tion of the foreign term chiaroscuro, or clear obscure, as we translate it; when the simple words light and shade, would convey all the meaning which that term intended to express. Its effect cannot be better illustrated, than by adverting to the appearance of a bunch of grapes, illuminated by rays of light, which Titian is said to have used as a pattern. As some of the grapes are struck directly by the light, others thrown into shade, and some partake of both, partly from the direct rays, and partly from reflection, they furnish an apt exemplification of the manner in which the lights and shades aid and animate the disposition of a groupe of figures in painting." P. 209.

The biography of Parmegiano, which forms the concluding portion of this volume, is principally drawn from his life, .published by Father Affo, at Parma, 1784. Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola was born at Parma, in 1503, and as usual, adopted the name of his birth-place rather than that of his family. The death of his father threw him, when a child, to the guardianship of some uncles, who bestowed much pains upon his education, and indulged the early taste which he had manifested for painting; but of the master under whom he studied it is not possible to speak with certainty. Before he was fourteen he had painted a Baptism of Christ, which attracted much notice. It was first placed in the church of the Annunziata at Parma, and at the end of the last century was possessed by the Counts of San Vitale. The war between Francis the First and Leo the Tenth compelled him to a short retirement to the territories of Modena, and here he produced a St. Francis and a St. Catherine far beyond his years. On his return to Parma in his twentieth year, he was engaged to decorate the sides and roof of two chapels near the entrance of the church of St. John, while Correggio was employed upon the dome. The sides and roof of a chapel in the cathedral were afterwards entrusted to him in like manner, but this engagement was never completed, in consequence of some alteration in the plan of the building.

At the age of twenty, fired with the love of the Roman school, he determined to complete his studies in the Capital of Italy. In order to introduce himself to the Pope (Clement VII.) he bore with him three pictures which he had finished with especial care. One of them was a singular deception. It was a portrait of himself, on a convex surface of wood, resembling the image depicted in a mirror. It was much admired, and having passed through several hands, and among others, those of the celebrated Aretino, was in the end deposited in the Treasury at Vienna.

The Pope received the young aspirant most graciously, and extended his patronage to him. His ambition was keenly excited by this notice, and he pursued his studies of antiquity and the great painters with the utmost diligence. His imitations of Raphael were so close, and in the beauty of his person he so strongly resembled the deceased master, that it was popularly reported that the soul of Raphael had migrated into the body of Parmegiano. His own style was rapidly formed by this culture of others, and he was said to form a union of the characteristics of Raphael, Michael Agnolo, and Correggio.

The blockade and siege of Rome by the Emperor fatally interrupted the brilliant hopes of the young painter, who had been promised the Hall of the Vatican for an adequate display of his powers. During his short stay, however, in the eternal city, he finished several celebrated pictures, and among them the Vision of St. Jerome, which has recently attracted much notice among ourselves by its exhibition at the British Gallery.

"Vasari says, the picture painted for Donna Maria Buffalini, was intended to be placed in the Church of St. Salvatore del Lauro, in a chapel near the door. He adds that when Parmegiano left Rome, he deposited it with the Frati della Pace, in whose refectory it remained several years. It was removed by Giulio Buffalini to the church of the family at Città di Castello.

"Affò, after relating these facts, adds that it remained in the refectory of the monastery of St. Maria della Pace, till the time when Biondo wrote; that it was removed by Giulio Buffalini, and doubtless placed in the chapel of that noble family, in the church of the Augustins. But in consequence of the little care which was taken of it, the Buffalini family caused it to be transferred to their palace, in which it remained in his (Affò's) time, and though considerably injured, was regarded as a treasure.

"This picture was purchased by the late Marquess of Abercorn, who sold it to Watson Taylor, esq." P. 253.

The price given by the directors of the British Gallery, not by the Reverend Holwell Carr, as is here stated, at Mr. Watson Taylor's sale, was 3000 guineas.

Every great painter resident in a city subjected to storm is tolerably sure to have the story of Archimedes at Syracuse, fathered upon him. Parmegiano is said to have heard nothing of the tumult of assault till some soldiers burst into his apartment. He was more fortunate, however, than the Sicilian Philosopher. The officer commanding the detachment was a man of taste, and only exacted a few pen and ink sketches; a second party demanded money, and a third hur

ried him to prison. From this he was soon liberated, and found means of returning to Bologna, with the intention of etching his own best compositions. In this branch of art, which had been recently invented, and also in engraving on wood he attained much excellence. But his plans were interrupted by the treachery of a workman whom he employed as his assistant, and who stole his tools and designs. Once again he had recourse to the pencil, and among other paintings he gave birth to the Madonna della Rosa, so called because it represents the Virgin offering a rose to the infant Jesus.

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"Of this picture a curious anecdote is related. It is said to have been executed for the celebrated Aretino, who was on terms of friendship with the painter; and critics who have examined it minutely, have discovered faint traces of wings on the shoulders of the infant, ornaments on the female, and other proofs, that the original design, was a Venus and Cupid, which was certainly more consonant to the character of the licentious satyrist, than a religious subject. Some suppose, however, that the painter changed his purpose, and having thus transformed it, presented it to Pope Clement 7th, and others that it was sold to the family of Zani, at Bologna; in whose possession it continued till 1752, when it was purchased by Augustus the Third, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, for the price of 1350 zecchines, and now adorns the gallery at Dresden. It is painted on wood, and in dimensions is four french feet, by three feet 2 inches." P. 247.

