"Her mast hath ta'en an angle with the sky, From which it shifts not."

Let her planks desert her ribs; her masts give way; her sails fly to tatters; her stays be broken-while the billows,

"Curling their ruffian heads," charge full speed upon her, and break over her at intervals; and she becomes at once the very pink of the Picturesque -the delight of painters--the horror of underwriters.

In dress, the most beautiful and elaborate uniform is not picturesque. Why is it not so? Precisely because it is a uniform; because one part presupposes another. We know it by a section. Tassel dangles after tassel; lapelle balances lapelle; shoulder-knot copies shoulder-knot;

"Skirt nods at skirt; each button has a brother;

And half the collar but reflects the other." Now, "handy-dandy," change-clothes -and "your tattered prodigal, just come from swine-keeping, and eating draff and husks"—is the very darling of the Picturesque; and he is so, because his wretchedness is not of a piece, like the other's finery. There is no method in't. The entire stocking on this leg does not ensure us against a torn one on the other, any more than the rent in this elbow necessarily presupposes a hole in that. He has no keeping about him, excepting a sort of medium tint of squalidity. There is no fellowship in his patches. They are various in form and in hue, as "Autumn leaves

In Vallombrosa." His rags obey the winds, and them only. His unkempt hair, untouched by powder or curling-iron, is "of what colour it pleases God." It would puzzle a sanhedrim of tailors to make a fac-simile of him. He is beyond their hand-and so they deliver him over to Mr Somebody, the artist, as materials for the Picturesque.

It would be useless to add to these examples. If difficulty of conception be the source of that pleasure which we take in contemplating picturesque objects, the reason of our preferring to see such objects delineated in a picture is obvious enough. It is, however, twofold in its nature. First, we are glad to see the difficulty of conceiving accurately of irregular objects

overcome so far, as to enable their being delineated correctly on paper or canvass. And, secondly, in viewing the picture, we have a fainter repetition of the pleasure we derive from seeing the objects themselves. In addition to these reasons for preferring the Picturesque in painting, it is to be observed, that the regularly Beautiful loses much more of its effect when diminished. The actual mass seems to be necessary, to produce the surprise which we feel in understanding, and arranging at once in the mind, the proportions of a mighty but regular object. St Paul's Cathedral is nothing in a picture; and yet it is as picturesque as most modern structures. In such drawings, we know there is no difficulty of execution. We cannot forget the rule and compasses; and the draughtsman becomes a mere mechanist in our eyes. In colouring, the same rules hold good. We may further observe of colours, that the most glaring are perhaps the least picturesque, from their being of unfrequent occurrence, in masses, in natural scenes. All the colours of a harlequin's jacket, however, would not be picturesque if regularly disposed. To be so, they must be thrown together, and intermingle, as Nature and the Seasons mingle them. Why are autumnal tints the greatest favourites? Because they are the most varied and capricious. The most complex figures, if we know them to be regular, are not picturesque. Nobody would apply the term to the flourishes on a bank-note, though their difficulty defy forgery. But they are only difficult to us. We see that, in fact, they are regular, and that we need only the key from the mechanic who cut them, to decipher them as easily as an intercepted dispatch.

If we apply the principles here contended for to existing styles of architecture, they would seem to elucidate the reason of our preferring in a picture the Gothic to the Grecian. They explain, indeed, why, in fact, we dwell the longest upon a Gothic edifice, and especially upon its interior. The Gothic is an attempt to include the Picturesque in the Beautiful; and, to a certain extent, it is a successful one. If we examine the exterior and general plan of a cathedral, for instance, we shall find it to be beautifully regular. The details, however, are art

This, to those who have seen her, passes for a palliation of the offence: To those who have not, merely as the best that can be said under the unfortunate circumstances. The culprit himself, however, generally persists in his unhappy error; and, as the devil will have it, dies, at a good old age, a stubborn heretic. His derider, haply, marries a beauty, and tires of her in twelve months. What is the rationale of this? The admiration of regularity was lessened, not heightened, by Time. It was comprehended at once, and the mind had no further employment. The spells of the agreeable face, which was not handsome, Time touched not. Under the features, "not according to rule," were included minor traitsoutward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces, which, varying as they must with the occasion-now called forth by one event, now by an

other-presented an inexhaustible field for admiring observation. This is the charm of the " Agreeable, as opposed to the Beautiful." In the one, the mind is at once gratified by the most exquisite regularity; in the other, perpetually excited, by ever-varying traits, real or apparent, (are they ever not real?) of qualities in themselves admirable. The Agreeable in physiognomy, is to the Beautiful, what the Picturesque in painting is to the Beautiful. They please upon the same principles. Rejoice, then, ye who, like me, have sometimes

"Found Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt."

