The upshot of the matter was that a horrible war ensued, for, being ordered out of his own territory, "Black Hawk would not go; hence the strong arm Such we presume is to be the fate of all the tribes, and the time will come when they must be forced to 'the shores of the Pacific, which cannot be crossed over in a bark canoe. Many interesting incidents are narrated in the course of the poem. Here is one of those melancholy murders which belong to Indian warfare. "Three families here they'd slain, lie in their gore Excepting persons two whom they slow not, The two Miss Halls!" The following list of names will illustrate something which has been said in a previous part of this paper: "Hard Scrabble, Fair Play, Nip and Tuck and Patch, The proceeding recorded in the last lines, it would appear, was the significant Indian mode of telling him that he had bragged enough. There is vast amount of information in this book relating to Indian manners and customs, in the collection of which lore the author has not travelled in vain. It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence that two distinguished poets should have arisen at nearly the same time in two hemispheres, bearing the unpoetical and uncommonly-common name of Smith. There is however little similarity between Alexander and Elbert H. As to the former he is a young man, and has given a golden promise which is yet to be redeemed. The latter is as we may presume in the bone and gristle of his years, and has attained to his poetical prime. He will in all probability achieve no work which is superior to Black Hawk. If we wished to draw any parallel at all it would be between Elbert H. Smith and Milton. Here too there is considerable dissimilarity, which could be proved if we had time to collate and place in juxtaposition distinct passages from their works. If Milton is more sublime, musical and sonorous, Elbert H. Smith is more ragged, varied and irregular. If Milton is more governed by fixed laws, Elbert H. Smith exhibits a more discursive freedom. If Milton has the advantage of a splendid knowledge and all the rich exhaustless treasury whence the poet draws for illustration, Elbert H. is not without ambitious imagery. We are more raised and elevated by Milton, but we are more amused with Smith. We have no idea that such a man should be left to grope in obscurity, and lest posterity should not do him justice, we have taken the matter in hand to set forth his merits as one who has written what in many respects may be considered the most remarkable epic poem of the age. A A GLIMPSE OF MUNICH. An Art-Student in Munich. By ANNA MARY NOT OT so quaint as Nurenberg, nor so accessible as Dresden, nor so famous as Florence, nor such a world in town-walls as Paris, Munich has still abundant attractions of its own. After seeing all the other old or new world capitals, you gaze upon its remarkable structures with the same interest as upon your first palace (Windsor or Versailles), or the castle which made the beginning of your continental experiences. For the sake of our many countrymen who will take the "Grand Tour," and who may not step aside from the beaten track unless some friend lead the way, and with the "Art-Student" for a text. we would recall pleasant memories of "good King Ludwig's" achievements:-of the art with which he and his predecessors have embellished this once forlorn "Monks' Nest"-of the vast museums of painting and statuary, which royal economy, lavish only upon art has collected-of the antique, religious and artistic recreations, which compare so favorably with those of cities renowned for sports and festivals of the ingenious inventions ripened by the generous bounty and more generous sympathy of royalty*-of the model institutions which relieve the inquisitive stranger from the wearisomeness of endless frescoes and accumulated galleries, and the unequalled privileges which kept this warm-hearted lady's enthusiasm at fever heat. Perhaps the American, who has not seen other European palaces of art, would not do well to begin with this. Glowing with the utilitarianism graven upon our noble commercial enterprise, our vast manufactories, our ever-spreading railways, he might feel as much lost in quiet Munich, as the poor Bastile prisoner whom the new daylight pained, so that he begged the revolutionary mob to spare him the old dungeon. And yet the Model Prison in the Au suburb would interest his philanthropy. Thou, old Bavaria, hast stolen a march upon us! From its cheerful chateau almost every prisonhorror has been banished: murderers and murderesses there pursue the various handicrafts with open doors and ungrated windows, as if in a college of general industry, now shoemaking, now tailoring, now weaving, now baking, but with a freedom of motion and an absence of restraint hardly imagined elsewhere. It is true, there is restraint; there are means of recapture; there is discipline for the refractory, and coercion for the disobedient. But these symbols of degradation, these incitements to passion, are not perpetually paraded before those who require encouragement, who need to have the Old Adam buried out of sight, that the New may experience resurrection. No more guards are employed than in the old institutions, with their thrice-barred gates, their heavily-ironed windows, their vigilantly-guarded walls: and the marvel of the scene is that even those confined for life are permitted free