to whom he is indebted for any part of his style; but he has opened a rich treasure of excellence for his successors to profit by. The full powers of the management of light and shade, which we denominate by the Italian phrase chiar' oscuro, were not known until Rembrandt developed them. It might have been supposed that the power and harmony, and splendour of Corregio left nothing to be desired in this department of the art; but Rembrandt gave to his masses a force and depth, and concentration, unequalled, and peculiar to himself. Nor is chiar' oscuro in his hands merely an instrument of picturesque effect; it is also a most powerful vehicle of sentiment, especially in subjects characterized by solemnity or terror. The Crucifixion,' Christ and St. Peter in the Storm,' and Sampson seized by the Philistines,' are striking but not singular examples of this:-it is the excellence which pervades his works. Jacob's Dream,' in the Dulwich Gallery, deserves mention as a most remarkable instance of his peculiar powers, for it embodies images so vague and undefinable, that they might be thought beyond the grasp of painting. Forms float before us, apparently cognizable by our senses, yet so vague, that when examined, they lose the semblance of form which at first they wore, receding gradually to so immeasurable a distance, that it would seem as if in truth the heavens were opened. It is the most spiritual thing conceivable, and breathes the very atmosphere of a dream.

As a colourist Rembrandt has scarcely a superior: if his tints are not equal in truth and purity to those of Titian, yet his admirable management of light and shadow gives to his colouring an almost unrivalled splendour. In that quality of execution which painters call surface, he was eminently skilled; perhaps none but Corregio and Reynolds can compare with him in it. To his portraits he gave a most speaking air of identity; but his delineations of the human form and character in works of imagination are almost ludicrous, and little better than travesties of the subject. Beauty certainly must have come in his way; but he seems to have avoided and rejected it for the sake of ugliness and vulgarity. The picture of a Woman Bathing,' in the National Gallery, is a good instance both of his merits and faults, treating with the utmost fidelity and beauty of execution a subject so disagreeable, that admiration is neutralized by disgust. Indeed his genius has no greater triumph than that of reconciling us to his defects.

Rembrandt's style of engraving, as of painting, is in great measure of his own invention. His plates are partly etched, assisted with the dry point, and sometimes, but not often, finished with the graver.

His prints possess the effect of colouring in a surprising degree; the light and shade is managed, as might be expected, with consummate skill, and the touch has a lightness and apparent negligence, which give to his etchings an indescribable charm.

De Piles and some other writers have asserted that Rembrandt was at Venice in the year 1635 or 1636. This mistake arose from the dates, and the name of Venice which Rembrandt put at the bottom of some of his prints, with the view of enhancing the price of them. He never quitted Amsterdam after he first established himself there in 1630. He could have had no inducement indeed to absent himself from a city in which he was so rapidly acquiring both fame and fortune. In what related to his art he never looked out of himself; and he was so far from seeking any general acquaintance with the world, that he associated only with a small circle in his own city, and that of an inferior class. The burgomaster Six, who appreciated his extraordinary talents, and wished to see him fill a place in society worthy of them, often attempted to lead him among the wealthy and the great; but that inveterate want of refinement which is visible in his works, pervaded his character, and he confessed that he felt uneasy in such company; adding, that when he left his painting-room, it was for the purpose of relaxation, which he was more likely to find among his humble associates, and in the convivialities of the tavern. He lived nearly to the age of sixty-eight years, and died at Amsterdam in 1674.

Those who may be curious to know the different impressions and variations of Rembrandt's plates, and their respective rarity and value, will find information in the catalogue of his works, first published by Gersaint, at Paris, and P. Yver, at Amsterdam; which was afterwards enlarged by our countryman Dalby, and has since been added to in a publication by Adam Bartset, printed at Vienna in 1797.

Rembrandt's works are nowhere more valued than in this country, which may account for the vast influx of them hither. Originals are not often met with on the Continent: here they may be found in every great collection. The National and the Dulwich Galleries contain some of his finest performances. Particulars of Rembrandt's life and works may be found in La Vie des Peintres Flamands, par Descamps, and in De Piles. In English, in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters,' and in Pilkington.

JOHN DRYDEN was born at Aldwinkle, near Oundle, in Northamptonshire, August 9, 1631, according to Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Malone raises a doubt concerning the accuracy of this date. The inscription on his monument says, only, natus, 1632. He was educated at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, and elected Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1650. The year before he left the university, he wrote a poem on the death of Lord Hastings. Of this production Dr. Johnson says, that "it was composed with great ambition of such conceits as, notwithstanding the reformation begun by Waller and Denham, the example of Cowley still kept in reputation." Dryden's vacillation, both in religion and politics, proves, that though perhaps not completely dishonest, he had no firm and well-considered principles. His heroic stanzas on Oliver Cromwell, written after the Protector's funeral in 1658, were followed on the restoration by his Astrea Redux, and in the same year by a second tribute of flattery to his sacred Majesty, A Panegyric on his Coronation.' The Annus Mirabilis is one of his most elaborate works; a historical poem in celebration of the Duke of York's victory over the Dutch. He succeeded Sir William Davenant as poet laureat. He did not obtain the laurel till August 18, 1670; but according to Malone, the patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced from the Midsummer after Davenant's death, in 1668. He was also made historiographer to the king, and in the same year published his Essay on Dramatic Poetry.

