But in statues, Thorwaldsen excels only where the forms and sentiment admit of uncontrolled imagination, or in which no immediate recourse can be had to fixed standards of taste, and to the simple effects of nature. Hence, of all his works, as admitting of unconfined expression, and grand peculiarity of composition, the statues of the Apostles, considered in themselves, are the most excellent. Thorwaldsen, in fine, possesses singular, but in some respects erratic genius. His ideas of composition are irregular; his powers of fancy surpass those of execution; his conceptions seem to lose a portion of their value and freshness in the act of realisement. As an individual artist, he will command deservedly a high rank among the names that shall go down to posterity. As a sculptor, who will influence, or has extended the principles of the art, his pretensions are not great; or, should this influence and these claims not be thus limited, the standard of genuine and universal excellence must be depreciated in a like degree. We have hitherto made little or no mention of British sculpture, for two reasons. The number of ancient monuments of the art with which the cathedrals of England, and Westminster Abbey in particular, are ornamented, is considerable: yet very little is known regarding their authors. There is reason to believe, however, that by far the greater part are the work of foreigners, members of those confraternities of itinerant artists, which have been noticed as existing in Italy so early as the middle of the fourteenth century. This opinion is corroborated by the circumstance, that the object in these societies was to undertake buildings in whatever country, and for this purpose were composed of architects, sculptors, workers in mosaic, builders, designers, each strictly attending to his own department, except the architect, who seems to have acted as the general overseer. Thus, companies of individuals, more or less numerous, were engaged by the proper ecclesiastical authorities, wherever a building of magnitude was to be erected. Of this, the plan appears uniformly to have been prescribed by the ecclesiastics, the foreign masters superintending and availing themselves of local assistants for the mere workmanship. Again, between the early productions of sculpture in England, when these first attract notice by their excellence, we very decidedly trace the style, and in some instances, as in the beautiful monuments of Eleanor, queen of Edward I., the designs of the school of Pisa. About this time, the very improvements introduced by Giovanni da Pisa, son of Nicolo, especially in the drapery, are decidedly apparent in those and other English works. Hence, although we find English names mentioned as masters of the works in several of our most splendid erections, and even in one instance as sculpturing the images of saints, it is doubtful whether they were not the ecclesiastics directly employed by