call for his chisel, and work at a statue by way of rest to his hands. On one of these occasions, a pupil venturing to remark, that to substitute a mallet for a pencil was an odd sort of repose, was silenced by Cano's philosophical reply, - "Blockhead, don't you perceive that to create form and relief on a flat surface is a greater labour than to fashion one shape into another?" An image of the Blessed Virgin in the parish church at Lebrija, and another in the sacristy of the Grenada cathedral, are said to be triumphs of Spanish painted statuary.-(Vol. iii., p. 805.) After a life of strange vicissitudes, in the course of which, on suspicion of having murdered his wife, he underwent. the examination by torture, he died, honoured and beloved for his magnificent charities, and religious hatred of the Jews, in his native city, on the 3d of October 1667.

The old Valencian town of Xativa claims the honour of producing Josè de Ribera, el Spagnoletto; but though Spain gave him birth, Italy gave him instruction, wealth, fame; and although in style he is thoroughly Spanish, we feel some difficulty in writing of him as belonging wholly to the Spanish school of art, so completely Italian was he by nurture, long residence, and in his death.

Bred up in squalid penury, he appears to have looked upon the world as not his friend, and in his subsequent good fortunes to have revelled in describing with ghastly minuteness, and repulsive force, all "the worst ills that flesh is heir to." We well recollect the horror with which we gazed spell-bound on a series of his horrors in the Louvre-faugh! At Gosford House are a series of Franciscan monks, such as only a Spanish cloister could contain, painted with an evident fidelity to nature, and the minutest details of dress that is almost offensive-even the black dirt under the unwashed thumb nail is carefully represented by his odiously accurate and powerful pencil.

"Non ragioniam di lor

Ma guarda e passa."

Had the bold buccaneers of the seventeenth century required the services of a painter to perpetuate the memory of their inventive brutality,

and inconceivable atrocities, they would have found in El Spagnoletto an artist capable of delineating the agonies of their victims, and by taste and disposition not indisposed to their way of life. Yet in his own peculiar line he was unequalled, and his merits as a painter will always be recognised by every judge of art. He died at Naples, the scene of his triumphs, in 1656.

The name of Claudio Coello is associated with the Escurial, and should have been introduced into the sketch we were giving of its artists, when "the mighty reputation of Velasquez and Murillo broke in upon our order. He was born at Madrid about the middle of the seventeenth century, and studied in the school of the younger Rigi. In 1686 he succeeded Herrera as painter in ordinary to Charles II. This monarch had erected an altar in the great sacristy of the Escurial, to the miraculous bleeding wafer known as the Santa Forma; and on the death of its designer, Rigi, Coello was called upon to paint a picture that should serve as a veil for the host. On a canvass six yards high, by three wide, he executed an excellent work, representing the king and his court adoring the miraculous wafer, which is held aloft by the prior. This picture established his reputation, and in 1691 the chapter of Toledo, still the great patrons of art, appointed him painter to their cathedral. Coello was a most careful and painstaking painter, and his pictures, says our author, (vol. iii., p. 1018,) "with much of Cano's grace of drawing, have also somewhat of the rich tones of Murillo, and the magical effect of Velasquez." He died, it is said, of disappointment at the success of his foreign rival, Luca Giordano, in 1693.

With Charles II. passed away the Spanish sceptre from the house of Austria, nor, according to Mr Stirling, would the Genius of Painting remain to welcome the intrusive Bourbons :

Old times were changed, old manners gone,
A stranger filled the Philips' throne;
And art, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.

