as many, distinguished by other peculiarities. These distinctions should be borne in mind in order rightly to understand writers, especially foreigners, on Italian art. CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET. Claude Joseph Vernet, the father of Carl Vernet, and the grandfather of Horace, was born at Avignon in 1714. He was the son of Antoine Vernet, an obscure painter, who foretold that he would one day render his family illustrious in art, and gave him every advantage that his limited means would permit. Such were the extraordinary talents he exhibited almost in his infancy, that his father regarded him as a prodigy, and dreaming of nothing but seeing him become the greatest historical painter of the age, he resolved to send him to Rome; and having, by great economy, saved a few louis d'or, he put them into Joseph's pocket, when he was about eighteen years of age, and sent him off with a wagoner, who undertook to conduct him to Marseilles. VERNET'S PRECOCITY. The wonderful stories told about the early exhibitions of genius in many celebrated painters are really true with respect to Joseph Vernet. In his infancy, he exhibited the most extraordinary passion for painting. He himself has related, that on his return from Italy, his mother gave him some drawings which he had executed at the age of five years, when he was rewarded by being allowed to use the pencils he had tried to purloin. Before he was fifteen, he painted frieze-panels, fire-screens, coach-panels, sedan chair-panels, and the like, whenever he could get a commission; he also gave proof of that facility of conceiving and executing, which was one of the characteristics of his genius. VERNET'S ENTHUSIASM. It has been before stated that Vernet's father intended him for an historical painter, but nature formed his genius to imitate her sweetest, as well as most terrible aspect. When he was on his way to Marseilles, he met with so many charming prospects, that he induced his companion to halt so often while he sketched them, that it took them a much longer time to reach that port than it would otherwise have done.