conversation with their mates in seasons of recreation, and more than any where within our knowledge, range freely within the great inclosure. But thus, one of those rare spirits who make themselves beloved by those they punish is present with his hopefulness every where; nothing is suffered to irritate these excitable passions, and nothing occurs to provoke to fresh outrage minds which may have imagined themselves preyed upon by society. Those not familiar with penitentiary discipline, can hardly imagine how often criminals commit new crimes under the impression that some other prisoner or petty officer is preying upon them, taunting them with past delinquency, depriving them of trifling comforts, or inflicting malicious punishment. "It was a startling sight," says Miss Howitt, "to see murderers wielding hammers, sawing, and cutting with sharpedged tools, when you remembered they were murderers, and how some tyrant passion had once aroused the fiend within, though now again he seemed laid to rest by years of quiet toil. Our guide informed us that, very rarely did any disobedience or passion show itself among the prisoners after the first few months, or the first year of their imprisonment. The constant employment from early morn to evening; the silence imposed during their hours of toil; the routine, the gradual dying-out of all external interests, seemed to sink them into a passive calm, until industry became their only characteristic. Each prisoner has his daily task, which must be completed. For extra work he Of this friend of Lola Montez it was said, "he could abandon his throne, but could not abandon Art."VOL. III.-41 receives payment-half of which he may consume, the other half being reserved for him until the expiration of his sentence.* This is also the case with such as are condemned to life-long imprisonment, there being always the possibility of a reprieve for them. On Sundays they are allowed to read books out of the prisonlibrary, play at dominoes, and enjoy various simple recreations. There is a school for younger prisoners and a hospital for the sick, and in each room was a kind of monitor, whose office was to report upon the conduct of his companions; and, this species of mutual watchfulness, kept up by the prisoners themselves, seemed to answer remarkably well." Of the women she says, At one particular washing-tub stood four. Our conductor spoke to one of them: two looked up and fairly beamed with smiles: one, a tall and very handsome young girl, continued to wash away with downcast eyes. The fourth, a fat, ill-looking woman also, never looked at the visitors. The two who smiled had remarkably agreeable faces; one with good features and a very mild expression; the other a small woman with a certain anxious expression about her eyes and mouth. The only one who looked evil was the fat old woman. "As soon as we were in the court, the conductor said, 'Now, what do you say about these women?" 'Three out of the four,' we remarked, 'are the only agreeable faces we have seen in the prison; and, judging from this momentary glance at their countenances, we should say would not be guilty of much crime; perhaps the fat old woman may be so; that tall girl, however, is not only handsome but genteel-looking.' That tall young girl murdered her fellow-servant, and, cutting up the body, buried it in the garden; the little woman next to her murdered her husband; the handsome, motherly-looking woman next, destroyed her child of seven years old. The fat old woman is in only for a slight offence.' So much for physiognomy!" "As I returned home," says Miss Howitt, after describing the strange prison scene, "all the faces I met seemed to me, as it were, masks. I saw faces a thousand times more rude than the countenances of those three unhappy women. I looked at the ladies who accompanied me, and said to myself,-Your faces are not nearly so good-looking in expression and features as theirs. I have been look . ing at my own face, and it seems to me that it, too, might just as well conceal some frightful remembrance of crime. I was thankful for any thing to banish the remembrance of the three women, and of those round beautiful hands and arms of the young girl, which had once been stained in blood." Let us pass to a more agreeable but still sad scene. We shall not soon forget the consternation of the valet de place, where the stranger would not suffer himself to be hurried by the Dead-House of the Munich Cemetery-where Yankee curiosity persisted in gazing through those large glass-doors into a spacious saloon, where all the newly-deceased are deposited for three days before interment. Every repulsive feature is spared. The lightsome hall exhibited, that lovely spring day, numbers of little biers, on each of which human life lay asleep in a bed of flowers; the little children could hardly be seen for the wreaths and bouquets heaped around them by unforgetting affection; here was the young mother in a marble sleep, her eyes slightly sunken, the roses around her appearing to reflect themselves in crimson tints upon her pale cheeks, and beside her lay the babe, the occasion and the companion of her last, perhaps only, suffering. Here too lay the Grecian-faced student, dressed as if to take his part at the public exhibition, arrayed in all the pride of opening manhood, his tricolor badge crossing his chest, his heavy moustache hiding his sunken lips: far more like sleep