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MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIA GRAHAM, 
 
 AUTHOR OF A JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN INDIA, 
 
 &C. &C. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW J AND 
 A. CONSTABLE AND CO., EDINBURGH. 
 
 1820 . 
 
Printed by A. and R Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street, London . 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A preface is usually written to account 
 for the motives for publishing the work it 
 stands before ; and an author seldom ven- 
 tures to assign his or her pleasure, as the 
 chief motive for writing. This, however, 
 was the original reason for attempting an 
 English life of Nicholas Poussin. Others 
 have since occurred, and as they may 
 perhaps induce the reader to sympathise 
 with the writer, they shall be stated. 
 
 Modern artists are apt to complain of 
 want of public patronage, and to lament 
 that no fair occasion of distinguishing 
 
 a 3 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 themselves can now occur, because it is 
 no longer the fashion to decorate churches 
 or palaces, within and without, with his- 
 torical pictures. Now, Nicholas Poussin 
 did actually distinguish himself, and has 
 won a great name among painters, with- 
 out such occasion ; for the two or three 
 pictures which he painted for altars in 
 great churches, are not only below many 
 other painters, but decidedly below him- 
 self. His friends, or patrons, or employ- 
 ers, were gentlemen who loved the arts, 
 and loved to have their chambers adorned 
 with pictures of historical or poetical sub- 
 jects, of a convenient size and price for 
 private persons : and Poussin discovered 
 that grandeur of thought and design, ex- 
 pression, and correctness, were independ- 
 ent on the size of the canvass on which 
 he was to work. He acquired a reput- 
 ation, in consequence of which, the Court 
 of France thought proper to patronise 
 
PllEFACE. 
 
 Vll 
 
 him : but it will be seen in the Life, how 
 little that patronage contributed either to 
 his fame or interest. 
 
 He was really a Painter : cultivating 
 philosophy and literature, because they 
 were necessary for his improvement in 
 art. Modest and simple in his man- 
 ners, mild, pious, and affectionate ; he 
 was beloved, respected, and admired ; his 
 industry was unremitting, and even his 
 relaxations and pleasures were made con- 
 ducive to the great end of his life — ex- 
 cellence as a painter. 
 
 It is much, but not enough for a painter 
 to know the various forms of nature, to 
 understand the management of colours, 
 and to handle the pencil with dexterity* 
 He must look into the minds of men, 
 that he may understand their feelings 
 and passions. He must be acquainted 
 a 4 
 
viu 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 with history and poetry, that he may 
 choose subjects worthy of his pencil ; with 
 the customs and manners of nations, an- 
 cient and modern, that he may give his 
 figures the dress and actions they require. 
 The study of antiquity, anatomy, per- 
 spective with geometry, and architecture, 
 are indispensable. And some knowledge 
 of physical geography is necessary, that 
 the vegetation and scenery may be true. 
 
 These things are not easily learned : 
 nor can the mind be debased or indolent, 
 that, seeing the task before it, can re- 
 solutely undertake, and steadily per- 
 severe in it. Yet some persons, who 
 are, it is to be hoped, better patriots 
 than judges of painting, and more 
 acquainted with the petty squabbles 
 of contemporary artists, than with the 
 history of art, have ventured lately to 
 insinuate, that painting flourishes best in 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 slavish countries, and in slavish * times. 
 But they forget that poetry and painting 
 have a common origin, and that they 
 both sprung up in the free cities of 
 ancient Greece. They forget too, that 
 the period when the great poets of Italy 
 wrote, and when her greatest painters 
 were bom, was one of freedom, bordering 
 on licentiousness. Look into the annals 
 of Italy. Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, 
 Titian, Leonardo, Giulio, and Georgione, 
 were all born in the space between 1442, 
 and 1492, while Florence was a republic, 
 and when the Captains of Italy fought in 
 the pay of free cities. From the moment 
 those Captains became stationary tyrants, 
 no great man in art was born or nurtured 
 in the North of Italy. 
 
 * It is a pity that such things should be said, even in 
 the annals of art ; but I grieve to think that the Edin- 
 burgh Review should have inadvertently admitted the 
 slander. See the article on Farrington’s Life of Reynolds. 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The cities in the Papal States long re- 
 tained, together with the republican form 
 of government, something of the repub- 
 lican spirit ; that spirit which sleeps, but 
 is not even yet dead in the ashes of old 
 Rome. The second school of painters 
 was, therefore, as might have been looked 
 for, at Bologna, the freest of those cities. 
 The Caracci and their scholars dared to 
 paint nobly, for they were free. 
 
 If at that season, Poussin, Le Brun, and 
 Le Sueur, and Bourdon, arose in France, is 
 it too much to say, that it was because 
 France was then more free than at any other 
 period ? The religious wars had elicited a 
 freedom of feeling and discussion, favour- 
 able to fostering every liberal art. The 
 iron age of Louis XIV., had not arisen to 
 crush the farther rise of the very talent 
 with which it decked itself. The great 
 
 poets, and orators, and painters of France, 
 18 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XI 
 
 had arisen in circumstances favourable to 
 their genius ; they were freely nurtured ; 
 but the spirits which had shown them- 
 selves in the poetry of Corneille, Racine, 
 and Boileau ; in the orations of Bossuet, 
 Massillon, and a host of others, were 
 cramped and trodden back by the tyranny 
 of that court, which revoked the edict of 
 Nantes, and drove forth to exile the 
 worthiest of the inhabitants of France. 
 The spirits were, as I say, repressed ; the 
 more delicate died and withered away; and 
 as painting was one of these, I have no con- 
 cern with the other consequences of that 
 eventful period. 
 
 If, then, painting has hitherto loved 
 to live in the light of liberty, English- 
 men surely need not be afraid to cul- 
 tivate it ; and if hereafter great painters 
 shall arise among us, it will be be- 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 cause we are still free, not because the 
 66 national character is broken down.” 
 
 The English school of painting, though 
 far inferior to either the first or second 
 splendid periods of Italian art, is now the 
 best in Europe. It has fewer faults. For 
 the truth of this the Academy may appeal 
 with confidence to the thousands of Eng- 
 lishmen who have lately visited the Con- 
 tinent, and looked impartially at the 
 foreign exhibitions. The German artists 
 have the best feeling abroad: they imitate 
 the old masters, but have mistaken re- 
 verse of wrong for right ; and, avoiding 
 the extravagant action, glaring colour, 
 and false feeling of the French, they have 
 adopted babyish simplicity. The Italians 
 are nothing in painting. The example 
 of Canova has drawn all the rising talent 
 of his countrymen towards sculpture, and 
 there is not a painter in Italy, who, in 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 X1U 
 
 the various provinces of art, can compare 
 with any one of our academicians ; not to 
 speak of the splendid talents we possess, 
 unconnected with the Academy. 
 
 It is a grievous circumstance that a 
 prejudice in favour of every thing foreign 
 exists among the English ; a prejudice 
 so old as to have been jested with cen- 
 turies ago, by all manner of persons, from 
 Trinculo, who exclaims, that in England 
 any thing strange “ will make a man to 
 the facetious Dr. Bourd, who “ painted , 
 for an Englishman , a proper fellow naked v 
 with a pair of tailors shears in one hand , 
 and a piece of cloth on the other , with 
 these ” and other “ rhymes ,” — 
 
 All new fashions be pleasant to we, 
 
 I will have them whether I thrive or thee A 
 
 The prejudice continues ; and unluckily 
 
 * Camden, 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 a painter, sculptor, engraver, or any 
 other artist, down to a milliner or a cook*, 
 is considered good or bad as his birth 
 took place on one side or the other of the 
 channel ; and one’s very heart is grieved, 
 to see the excellent English works that 
 are held cheap, while portfolios are filled, 
 and walls are covered with French and 
 German trash that, when the fashion and 
 the novelty are gone, will inevitably be 
 sent to the garret and the cheesemonger’s. 
 
 But good sense will prevail at last, and 
 good taste will come with it. Our patrons 
 will discover that our artists are better 
 painters, better scholars, and more re- 
 spectable men than most of those who 
 assume the name of Painter elsewhere. 
 And our artists will content themselves 
 with the degree of patronage that the 
 
 * Cookery has been called a fine art ; and as to a milli- 
 ner, she or he is an artist in finery . — See Forsyth on Italy. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 times and circumstances of our country 
 allow, when they remember that the ex- 
 cessive patronage bestowed by some of 
 the foreign protectors of painting, and 
 other fine arts, utterly deprived the artist 
 of every shadow of independence. No 
 Englishman could submit to the absolute 
 controul of any individual patron ; and the 
 consciousness that he and his work are ab- 
 solutely free, and only subject to general 
 opinion, not private and arbitrary autho- 
 rity, ought to be taken as a privilege, for 
 which a large allowance in their expect- 
 ation of encouragement should be made. 
 
 The hope of rendering some service to 
 art has not been without its effect, in en- 
 couraging the writer of this volume to 
 proceed in the task, pleasant enough in 
 itself, of endeavouring to introduce into 
 the general mass of literature, something 
 not exclusively technical, upon Painting ; 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE* 
 
 and she trusts others, better qualified for 
 the task, will second her. 
 
 The materials, of which the following 
 pages are composed, have of course been 
 mostly printed in various forms and lan- 
 guages before ; but they have not been 
 put together, nor does any tolerable life 
 of Poussin exist in English. A good 
 translation of Lanzi’s excellent little his- 
 tory would, perhaps, be the best addition 
 that could be made to the English artist’s 
 library ; as the original is certainly the 
 best book on the subject that has appeared 
 for centuries in Italy. Meantime it is 
 hoped, that this essay on Poussin may 
 find favour before the public, which is 
 the true patron and encourager both of 
 literature and art. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 The biography of illustrious men has 
 always been looked upon as not only the 
 most entertaining but the most instructive 
 kind of reading ; and we put the Lives of 
 Plutarch into the hands of our young sol- 
 diers, and scholars, and statesmen, to form 
 their minds and to awaken their emu- 
 lation. It is unfortunate, however, that 
 we have not one complete life of any of 
 the eminent artists that adorned the best 
 ages, and the politest cities of Greece, 
 though the numerous anecdotes related 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 concerning them, and the respectful men- 
 tion made of them by the greatest writers* 
 show that the Greeks considered the culti- 
 vation of the fine arts as a means of im- 
 proving public virtue, not less than of the 
 refinement of public taste. 
 
 In the southern climates, where luxuriant 
 nature gives much for little labour, and 
 where, consequently, the people have a 
 great deal of time for recreation, the painter 
 and the sculptor, the musician and the 
 poet, who, withdrawing the attention of 
 their fellow-citizens from the mere plea- 
 sures of sense, and alluring them to the 
 contemplation of excellence, refine their 
 taste, and render them more alive to the 
 charmsof moral and intellectual perfection, 
 must at all times have been considered 
 among the benefactors of their country. 
 
 In the north, on the other hand, where 
 nature is more sparing of her gifts, and 
 man has a harder task to perform in order 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 3 
 
 to obtain her blessings, it is long before 
 the state of society either requires or ad- 
 mits of the cultivation of the fine arts. 
 Hence, among the nations which first be- 
 gan to shake off the ignorance of the dark 
 ages, these softer pursuits were neglected, 
 and every prejudice ran strongly against 
 all dignity but that acquired by arms or 
 scholastic learning;. The knight and the 
 priest equally looked down with contempt 
 upon the artist; and it required the re- 
 vival of Italy to give him once more that 
 place in the scale of society which the 
 ancients had alwavs assigned to him. 
 
 To the modern artist, the life of the 
 sculptor whose chisel immortalized the 
 conqueror of a foreign enemy, or of the 
 painter who was employed to represent 
 the deliverer of his country at the head of 
 his victorious army, as the greatest honour 
 that country could decree to him, would 
 have been invaluable in a two-fold sense : 
 first, to his advancement as an artist, by 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 showing by what exertions, by what me- 
 thods the Greeks attained to that excel- 
 lence which we can only admire, without 
 reaching, in their sculpture, and which 
 their best pictures doubtless also pos- 
 sessed ; and, secondly, such a biography 
 might help to do away the remains of the 
 prejudices of the times of chivalry, which* 
 together with that delicacy of taste in the 
 artist himself, which renders him impa- 
 tient of the bustle and the cares of vulgar 
 life, keeps him too much separated from 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 But perhaps even the examples of Phi- 
 dias and Praxiteles, of Apelles and of 
 Zeuxis, would not individually have been 
 more useful than that of Nicholas Poussin, 
 whose gentle manners and innocent life 
 are finely set off by the noble persever- 
 ance which, in the pursuit of excellence, he 
 opposed to every obstacle of fortune, till 
 he at length attained to a rank among the 
 greatest masters that few have reached. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 5 
 
 and in his own walk of art none has sur- 
 passed.* To the young artist, the life of 
 Poussin is a beacon to guide him through 
 every difficulty : an encouragement be- 
 yond that which any patronage can afford; 
 for it proves that, in despite of outward 
 circumstances, genius aided by industry 
 will be its own protector, and that fame, 
 though she may come late, will never ul- 
 timately refuse her favours to real merit. 
 
 The family of Poussin was noble, but 
 poor. His father, John Poussin, was a 
 native of Soissons, and served with credit 
 in the regiment of Tavanes during the 
 reigns of Charles IX., Henry III., and 
 Henry IV. ; but the poverty of the royal 
 coffers, during that unhappy period, had 
 thrown all the expenses of a military life 
 - upon himself, and, like many of his brave 
 fellow-soldiers, he was reduced to the 
 
 * Lanzi says, that, on coming to Rome, Poussin not 
 only “ improved his own manner, but discovered another 
 and a different one, of which he is the legislator.” 
 
6 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 greatest indigence. After the taking of 
 Vernon, in which town he then resided, 
 he married Marie de Laisement,the widow 
 of Le Moine, a solicitor of the same place; 
 and having quitted the service, he retired 
 to Andelys, in Normandy, sometime in 
 the year 1592, and in June, 1594, his son 
 Nicholas was bom. 
 
 Few men have arisen to any great emin- 
 ence in any art or science, of whom some 
 early anecdote, indicative of their future 
 excellence, is not related. Yet of early 
 predilections how very few turn out of 
 much value, the annals of every great 
 school might show. A strong mind, or a 
 lively imagination may receive an acci- 
 dental impression, which for eveh fixes 
 the walk in which it is to excel ; but how 
 very few, compared to the many who dis- 
 cover early talent, are permitted by for- 
 tune or circumstances to pursue the path, 
 which, in some, nature, in others, acci- 
 dental association, seems to point out. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 7 
 
 Yet, though we should in general agree 
 with Johnson, that accident only influ- 
 ences a man’s individual pursuits, and 
 that his particular excellence depends 
 merely on the general strength of his 
 powers, we cannot help allowing some- 
 thing to that early bent of the mind which 
 has often indicated future greatness in some 
 particular walk. Pope, who 
 
 Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came, 
 
 did not disappoint the promise of his in- 
 fancy. The childish love of Reynolds 
 for the miniatures in an old illuminated 
 missal, produced in after-years not only a 
 painter but a school; and Passeri tells us, 
 that Nicholas Poussin was frequently 
 chidden by his schoolmaster for making 
 designs on the leaves of his books instead 
 of studying. 
 
 This early love of art was doubtless 
 fostered by the natural beauties of the 
 neighbourhood of Andelys, which is si- 
 tuated among the pleasant hills on the 
 
 b 4 
 
8 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 right bank of the Seine, where that river, 
 in all its breadth, winds through the fair 
 and fertile province of Normandy ; and 
 the neighbourhood of the town is graced, 
 as it was once guarded, by more than one 
 of those picturesque towers which the 
 Normans have left in every part of their 
 dominions, from the north of England 
 to the south of Italy and Sicily. The 
 sketches young Poussin made among these 
 agreeable scenes, attracted the attention 
 of Quintin Varin, a native of Amiens, who 
 then resided at Andelys. The state of 
 painting in France was at that time very 
 low ; all the faults with which the French 
 school is so justly charged, were at their 
 height; and if it began at that time to 
 promise the better taste of Le Brun and 
 Le Sueur, Varin may claim the honour of 
 being among the first who led the way to 
 improvement. His picture of “ the pre- 
 sentation of Christ in the temple,” painted 
 for the barefooted Carmelites, and that of 
 San Carlo Boromeo, painted for St. Etienne 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 9 
 
 du Mont, are considered as his best pro- 
 ductions, and possessed great merit. It 
 is therefore natural that his reputation 
 should be great in a country town. And 
 this circumstance, joined to the pressing 
 entreaties of Nicholas, at length overcame 
 the reluctance of John Poussin to permit 
 his son to follow the bent of his inclination 
 for painting; so that after repeated endea- 
 vours to dissuade him from a pursuit ap- 
 parently so little promising, he permitted 
 him to establish himself with Varin as his 
 pupil. 
 
 To the almost paternal interest which 
 his master took in his progress, and to 
 the rational course of study he recom- 
 mended, Poussin doubtless owed the suc- 
 cess of his future life. But the study of 
 Varin, and the little town of Andelys, 
 afforded no models that could satisfy the 
 genius of Poussin. He felt that there was 
 greater excellence which might be attained 
 and must be sought for, and, accordingly, 
 
10 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 at the age of eighteen he went alone, 
 friendless, and almost moneyless to Paris. 
 There, his first master was Ferdinand 
 Elle, a Fleming*, who enjoyed a consider- 
 able reputation as a portrait painter ; but 
 he soon left him, and became a pupil of 
 L’ Allemand, who, though superior to 
 Ferdinand Elle, soon found himself far 
 behind Poussin, in all but the mechanical 
 part of his art, and their connexion did 
 not last many weeks. In the school of 
 L’ Allemand, however, Poussin contracted 
 a friendship with Philippe de Champagne, 
 which was afterwards of singular advan- 
 tage to him. j~ 
 
 Meantime his gentleness and his amia- 
 ble manners had acquired many friends, 
 
 * Born atMalines. 
 
 t Philippe de Champagne, a native of Brussels, had no 
 particular master till he came to Paris, where he was for a 
 very short time with L’ Allemand. He painted heads 
 with truth and great attention to local colour. His skill 
 in landscape painting he owed to Foucquieres. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 11 
 
 among whom was a young nobleman of 
 Poitou, then pursuing his studies at the 
 university of Paris, who conceived so great 
 a regard for him as not only to furnish 
 him with money to assist his studies, but to 
 introduce him to whoever he thought 
 might be useful to him in their progress. 
 The most important of his introductions 
 was that to Courtois, the king’s mathema- 
 tician, who was then employed at the 
 Louvre. Besides a large collection of 
 excellent prints, especially those by Mark 
 Antonio after Raffaelle, and Giulio Ro- 
 mano, Courtois possessed a number of 
 original drawings by those masters, all of 
 which he generously lent to Poussin, who 
 eagerly and carefully copied them, and 
 thus began to form his taste for that 
 grand and chaste style which distinguishes 
 his works. He often talked of this as the 
 most fortunate occurrence of his life ; for 
 it opened to him a glimpse of that light he 
 had so ardently longed for, and taught 
 
12 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 him to conceive his subjects nobly and 
 historically. 
 
 These advantages were, however, soon 
 followed by a reverse peculiarly irksome 
 to one of Poussin’s character. The young 
 nobleman, who had so liberally patronised 
 him, was recalled by his mother to his 
 country seat, and persuaded Poussin to 
 accompany him, as he intended to embel- 
 lish his house, and to give the direction of 
 the improvements to his friend, whom he 
 also meant to employ to paint several 
 pictures for him. But the mother appears 
 to have had little taste and no value for 
 the fine arts ; she put an end to all her 
 son’s projects of improvement, and in- 
 stead of fostering the rising genius of her 
 guest, she ridiculed his pursuits, over- 
 whelmed him with a load of domestic 
 accounts, and sought to convert him into 
 a domestic drudge ; till at length, wearied 
 of her harshness and pride, he left her 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 13 
 
 castle, and set out on foot to return to 
 Paris. 
 
 Without money and without acquaint- 
 ance, the talents, which he had hitherto 
 thought only of improving and enlarging, 
 he had now to exert for his daily subsist- 
 ence. Accordingly, in the towns he had 
 to pass through on his way to Paris, he 
 sold small pictures in distemper at a very 
 low price, and painted the borders and 
 ornaments of the rooms of private houses, 
 but his gains were so inconsiderable, and 
 his labours so severe, that on reaching 
 Paris he was seized with a dangerous 
 illness, the consequence of over ex- 
 ertion and bad or scanty sustenance, 
 and was obliged to return to Andelys, 
 where he remained nearly a year in his 
 father’s family, during which period he 
 continued to paint, sometimes in dis- 
 temper, sometimes in oil, for very low 
 prices. His necessities forced him to 
 adopt the practice of painting in distem- 
 
14 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 per for the sake of expedition ; and to his 
 early practice of that method may in part 
 be attributed the hardness observable 
 even in his best pictures, at the same time 
 that he owed to it much of his readiness 
 and facility. It was probably during this 
 period that he painted some of the pic- 
 tures known to be his, in his first man- 
 ner ; such as those in the church of the 
 Capuchins at Blois, and the Bacchanals, 
 formerly at the castle of Chiverny. 
 
 As soon as his health permitted him 
 seriously to resume his studies, he re- 
 solved if possible to go to Rome, where 
 alone he could hope to see those antique 
 models, which even then he felt were 
 necessary to fix his taste, and to give 
 him a knowledge of ideal beauty. He 
 therefore set off for Italy, but went no 
 farther than Florence, probably because 
 his purse was exhausted, and the resources 
 that had availed him in the country towns 
 
 of France, could produce nothing in Italy, 
 12 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 15 
 
 at a time when painting was in such a state 
 of perfection, that none but the best 
 works could be sold to any advantage. 
 
 On his return to Paris he applied himself 
 with greater ardour than ever to the study 
 of the sciences connected with his art, — 
 anatomy, optics, and perspective ; and he 
 was enabled to do this by the good offices 
 of his friend Philippe de Champagne, 
 who lodged with him in the college de 
 Laon. Duchesne was at that time em- 
 ployed in the ornamental painting of the 
 Luxemburgh palace, and had engaged 
 Philippe de Champagne to assist him. 
 He introduced Poussin to Duchesne, who 
 was glad of so able and ready an assistant, 
 and employed them both for some time. 
 Poussin painted some little things in the 
 ceilings, and Philippe de Champagne’s 
 works in the apartment of Mary of Me- 
 dicis, executed at the same period, are 
 extremely creditable to him. # But this 
 
 * Duchesne, who was a very bad painter, was so jealous 
 
16 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 employment soon ceased, and as the 
 journey to Rome was still the first wish 
 of his heart, he resolved to set out once 
 more with the little supply he had saved 
 from what he had earned at the Luxem- 
 burgh. But this time he went no farther 
 than Lyons, where having been detained 
 by illness, not only all his little stock was 
 spent, but he was obliged to borrow money 
 from a merchant in that city, who supplied 
 his wants on condition of his painting a 
 certain number of pictures for him. He 
 therefore remained there till he had ful- 
 filled his promise, and continued to paint 
 till he had gained a sufficient sum to enable 
 him to return to Paris, where he at length 
 obtained an opportunity of displaying his 
 great talents. 
 
 of the success of the two friends, that they were obliged 
 to quit their employment, and de Champagne went to 
 Brussels ; but after Duchesne’s death he returned to Paris, 
 married Duchesne’s daughter, and became painter to the 
 queen, in which situation he remained till his death, which 
 happened at the age of seventy-two. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 17 
 
 In 1 623 the Jesuits celebrated the ca- 
 nonization of Ignatius Loyola, and of St. 
 Francis Xavier, and the pupils of their 
 college at Paris, determined on that occa- 
 sion to display the miracles of their pa- 
 tron saints in a series of pictures. Of 
 these Poussin painted six in less than a 
 week : his long practice in distemper 
 painting gave him a decided superiority in 
 readiness over the other artists employed 
 on the occasion ; and when the pictures 
 came to be exhibited, although the details 
 in his pictures were necessarily neglected 
 on account of the haste with which they 
 had been executed, they excited the 
 greatest admiration on account of the 
 grandeur of conception and elegance of 
 design displayed in them, and obtained 
 the preference over all the others, though 
 executed by the best artists then in Paris. 
 
 From this period the reputation of 
 Poussin, as a painter of genius, was esta- 
 blished, and his acquaintance was sought 
 by many of the literary men of the time. 
 
28 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Among these, Marino, commonly called 
 the Chevalier Marini, became more par- 
 ticularly attached to him, and was not 
 only useful to him as a patron, by recom- 
 mending him to the notice of many emi- 
 nent persons about the court, but contri- 
 buted greatly to the improvement of his 
 taste, by assisting him in acquiring a more 
 complete knowledge of the Latin and 
 Italian classics. Marini was born at 
 Naples. Some political disturbances, in 
 which he and his family had taken part, 
 obliged him to quit that kingdom, and 
 he took refuge successively in several of 
 the petty courts of Italy. His talent for 
 satire involved him in various literary 
 disputes, as well as some political quar- 
 rels, and he never resided long in one 
 place, until Mary of Medicis invited him 
 to the court of France, where he passed 
 the greater part of his life, and where he 
 wrote the most of his poems, which, 
 though licentious both in matter and 
 style* contain numerous beauties, and are 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 19 
 
 full of classical imagery. Marini gave 
 Poussin an apartment in his house, and, 
 as his own health was at that time ex- 
 tremely deranged, he loved to have Pous- 
 sin by the side of his couch, where he 
 drew or painted, while Marini read aloud 
 to him from some Latin or Italian author, 
 or from his own poems, which Poussin 
 illustrated by beautiful drawings, most of 
 which it is to be feared are lost; though 
 it is believed that there is still existing 
 in the Massimi library, a copy of the 
 Adonis in Marini’s hand-writing, with 
 Poussin’s drawings interleaved. To this 
 kind of study which he pursued with 
 Marini, may perhaps be attributed his pre- 
 dilection for compositions where nymphs, 
 and fairies, andbacchanals are the subjects; 
 compositions in which he certainly ex- 
 celled, and of which Reynolds says, that 
 46 no painter was ever better qualified to 
 paint such subjects, not only from his 
 being eminently skilled in the knowledge 
 c 2 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 20 
 
 of the ceremonies, customs, and habits 
 of the ancients, but from his being so 
 well acquainted with the different charac- 
 ters which those who invented them gave 
 to their allegorical figures.” [Reynolds s 
 Fifth Discourse .) 
 
 The design which Poussin had formed 
 to go to Rome was, however, not laid 
 aside, but rather strengthened, as his 
 knowledge of the beautiful in ancient 
 writing increased. He longed to con- 
 template those forms in which the concep- 
 tions of the poets were embodied, and to 
 study from the originals, those excellencies 
 of which drawings and prints can convey 
 so feeble an idea. Meantime he was 
 preparing his mind for drawing every 
 possible advantage from such studies. 
 Aware that every man whose business is 
 description, “ ought not to be wholly un- 
 acquainted with that part of philosophy 
 which gives an insight into human nature, 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN, 
 
 21 
 
 and relates to the manners, characters, 
 and affections * ;” he diligently applied 
 Jiimself to history and biography, tran- 
 scribing and translating large portions 
 from different authors for his own use : 
 and he sought the conversation of such 
 learned and ingenious men as were then 
 to be found in the French court; an in- 
 tercourse valuable to an artist above all 
 others, whose time must necessarily be 
 so much devoted to the practical part of 
 his art, as to leave him little leisure for 
 extensive reading or diligent study in 
 books. 
 
 The speculative studies of a painter 
 should be mingled with conversation and 
 society, as his practice in painting should 
 partake of study from the life, as well as 
 from the fine formsof antiquity; otherwise, 
 his conceptions will want ease and grace, 
 as his painting would want colour and ani- 
 
 * Keynolck’s Seventh Discourse, 
 
C 2 C 2 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 matiGn. And this advantage Poussin emi- 
 nently enjoyed during the period between 
 his first acquaintance with Marini and his 
 going to Rome. The time was short* in- 
 deed, being in all not twelve months ; but 
 the path was opened, and the vigorous 
 mind of the painter, sensible of all its ad- 
 vantages, never forsook it. 
 
 It is remarkable that Marini was an 
 Italian. Probably no French nobleman 
 of the time would have received a painter 
 into his house as his intimate friend. But 
 the Italians have of all nations the least 
 affectation. What they feel they express, 
 to please themselves, without any con- 
 sideration of what construction others may 
 put on their actions. In France, where 
 vanity, and in England, where pride, in- 
 duces every man to consider and foresee 
 his neighbour’s judgment, it is difficult for 
 an artist, whose reputation is not already 
 established, to arrive at that intercourse 
 with polite or learned society, which ought 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN, 
 
 23 
 
 to form a part of his education. The Italian 
 painters, on the contrary, were courted 
 into such society. Michel Angelo, in the 
 palace of the Medici, while he received 
 their patronage equally with Politian, was 
 equally treated as their friend and compa- 
 nion ; and that nothing vulgar ever enters 
 into his conceptions, may, in part, be at- 
 tributed to his constant intercourse with 
 the politest and most learned men of his 
 time. Hitherto, with the exception of 
 very few instances, our English artists 
 have been too much a people by them- 
 selves. If they look to nature for action 
 or expression, it is to the exaggerated ac- 
 tion and expression of the stage, or the 
 mean and sordid action and expression of 
 vulgar life that they have been driven. 
 Hence, in part, the failure in most of our 
 historical pictures : exaggeration on one 
 hand, and want of dignity on the other. 
 The excellence we have, that of colour, 
 is perhaps the most seducing quality of 
 painting ; and it might be worth while 
 
24 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to enquire how far our national and local 
 situation has contributed to form our 
 school. Our landscape is agreeable, our 
 people are handsome, especially in co- 
 lour. Our poets have less of manner than 
 either those of France or Italy, and they 
 have written more directly from nature. 
 Hence, as one artwill always borrow some- 
 thing from another, it may be said, that 
 the brilliant natural colour of the English 
 school, has been assisted by the true imi- 
 tations of nature of Shakspeare, and 
 Fletcher*: as the illustrious friends, 
 Ariosto and Titian, seem to have reflected 
 light on each other;— both unequal, and 
 sometimes incorrect in design, but glow- 
 ing alike with colour, and freshness, and 
 beauty. 
 
