CHAPTER II

.--THE SOUL OF ART.

'In diligent toil thy master is the bee; In craft mechanical, the worm that creeps Through earth its dexterous way, may tutor thee; In knowledge, couldst thou fathom all its depths, All to the seraph are already known: But thine, o Man, is Art--thine wholly and alone!'--SCHILLER.

'The _contemplation_ of the Divine Attributes is the source of the highest enjoyment: their _manifestation_ is the enduring base and unfailing spring of all true Art.'

Many good and great men persist in refusing to teach, save through abstract dogmas and logical formulæ, always disagreeable to and rarely comprehended by the masses, those high moral truths, which they are so eager to imbibe when presented to them under the attractive form of art. It is indeed impossible for man to grasp the essential truths of life through the understanding alone; because, created in the image of the triune God, he can only make vital truths fully his own in the symbolic unity of his triune being. If considered only as body or sensuous perception, only as soul or heart, only as spirit or intellect--he cannot be said to live at all, since it is only in the perfect union of the Three that his essential life is found. To make instruction really available to him, he must be taught as God and nature always teach him--as soul, spirit, and body. To sever them is to disintegrate the mystic core of his very being; to disregard the triune image in which he was made. As art is symbolic of man himself, it addresses itself to his whole being. Thus, man exists as:

Soul-Spirit-Body: to which the corresponding senses are--

Hearing-Seeing--Touching: the corresponding arts--

Music-Painting-Sculpture. Poetry is no fourth art; it but embraces and embodies them all in its correspondent divisions of--

Rhythm-Description-Form.

The 'Body' draws its life from the world of matter made by God, by an assimilation of the elements suited to and prepared for its needs.

The 'Spirit' lives by an analogous process; but its proper food is the wisdom of God.

In a like manner lives the 'Soul;' its tender instincts are to be pastured upon the love of God.

Oh, marvellous condescension! The Infinite deigns to be appropriated as the source of all life and growth by the finite!

In close connection with the threefold being of man, stand the Fine Arts.

'Body.' Sculpture is the art of corporeal form, appealing to the eye as the necessary medium for satisfying the corporeal sense of touch. It gratifies this sense that 'ideal beauty' should breathe through solid, tangible, and material forms. For the triune man longs for perfection in his triune being. It should not astonish us that this art attained its greatest perfection in the ages of classical antiquity; and that music and painting, the symbolic arts of soul and spirit, should have attained their highest excellence only after the advent of our sublime ideal Christ.

'Spirit.' As seeing is the sense holding the closest relation with the spirit or intellect, and light is the most spiritual element of nature,--so painting, addressing itself to the spirit of man, must be regarded as the most spiritual of the arts. Classic art became romantic during the Christian era; Christianity impressed it with an almost painful longing for the divine. Classic beauty was indeed there, but with the expression of inadequacy to its internal consciousness, oppressed with the grief of its fallen existence, and with the sadness of an infinite longing on its ethereal countenance.

'Soul.' Music, addressing itself through the ear to the emotions, is the art of the longing, divining, loving soul. It never excites abstract or antagonistic thought; it unites humanity in concrete feeling. It certainly cannot be denied that sounds address themselves immediately to the feelings; that the tones of the voice are highly sympathetic; that the sighs, groans, shrieks, cries of a sufferer affect us far more vividly than the mere sight of the same degree of suffering.

But though the arts seem to us to be thus divided, each art is also threefold, and must appeal to the triune nature of man. As man only truly lives, so he only truly creates, as a threefold being, yet his _life_ is ever one, so that soul, spirit, and body are constantly acting and reacting upon each other. When the divine wisdom shines into the spirit, it gives it the perception of intellectual truths, which truths throw their light far into the dimmer soul; and when the divine love pours into the soul, it gifts it with the almost limitless faculty of loving, which warms and quickens the colder spirit, until it germs and buds in the lovely bloom of human charities and self-abnegating good deeds.

It is not our intention here to enter into any detailed speculations upon the hidden mysteries of our being; we simply call the attention of the reader to the fact that there is a class of truths which must belong to the universal reason (such as mathematical axioms, syllogistic formulæ, logical deductions, etc., etc.), because they compel assent as soon as recognized;--thus a ray of divine wisdom itself must exist in our spirits, which cannot be perverted, and which elevates the human mind to the immediate perception of impersonal, abstract, and conviction-compelling truths. We cannot deny them, even if we would! All sound logic has its power in the light proceeding from this divine ray.

A ray of the divine love must also exist in the essence of the human soul, to enable it to perform the marvels of self-abnegating devotion, of which the most humble among us frequently seem capable. Strange Promethean fire!

As it is the allotted task of every individual to form his soul into a noble and powerful personality, to be an artist in the highest sense of the word, since he must aid in chiselling a glorious statue from the living block intrusted to his care,--is it not essentially necessary that every human being should be taught to discern and love the beautiful? And vast is the difference between the artist in the school of men and in the school of God; the first, working for and in time, must be satisfied with leaving to his fellow men some brilliant yet perishing records of his thoughts; while the latter, working for eternity, may labor forever to approach the infinite beauty set before him as his glorious ideal of perfection!

We have already asserted that poetry is no fourth art on a line with the other three. It indeed embraces and resumes them all, with added powers of its own. It cannot, however, be denied that, employed in combination with poetry, the other arts lose much of their special power and effect, for thus associated they hold a subordinate station, are forced to appear in a colder medium, and are subjected to the laws of a harmony but partially adapted to their individual interests. Undeniable as this may be, poetry still maintains its high claims to our consideration. Though its tones be colder than those of music, since they must pass through the analytic intellect instead of appealing immediately to the sympathetic heart; if its hues are less vivid than, those of painting, as they must be transmitted through the slower medium of words in lieu of impressing themselves immediately upon the delighted eye; if less palpable to the corporeal sense of touch than sculpture, with its solidity of form,--yet is its range wider, fuller, and far more comprehensive than any one of the sister arts. If any one should be inclined to doubt that it is indeed a _resumé_ of them all, let him consider that in its prosodial flow, measured pauses, metrical lines, varied cadences, stirring or soothing rhythms, sweet or rugged rhymes,--it is music: in its metaphorical diction, descriptive imagery, succession of shifting pictures, diversified illustration, and vivid coloring,--it is painting; while in its organic development and arrangement of parts, its complicated structure, in the individualism of characters, and the sharply defined personalities of its dramatic realm,--it struggles to attain the fixed and beautiful unity of sculpture.

The arts find their essential unity in the fact that their sole object is the manifestation of the beautiful. No one knows better than the artist that beauty is not the production, of his own limited understanding, but that, after having duly made his preliminary studies of the laws of the medium through which he is to manifest it, it shines into, it reveals itself, as it were, intuitively to the divining soul. Far lower in its sphere than that infallible inspiration which speaks to us through the sacred pages of Holy Writ of the things immediately pertaining to our relations with God, true artistic power must still be considered as inspiration, since it is constantly arriving at more than the unassisted reason of man could command by the fullest exercise of its highest logical powers. The impassioned Romeo cries: 'Can philosophy make a Juliet?' That philosophy has never made a Juliet in art is positively certain! Let us then reverentially enter upon an analysis of the effect of beauty upon the human spirit, whether found in the perfect works of our God, or shining through the more humble imitations and manifestations of the fallible human artist.

