those that were addressed to him during his long life, from every part of Europe, by persons who wished to avail themselves of the aid of his universal learning. Upon almost any subject, we are told, on which he was consulted, he could not only state what any particular author had said of it, but in many cases could quote the very words employed, naming, at the same time, the volume, the page, and the column in which they were to be found. Authors and printers were wont to send him all the works which they published-a sure method, if they contained any thing valuable, of getting them, as it were, advertised over the world of letters, since literary men were every where in communication with Magliabecchi; and he would not fail, if the new book deserved his recommendation, to mention its merits to such of his correspondents as it was likely to interest. He had a sort of short-hand method of reading, by which he contrived to get over a great many volumes in little time, and which every person will be in some degree able to understand who has been much in the habit of looking over new books. His way, we are told, was to look first to the title-page, then to dip into the preface, dedication, or other preliminary matter, and, finally, to go over the divisions or chapters; after which, being so completely in possession, as he was, of all that former writers had said upon the subject treated of, he had a competent general notion of the contents of the new work. Of course, if this cursory inspection gave him reason to believe that there was in any part of it matter really new and important, he would examine it more particularly before he laid it down. At all events, it is certain, that although thus expeditiously acquired, his knowledge was the very reverse of superficial. The reverence with which he was regarded by the greatest scholars of his time proves this. The dexterity, if we may so call it, which he attained in the art of acquiring such knowledge as can be communicated by books, was in great part the result of the exclusiveness with which he devoted his life to that object. He might be said literally to live in his library; for, in fact, he both slept and took his meals in the midst of his books. Three hard eggs and a draught of water formed his common repast; and a sort of cradle which he had made for the purpose, served him both for his elbowchair during the day, and for a bed at night. He never travelled more than a few miles from Florence: but all the great libraries in the world were, nevertheless, nearly as well known to him as his own. "One day," says Mr. Spence, "the grand duke sent for him, after he was his librarian, to ask him whether he could get for him a book which was particularly scarce. 'No, sir,' answered Magliabecchi, it is impossible, for there is

but one in the world; that is in the grand seignor's library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book on the second shelf, on the right hand as you go in.'" This is not to be taken as a proof of the extraordinary memory of Magliabecchi; for the book in question being a remarkable one, it is not at all wonderful that the circumstance which, in point of fact, principally made it so, should have been distinctly remembered by him: but the familiar style in which he alludes to the localities of the sultan's library, shows the hold that every thing about it had taken of his fancy, and how entirely books were his world.-Library of Entertaining Knowledge. Anecdote. A very ingenious geological philosopher, now living, was on Etna, and busily employed in making a collection of the lavas formed from the igneous currents of that mountain; the peasants were often troublesome to him, suspecting that he was searching for treasures. It occurred to him to make the following speech to them :-" I have been a great sinner in my youth; and as a penance, I have made a vow to carry away with me pieces of every kind of stone found upon the mountain. Permit me quietly to perform my pious duty, that I may receive absolution for my sins." The speech produced the desired effect; the peasants shouted, "The holy man, the saint!" and gave him every assistance in their power to enable him to carry off his burden; and he made his ample collections with the utmost security, and in the most agreeable manner. - Consolations in Travel.

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Comforts in Southern Africa. - Now, though all the subjects of interest I have been describing, are rather of the savage order, you are by no means to infer that we " out of humanity's reach," or wholly deprived of communication with the polished world. No: we hear every nine days, from Cape Town, the African seat of government, learning and science-laugh if you will-and we receive the English newspapers, and read the advertisements of Warren's blacking, and Charles Wright's vinous wines, and the mysterious hints of changes in the ministry, and the announcement of a new premier, who is dead before his long-sought-for dignity is known in Africa. Then we have Walter Scott's last work, which has ceased to be his last before weget it; for where do they not reach?-and sometimes the novel of a day comes, heaven knows how, among us. Think of reading Almack's, in a place where, when a ball is given no common event-the silk stockinged ankle is exhibited in its descent from an ox-waggon, and the beasts are turned out to graze around till the dance is over. Believe not, then, that I find this remote spot dull, though it is the fashion to pity those who are banished to it; for, to me it unites varied sources of interest, all speaking of a new and unsettled state of society, an approximation of the artificial refinements of life, with the fresh, free, bold habits of the savage robber.-Rose's Four Years in Southern Africa.

