than those of the battles of Constantine, by Raphael and Julio Romano. The truth of the preceding remarks on the causes which have contributed, in France, to the mediocrity of painting, is placed in a striking view by the tyranny, the absolute despotism, in which Le Brun was enabled to lord it over his contemporaries, whether painters, sculptors, or architects. Every one was forced to become the observant servitor of him whom the court favored, or enjoyed the option of remaining unemployed. Such was the fate of Le Sueur, not merely the superior of Le Brun, but, with the exception of Poussin, to whom even in some respects he is more than equal, the best painter France has ever produced--the sole one in whose works are found natural simplicity and repose. He took Raphael for his model, whose feeling, sober grace, and internal dignity, do not contribute even now to render his imitation popular. If Le Sueur were less frequently inferior to himself, he would have stood in the first rank of his profession, though he died in 1655, at the early age of thirtyeight. Bourdon, Valentin, and Megnard, were also contemporaries, and in some respects equals, of Le Brun. To this period, though only by chronology, and to France merely by birth, belongs Claude Gelee, better known as Claude Lorrain, from his native province, where he was born in 1600, dying in his 88th year at Rome, where he resided during the greater part of the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., having never crossed the Alps after leaving home as the runaway apprentice of a pastry cook. To this artist, self-taught, and at first apparently more than commonly incapable, landscape painting owes its interest and its loveliness as a separate and dignified branch of art. In the sweetest, as in the most brilliant, effects of light--from the first blush of day to the fall of dewy eve, Claude is unrivalled, or even unapproached, if in one or two instances we except our own Wilson. The aerial perspective, and the liquid softness of the tones, in his pictures,--the leafing, forms, and branching of the trees, the light flickering clouds, the transparency of hue, the retiring distances, all make as near approaches to nature as it is possible for art to accomplish. Still there is one grand defect in the representations of Claude, which to a degree destroys the natural effect of their constituent features;--they are too frequently compositions, or what are termed heroic landscape. This certainly heightens the charm merely as respects the imagination, but detracts from the still deeper interests of reality. For this practice, which, indeed, is too common with landscape painters, there can be found also no plea, till it has been proved that the majesty and variety of nature are unequal to the powers of the pencil.