 * Of Fletcher’s exquisite descriptive poetry one cannot 
 speak too highly. See, particularly, “ The Faithful Shep- 
 herdess;” which, besides its other merits, has this, that for 
 pure English nothing but the “ Sad Shepherd” can be 
 compared with it. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 25 
 
 At the end of the year 1623, Marini 
 resolved to return to his native country : 
 he had outlived most of those who had 
 made his abode in Paris agreeable to him ; 
 and he was farther induced to do so, as 
 his early friend, MafFeo Barberini, under 
 the name of Urban VIIL, then filled the 
 papal chair. Add to these reasons, that 
 Marini had become exceedingly infirm, 
 and the natural wish to “ die at home at 
 last,” led him to cross the Alps, even in 
 the winter season, and to go directly to 
 Rome. He pressed Poussin to accompany 
 him ; but, however agreeable this propo- 
 sal might be to his wishes, the principles 
 of honesty which regulated all his actions, 
 prevented him from accepting it : he had 
 promised to paint several pictures, and, till 
 these werefinished, he did not consider him- 
 self at liberty to leave Paris. One of these 
 pictures was 64 the death of the Virgin 
 perhaps the finest of his first manner : it 
 was painted for the Goldsmiths’ company. 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 who presented a picture every year to the 
 cathedral of Notre Dame. 
 
 At length his industry and self-denial 
 were rewarded by the accomplishment of 
 his dearest wish; and in the spring of 1624 
 he joined Marini at Rome. But the poet, 
 disappointed in his views of employment 
 in the papal court, and worn out with 
 sickness, was upon the point of retiring 
 to Naples, where he died a very few 
 months afterwards, having written his fine 
 poem, the “ Stragge degli Innocenti,”* 
 as a penance, the only one his confessor 
 would impose upon him, for the licentious 
 songs and poems of his youth. Before 
 he left Rome, he recommended Poussin 
 strongly to Marcello Sacchetti, who under- 
 took to present him to Cardinal Barberini, 
 the pope’s nephew ; which he did with the 
 
 # The beautiful translation of this poem, by Crashawe, 
 was commended by Milton ; and the Paradise Lost itself is 
 not without passages we may suppose to have been part- 
 ly borrowed from Marino, whose poem was not out of 
 fashion when Milton visited Italy in 1638. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 27 
 
 strongest expressions of encomium* ; and, 
 although the Cardinal unfortunately left 
 Rome almost immediately, on his legation 
 to Spain, the introduction was of the 
 greatest service to Poussin, as it opened 
 to him the rich museum of his palace, and 
 led to his acquaintance with the family 
 Del Pozzo, who became his steady friends 
 and patrons j\ Meantime, however, Pous- 
 sin found himself alone in Rome, Marini 
 dead, the Cardinal in a foreign country, 
 his own slender means exhausted by the 
 journey from Paris, and as yet without 
 friends or acquaintance. To relieve his 
 pressing necessities, he sold two “ battles,” 
 each containing a great number of figures, 
 for seven crowns a-piece, and a “ prophet” 
 for less than two crowns. While a copy 
 
 * Some authors assert that Marino himself presented 
 Poussin to the Cardinal, with the following words, “ Vedrete 
 un giovane chi ha una furia di Diavolo.” 
 
 f Evelyn mentions Del Pozzo’s cabinet in Rome, as rich 
 in antiques and drawings. It is said to have contained 
 drawings of every basso relievo then in Rome. 
 
28 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of that very picture, by another painter* 
 fetched double the sum. 
 
 But, though unfortunate as to his pecu- 
 niary concerns, Poussin was lucky in the 
 first intimacy he formed in Rome. He 
 lodged in the same house with Francis 
 Quesnoy, a Fleming, generally called, II 
 Flamingo , a sculptor, intimately acquaint- 
 ed with Algarde to whom he intro- 
 duced Poussin ; and with these two intelli- 
 gent artists he studied and measured most 
 of the antique statues then in Rome, f 
 From them also he occasionally received 
 such pecuniary assistance as their slender 
 means afforded, and from the want of 
 
 * Algarde is commonly looked upon as the architect of 
 the Villa Panfili near Rome, without the Aurelian Gate. 
 But this meagre design is by Gio F. Grimaldi, a Bolognese 
 painter. — Memoirs of Santo Bartoli, published by Fea. 
 
 f Among the collection of strange things at Straw- 
 berry Hill, is, or was, a terra cotta bust of Poussin’s wife, 
 by Fiamingo, which had once been in Mariette’s collection. 
 
 Reynolds bestows great praise on Fiamingo’s St. Bar- 
 tholomew in St. Peter’s, for its breadth of light and sha= 
 dew. — Northcote’s Life of Reynolds, voLL p. 95. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN, 
 
 29 
 
 which his unwearied exertions could not 
 entirely preserve him. The sale of his 
 battle pieces and his prophet, as we have 
 seen, could avail him but little, nor could 
 the sixty crowns which he received for 
 his celebrated picture of 66 the Ark of God 
 among the Philistines,” have done much 
 more than pay him for the expense of 
 painting it. This work, which is one of 
 his finest compositions, obtained consider- 
 able applause at Rome. It contains up- 
 wards of fifty figures, disposed in groupes 
 of the most appalling interest ; the suf- 
 ferings of the people and the “ mad dis- 
 quietude” of their rulers are admirably 
 expressed * ; and the landscape and ar- 
 chitecture of the back ground are antique 
 and strange, such as might belong to 
 Ashdod. The buildings in the fore part 
 
 * The fault of this picture, a fault for which Poussin has 
 the example of RafFaelle as an excuse, is, that he has per- 
 sonified, not only the moral effect of the plague, but the 
 effluvia of putrefaction. See Fuseli’s fifth lecture, for ex- 
 cellent remarks upon this mistaken kind of expression. 
 
30 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of the scene are perhaps too Roman ; but 
 still they are so ancient, that they do not 
 disturb the spectator by any approach to 
 what is common or modern, and are in 
 excellent harmony with the rest of the 
 piece. The reputation of the painter 
 rose considerably as soon as this picture 
 came to be known ; but it availed him but 
 little as to his pecuniary affairs : he re- 
 ceived no more than his sixty crowns, 
 while the original purchaser sold it shortly 
 after to the Due de Richelieu for one 
 thousand crowns. 
 
 Meantime Poussin, having resolved to 
 begin anew his education as a painter, 
 lost no opportunity of improvement. Re- 
 sides his studies after the antique, which 
 he pursued with Algarde and Quesnoy, 
 he resumed that of optics, which he had 
 begun at Paris, and consulted Alhazen, 
 Vitellius, and Father Matteo Zoccolino, 
 with such advantage, that it was long 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 31 
 
 imagined that he himself had composed 
 a treatise on the subject. But the fol- 
 lowing letter, written after his death by 
 his brother-in-law Jean Dughet, to M. de 
 Chautelou, in answer to some enquiries 
 he had made concerning any such treatise, 
 proves that none such existed ; and as it 
 shows at the same time the pains he took 
 to obtain whatever might aid his studies, 
 and enlarge the stock whence he was to 
 compose his pictures, we transcribe it 
 here, because it was at this period that he 
 more particularly devoted himself to these 
 pursuits. — “ You say that M. Cerisier 
 informs you that he saw a book treating 
 of light and shade by M. Poussin : this 
 cannot be true. I have indeed some 
 MSS. in my hands upon that subject, but 
 they are not by M. Poussin. He got 
 me to copy them from an original work 
 in the library of Cardinal Barberini, the 
 author of which is Father Matteo, Do- 
 menichino’s master in perspective. He 
 made me copy a good part of it before he 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 32 
 
 went to Paris, and I also transcribed Vi~ 
 tellius’s rules for him. I know several 
 persons have imagined that M. Poussin 
 was the author ; but that you may con- 
 vince yourself of what I say, you will do 
 me a favour to tell M. de Chambray, that 
 if he pleases to look over them with you, 
 I will send them by the courier ; on con- 
 dition, however, that they be returned as 
 soon as you have examined them. All 
 the French are persuaded that M. Pous- 
 sin has left some treatise on painting ; but 
 do not believe it, sir. It is true that I 
 frequently heard him talk of an intention 
 to begin some work on art; but though I 
 often reminded him of it, he always post- 
 poned it from time to time, till death 
 put an end to all his projects.” — Dated 
 « January 25. 1666. 
 
 He also began to apply himself dili- 
 gently to the study of architecture, and 
 though he was unacquainted with the 
 majestic temples of Greece, the style he 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 33 
 
 formed to himself is so grand and im- 
 pressive, that he has always been cited 
 as worthy of imitation in this respect. 
 Rome, with all her beauty and magni- 
 ficence, is far from presenting perfect 
 models in architecture, ancient or mo- 
 dern, if the portico to the Pantheon, 
 and the three remaining columns of the 
 Comitium, or rather the temple of Ju- 
 piter Stator, be excepted. And it was 
 among the ruins of Rome only that 
 Poussin studied. Hence in the picture of 
 jEthra discovering to Theseus the secret 
 of his birth, in the Florence gallery, 
 the architecture, instead of that simple 
 majestic Doric, of which the temples of 
 Athens afford such grand specimens, is 
 of the vicious misnamed Doric, whose 
 proportions he found in the theatre of 
 Marcellus, and has the defect of being 
 ornamented with little parts. Neverthe- 
 less his architecture is never modern or 
 vulgar, and the attention he bestowed 
 upon this part of his art is well worthy 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of imitation. He restored the antique 
 temples, and made plans and accurate 
 drawings of the fragments of ancient 
 Rome, and there are few of his pictures 
 where the subject admits of it, in which 
 we may not trace the buildings, both of 
 the ancient and the modern city. In the 
 beautiful landscape of the death of Eu- 
 rydice, the bridge and castle of St. Angelo* 
 and the tower, vulgarly called that of 
 Nero, form the middle ground of the 
 picture. The castle of St. Angelo ap- 
 pears again in one of his pictures of the 
 Exposing of Moses ; and the pyramid of 
 Gains Cestius, the Pantheon, the ruins 
 of the Forum, and the walls of Rome, 
 may be recognised in the Finding of 
 Moses, and several others of his remark- 
 able pictures. 
 
 Every hour that he could spare from 
 his severer studies Poussin spent in the 
 different villas in the neighbourhood of 
 Rome, where, besides the most exquisite 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 35 
 
 remains of antique sculpture, he might 
 enjoy the unrivalled landscape that sur- 
 rounds that city, where every hill is clas- 
 sical, where the very trees have a poetic 
 air, and where nothing reminds one of 
 common nature ; so much is it dignified 
 by the noble wrecks, whose forms, and 
 magnitude, and combinations excite in 
 the soul a kind of dreaming rapture, from 
 which it would not be awakened, and 
 which those who have not felt can scarcely 
 understand. In those delightful scenes 
 he continued to meditate and to study, 
 even to extreme old age. 66 I have often 
 admired,” said Vigneul de Marville, who 
 knew him at a late period of his life, 
 u the love he had for his art. Old as he 
 was, I frequently saw him among the 
 ruins of ancient Rome, out in the Cam- 
 pagna, or along the banks of the Tyber, 
 sketching a scene which had pleased him ; 
 and I often met him with his handker- 
 chief full of stones, moss, or flowers, which 
 he carried home, that he might copy them 
 
86 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 exactly from nature. One day I asked 
 him, how he had attained to such a de- 
 gree of perfection as to have gained so 
 high a rank among the great painters of 
 Italy ? He answered, 6 1 have neglected 
 nothing.’ ” 
 
 But all these he considered as subor- 
 dinate to his chief object, which was, to 
 acquire such an accurate knowledge of 
 the human figure, as to draw it with ease 
 and certainty. For this purpose he re- 
 sumed the anatomical studies he had be- 
 gun at Paris ; and, under a skilful surgeon, 
 Nicolas Larche, he began a new course 
 of practical anatomy ; at the same time 
 reading Vessalius, and making extracts 
 as he read. He had, afterwards, the 
 advantage of studying the living model in 
 the school of Domenichino, which was 
 then the best in Rome ; and he often vi- 
 sited that of Andrea Sacchi, on account 
 of a model who sat there, and who was 
 celebrated for the intelligence with which 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 37 
 
 he placed himself easily and gracefully in 
 the prescribed attitudes. * He frequently 
 modelled his subjects, that he might ac- 
 quire a better knowledge of their true 
 forms ; and he is known to have model- 
 led even from celebrated pictures, especi- 
 ally some beautiful children, in a picture 
 of Titian, which was then in the Villa 
 Ludovisi, but afterwards carried to Spain. 
 
 To form a style of his own, in manner 
 and colour, he set about copying good pic- 
 tures from very various masters. The Ludo- 
 visi Titian he copied as well as modelled; 
 and, for some time, seemed inclined to 
 follow the splendid colouring of that mas- 
 
 * The models in Rome are still celebrated for the skill 
 with which they imitate the attitudes of the antique sta- 
 tues, and also the figures in the most celebrated pictures. 
 In the latter case they teach their countenances to assume 
 a wonderful likeness to the picture. The profession of a 
 model is far from being disgraceful in Rome. Saverio 
 Scaccia, the model chiefly used by Canova, is the very 
 dandy of models, and prides himself on his beauty and on 
 the ease with which he can assume any expression or 
 posture. He is a good husband and father, and diligent 
 and obliging in his profession. 
 
 D 3 
 
38 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ter. But he soon abandoned this method* 
 and returned to that which appeared to him 
 more suitable to the austere* but grand* 
 style of art which he had chosen ; and 
 many antique pictures being found in the 
 baths of Titus ** and elsewhere* he began 
 to study them diligently •* and, about the 
 same time* made that copy of the Aldo- 
 brandini Marriage, which is now in the 
 Palazzo Doria* in Rome. 
 
 The historical pictures of the ancients* 
 that have been preserved to our times, 
 are more like coloured sculpture than pic- 
 tures. Their landscapes have different 
 plans* and attempts at perspective suffi- 
 cient to show that the art was not un- 
 known to them. But the specimens we 
 have are by no means sufficient to judge 
 of the perfection to which it might have 
 
 * See Bartoli’s Pitture Antiche, and also his Admiranda 
 for the Coriolanus, &c. of the Baths of Titus, and the 
 
 beautiful pictures that adorned the burial place of the 
 Naso family. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 39 
 
 been carried : we may, therefore, trust 
 something to the account of painting left 
 by the ancient writers. These are per- 
 petually praising the illusions produced 
 by their painters. Now there can be no 
 illusion without perspective, both of form 
 and shadow, therefore, they must have 
 used both. Democritus and Anaxagoras 
 both wrote on the artifice by which one 
 may represent on a plane surface, parts 
 that will appear to advance or recede. 
 Vitruvius praises the skill of a painter 
 who had made the scenes of a theatre ap- 
 pear large and wide, by means of painted 
 pillars and domes. * But it appears that 
 the art of perspective was not generally 
 employed in the composition of historical 
 pictures, which is, so far as we have the 
 pieces preserved, more like that of basso 
 relievo, f Poussin followed this taste to a 
 
 * See Perault’s Vitruvius. 
 
 f This is particularly the case in the Aldobrandini 
 marriage. There is more of grouping in the scene of 
 44 Orestes discovered by the reading of the letter,” among 
 
 D 4 
 
40 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 certain degree ; but he enriched his pic- 
 tures with back grounds, where the 
 figures, however, still preserve the antique 
 sculpture-like air. Poussin is indeed the 
 painter of sculptors : they study and adopt 
 his compositions ; and thus render him 
 again the honour and admiration he be- 
 stowed upon their art. 
 
 Poussin was of opinion that a “ particu- 
 lar attention to colouring was an obstacle 
 to the student in his progress to the great 
 end and design of the art ; and that he 
 who attaches himself to this principal end 
 will acquire, by practice, a reasonable 
 good method of colouring.” It is certain 
 that some of his pictures are so coloured 
 as to show that he might have excelled 
 in colour, had he made that his object ; 
 
 the Herculaneum pictures. The Theseus appears to be 
 composed on the same principle as the Laocoon. He is 
 of heroic size, naked : the youths who are caressing his 
 hands and arms, are as small in proportion as the sons of 
 Laocoon. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 41 
 
 and, probably, most of his pictures were 
 fresher than we see them ; for he was in 
 the habit of using a dark-red ground, 
 which, in many instances, has pierced 
 through, and altered the tone ; while 
 some, which were painted on a white 
 ground, have preserved their original 
 brightness, particularly that picture of 
 Moses striking the Rock, which he paint- 
 ed for Stella, a French artist, and an inti- 
 mate friend, who has been called his pu- 
 pil, though without reason, for he was 
 only two years younger than Poussin, who 
 never received any pupils. Stella was 
 born at Lyons, and studied under his fa- 
 ther * : he afterwards resided, for some 
 years at Rome, where Poussin renewed 
 the friendship begun during the days of 
 his distress at Lyons, and did all that he 
 could to forward Stella’s views, in return 
 for the kindness he had received at Lyons. 
 Stella formed himself so much on Pous- 
 
 * Some writers, however, say, that Stella’s father died 
 two years after the birth of his son. 
 
42 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 sin’s manner, that some of his composi- 
 tions have been attributed to him. But 
 there is a weakness in Stella’s works 
 which sufficiently distinguishes them from 
 those of his friend. * 
 
 Next to correctness of drawing, and 
 dignity of conception, Poussin valued ex- 
 pression in painting. He placed Dome- 
 nichino next to Raffaelle for that quality; 
 and, shortly after his arrival in Rome, he 
 set about copying the Flagellation of St. 
 Andrew, painted by that master, in the 
 
 * When Stella was at Florence, on his way from Lyons 
 to Rome, the Grand Duke Cosmo, being struck with the 
 merit of some of his compositions, retained him for some 
 time in his service, when he contributed a great deal to 
 the embellishment of some of the ducal palaces. How- 
 ever, in 1623, he fulfilled his original design of going to 
 study in Rome, where, some time after, he was imprisoned, 
 in consequence of some youthful frolic. On his release 
 he accompanied Marshal Crequy to Paris, intending to go 
 to Lyons, and paint there for the rest of his life. But, on 
 Poussin’s declining the office of painter to Louis XIV., 
 Stella was called to court, and that office conferred on 
 him. He was soon afterwards knighted by the king. 
 His picture of Solomon’s Idolatry is at Houghton. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 43 
 
 church of San Gregorio. It is well known 
 that Domenichino painted that picture in 
 competition with Guido, whose Martyr- 
 dom of the Saint is on the opposite side 
 of the church, where the oldest specimen 
 of painting in modern Rome had once 
 existed in the portraits of the Father and 
 Mother of Saint Gregory. * Poussin found 
 all the students in Rome busily copying 
 the Guido, which, though it has possibly 
 fewer faults than its rival, wants the 
 energy and expression that distinguish it : 
 he was too sure of his object to be led 
 away by the crowd, and turned his atten- 
 tion wholly to the Flagellation, f Dome- 
 nichino, who Poussin imagined was dead, 
 and who, in fact, was in a declining state 
 
 * See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. 
 
 f Had Domenichino never painted in fresco, the pre- 
 ference given to Guido might perhaps be justified: but, 
 not to speak of the Flagellation, the history of Saint Ce- 
 cilia, in the church of San Luigi de’ Francesi in Rome, 
 and the Demoniac Boy, where he has vied with Raffaelle, 
 at Grotto Ferrata, are sufficient to justify Poussin’s ad- 
 miration. 
 
44 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of health, h aving heard that a young F rench- 
 m an was making a careful study from his 
 picture, caused himself to be conveyed in 
 his chair to the church, where he con- 
 versed for some time with him without 
 making himself known. The result was 
 honourable to both painters : from that day 
 Poussin spent much of his time with Do- 
 menichino, studied in his school, enjoyed 
 his friendship, and profited by his advice, 
 until that great man’s fatal journey to 
 Naples, whither he went to paint for the 
 chapel of St. Januarius, in the cathedral. 
 The altar-pieces and compartments, the 
 subjects of which are the Miracles of the 
 Saint, are splendid specimens of the 
 painter. One altar-piece alone is by 
 Spagnoletto ; that by Domenichino for 
 the place, having been only sketched, 
 when he died, as it is said, by poison. 
 
 But if the advice and example of 
 Domenichino were valuable to Poussin, 
 the good taste and courageous right-judg- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 45 
 
 ing of Poussin, were not less so to the 
 fame of Domenichino, who was then so 
 persecuted and over-borne by the partisans 
 of Guido, that his picture of the Com- 
 munion of St. Jerome, had been torn from 
 its place in the church of San Girolamo 
 della Carita, and thrown into a garret, 
 where it remained forgotten, until the 
 monks, desirous of having a new altar- 
 piece, requested Poussin to paint one for 
 them, and sent him Domenichino’s pic- 
 ture as old canvass to paint it upon. He 
 no sooner saw it, than, struck with its ex- 
 traordinary merit, he carried it to the 
 church for which it had been painted, and 
 gave a public lecture upon it, in which 
 he dared to compare it with the Trans- 
 figuration, and called these two, with the 
 Descent from the Cross, by Daniel de Vol- 
 terra, the finest pictures in Rome. As to 
 the accusation that the composition was a 
 theft, from the sketch by the Carracci on 
 the same subject, he showed that as the 
 Carracci had never finished their picture, 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 46 
 
 and that as it was altered and improved 
 in every particular, that was no ground 
 for condemnation; for, far from injuring 
 them by his appropriation of their idea, he 
 had shown what a noble use might be 
 made of it, and from it had composed one 
 of the finest pictures in the world. The 
 public had only to be roused by a steady, 
 right-judging criticism ; the elegant but 
 weaker attractions of the rival school gave 
 w r ay, and Domenichino thenceforward was 
 placed in his just rank among the great 
 painters of Italy. * 
 
 Poussin had arrived in Italy at a time 
 when the most cruel factions and jealou- 
 sies raged among the artists of different 
 schools. The first golden age of painting 
 had passed away with Michael Angelo and 
 Raffaelle. The art had revived under a 
 
 * See the last pages of Fuseli’s Fifth Lecture, for an 
 animated and just critique on the two pictures. Agostino 
 Carracci’s is now in the gallery of the Academy at Bo- 
 logna. Domenichino’s in the Vatican. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 47 
 
 new and charming aspect among the 
 Carracci themselves, the imitators of 
 Correggio, and their scholars. Two of the 
 most celebrated of these, Domenichino 
 and Guido, divided the favour of the pub- 
 lic ; and so violent were the followers and 
 adherents of the latter, that the tale that 
 Domenichino was poisoned at Naples by 
 Lanfranc has been generally believed. 
 The party of Guido was the strongest, as 
 might be expected, because the grace and 
 tenderness which are so seductive in his 
 pictures, are more apparent, and more 
 easy of imitation than the higher qualities 
 of Domenichino ; but it was awed and kept 
 within the bounds of decorum, as long as 
 Cardinal Montalto lived. That discerning 
 prelate acknowledged the merits and em- 
 ployed the talents of both schools, but 
 after his death Cardinal del Monte openly 
 favoured the enemies of Domenichino, 
 and the most disgraceful excesses sullied 
 the annals of painting for m ore than thirty 
 years. . 
 
48 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 The prudence of Poussin kept him from 
 being involved in any of the quarrels of 
 the rival artists ; but though he openly 
 preferred Domenichino, as we have seen, 
 he considered everything worth remarking, 
 and gained something from every painter. 
 He was fastidious with regard to those 
 who contented themselves with imitating 
 common nature ; and even of Caravaggio, 
 he used to say, “ that he had come into 
 the world to destroy painting.” His own 
 view was always steadily fixed on the 
 sublime. To gain this end, he sometimes 
 neglects his colour, and light, and shadow; 
 indeed many of his pictures have scarce 
 any principal mass of light at all 66 His 
 figures,” says Reynolds, “ are often too 
 much dispersed, without sufficient atten- 
 tion to place them in groupes ;” but then 
 they are always useful in telling his story, 
 or contributing to his expression ; and as 
 nothing is introduced merely for beauty 
 or ornament, so nothing is neglected that 
 
 can give dignity or pathos. 
 
 4 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 49 
 
 Meantime his reputation had been 
 gradually increasing, and his amiable 
 qualities had procured him not only the 
 patronage, but the friendship of several 
 distinguished persons, particularly of the 
 family Del Pozzo, most of whom had a 
 taste for the fine arts, and especially for 
 whatever belonged to the antique. The 
 Cavaliere del Pozzo*, had been employed 
 by the Barberini family, to superintend 
 the excavations and discoveries they were 
 engaged in, in their new feof of Palestrina, 
 
 * Cassiano del Pozzo, afterwards the Commander del 
 Pozzo. — In the Memoirs of Pietro Santi Bartoli, there is 
 the following notice : — • 
 
 “ Nearly at the same time, in digging farther behind 
 SS. Pietro and Marcellino, there was found an Egyptian 
 temple, the figures of which were drawn by command of 
 the Cavaliere Cassiano del Pozzo, the Maecenas of his 
 time, otherwise these, like many other memorials, would 
 have been lost.” 
 
 One branch of the family Del Pozzo was settled at Tu- 
 rin in Poussin’s time. It is remarkable that one of the 
 best very late artists in Italy, was a lady named Del Pozzo 
 of Turin. — Lanzi regrets that he does not know her 
 family, 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the ancient Preneste, which they had 
 purchased by a forced sale from the Co- 
 lonna. The celebrated Prenestine mosaic 
 pavement had been drawn on sixteen 
 sheets, and presented by Del Pozzo, to the 
 Barberini library, to which Poussin had 
 access ; and there are traces in several of 
 his compositions, of the use he made of 
 that precious pavement. In the Repose of 
 the Holy Family in Egypt, he has intro- 
 duced a tower and a procession, with 
 little or no alteration from the Mosaic ; 
 and in one of the pictures of the Finding 
 of Moses, the hunting of the Rhinoceros, 
 in the back ground, is borrowed from the 
 same. 
 
 The Mosaic itself is the work of Greek 
 artists, and represents some scene in 
 Africa, though whether a hunting match, 
 the triumph of Alexander, the story of 
 Helen and Menelaus, or that of Isis 
 and Osiris, is doubtful. The temples 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 51 
 
 and buildings are Greek, and may per- 
 haps justify Poussin for introducing Greek 
 temples in his Egyptian scenes ; at any 
 rate, this circumstance accounts for his 
 having done so. The Mosaic was placed 
 by Sylla in the temple of Fortune, of 
 which much of the ground-plan still exists, 
 and more was to be traced in Poussin’s 
 time. Till the reign of Boniface VIII. the 
 upper part of the temple remained entire, 
 and the restorations which were com- 
 posed on the acquisition of the feof by 
 the Barberini must have been well known 
 to Poussin ; for we see the semicircular 
 building of the upper temple introduced 
 into many of his landscapes, and that 
 without any material variation. * But the 
 great pavement was not the only Mosaic 
 picture discovered at Palestrina at that 
 time ; in an adjoining garden a very beau- 
 
 * Perhaps that building, after all, is one of the ends of 
 the Vatican, which itself may have been borrowed from 
 Palestrina. See the history of Preneste, by Suares. 
 
52 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tiful group representing Europa just 
 carried off by the Bull, with her compa- 
 nions on the beach, grieving and entreat- 
 ing her to return, was found and carried 
 to the Barberini palace in Rome*, where, 
 a little before, a curious antique picture 
 had been discovered in the garden. It is a 
 landscape, with a good deal of architec- 
 ture. The plate in Bartoli’s Pitture An- 
 ticlie will show how much use Poussin 
 has made of it* 
 
 Poussin had now full liberty to study 
 in the Barberini Museum, which con tain- 
 
 * Palestrina, as it was the first place where the art of 
 Mosaic was practised in Italy, so it has always maintained 
 a reputation for the best workers in that art. Fabio 
 Cristofori, celebrated in the time of which we are treat- 
 ing, was a native of that city, and executed many Mosaics 
 in the churches of Rome, particularly that of St. Peter’s 
 of the Vatican ; his son Pietro Paolo succeeded him, and 
 was knighted for his excellence in the art by Clement XI. 
 This man founded the school of Mosaic which has imi- 
 tated so successfully the sublimest productions of the 
 pencil, and has 'given durability to the perishable colours, 
 of the first artists. 
 
