NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1855.

REVIEWS.

The Song of Hiawatha. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1855. Like a good sherris sack, the poetry of Professor Longfellow hath a two-fold operation: it pleases and it puzzles. We use the latter word in its ordinary sense of perplexing, and so used of poetry, it becomes the direct negative of the word to which we have opposed it. We shall consider this two-fold operation before speaking directly of the present

poem.

We are not content to be pleased. If the cuckoo were but a wandering voice, and not a bird, though our idea of it might then be more highly poetical than it now is, all the pleasure arising from that idea, as well as that arising from the music of the voice, would be lost in a certain accompanying perplexity; in the continual attempt, and as continual failure to comprehend it-to fix its identity and locality. It would be a riddle that we could never consider without trying to solve. It is thus of poetry and of the pleasure arising from it. Poetry must not be a wandering voice-but a bird that we are able to name and to know. This is not the case with the poetry of Longfellow. Not having the necessary character to be a school by itself, it yet does not belong to any of the schools with which we are acquainted. It is not classical, it is not romantie; it is neither full-blooded nor philosophical. It hangs about in the edges of all things and is nothing. We speak this of our author's poetry generalized

into a whole.

Considering it in detail, our opinion does not improve. The higher imaginative poetry being the shadow of things whose substance is not to be had, of thoughts that our most unfleshly thinking can only reach, as it were, on tiptoe, and cannot bring to the capacity of words; Professor Longfellow's poetry is the shadow of little intellectual knots,-unpro

fitable snarls.

It will be asked, how, entertaining these opinions, we account for his popularity, since no one can deny that he is popular? This leads us to speak of his strong point-his style. We scarcely know, indeed, if we may speak of this latter distinctively, since it may be strictly said of him that his manner is his matter. We have said what he is not, and called upon to say what he is, we should answer by the one word, stylish. To the question, what is the first requisite of poetry? he virtually answers, in all of his works, Style. So of the second and of the third. Style overlays every thing like an enamel. This is an artificial excellence-a superficial quality that is entirely lost in analysis;-and it is, therefore, that we must not ask how or by what we are pleased. This is why we must not analyze. The pleasure and the poetry evaporate in the process. It is difficult to see why you are pleased; yet if you stop to inquire you are pleased no longer. As with a boy setting himself to watch in order that he may the next morning remember the very moment at which he went to sleep, the intention defeats its own object. An elegant style is a beauty of itself, but when it becomes the whole, it is mere dexterity. It should never push away better things. The perfect finish of rhythm and diction that now characterizes the better lyric poetry, is but an accessory standing in the place once occupied by music. As lyric poetry was "joined with consort of music, that thereby it might more sweetly insinuate itself," so should it now be joined with these later excellencies. When we forget that these are no more than assistants, and permit them to occupy the chief position, poetry, from the noble thing it should be, becomes a toya rattle; the merest little vanity that ever tickled the fancy.

Apart from this, in the handling of a single idea, it is possible to do too much. To polish, and polish, until all life, and vigor and freshness are rubbed from the thought, as the purple from the grape; to elaborate the life out of an idea. Steel and poetry are tempered by polishing, but it is possible to polish all temper out of them both. When we say it is possible to do this, we scarcely need add that our present author does it.

This, then, is the fault we find with the poetry of Professor Longfellow: its comparative nothingness in origination; and that the only instance in which an idiosyncracy does appear is an unworthy one. But Longfellow is very far from perfection, even in his style. Where we might expect, with so much elaborateness, the utmost nicety in small things, upon looking somewhat closely we find indifference. We have said above, of this style, that it overlays every thing like an enamel The analogy will hold

in a greater degree. Once go beneath this enamel, and every thing crumbles away at your touch. We will demonstrate this in a few instances: and shall, perhaps, anticipate a charge of hypercriticism by remarking that in examining an author's style, it is such minute things as would otherwise pass unnoticed, that must be weighed, since they are what make or mar it. Verbal criticism has been decried without good reason: it has its use equally with any other.

Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.
Footsteps that perhaps another
Sailing o'er life's troubled main-
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing shall take heart again.

