vineyards, hop-grounds, and corn-fields-the cheerful hum of busy cities-the stillness of village solitude—the magic face of human beauty—the tear of distressed innocence— the noble struggle of worth with poverty, of patriotism with usurpation, of piety with persecution;-these, and innumerable images like these-tender, touching, dignified are the subjects for which they fondly hunt, the themes on which they daily expatiate. To say nothing of the higher banqueting, "the food of angels," that religion sets before them.

J. M. Good.

EXHIBITION-CRITICS.

WITH a connoisseur look, and a connoisseur glass,
From picture to picture in censure they pass;-
That curtain's too red, or, that sky is too blue;
Or, the distance or keeping is wrong in that view.

For all think the pleasure in seeing the sight,
Is to find it all wrong, and to set it all right.

*

Anon.

MUSIC PAINTING-SCULPTURE.

THE pleasure, the illusions produced by Music, when it is the voice of poetry, is, for the moment, by far the most complete and intoxicating, but also the most transient. Painting, with its lovely colours blending into life, and all its “silent poesy of form," is a source of pleasure more lasting, more intellectual. Beyond both is Sculpture, the noblest, the least illusive, the most en

during of the imitative arts, because it charms us, not by what it seems to be, but by what it is; because if the pleasure it imparts be less exciting, the impression it leaves is more profound and permanent; because it is, or ought to be the abstract idea of power, beauty, sentiment, made visible in the cold, pure, impressive, and almost eternal marble.

Mrs. Jameson.

PICTURE OF LIFE.

STILL where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue :
Behind the steps which misery treads,
Approaching comfort view.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of wo;
And, blended, forms with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

Gray.

SCENERY.

THE pine, the oak, and the elm, may be magnificent in themselves the willow, the heath, and the ivy may each present a picture to the imagination; but what are these, considered separately, compared with the evervarying combinations of form and colour, majesty and grace, presented by the forest, or the woodland, the sloping banks of the river, or the leafy dell, where the round and the massive figures are broken by the spiral stem, or the feathery foliage that trembles in the passing

gale-where the hues that are most vivid, or most delicate, stand forth in clear contrast from the depths of sombre shade-where every projecting rock and rugged cleft is fringed with a curtain of green tracery, and every glassy stream reflects again, in its stainless mirror, the variety and the magnificence of the surrounding groves. S. Stickney.

THE CREATION.

He spake, and it was done; eternal night,
At God's command, awakened into light;
He called the elements, earth, ocean, air;

He called them when they were not, and they were:
He looked through space, and kindling o'er the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars, came forth to meet his eye:
His Spirit moved upon the desert earth,

And sudden life through all things swarmed to birth;
Man from the dust he raised to rule the whole;
He breathed, and man became a living soul:
Through Eden's groves the lord of nature trod,
Upright and pure, the image of his God.

Thus were the heavens and all their host displayed,
In wisdom thus were earth's foundations laid;

The glorious scene a holy sabbath closed,
Amidst his works the Omnipotent reposed:

And while he viewed, and blest them from his seat,
All worlds, all beings worshipped at his feet:
The morning stars in choral concert sang,
The rolling deep with hallelujahs rang,
Adoring angels from their orbs rejoice;
The voice of music was creation's voice

Montgomery.

Soft polisher of rugged man!

Refiner of the social plan!

For thee, best solace of his toil,

The sage consumes his midnight oil!
And keeps late vigils, to produce
Materials for thy future use:

Calls forth the else neglected knowledge
Of school, of travel, and of college.
If none behold, ah! wherefore fair?

Ah! wherefore wise, if none must hear?
Our intellectual ore must shine,

Not slumber, idly, in the mine.
Let education's moral mint

The noblest images imprint;

Let taste her curious touchstone hold,
To try if standard be the gold;
But 'tis thy commerce, Conversation,
Must give it use by circulation:
That noblest commerce of mankind,
Whose precious merchandise is MIND!

H. More.

PAINTERS.

THEIR works are at once their actions and their his

tory, and a record of the taste and feelings of the times in which they flourished.

A. Cunningham.

IMPRESSIONS.

To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day, for perhaps forty years, had rendered familiar;

"With sun, and moon, and stars, throughout the year, And man, and woman;-"

this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish genius from talent.

S. T. Coleridge.

LIGHTS AND SHADES.

LOVE, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train;
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;

These, mixed with art, and to due bounds confined,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind;
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

Pope.

BLENDING.

EXTREMES in nature equal ends produce;
In man they join to some mysterious use;
Though each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As in some well-wrought picture light and shade,
And oft so mix, the difference is too nice
Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

Pope.