the chivalry and the poetry of life-the perfection of the fine and elegant arts-those arts, which throw embellishment and enchantment over society-the delicate flowers which can bloom only in the region of opulence, and rank, and leisure. To combine these various, and apparently inconsistent, benefits, is a peculiar, and surely a splendid, feature in the British form of government, when examined with reference to the tone and structure of social existence. It possesses the former to their fullest extent: because freedom seems indigenous to the soil, and its spirit enters into the very frame of the national character-because all Britons enjoy the rights of men, and feel that they enjoy them. It secures the acquirement and maintenance of the latter, because it retains a king, whose proper magnificence is maintained, while his prerogatives are limited-an old hereditary aristocracy-a gentry, affluent, well-informed, cultivated, and refined. Under that government (and we say it without prejudice, in earnest sincerity of heart)-under that government alone, may be amalgamated the solid and substantial excellence, for which Rome was celebrated in the best days of the republic, with the graceful courtesies, the elegant enjoyments, which shed a lustre over France during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. Putting, then, its political advantages entirely out of the question, have we not still abundant reason to admire, to love, to be proud of our good old English constitution? and shall we not guard it with a holy and devoted zeal ?—shall we not guard it, at all hazards, in all its parts ?-shall we not guard it equally against the attempts of tyranny and faction -the encroachments of a monarch, a minister, or a mob ?

But to return.-Instead of its being true that there is any thing in regulated freedom essentially hostile to the Fine Arts, we should rather expect them to flourish in England under a constitutional monarch, as they flourished in Athens under Pericles, or in Florence under the Medici. We are so far from despairing of their progress, that we believe them fully capable of reaching in this country to the proudest point of perfection, at which they ever arrived in Greece or Italy.

But how is this to be done? Are we now in the right road? We are not: nor shall we ever be until we have emancipated ourselves from the trammels, with which we

have been hitherto fettered by an adherence to ancient canons, and the imitation of ancient designs. The best imitator is but an imitator still. He must be placed at an immeasurable distance below the original inventor. So long, therefore, as any deviation from the Grecian style of building is to be considered a barbarous innovation: so long as only five legitimate orders are supposed possible: so long as the fragments of Athenian statues are to be the only models and standards of taste so long the sculpture and architecture of modern times must not only be placed at an immeasurable distance below the sculpture and architecture of antiquity; but present a series of monstrous incongruities and enormous solecisms. For ourselves, we cannot conceive the remnants of Athenian skill, however beautiful, however wonderful they may be, to be absolute perfection: we believe them to be excellent assistants to the study of nature, but nothing more. We are sure that every nation, if left to the free exercise of its own powers, neither checked by wars and dissensions, nor kept in ignorance by despotism and bad laws, would sooner or later discover what is best adapted from its own climate, constitution, and habits ;-whether in government or arts—in the public business of state, or the private intercourse of society.

It is a most heterodox, yet, perhaps, true opinion, that the extant master-pieces of antiquity have been on the whole of disservice to modern genius. Modern painters have excelled; because of the ancient paintings we know so little. Perhaps, modern poems, and modern works of imagination in general, would have been better than they are, if all the literary treasures of antiquity had been buried in eternal oblivion. We have sometimes been even Vandals enough to lament, that a single poet, or critic, or rhetorician of antiquity, has escaped from the general conflagration of the library at Alexandria.

Yet the ill effects have flowed entirely from the servile folly, the moral pusillanimity of modern ages. It is certain, that the models of antiquity, if rightly used, might be of incalculable service. But it must be borne in mind, that the study of the arts is not a mere mechanical, but an intellectual study. England must not neglect the ancient models, but neither must she consider them as the only standards, or as infallible guides. She must aspire to something nobler than an exact copy, or a

tasteful imitation. She must aspire not to equal, but to improve; not to rival, but to surpass. She must look to antiquity in the spirit of antiquity-a spirit of daring genius, and adventurous originality. She must turn its master-pieces to her own purposes. She must adapt its designs to her own climate, with the modifications and alterations, which reason and propriety demand. She will convert antiquity itself into a help for advancing her own superiority. She will bring to sculpture, architecture, painting, and music, that vigour of intellect, that boldness of spirit, which has insured her so vast a measure of success in the useful arts, and the practical sciences. She must think for herself in the pursuits of taste, as in politics, and build her temples or her palaces in the same freedom and grandeur of design, with which she has erected the fabric of a constitution, before which the boasted skill and philosophy of Greece shrink into insignificance and folly.

