again will the individual moulds of Velazquez and Murillo be reconstructed; and unimportant was their influence on native art, which, having ripened in them, hastened now to decay, the inevitable condition of all mortal things. Velazquez left no imitator; none even presumed to don his mantle; ruling during a career glorious as a southern sun, at his setting darkness came on at once-and brief was the twilight which lingered after Murillo's disappearance. Francisco Meneses Osorio, who painted in Seville from 1660 to 1675; Alonso Miguel de Tobar (La Higuera, 1678-1758), in their holy families, and Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio (Seville, 1635-1700), in street-life groups, caught his last ray, and to them may be safely attributed the majority of inferior pictures which pass current, in and out of the Peninsula, as by Murillo:-' undoubted and warranted originals.' Caveat emptor.

Another cause contributed to the annihilation of good art in Spain. With her monarchy and nationality this, the exponent of both, sunk under the fatal Bourbon succession-strangled by its artificial conventionalism; then the full-bottomed wigs and Roman togas of the Rigauds put the hidalgos of Velazquez out of countenance, as the petit-maître exquisites of Watteau did the beggars of Murillo. Nature in a homely garb was not admitted in fashionable society, and truth was overlaid by French tricks and lies; then arose the era of Royal Academies, which have uniformly proved (in Spain) to be schools for servile mediocrity, hotbeds of cabal, and vehicles for idle parade;' the members, reposing on their honours in the stagnation of monopoly, neglected their duty, the care of spreading knowledge and countenancing unfriended talent, to heap jobs and favours on their 'guild,' and show contempt to all excluded. No Velazquez ever drew, no Cervantes ever wrote in their pompous saloons; no gifted sons of nature were reared by these dry-nurses to vindicate the great mother when her work was really to be done. Charles III., encouraged by having disinterred ancient art at Pompeii, endeavoured, on coming to Madrid in 1761, to raise Spanish art from the dead. He chose as his resurrectionist the painter philosopher, the great Mengs,' as Cean (whose dates and facts are sounder than his canons or critiques) seriously terms this mediocre eclectic, this secondary formation after the granite; the system of Mengs could only teach Spaniards to recollect and translate, to look at nature through the eyes of other men, to the destruction of all individuality and originality; consequently the scholars have failed, and, like their master, whose reputation was prodigious while alive, are now among the things that were. Yet the evil of Mengs's preaching

VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CLXV.

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and practice survived in Spain to pioneer the way for David,* fit painter of the Empire, who with blood-stained hand and brush swayed the fine arts of cowed Europe; his theatrical scenes, attitudinarian heroes, combined with a certain eclectic classicism, bewildered the Spaniards, who even in the presence of Velazquez bowed to this calf idol, in spite of his want of real colour, air, nature, and life; and his disciples out-Heroded their master, as is common in heresies. One of the worst of these byewords not beacons, is Citizen David's pupil Jose Madrazo, the present director of the Madrid Academy; his influence presides in their reception pictures and annual exhibitions; then and there indeed 'signals of art in distress are hoisted,' and acres of gilt gingerbread and tinsel teaboards displayed, with the self-satisfaction of undertakers putting up hatchments; the divinity that doth or did hedge royalty is so degraded in their hands, that Winterhalter's patent-leather and prunella-pump painting becomes high art' by comparison; justly indeed are Murillo and Velazquez cast aside as invalided, for if the presiding worthies be right, these ancients must be daubers and blockheads: in a word, modern Spanish art, the child of corruption, has carried from its birth the germ of weakness; it forms a large item of objects, which a judicious traveller in the Peninsula will do well not to observe.

We greatly apprehend that the rich treasures of former art are daily disappearing and diminishing from the continued operations of substraction and restoration. The formation of picture galleries commenced in Spain under the best auspices. Charles V. and Philip II. were the richest and mightiest of monarchs during the age of Raphael and Titian; Philip IV. influenced the Low Coun-tries and Naples when Rubens and Ribera arose; and liberal patrons themselves, their courtiers were never wanting to offer pictures in the hopes of getting places. Philip IV. set the example to our Charles I., with whom began the extraction of paintings from the Peninsula, although, singularly enough, he purchased none of native production. Murillos were largely carried away when Philip V. and his foreign court resided at Seville, and vain ever since have been all legal prohibitions; the preventive authorities themselves being always ready, when skilfully treated, to manage the exportation; for gold-dust judiciously sprinkled produces instant ophthalmia with all Spanish officials. During the French invasion, church, convent, and palace were thinned without scruple; Murat pounced upon all Godoy's accumulations;

* Sir Edmund Head gives an able account of David (p. 328). In his volume, from some bibliopolic reasons, the Spaniards are linked with the French: we protest against these infandas nuptias,-as bad almost as the Montpensier match.

Soult

Soult collected Murillo and Zurbaran at Seville with a prudence and vigour, emulated by Sebastiani at Granada; the peace brought in purchasers who gleaned far and wide-and the coupde-grace was given by Baron Taylor, agent of Louis-Philippe, who, coming with ready money at a moment of public and private distress, swept the market.

