LETTERS FROM NEW YORK.

NEW-YORK, Feb. 14, 1851.

host of the Astor House), with toasts and speeches to match. They rush to the banquet as the horse to the battle.

But, not to grow metaphysical, I merely intended to give you a sketch of some of the public festivities, with which our "village" has been I believe no people on earth have a more des- enlivened, since I last had the pleasure of whisperate passion for pageants and celebrations pering a little of our Gotham gossip into your than we New-Yorkers. Not that the social ele-hospitable ear.

ment, properly so called, holds a very high place The Printers' Festival in celebration of Frankin the hearts of our mercurial burghers, for leav-lin's Birth Day blooms somewhat the freshest in ing out party politics, fancy stocks, the opera, my memory, and fearing to bore such excellent and the latest scandal, I have never noticed that friends as your long-suffering readers with what any subject seemed to be of sufficient importance they may have already seen in print, I will only to call forth any great degree of conversational give you an incident or two of that, and leave enthusiasm. We love to see each other when the rest to "imagination's airy wing." dressed for a fashionable party, we love to meet The peculiar feature of this occasion was the on occasions of wild excitement whether at a number of distinguished literary men, who were horse-race, the debut of a new prima-donna, the present as invited guests, and several of whom church of a reverend and popular Velvet Mor- took part in the after-dinner performances of the phine, or the soiree of a fresh aspirant for the evening. I have seldom seen a public gathering honors of Upper Tendom, where the guests have which combined such a number of "men of as much elbow room as the herrings in a box; mark," who owed their distinction to their gebut the free and earnest communication of ideas, nius and not to their length of purse or official the elegant badinage, and the exercise of the fly-station. Conspicuous on the stage, during the ing artillery of the tongue, which we are assured literary exercises, was Washington Irving, who, by all our travelled friends form such a charm in residing in the country, and still maintaining the the best European society, are not in high odor, retired habits of a studious man, is not often seen as a general thing, in the reunions, where our in our streets, nor found to grace our public fesmen and women of gregarious tastes do most tivals. I was rejoiced to see that he bore no congregate. I believe we are afraid of being pe- traces of the ill health, from which he has been dants and old fogèes, though I confess there is suffering through the summer, but had recovered the slightest possible reason for the apprehension. the robust and prosperous appearance, which is I have no sort of dread that we shall ever become in such admirable keeping with his healthy intedious through too much wisdom, or lose our tellect. His face was benignant and sunny as originality from excess of culture. ever, showing not the slightest diminution of the But the promise of a new spectacle or public fine humor and quaint fancies which lurk in his gathering always gives us a genuine inspiration. expressive features, no less than on the living The memory of our great men is revered with a pages, in which his genius so gracefully plays at new flush of veneration about the time that the hide-and-seek with the admiring reader. I was anniversary of their birth comes round. If we not sorry that he made no attempt at a speech have a fresh importation of some patriotic mar- during the banquet. There were ready wits tyr from Hungary or South America, nothing enough for that, without tempting him to an efcan show the profound sympathy with which our fort, which is wide of his sphere. hearts are bursting but a public reception with Near Washington Irving, on the front seats speeches and gas-lights. If a new invention is put- of the stage, were Bryant, Halleck, and Dr. ting money in the purse of some enterprising busi- Francis, the facetious and enthusiastic Nestor ness house, their notoriety is increased and their of the medical profession in this city. No gratitude manifested by a festival to the author, at which venison and champague attracts our men of genius afar off, and wit and eloquence combine to weave the greenest laurels for the brow of the lucky inventor. Or if it is desired to show off the paces of an eminent statesman, or hold the candle to a shrewd diplomatist, or back up a quaking politician whose caoutchouc arrangement in place of spine needs stiffening, nothing is so available as a grand dinner in the most artistic style of our incomparable Stetson, (your, genial

man has a more sincere taste for all good things in literature than the venerable Doctor, and had he not cultivated such a passion for the administering of calomel, and the use of the lancet, among an untold host of patients who have departed this life under his refreshing auspices, he would no doubt have gained no mean reputation among the authors of this country himself. As it is he contents his mind with the liveliest sympathy with everything new and beautiful in literature, and a most naive and childlike reverence

for those who have attained the honors of intellectual eminence.

