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“THIS IS ‘TRUE LIBERTY, WHEN FREEBORN MEN—HAVING TO ADVISE THE PUBLIC, MAY SPEAK FREE.” —Evnipiprs.

[No. 45.

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THE WATER LILY.

Burthened with a cureless sorrow, Came I to the river deep; Weary, hopeless of the morrow, Seeking but a place to weep; Sparkling onwards, full of gladness, Each sun-crested wavelet flew, Mocking my deep-hearted sadness, Till I sickened at the view. Then I left the sunshine golden For the gloomy willow-shade, Desolate and aaloholdes: There my fainting limbs I laid. And I saw a water lily Resting in its trembling bed, On the drifting waters chilly ; With its petals white outspread. Pillowed there it lay securely, Moving with the moving wave, Up to heaven gazing pnrely, From the river’s gloomy grave. As I looked, a burst of glory Fell upon the snowy flower, And the lessoned allegory Learned I in the blessed hour:— ‘Thus does Faith, divine, indwelling, Sear the soul o’er life’s cold stream, Though the gloomy billows swelling, Evermore still darker seem. Yet the treasure never sinketh, Though the waves around it roll, And the moisture that it drinketh, Nurtures, purifies the soul. Thus aye looking up to Heaven Should the white and calm soul be, Gladden in the sunshine given, Nor from the clouds shrink fearfully. So I turned, my weak heart strengthened, Patiently to bear my woe; Praying, as the sorrow lengthened, My endurance too might grow. And my earnest heart beseeching Charmed away the sense of pain ; So the lily’s silent teaching Was not given to me in vain.

LONELY AGE.

The gate is swinging frdm the hasp, The garden plat shrinks, less and less,

Mid weed and seed, and things that clasp All beauty in their hideousness ;

The wildness seems to grow and grow,

» However late on long I strive ;

There’s nothing blooms! It was not so

When Ellen was alive!

i be neighbours for a time were kind, And rarely passed without a word ; But they who grieve have friends to find! And sorrow tires when often heard ! So by another path they go Across the brook, beyond the hive, And few come near:—it was not s0 Vhen Ellen was alive!

SONG. The stars are climbing up the hill, Like footseps of the night: And, like a child, the little rill is Runs whimpering out of sight. ft is an hour when love hath birth— When hands and hearts are given ; An hour when stars are nearer earth, And lovers nearer heaven !

When visions of the future glow, Despite the world’s control ; And whispers musical and low Steal softly o’er the soul! An hour. all other moments worth, That life hath ever given ; When heaven’s own stars’are nearer arth, And lovers nearer heaven!

een

A gentleman who did not live very hapiily, with his wife, on the maid telling him that she wasgoing to give her mistress warning, as she kept scoldng her from morning till night; “ Happy girl!” said the master, “[ wish Teould give warning too.”

_ ORIGINAL LITERATURE,

OBSERVATIONS ON PAINTING, ADDRESSED ‘FO A FRIEND. NO. IN,

I am not surprised that you should at present consider the Imagination to have less to do with Painting than with Poetry, but I feel confident you will eventually change your opinion; a just perception and feeling of the beauties of Poetry are, however, quite requisite to the enjoyment of Painting, and indeed form the proba- tion through which we must pass, before the higher ex- cellencies of Painting can be perceived.

You say that Painting is of necessity less imaginative than Poetry, because the Artist must either express his Ideas of the grand and beaatiful by the representation of natural objects, or must lapse into the grotesque and the absurd ; while, on the other hand, the Poet can, at will, transport us out of this “Work-day world,” and make us forget the proportions, and attributes of sublu- nary nature. I suspect you have lately been reading Shakespeare.

“The Poet's eye, ina fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from Heaven to Earth, from Earth to Heaven,

And as Imagination bodies forth

The form of things unknown, the Poet’s pen

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing

A Jocal habitation and a name.”

Ihave no wish to detract from the merits of the eye, the imagination, and the pen, described in the above superb lines, which I have read oftener then I can re- ‘member, and always with renewed enthusiasin and de- light; but before we decide that the Poet is more highly favoured than the Painter, let us examine the materials ‘of which the best of our Poetrical works consist.

We will take, ifyou please, the [liad of Homer, which | has not often been surpassed, either in grandeur or | beauty ; the subject of it is the anger of Achilles.

