friezed work on gold and silver, part of which the soldier had scraped away.

The prince concluded that some contrivance might be found to cover a brass plate with such a grained ground of fine pressed holes as would give an impression all black, and that by scraping away proper parts the smooth superficies would leave the rest of the paper white. Communicating his idea to Vaillant, a painter, whom he maintained, they made several experiments; and at last invented a steel roller, with tools to make teeth like a file or rasp, with projecting points, which effectually produced the black grounds: those being scraped away and diminished at pleasure, left the gradations light.

Thus, from so trifling an accident, Génie fécond en expériences conceived mezzotinto.

Had the court of the first Charles been peaceful, how agreeably would the congenial taste of prince Rupert have flattered and confirmed the inclination of his uncle! How well would the muse of arts have repaid the patronage of the monarch, when for his first artist she presented him with his nephew! and how different a figure did this prince make in a reign of dissimilar complexion! The same philosophic warrior who could relax himself into the ornament of a refined court was regarded as a savage mechanic in a circle where courtiers were merely voluptuous wits. But, to return to the discovery, which Evelyn thus verbosely describes" it appears a paradox to speak of a graving, without graver, point, or aquafortis; and yet this is executed in mezzotinto without the assistance of either. The very thing which gives our artists the greatest trouble, and is longest in finishing (for such are the deepest shadows in plates), is here the least considerable and most expeditious:-on the contrary, the lights here are the most laborious, and yet effected with the greatest facility. That a print should so accu

rately

rately resemble and even emulate the best drawings, so as nothing of Hugo da Carpi or any celebrated master has exceeded or even approached, is the excellence of this new invention.

But, curious as it was, it must be acknowledged that it did not produce all that it promised. It has rather diversified prints than improved them; and, though John Smith carried the new discovered art to the greatest perfection it ever has attained, mezzotintos still fall short of fine engravings.

William Faithorne was one of the most capital engravers who has appeared in this age. The number of those whose works deserve intrinsic regard, abstracted from their scarcity, or the curiosity of the persons represented, is comparatively few, and soon enumerated. Payne was the first Englishman who distinguished himself by the graver; and, had his application been equal to his genius, there is no doubt he would have shone in the first line of his profession. But he was idle; and, though recommended to Charles, died in indigence before he was forty. The family of Pass were singularly neat in their performances. Hollar still surpassed them, and in branches to which their art did not extend. Lombart added roundness to delicacy; and was even a great artist, if compared with most of his successors, of whom White declined the least.

Savage may be styled engraver to a race of heroes, whom Prior calls "the unfortunate brave." No country preserves the images and anecdotes of such worthies as England. The rigour of the law is here a passport to fame, from the infringers of Magna Charta to the collectors on the road. From Charles the First to Maclean, every sufferer becomes the idol of the mob; and this is one of the strong proofs that the characteristic of the English nation is humanity.

Some

Some of the resemblances preserved by Savage are men who fell in a better cause :-bishop Latimer, Sidney, alderman Cornish, the earl of Argyle, sir Edmonbury. Godfrey, sir Thomas Armstrong, and the duke of Monmouth.

Robert White was celebrated for his admirable success in likenesses-a merit which would give value to his prints, had they not been so well executed. No one has surpassed him in the multiplicity of heads.

In sculpture, Grinlin Gibbons was an original genius: there is no instance of a man before him who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements with a free disorder natural to each species. Evelyn recommended him to Charles, who, though too indolent to search for talents, and too indiscriminate in his bounty to confine it to merit, was always pleased when it was brought home to him. He assigned the artist a place in the board of works, and employed him on the ornaments of most taste in his palaces, particularly at Windsor, where, in the chapel, the simplicity of the carver's foliage sets off and atones for the glare of Verrio's paintings. Gibbon, whose art penetrated all materials, carved that beautiful pedestal of marble at Windsor, for the equestrian statue of the king, in the principal court. The fruit, fish, and implements of shipping, are all exquisite. The man and horse may serve for a sign to draw the eye of the passenger to the pedestal. The base of the figure at Charing-cross was the work of this artist;-so wasthe statue of Charles II, at the Royal-exchange. The foliage in the choir of St. Paul's is of his hand: and there is at Burleigh a noble profusion of his carving, in picture-frames, chimneypieces, and the Last Supper, in alto relievo, finely executed. But the most superb monument of his skill is at Petworth, enriched from the ceiling, between the pictures, with festoons of flowers and dead game, all in the

highest

highest perfection. Appendant to one is an antique vase, with a bas-relief of the purest taste, and worthy the Grecian age of cameos.

In architecture, though the taste was bad, and corrupted by imitations of the French, yet, as the age produced St. Paul's, it may be said to have flourished in this reign. An age-nay, whole centuries often obtain a name for one capital work.

Sir Christopher Wren is placed here, as his career was opened under Charles: the length of his life ornamented the reign of several princes, and disgraced the last of them*.

A variety of knowledge proclaims the universality, a multiplicity of works the fertility, and St. Paul's church the greatness, of sir Christopher's genius: the noblest temple, the largest palace, and the most sumptuous hospital, in such a kingdom as Britain †, are all works of the same hand. He restored London, and recorded its fall. He was born at London 1632, and educated at Oxford. His mathematical abilities unfolded themselves so early, that at twenty he was elected professor of astronomy. at Gresham-college, and eight years after at Oxford. His discoveries in philosophy and mechanics contributed to the reputation of the new established Royal Society; and his skill in architecture had raised his own name so high, that in the first year of the Restoration he was appointed coadjutor to sir John Denham, whom he succeeded. Three years before, he visited France, but unfortunately went no further. The great number of drawings he made there, from their buildings, had but too vi

At the age of eighty-six he was removed from being surveyor-general of the works by George the First.

+ St. Paul's, Hampton-court, and Greenwich.

He built above fifty parish churches, and designed the Monument.

pa

sible an influence on his own-but it was so far lucky for sir Christopher that Lewis the Fourteenth had erected laces, and no churches. St. Paul's escaped, but Hampton-court was sacrificed to false taste. He died at ninetyone, having lived to see the completion of St. Paul's-a fabric, and an event, which one cannot wonder left such an impression of content on his mind, that, being carried to see it once a year, it seemed to recall a memory which was almost deadened to every other use. He was buried under his own fabric, with four words that comprehend his merit and his fame :

"Si quæras monumentum, circumspice!"

Oxford, in the time of the civil war, seems to have been the only place in the kingdom where musical sounds were allowed to be heard: for that city during a considerable time being the royal residence, not only the household musicians, but many performers who had been driven from the cathedrals of the capital, as well as those of other parts of the kingdom, flocked thither as to a place of safety and subsistence. However, after Charles I. was obliged to quit this post, and had been totally defeated at Naseby, they were necessarily dispersed, and those who were unable to find an asylum in the house of some secret friend to royalty and to their art, were obliged to betake themselves to new employments.

Ten years of gloomy silence elapsed before a string was suffered to vibrate, or a pipe to breathe aloud, in the kingdom, as we hear of no music-meetings, clubs, or concerts, till 1656; when, by the industry of Antony Wood, whose passion for the art inclined him to regard every thing connected with it as worthy of a memorial, we have an accurate account of the state of practical music in this university and age.

The