Every man's Every man's rence communicates the exquisite a domestic people. wife and children are his household "In a soberer spirit, you surely mean, sir," said a second lady; "for this country has failed in pouring out its genius and strength in art as it has done in poetry and other works of literature. There is a grandeur and a divine dignity about the paintings of Italy which art no where else possesses; painting there has dedicated her inspiration to the service of the church, and maintained, amid the most splendid of her legends, a direct connexion with the moral and intellectual sympathies of human nature. I wish our painters would deviate into similar excellence." "I wish no such thing, my dear lady," said a sedate dame, giving her head an admonishing shake while she spoke. "The young ladies of this generation carry their heads loftily enough without the addition of wings, and being elevated into saints and angels. True art is only found in the Dutch school, and not always there. There you will read a domestic lesson, and see an image of household thrift, and of wedded virtue, equal to any sermon. There, are none of your visionary damsels, with harps in their hands, halos round their heads, and wings on their shoulders, treading madly among the clouds; but quiet, demure, motherly looking women, who are setting their house in order for their husband's reception, and think domestic virtue is true greatness." "And so it is, madam," said a third gentleman; "you speak according to our national feelings. We are 52 ATHENEUM, VOL. 2, 3d series. free cannot feel. Our religion is of the heart and soul, and requires no aid from the painter-our history is clearly told, and rejects all intercourse with the fictions of art. Our social and domestic love covers the walls of our houses with the portraits of those we esteem, with scenes dear to our affections, and with images of domestic gladness and fireside joy." "O, sir," said a young lady, “I now know the reason for my admiration of the pictures of Lawrence and Pickersgill, and Wilkie and Stothard and Allan, and many others of fame and name. I am told not to love them, because they are not historical. I am sure, however, that they are natural; and as I can only feel art through nature, I must be content to love on in my own blind way, till my taste rises to the region of the historical." "The region of the historical in our art," said a fourth gentleman, " is the region of frost and snow, where fancy is unfruitful and where invention seems to perish. We have fine landscape, fine portraiture, and fine domestic and social scenes, but we want those elevating images of great actions and lofty undertakings—those magnificent speculations upon religion which give Italy a name surpassing all nations." "The paintings of Italy," answered a fifth gentleman, "are too much in the cloud and the third heaven for me. They are mysterious sermons, sacred commentaries, and incredible legends. They are filled with winged women, rapt enthusiasts, and saints in swaddling bands. I hate flying men and flying women more, and half grown gods worse than either. We were not made for the air nor yet for the water-yet every Italian painting has a plump lady or full grown gentleman of fourteen stone, standard weight, flying about like butterflies, borne along like the down of the thistle." "Truly, sir," said a young lady who had not yet spoken, "if you love so much the visible and sober realities of life, why do you wish them painted, since you can see nature rough and raw whenever you choose to look from your window. To make a fac simile of nature, and take a sitting of the general appearance of society, is not so much the business of the artist as to select what is beautiful and picturesque-what is elegant in form and noble in sentiment. An acre of grass, two or three trees, a cow grazing, and a crow flying over all, is not, properly speaking, landscape, any more than a cold map of a man's face is a portrait worthy of art.” "Our love of humor, our sarcastic spirit, and I may add our free constitution," said a sixth gentleman, " have created a peculiar species of painting, curious in its kind. I mean our caricatures. They are keen and shrewd -bite deep into the characters of public men-cut far into human nature; dissect motives and examine actions with a satiric sagacity, at once annoying and laughable. The caricature of Wilkes by Hogarth is inimitable. There are but a very few touches to remove it from positive portraiture, but in the happiness of these the bitterness lies. Two or three satiric touches, not broad but biting, have made the demagogue into a personification of grossness and sensuality." "In another way than Hogarth wrought on Wilkes," said a seventh gentleman, "should artists proceed who wish to make good portraits. They ought to muse on nature with a poet's eye, and see that even in portraiture there is room for poetical conception. The manly look and the mental dignity are what we want, and in that Lawrence excels all living painters, and Chantrey transcends all living sculptors-and dead ones too, for aught I know to the contrary." Chantrey," said a fifth lady, "has brought good sense and good feeling to the aid of his art, and restored the simplicity and dignity of nature. In saying this I have