C5 



and more enduring relations. As the intellect and sympathies are 

 allowed freer action, the sordid influence of commerce will be countei'- 

 acted and refined ; and knowledge and philanthropy, aiding genius, may 

 civilize the world. 



Very different has 'it been in times past ! Very different is it now ! 

 The hardworking, toiling inventor, the oi'e of whose unmatured concep- 

 tion is rich with benefit to present and future generations, whose earnest 

 study of his one idea has grown almost into a monomania with the un- 

 requited toil of twenty years, how off,en must he faint in his iron task ! 

 how often require the kindly word and look, or the substantial assist- 

 ance of enlightened and sympathising capitalists ! 



And he, perhaps, of finer mould, rich in the great gifts of imagina- 

 tion and study, who links in harmonious verse the noblest deeds or 

 highest aspirations of our race, — or his brother poet, who, on canvas 

 or in marble, gives shape to the poet's dream, and records the hero's 

 achievement, — how often do these tire and faint in the turmoil of life's 

 fierce fight, and sigh for the sustaining hand, or friendly glance, 

 that shall nerve them to continued conflict ! nay, how often are they 

 utterly cast down and forsaken, because the unheeding votaries of com- 

 merce, wanting in the finer sensibilities, crushed out of them by cease- 

 less efforts to make a living or amass wealth, cannot understand the 

 works submitted to their patronage, and "pass by on the other side !" 



No ! beautiful and attractive as is the dream that peace and successful 

 commerce minister to the triumph of the peaceful arts, the most 

 eloquent attempts to support sucli a conclusion from history will only 

 half persuade, so long as the "merchant princes" of the "living present" 

 give no general indication that their hearts are stiri'ed within them by 

 the graces of poetry and art ; nor evidence the humanizing influence 

 of commerce by grateful commemoration of those enterprising heroes 

 "with souls thiice bound in brass," who dared so many dangers, 

 endured so much hardship, and opened so many highways for the 

 peaceful arts. Let us not have to wait until all those highways are 

 profaned, even more than they are, by the tread of hideous war ; let us 

 not have to wait until they are paved with the slaughtered dead, nor 

 until some other bloodstained, but magnanimous conqueror, shall again 

 show that in the train of successful war is the triumph of the peaceful 

 arts ! 



