THE DIDO.
"This is one of the few historic compositions any where, and perhaps a solitary one in this collection, of which the principal figure is the best and occupies the most conspicuous place. Riveted to supreme beauty in the jaws of death, we pay little attention to the subordinate parts, and scorn, when recovered from sympathy and anguish, to expatiate in cold criticisms on their unfitness or impotence. He who could conceive this Dido, could not be at a loss for a better Anna, had he had a wish, or given himself time to consult his own heart, rather than to adopt a precedent of clamorous grief from Daniel di Volterra. That Iris was admitted at all, without adequate room to display her, as the arbitress of the moment, may be regretted; for if she could not be contrived to add sublimity to pathos, she could be no more than what she actually became, a tool of mean conception.
"The writer of these observations has seen the progress of this work,—if not daily, weekly,—and knows the throes which it cost its author before it emerged into the beauty, assumed the shape, or was divided into the powerful masses of chiar' oscuro which strike us now; of colour it never had, nor wants, more than what it possesses now,—a negative share.
——'Non rem Colori
Sed colorem Rei submittere ausus.'
"The painter has proved the success of a great principle, less understood than pertinaciously opposed."