of talent, we cannot pronounce such a general verdict in its favour as would be at all satisfactory either to the author or his admirers. THE ARTS IN PORTUGAL.[24] This portly volume, by the accomplished author of _Modern Art in Germany_, is not so wise as it looks. Its bulk, like that of Minerva's bird, of much feather and little weight, proves delusive when it comes to be handled. This is not a history of the arts in Portugal, but an accumulation of materials, whereof nine-tenths are either extraneous to the subject or indirectly connected with it. A glance at the contents may give an idea of the incongruity and unmethodical arrangement of the book, in reference to its professed object. It consists of twenty-nine letters. The second and third, occupying seventy-five pages, are extracts from a MS., dated 1549, and chiefly relating to Italian art, by Francisco de Hollanda, an architect and illuminator, a Dutchman by race, but by birth a Portuguese, who resided for some time at Rome. Highly interesting these extracts are; for the writer was intimate with Michael Angelo, and gives a lively though somewhat showy report of conversations with him on painting and sculpture, in the presence of Victoria Colonna. But of the state of art in Portugal, Francisco de Hollanda affords the scantiest information; he complains much, indeed, that art was there disregarded. From his laboured and tedious remonstrance on this neglect, addressed to the young King Sebastian in 1571, Count Raczynski has been over-liberal in citation. Among the reasons urged by the memorialist for royal encouragement of the science of design and colouring, one is that the king might be thereby instructed "how to choose hares, partridges, sporting-dogs, camels, lions, tigers, and _other domestic_ animals." Both MSS. are in the library of the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon. In the fifth letter, an extract from _The Lisbon Nosegay_, O Ramalhete, introduces us to an old history of the order of Dominic, and to its editor, Frei Luiz de Sousa, a Portuguese classic, who is thus singularly recommended to notice,--"You will perceive that the extracts which I have taken from him do not mention a single fact that can throw light upon the history of the arts in Portugal: not a name, and few interesting particulars." [24] _Les Arts en Portugal._ By COUNT A. RACZYNSKI, Envoy from the Court of Berlin to the Court Of Portugal.--Paris, 1846.