in her bosom that heart which would still beat with love at the aspect of her guilty paramour.  The vapoury colour of the shades and the paleness of the surrounding scene, form a contrast with the life-like appearance of AEneas and of the sybil who conducts him.  But this kind of effect is an amusement of the artist, and the description of the poet is necessarily superior to anything that painting can produce.  I will say as much of this picture of Clorinda dying, and Tancred.  The utmost pathos which it can excite, is to call to our minds the beautiful lines of Tasso, when Clorinda pardons her adoring enemy who has just pierced her breast.  Painting necessarily becomes subordinate to poetry, when devoted to subjects which have been treated by great poets; for their words leave an impression which effaces every other; the situations which they have chosen almost ever derive their chief strength from the development of the passions and their eloquence, whilst the greater part of picturesque effects arises from a calm beauty, a simple expression, a noble attitude, a moment of repose, worthy of being indefinitely prolonged without ever wearying the eye.

“Your terrible Shakespeare, my lord,” continued Corinne, “has furnished the subject of the third dramatic picture—­it is Macbeth,—­the invincible Macbeth—­who, ready to fight Macduff, whose wife and children he has put to death, learns that the oracle of the witches is accomplished, that Birnam Wood is advancing to Dunsinane, and that he is fighting a man who was born after the death of his mother.  Macbeth is conquered by fate, but not by his adversary.—­He grasps the sword with a desperate hand;—­he knows that he is about to die;—­but wishes to try whether human strength cannot triumph over destiny.  There is certainly in this head, a fine expression of wildness and fury—­of trouble and of energy; but how many poetical beauties do we miss?  Is it possible to paint Macbeth plunged in guilt by the spells of ambition, which offer themselves to him under the shape of witchcraft?  How can painting express the terror which he feels?  That terror, however, which is not inconsistent with intrepid bravery?  Is it possible to characterise that peculiar species of superstition which oppresses him?  That belief without dignity, that hell-born fatality which weighs him down, his contempt of life, his horror of death?  Undoubtedly the human countenance is the greatest of mysteries; but the motionless physiognomy of a painting can never express more than the workings of a single sentiment.  Contrasts, conflicts of the mind, events, in short, belong to the dramatic art.  Painting can with difficulty render a succession of events:  time and movement exist not for it.