templating their pictures." This opinion has some truth; great characters claim our attention when they can be seen no more than in a picture; but a landscape may always be observed with more pleasure in the real scene. Lord Orford on this subject has a very curious idea, he preferred an interesting portrait, to either landscape or historical painting. A landscape, said he, however excellent in its distribution of wood, and water, and buildings, leaves not one trace in the memory; historical painting is perpetually false in a variety of ways, in the costume, the grouping, the portraits, &c. and is nothing more than fabulous painting; but a real portrait is truth itself; and calls up so many collateral ideas as to fill an intelligent mind more than any other species.

Marville justly reprehends the fastidious feelings of those ingenious men who have resisted the solicitations of the artist, to sit for their portraits. A species of pride often, in them, as much as there may be vanity in those who are less difficult in this respect. Of Gray, Shenstone, Fielding, and Churchill, we have no finished heads; which must ever be regretted by their admirers, and by physiognomists.

To an arranged collection, of PORTRAITS, we owe several interesting works, valuable either for. their biographical research, or their eloquent philosophy of man. It is sufficient to mention Granger's justly esteemed volumes, which originated in

such a collection. Perrault's eulogiums on "the illustrious men of the seventeenth century," were drawn up to accompany the engraved portraits of the most illustrious characters of the age, and which a fervent lover of the fine arts and literature had had engraved as an elegant tribute to the fame of those great men. They are indeed confined to his own nation, as Granger's to our own. The parent of this race of books may be the eulogiums of Paulus Jovius, who has consecrated seven books of eulogiums to the memory of the most celebrated men of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The occasion of his composing these eulogiums, was his having formed an extensive collection of the portraits of great men; the daily view of them animated his mind. He collected the portraits of great men, as others form a collection of natural history, and he pursued in their characters, what others do in their experiments.

The description of his house and cabinet, forms a delicious morsel.

Paulus Jovius had a country house, in an insular situation, and of a most romantic aspect. It was built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny; and in his time the foundations were still to be traced. When the surrounding lake was calm, in its lucid bosom were still viewed sculptured marbles, the trunks of columns, and the fragments of those pyramids which had once adorned the residence of the friend of Trajan. Jovius was an en

thusiast for literature and leisure; an historian, with the imagination of a poet; a bishop, nourished on the sweet fiction of pagan mythology. His pen colours like a pencil. He paints rapturously, his gardens bathed by the waters of the lake, the shade and freshness of his woods, his green hills, his sparkling fountains, the deep silence, and the calm of solitude. He describes a statue raised in his gardens to NATURE; in his hall an Apollo presided with his lyre, and the Muses with their attributes; his library was guarded by Mercury, and an apartment devoted to the three Graces was embellished by Doric co lums, and with paintings of the most pleasing" kind. Such was the interior! Without, the pure and transparent lake spread its broad mirror, rolled its voluminous windings, while the banks were richly covered with olives and laurels, and in the distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre, blushing with vines, and the first elevations of the Alps covered with woods and pasturage, and sprinkled with herds and flocks.

In the centre of this enchanting habitation, stood a CABINET, where Paulus Jovius had collected, at great cost, the portraits of celebrated men, and to illustrate these portraits he composed his Eulogiums, which are still considered as curious, both for the facts they preserve, and the happy conciseness with which Jovius delineates a character.

One caution in collecting PORTRAITS it may be necessary to repeat-it respects their authenticity. We have too many supposititious, or ideal heads. Conrad ab Uffenbach, one of the earliest collectors, and who first seems to have projected a methodical arrangement of them, considered those portraits which were not genuine, as toys and trifles fit only for the amusement of children. The painter does not always give a correct likeness, but I am fearful the engraver too frequently proves an unlucky copyist. Goldsmith was a short thick man, with wan features and a vulgar appearance, but looks tall and fashionable, in a bag wig, &c. Bayle's portrait does not resemble him, as one of his friends writes; Rousseau's in his montero cap, is not like him. Shakspeare's portrait was drawn from that of another person. Winkelman's portraits do not preserve the striking physiognomy of the man, and in the last edition a new one is substituted. When we compare different portraits of the same person, we are vexed at the dissimilarity, and it disturbs the pleasing visions and good faith we indulge in our collection. It must be acknowledged that these are defects to which busts are not so liable.

DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.

The literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the malice of men, as well as that of time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment

of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been satisfied with destroying men, but have even carried their vengeance to books.

Ancient history records how the Persians, because they hated the religion of the Phoenicians. and the Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices that they possessed a great number. A remarkable anecdote is recorded of the Grecian libraries, one at Gnidus, was burnt by the sect of Hippocrates, because the Gnidians refused to follow the doctrines of their master. the followers of Hippocrates formed the majority, was it not very unorthodox in the Gnidians to prefer taking physic their own way? The anecdote may be suspicious, but faction has often annihilated books.

If

The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, of the Christians, and the Philosophers; the Jews burnt the books of the Christians, and the Pagans; and the Christians burnt the books of the Pagans and the Jews. The greater part of the books of Origen and other heretics were continually burnt by the orthodox party. Gibbon pathetically describes the empty library of Alexandria, after the Christians had destroyed it. "The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not to