 18 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 53 
 
 ed some of the finest specimens of ancient 
 art, as well as a choice collection of pic- 
 tures, many of which have now found 
 their way to England. Gems, cameos, 
 and statues abounded in that rich gallery, 
 which, among other things precious for 
 beauty and rarity, possessed the beautiful 
 vase now in the British Museum, and 
 known under the name of the Portland 
 Vase. It was found in a sepulchre called 
 the Monte di Grano, on the road from 
 Rome to Frascati, and was long consi- 
 dered as an entire precious stone. But 
 is now ascertained to be of glass, and the 
 figures in relief, of a beautiful opaque 
 white, seem rather to have been chiselled 
 than moulded. Sir W. Hamilton brought 
 it to England thirty years since, when it 
 was purchased by the Duchess of Port- 
 land. The Duke of Portland placed it 
 in the British Museum in the year 1810 . 
 Kircher, who was living at this time, and 
 eager in his antiquarian pursuits, brought 
 e 3 
 
54 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to light many treasures of ancient art, 
 The curious engraved vase placed by him 
 in the Jesuits’ college was a study in it- 
 self. The Prenestine pavement, which 
 was too large to be brought to Rome, was 
 carefully removed from the stable where 
 it was discovered, to the hall of the Bar- 
 berini Palace at Palestrina, and a correct 
 drawing was, as we have seen, depo- 
 sited in the Cardinals’ library in Rome. 
 Other Mosaics and paintings were care- 
 fully collected. The decaying flame of 
 Roman pride, which has for centuries 
 rested like the dead lights of a cemetery 
 over her ruins, burned more vividly at 
 that season, than for some time before, or 
 since. And no wonder Poussin was al- 
 lured to follow and regard it as a thing 
 divine. 
 
 A trifling incident which occurred at 
 this period, had probably some share in 
 confirming Poussin’s resolution of spend- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN* 
 
 55 
 
 ing the remainder of his life in Rome. 
 The court of France was at that time at 
 variance with the Holy See, and a con- 
 siderable acrimony existed among his 
 Holiness’s troops against all Frenchmen ; 
 consequently, wherever they met them 
 in Rome, they instantly attacked them 
 with sticks and stones, and sometimes 
 with even more formidable weapons. It 
 happened one day that as Poussin and 
 three or four of his countrymen were 
 returning from a drawing excursion, they 
 met at the Quattro Fontane near Monte 
 Cavallo, a company of soldiers, who, see- 
 ing them dressed in the French costume, 
 instantly attacked them. They all fled 
 but Poussin, who was surrounded, and re- 
 ceived a cut from a sabre between the first 
 and second finger. Passeri, who relates 
 the anecdote, says, that the sword turned, 
 otherwise a “ great misfortune must have 
 happened both to him and to painting.” 
 Not daunted, however, he fought under 
 the shelter of his portfolio, throwing 
 e 4 
 
56 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stones as he retreated, till the passengers 
 taking his part, he made good his escape 
 to liis lodging. From that day he put on 
 the Roman dress, adopted the Roman way 
 of living, and became so much a Roman, 
 that he considered the city as his true 
 home. 
 
 The severe course of study in which he 
 had engaged was now interrupted by a te- 
 dious illness, which disabled him from 
 much exertion, and he began anew to 
 feel the pressure of poverty, as we learn 
 from the following letter written to the 
 Commander del Pozzo. 
 
 “ Perhaps you may think me trouble- 
 some, because, after having received so 
 many favours from your family, I still 
 write, and each time to ask for something. 
 But as I believe that what you have done 
 for me proceeds from the goodness, ge- 
 nerosity, and compassion of your nature, 
 I have taken upon me to write once more. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 57 
 
 not being able to wait upon you on ac- 
 count of an illness that has seized me, to 
 entreat you earnestly to send me some 
 assistance, being in great want on account 
 of my infirmities, and having nothing to 
 live on but the labours of my hands. I 
 have drawn the elephant *, and as you 
 seemed to wish for it, I will present it to 
 you. There is a Hannibal on his back 
 in antique armour. I think of your draw- 
 ings every day, and shall soon finish some 
 of them. 
 
 “ Your most humble servant, 
 
 “ PuSSINO.” 
 
 In answer to this letter he received 
 forty crowns; but his illness continuing, 
 and rather increasing, he seemed to have 
 little hopes of recovery, when a country- 
 man, Jean Dughet, who was cook to the 
 Roman senator f , removed him from 
 
 * This is probably the Elephant of the Borghese Gar- 
 den. It is introduced in “ the Repose in Egypt.” 
 
 f In the Memoire di Pietro Santi Barfcoli, published by 
 
58 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 uncomfortable lodgings to his own 
 house, and, together with his wife, be- 
 stowed on him all the care and kind- 
 ness they could have shewn to a son. 
 
 Fea, No. 82., contains the following anecdote concerning 
 Dughet : — “ Quasi chi contiguo a Capo di Bove, alia 
 mano dritta, in tempo d’ Urbano VIII. furono carcerati 
 molti curiosi de’ tesori, i quali trovarono una stanza con 
 molti ornamenti di argento : ma fattogli la spia poco la 
 goderono, che la piu parte fu messa nelle carceri. Solo 
 ne fu esente il suocero di Monsh Possino, e padre di 
 Gaspro famoso paisista, in riguardo che serviva di cuoco 
 il senatore.” Fea thinks that this is the same incident 
 mentioned by Flaminio Vacca, No. 81., but that cannot 
 be ; for Vacca’s account was published in the year 1594, 
 the same in which Poussin was born. Vacca’s story re- 
 lates that four men were diligently employed for several 
 nights, digging in the circus of Caracalla ; that they con- 
 cealed themselves among the ruins in the day, and at 
 dark came to a little inn near Capo di Bove, supped and 
 lit their lanthorn. Only one of them ever spoke, which 
 excited the curiosity of the host, who watched them, 
 and having discovered their employment, gave notice to 
 the government ; the searchers seeing themselves dis- 
 covered desisted from their labours, and were heard of no 
 more. The common opinion about Rome was, that the 
 three silent men were Goths, who had come from the 
 north on the faith of ancient tradition, to seek for trea- 
 
 sure. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 59 
 
 Under their hospitable roof he recovered, 
 and six months afterwards he married 
 their eldest daughter, Maria Dughet. 
 They had no children, but Poussin 
 adopted his wife’s brother Gasper, seven- 
 teen years younger than himself, who as- 
 sumed his name, and followed his steps 
 as a landscape painter with singular suc- 
 cess. With part of his wife’s portion 
 Poussin bought a small house, situated on 
 the Trinita de’ Monti, formerly the Pin- 
 cian-hill, a situation admirably adapted 
 for painters, commanding the finest views 
 of Rome. * Here, with the exception of 
 the period of his journey to Paris, Pous- 
 sin passed the remainder of his life in a 
 tranquil course of alternate labour and 
 easy intercourse with his friends. 
 
 Meantime the Cardinal Barberini re- 
 
 * Next door to it is the house of Salvator Rosa* Op- 
 posite are those of Claude Lorraine and the Zuccheri; in 
 which last, under the patronage of M. Bertholdy, the Ger- 
 man artists have revived with considerable success the art 
 of painting in fresco. 
 
60 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 turned from his mission to France and 
 Spain, and, mindful of his promise to Ma^ 
 rini concerning Poussin, shewed him much 
 kindness; and not only gave him employ- 
 ment himself, but procured him the com- 
 mission to paint one of the pictures to 
 be executed in Mosaic in the Church of 
 St. Peter’s. The subject is the martyr- 
 dom of St. Erasmus, the only one of his 
 works that Poussin ever marked with his 
 name ; and he did that, as he said, to pre- 
 vent his feeble production from being ig- 
 norantly taken for the work of any of the 
 great men who had adorned that splendid 
 building. One of the most remarkable 
 pictures he painted for Cardinal Barbe- 
 rini, is the Death of Germanicus; a subject 
 full of interest, and finely treated. Per- 
 haps the Germanicus is too like an or- 
 dinary dying man * ; there is too much of 
 
 * Poussin, who aimed at expression and the power of 
 moving the passions, was fond of those pathetic circum- 
 stances attending a death-bed. His success in “ the Death of 
 Germanicus,” “ the Death of Eudamidas,” and the “ Sacra- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 61 
 
 sickness, too much of bodily suffering, for 
 a Roman hero’s death; but all the attend- 
 ants, their expression, and the accessaries, 
 are in the very best style of composition. 
 The picture, which is still in the Palazzo 
 Barberini in Rome, has become very dark, 
 and is now ill placed in a room hung with 
 striped yellow satin, where there is also a 
 beautiful sketch, by Poussin, of a Baccha- 
 nalian subject. 
 
 The friendship of the Commander del 
 Pozzo procured for Poussin access to all 
 the public libraries, and collections of 
 medals and manuscripts, and by the most 
 delicate means, sought to promote his 
 fortune and extend his fame. He en- 
 gaged him to decypher the difficult ma- 
 nuscripts of .Leonarda da Vinci, then in 
 the Barberini library. And to him we 
 
 ment of Extreme Unction,” justify his choice of such 
 subjects, even without the example of the ancient painter 
 which he used to quote. 
 
62 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 owe the publication of that great man’s 
 art of painting, for which he made a num- 
 ber of designs, illustrative of the theory 
 of the author. Nor was Poussin wanting 
 in gratitude to his generous protector, he 
 painted a number of pictures for him ; 
 among others, the first and smallest series 
 of the Seven Sacraments *, at different 
 intervals ; and he also made drawings for 
 him of many of the antiquities of Rome. 
 For the Marquis Amadeus del Pozzo, 
 of Turin, Poussin painted “ the Passage 
 through the Red Sea,” and “ the setting 
 up of the Golden Calf in the Wilderness.” 
 The first of these contains an astonishing- 
 number of figures, most of them in ac- 
 tion, and all so occupied with the miracle, 
 that the want of grouping seems to be 
 a natural and almost a necessary conse- 
 quence of the confusion occasioned by 
 the strange event. Perhaps the principal 
 
 * Now in the possession of the Duke of Rutland, into 
 whose collection they came from that of Boccapaduli at 
 Rome. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 63 
 
 figure, Moses stretching his hand over 
 the sea, is too far from the centre of the 
 picture; but had he been otherwise placed, 
 there would have been nothing on one 
 side to balance the crowd of Israelites on 
 the other, without some of that artificial 
 composition, which Poussin had too much 
 good taste to employ. 
 
 Of the subject of the Golden Calf, 
 there are two pictures by Poussin, entirely 
 differing from each other ; but in both he 
 has displayed his profound knowledge of 
 the rites of antique worship, and there 
 are parts in both where he has adapted 
 whole figures from the ancients to his own 
 purposes * with excellent effect. Indeed 
 
 f The first picture of the Golden Calf, where the 
 dancers surround the image, has been engraved by 
 Poilly. The second, where the people are kneeling in 
 adoration, and the young priest is burning the sacred 
 cake, has been twice engraved, by Boudet, and by Deel. 
 The figure of the young priest is taken from an antique 
 bas-relief, formerly in the Villa Borghese ; it is only altered 
 
64 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 these are the subjects in which he excels, 
 triumphs, dances, and antique revelry. 
 
 In 1638 Cardinal Richelieu, whose va- 
 nity, if not his taste, made him anxious 
 to appear the protector and encourager of 
 the fine arts, suggested to Louis XIII. the 
 the plan of finishing the Louvre, restoring 
 and beautifying all the royal palaces, and 
 adorning them with pictures 5 in short, of 
 accomplishing the magnificent designs of 
 Francis I. The reputation of Poussin was 
 at this time so great, that he was imme- 
 diately fixed upon as the proper person 
 to execute the most material part of these 
 designs, and to superintend the rest ; 
 accordingly the Cardinal caused several 
 persons of distinction, who had known 
 Poussin in Rome, to write to him, and 
 endeavour to induce him to quit that 
 
 by being a boy instead of a female figure ; but the atti- 
 tude, action, and attire are unchanged. See Bartoli’s 
 Admiranda. Richardson saw this picture in Flinck’s col- 
 lection at Rotterdam, and praises it highly. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 65 
 
 city, and establish himself in Paris. But 
 he was too much attached to his quiet 
 home, and to the habits and manners of 
 his adopted country, to be easily prevailed 
 on to quit it, and it was not until the be- 
 ginning of 1639, when Louis XIII. form- 
 ally appointed him his first painter, that 
 he resolved to accept the offers of the 
 French court. The letter of M. de 
 Noyers, secretary of state, and superin- 
 tendant of the public works, inviting 
 Poussin to Paris, was in the following 
 flattering terms : — - 
 
 C{ Sir, 
 
 w When the king did me the honour 
 to appoint me superintendant of his pub- 
 lic works, it immediately occurred to me 
 to make use of the power that situation 
 gives me,~ to restore the honour of the 
 arts and sciences ; and as I have a parti- 
 cular love for painting, I resolved to 
 caress her as a well-beloved mistress, and 
 to present her with the first-fruits of my 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 labours. You have heard from your 
 friends on this side the Alps, that I 
 begged them to write to you as from me, 
 and to say that I looked for justice from 
 Italy, and that she should at least restore 
 to us our own that she has detained so 
 many years, and also that I trusted she 
 would give us farther satisfaction, by send- 
 ing us also some of her own children. 
 You perceive by this that I meant 
 M. Poussin, and some other good Italian 
 painter. And in order to mark still more 
 strongly the personal esteem which the 
 king entertains for you, and for such rare 
 and virtuous men as resemble you, I 
 caused a letter, which I confirm by this, 
 to be written to you, to serve as an earn- 
 est of the promise made you, till on your 
 arrival I should put into your hands the 
 king’s brevet and commission. By these 
 letters you will learn that I shall send 
 you a thousand crowns for the expenses of 
 your journey; that you will receive a thou- 
 sand crowns yearly salary, and an apart- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN* 
 
 67 
 
 ment in the king’s house, either in the 
 Louvre, at Paris, or at Fontainebleau, as 
 you please ; that I shall have it conve- 
 niently furnished before the time you 
 occupy it, if you please ; but this at your 
 choice ; that you shall paint neither ceil- 
 ings nor vaults, and that you shall only 
 be engaged for five years, according to 
 your desire ; though I hope that, when 
 you have once breathed the air of your 
 native country, you will find it difficult to 
 quit it. You now clearly perceive, as you 
 desired, the conditions proposed to you. 
 One only remains for you to learn, it is, 
 that you will paint for nobody but by my 
 permission, for I send for you for the 
 king, and not for private persons : this 
 does not preclude your painting for others, 
 but I mean that you cannot do so without 
 my leave. After all, come cheerfully, and 
 be assured you will find more pleasure 
 here than you can imagine. 
 
 (Signed) “ De Noyers. 
 
 u Dated at Ruel, 
 
 Jan. 14s 1639.” 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Letter from the King to Poussin. 
 
 “Dear and well beloved, 
 
 €c Some of our especial servants having 
 made a report to us of the reputation 
 which you have acquired, and the rank 
 which you hold among the best and most 
 famous painters of Italy ; and we being 
 desirous, in imitation of our predecessors, 
 to contribute, as much as lies in us, to the 
 ornament and decoration of our royal 
 houses, by fixing around us those who ex- 
 cel in the arts, and whose attainments 
 in them have attracted notice in the places 
 where those arts are most cherished, do 
 therefore write you this letter, to acquaint 
 you that we have chosen and appointed 
 you to be one of our painters in ordinary, 
 and that, henceforward, we will employ 
 ^ou in that capacity. To this effect our 
 intention is, that on the receipt of this 
 present, you should dispose yourself to 
 come hither, where the services you per- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN* 
 
 69 
 
 form shall meet with as much consider- 
 ation as do jour merits and your works 5 
 in the place where you now reside. By 
 our order, given to M. de Noyers, you will 
 learn more particularly the favour we have 
 determined to shew you. We will add 
 nothing to this present, but to pray God 
 to have you in his holy keeping. 
 
 6 4 Given at Fontainebleau , 
 
 Jan. 15, 1639.” 
 
 4 
 
 It appears singular that nearly two years 
 should elapse from the date of these let- 
 ters, before Poussin went to Paris. But 
 his reluctance to move from home was so 
 great, that it would probably have been 
 much longer before he would have con- 
 quered it, had not his intimate friend, 
 M. de Chantelou, who had a place in 
 the king’s household, been sent to Rome 
 to fetch him. This gentleman, who was 
 a lover of painting, no sooner saw the se- 
 ries of the Sacraments, belonging to the 
 f 3 
 
70 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Commander del Pozzo, than he requested 
 Poussin to procure the Commander’s per- 
 mission to have them copied, leaving the 
 choice of the artist to Poussin, if he would 
 not undertake to do it himself. The Com- 
 mander, however, was unwilling to trust 
 them to another artist ; and Poussin pre- 
 ferred painting a new series to copying 
 his own compositions. He did not exe- 
 cute this work, however, till some years 
 afterwards, when he produced a new se- 
 ries different in design from the former. 
 This last is the set now in the possession 
 of the Marquis of Stafford, and which was 
 once in the Orleans gallery. Of the 
 two, M. de Cham bray says, “ travellers 
 are often asked, whether the Seven Sacra- 
 ments at Rome are finer than those at the 
 Palais Royal ? The question is too vague 
 to be answered. These sublime compo- 
 sitions have varieties, advantages, and 
 slight imperfections which counterbalance 
 each other. Those at Rome are censur- 
 ed for their defective colouring, and the 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 71 
 
 hardness of the execution ; but in deli- 
 cacy of conception, and beauty of expres- 
 sion, they make up for what they might 
 lose in other points if compared with 
 those in France. * 
 
 But the delay of Poussin’s journey to 
 Paris, while it increased the impatience 
 of the court for his arrival, must have 
 added considerably to his reputation ; for 
 among other pictures, painted in the in- 
 terval, was that of u the Israelites gather- 
 ing Manna in the Wilderness,” for M. de 
 Chantelou. While he was painting it he 
 wrote the following letter, describing it, 
 to Stella 
 
 “ I have invented for M. de Chante- 
 lou’s picture a certain distribution of 
 parts, and certain natural accidents, which 
 display the misery and famine to which 
 
 * Richardson, who admired both sets exceedingly, pre- 
 fers the small series on the whole. 
 
 F 4 
 
72 ' 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the people of Israel were reduced, and 
 also their subsequent joy and delight ; the 
 admiration with which they are seized; 
 their respect and veneration for their le- 
 gislator ; with a mixture of men, women, 
 and children, of various ages and com- 
 plexions, which, I imagine, will not dis- 
 please those who are able to read them.” 
 
 The judgment of the Royal Academy 
 of Painting, at Paris, concerning this pic- 
 ture, is on record. In 1667, that is, three 
 years after the death of the painter, the 
 picture of “ the Gathering Manna in the 
 Wilderness,” was given as the subject of a 
 conference of the academy. Many per- 
 sons of rank, as well as men of learning 
 and talents, attended to hear the interest- 
 ing discussion, the result of which was a 
 declaration, that the drawing was excel- 
 lent, and the proportions of the figures 
 comparable to the most beautiful statues 
 of antiquity. Particular commendation 
 was bestowed upon the address with which 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 73 
 
 Poussin had adapted to his subject the 
 very figures of the Laocoon, the Niobe, 
 the Seneca, the Antinous, the Wrestlers, 
 the Diana, the Apollo, and the Venus 
 de Medicis, and had thus peopled the 
 desert with the grandest and the most 
 beautiful forms. Thus the opinion of the 
 painter, expressed in the letter above 
 quoted, that his picture was worthy of suc- 
 cess, was publicly and honourably con- 
 firmed. 
 
 At length, in December, 1640, Poussin, 
 in company with M. de Chantelou, set 
 off for Paris, taking with him a younger 
 brother of his wife’s, John Dughet * as 
 his secretary, and leaving his family and 
 affairs under the especial care of the com- 
 mander Del Pozzo. The reception he 
 met with at the French court was most 
 flattering ; but as it will be most interest- 
 ing to the reader in his own words, the 
 following letter is subjoined. — 
 
 # Jean Dughet was an engraver of some merit. 
 
74 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 To the Commander Del Pozzo. 
 
 “ Full of confidence in the good- 
 will which you have always shewn me, 
 I think it my duty to give you an 
 account of the fortunate success of my 
 journey, as well as of my situation, and 
 the place I inhabit, that you, my kind 
 protector, may know where to lay your 
 commands on me. My health was very 
 good during the whole journey from Rome 
 to Fontainebleau, where I was very honour- 
 ably received in the palace by a noble- 
 man deputed for that purpose by M. de 
 Noyers ; from thence I was taken to Paris 
 in that minister’s coach, and had scarcely 
 arrived when he came out to meet me, 
 embraced me in a friendly manner, and 
 showed very great pleasure at seeing me 
 in France. At night I was conducted by 
 his orders to the place he had destined for 
 my apartment : it is a little palace, for so 
 it may be called, in the midst of the gar- 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 75 
 
 den of the Thuilleries, containing nine 
 chambers on three stories, without reckon- 
 ing the ground floor, which consists of a 
 kitchen, a porter’s lodge, a hall, and three 
 convenient rooms for domestic purposes. 
 There is, besides, a beautiful and spacious 
 garden, planted with fruit trees and 
 vegetables of all kinds, a pretty plot of 
 flowers, three little fountains, a well, a 
 very handsome court, and a stable. I have 
 a beautiful view from my windows, and I 
 can imagine that in summer this retreat 
 must be a perfect paradise. I found the 
 centre apartment furnished nobly, and all 
 necessary provisions laid in, even to fire- 
 wood and a cask of old wine. For three 
 days my friends and I were entertained at 
 the king’s expense. The fourth day M. 
 de Noyers presented me to the Cardinal, 
 who took my hand, embraced me, and 
 treated me with extraordinary condescen- 
 sion. A few days afterwards I was taken to 
 St. Germains, where M. de Noyers was to 
 have presented me to the king ; but M. de 
 
76 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Noyers being indisposed, I was not intro- 
 duced until the next day, when M. le 
 Grand, one of the court favourites, pre- 
 sented me. The good and gracious prince 
 deigned to caress me, and asked me a 
 great many questions, during the half-hour 
 he kept me with him ; after which, turning 
 round to the court, he said, 6 I think we 
 have taken in Vouet and then he ordered 
 me to paint the great pictures for his 
 chapel of Fontainebleau and St. Germains. 
 When I went home they brought me two 
 thousand crowns in gold, in a handsome 
 blue velvet purse. One thousand for my 
 salary, and one thousand for my journey, 
 without reckoning my expenses. And 
 indeed, money is very necessary in this 
 country, where every thing is extremely 
 dear. 
 
 u I have now turned my thoughts upon 
 the works I am to execute : they are pic- 
 tures, cartoons for tapestry, and many 
 other things. I shall have the honour of 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 77 
 
 sending you a specimen of my first 
 labours as a tribute of gratitude, and as 
 soon as my packages arrive, and I am re- 
 lieved from uneasiness on account of them, 
 I hope to portion my time in such a man- 
 ner as to employ a part of it in the ser- 
 vice of your brother the Chevalier. 
 
 “ I recommend my little household in- 
 terests to your care, since you deign to 
 take charge of them during my absence, 
 which shall not be long if I can help it. 
 I beseech you, since you are born to be 
 kind to me, to bear, with your usual ge- 
 nerous patience, the trouble I must give 
 you, and to content yourself in return with 
 my entire affection. May the Lord grant 
 you a long and happy life. As to me, 
 with all the respect of which I am capable, 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 “ Poussin. 
 
 t£ Paris, Jan. 6th, 3641.” 
 
78 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Another letter , written the next day , is as 
 follows . 
 
 “ The respect I have for you, most re- 
 verend and illustrious Sir, has caused 
 me already to signify to you our 
 safe arrival in Paris, and the courteous 
 reception I met with from M. de Noy- 
 ers. The next day he presented me 
 to the Cardinal Richelieu, who showed 
 me extraordinary favour, and a few days 
 after I was taken to M. de Noyer’s villa, 
 in order that he might introduce me to 
 the king ; but finding himself indisposed, 
 in the morning he desired M. de Chante- 
 lou to take me to St. Germains, where, 
 soon after my arrival, I was presented by 
 M. le Grand, the king’s favourite. Modes- 
 ty will not allow me to tell you how very 
 graciously his majesty received me. At 
 length we returned to Ruel, where, having 
 remained a good while in M. de Noyer’s 
 
 chamber, he conversed with me on 
 
 14 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 79 
 
 various subjects, particularly on Rome and 
 the most remarkable persons there. Re- 
 collecting your name, he praised your 
 talents, and professed, that he should be 
 proud of doing any thing to serve you 
 at any time. It might therefore be 
 advisable that I should have an exact ac- 
 count of your matters, in Piedmont, in 
 order that something may be done with 
 regard to them on the very first opportu- 
 nity. M. de Chantelou having mentioned 
 the kindness you had shown to him and 
 his brother, had not only disposed him 
 to do the little you wished, but I believe 
 that you will receive still farther proofs of 
 his esteem. A copy of the list of Pirro 
 Ligurio’s books has been sent to Turin, 
 and the answer is expected.* 
 
 * These books contained drawings and descriptions of 
 all the antiquities of Rome. The drawings were origi- 
 nals by Ligurio himself ; they were, till of late years, and 
 perhaps may be so still, in the Royal library at Turin. 
 There was also a fine copy in the Vatican library. This 
 Pirro was a cotemporary of Michael Angelo, and was em- 
 ployed by Clement IX. 
 
80 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 “ We are hourly expecting our packages, 
 and as soon as they arrive I shall go to 
 work upon your little picture of Baptism, 
 having no greater pleasure in the world 
 than that given me by any opportunity of 
 serving you. I beg you to continue your 
 kind concern for my interest, and to 
 believe that I shall esteem myself most 
 happy as long as your regard continues 
 for me, and bound to pray to God for the 
 increase of your prosperity. 
 
 “ Nicholas Poussin. 
 
 £t Paris, 7th Jan. 1641.” 
 
 Shortly after Poussin’s arrival in Paris, 
 the king promoted him to the rank of his 
 first painter, in order to mark his particu- 
 lar esteem for him, and gave him the title 
 of superintendant of all the works of 
 painting for the decoration and restor- 
 ation of the royal houses, and confirmed 
 these favours by the following brevet, 
 dated in March, 164L 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 81 
 
 This day, the 20th March, 1641, the 
 king being at St. Germain en Laye, and 
 desiring to testify the particular personal 
 esteem he entertained for the Sieur Pous- 
 sin, whom he invited to come from Italy on 
 the special knowledge he had of the great 
 degree of excellence to which he had 
 attained in the art of painting ; not only 
 by means of the arduous studies he has 
 pursued in all the sciences necessary to 
 its perfection, but also through the natu- 
 ral inclination which God has given him 
 for the arts; his majesty has chosen and 
 retained him to be his first painter in 
 ordinary, and in that capacity has given 
 him the general direction of all the works 
 of painting and of embellishment that he 
 may henceforward order for the decora- 
 tion of his royal houses : ordering also 
 that none of his other painters shall exe- 
 cute any of their works for his majesty 
 without having first submitted their de- 
 signs to the said Sieur Poussin, and re- 
 
82 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ceived his directions and advice thereupon. 
 And, in order to give him the means of 
 maintaining himself in his service, his 
 majesty grants him the sum of three 
 thousand livres, as a yearly salary, which 
 shall henceforth be paid him by the 
 treasurers of his public works, each in the 
 year of his authority, as is customary, and 
 as it was paid him this year : And, to this 
 effect, the said sum of three thousand 
 livres shall henceforth be entered and 
 
 accounted for, under the name of the said 
 
 * 
 
 Sieur Poussin, in the statement of ac- 
 counts of the said public works. His 
 majesty has also granted to the Sieur 
 Poussin the house with the garden lying 
 in the middle of his majesty’s gardens of 
 the Thuilleries, which was heretofore oc- 
 cupied by the Sieur Menou. In testimony 
 whereof his majesty has commanded me 
 to issue this present brevet to the Sieur 
 Poussin, which will be signed by his 
 majesty’s hand, and countersigned by me, 
 his counsellor and secretary of state, and 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 83 
 
 of his commands and finance, and super- 
 intendant, and director of his public 
 buildings. 
 
 “ Louis.” 
 
 “ De Noyers.” 
 
 The arrival of Poussin was immediately 
 followed in Paris by an extraordinary 
 activity in pursuing the projects con- 
 ceived by Francis I. for the encourage- 
 ment of the fine arts. Francis, it is well 
 known, endeavoured to fix in his court 
 some of the first artists of Italy. Leon- 
 ardo da Vinci died in his arms. Benve- 
 nuto Cellini, who had originally been 
 recommended to him by the poet Ala- 
 frianni, was employed to design the gates, 
 fountains, & c. for Fontainebleau; and 
 many other men of genius were encou- 
 raged to settle in Paris. Copies of the most 
 precious statues and bas-reliefs of Rome, 
 as well as of the finest pictures in Italy 
 were now ordered. There was an idea of 
 copying the Trajan column, and the Arch 
 g 2 
 
84 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of Constantine ; but the most splendid 
 project was that of casting the colossal 
 statues of Monte Cavallo in bronze, and 
 to place them at the gate of the Louvre. 
 
