veying to the mind of the spectator the most delight. ful impression of harmony, both spiritual and sensual. He is the painter of beauty par excellence; he is to us what Apelles was to the ancients-the standard of the amiable and the graceful.

CORREGGIO AND THE MONKS.

The pleasure which the monks derived from the works of Correggio, even in their incipient state, and the esteem which they had for him, is manifested by a remarkable document. This is a letter or patent of confraternity, passed in the general assembly of the order, held at Pratalea, in the latter end of 1521; a privilege which was eagerly sought at this and earlier periods, and was seldom conferred on persons not eminent for rank or talents. It conveyed a participation in the spiritual benefits derived from the prayers, masses, alms, and other pious works of the community, and was coupled with an engagement to perform the same offices for the repose of his soul, and the souls of his family, as were performed for their own members.

CORREGGIO'S MULETEER.

It is said that Correggio painted a picture of a muleteer, as a sign to a small public house, which was kept by a man who had frequently obliged him, and who had been a muleteer. This picture was purchased by a person sent to Italy many years ago

to collect ancient paintings. It has all the marks in the upper corner, of having been joined to a piece of wood, and used for a sign; it cost five hundred guineas!

DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S CORREGGIO CAPTURED AT

VITTORIA.

Cunningham warms into rapture in speaking of this picture. "The size is small, some fifteen inches or so; but true genius can work miracles in small compass. The central light of the picture is altogether heavenly; we never saw anything so insufferably brilliant; it haunted us round the room. at Apsley House, and fairly extinguished the light of its companion pictures."

CORREGGIO'S ANCONA.

Correggio painted for the church of the Conventuali at Correggio, an Ancona, (a small altar-piece in wood,) consisting of three pictures when he was in his twentieth year, as appears, says Lanzi, from the written agreement, which fixes the price at one hundred gold ducats, or one hundred zecchins, and proves the esteem in which his talents were then held. "He here represented St. Bartholomew and St. John, each occupying one side, while in the middle compartment, he drew a Repose of the Holy Family flying into Egypt, to which last was added a figure of St. Francis. Francesco I., Duke of Modena, was so greatly delighted with this picture, that he sent

the artist Boulanger to copy it for him, and thus obtaining possession of the original, he contrived dexterously to substitute his own copy in its place." The Duke satisfied the monks by giving them more lands. It is supposed that it was afterwards presented to the Medicean family, and by them given to the house of Este in exchange for the Sacrifice of Abraham by Andrea del Sarto. It is now in the Florentine gallery.

PORTRAITS OF CORREGGIO.

Correggio appears to have been far less solicitous than most other painters, that his likeness should be transmitted to posterity, for of him there is no unquestioned portrait extant. That which is prefixed to his life, in the Roman edition of Vasari, is evidently false, for it exhibits the head and countenance of a man aged seventy. It was taken from a collection of designs, in the possession of Father Resta, to one of which, representing a man and his wife with three sons and one daughter, in mean apparel, he gave the name of the Family of Correggio, forgetting that the family consisted of three daughters and one son.

Another portrait, with the title, Antonius Correggius, and consequently supposed to be painted by himself, was preserved in a villa which belonged to the Queen of Sardinia, near Turin, and engraved by Valperga; but its authenticity seems justly questioned by Lanzi and Pungileoni. A third, which

was sent from Genoa to England, bore an inscription signifying that it was the portrait of Maestro Antonio da Correggio, by Dosso Dossi, and was accordingly engraved for the memoirs of Correggio by Ratti, who obtained a copy. Lanzi is inclined to

infer, however, that it is the portrait of Antonio Bernieri, the miniature painter, who also bore the name of Antonio da Correggio.

A copy of this portrait is still preserved in the Pinacotheca Bodoniana, at Parma, and has been engraved, first by Asioli, and since as a medallion, by Professor Rocca, of Reggio. Pungileoni, who is inclined to consider it as genuine, has prefixed the medallion to his life of Correggio.

Tiraboschi and Pungileoni mention other supposed portraits and busts, of questionable authenticity; and Pungileoni, in particular, adverts to a portrait still preserved near a door of the cathedral at Parma, which is exhibited as a likeness of Correggio. It is supposed to have been copied in the middle of the seventeenth century, by Lattanzio Gambara, from a more ancient one of this celebrated painter, in another part of the cathedral; but its authenticity is questioned, merely on the ground that it represents a man of more advanced age than Correggio, who only attained his forty-first year.

DID CORREGGIO EVER VISIT ROME?

The question has been long agitated whether Correggio ever visited Rome, and profited by the study

of the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo; on this point, the only historical evidence which has been adduced, is a tradition recorded by Father Resta, and said to have been derived through three generations, from the information of Correggio's wife. As an authority so light and doubtful could not be seriously advanced, his biographers and admirers have sought in his works for more valid traces of the models to which he recurred. Mengs contends that his paintings exhibit proofs of an acquaintance with the antique, and the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo. In the head of the Danaë, he traces a resemblance to that of Venus de Medici; and in the St. Jerome, and Mercury teaching Cupid to read, he recognises imitations of the Farnese Hercules and the Apollo Belvidere; he also discovers a resemblance to one of the children of Niobe, in the young man who endeavors to escape from the soldiers, in the picture representing Christ betrayed in the garden. The countenance of the Magdalen, in the St. Jerome, he considers as an imitation of Raffaelle; and in the cupola of the church of St. John, he perceives a similitude to the grand style of Michael Angelo, in the frescos of the Vatican. In corroboration of this opinion, he adduces the sudden change which is perceived in the style of Correggio at an earlier period, as a proof that he must have seen and studied compositions superior to his own. Ratti, the copyist of Mengs, coincides with him in opinion. Lanzi cautiously adopts the same