A CHAPTER ON PORTRAITS.

Of all the Souvenirs, and Keepsakes, and Bijoux of all the Christmas-boxes, Amulets, and Gems, Anniversaries, and Forget-me-nots, (flowers of cold weather) - of all the presents with which we should choose to commemorate a birthday, or a festival, or to offer to one whom we regard, as an indication of good-will or friendship, we think we should select a portrait; a portrait, perhaps our own. It should not be cast in gingerbread, which would be too provocative; nor in brass, which would be out of character; nor in paper, for we are already but too inflammable; neither should we desire to ride on boys' shoulders, triumphant in pipeclay, smeared over with blue and scarlet, immortal as plaister could make us, amongst Dukes of Wellington, and Napoleons, amongst dumb Paul Prys, and silent parrots. An humbler lot be ours. We should scarcely choose to look out from a snuff-box, blazing with brilliants, for it would be too imperial, and we might, for the first time, forget ourselves.

We are

We have said that it should, perhaps, be a portrait of ourself (selves); but we recall our words. inclined to abandon that agreeable notion.

At all

events, it should not always represent our own features, to the exclusion of philosophers and heroes. We would not invariably usurp the place of Shakspere and Bacon. We do not love ourselves so immeasurably. Some face, however, which we love or respect, it should ever be; in preference even to a hamper of Johannisberg or a case of Lafitte, or a haunch of the bravest buck that ever nipped the grass of a Scottish

moor.

There is something delightful in the intercourse which we hold with another's likeness. It is himself, only once removed; he is visible, not tangible: we have his moiety. In a picture of history, there is often indeed more to admire than on the mere face of one individual, man or woman. There is more room for the skill of the artist; it is better adapted to exemplify a moral. But the sentiment that chains us to the other, is wanting; we are not familiar with it. One is a brave matter, a splendid thing; the other is a person, and becomes our friend. We would never worship, as some do, the complicated strife of arms, and legs, and shoulders; or think only of the way in which each is subdued by the painter, and made, by the wonders of light and shade, to represent a great event. We would rather look upon the eyes of some Italian 'Dama,' whom Titian or Giorgione painted long ago without a name, and catalogued only as Portrait of a lady;' or face one of Titian's piercing heads, (a noble of Venice or Rome,) than sit down before the most elaborate composition of history, or see brought out in dazzling array before us, all the battles of Alexander, or all the triumphs or processions of the Cæsars.

We were exceedingly struck by the delicacy of two or three friends, who conspired lately to give an old acquaintance pleasure on his return from a distant part of India. His wife had been obliged to come to England for her health, and his friends secretly caused her portrait to be painted, in order that on his return to Madras or Bengal he might find the likeness at least of her who was dearest to him in the world. It is thus that the form and features of the child are made known to its pining parents afar off. It is thus that the places which we loved to look upon, are redeemed from the grave, and sent to us, across deserts, and woods, and mountains, or over a thousand leagues of water. This is the greatest boast of art, as well as the most delightful victory. It annihilates space, if not time, and makes the absent happy.

An historical scene is a fiction merely. Be it ever so true to nature, it is still the fiction of the painter. But a portrait is truth itself. No imagination can compete with it; it is either the very thing we desire, or nothing; all depends on its truth. Even in a portrait, to use the term, of inanimate nature, what assemblage of cataracts, and hills and forests; what glories of sunset or meridian may compete with the little landscape, which restores to us the scene of our own quiet home, which brings before us our childhood, the tree under which we have played, the river beside which we have slept or sported? Art, which never addresses itself, strictly speaking, to our reason, is valuable only in proportion as it operates upon our feelings; these are seldom (and then but little) excited by the mere invention of a painter; we rather sympa

thize with his difficulties; we congratulate him upon his success; we say, 'How admirably has he grouped those figures! How finely are the light and shade distributed! what grand expression! what dramatic effect!' We look upon the artist as a hero; he has done so much for his own fame. But he who gives us the very smile which won or warms our hearts, the frank or venerable aspect of our friend or father, the dawning beauty of our child, or shows us the tender eyes with which the wife or mother looks love upon us from a distant region, he seems to have thought of us rather than of his own renown, and becomes at once our benefactor and our friend.

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It is very pleasant, to our thinking, to traverse some country mansion, where the portraits of its former owners hang up side by side with each other; frail records, it is true, of vanity and glory! We love to trace them upwards into absolute barbarism; to mailed, bearded, ferocious warriors, powerful, and — forgotten. And among them, it is hard if we cannot detect one whom learning or science has honored poet, a monk, or a philosopher; perhaps one even, whom Love has made immortal. We once saw such a one. There he was, with nobility on his forehead, and sadness in his eye, the humbled inheritor of a proud name, the impoverished master of thousands ! Can we help pitying such a sufferer? We see him, and pass on- we see another - and another — and another but he still remains fixed in our memory; hæret lateri lethalis arundo;' and we turn back after viewing all the rest, once more to sympathize with him alone. We say, 'Rich one! are you there

still?still pale, and dumb, and melancholy?

Had the foul fiend so seized upon you, that not even the flattering painter could take the sorrow from your eye the sting that had ran piercing through your heart? 'Faith, you are fallen indeed.

Let not the reader suppose, from what we have said, that we are wanting in a due respect for the illustrious painters who have conferred honor upon art; we love or admire them all. We can pore over a book of prints, even, and forget ourselves among the old masters of the Italian school of painting. We can begin with Giotto, and go on untired, to the last of the school of the Carracci. There is great fervor, and (so to speak) devotion of spirit in some of Giotto's works. Did the reader ever see his two saintly heads, in the possession of Mr. Rogers, the poet? There is great skill and some grandeur in Massaccio, and infinite beauty in Perugino. Then, there are the quaint loveliness of Leonardo da Vinci,— the frowning power of Michael Angelo, the splendors of Giorgione and Titian, the suavity of Correggio,- and the life, and spirit, and beauty, the grace, and intelligence, and unequalled propriety of Raffaelle! There too are Guido's pale heads, and Domenichino's divine expressions! the stern realities of Annibal, the touching looks of Fra Bartolomeo, the halcyon skies of Claude, and the stormy landscapes of Salvator Rosa! In a word, all that beauty and power, or the spirit of religion and love have dictated, all that great Nature herself has taught, are therein assembled, to delight whomsover has the taste to value them. The most

radiant visions open themselves upon us;

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