We quote well-known stanzas for the reason that the more familiar they are, the more they are to our purpose. Perhaps modern poetry does not offer two that have been more frequently quoted than the above. Here is the same figure otherwise (and otherwheres) presented:

And only make that footprint upon sand,
That old recurring waves of prejudice
Resmooth to nothing.-

My life is like the prints which feet Have left on Tampas' desert strand; Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand.

[TENNYSON.

perhaps, except the first) it is common to plead a thing called the poetic license-that should have been forgotten long ago. If it be admitted in one place, there can be no good reason for refusing to admit it in another, and poetry will so degenerate into a mere corruption of language-will defeat itself, and whereas it is meant to please, will for ever disappoint. Poetry will so become (what it certainly never should) the continual suggestion of a trade, with the understanding of difficulties; and every time the poet falls back upon this license, he admits that he is not equal to the task he has undertaken-that he is not an adept in his art.

The song of Hiawatha is a series of rhapsodies on events in the life of an Indian hero and prophet, and is written in somewhat over five thousand unrhymed lines of four trochees. There is no story; the intention being only to introduce such phases of Indian life as the author desired or found it convenient to illustrate. This is managed with much skill.

The poem announces itself as from the lips of "Nawadaha, the sweet singer," who

Sang the song of Hiawatha,
Sang his wondrous birth and being;
How he prayed and how he fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!

But, according to the more literal notes, it is chiefly gathered from the writings of Mr. School[RICHARD HENRY WILDE. craft; from Oneota, the Algic Researches, and the It will be seen that in both of these instances a History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian sufficiently obvious figure is worked out properly, Tribes in the United States; the author, en passant, and Longfellow appears to have borrowed it only to very justly naming Mr. S. as one to whom the "liteshow that he could misuse it. With him it is em- rary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable ployed as a figure of duration. That which is writ-zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legenten upon sand is even proverbially evanescent. The dary lore of the Indians." brilliancy with which the thought is presented, seems to have dazzled the eyes blind to its absurdity. We will add a remark on the line "Footsteps on the sands of time." A footstep is addressed to the ear. The figure here presenting it as addressed to the eye, ("Seeing shall take heart again,") it should be footprint, which is the word employed in both the

other extracts.

I heard the trailing garments of the night,
Sweep through her marble halls:

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls.

Now this may mean that the fringe of light was from the celestial walls, in which case the imagery is either ridiculous or obscure; but it does not inevitably mean that. It is ambiguous, and will as well mean "I, standing on the celestial walls, saw," &c.

Inverted in the tide,

Stand the grey rocks, and trembling shadows throw. Nonsense, because the rocks that stand inverted in the tide are the shadows, and there is no such thing as the shadow of a shade.

To lie amid some sylvan scene,

Where the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go.

If a man be inclined to fall back upon his reserved rights, he can defend the first line, because scene may be a collective noun; but to say the least, it is not felicitous; and in style an infelicity is almost as great an objection as a positive blunder. Though we recognize it as composed of many parts, a scene is presented as one thing; a man might as well be said to lie amid a horse, because the horse has four legs and a tail. Shadows dark and sunlight sheen is an imperfect antithesis, and for the general idea involved in the last three verses, though in real truth both the shadows and the sunlight do alternate come and go, it is only the sunlight that comes" the long drooping boughs between."

is indefinite.

Beneath some patriarchal tree I lay upon the ground. "I lay" is definite, and "some The author, for the sake of his reputation, should have lain under a particular tree, otherwise he will be considered as laying around loose.

As when a bell no longer swings,
Faint thy hollow murmur rings.

This is delicate poetry-a writing down of things that seem to defy words. It is almost as if a painter should endeavor to give an idea of perfume, and succeed: yet even here there is an interference with our enjoyment. The author makes us think-gives us to see in fact that propriety is violated to a thing so trifling as rhyme; for a hollow murmur never rings-it hums. We are frequently forced to accent particles.

Water the green land of dreams-
When the forms of the departed-
Musing upon many things-

"Twas an angel visited the green earth-
The boloved ones the true-hearted, &c.

