extravagant improbabilities and fictitious heroic manners of the school of romance of which Parthenissa was the most illustrious example in English. Pamela at once became a book that everybody had to read. Fielding read it, but with less reverence and admiration than the ladies of the time. A man cannot escape from the prevalent moral teaching of his generation; his attitude towards it must be either sympathetic or militant. The prosperous evenly conducted printer had complete sympathy with the worldly ethics of the 18th century; the idea of writing Pamela had been put into his head by the suggestion that he should write" a little book of familiar letters on the useful concerns of common life;" and in his earnestness to promote the cause of religion and virtue he saw nothing absurd in making a young maid-servant resist the improper advances of her master and be sustained in her resistance by a secret hope that he might be driven by his passion into offering her lawful marriage. To Fielding, on the other hand, there was something ludicrous in good conduct which was so closely allied to artfulness, and he was moved to write a parody of Mrs Andrews's virtue and distressing humility in the adventures of Joseph Andrews, who "by keeping the excellent pattern of his sister's virtues before his eyes," was enabled to preserve his purity in the midst of great temptations. Joseph Andrews, published in 1742, was thus in its original conception a parody of Pamela, but the author, though he began it with this intention, and executed his intention with inimitable wit, became aware as he went on that he was introducing a kind of writing as new in its way to English readers as Pamela itself, and when he issued the work he endeavoured in his preface to place it on a higher ground than mere burlesque. There was a wide difference, he said, between the comic and the burlesque, the burlesque writer striving to exhibit what is monstrous, unnatural, delightfully and surprisingly absurd, while the comic writer confined himself strictly to nature, and was of all writers the last to be excused for deviating from it, because "life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous." Distinguishing epic writing into the tragic and the comic, and "not scrupling to say" that it might be in prose as well as in verse, Fielding claimed for Joseph Andrews the title of a comic prose epic. The author's criticism on his own work has never been surpassed for justness; it is a striking testimony that genius is not always unconscious of its own excellence. equally correct in describing the novel as being "written in the manner of Cervantes," for in Joseph Andrews there is the same blending of the ludicrous, the admirable, and the pathetic as in the character of the knight of La Mancha. The humble squire, not the knight, was his hero, but he had at last succeeded in the dream of his youth, introducing Don Quixote into England. He was It may be assumed that the most irritating thing to Richardson in Fielding's parody was the humorous malice of making Pamela endeavour to dissuade her brother from lowering their family by marrying poor Fanny. This wise advice was too nearly in keeping with the prudent character of Mrs B. (or, as Fielding filled out the initial, Mrs Booby); and that a person of low habits should preach a higher, or at least a more spiritual morality than himself, must have been gall and wormwood to the moralist. Joseph Andrews was almost as great a success as Pamela. Fielding had received. £200 for it from Andrew Millar, after vainly negotiating with another publisher for £25. The sum was not sufficient to allow him to rest on his oars. His next work, published two months after Joseph Andrews, was a pamphlet in defence of "Old Sarah," the duchess of Marlborough. Considering that his father had been a favourite with the duke, and that one of his sisters was named after the duchess, there is no reason to suppose that Fielding's eulogy was venal, whatever consideration he may have received for the service. In May of the same year (1742) his last composition for the stage, Miss Lucy in Town, a sequel to an An Old Man Taught Wisdom, was produced at Drury Lane; but the enemy whom he had raised up, the lord chamberlain, prohibited the piece, when it had run successfully for several nights, because one of the characters was supposed to be a satire on a person of quality Early in the following year he was induced to un dertake to recast for Garrick his comedy of The Wedding Day, the third comedy he ever wrote, which had been rejected years before by a manager, possibly Cibber. The serious illness of his wife prevented him from recasting the play; produced as it stood, it was a failure. This was the end of Fielding's connexion with the stage. In 1743 he published three volumes of Miscellanies, the first volume containing poems, essays, and imaginary dialogues, the second being A Journey from