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FINE ARTS. 



Mr. Editor, — As the greater portion and the conclusion of the following 

 rhymes relate to ancient and modern art, to anti-modern connoisseurs, 

 and to the patronage of British genius, British excellence in the arts, 

 and British artists, I think we may, without impropriety, class this under 

 the above head. A rhapsody being " a discourse or poem, consisting of 

 a number of parts joined together, without any necessary dependence or 

 natural connection ;" you will perceive I have not exceeded the established 

 license. The two first characters, " Good Ronald" and " Desmond," 

 are not grouped together, nor connected, in these verses, with the third, 

 or with any story. Their outlines are from report only, and are, neces- 

 Barily, sketched in freely, and left unfinished, with touches of imagination 

 founded in probability and mingled with reality. The malady of the one 

 and the dangerous injury sustained by the other, from the fall of his 

 horse, almost immediately within my view, are facts, and I am happy to 

 learn both are in a fair way of recovery. The foreground of the scenery 

 is from nature ; but the distances are composition. 



It is only a trite repetition to quote from Horace that painting is mute 

 poetry. Pictures, which only please the eye by technical excellence and 

 correct truth, but do not move the heart and purify the spirit, are not of 

 this high description. They may be good or excellent prose, and I 

 prize them in proportion to their peculiar beauties, as such, but they 

 have not the 



*' Thoughts that breathe and words that burn," 



of true poetry. The view of a fine collection of paintings, by a good light, 

 has the same effect on the feelings and imagination as a penisal of 

 Homer or Milton. It fills the mind with an exalted opinion of human 

 capacity, and a flow of noble and elevated sentiments. Virgil introduces 

 paintings in the temple at Carthage, and, among the heroes represented, 

 yEneas finds himself ; — at the sight, all the signal events of the 

 war and subversion of Troy, are recalled to his mind and pictured 

 in his imagination. The historical pencil of Raphael, Giulio Romano, 

 N. Poussin, or of that great modern, Etty, in his Judith, and other sacred 

 Bubjects, exercises the same power as the historical pen of Montesquieu 

 or Gibbon. Under its influence the stream of time rolls back, and we 

 are transported to the early post-diluvian and heroic ages ; or, the world 

 before the flood. The soul is inflamed and lifted up to an admiration of 

 all that is great and good, by a crowd of memorable recollections. In 

 these spirit-stirring and golden moments, we behold, infancy, the resur- 

 rection of nations long turned to dust, and enter into communion 

 with their best and bravest spirits. We, then, cannot help falling into 

 the opinion of the traveller Niebuhr, with some reasonable qualifications : 

 — " It is true that we have many * decisive proofs of the existence of 



♦ Of these "decisive proofs," it is but justice to the reader to observe that Mr. 

 Niebuhr has not produced any. Between " decisive proofs" and strong grounds 

 for conjecture or belief, there is a material difference in arriving at a conclusion. 

 Of the existence of many great and powerful nations prior to the Egyptians, and 

 of their having utterly perished, there are reasonable grounds for belief; but none 

 to imagine any of them more enlightened. The Egyptians inherited the wisdom of 

 the earlier nations, and continued their improvements and inventions in the arts 

 and sciences, until the subversion of their Empire by Camhyses. 