66

The reader desiring to know who and what Hiawatha was, will probably not be satisfied with the answer given in the appended "vocabulary," viz: the son of Mudjekeewis. A question would naturally occur in one of Mr. Longfellow's own Who was he, this Mudjekeewis?" The anlines, swer to which question would perhaps suggest the Ethiopian account of the universe. In the part of the poem describing the struggle with Mondamin we were inclined to believe Hiawatha a personification of the summer; but the notes informed us that the Algonquins have a story in which Mondamin is represented as descending from heaven in answer to the prayers of a young man, and so demonstrated our belief to be an illusion, for we were not prepared to suppose that the Algonquins had gone so far in rhetoric as this species of personification. The better way to read such legends is without trying to understand them. The personal history of Hiawatha is brief.

the latter being the daughter of Nokomis, a native He was the son of Mudjekeewis and Wenonah,

of the moon, who was swinging one evening up in that planet, when some one cut the rope,

mis.

And Nokomis fell affrighted

Downward through the evening twilight.
On the Muskoday, the meadow.

Wenonah dies, and the boy is nurtured by Noko-
His first expedition as a hunter is delight-
fully described, in a style that always pleases. It
is fanciful and very pretty.

Forth into the forest straightway
All alone walked Hiawatha
Proudly, with his bow and arrows;
And the birds sang round him, o'er him,
"Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!"
Sang the Opechee, the robin,
Sang the blue-bird, the Owaissa,
"Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!

Up the oak-tree, close beside him,
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
In and out among the branches,
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree,
Laughed, and said between his laughing,
"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!"

And the rabbit from his pathway
Leaped aside, and at a distance
Sat erect upon his haunches,
Half in fear and half in frolic,
Saying to the little hunter,

"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!"

He presently grows to be a remarkable fellow, and mourning that he has no mother conceives the idea of hunting up his father and killing him, to equalize matters, probably. His abilities about this time are remarkable. One of them is felicitously expressed:

He could shoot an arrow from him,
And run forward with such fleetness,
That the arrow fell behind him!

This, however, will not be regarded as much of a
feat when we take into consideration the circum-
stance that "at each stride a mile he measured."
He does not succeed in his filial intention, but on
the way home falls in love with Minnehaha, the
daughter of an ancient arrow maker, whose name

In defence of such inaccuracies as these (of all, and rank run into the line with an accent that re

minds us of our old friends, "the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker." He now becomes a very passable reformer. Looking upon the beasts, birds, and fishes, he is not content that life should depend upon such things as these, and prays, fasting, for something else. His prayer is answered Mondamin (corn) is sent to him, and is, after a three day's fight, overcome and buried. He next builds a canoe, goes a fishing and gets sucked in, boat and all, by "the sturgeon Nahma, MisheNahma, king of fishes." He gets out and has a fight in his mittens, Minjekahwun," with " Megissogwon, the magician." His "mittens" are not of much service, and he seems to be faring secondbest, when he gets a suggestion from a woodpecker. And here comes in a passage where the Indian legend partakes more directly than in any other instance, of the character of the Heathen Mythology proper. This attempt to account for a natural appearance, is in the true spirit of that Mythology. The woodpecker tells Hiawatha that the only place where he can hurt Megissogwin is by the tuft on the crown of his head, and shooting there, the magi

cian is killed.

Then the grateful Hiawatha
Called the Mama, the woodpecker;
From his perch among the branches
Of the melancholy pine-tree,
And, in honor of his service,

Stained with blood the tuft of feathers
On the little head of Mama;
Even to this day he wears it,
Wears the tuft of crimson feathers,
As a symbol of his service.