this World to the Next, the third The History of Jonathan Wild the Great. The con versations between eminent men of the past, which the im aginary traveller overheard in his journey to the shades, are full of the most delicate satiric humour, and bear testimony also to the vividness of Fielding's scholarship. Jonathan Wild, in some respects the most powerful of Fielding's works, is the only one in which the satire is dashed with bitterness. The bitterness is not predominant: his irrepres sible humour has every where got the mastery, and risen to the surface; but the blows aimed at the arts by which men attain fame and fortune are so fierce as to suggest that at no other period in his career had Fielding's troubles so deep a hold of him. At no other time was he so nearly overmastered by the savage feelings of the disappointed man, who sees his inferiors in ability outstripping him in the race by arts which he will not practise. At no other time, indeed, had Fielding such cause for bitterness in the accumulation of every kind of worry and vexation as in the year 1743. The evils of poverty, which were always present with him, were aggravated by the dangerous illness of his wife, to whom he was passionately attached. He was so distracted by anxiety for her safety, and remorse at the thought of being to blame for her discomfort, that he could not proceed with the work on which he depended for the support of his family. His own health was far from being good he suffered from attacks of gout, brought on by his sedentary habits and his excesses. Meantime the enemies whom he had enraged by his satires were swarming round him with endless devices for his annoyance. No man ever wrote in more desperate and pitiable circumstances. Yet there is no perceptible diminution in the splendid force of his humour. He shook off his troubles like a giant, and gave no sign of the pain at his heart, save in the fiercer energy of his blows. It may well increase our admiration for the genius shown in Jonathan Wild to know that the author laboured in the face of so deadly a conspiracy to rob his hand of its strength. | In 1743 Mrs Fielding caught a fever, and died, Lady Mary W. Montague says, in her husband's arms. For two years afterwards he published nothing but a preface to his sister's novel, David Simple. Although Sarah Fielding was one of Richardson's favourites, and heard laments from him about her brother's "continued lowness," she seems to have comforted that low brother in his sorrow, and even lived in the same house with him. It was probably at this time that Fielding received from Lord Lyttelton the assistance which he gratefully acknowledges in the dedication of Tom Jones. As that masterpiece is said to have been "the labour of some years of his life," we may conjecture that it was begun sometime during these otherwise barren years, and that, as Don Quixote was written in a prison, Tom Jones was written when its author was only saved from IX. - 19 despair and destitution by the tender kindness of two life- | beggars, and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who long friends. In 1745 Fielding made a second successful venture in periodical literature. In November of that year, when London was agitated by the news of the preparations of the Jacobites for marching across the border, he issued the first number of the True Patriot, in which he brought all his powers of ridicule and his robust sense to the service of the established Government. He continued the publication of the True Patriot till the rebellion was suppressed. More than a year afterwards, in December 1747, he began another periodical, called The Jacobite Journal, the object of which he stated to be "to eradicate those feelings and sentiments which had been already so effectually crushed on the field of Culloden." In both these ventures he was probably assisted by his staunch friend Lyttelton. One of the reasons he gave for starting them was the lamentable ignorance of the common run of journalists, and the greater accuracy of the information at his command, a taunt and boast for which his rivals retaliated by copious personal abuse, and the accusation that he was in the pay of the Government. If Fielding was in the pay of the Government, they made but a poor return for his support when it was no longer required. Soon after the discontinuance of the Jacobite Journal, towards the close of 1748, he obtained, again, it is said, through Lyttelton's assistance, the post of a paid Middlesex magistrate. In one of his earliest comedies Fielding had thrown hearty ridicule on these functionaries, who had brought their office into disrepute by their scandalous venality. It was notorious that they eked out their small fees by selling justice to the highest bidder. When Fielding himself accepted such an office his enemies exulted loudly over the step as a degradation. About the same time he gave them another