than like its still sister. And, mate to this, was the lovely girl, whose life might possibly have been united with his, as her death was; in her crossed hands the crucifix, at her sides the tall burning tapers, around her white brow still whiter flowers, a very bed of green giving her graceful form repose. Surely, this was winding a wreath of Christian Hope around the "plumy portal" of death. There was no babble of unfeeling tongues, no crowding of careless eyes; close by were stately monuments, solemn cloisters, graceful statues and some not so graceful, memorials of every kind to the departed, every thing in harmony with this cheerful yet solemn sight, every thing in contrast with our graveyard gloom. especially an antique "Dance of Death " pictured upon a neighboring wall. Within that ante-chamber of the dread king were *From official sources we find the extra-earnings to amount to nearly $22,000 per annum.: a single prisoner having been known to receive as high as $850; hardly any of those who receive large sums at gradua tion have been known to return, and crime in general being on the decrease in Bavaria. priests at prayer: and, occasionally, some friendly hand scattered the consecrated water on some sleeper's face; and, Protestant as I am, I could bless that reverential spirit and the whole impression was a pleasing melancholy. In some moods, in failing health or severe calamity, it might be an oppressive sight; but, only the exception would be the injury, and we cannot wish all life arranged to suit the diseased mind, the invalid frame: a motherly Providence takes better care of us than to afflict the many for the benefit of the few. . Munich is world-famed for its frescoes. As every one knows who knows any thing of Bavaria, its capital is decorated with miles upon miles of large paintings upon stucco, now covering palace walls, now the exterior of a gallery, now lining the cloisters of a garden or the ceiling of a church-representing connected subjects, here a history of the country, there the great National Epic, here the principal views in Greece, there the Iliad and the Odyssey. Anna, as our authoress herself, hardly alludes to these characteristic exhibitions of Munich Art, regarding them as too familiar to need description, or, feeling that intelligent readers would understand without minute description, that she was surrounded all the while by these trophies of royal taste. One melancholy thought has hitherto intruded on the gorgeous spectacle: you not only know its perishableness, you see it is perishing before your eyes, and the touch of your cane, the sweep of your umbrella may hasten the inevitable doom. Exposed, in some cases, without any defence to storins and wet, to the anger of the elements and the carelessness of man, at one of the principal gates a celebrated painting is now nearly extinct. But, by something better than good fortune, the means of future preservation are now discovered, the more recent works of the kind are secured to posterity, and as James Martineau remarked, "a new era is created in art." Stereo-chromic, like lithography, was discovered by a Munich chemist, and has been already applied to the large scenes in Greece by Professor Rottman, and to his historical sketches at Berlin by the illustrious Kaulbach. The painting is made in water colors, and the invention consists in sprinkling a very subtle solution, fluoric acid, over the surface, which converts colors, that might have been wiped away with the moistened hand, into a marble surface, indestructible by fire, moisture, smoke, or mould. In fact, the wall as I found was changed into stone, capable of resisting every test that has yet been applied, and promising to continue unchanged through all time. Many inventions of far less value have excited more attraction, and been rewarded with greater praise; yet what an unspeakable blessing would this have been to those beautiful but fading walls of the Vatican, and to many a vanishing piece of art in northern Italy! But such is gratitude. Hardly has the name of the "Supreme Director of Mines," Von Fuchs, been whispered abroad. Any mention of Munich that omitted The Bavaria, would be the leaving St. Peter's out of Rome. The truth is, besides its support of nearly three hundred artists, in marble, fresco, or oil paintings;-immense bronze castings are executed with unrivalled success at Munich-a business created by royal enterprise and sustained by royal patronage. Our Munich friends were asking every day, "Have you seen the Bavaria?" and saying, "Our great curiosity is not the Glyptothek, the Pinacothek, nor the Pompeii frescoes, but the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle." And one of the richest chapters of Miss Howitt's narrative is the public inauguration of this emblematic monster, probably the largest bronze statue in the world-nobly placed too-in its rear the three ranges of marble columns, within which are to stand the colossal statues of Bavarian heroes, and before it is a vast sloping plain, the race-course, agricultural fair, and arena of public games for all Bavaria. No idea would seem more far-fetched to us, yet none impresses one more agreeably than this symbolized genius of the country, this virgin-heart of Germany, protected by her guardian lion, promising fame by her uplifted wreaths to high desert, looking graciously down upon the vast multitudes assembled annually to greet