In 1531 he returned to his native city, and was immediately commissioned to decorate the principal chapel in the church of La Steccata. In this he proceeded with much dilatoriness, and was perpetually called off by private engagements, which his profuse expenditure and improvident habits appear to have rendered necessary for his support. The monks at length were tired of remonstrances, and they arrested and imprisoned him for a breach of contract. He obtained his release on a promise of the fulfilment of his labours; but this was soon violated, and he contrived to escape from their just indignation, and to secure himself in the territories of Cremona. He did not long survive to mock them, for a fever, probably occasioned by his excesses, put an end to his life on the 24th of August, 1540, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, leaving behind him a reputation scarcely inferior to that of the other great master, whose life we have been considering.

The brief Memoirs which we have thus endeavoured to abridge are pleasingly and unaffectedly put together, and form a useful and agreeable addition to the libraries of all lovers of the Arts.

ART. VI. History of the European Languages; or, Researches into the Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Sclavonic and Indian Nations. By the late Alexander Murray, D.D. Professor of the Oriental Languages in the University of Edinburgh. With a Life of the Author. 2 vols. 8vo. 17. 8s. Hurst, Robinson and Co. London; and Constable and Co. Edinburgh. 1823.

THIS learned work presents to our contemplation two very interesting subjects; first, the author himself, whose life is given at considerable length; and secondly, the ingenious theory which he has devised for explaining the origin and affinities of all the languages of Europe.

In regard to the former, we are happy to find, that Dr. Murray had been induced to furnish with his own pen the outlines of the earlier and more obscure part of his scholastic history; inasmuch as he has communicated a variety of particulars which no other biographer could have supplied, and given authenticity to a number of facts which would hardly have obtained belief, had not he himself been the narrator.

This historian of the European languages was the son of a peasant, born in one of the wildest districts of Scotland, and educated among the shepherd boys of the neighbourhood. His father, he informs us, dwelt in a glen so remote from the haunts of civilized life, and at such a distance from every public road as seldom to be visited by any wayfaring person besides the ambiguous gypsey or the adventurous smuggler; and in that glen he occupied a cottage so much overshadowed by mountains as not to be reached by a single ray of the sun during several months of the year. Old Murray, as if emulous of the Jewish Patriarchs to whose condition, as shepherd kings, his pursuits and habits had no small resemblance, took unto himself a wife at the age of threescore and ten; and after begetting sons and daughters, and discharging the simple duties of his calling for twenty-five or thirty years more, he was gathered to his fathers, the ancient shepherds of Dunketterick. "When I came of age to know him," says the Professor, "except his very grey or rather white hair, I remember no symptoms of the influence of time about his person or in his appearance. He enjoyed hale good health till about a year before his death.”

"Some time in autumn, 1781, he bought a catechism for me, and began to teach me the alphabet. As it was too good a book for me to handle at all times, it was generally locked up, and he, throughout the winter, drew the figures of the letters to me in his

written hand on the board of an old wool-card, with the black end of an extinguished heather stem or root, snatched from the fire. I soon learned all the alphabet in this form, and became writer as well as reader. I wrought with the board and brand continually. Then the catechism was presented; and, in a month or two I could read the easier parts of it. I daily amused myself with copying, as above, the printed letters. In May, 1782, he gave me a small psalm-book, for which, I totally abandoned the catechism, which I did not like, and which I tore into two pieces and concealed in a hole of a dike. I soon got many psalms by memory, and longed for a new book. Here difficulties arose. The bible used every

The

night in the family I was not permitted to open or touch. rest of the books were put up in chests. I at length got a new testament, and read the historical parts with great curiosity and ardour. But I longed to read the bible, which seemed to me a much more pleasant book, and I actually went to where I knew an old loose-leaved bible lay, and carried it away in piece-meal. I perfectly remember the strange pleasure I felt in reading the history of Abraham and of David. I liked mournful narratives, and greatly admired Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Lamentations. I pored on these pieces of the bible in secret for many months, for I durst not shew them openly; and, as I read constantly and remembered well, I soon astonished all our honest neighbours with the large passages of scripture I repeated before them. I have forgot too much of my biblical knowledge, but I can still repeat all the names of the Patriarchs from Adam to Christ, and various other narratives seldom committed to memory.”

It was intended that the young scholar should follow the occupation of his family, and take the charge of some sheep in the glen. But his studious and sedentary habits were soon found to prove a serious impediment to his reputation in this line of life; for whilst he was writing on boards, and tracing the progress of the Israelites in the desert, his flock was wandering beyond bounds, or committing a trespass on some forbidden territory. His fame, meanwhile, for wonderous reading and a great memory filled the mouths of all Dunketterick, and the more penetrating of the rustics began to perceive that young Murray had a secret vocation to higher duties, and that he would probably be called to discharge the pastoral care to men instead of sheep. But his father's whole property consisted of a few scores of these quadrupeds, and four Muirland cows; "his reward, says the Professor, for herding the farm of Ketterick for Mr. Alexander Laidlen, on the other side of the Dee. He had no debts and no money." With such limited resources he could not possibly send the boy to school. At length, observes the auto-biographer, "a brother of my mother re