handle for scurrility by marrying his deceased wife's maid. This last act, as Lady Mary Montague said, "was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound." "The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her, no solace, when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate; and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he told his friends, and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it. and fully justified his good opinion." most undoubtedly would not have had another left, he had reduced an income of about £500 a year, of the dirtiest money upon earth "-the income of the justice came from fees-"to little more than £300, a considerable portion of which remained with his clerk." Hard A few months after his appointment to the justiceship, in February 1749, Fielding published his masterpiece The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Here we have the ripe fruits of his life. His varied experience supplied his imagination with abundant suggestions of incident. His long struggle with his pen for a livelihood had given elasticity to his style. His mind was full; the hackwork, which would have exhausted poorer energies had mobilized his, and made him perfect master of his resources. minds, like stones, are not enriched by rolling; but Fielding's mind was of the plastic sort, and went on gaining by its incessant movement. His heart, too, bad remained as fresh as his brain. His own life had been far from scrupulously pure, but he could still give the world “a miracle of loveliest womanhood" in Sophia Western. His name had been a byword and reproach in respectable circles from his early manhood upwards, but he could still write in deprecation of the cynical philosophy of Mandeville, and create a pattern English gentleman in Squire Allworthy. One would never imagine from reading Tom Jones that its author was a man of illustrious family who had treated his titled relations with airy independence, and been left by them to win a livelihood by the exercise of his own wits, unsupported by any of the sinecures which their influence might have placed at his disposal. There was no moralist of the time whose scorn was so heartily and steadily directed against vice, against profligacy, avarice, hypocrisy, meanness in every shape and size; he made war without ceasing on all ungenerous emotions. In breaking with convention, he remained faithful to society. It is a curious circumstance that this true soldier in the war of humanity, like his great exemplar Cervantes, should be more often read for the sake of indelicate passages which he wrote in pursuance of fidelity to nature, than for the generous sentiment and wise philosophy with which his work as a whole is penetrated. But even this posthumous injustice he could have foreseen without ill-nature. Judging from Richardson's lament over his rival's continued lowness, and the anecdote, told by Horace Walpole of his being found "banqueting with a blind man and three Irishmen " when some persons of quality wanted his services as a police magistrate, one might imagine that Fielding spent his leisure off the bench in gratifying his Fielding's enemies did not scruple to say that in his dis- preference for low company. That he enjoyed the frank. charge of his duties as a justice he was no better than bisness and originality of unconventional associates is likely own Justice Thrasher; but there was no foundation for the enough; but he has shown that he had more profitable charge, it was only a personal retort in the coarse manner employment for his leisure. In the first two years after of the time. We have, on the contrary, in the zeal with he took office, he completed his last novel, Amelia. It has which Fielding applied himself to his work, an instance of always been supposed that, in the relations between the that earnest side of his character which is perhaps kept too somewhat frail but good-natured Captain Booth and his much in the background in Thackeray's charming lecture perfect wife Amelia, Fielding drew in some particulars at on him as a humorist. One of his favourite themes was least from his own domestic life. Dr Johnson, who refused the preposterousness of undertaking any work without the to read Joseph Andrews, and inferred from Tom Jones that requisite knowledge, and he showed by his published charge Fielding was "a blocklead" and "a barren rascal," owned to a grand jury, by pamphlets on various notorious cases, that he was so taken by Amelia as to read it through at a and by an elaborate inquiry into the causes of crime and sitting, and mentions as an evidence of its popularity the most advisable remedies, that he was himself a diligent that it was the only instance he knew of the whole of student of the numerous volumes of the law which he ridi- a first edition being sold in one day. Mr Lawrence caled Justice Thrasher for neglecting. He was sufficiently has pointed