grouping and expression is there, when Anthony describes the death of Cæsar, as

"In his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statue, which

All the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell."

But I need not detain you with further examples, to show that

"All they

Whose intellect is an o'ermastering power,
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay,
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe❜er

The form which their creations may essay,

Are kin; the kindled marble's bust may wear

More poesy upon its speaking brow,

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear.

One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,

Or sanctify the canvass till it shine
With beauty far surpassing all below,

Transfused, transfigured; and the line

Of poesy, which peoples but the air

With thoughts and beings of the mind reflected,
Can do no more."

The people that can feel the glow and grandeur of thought, must feel Art, when there are productions worthy of the name.

The common opinion may be quoted against this argument, that Art flourishes best where popular superstitions, especially in religious mythology, supply subjects for the Artist's illustration. That opinion is,

however, an error. The real merit and charm of Art is truth, and it can never derive a real advantage from falsity. It was not the god, the ancients admired in the Phidian Jupiter, but the dignity of conscious power. Venus was the ideal of voluptuous beauty, and Minerva of pure and harmonious wisdom. It is deep penitence, charmed by hope from its despair, that we see in the Magdalene; a mother's serene and holy joy in the Virgin Mary, showing her infant Jesus; and faith, struggling with mortal agony, in the dying Bartholomew. It is not the person, but the attributes, which move our souls.

But are there no subjects among us, which may be made the vehicles of such impressions? Would not the moral advantage of Art be far greater if illustrations of virtue were drawn from actual incidents, or presented in pure allegory? That change has taken place in poetry. We hear no more of Strephons and Phillises, in our pastorals; and a bard of our own day, who would invoke the "heavenly nine,” or "Phoebe," or the "Golden-haired God of Day," would find them unable to propitiate us to a further reading. Why may not Art be stripped of unnatural envelopements? Our history, our daily lives are full of subjects for the painter's study;-the mother of Washington teaching her boy those sublime lessons, which, by the grace of God, made him "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen;" Patrick Henry, denouncing the tyranny of Britain, in the

Virginia council house; the patriot-mother arming her first-born for the doubtful conflict; the virgin, tearless in her lofty hope, sending her lover to the long campaign, and promising her livelong faith for no less reward than her country's freedom. Or, if you wish a presentment of venerable piety, holy benevolence and wisdom in meekness, bid the sculptor preserve in undying marble the patriarchal form of him, whom every sect acknowledged "a Father in God;" and who lingered so long among us, shedding his soft religion around like the mild rays of a summer's sunset, that he seemed like virtue which can never die, though heart and flesh must fail. It is a shame to us, as a religious community, that such a work remains to be done.*

It is in employments like these Art must find her noblest office. No patriot, no moralist, no true lover of Art, should wish to see genius prostituted in producing nude and voluptuous figures, appealing to profligate pruriency for reward, and corrupting our morals in return. Such abuse has done more to prejudice the good against Art than all else beside. But such abuse is not a necessary consequence of its cultivation, any more than of the pen or the press, those mighty engines of social good, though vile men have often seduced them from their true purpose. Let it be your

*The late Bishop White. Appendix (E.)

care, gentlemen Artists, to guard the fire of genius with vestal watchfulness.

There never was, I believe, a body of Artists in whom greater confidence can be reposed for this end, than those of our country. The time has gone by, when profligacy was excused as an eccentricity of genius; when talent had impunity in the breach of contracts, and envy and detraction made enemies of brothers in Art. You have proved to us that Artists, to deserve an entrance into your fraternity, must be gentlemen, to whom truth and honour and liberal feeling, are dearer even than fame itself. Your generous desire that no distinction in the national patronage should be made, between the native Artist and the foreigner resident among you, is a high example of philosophic freedom from petty jealousy, which might be imitated with advantage in some other quarters.* Hold on your noble course. You shall reap the reward which virtue and genius deserve. You will ask no more. Trial is the lot of genius, as the fire which purifies; but the consciousness of high aims is an ever-present consolation. If I dared to assume such language, I might address you, as Wordsworth did the painter, Haydon:

"High is our calling, friends, creative art
(Whether the instrument of words she use
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues)

* Appendix (F.)

Demands the service of a mind and heart,

Though sensitive, yet in their weakest part
Heroically fashioned,―to infuse

Faith in the whispers of the lonely muse,

While the whole world seems adverse to desert.-
And oh! when nature sinks, as oft she may
Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress,
Still to be strenuous for the high reward,

And in the soul admit of no decay,
Brook no continuance of weak mindedness-
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!"

Let me also intreat from you, a grateful veneration for that Divine Author and Benefactor of our being, who has surrounded us with so many objects of beauty and grandeur, and given us an eye and heart to enjoy the loveliness and magnificence of his works. Shall we feel the rapture He enkindles in our souls, and return no adoration and trust? Are not all his doings in nature intimations of Himself, faint shinings forth of that world of beauty, love, and truth, into which he will receive all who know Him here? If "an undevout astronomer be mad," so must be an infidel artist: for he lives among miracles, and owns no faith. Believe me, genius hath no school like Religion, no teacher like Christian Hope. No where but in that Book, whose author hath writ His name on nature, can we find such depths of tenderness, such loftiness of thought, such imaginations of glory, such purity of truth. Our calling here should ever be a preparation for immortality. Poor