But we must say that Mr Stirling, in his honest indignation against

France and Frenchmen, has exaggerated the demerits of the Bourbon kings. Spanish art had been steadily declining for years before they, with ill-omened feet, crossed the Pyrenees. It was no Bourbon prince that brought Luca da Presto from Naples to teach the painters of Spain "how to be content with their faults, and get rid of their scruples; " and if the schools of Castile and Andalusia had ceased to produce such artists as those whose praises Mr Stirling has so worthily recorded, it appears scant justice to lay the blame on the new royal family. Pictor nascitur, non fit-no, not even by the wielders of the Spanish sceptre. In a desire to patronise art, and in munificence towards its possessors, Philip V., Ferdinand VI., and Charles III., fell little short of their Hapsburg predecessors, but they had no longer the same material to work upon. The post which Titian had filled could find no worthier holder under Charles III., than Rafael Mengs, whom not only ignorant Bourbons, but the conoscenti of Europe regarded as the mighty Venetian's equal; and Philip V. not only invited Hovasse, Vanloo, Procaccini, and other foreign artists to his court, but added the famous collection of marbles belonging to Christina of Sweden to those acquired by Velasquez, at an expense of twelve thousand doubloons. To him, also, is due the completion of the palace of Aranjuez, and the design of La Granja; nor, when fire destroyed the Alcazar, did Philip V. spare his diminished treasures, in raising up on its time-hallowed site a palace which, in Mr Stirling's own words, "in spite of its narrowed proportions, is still one of the largest and most imposing in Europe."-(Vol. iii., p. 1163.)

Ferdinand VI. built, at the enormous expense of nineteen millions of reals, the convent of nuns of the order of St Vincent de Sales, and employed in its decoration all the artistic talent that Spain then could boast of. Nor can he be blamed if that was but little; for if royal patronage can produce painters of merit, this monarch, by endowing the Academy of St Ferdinand with large revenues, and housing it in a palace, would have revived the glories of Spanish art.

His successor, Charles III., an artist of some repute himself, sincerely loved and generously fostered the arts. While King of the Two Sicilies, he had dragged into the light of day the longlost wonders of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and when called to the throne of Spain and the Indies, he manifested his sense of the obligations due from royalty to art, by conferring fresh privileges on the Academy of St Ferdinand, and founding two new academies, one in Valencia, the other in Mexico. If Mengs and Tiepolo, and other mediocrities, were the best living painters his patronage could discover, it is evident from his ultra-protectionist decree against the exportation of Murillo's pictures, that he fully appreciated the works of the mighty dead; and, had his spirit animated Spanish officials, many a masterpiece that now mournfully, and without meaning, graces the Hermitage at St Petersburg, or the Louvre at Paris, would still be hanging over the altar, or adorning the refectory for which it was painted, at Seville or Toledo. Even Charles IV., "the drivelling tool of Godoy," was a collector of pictures, and founder of an academy. In his disastrous reign flourished Francisco Goya y Lucientes, the last Spanish painter who has obtained a niche in the Temple of Fame. Though portraits and caricatures were his forte, in that venerable museum of all that is beautiful in Spanish Art--the cathedral at Toledo-is to be seen a fine religious production of his pencil, representing the Betrayal of our Lord. But he loved painting at, better than for the church; and those who have examined and wondered at the grotesque satirical carvings of the stalls in the cathedral at Manchester, will be able to form some idea of Goya's anti-monkish caricatures. Not Lord Mark Kerr, when giving the rein to his exuberant fancy, ever devised more ludicrous or repulsive "monsters" than this strange successor to the religious painters of orthodox Spain. But when the vice, and intrigues, and imbecility of the royal knaves and fools, whom his ready graver had exposed to popular ridicule, had yielded to the unsupportable tyranny of French invaders, the same indignant spirit that hurried the watercarriers of Madrid into unavailing con

flict with the troops of Murat, guided his caustic hand against the fierce oppressors of his country; and, while Gilray was exciting the angry contempt of all true John Bulls at the impudence of the little Corsican upstart, Goya was appealing to his countrymen's bitter experience of the tender mercies of the French invaders. He died at Bordeaux in 1828. Mr Stirling closes his labours with a graceful tribute to those of Cean Bermudez, "the able and indefatigable historian of Spanish art, to whose rich harvest of valuable materials I have ventured to add the fruit of my own humble gleanings-" a deserved tribute, and most handsomely rendered. But, before we dismiss this pleasant theme of Spanish art, we would add one artist more to the catalogue of Spanish painters-albeit, that artist is a Bourbon!