out that this last circumstance was due sensitive to the spiteful calumnies of his literary antagonists to the ingenuity of the publisher; still the sale was to formally deny, in his Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, that sufficiently rapid to be a tribute to the popularity of its he had been guilty of the corruption with which they predecessors from the same pen. A more substantial charged him, declaring that, "on the contrary, by compos- tribute to the author was the increasing price paid for his ing instead of inflaming the quarrels of porters and labours; he received £500 for Tom Jones, and £1000 for Ametia. Fielding's editor and biographer, Arthur Murphy, professed to see in Amelia signs of a genius falling into decay; but, as in the case of Dickens, the decay does not lie in matters that affect the intellect. Amelia is inferior to Tom Jones only in so far as its humour is less exuberant; it is even richer in happily turned humorous sayings. But the colour of the incidents is more predominantly serious; the laughing philosopher has not changed his mood, but he takes less strong delight in creating materials for laughter.. As soon as Amelia was off his hands, Fielding bent himself with unflagging energy to a new enterprise. In January 1752 he issued the first number of a new periodical, the Covent Garden Journal, "by Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knight, censor of Great Britain." In the first number he proved that his appetite for literary warfare was undiminished, giving fair warning to "scribblers" in general that they must expect no mercy; and soon after, he began an exchange of personalities with Dr John Hill which Disraeli has thought worthy of a place among his quarrels of authors. Among other writers who accepted Fielding's challenge was Smollett, whose ground of quarrel was probably political, ut to him Fielding made no reply. He was never an indiscriminate satirist, either in words or in literature; he reserved his lash for what he believed to be bad, and not even provocation could make him attack a man whose writings he respected. The Covent Garden Journal was discontinued towards the end of 1752, partly, it may be supposed, in consequence of Fielding's health making him unable to bear the strain. He had long been a sufferer from gout; he had undermined his naturally robust constitution by hard work and reckless living; and in 1753 his frame began to exhibit symptoms of dropsy. The narrative of the last painful year of his life is given in his Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon. At a moment when the disease might have been curable, or at least might have been delayed in its ravages, he was kept in town to carry out a scheme for putting down organized gangs of robbers who were setting the law at defiance. He tried the effect of the waters at Bath; he experimented on himself with Bishop Berkeley's specific of tar-water; he submitted frequently to the operation of tapping; but the summer of 1754 found him with "the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground, the distance growing still shorter between the tappings." In June he set sail for Lisbon to give himself the chance of a milder winter; but the precaution was unavailing. He died at Lisbon on the 8th of October 1754. To the last, as his Journal shows, he preserved his cheerfulness and his mental activity. Besides his Journal, he left behind him a fragment of an answer to Lord Bolingbroke's religious and philosophical essays, for which, according to Murphy, he had prepared himself by collecting "long extracts and arguments from the fathers, and the most eminent writers of controversy." "It is a pity," Lady Mary Montague wrote when she heard of his death, "he was not immortal"; he was "so formed for happiness." An essay on Fielding's life and writings is prefixed to Arthur Murphy's collected edition of his works; and short biographies have been written by Sir Walter Scott and William Roscoe. The most complete biography is Mr F. Lawrence's, a conscientious and thorough piece of work. (W. M.) FIERI FACIAS, in English law, is a writ of execution after judgment obtained in action of debt or damages. It is addressed to the sheriff, and commands him to make good the amount out of the goods of the person against whom judgment has been obtained. FIESCHI, JOSEPH MARIE (1790-1836), assassin, the chief conspirator in the attempt on the life of Louis Philippe in July 1835, was a native of Murato in Corsica, and was baptized there. December 3, 1790. After follow | ing his father's occupation, that of a shepherd, he enlisted at the age of eighteen in the Corsican Legion at Naples, and passed with it into the service of Murat, king of Naples. In 1814 he returned to Corsica, and in the following year took part in the fatal expedition of Murat for the recovery of his crown. Sentence of death was passed on him and his companions, but