not forgotten Flaxman-an artist of an imagination pure and lofty, and with conceptions of the first order; he unfortunately failed in entering into national feelings, or animating his works with the peculiar spirit of his country." "We have lavished our admiration," said a sixth lady, "on painting and sculpture-there is a third branch which merits our regard; I mean engraving. It is to painting what printing is to literature, and much more than that. It retains the original sentiment-the reigning spirit of the painter's works-and diffuses them cheaply and effectually over the whole earth. It has enabled painting to find its way into humble abodes,-it ensures it against decay and destruction. When the four hundred years lease of a painting has expired, and its beauties are mixed with the winds, the graver has secured it to posterity. Engraving has infused fresh life into painting." While this conversation flowed on, two gentlemen were observed with pencils and sketch books, seated apart, and busied in copying or in caricaturing the group which their companions formed. One of the sketches had great simplicity and beauty. A little liberty was taken with the trees-the stream made a more poetic sweep--from the ladies were removed some of the frivolities of fashion, and in several of the gentlemen the air of pride and coxcombry was abated. It was more natural than the life, from the absence of fashion and affectation. The other sketch was of that kind called satiric. The grove was indeed beautiful the stream was in its glory, and all inanimate nature maintained its majesty. But for the group! I never beheld such scarecrows, and yet they were like ridiculously like. What head dresses! What shoulders ! What waists! The women seemed manufactured by milliners-the men by tailors-human nature was lost in A voice rang through the olive-wood, with a sudden triumph's power- Then the father gave his son the sword, "Haste, haste! the hunters of the foe are up, and who shall stand The lion-like awakening of the roused indignant land? Our chase shall sound through each defile where swept the clarion's blast, Then the mother kiss'd her son, with tears That o'er his dark locks fell: "I bless, I bless thee o'er and o'er, Yet I stay thee not-Farewell!" "One moment! but one moment give to parting thought or word! And a maiden's fond adieu was heard, "Come forth! come as the torrent comes when the winter's chain is burst! So rushes on the land's revenge, in night and silence nursed The night is past, the silence o'er-on all our hills we rise We wait thee, youth! sleep, dream no more! the voice of battle cries." There were sad hearts in a darken'd home, When the brave had left their bower; But the strength of prayer and sacrifice THE TOYMAN IS ABROAD. "En fait d'inutilites, il ne faut que le necessaire."-CHAMPFORT, THERE is no term in political philosophy more ambiguous and lax in its meaning than Luxury. In Ireland, salt with a potatoe is, by the peasant, placed in this category. Among the Cossacks, a clean shirt is more than a luxury-it is an effeminacy; and a Scotch nobleman is reported to have declared, that the act of scratching one's self is a luxury too great for anything under royalty. The Russians (there is no disputing on tastes) hold train-oil to be a prime luxury; and I remember seeing a group of them following an exciseman on the quays at Dover to plunder the oilcasks, as they were successively opened for his operations. A poor Finland woman, who for her sins had married an Englishman and followed him to England, was very glad to avail herself of her husband's death to leave a land where the people were so unhappy as to be without a regular supply of seal's flesh for their dinner. While the good man lived, her affection for him somewhat balanced her hankering after this native luxury; but no sooner was the husband dead, than her propensity re-assumed its full force, and, like Proteus released from his chains, she abandoned civilized life to get back to her favorite shores, to liberty, and the animals of her predilection. "If I were rich," said a poor farmer's boy, "I would eat fat pudding, and ride all day on a gate," which was evidently his highest idea of human luxury. But it is less with the quality of our indulgences, than their extent, that I have now to treat. Diogenes, who prided himself on cutting his coat according to his cloth, and thought himself a greater man, in proportion as he diminished his wants, placed his luxuries in idleness and sunshine, and seems to have relished these enjoyments with as much sensuality as Plato did his fine house and delicate fare. Even he was more reasonable than those sectarians, who have prevailed in almost all religions, and who, believing that the Deity created man for the express purpose of inflicting upon him every species of torture, have inveighed against the most innocent gratifications, and have erected luxury into a deadly sin. These theologians will not allow a man to eat his breakfast with a relish ; and impute it as a vice if he smacks his lips, though it be but after a draught of water. Nay, there have been some who have thought good roots and Adam's ale too great luxuries for a Christian lawfully to indulge in; and they have purposely ill-cooked their vegetables, and mixed them with