No trophies of her Pencil's power remain, "Behold, sublimed to those high spheres of Art, Where Fancy sways, and Passion strikes the heart; Where Taste and Truth according functions fill, And moral dignifies mimetic skill, Rome's graphic sons superior palms demand, "Swift as the comet cleaves th' etherial way, As bright his lustre, and as brief his day, Urbino rising to the raptured eye, Appear'd, and blaz'd, and vanish'd from the sky. And Fancy sports within the bounds of Sense. "Next Buonaroti, rich in rival fame, To crown whose brows, three Arts contending claim; But torpid while the plastic lumber lay, Displays the pangs of guilt to vengeance hurl'd, But lo! from climes less genial, where the Muse, High waves the proud Competition's flag unfurl'd, "As petty chiefs fall prostrate, and obey, While monarchs move their strength in proud array; But, when triumphant crown'd in every part, It is said that all extremes meet, and if we mistake not, there is no writer who evinces the truth of the assertion more clearly than Mr. Shee. He is continually warning the artist against extremes, continually call ing his attention to that happy medium in which excellence consists, and yet he is continually carried away by an enthusiasm, over which he seems to have no controul. The critic will naturally ask, what is to excite this enthusiasm? What is there in the profession of an artist to raise those energies, and awaken that fire without which we can never feel? "Ce feu, cette devine flamme, notre ame," which is the soul of genius, and the genius of enthusiasm. We reply that, so far as we can form an opinion of Mr. Shee's mind from his poetical works, his enthusiasm seems to arise principally from an ardent attachment to truth and nature. Of both, he seems to be a zealous wor- "Poured from your hand, let ancient story flow, Had we something of this sterling stamp from the pen of Lord Byron, with how much greater interest should we peruse it, than the sickly and effeminate witticisms that characterize his Don Juan, and vainly seek to excite our risible faculties. Perhaps we cannot be always sufficiently grave to avoid smiling, but then we smile not at the poignancy of the wit, for the wit of Don Juan compared to Hudibras or Gil Blas, is like grin, or grimace compared to heart rending laughter; but we smile at the low condition to which the noble bard has reduced himself in acting the clown, or at least at but tempting to act it, when he could apply his genius to higher purposes, by addressing the nobler faculties of our nature, and present us with - scenes fitted to call forth those emotions and passions which exalt our nature-which we glory to avow, and which instead of degrading and ranking us with the monkey race, awaken all the dormant principles of greatness and of virtue which turk within us, which in some men are more dormant than in others, but which in the generality of mankind require only the proper impulse to awaken them into flame. We cannot read a page of Mr. Shee's "Elements of Art," without feeling this ennobling impulse: we cannot read a line in Lord Byron, without feeling ourselves degraded. Mr. Shee addresses himself to minds who feel they have worth and virtue, who feel there is something great and noble in human nature, and who will not suffer themselves to be identified with the monkey tribe: Lord Byron addresses himself to the upper gallery-to that noisy, bustling mob, who are as much acquainted with exalted feeling, as a cow is with a holiday. But let him enjoy the low triumph of which alone he seems ambitious: let him believe that unsophisticated nature and unsophisticated taste are to be found among butchers and the rabble alone; we envy him not the highest height, or, perhaps we should rather say, the lowest depths which he can reach in his reptile ambition; we have introduced him merely to shew the strong contrast, or rather the direct opposition that exists between exalted feeling (which necessarily implies not only the love of truth and nature, but the love of virtue), and that wreck of genius and of principle which, descending from the throne on which nature had placed it, feels no higher bition than that of scraping and strutting before the lowest and basest of the base and low. am Perhaps it may be thought that Lord Byron is carried away by an impetuous impulse over which be can exercise no controul, while Mr. Shee is guided by the dictates of reason; but whoever thinks so attributes qualities to human nature of which it is incapable. No man ever was swayed by mental or sentimental passion, or precipitately urged forward by the impulse of refined feeling who was not virtuous to the core, and whoever is governed by mere physical or animal impulses, appears to us to be neither virtuous nor vicious: he approaches too near the brute to be held accountable for his actions. Through the entire of Mr. Shee's poetical works, we cannot discover a line that is capable of creating or exciting an uneasy sensation in the purest and chastest mind: in Lord Byron, whenever he is not palpably obscene or immoral, the seeds of obscenity and immorality, those lurking principles which he dare not avow, but which he cannot extinguish, are every where visible to the discriminating eye of taste and virtuous sensibility. As to poetic enthusiasm, it is idle to suppose that Lord Byron feels it for a moment: such an enthusiasm can reside only in the virtuous breast. If, therefore, he be actuated by any strong or powerful impulse, it is that of a savage, who must yield whether he will or not, to the ungovernable impetuosity of his own nature. The pugilist frequently feels impulses of a similar character, but such impulses are of too gross and animal a character to possess a single particle of enthusiasm. They arise from some immediate influence and last for a moment, while enthusiasm is a fixed and permanent habit of mind, arising from nature, virtue, sensibility, generosity, and greatness of mind. Lord Byron is always jealous of his contemporaries -always seeking to degrade them in order to exalt himself on the rains of their fame: Mr. Shee, on the contrary, forgets himself altogether, and seems only to be inspired when he dwells on the praises, or points out the merits of those who have distinguished themselves in his own art. Lord Byron is jealous of poets alone, because they alone stand in competition with him: all authors may write stark nonsense without fearing the lash of his satire, or the poignancy of his ridicule; but Mr. Shee, so far from feeling this low envy, seems to acquire new vigour whenever the artist, not the art, the painter, not painting, becomes the subject of his muse. Petrarch is said to have been inaccessible to envy; instead of being jealous of his contemporaries, he sought to remove their animosities, and conciliate them in the bonds of mutual amity; but Foseolo attributes this happy disposition of mind to his acknowledged and undisputed superiority to all the writers of his age; and asserts that if he had a rival or superior, he would descend into the ranks of the envious tribe. With this opinion, we certainly cannot agree; and if we had no other proof that Foscolo himself was not a writer of the first order, this assertion alone would be sufficient to convince us of it. He wrote as he felt, but he mistook the feelings of superior minds. Dr. Johnson is accused of being jealous of the reputation of many of the British poets, but surely no opinion can be more erroneous than to suppose, that he who detects the faults and inaccuracies of another must be jealous of his fame. No two virtues can stand opposed to each other, and the exercise of every duty is a virtue: if, then, it be the duty of the critic to discover blemishes as well as beauties, it is a virtue to do so, and the existence of this virtue cannot consequently imply either the absence of any other virtue, or the existence of any vice. Jealousy cannot, therefore, be attributed to him who seeks to improve the public taste by guarding it against the adoption of errors and mistaking them for real beauties, unless his manner of doing so proves its existence. Mr. Shee, however, must be allowed by all men to be free from this low and debasing passion. All men of merit are equally dear to him, whether they be of his own profession or not. It were good for authors, in general, if they adopted the advice which he gives them in the following lines:— "Scorn the low passions which the Muse disgrace, Marks him a foe, and slanders while she fears. The palm of excellence, the prize of fame; But banish envy as a baleful guest, The meanest, basest passion of the breast; "Where envy sways, no virtue long survives, "The sons of Genius, like the Jews, we trace, That prudence fears and flies, and fortune spurns, Their pious zeal, the sects of dulness shew, Should stand united in their own defence, The steady guards of Virtue, Taste, and Sense; One common cause, their heads, their hearts should own, To pride and dulness, worth's strong hold betray, It is a singular feature in Mr. he tells the young artist medio tutissimus ibis, and warns him against |