 Poussin’s own labours began by some 
 cartoons to be copied in tapestry for the 
 king’s chamber. The subjects prescribed 
 were from the Old Testament, and in 
 order to facilitate their execution, he was 
 permitted to repeat the compositions of se- 
 veral of his former pictures, such as “ the 
 gathering the Manna in the Wilderness,” 
 “ the Setting up of the Golden Calf,” and 
 “ Moses striking the Rock.” We have to 
 regret the loss of these cartoons, which 
 were of the same size as those of Raffaelle. 
 The task of designing frontispieces for 
 the books printed at the royal printing 
 office was also assigned to Poussin. The 
 first he furnished was that to the Bible, 
 printed early in 1642, commonly known 
 by the name of the Bible of Sixtus V. ; and 
 he afterwards designed those for the 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 85 
 
 Horace and the Virgil, printed about the 
 same time. But an extract from one of 
 his letters to Del Pozzo, dated 20th 
 September, 1641, will best show the na- 
 ture of his employment. “ I am labouring 
 without intermission, sometimes at one 
 thing, sometimes at another. I should 
 do this willingly, but that they hurry me 
 in things that require time and thought. 
 I assure you, that if I stay long in this 
 country, I must turn dauber like the rest 
 here. As to study and observation, either 
 of the antique or of any thing else, they are 
 unknown, and whoever wishes to study or 
 to excel must go far from hence. The stuc- 
 coes and painting of the Great Gallery 
 are begun after my designs, but very little 
 to my satisfaction, because I can get no 
 one to second me, although I make 
 drawings both on a large and a small 
 scale for them. I have put the Last 
 Supper in its place, that is, in the chapel 
 of St. Germains, and it succeeds very 
 well. I am now at work upon the picture 
 g 3 
 
86 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 for the noviciate of the Jesuits : it is very 
 large, containing fourteen figures larger 
 than nature, and this they want me to 
 finish in two months.” 
 
 The subject of this large picture is one 
 of the miracles of St. Francis Xavier in 
 Japan, where he restores the daughter of 
 a nobleman to life. It was finished at the 
 prescribed time, and the admiration it 
 met with was the first signal for all who 
 envied Poussin’s good fortune and repu- 
 tation to commence those persecutions 
 against him, which rendered his abode 
 at Paris disagreeable, and at length drove 
 him from it. Before his arrival in that 
 capital, Vouet* had enjoyed the favour of 
 
 * Simon Vouet was born in Paris, 1582, studied under 
 his father, who was a bad painter. In 1602 he accompanied 
 the French ambassador to Constantinople, where he 
 painted the Grand Signor, chiefly, however, from me- 
 mory. On his return from Turkey, he was for some time 
 at Venice, and afterwards at Rome, where he was elected 
 Prince of the Academy of St. Luke. His reputation 
 engaged Louis XIII. to send for him to Paris, where he 
 not only appointed him his first painter, but took lessons 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 87 
 
 the court, and the undivided applause of 
 the public ; but, on this occasion, a picture 
 he had painted for the same church was 
 overlooked, and that of Poussin excited 
 the greatest enthusiasm, on account of its 
 expression, which was said to 66 charm 
 the ignorant gazer as well as the con- 
 noisseur.” Vouet and his party, however, 
 criticised it in the severest manner, both 
 in public and in private, alleging particu- 
 larly, that the “ Christ in the Glory” had 
 more the air of Jupiter Tonans, than of 
 the meek and mild God of Mercy. The 
 colouring was censured as opake, and the 
 outline as dry, and wanting in feeling. 
 Poussin, who disdained the petty arts 
 which might have soothed calumny, or 
 have procured partizans, answered his 
 critics openly and fearlessly. “ Those,” 
 
 in drawing from him. His principal merits were great 
 facility and freedom; but he had neither expression, 
 colour, nor drawing. His best works were painted in 
 Rome. Vouet’s pupils were Mignard, Dorigny, Perrier, 
 Dufresnoy, Le Brun, and Le Sueur. 
 
 G 4f 
 
88 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 said he, “ who assert that the Christ in 
 my picture is more like a thundering 
 Jupiter, than a God of Mercy, may be 
 assured that I shall never fail in careful 
 endeavours to give my figures expressions 
 
 conformable to what thev are intended to 
 
 %/ 
 
 represent; but I neither can nor ought to 
 imagine Christ in any situation whatever, 
 with the face of a whining methodist 
 or a begging friar, seeing that while he 
 was on earth, it was scarcely possible to 
 endure the brightness of his counte- 
 nance.” 
 
 Notwithstanding the clamours of Vouet, 
 the king and queen openly took the part 
 of Poussin’s pictures. “ My works,” he 
 says, in a letter to the Commander del 
 Pozzo, u have been exceedingly well re- 
 ceived; the king and queen have been loud 
 in their praises of the Last Supper, which 
 I painted for the royal chapel, looking 
 
 * The original expression, though not the same, is sy- 
 nonymous. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 89 
 
 upon it, as they graciously say, as a child 
 of their own. Cardinal Richelieu is also 
 satisfied with his pictures, and thanked me 
 for them, and complimented me in the 
 presence of Monsignore Mazzarini.” But 
 many of the tasks imposed on him appear 
 to have been sufficiently irksome. “ The 
 employment given me,” says he, “ is not 
 so important but that they take me from 
 it to superintend new designs for tapestry. 
 I wish they would give me something to 
 do where lofty and noble designs could 
 be employed ; but, to say the truth, there 
 is nothing here that deserves staying long 
 for.” In another letter he says, “ The 
 readiness that these gentlemen perceive 
 in me, has induced them to leave me no 
 time, either to satisfy myself, or to do any 
 thing for a private friend or patron. They 
 employ me for ever in trifles, such as 
 frontispieces for books, designs for orna- 
 mental cabinets, chimney-pieces, bindings 
 of books, and other nonsense. Some- 
 times, indeed, they propose grander sub- 
 
90 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 jects, but, fair words butter no parsnips * ! 
 They tell me these things are mere recre- 
 ation for me, paying me with fine speeches, 
 and do not look upon those jobs which 
 are really wearisome and laborious as any 
 thing. Before he went away M. de Noyers 
 desired me to paint a Madonna, accord- 
 ing to my own taste, in order, as he says, 
 that people may say “ the Madonna of 
 Poussin,” as they say “ the Madonna of 
 Raffaelle.” Besides, he wanted me to paint 
 a picture for the chapel of the congregation 
 of the Jesuits ; but the place is so narrow 
 and so dark that one cannot do any thing 
 good with it. In short, it would seem 
 that they do not know what to employ 
 me upon, having no fixed design when 
 they sent for me ; and I fancy they think 
 that since I did not bring my wife with 
 me, that I should go back if they gave me 
 an opportunity of earning enough money. 
 
 * The Italian proverb used in the original letter is, — 
 Belle parole e cativi fatti, 
 
 Ingananno savi e matti. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 91 
 
 Be this as it may, whether I succeed to 
 the full extent of what I wished to do by 
 coming or not, I shall have fulfilled part 
 of my design, and my journey at least has 
 been amply repaid. The other day I had 
 a letter from M. de Noyers, who tells me 
 that, (as I had complained before his 
 departure of the sort of petty employment 
 that was little more than a waste of time,) 
 his majesty consents that, as soon as I have 
 formed the general design for the great 
 gallery, I should commission my friend M. 
 Lemer, by whom you have a picture, of 
 I forget what ruins, to act under me, in 
 order that I may be at liberty to attend to 
 the designs and pictures of the Seven 
 Sacraments for the royal tapestry. I don’t 
 know how this plan will succeed. You 
 may perceive, by what I tell you, that 
 here they are that kind of animal that 
 follows the leader.” 
 
 This letter is dated 4th April, 1642, 
 about which period he fixed the plan 
 
92 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 for the decorations of the Thuilleries. 
 The production of that plan was the 
 signal for the rivals and enemies of 
 Poussin to begin those attacks against 
 him, which terminated in his return to 
 Rome. Vouet’s jealousy with regard to 
 the principal pictures was not to be 
 doubted, nor was it unnatural. And the 
 vanity of Le Mercier, the architect, was 
 perhaps too little spared in the alter- 
 ations and reductions recommended by 
 Poussin, not to irritate that artist, who, 
 although he possessed considerable merit, 
 wanted taste. But the coxcombry of 
 Eouquieres, a good landscape painter for 
 the time, who prided himself upon some 
 pretensions to family *, and who always 
 painted with his sword by his side, seems 
 to have been as tormenting as it was 
 
 * He pretended to be descended from the Fuggers or 
 Fouquers, rich bankers, who, having furnished considerable 
 sums of money to the Emperor Maximilian I., had been 
 ennobled by that Emperor. The family seem to have been 
 sufficiently ridiculous, for Rabelais has made merry at 
 their expense. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 93 
 
 ludicrous. Presuming on his rank and 
 talent, he took upon himself the office of 
 director of the works in the gallery. 
 Poussin, who knew his real history, used 
 to laugh at him and call him Baron . 
 “ The Baron de Fouquieres,” he says, in 
 a letter to M. de Noyers, “ came to me 
 with his usual conceit ; he thinks it very 
 odd that any thing should have been be- 
 gun in the gallery without consulting 
 him, and says he has an order from the 
 king, countersigned by the minister, and 
 that his pictures are consequently to form 
 the principal decoration of the place, all 
 others being merely accessaries.” The 
 truth is, that Fouquieres’ order required 
 him to paint views of the principal towns 
 in France on the piers between the 
 windows. 
 
 Meantime the perseverance of Poussin 
 in insisting on the alteration of some of 
 Le Mercier’s ornaments, and the removal 
 of others, appears to have brought the 
 
94 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 rage of his rivals against him to a 
 crisis. The following extracts from one 
 of his memorials to M. de Noyers on the 
 subject, show the ground of his opinions 
 as to the necessary alterations, and at the 
 same time that of the wounded vanity of 
 Le Mercier ; while they assert his own 
 dignity, and repel the insinuations of his 
 enemies. “ Although I have nothing to 
 fear from my enemies, since, by the grace 
 of God, I have acquired a property, that, 
 not being an ordinary gift of fortune, 
 cannot be taken from me, but in posses- 
 sion of which I may go wherever I please ; 
 the pain of feeling that I am not well 
 treated, obliges me to expose the absurdity 
 of my calumniators. Nothing can be so 
 monstrous as what Le Mercier has begun 
 in the gallery : the dull and disagree- 
 able heaviness of the whole ; the low- 
 ness of the vault, which looks as if it 
 would fall and crush you ; the extreme 
 coldness of the composition; the poor, dry, 
 and melancholy aspect of the parts, and 
 
 9 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 95 
 
 certain opposite and incongruous things put 
 together, are such that neither reason nor 
 common sense can endure them. There is 
 no variety, no support ; there are neither 
 union nor consequence ; the size of the 
 compartments bears no proportion to their 
 distance. These compartments, placed in 
 the centre of the vault, are immediately 
 over the heads of the spectators, and 
 would blind them, if they were to look up 
 at them. All that I have suppressed was 
 faulty. The architect having confined 
 himself to adhere to certain consoles 
 which run along the cornice, and which 
 are not equal, there being four on one 
 side, and five on the other, it was im- 
 possible to make any thing good of it 
 while these insuperable defects were al- 
 lowed to remain.” He ends bis letter by 
 saying, “ I feel my own powers, and know 
 what I am capable of, without priding 
 myself too much on them, or yet seeking 
 favour. I write to bear witness to truth* 
 
96 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and will never descend to flattery, which 
 are too opposite ever to be reconciled.” 
 
 To this representation either no answer, 
 or an unsatisfactory one was returned; and 
 Vouet and Le Mercier, encouraged by 
 the evident coldness of the court, de- 
 clared they would no longer work under 
 his directions. The next step was to draw 
 up a memorial against him, wherein they 
 artfully insinuated, that the honour of 
 the nation was compromised by the parsi- 
 mony of his plans for the public buildings, 
 thereby exposing their own interested 
 views, as Poussin did not fail to point out 
 in a letter to the minister, saying, “ the 
 calumnies of my enemies are pointed by 
 their hopes of gain.” 
 
 It is not surprising that these cabals 
 should at length have caused some disgust 
 on the part of M. de Noyers, and that this 
 circumstance, joined to the irksomeness of 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 91 
 
 the petty tasks which were daily assigned 
 him, should have determined Poussin to 
 ask leave to return, at least for a time, to 
 Rome, where he had left his wife, to 
 whom he was much attached, and to 
 whom he always expressed the utmost 
 gratitude, and many friends, for whose 
 society he could find but small compens- 
 ation at Paris, surrounded as he was by 
 those who, on many accounts, were his 
 rivals. Accordingly, having been sent 
 for by M. de Noyers to Fontainbleau, to 
 restore some pictures of Primaticcio, 
 which had suffered by time and * damp, 
 “ I took that opportunity,” he writes, 
 “ to speak to him about my wish to go to 
 Italy, to bring my wife to Paris ; and 
 having listened to the reasons which in- 
 
 # The work of Primaticcio, at Fontainbleau, which is 
 praised by Evelyn, in his Diary, was the history of 
 Ulysses. Evelyn also mentions a picture by Poussin, 
 over a chimney-piece, in the Count de Liancour’s palace, 
 Rue du Seine. He praises it highly ; but it seems uncer- 
 tain whether it was painted at this period, or before he 
 went to Rome. The subject is a satyr kneeling, 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 duced me to form that wish, with un- 
 speakable kindness he acceded to it, on 
 condition, however, that I should finish 
 the pictures I have now in hand, and 
 return to Paris in the Spring. I have 
 hopes of setting out early in September.” 
 
 While Poussin was engaged in the busi- 
 ness for which he had gone to Paris, he 
 was not unmindful of his Roman friends. 
 By his letters to the Commander del 
 Pozzo, we learn that he was employed by 
 his friends of that family, and by some 
 other persons in soliciting ecclesiastical 
 and other favours from the court of 
 France. * And in return, his interest 
 with Cardinal Barberini was more than 
 once employed in favour of his country- 
 men in Rome. He also obtained copies 
 of several fine pictures belonging to the 
 king of France, for the Commander del 
 
 * One of these was to obtain a licence to print an 
 antiquarian work, by Angeloni. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN* 
 
 99 
 
 Pozzo, in return for others, which that 
 gentleman procured in Italy for Paris. 
 
 At length, the time so ardently wished 
 for by Poussin, when he felt free to return 
 to Rome, arrived. The last picture he 
 painted in Paris, was that of “ Time 
 bringing Truth to light, and delivering her 
 from the fiends Malice and Envy.” It 
 has been suggested, that by this picture he 
 meant to allude to his own vexatipns at 
 the court of France ; it was done for 
 Cardinal Richelieu, and is now in the 
 Louvre. Possibly the allegory had no- 
 thing to do with his personal feelings, for 
 in that age every thing was allegorized. 
 Another picture, which he left in France, 
 appears however, unquestionably to have 
 had a reference to himself and his ene- 
 mies. Among the decorations of the 
 coved ceiling of the Louvre, Poussin had 
 placed false bas-reliefs of the Labours of 
 Hercules ; and, besides the usual number, 
 added an imaginary one, wherein he de- 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 stroys Folly, Ignorance, and Envy : these 
 hateful personages are caricatures of Fou- 
 quieres, Le Mercier, and Vouet; and it 
 is said, that the figure of Hercules bore 
 a resemblance to Poussin himself. Fou- 
 quieres is Folly seated on an ass, from 
 whose neck hangs a medal, with the 
 initials J. F : Ignorance, as Le Mercier, 
 is busy tearing up the works of Vitruvius ; 
 she holds a square and compasses in her 
 hand. Envy is of course Vouet. This 
 picture is in the possession of M. Dufour- 
 ney, at Paris, who has preserved drawings 
 of the series of the Labours of Hercules, 
 the originals having been destroyed in 
 cleaning and altering the ceiling. In 
 some of the details of this caricature 
 there is considerable humour, nor is it 
 the only picture that shows Poussin to 
 have been possessed of a great share of 
 that quality. The death of Philemon, 
 who, according to Aulus Gellius, expired 
 of laughing at seeing an ass eat figs, is 
 one of these ; and in several of his Bac- 
 chanalian subjects, there are traits of 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 101 
 
 humour, which an ordinary painter could 
 not have ventured upon with success. 
 
 Shortly after Poussin’s departure from 
 Paris, his patron, M. de Noyers, was 
 banished from court ; Cardinal Richelieu 
 died soon after ; and Louis XIII. only 
 survived till the 14th of the May follow- 
 ing, 1643. These circumstances sus- 
 pended the works at the Louvre, until 
 Cardinal Mazarin, having obtained the 
 recall of M. de Noyers, they were re- 
 sumed with fresh vigour; and Poussin was 
 again invited to superintend them, or at 
 least to finish the gallery. 
 
 But the pleasure with which he had re- 
 turned to Rome, the delight of his friends 
 at seeing him again among them, and the 
 tranquil enjoyments of his domestic life, 
 added to his experience of the disagree- 
 able cabals of the court, rendered him 
 averse to return, except on certain condi- 
 tions. “ I should only wish,” he says, in 
 h 3 
 
102 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 his answer, 66 to return to France on the 
 terms of my first engagement, and not to 
 finish the Louvre, for which I can send 
 drawings from Rome. I will never go to 
 Paris to be employed only as a private 
 man, though my works should be covered 
 with gold for it.” This answer put an 
 end to all further correspondence on the 
 subject ; but Louis XIV. continued * to 
 give him the pension which his predeces- 
 sor had granted. 
 
 His first object on returning to Rome 
 was to fulfil the commission he had 
 undertaken for his friends in Paris. 
 M. de Chantelou’s Sacraments ; Re- 
 becca at the Well, a picture which can 
 
 * The French academy of the fine arts, now established 
 in the Villa Medici, at Rome, was founded by Louis XIV, 
 It originally occupied a palace in the Corso. The par- 
 ticulars of the establishment, and the advantages it enjoys, 
 are to be found in the first number of the London Maga- 
 zine, and in the same paper there are some excellent re- 
 marks on the different modern schools of painting. — 
 About the time of Poussin’s declining to return to Paris, 
 Louis XIV. stopped the works at the Louvre to build at 
 Versailles. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 103 
 
 never be too much praised for truth, 
 grace, and beauty; and the Interment of 
 Phocion, were among the first works he 
 finished at that period. As he was now 
 relieved from all anxiety concerning his 
 pecuniary circumstances, his whole soul 
 became more devoted than ever to his art. 
 44 As I grow older,” he writes in a letter 
 to a friend, 44 I feel myself more than 
 ever inflamed with the desire of surpassing 
 myself, and of reaching to the highest de- 
 gree of perfection.” It has been observed, 
 that where a sound mind and body re- 
 mained, painters have improved, even to 
 extreme old age. That Raffaelle’s last 
 works should be his best is not wonderful, 
 for he died at thirty-seven. But Titian 
 improved to the last, and he died of the 
 plague at ninety-nine. To the failure of 
 Michael Angelo’s sight we must attribute 
 the inferiority of the Paoline to the Sistine 
 Chapel. And if Guido’s last pictures are 
 worse than those painted earlier, his 
 passion for gambling, which forced him 
 h 4 
 
104 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to hurry his work too much, may justly be 
 said to have destroyed his talent. 
 
 From the time of Poussin’s return from 
 Paris, he spent most of his timeinhis paint- 
 ing room, and seldom admitted any visitors 
 there. His friends, however, used to wait 
 for him on the terrace of the Trinita de’ 
 Monti, where his house was situated, and 
 where he took his morning and evening 
 walk; and his biographers have represented 
 him as an ancient philosopher surrounded 
 by his disciples. In fact his hours of 
 exercise were rendered more delightful by 
 intimate conversation with the learned and 
 the polite, who crowded round him from 
 all parts of Rome, to admire that dig- 
 nified simplicity of manner and convers- 
 ation, which was a part of the antique 
 purity of taste, which inspires his works, 
 and regulated his whole life. Some of his 
 sayings have been preserved. They are 
 remarkable for good sense, and that kind 
 of philosophy which is of most value in 
 the conduct of life. He was asked one 
 
 7 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 105 
 
 day, what was the chief benefit he had de- 
 rived from his extensive reading, and 
 what he regarded as his best knowledge? 
 
 “ How to live well with all the world,” 
 was his answer. 
 
 One evening Cardinal Massimi having 
 paid him a visit, staid with him till dark* 
 Poussin, who had no footman, took a 
 lamp himself to light his guest to his car- 
 riage, who said to him, 46 I am sorry for 
 you, M. Poussin ; you have no footman !” 
 66 and I,” said Poussin, “ am still more 
 sorry for your Eminency, because you 
 have so many !” A person of quality 
 having shown him a picture of his own 
 painting, Poussin said to him, u Ah, my 
 lord, you only want a little poverty, to 
 become a good painter.” But these sen- 
 tences and repartees, though they showed 
 the readiness of his mind, were not, at 
 least to many of his hearers, the most 
 valuable parts of his conversation. 
 His brother-in-law Caspar, Claude Lor- 
 raine, Charles le Brun, and other painters 
 
106 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 of eminence attended his walks, in order 
 to gather from him just maxims of art, 
 and to hear his counsels on the true me- 
 thod of seeing nature. 
 
 Of the two great landscape painters 
 here named, it is difficult to say which 
 is the most poetical. Both have looked 
 into nature, and seen her truly, but 
 differently ; Gaspar Poussin, loves the 
 landscape before the sun is up, or after 
 he is set, or when heavy clouds only 
 permit a bright beam to flash through 
 his dark foliage ; Claude must have sun, 
 and light, and life. His mornings are 
 fresh, yet sparkling ; his day makes the 
 shade of his trees necessary for the eye 
 and the imagination, and we dread the 
 moment when night must obscure his love- 
 ly evenings. From the Trinita de’ Monti 
 all Claude’s effects, and many of his sub- 
 jects, may be traced. From the little 
 portico of his house, the view over the 
 vale of the Tyber, the fine lines of the 
 Vatican, the Monte Mario, and the Villa 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 107 
 
 Medici, which he has introduced in many 
 of his pictures, are seen to peculiar advan- 
 tage, both in the morning and evening 
 effect. Caspar’s compositions are often 
 drawn from the same source; but his lights 
 and colours seem to be more taken from 
 the massy walls and ruins of the city, 
 where the Coliseum and the Palatine re- 
 quire shadow, approaching to darkness, 
 to soften the red ruin into the ver- 
 dant decorations with which time has 
 adorned their venerable summits. The 
 picturesque beauty of Rome was truly felt 
 by these great painters, and, excepting 
 the back grounds of Domenichino, and 
 those of Nicholas Poussin, scarcely any 
 other has done it justice.* The views of 
 
 * Of modern painters our own countrymen may, perhaps, 
 rival these. Wilson painted views, and animated them by 
 historic combinations and figures. Turner, before he ever 
 saw Italy, seems, by the inspiration of genius, to have 
 painted the colour of the Campagna ; and among the 
 artists resident in Rome, in 1819, none but the English 
 seemed truly to feel the value of what surrounded them. 
 The French, Germans, and Italians, made correct or 
 imaginary views ; but, excepting among the English, I 
 never saw the poetry of Rome painted. 
 
108 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ruins and monuments by Piranesi and 
 other artists, may give an idea of the 
 grandeur even of the ruined city ; but its 
 colour, its trees, its wonderful distances, 
 have never been truly felt but by the 
 Poussins, Claude, and Domenichino. 
 
 Although Poussin valued his time and 
 his liberty too much to take any pupil, 
 from the moment of his return to Rome, 
 he generously interested himself in the 
 studies and the reputation of his young 
 countryman, Charles le Brun. The follow- 
 ing account of their first acquaintance, 
 and of the benefits derived by Le Brun 
 from the friendship of Poussin, is an ex- 
 tract from an original MS. of Claude Ni- 
 velon, and is too interesting to be altered 
 or shortened.* 
 
 “ The early productions of Le Brun 
 were partly the cause which determined 
 M. Seguier to procure him the means of 
 
 * Description des (Euvres de M. le Brun> dediee a 
 Louis XIV, p. 10. bib. dc M. Lami. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 109 
 
 going to Italy, foreseeing that the king’s 
 bounty, and his own, would be more emi- 
 nently displayed by his study and con- 
 sideration of the fine objects of art in that 
 country. He gave him a considerable 
 pension ; and his interest rendered every 
 thing in Rome easy of access, by means 
 of Cardinal Antonio, who, at his request, 
 presented him to Pope Urban VIXL, with 
 a letter of introduction from the king. 
 He recommended him also to the famous 
 M. Poussin, who was returning to Rome, 
 in 1643. They met at Lyons, and perform- 
 ed the rest of the journey together ; which 
 intercourse occasioned, on the one hand, 
 great good-will towards M. Le Brun in 
 M. Poussin ; and, on the other, a respect 
 and esteem in the young man, which he 
 always preserved for M. Poussin, declar- 
 ing often that he was obliged to him for 
 having confirmed him in his most pro- 
 found observations on art. His appli- 
 cation improved him, in a short time, to 
 such a degree, that he painted a picture 
 
no 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 without the knowledge of any body, and 
 which was exhibited, on a certain fes- 
 tival, as a novelty, to the Roman artists. 
 It is true it was a French flame, no sparks 
 of which had yet been seen. Every body 
 at first thought it was a picture by M. 
 Poussin, and he was accordingly con- 
 gratulated upon it. Le Brun, having 
 called on him that morning, on purpose, 
 M. Poussin said to him, ‘ Several persons 
 have been here to talk to me of a picture 
 which they say I painted, but I know no- 
 thing about it ; let us go and look at it 
 together.’ The surprise of M. Poussin 
 was not small, not knowing either the au- 
 thor or the work, although in imitation of 
 his own best manner ; and he was, for a 
 little while, secretly uneasy about the 
 painter. M. Le Brun coming up to him, 
 begged him to say what he really thought 
 of it, for that he had done his best to imi- 
 tate him in his fine style ; which, as one 
 may imagine, surprised him agreeably, 
 and he undeceived nobody, though in a 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 place and at a time when his reputation 
 seemed to be put in competition with that 
 of so young a man. The picture, the sub- 
 ject of which is, Horatius Codes at the 
 Bridge, long passed at Paris for the work 
 of Poussin.” It is now in the gallery of 
 Dulwich College. 
 
 Shortly after Poussin’s return to Rome, 
 M. de Chantelou^ having desired him to 
 paint a companion to Raffaelle’s Vision of 
 Ezekiel, which he had just bought at Bo- 
 logna, he produced the Ecstasy of St. Paul : 
 a picture which the French think equal to 
 that of RafFaelle, and quote the Cavaliere 
 del Pozzo’s opinion in support of theirs. 
 That zealous friend of Poussin says, in a 
 letter : — “ The Ecstasy of St. Paul is not 
 less esteemed than the Vision of Ezekiel. 
 It is Poussin’s masterpiece ; and, on com- 
 paring the two, it is evident that France 
 has her RafFaelle, as well as Italy.” This 
 criticism may be true, as far as it concerns 
 the two pictures ; but it must be remem * 
 
112 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 bered, that Poussin was strongest in sub- 
 jects of this kind, where Raffaelle was 
 weakest. Strength, correctness, and ex- 
 pression are the qualities peculiar to Pous- 
 sin, whose grace is often without beauty. 
 Raffaelle is always full of beauty, with 
 grace and expression ; his women and an- 
 gels are a race apart ; and whether celes- 
 tial visitants at the patriarch’s gate, 
 Psyche ascending to Olympus, or Saint 
 Cecilia listening to the celestial choir, 
 they are equally removed from common 
 or vulgar association. Poussin’s person- 
 ages have always human alloy about them ; 
 and it is absolutely necessary to produce 
 the impression and the sympathy which it 
 was his object to excite. Poussin himself, 
 in writing to M. de Chantelou, in answer 
 to his request to paint the picture in ques- 
 tion, says : — u I fear that my trembling 
 hand will fail me in a work which is to 
 accompany Raffaelle ; and I can hardly 
 resolve to set to work unless you promise 
 that my picture shall serve as a covering 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 ns 
 
 to that of Raffaelle.” And, again, when 
 he sent home the picture, in December, 
 1643, he wrote to M. de Chantelou: — 
 “ I entreat, as much to avoid calumny as 
 the confusion I should feel if any one 
 should see my picture hanging up as the 
 companion to that of Raffaelle, that you 
 would keep it apart, and at a distance from 
 what would ruin it, and take from it the 
 little beauty it may possess.” 
 
 The year 1644 was chiefly employed 
 upon the second series of the Sacraments : 
 and never, perhaps, were the mysteries of 
 religion set forth with greater dignity and 
 solemnity than in these pictures. The 
 mind of Poussin was truly devout, and he 
 felt sincerely the importance of the sub- 
 jects he painted. Hence the grave and 
 expressive character of these pictures, par- 
 ticularly of the Extreme Unction, which 
 was the first finished, and sent to Paris 
 early in 1645, and was soon followed by 
 the rest ; of which it was observed, that 
 
114 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 the Marriage was the most feeble, and 
 gave occasion for the Parisian wits to say, 
 that it was difficult to make a good ma- 
 trimonial scheme, even in painting. 
 
