said to have been favourable to art, the costume of Great Britain was rich and picturesque, and rather afforded facilities than presented impediments to the painter; yet, the portraits of the present day are far superior to those of native artists at the periods alluded to; and art has made greater progress, under manifest disadvantages of costume, than it did when the national dress was advantageous. It was ignorance of the dignity and creative powers of art, and not the want of proper objects to represent, or the presence of any exclusively national disadvantages, that made the works of our early British artists inferior to those of modern times; and it was the light derived from intellectual sources, operating upon a powerful and discriminating mind, that first enabled Reynolds to overcome greater difficulties of costume, than had ever presented themselves to our ancestors, and, ultimately, to attain a higher degree of excellence in portrait-painting, than had ever been previously reached.

The means of improvement that Sir Joshua took advantage of, were not, however, afforded, with very few exceptions, to the painters of England who preceded him; and we must also recollect that, if they had been afforded, British art was not prepared, till after the reign of Charles I., to avail itself of any such auxiliaries. The practical or executive part of the art had not been sufficiently attained by British painters, to enable them to soar into the regions of imagination, and look steadily to the great end of art,

appeared, Great Britain had been chiefly indebted t foreigners for what it had witnessed of genuine art We can scarcely account for this humiliating circum stance on the grounds of any national incapacity for painting peculiar to the artists of the soil; an this is not the age in which advantages or disad vantages of climate can be offered as reasons fo failure or success in any intellectual pursuit. Besides if natural causes may be supposed to have operated i preventing the early growth of art in this country, i is reasonable to infer, that the same causes would con tinue to operate in retarding its progress when it bega to display itself: but we do not see that any insur mountable objections interfere to impede the farthe progress of British art in its present advanced state and cannot understand, if such had ever existed why they did not contribute to stifle in their birt the efforts which it has so successfully made. It is tru that, with regard to Historical Painting, and the highe departments of Landscape, we have difficulties to com tend with which do not exist in the climates and loca peculiarities of Italy and other southern portions Europe; but these can only be considered as partia impediments, and do not, certainly, amount to objec tions of vital importance: in Portrait-Painting we hav little beyond the disadvantages of a tasteless costum to encounter; and we have already been taught, b the genius of Reynolds, that even these may be ren dered subservient to the fancy and contrivance of th artist. We find, also, that, at times which may b

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that had ever presenes temeres to our ancestors, and stimmer and of excellence ʼn petrat-tanting that ever been previously

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The means of intermement that Sir Joshua took advantage of were not, however, afforded, with very few exceptions, to the painters of England who preceded him; and we also recollect that, if they had been afforded. British art was not prepared, till after the reign of Charles I., to avail itself of any such auxiliaries. The practical or executive part of the art had not been sufficiently attained by British painters, to enable them to soar into the regions of imagination, and look steadily to the great end of art,

unencumbered by mechanical difficulties. It was not till after the study of the works of Vandyke, and other masters of the Flemish school, as well as those of Lely and Kneller, both of them foreign artists, had supplied the deficiencies of early British art, and made the painter acquainted with his tools, that our artists were qualified to receive impressions derived from intellectual sources; and it was, either because they neglected to acquire such impressions, when the executive parts of the profession were attained, or, in most cases, had not the means of access to the works from which they might have been derived, that the art may be said to have worn itself out in the hands of the immediate predecessors of Reynolds. We may fairly assume that the productions of this admirable painter gave the first-great stimulus to British art, and showed to British artists the extent of their deficiencies, and the means by which they might be remedied; but, if the sources from which he drank so deeply of excellence be looked for in the soil which was trodden by his early instructors, in the knowledge which he gained of his art from any sources exclusively Flemish or British, the search will be made there in vain he had, indeed, acquired a bold and decided style of painting, a firmness and freedom of execution, and a certain taste of colour superior to that of the artists who were his contemporaries, before he left England to study in Italy; but we may venture to affirm, that, if he had never enjoyed the opportunities of comparing the results of his early education with

the works of Italian genius, he would never have attained that high superiority, which is now so universally allowed to him, and would, probably, never have carried portrait-painting farther than Hogarth or Gainsborough have carried it. There was nothing in England to create that admirable taste, that fine perception, of what is noble and beautiful in nature, which enabled Sir Joshua Reynolds to raise the character of British art, and to establish it on a solid foundation. It was the study of those principles on which Raphael and Michel Angelo had formed their comprehensive and elevated views of nature, which first enabled Reynolds to perceive his own deficiencies, to appreciate the value of intellectual art, and to employ it in dignifying that of his country.

The application of what is emphatically termed "the grand style of art," and often sarcastically alluded to as such, to those departments of painting which appear, on a superficial view, to have no connection with elevated nature, has not been thought practicable by many who have written and talked on the subject; but the works of Michel Angelo and Raphael may be accessory in forming the style of a portrait-painter, by leading him to consider the means which those great men employed in raising the standard of nature to sublimity; and Reynolds had the tact to discover in what those means consisted, and the power to apply them to the elevation of nature in his own peculiar branch of the art. Of his ability to employ them with equal success in the higher depart