great masters. Or even if the pope would consent to farm out, to an American or English company, a part of the Campagna, or the bed of the Tiber, to dig for statues, we might have, I doubt not, one noble gallery at least, in each country.

It is often said, that the arts cannot flourish in a republic; and this is said, in the face of such examples as Athens and Republican Rome. But why can they not? I ask. Want of patronage is the reason usually assigned, but to this reason there are two material exceptions to be taken. In the first place, the arts may find patronage in the general spirit of a country, as well as in royal or princely revenues. Let there be intelligence and refinement among any people, and the patronage of the arts must follow. And is it not safer thus to trust the cucouragement of the arts to the intelligence and free competition of a whole people, than to a few individuals, kings, or princes, who, if they have often fostered genius, have sometimes cramped and enslaved it? Would not a generous artist rather take an intelligent people for his patron, than a king? May not the fine arts, in this respect, be safely and advantageously subjected to the same ordeal as literature. We have wealth enough, we have intelligence in America, and I am willing to rely upon these for the inevitable consequence. But in the next place, I would not trust patronage alone for the prosperity of the arts. I should place more reliance upon the genius of a people. Nothing could repress such a development among a people like the Athenians; nothing could elicit it among barbarians. Our country has already works to show, which may vie, I will venture to say, with any contemporaneous works of Englisli art. The landscapes of Cole persuade us that the days of Claude may come back again. In Mount and Durand, as painters of grotesque and common life, we have artists that enable us to look at the works of Teniers and Wilkie without despair or discouragement. I doubt whether the best portrait painters among us, now that Sir Thomas Lawrence is gone, are excelled anywhere in the world. Page and Flagg are very young artists, but full of promise. Allston has already a fame in Europe, and the public are anxiously waiting for a production from him in the department of historical painting, which will give us something to quote in this loftiest department of the art. Greenough, too, we claim as an American artist; and I wish there might be presented to him, by more influential voices than mine, the benefit he might confer on his country by coming and living among us. If he would open

a studio of sculpture in Boston, or New York, or Philadelphia, it could not fail to have a decided effect upon the public taste.

It would be sad, indeed, if the allegation were true, that the arts could not flourish in a republic; for it is precisely there that they are wanted to complete the system of social influences.

It is a mistake into which novices fall, to suppose that the arts are unfavourable to morality. The truth is, that all this is conventional; and however a gallery of pictures or statues may strike the unaccustomed eye, it all soon comes to be regarded as indifferently as the varieties of costume in the living person. In fact, the fine arts have usually been the handmaids of virtue and religion. More than half of the great paintings in the world are illustrative of religious subjects; and embracing mythology in this account, more than half of the statues are of the same character. And to refer to kindred arts- -ar

chitecture, too, has built its noblest structures for religion, and music has composed its sublimest strains for the sanctuary. Genius, indeed that inspiration from heaven-has always shown its descent from above, by this direction of its labours.

The introduction of the arts into our country, then, is not to be dreaded on the score of morality. Is it not on every account greatly to be desired? The most material deficiency among us, perhapsnext to the want of virtue-is likely to be the want of refinement. There is need among us of objects that kindle up admiration and enthusiasm, that awaken the sense of delight and wonder, that break up the habits of petty calculation and sordid interest, and breathe a liberal and generous soul into the people; and this need the arts would supply.

Again; it is too truly said, that we are a people devoted to gain, that utility is the grand law, and wealth the grand distinction here; and that neither the law nor the distinction is lofty enough to train up a great people. I object not to utility as a rule of action-but I object to the common construction of the rule. That is not useful alone, which conduces to immediate comfort; that is as truly so, which conduces to general culture and refinement. So that a fine painting, or statue, or building, is as truly useful as a canal, a railroad, or a ship.

It is said, moreover, that our political and nominal equality—literal and actual equality it cannot be, though foreign writers are continually confounding them-that our equality, such as it is, tends to bring down our whole people to the level of the lowest; that it is the parent, not of improvement, but only of pretension and of self-complacency; and, in fine, that under all these influences, the lofty enthusiasm of the people is degenerating-that the beau ideal, the beautiful, and the sublime, are sinking under the weight of the practical, the popular, and the vulgar.

