had been more prudent and philosophical if they had waited for more complete investigation. We can only say of these helpless ones that they have entered life in a state of imperfection that has hitherto been regarded as hopeless; but by the means used to convert the hopeless into hopeful human beings, we shall best learn the needful lessons of every kind respecting them. We find in all a more or less incomplete physical structure; the bony parts of the body are fragile, the teeth are subject to very early decay, the muscles are infirm and often flabby, the gait is ill-balanced, the appetite is voracious, while the digestion is imperfect, the taste has no discrimination, the sensations are benumbed, and the blood and secretions impure. To make accurate investigation into all these things, with a view to beneficial operations, is due from society to the thousands of its members who are blighted and bowed down by them. No single accompaniment of such a condition, if it prevails largely, may be deemed unimportant, whether it belongs to one organ or another, to the brain, the tongue, the ear, the nose, the lips, the palate, or any part of the body.

Certain peculiarities of the ear are often seen in idiots. At one time there was a girl at Essex Hall whose ears were enormous and flapped about in the most extraordinary manner, giving her an appearance singularly strange and grotesque, the more so as she was very lively and good-humoured, with a marked expression of drollery. There is an idea that the brain and these derangements mutually affect each other. The lobule of the ear and its position with regard to the cheek, as well as the formation of the helix, present, it is said, peculiar modifications in idiots, and also sometimes in lunatics, while there is often a flaccidity in the fleshy parts, which are turgid and not symmetrical with those on the other side of the head. Nor is it unlikely that these several varieties from the normal condition may be due to a certain defective circulation, which may extend to the internal tissues of the brain, having at the same time relation to the encephalic development and that of the skull.

We have previously referred to the observations of Dr. Down with regard to certain facial inequalities perceptible in idiots, and they were made upon two hundred cases taken without any special selection from a larger number. He well remarks that the opinions formed of idiots have arisen more from the representations of poets and romance-writers than from the deductions of rigid observation. Persons think their heads are formed like that in Lavater's portrait, or Homer's description of Thersites, so that all their notions are built on the strongest exaggerations, and not on true investigations of

their physical and psychical conditions, which are the only real tests of their state. As in the case of the ear, so the formation of the mouth is often aberrant. The palate is found to be inordinately arched, and also unsymmetrical, one side plane, the other concave, or sometimes excessively flattened, while its veil, called the velum palati, is unusually flaccid, or the palate itself exceedingly narrow. The faulty nature of the teeth has been before alluded to; they are not only so in the way previously mentioned, but are irregular, crowded, sometimes to a degree of deformity, and all due to the imperfect development of the superior maxillary bone. The tongue likewise is out of order, so that many cannot protrude it, or is of inordinate size, resulting in defective articulation. Besides these defects, the tonsils and the mucous membrane are disordered, to which may be added elongation of the uvula. The flow of saliva from the mouth is another symptom of idiotcy, and it is sometimes so excessive as to produce severe excoriation of the chin, and it is rarely unconnected, except in childhood, old age, or disease, or injury, with mental imbecility. This great secretion of saliva and its incontinent retention are capable of much improvement. All these observations are worthy of attention, because they exhibit the bodily characteristics of a class whose mental vigour is infirm; and the inference of Dr. Down is unquestionable, that the psychical condition of these unfortunates should be specially sought to be ameliorated by an improvement of their physical condition. One conclusion seems to be certainly arrived at, which is, that the many different manifes tations of want of harmony between the physical and mental powers of idiots are due either to some defect in the bodily organs, or to the derangement of their functions. To this it may be added, as is done by the author of the report of the New York Asylum, that amidst all the diversities just alluded to there is one common point of resemblance not of a physical 'character, and that is the want of attention.' Evidently this is due to an inability, arising from some physical cause, to concentrate the faculties and powers on a given object. This means that these faculties and powers are in such a state that they refuse, to the natural and normal extent, to obey the will. In allusion to this condition of all idiots in greater or less degree, the writer last referred to has the following observations:

One peculiarity of our system of instruction consists, then, mainly in creating this power of attention; in the first place by exciting the will by appropriate stimuli, and then by its continued exercise giving it the capability to control the other attributes of the indi

vidual. It should be mentioned, because of its relation to our mode of education, that there is a natural order both in the succession in which the will obtains the supremacy over the other powers, and also in the means by which that will is developed and strengthened. We see it in the infant naturally well endowed, and especially in the idiot, because of the more gradual progress in the control it first acquires over the muscular system, then over the intellect, and finally over the desires, the appetites, and the passions. That natural order in the means by which the will is developed is learned by a similar observation, and the knowledge of it has its practical value in our course of instruction. It is first excited by the instincts, then by the appetite; still again by the desires, the intellect, and finally the moral powers. Thus a child is sometimes seen who, with no lack of muscular power, is unwilling to take anything in his hand. The fear of falling, one development of the instinct of self-preservation, will, however, lead him to grasp with firmness the rounds of a ladder rather than suffer injury. Then he will hold food in his hand, or a cup of water, to gratify his appetite. Next he is induced to hold an object in his hand, to gratify his senses or his curiosity with reference to it. And so he goes from one step to another, the discipline acquired in accomplishing the lower enabling him to achieve the higher. Physical training will, then, form the basis of all well-directed efforts for the education of idiots; first, because of its direct effect to obviate the existing peculiarity of physical condition; and secondly, because the gymnastic exercises constituting the physical training may be designed and adapted to develope the power of attention in conformity with the natural order

of succession.'

