itself, as by a chemical affinity and attraction, to the natural portion in the created and fanciful, and by that amalgamation make all be, or at least appear, as natural. The true creator never loses sight of this-the judgment is ever with him; he decides by it, and this judgment, presiding over creative power, constitutes genius. Genius, then, or art-for consummate art is genius-not only has the power of creating a world for itself, but of creating in the minds of spectators and hearers a belief in its existence. It is very strange that this should be so generally felt; and it can scarcely be unacknowledged with regard to poetry, particularly the drama, and yet be denied in reference to the art of painting. Because painting is the 'visible art, it must, with some, be merely the imitation of things seen; whereas poetry and music are, in the same sense, imitative as painting, and in no other unless, indeed, we speak of the lowest kind of painting, that deadweight fastened to art by an indissoluble chain, but which was never intended to keep it from rising. It should rather be the ballast, to Let us exkeep steady the aeronaut in his upward course. emplify the power of genius by its effects in poetry, and then let the fair inference be drawn, Ut poesis pictura, as well as Ut pictura poesis.» Let there be to both arts the « Quidlibet audendi æqua potestas. Try the power by Shakspeare's most imaginative plays-the « Tempest » and « Midsummer Night's Dream. In both these plays we have a new creation-new beings such as none ever saw, and such as none ever believed to exist until they saw these plays acted, or read them. We say such as none ever believed to exist, because we must not deceive ourselves, and take advantage of the wonderful power of that belief created in us by the poet, to fancy we have imagined such beings. We never did the exact creations of Shakspeare, his Caliban and his fairies, had no prototypes in our belief; but we have naturally a vague particle of belief, which instantly seizes upon and appropriates the creation. There is nothing more natural than the fear and feeling of the preternatural. Shakspeare worked upon this nature, and spun and wove from the tangled, unformed materials in the human bosom, the fairest and most hideous creatures-not sim ་ ply the two, the fairest and foulest, but many and infinitely varied in their characters. Caliban and Puck are not less distinct than Ariel, and Oberon, and Titania. And how different are their provinces ! - how unlike their powers over the elements, the air, the earth, and the sea! Now where, in external nature, do we get all this? It is purely creation, and shows the illimitable province of art. The world, then, from which art is to make its pictures, is not only the external visible world of nature, but the world of imaginative nature, a portion of which is inherent in all mankind, and which makes them love and fear, in cases of their own predilection or terror, a little beyond reason, but not a little beyond truth, for the very nature is truth. If it be in the nature of our minds that thought should travel and shift its ground, with instant and wonderful rapidity, from east to west, and yet then not be bounded by the limits of the world, may not art in this imitate nature, or rather take advantage of this ubiquity of fancy's nature, and, with nice arrangement and rapid delusion, hurry us over space and time, and place us when and where it pleases, without violence, as the drama does in its shifting scenes, and as Shakspeare has done in his Winter's Tale? Be it well or ill done, is the only question. If with a judgment and power, it is the work of genius; lacking that judgment, we make a mock of and deride the attempt, and point to it as a palpable cheat. In the theatre we hiss the poor actor-we should condemn the author. Is not Burns's Tam O'Shanter» a pure creation? Here, too, we have fairy creatures of another kith and kin; and do not let any one fancy that, before reading Burns, he has had any knowledge of them. The poet spun them out of that common material which was in his and every one's mind; and as the thread is drawn out in the poet's mind, so, by his electric power, is it drawn out in all, and the same forms created, and being created thus within every mind, it is felt and acknowledged to be natural. And in this of Burns, there is another natural instinct called into play the humorous; so that, however dressed or undressed in its vagaries, the phantasma is still natural, still in itself a truth. The forms » " ་་ }) " of things unknown unknown till called into existence from the dormant materials of general nature, by the head of genius thereby acquire henceforth a local habitation and a name. And thus it is that genius confers an everlasting benefit upon mankind, present and to come, continually enriching it, creating treasures for every one's enjoyment doing that out of the mind which cannot be done out of the material world, adding to that which was; for, if with matter, there is not since the creation of the world one atom more than there was at first, it is the very contrary with the world of thought, of intellectual invention, of mind, which is continually enlarging, multiplying itself, becoming more. Nay, in the art of painting it takes possession of matter, gives to it thought, and makes a new thing of it. That