the Peer. "Yes," replied the painter, "You are my Lord Chancellor. And do you know me? I am Varelst. The King can make any man Chancellor, but he can make nobody a Varelst." Shaftesbury was disgusted, and sat to Greenhill.

To

The Floralia were instituted in the year of Rome 513, but not regularly celebrated until after 580. This festival in honour of Flora was held on the 4th of the calends of May, when the courtezans were called together and danced naked in the streets. this custom of our Roman conquerors may be traced our present festivities in May, though happily long since divested of such grossly licentious rites. The general holiday at Helston in Cornwall, on May 8, when the inhabitants go into the country and return decked with flowers, is still called the Furry, an evident corruption of the Roman Floralia. Hall gives a circumstantial account of Henry VIII. and his queen Katharine of Arragon, riding a maying from Greenwich to Shooter's hill, attended by the Lords and Ladies of their court. At our present rustic feasts, on May-day, the prettiest girl is crowned with a chapJet of flowers, as Lady of the May, the representation of the goddess Flora; and in many villages the May-pole is still retained. The last in London was taken down in 1717, and removed to Wanstead in Essex. It was more than 100 feet high, and stood on the East side of Somerset-house. Its remembrance is perpetuated by Pope, in "Amidst the area wide they took their stand, [the Strand." Where the tall May-pole once o'erlook'd The rural sacrifice of the Beltein fires, in the highlands of Scotland on the first of May, are described in Pennant's Tour.

The antient custom of strewing the graves of departed relatives or friends with flowers, is sweetly alluded to in Cymbeline:

"With fairest flowers Whilst Summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, [not lack I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor [nor The azur'd barebell, like thy veins, no, The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Outsweeten'd not thy breath." And the exquisite dirge by Collins thus begins:

2

The Dutch are so excessively fond of flowers, that a tulip root has been known to sell for 5,000 florins. Young in his "Love of Fame," has severely exposed this folly in his character of "Florio."

The principal Potteries in this kingdom are near Newcastle in Staffordshire; which situation was probably chosen from coal being abundant, and the other strata consisting most commonly of clays of different kinds; some of which make excellent firebricks for building the potters' kilns, and are also used in forming the Saggers (a corruption of the German Schragers, which signify cases or supporters) in which the ware is burnt. One of the earliest authors who notices this pottery is Dr. Plott, in his "Natural History of Staffordshire," which was published in 1686, when all the ware was of the coarse yellow, red, black, or mottled kind, and the common glaze was produced by lead ore finely powdered, and sprinkled on the pieces of ware before firing. In 1690, two foreigners, of the name of Elers, invented at Bradley a new species of glaze, by throwing into the kiln, when

brought

brought to its greatest heat, a quantity of common salt, the fumes of which occasioned a superficial vitrification of the clay. This practice was succeeded in a short time by a capital improvement in the body of the ware itself, which originated in the following incident. Mr. Artbury, a potter, in a journey to London, was recommended by the hostler of his ion at Dunstable, to use powdered flint for euring some disorder in his horse's eyes; and for that purpose a flint stone was thrown into the fire to render it more easily pulverizable. The potter observing the flint to be changed by the fire to a pure white, was immediately struck with the idea that his ware might be improved by an addition of this material to the whitest elays he could procure. Accordingly, be sent home a quantity of the flint stones, which are plentiful among the chalk hills near Dunstable, and tried them with tobacco pipe clay, and thus produced the white-stone ware, which soon became the staple branch of pottery.

In 1763, Mr. Josiah Wedgewood, who had previously introduced several improvements in the composition, form, and colour of this ware, invented the improved kind now generally made. It is composed of the whitest clays from Dorsetshire and other places, mixed with a due proportion of ground flint.. The pieces are fired twice, and the glaze applied after the first firing in the same manner as porcelain. The glaze is a vitreous composition of flint and other white earthy bodies, with the addition of white-lead for the flux, analogous to common flint glass. This compound being mixed with water to a proper consistence, the pieces, after the first firing, are separately dipt into it; being somewhat bibulous, they imbibe a quantity of the mere water, and the glaze which was united with that portion of the water, remains adherent uniformly all over their surface, so as to become by the second firing, a coat of perfect glass. Enamelled ware, after painting, undergoes a third firing to fix the colours.

