forth his harmonious thoughts in a language unknown to him before.

From the stern practice of the schools, the artist in time emerges, though only to extend the sphere of his education, and widen the field of those studies which the longest life of man is insufficient to complete. This brings us to the third and last stage, when the artist still animated with the same enthusiasm, launches forth into the world. Having become thoroughly initiated in the use of the proper means, he is now able to apply both the ardour of his soul, and the labour of his hand, to the production of those splendid works which his mind is not less able to conceive, for having been made acquainted with their internal construction, their peculiar distinctions, and limitations. Fully qualified to enter the realm of poetry, he identifies himself with the author, and regarding his hero in his moral and intellectual character, invests him with a nobility of mien and stature, which, if it is not true to his physical formation, is true to nature; because his nature was noble, and the character which the historian is able to describe with the intervention of time, and the change of scene and circumstance, he must impress upon the can

vass, as it were with one stroke, and concentrate into the space of a single moment, the accumulated influence, and power, and majesty, of a long life of glorious actions. Animated by the spirit-stirring influence of poetic feeling, he can now take captive the fallen monarch, in chains which his own hand flings around him; he can allure the sylvan deity into bowers of his own constructing; personify the impassioned minstrel with a harmony of colouring, like music to the eye; and tinge an angel's wings with the golden hues of heaven.

The greatest merit of painting is, that like poetry, it addresses itself to those principles of intellectual enjoyment, without which its greatest beauties would neither be appreciated nor seen-principles implanted in the human mind, and often neither felt nor acknowledged, until called forth by the works of art. The pleasure we derive from painting, is commonly and superficially considered to be only as it is an imitative art. Why then do not coloured figures in wax, rank higher in the estimation of the world, than the more laborious and cumbrous productions of the sculptor? And why do not miniature landscapes, with the real elevation of hills, trees, and houses, made of

cork or clay, and coloured to the hues of nature, please more than the level surface, on which form and distance are denoted merely by a particular management of colour, so as to represent light and shade? The fact is, that in such performances, however ingeniously managed, nothing is left for the imagination. We see the thing as it really is, pronounce it to be very pretty, and think no more about it; while those in which the effect alone is obvious, and the means enveloped in their proper obscurity, strike the beholder with feelings of wonder and admiration; while through the medium of the senses, he receives just so much information, as is necessary to set the imagination afloat upon an immeasurable ocean of thought. Let hands profane colour to the very life an Apollo or a Venus, and we should see nothing more than a fine man, and a pretty woman; but in contemplating them as they are, we behold the eternal principles of imperishable beauty, handed down to us from distant ages, conceived by one nation, appropriated by another, and acknowledged by all with the profoundest admiration.

Painting and sculpture, next to poetry, constitute the grand medium by which the sublimest ideas, and the most exquisite sensations

are conveyed to the human mind. It is true the phenomena of nature are more essentially sublime, as well as beautiful; but nature speaks to us in a voice which we do not always hear, and cannot always understand. It is when nature is interpreted by the power of human genius, that we hear most forcibly, and if we do not understand, we feel the eternal truths which have their archetype in nature, and their corresponding impress in the soul of man.

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THE POETRY OF SOUND.

AMONGST the organs of perception by which ideas of sensible things are conveyed to the mind, it is only necessary here to notice those which are most important and obvious-the eye, and the ear. Painting forms the medium of connexion between the eye and the mind: language supplies the mind with ideas, through the medium of the ear. Our attention has hitherto been occupied by visible objects alone, and having conducted them to the mind through one avenue, it is necessary that we take up the subject of sound, in order that we may make a progressive approach by another.

Sound is perhaps of all subjects the most intimately connected with poetic feeling, not only because it comprehends within its widely extended sphere, the influence of music, so