In Spain, where stable-doors are usually shut after steeds are stolen, measures for the preservation of objects of national art were not really adopted before 1844, some years after the suppression of convents. It is plain by returns made to the central commission from the principal towns of Spain, that malversation and plunder had taken time by the forelock; the best things had been made away with by the clergy, who, anticipating the coming sequestration, negotiated with knowing laymen-whether native or foreigner, Jew or Christian, did not signify. Then ensued the wanton destruction of popular ignorance and violence, and a few hours sealed the fate of works of ages of piety, learning, and good taste. Finally, when it was proposed to form local museums, 'no funds,' was the universal answer, and the wrecks of so much greatness were left to perish or be pilfered in detail. Here and there, by the praiseworthy exertions of individuals, a few brands rescued from the burning have been huddled together in some deserted and desecrated convent; from the plums having been previously picked out, rubbish necessarily predominates-which bad lights and the unfitness otherwise of the new quarters for artistic exhibition do not improve; moreover the hanging committees have so jumbled the sacred and profane, dislocated groups of statuary, confounded subjects and schools, that chaos is come again, and the original intention and effect gone. Everywhere, too, the paintings have been much tampered with, as unfortunately has happened to far finer things; an ungovernable rage for cleaning and repairing has passed, like the republican epidemic, from France to Spain, where, to apply to pictures what Charles Fox said of politics, Restoration is the worst of revolutions.' There is scarcely an uninjured Murillo at Madrid. On him the fatal experiment was first tried; ever since the havoc of effacing and repainting has so progressed, that there soon will not remain one untouched picture in a gallery once the finest and purest in the world, and over which Spanish neglect had hitherto thrown a protecting mantle; and the example of the capital is imitated in the provinces by bunglers, who cry war to the knife, and flay and scalp with true Iberian ferocity.

England, the refuge of the destitute, has proved a sanctuary to many an unsullied gem of Peninsular art, which she was among the first in Europe to do justice to, from sympathising with its

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faithful

faithful representations of nature, and beholding in it the anticipation of her own style and school. Mr. Stirling places on record the great number and importance of Spanish pictures now in this kingdom-and great pains this must have cost him, for they are almost all scattered in private hands and countryhouses; but such is the genius of our land, where the laissez faire principle leaves every thing to take care of itself. It might have been far otherwise. England, for a small outlay of gold, might honestly have possessed the cream of French spoliation in the Peninsula, gathered as it were on purpose for her, like the battle-won spolia opima of Egyptian antiquities. Thus in 1814, at the Restoration (an awkward word), the wary Sebastiani immediately proposed to sell to our Prince Regent, for the sum of 10,000 guineas, his choice gallery of seventy-three paintings, collected' in Spain; but his Royal Highness had spent his loose cash in feasting the allied sovereigns, and his ministers shook their Burleigh heads in the negative. Again, Soult, some commercial speculations having failed, opened a negotiation with the dealer Buchanan, for the sale, at a moderate price, of his entire stock-and matchless pictures they were, for he had had the first pick of unplundered Andalusia; but this wholesale scheme, although brought before the powers that were, went likewise off, and the Grand Marshal of France,' in consequence, has since been compelled to deal in the retail line. The portrait of Andrade, a chef-d'œuvre of Murillo, was tendered to the trustees of our National Gallery, by Sir John Brackenbury, at whatever price they would name.' They made no sign, so Louis-Philippe snapped up this real ornament of the Louvre for 10007.; he indeed reaped much from our sins of omission ;-to crown all, the fine Spanish pictures and Murillo drawings bequeathed to him by Mr. Standish, in pique that his offer of them to our Government was rejected, from some hint that he expected a baronetcy once in his ancient family to be restored in return; a single one of his sketches by Murillo being worth a wilderness of such titles, at a moment when Whig peers were being made by the score. One more Hispano-artistico anecdote: about ten years ago it was suggested to our envoy by the Spanish ministers, that four of the grandest pictures in the Madrid gallery might be had for a consideration; for once, the notion was favourably received by our Cabinet, provided Parliament would vote the money; at this idea of publicity, Castilian point of honour took umbrage, and a flaming contradiction of the whole negotiation appeared by authority' in the official papers-accompanied however by a hint to our envoy, that the transaction was still open, if the cash were sent, and the thing kept private.' The

originals

originals would then have been removed and copies substituted for them; but we readily admit that it would never have done for an English Government to have any underhand dealings of this kind, however familiar to the keepers of Spanish galleries.

Meanwhile, our young students must be contented with the few specimens in the National Collection and at Dulwich. They may thus acquire some acquaintance with some two or three Spanish masters-it would be idle to say more. For all the rest, we can point out no resource but engravings-and even these are few— at least we may safely say so as to all but Murillo, who himself has received very inadequate attention from the burin. There are no fine prints of Spain's noblest works; to the non-existence of these heralds of painting, which multiply masterpieces, and waft far and wide the lines of grace, much of the ignorance of Europe on Peninsular painters must be attributed; while Raphael and Hogarth are universal, Roelas and Zurbaran are unknown. The graver was too difficult for Spaniards, who bungle whenever nicety of workmanship is requisite. Flemings and foreigners were usually employed: Mr. Stirling is among the first to develop this subject, which has all but escaped the Bartsches of Germany and the Ottleys of England. The native copper-scratchers, for they scarcely can be called engravers, were hired by the Church to supply the people with coarse prints of Madonnas and miracleworking monks; and these hung up in bed-rooms, although caricatures of art, answered admirably as Dii Cubiculares in alluring Morpheus and expelling nightmare ;-but for all higher purposes Spanish engravers ever have been unfit, and at this day the publishers of the Madrid Museum are compelled to import lithographers from Paris, who, after all, are about as competent to reproduce Velazquez as to translate Shakespeare or pass Niagara through a jelly-bag.

ART. II.-1. Elements of Chemistry. By the late Edward Turner, M.D. F.R.S. Eighth Edition. Edited by Baron Liebig and Professor Gregory. London. 1847.

2. Elements of Chemistry. By Thomas Graham, F.R S.L. and E. Second Edition. Part I. London. 1847.

IN giving the titles of these two systematic works on Chemistry,

we must not be understood to intend an analyis of their contents, or even a critical comparison of their merits. Chemical science has become far too vast and complex a subject to be dealt with by any summary in the pages of a Review. It stands apart from and beyond the margin of critical literature. Yet, as we