is free from it, but that every sphere and its satelites, and every particle of matter ever created, is the servant of change. Then why should we complain of change as it bears us to the grave? This change is a necessary end, having for its ultimate the regeneration of matter and the progress of mind. Would it be wise that matter should stagnate, and that the mind should be imprisoned for ever upon this most sterile of planets? This could not be, otherwise there would be no regeneration-no creation of new forms-no beauty from deformity-no fragrance and loveliness from putridity-no change.

Morrow, August, 1848.

ART. X.-POWERS' GREEK SLAVE.

This statue, now world-renowned, has been for some weeks in this city, and has been seen and admired by a great multitude. Such admiration, however, is in a measure what we may call second-hand; that is, I admire because Mr. Spriggs the millionaire, or Dr. Slop the editor, or John Smith, admired before me:—the admiration is not mine, in truth, but is his in my hands, otherwise, second-handed. This false applause has been given to every good thing in the world, and of course Mr. Powers and his slave could not hope to escape. And among those who admired it in their hearts, not with their lips only, some objected to the conception, others to the expression, and a third party to the taste of the sculptor in making his heroine "nude," (as it is termed), which, being translated, means "stark naked." For our own part, while we feel in every fibre the beauty of the work, marvel at its execution, and thank its creator, we cannot but object to the taste displayed, the situation represented, and the countenance and position as suggestive of the situation.

Let us first notice the face and posture. Do these at once reveal the state of mind which the supposed situation must produce in any well organized maiden? We feel confident they do not, from this fact;-no five persons who see the statue and think it expressive, see the same expression. One says she is in prayer; another, she is in conscious agony; another, she is stupified with agony; a fourth, that she has risen above her trial by the power of faith; and so on. To us, she looks as one might who was about to bathe, and heard a noise which made her fear an intruder; she stops, listens, is alarmed, grieved,

troubled the expression, intenser in kind, not in degree alone, which shall at once lay open to you her actual trial and her struggle, victory through faith, or, defeat through human weakness, is entirely wanting.

We say, the expression should reveal at once the state of mind. Many persons, however, will object that no great works of art or nature,-Niagara, the Ocean, Shakespeare, Homer, Rapheal, Michael Angelo,-produce their full effect at once they need to be studied and lived with. Most true, no full spring was ever taken in and exhausted at a mouthful; and yet the first mouthful will give an idea of the quality of water or wine. Niagara is not fully seen at once, but the same impression which is finally left by its waters in their giant sport, is that which at first strikes one: the two differ in degree, not in kind. And so with Raphael or Buonarotti; the Dresden Madonna of the first, the Moses of the last, may be studied for years, and every year will unfold new beauties and wonders, but the nature, character, kind of the last impression and the first is the same. But (as we see it,) in the face and position of Mr. Powers' statue the kind of expression is wanting, not merely the full intensity, the degree.

Next, as to its nakedness. We do not believe such statues to be incentives of licentiousness. Stronger incentives are always within the reach of the seekers." To the pure," says St. Paul, "all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure." This text, in the case before us, cuts both ways, as it was meant to; it suggests the unclean thoughts of too many of those who, as of necessity,--see uncleanness in a naked woman; and also points out the great truth that any painting, statue or book,-even God's Word itself,-may to the impure become a source of evil influences. We do not believe hat the unclothed figure is so dangerous. Men are excited to vil by evil spirits, not by forms of any kind. A woman who exposes an arm, or an ancle, through the influence of loose priniples, will arouse the Satyr in them more effectually than the are body of an Eve, or the half-clad form of a Joan d'Arc. And here lies the danger of the Model Artists, as distinct from he Greek Slave; their motive is black, Powers' white. But, while we reject the idea that Mr. Powers' statue is against good norals, we accept the doctrine that it is against good taste. In ther words, it does not deprave us, make us beasts, but it does ot cleanse us and bring us nearer to the angels. Naked forms

are not suited to our day. They may be tolerated in Europe and among us, but they pain every pure man and woman that goes to see them. They do not necessarily produce licentiousness, but they necessarily produce suffering; they are offensive to our best citizens, and best lovers of art. It may seem very funny to some that the "best citizens" should be allowed to sit in judgment on an artist, but let us all remember that whoever does most to purify, cleanse and Christianize a community is its best citizen. And why are they offensive? Because the unclad human form is suggestive of evil? God forbid! No; it is, (so far as we can analyse) because we cannot but connect degradation, suffering, purity cast down and impurity triumphant with the nakedness of the Moslem captive, or that of any other woman, save only Eve. An Eve is not open to this criticism, but how few can in any degree realize the position of our greatgreat-grandmother? Realize, for one thing, her innocence. The naked Eve must be innocent; when she sinned she clothed herself. We think the Greek Slave, then, in bad taste, being, as it is, needlessly and in opposition to the common custom, presented in utter nakedness;-not because nakedness is in itself evil, but because it can belong, in the conception of our day, only to Eden Innocence, or to Degradation, voluntary or compelled.

