Our limits will not permit us to enlarge, or enter into an inquiry as to the compa rative merits of the different modern schools of Europe, of which Italy bears away the unrivalled palm, through seve ral concur; ent circumstances, and of those it is immediately obvious, that piety and superstition are the principal ; the le gends of their saints produce an incredi ble variety, for illustrating the violent emotions of the soul in ardent devotion and the pangs of martyrdom, and it can sot to be disputed, that they have in many instances very nearly approached the ex pression and excellence of their masters: of those, Michael Angelo Buonaroti has been honoured by his countrymen with the title of divine, nor was Benini much less deserving of this honour.
The French, although favoured with a climate little inferior to that of Italy, and situated upon its borders, have less dis tinguished themselves in sculpture than might have been expected; but the na tional character is too volatile for the pro ductions of tedious and incessant exer tion, absolutely necessary in the sculptor; hence it is, dip very few French names are celebrated as statuaries. It would, however, be unjust, not to mention Ron biliac, who honoured England with his works, which deserve every praise for just conception, and perhaps there is no modern instance of more beautiful contrast than in his monument to the memory of Lady Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey, on which the lifeless figure of the dying lady, and the eager and terrified husband, have, and ever will be greatly admired. The skeleton, wrapped in sepulchral dra pery, aiming a dart at the breast of the female, needs no other encomium than that of the celebrated anatomist, John Hunter, who pronounced it a most per fect representation. Francois Girardon should also be mentioned as doing honour to the French nation, by his numerous works, and by none more than his tomb of Cardinal Richlieu, originally placed in the college of the Sorbonne, at Paris.
The Germans and Dutch have distin guished themselves greatly in painting, but taking the subject in an enlarged point of view, they have done next to nothing in sculpture ; neither has the Spanish na tion any very strong claim to distinction on this head. The sculpture of Great Bri tain is almost entirely confined to the in teriors and exteriors of churches, and the statues which adorn them are all, without exception, ancient: when the religion of our ancestors was the same as that of the greatest part of the continent of Europe, they gave large sums for the production of shrines and saints without number; but they seem to have had no idea of encou raging the noblest part of the art, by se lecting men of superior genius, and em ploying them on groups or single figures in white marble, the only substance calcu lated to give due effect to the skill of the statuary; this parsimonious conduct, and probably very indifferent rewards, was the cause that all our old statues are made of coarse and perishable stone, and that they are, in truth, little better than copies of each other, which circumstance may be partly accounted for; besides, by the situations they occupied on the walls of sacred edifices, and their being inva riably placed in niches, and those in the pointed style of architecture, whence it became a matter of necessity to intro duce but one figure, and that in an upright position; yet, under all these disadvan tages, a competent judge may discover in the majority of the works of our ancient sculptors a freedom and correctness that would, with due encouragement, have produced works little, if at all, inferior to those of the Italian school. If we exa
mine the turns or lines of the faces of the kings and saints, scattered over the sur faces of our cathedrals and some parish churches, it will be found that the artists who made them were capable of express.. ing dignity and piety, and their drapery is generally correspondent to the position of the limbs, and in large graceful folds. The admirer of this art cannot fail of being highly gratified, by tracing the progress of English sculpture in that vast field for observation, Westminster Abbey; where, in the cloisters, they will find the rude figures of abbots coeval with the time of William of Normandy, from which period down to the present moment, there is al most an annual succession of figures, or namental and monumental.
The Abbey having been partly rebuilt by Henry III. the structure was continued as the abbots could obtain the means; consequently there is an actual gradation in the excellence of the sculpture, down to the reign of Henry VII. The latter monarch determined to excel all his pre decessors, and his chapel, or burial-place, is one blaze of rich decoration, in every possible direction. Having thus directed the attention of the reader to the place where a perfect knowledge of this sub ject may be obtained, we shall proceed to notice another branch of the art, which has been continued in Great Britain from the time of the reformation, at which pe riod sculpture received its fiat, as far as relates to the use of it for pious purposes. We know but little of the statutes which were placed about the altars and shrines of old times in this country, as they were destroyed without mercy, but vast num bers of tombi remain uninjured in every county : in speaking of those, we must premise, that very little opportunity was given the artist to expand and improve his ideas. as a slavish custom prevailed of placing all the statues on them in a pos ture, of all others, the most ridged and ungraceful, which was on their backs, and with the hands joined in prayer : under this obvious disadvantage our ancient sculptors contrived to make many excel lent and interesting figures in beautiful transparent alabaster although almost all the males are represented in armour. As the effigies of persons were frequently ac. companied by that of their consorts, more scope for genius and variety prevailed in the latter, and conseqUently we find fe males in the habits of their times, and re presented in the rich ornaments of the sex, and making due allowance for the stiffness of their cumbent position, the drapery is frequently placed in true and well conceived folds : as to expression in the features beyond a mere state of quiet, as it would not have been proper, it is not to be discovered in any instance. Some of the tombs under consideration are divided into compartments, in each of which small bas reliefs are introduced of the children of the deceased, or monks or nuns telling their beads; these are fre. qttentl'y well executed, and so far so, as to make us wish the artist had been in dulged to the full extent of his abilities.