being communicated to a Scotch artist, who was rapturously delighted with the new-acquired knowledge. He could not sleep all night, and early in the morning came to the bedside of the person who had given it to him, to make a solemn request, and to extract from him a promise, that he never would communicate it to any one else. Sketcher. An admirer, doubtless, of the "Liberal Arts," and, like other "Liberals," very fond of appropriating. Pictor. But you say you find chalk of great use in oils. I well remember your mentioning this to me once before, and recommended it, but I forgot to try it. How do you use it? Sketcher. Why, there indeed, you may charge upon me the force of the fable, of blowing hot and cold-for the operation of it in oil is quite the reverse of that in water colours. In the latter it works by its opacity, in the former by furnishing a transparent medium, or nearly so;-mix it very largely with all your colours, so as that by far the greatest part shall be chalk, you will find them improved in texture, more mellow, and crisp in consistence, and the positively opaque colours tell with wonderful force upon them. And you will find you can by help of this medium make tones that you can produce no other way. Every painter must have lamented the want of a medium that shall give a semitransparent body to colour used in any mass. For instance, you want your paint to be thick, a body, but not a dull mass, which it must be, if you take any quantity of colour off your palette, and apply it substantially; many have resorted to varnishes and megellups to remedy this defect; but take but a very small quantity of the colour, and mix it with a considerable quantity of the chalk, and you will find you have a substance, that you may almost look into-the very thing wanted. You may with it likewise reduce the hard opacity of some colours not in the least transparent themselves, as even white lead, vermillion, &c. In fact, it gives you the power of nature, every degree from the perfectly opaque to the perfectly transparent; and furnishes a texture so like that of the old mas ters that I cannot but think they used it. It happened thus that I tried it: I was copying a picture in which there was near the foreground a light bank, extremely rich, almost what might be called fat in texture, but perfectly clear and bright, and the foliage of a deep dark tree that broke upon it was remarkably crisp. The whole was manifestly thick in substance, yet put in at once. After making many attempts, none of which pleased me, I examined the original with a glass, and found the paint to contain little lumps or particles of some imperfectly-ground substance, which, on inspection, I believed to be chalk. I mixed up, therefore, a quantity of chalk in oil, and used it freely with the colours, and succeeded quite to my satisfaction. When dry, I examined my copy with the glass, and then the original, and I could scarcely doubt the material. You may use it freely with all colours-with any powerful one, you will be surprised to find how much chalk a very small quantity will take without losing any of its power or depth, but it will become a body of a very different texture. With the use of this, you will, I think, discard all varnishes and things of such changeable and suspicious character, which, however well they may look at the time, are apt to crack, or assume a leathery appearance. It seems to me to account for all the richness in some masters, and all the clearness and crispness in others. I fancy I could see it in Coreggio and Rembrandt, as in Teniers. I told our friend P. my success in the copy I allude to, and the reason, and you know he is an admirable painter, and he has since declared to me he could not paint without it. Pictor. I will thankfully try itand I promise you, not to throw it by hastily. It has often struck me as a duty incumbent on the Academy, to institute a school or committee of chemical experiments upon oils and colours, and to publish their labours. For my own part, I know not what to think of the assertions of those who consider painting as in any respect a lost art. When I see some of the best pictures of our own best masters, and observe the little change in those of some years standing, I do not see much to be desired. But then, again, when I see a Coreggio, a Rembrandt, a Claude, a Poussin, I see something so different in the texture and brilliancy, that appears unattainable by any known medium, I am unwillingly half a convert to those assertions. Sketcher. I have often felt my opinions, as yours, vary; but there are facts that are very strange, if there be not something lost; there is certainly a very striking difference between the old and modern masters. I am not, observe, here saying one is preferable to another, but would content myself with insisting that there is a difference. One would imagine there was something in the power of the medium that tempted them beyond the imitation of common nature-something in that of the modern that confines them to the aim of reaching it. We see it, perhaps, reached, successfully reached, in our best artists, and when we see a thing perfect in itself, we are satisfied, and think not of things of a different kind, we do not then make