Make no more stumbling, unworthy, touchstone-like excuses

"An ill-favour'd thing, sir; but mine

own."

IT were to be wished, that writers of travels would imitate the author of the present volume, in confining their professions and researches to some one limited end; nor set up, as they do in general, for exclusive guides and instructors to all the various branches of art and learning, which tempt, and indeed are thrust upon one, in visiting the classic countries of the south. Female authors may introduce us to society, and may put together most delightful volumes on manners, etiquette, &c.; but the terms of architecture and antiquities spoil their pretty mouths, and they quote Greek and Latin with

*

T. D.

a very ill grace. Even upon the fine arts their opinions are venturous; and although as deep read, perhaps, in Winkelman as De Staël, it is ten to one if they make not as many, if not more blunders than Corinne. Gentlemen, too, should stick to their lasts, as, the more talent they possess, the greater fools they appear out of their places. The learned and acute Forsyth hazards remarks on modern literature that would disgrace a magazine of the year fifty; Mathews discusses the fine arts with the depth of a dandy, calls the Moses of the Strada Pix spirited, and finds we know not what dull fault

in the Venus; Lady Morgan-But we have not room or time for correcting two quartos of blunders. Suffice it, that we strongly recommend the principle of division of labour to all vagrant pen-men and women.

Mr Blunt, as a clerical and a classical man, has judiciously turned his attention to the similarity of manners and customs in ancient and in modern Italy; and it need not be added, that, in a country so eminently superstitious, manners and customs are either comprehended in, or closely connected with, the religious ceremonies of the people. How far the rites of the Roman Catholic Church owed their birth to those of Paganism, Dr Middleton had long since shewn; and the present volume is for the most part an appendix to the Doctor's "Letter," save that it is written in a more liberal spirit, and, as is proper, savouring more of the dilettante than the pole mic. The excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the numerous pictures and graphic representations there discovered, have opened a new mine to moral antiquaries, which Dr Middleton did not possess ; and Mr Blunt, much as he has drawn, is to be blamed for not having extracted more matter from this interesting and increasing store.

The first subject of Mr Blunt's disquisitions is the saints, in whom he finds 66 a wonderful resemblance to the gods of old Rome." He instances the enormous number of both, and the inconvenience and idleness arising from their festivals; for which cause Augustus pushed thirty of the gods from their stools, though indeed the abolition of so small a number of saints would be but of little relief to the Roman calendar. The reputed lives of the saints too much resemble those of the ancient deities; the fabulous adventures, and earthly passions, attributed to the Saviour of mankind, the Virgin, and other scriptural characters, of which Mr Blunt adduces some examples, and the passionate language put into the mouths of them and their votaries, might well pass for a fable of Ovid, or of any Heathen bard, in honour of his Heathen gods. The following inscription is from the altar of the church of Santa Rosa at Viterbo:

Quis tamen laudes recolat, quis hujus
Virginis dotes, sibi quam pudicis
Nuptiis junctam voluit superni
Numen Olympi?

"When I witnessed all this," says the author, "I could not prevent my mind from wandering to the interviews between Diana and Endymion, between Bacchus and Ariadne, between Venus and Adonis, between Jupiter and Apollo; in short, half the Heathen gods, and as many favoured mortals, whose names afterwards became emblazoned on the scrolls of mytho logy. It is remarkable, too, that the sex of the parties is as carefully adjusted in the former as in the latter instances." The comparison is carried farther, in the places and things over. which the gods and the saints have been made to preside-hills, fountains, &c.; in most cases, the former seem to have bequeathed peaceably their powers of sanctity to the latter. St Quirico now occupies Mount Eryx; "and the old god, thus pushed from his stool by modern usurpation, may reasonably complain, in the words of the poet,

Ubi nunc nobis Deus ille magister
Nequicquam memoratus Eryx."

It may be here regretted, that Mr Blunt did not bestow more of his time and attention on truly Roman ground, the ancient Latium and Etruria, instead of taking his examples from a country like Sicily, overrun, throughout all ages, by African, Saracen, and Norman, and which consequently must have had the stream of ancient habitude more corrupted than the countries of the peninsula. Still, however, the modern Italian character, or rather the Italian character of the middle ages, in all its boldness, superstition, and ferocity, seems to have retreated to Sicily, and there alone to exist, apathy and servility being the only characteristics now allowed to the unfortunate Italians.

