In the introductory sketch, we do not find much novel information, but it presents a useful and comprehensive view of the present state of geographical discovery. After noticing the results of the adventurous voyages of Captain Parry and Mr. Scoresby, and the exploratory travels of Lieutenant Franklin, the Editor proceeds to mention the expeditions sent out by the Russian Government for the purpose of prosecuting discoveries in the polar regions. Besides the one sent out in 1820, under Baron Wrangel, to which we have adverted in a preceding article, two expeditions were sent out the preceding year one under Lieutenant Lasarew, with orders to explore the straits of Waigatz and the coasts of Nova Zembla; the other under Lieutenants Wasilieff and Schischareff to Beering's Straits, with a view to discover a passage eastward. The former failed in the main object, owing to the accumulation of the ice, but it was not wholly unproductive of useful results the latter was also unsuccessful, but Wasilieff reached the parallel of 71° 7', and discovered two capes situated further north than Icy Cape. In August 1823, Captain Otto Von Kotzebue was again sent out to Beering's Straits, to make a new attempt to discover a north-east passage. In the mean time, the Golownin and the Baranow, fitted out in 1821, by the Russian American Company, to explore the north-east coast, returned, having accomplished their instructions, and discovered a considerable island in lat. 59° 54' 57", to which they gave the name of Numirak. In 1819, another Russian navigator, Captain Bellingshausen, was sent out to explore the Southern Icy Sea. Between the 6th and the 19th of July 1820, he is stated to have discovered in the Southern Ocean, about sixteen islands of various magnitudes east of New Zealand; but the latitudes are not specified. On the 10th of Jan. 1821, being in lat. 68° 57' 15" S. and long. 90° 4' 5" W., he discovered a high island 24 miles in circumference, to which he gave the name of Peter Island; and on the 17th, he descried a high coast in lat. 68° 51′ 50′′ and long. 73° 3' 46', which received the name of Alexander Island. From this place he steered towards New South Shetland, sailed round it, and found it to consist of several islands. He discovered seven other islands, in 55° W., long. and lat. 61° 10'; and sailed entirely round Sandwich Land. He returned to Cronstadt on the 24th of July. If the Editor has the means of obtaining further details respecting this voyage, he will confer a service on the public by including an analysis of it in his next volume.

In America, no country has of late years been visited by so numerous travellers as Brazil. Mawe, Lindley, and Koster VOL. XXIII. N.S. 2 A

were among the first to lead the way; and scanty as is the information contained in their volumes, they contain almost all that was then known respecting that vast region. Mr. Luccock's heavy but very valuable quarto, furnished a most important addition to our information; and it comprises at this moment more valuable and accurate matter, than is to be found in any one publication of any other traveller. The travels of Drs. Von Spix, Prince Maximilian, and Mrs. Graham, have very recently been noticed in this Journal. Professor Pohl, who was sent out by the Emperor of Austria at the same time as the two Bavarian academicians, appears to have penetrated further into the back country of Brazil than any preceding traveller. He reached the capital of Goyaz, the central province, in January 1819, where he spent three months, being detained by the rainy season. He then bent his way northward by way of St. Joze de Tocantines as far as Porto Real; whence he navigated the Maranham for nearly 500 miles, and eventually returned by Porto Real to Villa Boa, having occupied eight months in the expedition. He made an excursion the following year into Minas Novas, and returned to Rio in February 1821, after a journey of 1300 geographical miles between the 22nd and 7th parallels of south latitude, during which he had forwarded 111 chests, containing the articles of interest he had collected. These are stated to comprise 260 living animals, 4000 kinds of plants, and above 1000 fossils.

About the same period, a M. St. Hilaire, a Frenchman in the suite of the Duke of Luxembourg, ambassador from the court of France to that of Brazil, undertook, successively, three different journeys in that country; the first, through Minas Geraes to Bahia in 1817, 18; the second, along the coast as far north as the Rio Doce, the track explored by Prince Maximilian; the third in 1819, to the capital of Goyaz, from which place he took the road to Santo Paulo: leaving his collections at that city, he continued his journey southward through the comarcas of Hitu and Curutiba, and crossing the elevated Campos, descended the frightful serra de Puranagua to the coast, opposite the island of Saint Catherine. Thence he prosecuted his journey along the sandy shores of Rio Grande to Portalegre, where he passed the winter of 1819, 20. In the following spring, he proceeded to the Banda Oriental, visited Monte Video, and returned through the territory formerly occupied by Artigas, and the country of the missions, to Rio Grande. Between Belem and the Reductions of Uruguay, M. St. Hilaire spent thirteen days in a desert, where there was neither a house nor a beaten road, but only ostriches, stags, and jaguars. After again visiting St. Paulo, he returned

to Europe, with a collection of 2,000 birds, 16,000 insects, and 30,000 plants. The account of these travels would fill up an important chasm in the topography of the South American peninsula, a great part of them being through districts almost absolutely unknown, and inhabited by savage tribes with whom the whites have had little or no intercourse. We strongly recommend the Editor of this " Cabinet," to obtain, if possible, further details..