Hiawatha gets married, and there is a grand feast, at which, many things are said and eaten-none of them particularly good. Various public-spirited measures occupy the remainder of Hiawatha's life; there is a famine, Minnehaha dies, the white man comes, Hiawatha goes, and so ends the poem.

very verge of the fantastic, it seldom goes over. They are a people's religion. Often curious rather than admirable; they are as often beautiful with the real truth of nature, and instances may be cited where they are terrible. Thinking thus, we must believe them to be the best possible material for poetry. We would wish to be understood, then, as merely entertaining the opinion, that when those legends fall into the hands of a poet, his task should not end with their versification. When an author who has attained a reputation as one of the first poets of his time, undertakes a work like the present we expect him to do more than to either collocate or retell stories that he found told; for these are in a manner, but the works of an editor. In their present form, suggesting rather than presenting high thought, we expect him to bring out their full capacity in that way: we expect him to give them a new life, and if not to inform them entirely with his own spirit, at least to somewhat vivify them with his own imagination. This point of imagination is one upon which Professor Longfellow is somewhat inconsistent. In one view, as we have already said, the poem appears to be based on the supposition that the Indian stories are crudities. Here the appearance is different. Our author seems, in this view, to have thought the stories perfect in themselves; to have thought, how truly perhaps we need not say, that any efforts of his own would have stained their pure simplicity, and consequently has exercised his imagination only upon the rarest possible occasions.

"Lazy Kwasind!" said his mother,
"In my work you never help me!
In the Summer you are roaming
Idly in the fields and forests;
In the Winter you are cowering
O'er the firebrands in the wigwam!
In the coldest days of Winter
I must break the ice for fishing;
With my nets you never help me!
At the door my nets are hanging,
Dripping, freezing with the water;
Go and wring them, Yenadizze!
Go and dry them in the sunshine!"
Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind
Rose, but made no angry answer;
From the lodge went forth in silence,
Took the nets, that hung together,
Dripping, freezing at the doorway,
Like a wisp of straw he wrung them,
Like a wisp of straw he broke them,
Could not wring them without breaking,
Such the strength was in his fingers.

This poem appears to be based upon the supposition that the Indian legends in themselves, and as they appear in Mr. Schoolcraft's work, are crudities; which belief we could have admitted for the sake of the poem if the author had consistently held it throughout. But he seems to have thought them crudities only in their fragmentary character; and that is his mistake. The truth is, that Mr. Longfellow has become too much accustomed to making such books as the " Waif," and the " Estray." The trick sticks in his fingers. Mr. Schoolcraft's Indian writings are somewhat voluminous; but such traditions and fanciful stories as appear in the notes to the Song of Hiawatha, culled from the mass, written in the simplest and purest prose, and published alone, as it would certainly make one of the most acceptable books ever presented, so do we think it would make one infinitely more agreeable than the present volume, to the large majority of readers of taste. Let us not be misunderstood here. We think the legends highly poetical. The material of the Song of Hiawatha is comparatively new, and is almost unexceptionably good. It partakes in a very high degree of the romantic and imaginative elements and its want of order appears in such a peculiar manner that it comes rather as a charm than otherwise. These stories are the imaginations, the hopes, the fears of a people of whom we may say that but little is known; and they hint strangely at the experience of the human heart and mind in the darkness, showing, as they do, that if the heart sometimes grovelled in unworthy places, the groping mind sometimes "touched God's right hand." They are a world of fancies without the principle of gravitation-without any controlling laws; yet if, in its strange flights, thought here sometimes goes to the

him to claim it. Though "the time has been here, to the world be it known, when all a man sailed by or saw was his own; that time has happily passed. Property, in poetry at least, is pretty well defined.

Leaving what he has not done -we can say that what Mr. Longfellow has seen fit to do, is done well enough, and certainly no more. In clearness and simplicity, oftentimes bizarrerie, the style, will vie we doubt not with its Indian original. We have before regretted the infrequency of the author's own imaginings. When they do appear, however, they are of the very best.

And the thunder in the mountains,

Whose innumerable echoes,

Flap like eagles in their Eyries.

And the fog lay on the river

Like a ghost that goes at sunrise.

