tunity for repentance which God's mercy allows, it is worthy of a barbarous, not a Christian, social alliance. What sort of combination for mutual safety is it, too, when no man feels safe, because fortuitous circumstances, ingeniously bound into a chain, may so entangle Truth that she cannot bestir herself to rescue us from the doom which the judgment of twelve fallible men pronounces, and our protector, the law, executes upon us?

But we are losing sight of Mr. Hawthorne's book, and of the old Puritan settlers, as he portrays them with few, but clearly cut and expressive, lines. In these sketchy groupings, Governor Bellingham is the only prominent figure, with the Rev. John Wilson behind him, "his beard, white as a snowdrift, seen over the Governor's shoulder."

"Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, and with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little."

With this portrait, we close our remarks on the book, which we should not have criticized at so great length, had we admired it less. We hope to be forgiven, if in any instance our strictures have approached the limits of what may be considered personal. We would not willingly trench upon the right which an individual may claim, in common courtesy, not to have his private qualities or personal features discussed to his face, with everybody looking on. But Mr. Hawthorne's example in the preface, and the condescending familiarity of the attitude he assumes therein, are at once our occasion and our apology.

ART. VII. Lectures on Art, and Poems. By WASHINGTON ALLSTON. Edited by RICHARD HENRY Dana, Jr. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1850. 12mo. pp. 380.

It is now seven years since the remains of Washington Allston, the greatest artist of America, were followed by mourning friends and admirers to the old burying ground in Cambridge. It was universally felt that a man of the rarest genius and the loveliest character had been removed from a community which his presence honored and his influence exalted. The first steps were taken towards commemorating his life and works by raising a monument to his memory in the beautiful neighboring necropolis of Mount Auburn, which should be worthy of the genius and virtues of him who slept beneath it, and fitly express the affectionate and admiring recollections of the survivors who reared it there. Such a monument was not needed for Allston's fame; that is forever established by the works in which his spirit yet lives, and over which the waves of oblivion shall never sweep. But it was needed for our own credit, and for our own intellectual satisfaction and moral good. We should not have allowed the busy occupations of daily life so to employ our hands and fill our hearts, as to permit him whom we admired for his surpassing genius, and loved for the possession of every gentle and noble virtue, to lie down in the long sleep of death with no monumental pile to fix the eye of the traveller, and to express to the world by the silent voice of art how much we reverenced the memory of art's most devoted worshipper. We trust this duty to the illustrious dead is not to remain forever unperformed. In heathen times, in the earliest dawn of poetry, the pious feelings of the living made the burial rites and monumental mound contribute even to the felicity of the departed.

"Such honors Ilion to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade."

Mr. Allston's life was entirely occupied with those pursuits which address themselves to man's higher nature. No worldly passions, no petty ambitions, ever disturbed the serenity of that elevated region in which his pure spirit moved. In the kindred arts of poetry, painting, and romance, he showed the

versatile felicity of his genius. In early life, while yet a student of painting in Rome, his works attracted the admiration of his brother artists, and an able critic, in Bunsen's volumes on Rome, declares that the coloring of his pictures approached nearer the great Italian masters than those of any other modern painter. It was his good fortune to enjoy for many years the friendship of Coleridge, whose estimation of Allston's poetical genius was shown by printing, accompanied with high but well deserved praises, in a volume of his own poems, Allston's noble lines, "America to England," which have become classical in our literature. His romance of Monaldi was reviewed in this Journal on its first appearance. The high opinion we then expressed of its merits-the powerful conception of the principal characters — the tragic interest of the story—the profoundly moral and religious spirit and the purity and splendor of the style- remains unchanged, after many readings and the lapse of years. "He is not only a painter," says the German translator of this work, in the introduction to his version, "not only a historical painter, not only a painter with the pencil and pallet, but also with the pen, and, I believe, one of the best poets in this country. He is, moreover, a very noble man." the arrangement of the whole," (he speaks of Monaldi,) “in the distribution of light and shade, in the economy of the piece, there is somewhat pictorial." Again, "The whole appears to me like a great landscape-historical picture, with fore-ground, middle-ground, and back-ground, full of life, truth, and thought. The execution of the single groups is eminently successful; there are, perhaps, defects, but only in the completing transitions."

