From earth to heaven his genius soared,
Time and eternity explored,

And hailed, where'er its footsteps trod,
In Nature's temple, Nature's God:
Or pierced the human breast to scan
The hidden majesty of man;
Man's hidden weakness, too, descried
His glory, grandeur, meanness, pride;
Pursued, along their erring course,
The streams of passion to their source;
Or in the mind's creation sought

New stores of fancy, worlds of thought!

Montgomery.

COURSE OF REFINEMENT.

THE same age which produces great philosophers and politicians, renowned generals and poets, usually abounds with skilful weavers and ship-carpenters. * * * The spirit of the age affects all the arts, and the minds of men, being once roused from their lethargy, and put into a fermentation, turn themselves on all sides, and carry improvements into every art and science. Profound ignorance is totally banished, and men enjoy the privilege of rational creatures, to think as well as to act, to cultivate the pleasures of the mind as well as those of the body. The more these refined arts advance, the more sociable men become: nor is it possible, that when enriched with science, and possessed of a fund of conversa

tion, they should be contented to remain in solitude, or live with their fellow creatures in that distant manner which is peculiar to ignorant and barbarous nations. Industry, knowledge, and humanity are linked together by an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience as well as reason, to be peculiar to the more polished, and, what are commonly denominated, the more luxurious Hume. ages.

MEMORY.

ETHEREAL power! whose smile, at noon of night
Recalls the far-fled spirit of delight;

Instils that musing melancholy mood,

Which charms the wise, and elevates the good;
Blest MEMORY, hail! O, grant the grateful muse,
Her pencil dipt in Nature's living hues,

To pass the clouds that round thy empire roll,
And trace its airy precincts in the soul.
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain:
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Each, as the varied avenues of sense
Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense,
Brightens or fades; yet all, with magic art,
Control the latent fibres of the heart.

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives :

We gaze on every feature till it lives!

Still the fond lover views the absent maid:

And the lost friend still lingers in the shade!

Rogers.

woman.

VALUE OF PORTRAITS.

THERE is something delightful in the intercourse which we have with another's likeness. It is himself, only once removed; he is visible, not tangible: we have his moiety. In a picture of history, there is often, indeed, more to admire than in the face of one individual man or There is more room for the skill of the artist: it is better adapted to exemplify a moral. But the sentiment that chains us to the other is wanting; we are not familiar with it: one is a brave matter-a splendid thing; the other is a person, and becomes our friend. * It is thus that affection and kind feeling are perpetuated. It is thus that the form and features of the child are made known to its pining parents afar off. It is thus that the faces which we loved to look upon are redeemed from the grave, and sent to us across deserts and woods and mountains, or over a thousand leagues of This is the greatest boast of art, as well as its most delightful victory. It annihilates space, if not time, and makes the absent happy.

**

water.

Barry Cornwall.

STYLE.

As pictures, so shall poems be; some stand
The critic's eye, and please when near at hand;
But others at a distance strike the sight;
This seeks the shade, but that demands the light,
Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious view,
But, ten times scrutinized, is ten times new.

Byron.

PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY.

PERCEPTION of beauty is one of the most decided characteristics by which man is distinguished from the brute. We discover no symptoms of admiration in animals of a lower grade than ourselves. The peacock excites no deference from the splendour of his plumage, nor the swan from her snow-white feathers; and the verdant fields in their summer bloom attract no more than as their flowery sweets allure the insect tribe, who in their turn are followed by their foes. To man alone belongs the prerogative of appreciating beauty, because admiration is graciously designed as the means of leading him on to moral excellence.

VENUS OF APELLES.*

S. Stickney.

WHEN first the Rhodian's mimic art arrayed
The queen of Beauty in her Cyprian shade,
The happy master mingled on his piece
Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece;
To faultless Nature true, he stole a grace
From every finer form and sweeter face;
And, as he sojourned on the Ægean isles,

Wooed all their love, and treasured all their smiles;
Then glowed the tints, pure, precious, and refined,
And mortal charms seemed heavenly when combined;
Love on the picture smiled! Expression poured
Her mingling spirit there-and Greece adored!

Campbell.

Born at Rhodes, Apelles was cherished by Alexander.

PAINTING-ROOM.

AT other times, I have sat and watched the decaying embers in a little back painting-room, (just as the wintry day declined,) and brooded over the halffinished copy of a Rembrandt, or a landscape by Vangoyen, placing it where it might catch a dim gleam of light from the fire, while the letter-bell was the only sound that drew my thoughts to the world without, and reminded me that I had a task to perform in it. As to that landscape, methinks I see it now.

"The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,

The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail.”

There was a windmill, too, with a poor, low, clay-built cottage beside it :-how delighted I was when I had made the tremulous, undulating reflection in the water, and saw the dull canvass become a lucid mirror of the commonest features of nature! Certainly, painting gives one a strong interest in nature and humanity. * * *

"While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things."

Perhaps there is no part of a painter's life (if we must tell the "secrets of the prison-house") in which he has more enjoyment of himself and his art, than that in which, after his work is over, and with furtive, sidelong glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing his brushes and cleaning his palette for the day.

W. Hazlitt.