"A landscape by Nicolas Poussin, rather large, of a very poetic composition and careful execution, inspires, on the other hand, in the brownish silver tone, the sensation of the freshness of morning. There is quite a reviving coolness in the dark water and under the trees of the foreground.
"Two smaller historical pictures by Poussin, of his earlier time, class among his careful and good works.
"Of the Flemish school there are a few, but very good, specimens.
"There is a highly interesting picture by Rubens. During his residence in Mantua, he was so pleased with the triumph of Julius Cæsar, by Mantegna, that he made a fine copy of one of the nine pictures. His love for the fantastic and pompous led him to choose that with the elephants carrying the candelabra; but his ardent imagination, ever directed to the dramatic, could not be content with this. Instead of a harmless sheep, which in Mantegna is walking by the side of the foremost elephant, Rubens made a lion and a lioness, which growl angrily at the elephant. The latter, on his part, is not idle, but, looking furiously round, is on the point of striking the lion a blow with his trunk. The severe pattern which he had before him in Mantegna has moderated Rubens in his usually very full forms, so that they are more noble and slender than they generally are. The coloring, as in all his earlier pictures, is more subdued than in the later, and yet powerful. Rubens himself seems to have set much value on this study; for it was among the effects at his death. During the revolution, Mr. Champernowne brought it from the Balbi Palace, at Genoa. It is three feet high, and five feet five inches wide.
"The study for the celebrated picture, the Terrors of War, in the Pitti Palace at Florence, and respecting which we have a letter in Rubens's own hand, is likewise well worth notice. Rubens painted this picture for the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Venus endeavors, in vain, to keep Mars, the insatiable warrior, as Homer calls him, from war; he hurries away to prepare indescribable destruction. This picture, one foot eight inches high, and two feet six and a half inches wide, which I have seen in the exhibition of the British Institution, is, by the warmth and power of the coloring, and the spirited and careful execution, one of the most eminent of Rubens's small pictures of this period.
"Lastly, there is a Moonlight by him. The clear reflection of the moon in the water, its effect in the low distance, the contrast of the dark mass of trees in the foreground, are a proof of the deep feeling for striking incidents in nature, which was peculiar to Rubens. As in another picture the flakes of snow were represented, he has here marked the stars.
"I have now become acquainted with Rembrandt in a new department; he has painted in brown and white a rather obscure allegory on the deliverance of the United Provinces from the union of such great powers as Spain and Austria. It is a rich composition, with many horsemen. One of the most prominent figures is a lion chained at the foot of a rock, on which the tree of liberty is growing. Over the rock are the words, 'Solo Deo gloria.' The whole is executed with consummate skill, and the principal effect striking.
"His own portrait, at an advanced age, with very dark ground and shadows, and, for him, a cool tone of the lights, is to be classed, among the great number of them, with that in the Bridgewater Gallery; only it is treated in his broadest manner, which borders on looseness.
"A landscape, with a few trees upon a hill, in the foreground, with a horseman and a pedestrian in the background, a plain with a bright horizon, is clearer in the shadows than other landscapes by Rembrandt, and therefore, with the most powerful effect, the more harmonious.
"Among the drawings I must at least mention some of the finest.