Our painters

strict adherence to another part of tradition. have thrown away much labour on the fresco of the Italians, which has not proved suitable to our tastes or our climate. We have shown in the course of these remarks that tradition was chiefly appealed to in proof of the excellence of fresco, and that the success of the early painters weighed with us against constant discouragement and failure. We believe that the adoption of the water-glass process will silence that argument. It is true that Mr. Barlow pronounces water-glass to be essentially the process of fresco-secco, and that good authorities consider fresco-secco inferior to buon-fresco. But the question is not if one art is inferior to another, but if it will last better than another. If water-glass is easier, more pleasing, and more durable than buon-fresco, we cannot detect its inferiority. We should rather think an easier method a gain than a loss, as it leaves the painter free to devote all his energies to his subject, instead of hampering him with his materials.

Mr. Herbert's success is to our minds the most hopeful feature of our great national undertaking. That one man has conquered the former indifference of the public leads us to a good assurance that others will follow, and when Mr. Maclise's two noble pictures are equally well known to the public, we are convinced that they will be appreciated as they well deserve to be. We do not wish other painters to imitate Mr. Herbert, to affect his deep religious feeling, or ape his peculiar execution. But we hope to see his followers undertake their subjects in the same spirit as he devoted himself to his. We hope to see them earnest and thoughtful, full of their art and not mastered by half considerations of it, patient without being sluggish. That the last few years have worked many improvements in the spirit of English art will, we think, be generally admitted. But it depends on the next few years whether these improvements will continue growing, or yield to a reaction, whether the stride we have made in advance will be followed by total exhaustion, or the words of Cornelius be fulfilled that there could not be a more admirable 'opportunity than the building of the new Houses of Parlia'ment, not merely for illustrating English history and poetry, but for founding a school of fresco-painting (though it be in 'the new method), which would emulate, if not surpass, that of 'any other in Europe.'

6

We cannot close this article without observing that an English amateur, Mr. Gambier Parry, of Highnam Court, near Gloucester, has published a plan for painting on walls in our climate, which he

VOL. CXXIII. NO. CCLI.

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ART. II.--La Jeunesse de Mazarin. Par M. VICTOR COUSIN. Paris: 1865.

THIS

HIS book contains some novel and interesting details of the youth of Cardinal Mazarin, and an elaborate account of his first essay and triumph in diplomacy. Few of our readers are acquainted with this part of the life of that eminent personage. They are familiar with his successful manhood, when, pursuing the system of Richelieu, he secured the ascendency of France in Europe, and inaugurated the despotism of Louis XIV.; and, notwithstanding De Retz and Brienne, they can appreciate the subtle craft of the statesman who baffled the deadly plots of the Importans, and reduced the anarchy of the Fronde to order. But it is not likely that they have followed carefully the long game of arms and diplomacy played in the affair of the Mantuan succession-a prelude to the terrible contest between France and the House of Austria which marked the course of the seventeenth century; or that they have formed a sufficient estimate of the ability shown by Mazarin at this juncture, when as a subordinate envoy of the Pope he secured peace for a time to Italy, and, though but a youth, won the respect of the foremost generals and politicians of Europe. M. Cousin, in the volume before us, has related and elucidated this episode in the career of the

contends possesses the luminousness of fresco and the strength of oil, whilst it differs from the former by its durability even in our climate, and from the latter by the absence of that gloss which is so offensive in wall-painting, and by not being liable to darken. The composition which he employs is a mixture of wax, Elemic resin, oil of spike-lavender, and the best copal.

Mr. Leighton, we believe, has executed a large painting in this mixture at the new church at Lyndhurst in Hampshire; and certainly the exquisite decoration of the nave of Highnam Church is calculated to impress every one with a very high sense of the value of the material, and a still stronger feeling of Mr. Gambier Parry's powers as an artist. We know few things finer than the way in which the two spandrils of the nave-arch are filled by the groups of angels sweeping down on either side from the throne of the Saviour as He sits in judgment, and the beauty of the heads and figures is exceedingly striking. The work has all the qualities of luminousness, breadth, flatness, and architectural symmetry which are required by its position and character.

Mr. Gambier Parry's work at Ely Cathedral we have not seen. It is, we believe, executed in oil, and we have not a doubt that it is worthy of the great building which it serves to complete.

Cardinal; and we need not say that his work forms a valuable contribution to historical biography. He has woven into the body of his narrative a large mass of original documents, supplied either from the French Archives or the muniments of the Barberini family, which add much to our knowledge on the subject; and his style and language are always flowing, agreeable, and dignified. In one particular, however, we object to the cast of thought displayed in this volume. In his admiration of Richelieu and Mazarin, M. Cousin, like too many of his countrymen, loses sight of the evil side of their policy, and of its ulterior consequences. Yet may not many of the wars and calamities which for two centuries have afflicted France and Europe be laid to the charge of these statesmen, who, if they enlarged the bounds of the kingdom, and raised the monarchy to its highest splendour, were the first to reduce to a definite system the perilous doctrine of natural limits, and, even more than the rule of the first Napoleon, destroyed the elements of national liberty for the sake of a brilliant but transient despotism?