success in every department of labor. How she towers eighty-four feet above the plain! the patron of Invention, the benefactor of Art, the prompter of Enterprise, the smiling guardian of a scene where the greatest conceivable victory has been won over a cold soil, a landlocked position, a superstitious, beer-drinking race, a climate unconscious of the fostering sun of Italy, the delicious sky of Greece. A word merely upon the Pinacothek and the Glyptothek: and yet a word, because, though the Dresden gallery is larger, the Florentine more famous, almost every other Museum, even the Nea politan Borbonico, is more familiar to us by engraving and description. The charm of the Munich Galleries is their selection and arrangement. The Pinacothek is limited to 1500 pictures, and these the choicest of many collections, arranged in historical schools, filling thirty-two ample halls. The Glyptothek, or Statuary Repository, had the rare fortune of obtaining a whole room of Egina marbles, the only existing specimens of that early art, and at a less price than was offered by the British Museum. No other Art-Gallery has such beautiful walls without and within. Miss Howitt dwells with enthusiasin on the exquisite marble stucco of the interior, where school succeeds school from the Egyptian Sphynx at the entrance to Thorwaldsen at the close-the ceilings by Cornelius, the medallions by Schwanthaler, whom it is worth a visit to Munich to know-but, she hardly mentions the noble Grecian front, with its mingled beauty and majesty, surpassing all the other architectural embellishments of the city, celebrated as they are. And one, not the least, recommendation to a stranger, is the generosity with which all these treasures are spread before his enraptured gaze. The only day in the week when the collection of Prince Leuchtenberg was thrown open to the public proved to be "Green Thursday; and, to our consternation, the iron gates were closed, and all entrance forbidden because of the religious festival; and the valet de place declared that, unless we waited a week there was no chance. But a simple written request from an unintroduced American opened this casket of more than gold, and a servant of the house was ordered to wait upon the pleasure of a single stranger, who found himself rewarded for this bit of importunity, not only by the study of the celebrated full length of Josephine by Gerard, and of Belisarius bearing his dead conductor in his arms, by the same French master; but, by two of Canova's best pieces, the Graces and the Magdalen; Schadow's Shepherd with the wounded lamb; three Murillos, one of them considered his best; Rembrandt's portrait of himself; Guercino's Woman taken in Adultery, Raphael's Cardinal, and numerous family relics of Napoleon inherited by Eugene Beauharnais-a collection of about a hundred pieces, but each a gem which money could not purchase, which were gathered not merely with lavish wealth, but by the good fortune of such near relationship to Napoleon at a time when Italy and Spain lay very much at the mercy of the conqueror. A French gentleman, whom we had met repeatedly in different galleries, came in upon our solitude to study the Magdalen of Murillo, which he affirmed to be without exception "the picture of the world," whose tears almost seemed, as we gazed, to course down over her furrowed cheeks, and whose resigned penitence left an impression time will not efface. But the pleasantest part of this charming book to the public will be the Munich Festivals, some of which we witnessed unconsciously in company with this gifted lady. Just before Easter, the great Benedictine Basilica of St. Boniface displayed beneath its organ-loft a vast grot to, faced with a screen of living flowers and green shrubbery. Towering trees confronted the beautiful marble columns of the church, ferns and mosses shaded the stone sepulchre, far within whose artificial blocks reposed a statue of the buried "Lord of Life." There was nothing in the least gloomy in the scene. The warm sunlight flooded the immense area, gilding and frescoes dancing in the superb hues cast by the magnificent, painted windows,* the marble floor refreshing the eye wearied by such rich tints. It struck me, that this unusually light church became the Resurrection, which was enacted in it by a risen statue the next Sunday, better than any other, because of its cheerfulness, and all its accompaniments; the greenhouse plants covering the grand altar, the bright walls without, the glistening marbles within, harmonized with the idea of renewed life. If Protestant churches, intended for so different a purpose, are to imitate the Catholic, they might well study this latest school, before they lose the comfort of their service in a darkness as embarrassing to the speaker as the hearer, and acoustic absurdities, such as make the Word any thing but "the voice of one playing well on a pleasant instrument." We missed the Washing of the Apostles' Feet, by His Majesty, but the reader need not, as Miss Howitt tells how daintily a dirty job may be done, and confirms the intimation already given, that Catholic ceremonies are most faithfully observed at Munich. It is performed on Holy Thursday, in the Hercules' Hall of the Palace. The finest painted glass is produced here. One window at the Au Kirche cost, we were assured, fifteen thousand dollars. Of course, few but princes could make such costly presents. |