we do not profess to determine) of no common sort. That he was less popular than many other painters, his contemporaries, was the natural consequence of the subjects which he chose. He had little in common with the earth. His domain was in air and hell,—the clouds and the grave. It was he who made real and visible to us the vague and unsubstantial phantoms which haunt, like dim dreams, the oppressed imagination. The Ghost of Hamlet, revisiting "the glimpses of the moon ;" the Witches of Macbeth, chaunting over their ghastly cauldron; Satan, shouting to his Legions; the Contest between Death and Sin, (in which that gaunt and terrible enemy," which shape had none," is given with frightful power and effect,)-these things, and things like these, were the subjects over which he ruled, and amongst which he revelled; and it must be owned, that often as the attempt has been made, they have as yet owned the sway of no other master. We have little doubt but that these creations, together with his criticisms, are the things which will carry Fuseli down to posterity. In his purely historical pictures, we cannot but think that he failed. The volumes that we have before glanced at, "The Life and Writings of Fuseli," are mainly occupied by these criticisms. Setting aside the single defect of style, which is too florid and ambitious, there is a vast deal to admire in the lectures and critical remarks of Fuseli. Less simple and practical in his writings, perhaps even less judicious, than Sir Joshua Reynolds, we cannot but think that he saw farther into the subtler beauties of the ancient masters. It appears, indeed, difficult to believe that Fuseli, whose imagination seemed to associate itself with the goblin and the night-mare, should have hung with rapture over the infinite shades of sentiment and tenderness, which make beautiful the works of the Italian painter. But such was the fact. He had a great sense of grace and expression, as well as of mere grandeur of form. However his pencil may have been occupied in ghastly and terrific subjects, his admiration rested on things of a different order: and, when we examine into his defects and merits, let it not be forgotten that he sedulously laboured to implant in the student's mind a love for the beautiful and graceful, as well as for the sublime, and seldom, if ever, held up for unmitigated praise, those wild and supernatural creations in which he himself was supposed to have excelled. This is disinterested dealing: this is honest and trustworthy criticism. Lest the reader should be tempted, from our account of Fuseli's writings, to think less respectfully of him than he ought, we will lay before him two or three extracts from his lectures. In these he will probably recognize objectionable phrases, but he will also perceive (or if he should not do so, it will be his own fault) that the very straits to which Fuseli, from his being a foreigner, was reduced for words, sometimes impelled him into fine and vivid expressions. If he has not the freedom of one at ease, he has also none of the tameness of security. Michael Angelo was the painter on whom our author's idolatry was lavished, and on him he bestows elaborate praise. The following is one of the very best specimens which can be found of Mr. Fuseli's style of criticism. Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of Michael Angelo's style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as architect he attempted, and above any other man succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand : character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, deformity, were by him indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the patriarch of poverty; the hump of the dwarf is impressed with dignity; his women are moulds of generation; his infants teem with the man; his men are a race of giants. This is the terribil via hinted at by Agostino Caracci, though perhaps as little understood by the Bolognese as by the blindest of his Tuscan adorers, with Vasari at their head. To give the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel, which exhibits the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personified motion in the groups of the Cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the monuments of Saint Lorenzo; the features of meditation in the Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the Last Judgement, with every attitude that varies the human body, traced the master trait of every passion that sways the human heart.". Vol. ii. P. 84-5. With the last sentence of the above extract we cannot altogether agree; so far, at least, as it insists on this great painter's developing the passions of men. His forte was, in our opinion, the grand in form, rather than in feature. Even the sentiment which he exhibited arose from the figure, and not from the countenance. He was, as Fuseli justly said, an epic painter. It was Raffaelle who was the dramatic artist-the painter, not only of heaven, but of humanity. We have always considered that Mr. Fuseli's adoration of Michael Angelo blinded him, in some degree, to the surpassing merits of Raffaelle. But let us hear what our author says of the painter of Urbino. "The inspiration of Michael Angelo was followed by the milder genius of Raphael Sanzio, the father of dramatic painting, the painter of humanity; less elevated, less vigorous, but more insinuating, more pressing on our hearts, the warm master of our sympathies. What effect of human connexion, what feature of the mind from the gentlest emotion to the most fervid burst of passion, has been left unobserved, has not received a characteristic stamp from that examiner of man? Michael Angelo came to Nature, Nature came to Raphael,-he transmitted her features like a lucid glass, unstained, unmodified. We stand with awe before M. Angelo, and tremble at the height to which he elevates us-we embrace Raphael, and follow him wherever he leads us. Energy, with propriety of character and modest grace, poise his line and determine his correctness. Perfect human beauty he has not represented; no face of