a new world, with new sources of instruction and delight. Faculties seem to burst into life which had lain dormant from their birth, but now are clamorous for their appropriate aliment, and in their very action raise their possessor to a higher and freer region, and seem to have carried him nearer the realization of his great birthright as a son of God and heir of immortality.

In speaking thus of the culture derived from art, we have barely indicated a line of thought which may be followed out to far richer and more complete results. The subject rightfully demands a development of the influences of art on different orders of mind; its conservative power - its liberalizing and harmonizing influences its effect on the poetic faculties its prompting to earnest thought-its power for generous culture in the city and in the schools, and (what might be especially wished) its power in cultivating a pure taste in beautifying our homes and rendering them more attractive, and in serving as a counterpoise to ruder, or vulgar, or less innocent means of enjoyment—in helping us to see more clearly and constantly the beauty with which God has clothed the world; inspiring thoughts of gentleness and charity, making us interested and happy in something besides the vehement and often embittered contest of parties and sects, or the hard watchfulness and toil of the struggle for wealth. So might it be more strongly recommended to many minds as of great efficacy and of unexpectedly wide utility.

Without expanding these considerations, we may briefly refer to one other point, namely, that the highest art helps us to form an ideal of excellence still higher than it represents. There is a beauty higher than Raphael ever conceived of, a sublimity grander than Buonaroti ever strove to portray. To the conception of them we may never attain here, but through their aid we may approach the goal where even they can no longer be our masters. Were it not for their labors, we should never have entered upon the field of their glory; but from a profound and reverent contemplation of them, we come to anticipate something still more wonderful. There begins to whisper within us a prophecy of futurity. Still more, we begin to feel that the highest beauty, unmarred by evil, can only be discovered and represented by a virtuous soul, and that, in proportion as the great painters have been imbued with reli

gious ideas has been the sublime excellence of their works. Here, where art rises and melts into something better,where, failing to realize that which it strives for, it yields to a greater spiritual power of which it may be an ally, we may with propriety leave the subject just where to many minds it opens the most interesting view.

Art alone will save no people; let Italy witness, if witness be needed; but may it not retard their fall, and if prostrate, help to restore? Even in that impoverished and sad country, does not her art elevate and dignify even what it cannot renovate, and the memory of her mediæval glory do more than half that is done to inspire her best minds with purest, most patriotic purposes, and to redeem all minds from something of the sorrow and degradation to which they have been exposed?

Art alone will not afford a complete culture to the individual, nor should its influence ever be mistaken as moral or religious in the highest sense. We should be extremely sorry to be so misunderstood. It brings to every one, indeed, a peril proportioned to its advantages; but there is a work of great consequence which it may do in educating the soul for a higher life; and he who hangs one really fine picture on his wall does something to refine and elevate his tastes, to fit himself for the intenser enjoyment of nature, to elevate his ideal of excellence, to expand and cultivate his highest faculties, to adorn and bless his daily life, and towards the acquisition and maintenance of the most beautiful character.

We have been beguiled (much too far our readers may think) along a pleasant way; but must return for a few moments, before we quite transgress our limits, to the volume immediately before us. The main events in the life of Winckelmann, his early familiarity with Greek literature, his profound and philosophical study of ancient art, and his untimely death by assassination at Trieste, are doubtless familiar to most of our readers. His works, though often referred to, have been less generally studied by the English reader from difficulty of access. That difficulty, with respect to a portion of his works, is now removed, and so felicitously too, that whoever glances, however cursorily, at this beautiful volume, will be strongly tempted to make it his own, and to study it with care. Where the whole appearance of the book is so admirable, and marks, in the very beauty of its typography, the

superintendence of a liberal and cultivated mind; when its illustrations, too, go far beyond the original German editions, it seems like ingratitude, or an avaricious desire for all excellence within the narrowest limits, to ask for any thing more; yet had it been possible to give outlines, or partially filled engravings of a few more of the world-famous statues, of the Apollo, the Niobe, and the Laocoön, for example, the usefulness as well as beauty of the volume would have been considerably increased, and we should have had absolutely nothing to wish for. As it is, the lovers of art are under great obligations to Dr. Lodge, obligations which we should be glad to see repaid far more liberally than we fear they will be.

The present volume is the second of the original series, and contains Books IV. and V., Art among the Greeks. Should the remaining volumes be published, we are sure that they will be hailed by an increasing number of readers with great delight. More than three quarters of a century has not superannuated the criticisms of Winckelmann, but for the most part confirmed them. We had marked several passages for quotation; but the length of our discussion obliges us to content ourselves with one which shows most distinctly the philosophical character of the critic, and contains wise and essential directions to all observers of art.

