but it appears probable that another quarter of a century, or, perhaps, half that time, may produce a new phase in civilization, and art may be carried, perhaps, to a point it has never yet attained. The great efforts in France and Germany seem tending to such a denouement: they are before the English in the higher walks-but the English must not despair; for this advance is a forced one, produced by governments-produced by artificial stimulants, which can do nothing beyond a certain point; whilst to our independent course there is no limit; and we shall pass them at last.

CHAPTER VIII.

STUDI, ARTISTS, AND CAFE GRECO.

THE increase of the population of Rome by the continual influx of students of the fine arts is by no means inconsiderable. Germans, I think, now predominate, and are easily distinguished, as they stroll among the ruins, by their very small caps, with their very large, long, pokes or shades, their lank, hanging fair hair, and their never idle pipe, which is the medium through which a German introduces the external air to his breathing apparatus. Deprived of it, the work of respiration, it would seem, could not go on; and the consequent result need not be hinted at. The French come next in point of numbers, and are to be known by a certain wildness of air and expression, a profuse moustache, and a reckless and defying sort of address and manner, which distinguishes a particular caste of the youth of la jeune France. The pensionnaires, however, have a more gentlemanly appearance, though equally fierce. They are students who having received in Paris the first prizes in painting, architecture, or sculpture, in the royal academies, are, with a suitable pension, sent for three years to the Académie Royale de France à Rome, now held at the Villa Medici; the President of which Ingres, a really great master of his art, has just succeeded the talented Horace Vernet. These pensionnaires form a sort of aristocracy of the French artists in Rome, whose acquaintance is much sought by those less lucky of their compatriots, who sketching, begging, or starving their way to Marseilles, embark as steerage passengers, and for about two pounds sterling are landed at Civitia Vecchia, and trudge their remaining thirty miles to Rome. When there, they exist how they can, till they have enriched their portfolio sufficiently in two or three years, to return to France, and change its contents to gold. Many of these rough fellows are youths of first-rate talent; in which latter commodity (however inferior in gentlemanly appearance) they very commonly surpass the majority of their brethren of the Académie.

The English are few in comparison, but of a very superior grade, as far as

education and station in society are concerned; for but a very small minority of the French or German are presentable. In April there is a public exhibition, which affords some opportunity of judging of the respective merits of the aspirants to fame; and I should say, that although Paris possesses, beyond a doubt, a much greater number of superior artists than either Munich, Berlin, or Vienna, that in Rome the show was in favour of German talent. The exhibition was held in some rooms in the Piazza del Popolo, given for the purpose, I believe, by the Roman Government. There were some good heads by Wiedmann, a student from one of the German cantons of Switzerland; particularly a study from the celebrated model, la bella Geuditta, in emulation of Titian's Flora. Another, of her sister, also a model; for in a city where so many are congregated for the study of the fine arts, this becomes a lucrative profession. An interesting face is worth four paoli per hour, equal to the whole day's labour of a vine-dresser, and if combined with a symmetrical figure, at least a scudo; reaching even two or three scudi if the contour be particularly fine. As the model says, in Paul de Koch's graphic novel, "had my extremities been equal to my torso (throwing back his shoulders and expanding his chest), I should have been worth ten francs an hour, and possessed an income secured upon my own person, equal to that of a deputé."

A portrait of the great Thorwalsden, by Horace Vernet, will become interesting to posterity, if only for the union of names in the signature: "Horace Vernet à son illustre ami Thorwalsden." There were many good landscapes, but four by Marco, an Hungarian, I pronounce perfect gems! little Claudes! but with a firmness of finish which the painter of Lorraine could never have imparted to them in his most happy moments. They were exquisite morceaux; all purchased by Thorwalsden, who is a patron as well as a cultivator of art. If Marco honours these promissory notes, he will be the first landscape painter of the age; but I fancy that a genius, even not quite first-rate, may often produce a few works in the flush of youth and enthusiasm, which are never after equalled. These were evidently compositions made from elaborate and careful studies from nature, about Nemi and La Riccia: nothing introduced without a previous accurate drawing, and the spots selected of such exquisite beauty, that it is difficult to say whether, even in nature, he will again find their equals. At all events, when he has left Italy, and exhausted his portfolios of Italian materials, I much question whether he will be able to originate fresh ones of equal beauty. I congratulate Thorwalsden on his purchase, for should Marco fall back, he will possess gems (in their peculiar style of excellence), never to be equalled by any other hand;

and if he should go on, he has the glory of being the first patron of one of the greatest artists of the age.

