without other accompaniments of war than what the havoc of the distance showed, Theon deemed sufficient to answer the impression he intended to make on those whom he had selected to inspect it. He kept it covered, till a trumpet, after a prelude of martial symphonies, at once by his command blew with an invigorated fierceness a signal attack-the curtain dropped-the terrific figure appeared to start from the canvass, and irresistibly assailed the asto nished eyes of the assembly."

Not the least valuable parts of Fuseli's lectures are those in which he, for the illustration of his own opinions, describes and compares particular works of the great masters. The Lecture on Expression (published in 1820) is especially rich in passages of this kind, nor perhaps has Vasari himself surpassed, even in his famous description of Giorgione's St. Mark, the effect produced by the style of Fuseli in treating of the Samson of Rembrandt, as contrasted with that of Julio Romano. The reader will not quarrel with the length of the following quotation.

"The gradations of expression within, close to, and beyond its limits, cannot perhaps be elucidated with greater perspicuity than by comparison; and the different moments which Julio Romano, Vandyke, and Rembrandt have selected to represent the subject of Samson betrayed by Delilah, offers one of the fairest specimens furnished by art. Considering it as a drama, we may say that Julio forms the plot, Vandyke unravels it, and Rembrandt shows the extreme of the catastrophe.

"In the composition of Julio, Samson, plunged into sleep, and stretched on the ground, rests his head and presses with his arm the thigh of Delilah on one side, while on the other a nimble minion, busily but with timorous caution, fingers and clips his locks: such is his fear, that, to be firm, he rests one knee on a footstool tremblingly watching the sleeper, and ready to escape at his least motion.

Delilah, seated between both, fixed by the weight of Samson, warily turns her head towards a troop of warriors in the back ground; with the left arm stretched out she beckons their leader, with the finger of the right hand she presses her lip to enjoin silence and noiseless approach. The Herculean make and lion port of Samson, his perturbed though ponderous sleep, the quivering agility of the curled favourite employed, the harlot graces and meretricious elegance, contrasted by equal firmness and sense of danger, in Delilah, the attitude and look of the grim veteran who heads the ambush, while they give us the clew to all that followed, keep us in anxious suspense-we palpitate in breathless expectation: this is the plot.

"The terrors which Julio made us forbode, Vandyke summons to our eyes. The mysterious lock is cut; the dreaded victim is roused from the lap of the harlot-priestess. Starting unconscious of his departed power, he attempts to spring forward, and with one effort of his mighty breast and expanded arms to dash his foes to the ground and fling the alarmed traitress from him-in vain; shorn of his strength, he is borne down by the weight of the mailed chief that throws himself upon him, and overpowered by a throng of infuriate satellites. But though overpowered, less aghast than indignant, his eye flashes reproach on the perfidious female whose wheedling caresses drew the fatal secret from his breast; the plot is unfolded, and what succeeds, too horrible for the sense, is left to fancy to brood upon, or drop it.

"This moment of horror the gigantic but barbarous genius of Rembrandt chose, and, without a metaphor, executed a subject, which humanity, judg ment, and taste taught his rivals only to treat; he displays a scene which no eye but that of Domitian or Nero could wish or bear to see. Samson, stretched on the ground, is held by one Philistine

under him, while another chains his right arm, and a third, clenching his beard with one, drives a dagger into his eye with the other hand. The pain that blasts him, darts expression-from the contortions of the mouth and his gnashing teeth, to the crampy convulsions of the leg dashed high into the air. Some fiend-like features glare through the gloomy light which discovers Delilah, her work now done, sliding off, the shears in her left, the locks of Samson in her right hand. If her figure, elegant, attractive, such as Rembrandt never conceived before or after, deserve our wonder rather than our praise, no words can do justice to the expression that animates her face, and shows her less shrinking from the horrid scene, than exulting in being its cause. Such is the work, whose magic of colour, tone, and chiaro-scuro irresistibly entrap the eye, while we detest the brutal choice of the moment.

"Let us, in conclusion, contrast the stern pathos of this scenery with the placid emotions of a milder subject, in the celebrated pictures which represent the Communion or Death of St. Jerome, by Agostino Caracci, and his scholar, Domenichino, that an altar-piece in the Certosa, near Bologna, this in the church of St. Girolamo della Carità at Rome; but for some time both exhibited in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris. What I have to say on the invention, expression, characters, tone, and colour of either, is the result of observations lately made on both in that gallery, where then they were placed nearly opposite to each other.

"In each picture, St. Jerome, brought from his cell to receive the sacrament, is represented on his knees, supported by devout attendants; in each the officiating priest is in the act of administering to the dying saint; the same clerical society fills the portico of the temple in both; in both the scene is witnessed from above by infant angels.

"The general opinion is in favour of the pupil;

but if in the economy of the whole Domenichino surpasses his master, he appears to me greatly inferior both in the character and expression of the hero. Domenichino has represented Piety scarcely struggling with Decay, Agostino triumphant over it: his saint becomes in the place where he is a superior being, and is inspired by the approaching god: that of Domenichino seems divided between resignation, mental and bodily imbecility, and desire. The saint of Agostino is a lion, that of Domenichino a lamb.

The

"In the sacerdotal figure administering the viaticum, Domenichino has less improved than corrected the unworthy choice of his master. priest of Agostino is one of the Frati Godenti of Dante, before they received the infernal hood; a gross, fat, self-conceited, terrestrial feature, a countenance equally proof to elevation, pity, or thought. The priest of Domenichino is a minister of grace, stamped with the sacred humility that characterized his master, and penetrated by the function of which he is the instrument.

"We are more impressed with the graces of youth than the energies of manhood verging on age: in this respect, as well as that of contrast with the decrepitude of St. Jerome, the placid contemplative beauty of the young deacon on the foreground of Domenichino will probably please more than the poetic trance of the assistant friar with the lighted taper in the foreground of Agostino. This must, however, be observed, that as Domenichino thought proper to introduce supernatural witnesses of the ceremony in imitation of his master, their effect seems less ornamental and more interwoven with the plan, by being perceived by the actors themselves.

"If the attendant characters in the picture of Agostino are more numerous, and have on the whole furnished the hints of admission to those of

Domenichino, this, with one exception, may be said to have used more propriety and judgment in the choice. Both have introduced a man with a turban, and opened a portico to characterize an Asiatic

scene.

"With regard to composition, Domenichino undoubtedly gains the palm. The disposition on the whole he owes to his master, though he reversed it; but he has cleared it of that oppressive bustle, which rather involves and crowds the principal actors, in Agostino, than attends them. He spreads tranquillity with space, and repose without vacuity.

"With this corresponds the tone of the whole. The evening freshness of an oriental day tinges every part; the medium of Agostino partakes too much of the fumigated inside of a Catholic chapel.

"The draperies of both are characteristic and unite subordination with dignity, but their colour is chosen with more judgment by Domenichino, the imbrowned gold and ample folds of the robe of the administering priest are more genial than the cold blue, white, and yellow on the priest of his master; in both, perhaps, the white draperies on the foreground figures have too little strength for the central colours, but it is more perceived in Caracci than in Domenichino.

"The forms of the saint in Caracci are grander and more ideal than in the saint of Domenichinosome have even thought them too vigorous: both, in my opinion, are in harmony with the emotion of the face and expression of either. The eagerness that animates the countenance of the one may be supposed to spread a momentary vigour over his frame. The mental dereliction of countenance in the other with equal propriety relaxes, and palsies, the limbs which depend on it.

"The colour of Caracci's saint is much more chasacteristic of fleshy though nearly bloodless substance, than that chosen by his rival, which is