it was not executed; and Fieschi once more returned to his native land. In 1816 he was convicted of theft and forgery, and was condemned to imprisonment for ten years. After his release he led for several years a restless miserable life, working only by fits, and eking out his resources by fraud and swindling. He went to Paris after the Revolution of July (1830), and by means of forged papers passed himself off as a victim of the Restoration, and obtained a pension and official employment. He affected a zealous devotion to the Government, entered the police, and displayed much energy in the suppression of disturbances. But meanwhile bis house was the scene of violent proceedings, and the neighbourhood was kept in alarm by frequent noises, cries, and pistol-shots in and around it. Facts were brought to light which cost him his friends and his employments. Exasperated by dismissal and the "ingratitude of the Government," he vowed a terrible vengeance. He took lodgings on the Boulevard du Temple, and there, with several infamous confederates, contrived his "infernal machine," constructed with twenty gun barrels, to be fired simultaneously. In July 1835 the fifth anniversary of the Revolution was to be celebrated. Vague rumours getting afloat of some impending catastrophe, of some horrible attempt on the life of the king, prudential measures were taken. On the 28th, as Louis Philippe was holding a grand review, and was passing along the boulevard accompanied by his three sons and a numerous staff, a sudden explosion was heard, followed by others, and the pavement was strewed with dead and wounded men. A ball grazed the king's forehead, and his horse, with those of the duke of Nemours and the prince de Joinville, was shot; but the king and the princes escaped as if by miracle. Fieschi himself was severely wounded by the discharge of his machine, and vainly attempted to escape. The attentions of the most skilful physicians were lavished upon him, and his life was saved for the stroke of justice. On his trial he named his accomplices, displayed much bravado, and expected or pretended to expect ultimate pardon. He was condemned to death, and was guillotined, February 19, 1836, making on the scaffold a premeditated theatrical display at the feet of his confessor. Of his accomplices two were executed, one was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, and one was acquitted. A full account of the trial, Procès de Fieschi, appeared at Paris the same year. FIESCO [DE' FIESCHI], GIOVANNI LUIGI (about 15231547), count of Lavagna, Genoese conspirator, was de scended from a great historical family which counted among its members Popes Innocent IV. and Adrian V. He was born about 1523, and by the death of his father he became at the age of twenty-three the head of his race and the possessor of considerable estates. He had allied himself by marriage with the ancient family of Cibo,-his wife Eleanora, then about twenty years of age, being a woman of high spirit, great beauty, and remarkable attainments. To the advantages of youth and wealth Fiesco added those of a fine figure, a handsome countenance, and fascinating manners. He was ambitious of power and high place, and inherited from his ancestors a strong passion of jealousy and hatred against the Doria family, the head of which, Andrea Doria, was then doge of the republic, while his nephew, the young Gianettino Doria, was commander of the galleys. With personal and family hostility was com 148 bined the political enmity between the imperial and French (aristocratic and popular) parties,-the Dorias belonging to the former and being warmly supported by the nobles, while the Fieschi were of the latter and leaned upon the popular class. Bent on the overthrow of the doge and his family, Giovanni Luigi made an attempt to secure the support of Francis I. in his enterprise, but in this he did not at first succeed. The negotiations were afterwards renewed through William du Bellay, then French ambassador in Italy, and an understanding was come to that the object of the proposed revolution should be to subject the republic to the king of France. The sanction of the pope, Paul III. was obtained, and the alliance of the duke of Parma and Placentia secured. Associated with Giovanni Luigi in the conspiracy were his brothers Geronimo and Ottobuoni, and his trusted friends Vincenzo Calcagno, De Varese, and Raffaello Sacco. Troops were levied in the duchy of Parma, and report of these suspicious preparations was sent to Andrea Doria to put him on his guard. But his regard for the young count forbade him to entertain suspicion, and no precautions were taken. When all was ready, Fiesco invited the Dorias to a banquet at his palace on the first day of January 1547, purposing to assassinate them on their arrival. But the doge declined the invitation, his nephew Gianettino had to leave Genoa for some weeks, and the scheme thus