an expression of religious Art, nothing could scarcely be more un

satisfactory, while it shows that the colouring of the old Venetian

painters was better understood and carried out by Reynolds than the feeling and graces of Raffaelle, Da Vinci, or even Correggio. The best figure in the group is that of the young St. John, which

is borrowed from the Cupid in Correggio's picture of "Mercury Teaching Cupid," also in the National Gallery. Charles Lamb has left on record some severe remarks on this "Holy Family." He says:" Here, for a Madonna, Sir Joshua has substituted a sleepy, insensible, motherless girl; one so little worthy to have been selected as the mother of the Saviour, that she seems to have neither heart nor feeling to become a mother at all. But, indeed, the race of Virgin Mary painters seem to have been cut up root and branch at the Reformation. Our artists are too good Protestants to give life to the admirable commixture of maternal tenderness with reverential awe and wonder, approaching to worship, with which the Virgin mothers of L. da Vinci and Raffaelle (themselves, by their divine countenances, inviting men to worship) contemplate the union of the two natures in the person of their heaven-born infant." The colouring of this picture is, as we have intimated, good-or rather it was, for it has in several parts become impaired; the execution, however, is not so careful as we generally find Reynolds's to be.

The influence which the works of Reynolds have exercised upon our school of painting, but more especially on portraiture, is universally recognised. With a more comprehensive view of his art than was shown by his master, Hudson, and his earlier contemporary, Ramsay,-with more originality of taste, and with far freer execution,-he showed how portraiture might be generalised, so as to identify the individual with the dignity of his intellect, while his fancy almost elevated it, as we have endeavoured to show in the portrait of Mrs. Siddons, above the rank usually

assigned to it. In costume, he selected and adopted what was most conformable to the character of his subject, without implicitly following or offending the prejudices then prevalent. His female portraits especially are designed with an exquisite feeling of taste and elegance, while there are few among his most celebrated predecessors who have displayed so great a variety in their compositions. In endeavouring to make his "sitters" conform to his notions of what was right, he frequently found much difficulty, and at length gave it as his opinion-one which, even at this day when good art is better understood than it was nearly a century ago, is still incontrovertible-"that a relish for the higher excellences of painting is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation, and great labour and attention." He laboured hard to reduce the science of his art, then but little understood, to something like certainty, both in his pictures and by his writings, proving, as John Burnet, one of his greatest admirers and most able critics, remarks, "That every picture must be conducted upon a winning and losing scheme, and that the portions of most consequence preserve their superiority only by sacrificing every other part to their advantage."

The rich and pure colouring of Sir Joshua's works has always been the subject of admiration with those who knew them in their primitive state: neither must the praise then bestowed be withheld at this distance of time, though, unhappily, too many of his pictures now come under the denomination of “faded beauties." Reynolds was a great experimentalist, and, in the pursuit of excellence, was not content with the ordinary routine of practice, but sought out