COUNTRY PAPERS PRINTED IN LONDON, 56 DON THOMAS DE YRIARTE, NEW BOOKS: From Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger, Philadelphia. . 61 SILVER THREADS. By Harriet B. M'Keever. A Story for Young Persons. CHILDREN WITH THE POETS. Compiled by Harriet B. M'Keever. The very title, Children with the Poets, held out to us such a vision of delight, that we hastened to procure copies for our own young friends. There are selections from Keble, Hans Christian Andersen, Bishop Doane, Fredrika Bremer, Dr. Hawks, Mrs. Hemans, Tennyson, Jane Taylor, Wordsworth, Alice Carey, Charles Kingsley, Longfellow, Miss Mulock, Leigh Hunt, Mary Howitt, Thomas Hood, William Allingham, N. P. Willis, Jean Ingelow, Mrs. Sigourney, Bloomfield, Scott, George Herbert, J. G. Whittier, Heber, A. C. Coxe, Gerald Massey, T. B. Read, J. R. Lowell, Dr. Holmes, Dr. Chalmers, Adelaide Proctor, Mrs. Browning, and many other writers. There are some sweet pieces anonymous, and the volume closes with several poems by the compiler. See advertisement in this number. THE PROGRESS OF ARCTIC DISCOVERY. An Address of Dr. Isaac I. Hayes before The American Geographical and Statistical Society, New York, 12 Nov., 1868. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. SMOKE IN WINTER. THE sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, Have not yet swept into the onward current First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, And greets its master's eye at his low door, THOREAU. BLESSING IN DISGUISE. MINE eyes were stiffened with the last night's tears, And my brow ached too heavily to weep, With listless hand I drew away the blind I heard no whisper of the cold night wind, Spread like a morning veil on every hill Hung cheerless mist, through which the dark dawn crept; The rain-drops on the trees lay cold and still, Like tears of one who in his sleep hath wept. Sadly I turned and laid me down again Till sorrow's leaden trance my sense did steal, As those who lulled by very strength of pain Forget their pain awhile and cease to feel. So passed the hours away, and I awoke ; on The damp mist rolled away, the morning broke, And, pouring radiance forth, uprose the sun. The purple hills were tinged with living ligut, The grass was waving in the morning breeze, Like sparkling gems the rain-drops of the night In rainbow showers were glittering from the trees. Then my heart melted too, and the deep gloom Passed like the dreary morning mist away; The sun shone warm and bright into my room, And I rose up from my dull trance to pray. O God, most merciful! 'tis ever so: Then teach us, Lord, to bow beneath the rod, Even for the chastisement to love the more; To trust the mercy of the loving God, And in the very blow His hand adore. So shall we walk through our life's chequer'd day, Safe from its noontide heat, its evening blight, Till the last hour of gloom shall pass away, And leave us to awake in endless light. Good Words. ROBESPIERRE has come unexpectedly before the world as a poet. The following pretty lines in his handwriting have been found among the papers of a deceased old lawyer of Toulouse. The Messager du Sud-Ouest, of Agen, inserts them, through favour of a friend : — A DEUX époques de la vie MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE. From The Contemporary Review. An old country like England, proud of her ancient families, long in pedigree, has naturally abundant treasure of historic portraits. The English, indeed, have been, from time immemorial, a portrait-loving people, the characters they revere in memory they desire still to look upon in person; and it seems to matter little, though the art be bad, provided the likeness remain good. At Kensington most of us have had the rare advantage, during three successive years, of gazing along a vista of historic portraits, stretching across five centuries. There is scarcely an event, whether it be the overthrow of an old dynasty, the founding of a new science, or the writing of a great poem, that has not been made patent through the portraits collected. National Portraits" exhibited at Kensington in 1866, 1867, and 1868, numbered 2,841 works; the "Portrait Miniatures on loan" in 1865 were 3,081. Thus, within the last four years, have been collected 5,922 pictures. No country destitute of a history could make such a show; indeed, it may be questioned whether there has ever been a kingdom either in ancient or modern times which could summon from the tomb so many of its subjects. 