works of genius, bringing into visible forms the high ideas, the profound and divine sentiments, the noble acts of the soul, cannot fail to refine and inspire the heart. The favor, which this exhibition receives, attests a degree of taste for art in the community.

A taste truly developed, however, is confined for the most part to a small class, who have been under circumstances peculiarly favorable to its development. We have a great number of the productions of the Italian schools within our borders. But the enjoyment and use of them is confined. Our artists are not seen studying and copying them, any more than sketching from casts of the antique marbles, or laboring in the dissecting room. In spite of the many favoring circumstances which have been mentioned, the spirit of art is but beginning to be developed. The present state may be considered quite low. And of this we see many indications. First, the character of our artists. The spirit of gain has possessed them as well as the rest of the people. Instead of venturing into the heights, they grow rich in the unvaried perpetration of tasteless portraits, whose chief end is to flatter the vanity of this and that foolish customer. The painters of a more spiritual time labored with gladness in poverty and solitude. Lewis Caracci espoused the art, knowing she had no dowry. But our painters love soft beds and fat purses and good dinners. They make their profession a trade. There are indeed honorable exceptions; and on them we rely to do whatever is to be done. But we have no hope from mercenary men. It is very true that it is just as innocent to get one's living by painting faces as by painting houses; and our artists may be as good as our lawyers or our merchants. But in order to deserve the name of artists, they must be much better. The true artist is a pattern of spirituality, a living illustration of the primal principle of art, that heaven is all, -that everything around us is a manifestation of spirit, and that the beauty of our life comes from the spiritual beauty within. In short, it is a solecism to speak of an unspiritual artist; and while a people remains unspiritual, Art cannot flourish among them.

Observe, too, what are generally the favorites here. The chief recommendation among us is a soft finish, an indication that a picture is regarded more as a piece of furniture, than as a creation of the human mind. A harsh coloring, or a collection of smoke, or want of varnish, may spoil a piece for us.

Then again we object to anachronisms. We are displeased with the two Saints who are introduced kneeling at the Transfiguration, and some even go so far as to leave them out in copies. But to art there is no time. Beauty is absolute and eternal. And the history of man is but a momentary phasis of heaven, a single scene in which all epochs are alike present to the elevated soul. This distinction of art seems to be little understood. It is very common to object also to the introduction of the supernatural; we are willing to see only what has been or may be seen; and here contradict another fundamental principle of Art by regarding it as merely imitative. Art does not imitate, but creates. Its object is to express its conceptions in whatever way, whether in the manner in which God has already expressed the same, or in new and unexperienced representations. There is no limit between heaven and earth; the ideal and the visible are one. The idea exists in the mind of the artist; and he is to express it by any appropriate means, by any combination of color and form which may be invented, whether by figures of men, animals, or cherubs, and by any tone of coloring whether actual or not, provided it be appropriate to the idea. Art therefore embodies the ministering angels in visible shape, and reveals the abode of beatified spirits; and when it aspires to represent even the Deity himself, it does not mean to say that God possesses a corporeal frame, but only strives to express its idea of his nature. The more vivid our faith in the existence of superior spirits shall become, the more willing shall we be to see them made to appear in works of art. And again, we object to nudity. In the eye of Art, modesty and unconscious purity are the only necessary garments. How far this principle may be carried out in the midst of an evil race, it is difficult to say. But it is to be observed, that a perfectly free exposure of the person in pictures and statues, seems to excite no more passion in countries where it is common, than among us the open exposure of the face and hands, which a Turk would think indecent.

From the general insensibility to beauty, and errors in judgment and taste, which have been noticed, it is evident that we are at present very deficient in the spirit of Art. Did this popular deficiency merely regard the perception of technical excellences, it might be regretted, but would not be to be mourned. But it allies itself with, and is in fact but one manifestation of a deep defect of national character. The want of understanding

the picture implies an insensibility to the reality. He, that prefers softness to the other excellences of the art, is ignorant of the highest beauty in the living form. The man, who prefers a pink picture of the Alps to a landscape of Allston's, living out the same spirit, builds on a sand hill, levels the woods all around him, selects poplars instead of oaks or elms to line the road, and paints his house in painful contrast of white and green or brick color. He is insensible also to the delicate beauties of action ; for a gross taste is nearly allied to a dull conscience. He treats you without civility, and is perpetually annoying you with little wrongs. The spirit which is shocked at the introduction of the supernatural, and the union of different epochs, is practically in some manner estranged from that Being who unites all times and worlds; it will not listen to speculation; it ridicules and so persecutes the Swedenborgian, degrades ethics, and prepares a virtual rejection of the miracles of Christianity. The same insensibility to the natural dignity, purity, and beauty of the human figure diminishes our anxiety to preserve it uncorrupt, and manifests itself also in the ridiculous uniformity of dress, exposure for fashion's sake to the inclemencies of the season, and in such monstrous and cruel deformities of the female figure, as are to be looked for among the savages of the northwest coast. When posterity shall know the fashionable length of a lady's girdle of the present time, their astonishment at the low state of our Art will be diminished. Insensibility to the spiritual in matter, in short, is a radical defect of our people. The consequence is a degradation of matter to its lowest uses. Our fields give us bread, but not instruction. The body gratifies our appetites, but not our taste and sentiments.

