mankind, awakens the sublimest emotions, and embodies the animated descriptions of Holy Writ. The same remark applies with equal truth to the Agony of Christ in the Garden.

• We cannot close our observations on his powers of expression, without adverting to'a beauty which he possessed exclusively; or, at least, shared only with Leonardo da Vinci; namely, the lovely and exquisite smile, which plays on his female countenances, and which has been distinguished by the epithet of the Corrigesque, or the grace of Correggio. This trait, as difficult to describe as io imitate, has been happily indicated by Dante, the father of Italian Poetry, in his

6. Della bocca il disiato riso.”—Inferno. • In this rare and fascinating expression, Correggio alone was capable of discriminating the precise boundary between grace and affectation, and his delicate pencil was fully competent to execute the conception of his mind. His best copyists, even the Carracci themselves, generally failed in preserving this original feature ; and in many modern copies and engravings, it often degenerates into mere grimace.'

pp. 158-161. Correggio was remarkable for the attention he paid to the quality of his colours; his lakes are peculiarly rich, his white brilliant and permanent, and he was profuse in the employment of ultra-marine.

The life of Parmegiano is a brief but interesting sketch, of which the materials have been chiefly derived from the biographical work of Father Affo, whose researches have detected innumerable errors in all previous accounts. Valuable in its statements of dates and circumstances, this memoir is less substantial in its critical qualities than the history of Correggio. It errs on the side of eulogy: we find ample justice done to the high excellencies of the Parmesan, but very little intimation of his conspicuous faults. His grace, and ease, and fine colouring are duly lauded, but his affectation and theatric ait pass with little animadversion. We shall cite, in preference to any of the comments in the present volume, Fuseli’s masterly and discriminating, though somewhat severe criticism of this artist.

• The principle of Correggio vanished with its author, though it found numerous imitators of its parts. Since him, no eye has conceived that expanse of harmony with which the voluptuous sensibility of his mind arranged and enchanted all visible nature. His grace, so much vaunted, and so little understood, was adopted and improved to elegance by Francesco Mazzuoli, called Parmegiano; but, instead of making her the measure of propriety, he degraded her to affectation. In Parmegiano's figures, action is the adjective of the posture ; the accident of attitude ; they make themselves air, into which they vanish.' That disengaged play of elegant forms, the ' Sueltezxa' of the

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Italians, is the prerogative of Parmegiano, though nearly always obtained at the expense of proportion. His grandeur, as conscious as his grace, sacrifices the motive to the mode, simplicity to contrast : his St. John loses the fervour of the Apostle in the orator ; his Moses the dignity of the lawgiver in the savage. With incredible force of chiaroscuro, he united bland effects and fascinating hues, but their frequent ruins teach the import ant lesson, that the mixtures which anticipate the beauties of time, are big with the seeds of premature decay.'

His family and baptismal names were Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola ; the epithets Parmegiano or Parmegianino are merely indicative of his birth-place. He was born in 1503, of respectable parents, received a liberal education, and displayed an early propensity to the study of painting. He was singularly attractive both in person and manners; his habits were profuse and improvident, and there seems to have been some degree of unsteadiness in his pursuits. He died in August 1540.

An interesting portrait of Correggio is given ; it is, indeed, imperfectly authenticated, but the physiognomy is so entirely expressive of the peculiar qualities of the individual, that it must be the vera effigies of Antonio de' Allegri.

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Art. III. Thoughts chiefly designed as preparative or persuasive to pri

rate Devotion. By Jobu Sheppard, Author of a Tour in 1816, with incidental Reflections on Religion ; and of an Inquiry on the Duty of Christians respecting War. 8vo, pp. xis. 276. Price is. London.

