their works. Without trying to take from the grand impression produced
by the reading of the Sacred Writings, it may be said that from its
nature many things must be confined to narrative, to description, to
precept--and these are no doubt so strong as to supply to a pious mind
everything that can be desired; but if these are to be represented, as
certainly they have been, by those of an art who have not seen Syria, it
is clear some other country, Italy, Spain, or Flanders, will be drawn
upon to supply this, and the reader of Scripture and the admirer of art
will be alike deluded by the representation of a strange country in the
place of that so selected and so identified as the Land of Promise--so
well known and so graphically described from the first to the last of
the inspired writers."

These remarks are certainly applicable, but only in a degree. What
is quoted from Reynolds, in a former part, shows that a licence is
indispensable; and yet, without destroying the apparent truth of the
subject, many things are now established that, without their being
facts, have taken such hold of our ideas that they cannot with safety be
departed from. I may instance the countenances of our Saviour and the
Virgin, as given by Raffaelle and Coreggio--we recognise them as if they
had been painted from the persons themselves; I may also add the heads
of the Apostles. With regard to the scenery, many circumstances may
certainly be taken advantage of, always guarding against a topographical
appearance that, by its locality, may prevent the work leading the
spectator back into distant periods of time. Before quitting this part
of the subject, which refers to Rembrandt's powers of composition, I may
notice one or two of his designs, which stamp him as a great genius in
this department of the art--viz., his "Christ Healing the Sick," "Haman
and Mordecai," the "Ecce Homo," "Christ Preaching," and the "Death of
the Virgin."

CHIARO-SCURO.

From the position we are now placed in, surrounded by the accumulated
talent of many centuries, it is easy to take a retrospective view of
the progress of art; and it is only by so doing that we can arrive at
a just estimate of the great artists who advanced it beyond the age
in which they lived, and this seems mainly to have been achieved by
a close observance of nature. As in philosophy the genius of Bacon,
by investigating the phenomena of visible objects, put to flight
and dissipated the