adorn the page of his country's history with a name which future generations will delight to pronounce, when they boast of their country's genius; but he must not return!" pp. 24-26.

In one of the notes, the author remarks at some length on that spurious kind of patronage bestowed upon the art of painting, which consists in buying up old pictures, most of them counterfeits, manufactured in Holland, where an extensive and very profitable trade is driven in the fabrication of the works of old masters, by what are called "Birmingham artists," engaged for the purpose. In this way a great deal of money has been wasted in this country, as well as in England, in the purchase of what Mr. Opie well calls bad copies of bad originals, and a great deal of admiration has been thrown away on what is worthless. A much better method of procuring good pictures would be to engage living artists of known merit to execute them, and such artists we have in our own country. We recommend the attentive perusal of this note to all those who are smitten with the mania of purchasing old pictures.

My Grandfather's Four Frenchmen. New Brunswick. Terhune & Letson. 1827. 18mo. pp. 58.

A VERY sprightly, pleasant jeu d'esprit, principally taken up with the comic description of four old Frenchmen, all of whom had been Counts or Marquesses in their better days, and are now decayed into something between beggars and tradesmen, with incident enough to connect the several parts together. The facetiousness of the piece is of an unaffected kind, and differs somewhat from that violent determination to be witty which prevails in many modern English works of humour, and which produces a continual mixture of successes and failures, seizing desperately on every apparent chance for drollery, and mingling execrable clenches and wornout conversational jokes, such as we used to laugh at when we were boys, with occasional strokes which are irresistible. The humour of this little production is of a different kind, and like that which was in fashion at an earlier period of English literature, that of Swift and Addison, depends upon the comic delineation of character and the narrative of ludicrous incidents. A few of what Johnson calls colloquial barbarisms, have found their way into it, which we could desire to see expunged.

Poe.ical Illustrations of the Athenæum Gallery of Paintings. Boston.

Green. 1827. 8vo. pp. 40.

True &

THE fine arts seem to be gaining among us the attention which they deserve from a cultivated people. Philadelphia has had for several years, a respectable gallery and annual exhibitions of pictures, which have often been adorned with works of rare merit. New York too has her "Academy of Design," established about a year since, whose exhibition for the present year is reviewed in a previous part of this number, and in Boston a collection has lately been made of pictures belonging to individuals in the city and its vicinity, which does credit to the owners, and to the place.

The public, too, seem to feel a good deal of interest in the subject. West's picture of "Christ Healing the Sick," belonging to the Pennsylvania Hospital, has not only paid the expense of a building erected purposely to receive it, which amounted we believe to ten thousand dollars, but has proved a source of considerable revenue to the institution. The exhibition in Boston, which was opened early in May, has been thronged ever since, and more than four thousand tickets, principally for the season, were sold in less than a month. The little volume of poems, of which the title is given above, illustrates some of the pictures in the collection. We are glad to see any instance of the influence of the fine arts on literature, believing as we do, that any work of genius has a strong tendency to call forth kindred excellence in other branches, and that the refinement of taste produced by an intimate acquaintance with the beautiful productions of the arts of design, will be felt in other departments of intellectual effort, and in the manners of the people. This is precisely what is wanted in a country under such a form of government as ours.

The feeling and assertion of equality and independence is general in our community, and must be so from the nature of our institutions. The distinction of classes among us is undefined. Men of very different degrees of cultivation are continually brought into contact, and the mixture is much more likely to lower the refinement of the one, than to polish the rudeness of the other. We hold, therefore, that whatever tends to elevate the mind, to increase the sensibility to beauty of a high order, is deserving of encouragement among us. We do not say that the sight of a fine picture, statue, or edifice, will raise at once the tone of a man's mind. But we do say that the frequent contemplation of such works of genius will gradually produce elevation of feeling and refinement of manners. Our countrymen are

too exclusively occupied with business and political ambition. The station of each man being undefined, and the means of rising in each one's power, there is an incessant turmoil, a constant struggle going on among our citizens to raise themselves above the rank in which they are born. Our condition in this respect, is wholly different from that of the inhabitants of Europe. There a man's station for life is commonly fixed by his birth, and having little hope of essentially improving it, he labors only to make it agreeable.

Hence the means of intellectual gratification, the pleasures of a refined taste, are sought after with avidity, and the fine arts receive an abundant share of attention. We, on the contrary, reject pleasures which occupy the time that we wish to devote to the furtherance of our ambitious views. It may be fairly made a question, whether this constant, anxious exertion to better our condition, does not on the whole diminish the happiness which free institutions seem at first sight fitted to afford, and reduce the enjoyment of life in this country nearer than we should willingly admit, to a level with that of the subjects of European governments. It has a marked influence in abridging our public amusements. The holidays, the cessation from labor in which the natives of Europe so much indulge, are almost unknown here. The same circumstances tend to render us callous to the attractions of the fine arts. In proportion, however, as men are born to the possession of wealth, instead of being obliged to be the artificers of their own fortunes, the operation of these circumstances will become less general, and we shall see a taste for the elegant arts springing up among the higher classes. In fact the time has already come. Great fortunes have been made. Young men now inherit, with large estates, exemption from labor, and the means and disposition to add to the embellishments of society. They travel, visit the collections of Europe, bring back specimens of their beauties, and a desire to naturalize the same at home.