"Seek not to detect deficiencies and imperfections in works of art, until you have previously learnt to recognize and discover beauties. This admonition is the fruit of experience; of noticing daily that the beautiful has remained unknown to most observers, who can see the shape, but must learn the higher qualities of it from others, because they wish to act the critic, before they have begun to be scholars. It is with them as with school-boys, all of whom have wit enough to find out their instructor's weak point. Vanity will not allow them to pass by satisfied with a moderate gaze; their self-complacency wants to be flattered; hence they endeavor to pronounce a judgment. But as it is easier to assume a negative than an affirmative position, so imperfections are much more easily observed and found than perfections, and it requires less effort and trouble to criticize others than to improve oneself." p. 194.

Were this rule but observed, how much harsh, shallow, and utterly valueless criticism would be avoided!

We cannot look at this work and others recently published,

including especially, as among the most prominent in different departments and with different methods, the (London) Art Journal, and the eloquent volumes of Mr. Ruskin, (much as we dissent from some of that gentleman's criticisms,) without the satisfactory feeling that the English student of art never before had access to so adequate means of cultivating his taste and knowledge. And when we call to mind the works of some of our own artists, of Allston and Greenough and Powers, not to name others, we rejoice in the evidence they give that the broad significance of art is better than ever before understood amongst us; that here, too, beauty is seen and loved, beauty instinct with goodness and truth.

ART. V.-The Ways of the Hour; a Tale. By J. FENIMORE COOPER, Author of "The Spy," "The Red Rover," &c. New York: George P. Putnam. 1850. 12mo. pp. 512.

MR. COOPER as a novelist is but the ghost of his former self. He committed literary suicide at least ten years ago; and the volume now before us, though it bears his name, certainly affords no proof of his resurrection, or the restoration of his faculties. We are provoked enough to doubt the asseveration of the title page; The Ways of the Hour is not written by the author of The Spy; it is a lame and impotent caricature of that author's manner, exhibiting and exaggerating all his faults, but showing none of his excellencies, and not animated by one spark of his genius. With some glaring defects of manner, with ill-jointed and most improbable plots, feeble delineations of character, and an abundance of prosy conversations, the earlier fictions of that author still showed so many striking merits, as fairly to earn for him, for a while, the title of the American novelist. His strength consisted chiefly in his descriptive power and his skill as a narrator. Many of the scenes and incidents created an interest that was almost painful. The escape of the pedler spy with a squadron of Virginia light-horsemen at his heels, the chase of an American frigate by an English squadron, the wreck of

the Ariel, the defence of the island at Glenn's Falls against a troop of savages, and the battles of Lexington and Bunker's Hill as witnessed by Lionel Lincoln, are passages almost unmatched for power, vivacity, and scenic effect, by any novelist except Scott. The remainder of the story through which these fine sketches were distributed was generally a curious piece of patchwork, the best quality of which was negative; it did not avert the reader's attention from the incidents, and land or sea views, which alone were worthy of it. Characters supposed to be men and women flitted about, and held interminable conversations with each other about nothing at all; these were necessary, indeed, for the progress of the story, but they were none the less incumbrances. Mr. Cooper never invented but two probable and interesting characters in his life, Long Tom Coffin and the Leatherstocking; and the latter of these, as if to show how much the writer was delighted with his success, was made to figure in about six different novels, at as many stages of his supposed life. This poverty of invention in character, and the almost total want of humor and pathos, are the probable causes why even the most successful productions of our author would seldom bear a second reading. They were commonly laid aside after the first perusal, with a feeling that the whole stock of amusement which they could afford had been exhausted.

Mr. Cooper's literary existence properly terminated with the publication of The Monikins, a novel of which it is not possible to say much, as we have never read it, and never met with any individual who had. It was the close of a lamentable series of fictions, the scenes of which were supposed to take place on European ground, and to embody the results of the author's observation while abroad. The good-natured and much-enduring public, slow to forget an old favorite, read them all through in the vain hope of finding somewhere a touch of the author's unrivalled power of description. But the first individual, who made the same benevolent attempt upon The Monikins, dislocated his jaws before completing the second chapter; and no one has dared to repeat the experiment. Of the novels which have come after it, amounting on the average to at least one in each year, it is enough to say that they are written by a shade of Mr. Cooper, who represents very fairly his bad taste, his garrulity, and his