MARS SETTING OUT FOR WAR.

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engraver, the most remarkable are the following:-A set of wood-cuts, known by the name of Death's Dance, engraved from his own designs; when complete, it consists of fifty-three prints, though it is seldom to be met with above forty-six. They are small upright prints, surrounded by a border. The first impression of them was made in 1530; but there are later publications of them, particularly one at Lyons, entitled, "Simolachri Historie, e figura della Morte, in Lyone oppresso Giov. Frelloni MDXLIX." They have been copied on wood by an old artist, but in a manner very inferior to the originals. We have also by him, a set of ninety small cuts of subjects from the Old Testament, executed in a bold masterly style, yet with great delicacy. The best impression of them was published at Lyons, in 1539, by Melchior and Gaspar Treschel. There is a later impression of them, with two Latin verses in praise of Holbein. This set was copied by Hans Brosamer, in a poor style. He also engraved a variety of vignettes, frontispieces, and ornaments, for goldsmiths. He usually marked his prints with the ciphers HB or BI, or signed them HANS. HOLB.

Holbein died of the plague in London, 1554, aged fifty-six.

MARS SETTING OUT FOR WAR.

(Painted by Rubens.)

J. M. T.

THIS allegorical conception is truly poetical, and one of those which characterize, in a particular manner, the prolific genius of Rubens. We cannot better convey to our readers the idea of this great painter, than by detailing the explanation of the subject which he himself has given in one of his letters.

"The principal personage is Mars, who is seen leaving the temple of Janus. The god of war, armed with his sword and shield, threatens the people with the most fatal disasters; he resists the entreaties of Venus, who, accompanied by the Loves, endeavours to retain him hy the tenderest caresses. The fury Alecto, holding her torch, conducts Mars to battle. She is preceded by two monsters, indicative of plague and famine, the inseparable companions of war. A female is extended upon the earth; beside her is a broken lute; this is Harmony, incompatible with the disorders which war produces. Not far from this figure is a woman holding her infant in her arms, signifying that war stifles the warmest sentiments, and restrains the expressions of maternal tenderness. The genius of architecture, bearing her attributes, is overthrown. This announces that the monuments erected in peace, for the ornament of cities and the utility of mankind, are ruined and destroyed by the devastation of war. Mars, the enemy of letters and of the arts, tramples under foot a book and some drawings. Some arrows are thrown on the ground near to the caduceus, the symbol of peace: united, they presented an emblem of concord, but the cord by which they were joined together is broken. The female following Venus, absorbed in grief, is Europe, exposed unfortunately, during a long series of years, to outrage, rapine and misery. She is characterized by the globe, surmounted by a cross, designating the christian world, which is borne by a little angel."

To this ample description, which Rubens has himself given of this admirable picture, it is almost unnecessary for us to add, that the execution is worthy of the idea, and that this performance exhibits all those excellencies of the art which are conspicuous in his best productions.

SALVATOR ROSA.

ALVATOR ROSA was born at Naples, in 1614, and received instructions in drawing and colour, from his kinsman, Francesco Francanzans. The too early death of his father exposed him, when young, to many hardships; to obtain subsistence, he was obliged to make sketches on paper, and sell them frequently in the public streets, to such purchasers as charity or accident sent. Some of these designs, together with a picture of Hagar and Ishmael, so affected Lanfranco the painter, that he sought Salvator out, encouraged and aided him, and procured his admission to study in the school of Spagnoletto. The works of that eminent master, together with the battle scenes of Falcone, had some influence upon his mode of grouping, and style of handling. His mind expanded with his fortune and he soon distinguished himself by daring conceptions, bold freedom of hand, and gloomy splendour of colouring. His soul naturally delighted in scenes of savage magnificence and sacred grandeur; his spirit loved to stray in lonely glens, and gaze on mouldering castles. The bloom of summer, the ripe abundance of autumn, or cheerful fires and merry pastimes of winter, had no charms for him; he kindled his summer clouds with lightning, he sent firebrands and whirlwinds among the standing corn, and brought winter famished and gaunt from the north, scattering snow and hail among the shivering children of man. To his captivity in Calabria,-where he remained some times with bandits, by whom he was taken,-is to be attributed, in a great measure, his delight in pourtraying in his landscapes, savage scenery, Alps, broken rocks and caves, wild thickets, and desert places. His trees are shattered, torn, and dishevelled, and in the very atmosphere itself, he seldom introduced a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sun-beam. He observed the same manner too, in his sea views. His style was original, and was conducted on a principle of savage beauty, as the palate of some persons is gratified with austere wines. His pictures also were rendered more acceptable from the small figures of shepherds, mariners, or banditti, which he has introduced in almost all his compositions, and he was reproached by his rivals with having continually repeated the same ideas, and in a manner copied himself. That Salvator was accused of imitating himself is less to be wondered at, than at the charge which has been urged against him, that he borrowed most of his excellence from Spagnoletto and Caravaggio. An artist so decidedly original in conception and handling, could only be compared with himself. And with respect to his imitation of other masters, there is no doubt that he profited by contemplating the strong, natural style, and dark colouring of his predecessors; but his ideas are all of a different order, and his scenes are his own. To a man of his strong genius, imitation was far more difficult than original composition; his spirit was too buoyant to work in fetters. His genius was indeed comprehensive, and more strictly poetic than that of most painters. In contemplating a scene, he seemed to see only those strong and leading points, which a poet would select for song. His pictures

