the late political changes which have taken place in that kingdom may contribute to animate the liberal arts and studies, it is not easy to say. Much may be hoped for from a judicious and fostering government. At present, we have only to report, that the principal contents of this volume date from the years 1813 and 1814; and that we learn from the Report of the President of the Society, the Counsellor Stanislaus Stassic, that no satisfactory answers have been received to the prize questions proposed in 1812 and 1813. The first of these demanded a tragedy founded on some event of Polish history; the second desired the history of the introduction into Poland of the art of tanning leather, after the manner of Seguin. The third wished for an instructive comparison of the authority of the Grand Marshall with that of the Great Treasurer of the Crown ; a question that, we presume, has been deprived of its former interest by recent events. The other contents of the volume refer rather to subjects more properly appertaining to Poland than to science at large.

Hitherto there were counted in Russia 58 schools or seminaries for forming young ecclesiastics, and for which there had been appropriated an annual fund of 180,000 roubles. This fund having been found insufficient, the Emperor Alexander has recently advanced it by an ukase to 300,000 roubles.

At the University at Moscow, almost all the public courses have recommenced, and it is remarked, that the very disasters of that city have had a favourable influence on the state of the sciences. The appointments of the Professors have been augmented, the different branches of the sciences have received a great developement, and the number of students is augmenting. The Gymnasium has been opened anew, and perfected in several of its parts. It is the same with the schools in the

country. After the example of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, the grandees and wealthy individuals study to contribute to the progress of instruction, by donations and very considerable foundations. The Count de Schouwaloff has given a sum, 150,000 roubles, for the formation of a Gymnasium at Moscow. The Counsellor of the Mines, M. Demidow, has given a sum of 100,000 roubles to the University of Moscow, and a similar sum to the seminaries of Kieff and Yarosloff. The Count de Scheremetjew has granted for the foundation of an establishment for poor persons, a fund of one million and a half of roubles, and another very considerable sum to the University of Moscow. The Grand Chancellor, M. de Romanzow, has established upon his estates a number of schools of mutual instruction. He is getting built at this moment, four churches of different confessions; and the fact is known, that he has furnished the funds for the voyage round the world, directed by Captain Othon Kotzebue. Lastly, the Cossacks of the Don have sent statues of the Twelve Apostles, formed of massy silver, of the natural size, to the Church of Notre Dame of Casan, at Petersburgh.

SWEDEN. The literary riches of the capital of Sweden have been considerably augmented by the addition of the fine library which his Excellency General Suchtelen has brought from St Petersburgh. This general had been occupied for the last forty years in forming and completing this library, which is composed of nearly 40,000 volumes, and which is, above all, remarkable for the choice, and the number of rare and precious works it contains. A great part of the hotel occupied by the general, as well as an adjoining house which he has hired, are to be arranged so as to receive those books, as well as a large cabinet of near 20,000 medals, a fine collection of pictures, and seve

ral other articles of art and curiosity which he has collected.

PORTUGAL. On the 24th of June, the Royal Academy of Sciences in Lis. bon held a public session. Its proceedings wereprefaced by a short discourse, pronounced by the Vice-president, the Marquis of Borba, one of the governors of the kingdom. The secretary then made a statement of the labours of the Society, and of the Memoirs which had been presented and read during the preceding year. Sebastian Francisco de Mendo Trigoso afterwards read a memoir on the five first editions of the Lusiad of Camoens. He was followed by Mattheus Valente de Conto, who read an introduction to a memoir, which had gained a prize, relative to the programma of the academy, upon the demonstration of rules given by Wronski, for the general reduction of equations. Joseph Maria Soares read a compendious Statement of the General History of Medicine, from the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy. This Statement is intended to form an introduction to his History of Medical Science in Portugal. Sebastian Francisco de Mendo Trigoso read a memoir on the establishment of the Arcadia in Lisbon, and on its influence in the restoration of Portuguese literature. The author of this memoir is Francisco Manoel Trigoso de Aragam Morato. After these proceedings, the academician Ignacio Antonia da Fonseca Benevides read an historical recapitu

lation of the labours of the Vaccine Institution, in the course of the preceding year. Time would not admit of the reading of other memoirs, and the following were therefore admitted:One by Francisco Elias Rodrigues da Silveira, upon medical empiricism; another by Antonio de Aranjo Travassos, upon the means of abbreviating typographical labour; and a third by Constantino Botelho de Lacerda Lobo, on the unequal temperature of the solar rays, separated by the prism. It appears that the following works were printed by the Academy within the last twelve months.-The fifth volume of the Chronological Index of the Por tuguese Laws and Edicts, by the Desembargado, (the Judge) John Peter Ribeiro; a Treatise on the Practice of Medicine, by Joseph Pinheiro de Freitas Soares; and the second part of the third volume of the Memoirs of the Academy.