foundered. The next night, however, taking advantage of the unsettled state of the city at the period of re-election of the doge, Fiesco led out his band (having first by display of affectionate attention to Doria thrown him off his guard), seized the arsenal, and attacked the galleys. While passing along a plank from the quay to one of the galleys the leader fell into the sea and was drowned, the darkness and the confusion preventing his cries for help being heard. The other conspirators proceeded with their task, and Gianettino was slain. The doge succeeded in making his escape, and after the dispersion of the troops and the flight of the leaders, he returned to Genoa, and was welcomed with extraordinary honours. Eleanora, wife of Fiesco, escaped to Massa, married again, survived her second husband many years, and died at Florence in 1594. The story of this conspiracy has frequently been told both by historians and by poets. Amongst the prose narratives that of Mascardi (Antwerp, 1629) is commended for accuracy of detail, but is wanting in impartiality. Amongst the poems the most noteworthy is the tragedy of Schiller. FIESOLE, a small episcopal city of Italy, occupying the site of the ancient Fæsulæ, on the crown of a hill that rises above the Arno, about three miles to the west of Florence. In size it is little more than a village, but its historical interest is of considerable scope. The principal building is the cathedral, which was commenced by Bishop Giacomo Bavaro in 1028, and dedicated to San Pietro Romolo, a martyr under Nero. It is a small basilica, consisting of a nave with narrow aisles, a transept, a raised choir, and a crypt noticeable for the uncommon character of its capitals. Among its adornments are an altarpiece and a bust of Bishop Salutati by Mino di Fiesole. The church of St Maria Primerana, with a terra-cotta tabernacle by L. della Robbia, San Allesandro, with its twelve cipollino columns, the Franciscan convent, the episcopal palace, and the town-hall or palazzo del pretorio, dating from the 13th century, are all worthy of notice. The convent probably occupies the site of the old arx or citadel; behind the cathedral there are extensive remains of a large Roman theatre, discovered in 1809 and laid bare in 1872-3; and a few dilapidated portions of the ancient Etruscan fortification still stand on the northern brow of the hill. Between the little city and Florence the church of San Domenico di Fiesole marks the site of the monastery famous as the residence of Fra Angelico (see next article); not far from the church is the villa where Walter Savage Landor dwelt many years amid the scenes of Boccaccio's Decameron; and further up the hill is the yet more celebrated Villa Mozzi, the favourite haunt of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The present inhabitants of Fiesole are largely employed in straw plaiting. They number, according to the census of 1871, 3467 in the city, and 13,180 in the commune. Fasula has a great mythical history, according to which it is the oldest city in the world. Its real origin is unknown, but it was evidently an Etruscan site long before the Roman conquest. It became of some note in the Gallic and Punic wars, and was afterwards selected by Sulla for the settlement of a body of his veterans. Twenty years later these colonists rendered themselves formidable by the support which they gave to Catiline, and the town was chosen as his headquarters in the struggle against Metellus and Antony. The story of Catiline and his exploits has been developed into an elaborate legend by Malespini and other Fiesolan historians. Catellino, as he is called, wages war against Fiorino, king of Rome; the king is slain, but the Fasulan party is ultimately defeated by Julius Caesar, and a new city, Fiorenza Magna (Florence), is founded At a later by the conqueror, and named in honour of Fiorino. date Fæsulæ, continues the story, was rebuilt by Attila, and Florence destroyed. From Procopius we know that the little city, while,occupied by Witiges and his Goths, did stand a long siege by the forces by the Florentines in the 11th or 12th century; but the statement of Belisarius. According to the common account it was "destroyed" is open to question, and the destruction at any rate cannot have been very complete. Among the more eminent natives of Fiesole are Francesco Ferrucci, the great captain, and Francesco Ferrucci. the first sculptor in porphyry. FIESOLE (1387-1455). Il Beato Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole is the name given to a far-famed printer-friar of the Florentine state in the 15th century, the protagonist, beyond all other men, of pietistic painting. He is often, but not accurately, termed simply "Fiesole," which is merely the name of the town, noticed above, where he first took the vows; more often, Fra Angelico. If we turn his compound designation into English, it runs thus-" the Beatified Friar