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The changes, which the various tribes of barbarians made in the Latin tongue when they adopted it, present to the learner an excellent opportunity of investigating the nature of the human mind. He will continually direct his thoughts to the Latin, and inquire after the causes which produced the various departures from its laws, which he finds in its living modifications. This topic deserves a separate paper.

My last topic is the improvement in taste, which we derive from classical literature.

The late profound Dr. Nesbit, the greatest scholar that ever consecrated by his presence an American seminary, is known to have been a very warm friend of classical learning. And the cultivation of taste derived from Latin and Greek writers was his first and last argument. In his hand it was the shield of Achilles. I do conceive that his word is sufficient to silence the whole phalanx of smatterers.

All civilized nations have considered Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Eneid as standards by which the merits of all other epic poems must be measured. They come down to us with the accumulated approbation of ages. The Idyls of Theocritus and Virgil are imperishable standards of pastoral song. The Odes of Horace and Anacreon, and Horace's Epistles and Satires, and the Satires of Juvenal and Perseus, have been esteemed by men of taste in all times, as works almost perfect in their kind. Thucydides, Livy, Xenophon, Plutarch, Tacitus, Cæsar, Curtius, and - Sallust, furnish all nations with models of historical and biographical writing, which we despair of ever seeing excelled. What shall we say of the rapid and overwhelming eloquence of Demosthenes, and the flowing tide of Tully's oratory, which has charmed the world for eighteen centuries?

Form the taste of youth upon these, or some of these models, and, like the person who has been accustomed to the works of masters in painting, they have always a standard by which they almost intuitively approve or condemn every work which meets their eye. In all these works, there are delicate tints, impassioned touches, and manners and feelings warm from life, chasteness of expression, and accuracy of thought, which cannot in

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their native beauty be transferred into any other language. Pope's Homer is beautiful; Cowper's is more truly Homeric; but they are both languid when compared with the glowing life of the original.

Indeed when I cast my eye over the pages of Greek and Ro man history-when I see the astonishing accuracy of taste which they display; the bold and rapid flights of their genius; I am im. pelled into the belief, that one great design of Providence in raising up the empires of Greece and Rome, and in them con densing all the literature and all the polish of the east, was to furnish the world, in all ages to come, with standard works of taste and genius. This thought receives additional force from the circumstance that the New Testament has forever consecrated the Greek language.

THE FINE ARTS-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

We now turn our attention to the Venetian school of painting. Venice was once the seat of opulence and traffic, the repository of gorgeous silks and of shining tissues, and in fact, the splendid toyshop of Europe. The gay and fastidious hues imparted their tincture to the minds of all classes of people. From the artist who wrought, to the proudest of the nobility who was decorated with such glittering ornaments, the same taste pervaded. Colour, that delicate and captivating medium, instead of being subordinate, assumed a primary station, and was made the pander of traffic. From causes so obvious, the Venetian painter outrivalled all others in the beauty of his tints. Of this school Georgione del Castel Franco, is considered as the earliest founder; for he abandoned the flat, dry, and meagre manner of his predecessors, and gave to his forms a bolder relief by strong. er contrasts of light and shade. Possessing, however, no remains of antique sculpture, the artists were still incapable of elevating their thoughts to a standard of ideal excellence and visionary beauty. They had not been taught the mystery of se lecting the fairest of the most beautiful forms of nature, and of

combining them into one harmonious whole. Such was the character of this school, rich in colouring, poor in design.

Tiziano Vecelli was born at Lodoni, a little town seated on the margin of the river Piavi, in the year 1480. At the early age of ten years, his uncle perceiving his attachment to the pencil, sent him to Venice, under the care of Gian Bellino, who was at that time considered an eminent artist. To this may be attributed the grand defect in his education. How cold to the eye of youth must the coy and reluctant graces, manifested in the most exquisite models of Grecian or Roman workmanship, appear when contrasted with such vivid and beautiful tints! When a scene of such embellishment is thrown open, it is often a hopeless task to impress on the mind of youth, that all this is nothing more than embellishment.

Juvenile ardor was implanted in us for noble purposes, and should be confronted with difficulties requiring the exercise of such ardor to surmount. Colour has at all seasons such strong temptations, that little danger is to be apprehended on this score, when the artist has once become initiated in the severer graces of his art. Titian was thus led away by the common error of youth, that the most obtrusive beauties are the most essential― he considered form as the mere substratum for colour. Instead of studying the less obvious beauties of nature, he exhausted his youth in quest of those that lie upon the surface, and solicit our acceptance. With all his brilliancy he was, under the tutelage of Bellino, cold, formal and stiff. At length he became acquainted with Georgione, who had caught, from Leonardo da Vinci, a style unusually rich and bold.