If I were discussing these points fully, I certainly should argue against the unqualified charges in question. And yet I should, and I do confess, that there are dangers in these respects, which urge upon us the importance of setting up every antagonist principle that we can find in education, literature, and the arts. In this view, the almost exclusive direction of expenditure in our cities, to purposes of fashionable display, is extremely to be regretted. It is not of the extent of the expenditure, but of its tendencies, that I complain. I rejoice that our citizens have superfluous millions to expend, and that they are disposed to expend, rather than to hoard them. If we are a people eager for gain, though I have no doubt that this national trait is exaggerated, yet it cannot be denied that we are equally willing to scatter abroad the fruits of our industry. Meanness, certainly, is not one of our national vices. If we talk much about dollars, though really I cannot, in this respect, see much difference between us and other nations, except in the value of the catch-word coin" un sous" in France, "un paolo” in Italy, a shilling" in England, being about as conspicuous in conversation as "a dollar" with us- -yet if this unlucky word does roll with such provoking facility from our lips, where, I should like to know, does the thing itself roll so freely from the hand, as in America? Pity it is -for I care more for improvement at home than reputation abroad — that something more of this boundless profusion of expense could not

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be diverted from its present course, to the encouragement of the arts! The dresses of a fasliionable American lady, for a single year, would place a beautiful painting on her parlour wall, which would contribute to the improvement and pleasure of herself and her friends for lifewhile her dresses contribute to nobody's improvement or pleasure, but her milliners and mantua-makers. The piles and pyramids of confectionary stuff that are placed, in the course of a year upon a single table, might buy a statue.* One half of that which is now expended in some of our cities for ephemeral superfluities might, in a quarter of a century, fill them with statues and paintings: neither would that deduction diminish anything from the true grace, elegance, and happiness of life. Then might we have something for a visiter to see in our cities, besides a great mass of brick houses. It is really mortifying to find, on such an occasion, how little one has to show his friend from a foreign country, or from a distant part of his own. Would that some Girard among us might think of founding a gallery of the arts! And what a benefit might any man of wealth, however moderate, confer on society, if, instead of filling his house with splendid furniture, and entertainments, he should leave all that to the regulation of a decorous and dignified simplicity, and fill his house with objects that would give a thousand times more pleasure to every visiter, who is not a blockhead; and would contribute, at the same time, to the so much needed improvement and refinement of the whole country! Why may not our academies of arts in the various cities undertake to establish permanent galleries, and successfully make an appeal to our citizens to aid them? Grant that the beginning were discouraging, and the accumulation slow. Everything must have a beginning; and a good enterprise had better proceed slowly, than proceed not at all. The bare fact, too, that there is a permanent depository for the preservation of the works of art, would naturally invite and induce the gift or bequest of such works.

In this connexion, I cannot help offering one suggestion, for which I am indebted to a gentleman of distinguished taste, that deserves, as it seems to me, the attention of religious congregations. They are already existing combinations for religious improvement. They are able, without burdening any individual, to place good paintings in all their churches. Suppose-and this is the suggestion- that any congregation should commence the undertaking, by a collection in the church, or by individual subscriptions, and when a sufficient sum is obtained to defray the expense of a painting, let the purchase be made by a judicious committee appointed for that purpose. By such a plan as this for successive acquisitions, carried on from generation to generation, the country might at length be filled with the finest productions of the

Speaking of statues, the human body is a living statue, whose beauty and proportion were as much designed to be admired as those of marble. What would be thought of a marble statue, if its costume were made to resemble that of one of our modern fine ladies? A fashionable woman may dress for one half the expense she now does, may be twice as agreeable in person to her husband and everybody else, may have less care about her wardrobe, and more health and more comfort every way-and why does she not? Because she dare not resist the French milliner! Is this a matter too trifling to notice? It ruins thousands; it makes tens of thousands unhappy-goading fashion and business alike to excess and bondage; it causes the improvement of hundreds of thousands to be neglected.

pencil. Our own artists would immediately feel the stimulus of the call, and the contributions of genius abroad would be brought within our reach. The effect upon the public taste could not fail to be great and striking. The effect upon devotion would be no less salutary. Painting is a language, as truly as that which is heard from the pulpit. Whose mind would not be touched and elevated, if, as he took his seat in church, and waited a few moments, perhaps, for the service- better so than the service should wait for him-he could fix his eye upon some Scripture scene living upon the canvass upon some saint, rapt and entranced in heavenly contemplation, or upon some noble martyr, triumphing through faith over the agonies of death? The silent walls would then teach us. We should worship, as it were, amidst the innumerable company of saints and angels; the shadowy forms of the venerated dead would seem to hover around our altars; and we should meditate and pray amidst the opening visions of heaven.

