Aware of the results of contrast, epic, dramatic, and pastoral poets are in the constant habit of exercising their skill in exhibiting them. Virgil and Sannazarius frequently contrast the labours of the mariner with the amusements of the husbandman and the shepherd. Claude understood this secret of affecting the heart; and the inscription of Et in Arcadia ego, in a picture of Poussina, has been agreeably alluded to by the Abbé Du Bois, and described by De Lille in his "Man of the Fields." The original hint is from Virgil, who decorates one of his pastoral scenes with the rustic sepulchre of Bianor b.

In a picture of horror, some beautiful object should invariably be exhibited, on which the eye may be delighted to repose. Thus in a picture, painted by Moore, for the Earl of Breadalbane, at Rome, an eruption of Vesuvius is rendered peculiarly engaging by the introduction of the story of two brothers; one carrying his father, and the other his mother. And in Shidone's Massacre of the Innocents, the painter heightens the general effect of his picture by one of the simplest and most affecting of contrasts. Instead of representing the soldiers of Herod, in the actual commission of their horrible crime, he exhibits one of them, imparting the fatal tidings to a group of mothers; the terror and

• "The sepulchral inscription," says Du Bois, " contains those few Latin words, Et ego in Arcadia;' but this short inscription draws the most serious reflections from two youths and two young virgins, decked with garlands, who seem to be struck with their having thus accidentally met with so melancholy a scene, in a place where one might naturally suppose they had not been in pursuit of an object of sorrow. One of them points with his finger to the inscription, to make the rest observe it; whilst the remains of an expiring joy may yet be discerned through the gloominess of grief, which begins to diffuse itself over their countenances." b Buc. ix. 1. 59.

judicium parium suorum vel per legem terræ: Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus rectum vel justitiam."-Magna Charta, c. xxix. There was only one error in this;-and that, I grieve to say, was premeditated. The commonalty were villeins: the resolution, therefore, applied only to those, who were already free. Those, who were slaves, and attached to the soil, remained in slavery still!

anguish in whose countenances and attitudes form a strong and heart-rending contrast to the exquisite serenity of the sleeping children. How much superior to the Massacre des Innocens even of Guido !-Poussin, also, has selected

this subject for the exercise of his genius. In this picture he represents only one mother, and one child; and the shrieks of the mother are so violent as to frighten her friends away a!

Some pictures have no resemblance in the figures, and yet have a unity of effect in the design; as Carracci's Assumption of the Virgin, and Raphael's Transfiguration. While others have a striking variety even in the expression of the same character; a quality for which Julio Romano's Martyrdom of St. Stephen has been much and most deservedly celebrated.

Rubens was a great master in this art; and Parrhasius appears to have attended so minutely to the subject of contrast, that he is said to have been able to delineate, in the countenance of one subject, firmness and fickleness; mildness and cruelty; bravery and timidity. In this, however, there appears to be more of poetry than of truth. In respect to poetical contrasts, no instances more affecting are to be found, than in Virgil's imitation of Apollonius ; in the Hypsipyle of Statius; and in the Danaë of Simonides.

b

What a fine example, too, is that in Lucan, where he contrasts the fallen condition of his hero, after the battle of Pharsalia, with the happy state of his more prosperous fortune; when, at the head of the commonwealth, he was esteemed, by his party, the greatest general and the best citizen Rome had ever produced. "He, who had triumphed

" Bell, of the Martyrdom of St. Agnes, by Domenichino :- "The serene and beautiful countenance of the saint is irradiated by an expression of rapt holiness and heavenly resignation infinitely touching, and finely contrasting with the terror and amazement, described with admirable skill and effect in the attitudes of the surrounding multitude."

at three several times," says Paterculus, "for conquests, in three different quarters of the world, and who had not only doubled the Roman revenue, but the Roman empire! The whole earth," continues he, "which had been small sphere enough for his victories, could now scarcely afford him a gravea."