The perception of beauty first excites a sensation of pleasure, then a feeling of interest in the beautiful object, then a perception of kindness in a superior intelligence, from which it is at once seen it must ultimately flow, then a feeling of grateful veneration toward that beneficent Intelligence. Unless the perception of beauty be accompanied with these emotions, we have no more correct idea of beauty than we can be said to have an idea of a letter of which we perceive the fine handwriting and fair lines, without understanding the contents. The emotions consequent upon the due perception of beauty are not given by the senses, nor do they arise entirely from the intellect, but, proceeding from the entire man, must be accompanied by a right and open state of the heart. A true perception and acknowledgment of beauty is then certainly elevating; exalting and purifying the mind in accordance with its degree. And it would indeed seem, from the lavish profusion with which the Deity has seen fit to scatter it around us, that it was His beneficent intention we should be constantly under its influence. Now the artist is one gifted by his Creator to discern that ineffable beauty which is everywhere present, to live in the realm of the ideal, and to reveal it to men through words, forms, colors, sounds, and, would he insure the salvation of his own soul, through good deeds. Thus it can be proved that 'religion is the soul of art,' and essentially necessary to the artist, because it gives him, simultaneously, the ideas and feelings of the Absolute, without which he must lose his way, falling into sterile and ignoble copies of the real, like the Dutch painters, and thus be able to produce nothing but detailed and accurate copies of low subjects, of factitious emotions, or of vulgar sensations. Without faith, the artist prefers the body itself to the feelings which animate it--the polished limbs of a Venus to the brow of a Madonna! The intellect alone can never soar to the regions of eternal truth, to the Absolute; it must be aided by the heart in its daring flight. Faith and love are the snowy and glittering wings of true artistic excellence. When the soul is full of the bliss of beauty, the feeling of its happiness urges the artist on to the necessity of imparting it,--while his heart is wrapt in the vision of the Absolute, he would fain build for his joyous thoughts an eternal abode with his fellow men, that they too might see the steppings of the All Fair, and so be cheered and stimulated in these their gloomy days of evil.

Thus it cannot be denied that religion alone gives depth and sublimity to the creations of art, because it alone gives faith and hope in the Infinite. If we are often astonished to see the springs of artistic inspiration so rapidly exhausted in many men of genius of our own epoch, it is because of their overwhelming egotism and limited subjectivity, because the worship of the finite replaces that of the infinite, because religion has become for them a mere memory of childhood. To recover their blighted fertility of imagination, they must again become as little children, again betake themselves to the shady and lonely way leading to the temple of God.

In proof of this position, we constantly find that men gifted, sensuously, with acute perceptions of the beautiful, yet who do not receive it with a pure heart, never comprehend it aright; but making it a mere minister to their desires, a mere seasoning of sensual pleasures, sink until all their creations take the same earthly stamp, and it is seen and felt that the heavenly sense of beauty has been degraded into a servant of lust. But as the spirit of prophecy consisted with the avarice of Balaam and the disobedience of Saul, so God knows all the stops of the heaven-gifted but self-corrupted artists, and, in spite of themselves, has often made them discourse high harmonies, and give the most eloquent and earnest enunciations of the very sentiments and principles in which their own condemnation could be found clearly and vividly written. The good seed, although divine, if there be no blessing upon it, may indeed bring forth wild grapes, but these grapes are well discerned, for there is, in the works of bad men, a taint, stain, and jarring discord, blacker and louder exactly in proportion to their moral deficiency. At best it is no part of our duty to examine into and pronounce upon the frail characters of men, but rather to hold fast to that which we can prove good, and feel to be ordained for our own benefit.

It can, moreover, be fully proved that the artists, as a class, have never been false to religion. From the poets of the dark ages sprang a literature strange and marvellous, but full of naive faith, and bearing striking witness to the activity of the human spirit even in those dim centuries: I mean the literature of 'visions and legends.' And to estimate the importance of these consolatory creations aright, we must remember how precarious and miserable life then was, passed in constant privation and poverty, menaced with increasing perils; and then consider the fact that these legends kept constantly before the mind of the oppressed people the consoling idea of a superintending Providence, who numbers all our tears and hears our lightest sighs. The legend indeed never confined itself wholly to this earth as the theatre of its wild drama; immortality was always its groundwork, and its last scene always opened in the invisible world, where the saints were surrounded with undying halos of glory, and from whence they watched over men with increasing love, while in their midst reigned a gentle figure full of grace and majesty, uniting, in a mysterious and ineffable manner, the holy virginity and sacred maternity of woman; a gentle, humble being, through whose innocent meekness the two worlds, finite and infinite, had been forever linked in the person of the infant God, whom she forever bore upon her virgin bosom. What a tender lesson for barbaric life!

We must also remember that these legends were eminently popular, that they passed from mouth to mouth round the winter hearth, teaching the young and soothing the children, like the cradle song of a mother, pouring hope into the cell of the captive, teaching the virtuous oppressed that a just God mercifully listened to all their secret sighs, and, leading the poor to look beyond the squalid poverty which surrounded them, pointed to them the legions of angels, which were lovingly camped around them. It is impossible to overestimate the blessed effects of such a literature, or to count the naive hearts which it may have rescued from suicide and despair!

The spirit of the literature of the middle ages culminates in the Christian poet, Dante. History, theology, politics, paganism, sweet and melancholy elegies, flashes of fiery indignation, all men and all generations, meet in his majestic epic. Yet the closest unity is preserved through this astonishing range of subjects; one sublime idea broods over its every line,--the idea of a God of perfect justice--of undying love!

We cite, in corroboration, the following lines from this noble poet, though a prose translation can do but little justice to the glowing original:

'God is One in substance; Power, Wisdom, and Love assume in Him a triple Personality, so that in all tongues singular and plural are alike applicable to Him. He is spirit; he is the circle which circumscribes everything and which nothing ever circumscribes; immense, eternal, immutable, He is the Primal out of which all is darkness. Unlimited by time, without laws save in His own will, in the bosom of eternity, He, who is three in One, acts;--Power executes what Wisdom proposes, and Infinite Love is forever germing into ever new loves. Like a triple arrow from a single bow, from the depths of the Productive thought, spring, whether single or united, matter, form, with the living heart of all finite beings--their own governing laws. Created things are but the splendor of the immutable ideas which the Father engenders, and which He loves unceasingly. Ideas--thoughts--sacred words! Light, which, without being detached from Him who wills it into being, shines from creature to creature, from cause to effect, on--on--until it produces only contingent and transitory phenomena; Light which, repeated and reflected from mirror to mirror, pales as its distance increases from its Holy Source.'

That would surely be an interesting work which would glean for us the multiplied expressions of the faith of the 'laurel-crowned,' who have left their consoling records for humanity, their tracks of light over the dark earth-bosom in which they sleep. But this is not place for such researches; we must confine ourselves to but few quotations, designed to show that religion is the soul of art.

In proof of this we might quote the whole of the fine tragedy of Polyeucte; it is full of ardent religious feeling. The moral is indeed condensed in the following lines:

'If, to die for our king is a glorious destiny,-- How sublime is death when we may die for God!'

Urged by that unconquerable love of the Absolute which possesses all true poets, Racine seeks in God alone the source of all regal power:

'The eternal is his name, the world is his work, He hears the sighs of the oppressed; He judges all mortals with equal justice, From the height of his throne he calls kings to account.'

Our English poet Shakspeare, whose works are full of sublime morality, puts into the mouth of one of his matchless heroines the following exquisite passage, recalling to us the lessons of the New Testament:

'Alas! alas! Why all the souls that are, were forfeit once, And He that might the advantage best have took Found out the remedy: how would you be, If He, who is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? In the strict course Of justice none of us should see salvation: We do pray for mercy; that same prayer Should teach us all to render deeds of mercy.'

Klopstock, the German poet, sings only of God, not in the creation alone, the last judgment, in his august and dreadful majesty, but in the wonders of His tender love:

'I trust in thee, Divine Mediator! I have chanted the canticle of the new covenant; my race is run; Thou hast pardoned my tottering steps! Sound! sound, quivering strings of my lyre! My heart is full of the bliss of gratitude to my God! What recompense could I ask? I have tasted the cup of angels in singing of my Redeemer!'

