idea of having risked yourself within the vortex of such a mighty mass of moving mischief. The habit of a few nights, however, will settle your head, and you are gradually convinced by experience, that although forty thousand people may rise here every morning, without knowing how they shall obtain the subsistence of the day, it is still possible to live, even in London, secluded, and secure. "Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd "The fairest capital of all the world, "By riot and incontinence the worst. "Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye, GREAT names, like the sun, carry with them their own lustre. The word Homer is so superior and paramount to panegyric, that no combinations of phraseology impress the mind with so much reverence and admiration. The French were so sensible of this, that when a monument was erected to one of their departed heroes, instead of recording on the marble the history of his glorious exploits, they comprised them all in the comprehensive word Turenne. In like manner, the history of painting abounds with names to which each succeeding century has paid homage, and whose glory is incapable of being augmented by all the tributes of culogy. Raphael Sanzio was born at Urbino, a village about one hundred and fifty miles from Rome, in the year 1483. His father, Giovani Sanzio, although a painter of no eminence, had still sufficient genius to discover the early and promising propensity of his child for the pencil. He knew that in an art where so much depended for future eminence on the early habits of the hand, much injury might be done by attempting to guide and discipline a genius so superior to his own. With a provident caution, he therefore placed his child under the tuition of Perugino, an artist whose reputation was high in the estimation of the world. The young Tyro now found something in the style of his new master worthy of imitation-something calculated to arouse ambition, which for want of a proper model, appeared to have lain dormant. This he successfully imitated and surpassed; but the cravings of ambition still remained unsatisfied. What the works of Perugino were incapable of affording, models of excellence answerable to his own aspiring ideas, he found in the study of antiques. He employed artists at Puteoli and Baiæ, and some of the Grecian cities, to procure for him designs of the most finished models in statuary or architecture. Here he found his conceptions expanded and enlarged, and forms of dignity and grace, which he aspired to imitate. Thus was this young artist led on until he arrived at that boundary which the ancients seemed to have set to human efforts. Michael Angelo and Leonardi da Vinci, were now in the zenith of their glory. Our young artist went to Florence to consult these models; and from them he corrected, enlarged, and improved his own. He here found a path for his genius untrodden by the feet of his illustrious predecessor. Michel Angelo's style was awful, grand, and terrific; it was calculated to astonish by its sublimity, but not to fascinate by its grace; it overwhelmed the spectator with awe, but did not lead him by gentler attraction. Raphael perceived that these commanding forms were susceptible of grace, ease, and dignity, not so closely allied to awe. This artist, therefore, who in the school of artiquity had perfected himself, in what Angelo had disregarded, superadded to this style, elegance, dignity, and grace. From these hints he corrected the style he had acquired in the school of Perugino. The pope, who was early captivated by the consummate specimens of talent manifested by this artist, employed him to decorate the chambers of the Vatican. The first effort of his pencil was the Carmera della Segnatura. The design of this painting the more chastened taste of modern times has condemned, as beyond the legitimate jurisdiction of the pencil. The divine presence, a subject incomprehensible in its nature, must rise above the flights of the proudest genius, and where poetry fails, painting, that submits all her efforts to the scrutiny of the eye, must prove more incompetent. Raphael, however, was not deterred by the nature of his subject, and an apology may be found in the zeal of his aspiring genius, and in the superstitious age in which he lived. The Deity sustains and blesses the earth, while at humble distance the ranks of the cherubim and seraphim appear. Beneath the Father, is seated the Son in the society of his mother, and John the baptist, in the attitude of imploring mercy on the unhappy race of mortals. In another group are collected the patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, and martyrs. On earth an altar appears, where the doctors, prelates, and pontiffs of the church, whose pens have illuminated the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, and whose faces are all strongly characterised, are engaged in the deep contemplation of the holy wafer. This was followed by a representation of philosophy. Here the gymnasium of Athens appears, where Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Empedocles, Pythagoras, are instructing their pupils in their various branches of philosophy, and their protecting deities, are designated by their statues. In the face of Archimedes, the artist found and improved an opportunity to pay a flattering compliment to his patron Bramante. Poetry, which constituted his next labour, was done by representing Apollo and the Muses, on the mountain of Parnassus. Homer, in the august presence of such presiding deities, with an air of confidence, recites his compositions, and they, by their listening and delighted attitudes, express the high character of the bard. Virgil is dictating to Danté the route which he is to pursue. Sanazzario and Tebaldie, Raphael's countrymen, are the only |