A French paper states, that the Bashaw of Egypt has sent agents to Europe to engage artists and manufacturers to settle under his government. He is fond of botany, and purchases at a liberal price exotic plants. He subscribes to the French journals, and has ordered 600 volumes of French literature. He has particularly desired an account of the methods of instruction employed by Bell and Lancaster, which it is understood he means to apply to education in Arabic.

THERE never probably was a period in which the arts of design in Britain shone with equal lustre as in the present. The former age, indeed, could boast the high names of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Wilson-the splendour of which, we should vainly now

attempt to surpass; but they will be duly matched by those of West, Lau rence, Wilkie, Turner, Chantrey, with not a few who can scarcely be considered as second to these. Meantime, this age is, above all, distinguished by the wide diffusion of the successful cul

Among the painters, not less than forty three were ladies.

Among the circumstances which give so great an impulse to British art, none probably acted more powerfully than the exhibitions with which, for a long time, the public had been annually presented. Among these, the lead was taken by that (now the fiftieth) made by the Royal Academy at Somerset-house. It contained 1117 pieces, several of which were of the first excellence. The President produced a picture painted forty years ago, "the Great Mogul presenting to Lord Clive the grant of the Dewannee for the East India Company;" also a Nativity. Mr Northcote had a picture on a singular subject, shewing an exploit of agility performed by a prisoner taken at the battle of Sedgemore, in 1685. "Una with the Satyrs," by Mr Hilton"The Virtue of Faith," by Mr Harlow, a highly promising young artist, of whom a premature death has deprived the public-a sketch of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, delivered from the fiery furnace," by Mr Singleton, were also remarked in the historical department. In portrait, Sir Thomas Laurence was pre-eminent, particularly by his Duke of Welling

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ton, in the dress he wore, and on the horse he rode, at the battle of Waterloo; and by his Lady Gower. Sir William Beechey had a picture of Lord Erskine; and Mr Jackson one of Earl Grosvenor, which have been much praised. Mr Wilkie produced an interesting picture of Sir Walter Scott and family, which he thus describes :-"A finished sketch of Walter Scott, Esq. and his family. In the centre is Mr Scott, seated on a bank, at his left is his friend, Captain A. Ferguson, with his two sons, Mr W. and Mr C. Scott, and behind them is an old dependant of the family. On the right is Mrs Scott, attired as a cottage matron, with her two daughters as ewe-milkers. In the front of the picture is Mr Scott's gigantic stag greyhound, of the ancient Highland race, now almost extinct; and in the distance is a view of the Tweed, the town and abbey of Melrose, the Eildon hills, and the top of the Cowden-knows."

Mr Phillips and Mr Owen supported their reputation. In landscape, Turner claimed the foremost place. He shone particularly by his picture of the Field of Waterloo on the night after the battle. He introduced a number of women, &c. seeking their relations by torch-light among the dead, and threw on them striking effects of light, from the remains of the fire which had consumed the village of Hougoumont. His "Dort Packetboat Becalmed," was also much admired. The collection was also enriched by performances of Calcott, Glover, Collins, Holland, Bigg, and the Daniells. In sculpture were remarked a full-sized statue of Mr Pitt, by Mr Westmacott; the infant daughter of the Duke of Bedford, by Mr Chantrey; and an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, covered with trophies and insignia taken at Waterloo, by M. Garrard. The architectural designs were very numerous, and pre

that art.

The British Institution had as usual two exhibitions; the first of the works of British artists; the second of those of the old masters. The former contained several important works, among others the "Bombardment of Algiers, August 27, 1816, shewing the situation of the British line of battle ships, and the part they took in the action," by Mr Rogers. The artist was assisted by sketches taken during the conflict on board the Minden.-"The Angel descending into the pool of Bethseda," by Mr Ward. A picture from the song of Duncan Gray, and one representing " Bathsheba," by Mr Wilkie-"Zethus and Amphion fast ening Dirce to the horns of a wild bull to avenge their mother," by Mr Howard-"The Evening Star," and "St John in the Wilderness," by Sir W. Beechey-a very large picture of "Christ raising the widow's son at Nain," by Mr Brockledon.

