art in Rome, comprehends the time of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, and terminates with Commodus.

From the view of the rise, progress, and ultimate disap. pearance of the art in Rome, our author proceeds to give some account of the discovery of the principal statues of which either the originals or copies are preserved.

The M. Aurelius was removed, by the advice of Michael Angelo in 1558, from its station in the front of the Lateran Church. The Torso of Hercules is supposed to be a part of a group, and Mr. Flaxman has modelled a restoration as Hercules and Hebe. The Laocoon is attributed to Agesander; and since it is chisselled only and not polished, it is supposed to be merely a copy. It consists of five pieces of Parian marble. Winkelmann assigns it to the first century of the Christian æra. When removed to Paris, it was covered with a thick wash of lime, then placed in the centre of a case of wood, and afterwards the whole was filled up with a mixture of wax and rosin, so as to form a solid cube, in order that it might not be injured by the motion during the conveyance. Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Annibal Caracci, were enthusiastic admirers of this production. The Antinous or Mercury has also been called Hercules im berbis, and Theseus. The legs do not correspond with the rest of the figure, which is of the finest Parian marble. The Venus de Medicis was so denominated from having been placed in the garden of the Villa Medici at Rome. Ac cording to the antiquaries of the sixteenth century, this is the genuine Venus formed by Praxiteles for the Guidians, and which is described by Lucian. In the Hercules and Telephus, the father supports his son in his left hand, and is clothed in the spoils of the Hernæan Lion.

The Hercules Farnese, with the group of Dirce, Zethus, and Amphion, usually called the Toro, were placed in the Farnese Palace at Rome, about the middle of the sixteenth century. We contemplate in this statue, says our author, the hero equal to the performance of all the exploits which have been attributed to him by the poets. The group of

"Those who have been accustomed to look at the Farnese Hercules as the perfection of statuary, will perhaps be disappointed at not beholding in these works of Phidias the same obtrusiveness of muscle; not reflecting that beauty, activity, and strength, are generally accordant, and that it is the opinion of men of science, that the Farnese Hercules is rather to be viewed as a standing study of external anatomy, than as a figure intended to have motion, since the size and rotundity of all the muscles is so great, that it would be impossible for a human being so constructed to be other.

Niobe consists of fifteen figures as large as life, representing the mother, children, and tutor, and the execution is attributed to Scopas. The Belvidere Apollo, the most exquisite production of antiquity, was taken from under the ruins of the palace and gardens of Nero, which were at Antium, about forty miles from Rome. It is doubted whether he is here represented as the vanquisher of the serpent Pithon, or exterminating the progeny of Niobe, the faithless Coronis, or the imperious giants. The artist is unknown. Mengs supposes it is a copy of a more famous original. The lower portion of the body is said not to be so well finished as the head. The forepart of the right arm and the left arm, which were deficient, have been restored by a pupil of Michael Angelo. The Gladiator Borghese is attributed to Agasias, whose name is inscribed on the plinth. Le Noir positively assumes it is the statue of Chabrias the Athenian General, in the attitude of sustaining the shock of the Lacedæmonian army. The Dying Gladiator, or Mirmillo expirans, is now considered as representing a wounded soldier, probably a Gaul or German, the Torques, or rope-chain round the neck, having been a common ornament among these people. The Venus of the Capitol, like the Medicean, does not express strong emotion; and the difficulty has been, to avoid insipidity where it is not intended to exhibit any particular passion. The beautiful statue of Meleager was discovered, according to Aldrovandi, near to the Porta Portese; it is of greyish marble, such as the Athenians procured from Mount Hymettus. The last noticed by our author are the Discoboli or Athletæ, in different attitudes with quoits. The one stoops very much forward, having the face declined, but not turned toward the discus, which he holds in his right hand on the point of throwing it, answering the description given by Lucian of the bronze by Myron. The other stands upright, with a retiring step and his eye fixed, as if intent on marking the distance. Spatium jam immane parabat. His left hand holds the discus. His head is bound with the fillet worn by victorious Athletæ.

We shall pass over, from the necessity of circumscribing our review, all that is said of the royal galleries in the fifth section, and conclude with a cursory examination of those of

wise than in a quiescent state; the action of one set of muscles would interfere with the action of another."-Vide Critical Review, Fifth Series, Vol. III. p. 415.

our own country, which will be of some assistance to the curious traveller when he visits the neighbourhood of the seats of our nobility and gentry, whose moniscence has been exhibited in preserving and completing the valuable works connected with the subject of these inquiries. We will only premise, with regard to the restoration of the monuments from the Napoleon Museum, that we have a communication from Italy of the 24th of June instant, stating, that the English ship Abundance, with the second convoy of the monuments of art, returned to that capital, has entered the port of Civita- Vecchia, after a favourable voyage.

The collection of Thomas Earl of Arundel, the father of virtû in England, having been dispersed, we shall first notice from our author the Pembroke collection at Wilton, where we have a statue of Hercules with the Hesperian Apples nearly eight feet high, not in repose as the Farnese, but equally muscular. There is also an Apollo of the same merit, a Fawn characteristically designed, a Greek hero called Pyrrhus, and several females of the Augustine family.