• Proofs of a Kaffer Girl's Love. There was one young and finely formed girl in the group, with her wild expressive eyes, and beautiful teeth, on whom I flatter myself with having made an impression. Her mode of showing it was singular:- she picked some vermin from the hairy side of her carosse, and offered them to me; and, on my exhibiting some symptoms of disgust, laughed most heartily at my fastidiousness, and put one in her mouth, to show that it was good. It was the first mark of attachment which I had received since I left Cape Town, and I was affected accordingly; and had but the refinement of sentiment been added to so touching a proof of love-had she but sung

"I give thee all, I can no more,
Though poor the offering be,"

I know not what the consequences might have been.-Ibid.

Native Africans.-Nothing can be in stronger contrast, than the wonderful savage that is sometimes seen in our towns, surrounded by all that is strange, by a thousand things that speak to him of his hopeless inferiority; and the same being in his own beautiful country, where his energies and his knowledge are fully equal to every circumstance that can occur.-Ibid.

Ancient Respect of the Mongols for the Threshold of their Tents.-1 visited the camp of a Kalmuk horde under a prince Tumen. I asked him if there were any traces remaining of that ancient respect which the Mongols had for the thresholds of the doors of their tents, which was so great, that when the French monks, Plan, Coepin, and Rubriquis, had the misfortune only to touch one with their toes, they were severely beaten, and even threatened with death. Tumen replied, that this respect was still preserved; that, in fact, it was allowed to touch the threshold, but it was considered a sin to sit upon it. It was from this peculiarity, perhaps, that the expression of Sublime Porte was derived. - Potoki's Travels.

Substitutes for Tea. All the Nomodes of Central Asia use tea as a luxury. They obtain it from China expressly for themselves; and it does not at all resemble ours. It is in large pieces, almost as hard and as compact as bricks. The poor people, who have not the means of procuring it in bricks, though it is very cheap, substitute for it the leaves of the following plants: badan (saxifraga crassifolia), balgon (tamarix germanica), khatatsa (potentilla rupestris et fructuosa), nokhatau (glyerrhiza hirsuta), and serlik

(palypodium fragrans), which has the sweet smell of the raspberry. The Kalmuks also use, with the leaves mentioned, the seeds of temihn chike (lapathum acutum), and the root of a species of false acorns, which is extremely astringent.-Ibid.

Locusts. The most incredible story I ever heard, or the most extraordinary account I ever read, of the numbers in which locusts sometimes appear, I can now no longer doubt; and I must confess it is requisite actually to behold them before any idea of the real truth respecting them can be formed. This evening, after dinner, as we went out to sit halfnaked at the door in the street, according to the custom of the country, to enjoy the cool air, or rather, I should say, the lesser heat of the day, we were astonished at seeing the atmosphere in a state resembling a thick mist moving rapidly over us, but which we soon discovered to be locusts. They were all going in the same direction, like rooks returning to their home. We could not say how long they had been passing before we saw them, but for upwards of an hour we sat gazing at them with increased astonishment, and when the sun set, as far as the eye could reach we perceived no diminution of their numbers. On they went in their ominous flight, seeking some devoted region where to repose, every fruit, flower, and vegetable of which, in a few hours, they would utterly consume.-Temple's Travels in Peru.

London Solitude.-In London any thing may be had for money; and one thing may be had there in perfection without it-that one thing is solitude. Take up your abode in the deepest glen, or on the wildest heath, in the remotest province of the kingdom, where the din of commerce is not heard, and where the wheels of pleasure make no trace, even there humanity will find you, and sympathy, under some of its varied aspects, will creep beneath the humble roof. Travellers' curiosity will be excited to gaze upon the recluse, or the village pastor will come to offer his religious consolations to the heart-chilled solitary, or some kind spinster, who is good to the poor, will proffer her kindly aid in medicine for sickness, or in some shape of relief for poverty. But in the mighty metropolis, where myriads of human hearts are throbbing-where all that is busy in commerce, all that is elegant in manners, all that is mighty in power, all that is dazzling in splendour, all that is brilliant in genius, all that is benevolent in feeling, is congregated together-there the pennyless solitary may feel the depth of his solitude. From morn to night he may pensively pace the streets, envying every equipage that sweeps by him in its pride, and coveting the crusts of the unwashed artificer. And there shall pass him in his walks poets that musically sing of human feeling, priests that preach the religion of mercy, the wealthy who pity the sorrows of the poor, the sentimental whose hearts are touched by the tale of woe-and none of these shall heed him; and he may retire at night to his bedless garret, and sit cold and hungry by his empty grate; the world may be busy, and cheerful, and noisy around him, but no sympathy shall reach him; his heart shall be dry as Gideon's fleece, while the softening dews of humanity are falling around him -Atlas.

