AQUILIUS.—Your verse shall not disenchant me of my criticism upon this bad habit of seeing his subject, into which so great a painter has fallen. After what has been said, I shall not surprise you by objecting to his “Van Amburgh and his Beasts,” painted for his Grace the Duke of Wellington—the shrinking, retreating, cowed animals, whom one would wish to see in their wilder or nobler natures. And certainly the painter has made a very poor figure of the tamer: you are angry with the lions and tigers for being afraid of him. He should have been less conspicuous. Poor beasts! within bars, no escape from the hot iron! I had rather see a representation of the tamer within the bars, and the beasts out, longing to get at him. There is a very happy subject for a picture of this kind in the hymn to Aphrodite—where the goddess descends on Ida, and all the savage beasts come fawning about her, when, with a motion of her hand, she dismisses them to pair in the forests. Such noble animals, crouching in obeisance and willing servitude to a divinity, to beauty, and to innocence, make a picture of a finer sentiment. This taming reduces the dignity of the brute, without raising the man. CURATE.—The tamed animals are not honoured in their portraiture; nor is it much consolation that the great duke beholds their quailing. Statius attempted a consoling compliment of this kind, upon the occasion of a much admired beast, “Leo Mansuetus,” being killed by the blow of a flying tigress, in the presence of the emperor. After describing the scene, he adds— “Magna tamen subiti tecum solatia lethi Victe feres, quod te mœsti, Populusque Patresque, Ceu notus caderes tristi Gladiator arena, Ingemuere mori: magni quod Cæsaris ora Inter tot Scythias, Libyeasque, et littore Rheni, Et Pharia de gente feras, quas perdere vile est, Unius amissi tetigit jactura leonis.” AQUILIUS.—We are rivals in rhyme, and you know I freely translate: perhaps you will admit this as a version— Yet this your consolation, ye poor beasts, Whene’er the duke his guests illustrious feasts, Th’ illustrious guests, as an uncommon treat, Shall see the lions, while they talk and eat. Oft from their plates shall lift their half-filled jaws, To wonder at your whiskers, manes, and, claws, And only wish, the painter to rebuke, To see Van Amburgh killed before the duke. GRATIAN.—I am umpire: that is not a version, but a perversion. AQUILIUS.—Then it the better suits the picture. I must, however, admit that, to criticise at all, there is need to be out of the fascination of the work. It is quite marvellous in power. We are treating of subjects for pictures, and consequently their sentiment—the why they should, or should not please. It is to be regretted that so great an artist should, not _always_ well conceive the poetry of sentiment.