Not less devout than the 'Messiah,' but far more beautiful, is Tasso's exquisite 'Jerusalem Delivered.'

A complete system of theology may be found in the majestic pages of Milton's sublime 'Paradise Lost.'

That which with the heathen poets was but an episode, the religious element of the poem, as the 'Descent into Hades,' the 'Wanderings through Elysium,' etc., etc., ends by absorbing the entire work after the advent of Christianity. The 'Divine Comedy,' the 'Paradise Lost,' and the 'Messiah,' form a magnificent Christian trilogy, of which the

## scene is almost always in a supernatural sphere, and in which the

principal actor is--the Providence of God.

On this subject we have no further time to dilate, and the reader may easily verify its truth for himself. If he would convince himself that the deepest draughts of inspiration have ever been drawn by the highest artists from religious ideas, let him add to the names above given, those of Fra Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, Tintoret, Corregio, Murillo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and, in our own days, Overbeck; let him gaze into that divine face of godlike sorrow given us by an untaught monk, Antonio Pesenti, in his marvellous crucifix of ivory, let him listen to the pure ethereal strains of Palestrina, Pergolese, Marcello, Stradella, and Cherubini, and thus be assured that religion, the love of the Infinite, is the 'Soul of Art.'

THE BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA.

The most terrible name, perhaps, in the juvenile literature of England and English America, during the last century and a half, has been that of WILLIAM KIDD, the pirate. In the nursery legend, in story, and in song, the name of Kidd has stood forth as the boldest and bloodiest of buccaneers. The terror of the ocean when abroad, he returned from his successive voyages to line our coasts with silver and gold, and to renew with the devil a league, cemented with the blood of victims shot down whenever fresh returns of the precious metals were to be hidden. According to the superstitious of Connecticut and Long Island, it was owing to these bloody charms that honest money-diggers have ever experienced so much difficulty in removing these buried treasures. Often, indeed, have the lids of the iron chests rung beneath the mattock of the stealthy midnight searcher for gold; but the flashes of sulphurous fires, blue and red, and the saucer eyes and chattering teeth of legions of demons have uniformly interposed to frighten the delvers from their posts, and preserve the treasures from their greedy clutches. But notwithstanding the harrowing sensations connected with the name of Kidd, and his renown as a pirate, he was but one of the last and most inconsiderable of that mighty race of sea robbers who, during a long series of years in the seventeenth century, were the admiration of the world for their prowess, and its terror for their crimes.

The community of buccaneers was first organized upon the small island of Tortuga, situated on the north side of St. Domingo, at the distance of about two leagues from the latter. It was upon this island that the first European colony was planted in the New World, in the year and month of its discovery. But although the colony became considerable, and flourished so long as the natives remained in sufficient numbers to cultivate the plantations of the Spaniards, yet it did not take vigorous root. The numbers of the natives were greatly reduced by the arms of their conquerors, and were afterward still more rapidly diminished by oppression; and although an attempt was made to supply their places by a forced importation of forty thousand Indians from the Bahamas, the experiment was of little avail. In less than half a century, the aboriginal race was extinct. The country was beautiful beyond description: rich in its mines, and its soil of unexceeded fertility. But the Spaniard, if not by nature indolent, is prone to luxury. The earth producing by handfuls, the colonists saw little necessity of laborious exertion. They accordingly degenerated from the spirit and enterprise of their ancestors, and fell into habits of voluptuous idleness. Agriculture was neglected, and the mines deserted. Contenting themselves with a bare supply of the wants of nature, they sank into such a state of indolence, that many of their slaves had no other employment than to swing them in their hammocks the livelong day. No colony could nourish composed of such a people. During the first half century of its existence, it had indeed become considerable; but for a century afterward it dwindled away, neglected and apparently forgotten by the parent country, until even the remembrance of its former greatness was lost.

At length, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the Spaniards were roused from their repose. So early as the year 1630, the severity of the French colonial system had driven many of the most resolute of the colonists from the islands belonging to that nation, especially from St. Christopher's. Numbers of these men, in order to an unrestrained enjoyment of liberty, took refuge in the western division of St. Domingo, supporting themselves with game, and by hunting wild cattle, for which they continued to find a market, either in the Spanish settlements, or by trading with vessels visiting the western coast for that object. Meanwhile the exactions upon the colonists of St. Christopher's and the submission required of them to exclusive privileges, induced a further and greater number to abandon the island, and join the adventures of their own countrymen in the forests of St. Domingo. Those adventurers--many of whom had already been roaming the St. Domingo forest for nearly half a century, increasing in numbers by accessions from time to time--had, in 1630, established a social and political system of their own, peculiar to their own community. Their original calling was the hunting of wild boars and cattle, which abounded in the island. To this was added, to a small extent, the business of planting, and to this again the more adventurous profession of sea-roving and piracy. Their vessels were at first nothing larger than boats, or rather canoes, constructed from the trunks of trees--excavations after the manner of the ordinary light canoes of our own aboriginals. But from the size of some descriptions of trees growing in that climate, these canoes were capable of carrying crews of from thirty to fifty and seventy-five men, with the necessary supplies for short voyages among the Antilles. As they had no women among them, nor other consequent responsibilities, it was their custom to associate in partnerships of two, called comrades, who lived together, and assisted each other in the chase and in the domestic duties of their huts or cabins. Their goods were thrown into common stock; and when one of a partnership died, the survivor became the absolute heir of the joint stock--unless the deceased, by previous stipulation, bequeathed his goods to his relatives, perchance a wife and children in another land. They were frequently absent from their lodges on their hunting excursions for twelve months and two years at a time; but their lodges with their goods were left in perfect safety, for the crime of theft was unknown among them.

Differences seldom arose among them, and when they did occur, they were usually adjusted without much difficulty. In obstinate and aggravated cases, however, their disputes were decided by firearms, in the use of which the nicest principles of fairness and honor were observed. A ball entering the back or the side of a party, afforded evidence that he had fallen by treachery, and the assassin was immediately put to death. The former laws of their own country were disregarded; and by the usual sea baptism received in passing the tropic, they considered themselves expatriated from their native land, and at liberty to change their family names, which many of them did--borrowing terms from the character of the profession which they had chosen, as suited their fancy. Their dress was a shirt and drawers dipped in the blood of the animals they killed, shoes without stockings, a leathern girdle by which their knife and a short sabre were suspended, and a hat or cap without a brim. Their common food was the choicest pieces of bullock's flesh, seasoned with orange juice and pimento, and cured by smoke; of bread they lost the use, and, until the trade of piracy was adopted, water was their only drink. The term _buccaneers_, by which the hunters were first known, was derived from a tribe of the Caribs, who were called thus from the manner in which they prepared meats for their food, whether flesh of beasts or of men. For this purpose they constructed a sort of grate or hurdle, consisting of twenty bars of Brazil wood, laid crosswise half a foot from each other, upon which the flesh of prisoners of war or of game was laid in pieces, and a thick smoke raised beneath from properly selected combustibles, which gave to the meat the vermil color and a delightful smell. These fixtures, thus adjusted, were called _buccans_, and the process of curing the meat _buccaning_. The hunters, having adopted this process from the savages, were like them called _buccaneers_. In process of time the name was applied to the sea robbers as well as to the hunters; and when piracy became the general profession as a substitute for planting and the chase, all were called buccaneers indiscriminately.

Previously to the great and sudden augmentation of their forces, by the immigration from St. Christopher's about the year 1660, the buccaneers had taken possession of Tortuga, the geographical position and character of which island was well suited to their commercial and piratical purposes. This little island had been occupied by a few Spaniards as early as 1591; but their numbers were so small as not to interfere with the object of the buccaneers, while its rocky conformation afforded peculiar facilities for defence in the event of attack.