"In

Mr. Allston's universally recognized position as the first painter of our country, and certainly one of the first in our age, will make the volume whose title is placed at the head of the present brief paper a welcome gift, not only to all the lovers of art, but to all who take an interest in elegant literature. The spirit of beauty which breathes through his poetical writings-the offspring of hours of rest from the labors of the pencil-will fill with delight the breasts of those who fly to the Muse for solace amidst the multiplying cares of life, or seek in poetry for the graceful embellishments that idealize the business of the crowded day. The

gentle dignity of Mr. Allston's personal character was such that in his presence all discord died away, and the conflict of opposing opinions softened into the richest harmony of friendly discourse. The pride of letters, the jealousies of artists, the spirit of detraction vanished before his genial smile, and the kindly urbanity of his manner. The blandness of his evervaried conversation, uttered in a voice of singular sweetness and power, his high-bred, unaffected, and most gentleman-like demeanor, and the Attic purity and felicity of his wit, made his society the greatest delight to all who enjoyed the rare happiness of living in his neighborhood and of sharing in his social nights. Mr. Allston never had an enemy. One would as soon have thought of indulging in hostile feelings against a star as against him, so completely was he removed from the region of evil passions and strife. Men of the most opposite opinions, belonging to different schools upon every subject of human thought, agreed in the common sentiment of reverence and love for Allston; and his life, with its comprehensive influences for good, and good alone, and good in its highest and most permanent forms, is a perfect refutation of the pernicious theory, that a great man must work out the purposes of his existence by a constant warfare against his fellow men.

Of Mr. Allston's position as an artist, we do not propose to speak; nor is it necessary to enlarge upon what is recognized by the best judges both in Europe and America. His poetical genius, as exhibited in a few well-known pieces, has been unanimously acknowledged. The Sylphs of the Seasons, The Paint King, America to Great Britain, to which allusion has already been made, stand, and have long stood, among the most beautiful poems in American literature.

Mr. Allston's poetical style is remarkable for the careful finishing hand with which he elaborated every part of every poem. He never fell into the negligent, slip-shod, vague, and half expressed mannerism, so common in these days. His practice as an artist was carried into his writings, and applied scrupulously to every production of his pen. The exquisite purity of his language, reminding us constantly of the fine coloring of his pencil, shows how thoroughly his taste was guarded, in the atmosphere of beauty that accompanied his mind, from all touch of contemporary faults. Loving heartily every genial variety of literature, whether

belonging to the past or present, and showing, both in conversation and writing, with what a ready and versatile power he could work in different forms, he yet subjected his own style to a rigid self-criticism that harmonizes with the principles of an earlier and more classical age, rather than with the romantic outflow of the present. His poetical writings, therefore, will not undergo the changes of opinion incident to the fleeting popularity of temporary mannerism. They will stand the test of time. The criticism of posterity will find in them the same qualities to praise that have commended them to the approbation of the wisest contemporary judges. The following little poem, expressing in words the spirit of one of Mr. Allston's most admired pictures, Rosalie, is one of the sweetest compositions that ever flowed from poet's pen:

— never came from aught below
This melody of woe,

That makes my heart to overflow,
As from a thousand gushing springs,
Unknown before; that with it brings
This nameless light,

if light it be,

That veils the world I see.

"For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres ;

And something blent of smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
O, nothing, sure, the stars beneath
Can mould a sadness like to this,-
So like angelic bliss."

So, at that dreamy hour of day
When the last lingering ray

Stops on the highest cloud to play,—
So thought the gentle Rosalie,

As on her maiden reverie

First fell the strain of him who stole

In music to her soul.