regardless of rules and reputations, frequently reverses these particular productions of those inestimable Artists. The Ascension of St. Petronilla, a Saint unknown to Protestants, but, in the Romish Kalendar, the Daughter of St. Peter, represents two scenes immediately dependant on each other, however irreconcilable with the canonical idea of the Resurrection of the Body, and the Day of Judgment. At the bottom of the Picture, two Men are seen lowering the Corpse into the grave, adorned with flowers, after the manner of Antiquity, while the Spirit appears above, in shining garments, the gracious Being that said to the penitent Thief on the cross, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise," receiving her into Heaven, with out out the intervention of Purgatorial fire. But it is not my intention to implicate the faith of the Painter-there is no heresy in his performance: yet the peculiar delusion of this piece is owing to the happy application of mosaic tints to the strong colouring of Guercino, which produces upon the polished surface the effect of a real bas relief, in coloured marbles. In the Communion of St. Jerome, the dying Saint displays the Christian triumph over Death, Hell, and the Grave, as One about to receive the welcome sentence of "Well done, good and "faithful Servant! Enter thou into the "joy of thy Lord." Yet the administering Priests attend with an air of hypocrisy, or indifference, but too well drawn from the life. The shadow of the platter platter on which the superannuated officiator tremulously conveys the consecrated Wafer, falls so naturally upon the face of a kneeling Attendant, that Fancy aids the illusion, and it seems to waver under his palsied hand. The Transfiguration of Christ, before Peter, James, and John, when Moses and Elias, appeared with him on Mount Tabor, is exquisitely fine, in the principal Figure-self-balanced in the airand beaming with light. But the attendant Prophets, can only serve as foils; and the Story of the Maniac, from whom the Disciples could not cast out an evil Spirit in the absence of their Master, is strangely introduced below, though we are told that the transfiguration happened on a high mountain—apart. The finest things in Sculpture, as to design and execution (for all the Monuments of St. Peter's are inconceivably rich in variegated marbles) are the Tomb of Clement XIII. by Canova-a living Artist; and that of Paul III. by William de la Porte-a Pupil of Michael Angelo. These unequalled Essays of Modern Sculpture are invariably distinguished from other Mausoleums of Popes and Princes, equally rich and splendid, by the spontaneous admiration of surrounding Crowds. The design of the former is at once simple and majestic-a Genius, in a disconsolate attitude, extinguishing the torch torch of life, and Religion, triumphant over the grave, having at their feet two Lions (one sleeping, the other watchful) support a square tomb, upon which the Pope appears, kneeling, in his pontifical habits-the tiara at his feet. This incomparable Cenotaph is not less than twenty feet high, the whole executed in white marble, except the Lions, and their pedestals, in grey. The Artist of the Latter surpassed his Age, the Sixteenth Century, there being nothing equal to this, in marble, of that period, though bronze works had even then attained the summit of perfection at Florence, under the fostering patronage of the Medicean Family.— Justice and Prudence lie recumbent, on a pedestal, |