There has been no poem published in a very long while to whose author these ideas would not do honor; but it is quite impossible to find in the whole three hundred pages a fourth passage worthy to stand beside them. In the place of imagination, we have ingenuity, and instead of such passages as the above, such lines as these-which however excellent in an Indian dictionary are only curious elsewhere:

Maling, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa,
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet
And the grape vine, the Bemahgut,
Saw the pike, the Maskenozba--
And the Thawgashee, the craw fish-
Yes, the brook, the Sebowiska-
Yes, the Opechee, the robin
Said to Ugudwash, the sun fish
But the ghost, the Jeebi in him-
Then Waywassimo, the lightning
By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs
Like the burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she-
Passed the swan, the Mahnabbezee
The white goose, Waw-be-wawa
Cooed the Omeuie the pigeon.

Such lines are given and repeated in the poem to an extent that would scarcely seem credible to one who has not read it. Once upon a time an Indian was taken sick, and though he commenced immediately to tell what ailed him, and lived for some time after, the length of the word descriptive of his illness was such, that, added to a slight impediment in his speech he died at about the middle; the tradition is that he wanders for ever through the spirit-land vainly endeavoring to utter that fatal word. His ghost must have haunted Professor Longfellow. We would suppose, otherwise that the principle in relation to Indian names was too clear

to be misunderstood. We apprehend there is no poetry in the mere circumstance that a magician was characterized by Megíssogwon or any other unpronounceable word; though there might be a great deal in knowing why he was so characterized-in resolving the word into its elements, or in otherwise getting at the idea involved. Thus we cannot find much poetry in knowing that there is a river in Maine called the Kenenbeck. But when we learn that this word (kenabeek) means a serpent, then we see some poetry in the name as applied to the river. If we knew, in the same manner, why the word had been originally applied to the serpent we might see some in relation to him.

The canto entitled The Ghosts, will give the best general idea of the poem, though we think the one of The Four Winds the most highly poetical. We extract the principal portion of the former, and in order that our remarks may be more clearly understood, we shall say of that, whatever we would say of the general character of the whole; and in this there will be no injustice, for that division is, so to speak, the poem in little. Nokomis and Minnehaha were sitting, at evening, around the wigwam fire: Then the curtain of the doorway From without was slowly lifted; Brighter glowed the fire a moment, And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath, As two women entered softly, Passed the doorway uninvited, Without word of salutation, Without sign of recognition, Sat down in the farthest corner, Crouching low among the shadows.

From their aspect and their garments,
Strangers seemed they in the village;
Very pale and haggard were they,
As they sat there sad and silent,"
Trembling, cowering with the shadows.
Was it the wind above the smoke flue,
Muttering down into the wigwam?
Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,
Hooting from the dismal forest?
Sure a voice said in the silence:
"These are corpses clad in garmen's,

These are ghosts that come to haunt you,
From the kingdom of Ponemah,

From the land of the Hereafter!" Hiawatha returns from hunting and throws his game at the feet of Minnehaha

Then he turned and saw the strangers,
Cowering, crouching with the shadows;
Said within himself, "Who are they?
What strange guests has Minnehaha ? "
But he questioned not the strangers,
Only spake to bid them welcome
To his lodge, his food, his fireside.

When the evening meal was ready,
And the deer had been divided,
Both the pall d guests, the strangers,
Springing from among the shadows,
Seized upon the choicest portions,
Seized the white fat of the roebuck,
Set apart for Laughing Water,
For the wife of Hiawatha;
Without asking, without thanking,
Eagerly devoured the morsels,
Flitted back among the shadows
In the corner of the wigwain.
Not a word spake Hiawatha,
Not a motion made Nokomis,
Not a gesture Laughing Water;
Not a change came o'er their features;
Only Minnehaha softly

Whispered, saying, "They are famished;
Let them do what best delights thein;
Let them eat for they are famished."

*

Once at midnight Hiawatha,
Ever wakeful, ever watchful,
In the wigwan, dimly lighted

By the brands that still were burning,
By the glimmering. flickering fire-light,
Heard a sighing, oft repeated,
Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow.

From his couch rose Hiawatha,
From his shaggy hides of bison,
Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,
Saw the pallid guests, the shadows.
Sitting upright on their couches,
Weeping in the silent midnight.