Titian now for the first time, discovered his own defects, and studied and imitated the style of his new master with so much attention, that he soon became his rival, and afterwards excelled him. Georgione had undertaken to paint one front of the Fondaco de Tedescho, and taking Titian into partnership, assigned to him the execution of the other. When both of the fronts were finished, the Venetians, ignorant of Titian's agency, complimented Georgione on the superior elegance of the front which his competitor had finished. He was repeatedly stung by such mor

tifying panegyrics. These two fronts were cited as evidence how far a man was capable, at particular seasons, of excelling himself. At length the unfortunate Georgione, to relieve him. self from such persecuting compliments, shut himself up in his own house for several days, and never was reconciled to Titian afterwards. Bellino died about this time; and, having left in the Sala del gran concilio an unfinished representation of the empe. ror Frederic Barbarossa kneeling before the pope, who plants his foot upon the neck of that monarch, it fell to the lot of Titian to complete it. In doing this, he changed the cold and dry style of his first master, and brought into exercise the principles he had been taught in the school of Georgione. In this picture too, he drew the countenances of many of his friends, an anach ronism which, if not to be justified, is palliated by the example of the first painters of his age. The senate, as a reward, con. ferred on him an office, the annual revenue of which was three hundred crowns, and which was always bestowed on the first painter of the city. This picture was deposited in the palace of St. Mary.

In the year 1514, Alphonso, duke of Ferrara, employed Titian to finish a room that had been begun and far advanced by Gian Bellino. Two figures only remained to be executed: one was a bacchante-a naked woman was represented asleep; and here the limbs were so rounded and perfect, and the carnation so exquisite, and glowed with so much life, it seemed a human form reposing upon the canvas. The other piece contained a group of beautiful boys and rosy cupids, sporting in various light and graceful attitudes around an altar, surmounted with the statue of Venus. Upon the door of the armory, Titian drew a Jew presenting a piece of Cæsar's money to our Saviour, esteemed by connoisseurs amongst his happiest productions; and for this he was liberally rewarded.

Returning to Venice, he drew his famous piece of St. Peter the martyr, in the church of St. Giovanni e Paolo. At the entrance of a forest, a robber is striking the saint, who is lying on the ground deeply wounded in his head; and all the horror of death is delineated in his face. His companion, a monk of his

order, is flying from the robber with every mark of consternation in his countenance; while in the air two angels bearing the palm of martyrdom, are seen illuminating, with a blaze of sudden glory, the surrounding landscape. This picture, which is conceived and executed with a grandeur and sublimity worthy of Angelo himself, is now in the Louvre at Paris. Charles the fifth having come to Bologna, Titian, by the solicitation of his friend, Pietro Aretino, was permitted to draw the portrait of that emperor in complete armour. This he did in an admirable manner, and was rewarded with one thousand crowns. He drew a most beautiful piece entitled "The Annunciation;" and demanded five hundred crowns for his services. His employers having refused to pay him so large a sum, he made a present of his piece to the emperor, who made him a donation of two thousand crowns.

On the arrival of that monarch from Hungary, he met with the pontiff Clement the seventh, at Bologna. Titian, at his particular request, drew his portrait a second time, and likewise that of cardinal Hippolito of Medici, both of which were carefully preserved by the duke of Florence. Nor was his friend, Pietro Aretino forgotten; for he and Alphonso Davalas received the honours of his pencil; as did the duke of Mantua, and his brother the cardinal, to whom Titian was introduced. On his visit to the dominions of the duke, he drew the heads of the twelve Cæsars; under each of which a story was afterwards added from the pencil of Julio Romano.

In the year 1546 he was invited to Rome by that great patron of the graphic art, cardinal Farnese, whose portrait, the pontiff's, and duke of Parma's, he drew at full length; and they were most admirable pieces.

At this time he was honoured with a visit from Michael Angelo, who was introduced to Titian by Vasari, and carefully examined his picture of a sleeping Danäe. She was represented on a couch, surrounded with roses, perfectly naked, and of exquisite beauty. Angelo, after contemplating the delicacy and softness of the breathing surface, told Vasari, at his departure, that nothing but an early acquaintance with the Roman school was wanting to render Titian the first painter of his age,

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