Raphael's is perfectly beautiful; no figure of his in the abstract, possesses the proportions that could raise it to a standard of imitation: form to him was only a vehicle of character or pathos, and to those he adapted it in a mode and with a truth which leaves all attempts at emendation hopeless. His invention connects the utmost stretch of possibility with the most plausible degree of probability, in a manner that equally surprises our fancy, persuades our judgment, and affects our heart. His composition always hastens to the most necesary point as its centre, and from that disseminates, to that leads back as rays, all secondary ones. Group, form, and contrast are subordinate to the event, and common-place ever excluded. His expression, in strict unison with and decided by charac ter, whether calm, animated, agitated, convulsed, or absorbed by the inspiring passion, unmixed and pure, never contradicts its cause, equally remote from tameness and gri mace the moment of his choice never suffers the action to stagnate or to expire; it is the moment of transition, the crisis big with the past and pregnant with the future. If separately taken, the line of Raphael has been excelled in correctness, elegance, and energy; his colour far surpassed in tone, and truth, and harmony; his masses in roundness, and his chiaroscuro in effect: considered as instruments of pathos, they have never been equalled; and in composition, invention, expression, and the power of telling a story, he has never been approached."—Vol. ii. p. 87-89. We leave these extracts to make their way with the reader. We do not attempt to conceal that the sentences are too laboured, and the style altogether too ambitious: but there is much justice, much discrimination in them, and indeed, in all the lectures of our author. Above all, there was a fine and young enthusiasm about him, which, even if his faults were trebled, we should prefer a thousand times to the cold, sceptical, narrow view, which the petty jeafousy of many of our modern painters induces them to take of their old superiors in art. The time wasted in decrying ancient pictures would be better employed, in our opinion, in amending their own works and elevating the character of modern art. We recommend Fuseli's "Lectures" to the notice of all students and amateurs-of all, in short, who wish to admire what is really beautiful and sterling in painting. Each of these may glean much of what is really useful from the perusal; and that part will not be found the least useful which directs their admiration from low to lofty objects. In this view we also recommend the volumes, conscientiously, to the attention of our Royal Academicians. They will exhibit far more wit, if they take a hint from his wisdom, than if they content themselves with deriding either his picture or opinions. LIVING LITERARY CHARACTERS, NO. V. Edward Lytton Bulwer. (With an engraved Likeness.) THE great first cause why our English literature has obtained so high a character for truth and nature is, that it has always reflected, as in a mirror, the age which was passing over it. The chivalric romances were filled with the spirit of their times. The dramas, with their passionate poetry and rich variety of incident, were transcripts of their own wild and adventurous day. The Revolution next left its mental imprint. Milton embodied the stern energy of resistance which had been in action, while the satire of "Hudibras," and the light and licentious comedies which followed, were no less faithful pictures of the wit and profligate indulgence which then prevailed. The ensuing age was one of political intrigue rather than of excitement. It equally gave its literary tone. People reasoned rather than felt, were moral by maxims, and witty in antithesis. The genius of style was abroad. Observation was just rather than profound, keen rather than deep. Wit was carried to its perfection, and also to its excess; people were witty on every thing. Essays, letters, satires, sermons, were the circulating coin. The novels, excellent in plot, coarse, but vigorous in delineation of character, were comedies put into narrative, their merits and their defects equally of their actual period. This cycle also revolved, and its successor was one of wild imagination and strong passion. The few paint the feeling of the many; and the many adopt such words as if they were their own. The great writers, we can scarcely say of our time, embodied the excitement, the morbid sensibility, the visionary philosophy, the melancholy ever attendant upon imaginative feeling, which were the characteristics of an essentially poetical age; and such was the one just departed. other great change is now passing over our literature, because it is also passing over our time; not less powerful, though perhaps less marked. The former change was more violent; it was wrought by enthusiasm, which, for the time, carries all before it. The present is being worked by opinion, which, if more still, is also more lasting. To-day has nothing in common with Yesterday. People required to be amused in order to be instructed; now, they only permit themselves to be entertained while laying the flattering unction to their souls that it is the vehicle of information. For every why, we ask a wherefore. We will not allow an author to display his talents merely as the knights broke each other's limbs of old, for honour: we expect that he should have a purpose in this display, and that purpose one of tangible benefit. It is this that makes the excellence of the writer before us. With that keen perception of reality, which is the executive power of genius, he has entered into the spirit of his own times. Mr. Bulwer is the first novelist who has placed his best reward, and his great aim, in the utility of his writings. He has seen, that in order to improve, we must first enlighten; and that ridicule, if not the test of truth, is, at least, a good conductor to its lightning. His genius has taken service with reality. In every event he has wrought out, in every character he has created, he has never had the actual An |