 Early in 1647, the Finding of Moses 
 painted for M. Pointel, reached Paris, 
 where it met with such applause that M. 
 de Chantelou expressed some jealousy 
 on account of his own pictures ; upon 
 which Poussin wrote to him as follows 
 
 “ If this picture has given you so much 
 pleasure, it is not because I took more 
 pains with it than with those I painted for 
 you ; but you must attribute it to the na- 
 ture of the subject, which naturally adapts 
 itself to happy composition. Nothing is 
 so difficult as to form a right judgment in 
 painting, especially if one does not unite 
 
 * Richardson saw this picture, early in the last century, 
 at Paris. He says, that “ it is in the best and genteelest 
 style of the master.” It is still in the Louvre in excellent 
 
 preservation. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN, 
 
 115 
 
 great theoretical knowledge to practice* 
 One should therefore never judge hastily. 
 You are not ignorant of one thing which 
 a painter should observe in representing 
 his subject ; this is, that the Greeks, the 
 inventors of the fine arts, discovered se- 
 veral modes by means of which they pro- 
 duced the marvellous effects of their 
 works. I understand by the word mode , 
 the reason, measure, or form which con- 
 fines one within just bounds, and obliges 
 one to work with a certain moderation 
 and determined order, that one may give 
 truth to the work. 
 
 “ The modes of the ancients being com- 
 posed of many parts, it must happen that 
 from the varieties and differences of those 
 parts there will result so many different 
 modes ; and that, from each of these, thus 
 composed of divers parts put together in 
 proportion, there proceeds a secret spring 
 capable of exciting different passions in 
 the soul. Hence the ancients attributed 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 the life of 
 
 to each of these modes a peculiar pro- 
 perty, according to the nature of the ef- 
 fects they were capable of producing : as 
 grave and serious to the Dorian: vehement 
 passion to the Phrygian : to the Lydian 
 every thing agreeable and amiable: to 
 the Ionic every thing belonging to baccha- 
 nals, feasts, and dances. Thus in imit- 
 ation of the poets, painters, and musicians 
 of antiquity, I abide by this plan, which 
 all painters ought to keep in view, that 
 they may express passions conformable 
 to the fiction, and excite corresponding 
 emotions in the mind of the spectator.” 
 
 The next year, 1648, the beautiful pic- 
 ture, before mentioned, of “Rebecca with 
 Eliezer at the Well,” was sent to enrich 
 M. Pointel’s collection. M, Pointel had 
 seen a picture of Guido’s, sent to Cardinal 
 Mazarin from Rome, by the Abbe Ga- 
 vot, representing the Virgin sitting, with 
 a number of beautiful young girls around 
 her, occupied in different employments. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 117 
 
 He was so pleased with this subject, that 
 he wrote to Poussin to paint something in 
 the same taste, where a variety of beauty 
 might be introduced, leaving the choice 
 of the subject to him ; and nothing can 
 be happier than that he made. Rebecca 
 and her companions give full scope for 
 the painter to represent all the varieties 
 of beauty ; and in their drapery, and the 
 landscape, he has exhibited all the ele- 
 gance and antique decorum in which he 
 was so eminently skilled. From the day 
 on which this charming picture appeared 
 in Paris, numerous amateurs offered great 
 sums to M. Pointel to induce him to part 
 with it ; but he constantly refused them, 
 saying, that he valued his friend’s work 
 too highly to deprive himself of it, even 
 for a single day. 
 
 The same year Poussin painted the fine 
 landscape in which the incident of Dio- 
 genes observing the young man drink 
 from the hollow of his hand, is intro- 
 
 i 8 
 
118 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 duced ; it was done for M. Laurague. Of 
 this great painter’s very numerous works, 
 which are nearly five hundred in number, 
 it would probably be impossible, and cer- 
 tainly unnecessary, to mark the succession. 
 But, as he approached his end, his friends 
 appear to have become very careful, to 
 mark the date of his works. In 1650 he 
 painted the picture which furnishes the 
 subject of Fontenelle’s dialogue between 
 Poussin and Leonardo da Vinci. In it 
 the different effects of terror, produced by 
 the sight of a terrible object, and the 
 hearing the sounds, and witnessing the 
 gestures of fear, are dramatically ex- 
 hibited. The hint of the subject is to be 
 found in Apuleius, in his account of the 
 effects of magic, as related to him by 
 Aristomenes. The figures, however ex- 
 pressive, serve only to adorn an exquisite 
 landscape, which was done for M. Pointel, 
 after whose death it was successive!}* pur- 
 chased by M. Duplessis, Rambouillet, and 
 M. Moreau. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN* 
 
 119 
 
 Among the men of talents employed by 
 Louis XIV. to decorate his royal palaces, 
 was the landscape gardener, Le Notre, who 
 used the fortune he had acquired by his 
 own merits, in encouraging and rewarding 
 those of his contemporary artists. He 
 possessed considerable talents for painting, 
 himself, and was not slow to appreciate 
 and encourage those of Poussin, who, in 
 1653, painted for him “ the Woman taken 
 in Adultery which Richardson, when he 
 saw it in Paris, admired extremely for its 
 fine colouring. It has been remarked, 
 however, that, in common with many of 
 his later pictures, it has the great fault 
 that its figures are too short. The same 
 year, 1653, “ the Adoration of the Wise 
 Men” was painted for M. de Mauroy, mi- 
 nister of finance. 
 
 We have already mentioned that M. 
 Stella, Poussin’s intimate friend, succeed- 
 ed him as first painter to the king of 
 France. In consequence of that appoint- 
 
 i 4 
 
120 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ment, he was, in 1644, honoured with the 
 cross of St. Michael. Poussin had paint- 
 ed several pictures for him before that 
 period, and among others Rinaldo and 
 Armida, from Tasso, which is not one of 
 his happiest productions. But for this 
 failure he made ample amends, by paint- 
 ing for him, in 1655, the Exposure of 
 Moses, one of the finest landscapes he 
 ever composed. He had painted nearly 
 about the same time, for the same gen- 
 tleman, Moses striking the Rock, a sub- 
 ject which he repeated three times : once 
 was for M. Gi'lier ; but, as usual with him, 
 he treated it quite differently each time. 
 
 Stella having communicated to him 
 some criticisms on this picture*, particu- 
 larly on account of the depth of the basin 
 into which the water falls, Poussin wrote 
 him the following answer 44 There is no 
 difficulty here ; I am not sorry it should 
 
 * There are some flimsy criticisms on it to be. found in 
 Walpole’s Sermon on Painting. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 121 
 
 be known that I do nothing by chance, 
 and that I understand perfectly what a 
 painter is permitted to do with the sub- 
 jects he has to represent, which may be 
 taken and understood, either as they have 
 been, as they are, or as they will be. 
 The local disposition of the miracle must 
 have been such as I have represented ; 
 because, otherwise, the water could neither 
 have been collected, nor used to supply 
 the wants of so great a multitude of 
 people, but would have been dispersed 
 on all sides. If, at the creation of the 
 world, the earth had received one uni- 
 form figure, and the water had found 
 neither channels nor hollows, the surface 
 would have been covered with it, and 
 useless to the animals ; but, from the 
 beginning, God disposed all things in 
 order, and with relation to the end for 
 which he formed his work. Therefore, 
 at such a remarkable event as that of the 
 striking the rock, we may well believe 
 that a corresponding miracle in the dis- 
 position of the ground took place. How r 
 
122 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ever, as it is not easy for every one to 
 judge of works of art, one should be very 
 careful not to decide hastily.” 
 
 Conformably to this opinion, Poussin 
 has treated the ground and local circum- 
 stances of all the four pictures in the same 
 manner. One of these, which had been 
 in the Orleans collection, is now in the 
 Stafford Gallery, and is, perhaps, the 
 finest of all, though less expressive of the 
 dire thirst of the people than two of the 
 others ; the fourth, which is now in a pri- 
 vate collection in Paris, appears, from the 
 outline printed by Landon, to have less 
 merit than any of the rest. 
 
 The genius of Poussin seems to have 
 gained vigour with age. Nearly his last 
 works, which were begun in 1660, and 
 sent to Paris 1664, were the four pictures 
 allegorical of the seasons, which he paint- 
 ed for the Due de Richelieu. He chose 
 the terrestrial paradise, in all the freshness 
 of creation, to designate spring. The 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 123 
 
 beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth formed 
 the subject of summer. Autumn was 
 aptly pictured, in the two Israelites bear- 
 ing the bunch of grapes from the Pro- 
 mised Land. But the master-piece was 
 Winter, represented in the Deluge. 
 This picture has been, perhaps, the most 
 praised of all Poussin’s works. A narrow 
 space, and a very few persons have sufficed 
 him for this powerful representation of 
 that great catastrophe. The sun’s disk is 
 darkened with clouds ; the lightning- 
 shoots in forked flashes through the air ; 
 nothing but the roofs of the highest 
 houses are visible above the distant water 
 upon which the Ark floats, on a level with 
 the highest mountains. Nearer, where 
 the waters, pent in by rocks, form a cata- 
 ract, a boat is forced down the fall, and 
 the wretches who had sought safety in it 
 are perishing : but the most pathetic in- 
 cident is brought close to the spectator. 
 A mother in a boat is holding up her 
 infant to its father, who, though upon a 
 
124 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 high rock, is evidently not out of reach 
 of the water, and it is only protracting 
 life a very little. One or two figures are 
 seen above the surface of the water, 
 endeavouring to escape ; the domestic 
 animals are mingled with their owners ; 
 and an enormous serpent, which seems to 
 seek shelter on the highest mountains, 
 has been considered as emblematical of 
 the wickedness that drew down the fierce 
 chastisement upon man. 
 
 The dark and lurid colour of this pic- 
 ture seems to correspond with the scene ; 
 and the misty air has a troublous grandeur, 
 in the picture in the Louvre, which is 
 quite lost in the copy in Cardinal Fesche’s 
 collection, where it is merely a leaden sky. 
 
 In the Manuel du Museum Franfois, 
 the Deluge is called the finest that the hand 
 of man has produced ; and in this superla- 
 tive praise, one critic has followed another, 
 till it is become a kind of heresy to dispute 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 125 
 
 its justice. Nevertheless, although the 
 conception be grand, and the two princi- 
 pal incidents not unworthy of Poussin, 
 the effect of the whole picture is un- 
 pleasant. The usual objection to any 
 representation of the deluge is not over- 
 come in this. It is only the inundation 
 of a vallev, terrible indeed, but without 
 the assistance of the Ark in the back- 
 ground, it might pass for an ordinary 
 accident ; the rocks in the fore-ground 
 are such as we daily see at no great 
 elevation, and the very circumstance of 
 the cataract, though fine in itself, shuts 
 out the idea of the deluge, where all the 
 waters must have been level. Neverthe- 
 less, the picture has great power, and the 
 defect is in the subject, not in the painter. 
 Some subjects cannot be painted. Not 
 even Michael Angelo could express, — 
 66 And God said, let there be light, and 
 there was light.” And though the figure 
 of the Christ, in his Last Judgment, be one 
 before which it seems as if no guilty man 
 
126 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 could stand erect. Yet that great pic- 
 ture, on the whole, must, as the visible 
 day of account to all, be considered a 
 failure, notwithstanding that the groupes, 
 of which it is composed, are individually 
 of almost super-human grandeur. 
 
 The long and honourable race of Pous- 
 sin was now nearly run. Early in the 
 following year, 1665, he was slightly af- 
 fected by palsy, and the only picture of 
 figures that he painted afterwards was the 
 Samaritan Woman at the Well, which he 
 sent to M. de Chantelou, with a note, in 
 which he says, — 46 This is my last work ; 
 I have already one foot in the grave.” 
 Shortly afterwards he wrote the following 
 letter to M. Felibien. 44 I could not an- 
 swer the letter which your brother, M. le 
 Prieur de St. Clementin, forwarded to me, 
 a few days after his arrival in this city, 
 sooner, my usual infirmities being in- 
 creased by a very troublesome cold, which 
 continues and annoys me very much. I 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 121 
 
 must now thank you not only for your 
 remembrance, but for the kindness you 
 have done me, bv not reminding the 
 prince of the wish he once expressed to 
 possess some of my works. It is too late 
 for him to be well served ; I am become 
 too infirm, and the palsy hinders me in 
 working, so that I have given up the 
 pencil for some time, and think only of 
 preparing for death, which I feel bodily 
 upon me. It is all over with me.” He 
 ends this letter with a critique upon a 
 new book upon painting. “ We have N.,” 
 he observes, “ who writes upon the lives 
 and works of modern painters. His style 
 is bombastic, without spirit and without 
 science. He handles painting like a man 
 who has neither practice nor theory : 
 several who have dared to make the same 
 attempt have been rewarded, as they 
 deserve, by ridicule,” &c. 
 
 Excepting Vasari, no foreign painter 
 has found time to write the lives of Ms 
 
128 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 brother artists; and it is an office which 
 may be as well performed by others : 
 but the criticism and theory of paint- 
 ing have always been best treated by 
 those who united practice to their theory; 
 and this consideration renders it matter 
 of regret that Poussin has written so lit- 
 tle. The admirers of Raffaelle Mengs, 
 jealous of Poussin’s title of 66 the Painter 
 of Philosophers,” conferred on him the 
 antithetical one of 66 the Philosopher of 
 Painters;” and it cannot be denied that his 
 writings and his pictures are learned. Yet 
 he is a remarkable instance of the folly of 
 learned quackery : his reputation having 
 now sunk as much below his deserts, as 
 it was once raised above them. In one 
 of his celebrated works, the ceiling of the 
 banquetting room at the Villa Albani, the 
 theme of Winkelman’s praises, and of the 
 admiration of his generation, he has la- 
 vished all his learning. From the Gar- 
 land of Apollo, to the great ultra-marine 
 globe to which Urania is not looking, 
 every thing has authority ; yet who ever 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 129 
 
 looked at the picture without disappoint- 
 ment ; or, in gazing at it, who ever felt 
 either the glow of admiration, or that 
 forgetfulness of the author, in the excel- 
 lencies of his work, which the good pic- 
 tures of Italy so often inspire ? How 
 different are the pictures, and writings 
 on painting, of English painters ! The 
 feeling and beauty of Reynolds’s pictures 
 veil whatever defects he may be charged 
 with. The grace and the nature of his 
 figures win the spectator, and, in excusing 
 the faults of any one of his pictures, he 
 feels as if taking the part of a favourite or 
 friend, whose very failures are amiable. 
 He saw nature in her sweetest, kindest, 
 and most careless moments ; but Mengs 
 never looked at her, but through the 
 perspective of art. Nor are their writings 
 less different than their painting. Mengs 
 fettered his reason by rules, and subject- 
 ed the philosophy of art to art itself. 
 Reynolds’s expansive mind made rules 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 subservient to reason, and proved that 
 they could be best adopted, and most 
 skilfully used by those who make them 
 the means, not the principles, of action. 
 Mengs’s works will seldom be read but 
 by artists. The lectures of Reynolds are 
 as comprehensive as the mind of man, 
 and will be relished by all ; for they em- 
 brace and generalise every subject upon 
 which art may exercise itself, either for 
 the delight or the improvement of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The lectures of Fuseli and Opie, the 
 works of Northcote, those of Shee, and 
 some others, might be quoted for learn- 
 ing, good sense, and knowledge of paint- 
 ing ; but they have not that philosophical 
 breadth , if I may borrow a term of art, 
 which makes the discourses of Reynolds 
 equally applicable to every art, and every 
 science, in which taste is concerned, or 
 whose object is to give refined and in- 
 tellectual pleasure. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 131 
 
 Had Poussin written on art, his works, 
 though they might have partaken of the 
 stiffness of Mengs, would, if we may 
 judge by his pictures, have conformed 
 with the principles of Reynolds. Ido- 
 later as he was of ancient art, he never 
 lost sight of nature; and even when he 
 took his general forms and attitudes from 
 the antique, his details were finished from 
 the life. 
 
 The last letter he ever wrote contains 
 some hints upon the general principles of 
 art; and it is given here not only as a 
 proof how well his practice accorded with 
 his theory, but of the modesty with which 
 he estimated himself. 
 
 Poussin to M. de Chantelou. 
 
 “ I must, at length, endeavour to awake 
 after my long silence. I must raise my 
 voice while my pulse still faintly beats. 
 I have had full leisure to read and to 
 weigh your book upon the perfect idea of 
 painting, which has been a sweet solace 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to my afflicted mind. I rejoice that you 
 are the first Frenchman to ppen the eyes 
 of those who see only through the me- 
 dium of others, and suffer themselves to 
 be led astray after the crowd. Now 
 you have warmed and softened a metal, 
 hitherto stiff and difficult to handle, so 
 that henceforth others may be found, 
 who, by imitating you, will give us some- 
 thing useful upon painting. After hav- 
 ing considered the distribution that the 
 Sieur Franpois Junius makes of the parts 
 of this noble art, I venture briefly to write 
 down here what I have learned from him. 
 It is necessary, first, to know what the 
 nature of imitation is, and to define it. 
 
 “ DEFINITION. 
 
 “ Painting is an imitation by means of 
 lines and colours, on some superficies, of 
 every thing that can be seen under the 
 sun ; its end is to please. 
 
 44 Principles that every man capable of 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 IS3 
 
 reasoning may learn : — There can be 
 nothing represented without light, 
 
 without form, 
 without colour, 
 without distance, 
 without an instru- 
 ment, or medium. 
 
 “ Things which are not to be learned , and 
 which make an essential part of painting : 
 
 66 First, the subject must be noble. It 
 should have received no quality from the 
 mere workman; and to allow scope to the 
 painter to display his powers, he should 
 choose it capable of receiving the most 
 excellent form. He must begin by com- 
 position, then ornament, propriety, beauty, 
 grace* vivacity, costume, probability, and 
 judgment, in each and all. These last 
 belong solely to the painter, and cannot 
 be taught. They are the golden bough 
 of Virgil, which no man can find or gather 
 if his fate do not lead him to it. These 
 nine parts deserve, on several accounts, to 
 
 k $ 
 
134 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 be treated by some good and learned 
 author. 
 
 “ I beg you will consider this slight 
 sketch, and tell me unceremoniously what 
 you think of it. I know that you are not 
 only skilful in keeping up the flame in a 
 lamp, but that you can feed it with the 
 best oil. I would say more ; but now, 
 when I apply my head attentively to any 
 serious matter, I am the worse for it. For 
 the rest, I blush to see myself placed in 
 a rank with men whose merit and virtue 
 are as much above mine as the planet 
 Saturn is above ours. It is a compli- 
 ment for which I am indebted to your 
 friendship,” &c. 
 
 The affliction of mind, which he speaks 
 of in the beginning of this letter, was oc- 
 casioned by the death of his wife, which 
 happened early in the year 1665, the last 
 of his own life. He had already become 
 paralytic himself, and the loss of one who 
 had so long been his companion and 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 135 
 
 friend, seems to have accelerated his 
 death. When he wrote to M. de Chan- 
 telou, to apprise him of his great loss, 
 he was so feeble that it took him ten days 
 to write his letter. He was so sensible 
 of his approaching end, that he recom- 
 mended his family affairs, and particularly 
 those concerning his relations at Andelys*, 
 to that excellent friend’s care, after which 
 he wrote no more himself, excepting the 
 letter above quoted. His brother-in-law, 
 John Dughet, wrote for him, and he 
 soon became too helpless to leave the 
 house. By a letter from M. Dughet to 
 M. de Chantelou, dated 28th of October, 
 we learn that a painful abscess and an in- 
 flammation of the bowels were added to 
 his other maladies. His understanding, 
 however, continued unimpaired until the 
 19th of November, when he expired 
 about mid-day, in the seventy-second 
 
 * The family of his sister, who had married a man of 
 that town named Le Tellier. Her son, John Le Tel- 
 lier, had a considerable talent for painting, and some of 
 his altar-pieces in the churches, in that part of Normandy, 
 possess merit. 
 
 K 4 
 
136 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 year of his age. He had made his will 
 about two months before, forbidding any 
 unnecessary expense at his funeral, and 
 disposing of his property, which amounted 
 to about fifty thousand livres, as follows : 
 One thousand crowns to the relations of 
 his wife, one thousand to his niece, 
 Frances Le Tellier, residing at Andelys, 
 and appointing his nephew, Jean Le Tel- 
 lier, residuary legatee. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was a private man more 
 deeply regretted than Nicholas Poussin. 
 The tempered vivacity of his convers- 
 ation, the affectionate regard with which 
 he treated his friends and relations, the 
 modesty which prevented his giving of- 
 fence, and the easy unostentatious manner 
 in which he loved to discourse upon his 
 art, rendered his society invaluable, both 
 as a man and a painter. His death caused 
 a general sensation in Rome, his adopted 
 country. All the friends of art assem- 
 bled to accompany his remains to the 
 Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina , where 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 137 
 
 he was buried *, and where there are two 
 Latin inscriptions in his honour. 
 
 Some years afterwards the Chevalier 
 d’Agincourt placed a marble bust, with 
 a suitable inscription, in honour of Pous- 
 sin, in which he is called the Painter of 
 Philosophers, in the Pantheon. Another 
 is with great propriety placed as a com- 
 panion to that of RafFaelle, in the vesti- 
 bule of the French Academy of Fine 
 Arts at Rome, and of late years an ex- 
 cellent statue of Poussin was executed 
 by a French sculptor. 
 
 In his person Poussin was tall and well 
 proportioned, and of a good constitu- 
 tion. His complexion was olive, his hair 
 
 * In the gallery of the Louvre (1820), there is a pleas- 
 ing little picture, by Bergeret, representing the funeral 
 service of Poussin. Cardinal Massimi, Gaspar Poussin, 
 and one of his sisters, Lanfranc, Algarde, St. Nicaise, and 
 one or two more of Poussin’s most intimate friends, are 
 represented surrounding the bier on which the body is 
 half exposed, according to the Italian manner of perform- 
 ing funerals. 
 
138 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 black, but it became very grey towards 
 the end of his life; his eyes were blue, 
 his nose rather long, his forehead large, 
 and his look both dignified and modest. 
 
 There is a portrait of him in the gal- 
 lery of the Louvre, probably that which 
 he painted for M. de Chantelou, who had 
 often entreated to have it. Poussin told 
 him he did not know an artist in Rome 
 capable of doing it well, and, therefore, on 
 his friend repeating his request, he under- 
 took it himself, though it cost him some 
 trouble, as it was twenty-eight years since 
 he had done such a thing. A picture 
 like that in the Louvre, with some little 
 difference in the back-ground, is in the 
 Rospigliosi Palace at Rome, and is proba- 
 bly an original, as the family of Rospigliosi 
 were among his friends and patrons. 
 
 After the few first years of his re- 
 sidence in Rome, and still more after his 
 return from Paris, Poussin might have 
 commanded any fortune; but his desires 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 139 
 
 were very moderate, and after he had 
 fixed the price of his pictures, which he 
 rather under-valued, he specified the sum 
 on the back of the piece : if after that 
 any one sent him more than the price 
 fixed, he returned the money. He had 
 also a habit of accompanying each picture, 
 when he sent it home, by a letter, ex- 
 plaining his reasons for the particular 
 manner in which he had treated the sub- 
 ject ; thus answering beforehand what- 
 ever criticism it might meet with. 
 
 The character of Poussin as a painter 
 cannot be better given than in the words 
 of Reynolds, who, after characterising the 
 style of Reubens, says, 66 Opposed to this 
 florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate style, 
 that of the simple, careful, pure, and cor- 
 rect style of Poussin seems to be a com- 
 plete contrast. Yet, however opposite 
 their characters, in one thing they agreed; 
 both of them always preserving a perfect 
 correspondence between all the parts. of 
 
140 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 their respective manners ; insomuch that 
 it may be doubted whether any alteration 
 of what is considered defective in either, 
 would not destroy the effect of the whole. 
 
 “ Poussin lived and conversed with the 
 ancient statues so long, that he may be 
 said to have been better acquainted with 
 them than with the people about him. I 
 have often thought that he carried his 
 veneration for them so far, as to wish to 
 give his works the air of ancient paintings. 
 It is certain he copied some of the an- 
 tique paintings, particularly the Marriage 
 in the Aldobrandini Palace at *Rome, 
 which I believe to be the best relique of 
 those remote ages that has yet been found. 
 
 “ No works of any modern have so 
 much the air of antique painting, as those 
 of Poussin. His best performances have 
 a remarkable dryness of manner, which, 
 though by no means to be recommended 
 
 * Now in the Vatican. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 141 
 
 for imitation, yet seems perfectly corre- 
 spondent to that ancient simplicity which 
 distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro, he 
 studied the ancients so much, that he ac- 
 quired a habit of thinking in their way, 
 and seemed to know perfectly the actions 
 and gestures they would use on every 
 occasion. 
 
 “ Poussin, in the latter part of his life, 
 changed from his dry manner to one 
 much softer and richer, where there is a 
 greater union between the figures and 
 ground ; as in the Seven Sacraments, 
 in the Duke of Orleans’s collection ; but 
 neither these, nor any of his other pic- 
 tures in this manner, are at all compar- 
 able to many in his dry manner, which 
 we have in England. 
 
 66 The favourite subjects of Poussin 
 were ancient fables ; and no painter was 
 ever better qualified to paint such sub- 
 jects, not only from his being eminently 
 
142 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 skilled in the knowledge of the cere- 
 monies, customs, and habits of the an- 
 cients, but from his being so well ac- 
 quainted with the different characters 
 which those who invented them gave to 
 their allegorical figures. 
 
 “ Though Reubens has shewn great 
 fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns ; 
 yet they are not that distinct separate 
 class of beings, which is carefully exhi- 
 bited by the ancients, and by Poussin. 
 Certainly, when such objects of antiquity 
 are represented, nothing in the picture 
 ought to remind us of modern times. 
 The mind is thrown back into antiquity, 
 and nothing ought to be introduced that 
 may tend to awaken us from the illusion. 
 
 “ Poussin seemed to think that the 
 style and the language in which such 
 stories are told, is not the worse for pre- 
 serving some relish of the old way of 
 painting, which seemed to give a general 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 143 
 
 air of uniformity to the whole ; so that 
 the mind was thrown back into antiquity, 
 not only by the subject, but the execution. 
 
 “ If Poussin, in imitation of the an- 
 cients, represents Apollo driving his cha- 
 riot out of the sea, by way of represent- 
 ing the sun rising ; if he personifies lakes 
 and rivers, it is nowise offensive in him, 
 but seems perfectly of a piece with the 
 general air of the picture. On the con- 
 trary, if the figures which people his 
 pictures had a modern air or counte- 
 nance, if they appeared like our country- 
 men, if the draperies were like cloth or 
 silk of our manufacture, if the landscape 
 had the appearance of a modern view, 
 how ridiculous would Apollo appear in- 
 stead of the sun ; an old man, or a nymph, 
 with an urn, to represent a river or a 
 lake.” 
 
 Poussin is, in the strict sense of the 
 word, an historical painter. Michael An- 
 
144 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 gelo, is too intent on the sublime, too 
 much occupied with the effect of the 
 whole, to tell a common history. His 
 conceptions are epic, and his persons, and 
 his colours, have as little to do with or- 
 dinary life, as the violent action of his 
 actors have resemblance to the usually 
 indolent state of ordinary men. Raf- 
 faelle’s figures interest so much in them- 
 selves, that they make us forget that they 
 are only part of a history. We follow 
 them eagerly, as we do the personages 
 of a drama ; we grieve, we hope, we de- 
 spair, and we rejoice with them. Pous- 
 sin’s figures, on the contrary, tell their 
 story; we feel not the intimate acquaint- 
 ance with themselves, that we do with 
 the creations of Raffaelle. His Cicero 
 would thunder in the forum, and dissipate 
 a conspiracy, and we should take leave of 
 him with respect at the end of the scene; 
 but with Raffaelle’s we should feel in 
 haste to quit the tumult, and retire with 
 
 him to his Tusculum, and learn to love 
 
 10 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 145 
 
 the virtues, and almost to cherish the 
 weaknesses of such a man. 
 
 Poussin has shown that grace and ex- 
 pression may be independent on what is 
 commonly called beauty. His women 
 have none of that soft, easy, and attractive 
 air, which many other painters have found 
 the secret of imparting, not only to their 
 Venuses and Graces, but to their Ma- 
 donnas and Saints. His beauties are 
 austere and dignified. Minerva and the 
 Muses appear to have been his models, 
 rather than the inhabitants of Mount Ci- 
 thaeron. Hence subjects of action are more 
 suited to him than those of repose. His 
 Holy Families are far below his other pic- 
 tures, for that reason ; however learnedly 
 he may have disposed the figures, however 
 beautifully the children may be drawn, 
 (and in drawing children he has been 
 surpassed by few ;) however exquisite the 
 scenery in which he has placed his groupe, 
 the want of that delicate feminine, lovely, 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 yet chaste beauty in the Virgin, makes us 
 turn away, with cold approbation at most. 
 
 In such subjects, too, the defective 
 colouring, and the neglect of chiaroscuro, 
 are much more apparent than in others. 
 The little character of the subject itself, 
 the innumerable pictures of the same, 
 which have driven the nomenclators of 
 pictures to designate them by the names 
 of some accidental circumstance, such as 
 the chair *, the bowl, &c. are such dis- 
 advantages, that it requires every thing 
 that art and nature can do to make a new 
 “ Holy Family” interesting; and when any 
 of the great resources of painting are want- 
 ing, the picture must suffer accordingly. 
 
