A more splendid work upon the

FINE ARTS

than the first volume of "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman, selected from different Collections in Great Britain, by the Society of Dilettanti," has not often made its appearance. Prefixed is a "Dissertation on the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Ancient Sculpture;" contined to the mimetic or technical part of the art. To go minutely through the contents of this; dissertation would occupy more space than can be here allowed. It opens with a few remarks on Imitation in general, and the primitive efforts of art; traces sculpture first among the Egyp tians, and afterwards among the Hindoos, Phoenicians, and Etruscans; and devotes, a space of letter-press to the Greek and Roman periods of its history, adequate to the prodigious, superiority which those nations evinced over every other state, in works of real taste and genius.

"The most ancient monument of Grecian sculpture (it is observed) now: extant, is unquestionably the broken piece of natural relief in the ancient pontal to the gates of Mycena, which is probably the same that belonged to the capital of Agamemnon, and may therefore be at least as old as the age of Dadalus... It. represents two lious rampant, sufficiently entire, to afford, a very tolerable idea of the style of the work. The plate of it given in the tail-piece to this discourse, is engraved from a sketch made upon the spot, and corrected by admeasure ment, by William Gell, esq., and though this does not afford any very accurate information as to the derails of the work, the three compositious of the engraved, gem given with it are perfectly compefent to supply such information; they being in exactly the same style, and having been found in the same country, by the same intelligent and industrious traveller... The head, of Minerva on the silver tetradrachm of Athens, engraved in the tail-piece to this volume, fig. 1. is probably copied from the sitting figure of Minerva, made by Endæus abovementioned; it being far the most archaic of the three variations of the head of that goddess observable on the Athe-. nian coms, previous to those which seem to have been copied from the great stas, tue of brass made by Phidias, and placed. in the Acropolis.

"Next to these, the most ancient specimens of Grecian art are probably to be found on coins; and as the dates of

many of these can be fixed with tolerable accuracy, they may serve to show the style and degree of merit of many more important objects mentioned by ancient authors; and to ascertain the periods when others now existing were produced. Coins are said to have been first struck in Greece by Phido of Argos, in the island of Egina, eight hundred and sixty-nine years before the Christian era; and we have coins still extant of that island, which seem, both by the rudeness of the sculpture, and the imperfection of the striking, to be of nearly as early a date: but as the device is only a tortoise, with an angulated incuse on the reverse, they do not throw much light upon the general style of art.

"Coins however of a form and fabric equally simple and archaic, bearing the devices of other Greek cities both of Europe and Asia, are found with the fgures both of men and animals; but as they have no letters, there are no nieans of ascertaining their respective dates; though they exhibit evident proofs of the infancy of the art; being shapeless masses, generally of native gold, not stamped with the die, but rudely driven into it, first by a blow; of a hammer, and then by a square punch or rammer. Ac cording to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first who struck coins or made use of money; bat it is probable that Greek artists were employed in sinking the dies, as they were afterwards in other works of sculpture, by the sovereigns of that. empire. Stamped money in brass was was not in use till long after; none of the Greek being of an early date, and that of the Etruscans and early Romans being all cast in moulds,"

The subsequent specimens of Grecian sculpture quoted, are arranged in chro nological order.

The following observations are on some of the supposed works of Phidias.

74. Of Phidias's general style of composition, the friezes and metopes of the temple of Minerva at Athens, published by Mr. Stuart, and since brought to England, may afford us com petent information; but as these are merely architectural sculptures exceured from his designs, and under his directions, probably by workmen scarcely ranked among artists, and meant to be seen at the height of more than forty feet from the eye, they can throw but little-light upon the more important details of his art. From the degree and mode of relief in the friezes, they appear

to have been intended to produce an effect like that of the simplest kind of monochromatic painting, when seen from their proper point of sight; which effect must have been extremely light and elegant. The relief in the metopes is much higher, so as to exhibit the figures nearly complete; and the details are more accurately and elaborately made out: but they are so different in their degrees of merit, as to be evidently the works of nany different persons, some of whom would not have been entitled to the rank of artists in a much less cultivated and fastidious age."

The account of the Roman period of sculpture is intermixed with a cursory view of the real principles of Roman polity, and the nature and extent of its influence on other nations.

The plates which accompany this - work, are no less than seventy-five in number, exclusive of vignettes: many of them in the best styles of the best artists. Among those which are more peculiarly adapted to attract notice are, the head of Osiris, a fragment of a sta. tue in green basaltes; a narble head, from the collection of the marquis of Lansdowne; the side view of a colossal head of Hercules, from the Townleian collection, now at the British Museum, found in the ruins of Hadrian's Villa, at Tivoli; Hercules taming the hind, from the same collection; a bas-relief of one of the Dioscuri; the figure of an Aliptes or Anointer, from the museum of Mr. R. P. Knight; a colossal head of Minerva; the Minerva from Mr. T. Hope's collection; Hygeia, from the same co lection; the ancient copy of the Discobolus of Myro; the brouze figure of Jupiter, from Mr. Knight's collection; the marble Hercules, in the marquis of Lansdowne's; the figure of Venus or Dione; formerly belonging to Mr. Townley; the head of Mercury; the head of one of the Homeric heroes, from the earl of Egremont's collection; a pantheie bust of the mystic Bacchus; and a figure of Scrapis, from Mr. Knight's.