The greatly increasing numbers of the buccaneers at length aroused the colonial voluptuaries of Spain to a sense of their danger. It was perceived that while the colonists were dwindling away, the outlaws were becoming so formidable in their numbers that they soon might be enabled to contest for the mastery of the island of Hispaniola itself. They therefore commenced a war upon them, and not being able to prosecute it with sufficient vigor themselves, they called to their aid troops from the other Spanish islands, and also from the continent. With these auxiliaries the barbarians were hunted with great severity, and many of them massacred. Finding themselves pursued in this manner, the outlaws banded together for mutual defence. Their avocations required them often to separate in the daytime; but they assembled in considerable numbers at night; and if individuals were missing, diligent search was made until their fate was ascertained. If he returned from an extended chase, it was well. If not--if it was discovered that he had fallen a victim to the Spaniards, or had been taken prisoner--his loss was requited with terrible vengeance. Everything Spanish was devoted to destruction, without distinction of age or sex. But in this partisan warfare, the buccaneers maintained a decided advantage. When too hotly pressed, they could fly to their canoes or hoys, as they were called, and escape to Tortuga; and if the Spaniards pursued them thither in numbers too powerful for an open combat, they would return back again to their principal island. Despairing at length of success in this mode of warfare, the Spaniards resolved to conquer the ruffians by destroying their means of subsistence. For this purpose, by a general hunt over the whole island, the wild bulls were killed, and the droves of cattle previously roaming the forests were consequently reduced so rapidly that the buccaneers found it necessary to change their employment--to form settlements and cultivate the lands. More than two thousand of them clustered upon Tortuga, where the business of cultivating sugar and tobacco was begun; but the more general and lucrative employment became that of piracy. They had as yet no larger craft than the boats and canoes already mentioned, but with these they managed to navigate the West India seas, shooting into secure places of refuge among the smaller islands, or keys, at pleasure.

The community had now become so large, in 1660, that something like order and government was seen to be necessary even by the buccaneers themselves; and they accordingly sent to the Governor of St. Christopher's for a governor. The boon was readily granted, and M. le Passeur was commissioned to that office. He repaired promptly to Tortuga with a ship of armed men and stores; assumed the command, and immediately commenced fortifying the island--a work to which nature had largely contributed by the peculiar conformation of some of the rock precipices. There was upon one high rock, inaccessible at all points save by ladders, a cavern large enough for a garrison of a thousand men, with an abundant spring gushing from the rocks. This post was seized and provisioned. Twice the Spaniards invaded them from Hispaniola, but were repulsed--the last time with terrible slaughter. The invaders were eight hundred in number. They had seized a yet higher point of rock than the natural fortress occupied by the buccaneers, upon which they were endeavoring to plant their cannon, in order the better to dislodge the enemy. The time chosen for the invasion was when a large number of the freebooters were at sea. These, however, returning suddenly by night, climbed the mountain upon the heels of the Spaniards, and attacked them with such fury as to compel them by hundreds to throw themselves from the rocky parapets into the valley beneath, by which their bodies were dashed in pieces. Those who were not killed by the fall were put to the sword; and few or none returned to rehearse the bloody story.

This ill-starred expedition was the last sent from St. Domingo against the buccaneers, who thenceforward became the masters and lord proprietaries of Tortuga. Nor were the buccaneers longer exclusively composed of adventurous Frenchmen. Visions of golden cities in the New World had been flitting before the eyes of the English for a century before, and had not even been eclipsed by the signal failures of Sir Walter Raleigh in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Indeed the expeditions of the gallant knight, however bootless to himself, may have served to stimulate the cupidity of his countrymen for a long time afterward, inasmuch as some of Sir Walter's officers testified that they actually approached within sight of the golden city. Sir Walter's great contemporary, Sir Francis Drake, after committing many depredations upon the Spanish American coast, had returned to England with a vast amount of treasure. The expeditions both of Sir Francis and Sir Walter were of a character bordering closely upon piratical; and in that romantic age, it was not considered as greatly transcending their examples for daring spirits to seek their fortunes in the New World, even by associating themselves with the buccaneers of Tortuga. Be this, however, as it may, England and Holland and other European states respectively furnished many reckless and daring recruits to the army of freebooters; and their piracies increased with their numbers. Ostensibly they directed their operations only against the commerce of Spain, with whom they were directly at war, and whose galleons from the continent, freighted with the produce of the mines, offered golden incentives to bravery. But however virtuous in this respect might have been the intentions of the sea robbers, it was not invariably the merchantmen of Spain which suffered from their depredations, since from 'an imperfection, in the organs of vision,' or from some other cause 'they were not always able to distinguish the flags of different nations.' Others than the Spaniards, were consequently occasional sufferers; and a ready market was found for their plunder in the French, and English islands, especially in Jamaica, which England had conquered from Spain in 1655. This latter island was in fact their principal depot; for although the British Government, both under the Protectorate and afterward, had endeavored to direct the attention of the Jamaica colonists to agricultural pursuits, they had entirely failed, for the reason that the buccaneers, making it their principal resort, poured in such vast treasures, that the inhabitants amassed considerable wealth with little difficulty, and despised the more honest occupations of honest labor. The population rapidly increased, and in a few years amounted to twenty thousand, whose only source of subsistence was derived from the buccaneers.

Hitherto France had disclaimed as her subjects the roving cattle-hunters upon the island of Hispaniola; but after they had formed settlements and established themselves so firmly upon Tortuga, the French West India company took them under the ægis of the lilies for protection; and M. Ogeron, 'a man of probity and understanding,' was sent from the parent country to govern them. With the arrival of the new governor the domestic relations of the buccaneers underwent a material change, for the former brought many women with him--fit persons, from the past profligacy of their lives, to consort with the inhabitants of Tortuga. But the buccaneers were not fastidious in the selection of wives, and history gives us no right to suppose that there was a single forlorn damsel left without a husband. 'I ask nothing of your past life,' would the buccaneer say to the fair one to whom he proposed himself. 'If anybody would have had you where you came from, you would not have come here. But as you did not belong to me then, whatever you may have done was no disgrace to me. Give me your word for the future, and I will acquit you for the past.' Then striking his gun barrel, he would add, 'Shouldst thou prove false to me, this will not.'