“Achilles wrath to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered, heavenly Goddess sing, That wrath which hurled te Plutos’ gloomy reign, The souls of mighty Chiefs untimely slain.? Porr’s Homer. | Now it is certain that anger and its attendant evils!

are by no means out of the ordinary course of nature, |

they are, unhappily, as common as frequent recurrence | can render them; but, notwithstanding this, we know| and feel, that the Iliad is, as a Poem, infinitely superior, to the “Jerusalem Delivered,” of Tasso, which last is| fgunded upon a subject as magnificent and imposing as, any that the imagination can conceive. It is generally | admitted that two of the most beautiful passages in the ‘Iliad are the parting of Hector and Andromache in the ‘th Book, and the prayer of Ajax for light, in the 17th, Book; both of which are strictly according to the truth| ‘of nature, and the respective expressions and sentiments

‘such as we might expect from conjugal affection and ‘manly courage, while on the other hand the battle of | Deities, in which the imagination of the Poet soars be- ‘yond nature and probability, is far from being consider- ved a favorable specimen of the work; again, compare ithe general style of Homer, or Virgil, with the wild | metaphors and unnatural usages of many of the minor ' Poets, and tell me whether grandeur and beauty are not better attained by simplicity and attention to the truth ‘of nature, than by all the flights ofan extravagant ‘iunagination. I might adduce many more instances, from

jalltwhich L would infer that poetic grandeur and beauty arise not from neglecting or violating the general truth

lof nature, but from selecting all that is great, beautiful

jand good in nature, and leaving untouched all that is |mean or absurd ; if you admit this inference, as I think ‘you must, you at the same time imply that the imagina- tion is equally concerned in Painting as in Poetry, for as has been said of thg necessity of attending to the general truth of nature if the latter, may, with equal

‘justice be stated of the former, and consequently, the

an,

control in both. There have indeed been many Painters, as weil as many Poets, with no imagination to controul, but the same uninteresting character attaches to the Paintings;in the one case as to the Poetry in the other : this may lead us to take a comparative view of the manner in which the imagination is exercised in the respective works of the Painter and of the Poet.

The principal difference which we discern in the two arts, is, that while the Poet isat liberty to express his ideas atas great length ashe may think proper. with no other necessary limit than the point at which he may cease to please, to instruct or to imterest the reader; the Painter onthe other hand is limited to the space comprehended in an angle of 90 degrees at the eye of the spectator ; and must of necessity confine him- self to one particular moment of time; to compensate kim, however, for this restriction, the Painter, if he pos- sess a strong imagination, governed by sound Taste and jadgement, has the power of making a much more im- mediate and vivid impression upon the mind than can be done by Poetry ; besides this, Painting being an univer- sal language, the Artist is not fettered by any particular idioms or fashions, but on the contrary his work will ap- proach perfection only in proportion as it is founded up- on the truth of nature in general, and free from the shackles of mere local and temporary customs; the ar- bitrary nature of words will not allow the Poet to gen- eralize either to the same extent or with the same effect.

In the room in which I write there is a coloured Print evincing,in my opinion,both imagination and judgement ; the subject is the return of a youthful sailor to the home of his infancy; he is seated by his mother, to whom he gives the earnings of his Voyage; while, with the other hand, he presents a Handkerchief to his sister, 2 bloom- ing girl on the verge of Womanhood ; he has brought a Parrot for a younger sister, an interesting child of six or seven years old. Thestory isremarkably well told, and every detail most admirably adapted to further the general effect;a Tree casts its protecting shadow on the Cottage, and a climbing Plant bends gracefully over the Door; in the distance isthe Village Church, to which we may well believe that the happy group wi ! renair, in grateful thanks-giving to the fountain of al! good for the wanderer’s return; a spinning wheel re- minds us of those happy pastoral days in which large manufactories were unknown; a Cat seated on the whee! looks with curious surprise at the Parrot, who in his turn appears surprised at a Jay, which his new mistress holds towards him;a cage, with open door, from whic! the Jay has been taken, hangs on a Tree ready for the Parrot, thus shewing by a happy thought, that the joy of the family is as unexpected as it is great; the traces of much sorrow are in the countenance of the young Mother, but all is now forgotten, and her hand rests on her Boy’s shoulder in secure and affectionate delight. Softness, repose, and harmony characterize this very agreeable print, in which the Artist has been faithfully true to nature in general, without descending to an undue par- ticularity on the details.

A Painter, to be of first rate excellence must re- present an Idea rather than reality; but in forming the Idea he must take careto keep his imagination within the bounds of nature and probability; he is to avoid the servile imitation of individual objects in the details of his performance ; such imitation would indeed deprive him of every claim to be considered a master in his Art; but, although he is not strictly to tread in the foot-steps of nature, he must by no means contravene or go against her; he must select her general and lead- ing attributes; he must watch her most amiable moods : and every beauty which he may then discover must be embodied inthe idea which he is to represent. It is to this excercise of the imagination and judgment combin- ed, that we are indebted for the cartoons of Raffaelle,

the Land-scapes of Clauda, and the compositions of Poussin; and it is from this only that we are to hope for

j Imagination must be kept under the same degree of lexcellence in any department of the fine arts.

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