hich he had purchased in Italy; part of which he sold to the duke of Buckingham.

His genius qualified him to excel equally in every thing that can enter into the composition of a picture. His invention was so fertile, that, if he had occasion to paint the same subject several times, his imagination always supplied him with something striking and new. The attitudes of his figures are natural and varied, the carriage of the head is peculiarly graceful, and his expression noble and animated.

He is by all allowed to have carried the art of colouring to its highest pitch; he understood so thoroughly the true principles of the chiaro-scuro, that he gave to his figures the utmost harmony, and a prominence resembling real life. His pencil is mellowed, his strokes bold and easy, his carnation glows with life, and his drapery is simple, but grand, broad, and hung with much skill.

The great excellence of Rubens appears in his grand compositions; for as they are to be viewed at a distance, he laid on a proper body of colours with uncommon boldness, and fixed all his tints in their proper places; so that he never impaired their lustre by breaking or torturing them; but touched them in such a manner as to give them a lasting force, beauty, and harmony.

It is generally allowed, that Rubens wanted correctness in drawing and designing; some of his figures being heavy and too short, and the limbs in some parts not being justly sketched in the outline. Though he had spent seven years in Italy in studying those antiques by which other celebrated artists had modelled their taste; though he had examined them with such minute attention as not only to perceive their beauties, but to be qualified to describe them in a Dissertation which he wrote on that subject: yet he seems never to have divested himself of that heavy style of painting, which, being peculiar to his native country, he had infensibly acquired. The astonishing rapidity too with which he painted, made him fall into inaccuracies, from which those works that he finished with care are entirely exempted.

Among his finished pieces may be mentioned the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ between the Two Thieves, which was very lately to be seen at Antwerp; but of all his works the paintings in the palace of Luxembourg best display his genius and his style.

It is the observation of Algarotti, that he was more moderate in his movements than Tintoretto, and more soft in his chiaro-scuro than Caravaggio; but not so rich in his compositions, nor so light in his touches, as Paolo Veronese; in his carnations less true than Titian, and less delicate than Van Dyck. Yet he contrived to give his colours the utmost transparency and harmony, notwithstanding the extraordinary deepness of them; and he possessed a strength and grandeur of style which were entirely his own.