In support of this high encomium, Sir Thomas instances 'the Return of Regulus to Carthage,' and 'the Shipwreck of St Paul,'--pictures which amply testify the superiority we have assumed to exist in the living arts of Britain. These, however, are by no means the only master-pieces of West, whose great glory it is to have proceeded on a system which admits of indefinite, and which tends to certain improvement. Even to his eightieth year he was employed in new exercises, not inferior to, or in some respects excelling, the enterprises of his vigorous strength. The cause of his late eminence bears strongly upon the whole tenor of our remarks in treating of Sculpture, and will best be explained in his own words. In 1811, writing to Lord Elgin, the artist thus expresses himself: 'in the last production of my pencil, which I now invite your lordship to see, it has been my ambition, though at a very advanced period of life, to introduce those refinements in art, which are so distinguished in your collection,'--(the Phidian Marbles of the Parthenon.) 'Had I been blest with seeing and studying these emanations of genius at an earlier period of life, the sentiment of their pre-eminence would have animated all my exertions; and more character, and expression, and life, would have pervaded my humble attempts at historical painting.' It is the soundness and regularity of principle expressed in, or whose existence is clearly deducible from, the entertaining of such views, that constitutes the great merit of the pictures of West. It is these qualities, too, which impart to them their utility and high value as a school of art. As far as they go, they may safely and without reserve be recommended to the student. Here he will not be led astray by brilliant though false theory, nor degraded into mannerism by peculiar though striking modes, which can please only from their peculiarity, and when they exhibit the result of native invention. All here is placed upon the broad highway of universal art; all is equable, uniformly correct, firm, and respectable; no compensation of error by an occasional loftiness of flight: the stream of invention sweeps onward calmly and majestically; if not conducting to scenes of the most stupendous sublimity, flowing at least without cataract or whirlpool, through a magnificence which is grand from its very regularity and usefulness. In these works we discover this, perhaps singular character, that in them we detect many wants, but no defects. The composition, grouping and symmetry, are unexceptionable; the drawing is particularly fine, yet without the statue-like design of the French school. But to animate this beautiful framework of art--to inspire these moulds of form and emblems of intelligence with action and sentiment--the touch of that genius, to whose final aims external science furnishes the bare instrument, is wanting. The representation is chaste and beautiful, but it is too clearly a representation; there