Disease of the Heart. At a meeting of the College of Physicians, Dr. Francis Hawkins read a paper, communicated by Dr. Wilson, in which were described some cases of a disease of the heart, consisting in a remarkable thickening of the mitral valves, and producing a coagulation in the lungs, and in the heart itself, behind the obstruc tion. In these cases, for some time previous to death, the system must have been supplied with blood, not in a current, but drop by drop! yet life has been maintained -proving how small an impulse of the heart is sufficient under ordinary circumstances; and hence some light is thrown on the nature of trances. The author observed, that we are apt to consider the functions of the heart too simply; they should be studied not only with regard to the peculiar office of the heart as a regulator of the circulation, but with reference to the relation it bears to the lungs and other parts of the system: he particularly turned his attention to moral causes, and the influence of the passions, as productive of diseases of the heart; and remarked, that if it be true, as some assert, that these diseases are now more common than formerly, this must arise from the necessity of repressing the feelings, in a state of refined society, and hence there is more of suppressed emotion. Many beautiful passages were quoted from the poets, Homer, Sophocles, and especially Shakspeare, descriptive of the effects produced upon the heart by the influence of the passions. Shakspeare, it was observed, was a perfect physiologist; his descriptions were sound in fact as charming in expression; and had he been a physician, he would have anticipated Harvey.

Gentlemen's Show-Seats. We think that in all gentlemen's seats which are considered show-places, it would be much more honourable to their owners, and preserve more impartial attention to strangers from their servants, to allow the payment for the sight to be voluntarily dropped into a box, as in the case of some foreign showbuildings and gardens, than to have it paid like a physician's fee, as at present. box might be opened at certain times, and the money apportioned either among all the servants, or chiefly to the aged and infirm, or applied to some other benevolent or enlightened purpose.-Gardener's Magazine.

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Title of the Monarchs of Persia. The ordinary title of the Persian monarchs is Shah, which corresponds with our emperor; or Padishah Iran, Great Emperor of Iran. His subjects, however, dare not give him so simple a denomination: they must not write his name without adding, "The most exalted of men; the source of majesty, of grandeur, of power, of glory; the equal of the sun; the chief of the great kings, whose throne is the stirrup of heaven; the centre of the globe of the earth; the master of the conjunctions; the asylum of the world; the shadow of God, diffused over the face of all sensible things," &c. But these denominations vary according to the eloquence of the writer.

Fanaticism of Ignatius Loyala.-Ignatius Loyala, founder of the Jesuits, laboured with sincerity and zeal in the conversion of sinners and pagans. One instance only of fanaticism occurred during his residence in Paris. He had bestowed much exhortation, without effect, to withdraw a certain youth from his connexion with a woman of loose life: this youth in his visits to her, was to cross a brook in the neighbourhood of Paris, and as he was passing the bridge on a winter's night, he heard himself addressed by name from the stream; there Ignatius had stationed himself, naked, and up to the neck in water, and there he solemnly declared in that same condition the young man should find him when he returned; and this he would continue to do night after night till he should lose his own life, or the young man amend his. This is an act which even the most panegyrical of his historians have not recorded for imitation; for though they said that the sinner turned back and was reclaimed, they could not help perceiving how likely it was that he might have taken another road, or returned by the same when he had duped his insane monitor; and that if the experiment had proved fatal, Ignatius would have perished by his own act and deed, as evidently as the Bramin who famishes himself at the door where he cannot obtain his demand.-Foreign Review.

Imitation.-Sir Joshua Reynolds continually deprecated imitation, as the ruin of rising ability, as an impediment which if talent raises for itself, at once and for ever limits its progress. "We have a host of players of the Garrick school" said he, "and not one of them can ever rise to eminence, because they are of the Garrick school. If one man always walks behind another, how can he ever equal him, still more get before him?" - Monthly Maga. zine.

