Divina Commedia, is said to have been suggested to the artist by his friend Goldsmith, who certainly formed a wrong estimate of his powers when he commended to his graceful and brilliant pencil a

subject so utterly opposed to it. The story of Ugolino requires a mind differently constituted from that of Reynolds's to do full justice to the terrible conceptions of the poet. The painter has certainly invested it with a horror so intense as to render the picture truly painful to contemplate; but the principal figure is wanting in that nobility of expression which Dante has given to the unfortunate prisoner, and the whole composition has more the air of melodrama than of real tragedy. Cunningham likens the count to "a famished mendicant, deficient in any commanding qualities of intellect, and regardless of his dying children, who cluster around his knees." To us he seems like one whom utter, hopeless despair has bereft of reason. The redeeming qualities of the work are its colour and execution.

In its class, "The Nativity" is a superior work to it, and yet very far from such as many of the old painters of religious art would have exhibited. In truth, Reynolds's strength lies not in historical works, whether secular or sacred, though he painted a considerable number of such subjects; he had not the vigour of conception, nor the imaginative faculty, nor the depth and dignity of feeling essential to the highest historical painting. The "Nativity," a composition of thirteen figures, was designed for a stained glass window, placed in the chapel of New College, Oxford. The picture itself was purchased by the Duke of Rutland for 1,200 guineas, but was unfortunately destroyed, with eighteen other works by Reynolds, principally family portraits, by a fire which took place at Belvoir Castle, the duke's mansion, in 1816. There is nothing grand in the design of this picture; the best part is borrowed, and the effect

of the light proceeding from the infant Christ is evidently copied from Correggio's "Night." The great fault, however, of the whole composition is the prominence given to the angel, seated on clouds; it absorbs entirely the spectator's attention, besides dividing the composition into two almost distinct parts, always an objectionable practice.

Mrs. Siddons as the "Tragic Muse" was exhibited in 1784. It is a noble portrait, and little else, for the two spirits of evil standing by the throne, one armed with a poniard, the other bearing a cup of poison, occupy mere subordinate places in the composition, though they aid in the expression of the painter's idea. The portrait is a striking likeness of the great actress when, "in the fulness of her beauty and her genius, she awed and astonished her audience, making Old Drury to show a slope of wet faces from the pit to the roof.'" Face and attitude are alike dignified, and in such a measure as almost to raise the picture to the position of the highest historical character-certainly to that of the loftiest histrionic representation. Reynolds was a true courtier, but not in the lowest sense of the word; he complimented Mrs. Siddons. by writing his name on the border of the robe. The lady conceiving it to be only some ornamental work, examined it closely, and smiled when she found what had been done. The artist, bowing, remarked, "I could not lose this opportunity of sending my name. to posterity on the hem of your garment." This picture, originally painted for Mr. W. Smith, of Norwich, is now in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster.

The "Holy Family" is in the National Gallery: regarding it as