MISANTHROPIC MUSINGS.

TO MY FRIEND.

THY years have flown as melody
Of spring birds on the wing,
With nought to mar their euphony,
Or touch a saddened spring;
Like hymned tones at eventide
Hath sorrow passed thee by,
Sadly, yet sweet-too brief to hide
The gladness of thine eye.

The nectar of the garish bowl
Of pleasure hath been thine,

While griefs unwrit on sorrow's scroll,
Like life-blood, tinctured mine;
And yet methinks I love thee more
When darkening shadows fall,

As the viny germ, when wild winds war,
Leans to the sheltering wall.

I love thee, for thy friendship bland—
Thine eye's unquiet glance,

Bright as the flash of steel-clad band,
When moving in the dance;

I love thee, for the kind words spoken,
From worldly crowds apart;

I love thee, that the bond's unbroken
That bound thee to my heart.

My face may wear a sunny smile,
As mirthful as thine own;

As the worm may gnaw the root the while
The summer rose is blown.
The shadow of an early blight
Hath settled on my brow;

A noon-sun turned to rayless night,
Ere the shaken knee could bow.

The coldness and the emptiness
Of the bitter world, hath thrown
Back on itself the tenderness

My heart would have it own;
I throw me on thy trusted breast,
As the sere leaf will cling

To the thrifty bough-a short, brief rest,
For the lone and withered thing.

I now would rest, the sod beneath,
In some far, quiet nook,
Where scented flowers softly breathe
Their gifts to rill and brook-

Where lilies bend, like Brahmins bowed
At stilly vigil prayer,

And wild birds float on summer cloud,

Up in the amorous air.

But knitted cords are hard to break;
Thy tones of joyous mirth
Oppose the will, and seem to make
A clinging love to earth.

I soon must pass, nor stone, nor shrine
Need lowly worth extend,

If thou'lt engrave this simple line,
"Here lies my dearest friend."

C.

THE FINE ARTS-Dunlap's Calvary.*

IN common with many of my fellow citizens in the western part of New York, I have lately, for the first time, had the satisfaction of viewing that splendid production of the pencil, Dunlap's painting of "Calvary, or the moment before the Crucifixion;" and I shall add with pleasure my mite to the tribute of admiration and applause which this effort of our distinguished artist has everywhere called forth. The people of the United States have been reproached with a deficiency of taste for the fine arts, such as painting and sculpture, and I fear the charge is partly correct. A certain degree of refinement is generally considered necessary to appreciate such efforts; and more leisure than the generality of our citizens possess is requisite for their study and examination. We have few men in our republic who can afford to pay ten or twelve thousand dollars for a picture, and the artist who is obliged to spend years in acquiring the principles of his art, and yet requires still more years to complete some monument of his genius upon which to rest the fame and distinction for which he strives, cannot afford to remain where he must starve amidst his toils. It was this state of things that compelled the first historical painter of the age, Mr. West, to leave this, his native country, for Europe, where he spent his days; but we hope, for the honor of our country, that Mr. Dunlap, also

*We give this article a place, as an impression of a picture upon the mind of an intelligent, though enthusiastic man,-not as the criticism of a connoisseur. Our correspondent is extravagant in his commendation; but as the "knowing ones" are the few and not the many, perhaps it represents general opinion as well as most articles. ED.

a native American, will not be compelled, by the same cause, to follow his steps. I would not dare to be too sanguine on this point, especially while it remains a fact, unless I am much mistaken, that a white bear from Oonalaska, or a kangaroo from Australasia, would be a much more productive exhibition than such a painting as Calvary, with its multitude of sublime associations. Still I think there are some indications of a better state of things-an increasing relish for something, which, while it gratifies the national pride of distinction, is calculated to exert a healthful influence on the morals; and nothing, I think, can have a more direct tendency to create and perpetuate such a state of feeling, than the exhibitions of such paintings as "The Moment before the Crucifixion." Pictorial representations of great and striking events will always have a decided superiority over mere verbal or written descriptions, however accurately or ably performed. In the former, we see the persons in the very situation, and under the influence of the passions that produce the effect; in the latter, we learn only the effect itself. An eminent artist of Italy once said, and time has confirmed the correctness of his remark, "that a company of well-informed individuals, acquainted with the history of the subject treated, but who made no pretensions to connoisseurship, were more competent judges of a painting than a company of amateurs, and for this reason the former would judge simply by the effect produced on themselves, and that effect, whether pleasurable or painful, would be in exact proportion to the fidelity with which the artist had copied nature; the latter, on the contrary, would decide its merits, by comparing it with the productions of the different schools of painting, of which they were the partizans, and as it approximated to, or deviated from them, would be the measure of their applause or condemnation."