1824. IT is well observed by Bishop Wilkins, that the true happi,

' ness of every Christian does properly consist in his spiritual • communion with Gsd.' He, therefore, who endeavours to prepare our hearts for devotion, and to excite us to greater earnestness, fervency, and frequency in prayer, aims at the promotion of our highest enjoyment. Criticism might be disarmed of its severity by so benevolent an intention, were it to originate in an uncultivated mind, and to be developed in unpolished language, ordinary ideas, and feeble arguments. But when executed by one who evidently possesses a refined understanding and an elegant taste, combined with genuine religious feeling, we cannot refrain from expressing our cordial wish that the success of the undertaking may be commensurate with the excellence of the design, and exerting all our influence in its favour. In order to satisfy our readers that we do not overrate the qualifications of the Author and the

merits of his performance, we shall give a few specimens of the manner in which Mr. S. thinks and writes.

The volume consists of twenty-four chapters or Essays, under the following heads. I. On a right sense of the Divine, greatness. II. On the omnipresence of Deity. III. On the efficacy of prayer. IV. On apathy respecting revealed truth. V. On imperfection of human thought and language. VI. On the greatness of the blessings sought in prayer. VII. On the importance of Divine influence on the thoughts. VIII. On exemption from disease. IX. On intercession for relatives and friends. X. On the moral perfections of the Deity. X. Praise should be excited. XII. Private worship should be specific. XIII. On the prevalence of good. XIV. On torpor as to spiritual objects. XV. On the intercession of Christ. XVI. On the influence of slothful and sensual inclination. XVII. On pre-ocupation, of the mind. XVIII. On recent sin. XIX. On prayer for fellow-Christians. XX. On dejection. XXI. On the power of God to correct. XXII. Want of joy should not discourage prayer. XXIII. Anniversaries should peculiarly prompt us to serious devotion. XXIV. On the capacities for worship in heaven.

Our first extract is selected from the second Essay, on the omnipresence of Deity.

We are apt to attribute to the signs of thought an importance which is not at all essential to them, but which arises (great as it is to us) merely out of our own imperfection. Thought, when unrecorded, still more when unuttered, is, to us, an evanescent thing; which, from its fugitive unfixed character, seems hardly to have a real subsistence. And hence proceeds much illusion, both with regard to the extent of our moral responsibility, and the nature of prayer. It is not only our imperfection which needs these signs, but they are likewise, although to us most precious, exceedingly imperfect in themselves. Language dies in the very utterance. Inscriptions, even on brass and marble, perish. Writings and books, the most valuable repositories of thought, are more perishing still, and can only be perpetuated by renewal. Thus none of those symbols of thought, on which all our present knowledge, even the knowledge of a Saviour, and of eternal life depends, (and which, therefore, may be regarded as the best gifts of God's providence,) are permahent, or indelible. They, on the contrary, are the truly evanescent things. When "the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up," those works in which the thoughts of human genius and erudition have been for ages treasured, and, as it were embalmed, will become fuel for that awful pile, as many like them have already perished in lesser conflagrations, and by other modes of destruction. We know not that even the records of revelation will be excepted VOL. XXI. N.S.

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from this doom. But, when all mortal signs both of error and of truth are effaced, truth will remain perfect and unchanged in the Divine Mind, where also every thought of every thinking being must eternally dwell, or at least can be obliterated by no cause, except the Divine volition.

• It would be a denial of God's omniscience, a supposition of imperfection in the Deity, not to believe this.

• We are not, however, hence to infer, that silent or mental prayer is usually desirable for us even in secret. On account of our weak and limited nature, it is probably for the most part otherwise. The utterance of words contributes to fix and form our thoughts, to give them order and connexion, and even to affect our hearts more deeply; we recognise more fully by this means the reality and continuity of prayer, and are more guarded against its distractions and inconstancies. Yet the firm persuasion that mental prayer is effective, and that we may really address an ever-present God, like that devout petitioner who“ spake in her heart," (even although our " lips” should not " move as did hers,) is of great value, as encouraging a habit which can make every place and scene an oratory ; a habit also which will best prepare us for those last moments or hours of earthly devotion, (we trust by far the inost fervent and most blest,) when the tongue, the lip, the hand, the eye, shall successively fail in their weak and transient offices, but when the Spirit shall more closely commune with Him, as our Father, “ who hath come unto us, and made his abode with us.". The fifteenth Essay, On the encouragement which the

