of their opinions. He does not go out of his way to approve or condemn; and, to some pious Puritan readers, his book will seem faulty that it relates such moral indecencies with no burst of indignation, that it leaves doubt as to the real feeling of the author about polygamy, and free love, and asceticism. Ought a respectable writer to reveal such things without denouncing them? "He that is not against us is for us;" and the Mormons will have the right to say that Mr. Dixon favors their plurality of wives, because he has no harsh words for it. But, on the whole, this impartial calmness of judgment is a pleasant feature of the book, and gives confidence in the writer's statements. It will not probably make converts to promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, or to the patriarchal system of the harem. It may send visitors to New Lebanon or to Oneida Creek, but will hardly add recruits to those strange communities. Mr. Dixon is a friend of America and American institutions, a believer in republican ideas, and a strong foe to every kind of slavery and oppression. It is impossible, therefore, to mistake him for an advocate of the Mormon despotism, which perpetuates the worst features of slavery. He cheerfully recognizes the material progress, the industry, the temperance, the good order, the thrift, of the SaltLake oasis. But he has not that cynical joy which we find in the work of Burton, in showing how material prosperity comes with moral obliquity. Burton would have us believe that the preaching and the practice of the Mormons are quite as respectable as those of any Christian sect, and that the success of this polygamy and this vulgar hierarchy is a substantial proof that the patriarchal religion and method are as good as the Christian. Dixon does not say that, but only gives the good side of the Mormon life along with the disgusting side. His book is fresh, entertaining, and instructive. There is not a dull page in it. If some of the statements are extravagant, they are far less so than those of most English writers on American things. A writer who can describe so well American oddities can be trusted to give us another book on the ordinary experiences of the traveller here, and on things better known. POETRY AND ART. THE law of demand and supply seems, in these days of perfected commercial arrangements, to have extended itself into the domain of poetry; so that the literary market is now supplied, with very considcrable regularity, with the productions of its most popular and recognized poets. The fact is, doubtless, entirely creditable; and we ought to felicitate ourselves on having achieved a final victory over the eccentricities of genius. But it is occasionally a little annoying to be forced to amend our ideas, and to learn the new aphorism, that, whatever may be the origin of the poets themselves, their verses at least are not created, but manufactured, and that to order. It is useless to complain of degeneracy, or to talk about inspiration: in our day, the best inspiration is success; and the substantial tribute of quick sales and multiplied editions is a very acceptable discount on that very long note of hand which goes by the name of Fame. "Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other, This moralizing is apropos of Mr. Whittier's last book, "The Tent on the Beach," which appears just a year after the "Snowbound." The two are very different from each other, and both are very different from the earlier poems of their author. They are the work of a prosperous writer, whose name is sufficiently established to make it of comparatively little importance to his publishers what he writes or how he writes it. The "Snow-bound" has the advantage of being complete and single, and of a subject which is sure to make its own interest in the heart of every reader who has reached middle age, and can look back on the vanished joys of a New-England country home. Many of its pictures are charming, because they are simple and true, and shine with the tender radiance of a loving and sad memory, "the light of other days." But it is quite evident make up the volume; that much of the matter was added only to and the public interest, which follows with pleasure the outlines and even the details of the main picture, flags and fails when invited to examine all the nameless family portraits which follow, drawn though they are with a reverent hand, and out of a feeling which it is impossible that a stranger can share. Of the later volume still less can be said. This is still more obviously a manufactured poem, of which the public have been The Tent on the Beach. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. permitted from time to time to see a portion of the materials. Like Mr. Longfellow's "Wayside Inn," it is a specimen of what may be called the conglomerated school of poetry, in which any stray nuggets of verse - which have done service in a magazine or newspaper, may but are too few or too slight to be gathered by themselves into a volume — are made available to that end, by being embedded in a connecting and retaining medium of narrative. It is but a cheap device, and cheapens rapidly by repetition. In the present instance, as might well be expected, some of the little pieces are extremely pleasing; and all have Mr. Whittier's never-failing merits of easy and graceful movement, and purity and sweetness of tone. But the most of them, and perhaps all, have been very recently printed in the "Atlantic Monthly," or some other periodical; and few have more than the value and interest which are looked for in such ephemera as magazine verses. And as for the thread of narrative which connects them, it is impossible to help feeling that it is such poetry as a trained versifier like Mr. Whittier could throw off by the page, as easily as Touchstone his doggerel to Rosalind: "I'll rhyme you so eight days together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted." Though we do not deny it to be pleasant reading, yet we do not conceive it to be the sort of verse which a true poet like Whittier, with so much of the real poetic temperament, so flavored and strengthened with