John the Angelic of Fiesole." In his lifetime he was known no doubt simply as Fra Giovanni, or Friar John; "the Angelic" is a laudatory term which got assigned to him at an early date,-we find it in use within thirty years after his death; and, at some period which is not defined in our authorities, he was beatified by due ecclesiastical process. His surname was Guido: his original Christian name-Giovanni being only his name in religionis not known. He was born at Vicchio, in the Tuscan province of Mugello, of unknown but seemingly well-to-do parentage, in 1387 (not 1390, as sometimes stated); in 1407 he became a novice in the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, and in 1408 he took the vows and entered the Dominican order. Whether he had previously been a painter by profession is not certain, but may be pronounced probable. The painter named Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art-training, and the influence of the Sienese school is discernible in his work. According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were in the Certosa of Florence; none such exist there now. His earliest extant performances, in considerable number, marked to some extent by the influence of Masolino, are at Cortona, whither he was sent during his noviciate, and here apparently he spent all the opening years of his monastic life. His first works executed in fresco were probably those, now destroyed, which he painted in the convent of S. Domenico in this city; as a fresco-painter, he may have worked under, or as a follower of, Gherardo Starnina. From 1418 to 1436 he was back at Fiesole; in 1436 he was transferred to the Dominican convent of S. Marco in Florence, and in 1438 undertook to paint the altarpiece for the choir, followed by many other works; he may have studied about this time the renowned frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in the Florentine church of the Carmine, and also the paintings of Orcagna. In or about 1445 he was invited by the pope to Rome. The pope who reigned from 1431 to 1447 was Eugenius IV., and he it was who in 1445 appointed another Dominican friar, a colleague of Angelico, to be archbishop of Florence. If the story (first told by Vasari) is true that this appointment was made at the suggestion of Angelico only after the archbishopric had been offered to himself, and by him declined on the ground of his inaptitude for so elevated and responsible a stationEugenius, and not (as stated by Vasari) his successor Nicholas V., must have been the pope who sent the invitation and made the offer to Fra Giovanni, for Nicholas only succeeded in 1447. The whole statement lacks authentication, though in itself credible enough. Certain it is that Angelico was staying in Rome in the first half of 1447; and he painted in the Vatican the Cappella del Sacramento, which was afterwards demolished by Paul III. In June 1447 he proceeded to Orvieto, to paint in the Cappella Nuova of the cathedral, with the co-operation of his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli. He afterwards returned to Rome to paint the chapel of Nicholas V. In this capital he died in 1455, and he lies buried in the church of the Minerva. ever According to all the accounts which have reached us, few men to whom the distinction of beatification has been conferred could have deserved it more nobly than Fra Giovanni. He led a holy and self-denying life, shunning all advancement, and was a brother to the poor; no man saw him angered. He painted with unceasing diligence, treating none but sacred subjects: he never retouched or altered his work, probably with a religious feeling that, such as divine providence allowed the thing to come, such it should remain. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is averred that he never handled a brush without fervent prayer, and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion. The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated. Bearing in mind the details already given as to the dates of Fra Giovanni's sojournings in various localities, the reader will be able to trace approximately the sequence of the works which we now procced to name as among his most important productions. In Florence, in the convent of S. Marco (now converted into a national museum), a series of frescoes, beginning towards 1443. In the first cloister is the Crucifixion, with St Dominick kneeling; and the same treatment recurs on a wall near the dormitory; in the chapterhouse is a third Crucifixion, with the Virgin swooning, a composition of twenty life-sized figures-the red background, which has a strange and harsh effect, is the misdoing of some restorer; an Annunciation, the figures of about three-fourths of life-size, in a dormitory; in the adjoining passage, the Virgin Enthroned, with four saints; on the wall of a cell, the Coronation of the Virgin, with