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signed the throne in favor of the present Emperor. The present Prince Constantine was born in 1827, and is now twenty-eight years of age. His character is abrupt and impetuous; and he is said to be a believer in what is considered the "manifest destiny" of Russia-the acquirement of Constantinople. To the affairs of the Ottoman Empire his attention has always been particularly turned. He is familiar with the Turkish language, and, in his capacity of High Admiral of the fleets, has often, doubtless, turned a covetous eye upon the Golden Horn. Of the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was born in 1831, we know nothing. The Grand Duke Michael, who was born in 1832, is said to bear a marked resemblance in character to his father.

These are the Princes who will, in the event of the death of Nicholas, stand before the world as the living chiefs of the reigning dynasty. We hope, for the sake of the tranquillity of Europe, that the Hereditary Grand Duke might then ascend the throne. For, although, if the present state of public feeling continued, his most peaceful purposes might be overthrown by the exasperation of the Russians generally against England and France, yet, it is undeniable that any effort in the direction of peace, and in favor of its maintenance, would meet with the sympathy of the large proprietors. The conscriptions levied since the war has broken out, and the levy en masse lately threatened, for the increase of that great army with which it was designed to open the campaign of the present spring, has taken the flower of the serfs from a large number of estates. The proprietors have been bold enough, in some instances, to utter the ominous words-" Notre Empereur se trouvera en face de son peuple;" and it is not unlikely that such men, who are the Brights and Cobdens of Russian opinion, will afford a substantial support to a peace policy. But the army-the Guards-the prætorian bands of Russia, would settle the question if differences occur; and how-no man can tell.

For ourselves, we await the unfolding of the drama. If peace shall soon be declared, "the sick man" will have a

respite from sudden death by violence, and Turkey will be left to the processes of its own decay for a season longer. If peace is declared, the English and French armies will retire, leaving behind them the graves of thousands of their countrymen; and furnished, by the memory of this struggle, and by the increase of the national debts of their respective countries, with stronger arguments for peace than the "World's Convention" was able to supply. Perhaps, English and French rulers will hereafter, in this century, when they remember Sebastopol and Cronstadt, abate something of the haughty confidence with which they have regarded their strength and power, upon the land and upon the sea.

ART. VI.-PRINCIPLES OF ART.

The History of Painting in Italy, from the Period of the
Revival of the Fine Arts to the end of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury. By the Abate Luigi Lanzi. Translated by THOMAS
ROSCOE. London: H. G. Bohn. 1847.

Letters on Christian Art. By FREDERIC VON SCHLEGEL.
On the Limits of the Beautiful. By the same.

Paintings in Paris and the Netherlands. By the same. Lectures on Painting. By the Royal Academicians. London: H. G. Bohn. 1848.

Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. By M. Victor Cousin. Translated by O. H. WRIGHT. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1854.

Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of the Royal Academy. London: H. G. Bohn. 1852.

CRITICISM is proverbially uncertain and multiform. In spite of the general laws which have been laid down by eminent writers, we find its canons ever varying with the varying character of different ages. The songs which delighted the

fierce souls of our old Norman and Saxon sires, in the merry hall, at that interesting period "when beards wagged all," and

"From the deep drinking-horn
Many a lip unshorn

Blew the foam lightly,"

would grate on our nicer ears, and jar upon the sensibilities of our more refined natures. The delicate touches of melody, and the great volumes of harmony, which so stir the heart of the musical connoisseur, are a very weariness to the uncultivated listener, who has submitted to this burden of ennui at the command of imperious fashion. The sea-songs of Dibdin still delight the forecastle, but are banished for ever from the drawing-room.

Nor, is it only in various grades of society and different degrees of cultivation, that these opposite æsthetic habits are to be found. The same family contains wide diversities of taste, and looks out upon the great world with contradictory emotions. The same individual feels differently towards Nature and Art at different periods of his existence. The wild legends which delighted his childhood, prove distasteful to his riper years. There are a few themes and a few books, indeed, which charm alike at all ages; but most of our remembered joys owe their lingering sweetness to the recollection of the emotions by which they were originally beatified. That deep well of pure happiness which lies in the child's heart, overshadowed by the blooms of that early spring-time, lingers as a delicious memory in the spirit of the man. During the few moments of rest that are accorded him in his subsequent toilsome journey over the arid desert of life, he looks back to it with a longing heart, and now and then, in dream and reverie, regales his thirsty spirit with its pure and living waters. We see our past, not through the clear, hot atmosphere of our present life, but through the golden mists of our childhood. It is not the object itself, but the radiance which invested it, that so delights us. The desert itself is glorious in the morning.