' · Intercession of Christ affords to Prayer,' opens thus :

• When I consider how defective, how mean, and how defiled are the most solemn of my devotional services, I might well despond of their being any way acceptable to the Deity, or procuring for me any communication of his mercy and favour, were it not for the peculiar way of access and acceptance revealed. Not only my previous character of an offender, but the offences contained in acts of worship might suffice to defeat my hopes. If a petitioner were to approach the most exalted, benevolent, and venerable of men, without mani: festing any due impression of his dignity and excellence; if he were visibly and audibly to manifest the contrary, by unseemly gestures, and by wandering, incoherent, and even disgraceful expressions, mingling in every part of his professed supplication ; if that supplication, though not a precomposed form, were evidently in many of its parts, mechanical; a sort of half-conscious exercise of memory, combined with vague desire; while the mind was chiefly occupied with the irrelevant and often base imaginations, which seemed interposed as insults to the majesty and patience of the hearer:—what should we augur of the reception and success of such a suppliant Would not the servants or the friends of the personage addressed,

be ready to remove the intruder unanswered, except by reproof? But my addresses to One who is ineffably more august and venerable than any created being, have often corresponded to this description, and

pp. 13-16.

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have always, more or less, partaken of this character. For thoughts and feelings not vocally expressed, are quite as substantial and apparent before the Omniscient God, as those which are uttered; they form, undeniably, as real a part of the action of the mind during any act of worship, as the confessions, petitions, or adorations, verbally pronounced. What then would be the texture and series of my prayers, if all the ideas and emotions which arise during their con tinuance, could be submitted to the view of others and my own, as they unquestionably are to the view of Him "that searcheth the hearts!" Would not the irreverent confusion and impious intermixture of things sacred and profane, solemn and trivial, spiritual and carnal, be enough to mortify the pride of a Stoic, and confound the self-righteousness of a Pharisee? If such a copy of the acts of my soul during secret devotion, could be faithfully noted down and set before me, it would certainly confirm in a most humbling manner, my conviction of spiritual weakness and depravity, and might justly induce despair of such services being well-pleasing to God; were it not for the consoling and cheering assurance that Jesus "ever liveth to make intercession for us:" that we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, though without sin." It is in this belief alone, that I can, or ought to come boldly unto the throne of grace;" but with this belief, notwithstanding the experience and the foresight of exceeding imperfection and unworthiness in my offerings, I may "have access with confidence."' pp. 145-48.

The following appropriate and beautiful illustration occurs in the twenty-second Essay, entitled, We are not to be discouraged in prayer by the want of sensible fervour and joy.'

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We can imagine two seamen navigating the opposite extremities of the same broad ocean. On one, the sun has genially risen, and cheers his heart as it scatters brightness over the rippling waves. A favourable gale springs up. He is bid weigh anchor and hoist all sail. He obeys with alacrity and delight. There is no sense of fatigue or reluctancy: with every strain of the cable his heart bounds homeward he seems to descry already the cliffs of his native shore, and his loud cheers keep time with his animated efforts. On the other, the dew of night is falling, or the sharp blast whistles round him. Every star is hidden. The vessel makes no way. Nothing can be seen, and he hears only the gloomy dash of the billow. He is directed to ascend the mast, to reef a sail, to labour at the pump. He steadily obeys: but it is in sadness. His heart is heavy, and his eye dull. No lively anticipation of the desired haven visits his mind. No note of animation or pleasure is heard. Still he continues instant in toil. Will it be said that this man shows no genuine trust and allegiance? Rather, surely, that the principle of faith or confidence in the master of the vessel is much more decisively proved and exhibited in his situation, than in that of the first named.' pp. 219, 220.