Meanwhile, the buccaneers, becoming stronger and stronger every day, extended their designs, and pushed their operations with a degree of audacity and success that rendered them the terror of the seas. As yet their marine consisted only of boats and canoes, but these were, as before stated, of a size to carry from fifty to a hundred men each. They attacked not only merchantmen, but vessels of war, with a degree of intrepidity unexampled in the history of man. No matter for the size of a ship, or for her armament. They paused not to calculate chances. Their invariable practice was to carry their prizes by boarding. Their boats were propelled with the swiftness of an arrow. As certain as they grappled with a vessel, she was sure to be taken; for their onslaughts were desperately furious and irresistible. The Spanish Government complained bitterly, both to England and France, of the outrages upon her commerce by the pirates, a large majority of whom were the born subjects of those nations. The answers, however, of both were the same: that those piratical acts were not committed by the buccaneers as their subjects; and the Spanish ambassador was informed that his master might proceed against them as he saw fit. In consequence of the transactions of the buccaneers with the people of Jamaica, England went farther, and actually removed the governor of that colony. But, whether with the connivance of the civil authorities or not, the intercourse between the pirates and the people continued without serious interruption. Some of the buccaneers, however, pretended to hold commissions both from the French and the Dutch; but it was mere pretext. Their authority was in truth nothing more than what the sailors are wont jocosely to call 'a commission from the Pope.' Yet they affected to consider themselves in lawful war against Spain, for the reason that the Spaniards had debarred them from the privileges of hunting in the forests and fishing in the waters of St. Domingo--thus depriving them of the exercise of what they called their lawful rights. In regard to the cruelties which they frequently inflicted upon the prisoners who fell into their hands, they pleaded in justification those enormities which the conquerors of Spanish America inflicted upon the aborigines there. The horrible cruelties of Cortez and Pizarro are familiar to every student of history. 'I once,' says Las Casas, speaking of the conquest of the New World, 'beheld four or five chief Indians roasted alive at a slow fire; and as the miserable victims poured forth their dreadful yells, it disturbed the commandant in his siesta, and he sent an order that they should be strangled; but the officer on duty would not do it, but, causing their mouths to be gagged that their shrieks might not be heard, he stirred up the fire with his own hands, and roasted them deliberately until they all expired.' The conquerors had resorted to these dreadful executions under the cloak of religious zeal, but in reality to make the poor wretches disclose the secret depositories of their treasures. Instances of the same refined cruelty, at the contemplation of which humanity shudders, marked the history of the buccaneers. Their motives were the same as those which had governed the conduct of Cortez; and they, too, found a salvo for their consciences by persuading themselves that they were commissioned as a court of vengeance--the instruments of retributive justice in the hands of Providence--to punish the Spaniards for the remorseless cruelties practised upon the unoffending Mexicans. And here another extraordinary fact may be noted in the history of the buccaneers. After their community had become consolidated and their government in a manner systematized, strange as it may seem, notwithstanding their murderous profession the observances of the Christian, religion were introduced to sanctify their atrocities. 'They never partook of a repast without solemnly acknowledging their dependence upon the Giver of all good.' In their infatuation, whenever they embarked upon any expedition, they were wont to invoke for its success the blessing of Heaven; and they never returned from a marauding excursion that they did not return thanks to God for their victory. 'On the appearance of a ship which they meant to attack, they offered up a fervent prayer for success; and when the conflict had terminated in their favor, their first care was to express their gratitude to the God of battles for the victory which He had enabled them to gain.'

* * * * *

The first leader of the buccaneers, after their concentration upon Tortuga, whose deeds of desperate valor 'damned him to everlasting fame,' was PIÉRRE LE GRANDE, a native of Dieppe, in Normandy. The crowning act of his piratical career was his taking the ship of the vice admiral, convoying a fleet of Spanish galleons, near the Cape of Tiburon, on the western side of St. Domingo--an act which was performed with a single boat, manned by only eighteen men, and armed with no more than four small pieces of ordnance. And even these latter were of no use, as the admiral's ship was carried by boarding, with no other arms than swords and pistols. Le Grande had been so long at sea, without falling in with any craft worth capturing, that his provisions were becoming short; and his crew, pressed with hunger and brooding over their ill success, were desperate. Thus situated, they espied the Spaniard bearing the vice admiral's flag, and separated from the rest of the flotilla. Notwithstanding the immense disparity of force, Le Grande determined to capture her, and his crew took an oath to stand by him till the last. The boat of the pirates was descried by the Spaniard in the afternoon, and the admiral was admonished of what might be its character; but he scorned the admonition, viewing the apparently pitiful craft with contempt, and adopting no precautions against it. Just in the dusk of evening the pirates ran alongside of his ship. As already remarked, the crew of Le Grande had sworn to stand by their captain; but in order to cut off all means of escape in the event of defeat, and therefore to make them fight with greater desperation, their chief, at the moment they were climbing the sides of the ship, caused the boat to be suddenly scuttled, and sunk. Indeed the boarding of the Spaniard was hastened by the necessity of leaping from their own vessel, already sinking beneath them. Under these circumstances, the boarding was so rapid, that the Spaniards were completely taken by surprise; so much so that as the pirates rushed into the great cabin, they found the captain, with several boon companions, engaged at a game of cards. Exclaiming that his assailants must be devils, the commander, with a pistol at his breast, was compelled to an immediate surrender. Meanwhile a portion of the assailants took possession of the gunroom; seized the arms, and killed all who resisted. This vigorous assault soon carried the ship by a surrender at discretion. She proved to be a rich prize; and the prisoners were treated with lenity, which was not always the course adopted by the buccaneers when they were disappointed in the amount of their expected plunder. Many were the crews compelled to pay with their lives for the poverty of their cargoes. In the present case Le Grande retained for his own service such of the common sailors as he needed, and after setting the rest on shore, proceeded to France with his prize, where he remained, without ever returning to America.

The success of this exploit, and the rich reward by which it was crowned, at once stimulated the cupidity of the Tortugans, and fired their breasts with the ambition of emulating the bravery of the Great Peter. Those who were yet engaged in planting or in other honest occupations, at once abandoned them, and betook themselves to the more inviting trade of piracy. Being unable to build larger vessels than the boats or hoys then in use, they carried on the war in these against the smaller vessels of Spain engaged in the coasting trade and in the traffic of hides and tobacco with the inhabitants of Jamaica. The vessels thus captured were substituted for their own smaller craft, by means of which they were soon enabled to make longer voyages, and stretch across to the coasts of the Spanish main. At Campeachy and other points they found many trading vessels, and often ships of great burden. Two of these commercial vessels they captured, and also two large armed ships, all laden with plate, within the port of Campeachy, which they boldly entered for that purpose, and sailed with them in triumph to Tortuga. Such rich returns greatly augmented the wealth of the island; and every additional capture enabled them to increase their marine, until at the end of two years from the last achievement of Piérre Le Grande, the pirates had a navy, very well manned and equipped, of more than twenty ships of different sizes. With such a force, composed of men of the most desperate fortunes and dauntless courage, the commerce of Spain with her colonies in Central and South America was in a few years almost entirely destroyed. The ships bound from Europe for the colonies were rarely molested by the pirates, who chose to fall upon them when laden with the precious metals, which Spain, in her avarice, was transporting home--not foreseeing that by that very process she was gradually working her own national ruin. Sometimes a fleet of galleons, when under strong convoy, succeeded in the return voyage; but a single ship, of whatever strength or force, seldom escaped the vigilance of the pirates. They followed such fleets as they judged it unsafe to attack, and a slow sailer or a straggler was inevitably captured. So daring were these robbers, that even before they were enabled to obtain a smaller craft, a crew of fifty-five of them in one of the large canoes sailed into the Southern Ocean, and proceeded along the coast of the continent as far north as California. On their return, they entered one of the ports of Peru, and captured a ship, the cargo of which was valued at several millions. Their canoe was then exchanged for the noble prize, in which they returned in triumph.