66 66 likeness of Richard II., "throned in royal robes, wearing jewelled crown," with a globe in the right hand and a sceptre in the left," formerly hung in Westminster Abbey, above the Lord Chancellor's pew. The work was in the Manchester Art Treasures," and has since appeared twice at Kensington: first, under the disguise of daubed restorations, and then, for a second time, with face washed and drapery clean. Mr. Scharf published an elaborate paper in elucidation of the work and the vicissitudes it has undergone, in the Fine Arts Quarterly Review. The painting, as it now stands, is in quality noway inferior to the contemporary products of the school of Giotto: there is no more notable picture of king or commoner in the country. The Kings of England, from the reign of Henry VII., downwards, are known, "The beyond doubt, by their portraits. Henry VII. has appeared in six pictures at Kensington; and the burly face and ponderous person of "bluff King Hal" were reproduced sixteen times. Evidence of identity, however, is painfully conflicting when we come to the heads of Mary Queen of Scots and Lady Jane Grey. A comparison of the reputed but contradictory portraits of these two characters, of whom the public are ever naturally eager to learn more, does not enable us to reduce conjectured authenticity to certitude. No such perplexity touches the identity of the royal sisters Elizabeth and Mary. Portraits by Holbein, Antonio More, and Streete, enable us to read, as in minute and unflattering biographies, the thoughts and motives of two queens whom to have seen was not to love. We shall, in the sequel, observe on the pictorial phases of other monarchs, from Charles I., adorned by Vandyke, to George IV., caricatured by Wilkie. Portrait-painting began with kings before it descended to the level of commoners. The art of sculpture, as usual, was first in the field, as seen in carved figures of our kings and queens, not only on the tombs of Westminster Abbey, but upon the west fronts of the Cathedrals of Lichfield, Lincoln, and Exeter. Yet, in these early days, loyalty was content to get from painting or sculpture merely a suggestive effigy certainly some of the oldest works exhibited at Kensington, such as pictures bearing the The survey we propose will be best made names of William Wallace or Edward III., on a historic basis. Thus portrait-painting have no claim to be accounted authentic in England may naturally be distributed in likenesses. However, when we come down chronological sequence, as follows: the to the second half of the fourteenth century, eras of Holbein and of Antonio More, the at least one trustworthy work is encountered period of Vandyke, the school of Van in the contemporary portrait of Richard II. Somer and Honthorst, the epoch of Lely That art was then sufficiently advanced in and Kneller, the rise of a native school unItaly, at all events, to hazard a portrait we der Reynolds and Gainsborough, and, know by well-accredited heads of Cimabue, lastly, the aspect of the art in our own Giotto, Dante, and Petrarch. This life-size times. Portrait-painting in England dates from artist." In return for this portrait Holbein Holbein, who was born, 1495, and died, carried back the pen-and-ink sketch, still 1543. This is rather late, as may be judged in the gallery at Basle, of that most imfrom the fact that our National Gallery con- pressive composition, "The Family of Sir tains a portrait by Van Eyck, which bears Thomas More." The replica at Kensingas its date the year 1433, also a head of ton was by an inferior hand. The ChanMasaccio by himself, which could not have cellor, it is well known, received guests of been painted later than 1429. It was not a high order. Erasmus himself had been till 1526 that Holbein came to England. a visitor at Chelsea; King Harry, too, was These dates at once illustrate the historic accustomed to look in upon the family in a truth that arts born in the fertile soil of the free and friendly way while this famous South were long in taking root in our cold picture was on the easel. The King, northern clime. It is strange and unfor- pleased with the work, gave the painter an tunate that the National Gallery does not apartment in his palace, with a stipend of contain a single work by Holbein. All the £30 a year. In the history of art we meet more interest, then, did the painter's sixty- with few more interesting incidents; seldom, three reputed portraits excite when exhib- indeed, is a picture encircled with more ited at Kensington · an interest which be- thrilling associations. Well had it been for came further intensified by the discussion the King and his painter had they cherished which ensued on the publication of Mr. the high tone of mind which fellowship with Wornum's critical and elaborate "Life of More and Erasmus favoured. King and Holbein." The question was at once court painter alike went to the bad; inraised, how many of these sixty-three por- dulgence told sadly on Henry