SECOND LECTURE.

79

The principle of Correggio vanifhed with its author,though it found numerous imitators of its parts. Sincehim, no eye has conceived that expanfe of harmony withwhich the voluptuous fenhbility of his mind arrangedand enchanted all vihble nature. His grace, fo muchvaunted and fo little underflood, was adopted and im-proved to elegance by Francefco Mazzuoli, called Par-megiano (cj, but inflead of making her the meafure of

propriety

fuccefs. France feized lets on the delicacy than on the affectation of Vandyck,and i'oon turned the art of reprefenting men and women intoamere remembrancerof fafhions and airs. England had poffeffed Holbein , but it was referved for theGerman Lely, and his fucceffor Kneiler, to lay the foundation of a manner, which,by pretending to unite portrait with hiftory, gave a retrogade direction for near acentury, to both. A mob of fhepherds and Ihepherdelles in flowing wigs anddreffed curls, ruffled Endymion’s, humble Juno’s, withered Hebe’s, furly Allegroesand fmirking Penlierofa’s ufurped the place of truth, propriety and character. Eventhe lamented powers of the greateft painter, whom this country and perhaps ourage produced, long vainly ftiuggled, and fcarcely in the eve of life fucceeded to.emancipate us from this daltard tafte.

( c ) Francefco Mazzuoli, called il Parmegiano, died at Cafal Maggfore in 1540,at the age of SG. The magnificent picture of the St. John, we fpeak of, was begunby order of the Lady Maria Bufaiina, and deltincd for the church of St. Salvadore-del Lauro at Citta di Caltello. It probably never received the lalt hand of themailer, who lied from Rome, where he painted it, at the lacking of that city,under Charles Bourbon , in 1527 ; it remained in the refeCtory of the conventdella Pace for feveral years, w r as carried to Citta di Caftello by Meffer Giulio Bu-falini, and is now in England. The Mofes, a figure in frefco at Parma, togetherwith Raphael’s figure of God in the vilion of Ezekiel, is faid, by Mr. Mafon, to.have furnillicd Gray with the head and action of his bard : if that was the cafe, he-would have done Well, to acquaint us with the poet’s method, of making ‘ Pla-‘ cidis coire immitia.’