At Ditchley, Dr. Mead had an Hygeia two feet high. His Flora is at Stourhead.

The most valuable bust of Antinous is at Wentworth House, in Yorkshire.

In the reign of George the Second, two rival mansions were erected in Norfolk, Houghton, and Holkham. At the former there were many marble statues, but none of great value. At Holkham, one specimen, a Fawn, has been designated as the finest male statue in England: it was purchased by Lord Leicester at Rome for £1,500, and is in two pieces, the upper being fitted to the lower under the folds of the drapery. It is mentioned by Spence in his Polymetis, who conjectures that it was once in the possession of Cicero. Here we have also a colossal bust of Lucius Verus, which was discovered in the Porto Nettuno.

The late Earl of Egremont formed the gallery of ancient sculpture at Petworth, and the Dilettanti Society deputed Mr. Townley to make a selection from these to be engraved in their splendid work. Here we have a statue of Camillus, or an assistant at the sacrifice, his head bound with a garland of leaves-Silenus Canephorus, or bearing a basket on his head-Apollo Citharæda, or Musagetes habited in a Pallium-a head of Venus of heroic size; another of Ajax colossal; a third of an aged woman, as the wife of a

Pontifex; and a fourth a female bust, the head-dress and features of which resemble those on the medals of Julia Pia-A young Fawn discovered near Rome, and Marsyas teaching Olynthus to play on the flute, an animated group of early Greek sculpture.

The Orford collection at Strawberry Hill has several pieces of merit; among these are two Eagles, a bust of Vespasian, another of Marcus Aurelius, and a third of Caligula. The first is of Ethiopian marble, and the last bas silver eyes.

At Castle Howard there are a few busts, and with these is the head of Atis Diphues, with the Phrygian bonnet.

With the Townley collection we shall conclude our author's catalogue. While the gentleman whose name it bears was progressively acquiring the fine specimens of Greek sculpture, Sir William Hamilton was accomplishing his plan to collect the Vases of Magna Græcia, which were embellished with the utmost efforts of Etruscan design. The British Museum, that under great improvement in the management is now open for public inspection, contains the joint acquisition of these expert and laborious collectors, and those of Mr. Townley were purchased by order of Parliament for the sum of £20,000. The Museum Britannicum, by Taylor Coombe, Esq. and the drawings by Mr. William Alexander his assistant, are in the course of publication, and to both these the reader is referred for more minute information.

The Ceres-Isis, or Canephora, is larger than life, and was one of the Cariatides which supported the portico of some ancient building. Dr. E. Clarke of Cambridge, in his account of the fragment of Ceres brought from Eleusis, considers this statue as of that divinity. The Cupid is less than life, bending his bow, with the lion's skin hanging over the quiver. There are some Fawns, a head of Homer on a Terminus, the head of Caracalla placed upon a modern bust, a bust of Trajan with the breast naked, and an oval vase three feet high with handles. To these we shall only add two busts of the Townleian collection, also preserved in the British Museum; a head of Hercules, colossal, conjectured by several virtuosi to be the original of the Hercules Farnese; and a head of Mercury, which is esteemed to be a specimen of exquisite and characteristic beauty.

After affording such a liberal allowance of space in our monthly pages to this publication, which we admit to be a very useful and amusing accidence of sculpture, or the rudiments of

the literary history of the professors of that art and their productions, it becomes our painful duty to notice some particulars of the misconduct of the author, and some prominent errors in the work.

It will scarcely be credited, that this view of statuary and sculpture through upwards of 250 pages, is extracted verbatim from the Anecdotes of the Arts of England, which the same writer published sixteen years ago. We should have had no objection to his borrowing from his own sources, and making the acknowledgment in the title-page, preface, or any other conspicuous situation, but we must censure the want of ingenuity in offering to the world a stale re-publication of this kind without such notice. Those who, from their prepossession in favour of the author on account of his former undertaking, may purchase the present (which is an octavo volume at 21. 8s.), will find that they obtain little more than the repetition of his earlier opinions, that may perhaps already constitute a part of their library.

But this is not the only portion which is rendered less valuable by recital; nearly forty additional pages are drawn with little variation from the Reports on the Elgin Marbles by the committee of the House of Commons, and from the contemporary pamphlets on the same subject. Thus there remains only about 100 pages of, and these not strictly, new matter, with a few indifferent etchings by an amateur, and not by a professor, as the consideration for the sum paid for this expensive work.

An inconvenience also arises from this blending of the publication of 1800 with that of 1816, which is, that the new materials not properly incorporating with the old, occasions a sort of disgusting patch-work; and as in the latter, the important discoveries which that interval has supplied could not be comprehended, many of these appear to us to have been from indifference or carelessness omitted.

On another kind of inattention we have to remark. In a book professedly on the sublimest productions of human genius, in which the work is connected with the exalted mind by which it is created, we do expect some correspondent elevation between the subject and the description of it; but in these pages, with all the advantages of re-consideration which the author possessed, we find nothing but a cold inanimate account, and he seems never to trust his sensibility, whatever may be the impulse by which the passion should be excited. The consequence is, that if his reader has CRIT. REV. VOL. 1V. July, 1816.

H