These are in truth the ideas which have been made to operate on the idiot with so much practical benefit both in Europe and in America, and if well reflected upon they will be found not merely to form the basis of the education of the imbecile, but, as has been hinted before, of those gifted with ordinary powers. All teachers may learn from the methods with idiots at Earlswood and elsewhere that no lesson, no pursuit ought, when once attention to it has been obtained, to be made fatiguing, and that a prudent change from one object to another, at due intervals, is absolutely essential. A genius may be stunted by over-work and mental fatigue, in the same way as the little germ of thought which lies buried in a deficient organism may be apparently extinguished; but both may be brought out by proper means. The difference between the teachers of the two is, that the one must reach to the height of the mental powers and bodily capabilities, while the other must be able to probe to the lowest depth of the concealed and feeble faculties. agree with Mr. Sidney that

We

'the advancements made in the teaching of idiots will not be

t

without great practical use in teaching others, and bringing to the mind many things of importance that have been overlooked. It will especially throw light on bodily training, as a valuable agent in assisting the mental and moral powers, though it has frequently been regarded merely as promotive of muscular strength and manual dexterity. Corporeal exercises in children need not be only idle amusements and useless pastimes-they may be made of more service, both for the intellect and the organism, than ill-considered tasks and injudicious lessons.'

The eminent medical gentlemen both in America, Great Britain, and other parts of Europe, who have assisted in the amelioration of the condition of the imbecile, ought to be regarded as amongst the truest benefactors of the pitiable objects afflicted by this dreadful calamity. In England, the asylum at Earlswood is worthy of the benevolence of a great nation, and we trust it has become a model and a stimulus in the right direction to the entire civilised world; for where is the community that has not been troubled with the disfiguring presence of idiotcy, often studiously concealed and disregarded, but till these days of highly developed Christian philanthropy and science, never attempted to be solaced or improved by the skilled and benevolent hand of enlightened charity?

ART. III. A New History of Painting in Italy, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. By J. A. CROWE and G. B. CAVALCASELLE, Authors of The Early Flemish 'Painters.' 8vo. 2 vols. London: 1864.

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6

HEN Southey was presented by the publishers with a copy of Dr. Aikin's Select Works of the British Poets, from Ben Jonson to Beattie,' he observed that if he had been the compiler of that book, he should have ended just where Dr. Aikin began. If any literary man, in the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, had composed two thick octavo volumes, containing more than twelve hundred pages, on the history of Italian painting, he would probably have begun exactly where Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have ended. They have not yet entered on the ground which alone he would have thought it worth while to traverse, and they have devoted all this labour and research to a period which would have appeared to him utterly dark and worthless. So it is, however; and we are happy to welcome two volumes containing so much accurate research and so much just criticism on those painters who lived efore the close of the fifteenth century.

If we desire to know what was the taste of England in matters of painting a little more than a hundred years ago, let us turn to Horace Walpole's preface to his Edes Walpolianæ,' or Catalogue of the Houghton Collection. He tells us that

painting

'revived again in the person of Cimabue, who was born in 1240. Some of his works are remaining at Florence; and at Rome, and in other cities, are to be seen the performances of his immediate successors: but as their works are only curious for their antiquity, not for their excellence, and as they are not to be met with in collections, I shall pass over those fathers in painting to come to the year 1400, soon after which the chief schools began to form themselves. Andrea Mantegna was born in the year 1431, and of himself formed that admirable style which is to be seen in his triumphs of Julius Cæsar at Hampton Court.'

He then passes straight on to Raphael and Michael Angelo, and adds that the Roman school languished after the death of their disciples, but revived in almost all its glory in the person of Andrea Sacchi, with whose name he couples that of Pietro da Cortona, and proceeds to Carlo Maratti. In another passage he says, as blaming the bad taste of his own times:

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You will perhaps see more paid for a picture of Andrea del Sarto, whose colouring was a mixture of mist and tawdry, whose drawing was hard and forced, than for the most graceful air of a Madonna that ever flowed from the pencil of Guido.'

The exaggerated estimate of the Bolognese school which was then entertained is thus expressed :

This (the Bolognese school) which was as little inferior to the Roman as it was superior to all the rest; this was the school, that to the dignity of the antique joined all the beauty of living nature. There was no perfection in the others which was not assembled here. .... In one point, I think, the Bolognese painters excelled every other master: their draperies are in a greater taste than even Raphael's. In my opinion all the qualities of a great painter never met but in Raphael, Guido, and Annibal Carracci.'

The expressions employed in some of his sentences to characterise different artists, and mark their relative excellences, cannot fail to entertain the reader. He speaks of the sweet neatness of Albano, and the attractive delicacy of Carlo Ma 'ratti;' and in the same page he remarks that

'Rotterhamer and Paul Brill, who travelled in Italy, contracted as

Written in 1743. It will be found in the second volume of the fourth edition of his works. (See for the following quotations, pp. 231, 226, 227-236.)