And he said; "O guests! why is it That your hearts are so afflicted, That you sob so in the midnight? Has perchance the old Nokomis, Hlas my wife, my Minnehaha, Wronged or grieved you by unkindness, Failed in hospitable duties?"

Then the shadows ceased from weeping, Ceased from sobbing and lamenting,

And they said, with gentle voices:

"We are ghosts of the departed,
Souls of those who once were with you.
From the realms of Chibiabos
Hither have we come to try you,
Hither have we come to warn you.
"Cries of grief and lamentation
Reach us in the Blessed Islands;
Cries of anguish from the living,
Calling back their friends departed,
Sadden us with useless sorrow,
Therefore have we come to try you;
No one knows us, no one beeds us.
We are but a burden to you,
And we see that the departed
Have no place among the living.
"Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people
That henceforward and for ever
They no more with lamentations

Simplicity, and thus are we tempted to inquire whether other sources of the Beautiful are not dependent upon kindred principles."

Knowing from science the number of vibrations, that pertain to each note in music, we have equally ascertained that light and color, also, are the result of vibratory action. We know that each color of the spectrum is produced by a velocity of vibration peculiar to itself, and that each of those colored rays produces a different effect upon chemical substances and the growth of plants. Now, what should these things teach us? Let the same writer answer"Simply this, that as each note acts in a different manner upon the ear, and each color upon the eye, as well as upon all inatter generally, so the effect of each upon the mind, which sympathises with every impress upon the body, must be likewise different, and this independent of habit or association. And thus knowing that the physical effects produced by cach note or ray are different; it follows that a correspondingly diverse effect upon the mind must be produced in mankind generally, else there can be no truth in physiology, and no common basis of sensation. ***The general effect must be the same throughout the world, and will show itself in every one as soon as local prejudice is removed, distracting passion stilled, and the mind poised in equilibrium.”

We proceed now to consider beauty of Form. Sir Isaac Newton was inclined to believe that their were general laws prevailing with respect to the agreeable and unpleasing affections of all our senses. "At least," says he, "the supposition does not derogate from the wisdom and power of God, and seems highly consonant to the simplicity of the macrocosm in general." We have not room to trace through the belief that the Greeks had a knowledge of the laws of proportion, on which evidently the beauty of form mainly depends. It seems to be true. The great difficulty has been to discover these laws of form. Sound has been analysed, and color, as we have already observed, but form for a long time defied investigation. Winckelman says, "Notwithstanding differences of execution, all the old works appear to have been executed by disciples of one and the same school; and it is probable that the Grecian, like the Egyptian artists, had rules by which not only the greater, but the smaller proportions of the body were accurately determined."

Yet his own elaborate researches and those of Miller failed to discover the laws themselves. The idea, however, lingered in the minds of men; and some of the highest names in physics and philosophy express their unhesitating conviction, that the idea of a geometric system of beauty is founded on truth and nature. The attempt to discover such a system has been renewed for the last twenty years or more, by Mr. D. R. Hay. He commenced, like all his predecessors, by trying to find the science of proportions in a linear system, and getting some light he published his views; these in a later work he acknowledges to be erroneous, as his investigations were conducted in the wrong direction. One main point was deeply impressed on his mind, that the laws or principles of form should correspond with those of sound; and as certain definite ratios existed in the relative number of vibrations, which give the three elementary notes of the musical scale, he concluded that similar ratios ought to be found between three elementary principles of figure for form. Carefully pondering the matter, and meditating on the outlines presented, he perceived the curve and the angle, or crooked line, and the straight line. Now, if a bell whose mouth is one foot in diameter be taken, and another whose diameter is half a foot, and both be sounded, the tone of the latter will be found to be the octave of the former. Mr. Hay drew a circle within another of double diameter. Our readers will find it interesting to make a diagram for themselves. Between the circumferences of these two circles, the limits, so to speak of the octave, we ought to find the forms corresponding to the mediant and dominant. Inasmuch as there are twelve semi-tones in the musical octave, he proceeded to divide the exterior circumference into twelve equal parts. From one of these points he drew two lines touching the inner circle, and ending, as the experiment should, in two of the points of the duodecimal section. Joining these two extremities, a perfect equilateral triangle is found circumscribing the smaller circle and inscribing the larger, its ratio to the large circle being precisely the ratio of the vibrations of the mediant to those of the tonic; viz,: 4 to 5, in relative proportional quantity of circumference; thus, it gives the mediant of form. If, from all the other points in the outer circumference, lines are similarly drawn touching the inner circumference, forming as before equilateral triangles, it will be seen when completed, that there results a perfect square, circumscribing the inner circle, and bearing precisely the

