art, I confess, consists chiefly in an attention to rules and details, but then it does imply an attention to these, which is contrary to our idea of the flighty French character. I remember, some years ago, a young French artist in the Louvre, who was making a chalk-drawing of a small Virgin and Child, by Leonardo da Vinci, and he took eleven weeks to complete it, sitting with his legs astride over a railing, looking up and talking to those about him-consulting their opinion as to his unwearied imperceptible progress going to the fire to warm his hands, and returning to perfectionate himself! There was a good deal of "laborious foolery" in all this, but still he kept on with it, and did not fly to fifty things one after the other. Another student had undertaken to copy the Titian's Mistress, and the method he took to do it was to parcel out his canvass into squares like an engraver; after which he began very deliberately, not with the face or hair, but with the first square in the right-hand corner of the picture, containing a piece of an old table. He did not care where he began, so that he went through the whole regularly. C'est égal, is the common reply in all such cases. This continuity of purpose, without any great effort or deep interest, surprises an Englishman. We can do nothing without a strong motive, and without violent exertion. But it is this very circumstance probably that enables them to proceed: they take the matter quite easily, and have not the same load of anxious thought to

bear up against, nor the same impatient eagerness to reach perfection at a single stride, to stop them midway. They have not the English air hanging at their backs, like the Old Man of the Sea at Sindbad's! The same freedom from any thing like morbid humour assists them to plod on like the Dutch from mere phlegm, or to diverge into a variety of pursuits, which is still more natural to them. Horace Vernet has in the present Exhibition a portrait of a lady, (a rival to Sir T. Lawrence's) and close to it, a battle-piece, equal to Ward or Cooper. Who would not be a Parisian born, to attain excellence with the wish to succeed from mere confidence or indifference to success, to unite such a number of accomplishments, or be equally satisfied without a single one!

The English are over-hasty in supposing a certain lightness and petulance of manner in the French to be incompatible with sterling thought or steady application, and flatter themselves that not to be merry is to be wise. A French lady who had married an Englishman remarkable for his dullness, used to apologise for his silence in company by incessantly repeating "C'est toujours Locke, toujours Newton," as if these were the subjects that occupied his thoughts. It is well we have these names to appeal to in all cases of emergency; and as far as mere gravity is concerned, let these celebrated persons have been as wise as they would, they could not for the life of them have appeared duller or more stupid than

the generality of their countrymen. The chief advantage I can find in the English over the French comes to this, that though slower, if they once take a thing up, they are longer in laying it down, provided it is a grievance or a sore subject. The reason is, that the French do not delight in grievances or in sore subjects; and that the English delight in nothing else, and battle their way through them most manfully. Their forte is the disagreeable and repulsive. I think they would have fought the battle of Waterloo over again! The English, besides being "good haters," are dogged and downright, and have no salvos for their self-love. Their vanity does not heal the wounds made in their pride. The French, on the contrary, are soon reconciled to fate, and so enamoured of their own idea, that nothing can put them out of conceit with it. Whatever their attachment to their country, to liberty or glory, they are not so affected by the loss of these as to make any desperate effort or sacrifice to recover them. Their continuity of feeling is such, as to be no enemy to a whole skin. They over-ran Europe like tigers, and defended their own territory like deer. They are a nation of heroeson this side of martyrdom!

F

CHAPTER VI.

DIALOGUE, FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

FRENCH.-Have you seen the whole of our Exposition of the present year?—

English. No, but I have looked over a good part of it. I have been much pleased with many of the pictures. As far as I can judge, or have a right to say so, I think your artists have improved within these few years.

French.-Perhaps so, occasionally, but we have not David and some others.

English.-I cannot say that I miss him much. He had, I dare say, many excellences, but his faults were still more glaring, according to our insular notions of the art. Have you Guerin now? He had just brought out his first picture of Phædra and Hippolitus when I was in Paris formerly. It made a prodigious sensation at the time, and very great things were expected from him.

French. No, his works are not much spoken of. English.The Hippolitus in the picture I speak of was very beautiful; but the whole appeared too much cast in the mould of the antique, and it struck me then that there was a mannerism about it that did

not augur favourably for his future progress, but denoted a premature perfection. What I like in your present Exhibition is, that you seem in a great measure to have left this academic manner, and to have adopted a more natural style.

French. I do not exactly comprehend.

English. Why, you know the English complain of French art as too laboured and mechanical, as not allowing scope enough for genius and originality, as you retort upon us for being coarse and rustic.

French.-Ah! I understand. There is a picture in the English style; the subject is a Greek massacre, by Rouget. It is an ebauche It is for effect. There is much spirit in the expression, and a boldness of execution, but every part is not finished. It is like a first sketch, or like the painting of the scenes at our theatres. He has another picture here.

as

English.-Yes, of great merit in the same style of dashing, off-hand, explosive effect. He is something between our Ward and Haydon. But that is not what I mean. I do not wish you to exchange, your vices for ours. We are not as yet models in the FINE ARTS. I am only glad that you imitate us, it is a sign you begin to feel a certain deficiency in yourselves. There is no necessity for grossness and extravagance, any more than for being finical or pedantic. Now there is a picture yonder, which I think has broken through the trammels of the modern