LIFE AND WORKS OF CANOVA.

CANOVA, who died at Venice October, 1822, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, was universally lamented throughout the civilized world, as one of those rare individuals whose extraordinary and unrivalled genius throws a lustre on the period in which they live, and whose loss is, in the nature of things, altogether inseparable. The biographical memoirs and collections of engravings, which have appeared since his death, enable us to render justice to the memory of this great artist, who has particularly recommended himself to the attentions of Americans, by consecrating one of his works to the honour of their political saviour and father. A tribute of this kind is the more necessary in this country, because the British journalists with their characteristic jealousy of all foreign excellence, have studiously underrated the merit of Canova, even since his death, in the vain attempt to give their own countryman Chantrey a pre-eminence over him, which that justly distinguished and amiable sculptor would himself as little dream of claiming, as any competent judge of assigning it to him. The work which is placed at the foot of this page, although no satisfactory account of its origin is given by the British editors, appears to be a reprint in an English dress, of one which the Countess Albrizzi of Venice announced sometime ago her intention of publishing, consisting of a collection of engravings of Canova's works, with a biography by herself of her illustrious countryman and friend. The work contains a complete collection of engravings, in outline, of all the productions of Canova, accompanied by the commentaries of this lady, and by a biography which is, however, not from her pen, but that of Count Cicognara, a Venetian nobleman, well known to the world by his literary talent and taste in the fine arts. The descriptions of Madame Albrizzi are of a poetical rather than critical character, and probably appear to more advantage in their original shape, than in the present translation, which, however, is not a bad one. The biography is a judicious and unpretending narrative of the leading incidents in a life of exclusive and untiring devotion to art, and of which the best and only faithful record is to be found in the charming productions of the artist. We propose, in the present article, to lay before our readers a concise sketch of these events, with such observations on the works of Canova, as may be suggested by the descriptions

•† Abridged from the North American ReviewNo. LXV., of The Works of Canova, engraved in Outline by Henry Moses, with Descriptions from the Italian of the Countess Albrizzi, and a Biographical Memoir by Court Cicognata. London.

VOL. IV.

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and engravings here given of them, or by the personal survey which we have had opportunity to take of some of the most remarkable among the number.

Canova was a native of Possagno, a village situated near the city of Asolo, at the foot of the Venetian Alps. The talent for sculpture was hereditary in his family, having been exercised by his father and grandfather with a good degree of success in the construction of monuments, altars, and other works, mostly for the interior decoration of the churches in their neighbourhood. His father died while Canova was yet an infant, and it was from his grandfather, who still continued at a very advanced age the practice of the art. that he received his first instruction in the mechanical part of it. The peculiar aptitude which he exhibited under these circumstances, attracted the attention of several noblemen of taste, in the immediate vicinity of his native village, who supplied the young sculptor with the means of removing to Venice and studying under the first artists of that city, which he accordingly did, at about fourteen years of age. He began very early to exhibit, both in the choice of his subjects and in his mode of treating them, the lofty spirit and correct taste which afterwards raised him to the head of his art. His Orpheus and Eury- dice, which were executed in his sixteenth and seventeenth years, though inferior to his later productions, excited in a singular degree the admiration of his countrymen, and announced the dawn of a genius of the highest promise. They are still preserved in the palace of his earliest patron, the Patrician Giovanni Falieri, at Asolo. The success of these and several other groups and statues, which he executed not long after, encouraged his friends to afford him the opportunity of studying at Rome-the central point and, as it were, metropolis of the fine arts. He was accordingly placed there at the close of the year 1780, under the protection of the Venetian Ambassador, the Chevalier Girolamo Zulian. As a provision for the expenses of his residence at Rome, the government of his native republic voted him an annual pension of three hundred ducats for three years.