The next in merit was a landscape by a Norwegian student-" Wild-fowl shooting, at sunrise, in Norway"; the foreground, an expanse of clear shallow water, giving its cold green colouring to the stones and rocks beneath, executed with wonderful cleverness. At a short distance, the morning mist rising from the surface of the lake becomes perceptible, concealing by degrees all the middle distance, beyond which, rises, still near enough to display execution in the detail, a white ridge of rock, catching above the mist the roseate tint of morning; an effect managed with so much art and effect, that while I was struck with its beauty, I imagined it caused by a real ray from the skylight of the room.

In an inferior rank were some landscapes, with figures introduced, by Porcelli, an Italian, in illustration of Sir Walter Scott's novels, which are just becoming the rage in an Italian dress, though I cannot say much for the translations I have hitherto seen of the Cavaliere Gualtiereo Scott, as he is termed. Signor Porcelli's ideas of landscape are wild in the extreme; his knurly, curly, rocks, and flourishing and fanciful caverns, I should have deemed the grotesque inventions of a wild fancy, had I not seen such vagaries of nature at Terni, which most picturesque spot I have no doubt had been the scene of his studies. That singular valley was once the bed of a lake, whose petrifying waters, or rather their deposits or incrustations, have left the most curious and elaborate tracery upon those once subaqueous rocks and caves; presenting scenes as unique and fanciful as the wildest vagaries of the artist's pencil.

Signor Porcelli would prove a treasure to some fancy Japan manufactory; Jennings and Betteridge's, of Birmingham, for instance, whom I recommend to invite him over; for with that noble contempt of ordinary nature, which is the prerogative of Japan painting, he would cover their papier maché loo tables with a maze of fairy work of wildness and variety yet undreamt of in the smoky regions of that town of chimneys and furnaces. I trust I may be safe out of Rome ere the Signor peruses these remarks; which however are not meant to disparage, but merely to convey an idea of a species of talent which is far above the vocation I have hinted at.

Many of the German students had some delightfully elaborate interiors; among others, some charming morceaux from the chiostro di Constantino, and the convent of the monks of San Gregorio. A Frenchman had some clever sketches of the Carnival, and croquis of popular Roman scenes, which met the English

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taste considerably: his "Confetti et Mocoletti," and a "passegiata in the Villa Borghesi," were very clever.

The sculpture consisted principally of busts of English visitors, it being the fashion for tourists to take back their heads in marble, which were occasionally very good; but the best specimens of sculpture are not exhibited, and are only to be seen at the studi. What I most admired were some beautiful groups of Italian Greyhounds, by Gom, an Englishman; and one Greyhound playing with a Lizard—one of those shining green lizards so commonly seen flitting about the walls and roads in the environs of Rome, by a Belgian; which though perhaps inferior in delicacy of execution to the rival works of our countryman with the euphonious name, was highly spirited, and promised much from a young student.

The pensionnaires of the French Academy hold their exhibitions separately, in the apartments of the Villa Medici. Their collection of pictures was small, but there was a good study or two of the naked figure, and a large composition in that cold style which is by the French themselves now called perruque. It is the epoque de l'empire, when David, and after him Girodet, and Gros, brought back painting from the frittery insignificance it had sunk into under the last Louis's, to something like good taste. But in bringing back the simple and fine forms of antiquity, they transferred to the canvas too much of the statue; and in making drawing, which they had all the merit of restoring to its purity, the only object, to the almost total neglect of colour, composition, and effect, they produced some noble works certainly, but so chilled by these defects, that they meet with but few admirers in the present new phase of the art*. It is from these painters, however, that English critics have judged the modern French school; they walk through the Luxemburg, where the great works of that epoch are preserved, and think they have seen enough to enable them to judge of the state of art in France. As well might a Frenchman, having walked through West's gallery (ere it was dispersed) have pronounced a similar fiat upon the state of the art in England.

Those who speak in a supercilious tone of the French school of painting, have surely never seen the works of Paul Delacroix, who is now covering the vast walls of the church of the Madeline, on the Boulevard, with a suite of frescoes,

*This style, however, had a peculiar charm for all whose taste had been exclusively formed by a classical education; among whom we may reckon Forsyth, who admired the works of Mengs, which were among the poorest specimens of this taste, while he called Pietro da Cortona frigid. Pietro with all his faults is worth a thousand Mengs's. Raphael Mengs was the leader of a school of art, in Italy, towards the end of the eighteenth century, which corresponded to the one founded about the same time in France, by David and his followers.