same ratio to the outer, as the dominant bears to the tonic. So that we have the circle, the equilateral triangle described as above, and the square so described, as exact correspondences in form to the tonic, mediant, and dominant in sound; the small interior circle representing the octave. Thus, "the three kinds of line, the straight, the crooked, and the curved, are those which combine in producing linear harmony, or the melody of form, as there are no other kinds of lines in nature. Out of these three kinds of lines it has been shown that three equally homogeneous forms arise, and that they likewise occur naturally in musical consonance, in every respect analogous to that of sound."

The scale of the musician, however, contains, besides those three elementary parts, four other of a secondary or intermediate kind, making in all seven. In the scale of the colorist, also, there are the intermediate or secondary hues, orange, green, purple, and neutral gray. It will be requisite, therefore, to the completion of this analogy, that forms be found corresponding to these secondary notes and colors.

In our diagram with the four concentric triangles, describe a hexagon, and the true parallelogram or rectangle will be found, formed by such of the mediant lines as run parallel to one another, and those that form a hexagon within the outer circle. It stands in the same relative quantity to the tonic, that the super-tonic does in the scale of the musician.

The second of these heterogeneous forms is the rhombus. If our diagram is inspected, this figure will be found naturally in the intersections of the mediant lines, inscribed as to two of its angles in the larger circle and circumscribing the smaller. This answers to sub-dominant of the musician. The third of the secondaries is the only form that does not arise naturally between the circular tonic and its octave. It is the ellipsis. The observations on this figure are too long; we must refer our readers to Mr. Hay's work on The Natural Principles and Analogy of the Harmony of Form. It is placed in the position of the sub-mediant.

The fourth, which is the hexagon, arises naturally out of the intersections of the mediaut line, and will be found in our diagram circumscribing the inner circle. It answers to the sub-tonic. We would recommend those who draw the diagrams we have suggested to repeat them for each illustration, in hair lines, and marking out the several figures with heavy lines. This will make them distinet, and they will be found very interesting. The relative proportions, it may be well to remark, will be found in the length of the respective circumscribing lines.

Mr. Hay finds a scale arising out of the secondary forms in the general series, in which the ellipsis takes the place of the circle, the rhombus of the triangle, and the parallelogram becomes the dominant. From the secondary arises a third series. On these we have not space to enter.

We have perhaps occupied too much time in the statement of the above facts, but find our excuse in this, that we are not writing a strict philosophical treatise, but rather culling and criticising for our readers benefit. What we have had space to give is eminently suggestive, and may lead some minds, which have not yet received their philosophic bent, to pursue more fully this as yet scarcely trodden path. To the purpose of our own article it is quite germane. Mr. Hay shows that the third series of forms may be distinctly recognized in the Parthenon at Athens; whether thus, from a knowledge of the laws constructed, or merely by the natural genius of the designer. Of the Parthenon, he gives a diagram, showing how the principles he asserts apply. Now it must be allowed that the elements of harmony are transcendently displayed in this noble structure-this harmony of outline is found to depend upon geometric laws. What conclusion can we draw, but that beauty depends on definite and ascertainable laws? It therefore depends in its form, we say not in its inner meaning, not only upon the universal opinion, the quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, but can be pronounced upon by the savant with his measuring line and compasses in hand.

In his work on Proportion, Mr. Hay has succeeded in analysing the geometric principle of beauty proportion-by showing that it is regulated by the harmonic ratios of numbers. And by the application of those ratios to a quadrant of the circle, he has shown "that an almost infinite series of rectan gles may be produced, bearing to one another, certain harmonious relations; and that within each of those, a series of six other distinctive characters of figures may be systematically and harmoniously generated. In short, that the beauty arising from

the harmony of form may be, on all occasions, with certainty produced.”.

