at the beginning of the nineteenth century, by cities which, in a few years more, re-kindled wars, or unexpected prosperities were to ravage, or renovate, into nothingness.
It seems strange to pass from Prout to John Lewis; but there is this fellowship between them, that both seem to have been intended to appeciate the characters of foreign countries more than of their own—nay, to have been born in England chiefly that the excitement of strangeness might enhance to them the interest of the scenes they had to represent. I believe John Lewis to have done more entire justice to all his powers (and they are magnificent ones) than any other man amongst us. His mission was evidently to portray the comparatively animal life of the southern and eastern families of mankind. For this he was prepared in a somewhat singular way—by being led to study, and endowed with altogether peculiar apprehension of, the most sublime characters of animals themselves. Rubens, Rembrandt, Snyders, Tintoret, and Titian, have all, in various ways, drawn wild beasts magnificently; but they have in some sort