ashes, and even more disgusting things, to mortify the flesh, as they call it— i. e. to offer a sacrifice of their natural feelings to the demon of which they have made a god. They manage these things much better among the modern saints, who by no means put the creature comforts under a ban, whatever objections they may entertain against the luxury of a dance, or a laugh at Liston. -Whatever may be the extent of such differences, however opposite may be the notions of luxury entertained by the anchorite and the Protestant pluralist, yet they both agree in using the term, on all occasions, in a bad sense, and in reprobating the thing, "be the same more or less." Not so the political economists, who stoutly maintain that luxury is not malum in se ; that consumption (thereby meaning enjoyment) is the great business of human life; and that whatever a man vehemently desires is to him a necessary, and is sinful in the use only when he cannot afford to pay for it. Between these extremes there is an infinite variety of middle terms, in which different individuals rejoice; insomuch that scarcely two persons can be found to unite in their definition of what is necessary, and what luxurious. On this point, if we are to believe our John Bulls, the French and English disagree toto calo; the French utterly despising those things which we consider primary necessaries, and esteeming necessaries those indulgences which we deem wholly superfluous. This leading difference, it is confidently maintained, presides over and gives a decided bias to the industry and ingenuity of the two nations. I have the authority of my nurse for declaring, that the French invented ruffles and the English the shirt; that the English improved on the feather by adding to it the hat; and many old ladies, of higher literary pretension than the honest woman from whom I derived these facts, assign this as a reason why the artists of Paris are expert in gilding and gewgaws, without being able to construct a lock for their doors, or a fastening for their windows, fit to be seen in a Christian country. (Vide the loyal English tourists passim.) All this I most potently believe; for a man of sense, says Rabelais, believes everything that he is told; and moreover Voltaire himself bears evidence to the fact, when he declares the superfluous a most necessary consideration; but I am not the less disposed to assert, that the English are making great strides to overtake their neighbors; and are growing as fond of superfluities as the finest Frenchman can be, for the soul of him. Of late years, more especially, our ideas on this subject have much enlarged; and all ranks of Englishmen hold an infinity of objects as prime necessaries, which their more modest ancestors ranked as luxuries, fit only for their betters to enjoy. This should be a matter of sincere rejoicing to all true patriots; because it affords indubitable evidence of the progress of civilization. A civilized gentleman differs from a savage, principally in the multiplicity of his wants; and Mandeville, in his fable of the bees, has proved to demonstration that extravagance is the mother of commerce, just as our ministers consider the greatness of the national debt an argument in favor of the national prosperity. What, indeed, are steam-engines, and macadamized roads, man-traps that break no bones, patent cork-screws, and detonating fowing-pieces, safety coach : es and cork legs, but luxuries, at which a cynic would scoff; yet how could a modern Englishman get on without them? Books, likewise, which were a luxury scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little library while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a farm-house as a mangle or a fryingpan; and there are actually more copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's Husbandry. Is not a silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent establishment? while the barbarous Mussulman dispenses with knives and forks altogether, and eats his meal, like a savage as he is, with his fingers. Henry the Fourth of France had but one coach between himself and his queen; whereas no respectable person can now dispense at the least with a travelling chariot, a barouche, a cab, and a dennet. Civilization, which received a temporary check during the revolutionary war, has resumed its march in doublequick time since the Continent has been opened. Champaigne and ices have now become absolute necessaries. at tables, where a bottle of humble port and a supernumerary pudding were esteemed luxuries, fit only for honoring the more solemn rites of hospitality. I say nothing of heads of hair, and false (I beg pardon-artificial) teeth; without which, at a certain age, there is no appearing. A bald head, at the present day, is as great an indecency as Humphrey Clinker's unmentionables; and a dismantled mouth is an outrage on wellbred society. Then, again, how necessary is a cigar and a meerschaum to a well-appointed man of fashion, and how can a gentleman possibly show at Melton without at least a dozen hunters, and two or three hacks, to ride to cover! Yet no one in his senses would tax these things as luxuries; or would blame his friend for getting into the King's Bench for their indulgence. Even the most austere judges of the land, and the |