Preparations for their expeditions were made with the utmost care, and articles of agreement were always carefully written out and signed; and the dealings of the robbers among each other were usually characterized by the most scrupulous honor. In regard to their provisions, the rations were distributed twice a day--the officers, from the highest to the lowest, faring no better than the common sailor. It was stipulated exactly what sums of money or what proportionate sums each person engaged in a voyage should receive, with the understanding, of course, _no prey_, _no pay_. The commanders of the ships were frequently the owners. Sometimes they belonged to a company of adventurers on board. In other instances they were chartered for the service of individuals or companies on shore. The first stipulation, therefore, on arranging for a voyage, regarded the compensation to be received by the owner or owners of the ship, being ordinarily one third of the products of the cruise. If the boat or vessel in which an enterprise was first undertaken was the common property of the crew, the first vessel captured was allotted to the captain, with one share of the booty obtained. In cases where the captain owned and fitted out the original vessel, the first ship taken belonged to him, with a double share of the plunder. The surgeon was allowed two hundred crowns for his medicine chest, and a single share of the prizes; and whoever had the good fortune to descry a ship that was captured, received a reward of a hundred crowns. A tariff of compensation for the wounded was also adjusted according to the greater or less severity of the wounds they might receive. For example, the compensation for the loss of a right arm was six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves as an equivalent; for a left arm, five hundred pieces of eight, or five slaves; for the loss of a right leg, five hundred pieces, or five slaves; for an eye, one hundred pieces, or one slave; for the loss of a finger, the same. Claims of this character were first paid at the close of a voyage, from the common stock of the prize money. The commander of an expedition was allotted five portions of a common seaman; and the subordinate officers shared in proportion to their rank. The residue of the booty was then divided with exact equality among the crews, from the highest to the lowest mariner, not excepting the boys. Some of the duties of these latter were peculiar. For instance, when the pirates had captured a vessel better than their own, they transferred themselves to it, leaving the boys to escape from the deserted vessel last, after having set it on fire. Favor never had any influence in the distribution of the booty, which was rigidly decided by lot--lots being drawn for the dead as well as for the living. The portions for the dead were given to their surviving companion; or if the companion had also been killed, the allotment was sent to the family of the deceased. If they had no families, then the money or plate or other goods that would have belonged to them was distributed to the poor, or piously bestowed on churches, which were to pray for the souls of those in whose names the benefactions were given. These allowances to the dead and wounded were considered debts of honor--such as the brokers of Wall street would note as 'confidential.' Their intercourse with each other was marked with civility and kindness. They, of course, squandered their money on coming ashore, in all manner of dissipation, and with the recklessness which has ever characterized the sailor. To those who were in want they would contribute freely; and the kind offices of humanity among each other were readily interchanged. In ordinary cases, their prisoners were liberated, save those who were needed for their own assistance; and these were generally discharged after two or three years. Whenever they were in want of supplies, they landed upon the islands and levied exactions upon the people--planters and fishermen. The green turtles, however, among the Florida Keys, supplied a large portion of their food; and it is presumed that they became as great adepts in the turtle line as the corporation pirates of modern times.

So extensively was the commerce of Spain in these seas, under her own flag, cut up, notwithstanding the ships of war repeatedly sent for its protection, that foreign flags were resorted to, in hopes of deceiving the rovers. But the _ruse_ was not successful. Two of the buccaneer chiefs, Michael de Basco and Brouage, receiving intelligence that a cargo of great value had been shipped under the Dutch flag at Carthagena, in two ships much larger than their own, boldly entered the harbor, captured both, and plundered them of their treasure. The Dutch captains, chagrined at being thus beaten by inferior vessels, said to one of the pirate chiefs that had he been alone, he would not have dared thus to attack them. The buccaneer haughtily challenged mynheer to fight the battle over again--stipulating that his consort should stand aloof from the engagement, and, that should the Dutchman conquer, both the pirate vessels should be his. The challenge, however, was not accepted. At another time, when Basco and two other chiefs, named Jonqué and Laurence Le Graff, were cruising before Carthagena with three indifferent vessels, two Spanish men-of-war put out to attack them. The result was the capture of both the latter by the pirates, who kept the ships, but magnanimously sent the crews on shore--affecting, from the ease with which they had been vanquished, to look upon them with utter contempt.

There was yet another pirate chief, whose name stands out in bold relief, for his infamous cruelties, even among the bloody records of the buccaneers. He was a Dutchman by birth, who had settled in Brazil during the occupancy of that country by the United Provinces. On the restoration of the Portuguese to their Brazilian possessions this bloody wretch retreated to Jamaica. His name not being known, he received the soubriquet of _Rock Braziliano_, by which he was henceforward known. Very soon after his arrival at Jamaica, he joined the pirates, first as an ordinary mariner; and acquitted himself so well as to gain, in a short time, the respect and affection of his comrades. A mutiny breaking out on board the vessel in which he was embarked, caused a separation of the crew; a second vessel was taken possession of by a portion of them, and Braziliano chosen chief. He pursued his career with various success and the most frightful cruelty. His hatred of the Spaniards was exceedingly bitter, and when landing in Spanish settlements to procure provisions, he frequently roasted the inhabitants alive if they were not forthcoming at his command. In one of his cruises upon the coast of South America, he was wrecked, and his vessel lost. Escaping to the shore with his crew of only thirty men, he was pursued by a troop of one hundred Spanish cavalry. Upon these he turned, and defeated them with terrible slaughter, and with but trifling loss to himself. Mounting the horses of the slain, Braziliano continued his course coastwise, until, falling in with some boats from Campeachy, which he seized, he made sail for Jamaica--capturing another ship on the voyage laden with merchandise and a large amount of money in pieces of eight. Remaining on shore long enough to dissipate their booty in the usual round of drunkenness and debauchery which characterized the buccaneers when not upon the wave, Braziliano and his companions put to sea again, directing their course to his old haunts about Campeachy. Shortly after his arrival, while looking into the port, in a small boat, to espy what ships were offering for prizes, he was captured and thrown into prison. The Spanish authorities determined upon his execution; but in consequence of an admonition that terrible vengeance would be inflicted upon all Spanish prisoners falling into the hands of the pirates, in the event of his punishment, this horrible villain was released upon the security of his own oath, that he would forthwith relinquish his profession. But before he reached Jamaica on his return, he captured another prize; and after the avails of that were spent in every species of debauch, he went to sea again, committing greater robberies and cruelties than ever.

Jamaica, though a British possession, having, as we have seen, long afforded a market for the pirates, had in process of time become equally a rendezvous with Tortuga. Wealth, in immense quantities, had been poured into that island by the pirates, and had been diffused thence among the other West India possessions, British and French. The licentiousness of the buccaneers was unbounded, and their blood-stained spoils were scattered with incredible prodigality. Indeed they seemed to be at a loss how to spend their money fast enough. Their captains had been known to purchase pipes of wine, place them in the street, knock in the head, and compel every passer-by to drink; and mention is made of one, who, returning from an expedition with three thousand dollars in his pocket, was sold into slavery three months afterward for a debt of forty shillings. If admonished in regard to their reckless waste of money, their reply was that their lives were not like those of other men. Though alive to-day, they might be dead to-morrow, and hence it was folly for them to hoard their treasure. 'Live to-day,' was their maxim, 'to-morrow may take care of itself.' Those, therefore, who were worth millions to-day, robbed by courtezans and stripped at the gaming table, were often penniless in a week--destitute of clothes and even the necessaries of life. They had therefore no recourse but to return to the sea, and levy new contributions, to be dissipated as before.

But the commerce of Spain with her colonies was ruined. Failing in her exertions to conquer the buccaneers, and finding them to be so firmly established as to defy any force which she could send against them, and wearied in making so many consignments, as it were, directly into their hands, Spain dismantled her commercial marine and closed her South American ports, in the hope--a vain one, as it proved--that when the resources of the pirates upon the high seas were cut off, their establishments would be necessarily broken up, and the freebooters themselves disperse. But far different was the event. No sooner had these rapacious and savage men ascertained that there were no more galleons of her bullion to be taken, than they concentrated their forces, with a determination to strike nearer the mines themselves. Powerful expeditions were therefore openly organized at Jamaica and elsewhere, for the purpose of making descents upon the cities and towns of the Spanish main. The temptations to such a course were indeed strong; and the Spaniards, by their ostentatious display, materially assisted in their own ruin. For instance, the city of Lima, in 1682, on the occasion of the public entry of the viceroy, actually had the streets paved with ingots of silver, to the amount of seventeen millions sterling! 'What a pretty prize,' exclaims the _London Times_, 'for a few honest tars!' Then the splendor and magnificence of their churches, ornamented with immense gold and silver images, crucifixes, and candlesticks, and not unfrequently large altars of massive silver, became objects of a _devout regard_. Nor did the pirates fail to present themselves before every accessible shrine; for in truth, they swept over the vast central portion of the continent from Florida to Peru, plundering and laying in waste the most populous regions, and the wealthiest cities--meeting, moreover, with less resistance than attended the march of Cortez and Alvarado in achieving the conquest. Their visitations were sudden, and wherever they struck their blows fell like the thunderbolt. The consequence was that the consternation of the people upon the land became as great as their terror upon the ocean. The great roads were deserted; and the lands were no more ploughed than the sea.

