7. Professional Papers of the Royal Engineers. New Series. Vol. XIV. London: 1865. 8. Military Operations Explained and Illustrated. By Colonel Hamley, R.A. London: 1866, VI.-Transylvania; its Products and its People. By Charles 3. On Shakspeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible. By Charles Wordsworth, D.C.L., Bishop of St. An- 4. Every Good Gift from Above. A Sermon preached at Stratford-on-Avon. By R. C. Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. April 24, 1864, 2. The Farm Homesteads of England. Edited by J. Bailey Denton, M. Inst. C.E., F.G.S. 2nd Edi- tion. 1 vol. imperial 4to. London: 1865. 3. Reports of the Cattle-Plague Commissioners. Lon- 4. Orders in Council relating to the Cattle-Plague, from July 1865 to December 1865 inclusive, 2. Confidences d'un Joueur de Clarinette. Par Erck- 3. Madame Thérèse. Par Erckmann-Chatrian. Paris: 4. Le Conscrit de 1813. Par Erckmann-Chatrian. 1865, II.-1. Miltoni Comus. Græcè reddidit Georgius, Baro Lyttelton. Cantabrigiæ et Londini: 1863. 2. Translations. By Lord Lyttelton and The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. London: 1861. 3. Tennyson's In Memoriam.' Translated into Latin Elegiac Verse. By Oswald A. Smith, Esq. [Printed for private circulation only.] 1864. 4. Folia Silvulæ, sive Ecloga Poetarum Anglicorum in Latinum et Græcum conversa, quas disposuit Hubertus A. Holden, LL.D., Collegi SS. Trinitatis quondam Socius, Scholæ Regia Gippesvicensis . 297 5. The Agamemnon of Eschylus and the Bacchanals of Euripides, with passages from the Lyric and Later Poets of Greece. Translated by Henry Hart Milman, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. London: 1865, 365 III.-1. Report from the Select Committee on the Thames River; together with the Proceedings of the Com- mittee, Minutes of Evidence, &c. London: 1865. 2. Metropolis Water Supply. On the Supply of Water to London from the Sources of the River Severn. By John Frederic Bateman, C.E., F.R.S. 3. Another Blow for Life. By George Godwin, Esq. IV. 1. Maria Theresia und Marie Antoinette, Ihr Brief- wechsel während der Jahre 1770-1789, herausge- 2. Correspondance inédite de Marie Antoinette. Pub- 3. Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, et Madame Elisa- beth. Lettres et Documens inédits publiés par F. Feuillet de Conches. (Second Tirage.) Trois V.-1. The Irish Church: its History, with Statistics. By William Shee, Serjeant-at-Law, M.P. for the County of Kilkenny. Second edition. 1863. 2. Remarks on the Irish Church Temporalities. By Maziere Brady, D.D. Dublin: 1865. 3. Facts respecting the Present State of the Church in Ireland. By the Rev. Alfred T. Lee. London: 4. The Irish Church; an Historical and Statistical Review. By Herbert S. Skeats. London : 1865. 5. The Income and Requirements of the Irish Church, being a Reply to Serjeant Shee. By Archdeacon VI.-Mémoires de mon Temps. Dictés par S. A. le Land- VII-1. The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion: a History of Four Years before the War. By James Buchanan, Ex-President of the United States of 2. Propositions and Arguments on the Re-organiza- tion of the Rebel States. By the Hon. Charles 3. The National Security and the National Faith: Guarantees for the National Freedom and the Na- tional Creditor. Speech of the Hon. Charles Sumner at the Republican State Convention in Worcester, September 14th, 1865. Boston: 1865. 4. Message of the President of the United States to the two Houses of Congress at the commencement of the first Session of the thirty-ninth Congress. 5. On the present state of Political Parties in America. IX.-Electoral Statistics. Presented to Parliament by 524 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, JANUARY, 1866. No. CCLI. ART. I.-1. Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts. 3. Reports of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts. 1841 1862. 4. Original Treatises dating from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Centuries, on Painting, &c. Translated by Mrs. MERRIFIELD. London: 1849. 5. Manual of Fresco and Encaustic Painting. By W. B. TAYLOR. London: 1843. 6. The Art of Fresco Painting. By Mrs. MERRIFIELD. London: 1846. N OTHING is more remarkable than the zeal with which old wall-paintings are sought after by those who would not go a mile out of their way to see a modern fresco. But the reason of this may be given in a few words. Till Mr. Herbert's 'Moses' was shown to the public, there was no instance in this country of a wall-painting in fresco, water-glass, or encaustic, equal to the easel pictures produced by the same artists, or even by men of less reputation. Whether it was that English painters would not master the difficulties of the fresco process, or that their skill in oils interfered with a new and different method; that the subjects assigned them were foreign to their genius, or the payment offered was too small; it is certain that men whose oil-paintings were generally admired, met with VOL. CXXIII. NO. CCLI. B polite indifference at the best when they turned to fresco. This was not the case in the Italy of early painters. Many of them attained their greatest celebrity, many of them have perpetuated their names, by fresco, and fresco only. Michael Angelo considered oils unworthy of the efforts of a man. The painters who preceded him seem to have toyed with the easier vehicle, and put forth their real strength on the wall. And even such men as Correggio and Parmigiano, whom we generally associate with a softer and less masculine school of painting, cast off these especial attributes when they decorated the churches of Parma. The result is that we scarcely ever find a fresco by an early painter below the level of his easel pictures, while we find many easel pictures of the early painters below the level of their frescoes. Modern times have exactly reversed this sentence. 6 If such be the case, it will strike many who are warm admirers of the early schools, that the attempted revival has proved a failure. So far as fresco is concerned, we fear the verdict cannot be questioned. The great argument in favour of fresco has always been its durability. Its advocates were anxious to impress upon us that the climate of England was no worse than that of Germany, and that the smoke of London would not be more prejudicial to frescoes than the incense and candles of Italian churches. But as a matter of fact the frescoes which have been painted within the last twenty years have already faded and want restoration. Some of the witnesses before the Select Committee on the Fine Arts in 1841, stated that the frescoes painted in the open air at Munich 'seemed perfectly to have resisted the action of the atmosphere. Twenty years later Mr. Maclise said, in his report on water-glass, that the surface of the fresco painted on the Isar Thor was crumbling away. In the Poets' Hall of the Houses of Parliament the paint comes off in flakes. Mr. Dyce's frescoes in All Saints Church, Margaret Street, have been restored. Parts of his fresco of the Vision of Sir Gala' had' flaked off the wall, leaving bright white specks of uncovered plaster in the upper part before the lower part was finished. If we contrast this condition of our modern frescoes with that of the earliest examples of the art, we find additional cause for wonder. It is true that many of the old frescoes have decayed, but none with such rapidity. Sir C. Eastlake stated in his evidence before the Committee on Fine Arts, that Leonardo's Last Supper,' which was painted in oil, was scarcely visible sixty years after it was painted, and an old Belgian painter quoted by Mrs. Merrifield, tells us that fresco lasts |