Little more that is important appears to have been achieved by foreign travellers. Baron Minutoli and Doctors Ehrenberg. and Hemprich have been prosecuting researches in Egypt and Nubia. M. Brocchi, a pupil of Werner, has lately gone to Egypt to pursue a geognostical investigation in the vicinity of Thebes. Messrs. Calliaud and Letorzec, who accompanied Ismael Pasha on his military expedition into the interior, penetrated, about five weeks after their departure from Sennaar, as far as Fazièle and Gamanil. The most southern place to which Ismael Pasha penetrated, was Singheh in lat. 10° N. They were unable to sail up the Bahr el Abiad, because the water was too low; but M. Calliaud thinks it probable that it will be found to communicate with the Niger.-The Missionary Society of Basle have resolved to send five missionaries into Persia, who are, previously to their settlement, to explore the interior of that vast empire. The Chaplain to the Swedish embassy at Constantinople, the Rev. Mr. Berggren, visited Syria in 1820. The present volume contains an account of pilgrimages in the East' performed by Otto Frederick Von Richter in 1815-16; but they add little or nothing to the later accounts of English travellers. In fact, Asia appears to have received of late far less attention from foreign travellers than any other quarter of the globe.

We observe a few errors and marks of haste in this volume. Hunhuetoca, Quertano, and Yrapualo, (at p. 403,) should be Huehuetoca, Queretaro, andYrapuato; Chilpanzlugo is printed for Chilpanzingo; and several other names are mis spelt. On the whole, the work does credit to the publishers; and should they be so fortunate as to obtain either original contributions or authenticated accounts of unpublished travels for the ensuing volumes, or, in failure of these, if they will supply spirited analyses of such foreign works as have not reached this country, the publication cannot fail, we think, to become extremely acceptable.

Art. VIII. Memoirs of Painting, with a chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the great Masters into England, since the French Revolution. By W. Buchanan, Esq. In 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 777. Price 11. 6s. London. 1824.

2. Sketches of the principal Pictures in England. With a Criticism on Marriage a-la-Mode." Foolscap 8vo. pp. 195. London. 1824. 3. British Galleries of Art, Small 8vo. pp. 301. Price 8s. 6d.

London. 1824.

THE general diffusion and to a considerable extent, equaliza

tion of knowledge in the present day, entails, with many advantages, a few annoyances. The facility and correctness of composition, which characterise the average standard of literary talent, throw a certain class of writers into perfect despair; and sets them, hopeless of a more legitimate distinction, on endeavouring to awaken attention by grimace and affectation. Of this lamentable perversion, we have, in one of the volumes before us, a specimen the less excusable, both as the author is capable of better things, and as the subject called in an especial manner for the utmost simplicity and explicitness of treatment. Jargon is bad enough under any circumstances, but, when applied to Art, it is more emphatically contemptible, since it is wholly at variance both with the severity of scientific principle, and the intelligibility which should reign throughout all the processes of the artist. Connect charlatanism with art, even in the slightest degree, and its mental, as well as its moral elevation is degraded to the dust. What, for example, is the impression produced upon the mind by such elaborate and abortive strainings after something transcendently fine and effective as the following?

6

I should pitch' (on the supposition of having to make a choice among the Claudes of the Angerstein gallery) upon the landscape with the Mill, that hangs in the right corner of this room, "making a sunshine in a shady place:" and yet, without very well knowing why; unless it be that it pours from every part of it a flood of beauty, into the very depths of the heart; at once soothing the passions of earth to an unearthly stillness, while it makes the blood seem to dance and sparkle within us, to the music of its dark and sparkling waters. To stand before that picture is to be happy, whatever one's lot may be; and to leave it, is to leave looking into the very heart and soul of Nature.' British Galleries.

Again:

• The Dejinira is magnificent. She sits across his knees, with one arm passed round his neck; and from every point of her form there seems to exude, as it were, an atmosphere of desire, which spreads

itself on all the objects present, steeping them all in the pervading sentiment of the scene.' British Galleries.

Once more-from the description of Titian's paintings in the Cleveland Gallery, the Diana and Acteon, and the Diana and Calisto.

In these pictures the expression goes for almost nothing. They are appeals to the senses alone. You can actually, as it were, taste the flavour of them on the palate. And if you remember them at all in absence, it is a kind of harmonious chaos of colour, without form and void;' or like a chord in music-one sweet sound made up of many -- harmony without melody. British Galleries.

Now let the reader try for a moment to extract a plain, tangible meaning from these quaint and tricksey phrases, and if he is able to give substance to that which shape has none, he will be to us, not Davus, but dipus. Nothing can be more simple than the genuine language of Art, precisely because nothing can be more expressive than simplicity; and every departure from it is neither more nor less than a confession of ignorance. The great skill of a connoisseur lies in knowing what to admire and what to condemn; and this, once discriminated on sound principles, there can be no difficulty in stating with precision.

The subject of these volumes is to us a very delightful one. It relates to a substantial portion of our national wealth, and, in its connected circumstances, it blends itself with just views of our best fame. Too long neglected amid the conflict of parties, and the din of martial preparation, there has been gradually gaining ground among us, a persuasion that the prosperity of a realm is most honourably distinguished by the encouragement of the arts and sciences; and the contents of the volumes before us afford gratifying evidence that active and effectual exertions have followed hard upon that conviction. The history of amateurship in this country includes not a few disheartening points of retrospection. With a few partial glimpses of better feeling, the backward view' of our pictorial annals yields little satisfaction until we reach the reign of Charles I., whose encouragement of the arts was enlightened and liberal. Henry VIII., with the ostentation that formed so marked a feature in his character, had welcomed Holbein to his court, and Elizabeth had permitted Zuccaro to transmit her lineaments to posterity; but Charles had given to the arts of design a cordial and decided patronage. Rubens and Vandyke enjoyed his personal favour, and he formed a collection of painting and sculptures which was unrivalled in that day.