the lower qualities, or to the baser passions of mankind, or but serve to illustrate the purposes of science, must be estimated and classed accordingly.

This beautiful and delightful art, to which such power is given, is the produce of a combined exercise of the physical and the mental powers of man; and it is therefore, divisible into two portions, the one manual, the other intellectual.

The manual or imitative power, or the mere art of presenting upon a plane surface the appearance of natural objects, in form, in colour, and projection, is attainable, to a considerable degree, by any one possessed of a well-organised eye, a steady command of hand, and a tolerably fair portion of intellect, if accompanied by a good stock of industry; but the other, which governs and directs the imitative power of the art, in the representation of a fact, in the display of expression, of sentiment, or of beauty, requires a far greater expansion of mind in the artist, a more refined sense of discrimination and of taste, and a vivid exercise of the imagination, under the control of the soundest judg

ment.

Few, if any, of you, will, I trust, be disappointed when I state, that it would be an idle and delusive employment of our time, were I

here to dwell much at length upon the practice which exemplifies the mere imitative power of painting; for it cannot be taught by words. To attain proficiency in it, to wield with dexterity the instruments it employs, we must necessarily be long engaged in the use of them; and to the culture of this power the schools of this Royal Institution are more properly devoted than the lecture room. I shall, therefore, without entirely omitting this, principally direct your attention to the other, the intellectual portion of the art. The knowledge of it, is the only sure guide to the artist who aims at excellence; and it greatly increases the pleasure derivable from fine pictures.

From this, arose the real interest excited by the art of painting among the most cultivated; this, has elevated it to the rank of a liberal art, has made it an object of attention to the most tasteful, has given to the artist a new sense, and to the public a pure, unadulterated source of gratification and delight.

The pleasure we enjoy in regarding the exquisite works of the Flemish and Dutch schools, if we except those of Rubens and Rembrandt, is of a class derived principally from the imitative power of the art, though not unaided by that which is intellectual. The perfection of the imitation they exhibit, is cognisable by all.

Its effect is mainly addressed to the visual organ; and if I were undertaking to explain the process of painting, I should, in a great degree, resort to them for illustration. But you have so many opportunities of enjoying all the pleasure and information they can yield to you, and the source of the gratification they afford is so evident, that it is the less necessary for me to speak of them, whilst that which the best among the great works of the Italian painters produces in our minds, is derived from qualities more abstract in their nature; and it requires some initiation into the mysteries of Italian art, ere it can be fully understood and enjoyed.

That class of imitation which is rendered so effectively in the pictures of the Flemish and Dutch schools is, undoubtedly, the object of the art of painting, when the art alone is considered without reference to its application. But when the knowledge of its imitative power was attained, and it was applied, as by the Italians, to aid the solemn purposes of the altar, in the display of subjects fraught with deep pathos, and intended to impress the mind with devotion, or to excite religious enthusiasm, it became manifest to the artists that close imitation of nature, rather impeded than promoted their object. They therefore found it necessary to treat imitation in the art of painting as it had

been treated in the sister art of poetry by the ablest poets; and they adopted a system of art, which, selecting a portion of an object as illustrative of the whole, gave full impression of it, omitting only minute detail.

This is the art of which I propose to treat here: this is that application of the art of painting, which, as far as the art is concerned, can alone ever place us equal in rank with Italy or Greece; this is the manifestation of that refined and exquisite discernment of its best principles which proves, that its gradual progress to excellence was not dependent, as is too often conceived, upon the uncertain and convulsive struggles of taste, but upon sound and longcontinued exertions of human intellect.

If I may but in the slightest degree assist in establishing in your minds a clear perception of its value, and lead to its more complete cultivation among us, it would afford me the highest gratification; and though unfortunately it be true, that there is no national point of interest as yet adopted in our country, which calls for peculiar exertions of the art of painting, and directs the efforts of our artists to one great end; as there was in Italy, when it was carried onwards through three centuries, by the wants of the state, and the enthusiasm of the priesthood and the people; yet such is the advancement

of general knowledge, and the love of the fine arts, such the influence of good sense, and the power of wealth, that we may reasonably hope for its advancement in the estimation of our countrymen to the greater elevation of our fame; the more particularly if we, its professors, adopt, to the best of our abilities, that exalted taste of which I have spoken.

Were this grand style of painting, for by that title it is now known, confined in its principle to those subjects of religious interest whence it originated, were its beneficial influence confined to that peculiar class of subjects, whilst the art is employed among us only upon far less important matter, it would be scarcely worth our while to enter upon a consideration of it: but it is not. The same principle of selection and design which it requires, has provided for us the grand and beautiful pictures of poetic subjects by various painters,-by Raffaelle, by Giorgione, by Titian, by Julio Romano, and the Caracci; has produced the landscapes of Claude, of Poussin, and of Wilson; has entered even into the Dutch and Flemish schools, and given us the works of Rubens, of Terberg, and Metzu; and there are, in fact, no subjects, but those of the lowest kind, the treatment of which may not be benefited by the employment of it. In portraiture, Sir Joshua Reynolds exemplified it most