The charmed circle was completed by the presence of Mr. G. P. R. James, who came in I can never take delight in the appearance of at a late hour, and was received with the ardent Mr. Bryant in public, and being one of the sin-welcome which we Yorkers are more in the cerest admirers of his poetry, I may as well habit of paying to celebrated Englishmen than tell you this first as last. No one would suspect of enjoying from them in return. James, howthe real kindness of his nature under the vinegar ever, made an excellent speech at the dinneraspect which is his favorite expression in society. table, speaking with earnestness, fervor and sinHe does not appear abstracted and lost in thought, cerity, paying a warm tribute to some of the as might be expected from one who had watched leading names in American literature, and parting the flight of the Waterfowl, and communed with company entirely from the "two horsemen" the visions of Thanetopsis, on the contrary, he whom he has so often trotted out in his novels to seems to have all his wits about him; looking like the mute and gaping bewilderment of his readers. the sharp and eager politician, determined to The banquet passed off at length, as all banlose no advantage, and capable of being suffi-quets do, neither the wine nor the eloquence imciently vindictive to make a personal collision proving at the close, though in this case I ought with him by no means a desirable amusement. At the same time, you would suppose that he possessed an excessive hauteur, and was so well satisfied with himself as to make the presence of all others, whether men or angels, an absolute superfluity. This shyness and reserve are often very annoying to those who have admired him at a distance, and who wish to form a more intimate acquaintance with the hero of their imagination. Still those who know him well are sure that a kinder or better man does not live, and ascribe the infelicities of his manner entirely to a sensitive temperament and to early habits of solitude, of which his subsequent varied intercourse with the great world has not been able to neutralise the influence. I can vouch to you for the correctness of this opinion, or I should not have spoken so freely of the repulsive points of a man of genius whom I inwardly so much honor.

not to speak of wine, as there was no beverage more potent than sparkling Croton,—and wound up in a general dance, by which the hours were made merry until the dawn of the next day. And by this time, I fear you will wish that the good Benjamin Franklin had never been born at all, if you must not only celebrate his birth days, but be served with a cold collation of the festive baked meats."

Among the numerous public lectures the past month, I have heard none of equal interest with those of the Artists' Course, of which three only have been delivered. This Course was established at the instance of several of our eminent artists, with a view to increasing the public interest in the subject of Art, and at the same time of eliciting a profound discussion of its principles. Thus far, it has been eminently successful, both as regards the merit of the lectures and the charThe same reproach certainly could not be acter of the audiences. The attendance, as you brought against Halleck, who sitting side by may suppose, has not been thronged, but comside, with his brother poet, presented a striking prising the élite of the town, in point of culture contrast in his genial, rubicund visage, and his and intelligence, has been such as to stimulate general air of radiant good fellowship. Near the ambition of the lecturer, and to reward him this group were President King of Columbia with an enlightened appreciation. The introCollege, who bears in his look the great commis- ductory lecture was by Henry James, Esq., a sion of supporting the dignity of letters,-Rufus gentleman of large fortune, elegant tastes, geneW. Griswold, evidently in search of an Ameri-rous cultivation and a singularly bold and origican writer, with whose life to refresh his own nal intellect. Uniting the charms of a racy punlaurels, Freeman Hunt, the popular editor of gency of expression, with an impressive and methe Merchant's Magazine, who never lost the ebance of collecting a fact in statistics or helping a friend in distress, one half of his face drawn up with the acuteness of a business-man, and the other melting with the benevolence of a philanthropist, G. P. Putnam, the modest bibliopole, proud of the beauty of his editions, and the eminent names on their title-pages,-B. G. Lossing, the exquisite engraver, and author of the "Pictorial Field Book," and the Rev. Mr. Chapin, every line of his intelligent face beaming with charity and benign enthusiasm.

lodious elocution, few men are more capable of elevating an audience to the mountain heights of abstract thought, or leading them to soar with him through the boundless empyrean of ærial speculation.

Without pretending to give you a full account of his lecture, I will condense a few of his leading thoughts into as small a space as possible, leaving you and your readers to form your own opinion of their soundness.