Let it not be thought sacrilegious to speak thus of adorning the temples of religion. Let the devout man look around him. Where will he find pictures to equal in splendour those which are painted on the dome of heaven; which are hung on pillared cloud and mountain wall, all around this mighty temple of the universe? Nor let it be thought that among the means of a nation's improvement, influences of this character are beneath attention. The system of things in which heaven has placed us, is not confined to palpable and immediate utility. "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" is the cry of a barbarous people and a worldly generation. It would be indeed an intolerable reproach upon a civilized people, to say that it had no tastes, but what comfortable houses, crowded granaries, and stored cellars could supply. And nature, indeed, has as truly made provision for the culture of enthusiasm, refinement of taste, and delicacy of sentiment, as it has for the supply of our physical necessities. The Author of nature has shown that it was not beneath his care to provide for the gratification of sentiments, precisely similar to those which are addressed by the arts. The world, composed of hill and dale, mountain and valley, not one boundless ploughed field to yield food; dressed in gay and bright liveries, not in one sober-suited colour; filled with the music of its streams and groves, not doomed to endless monotony or everlasting silence; such a world, the dwellingplace of nations, the school of their discipline, the temple of their worship, plainly shows that they were not destined to be pupils of cold and stern utility alone, but of many and diversified influences; of gracefulness, of elegance, of beneficence, beauty, and sublimity.

FRANCE

CHAPTER XXIII.

MARSEILLES AVIGNON -LYONS-THE DILIGENCE-PARIS-VERSAILLES-PERE LA CHAISE-GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES, LUXEMBOURG, ETC. HELLS OF PARIS-SEVRES-GOBELIN TAPESTRY-ST. CLOUD -SUBJECT OF RECREATIONS.

MARSEILLES. On the sixth of February I arrived here on my way to Paris. This is a large commercial city, well built, and with a good many fine public walks planted with trees; yet, on the whole, I do not find occasion to dissent from the remark of a gentleman, on whom I called, "that for one coming from Italy and going to Paris, there is nothing in Marseilles."

LYONS, February 12.-La belle France! La belle France!-poor Mary of Scotland's frequent exclamation-has created in all travellers such an expectation about this country, that I have heard many express the greatest disappointment, who have passed from Marseilles to Paris. This has prepared me to be disappointed the other way. The valley of the Rhone through which I have travelled a hundred and fifty miles from Avignon, is a fine country, and in the proper season must be beautiful. I cannot say this of the villages, which, like all French villages, and all others that I have seen on the Continent, are miserable. How is society to be regenerated, till people are more comfortable and more happy than they can be, in the cold, dark, dirty, unfloored, and comfortless houses which compose these villages-where the inhabitants are wedged in together, in close barricades of buildings, with narrow, damp, filthy streets, and everything, one would think, to make them sick of life-everything to preclude them from having any just ideas, any just philosophy of life: and by everything I mean ignorance, poverty, misery, toil without relief, and existence without object!

At Avignon I visited the tomb of Laura, the object of Petrarch's unfortunate passion. This was all I could do, though the guide book says that "every traveller of taste and sensibility will spend a day here to visit the neighbouring vale of Vaucluse"-Petrarch's residencebut I had objects more attractive to me, in the shape of some parcels of letters a month old, at Paris; and so consented to pass on, though passing for a traveller of no taste or sensibility. Laura's remains were interred in a church at Avignon, which was destroyed in the Revolution -some fine Gothic remains of which are still standing; and the spotthe immediate place of the tomb-is designated by a cluster of cypress trees. Fit emblem! and yet, how do the sympathies of mankind cluster around every instance of absorbing passion, fortunate or unfortunate!

At Lyons I have visited the old Gothic cathedral-and glad am I to see the Gothic architecture again-there is nothing like it for impressiveness in churches. I have been to the silk manufactories also; that of velvet is very curious; for the rest, they are very much like the cotton factories. From the heights of the city, there is a fine view of the neighbouring valley of the Rhone.