A specimen of the descriptions which accompany each plate, may be given in that of plate 40. illustrating the Hercules belonging to the late marquis of Lans

downe.

Plate 40.-"This statue was found with the Discobolus, plate 29. in the neighbourhood of Rome; and the late Mr. Townley, to whom the choice of them was immediately offered, was in

duced, by the drawing and description sent to him, to prefer the latter; though when he saw them, he instantly changed his opinion; this Hercules being, with the exception of the Pan or Faun, at Holkham, incomparably the finest male figure that has ever come into this coun try, and one of the finest that has hitherto been discovered. It has also the great advantage of being quite entire, except some splinters of the club, and the part of the right leg between the transverse dotted lines in the print. The head has never been off; the hair and features, even to the point of the nose, so seldom preserved, are unbroken, and the lion's skin is its own. Parts of the surface of the body are indeed corroded, but not so as to injure in any degree the effect of the whole, which is peculiarly impressive and imposing; it being placed in a gallery worthy of it, and in the most advantageous light possible; which has enabled the artist, who drew and engraved it, to produce a print so accurate and complete, as to render all description superfluous. We know of no very fine statue, of which so faithful and adequate a representation has been given to the public."

In the front of the class of

POETRY

we place "The Lady of the Lake," by Mr. WALTER SCOTT. The scene of this poem is laid chiefly in the vicinity of Loh-katrine, in the Western Highlands of Perthshire. The time of action includes six days, and the transactions of each day occupy a canto. The following are the titles of the different cantos. I. The Chase. II. The Island. III. The Gathering. IV. The Prophecy. V. The Combat. VI. The Guard Room.

Our first specimen shall be from the fifteenth stanza of the first canto: "From the steep promontory gazed The stranger, raptur'd and amazed, And, What a scene were here,' he cried, For princely pomp and churchman's' pride;

On this bold brow, a lordly tower;
In that soft vale, a lady's bower;
On yonder meadow, far away,
The turrets of a cloister grey;

How blithely might the bugle horn
Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn!
How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute
Chime, when the groves were still and

mute!

How solemn on the ear would come
The holy matin's distant hum;
While the deep peal's commanding tone
Should wake, in yonder islet lone,
A sainted hermit from his cell,
To drop a bead with every knell-
And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,'
Should each bewildered stranger call
To friendly feast, and lighted hali.' ”

Again, stanza 17:

But scarce again his horn be wound,
When lo, forth starting at the sound,
From underneath an aged oak,
That slanted from the islet rock,
A damsel, guider of its way,
A little skiff shot to the bay,
That round the promontory steep
Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
Eddying in almost viewless wave,
The weeping willow twig to lave,

And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
The beach of pebbles, bright as snow.
The boat had touched this silver strand
Just as the hunter left his stand,
And stood concealed amid the brake,
To view this Lady of the Lake.
The maiden paused, as if again
She thought to catch the distant strain,
With head up-raised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent;
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Græcian art:
In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand."

Interspersed throughout are numerous ballads, many of which have considerable merit. The following is from the canto of the Island:

SONG.

"Not faster yonder rowers' might

Flings from their oars the spray,
No faster yonder rippling bright,
That tracks the shallop's course in light,
Melts in the lake away,

Than men from memory erase
The benefits of former days;
Then, stranger, go, good speed thee while,
Nor think again of the lonely isle.

"High place to thee in royal court,

High place in battled line,

Good hawk and hound for sylvan sport,
Where beauty sees the brave resort,

The honoured meed be thine.
True he thy sword, thy friend sincere,
Thy lady constant, kind, and dear;
And lost in love's and friendship's smile,
Be memory of the lonely isle,
"But if beneath yon southern sky

A plaided stranger roam,
Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh,
And sunken cheek and heavy eye,

Pine for his highland home;
Then, warrior, then be thine to show
The care that sooths a wanderer's woe ;
Remember then thy hap ere while,
A stranger in the lonely isle.

way,

Through secret woes the world has never known,

When on the weary night dawned wearier day,

And bitterer was the grief devoured alone; That I o'erlive such woes, enchantress! is thine own.

Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some spirit of the air has waked thy string!

'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,

'Tis now the brush of fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring,

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell, And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring

A wandering witch-note of the distant spell

And now, 'tis silent all!-Enchantress, fare thee well!"

The notes at the end, though not very numerous, have interest; and illustrate not only Scottish manners but Scottish bistory. On the whole, however, though there is much to commend, we cannot say we think that the " Lady of the Lake" is quite equal, in poetical merit, either to the "Lay of the last Minstrel," or "Marmion."

A poem