Near the little town of Azpeitia, in Biscay, stands the magnificent college of the Jesuits, built on the birth-place of Ignatius Loyola. Here, in a low room at the top of the building, are shown a piece of the bed in which he died, and his autograph; and here among its cool corridors and everplaying fountains, in 1839, was living the royal painter-the Infante Don Sebastian. A strange spectacle, truly, did that religious house present in the summer of 1839: wild Biscayan soldiers and dejected Jesuits, red boynas and black cowls, muskets and crucifixes, oaths and benedictions, crossed and mingled with each other in picturesque, though profane disorder; and here, released from the cares of his military command, and free to follow the bent of his disposition, the ex-commander-in-chief of the Carlist forces was quietly painting altar-pieces, and dashing off caricatures. In the circular church which, of exquisite proportions, forms the centre of the vast pile, and is beautiful with fawn-coloured marble and gold, hung a large and well-painted picture of his production; and those who are curious in such matters may see a worse specimen of his royal highness's skillˇin Pietro di Cortona's Church of St Luke at Rome. On one side of the altar is Canova's beautiful statue of Religion preaching; on the other the Spanish prince's large picture of the Crucifixion; but, alas! it

must be owned that the inspiration which guided Velasquez to his conception of that sublime subject was denied to the royal amateur. In the academy of St Luke, adjoining the church, is a well-executed bust of Canova, by the Spanish sculptor Alvarez. We suspect that, like Goya, the Infante would do better to stick to caricature, in which branch of art many a pleasant story is told of his proficiency. Seated on a rocky plateau, which, if commanding a view of Bilbao and its defenders, was also exposed to their fire, 'tis said the royal artist would amuse himself and his staff with drawing the uneasy movements, and disturbed countenances, of some unfortunate London reporters, who, attached to the Carlist headquarters, were invited by the commander-in-chief to attend his person, and enjoy the perilous honour of his company. Be this, however, as it may, we think we have vindicated the claim of one living Bourbon prince to be admitted into the roll of Spanish painters in the next edition of the Annals.

In these tumultuous days, when "Royal heads are haunted like a maukin," over half the Continent, and even in steady England grave merchants and wealthy tradesmen are counselling together on how little their sovereign can be clothed and fed, and all things are being brought to the vulgar test of L. s. d., it is pleasant to turn to the artistic annals of a once mighty empire like Spain, and see how uniformly, for more than five hundred years, its monarchs have been the patrons, always munificent, generally discriminating, of the fine arts-how, from the days of Isabella the Catholic, to those of Isabella the Innocent, the Spanish sceptre has courted, not dis dained, the companionship of the pencil and the chisel. Mr Stirling has enriched his pages with many an amusing anecdote illustrative of this royal love of art, and suggestive, alas! of the painful reflection, that the future annalist of the artists of England will find great difficulty in scraping together half-a-dozen stories of a similar kind. With the one striking exception of Charles I., we know not who among our sovereigns can be compared, as a patron of art, to any of

the Spanish sovereigns, from Charles V. of the Austrian to Charles III. of the Bourbon race. Lord Hervey has made notorious George II 's ignorance and dislike of art. Among the many noble and kingly qualities of his grandson, we fear a love and appreciation of art may not be reckoned; and although, in his intercourse with men of genius, George IV. was gracious and generous, what can be said in favour of his taste and discernment? The previous life of William IV., the mature age at which he ascended the throne, and the troublous character of his reign, explain why art received but slight countenance from the court of the frank and noble-hearted Sailor Prince; but we turn with hope to the future. The recent proceedings in the Court of Chancery have made public a fact, already known to many, that her Majesty wields with skilful hand a graceful graver, and the Christmas plays acted at Windsor are a satisfactory proof that English art and genius are not exiled from England's palaces. The professors, then, of that art which Velasquez and Rubens, Murillo and Vandyck practised, shall yet see that the Crown of England is not only in ancient legal phrase, the Fountain of Honour," but that it loves to direct its grateful streams in their honoured direction. Free was the intercourse, unfettered the conversation, independent the relations, between Titian and Charles V., Velasquez and Philip IV.; let us hope that Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, will yet witness a revival of those palmy days of English art, when Inigo Jones, and Vandyck, and Cowley, Waller, and Ben Jonson, shed a lustre on the art-loving court of England!

