colour in the most forcible manner. In the great canal a glowing gondolier is seen in his white shirt-sleeves against cool neutral architecture, and with the greenish water around him-contrasts, all tending to light up his sunburnt limbs and face to a fiery depth; but this intense glow is not seen in its largest and truest appearance till the figure is at a considerable distance. This effect is undoubtedly the truest idea of a colour, whatever the colour may be, because it is that which the memory most retains. Titian and Giorgione went all lengths in imitating this general effect, not only in sunburnt figures, but in fairer ones. The ruins of the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, although perhaps even the ruins are vestiges of retouched figures, deep and flaming as they are, are not more so than figures sometimes appear with due contrasts as described above. . . . .Titian used the same exaggerated scale in large altar-pieces, which were to be seen at good distances. The Assumption, Peter Martyr, and the Frari picture, are all of this class; and the St. Sebastian at Rome; but Giorgione was the great inventor of this noble violence, or rather first carried it to perfection.' From this point Lady Eastlake's narrative is contracted to a comparative brevity which, as we have remarked, we should like to see amended. It is true that a man is pretty well formed by forty, and that what pleases us in biography, as in life itself, is the struggle, not the victory.' Yet, in this case, more might, we think, be told with advantage. For Sir Charles Eastlake, after ten years of fertile production (1830-40), owing to a confluence of many causes, amongst which failing physical power bore a part, gradually devoted himself to many works of great. public interest and utility in the cause of art, and bore a leading share, often to his personal discomfort, in much that has left. its mark upon the national taste. His history, in fact, is henceforth bound up in several ways with the history of the English School; and we regret only that our own failing space renders it impossible for us to carry on the sketch with which this paper commences, into the present and future of our art, in connection with the efforts wherein the late President of the Academy took a part, equally honourable and disinterested. Within this debateable ground, questions of course arose, on which his judgment will be disputed; but, putting-by these, we are sure that no one who knew the man will dispute for a moment the impartiality, the gracious good sense, the considerateand wholly unselfish sentiments, with which he undertook labours. for which no man in the country was better qualified. The feeling of loyal affection which that well-criticised body, the Royal Academy, has inspired in many of its most distinguished members, and which no man entertained more decidedly than Eastlake, was combined in him with the aim of adapting the institution Vol. 128.-No. 256. 2 F to to the wants of our time, in some ways very different from those of the last century; whilst in the hardly less invidious task which fell to him, as administrator of the National Gallery, the confidence which every one felt in his truthfulness, sense of honour, and conscientious discrimination of art, carried him through all the difficulties of the position, and he left us at last a gallery which, though by the necessities of the case (as formed when the great harvest of collecting was over) less numerous and less endowed with world-famous pieces than the earlier gatherings, is yet not only rich enough for historical illustration, but exceeds every other collection known to us in the combined choiceness and charm of its contents. And this, looking to the general aim of art, we must consider the leading merit and ideal of such a gallery. One melancholy association, however, connects itself with this sphere of Sir C. Eastlake's activity. Year by year he made a delightful but laborious journey of research through any region whence he thought specimens for the collection could be procured. Always singularly unsparing of himself when the interest either of his profession or of other persons were concerned, he appears to have prolonged these exertions unduly, and the fatigue of the last broke down a constitution never robust. He died at Pisa, in December, 1865; thus closing his eyes in that land to which he had looked through life as the chosen home of art, and from which he had himself drawn many of his happiest inspirations. What will be Eastlake's place in the English School? This question, often raised during or just after the lifetime of a poet or an artist, is one, however, which it is rather natural to ask, than possible to answer. We shall here, with most wisdom, leave the solution to that great and final arbiter on all things human, Time. It is in the years to come that fame finds her true judges. Especially is this the case when a man has lived in a critical era, in an era of transition. Yet we may, perhaps, already note a few points with safety in regard to Sir C. Eastlake. It cannot be denied that, as a painter, he made his mark on his own age; it will not be disputed, also, we think, that his natural gifts and acquired skill outran what he was able to do in the way of realizing them. A fastidiousness in work, of which he was himself aware, an early failure in full physical strength, due to over-study, his wideness of aim and multiplicity of intellectual interests,-in some degree, perhaps, the absence of the stimulus derived from poverty, and the stimulus derived from the love of wealth,-these may be reckoned among the causes through which the attainments af maturity fell short of the ideals of youth. He had fixed his aim high; and the sensibility of nature, which had inspired him with that aim, made him too consciously alive to the difficulties and imperfect steps which necessarily preceded its accomplishment. These considerations, however, belong to the speculative order. Turning for a moment to Eastlake's works, the word which, putting technical criticism aside, we most naturally think of in connection with them is distinction. They show throughout a singular refinement of idea and of feeling; they are also completed with the most conscientious care and accuracy; there is no trick, no fancifulness; he has done for his work all he could; it is finished not only lovingly, but caressingly. These qualities would not, however, alone constitute distinction. But his pictures exhibit also a beauty of expression, a grace of line and arrangement, which were, indeed, among the distinguishing merits of English art a century ago, but are now very rare indeed in our school. Largeness of style and tenderness are the special notes of Hellenic art. The largeness, in our judgment, he did not reach; but he has much