VIRGINIA.

(SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING BY J. McENTEE.)

'The tree has lost its blossoms,... But the sap lasts,--and still the seed we find Sown deep even in the bosom of the North; So shall a bitter spring less bitter fruit bring forth.'

_Childe Harold._

Wan and weird the solemn twilight gleameth in the dreary sky, Dusky shadows growing deeper, sad night-breezes sorrowing by, Sighing 'mid the leafless bushes bending o'er the sullen stream, Wailing 'mid the fire-stained ruins darkly rising 'gainst the gleam Of the wild unearthly twilight. In the shivering evening air Cheerless lie the gloomy meadows--blight and ruin everywhere!

Far away the wide plain stretches, dark and desolate it lies 'Neath the shuddering winds that murmur, 'neath the gleaming of the skies; Hark to the swollen river, how it moaneth in its flow, 'Mid the bridge's fallen arches, 'neath the bushes bending low, Now unbroken by a ripple, flowing silently and still, Gives again unto the heavens twilight gleaming wan and chill.

Where the corn once waved in beauty its bright wealth of shining leaves, Glittering in the noonday's glory, rustling in the summer eves, As the murmuring wind swept o'er it, bending low each tasselled head, 'Neath the soft and shimmering radiance by the moon of summer shed-- There no plough will make its furrow--waste the sunny field doth lie, And no grain will wave its tresses to the breezes wailing by.

Where amid the whispering forests once the laughing sunlight fell, Fallen tree and blackened stump now the dreary story tell Of the woe and desolation sad Virginia shadowing o'er, From the fatal Rappahannock to Potomac's fort-crowned shore, Tell the tale of saddened hearthstones, desolate hearts that mourn each day For the dearly loved ones stricken, wounded, dying, far away.

Wake, Virginia! from thy slumber, from thy wild and traitorous dream; Wake! and welcome loyal Northmen, sabres' ring and bayonets' gleam; Cast aside the clanking fetters that still echo on thy soil, Teach thy sons that no dishonor clings to manly, honest toil: So again thy tree shall blossom, fairer, stronger than before, And God's peace will rest upon thee, thy scourged fields will hover o'er.

VISIT TO THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN.

APRIL, 1863.

We remember many years ago passing directly from the gallery of Düsseldorf pictures, then recently opened in New York, to the hall of the National Academy. The contrast to a lover of his country was a painful one. The foreign school possessed ripeness of design, and accurate, if in many instances somewhat mannered and artificial execution. The native collection exhibited a poverty in conception, and a harshness and crudity in performance, sadly discouraging to one who would fain see the fine arts progress in equal measure with the more material elements of civilization. Since that time, however, year by year, the art of painting, at least, has steadily advanced, the light of genius has been granted to spring from our midst, our artists dwelling in foreign lands have returned to find a congenial atmosphere under their native skies, and, in so far as landscape is concerned, we have now no need to shun comparison with the best pictures produced abroad. Our school is an original one, for our artists have gone to the great teacher, Nature, who has shown them without stint the bright sun, luminous sky, pearly dawns, hazy middays, glowing sunsets, shimmering twilights, golden moons, rolling mists, fantastic clouds, wooded hills, snow-capped peaks, waving grain fields, primeval forests, tender spring foliage, gorgeous autumnal coloring, grand cataracts, leaping brooks, noble rivers, clear lakes, bosky dells, lichen-covered crags, and varied seacoasts of this western continent. Here is no lack of diversity, here are studies in unity, both simple and complex, and here, too, even civilized man need not necessarily be unpicturesque; witness Launt Thompson's 'Trapper,' Rogers's bits of petrified history, or Eastman Johnson's vivid delineations of scenes familiar to us all. We have no reason to follow in any beaten, hackneyed track, but, within the needful restrictions of good sense, good taste, and the teachings of nature, may wander wherever the bent of our gifts may lead us. We may choose sensational subjects, striking contrasts, with Church, follow the exquisite traceries of shadow, of mountain top and fern-clad rock, with Bierstadt, learn the secrets of the innermost souls of the brute creation with Beard, revel in cool atmospheres and transparent waters with Kensett, paint in light with Gifford, in poetry with McEntee, or with Whittredge seek the tranquil regions of forest shade or quiet interior.

In the examination of every work of art, we find three questions to be asked: Has it something to say; is that something worth saying; is it well said? In painting, poetry, music, sculpture, and architecture, satisfactory replies must be given, or the mind refuses to recognize the work under consideration as fulfilling the conditions necessary to perfection within its individual range. Too often worthlessness of meaning is hidden under exquisite execution, the most dangerous form an aberration from the true principles of art can take, especially in an age when the material receives an undue proportion of attention, and the spirit is exposed to so many risks of being replaced by a false, outside glitter. A worthy, noble, or beautiful idea, clad in a corresponding form, is then the core of every art production; and although much of which the fundamental idea is neither worthy, noble, nor beautiful, is sometimes admired, yet the impression on the whole is painful, as would be exquisite diction and entrancing eloquence flowing from the lips of a man of genius arguing in a cause unholy and pernicious to the best interests of humanity.

Notwithstanding the tasteful and judicious arrangement of the pictures in the hall of exhibition, No. 625 Broadway, a cursory survey only is required to enforce the conviction that the necessities of light and space demand the erection of a building especially adapted to the purposes of an academy of design, and we hope the fellowship fund will speedily justify the commencement of that important undertaking.

The first picture that meets the eye on entering, is one of 'Startled Deer,' by W. H. Beard, N. A. (No. 197). This is a noble delineation--such stately forms, splendid positions, and expressive eyes! This artist is not content with giving us color, shape, and every hair exact, but we look through the creatures' eyes into the depths of their being. His animals love, fear, wonder--in short, are capable of all the manifold feelings pertaining to the brute creation. Who can say how much of that creation is destined to perish forever! The gesture of the spotted fawn seems reason sufficient why the Lord of love should one day give happiness and security in return for apprehension and pain suffered here below, especially if indeed the sin of man be the moral cause of the sorrows incident to the lower existences. At all events, Beard's animals are so endowed with individual characteristics, that we make of them personal friends, who can never die so long as our memories endure. The herbage in the foreground is tenderly wrought, and the whole picture preaches an impressive sermon.

No. 151. 'An Autumn Evening'--Regis Gignoux, N. A. This picture does not satisfy us nearly so fully as others we have seen by the same artist. The general effect strikes us as somewhat artificial, the light does not seem to fall clearly from the sky, but as if through prisms or tinted glass. We have seen the inside of a shell, or the edge of a white cloud turned toward the sun, glittering with similar hues, very beautiful for a small object, but wanting in dignity and repose for an entire landscape. We remember with great pleasure Gignoux's 'Autumn in Virginia,' and his painting of 'Niagara by Moonlight' gave us a far more majestic impression of the great cataract than the famous day representation by Church. As we gazed, we called to mind a certain night when the moon stood full in the heavens, vivid lunar bows played about our feet, and, mounting the tower, we looked down into the apparently bottomless abyss, dark with clouds of mist, seething, foaming, and thundering. We shuddered, and hastened down the narrow stairway, feeling as if all nature must speedily be drawn into the terrible vortex, and we become a mere atom amid chaos. The picture caused us a shivering thrill, and we acknowledged the power of the artist.