are less difficult to describe than any other works of art; there is an allusion or a story in all he touches upon; the stormy beauties of his landscapes are generally united with human actions; for the wildest scenes he finds deeds equally wild; the storm in the sky is matched by the tempest of human passion on the earth; the roughest rock he delineates is scarcely more rugged than its rude inhabitant, who, with pistols in his belt, his hand on a sword, and his ears open to all sounds, stands ready for deeds of violence.

The genuine works of this great master are exceedingly rare, and of course valuable. A few of them are to be found in the galleries of our British nobility and gentry.

Though Salvator chiefly painted landscape, he was equally eminent for battle scenes, and storms at sea; he knew the passions and feelings of human nature, and loved to introduce them in his compositions. He did not look upon inanimate nature, however magnificent, as all that was worthy of his pencil; earth had its inhabitants, and he accordingly peopled the rock and the ruin, the wilderness and the cavern. He composed all his subjects in a grand taste, and was singularly correct in his design. The style in which he painted was formed by his own elevated genius, nor was he indebted to any preceding artist for any of his ideas, or for any traces of the manner which he always followed.

Among his chief compositions, we may mention the Regulus, in the Colonna palace; Saul and the Witch of Endor, at Versailles; a Martyrdom of Saints, at Rome; the Purgatory, in Milan; and the Catiline, in Florence.

He left his native Naples in his twentieth year, and established himself at Rome, where he lived to the age of sixty. His remains were placed in the Church degli Angeli, with his portrait and eulogy; and another portrait of him is to be seen in the Chigi Gallery :-the picture represents a savage scene; a poet appears in a sitting attitude the features are those of Salvator. He had a right to appear in the character of a poet, for he was a sharp satirist and writer of songs, which he took pleasure in singing. He was likewise a musician, a humourist, an actor, a dealer in those dubious sort of jokes, called practical, and such an admirer of liberty, that he declined serving any of the princes of the earth.

In the time of Salvator Rosa, it was greatly the fashion to represent extempore comedies. This impromptu mode of acting furnished opportunities for a perpetual change in the performance, so that the same scene repeated, still appeared a new one. Thus, one comedy might become twenty comedies. The historian Passeri, who lived in those times, in his life of Salvator Rosa, says, "Salvator Rosa, with a numerous company of his young friends, agreed together to perform extempore comedies; accordingly, one summer, they constructed a rustic stage in a cool and umbrageous situation, placing themselves under the direction of Messer Mussi, an ecclesiastic, and a man of letters.

"I went to their second comedy, which was numerously attended, and by good fortune, chanced to sit on the same bench with the Cavaliers Bernini, Romanelli, and Guido, all distinguished persons. Salvator Rosa, who, in the character of Formica, had already ingratiated himself with the Romans, opened the comedy by a prologue, which terminated in the following words, in the Calabrese dialect:

"I desire not that we should represent comedies like those who cut clothes for this man or that man, for the cut of the scissars flies faster than the pen of the poet. Neither will I permit our stage to be defiled with bailiffs,