And it is well that it should be so. The happiness and wellbeing of a large part of our community is thus promoted. We have it is true as yet, no order of gentlemen in the European sense of the term, distinct from the working classes, fruges consumere nati. But it must necessarily grow up amongst

us.

That prosperity in which we exult brings a flood of wealth into our land. The sons reap the fruit of their fathers' labors. They inherit their fathers' estates without their industry. They are bred in affluence, their wants are supplied; they do not form the habit, they feel not the need of labor. Released from

the care of providing for the support of life, they seek for its gratifications. But amusement has not yet been reduced into a system here, and they feel out of place in the bustling scene around them. They must have excitement. If the means of decent intellectual pleasure are not supplied, they will seek the stimulus of gross dissipation. Such men have generally received an education tending to refine their minds. If the means are offered, they will prefer to indulge the taste, rather than the appetite. It is better that their leisure and wealth should be employed in fostering the arts which embellish life, than squandered in gross sensuality. It is better that they should become in a certain sense the ornaments of society, rather than its disgrace. For reasons like these,-the adaptation of the fine arts to raise the standard of taste and manners among us, to afford elegant and intellectual gratification to a people, hard-working from the very principle of their institutions, and to furnish occupation for a class whom peculiar circumstances exempt from the general lot,we are pleased to see the interest which is now felt about them in our principal cities, as shown in the exhibitions to which we have already alluded. The one at the gallery of the Athenæum in Boston, is composed, as we have said, of pictures loaned by individuals in the city, and its vicinity. It has been very fully attended and received no small share of praise. Our limits will not allow us to go into a minute examination of its merits. can only say that it consists of more than three hundred pieces, about a hundred of which are originals by old masters of eminence; among the rest are many good copies of celebrated pictures, and many originals of doubtful origin, some of which have much merit. The remainder is composed of the works of living artists, mostly our own countrymen. Allston and Stuart have each a large number of pieces here. The works of Newton, Sully, Harding, Cole, Doughty, Fisher, Rembrandt Peale, and many others of our distinguished artists, are also to be found in the gallery. Among our countrymen, though not among living artists, we should mention Copley. Several of his beautiful portraits adorn the collection. We cannot doubt that this exhibition will increase a taste for the arts in Boston, and quicken the seeds of talent in many a young mind.

We

INTELLIGENCE.

Dogs in Egypt. From the "Recollections of Egypt," lately published by the Baroness von Minutoli, we extract the following passages.

"Dogs, which, according to the Mahometan law, are unclean or impure, are not used in Egypt as domestic animals. They are seen in great numbers in the environs and streets of Cairo; they are often very mischievous, and obstinately pursue passengers; but there is not a single instance of a mad dog, which is very extraordinary, considering the excessive heat and the privation of water to which they are exposed; from which it might be inferred, that their madness must be ascribed to their being domesticated. It is curious to see the dogs of Cairo divide the city among them into quarters, like officers of police, and not permit any dog belonging to another quarter to pass the boundary. Such a violation of the established rules generally produces a bloody war; and I have seen these animals, in spite of the laws of hospitality, cruelly bite an unhappy deserter who dared to transgress his limits."

The Baroness devotes several pages of her work to the ruins of Thebes. We shall only copy from them the following account of a battle between some of the wild dogs and vultures, which abound in that part of the country. It will remind the classical reader of the nova prælia with the harpies in Virgil.

"On the following day I witnessed a curious scene; it was a war between the wild dogs, which inhabit the ruins of Thebes, and the great hawks which abound in Upper Egypt. Our cook had just killed a sheep, and had thrown the intestines on the bank of the river. I was sitting with my eyes fixed on the magnificent ruins of Luxor, when I saw a crowd of hungry dogs issue from them, which, desiring to have their share of the feast, immediately fell upon the refuse of the animal; but their appetite was not to be gratified so easily as they had expected; for other creatures, hovering in the air above us, had previously seen all that had passed, and the moment that the cook withdrew, and the dogs approached, a swarm of hawks and vultures, rapidly cleaving the air, rushed upon their prey, and disputed it with their rivals. A very curious battle then began; the bird of Osiris, by turns attacking or attacked, sometimes succeeded in snatching the booty from the jaws of the savage dog, which yelped and barked after it, while the victor, rising into the air, seemed to mock at his impotent cries."

Revolution of a Comet. The zeal with which the interests of science were forwarded in New Holland, by Sir T. Brisbane, deserves the warmest acknowledgements of every liberal mind. Among the most curious results obtained under his patronage, by Mr. Dunlop, at the observatory of Paramatta, may be considered the one arising from the observations on the comet of August, September, and October, 1825, and on the changes which took place in the figure of the tail, tending to establish the existence of a rotation round its axis. The periodic variations in the appearance of the tail, seemed to indicate the time of revolution to be about nineteen and a half hours. Similar appearances