Giulio Mazarini (to give him for once his Italian patronymic) was born in 1602, his father being of humble origin-a retainer of the great house of Colonna, his mother a person of noble birth, of rare beauty, and of fine accomplishments. During the first years of his life he was brought up with the family of Philippo Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples, who treated him with peculiar regard, had sense enough to appreciate his talents, and introduced him at an early age to the best circles of Rome and Naples. The child gave promise of remarkable talents; and under the care of the Jesuits at Rome made rapid progress in the education of the day, being especially skilled in rhetoric and mathematics, and with an extraordinary turn for acting. His genius did not escape the notice of his observant and experienced teachers, who wished to enlist him as a recruit in their Order; but Mazarin declined a vocation in some respects not unsuited to him, though beneath a manly and lofty ambition. At the age of twenty the beauty of his person, the charm of his graceful and insinuating manners, and his reputation for talent and address had already begun to attract attention, and though still only a dependent of the Colonnas he enjoyed a ready welcome in the best society of Rome and Naples. Like Richelieu, at this period of his life Mazarin became an ardent gamester; and some, who afterwards beheld his composure during many a trying crisis of his career, remembered with what equanimity he had borne in youth a long run of ill-fortune at the gaming-table. He was wont to say

che ad uomo splendido il cielo è tesoriero,' and he certainly sometimes drew largely on this balance. Having, on one occasion, lost everything he possessed except a pair of silk stockings, he pawned them to raise a few pieces in order to try his luck again. His confidence was rewarded and he soon won back the rest of his wardrobe.

Shortly after this time the youth became the companion of one of the Constable's sons on a visit to the court of Madrid, which was still the centre of European politics. It is probable that the remarkable spectacle of imposing grandeur and gradual decay which the Escurial even then presented, did not escape his penetrating eye; and to this visit we may ascribe his knowledge of Spanish character and habits, and his familiarity with the Spanish language. A love affair of a singular kind was the cause of his return to Rome; but he nevertheless applied himself to the careful study of the Civil Law, an acquisition which stood him in valuable stead in many a keen diplomatic contest. At twenty-two he was employed as a captain of horse in the Papal service; and though Mazarin, in after life, never laid claim to military accomplishments, it is certain that this apprenticeship proved of real and lasting advantage to him. It gave him, as in the case of Richelieu and of several other contemporary statesmen, a practical acquaintance with a soldier's calling-experience useful to a French minister; and it may have improved the strategic talent which, as M. Cousin observes with truth, was undoubtedly one of the gifts of the Cardinal.

This education of life and books, of much experience and of varied culture, was not unfitted to form the peculiar genius of the young Italian adventurer. His first His first appearance in public affairs was in 1624, when the jealousy of Austria, France, and Spain respecting the occupation of the Valteline had induced these Powers to come to an arrangement by which, pending future negotiations, the Pope was to hold this territory in deposit. On this occasion Mazarin accompanied his regiment to the neighbourhood of Milan, and saw encamped on the Lombard plains the armies of the three great monarchies with whose destinies his own fortune was to be strangely and grandly associated. With M. Cousin we may imagine how he appreciated the characteristics of the foreign hosts-the compact order of the Spanish veterans, the martial pride of the German horse, and the gallant bearing of the chivalrous gentlemen who gathered around the tent of D'Estrées. An accident brought the young subaltern under the notice of one of the High Commissioners who then accompanied the Papal armies and in part

directed their general movements. This functionary, who was named Sacchetti, entrusted Mazarin with some minor employment, and was so pleased with his zeal and intelligence that he assured him of his support and patronage. It is not perhaps from mere flattery that a biographer of the great Cardinal informs us that when engaged in this duty he was a very Proteus of energy and adroitness, and seemed endowed with perpetual 'motion. For Mazarin's genius was of that kind that despises no task, however humble,-is equal to any opportunity for action, and thoroughly and zealously does its work whatever may be its character or quality. It is certain, whatever the employment was, that from thenceforth he stood high in the esteem of the Papal Commissioner; soon afterwards we find him spoken of as a rising man among the coteries of Rome; and as early as 1625 the eminent Bentivoglio commended him to a brother cardinal as a young man who was fit without exception for everything.'

The events, narrated at length in this volume, which launched Mazarin on his brilliant career, commenced in 1628. Vincent II., Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, one of those petty princes whose complicated territorial rights have so often proved the occasion or the excuse of disastrous wars in Europe, having died in the course of the previous year, a contest arose about his succession of evil omen to the repose of Italy. The claim of Charles of Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, to the Duchies was supported by Richelieu, who, already bent on his great design of weakening the power of Spain and Austria, sought an opportunity of establishing in the Peninsula a dependent ally of the House of Bourbon. Spain and Austria, on the other hand, ever covetous of aggrandisement in Italy, wished to assign Mantua to the Duke of Guastalla, a mere creature of Ferdinand II., and to divide the territory of Montferrat between Philip IV. and the Duke of Savoy, who, as holding the keys of the Alps against France, was an ally of no inconsiderable importance. It soon appeared that the rival Powers, whose interests or pretensions, ever clashing, were continually threatening Europe with war, would appeal to the sword to settle this question. The Emperor having formally refused to acknowledge the right of the Duke of Nevers, a Spanish and Piedmontese army entered Montferrat, in February 1628, and with the exception of Casale, which was invested by a descendant and namesake of the great Captain Gonsalvo de Cordova, soon reduced the whole of the province. Meantime France was collecting her armies, although her strength was as yet divided by the Huguenot revolt and the siege of Rochelle :