Such were the circumstances under which Canova entered on his brilliant career. From this time forward he passed his life, with the exception of occasional short excursions for recreation or business, in his workshop at Rome, where he continued his labours with uninterrupted assiduity through the whole series of political revolutions which shook the world around him, and swept into their vortex al:nost every other individual of any note or talent in Italy. No clearer proof could be given of the absorbing and unconquerable passion for his art with which he was possessed, and which alone could

have raised him to the distinction he attained. He was aware, before he left Venice, of the great inferiority of the modern style of sculpture, and had already fixed his eyes on the pure and perfect models of antiquity. In this correct taste he was confirmed and encouraged, upon his arrival at Rome, as well by his own observations upon the works of art, which he there saw, as by the advice and opinion of the best judges from all parts of Europe, whom he met with in that city. After allowing him a sufficient time to prepare himself, by a proper course of study, for new efforts, the Venetian ambassador placed at his disposal a fine block of marble, and invited him to execute, upon a subject of his own choice, a work which should furnish a specimen of the improvement that he had derived from his residence at Rome. Canova, labouring in the palace and under the eye of the ambassador, who has thus associated his name with the glory of his protégé, converted this block of marble into the group of Theseus and the Minotaur-the first of his works in which he exhibited the maturity of his talent. This production realized the highest expectations entertained by the patrons of the young artist; and the execution of it may be said to form an epoch in the history of modern sculpture. The circumstances attending this interesting moment in the life of Canova, are related by his biographer in the following terms :

"On his arrival at Rome, Canova had experienced the kindest reception from the Venetian ambassador, and had free access to his splendid mansion. This enlightened and accomplished nobleman, soon becoming impressed with a high sense of the merit and powers of the young sculptor, procured from Venice a cast in plaster of the group of Dædalus and Icarus, which he had executed in that city, for the purpose of exhibiting it to the artists and connoisseurs at Rome. The house of the ambassador was, indeed, a kind of Athenæum, and frequented by all the persons most distinguished by talents and genius in that city. On the occasion of the first production of this group, he was surrounded by Cades, Volpato, Battoni, Gavin Hamilton, Puccini, and many other distinguished artists and critics, who contemplated the work with silent astonishment, not daring to censure what, although at variance with the style then followed, commanded their admiration, and revealed the brightest prospects. The embarrassment of the youth at this juncture was extreme, and he frequently spoke of it afterwards as one of the most anxious moments of his life. From this state he was, however, soon relieved by the friendly and paternal address of Gavin Hamilton, exciting him to unite with so exact and beautiful an imitation of nature the fine taste and beau idéal

This

of the ancients, of which Rome contained so many models; predicting, at the same time, that by such a course he would greatly pass the limits which had been reached by the moderns. But the censure which he overheard from one who stood behind him, was more agreeable to the young artist than any direct eulogium. This Aristarchus observed, that, from the effect produced on the observer by the naked forms so carefully finished in this group, they must have been moulded upon a living subject, when in reality they were wholly the result of his severe study of the human form, entirely unassisted by mechanical means. greatly encouraged the young artist, and convinced him that he had already raised himself above the mediocrity of his contemporaries. From the moment of his arrival at Rome, he had commenced a severe and profound study of the great models of ancient art, without, however, neglecting the fruits of his previous close observation of nature, the expression of which he always proposed to himself to make a distinguishing quality in his works. He had a profound contempt for all conventional modes in the arts, and was led, even in that early age, by a correct taste, rather than by instruction, to prefer, among the monuments of ancient art, those which were of the age of Phidias, in which the lofty conceptions of the artist are most closely united with truth of expression-a decision which has since been fully confirmed by the exhibition made to Europe by the British Museum of the first certain monuments of the arts of that era.

"It is remarkable, that both sculpture and architecture should at this time owe their revival to the genius of the Venetians; for while Canova was executing his first great works at Rome, Ottone Calderai was reviving the Grecian taste in Vicenza, and Querenghi, at St. Petersburgh, was fulfilling, in a masterly style, the magnificent views of that imperial court, by the erection of sumptuous and elegant edifices of every description. It must be allowed, however, that no ordinary degree of genius and courage was required to break loose from the false and vicious rules of art which then prevailed, particularly in sculpture, as not one of his contemporaries had, with all the incitements which have been enumerated, yet advanced a single step in that direction. Indeed the works which Canova first saw at Rome, the productions of Agostino Penna, Pacili, Bracci, Sibilla, Pacetti, and Angilini, are already fallen into total neglect; neither can we discover in them the source of the slightest excitement to the improved style which the Venetian pupil afterwards acquired. The Chevalier Zulian now saw the importance of giving effective assistance to the developing powers of Canova. He therefore placed at