it may not appear we are arguing without an adversary, it may be as well here to give some account of a discussion we had with a professed lover of the natural, and which originated in a conversation on « schools of design. » We will put it in the form of a dialogue, if not according to the exact words, correct as to the substance of what was said. We will designate our opponent NATURALIST, ourselves IDEAL IST: NAT. The advantages of studying from nature alone, will be manifest in the truth that will be in every department of art. In our ornamental manufactures, you will see nothing represented that is not. IDE. And that you consider a great advantage; and are you not confounding two things a little incompatible with each other art and manufacture? NAT. No, I consider them one; there may be higher excellences in some departments of art than others, but I consider ornamental manufactures a department of art; and it is because you have seen such bad things in patterns, that you would separate them. Art altogether arises out of the love of ornament. IDE. Yes; and, like a magnificent river, may rise from a very insignificant source. You may sport and play at the fountain-head what petty gambols you please; kick it with your feet and splash it with your hands, like wanton children; -but further on it will become deep and resistless, and though people build their pleasant villas upon its banks, they do so not without a fear of its power, and carefully fence themselves against its inundations. So art, if you will still call it so, while it is confined to the narrow and shallow ornament, is a thing of mere sport, may have rules of its own play; but when this art in its progress enters upon the territories of thought, of mind, it takes another name and characterit is genius-is grand and fearful, of every beauty, It commands but we shall get out of our depth. Sufficient difference is shown to justify us in separating them so that, when we speak of art, we will only speak of it, as the higher quality, wherein it is invariably in the province of mind. : NAT. I will not quarrel with your distinction, if you will make the exact study of nature the necessary foundation of both. IDE. If we can first agree what is nature. I fear, in your sense of it, we shall not agree; for I think you are adverse to the representation of any thing and every thing in higher art and design in manufactures, that has not the exact delineation and character of some visible, palpable thing. NAT. Yes, I have an aversion to vagaries my sense of truth is shocked. IDE. Your sense of truth need not be shocked. You have limited yourself to a particular truth, and finding not that, look not for the truth that may be. NAT. I do not understand you. : IDE. Well, then, put it thus we do not always think in syllogisms. Fancy hurries away the mind frequently, so that we cannot connect thought with thought; we run into unrestricted vagaries» as you term them, and refresh ourselves in the freedom of undefining idleness. This is a character of our minds; and in art, whatever accords with that is a truth ; force upon that mood an exact similitude, and in your attempt to establish perhaps the minor truth, you have destroyed the greater. Let us exemplify it by the vagueness of some ad libitum movements in music, that delight from the very scope they give to this idle indulgence. The artist, the musician, VOL. III. 15 nay, even the manufacturer of ornamental design, that shall succeed in drawing you into this vein, does so by touching a chord of truth existent within you-of nature, if you please; for in the sense we now speak of truth, it is one with nature. NAT. There may be something in your view, but it is new to me, and I must consider it. I fear it will not bear the test of strict examination. Your argument would, I suspect, admit impossibilities as legitimate subjects of art. IDE. I do not see why art should not employ itself about impossibilities, if there be the genius to make them credible. For genius has Exhausted worlds, and then created new. » NAT. That is the creation I fear surely where there is so much of beauty in the world that is, an inexhaustible source, would it not be better first to work in that mine? IDE. It is very good to do so, I will not say it is better, if you mean to confine the operator to that mine; every mine should be worked, and some workmen have an irresistible impulse to try new, and if they dig out treasures we ought to be satisfied. NAT. You are losing the thread of the discussion. Now, look at that frame to your pier-glass, it has been offending me this hour, and attracts my attention to its absurdity. This is, I believe, of the taste that is attempted to be revived, the ornamental of the time of Louis the XIV. Can any thing be more silly deformity? You have flowing lines that, as far as I can judge, mean nothing, for they are neither stem, leafage, nor feather; and how ridiculously is the upper involution terminated in what is meant, I suppose, to be a dragon's head, with the dress of a fury! Yet never was there, never could there be such a creature, or part of a creature. You will not pretend to call this abortive absurdity a truth? IDE. Yes, I do the sort of truth just referred to. It is the very unlikeness makes the vagary; the impossible metamorphosis, with its easy flowing infinity of lines, that draw |