the pure flame of moral earnestness, should be content to produce; and we look on it as one more proof of the extent to which the commercial spirit pervades and governs the life of this age. We are saying this surely out of no lack of appreciation of the worth of what this noble writer has contributed to the infant literature of his people; and our chief discontent at his later method comes less from what we conceive to be his own decline as a poet, than from the influence of his example upon younger writers whose work is of the future, and not of the present. C. A. C. "SPECULATION," says Lessing, "must follow the torch of history." Every philosophy of art must rest upon a thorough study of works of art. To theorize about it from general conceptions merely, can lead only to the most vague and unsatisfactory results. "The Beautiful," as a naked abstraction, a mental essence, is the most empty and unprofitable of metaphysical conceptions. It is nothing to us except in its incarnations. It is only in the presence of the masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, painting, and music, that we can truly learn any thing of the eternal principles which underlie all artistic creations. The lack of this positive knowledge has always been the bane of æsthetic criticism in America; and the recent work of Dr. Samson, whilst claiming to be a remedy, is in reality only an additional illustration of this defect. As "a text-book for schools and colleges," the book is utterly worthless; and, we fear, the "amateurs and artists" will find it rather heavy and indigestible pabulum. An elimination of the wholly irrelevant matter which the volume contains, would diminish its size at least one-fourth. This superfluous stuff is mostly of a semi-theological consistency, as vapid as it is impertinent, and holding about the same relation to "art criticism" that Mr. Tupper's platitudes do to poetry. The author's logical processes are peculiar, and we have rarely found in any book so many instances of naïve non sequitur. Because, in the fourth chapter of Genesis, Jubal, "the father of all such as handle the harp and organ," is mentioned one verse before Tubal-cain, the "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," therefore, argues Dr. Samson, music is an older art than sculpture, and attained a high state of development at a much earlier period. Upon this narrow and untenable basis he then builds up a classification of the Fine Arts. To say nothing of the absurdity of the syllogism, the conclusion arrived at is in itself false. No doubt, at a very remote date in the world's history, barbaric tribes made horrid dissonance on gong-gongs and tom-toms; but music, as a fine art, is of later growth than sculpture : it is a product of modern times, and did not reach its present perfection till the eighteenth century of the Christian era. The book is not only confused and inconsistent in its method (or rather want of method), but also contradictory in its statements. In one chapter we are told that landscape-gardening is the highest of the arts: first, because Adam, who was "perfect in all his powers," practised this form of art; and, secondly, because architecture, sculpture, &c., are contributory to it and essential to its perfection. In another chapter it is said that Eden was the perfection of landscape-gardening, " long before architecture and sculpture were dreamed of." In other words, this art reached its perfection long before the elements necessary to 66 * Elements of Art Criticism: A Text-book for Schools and Colleges, and a Handbook for Amateurs and Artists. By G. W. SAMSON, D.D., President of Columbian College, Washington, D.C. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1867. 1 vol., crown 8vo. pp. 840. its perfection "were dreamed of." These specimens will suffice to illustrate what we mean by vapid theorizings. The thick volume is full of them; but we have no space for further citations, More useful are those portions of the work in which the author traces the history of the different arts. The reader will here find, for the most part, correct and intelligible explanations of various technical processes,-etching, engraving, photography, &c.; although, as Dr. Samson's book has no index, the same information can be more easily obtained from "Brande's Dictionary," or any other cyclopædia of art. Photography, he thinks, is destined to be the supreme fine art; and, in the gaudy upholstery of "an American river-boat," he discovers an elegance unsurpassed by any "palace apartment" in the world. In the chapter on Italian sculptors and painters, the criticism is all second-hand: he has evidently never seen the works on which he passes judgment; and, in many cases, does not even know their location. The foreign tourist, who should take this "handbook" as his guide, would frequently find himself at his wit's end. The only thing original in this section is the orthography of proper names, in which the author gives free rein to his fancy. The pages devoted to American artists read like extracts from a Fourth-of-July oration of Mr. Jefferson Brick, no discriminating criticism, but only loose and unmeaning laudation. One is a Phidias, another a Praxiteles, and a third unites the excellences of both. But, notwithstanding this offensive tone of national exaggeration, so fretting to the finer filaments of taste, Dr. Samson really does injustice to American art, by omitting the names of some of our best artists. The limits of a critical notice do not permit us to specify errors. The intelligent reader will find them soon enough. We have done our conscientious duty to the public, in indicating the general scope and character of the work. E. P. E. Mr. PALGRAVE's book has been much talked of here, but less since the appearance of the New-York reprint than before, which is perhaps no wonder. The wonder is to find, after all the talk, that the book is, for the most part, a collection of ephemeral notices of successive exhibitions of the pictures of the Royal Academy of Lon * Essays on Art. By FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1867. VOL. LXXXII. -NEW SERIES, VOL. III. NO. III. 33 |