The finest Porcelain, of which Flower-pols are sometimes composed, fully equal to that of Sevé or Dresden, is made at the Cambrian China-works at Swansea, in South Wales.

GENT. MAG. January, 1819.

Jan. 5. HE restoration of the Arts in THE Italy, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Christian æra, may be considered as the most interesting period in their history. Mr. Roscoe emphatically observes, "that under the successive but uninterrupted patronage of Julius II. and Leo X. the talents of the great Artists then living were united in one simultaneous effort; and their rival productions may be considered as a joint tribute to the munificence of their patrons, and the glory of the age". By several Artists, the perfection of Grecian sculpture was emulated,if not equalled. Ghiberti Donatello, John of Bologna, Michel Angelo, and Fiamingo, with some others, may be ranked in no very unequal comparison (at least in all that we know) with Scopas, Phidias, and Praxiteles. They were content to follow, with respectful imilation, the traces of their antient masters; and they did not consider it as humiliating to their own efforts, to allow them the highest degree of praise. It has been truly remarked, that the mythology of Greece supplied her Artists with an infinity of subjects, and afforded other important advantages to Sculpture.

Yet, upon the revival of the Arts, in the zenith of the Catholic Religion in Italy, the same encouragement once given, the subjects will be found to be nearly parallel, as far as invention and skill are required; and that, by changing only the names, the same elegance of forms, and the same expression of the passions are necessary to, and apparent in modern, as in antient representations. The dignified matron may be as happily personified by Maria, as by Juno; the inspired songstress by Cecilia as by Polyhymnia; exquisite ideal beauty may be that of Magdalene, or of Venus. On Trajan's column that head is named Jupiter Pluvius, which has been copied by M. Angelo, and made to express his idea of Jehovah brooding over the chaos. The figure of St. John or Apollo may display the comeliest form of human youth. A similar objection may be made to the winged head of Aoratus or a Cherub, the wings of a Genius or Cupid, as of an Angel, which is a solecism in anatomy, without superadding the muscles necessary to move them. The martyrdom of St. Bartholomew inay be rendered equally horrible or scientific, as the flaying of Marsyas. No moment of pathetic expression in the story of Laocoon, or of Niobe, is equal to the group of the crucifixion. Of these striking analogies the sculptors of Italy did not neglect to avail themselves, and most of them had the candour to allow, that no inconsiderable portion of their own excellence was reflected from the works of the autients. The celebrated Moses of Michel Angelo, attached to the tomb of

Julius II. in the Church of the Apostles at Rome, and the group of the dead Christ on the lap of his mother, in St. Peter's, called La Pietà, or the Susanna of Fiamingo, have been placed in no very unequal compe tition with them, in point of majesty or grace. Without consenting impli citly to the exaggerated praises of D'Argenville in his Lives of the French sculptors, with respect to genius, design, and taste, the names of Puget, Girardon, Coysevox, Bouchardon, and Couston, will be honourably distinguished in the history of modern Art, for their exemplary diligence and success in finishing, which called forth the utmost exertion of talent. From the patronage of the House of Medici, in the fifteenth century, the restoration of the Arts may claim its true date. Painting and Architecture preceded Sculpture, which, as it is susceptible of improvement from congenial causes, soon made a proportionate progress. Before the age of Donatello, the inventive genius of Italian Artists * had applied it to various materials, and produced figures in wood, clay, metals, and marble; yet so rude and incorrect, with the exception of Ghibertit, as to leave to Donatello the great and deserved name of the Restorer of Sculpture in modern Europe. From the era of the Antonines to this period, Sculpture had gradually fallen from comparative perfection into total disuse. the frequent discovery of antique marbles, which were now collecting for the Medicean Museum, and the Academy § established by the magni

But

ficent