from the impression made upon him, to deduce some general principles respecting the arts of painting and statuary. He has, with considerable judgment, traced the character of the different schools of painting to the circumstances and character of the country in which each originated. He makes the following general conclusions: 1. That the object of statuary should ever be the same to which it was always confined by the ancients, viz. the representation of character. The very materials on which the sculptor has to operate, render his art unfit for the expression either of emotion or passion; and the figure, when finished, can bear none of the marks by which they are to be distinguished. It is a feature of cold, and pale, and lifeless marble; without the varied colour which emotion produces, or the living eye which passion animates. The eye is a figure which is expressive of present emotion; it is it which varies with all the changes which the mind undergoes; it is it which marks the difference between joy and sorrow, between love and hatred, between pleasure and pain, between life and death. But the eye, with all the endless expressions which it bears, is lost to the sculptor; its gaze must ever be cold and lifeless to him; its fire is quenched in the stillness of the tomb. A statue, therefore, can never be expressive of living emotion; it can never express those transient feelings which mark the play of the living mind. It is an abstraction of character which has no relation to present existence; a shadow, in which all the permanent features of the mind are expressed, but none of the passions of the mind are shewn: like the figures of snow, which the magic of Ökba formed to charm the solitude of Leila's dwelling, it bears the character of the human form, but melts at the warmth of human feeling. The power of the sculptor is limited to the delineation of those signs alone by which Oct. 1815. the permanent qualities of mind are displayed: his art, therefore, should be confined to the representation of that permanent character of which they are expressive. 2. While such is the object to which statuary would appear to be destined, painting embraces a wider range, and is capable of more varied expression: it is expressive of the living form; it paints the eye and opens the view of the present mind; it imitates all the fleeting changes which constitute the signs of present emotion. It is not, therefore, an abstraction of character which the painter is to represent; not an ideal form, expressive only of the qualities of permanent character; but an actual being, alive to the impressions of present existence, and bound by the ties of present affection. It is in the delineation of these affections, therefore, that the powers of the painter principally consists; in the representation, not of simple character, but of character influenced or subdued by emotion. It is the representation of the joy of youth, or the repose of age; of the sorrow of innocence, or the penitence of guilt; of the tenderness of parental affection, or the gratitude of filial love. In these, and a thousand other instances, the expression of the emotion constitutes the beauty of the picture; it is that which gives the tone to the character which it is to bear; it is that which strikes the chord which vibrates in every human heart. The object of the painter, therefore, is the expression of emotion, of that emotion which is blended with the character of the mind, which feels, and gives to that character the interest which belongs to the events of present existence.' We shall not pursue the extract, because we do not agree with the writer in the limitations which he places upon the power of the art, at the same time that our limits would not permit us to enter into the discussion. II. Con II. Consolation, with other Poems. By the Rev. WILLIAM GILLESPIE. Svo. 12s. Constable & Co. MR GILLESPIE is already known as a respectable adventurer in the difficult field of didactic poetry. Considered simply in itself, the task of conveying information or instruction through the medium of verse, is not very likely to be generally relished. To gratify the imagination with pleasing images, is almost invariably the object of him who begins the perusal of a poem. If information be his aim, he will generally prefer the perspicuity and simplicity of plain prose. For this reason, we suspect the writer of pure didactic poetry to lose sight of the genuine object of the art. It does not follow, however, that abstract subjects are not susceptible of becoming the theme of a poem. But it is not in any proportion to their philosophical interest or importance, but solely according to the scope which they afford for the display of imagery and sentiment. In this respect, the two pieces which principally compose Mr Gillespie's volume, are certainly unexceptionable. The first and most extensive is entitled "Consolation," and its object is to shew the influence of religion upon the various ills to which life is subject. The poem opens with an invocation to this precious and allpowerful principle. In Eden's lovely bowers, ere yet our sires Knew guilt or woe, when the young Earth so fair Won angels down to tread its blooming sward, And talk with man; when the meandering streams Ran music, and the smiles more soft returned Of heaven and nature; when the fanning gales Of Paradise, that flew to drink its sweets, Joy whispered as they past, and even the voice Of Gop, delicious more than seraph-harps, Oft charmed the listening world; when Echo, mute, The cob-webbed beams that cross thy cham ber's roof, And the dull light that through thy case ment gleams, Where, sometimes, the sweet chirp of passing lark Recals, warm as a sun-beam, o'er thy heart The cheerful morn of youth for ever fled. Long by the world forgot, even by thy friends Scarce thought of now; what is that world to thee? A joyless interchange of day and night, Whose only pleasure is repose from pain, A life's most welcome prospect is its close. Say what can comfort thee, but the fond hope That thou, from all thy trials, meekly borne, Of patience and submission, shalt be blest With the glad smiles of an approving God? Drear is this scene, that here, thou might'st not place Thy sole regard. Thy country this is not, Too much enjoyment might allure thy steps To linger on their path, and make the voice Unwelcome that should call thee to depart. But the rude storms that on thy journey beat, Make thee to hail its close, and send thy thoughts Before thee to thy home, where smile for thee Delicious prospects of immortal Spring, Where youth and joy are knit to endless love, Where even remembered woe is bliss, and The various perils and disasters of a sea-faring life afford now an ample theme for the picture of distress.