 It is different in a pure history : the 
 persons are there to tell the story, and we 
 more willingly excuse bad or harsh colour, 
 or a scattered light, provided it does not 
 
 * Raffaelle’s beautiful Madonna della Seggiola, in the 
 Pitti Palace, and Correggio’s Madonna della Scudella, &c> 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 147 
 
 lead to confusion. Where, as in most of 
 Poussin’s best histories, the figures are 
 arranged as in a bas-relief, the light and 
 shadow would naturally fall as he has 
 usually managed it ; and it accords well 
 with the character of his composition. 
 This arrangement was certainly his choice: 
 he was sparing of his figures, and 
 used to say, that one figure too much 
 spoiled a picture. Hence he would not 
 introduce persons not absolutely neces- 
 sary to the action, for the sake of giving 
 roundness to a groupe, or of extending 
 or concentrating a mass of light. He 
 intended his personages to tell their story, 
 and to do nothing else ; and he has suc- 
 ceeded beyond any other painter in doing 
 this. The eye may not always be satis- 
 fied, but Poussin can always afford to 
 appeal to the understanding, which will 
 not fail to pronounce in his favour. 
 
 As the end of painting, however, is to 
 please, it f may be a question whether this 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 great painter has not carried his attention 
 to expression, which was his principal 
 end, too far. In one or two instances has 
 he not excited disgust on the first sight of 
 the picture ? and does it not require an 
 effort of the mind to bring it back to the 
 contemplation of the excellencies that 
 are to be found in it? These are his 
 defects, — defects that every one may 
 detect, and about which the least knowing 
 in art will talk the most. His merits, 
 on the other hand, being difficult in the 
 attainment, and rare in the possession, 
 are not so readily acknowledged. No 
 man perhaps ever equalled him in the 
 choice of subjects, or in the happiest 
 moment in which to seize his history; 
 as, in the Saving of Pyrrhus. The rebels 
 have just reached the party, and are seen 
 fighting with the guards of the young 
 Prince ; the Megarians, on the other side 
 of the river, beckoning, show that there is 
 a probability of safety ; but there is still 
 enough of uncertainty to give interest 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 149 
 
 and action to the piece. None better 
 than Poussin knew how to excite the 
 passions and affections. The Murder of 
 the Innocents, though it affords an ex- 
 ample of his having done too much, is 
 also an instance of his power over the 
 heart, and how well he knew to unlock 
 the springs “ that tie the hidden soul” of 
 sympathy. And there was never moral 
 tale or fable that spoke more to the 
 mind than his picture of the Arcadian 
 Shepherds. 
 
 These qualities belong to his under- 
 standing, and would have been the same 
 with little or no learning. But the greater 
 part of his pictures are such as it required, 
 not only taste and understanding, but 
 learning in its various branches, parti- 
 cularly a thorough acquaintance with 
 history, poetry, and antiquity, to pro- 
 duce. Whether his subject be Jew- 
 ish, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman, he 
 knew the habits, and understood the man- 
 l 8 
 
ISO 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ners that should characterise each people. 
 The Rape of the Sabines, the Corio- 
 lanus, in short, there is hardly one of his 
 pictures that may not be quoted as an 
 example of this excellence. In subjects 
 of ancient fable, it is needless to say 
 more, after what has been already quoted 
 from Reynolds. And of his “ land- 
 scape,” Lanzi says, “ I do not mean to 
 exaggerate, when I say, that the Caracci 
 improved the art of landscape-painting, 
 and Poussin brought it to perfection.” 
 He applied himself particularly to give 
 truth to his scenery : his trees, his rocks, 
 his skies, have all nature in them, nature 
 in her truest and most beautiful form. 
 And his landscapes are peopled with 
 graceful and appropriate figures, so that 
 the inspirations of the ancient pastoral 
 poets seem to have descended upon him ; 
 and we may often fancy that we see 
 in 66 Tempo’s vales her native maids,” 
 or the Brides of Albano, approaching , 
 the temple of Hippolytus, in the groves 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 151 
 
 of Aricia, to consecrate their locks, in the 
 presence of Diana, on the altar of her 
 favourite. 
 
 There is little danger, in this country, 
 that any artist should fall into the defects 
 of Poussin. The national taste is directed 
 towards a more splendid style. Reubens 
 has more admirers, and might have more 
 followers here, than Poussin ; but our 
 young artists would be no losers if they 
 were to follow Poussin’s example in the 
 diligence with which he sought after what 
 he wished to gain. Let their ambition be 
 to paint splendid pictures, and on a gigan- 
 tic scale : but will they be the worse for 
 correctness, for learning, for expression ? 
 w There is no royal road to painting 
 and it must be confessed, that the path 
 Poussin pursued was steep and rocky ; but 
 then he attained the vantage-ground he 
 aimed at, and what a wide expanse it open- 
 ed to him ! Whatever there may be in his 
 style to avoid, he is to be followed in the 
 l 4 
 
152 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 diligence and method of his studies. 
 Lanzi calls him the perfect model for one 
 who would study in Rome. His passion 
 for the antique, indeed, perhaps induced 
 him to neglect the living model too 
 often ; but that is not the fault of indo- 
 lence, and if to his accurate drawings, and 
 measurements * and models after the best 
 statues, he had added half as much prac- 
 tice from nature in his figures as in his 
 landscapes, he might have been perhaps a 
 perfect painter. 
 
 One thing may be observed, with regard 
 to the consequences of studying painting 
 exclusively in Rome. Form and expres- 
 sion become the painter’s whole ideal 
 world. The great masters there are not 
 great for their colour or their chiaroscuro; 
 and an artist, who is forming himself, 
 would do well to see other schools and 
 
 * This measurement of the statue once called the 
 Antinous, and since various names, has been published, 
 and may be considered as correct and useful. 
 
NICHOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 153 
 
 other habits before he finally resolves 
 where to fix the point at which he aims. 
 At Venice, Poussin would have been a 
 colourist. He might not probably have 
 been the better for the change ; but un- 
 less a very strong feeling of preference 
 for, or powers adapted to, such a style as 
 Poussin’s, determine the artist, there can 
 be no doubt but the English student 
 would please his countrymen better, if he 
 brought home more from Venice than 
 from Rome. 
 
 This imperfect sketch of the life, cha- 
 racter, and studies of Poussin, is humbly 
 offered to the English artists by a lover of 
 art, who has not the slightest pretension 
 to connoisseurship, but who has ventured 
 to say what appears, to an unprejudiced 
 person, to be the truth, in hopes that some 
 benefit may be derived from it as truth, if 
 it may not aspire to excite any great inte- 
 rest on other grounds. 
 
 END OF THE LIFE. 
 

 ■ 
 
 ■ ' 
 
 ■ 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 m • m . 
 
TWO DIALOGUES 
 
 BY FENELON. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF TWO OF POUSSIN’S PICTURES. 
 
 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 Parrhasius and Poussin. 
 
 Parr . It is now a good while since we 
 were taught to expect your arrival : you 
 must have been pretty old when you died. 
 
 Pouss. Yes ; and I continued to paint to 
 a good old age. 
 
 Parr. Here they have prepared rather 
 an honourable place for you, at the head 
 of the French painters. If they had put 
 you among the Italians, you would have 
 been in better company. But those 
 painters, that Vassari boasts of every 
 day, would have quarrelled with you for 
 ever. There are the two schools of Lom- 
 bardy and Florence, without mentioning 
 
156 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 that afterwards formed at Rome. All these 
 fellows are continually plaguing us with 
 their jealousy. They had taken Apelles, 
 Zeuxis, and me forjudges ; but we should 
 have had more to do to make them agree 
 than the whole business of Minos, iEacus, 
 and Rhadamanthus. They are even jealous 
 of the ancients, and dare to compare 
 themselves with us : their vanity is in- 
 supportable. 
 
 Pouss . No comparison should be drawn, 
 because none of your works remain to be 
 judged of ; and I fancy you do nothing of 
 the kind on the shores of Styx. It is 
 rather too dark here for good colouring, 
 perspective, and gradation of light. A 
 picture painted here could be nothing but 
 a night-piece ; all would be dull. But to 
 return to the ancients, I acknowledge 
 that the general prejudice is in your 
 favour. There is reason to think that 
 your art, which is of the same nature as 
 sculpture, had been carried to the same 
 degree of perfection and that your pic- 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 157 
 
 tures equalled the statues of Praxiteles, 
 of Scopas, and of Phidias ; but none of 
 your works have come down to us, and 
 we cannot therefore compare them. Thus 
 you are beyond our aim, and you keep us 
 at a respectful distance. One thing is very 
 true, — that we modem painters owe our 
 best works to the antique models that we 
 have studied in bas-reliefs. These bas- 
 reliefs, though they belong to sculpture, 
 give a good insight as to the taste of paint- 
 ing in your time. They are half pictures. 
 
 Parr . I am delighted to find a modern 
 painter so just and so modest. You feel 
 that when Zeuxis painted grapes which 
 deceived birds, nature must have been 
 well imitated to deceive nature * herself. 
 When I afterwards painted the curtain, 
 which deceived the learned eye of the great 
 
 % It is scarcely necessary to point out the fallacy of 
 this test of painting, as applied to the higher branches of 
 art. At that rate, the Newfoundland dog who attempted 
 to leap into the sea in the Panorama, would furnish an 
 argument for setting Mr. Barker above Raffaelle, and his 
 beautiful deceptive landscapes above the Stanze of the 
 Vatican or the cartoons. 
 
158 
 
 fenfxon’s dialogues 
 
 Zeuxis, he confessed himself overcome. 
 See to what a length we carried the 
 charming deception. No, no ; it is not for 
 nothing that we have been praised for 
 centuries. But tell me something about 
 your own works. Phocion heard here 
 that you had painted some fine pictures, in 
 which he is complimented. He was very 
 much pleased to hear it. Is it true ? 
 
 Pouss. Certainly, I represented two slaves 
 carrying his body out of Athens. They 
 both appeared affected, but the two griefs 
 were alike in nothing. The first slave is 
 old ; he is wrapped in neglected drapery ; 
 the naked arms and legs show a strong 
 muscular man ; his colour marks a body 
 inured to labour. The other is young, 
 clad in a tunic with graceful folds : the 
 two attitudes are different, though the 
 action be the same, and the air of their 
 heads very different, though both of a 
 servile cast. 
 
 Parr. Well ; art imitates nature well 
 only when it catches the infinite variety 
 of her works. But the dead man — 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 159 
 
 Pouss, The dead man is concealed under 
 a confused drapery that enwraps him, and 
 this drapery is poor and negligent. In 
 this funeral all is calculated to excite grief 
 and pity. 
 
 Parr . Then the dead body is not seen ? 
 
 Pouss . Under the confused drapery one 
 cannot fail to remark the form of the head 
 and body. As to the legs, they are un- 
 covered, and in them is seen not only 
 the livid colour of the flesh, but the stiff- 
 ness and heaviness of the worn-out dead 
 limbs. The two slaves carry the body 
 along a high road, and pass by great 
 square-hewn stones ; some of which are 
 raised in regular order above the others, 
 so that they appear to be the ruins of some 
 majestic building. The road is beaten and 
 sandy. 
 
 Parr . What have you placed on the 
 two sides of your picture, to accompany 
 your principal figures ? 
 
 Pouss . On the right are a few trees, 
 whose bark is nigged and knotty. They 
 
160 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 have but few branches, and the pale 
 foliage is insensibly lost in the dull blue 
 of the sky ; behind their tall trunks the 
 city of Athens is seen. 
 
 Parr . You must have a well-marked 
 contrast on the left hand. 
 
 Pouss . It is this : a rugged country — 
 where you see hollows in very strong 
 shadow, and very bright points of rocks. 
 In one place a few very wild bushes ; a 
 little above, a road leading to a dark thick 
 wood, and a very clear sky gives still more 
 effect to the dull green. 
 
 Parr . Well, that is good ; I see that 
 you are acquainted with the grand art in 
 colouring, to strengthen one by placing it 
 near its opposite. 
 
 Pouss . Beyond the rugged ground there 
 is a fresh young green-sward. There a 
 shepherd, leaning on his crook, is busy 
 looking at his flock, white as snow, which 
 is wandering and feeding in a meadow. 
 The shepherd’s dog is lying asleep behind 
 him. On this plain there is another road, 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 161 
 
 along which a waggon, drawn by oxen, is 
 passing. You are struck at once with the 
 weight and strength of these animals, 
 whose necks are bent to the ground, and 
 who move slowly along. A rustic is be- 
 fore the waggon, and behind is a woman, 
 who appears to be the faithful companion 
 of the simple countryman. Two other 
 women in veils are in the waggon. 
 
 Parr . Nothing gives more pleasure than 
 these rural pictures ; we owe them to the 
 poets ; they began to give the simple 
 artless graces of nature in their verses ; 
 we have followed them. The ornaments of 
 a country where nature is in beauty, pre- 
 sent more imagery than all the magni- 
 ficence that art has been able to invent. 
 
 Pouss. To the right on this road, on a 
 roan horse, there is a rider, wrapped in a 
 red cloak : both the man and horse lean 
 forward ; they seem to start off with in- 
 creased speed; the maner of the horse, the 
 hair of the man, his cloak, all are flowing, 
 and blown back by the wind. 
 
162 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 Parr . Those who only understand the 
 painting of graceful figures have attain- 
 ed but to the middle style. Action and 
 motion must be given, figures must be 
 animated, and the passions of the soul 
 expressed ; 1 see you have entered well 
 into the spirit of the ancients. 
 
 Pouss . A little more forward, turf ap- 
 pears on a sandy ground, and on the grass 
 are three figures. One is standing in 
 a white robe, with ample flowing folds. 
 The two others are sitting by on the 
 waterside ; one of them is playing on a 
 lyre. Beyond the turf there is a square 
 building ornamented with bas-reliefs and 
 festoons in a good style of simple yet 
 noble architecture. It is doubtless the 
 tomb of some citizen who has died with 
 less virtue, but more riches, than Phocion. 
 
 Parr. I do not forget that you have 
 talked to me of the water. — Is it the 
 Athenian river called Ilissus ? 
 
 Pouss . Yes: it appears in two places; 
 by the tomb the water is pure and clear ; 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 163 
 
 the serene sky reflected in it renders it 
 yet more beautiful ; young willows and 
 other tender shrubs 5 whose freshness de- 
 lights the eye, grow on the bank. 
 
 Parr . So far I have nothing to wish. 
 But you have still a great and difficult 
 object to set before me ; there I fear for 
 you. 
 
 Pouss. What? 
 
 Parr . The city. — There you must shew 
 yourself acquainted with history, costume, 
 and architecture. 
 
 Pouss . I painted the great city of 
 Athens, on the declivity of a long hill, 
 to display it better. The buildings rise 
 by degrees, in a natural amphitheatre. 
 The city does not appear large at first 
 sight : near the spectator but a small por- 
 tion is seen ; but the back-ground, as it 
 goes off, shews a great extent of building. 
 
 Parr . Have you avoided confusion? 
 
 Pouss. I have avoided both confusion 
 and symmetry ; I made a number of irre- 
 gular buildings ; they nevertheless make 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 eenelon’s dialogues 
 
 an agreeable groupe, where every thing 
 takes its most natural place. All is com- 
 prehended and distinguished at once ; all 
 unites and makes a whole ; so there is ap- 
 parent confusion, but real order when 
 looked into. 
 
 Parr . Have you not brought forward 
 any principal building ? 
 
 Pouss. Yes, two great temples. Each 
 has a large enclosure, as it should have, 
 where the body of the temple is distin- 
 guished from the surrounding buildings. 
 The temple to the right has a portico, 
 adorned with four large columns of the 
 Corinthian order, a pediment, and statues. 
 Round this temple garlands are hanging. 
 It is a solemnity which I wished to repre- 
 sent with historic truth. While Phocion 
 was carrying out of the town to the fune- 
 ral pile, the people celebrated a feast with 
 pomp and joy round the temple. Al- 
 though the figures are far off, one may 
 easily see their acts of devotional joy in 
 honour of the gods. Behind the temple 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 165 
 
 appears a large high tower ; on the top of 
 which is the statue of some divinity : 
 this however appears like a great column. 
 
 Parr. Whence did you take the idea? 
 
 Pouss. I don’t remember ; but certainly 
 from the antique, for I never took the 
 liberty of giving the ancients any thing 
 that was not taken from their own monu- 
 ments. There is also an obelisk near the 
 tower. 
 
 Parr. And the other temple, — have 
 you nothing to say about it ? 
 
 Pouss. The other temple is a round 
 edifice supported by columns : the archi- 
 tecture is singular and majestic. In the 
 enclosure are several large buildings with 
 pediments : a few trees partly conceal it. 
 I wished to mark a sacred grove. 
 
 Parr. Let us come to the body of the 
 town. 
 
 Pouss. I thought I ought to mark the 
 various times of the republic of Athens ; 
 its first simplicity, even towards the heroic 
 ages, and its magnificence in the times 
 
 m 3 
 
166 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 when the arts flourished. Therefore I 
 made a good many round or square edi- 
 fices, with regular architecture, and also 
 several marking a rude and warlike age : 
 in these all is irregular ; towers, battle- 
 ments, high walls, and small, simple, un- 
 equal buildings. One thing renders the 
 town agreeable ; it is, that there is every 
 where a mixture of large buildings and 
 trees. I thought it necessary to have 
 some green to represent the sacred groves 
 belonging to the temples, and the trees 
 of the Gymnasia, and other public places. 
 I have every where endeavoured to avoid 
 buildings like those of my own time and 
 country, in order to give to antiquity a 
 distinguished character. 
 
 Parr . All this is judiciously observed. 
 But I do not see the Acropolis : did you 
 forget it ? it would be a pity. 
 
 Pouss . I took care not to do that ; it is 
 behind the town, on the top of the moun- 
 tain that commands the declivity ; at its 
 foot are huge buildings, fortified bv 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 167 
 
 towers. The mountain is covered with 
 an agreeable verdure. The citadel itself 
 appears to be a large enclosure, with an 
 old tower, which shoots up to the clouds. 
 You will remark that the city, which 
 slopes to the left, recedes insensibly, and 
 loses itself between a very dark grove, 
 of which I spoke before; and a little clump 
 of trees, of a brown, deep green on the 
 bank of the river. 
 
 Parr . I am not yet satisfied : what did 
 you put behind the town ? 
 
 Pouss. A distance of wild and sharp 
 mountains. One immediately behind 
 the temple, and the joyous solemnity I 
 spoke of, is a bare and frightful rock. I 
 I thought I ought to make the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of the city cultivated 
 and agreeable, as that of great towns al- 
 ways is. But I gave a wilder beauty to 
 the distance, in conformity with history, 
 which represents Attica as a rude and 
 sterile country. 
 
 Parr . I own that my curiosity is fully 
 m 4 
 
168 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 satisfied ; and I should be jealous for the 
 glory of the ancients if one could be so of a 
 man who has imitated them so modestly. 
 
 Pouss. Remember, at least, that if I have 
 talked long about my own work, I only 
 did it because I would not refuse you 
 any thing, and that I might submit to 
 your judgment. 
 
 Parr . After so many centuries you 
 have done more honour to Phocion than 
 his country would have done, on the day 
 of his death, by a sumptuous funeral. But 
 let us go into this neighbouring grove, 
 where he is with Timoleon and Aristides, 
 that we may carry him the agreeable 
 tidings. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci and Poussin. 
 
 Leo . Your conversation with Parrha- 
 sius, makes some noise in this lower 
 world. I am assured that he is preju- 
 diced in your favour, and that he places 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 169 
 
 you above all the Italian painters ; but we 
 will never suffer it. 
 
 Pouss. Do you think it so easy to pre- 
 judice him ? You do not do him justice ; 
 you do not do yourself justice; and you 
 do me too much honour. 
 
 Leo . But he tells me he knows of no- 
 thing so fine as the picture you described 
 to him. Why offend so many great men 
 to praise one who 
 
 Pouss. But why do you take offence at 
 the praises of others? Parrhasius made no 
 comparisons ; why are you vexed ? 
 
 Leo . Yes, indeed ! a little French 
 painter, who was forced to leave his own 
 country, to go and labour for bread at 
 Rome ! 
 
 Pouss . Ho ! since you take it thus, 
 you shall not have the last word. Well, 
 ’tis true I left France to go and live 
 at Rome, where I studied the antique 
 models, and where painting was held 
 in greater estimation than in my own 
 country. But, in short, although a fo~ 
 
 4 
 
170 
 
 fenelon’s dialogovs 
 
 reigner, I was admired in Rome. And 
 you, who were an Italian, were you not 
 obliged to leave your country, although 
 painting was so honoured there, and go 
 and die at the court of Francis L? 
 
 Leo . I should like to examine one of 
 your pictures by the rules of painting, 
 which I explained in my books. One 
 might find as many faults as strokes. 
 
 Pouss. I consent : — I can believe that 1 
 am not so great a painter as you; but I 
 am less jealous of my works. I will dis- 
 play the whole composition of one of my 
 pictures : if you see faults in it, I will 
 frankly avow them ; if you approve what 
 I have done, 1 shall oblige you to esteem 
 me a little more than you do. 
 
 Leo . Well, let us see. But remember 
 I am a severe critic. 
 
 Pouss. So much the better. — Imagine a 
 rock on the left side of the picture : from 
 this rock falls a pure bright spring, which, 
 after sparkling a little in its fall, runs off 
 across the country. A man, coming to 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 171 
 
 draw water at the spring, is seized by a 
 large serpent. The serpent winds round 
 his body, and twines several times round 
 his arms and legs, presses him, poisons 
 and strangles him. The man is dead ; he 
 is stretched out. The weight and stiff- 
 ness of his limbs is seen. His flesh is 
 already livid. His face of horror ex- 
 presses a cruel death. 
 
 Leo . If you introduce no other object, 
 this is but a melancholy picture. 
 
 Pouss. But you will find in it something 
 more melancholy still. Another man 
 advances towards the fountain ; he per- 
 ceives the serpent round the dead man. 
 He stops suddenly. One of his feet re- 
 mains suspended. He raises one arm, 
 the other falls. But the two hands are 
 spread, they mark surprise and horror. 
 
 Leo . This second object, although me- 
 lancholy, fails not to animate the picture, 
 and to give a certain pleasure, like that 
 felt by the spectators of those ancient tra- 
 gedies, where every thing inspired terror 
 
172 
 
 FENELON S DIALOGUES 
 
 and pity ; but we shall soon see if 
 
 you 
 
 Pouss. Ah, ha ! you begin to be a little 
 softened : but wait for the rest, if you 
 please. You shall apply your rules when 
 I have told you all. Close by there is a 
 high road, on the side of which there is a 
 woman, who sees the terrified man, but 
 who cannot see the dead man, because she 
 is in a hollow, and the ground makes a sort 
 of skreen between her and the spring. 
 The sight of the frightened man causes 
 in her a counter- stroke of fear. These 
 two expressions of alarm are, as one may 
 say, what griefs ought to be ; the greater 
 are silent, the lesser complain. The 
 terror of the man makes him motionless. 
 That of the woman, which is less, is more 
 marked by the distortion of her face. In 
 her you see a woman’s fear, who can con- 
 tain nothing; who expresses all her alarm, 
 and gives way to all she feels : she falls, 
 and lets fall, and forgets what she was 
 carrying. She extends her arms, and 
 
ON POUSSIN, 
 
 173 
 
 seems to cry out. Do not these various 
 degrees of fear and surprise make a kind 
 of play that touches and gives pleasure? 
 
 Leo . I acknowledge it. But what is 
 the design ? — is it history ? I don’t know 
 it. It is rather a caprice. 
 
 Pouss. It is a caprice. This kind of 
 composition succeeds very well, provided 
 the fancy be regulated, and that it does 
 not depart from the truth of nature. On 
 the left side there are some large trees, 
 which appear old, and such as those vene- 
 rable oaks which formerly served as the 
 divinities of a country. Their ancient 
 trunks have a rough and rugged bark, 
 which sends to a distance a young and 
 tender grove, placed behind. This grove 
 has a delicious freshness. One longs to 
 be within it. One imagines a burning 
 sunshine would respect the sacred wood. 
 It is planted along a clear stream, and 
 seems to admire itself therein. On one 
 side is a deep green, on the other the dark 
 blue of a serene sky. In this stream several 
 
174 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 objects present themselves, which amuse 
 the eye, and relieve it after the terrible 
 objects it first beheld. In the fore-ground 
 all the figures are tragic. But behind all 
 is peaceful, soft, and gay : here are boys 
 bathing, and sporting as they swim. There, 
 fishers in a boat; one is leaning forward, 
 almost falling : they are hauling a net. 
 Two others, leaning back, are rowing 
 vigorously. Others are on the bank, 
 playing at morra. By their faces you see 
 that one is thinking of a number to take 
 in his companion, who seems attentive 
 not to be so taken. Others are walking 
 beyond the water on a fresh green-sward. 
 Seeing them in so pleasant a spot, one is 
 ready to envy their pleasure. At a good 
 distance a woman on an ass is seen, going 
 to the neighbouring town ; she is followed 
 by two men. One instantly imagines 
 these good people, in their rustic simpli- 
 city, going to carry to the town the abund- 
 ance of the fields they have cultivated. 
 On the same left side, above the grove, 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 175 
 
 there is a sharp mountain, on which there 
 is a castle. 
 
 Leo . The left side of your picture 
 makes me curious to see the right side. 
 
 Pouss. There is a little hill, sloping 
 down insensibly to the river. On the slope 
 shrubs and bushes are seen in confusion, 
 on uncultivated ground. Before the hill 
 great trees are planted, through which one 
 sees the country, the water, and the sky. 
 
 Leo. But that sky, — how have you ma- 
 naged it ? 
 
 Pouss. It is a fine blue, mixed with 
 bright clouds, that look like gold and 
 silver. 
 
 Leo. You did this, doubtless, to have 
 occasion to dispose of your lights as you 
 pleased, and to spread it over each object 
 according to your wishes. 
 
 Pouss. I own I did. But you must 
 also own, that in doing so, I showed that 
 I was not ignorant of your boasted rules. 
 
 Leo. What is there in the middle of the 
 picture, beyond the river ? 
 
176 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues 
 
 Poms. A town, which I have already 
 mentioned. It is in a hollow, which con- 
 ceals part of it. There are old towers, 
 battlements, large buildings, and a confu- 
 sion of houses in strong shadow ; which 
 relieves certain parts, lighted by a soft 
 bright light from above. Above the town 
 appears what one almost always sees above 
 great cities in fine weather — the rising 
 smoke sending off the mountains, which 
 form the back-ground : these mountains, 
 of irregular shapes, vary the horizon, so 
 that the eye is satisfied. 
 
 Leo. This picture, from what you tell 
 me, appears less learned than that of 
 Phocion. 
 
 Pouss. There is less of the knowledge of 
 architecture, it is true. Besides, it dis- 
 plays no acquaintance with the antique. 
 But, on the other hand, the science of 
 expressing the passions is considerable. 
 Besides, the whole of this landscape has a 
 grace and freshness which the other does 
 not possess. 
 
ON POUSSIN. 
 
 177 
 
 Leo . You then, upon the whole, would 
 prefer this picture ? 
 
 Pouss. Without hesitation. But what 
 do you think by my description ? 
 
 Leo . I don’t know the picture of Pho- 
 cion well enough to compare them. I see 
 you have studied the good models of the 
 last century and my books well. But 
 you praise your works too much. 
 
 Pouss. Yourself obliged me to speak of 
 them. But know, that it was neither in 
 your books, nor in the pictures of the last 
 age, that I sought instruction ; but in the 
 antique bas-reliefs that you studied as 
 well as I. If I ever should return to the 
 living, I should be able to paint Jealousy 
 well, for you furnish me with excellent mo- 
 del s here. As to myself, I do not pretend 
 to take any of your science or glory from 
 you ; but I should yield to you with more 
 pleasure if you were less fond of your rank. 
 Let us go to Parrhasius. You shall make 
 your remarks to him : he shall decide, if 
 you please ; for I will only yield to you 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 fenelon’s dialogues. 
 
 modem gentlemen, on condition that you 
 yield to the ancients. After Parrhasius has 
 pronounced, I shall be ready to return to 
 earth, and correct my picture,* 
 
 * The examples chosen in these dialogues are not the 
 happiest to prove that he sought his principles of paint- 
 ing in the antique bas-reliefs. The two pictures here de- 
 scribed rather than criticised, are landscapes in which 
 Poussin owed his success to his constant study of nature. 
 
 END OF THE DIALOGUES. 
 
CATALOGUE 
 
 OF 
 
 POUSSIN’S PRINCIPAL PAINTINGS. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 1. Sacrifice of Noah. Engraved by Frey. # 
 — Nothing can be better than the composition 
 of the lower part of this picture ; but the ap- 
 pearance of the Almighty through clouds of 
 vapour, balanced, as it were, by the flights 
 of birds from the ark, is hardly to be justified, 
 even by the Romish tolerance on such sub- 
 jects. 
 
 2. Rebecca and Eliezar. Painted for 
 M. Pointel, in 1648 ; now in the Louvre. — 
 
 * Generally speaking, Poussin’s pictures have been en- 
 graved. They are favourable to engraving, as they depend 
 & more on composition than colour. The graver of 
 Morghen has lately been employed on this painter’s works. 
 
 N °2 
 
180 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 Often and well engraved, particularly by Pi- 
 cart and Chereau. See p. 116. 
 