The exhibition of the works of the old masters contained 153 pieces, from the principal collections in the kingdom. Eleven of those were furnished by the Prince Regent, besides two of the cartoons. Two pictures of the Assumption of the Virgin, one by Guido, and the other by Morillo, gave an opportunity of comparing the style of these two great masters. The same object was effected by two heads of Christ, one by Guido and the other by Leonardo da Vinci. This collection contained two capital pieces of the celebrated French painter Le Sueur, one representing Alexander drinking the medicine prescribed by his physicians; the other "Theseus lifting the Stone." It was also distinguished by some fine specimens of Cuyp and Teniers, andby some portraits of Vandyck. Another highly respectable exhibition was made by the Society of Painters, in oil and water colours. The institution was originally confined to the

last branch; but the taste for it having somewhat declined, those in oil have been introduced, and their number is increasing. The whole exhibition consisted of 369 pictures by Richardson, Glover, Barrett, Deane, Hastings, Fielding, Barney, sen. and jun. Harding, Prout, Robson, Cox, Varley, Holmes, Wild, Uwins &c. Mr Hay. don had several of the studies for his great picture of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, since completed.

Scotland, during the present year, did not make any public display in this branch. The original exhibiting association had been broken up by fatal schisms which had arisen among the sons of art; and none had yet been formed to supply its place. The different branches of art, however, continued in silence to be diligently and successfully cultivated. Scotland could boast of Nasmyth the father of landscape painting, and whose son and daughters inherited an ample portion of his talent-Wilson, Thomson, (Rev. J.) Gibson; while Williams was collecting in Italy and Greece new knowledge of nature and memorials of art; and Dr Schetky was bringing from Gallicia and the Pyrenees pieces distinguished by an interesting and original character. In portrait, this country supported its long established reputation, by the works of Raeburn, the Watsons (uncle and nephew,) Geddes, Thomson, (W. J. miniature,) &c. Even history, the higher branches of which had for some time been a stranger to Scotland, was now successfully cultivated by Allan and John Watson. The former produced this year and exhibited in London the "Press Gang," which was considered a worthy successor to his admired picture of the Circassian captives.

On the continent, the most interesting feature of art consists in the works executed at Rome by Canova and Thorwaldson, the first of modern sculptors. The following notices re

lative to these occur in the course of the present year.

Late accounts from Rome notice the increasing attention and encouragement given to the fine arts in that city. The Chevalier Thorwaldson is employed in restoring the last of the statues of Egina. These chefs d'œuvre have filled him with the ambition of himself producing a figure of Hope in the antique style. Count Sommariva, one of the richest protectors of the arts in Europe, has given Thorwaldson an order to execute for him, in marble, "The Entrance of Alexander into Babylon," upon the design of that which is so much admired in stucco at the palace of Monte Cavallo. Canova has now finished the group of Love and a Nymph, which the Prince Regent of England ordered of him.

Canova's colossal statue of Buonaparte, which was presented to the Duke of Wellington by the King of France, is arrived in England, and is placed in Apsley-house, the Duke's London residence.

By the munificence of the Prince Regent, in the year 1815, the sum of 250,000 francs were placed by Lord Castlereagh at the disposal of Canova, who was then at Paris, to be applied to defray the expences of carrying to Rome the works of art restored by France, of which sum 50,000 francs were directed to be appropriated towards the monument of the Cardinal York. It is now erected in St Peter's, where the monument of his father is placed, under the title of King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. It is said, that the Cardinal, by his will, directed that his name should be recorded on his tomb as Henry the Ninth. Ca

nova has undertaken to execute a marble group to adorn and illustrate the monument, which, when completed, will form a distinguished ornament of the magnificent Cathedral of Rome.

It is expected to be finished in the course of the present year.

The following detached notices on subjects of art may be found interesting.

A set of casts from the Elgin marbles are to be immediately prepared for the Imperial Academy of Arts at Petersburgh, under the direction and superintendence of Mr Haydon, to whom M. Olenin, the president, has written in the most flattering terms for that purpose.

The copy in Mosaic of Leonardo da Vinci's Lord's Supper, begun by order of Napoleon, and finished under the auspices of the Emperor of Austria, has been sent to Vienna as a present from the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom to the Empress. Eighty horses, in various carriages, were employed in its conveyance.

Mr Salt, British Consul General in Egypt, has lately sent over, as a present to the British Museum, the colossal head of Memnon, formed of one solid block of marble, weighing nearly nine tons. The face is in high preservation, and is much admired by the cognoscenti.

The same ship (the Weymouth) has brought over several architectural antiquities from Lebida, which are a present from the Bey of Tripoli to the Prince Regent.

The celebrated Moses of Michael Angelo, a colossal figure of the most exquisite proportions, and finished in a style that to this day is unrivalled, having by the Pope's permission been withdrawn from its niche, in St Pietro in Vinculo, in order that Mr Day, an English artist, might take a mould of it to bring to England; this copy has now arrived safe, and is set up in company with the Monte-Cavallo figure, in that capacious room in the stableyard, which the Prince Regent allotted to these exhibitions of colossal sculpture.

The admirers of antiquity and of the