The subject, as stated by Mr. James, was the Nature of Art. Not the principles of any spe

cific Art, but the principle of universality in all identity of this soul in my body and in other Art, that which makes the poet, the musician, bodies, is the ground of all sympathy between the sculptor an Artist, and thus commends him to me and universal nature. The splendor of the the homage of mankind. The sphere of Art is morning and evening landscape, the fragrance the sphere of man's spontaneous activity,-as dis- of flowers, and the melody of birds, are not subtinguished from his natural activity, imposed by stantial things having their root in themselves. his physical necessities, and his moral activity They are merely expressions of a certain relaimposed by his obligations to his fellow men. tion between me and nature, of a certain unity A true work of Art accordingly, in every case, between my soul and the infinite soul of involves its own end or is complete in itself. things. The landscape is not glorious to itself; Whatever work of man does not come under nor the flower fragrant, nor the bird melodious; this distinction falls without the sphere of Art. they are severally glorious, fragrant and melodiIt may be a work of surpassing cleverness; it ous only to me. The fragrance of the rose, the may greatly excel the work of every other man splendor of the landscape, the melody of the in the same line; but it is not a work of Art. It bird, are only an overt sacrament or communion is at best only a fair copy of Nature and always between my soul and their soul, between the Diremains inferior to the original. Xeuxis may vinity in me and the Divinity in them. Because paint natural effects better than Turner. He may one soul animates all things, we never come into give you such miraculous distances and so em- outward contact without our inward unity flashbathe his foliage with the tender freshness of the ing forth in these delicious surprises. dawn that you could swear he knew the very heart of nature and could utter all her secrets at will. But this does not make him an Artist. It is an irreverance shown to Art, a wrong done to its infinite significance, to call a man Artist, But I will not attempt to serve you with small merely because he is a first-rate painter, or sculp- fragments of a performance, which to be fully tor, or poet. This designation betokens a wholly appreciated should be received in the integral inadequate view of the subject. Art has no more symmetry in which it was presented by the plasnecessary connexion with one form of activity tic eloquence of the author. You perceive that than another. It has no respect of persons. It it was pervaded with a lofty Platonic idealism. commits itself to no specialities. It is a univer- and tinctured with the finest essence both of sal life, manifesting itself in every form of human action, but never compromised by any.

Hence whatever be the executive talent or craftmanship of the Artist, if he propose any thing at all in his performances beyond the bare revelation of beauty,-beauty which knows no statute books, and is unconferred in any formulas, and is the appanage of no persons, but in truth, pervades the Universe like a vital Deity, deluging the soul with unexpected enchantments, he falsifies his mission, offers up strange fire which Art has not commanded and all the Academies of the earth cannot shield him from swift perdition.

The principle of Universality in Art then, or that which makes Art an infinite and universal life, is invention, individuality or the power of giving outward form to purely inward conceptions. Every work of Art embodies an idea, and so confesses its distinctively human genesis. Art is the expression of Humanity. To make the ideal actual is the function of the Artist.

What the Artist does for us, is not to repeat some laborious dogma learned of nature, or the visible universe, but to show nature every where pregnant with human meaning. His business, in a word, is to glorify man in nature. All our sensible experience proceeds upon the fact of an infinite and therefore omnipresent soul or life within us. The

The Artist is saturated with this sentiment of universal unity, this intensely human unity, which binds all nature together.

Fichte and Schilling, absorbing the best elements of each and reconciling their antithesis in a higher unity, although in justice to Mr. James, I ought to say, that as he is far more a man of reflection and contemplation than of erudition, he probably has never studied either of the systems alluded to. No one can call in question his commanding originality, in the sense that he draws from his own mind and not from books, whatever judgment may be passed on the truth or value of his conclusions.

The second lecture was by Mr. George W. Curtis, a young gentleman of fine accomplishments and superior intellectual ability, who has lately returned from a residence of several years abroad, devoted to travelling in the most interesting countries of Europe and the East, and to a critical study of Art in its favorite climes.