— We give only some part of the representation of a shipwrecked mariner. cast alone upon a desert isle. · Oft Thus Ocean's exile wore his life away Even in thy careless boyhood have I marked Thy nobler daring, which nor pale disease Nor penury could repress; whom Genius nursed Even on the mountain wild, beside the stream Of lone Palnure, and as with eagle's flight (Which oft thine infant eye traced through the storms, The emblem of thy rise) thee born to fame! Then weeping saw thy glory's transient blaze Gleam a sad halo round thine honoured tomb.' From this subject, a natural transition leads the poet to the annihila tion of all mortal evils in a future state of existence; the glowing and Unpitied and unknown; till from kind pious anticipations of which form the Heaven Came fair Religion as an angel down, To nurse, console, and cheer his drooping heart.' Seduction, and all its train of guilt and misery, affords now a lengthened tale of woe. At last comes the final and most dreaded evil, Death itself. Among the different examples of its fatal dominion, the author, recurring to the friends of whom it has deprived him, commemorates two names justly dear to science. The friends of other years, With whose fond names in recollection sweet Rolls back each scene of youth, have passed away, And memory only dwells upon the dead. Of fame, alas! prophetic but of thine! Muse; By every friend, and more by none than him The most obscure, who now deplores thy fate. And thou, his peer, even by the gift of tongues Not favoured less, nor less by Science mourned, Companion of my earliest life, in whom concluding part of the poem. The subject of the next poem, Nature, affords a still wider, and indeed almost unbounded scope, for poetical illustration. Those magnificent objects which Astronomy presents, seem to attract the greatest share of the poet's attention. Now let me mark, while through the spacious vault One starry lustre glows from pole to pole, The planets, moving round their monarch suns Harmonious; smiling to the source of light As on they march, nor lose their path in heaven. Around them hung, their own attendant orbs Keep constant watch; while stars of fainter beam, Themselves the mighty suns of other worlds, Burn ever round; from whose far-distant bourn A ray of light, shot at the natal hour Ye planets! twinkling constellations! stars! The influence of light is thus celebrated: • Whether, Whether, Oh Light! thou bid the orient blush As thou unveil'st its beauties to the day, Thy scattered rays among the shadowy woods, stream Sparkle with trembling lustre ; or swift fling Lines of bright hue along the distant main, As soft it mingles with the evening sky; Or smile from beauty's form, and fair reveal The face divine, the mirror of the soul: Whether thou in the bow of heaven untwine Thy lovely beam of seven refracted hues, Shining in brightness through the gemmy shower; Light the wan moon along the starry road, Or gild the swimming clouds that cross her way; Still dost thou charm, for nought so sweet as thou, Bright messenger, that show'st his GOD to man, Waft'st him to heaven on fond devotion's wings, To adore the brighter source from whence thou flow'st.' Comparing then the insignificance of the works of art with those stupendous ones of nature, the poet infers the unrivalled greatness of the Being by whom these were created. The smaller poems are in considerable number, and some of them not at all inferior to the large ones.Among these, one of the most pleasing is Spring, an Ode, which, as it is of no great length, we shall here insert. I. • Breathing odours, smiling love, Comes the young and gentle Spring, Wears its emblem sweet and fair; She comes in all her youthful pride! And rosy Health and laughing Joy; scene, And points to milder skies, and fields of live lier green. II. Now the gales Hesperian blow; While the soft refreshing showers, Nurse the cups of opening flowers, That in warmer radiance glow; While flitting swift, in circlets gay, Countless songsters hail the Spring; Or in the torrent's drizzling spray Laves each bird her wing. Then the cuckoo's fitful call Breaks each pause at evening fall; And the pilgrim, lonely musing, Marks, while eve is soft diffusing, On the upland heaths so dun Lines of crackling flame to run*, Shine on the lake with bright reflected rays, Illume the mountain top, and round the welkin blaze. III. Through the azure mist of morn, Gem the flower and pointed thorn; Thick as snow-flakes on the gale; And gladness in the dale: Sweet the lark aloft to hear, Welcome in the new-born year; And the swain, in rustic measure, Greet the reign of Love and Pleasure; And mid sylvan dells, how sweet Shepherd's song and lambkin's bleat! But sweeter on that smiling Love to rest That bids all Nature bloom, and all her sons be blest. IV. Spring! with thee I love to wend In heaven dissolve away. To Alluding to the practice in Scotland of burning the mountain-heath in spring, for the improvement of the pasture, which is called moor-burn. |