After tracing the Lares, through all their several divisions, in the images at present set up or carried aboutthe Lares Viales, in the Madonnas, on cross-roads and street-corners-the tutelary images and charms, in the similar, though more decent ones now worn-the Dii Cubiculares, in the never-failing squadron of images at bedsteads, the author proceeds to assign the cause of the monstrous usurpation of reverence and worship by the Madonna.

"Whence does all this proceed? Perhaps it is only to be accounted for by the

nature of the religion of ancient Rome. It may be remarked, that Gentilism comprehended a vast variety of female deities, some of which were not less powerful, nor placed in a lower rank in the scale of divinity, than the greatest of the gods of the other sex. On the contrary, the superiority of females was established in Egypt as a civil and religious institution; and the same order is observed in Plutarch's treatise of Isis and Osiris. A precedence thus given to the female deities in Egypt, would probably have its operation in Italy also a proposition of which no person will entertain much doubt, who has observed the proportion which the gods of the Nile bear, in every museum of Italian antiquities, to those of Greece and Rome. Indeed, when Isis and Serapis were united in one temple in the capital of Italy, priority of place was assumed by the queen. It is natural, therefore, to suppose, that mankind, long retaining a propensity to relapse into idolatry, would endeavour to find some substitute for an important class of beings, which had for so many years exercised undisputed empire over the minds and passions of men, who, from climate and temperament, were perhaps peculiarly disposed to render the fair portion of the inhabitants of Heaven a chivalrous obedience. The religion of Christianity, however, as it was taught by our Saviour and his immediate followers, afforded no stock on which this part of Heathen mythology could be grafted. None of the three Persons of the Trinity could, without much effort, be moulded into the form of a goddess; and the circumstance, that some ancient heretics actually did maintain the Holy Ghost to be a female, only serves to shew the reluctance with which mankind bade adieu to that sex as objects of worship."

It was but natural to expect, that the Virgin would be fixed upon to succeed all those favoured female deities in receiving worship and bestowing favour; and as early as the fourth century, mention is made of a sect named Colyridians, "who offered cakes to the Virgin Mary as a goddess, and the Queen of Heaven." Her being called EOTOKOS and Mater Dei-the propriety of which was, after a long controversy, allowed in a great public council-must also have contributed to blend the mother of our Saviour with the heathen deities; especially with Cybele, to whom these epithets had been generally applied. And that the Madonna has succeeded Cybele, and become identified with her in traditional rites and modes of reverence, a great many curious proofs are adduced in this volume. The first is, the coin

cidence of the monks begging for the Madonna, as it was an ancient practice to beg for the Mother of the Gods. Aristoxenus is applauded for an answer which he once made to one of these-applications. "I feed not the Mother of the Gods, whom the Gods themselves support.” And it is a striking circumstance, that a law is mentioned in Cicero, allowing persons in the service of Cybele, the exclusive privilege of collecting alms. The next coincidence mentioned, is, the use of the Galli in the worship of Cybele, and the use of a similar class of people in the Church of Italy.

"There is yet another coincidence equally singular. Our Lady-Day, or the Day of the Blessed Virgin of the Roman Catholics, was heretofore dedicated to Cybele. It was called Hilaria,' says Macrobius, on account of the joy occasioned by the arrival of the Equinox, when the light was about to exceed the darkness in duration; and from the same author, as well as from Lampridius, it appears that it was a festival of the Mater Deum. Moreover, in a Greek commentary upon Dionysius, cited by Dempster in his Roman Antiquities, it is asserted that the Hilaria was a festival in honour of the Mother of the Gods, which was proper to the Romans."

The pipers that play before the images of the Virgin in Italy, might also have been mentioned as a parallel observance with that used towards the Mother of the Gods.

"Ante Deûm matrem cornu Tibicen ad

unco

Cum canit, exiguæ quis stipis aera neget ?" And the author of Roma Moderna, quoted by Middleton, boasts of the ingenuity of the faithful, in dedicating to the Virgin Mary the Temple of the Bona Dea. Without attributing any very heinous intentions of idolatry or backsliding towards Paganism, to those old Christian priests, who lived in those ages when Paganism was blending with Christianity, we may accuse the dull rogues with having been too much given to punning and barbarous jokes. For to so innocent a species of pedantry, is no doubt to be attributed this mighty seeming adoption of Pagan rites and names, for which our divines pour upon them the heavy phial of their wrath. Thus, a church built on the site of Apollo's Temple, is dedicated to St Apollinaris ; on an ancient Temple of Mars stands