mate art complaining of the frivolous and unmeaning purposes to which the practice of design had even then become confined. In lieu of the sublime delineations of the gods of Greece or the heroes of antiquity, their pictures abounded with the jests of clowns or the figures of imaginary monsters; and the absurdities of arabesques and oriental extravagancies supplied the place of historic incident and inspiring passion.* The prevalence of this unmeaning predilection for unnatural extravagancies, operated quickly in the degradation of *The introduction of arabesques is attributed by Pliny to a painter of the age of Augustus. "Non fraudando et Ludio, Divi Augusti ætate, qui primus instituit amœnissimam parietum picturam, villas et porticos, ac topiaria opera, lucos, nemora, colles, piscinas, uripos, amnes, litora qualia quis optaret, varias ibi obambulantium species, aut navigantium terraque villas adeuntium, asellis aut vehiculis," &c.—-Pliny, 1. xxxv. c. 10. It is somewhat singular to find this writer, who is so sensibly alive to the decline of the art in his own times, applauding rather than censuring this prostitution of painting. But Vitruvius, who writes at an earlier era, and gives a pitiable detail of the subjects adopted by the painters of the Augustan age, seems to descry with prophetic acumen the approaching ruin of design, and speaks of the artists in arabesque with proper feelings of indignant contempt. “Nam pinguntur tectoriis," he exclaims, "monstra potius quam ex rebus finitis imagines certæ. Pro columnis enim statuuntur calami, pro fastigiis harpaginetuli striati cum crispis foliis et volutis; item candelabra ædicularum sustinentia figuras, painting, by giving a popular interest to a style of composition which discarded in its design all knowledge of human feeling or study of human form, and whose execution was dependent neither on accuracy of drawing nor elegance of proportion.* The noble uses of the art can never, in fact, be said to have been recognized by the Romans, who applied it merely to the purposes of ostentation or amusement. Even in the supra fastigia earum surgentes ex radicibus cum volutis coliculi teneri plures, habentes in se sine ratione sedentia sigilla, &c. Hæc autem nec sunt nec fieri ponunt nec fuerunt. At hæc falsa videntes homines non reprehendunt sed delectantur neque animadvertunt si quid eorum fieri potest nec ne."-Vitruv. 1. vii. c. 5. p. 166, 167. Agincourt has devoted one of the plates of his superb work (No. ii. Peint. Decad.) to the illustration of a few of the bizarre productions of this age. Several of the subjects, (such as Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 12,) represent scenes totally devoid of interest, the shops of a fisherman and a shoe-maker, a money-changer and potter, a house without figures, and a group of fowls: these were found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. No. 3. is a landscape on the shores of the Nile, where a countryman is pulling his ass laden with bottles by the tail in order to save it from a crocodile, which has already devoured its head. No. 4. is a ludicrous combat of pigmies. And No. 5. which was discovered in 1760 in the ruins of Gargano, near Naples, is a caricature of Eneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, representing each with a pig's head.-See vol. ii. Peint. Decad. p. 16. and vol. iii. Tab. des Planches Peint. p. 2, 3. * delineation of portraits, their ambition was splendour of costume, not faithfulness of form;* and long before the accession of Constantine, design and conception may be considered to have been totally lost, and their want supplied by gilding, and brilliant but unharmonious colours. Nor can the annals of classical Rome be said to have produced one painting of attractive merit.‡ The love of splendour manifested by Constantine, which exceeded even that of Dioclesian, was imbibed by his sons, and is evinced in every monument of their reigns which has reached us. * The reader will contrast with this the anecdote of Apelles and his pupil, when the latter having completed a portrait of Helen bedecked with jewels, the immortal artist remarked, "That, failing to paint her beautiful, he had made her splendid." The apothegm, though common, was lost on the Ro mans. + "Ce vice s'accrut lorsque la peinture éloignée de son but moral fut consideré comme un simple moyen de decoration. Heliogabale, Gallien, Aurelien, et ses successeurs la favorisèrent par un faste immoderé. L'or et le minium repandus avec profusion dans les peintures couvroient les murs des palais, et formèrent pour des juges ignorans le principale mérite."-Emeric-David, p. 17. Perhaps the best specimens of Roman painting are the decorations of the sepulchre of the Nasones, discovered in the Via Flaminia, in 1674, and attributed to the second century. They are figured in Bellori's illustrations of this interesting antique. prac The painter, in his elaborate execution of embroidery and jewels in their portraits, overlooked the more important items of form and proportion; and whilst their busts still exhibited some slight traces of expression, and their draperies retained the character of the ancient style, the symmetry of figure and the grace or eloquence of action were forgotten. During this and the two succeeding centuries, the tice of historical painting was gradually abandoned, and the talents of the artist were employed almost exclusively on works of a sacred nature. This revolution is easily accounted for by the decay of public taste for classical subjects, the abhorrence manifested against the exploded mythology of the Greeks and Romans, and the fanaticism and religious intole* Emeric-David, pp. 24. 40. + The 'earliest specimens now extant of miniature painting and illumination of manuscripts, an art of extreme antiquity according to Pliny, (l. xxxv. c. 2.) date from the fourth century and the age of Constantine. Of these, the most ancient at present known is the MS. Genesis of the Imperial library at Vienna, which contains a number of paintings illustrative of the lives of Adam and the Patriarchs. Their execution and design attest strongly the existing corruption of the art. Contemporary with these is the MS. Virgil of the Vatican, and, according to Winkelmann, the Terence of the same collection. (1. vi. c. 8.) The grotesque sketches of the former will be found copiously figured in the fifth volume of Agincourt's Histoire de l'Art, Nos. xx. xxi. xxii. xxiii. xxiv. and xxv. rance with which, from the conclusion of the third century, the Greeks were so blindly beset. Ere pursuing the tale of the gradual corruption of the art, it may be well to give a brief account of the origin and progress of these branches of design, and the successive forms under which the person and actions of Christ were represented in the first ages of the Church. The earliest delineations of the Saviour were those which, as I have before mentioned, were employed in decorating the catacombs of the primitive Christians. But even in these ob scure retreats, the vigilance of persecution obliged the proscribed followers of the new creed to conceal under allegories and mystery the venerated memorials of their faith;* and in the paintings of this gloomy period, the figure of the Redeemer is always veiled under an assumed character. His most ordinary representation was that of a shepherd bearing in his arms a lamb which had strayed from the fold; and the circumstances of his death and Agincourt, v. ii. Peint. Decad. p. 24. This allegory is perhaps the most common and the earliest under which we find a representation of the Saviour: it occurs in the vault of the catacomb of the Via Latina. (See Aringhi Roma Subterranea, v. ii. p. 25.) and in that of Priscilla, in the Via Salara, discovered in 1776, (ib. p. 293.) both of which are supposed to be among the earliest Christian |