hankfully remain below, being
merry and humble.

I have now only to mention the charming "Cruche Cassee" of Greuze, which
all the young ladies delight to copy; and of which the color (a thought
too blue, perhaps) is marvellously graceful and delicate. There are
three more pictures by the artist, containing exquisite female heads and
color; but they have charms for French critics which are difficult to
be discovered by English eyes; and the pictures seem weak to me. A very
fine picture by Bon Bollongue, "Saint Benedict resuscitating a Child,"
deserves particular attention, and is superb in vigor and richness of
color. You must look, too, at the large, noble, melancholy landscapes
of Philippe de Champagne; and the two magnificent Italian pictures of
Leopold Robert: they are, perhaps, the very finest pictures that the
French school has produced,--as deep as Poussin, of a better color, and
of a wonderful minuteness and veracity in the representation of objects.

Every one of Lesueur's church-pictures is worth examining and admiring;
they are full of "unction" and pious mystical grace. "Saint Scholastica"
is divine; and the "Taking down from the Cross" as noble a composition
as ever was seen; I care not by whom the other may be. There is more
beauty, and less affectation, about this picture than you will find in
the performances of many Italian masters, with high-sounding names (out
with it, and say RAPHAEL at once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I
declare that the "Jardiniere" is a puking, smirking miss, with
nothing heavenly about her. I vow that the "Saint Elizabeth" is a
bad picture,--a bad composition, badly drawn, badly colored, in a bad
imitation of Titian,--a piece of vile affectation. I say, that when
Raphael painted this picture two years before his death, the spirit of
painting had gone from out of him; he was no longer inspired; IT WAS
TIME THAT HE SHOULD DIE!!

There,--the murder is out! My paper is filled to the brim, and there is
no time to speak of Lesueur's "Crucifixion," which is odiously colored,
to be sure; but earnest, tender, simple, holy. But such things are most
difficult to translate into words;--one lays down the pen, and thinks
and thinks. The figures appear, and take their places one by one:
ranging themselves according to order, in light or in gloom, the colors
are reflected duly in the little camera obscura of the brain, and the
whole picture lies there complete; but can you describe it? No