comparisons, perhaps, and, if we do, they are not likely to be just. Then consider for a moment, what did Van Eyck discover? It is to be presumed he did discover something unknown before -yet painting in oil was known before, and even practised in England. And Walpole seems to be of opinion, that he found it here, and took the honour of it to himself abroad. questionably the documents brought forward by Walpole show that painting in oil was practised in England in 1239-and Van Eyck died in 1441. Not only oil, but varnish was, it appears, known; "pro oleo et vernici, et coloribus emptis," runs the document. Amabue, the reviver of painting in Italy, who died in 1300, used yolk of egg. Yet it is asserted that pictures were painted even in Italy in oil before the time of Van Eyck. But is there not a vast difference in the paintings executed since the time of Van Eyck? It is said, too, that he made the discovery while trying to make a varnish. And Leonardo da Vinci speaks of a varnish made of linseed oil. This was probably oil boiled to the hardness of a gum, and afterwards dissolved; for I have often found a very small quantity boiled to this consistence, Un dissolved in turpentine, answer to paint with, and quite like varnish. There is another fact verystriking. The old masters used some colours which we cannot-verditer, for instance; with our oils it will change in a few days-and so of other colours. And I have heard picture-cleaners declare that they can easily get off the paint or retouches a century old, by a process which will not touch the older. Now, these facts are grounds for enquiry; much valuable matter might be accumulated, and successful experiments made. Sir Joshua must have seen something he did not possess, or he would not have destroyed old pictures to find out the medium wherewith they were painted. Pictor. Some say age has mellowed and given beauty to the works of the old masters, and that ours will acquire that peculiar look. Sketcher. May be so; but hitherto Time has not worked very favourably. He has totally destroyed some, and made many dingy. Then, is it not curious that you never see an old picture crack, that is, the paint separate, leaving vermicular openings, now-a-days so common? I think it very probable that we never were more secure in our medium than now, and that the best pictures of the present day stand a fair chance of being handed down to posterity whole at least, and probably without deterioration from time. But that consideration does not remove from me the desire that attention were paid to the subject among scientific men, backed by an authority. A friend of mine, a very able person, has bestowed much pains upon the subject; I have often wished him to publish his experiments-the facts he has established. He has occasionally supplied me with his preservative medium, and it is quite surprising how perfectly colours stand, which, under the common process, will not stand a week. I painted a small picture with it some few years ago, and afterwards altered a part that did not please me with the common medium, linseed-oil; that part alone has changed, and is a spot on the rest. He had not then brought the medium to the perfection that it could be used with facility on a large scale. Happy should I be, and the arts would be thankful to him, would he publish his discoveries. For my own part, I do not pretend to any great knowledge in art; but it appears to me, in a matter of such experimental practice as painting, persons of very moderate powers may discover something; and if they fancy they do, there can be no very great harm or conceit in their making their fancies known. Pictor. Whether England may claim the honour of inventing painting in oil, is a point that may be disputed; but undoubtedly we may claim the invention of painting in water colours, and preeminence in that art beyond comparison. My sketch being finished, I was putting it into my portfolio, when Pictor, who seemed more inclined to remain than to move, told me I had better revise it, for that he did not think I had thoroughly enjoyed the scene, my observation having been taken from it by the remarks I had been making,-and that, how ever I might flatter myself with having executed a portrait, I had missed the poetry that always requires undivided attention. I looked at my sketch again, and being satisfied that Pictor's judgment was correct, I tore it, and threw the parts into the stream, as an offering to the "genius loci." Pictor observed that my sacrifice was of a common character, not of much value, but that Jupiter himself had never much better-nothing but the smell and the smoke. He then reluctantly rose from the bank, and we pursued our way upwards, slowly-for every step offered something to admire-and very soon came upon a scene that arrested us both instantaneously. There, quoth Pictor, is poetry-beautiful! Look at that tall flower, with its elegant stem, raising its crowned head over the dark brown placid water, that flows on here so tranquilly, singing its hymn of homage as it passes. All is enclosed as in a spot of sanctity. The turbulence of the water above and below is not heard, but as the murmur of bees. The branches of the trees drop down to the water, and bend and make their salutation. All