When England seriously applies herself to the Fine Arts, with views like these-with a due attention to antiquity-but without a servile adherence to existing models-there is nothing which should prevent her from bounding forward in her career, or attaining ultimately the goal of a proud and lofty preeminence. There is no reason why Englishmen should not unite the highest pitch of refinement to the greatest practicable freedom; the pursuits of a cultivated taste to the pursuits of science, and philanthropy, and moral greatness. If there were such a reason, we should indeed say—“Let us remain as we are-let us not exchange what we have for what we may acquire : let us not barter our lofty sentiments for a statue, nor our sturdy virtues for a song." God forbid that we should become a nation of dilettanti and amateurs, picturehunters and picture-dealers, instead of a nation of freemen and lovers of mankind! But coarseness, we repeat, is not an indispensable concomitant of liberty: nor can we see any possible mischief which can result, if the powerful, the noble, and the opulent, proceeding upon just, sagacious, and comprehensive principles, foster the original talent of native artists, and patronise such institutions as the Royal Academy of Music and the intended National Museum.

SONNETS ON ENGLAND.

HAVING made mention of English feelings, English character, and those peculiar qualifications, which, we trust, will ever form the staple of English superiority, we subjoin the following sonnets, as not totally inapplicable to the subject. The first is an evident imitation of the well-known lines of Virgil

Excudent alii spirantia mollius æra,

Credo equidem; vivos ducent e marmore vultus;
Orabunt causas melius; cœlique meatus
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent :-
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento:-
Hæ tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

1.

To mould in breathing brass some form divine,
Or draw from dull cold stone the living face ;-
On glowing canvas beauty's tints to trace-
Bid truth in oratory's splendour shine—
To heav'n's vast wand'ring orbs their course assign;
Or mark the rising stars or planets' race
Careering through illimitable space-
I glory, Britain, that such pow'r is thine.-
Yet, oh my country! most remember thou
Proudly thy moral triumphs to sustain :-
To bear erect the firm undaunted brow,

Earth's arbitress-to burst oppression's chain-
To disenthrall the slave-to guard the free-
These are the noblest arts, and worthiest thee.

II.

Peace dwells on England:-sav'd from thousands slain,
Beneath their laurels rest her warrior-bands:

And civil jars shall seem but as the rain

That idly falls, when ocean leaves the sands.

Long be it thus, kind heav'n! but if again

Discord's red torch should gleam along the lands;
England will rise-nor will her trust be vain

In God, nor in her children's hearts and hands.
Should the dark giant, Danger, stalk around,
And war awake the nations; like the blast
Of that grave-rending trumpet, whose dread sound
Shall rouse the dead to judgment at the last-
Still England will not quail; but calmly brave,
As she has fought and sav'd, shall fight and save.

III.

I think upon the heroes, who have shone

In thee, my country!-unforgotten names,
Who, or in arms, or arts, asserted claims
To glory, that shall live untarnish'd on,
Mocking the spoiler, Time.-Their steps are gone-
Ennobling spirits! freedom's sons and fame's!—
Still are they spells to kindle noblest aims
In souls, that love such deeds as they have done.
Such names are deep realities-for they

Pride, valour, virtue, in young hearts may wake,
And save thine honours, Albion, from decay,
And bid thee flourish ever :-they can make
The emulous spirits of thy later day
Firmer to live, or perish, for thy sake.

IV.

I saw two visions-one a land, where war

Was heard, not seen-but news of battle ran
With joy's electric speed from man to man,
And shouts for conquest echoed loud and far.
Like the sweet twilight, gemm'd with many a star,
After a thunder-storm, the self same span
Of earth appear'd-but softer sounds began,
Nor scenes arose, which virtue's mirth might mar.
Around were peaceful fleets—within mild arts;

And knowledge spread her universal scroll;
And in refined communion happy hearts
Indulg'd their warm benevolence of soul
And honest love. Then, Britain, thou did'st seem
At once the model of my blended dream.

V.

England! what realm was ever like to thee?
Or where is now thy rival? What far land
Knows not the wonders of thy saving hand;
Prop of the weak, and pole-star of the free?
Ocean is thine-the subjugated sea

Still hails its mistress :-thine unarm'd command
Spreads, like the gaining tide upon the sand,
O'er rising empires; and no ebb shall be.
England! go on and prosper-holiest link

In the vast chain of nations, be thou blest! Without thee force might rule, and freedom shrink, And science wane, nor wrongs be more redress'd;And the world half be darken'd, shouldst thou sink Beneath the dim horizon to thy rest.