ower, both of thought and language.
Our author is scarcely less eloquent in his eulogy of Raffaelle which
follows. He has seized on the points of character of that great painter
very happily. "His composition always hastens to the most necessary
point as its centre, and from that disseminates, to that leads back, as
rays, all secondary ones. Group, form, and contrast are subordinate to
the event, and common-place ever excluded. His expression, in strict
unison with, and inspired by character; whether calm, agitated,
convulsed, or absorbed by the inspiring passion, unmixed and pure, never
contradicts its cause, equally remote from tameness and grimace: the
moment of his choice never suffers the action to stagnate or expire; it
is the moment of transition, the crisis, big with the past, and pregnant
with the future."

It is certainly true--the moment generally chosen by Raffaelle, is not
of the action completed, the end--but that in which it is doing. You
instantly acknowledge the power, while your curiosity is not quenched.
For instance, in the cartoon of the "Beautiful Gate," you see the action
at the word is just breaking into the miracle--the cripple is yet in his
distorted infirmity--but you see near him grace and activity of limb
beautifully displayed, in that mother and running child; and you look to
the perfection which, you feel sure, the miracle will complete. This is
by no means the best instance--it is the case in all his compositions
where a story is to be told. It is this action which, united with most
perfect character and expression, makes the life of Raffaelle's
pictures. We think, however, that even in so summary a history of art as
this, the object of which seems to be to mark the steps to its
perfection, the influence of Pietro Perugino should not have been
omitted. He is often very pure in sentiment, often more than bordering
on grace, and in colour perhaps superior to Raffaelle. Notwithstanding
Mr Fuseli's eulogy of Raffaelle, we doubt if he fully entered into his
highest sentiment. This we may show when we comment on another lecture.
While Rome and Tuscany were thus fostering the higher principles of art,
the fascination of colour was spreading a new charm to every eye at
Venice, from the pencils of Giorgione, and of Titian. Had not Titian
been a colourist, his genius was not unequal to the great style; perhaps
he has admitted of that style as much as would suit the predominant
character of his colo