the objects, even in their deepest retirement, turn reverently to that elegant stemmed flower. It has the persuasion of How strange it is that that little flower should make the picture determine the character of every part of the scene, and give the whole the charm of enchanted modesty and obeisance to the queen and emblem of purity! The colour, too, of the scene is so accordant with the feeling. The light brown over the shallower part of the water runs off so gradually into a mysterious depth, and that again partly relieved by, and partly blended with, every va riety of green, that I cannot conceive a more perfect harmony; and observe, there are masses here, but no large individual forms, to take off from the consequence so singularly acquired by an object so minute as that simple flower. With what a striking purpose of homage do the white froth bubbles make their circuit-slowly approach the Sovereign Beauty, and then more rapidly glide away to their exit from the audience and levee ! Sketcher. By all means paint the picture; and you, I am confident, will let the eye that sees your poetical conception, have all the benefit of your botanical ignorance. Who, with any brains, would here wish to know to what family that object of all attraction belongs? Classifications are a barbarous insult upon Nature-an inquisitorial census of her mystic population. You will not mark it with a name of seven syllables-nor swear away its purity by stamping it a Polyandrian. Pictor. Not I; I am a painter, and meddle not with impertinent studies. Sketcher. If we had the power of Montesinos, and could conjure to our presence the shades of the departed, now would I call upon Sir Uvedale Price to eat his words-no very solid meal for an Umbra-and own that flowers and blossoms are not always unfavourable to landscape. He asserts that, "from their too distinct and splendid appearance, they are apt to produce a glare and spottiness, so destructive of that union which is the very essence of a picture, whether in nature or imitation." And not content with this censure, this “murder of the innocents," he kills them over again in a note. I have copied the passage in my pocket-book, to confute him from nature. Here it is. "White blossoms are, in one very material respect, more unfavourable to landscape than any others, as white, by bringing objects too near the eye, disturbs the aerial perspective and the gradation of distance. On this subject I must beg leave to refer the reader to some remarks by Mr Lock, in Mr Gilpin's Tour down the Wye,' page 97, which I should have inserted here, were not the book in every person's hands." Now there he is wrong; the book is not in my hands, but if I ever meet with it, and find a passage similar to the one quoted, I will fling into the margin my mark of defiance. Now Nature takes very good care generally, that the texture of her white flowers and blossoms shall be so delicate, as seldom to obtrude; they are not stuck on like lumps of white lead, they present not one bald hard substance, but have intricate parts retiring within each other, and are more delicate than threads of silk or the lightest cotton, and unless injudiciously assorted in silly parterres by the hand of man, never obtrude themselves, and nature wonderfully prepares and matches her greens to suit them. I will venture to say, the whitest flowers may be in the deepest shade, without disturbing it, any more than the stars offend and harm the blue of heaven, that ever keeps for them, and through them, the greater serenity. Pure modest white!! you might as well vilify or vilipend the pearl crescent on Dian's raven top-knot. Besides, good Sir Uvedale, for I understand your présence, Nature is a great painter, and is always walking about with her palette and brushes, and touching up her pictures, and dips her delicate pencils into most heavenly atmosphere, that there shall not be an atom of spottiness, excepting indeed it be from the meddlings of man, and then and there she does leave the deformity in disgust, while the ignoramus struts about his little miniature paradise, the Brobdignag VOL. XXXV, NO, CCXX. Emperor of his own flower-beds. But, Sir Uvedale, you never should have put your foot within the domain of littleness; but if you paid him a visit on the recommendation of Mr Lock and Mr Gilpin, tell them they were truants, and quite out of the bounds of Nature's school. Milton does not disdain even "Meadows trim, with daisies pied." Milton knew very well the care Nature takes to keep a good tone in her pictures, that shall preserve the intended sentiment, (they are all her best moral lessons,) and that she not only uses the pearly atmosphere, but likewise dips her pencil in the clouds, and if there be any thing "Whose saintly visage is too bright, To hit the sense of human sight," she therefore glazes them over To our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue.” Pictor. I am loth to leave this spot, and yet am I not much disposed to use my colours; why do not you make a study here? Sketcher. What-after my failure! but, in truth, the best reason I can give is, that I have the scene, and am rejoiced to find that I felt the poetry of it just as you do, and hope I have marked it in my sketch. But would it not