 3 . Jacob asks Rachel in Marriage. En- 
 graved. — There are only four figures in this 
 subject, and but little back-ground. 
 
 4. Same subject. Jacob points to Leah, 
 as if complaining of the deception practised 
 on him after his seven years’ service. Often 
 engraved. — ■ There are only four figures in 
 this picture, any more than in the preceding 
 one ; but here the back ground is enriched 
 with trees, and a distant small town. It 
 may be doubted whether the architecture of 
 Laban’s house is not too refined for the 
 patriarchal age. 
 
 5. Moses exposed. — This beautiful picture 
 was painted for Stella, and is now in the 
 Louvre. Jochebed is placing the cradle of 
 bulrushes carefully on the river’s brink, near 
 where there is a recumbent statue of Nile, 
 leaning on a sphinx. Her husband has turned 
 away, and little Aaron follows him. Mi- 
 riam stands by her mother, and makes signs 
 that some one is approaching. Nothing can 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 
 
 181 
 
 be more expressive than all these figures ; be- 
 hind them are some fine trees, at the foot of 
 one of which there is an altar covered with 
 offerings, and on the branches are hung a bow 
 and quiver, and some musical instruments : 
 through the trees a majestic city, partly com- 
 posed of local views of Rome, is seen, and the 
 colour of the whole is beautiful, Fuseli thinks 
 Poussin has here endeavoured to tell a story 
 that cannot be told : but gives unqualified 
 praise to the landscape. His words are, “ Not 
 one circumstance is omitted that could con- 
 tribute to explain the meaning of the whole ; 
 but the repulsive subject completely baffled 
 the painter’s endeavour to show the real mo- 
 tive of the action. We cannot penetrate the 
 cause that forces these people to expose the 
 child on the river, and hence our sympathy 
 and participation languish ; we turn from a 
 subject that gives us danger without fear, to 
 admire the expression of the parts, the classic 
 elegance, the harmony of colours, the mastery 
 of execution.” With great diffidence, I venture 
 to suggest, that the exposing of Moses is a story 
 so universally known, that much less than Pous- 
 sin has done, would explain the occupations 
 and feelings of all the persons engaged in the 
 n 3 
 
182 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 action. Engraved by Claudia Stella, B. Audron, 
 Chasteau, and lately, finely by Morghen. 
 
 6. The Finding of Moses. Louvre. Often 
 engraved. — It was painted for M. Pointel, in 
 1647. See p. 114. The daughter of Pha- 
 raoh, with three female attendants, is receiv- 
 ing the child, which a man standing in the 
 water presents to them. The figure of Nile 
 forms part of the group, which has an un- 
 pleasant effect. The back-ground of this 
 picture has a bridge running nearly across it. 
 
 7 . Same subject. — Pharaoh’s daughter, 
 with nine attendants, and the infant Moses, 
 form three groups in the fore-ground of this 
 fine composition. The princess and five of 
 her maidens, are engaged in admiring the 
 child, who is presented by two others, con- 
 nected with the principal groupe by the child 
 and the basket. They are on the bank of the 
 river ; one of them is assisting the other out of 
 the water, from which action, by the disposition 
 of the figures, it is plain that she has rescued 
 the child. The landscape is rich and varied. 
 On one side is the Nile, on whose banks there 
 is a rock where the statue of Nile and a sphinx 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 183 
 
 are placed : the trees are mingled with palms 
 and dates, the architecture is rich, and in the 
 precincts of a temple a man is kneeling before 
 a statue of Anubis. 
 
 8. Same subject. — Here the landscape is 
 the chief part of the picture, though the Prin- 
 cess and her five women make a beautiful 
 groupe under some lofty trees. Miriam kneels 
 by, and seems to be offering to fetch a nurse 
 for the babe. There is little architecture, 
 and that little very simple. 
 
 9. Same subject, in the Louvre. — The 
 Princess here has only seven attendants, be- 
 sides a man in a boat, who appears to have 
 been employed in saving the child ; the Nile 
 and sphinx occupy a corner of the fore-ground, 
 and are too much mingled in the scene. The 
 landscape is fine, and in the back-ground 
 there are persons in a boat, engaged in hunt- 
 ing the hippopotamus, an incident taken from 
 the Praenestine pavement. Egyptian deities, 
 mixed with palm-trees, and obelisks, and py- 
 ramids, redeem the slight incongruity of moun - 
 tains, and Greek and Roman temples in 
 Egypt. 
 
184 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 10. Moses trampling on the Crown of 
 Pharaoh. Once in the Orleans Collection, 
 now in England. — Pharaoh seated on a 
 couch, has his crown lying by him, on which 
 Moses, apparently two years old, treads : the 
 priests considering this as an evil omen, one 
 of them is about to stab the child, who is saved 
 by a female attendant, the Princess and her 
 women taking part. Here are ten figures 
 arranged as in a bas-relief ; the back-ground 
 very simple ; it is a wall, over which appears a 
 single palm-tree, and the upper part of a tem- 
 ple, adorned with an Ionic order. 
 
 11. Same subject. Louvre. Painted ori- 
 ginally for Cardinal Massimi. — -This is treated 
 in the same manner as the last, but the scene 
 is in a chamber of the palace : the architec- 
 ture being varied, and partly concealed by 
 drapery. 
 
 12. Moses defending the Daughters of 
 Jethro. — There is great beauty and expression 
 in this composition. The daughters of Jethro 
 in particular, are well grouped, and form a 
 good contrast to the angry scene on the other 
 side of the well, where Moses chastises the 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 
 
 185 
 
 shepherds. There is a drawing, apparently a 
 study for this picture, which has been en- 
 graved ; it has a fine severe character, and 
 the simplicity of the back-ground, which con- 
 sists entirely of hills, is perhaps more in cha- 
 racter with the land of Midian, than the city 
 in the picture. 
 
 13. Same subject. 
 
 14. Moses and the Burning Bush. — The 
 Almighty is supported amid the flame by two 
 angels. Moses is in a fine attitude of ador- 
 ation, not unlike Raffaelle’s Abraham at the 
 tent door. But the subject is a stubborn one, 
 
 15. Aaron’s Rod becomes a Serpent. 
 Louvre. — This is a favourable subject for 
 Poussin ; as to composition he has disposed his 
 figures in a series like a bas-relief, in a hall only 
 varied by some drapery. Pharaoh is seated with 
 his footstool before him ; two aged attendants 
 stand behind ; ayoung man crowned with a gar- 
 land bears aloft the sacred Ibis ; another holds 
 a vase. One of the magicians stoops to seize 
 his rod, already changed into a serpent ; but 
 Aaron’s rod has already begun to devour 
 
186 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 it. These are at the upper end of the hall. 
 Close to them Moses, Aaron, and three other 
 persons form a group of great interest, from 
 the part they are taking in the action. Per- 
 haps there is too much in this picture that 
 reminds the spectator of the Eastern jugglers ; 
 but it would be difficult to manage the subject 
 otherwise, 
 
 16. The Children of Israel passing through 
 the Red Sea. Painted for the Marquis del 
 Pozzo. See p. 62. 
 
 17. The Gathering of the Manna in the 
 Desert. Louvre. — One of Poussin’s most 
 celebrated pictures. The Cartoon, which he 
 made for the tapestry looms at Paris, of this 
 subject, has perished. See p. 71- and 84. 
 
 18. Moses Striking the Rock. 
 
 19. Same subject. 
 
 20. Same subject. Once in the gallery of 
 the Duke of Orleans, now in the Stafford 
 Collection. See p. 120. for Poussin’s letter 
 concerning it. There is in Lord Grosvenor’s 
 collection a finished study of one of the groups 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 187 
 
 in that fine picture. It has been frequently 
 engraved. 
 
 SI. Same Subject in M. Dufourney’s Col- 
 lection. See p. 122. for observations on these 
 four pictures of the same subject. 
 
 22. The Setting up of the Golden Calf. — 
 In this and the following number, Poussin 
 appears to great advantage. The mirthful 
 worship of the golden calf, gave scope to all 
 his knowledge of antique ceremony and cos- 
 tume. And he has used freely the bas-reliefs 
 of the ancients to adorn his pictures ; two of 
 these have been especially useful to him. One 
 that was formerly in the Borghese collection, 
 and another equally celebrated of the Villa 
 Negroni, and now in the possession of His 
 Majesty the King of England. See p. 63. 
 
 23. Same subject. Formerly in the collec- 
 tion of Mr. Flink of Rotterdam. 
 
 24. The Triumph of David, in the best 
 manner of Poussin. — The colour is very red, 
 and the manner is dry, but if it has the pecu- 
 liar defects of Poussin, it has also his peculiar 
 excellencies, learning, propriety, dignity, fine 
 
188 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 drawing, and expression. The head of Goliah 
 is borne along upon a spear in triumph. A 
 figure almost dances along before, with an 
 antique Jewish trumpet. The troops of vir- 
 gins come out upon a raised terrace, with 
 songs and dances, by which means they are 
 well seen, though sufficiently distant not to in- 
 terrupt the principal actors. It is now in 
 Dulwich College. 
 
 25. Another of the same subject. David 
 here is sitting while a Victory is crowning him. 
 Some Cupids are playing with his harp ; and the 
 giant’s head and armour are built up into a 
 kind of trophy. The treatment of this picture 
 is that of a classical heathen subject, and very 
 beautiful. 
 
 26. The Ark of God among the Philistines. 
 Formerly in the Colonna Gallery, now in the 
 Louvre. — For terrible interest it has few 
 rivals, and none for composition ; but the 
 painter has given us physical rather than 
 moral expression, and thus made it loathsome 
 rather than horrible. See p. 29. 
 
 27. The Judgment of Solomon. Louvre. 
 — It is considered as one of Poussin’s finest 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 189 
 
 works for expression, and perhaps no painter 
 has treated the subject better ; yet there is 
 too little beauty in the women, and their 
 violent expression excites more horror than 
 sympathy. 
 
 28. Esther before Ahasuerus. In the 
 Cabinet Cerisier. — It has been frequently 
 engraved. 
 
 29. Terrestrial Paradise. Painted for the 
 Due de Richelieu. Louvre. — This is the 
 landscape representing Spring, in the series 
 of the four seasons. 
 
 SO. Boaz and Ruth. Painted for the Due 
 de Richelieu, now in the Louvre, — The 
 painter could not have chosen abetter subject 
 for Autumn than this pathetic and well-known 
 story from the Old Testament. 
 
 31. The Bunch of Grapes from the Pro- 
 mised Land. — This is one of the four land- 
 scapes painted for the Due de Richelieu, as 
 allegorical of the Seasons. This represents 
 Autumn , and was painted in 1664. It is now 
 in the Louvre. 
 
190 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 32. The Deluge. Painted for the Due de 
 Richelieu, in the Louvre ; a repetition in the 
 gallery of Cardinal Fesche. See p. 124.— Opie 
 says of the colouring of this picture : “ In 
 this work there appears neither black nor 
 white, neither blue, nor red, nor yellow : the 
 whole mass is, with little variation, of a som- 
 bre gray, the true resemblance of a dark and 
 humid atmosphere, by which every object is 
 rendered indistinct and almost colourless. 
 This is both a faithful and a poetical concep- 
 tion of the subject. Nature seems faint, half 
 dissolved, and verging on annihilation, and 
 the pathetic solemnity, grandeur, and simpli- 
 city of the effect, which can never be ex- 
 ceeded, is entirely derived from the painter’s 
 having judiciously departed from, and gone in 
 direct opposition to, general practice.” 
 
 33. The Angels appearing to Abraham.— 
 A picture of great beauty and grace, but un- 
 happily reminding the spectator of Raffaelle’s 
 beautiful picture of the same subject in the 
 Loggie. The only criticism one feels dis- 
 posed to make on the picture of Raffaelle is, 
 that the wooden house looks too stationary for 
 the wandering Patriarch’s tent. Poussin has 
 
 is 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 191 
 
 gone farther, for he has built stone and lime 
 houses, and trained vines upon wood work 
 near them ; but this, if it be a fault, is too 
 slight to dwell upon. This picture is in the 
 collection at Dulwich College. 
 
 34. The Ark of the Lord borne round the 
 Walls of Jericho. — Well known, by the fine 
 engravings, as one of the compositions charac- 
 teristic of Poussin’s great skill in these sub- 
 jects. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 1. The Annunciation. ■ — It may be doubted 
 whether the allegorical treatment of the sub- 
 ject which Poussin has adopted here be pro- 
 per. The Almighty is borne by cherubim 
 behind the angel, and the Holy Spirit is de- 
 scending as a dove in a beam of light upon the 
 Virgin. To me it appears an unwarrantable 
 liberty, besides that it is disagreeable as a com- 
 position. 
 
 2. The same subject. — Of no great inte- 
 rest in itself ; but the idea of the Virgin hav- 
 ing fallen into a kind of swooning ecstacy is 
 
192 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 uncommon and proper to the astonishing cir- 
 cumstances in which the message of the angel 
 placed her. This picture was brought to Eng- 
 land by Mr. Udney, and it is believed, was 
 part of the collection sold by him to the em- 
 press Catherine of Russia. 
 
 3. The Marriage of the Virgin. — Not 
 equal to either of the Marriages in the Seven 
 Sacraments, though they have been called 
 failures. 
 
 4. A Head of Jesus, when a Child. — He 
 holds a globe with one hand, and the other is 
 held up in the act of giving the papal bene- 
 diction, an action that is repeated more than 
 once in the Holy Families. 
 
 5. The Adoration of the Shepherds. 
 
 6. The Nativity. — These six pictures of 
 the Nativity, and perhaps more which Poussin 
 painted, have all something good in them ; 
 but they are not easy to distinguish by de- 
 scription. 
 
 7. Same subject. 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 193 
 
 8. Same subject. 
 
 9. Same subject. 
 
 10. Same subject. 
 
 11. Same subject. 
 
 12. Adoration of the Magi. — In the Dul- 
 wich College gallery, painted for M. Mauroy, 
 minister of finance. This is treated nobly and 
 historically ; according to the usual tradi- 
 tions, one of the Magi is represented as a black 
 man. Gaspar presented incense, in sign of 
 worship ; Baldassar, myrrh, in sign of the bit- 
 terness of the Passion ; and Marchione, gold, 
 as tribute, 
 
 13. Same subject. 
 
 14*. Same subject. — In all these three, 
 Poussin has taken advantage of the rich 
 oriental costume, and of the traditions of the 
 Church respecting the several gifts of the three 
 kings or magi, to vary and enrich the compo- 
 sition. 
 
 15, Virgin and Child, and St, Joseph* — A 
 round picture, 
 
 16, Virgin and Child, 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 1^. Virgin and Child, with St. John. 
 
 18 to 37 . Of upwards of eighteen Holy 
 Families acknowledged to have been painted by 
 Poussin, it would scarcely be possible to parti- 
 cularise one half.— He has indulged himself by 
 frequently introducing groups of angels mi- 
 nistering to them. That pleasing picture of 
 Lord Grosvenor’s, which has been engraved 
 by Bartolozzi, is one of these. The holy 
 Mother, with the infant on her lap, is 
 seated under some drapery, suspended to the 
 trunks of trees, angels are hovering about, and 
 presenting the child with flowers, while St. 
 Joseph is reclining on the ground before them. 
 Another of the same kind is at the Palazzo 
 Torre at Naples. Some are treated simply, 
 and are indebted for their charm to the ma- 
 ternal affection and the purity of the subjects. 
 Others are placed in the midst of Poussin’s 
 own unrivalled landscape, such as that in the 
 gallery of the Louvre : in short, the resources 
 of genius are infinite, but language would 
 give but a wearisome detail of its varieties. 
 
 38. Flight into Egypt. - — The Virgin Mo- 
 ther carries her Son along, while an angel 
 points out the road to St. Joseph, who is 
 leading an ass. 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 195 
 
 39. Same subject. But the Virgin is here 
 seated on the ass, and in the act of taking 
 the child from St. Joseph, while angels lead 
 and surround her. 
 
 40. Holy Family and Angels. 
 
 41. Repose in Egypt. — In this picture an 
 elephant is introduced in the back-ground, 
 with great propriety, as it decides the scene 
 to be in Egypt. * 
 
 42. Murder of the Innocents. — The sub- 
 ject of this picture seems almost too horrible 
 to be treated. Raffaelle and Guido have 
 made it pathetic. Some other painters merely 
 an atrocious scene of butchery. Poussin has 
 made it terrible. One mother on her knees 
 screaming franticly, and endeavouring to save 
 her child from the tread of the ruffian soldier, 
 is enough for the fore-ground ; and one beau- 
 tiful figure behind, bearing the lifeless body of 
 her infant, weeping, and with her hand pressed 
 
 * It is curious that the common people in Rome have a 
 hymn, or rather ballad, in dialogue, between a gypsey 
 ( Zingarella ), in her character of fortune-teller, and the 
 Virgin. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 on her head, completes the picture of mater- 
 nal despair. Perhaps the horror the picture 
 inspires is part of its praise. Nothing can be 
 better for form and composition ; yet, perhaps, 
 a little more youth or beauty in the first mo- 
 ther, would have excited more sympathy. The 
 back-ground is architecture extremely simple, 
 nothing disturbs the interest in the actors. 
 Great as the merits of this picture are, it may 
 be permitted to doubt whether the painter has 
 not gone too far in placing the ruffian’s foot 
 upon the infant. The mother’s despair would 
 have been as great, the sympathy of the 
 spectator perhaps greater, had the infant been 
 otherwise in peril. But there is something 
 sickening in seeing it wTithe under the weight 
 of the assassin. This fine picture, formerly in 
 the Giustiniani Gallery, is now in the col- 
 lection of Prince Lucien Buonaparte. 
 
 48. The Baptism of Christ. — This picture 
 furnishes an instance of Poussin’s attention to 
 expression. The people round the Baptist are 
 all looking up to Heaven, as if attracted by 
 the voice proclaiming, “ This is my beloved 
 Son.” Caravaggio has carried the expression 
 of sound still farther, in the picture of the 
 
 7 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 197 
 
 Decollation of St. John the Baptist, in the 
 chapel dedicated to that saint, in the great 
 church at Malta, formerly the church of 
 the Order. There, the murder of the Saint is 
 on one side the picture ; the head is severed ; 
 an old woman going out of the prison puts 
 her hands to her ears to shut out the shriek 
 of death. Another female is by to receive 
 the head, beside the executioner. The 
 balance is kept by two prisoners at a grated 
 window, evidently attracted there by the 
 noise. This fine picture was suffering dread- 
 fully in 1818 from damp. 
 
 44. Same subject ^ which Poussin has re- 
 peated at least four times. —That mentioned in 
 the last number, and the Baptism in the Staf- 
 ford Gallery are the most celebrated ; in both 
 the eyes of the spectators are directed towards 
 the heavens as hearing the voice. 
 
 4 5. Baptism of John in the Wilderness. 
 Painted for Le Notre, and now in the Louvre. 
 — This is a justly celebrated picture. There 
 are all sexes and ages assembled, and each is 
 useful to the action, and graceful, and interest- 
 ing in itself. The persons in the boat crossing 
 
 o 3 
 
198 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 the river, are well contrived, to show the mul- 
 titudes that flocked to John’s baptism. The 
 landscape is both wild and agreeable. 
 
 46. The Ministry of Christ. — Poussin’s 
 love of action and expression sometimes car- 
 ries him farther than our feelings, perhaps our 
 prejudices, will accompany him. We are 
 startled by any symptoms of bodily activity ; 
 in the Saviour it is the Divine Spirit working 
 inwardly. But can painting express that? 
 
 47 . The Samaritan Woman at the Well. 
 The last picture painted by Poussin for M. de 
 Chantekm. See p. 126. 
 
 48. The Blind Men of Jericho. In the 
 Louvre. Painted for M. Reynon, a merchant 
 in Lyons. — Fine as Poussin’s back-grounds 
 usually are, this is one of the finest, and has 
 the merit of looking true. The story is well 
 and nobly told. 
 
 49. The Woman taken in Adultery. Painted 
 for Le Notre. Now in the Louvre. — This 
 picture has been highly and deservedly 
 praised ; even its colour is good and agreeable. 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 199 
 
 50. The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, — 
 There is another picture of the same subject 
 which has been attributed to Poussin, but is 
 the work of Stella, with thirteen others, to 
 illustrate the passion of our Saviour. The 
 whole of these have been given to Poussin, 
 but ignorantly. 
 
 51. The Last Supper. An altar-piece, 
 painted for the Chapel of St. Germain-en- 
 Laye. — The figures are life size at least. 
 See p. 85. and p. 88. 
 
 52. The Crucifixion. 
 
 53. Same subject. In M. Dufonrney’s col- 
 lection. 
 
 54. The Descent from the Cross. 
 
 55. The Intombment. 
 
 56. Same subject. 
 
 57. Same subject. — Christ has the crown 
 of thorns ; two little angels are weeping at 
 his feet. 
 
 58. Dead Christ. 
 
 o 4 
 
m) 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 59. Christ appears to Mary Magdalen. 
 
 tjO. Incredulity of* St. Thomas. 
 
 81. Christ giving the Keys to Peter. 
 Painted for the Commander del Pozzo. — 
 Unusually ill-coloured ; such, at least, is 
 Richardson’s account of it. 
 
 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67 , 68. The Seven Sa- 
 craments, originally painted for M. de Chan- 
 telou. afterwards transferred to the Orleans 
 Gallery, from whence they came into the 
 Stafford Collection. See p. 70. and p 113* 
 
 69, 70, 71, 7% 73, 74, 75. The small set 
 painted before the others, for the Cavaliere 
 del Pozzo. — From the Boccapaduli collec- 
 tion they came to England, and are now in 
 the possession of the Duke of Rutland. 
 See p. 62. and p. 71* 
 
 76. Death of the Virgin. — Painted before 
 Poussin went to Rome. See p. 25. 
 
 77. Assumption of the Virgin. — ■ A small 
 picture in the Louvre. 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 soi 
 
 78. Another in the Dulwich College gal- 
 lery; cold in colour ; too much blue in the sky. 
 
 79. Extasy of St. Paul. — Painted to ac- 
 company Raffaelle’s Vision of Ezekiel for M. 
 de Chantelou. See p. 111. 
 
 80. Same subject. Louvre. 
 
 81. Paul and Silas beaten with Rods. 
 
 82. Ely mas, the Sorcerer. — Nothing can be 
 better than the blindness of Elymas himself; 
 but the apostle has too much action, or rather 
 gesticulation, for the grave and dignified na- 
 ture of his office. 
 
 83. Peter heals the Lame. — The scene is 
 on the steps leading up to the Temple, and the 
 groups are very skilfully disposed, so as to lead 
 the eye to the principal action : the architec- 
 ture is grand and simple. 
 
 84. Death ofSapphira. — A picture of great 
 
 merit for composition and expression : it 
 
 was formerly at Versailles, and was highly 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 202 
 
 esteemed. It has been engraved by the best 
 French engravers. 
 
 85. Martyrdom of St. Erasmus. Belong- 
 ing to the picture gallery of Monte Cavallo, 
 and executed in mosaic in St. Peter’s. It was 
 carried to Paris, and is now, with other restored 
 pictures, in the Vatican. — The subject is so 
 very disgusting, that one can scarcely bear to 
 look upon it. The figures are larger than life, 
 but it is painted in a little manner. The saint 
 and one of the executioners havebeen praised ; 
 the high-priest is not worthy of the master. 
 See p. 60. 
 
 86. Saint Margaret treading on the Dragon, 
 and receiving the Crown of Martyrdom. 
 
 87'. Vision of St. Frances. 
 
 88. The Angel dictating to St. Matthew.— 
 The back-ground is nearly a literal view of 
 the Tiber, taken from the Acqua Acetosa, 
 three miles from Rome : it is very fine as a 
 landscape, and is now in the choice, though 
 small collection, in the Palazzo Sciarra Colon- 
 na, at Rome. 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 
 
 20 3 
 
 89. Miracle performed by St. Francis Xa- 
 vier, who restored the Daughter of a Japanese 
 Nobleman to Life. — This was painted by 
 Poussin during his last residence in Paris, and 
 is the picture so much criticised by Vouet, 
 &c. See p. 86. The figures are larger than the 
 life, as the work was painted for the high altar 
 of the Jesuits’ church at Paris. 
 
 90. Martyrdom of St. Cecilia. — This be- 
 longs to one of the most interesting stories in 
 the legend, and Poussin has done it justice. 
 The angel bringing the crown and palm to the 
 expiring saint, is finely introduced. The 
 statue that lies on her tomb in the church 
 beyond the Tiber, erected over the spot 
 where she was murdered, probably sug- 
 gested to the painter the attitude of the dying 
 martyr. 
 
 91. God the Father upborne by cheru- 
 bim. — A subject that ought never to be at- 
 tempted. 
 
 9^. St. James the Elder having led forth his 
 Disciples to the Banks of the Ebro, to pray, 
 the Virgin appears to them on a jasper co« 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 201 
 
 lumn, where she ordered them to erect a church. 
 The figures are full size in this picture, which 
 is in the Louvre. 
 
 93. Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. In the 
 Zambecari Palace at Bologna. — A picture 
 where Poussin’s good taste has caused him to 
 deviate from the common practice of stretch- 
 ing the martyr on the gridiron. In a public 
 square surrounded by noble buildings, stands 
 a statue of Jupiter, grasping a thunder-bolt. 
 At the foot of this statue is the groupe of 
 executioners assembled and preparing to un- 
 robe the Saint, whose countenance and ex- 
 pression are beautiful. A small part of the 
 instrument of torture is introduced to tell 
 the story. Nothing can be a greater contrast 
 to the horrible picture of the Martyrdom of 
 St. Erasmus. But in the St. Lawrence, the 
 painter has painted from his own conception 
 of the story ; in the other he was ordered to 
 show the new torture invented for the saint. 
 
 94. Ecce Homo ! — A subject which many 
 painters have attempted, and in which most 
 have failed. 
 
POUSSIN’S PAINTINGS. 
 
 £05 
 
 PROFANE HISTORY AND POETRY. 
 
 1. Achilles discovered by Ulysses. — While 
 Ulysses appears only intent on selling the con- 
 tents of his box of pedlars’ ware, and is offer- 
 ing a diadem to Deidamia, Achilles has seized 
 a sword, and is eagerly drawing it from the 
 scabbard. 
 
 £. Achilles at Scyros. — In this, while the 
 young girls are trying on necklaces, and other 
 female ornaments, Achilles has dressed him- 
 self in a handsome helmet ; and grasping a 
 sword with one hand, holds a mirror in the 
 other, in which he seems to be admiring him- 
 self with no little complacency. Ulysses and 
 his companion are rejoicing at his choice, 
 while the old nurse looks quietly on. - — The 
 palace of Scyros, with hills, woods, and water, 
 form a pleasing back-ground. The expres- 
 sion appears to me not so true as in the last, 
 where the eagerness of Achilles in drawing 
 the sword is surely more historical. 
 
 3. Theseus discovers his birth, by lifting 
 the stone pointed out to him by his mother. 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 £06 
 
 iEthra, and finding the sword and sandals of 
 iEgeus. This picture is in the gallery at 
 Florence. See p. 33. 
 
 4. The death of Eudamidas. — Exceeding- 
 ly fine for expression, yet it neither dees, nor 
 can tell the very story ; it is one not to be told 
 without words ; but as a death-bed scene it is 
 most excellent. The daughter sitting on 
 the ground and leaning on the mother’s lap, 
 is a pathetic incident, which Poussin himself 
 has repeated, and which has been adopted by 
 painters and sculptors after him. See Fuseli’s 
 Observations in his Fourth Lecture. 
 
 5. Young Pyrrhus saved. — This picture is 
 in the Louvre, and is one of the most cele- 
 brated of Poussin’s works. The story is 
 admirably told. The costume, the action, 
 the scene, are all antique, all animated, all 
 fitted to the subject. AEacidas, King of 
 Molossis, having been driven from his king- 
 dom by rebels, his two friends Angelus and 
 Androclides, fled with his son Pyrrhus, then 
 at the breast, taking with them the nurses of 
 the young prince. The enemy pursued them 
 so closely, that the same night they came up 
 
poussin’s paintings, £07 
 
 with them, on the banks of a river, swollen 
 by recent floods ; finding it impossible to 
 ford the stream, one of them wrote a few 
 lines on the bark of a tree, and tying them to 
 his spear, threw it to the opposite bank, to 
 ask assistance from the Megarians. They 
 tied trees together to make a raft, and saved 
 the prince. The moment Poussin has chosen, 
 is that in which the Megarians are prepared 
 to receive Pyrrhus and his friends, the enemy 
 is at hand ; the terror of the women is lively ; 
 the friendly strangers beyond the river are 
 making signs to them to cross it. One of 
 them uses the common modern manner of 
 beckoning, in use among the Romans at this 
 day ; and as it is probable that they have 
 retained more antique customs than other na- 
 tions, he has shown his judgment in adopting 
 that action. 
 
 6. A Sacrifice near a Mausoleum. — On the 
 sea-shore in a grove of trees, a magnificent 
 mausoleum, which fills more than half the 
 picture, is erected. A priest stands by a 
 smoking altar, and by the appearance of a 
 boy bringing a lyre ; by that of a man tying 
 on a wreath, and by the presence of warriors 
 
SOS CATALOGUE OF 
 
 and horses, it would appear that the action to 
 be engaged in, is the celebration of funeral 
 games. 
 