Let us now turn to a contrast exhibited, in the British House of Commons on the memorable night in which the traffic in slaves was, by a vote of the House, declared to be for ever illegal, and the persons engaged in the trade for ever infamous. After many distinguished characters had delivered their opinions, the solicitor-general rose from his seat; and, after a long and argumentative speech, in which he took occasion to recapitulate, and to combat many of the objections, that had been urged to the measure, he concluded with an eloquent representation of the gratitude, the vote of the House would call from posterity; and of the happiness, which many of the younger members, who were present, would have in beholding, what they had anticipated with all the generous ardour of youth, expressed by some of them in a corresponding glow of language, the benign effects of this measure upon the negroes, the whole property of the colonies, and the prosperity of the country at large. "When I look to the man, now at the head of the French monarchy, surrounded, as he is, with all the pomp of power, and all the pride of victory; distributing kingdoms to his family, and principalities to his followers; seeming, when he sits upon his throne, to have reached the summit of human ambition, and the pinnacle of earthly happiness: and when I follow that man into his closet, or to his bed; and consider the pangs, with which his solitude must be tortured, and his repose banished, by the recollection of the blood he has spilled, and the oppressions he has committed; and when I contrast those pangs of remorse with the feelings, which must accompany my honourable friend, MR. WILBERFORCE, from this House, to his home; after

a Lib. ii. 40.

the vote of the night shall have confirmed the object of his humane and unceasing labours;-when he shall retire into the bosom of his happy and delighted family ;-when he shall lay himself down in his bed, reflecting on the innumerable voices, that will be raised in every quarter of the globe to bless him; how much more pure and perfect felicity must he enjoy in the consciousness of having preserved so many of his fellow-creatures, than the man, with whom I have compared him, on the throne, to which he has waded through crimes, through slaughter and oppression !"-No one, my friend, will be surprised, that the honourable member should sit down amid three distinct and universal cheers.

CONTRASTS OF SOVEREIGNS.

Ar early morning, when we are observing images of rural happiness, and recalling to mind the pastoral and hunting ages, when the woods and glens echoed with the twang of the horn, or the reed of the shepherd, how melancholy do our reflections become, when, by virtue of association, we contrast them with a country, wasted by want, or depopulated by a successfully invading army! Let us illustrate the subject of contrast, as it affects the human race, and as it serves to show the wide and lamentable difference between man and man, by exhibiting a CONTRAST of SOVEREIGNS.

Nothing more dreadful can be conceived, than the horrors, which ensued during the conquest, and after the subjugation of the Crimea, by Catherine of Russia. Ah! my friend, what a contrast do the consequences, arising from those fatal events, produce to the cheerful and happy scenes, we have the satisfaction of witnessing every day! Of the conquest let us say nothing; its consequences were too great for human sympathy to read without feelings of indignant horror. The fates of Ismael, of Warsaw, and of Prague, were scarcely less dreadful and, as a suitable afterpiece to the fatal tragedy, after the desolation of towns and villages, without number,

:

75,000 Christians were expelled their country, of whom 50,000 perished in the deserts!

Although the waves of all the northern sea

Should flow-for ages!-through thy guilty hands,

Yet the same bloody stains would extant be !

Now let us compare this conduct of the Empress Catherine, with that of the late Emperor of China. In the year 1782, the island of Formosa was visited by a dreadful calamity. A violent tempest raged for several hours; the sea rose in mountains, and covered the whole face of the island; sweeping away every moveable; and leaving the shops, houses, and out-buildings, a confused heap of ruins. The crops were entirely destroyed; and the unfortunate inhabitants reduced to beggary and want. When this terrible event was signified to the emperor, he wrote to his minister, Tsong-tou, the following letter:-"I command you to get the best information you can, of the different losses, sustained by the inhabitants of the island; and to transmit the particulars to me, in order that I may give them every assistance to repair them. My intention is, that all the houses which have been thrown down shall be rebuilt, entirely at my expense; that those be repaired, which are only damaged; and that provisions, and every thing, which the people stand in immediate want of, be supplied them. I should feel much pain, were even one among them to be neglected. I, therefore, recommend the utmost diligence, and the strictest inquiry; as I am desirous, that none of my subjects should entertain the least doubt of the tender affection I have for them; and that they should know that they are all under my eyes, and that I will myself provide for their wants." The former of these sovereigns is usually called the Great: the latter has received no peculiar appellation ".

b The above account reminds one of Antoninus, who, when Coos and Rhodes were destroyed by an earthquake, restored the buildings, and repeopled the islands. Vid. Pausanias, lib. viii. c. 44.