be best at once to extend our walk to the great rock and waterfall at the top of the valley, and take these scenes at our leisure on our return? We now ascended the narrow path-"the hinder foot still firmer." Nor did we omit what is usually done in ascents, to pause and look back; and many were the beautiful sights that met our eyes, whether we looked up the stream, or followed its course to the sea, which bounded the prospect in that direction. As we ascended, the scene opened somewhat more; the masses of rock were larger, and more tossed about in wild confusion; and instead of flowers and bushes growing out from them as lower down, large trees were growing out of their fissures, and ivy crept round them, and united them more with the adjacent parts of the rocks; and the water was pouring down superbly in every direction, as it appeared from the projecting rocks, into cavernous abysses. Innumerable are the studies to 20 be made hereabouts; especially if you leave the path, descend, and then climb over some of the large masses of stone, and become insula ted amidst the waters. But taking this view from the path, it is very striking, backed as it is by the wooded hill that leads to Linton. Pictor noticed the extreme beauty of the detail of the immediate foreground, and particularly the exact detail, the penciling or the etching of the leafage of some young ash, spreading out their fan-like boughs over the grey whirling water. But the scene was too grand to admit of the observation of this handling in nature, until it had been studied long as a whole. A light breeze following, the rushing torrent was moving the trees throughout, and therefore delineating them. All was in motion, trees and water; and even the immovable masses of rock seemed as if they were monster forms arrested and turned into stone in their attempt to ascend. The animation, the motion of wood and water, was all in communion, as if teeming with audible intelligence of combat, and confusion, and rout beyond them. There was a stir, in which humanity could not partake, and that made it little. Curiosity here must be awakened. If alone on this spot, you would feel courageous, perhaps, as knight-errant bent on encounter of "dragon horrible and stern;" but at the same time a thorough sense of some danger over the turn of the path above you. I should say it was a scene for the danger of romantic encounter. The mind is fed with high thought of adventure bold, asserts its hardihood, and recovers from the humility at first engendered. As we were two, we walked boldly forward, and reach ing the higher point, looked back from a high mass of grey rock, to Lyumouth, the sea and the opposite coast faintly seen. The downward passage of the water, bursting its way by the woods, and over rocks, in full activity, and the broad bosom of the Bristol Channel, to which it was hastening, and insinuating its way as with an affection,-the heath ery hill immediately beyond, and the bare rocky hill on this side the vil lage to the right, contrasted with the wood to the left, to an admirer or painter of Views, presented a very choice subject. But the composer would rather have stored his portfolio with the many exquisite parts, which would have charmed with greater fascination by their separation, and this even in sketches: For sketches of parts of scenes, becoming principal subjects, often give more complete pleasure where all is not filled up, the imagination being left free to supply, and that too with a rapid change, the complements of the picture. But the true admirer, who looks into Nature's retirements for the poetry she lavishly throws around her, will descend from the path, which he can do without much difficulty, to the water's edge; and among the larger stones he will find full employment for his pencil, and the whole power of his colours, whichever way he may look. The deep brown pools of refuge, and the water with all its variety of silvery green, grey, and brown, circling, loitering, hastening-and the falls from above (edged with sunshine, and thereby shewing their depth of colour) seen amid boughs and fragments of mossbrown rocks, will delight him many an hour in a spot so sheltered, as if Silence had lingered there, and ever after charmed the turbulence of the water into gentle music. A very few steps brought us within sight of the high rock that terminates the path. Had we come suddenly upon this scene, splendidly beautiful as it is, I doubt if we should have felt its power so much as we did, by the preparation the mind had received by the gradation of impressions made in the course of this singularly. picturesque walk, all accumulating an enthusiastic feeling, which this grand scene demanded, to be the more fully enjoyed. We had, as it were, passed the precincts of an oracular place, and had been within the sense of an awe, that imparted a sanctity to render us fit for homage and inspiration. We remained for a while in mute admiration. I never saw any scene so completely overpowering; so thoroughly seizing the judgment, as to deprive it of its right of scrutiny. You believe it to be perfect, and it is not until after repeated trials in every point of view, and repeated failures of attaining any adequate expression, that you can ad |