With the "cant of criticism" I have not the slightest acquaintance, but I think that unquestionably the only correct standard of sculpture and painting is nature; and the only test of excellence, effect. Much has been written and said by artists and amateurs of sculpture and painting, on the subject of ideal beauty-that mysterious and unknown quality, of which almost every one imagines he has a distinct conception, but which few are able to embody and express. There are many who fancy that in the shadowy depths of the imagination, ideas of beauty, altogether superior to nature, and independent of its visible forms, exist-that in the boundless realms of fancy, the ideal forms which it is the aim of the

sculptor and painter to represent, and which are so far beyond what is to be seen in dull mortality, have a being unconnected with the recollections of the past and present, and the associations of the future. They point triumphantly to the Apollo Belvidere, or the Venus de Medici, as illustrating the truth of their position, and exultingly enquire for the mortal who combines such just proportions, or such transcendent beauty. If such cannot be found, and all must admit they cannot, then, it is said, the proof is complete, that the unknown sculptors of these matchless productions must have embodied, with their chisel, their glowing and sublime conceptions of beauty-a beauty which never existed except in their ideas. This I think to be a mistake. That the sculptor could not have found concentrated in a single individual, all the beauty which in the Venus "enchants the world," or the noble and commanding features and expression which in the Apollo strike the beholder dumb, I readily grant; but that affords no evidence that a line of their beauty is wholly imaginary-that the beautiful lip, the swelling bosom, the swan-like neck, and bewitching modesty of the former, or the god-like brow, features which are alive with intellectuality, and form which seems starting into life, the perfect workmanship of the Creator, in the latter, never existed but in idea. It is the successful combination of separate beauties, which the Grecian artist could always command, which has enabled them to produce models which moderns may well despair of excelling. Wherever the beautiful was to be found the artist copied it; and the neck and arm of the enchantress Lais, and the matchless lip and foot of Aspasia, were alike made subservient to the wishes of the artist, whose creations could render their perfections immortal; and it was among the Pericles, the Themistocles, and the Aristides of the Areopagus, that the artist sought and found those forms, features and expressions which, combined by his skill, and perpetuated in Parian marble, have rendered the Apollo the admiration of the world-the ne plus ultra of excellence in sculpture. In these cases not a single feature, not a single limb, not a single expression exists independent of nature, or is superior to it, or can be considered in any sense as coming within the limits of imaginary or ideal beauty. The excellence of the artist lies in being able to copy the originals so closely, not in being su perior to them. I go further-I think that it is impossible to have an idea of beauty that has not been seen by us, or described to us. I hear of a beautiful woman, and my thoughts instead of reverting to an ideal standard, instantly refer to

beauties with which I am already acquainted; and the estimate of an eye, lip, hand or foot when seen, is by a comparison with others, and by such comparison is its relative ugliness or beauty decided. The mussulman judges of the loveliness and qualities of the Houris of his paradise, by the voluptuous beauty and yielding softness of the Georgian and Circassian girls in his harem, or which he has seen exposed for sale in the slave markets of Aleppo or Constantinople; and the believers in a holier, nobler and purer faith, judge of the resplendent beauties, and unwritten and unutterable glories of the Christian heaven, in a similar manner; I say it reverently-we can only decide on "the things which are not seen by the things which are seen." In imagination we travel the streets of the New Jerusalem—we mingle with ạngels and with martyrs-we behold the glorious face of him whom no mortal hath yet seen and lived-we drink of the crystal streams that lave the walls of the city of God-we taste the leaves of the trees that are for the healing of the nations-we listen to music such as the harps and voices of seraphs make —we tread the flowery plains and trace the walks over which the dark tops of the cedars of paradise wave their boughs of unfading verdure-we mingle with those whose countenances speak of nothing but holiness, happiness and love, yet in all these instances the beauty and perfection is the beauty and perfection of earth; the happiness and love are such as would be the combined expression of the same excellencies far below the stars.

So it is with the painter. His subject demands a countenance filled with the noble and commanding expressions, and among the commanding and god-like men of the earth-men whose minds raise them far above the ordinary herd; he seeks and seizes those lineaments which, transferred to the canvass, produce the desired effect. Is it the beautiful he wishes? he mingles with the lovely and the fair-he basks in the sunshine of bright eyes, and revels amidst roses, and dimples, and smiles, until, if I may use the expression, his ideas are saturated with beauty. From one he catches the rose-leaf lip, from another the curling tresses and alabaster neck, another furnishes the eyes floating in radiance unborrowed and unshadowed, and so with the high expressions of intellect, and each nameless grace and charm which united, form an enchanting whole, and for which, combined in a single individual, the whole universe of beauty might be in vain explored. Does he desire to melt with tenderness, pity and love? his pencil is taught to trace features and expression not found in the cir