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Angular harmony is the basis of his speculations. Angles are the essence, the developing and shaping power of forms; and lines are only the result and index of their operations; so that, although a system of linear proportion, if men knew how to apply it, is not devoid of truth, yet it must always be infinitely less certain, and more complex, than one based upon angular proportion.

The theory stands thus:-" A figure is pleasing to the eye, in proportion as its fundamental angles bear to one another the same ratios that the vibrations bear to one another in the series of natural harmo

nies; and that, as the whole science of musical harmony is based upon the notes produced by the simple divisions into which the monochord spontaneously resolves itself (namely, 1-2, 1-3, 1-5, 1-7, with their octaves, 14, 1-6, &c.); so the science of form is based upon the angles produced by a similar division of the circle, or its quadrant."

The Institute of Architects in England appointed Mr. Penrose to report upon Mr. Hay's "Orthography of the Parthenon." The result of his investigations was published in "The Builder" of June 4th, 1854. From this it appears, that over the whole of the large surface of the façade, the theory holds so astonishingly true, that only in two places do the actual and theoretic proportions differ more than "half aninch!" The principal front of this building is constituted of three leading compartments: the columnar portion, the columns and entablature, and the tympanum. According to Mr. Hay's theory, the rectangle, which would inscribe the whole building, was found to be a rectangle of 1-3; the columns and entablature form a rectangle of 1-4, the columnar portion a rectangle of 1-5, and the tympanum gives an angle of 1-7 of the quadrant, or right angle. The operation of similar principles-namely, the having the fundamental angle of each component part a simple fraction of the right angle, and consequently all of these angles bearing to one another harmonious proportions, may be traced in every part of the edifice, whether rectilinear or eurvilinear.

But not only do these principles apply in architectural constructions-they have been proved, by actual measurement, to be equally true of the highest beauty of the human form-the Venuses, Apollos, and Hercules. The fundamental angle is found to be the determination of the form, male or female.

Of course, it will not be supposed that these principles could of themselves give the idea of the Parthenon, or the Venus di Medici; they only aid genius in the expression of its idea,

The argument from these views is so precisely similar to what has been used before from Sound

and Color, that it is not necessary to repeat it. To every one it must be evident, that beauty depends

on definite laws.

In our next and concluding number of this series, we purpose to consider Ideal Beauty, and to state our theory of the mind's perception, and realization of its significance.

Histoire des Français des divers Etats, ou Histoire de France, aux cing derniers Siicles, par A. A. MONTEIL. Quatrime Edition, augmentée d'une notice historique par M. J. Janin, et d'une table analytique par M. Bruguière. 5 vols. in 120. Victor Lecon, Libraire, 10 rue du Bouloi.

The wittiest of Frenchmen wrote to a friend, about a hundred years ago," Rien n'est plus difficile à Paris, que d'attraper, sans s'ennuyer, le bout de la journée." Nothing is more difficult than to reach the end of the day without ennui. This is true in a certain degree of Paris, as of other cities of our acquaintance. For one man of leisure, who knows how to occupy himself, and to be useful, there are ten to whom exist ence is a perfect inutility. Why are they alive? What do they do? What do they think? We cannot tell-they cannot tell themselves little idea have they, that they are in the world to think or to do something. Their days are very much alike: to satisfy the wants of nature, to inform themselves of the changes in the fashion or the weather, seek empty pleasures with more pains than others perform useful and durable works, and always to yawn! This is what they call sustaining the dignity of human reason. Extraordinary events, revolutions, social earthquakes are necessary to arouse them from their egotistical torpor. We have had these, and this class of unworking individuals, better suited to the subterranean palaces of Egypt, than to a world where every thing is in movement and agitation, is less numerous now than formerly; there is less talking, less laughing, less trifling; more thought, more business, more working, in these days, than of old. There is haste to live now-circumstances are im