His subject was the state of contemporary Art in Europe, with a view to illustrating the fact, that we do not live too late for Art, and that when Raphael aud Michel Angelo were laid in their graves, their God was not dethroned. The moon that fulled last week was not fairer or fresher over the siege of Troy, and the dawn to-day was as delicate and clear as any old Egyptian morning that awakened Memuon to

into fruit, but still paints its pure petals unbudding.

music. What is true of Nature is forever true of Art. If the power that daily recreates the one is exhaustless, it is the same unfailing genius that One of your rarest Roman experiences will illustrates the other. But we speak of the old be your visit to his studio. It is in the palace of masters as if Art died with them, leaving nothing the father of Beatrice Cenci, that in the lofty for modern taste but endless imitation. It is a shaded room you will behold a form in a long splendid homage to the genius of that day that black robe, with a loosely falling velvet cap on its mere name is sufficient to ensure unquestion- his head, like that in Raphael's portraits. His ing respect. And the dealers in the works of head is bowed as if the long habit of prayer, and the "Old Masters" well understand and drive a the perpetual reverential mood of his mind, would profane trade by humoring a high instinct-sating not allow him to stand erect. A few gray hairs with gin a thirst that craves ambrosia, but which escape from under the cap and cluster around the unhappily knows not its taste. pallid face, whose features are sharpened as if This feeling is most natural among a people with intensity of religious adoration. His hands entirely without traditions or monuments of Art, are clasped and hanging before him as he stands eager to lavish fame and reverently receiving with his head slightly bent to one side, contemfames which were beyond cavil before that peo- plating one of his own pictures. Not more enple was. No old fame is so fair in Europe as amored was Pygmalion of the voluptuous beauty in America. The necessities of American life he had carved, than is Overbech of the celestial lead us more or less away from Art, and as we loveliness which he has drawn. It is clear to see therefore have no large class of cultivated and artistic persons, we hear and know less of the famous artists, and they sit in our imaginations invested with an ideal glory.

the pathetic joy of his soul, that he, the utterly unworthy, was elected to manifest the beauty of holiness, in the representation of the person and history of Christ.

It is foolish to chide this tendency however He stands entirely alone, and has no more we may regret it. You should as soon scold a sympathy with the trivial travestie of the prechild for preferring a French engraving to Ra-Raphaelisque School in England, than with the phael's Transfiguration, as an American for this overweening love of large names.

This tendency to a faith that the art of painting died in the year 1576, when Titian is recorded to have been buried in the Church of Santa Maria in Venice, is of a sadder seriousness when it infects Artists themselves. He who by virtue of his election, as a Priest of Beauty, should forever look upward and seeing and feeling the sun, know that Beauty was yet as Beautiful, that therefore Art was called to as noble a work as

ever.

French fire of Horace Vernet. He is the last great painter of the Roman Catholic inspiration that the world will ever see, and the chivalrous loyalty to the dead monarch is as lovely as the homage to the living king.

cussion of the nature of artistic inspiration, which he supposes to be an inherent element in the Artist's soul, and not an arbitrary afflatus breathed in at hap-hazard from external sources.

The third lecture of the course was delivered last Monday evening by Parke Godwin, Esq. The subject was the Philosophy of Art, which he treated in a spirit of profound speculation, enlivened with numerous happy turns of wit, and a profusion of quaint and humorous illustraMr. Curtis pursued this train of thought at tions. A striking passage occurred in his disconsiderable length and with great force and beauty of illustration, but I have no space to go into detail with my imperfect account. He then gave a series of graphic sketches of some of the principal living artists, Overbeck, Kaulbach, There was a period, said he, in Germau literaHorace Vernet, Turner and others. I must ture, when these false views of inspiration prerecall a few passages in his description of Over- vailed, when Art was regarded as a sudden, pebeck. culiar, mysterious communication, vouchsafed At this moment, said he, Overbeck is the only to a few, and disdaining every terrestrial greatest painter permanently residing in Italy. method as well as aim. It was called the Genie His position in Art is one of the phenom- -or the genius period-and it prevailed for a ena of its history. Overbeck is belated in while, like any other infatuation or disease. The the world at least 300 years. He dropped out victims of it were mostly hirsute and shirtless of his proper sphere and Nature has thrown him young men, who were the particular spite of in anywhere, unwilling to lose a genuine gift. destiny, against which they waged incessant batHe is the Rip Van Winkle of Art, and gossips tle of words and groans, while their souls were of three centuries ago as we do of yesterday. afflicted with strange woes. Deeply dreaming in the sweet sleep of that ear- Goethe's Werter was an excellent type of this lier age, he knows not that the flower is ripening class, save that few of them had energy enough

to commit suicide except in thought, while their real end was in the wine cellar. Byron's meteoric success too generated some fellows of the same sort soft headed young chaps who went about with their collars down and their eyes up, talking of the ingratitude of the world and their own unutterable distress; and finally, when both gin and the patience of their friends were exhausted, either settled down into respectable tradesmeu or went honestly into the poor-house.