No. 90. 'Mansfield Mountain, Sunset'--S. R. Gifford, N. A. A glorious tale, gloriously told! 'The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands. Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night showeth knowledge. * * * He hath set his tabernacle in the sun; and he * * * hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way: His going out is from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof: and there is no one that can hide himself from his heat.' This artist seems literally to have dipped his brush in light, pure light. We remember a juvenile book, entitled, 'A Trap to catch a Sunbeam;' such a trap must Gifford possess; he surely keeps tubes filled with real rays wherewith to flood the canvas and transfigure the simplest subject. Here we have a mountain, a lake, some sky, clouds, and a setting sun--but what an admirable combination! The picture seems fairly to illumine that part of the gallery in which it is placed. Had the artist lived in the olden time, he might have been feloniously made way with for his secret, but the present age seems more generous, and his fellow workers delight to praise and honor his genius. We find from the same hand 'Kauterskill Clove' (No. 15)--a flood of golden beams poured upon a mountain glen, with rifted sides, autumn foliage, and a tiny stream; a coming storm obscures but does not hide the distant hills. A bold delineation--but very beautiful, and true to the character of the scenery it represents. There are also a reminiscence of the present war ('Baltimore, 1862--Twilight,' No. 409), and one of foreign travel ('Como,' No. 385), equally suggestive of--not paint--but real, palpitating atmosphere.

No. 49. 'Mount Tahawas, Adirondacs'--J. McEntee, N. A. A picture of great simplicity and grandeur, and one we should never weary of looking into, waiting for the opaline lights of dawn to deepen into the full glory of day. This, like all the works of McEntee we have had the good fortune to see, bears the impress of a poet-soul. A vague stretching forth toward the regions of the infinite, a melancholy remembrance of some enduring sorrow, a tender reminiscence of scenes peculiar to certain heartfelt seasons of the year, a hazy foreshadowing of coming winter, a lingering over the last dying hour of day, a presaging of storms to come, or a lotus-eating dream by some quiet lake, are the themes to be evolved from many of his conceptions. Alas for 'Virginia' (No. 218), mother of presidents, and nurse of the Union! Can it indeed be her sky that shines down so weird and strange over desolate plains, through broken walls and shattered beams, and darkens as it shrinks in horror from the broken bridge once spanning the blood-stained waters of the fatal run? No. 233 is a 'Twilight,' No. 58 an 'October on the Hudson,' and No. 171 a 'Late Autumn,' by the same artist, all excellent specimens of his tender and poetical mode of handling a subject. In looking at one of his pictures, we think more of the matter than the manner, and, carefully correct as is the latter, the mind is often too filled with emotion to care to examine into the very minutiæ, whose delicate execution has so powerfully aided to produce the general effect.

No. 123. 'Morning in the White Mountains'--J. F. Kensett, N. A. Excellent in every way, with crystal water, living rocks, and rose-tinted morning clouds.

No. 74. 'Coast Scene, Mount Desert'--F. E. Church, N. A. A puzzle. We are glad once more to welcome to a public gallery a significant work by this widely known and much admired artist. Of late, the exhibition of such works (in so far as we know) invariably alone, may perhaps have subjected him to some misconception.

No. 73. 'The Window'--W. Whittredge, N. A. This is a charming picture of a home that must be dear to all the dwellers therein. A lovely landscape is seen through an open window, which admits a mellow light to fall upon a Turkey rug, tasteful furniture, and that 'wellspring of joy in a house,' a young soul, endowed with undeveloped, perhaps wonderful capacities, crowing in the arms of a turbaned nurse. It is altogether one of the best interiors ever exhibited in New York. No. 305, 'Summer,' a pleasant nook, and No. 121, 'Autumn, New Jersey,' are by the same accomplished hand. The latter is a meadow scene, with a pleasing sky, some graceful trees in the foreground, and a most attractive bit of Virginia creeper dipping into a clear pool. The gifts of W. Whittredge are manifold, and his works conspicuous for variety in subject and treatment. In the small room, we observed a portrait of this artist by H. A. Loop, N. A., a beautiful picture and excellent likeness. We do not wonder the fine head tempted Mr. Loop to expend upon it his best care.

No. 181. 'Portrait of Dr. O. A. Brownson'--G. P. A. Healy, H. A powerful portrait of a man who has never been ashamed openly to confess that he could be wiser to-day than he was yesterday. We never met Dr. Brownson, and it was with a thrill of pleasure that we beheld the massive head containing so eminent an intelligence. The learned tomes, antique chair, and entire attitude are in excellent keeping.

No. 66. 'Fagot Gatherer'--R. M. Staigg, N. A. We owe this artist much for his beautiful inculcations of the charities of life. How many stray pennies may not his little street sweeper have drawn from careless passers-by? No. 59, 'Cat's Cradle,' is another pleasing representation of an attractive subject.

No. 202. 'Anita'--George H. Hall. The sweet face, harmonious coloring, and simple pose of this little Spanish girl has made an ineffaceable impression on our memory. We should like to have her always near us. The fruit and flower pieces of this genial artist are delightful and satisfactory.

No. 468. 'Elaine,' Bas Relief--L. Thompson, N. A. The face of Elaine is of great sweetness, and the tender trouble on the brow, in the eyes, and quivering round the mouth, seems almost too ethereal to have been actually prisoned in marble. We think if the Elaine of the legend had looked thus upon Launcelot, and he were truly all that poets sing him, he could not long have preferred to her the light-minded Guenevere. The busts of children by the same hand are also fine, so truthful and characteristic. A worthy pupil is Thompson of that natural school of which Palmer was our first distinguished representative.

No. 466. 'The Union Refugees'--John Rogers. This group tells its own sad tale. The stern defiance in the face of the young patriot, the sorrow-stricken but confiding attitude of the mother, and the child's uplifted gaze of wonder, speak of scenes doubtless often repeated in the history of the past two years--scenes which must sink deeply into the hearts of all beholders.

No. 467. 'Freedman'--J. Q. A. Ward, A. This picture, no doubt, has its fine points, but to our mind it is rather conventional. Neither does it bear out its allegorical relation to the freedmen of our continent. If the chains of the negro are being broken, he does not appear in the character of a Hercules, but rather as a patient and enduring martyr, awaiting the day of deliverance appointed by Heaven.

No. 10. 'Sunrise at Narragansett'--W. S. Hazeltine, N. A. A fine effect of transparent sky, faithful rocks, and rolling surf. The warmth of coloring and vivid reality of this picture render it eminently pleasing.

No. 211. 'The Adirondacks from near Mount Mansfield'--R. W. Hubbard, N. A. A beautiful foreground of fine trees and rocks, with a far-away lookout over a hazy distance. A lake glitters in the plain beneath, and the whole scene is harmoniously bewitching and tranquillizing.

No. 158. 'Out in the Fields'--A. D. Shattuck, N. A. A charming pastoral, with some elms, graceful and feathery as the far-famed trees on the meadows of North Conway.

No. 27. 'Heart's Ease'--William P. W. Dana, A. We heard a little three and a half year old reply, in answer to a question as to which picture she would prefer taking home with her from the Academy: 'The sick child;' and we could not wonder at her choice, for a more touching design has seldom been placed on canvas. The name, the accompaniments, and the child's expression betoken a rare delicacy of conception. The flowers are exquisite, and the cheerful contrast of color in the drapery seems a promise of gayer, if not happier hours.

But space--together, probably, with the patience of our readers--fails for the enumeration of all the interesting and meritorious paintings in the exhibition of '63; otherwise, we might discourse at length upon the two masterly works by Bierstadt (Nos. 6 and 35), the 'Swiss Lake,' by Casilear, W. T. Richards's carefully elaborated foregrounds, Huntington's charming figures, De Haas's spirited sea scenes, and other meritorious productions under names well known to the lovers of art in New York.

As good ofttimes springs from evil, may not perhaps the present severe trial through which our country is passing aid in lifting the hearts of her children to more spiritual regions, that they may approach ever nearer and nearer to a more thorough comprehension and enjoyment of the 'Eternal Beauty, ever ancient and ever new,' as feebly mirrored in human art?

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_ it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is interesting.'--GOETHE.

'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or intended.'--WEBSTER'S _Dictionary_.

##