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The artist is not necessarily a religious man, but he has the spirit from which all religion springs. It is possible that he should be intemperate, voluptuous, and unjust. But his art is perpetually warring with these vices, and, unless it conquers, will retreat before them. He may be sensible to the beautiful qualities in external nature, without uniting them in his conception as God. So the Christian and Philosopher may be such, and yet not practically religious; he may have a belief in Christ and faith in God, and be able to reason with irresistible power for his existence, with a definite conception of his nature, and yet not feel that the being of whom he reasons has a vital concern in the present moment and the present action. In the true man, those two characters are united. He is both Philo

sopher and Artist. He knows God by reason in the past and absolute, and by his senses in the present and passing. He not only conceives him, but realizes him. The qualities he perceives in Nature, by the aid of Christianity he personifies. He adds love to faith and knowledge. Until this union of the spirit of Philosophy and the spirit of Art be brought about, the seers will be complaining and longing for a better day.

That better day must come. Everything encourages us to expect it. For the present, we are engaged in building up the nation, and laying in stores. We are absorbed in business. But when the barbarism of trade shall have fled before the light of beauty, when all the avenues of life being full, the spiritually minded, finding it hard to get much, shall content themselves. with little, and despairing of the means of wealth, shall lay direct hold on that for which alone wealth was to be obtained; when the true secret of riches, man's command over his own wants, being at last known, shall be brought to bear to make him independent of the world, in order that he may understand and enjoy it, and weary of perpetual restlessness, we shall finally turn to the tranquil contemplation of that picture which God has so long held before our eyes in vain. Then the spirit of Art, finding our actions worthy and our minds prepared, will descend and take up her abode. Then Christianity will meet with a much heartier embrace, and men, seeing God all around them, will submit themselves more and more daily to his holy

will.

G. F. S.

Bazer

ART. III. Life and Select Discourses of REV. SAmuel H. STEARNS. Boston: Josiah A. Stearns, and Whipple and Damrell. 1838. 8vo. pp. 420.

It gives us pleasure to offer a passing tribute of respect to the subject of this Memoir, though he was classed amongst a sect of Christians to which we do not belong; and formed some important dogmas of his religious belief in formularies of doctrine to which we cannot subscribe. In many respects,,

however, he was assimilated to that large and constantly increasing number of the followers of Christ, who are to be designated, exclusively, by no party badge; who were "first called Christians at Antioch;" who are gathered from all subsequent ages; and who are, hereafter, to constitute that glorious company of Accepted Ones, which "no man can number," who shall come "from the East and from the West, and from the North and from the South, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." Mr. Stearns appears to have been a man of thorough, unaffected piety, of much native independence of mind, and of simple, direct, and avowed aims. Indeed, the beautiful lines of Coleridge, which, slightly altered, have recently been inscribed, with singular propriety, on the gravestone of a sister spirit,* though of a different communion, may also be applied to him:

"His soul was so transparent, that the light

He sought, enshrined itself within him."

The brief notice we are about to take of the volume before us, and it must, necessarily, be brief and sketchy, will at least be free from that bias which results from the partiality of friendship, since it has not been among our privileges to know, personally, either the subject or the author of the Memoir. And while we thank the latter for the pleasing and instructive reminiscences he has here given us of his brother, and offer our cheerful acknowledgments of the fraternal love and obvious truthfulness of the narrative, it is proper to say that our whole acquaintance with either party has been derived solely from the "Life and Discourses" thus put into our hands.

Samuel H. Stearns was born at Bedford, Massachusetts, September 12th, 1801. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Samuel Stearns, who, during the large part of a long life, was pastor of the church in that place. Mr. Stearns's constitution of body was feeble, and his health was never firm. Though playful and happy in his childhood, his manner, even then, was marked by a certain shade of gravity and thoughtfulness. The morning of his life was fair, but seemed to be pervaded by the solemnity of the early twilight. He enjoyed that primal bless

*Mrs. Cecilia Brooks, wife of Rev. Charles Brooks of Hingham, Massachusetts.

VOL. XXV. -3D S. VOL. VII. NO. III.

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