Mr. Godwin's lecture was delivered in the Hall of the National Academy of Design, which with numerous specimens of art on the walls, and with a large and brilliant audience, produced a truly æsthetic effect, such as we do not often experience in the dingy and inconvenient Hope Chapels and Stuyvesant Institutes, which form our most usual resorts for Apollo and the Muses.

THE SELDENS OF SHERWOOD.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departed friend.

Shakspeare.

It was towards the close of the evening, and all the family at Sherwood had assembled in the parlor, around the fire, for the purposes of social enjoyment. There was a pleasant air of cheerfulness in the faces of the whole group, but none wore so bright an air of unclouded enjoyment as those of Arthur and Mary. Their natural temperament disposed them to view all things en coleur de rose, and their happiness was now heightI am happy to be able to announce to you that ened by the growth of strong and mutual love; the edifice for the Astor Library is rapidly ad- their love had expanded rapidly like a bright sumvancing, and will probably be completed within mer flower beneath the genial influences of balmy a year from this time. The indefatigable libra- air and sunshine. without doubts, fears, suspirian, Mr. Cogswell, has devoted himself to the cions or anxieties to chill or blight it. The hiswelfare of the institution with an uncommon tory of such an affection as that of Arthur and union of wisdom and enthusiasm. As an ac- Mary could never have been spun out in a volcomplished bibliographist, he is surpassed by no ume by the novelist, or have furnished forth a man in this country. The subject has been a volume of sonnets for the poet, but it was not passion with him from early life. He has en- the less a source of heartfelt happiness to themjoyed peculiar opportunities for its cultivation. selves. They had "never said they loved," yet It is a fortunate thing for the cause of knowledge it was quite apparent that they understood each in this city. that the charge of the library has other perfectly, and Mr. and Mrs. Selden observfallen into such excellent hands. Mr. Cogswelled their attachment with pleasure and approbais a model of industry and perseverance, of sin- tion. Mary's admiration for intellect and cultigularly courteous and winning manners, a con-vation had given a new stimulus to Arthur's ennoisseur in every thing that relates to books, and ergies of mind, and even Reginald remarked his possessing a knowledge of literary history, of rapid intellectual improvement during the last authors and their productions, both living and few months. dead, that makes him as much at home in the There was a shade of thought on the brows alcoves of a library, as a patriarch at the fireside of Margaret and Virginia; their seats were drawn surrounded with his children and grandchildren. close together, a little apart from the rest of the He is on the eve of sailing a second time to Eu- company, and they were carrying on a low and rope, for the purpose of selecting new purchases earnest conversation; but from the sweetness to the thirty thousand volumes (nearly) which and gentleness of their tones, it might be gaththe Library now contains. It is intended that it ered that they were words of harmony and love shall comprise at least fifty thousand volumes, which they uttered. It had been some days since when it is opened to the public in the summer of Virginia had expressed to her sister all that she 1852. The books are all in substantial and ele- felt upon hearing of her engagement to Gerald gant bindings, and include many costly volumes Devereux, her distress at the idea of parting with seldom to be met with, especially in the depart-her, her mortification at finding that she preferments of Natural History. A visit to the rooms red Gerald Devereux to herself, and her wounded in Bond street, where they are deposited until feeling at Margaret's reserve upon this subject to the completion of the edifice, is one of the richest herself, who had never concealed a thought or treats that can be offered to a literary amateur, feeling from Margaret. particularly if he has the good fortune to make the acquaintance of the accomplished librarian.

Y. Z. X.

Margaret had urged Virginia to make this confession, for she knew that she could not throw off the load that oppressed her heart without her aid; that she wanted assurances from her of unaltered