Among the works of so voluminous a writer, we can only notice those which are distinguished by excellence, or by some strong peculiarity. Dryden was more than thirty years of age when he commenced dramatic writer. His first piece, the Wild Gallant, met with so mortifying a reception, that he resolved never more to write for the stage. The hasty resolutions of anger are seldom kept, and are seldom worth keeping; but in the present instance it would have been well had he

adhered to the first dictates of his resentment.

We should not then have had to regret, that so large a portion of a great writer's life and labour has been wasted on twenty-eight dramas: the comedies exhibiting much ribaldry and but little wit; with neither ingenuity nor interest in the fable; with no originality in the characters: the tragedies for the most part filled with the exaggerations of romance, and the hyperboles of an extravagant imagination, in the place of nature and pathos. His tragedy seldom touches the passions: his staple commodities are pompous language, poetical flights, and picturesque description. His characters all speak in one language-that of the author. Addison says, "It is peculiar to Dryden to make all his personages as wise, witty, elegant, and polite as himself." In confirmation of the proofs internally afforded by his writings, that his taste for tragedy was not genuine, he expresses his contempt for Otway, master as that poet was of the tender passions. But however uncongenial with his natural talent dramatic composition might be, his temporary disgust soon passed away. In his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, he tells his patron, Dorset, that the writing of that treatise served as an amusement to him in the country, when he was driven from London by the plague; that he diverted himself with thinking on the theatres, as lovers do by ruminating on their absent mistresses. But whatever opinion he might entertain of his own tragic style, he was himself sensible that his talents did not lie in the line of comedy. "Those who decry my comedies do me no injury, except it be in point of profit: reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend." He retaliated on the criticisms levelled against his extravagances in tragedy, by an ostentatious display of defiance. We find in his Dedication of the Spanish Friar, "All that I can say for certain passages of my own Maximin and Almanzor is, that I knew they were bad enough to please when I wrote them."

In 1671 he was publicly ridiculed on the stage in the Duke of Buckingham's comedy of the Rehearsal. The character of Bayes was at first named Bilboa, and meant for Sir Robert Howard; but the representation of the piece in its original form was stopped by the plague in 1665: it was not reproduced till six years afterwards, when it appeared with alterations in ridicule of the pieces brought out in the interval, and with a correspondent change of the hero. Dryden affected to despise the satire. In the Dedication to his Translation of Juvenal, he says, "I answered not to the Rehearsal, because I knew the author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very Bayes of his own farce."

An Essay on Satire, said to be written jointly by Dryden and Lord

Mulgrave, was first printed in 1679. This piece was handed about in manuscript, for some time before its publication. It contained reflections on the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lord Rochester. Anthony Wood says, that suspecting Dryden to be the author, the aggrieved parties hired three ruffians, who cudgelled the poet in Will's coffee-house. In 1680 a translation of Ovid's Epistles into English came out: two of which, together with the Preface, were by Dryden. In the following year he published Absalom and Achitophel; a work of first-rate excellence as a political and controversial poem. Dr. Johnson ascribes to it "acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of character, variety and vigour of sentiments, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition." In the same year, the Medal, a satire, was given to the public. This piece was occasioned by the striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against Lord Shaftesbury being thrown out, and is a severe invective against that celebrated statesman.

In 1682 Dryden published 'Religio Laici,' in defence of revealed religion against Deists, Papists, and Presbyterians. Yet soon after the accession of James the Second, he became a Roman Catholic; and in the hope of promoting Popery, was employed on a translation of Maimbourg's History of the League, on account of the parallel between the troubles of France and those of Great Britain. This extraordinary conversion exposed him to the ridicule of the wits, and especially to the gibes of the facetious and celebrated Tom Brown.

The Hind and Panther, a controversial poem in defence of the Romish church, appeared in 1687. The Hind represents the church of Rome, the Panther the church of England. The first part of the poem consists mostly of general characters and narration; which, says the author, "I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poetry. The second, being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could, yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had not frequent occasion for the magnificence of verse. The third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and familiar than the two former. There are in it two episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the main design; so that they are properly parts of it, though they are also distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use of the commonplaces of satire, whether true or false, which are urged by the members of one church against another." The absurdity of a fable exhibiting two

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