Saints Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Benedict, Dominick, Francis, and Peter Martyr; two Dominicans welcoming Jesus, habited as a pilgrim ; an Adoration of the Magi; the Marys at the Sepulchre. All these works are later than the altarpiece which Angelico painted (as before mentioned) for the choir connected with this convent, and which is now in the academy of Florence; it represents the Virgin with Saints Cosmas and Damian (the patrons of the Medici family), Dominick, Peter, Francis, Mark, John Evangelist, and Stephen: the pediment illustrated the lives of Cosmas and Damian, but it has long been severed from the main subject. In the Uffizi gallery, an altarpiece, the Virgin (life-sized) enthroned, with the Infant and twelve angels. In S. Domenico, Fiesole, a few frescoes, less fine than those in St Marco; also an altarpiece in tempera of the Virgin and Child between Saints Peter, Thomas Aquinas, Dominick, and Peter Martyr, now much destroyed. The subject which originally formed the predella of this picture has, since 1860, been in the London National Gallery, and worthily represents there the hand of the saintly painter. The subject is a Glory, Christ with the banner of the Resurrection, and a multitude of saints, including, at the extremities, the saints or beati of the Dominican order; here are no fewer than 266 figures, or portions of figures, many of them having names inscribed. This predella was highly lauded by Vasari; still more highly another picture which used to form an altarpiece in Fiesole, and which now obtains world-wide celebrity in the Louvre-the Coronation of the Virgin, with eight predella subjects of the miracles of St Dominick. For the church of S. Trinita, Florence, Angelico executed a Deposition from the Cross, and for the church of the Angeli a Last Judgment, both now in the Florentine academy; for S. Maria Novella, a Coronation of the Virgin, with a predella in three sections, now in the Uffizi,-this again is one of his masterpieces. In Orvieto cathedral he painted three triangular divisions of the ceiling, portraying respectively Christ in a glory of angels, sixteen saints and prophets, and the virgin and apostles: all these are now much repainted and damaged. In Rome, in the chapel of Nicholas V., the acts of Saints Stephen and Lawrence; also various figures of saints, and on the ceiling the four evangelists. These works of the painter's advanced age, which have suffered somewhat from restorations, show vigour superior to that of his youth, along with a more adequate treatment of the architectural perspectives. Naturally, there are a number of works currently attributed to Angelico, but not really his; for instance, a St Thomas with the Madonna's girdle, in the Lateran museum, and a Virgin enthroned in the church of S. Girolamo, Fiesole. It has often been said that he commenced and frequently practised as an illuminator; this is dubious, and a presumption arises that illuminations executed by Giovanni's brother Benedetto, also a Dominican, who died in 1448, have been ascribed to the more famous artist. Benedetto may perhaps have assisted Giovanni in the frescoes at S. Marco, but nothing of the kind is distinctly traceable. A folio series of engravings from these paintings was published in Florence in 1852. Along with Gozzoli already mentioned, Zanobi Strozzi and Gentile da Fabriano are named as pupils of the Beato. - We have spoken of Angelico's art as " pietistic"; this is in fact its predominant character. His visages have an air of rapt suavity, devotional fervency, and beaming esoteric consciousness, which is intensely attractive to some minds, and realizes beyond rivalry a particular ideal that of ecclesiastical saintliness, and detachment from secular fret and turmoil. It should not be denied that ho did not always escape the pitfalls of such a method of treatment, the faces becoming sleek and prim, with a smirk of sexless religiosity which hardly eludes the artificial or even the hypocritical; on other minds, therefore, and these some of the most masculine and resolute, he produces little genuine impression. After allowing for this, Angelico should nevertheless be accepted beyond cavil as an exalted typical painter according to his own range of conceptions, consonant with his monastic calling, unsullied purity of life, and exceeding devoutness. Exquisite as he is in his special mode of execution, he undoubtedly falls far short, not only of his great naturalist contemporaries such as Masaccio and Lippo Lippi, but even of so distant a precursor as Giotto, in all that pertains to bold or life-like invention of a subject, or the realization of ordinary appearances, expressions, and actions-the facts of nature, as distinguished from the aspirations or contemplations of the spirit. Technically speaking, he had much finish and harmony of composition and colour, without corresponding mastery of light and shade, and his knowledge of the human frame, |