And this leads us to explain our third grounds of objection, namely, that this statue is not well conceived. A great work of Art should appeal to our highest nature, and so elevate our aims. It should suggest ennobling, not degrading, things. It may be painful, but the pain should be forgotten, lost, in the heaventending, and so pleasurable, result suggested. The highest topic for a work of Art is the Crucifixion, because it is a tragedy linked to the Throne of God; the topic is full of pain, but infinitely fuller of joy. The self-sacrifice of Godiva, the martyrheroine of Coventry, is a subject full of woe, but full of grandeur also: worth a seraglio of slave-girls. Treated historically, (the heroine naked as the Greek Slave,) it would be (we think) in far better taste than the Slave, because so much less painful. The bare limbs of the English noblewoman are exposed to save many families from woe, many hearths from desolation; those of the Greek Slave are to tempt the brutal propensities of some rich Turk. Or suppose a young girl exposed in the Roman amphitheatre as a Christian; let her be naked as she was born; would her nakedness suggest the same painful, degrading ideas that VOL. 1-7.

the Slave does? No. It would be, probably, one element of beauty melting into and mingling with the whole effect. And yet, even in the case of Godiva, or that of the Christian Martyr, it would, we think, be in far better taste to clothe the figure to the "edge of beauty."

We would have this position, if possible, definite; and therefore our readers will excuse some farther illustration.

You know the story of Godiva. Imagine yourself present at her far-famed ride,-present but unseen. You see the white limbs glisten; you feel the sacrifice that is made; you realize the infinite love that was working in the breast of that unclothed woman when she bent her will before that of her brutal spouse. Beautiful, and unveiled, as Venus, she draws near. What do you do? You bow your head, and feel that the Spirit of God has passed before you, supporting that shrinking form. You rise ennobled; with a new conception of the power of Faith and Love; with a new purpose in your heart to serve God and the Right.

Again; you go to the slave-mart in some city where girls are exposed for sale. You see the buyers, cloven-footed, Panlike the sellers, merciless, sons of Plutus and Pluto alike.A young, innocent child of seventeen, chained and stripped, is dragged before you; she rests in her faintness upon the nearest support, and in her intense woe forgets her woe. What do you do? How do you feel? You feel mere anguish, unutterable sympathy and sorrow. You are not raised but stricken down: God is not revealed by an act of self-sacrifice, he is hidden by the predominance of the power of Satan. When Godiva rode forth you cried--"She goes in the might of Heaven;" when the poor Greek shrunk before your gaze, you said, "Where is God, that such things are allowed?"

A great artist, presenting to us a tragedy, will always cause us to sympathise with the suffering portrayed, and yet will make us forget that suffering in our sympathy with the noble efforts that are made by the victim. The Greek Slave appeals to our sympathy with woe, but not at all to our sympathy with spiritual struggle and victory. Therein we think it vitally defective.

ART. XI.-PITIED LOVE.

Faintly the sunset's sinking fires,
Redden the waters, and above
Tip the gray oaken boughs like spires,
While, struggling like despair with love,

Are rustling shadows dropt with gold,
Deepening and nearing with the night,
Until at length they close, and fold
In their embrace, the fainting light.
Up from the river blue mists curl,
The dew shines in the vale below,
And overhead, like beads of pearl,
The white buds of the Mistletoe.
Lo! while the shade and light ingrain,
A Dryad dweller of the tree,
Like the hushed murmur of soft pain,
Is pouring its sweet note for thee,

Lone one, beneath whose drooping head
The red leaves of the autumn lie,-
The winds have stooped to make that bed,
O lonesome watcher of the sky!

Lifting his head a little up

From the poor pillow where it lay,
And pushing from his forehead pale
The long damp tresses all away:

He told me with the eager haste
Of one who dare not trust his words,

He knew a mortal with a voice

As low and lovely as that bird's.

But that he saw once in a dell
Separate from that a weary space,
A pale, meek lily that as well

Might woo that old oak's green embrace;

As for his heart to hope that she,

Whose palace chamber ne'er grew dim, Would leave the loves of royalty

To wander through the world with him.