of the indescribable tenderness. Eastlake may have cultivated the qualities we have specified, through his love of ancient art, and particularly of sculpture; which he judged with a mastery of the rarest occurrence in a painter. At any rate, he set a high value upon them. In one of the very few passages where he alludes to his own work he says: 'I feel more than ever the importance of graceful arrangement, and never can come up to my wishes on this point. The imitation of nature, however refined, is tolerably safe and secure work in comparison with the arrangement of the masses and lines of a composition. No part of the art, I am convinced, requires more taste than this: it is where a painter can be helped least, and where he must draw most on his own powers. It is, in short, the most creative part of the art, more so than even the expression of the passions; because for these we have a native and common feeling to guide us, and nature in detail to look at. But the elements of beauty, applied to the conduct of a picture so as to produce that effect which attracts and enchants the spectator at the first glance, require more of the artist than any other branch of the art.' The rare and elevated style of beauty here indicated is, indeed, to take the fine figure of Tennyson's poem, rather the Holy Grail of the painter,-something 'seen, but hardly seen,' caught only by flashes and in ecstasy, than a charm which he can hope to grasp and master. Yet it is one which-though far in itself from the qualities which popular taste delights in-has, nevertheless, a strange and durable power of enchaining the spectator. And so 2 F 2 far far as the painter whose life we have here imperfectly sketched reached his ideal, he rendered a peculiar service to contemporary English art; in which distinction is, probably, the quality of which we are most in need. And, at the same time, Eastlake has secured his hold upon later ages, and that in a manner most congenial to the modest refinement, the admirable sincerity, of his own nature. For grace and charm and repose, their inseparable companion, are never out of date. We may tire of the sublime; we may be provoked by the grotesque; we may feel oppressed by the powerful; we may be repelled by the terrible. But there is no hour which is not the hour of Beauty. Peace!— which poor Byron asked in vain might be his epitaph,—is the last word of Art. 1869. ART. V.-1. Prehistoric Times, as illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Savages. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S. 2nd edition. 2. Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie préhistoriques, 2nd Session, Paris, 1867. 3. International Congress of Prehistoric tions of 3rd Session, Norwich, 1868. THE Paris, 1868. HE circumstances under which Flint implements, and other evidences of man's handiwork, have recently been discovered in this country and on the Continent, have all tended to prove that a greater length of time must be allowed for man's existence on the globe than has hitherto been admitted. But assuming this question as settled in their favour, archæologists, like spendthrift heirs who have come suddenly into the possession of unexpected wealth, are willing to squander it with the most lavish hand. So far from questioning the antiquity of anything, thousands and tens of thousands of years are ready to be heaped up on any monument or object that cannot produce a written certificate of its birth, or prove its origin by evidence that would satisfy a jury. It must, however, be confessed, that the temptations to this mode of treatment are great. Once an object is swept into the great dust-bin of prehistoric archæology, we need give ourselves no further trouble about it. The cry now is, it belonged to people who have long passed away: we know nothing of their language or their religion, still less of their manners or customs; and if this be so, it is no use inquiring for what purpose the monument was erected, nor at what period: all that we are now allowed, is to worship, and for this we must have faith, and with this in archæology, as in other matters, we are told we may rest and be thankful. It would be well, however, if the question were allowed to rest there; but like all persons whose new faith has not been generally accepted, the prehistoric antiquarians are particularly jealous of all collateral issues. Any attempt to prove that some at least of the megalithic remains may belong to historic times, is treated as an attack on the antiquity of man, though the connexion between the two subjects is at least as remote as the proverbial assertion that the building of Tenterden steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands. The question, for instance, whether Stonehenge or Avebury were erected before or after Roman times, has absolutely no bearing on the age of the Amiens drift implements or the Dordogne cave deposits; and, till the two subjects are kept entirely separate, a correct view of the case cannot be arrived at. Each class of monuments must be treated on its own merits, and examined according to its own lights, but so soon as this is done much of the mist that now enshrouds their history will, if we mistake not, be rapidly cleared away. Although the Danish antiquaries have worked harder in collecting their non-historic antiquities, and have done more to popularize the study of them than those of any other country, they must also be held in a great measure responsible for the very unsatisfactory condition in which the science finds itself placed. There is probably no country in Europe-not even excepting Franceso rich in primæval antiquities as Denmark; and besides this, that State has had the exceptional advantage of kings and a court sufficiently enlightened to encourage the study of them, and, what is next in importance, a law of treasure trove, which is not only intelligible but effective. With these advantages the museums at Copenhagen early became crowded with treasures, and luckily found also a curator in the late Professor Thomsen prepared to grapple with the problem of their classification. In 1836 he propounded his system, and set to work to arrange his museum in accordance with it. All the ancient history of Denmark was divided into three distinct and successive periods. First came an age when the country was inhabited by savages ignorant of the use of metals, and only employing stone and bone for all the purposes for which tools were necessary. And as a corollary to this, every monument which contained no metal, or in which any flint implements were found, was at relegated to these remote ages. at once Next came a period when men had attained to a knowledge of a mixture of tin and copper, which, strange as it may seem, did apparently precede the knowledge of iron and other useful metals |