 7 . Romulus and Remus. « — The scene is 
 properly on the Tiber, and, we may imagine, 
 among the ruins of the old Saturnia,, which 
 occupied one of the seven hills before the 
 building of Rome. The shepherds and 
 shepherdesses seem all awakened from their 
 attention to their rural labours, to listen to 
 the story of the children, one of whom is al- 
 ready in the arms of Lupa, while the other is 
 still retained by her husband, Faustulus. A 
 young man by her points towards the place 
 where they were found. 
 
 8. Rape of the Sabines. In the Louvre. — 
 This well known subject gives room for the 
 introduction of all ages and characters, and 
 Poussin has not been slow to avail himself of 
 it. It gives greater variety and effect ; he has 
 even introduced horsemen among his groups. 
 Near the centre of the picture, a young 
 woman is forcibly taken by a Roman from the 
 horse of her brother or lover, who attempts 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 <209 
 
 to retain her ; she is supposed to be the 
 Hersiiia whom Romulus himself married. 
 The moment of action is at the very in- 
 stant of seizing the Sabines, for Romulus 
 still holds up the skirt of his robe, which was 
 the signal agreed on for the Romans to break 
 off the games, and seize the women. There is 
 one interesting groupe, in which a girl has 
 hidden her face on her mother's bosom, while 
 a young Roman seems rather entreating than 
 forcing her to accompany him. The back- 
 ground is filled with grand yet simple 
 architecture. 
 
 9- Same subject. — In this repetition of the 
 Rape of the Sabines, there appears to be too 
 many weapons ; the Sabines were certainly 
 unarmed, and it does not appear that any 
 bloodshed attended the actual carrying off 
 the young women. The figure of the king 
 is quieter and more dignified, and he is less 
 like one of the actors, 
 
 10. Coriolanus. — “ When Poussin repre- 
 sented Coriolarms in the Volscian camp, he 
 placed before him, in suppliant attitudes, his 
 mother, wife, and children, with a train of 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 Roman matrons kneeling, and behind them 
 the erect and frowning form of an armed 
 female, accompanied by another with stream- 
 ing hair recumbent on a wheel. On these 
 two, unseen to all else, Coriolanus, perplexed 
 in the extreme, his sword half drawn, as if 
 to slay himself, fixes his scared eyes. Who 
 discovers not that he is in a trance, and in the 
 female warrior, recognizes the tutelary genius 
 of Rome, and her attendant Fortune, to terrify 
 him into compliance ? Shall w T e disgrace with 
 the frigid conceit of an allegory, the powerful 
 invention which disclosed to the painter’s eye 
 the agitation in the Roman’s breast, and the 
 proper moment for fiction ? Who is not struck 
 by the sublimity of a vision, which, without 
 diminishing the credibility of the fact, adds 
 to its importance, and raises the hero, by 
 making him submit, not to the impulse of 
 private ties, but to the imperious destiny of 
 his country.” Fuseli’s Fourth Lecture. 
 
 11. Camillas sends back the Children of 
 the Falisci with the Schoolmaster, who had 
 betrayed them. — This is one of the few 
 pictures painted by Poussin, where the figures 
 are life size. It is in the Louvre* 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 «n 
 
 12. The Death of Germanicus. — Now in 
 the Palazzo Barberini at Rome. See p. 60. 
 
 13. The Continence of Scipio. — This pic- 
 ture came from M. de Morville’s collection 
 to Houghton, and was afterwards at Straw* 
 berry-hill. In Horace Walpole’s Sermon on 
 Painting there is a particular description of it. 
 
 14. The Roman Charity. 
 
 15. Death of Philemon, in M. Dufourney’s 
 Collection. See p. 100. 
 
 1.6. Perseus, and Medusa’s head. — Where- 
 cver Reynolds gives an opinion, his words are 
 too precious not to be quoted. Of this pic- 
 ture, belonging to Lord Gwydir, he says, 
 “ This is undoubtedly a subject of great 
 bustle and turmoil, and that the first effect 
 of the picture may correspond to the subject, 
 every principle of composition is violated ; 
 there is no principal figure, no principal light, 
 no groups ; every thing is dispersed, and in 
 such a state of confusion, that the eye no- 
 where finds any repose. In consequence of 
 the forbidding appearance, I remember turn- 
 
 p 2 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 213 
 
 ing from it with disgust, and should not have 
 looked a second time, if I had not been called 
 back to a second inspection. I then indeed 
 found, what we may always expect to find in 
 the works of Poussin, correct drawing, for- 
 cible expression, and just character: in short, 
 all the excellencies which so much distin- 
 guish the works of that learned painter.” 
 
 17* Parnassus. — Apollo, and the Muses as- 
 sembled, are receiving the Poets of Earth, to 
 one of whom Apollo seems to be presenting 
 the cup of Immortality. In the middle of 
 the company, the nymph Castalia reclines, 
 and two genii are distributing the water from 
 her urn, 
 
 18, The Inspiration of a Poet. — A very 
 agreeable picture in the Dulwich Gallery, 
 Apollo is holding the cup of inspiration to 
 the poePs lips. The poet is kneeling, and his 
 face expresses extasy. 
 
 19* Jupiter fed by the Nymphs. 
 
 20. Jupiter and Calisto. — Jupiter is here 
 under the form of Diana, seated by Calisto, 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 213 
 
 and all the elegant attributes of the goddess 
 of hunting are introduced, her greyhounds, 
 javelin, bow, and quiver. The Loves are 
 playing around ; and that the story may be 
 understood, Juno is seen in the distance, drag- 
 ging the unhappy nymph by the hair. The 
 landscape is very sweet. 
 
 21. Jupiter and Antiope. — In the Dulwich 
 Collection. 
 
 22. Leda. — She is seated on a sort of 
 throne near a bath under some trees. The 
 Loves have decked a swan with a chaplet of 
 flowers, and are leading the proud bird to 
 the edge of the bath, while their companions 
 are hovering above, and aiming their darts at 
 the Princess. 
 
 23. Apollo and Daphne. 
 
 24. Metamorphosis of Daphne. — Apollo is 
 seated on a bank by the side of the Peneus, 
 and is in the act of stretching his arms to em- 
 brace Daphne, whose change into a laurel is 
 already begun. That nothing may be want- 
 ing to the story, the lyre of Apollo is lying 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 >iU 
 
 by him, and not only that, the quiver con- 
 taining the darts, which he boasted were su- 
 perior to those of Cupid. The angry little 
 god is aiming a shaft at him in revenge ; and 
 Pen eus, the father of Daphne, is leaning on 
 his urn, and has one hand over his eyes, as 
 if to screen them from the view of the fate of 
 Daphne. 
 
 C Z5. Venus, Love, Bacchus, and Mercury, 
 dancing to the sound of Apollo’s Lyre. — 
 Nothing can be more poetical than the con- 
 ception of this subject, 
 
 i6. Venus and Adonis. — The principal 
 figures are sleeping, while a group of Cupids 
 try to stop a hart. The dogs, which are tied 
 to a tree, seem eager to escape, 
 
 27. Same subject. — While the principal 
 figures are seated on a bank under some shady 
 trees, a Cupid is playing with the dogs. 
 
 %8. Same subject. — The goddess’s car 
 seems waiting to convey her away. 
 
 *20. Venus and Mercury. — In the Dulwich 
 Gallery, 
 
POUSSIN^S PAINTINGS, SI 5 
 
 SO. Mars and Venus. The Cupids dis- 
 arming Mars. —Landscape with part of Rome 
 in the distance. 
 
 81. Same subject. — While the two fa- 
 vourites are conversing, the Cupids have seized 
 the arms of Mars, and the swans and sparrows 
 of Venus, while one is riding on a stag. The 
 little gods are the merriest little fellows that 
 ever played round their mother, and seem 
 bent on mischief. 
 
 32. Venus and Cupid. — Love is clothing 
 his mother. Very delicate and agreeable. 
 
 33. Venus bringing the Armour to iEneas, 
 Venus borne along by the Loves, points to the 
 Armour of her son. — Tiber and his two tri- 
 butary nymphs are present. 
 
 34. Same subject.,— Venus preceded by 
 the morning star, that is a Cupid with a torch, 
 is in her chariot surrounded by clouds, and 
 pointing to the armour suspended to a tree. 
 The goddess and her Loves and doves, and 
 the river god, are charming; but there is 
 something stiff and unpleasant in zEneas. 
 
 p 4 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 216 
 
 35. Education of Bacchus. In the Louvre. 
 - — A faun holds the young god of wine, while 
 a satyr gives him wine from a cup. There is 
 a woman asleep in front, with a child lying 
 also asleep on her breast, 
 
 36. Education of Bacchus. — One of Pous- 
 sin’s very best. In the Dulwich Collection. 
 
 37. Same subject. — Mercury brings Bac- 
 chus to the nymphs, whose beautiful forms 
 are partly concealed by drapery, partly by the 
 water in which some of them are lying. Their 
 table is spread under an arbour, thickly over- 
 grown with vines and clusters of grapes. 
 Some of them are still sleeping. Night in 
 her car is seen retiring, while Apollo and his 
 horses heads appear above a hill, on which a 
 satyr sits piping. 
 
 38. Bacchanalian subject. — Graceful and 
 tranquil ; the nymphs and Cupids at rest, 
 one faun drinking from a horn, another with 
 a basket of fruit. 
 
 39 . Bacchanalian subject. — Very beau- 
 tiful and graceful In Mr. Angerstein’s cob 
 lection. 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 
 
 217 
 
 40. Another. — A dance before a temple ; 
 the boy piping is a literal copy of one of the 
 antiques of the Villa Albani. The dancing 
 figure behind him is also antique. 
 
 41. Bacchanalian subject. In the Louvre. 
 — A faun is holding a bunch of grapes in 
 one hand, and with the other pours liquor 
 into a cup held to him by a boy. Bacchus 
 himself seems reclining on a bed of vines, 
 while one of his attendants drags a goat bound 
 to him, and the other pours out a libation. 
 A woman, seated at his feet, is playing 
 on a guitar ; two other figures are lying on 
 the ground, and there are several children 
 playing, 
 
 42. Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne. — 
 This is one of the pictures which has sub- 
 jected Poussin to criticism, for inattention to 
 the masses of light and shade, and to the group- 
 ing of the figures. He is said to have justified 
 the similar conduct of Julio Romano in the 
 Battle of Constantine, on the ground that 
 such neglect corresponds better with the hurry 
 and confusion of the subject , but this is sa- 
 crificing a great point for a less. At any 
 
218 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 rate, it lessens the value of this picture, which 
 for composition and drawing is excellent. It 
 now belongs to the Earl of Ashburnham. 
 
 43. Same kind of subject. In the Barberini 
 Palace. — It is not finished, but full of spirit, 
 and quite in his best antique taste. 
 
 44. Nymph playing with a Faun.— In Du- 
 fourney’s collection. Nothing can be more 
 playful than the whole composition, particu- 
 larly the Cupid fighting with the little satyr, 
 and the other Cupid leading the goat on which 
 the nymph seems intent on riding. 
 
 45. Same subject. • — Cupid is pouring wine 
 from a vase into the mouth of Faunus. 
 
 46. Venus sleeping on the 'Bank of a Canal. 
 — Her reflection in the water; a satyr draw- 
 ing off the drapery ; two Cupids. She is lying 
 with her back upwards. This was in the gal- 
 lery of the Prince of Orange at the Hague. 
 
 47. Sleeping Nymph surprised by Satyrs, 
 in a cheerful sylvan landscape. —The presence 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 mg 
 
 of Cupid and the doves might lead us to sup- 
 pose it Venus, a companion to the last. 
 
 48. Dance of Fauns and Bacchantes in 
 honour of Pan. 
 
 49. Mars and Rhea Sylvia. At Versailles.— 
 Rhea Sylvia is seen sleeping on a bank near a 
 wood, with the Loves sporting round her. Ti- 
 ber personified is nearly in the middle of the 
 picture, and Mars in his chariot is breaking 
 through the clouds on the side opposite to 
 Rhea. 
 
 50. The Choice of Hercules. — Of this 
 there is a hue engraving by Strange. 
 
 51. Cupids bearing the Trophies of Her- 
 cules. — This, and the eleven following num- 
 bers, were part of the old decorations of the 
 Louvre. 
 
 52. Birth of Hercules. 
 
 53. Hercules and the two Rereads. 
 
 54. Hebe and Hercules, 
 
 55. Hercules consults the Oracle. 
 
2%0 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 56. Chiron instructing Hercules. 
 
 57 . Hercules instituting the Nemean Games. 
 
 5 8. Hercules opposes the Giants. 
 
 59. Hercules strangles Anteus. 
 
 60. Hercules relieves Atlas. 
 
 01* Hercules with the Nemean Lion. 
 
 6$. Hercules overcomes Malice and Envy. 
 See p. 99. 
 
 63. Hercules carries off a Nymph, while 
 two Loves are bearing off the Lion’s Hide 
 between them, and a third has seized his 
 Club. 
 
 64. Phaeton begging the Car from Apollo. 
 — In doubt as to his celestial origin, of which 
 his mother Clymene had boasted, Phaeton begs 
 Apollo to grant him a sign of it. The god 
 takes the venerable oath, “ by Styx !” to do so; 
 when the rash youth requests the guidance of 
 his car for one day. Apollo is expostulating ; 
 Time looks uneasy, and the Rivers below seem 
 fearful. 
 
POUSSIN’S PAINTINGS. 
 
 mi 
 
 65. The Triumph of Flora. — One of the 
 least agreeable pictures of Poussin. The 
 colour has probably changed, but the light 
 and shadow never could have been good. 
 A tall flowering shrub, or rather tree, has a 
 very bad effect, and there is too much confu- 
 sion, at least, as the picture is now, nor does 
 there seem much propriety in the armed figure 
 near the car; there are nevertheless some 
 Cupids and dancing figures that one wishes to 
 see in better company. It is in the Capitol. 
 
 66. The Empire of Flora. Painted for 
 Cardinal Omodei ; now in the Louvre. — In 
 this picture, all those are introduced who have 
 been changed into flowers. Among the most 
 conspicuous are Narcissus, who bears the same 
 name, and Ajax, who killed himself, and 
 Hyacinth us, killed by Apollo in playing quoits, 
 both of whom were changed into hyacinths. 
 Adonis is also there, and many others. Flora is 
 dancing and scattering flowers over her subj ects, 
 before the god of gardens, who is placed on a 
 pedestal near two trees, by a fountain. Behind, 
 and on the opposite side, are green trained 
 alleys, and the Sun in his car is seen driving 
 his four horses swiftly through the heavens. 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 67 . Triumph of Neptune. Nothing is to 
 be wished in the composition of this triumph : 
 all that a poetic feeling of the subject, and 
 profound learning can give it, it has. Y enus, 
 new risen from the sea, is the object of the 
 triumph. Around her are all the water-dei- 
 ties ; above, the Loves fly in groupes, shed- 
 ding flowers and trying their shafts ; while one, 
 holding the torch over her, claims her for the 
 evening star. Her car is seen in the distance, 
 driven on by a Cupid. 
 
 68. Polyphemus piping. Acis and Gala- 
 tea, the sea nymphs, Tritons, and Loves, are 
 sporting round. 
 
 69 . Five Nymphs bathing. 
 
 70. Narcissus. — Echo is seen lying on the 
 rocks behind, — beautiful, but wasted by grief; 
 for, 
 
 For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn, 
 
 Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn. 
 
 This is in the Louvre, and has been frequently 
 engraved. 
 
 71. Same subject. In a more varied land- 
 scape, and multitudes of little Cupids. 
 
POUSSIN^ PAINTINGS, 
 
 823 
 
 72. Diana and Endymion. 
 
 73. The Loves and Nereides.— One of the 
 most fanciful of Poussin’s compositions. The 
 Loves are riding on sea-monsters, and sporting 
 in the waves, while the Nereides accompany 
 them. 
 
 74. The Hesperides, — The three daughters 
 of Atlas are gathering fruits and presenting 
 them to the water-deities. 
 
 75. Arcadian Shepherds. In the collection 
 of the Duke of Devonshire. — The thought 
 in this picture has been greatly and justly 
 praised, two Arcadian shepherds and a shep- 
 herdess are looking on the inscription on a 
 tomb in the midst of an agreeable landscape. 
 The inscription carries the moral ; it is simply, 
 I too dwelt in Arcadia . 
 
 76. Same subject, differently treated. In 
 the Louvre. — Here the tomb is in the middle 
 of the picture instead of the side, as in the 
 other. This is preferred by the French cri- 
 tics, perhaps justly. The idea is the same, 
 and the persons only different in position. 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 77« The Image of Human Life, or Plea- 
 sure, Labour, Riches, and Poverty, dancing to 
 the sound of a Lyre, played on by Time ; a 
 Boy on the other side makes Bubbles with Soap 
 through a Straw. — One picture of this sub- 
 ject is in the Palazzo Manfrini, at Venice ; and 
 in the Collection of Cardinal Fesche, in Rome, 
 there is a repetition. Here the personifi- 
 cation of the Sun is most happy ; he is 
 driven in his car through the mid-heaven, and 
 the Hours are dancing around and behind 
 him. 
 
 78. Time carrying off Truth from Envy 
 and Discord. — Painted for Cardinal Riche- 
 lieu, and now in the Gallery of the Louvre. 
 See p. 99. 
 
 79* Time defending Truth. — A picture 
 better coloured than usual. In the Manfrini 
 Palace, at Venice. 
 
 80. Rinaldo and Armida. — Armida’s cha- 
 riot stays for her by the fountain, while she is 
 bending over Rinaldo, her purposed revenge 
 being changed into love. 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 81. Same subject. — Painted for Stella, now 
 in the Dulwich collection. See p. ISO. Here 
 she is armed with a dagger, as if to kill him 
 while sleeping, when Love holds back her 
 hand. 
 
 8S. Armida conveys away Rinaldo while 
 sleeping. — This picture was in the Musee 
 Napoleon, and is a beautiful and classical 
 composition. 
 
 88. Tancred and Erminia.— There is a long 
 and very just dissertation on this picture in 
 Richardson, concluding thus, “Let us observe, 
 for the honour of Poussin and of the art, 
 what a noble and comprehensive thought ! 
 what richness ! what force of imagination ! 
 what a fund of science and judgment! what 
 a fine and accurate hand is absolutely neces- 
 sary to the production of such a work !” Else* 
 where he observes “ that the colour is agree- 
 able and of a taste that none but a great man 
 would fall into.” This picture was purchased 
 in Paris by Mr. Thornhill, and brought to 
 England somewhere about the beginning of 
 the last century. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 84. Children at Play. — This lovely picture 
 is in Lord Grosvenor’s possession. 
 
 85. Children at Play. — Very engaging, 
 but not equal to the last. This picture is at 
 Dulwich. 
 
 86. Cephalus and Aurora. — A composition 
 full of classical images. Zephyr breathing 
 soft airs, the Dawn sprinkling dew, and Flora 
 scattering flowers; while Aurora, forgetful 
 of her office, lingers with Cephalus, her car 
 and her horses standing idly by, while the 
 Loves are fluttering about rejoicing. 
 
 LANDSCAPES. 
 
 Though it would be difficult, perhaps im- 
 possible, to particularise or even enumerate 
 all Poussin’s landscapes, there are some which 
 must be noticed, as they rank in importance 
 with his historical pictures, if they do not sur- 
 pass the most of them. Not to separate the 
 
 scriptural subjects, the four landscapes of 
 16 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 227 
 
 Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, are 
 placed in the first part of the catalogue, as 
 well as the landscape of the Finding of Moses, 
 and that of St. Matthew and the Angel. 
 
 1. The Death of Eurydice. — There are 
 few landscapes of which the composition is 
 more excellent than this. The scene is in a 
 wild meadow, on the banks of a river. On 
 the opposite si*de there is a city, composed 
 entirely of views of Rome. The castle and 
 bridge of St. Angelo, the tower of Nero, one 
 of those called, characteristically by the com- 
 mon people, the Towers of the Tyrants, for they 
 were those of the Roman barons of the middle 
 ages, and other of the common buildings near 
 them, are all introduced with singular effect, 
 and the hills behind serve to give the scene 
 depth. Various figures in the back-ground 
 are introduced to mark a flourishing city : 
 some dragging along a boat, others bathing or 
 swimming; every thing is cheerful. In the 
 fore-ground, under the shade of some majestic 
 trees, Orpheus is seated, playing on his lyre, 
 with several persons listening round at a little 
 distance. Eurydice has just started, and 
 thrown down her basket, on being bitten by a 
 
 Q 2 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 SS8 
 
 snake while gathering flowers. Thus the land- 
 scape is rendered interesting by a pathetic 
 incident, and enriched by the most appro- 
 priate figures. It is in the Louvre. See p. 84*. 
 
 ' 2. The Death of Phocion. — The subject 
 of this picture is sufficiently explained by the 
 Dialogue between Poussin and Parrhasius, 
 printed at the end of the Life. It belonged 
 originally to Del Pozzo, and is now in France. 
 
 3. Another, called the Tomb of Phocion: 
 — Nearly in the middle of the picture is a 
 noble temple, at the foot of a rugged rock, 
 which seems the back of a large city ; for as 
 it goes off towards the horizon on each side, 
 buildings of all kinds, mixed with gardens, 
 appear. On it a broad road, winding down- 
 wards from the temple, brings the eye to a 
 plain tomb on the road-side, which seems to 
 border a public place, for there are figures 
 engaged in archery and other exercises. One 
 figure is walking from that spot towards the 
 fore-ground, which is a grove of majestic trees 
 traversed by a road. In the grove some figures 
 are placed in various attitudes. The principal 
 light in the picture is on the temple, the road, 
 
poussin’s paintings. 229 
 
 and public place, and consequently the tomb 
 stands in the centre of that light. It is seldom 
 that Poussin misses his effect in landscape, 
 however justly he may be reproached for want 
 of skill or want of attention to it in his histo- 
 rical pictures. 
 
 4. The Effects of Fear. — For a description 
 of this picture, see the Dialogue between 
 Poussin and Leonardo da Vinci* It was painted 
 for M. del Pozzo. 
 
 5. A Desert inhabited by Cenobites. — 
 This is a fine scene, which the painter seems 
 to have taken from the Apennines. A deep 
 valley, or rather a leafy gulf, surrounded by a 
 wall of high-peaked rocks, serves as a retreat 
 to a few hermits, whose age seems best em- 
 ployed in their lonely and contemplative life. 
 Here and there the rocks open, and glimpses 
 of the distant world are seen at a distance 
 under the clouds that half obscure the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 6. Pyramus and Thisbe. — This is a fine 
 landscape, composed from the neighbourhood 
 of Rome and the Tiber. A violent storm 
 
>230 
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 breaks the trees, and forces every one to fly to 
 shelter. On a point of land which advances into 
 the river, a herd of cattle are standing with 
 their heads together, abiding the hurricane ; 
 nearer, some bullocks with their drivers rid- 
 ing, as is the custom about Rome, with their 
 spears goading on their charge, are attacked by 
 a lion, who has fastened on one of the horses, 
 and torn down his rider; and in the fore- 
 ground, Thisbe, running for safety from the 
 double danger of the lion and the storm, finds 
 her lover dead. 
 
 7. Landscape of Diogenes throwing away 
 his Pitcher, on seeing a Young Man drink out 
 of the hollow of his Hand. — One side of this 
 landscape is a pretty literal copy of the end of 
 the Vatican and banks of the Tiber ; the other 
 side is an invention worthy of accompanying 
 it, and the whole is in the best style of com- 
 position. It is in the Louvre, and is consi- 
 dered as one of the finest pictures of the 
 Master. 
 
 8. Polyphemus, seated on the top of a high 
 Rock, seems to be piping to the Sicilian 
 Labourers in the plains below, some of whom 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 m 
 
 are digging, others ploughing, while some are 
 seated round their rural repast in the field. 
 On the fore-ground, the Nymphs, crowned 
 with sedges, seem to have been bathing, and 
 are listening to the Giant’s pipe. 
 
 9. Areas and Calisto. Calisto, in the form 
 of a bear, is pursued by her son Areas through 
 the woods. Jupiter, in order to save her, 
 appears above the clouds, into which he has 
 already received Calisto, and whither Areas 
 is following her ; both to become constella- 
 tions. This picture is in Lord Grosvenor’s 
 possession. 
 
 10. Mercury playing the Flute to lull Argus 
 to sleep that he may deliver Io, who has been 
 metamorphosed into a cow. 
 
 11. The Birth of Adonis. — The landscape 
 is said to be by Swanveldt, and the figures 
 only by Poussin. The Nymphs are kneeling 
 round the tree, into which Myrrha is meta- 
 morphosed, and have already received the 
 beautiful child. The picture is in the Doria 
 Gallery. 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 232 
 
 12. A fine landscape in the collection at 
 Dulwich. — The subject is a road perfectly 
 strait going off into the distance ; on one side 
 is a church, and on the other some fine trees ; 
 hills in the distance and a reservoir in the 
 fore-ground, from which a man is taking some 
 water. A man and a woman are sitting as in 
 conversation on the other side of the road. 
 The simplicity of the subject is perhaps one 
 cause of the grandeur of this landscape, 
 though its colour and the manner of painting 
 are as fine as most from the hand of this 
 great master. 
 
 13. Another of nearly the same. 
 
 14. A round landscape which appears to 
 be a study from the Vatican. The same 
 motive is used in the landscape of Diogenes. 
 
 15. A fine landscape. — Ruins and fine trees 
 in the fore-ground, a town, distant moun- 
 tains, and a bay behind. It is characterised by 
 Saint John writing, and the eagle by him ; so 
 that it may be called Patmos. 
 
 16. A storm, — The branch of a large tree 
 had fallen upon the oxen that are drawing a 
 
poussin’s paintings. 
 
 233 
 
 loaded waggon, the driver and the cattle are 
 beaten down, other figures are running to- 
 wards the buildings for shelter. 
 
 17* A beautiful Landscape. — 4 In the fore- 
 ground two women sitting by a brook, in 
 which one of them is bathing her feet. 
 
 18. Another where two Nymphs are gazing 
 at a serpent who is gliding from them. 
 
 19. Another with a fountain on one side, 
 by which there is a man sitting, and opposite 
 there are two women seated at the foot of a 
 monument. The trees in this landscape are 
 superb. There is a second picture differing a 
 very little from this. 
 
 20. Another, which may be called the Tra- 
 vellers, from the great number of persons 
 going towards a city. One company seems 
 enquiring the road which a man is pointing 
 out. 
 
 21. Another painted for the Commander 
 del Pozzo ; there is in it a woman leaning on 
 her hand and a child asleep by her. 
 
 R 
 
CATALOGUE OF 
 
 234 
 
 22 . Another in the possession of S. Rogers, 
 Esq. — Nothing can be fresher than the whole 
 colour of this fine landscape. The scene 
 reminds the spectator of the neighbourhood 
 of Grotto Ferrato ; the same mountains, fine 
 distance, venerable trees, and a beautiful 
 stream gliding at their feet. The fore-ground 
 is rich in foliage of various kinds, carefully 
 and exquisitely painted. There are two figures, 
 a man and a woman, sitting in the shade. 
 
 23. A sweet landscape with a single figure, 
 a young woman gracefully clothed, holding 
 her drapery, and with a basket on her head* 
 
 24. A landscape with many fragments of 
 antique statues, bas-reliefs. &c. 
 
 There are hundreds of Poussin’s landscapes, 
 or at least of those called so. The few men* 
 tioned here are perhaps the very best. 
 
Poussin’s paintings. 
 
 235 
 
 PORTRAITS. 
 
 1. The Portrait of Himself, painted for 
 M. Chantelou ; he is sitting in his painting 
 room, with frames and pictures about him. 
 
 2. Another nearly the same, in the Rospig- 
 liosi palace ; there is sufficient difference in the 
 disposal of the frames, &c. to mark the two 
 pictures. 
 
 3 . Another, with his Crayon in one hand. 
 
 4 . A portrait of one of the Rospigliosi 
 family. 
 
 DESIGNS FOR FRONTISPIECES. 
 
 Frontispieces designed while Poussin was in Paris, 
 
 1. For the Bible of Sixtus V. — God the 
 Father appears above ; Revelation with wings 
 is writing in a book supported on her knee j 
 and Faith, closely veiled, holds a sphinx. 
 
 2. For the Virgil, printed at Paris, 1642.— 
 Apollo crowns the poet who is leaning against 
 a laurel-tree. A Genius above holds a tablet 
 and a pipe* 
 
236 
 
 CATALOGUE* \&C. 
 
 3. For the Horace printed at Paris 164^. 
 —A Muse in whose hand is a lyre, places a 
 mask on the poet’s face, while a Genius 
 crowns him ; two laurels overshadow them. 
 
 Thirty-two designs for Leonardo da Vinci’s 
 Treatise on Painting. 
 
 There are numerous drawings and studies by 
 Poussin scattered among the public and pri- 
 vate collections of England, France, and Italy. 
 Many of them have been engraved ; and as his 
 chief < excellence is composition, engravers 
 have found it profitable to publish most of his 
 known pictures, as prints after him lose less 
 than those after most other masters. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 t 
 
 Printed by A. and R. Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street, London. 
 
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