The extracts we have given from Mr Stirling's work will have sufficiently shown the scope of the Annals, and the spirit and style in which they are written. There is no tedious, inflexible, though often unmanageable leading idea, or theory of art, running through these lively volumes. In the introduction, whatever is to be said on the philosophy of Spanish art is carefully collected, and the reader is thenceforward left at liberty to carry on the conclusions of the introduction with him in his per

usal of the Annals, or to drop them at the threshold. We would, however, strongly recommend all who desire to appreciate Spanish art, never to forget that she owes all her beauty and inspiration to Spanish nature and Spanish religion. Remember this, O holyday tourist along the Andalusian coast, or more adventurous explorer of Castile and Estremadura, and you will not be disappointed with her productions. Mr Stirling has not contented himself with doing ample justice to the great painters, and slurring over the comparatively unknown artists, whose merits are in advance of their fame, but has embraced in his careful view the long line of Spanish artists who have flourished or faded in the course of nearly eight hundred years; and he has accomplished this difficult task, not in the plodding spirit of a Dryasdust, or with the curt dulness of a catalogue-monger, but with the discriminating good taste of an accomplished English gentleman, and in a style at once racy and rhetorical. There are whole pages in the Annals as full of picturesque beauty aз the scenes or events they describe, and of melody, as an Andalusian summer's eve; indeed, the vigorous fancy and genial humour of the author have, on some few occasions, led him to stray from those strict rules of audos, which we are old-fashioned enough to wish always observed. But where the charms and merits are so great, and so many, and the defects so few and so small, we may safely leave the discovery of the latter to the critical reader, and satisfy our conscience by expressing a hope that, when Mr Stirling next appears in the character of author-a period not remote, we sincerely trust

he will have discarded those few scentless flowers from his literary garden, and present us with a bouquet

"Full of sweet buds and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie." But if he never again put pen to paper, in these annals of the artists of Spain he has given to the reading public a work which, for utility of design, patience of research, and grace of language, merits and has won the highest honours of authorship.

WHAT was the Dodo? When was the Dodo? Where is the Dodo? are all questions, the first more especially, which it is fully more easy to ask than answer. Whoever has looked through books on natural history-for example, that noted but now scarce instructor of our early youth, the Three Hundred Animals-must have observed a somewhat ungainly creature, with a huge curved bill, a shortish neck, scarcely any wings, a plumy tuft upon the back-considerably on the off-side, though pretending to be a tail,—and a very shapeless body, extraordinarily large and round about the hinder end. This anomalous animal being covered with feathers, and having, in addition to the other attributes above referred to, only two legs, has been, we think justly, regarded as a bird, and has accordingly been named the Dodo. But why it should be so named is another of the many mysterious questions, which require to be considered in the history of this unaccountable creature. No one alleges, nor can we conceive it possible, that it claims kindred with either of the only two human beings we ever heard of who bore the name: "And after him (Adino the Eznite) was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away." Our only other human Dodo belonged to the fair sex, and was the mother of the famous Zoroaster, who flourished in the days of Darius Hystaspes, and brought back the Persians to their ancient fire-worship, from the adoration of the twinkling stars. The name appears to have been dropped by both families, as if they were somewhat ashamed of it; and we feel

assured that of such of our readers as admit that Zoroaster must have had a mother of some sort, very few really remember now-a-days that her name was Dodo. There were no baptismal registers in those times; or, if such existed, they were doubtless consumed in the "great fire "—a sort of periodical, it may be providential, mode of shortening the record, which seems to occur from time to time in all civilised countries.

con

But while the creature in question, -we mean the feathered biped-has been continuously presented to view in those "vain repetitions which unfortunately form the mass of our information in all would-be popular works on natural history, we had actually long been at a stand-still in relation to its essential attributes-the few competent authorities who had given out their opinion upon this, as many thought, stereotyped absurdity, being so disagreed among themselves as to make confusion worse founded. The case, indeed, seemed desperate; and had it not been that we always entertained a particular regard for old Clusius, (of whom byand-by,) and could not get over the fact that a Dodo's head existed in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and a Dodo's foot in the British Museum, London, we would willingly have indulged the thought that the entire Dodo was itself a dream. But, shaking off the cowardly indolence which would seek to shirk the investigation of so great a question, let us now inquire into a piece of ornithological biography, which seemed so singularly to combine the familiar with the fabulous. Thanks to an accomplished and persevering naturalist of our own day one of the most successful and assiduous inquirers of the younger generation-we have now all the facts, and most of the fancies, laid before us

VOL. LXV.-NO. CCCXCIX.

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