The thought may even be still further extended. Not only do our tastes vary with our age, but with the circumstances

which immediately surround us. How wearisome are the notes of sorrow, when our bosoms are bounding with joy? How impertinent the exulting strains of gladness, to the heart that aches with a fresh and deadly grief? How incongruous and ominous the cypress, in the bride's bouquet? How insulting the fripperies of life, to the stern majesty of the corpse? Who could tolerate the flippancies of the ball-room, in an old cathedral? Who could endure a funeral oration, when he is leading his partner out to the dance? Our lightest emotions influence our æsthetic faculty; our physical feelings sway us. "One judges as the weather dictates; right

The poem is at noon, and wrong at night."

The character of the age in which we live modifies our tastes-fashion controls them. Habit reconciles us to deformity, makes us even prefer it to beauty. The hideous monstrosities of costume bear testimony to this fact. That people could actually think it attractive to look at a fair face down a long vista of Leghorn straw, or admire a lady's sleeve constructed on the model of a pillow, is painful evidence of the power of fashion; and, yet it is not more amazing than that a refined and enlightened age should turn its back upon the glorious literature of the days of Shakspeare and Spenser, to listen to the thin sentiment and drawing-room prattle of the time of Queen Anne. When we hear Goldsmith chuckling over his discovery of irreconcilable absurdities in the soliloquy of Hamlet, or Coleridge denying to the Elegy in a Country Churchyard the slightest poetical merit, we learn that fashion does not restrict itself to the confines of the parlor, or allow itself to be hemmed in by the circle of "society."

In few departments of criticism is this diversity so strikingly apparent, as in those which take cognizance of works of art. Every one has his own standard; every critic is provided with some bed of Procrusteas, to which he would fain accommodate the gigantic stature of genius as well as the dwarfish limbs of imbecility. To one, color is all in all; another can only see through anatomical spectacles; a third thinks of

nothing but composition, chiaro oscuro, etc.; while a fourth confines his attention to mechanical execution, handling, lines, pencilling, etc.

Every one who has read works on art, must have observed this peculiarity. We cite but a single example. Frederic von Schlegel, in describing an allegorical picture from the hand of Mantegna, utters the following strong panegyric:—

"The coloring is almost glaring, and the figures, as may be anticipated from this master, simple and severe. A bacchante-like figure, with flowing hair, bounds forward in the lightest and most graceful attitude; and several of the more heroic Muses, of whom we have only a side or back view, are of majestic proportions. In the centre stands one, looking towards the spectator-a most glorious face, yet austere and melancholy; indeed, we feel that a sorrowful expression pervades every countenance in the picture.

"How beautifully, when the allegory permits, does Mantegna multiply the reflection of the eternal harmonies in a thousand allegorical forms of joy and rapture! And yet, when his subject demands it, imparts an intense expression of sad and bitter feeling, which, by its striking contrast with the former, illustrates the strife between good and evil."

A. F. Rio, commenting upon the same pictures, is little more than an echo of the German:

"Quelques-unes des Muses," says he, "sont d'une beauté ravissante, sans avoir ete copiees sur des statues antiques, et la figure de Venus, d'un type non moins original ni moins gracieux, severe et chaste, malgré sa nudité, prouve invinciblement que des imaginations chretiennes pouvaient concevoir le beau, d'une maniere independante, mème en traitant de sujets profanes."

Now contrast this with Fuseli's criticism, in his lectures before the Royal Academy:

"The essays of Masaccio in imitation and expression, Andrea Mantegna attempted to unite with form, led by the contemplation of the antique, fragments of which he ambitiously scattered over his works. Though a Lombard, and born prior to the discovery of the best ancient statues, he seems to have been acquainted with a variety of characters, from forms that remind us of the Apollo, Mercury, or Meleager, down to the

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