VIII., as traits could, with authority, be ascribed to later portraits of the English Caligula inthe master at all. The recent discovery of dicate. Wordsworth, with his usual rectiHolbein's Will cut away, at one blow, tude of moral sense, when in the presence eleven years of the painter's life, and "re- of the monarch's grotesque effigy, wrote duced," says Mr. Wornum, "the number these severely descriptive lines: of genuine known Holbeins in this country to very few." In accordance with this exterminating dictum, Mr. Wornum struck out from sixty-three portraits some forty or forty-five as spurious! We have to observe however, that Holbein was hard at work in England for a period of seventeen years. The "very few" works, then, which our greatest authority is willing to ascribe to the court painter of Henry VIII., will, in all probability, on still further investigation, have to be considerably augmented. The celebrated Windsor drawings of the Court of Henry VIII., upwards of sixty in number, can scarcely be impugned. To Holbein's faithful and unflattering pencil we owe one of the most interesting portrait pictures in the world, "The Household of Sir Thomas More." Holbein had come to England with a letter of introduction from his friend Erasmus, addressed to the Chancellor, then living at Chelsea. Holbein brought with him a portrait, still extant, of his friend Erasmus in testimony of his skill. "Your painter, my dear Erasmus," writes More, "is an admirable "The imperial stature, the colossal stride, Are yet before me; yet do I behold "Mid the surrounding worthies, haughty king, We rather think, with grateful mind sedate, How Providence educeth, from the spring Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good, Which neither force shall check nor time abate." Holbein had few scruples and little conscience; the wives and other court followers of his royal patron he painted with a moral indifference truly artistic; he fell into debt, and when the plague came and carried him off, two illegitimate children remained to be provided for. There is, indeed, a painful discrepancy between the life of the painter and his art. When we look upon the portraits of More and Erasmus; of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury; of Sir William Butt, the King's physician; of Lady Butt, and Sir Henry Guildford, we seem as in the presence of a painter, honest, truthseeking, and signal with the fifteen examples of his style at for rectitude. Holbein was without the ex- Kensington. Some of these works might cuse which many painters plead of fervent be spurious, others had suffered as a matter and unruly imagination. His genius did of course from time, or, what is worse, not blaze into wild fire; such light as was from the restorer's hand. But really genin him smouldered in ashes; the truth he uine pictures by More, such as those of uttered was literal and hard. His portraits Queen Mary, Walter Devereux, Queen are brief and prosaic as a parish register, Elizabeth, and Sir Thomas Gresham, every they just record name, age, pedigree, and painter will approach as master-works. The no more; they are without circumlocution, art of portrait painting may here be studied colouring of passion, or flower of rhetoric. at a pitch little short of perfection. In No fancy plays across the brow, no fire Gresham we recognise the artist's vigour kindles within the eye, no wit curls the lip, and fling of execution; in Queen Elizabeth no gust of emotion inflates the nostril. as Princess, a conscientious, truthful, unaThe heads are absolutely monumental for dorned style of manipulation solid yet transimmobility; they stir not a feature, they parent; in Devereux, Earl of Essex, firmspeak not a word. Holbein was a plain, ness of hand, precision of drawing, round, plodding German; his office was to record bold modelling; in Queen Mary, like firmfacts simply as he found them; his art had ness, precision, detail, with more of life nothing of the largeness, breadth, and gen- and humanity than other painters have eralization common to Italian schools. Yet known how to infuse into features, the symhis portraits, after their kind, remain un- bols of narrow intellect, and of will or consurpassed; if they are not in utterance science consolidated into obstinacy and eloquent or ardent, they certainly declare bigotry. Antonio More never lost his way nothing in violation of truth; within their in a face, a cross purpose never throws the limits his pictures are right and just. Per- features into confusion; he read a charachaps it may be said that they are deficient ter in its consistency, even when that conin transparency of paint as in translucency sistency might involve the features in conof soul; that the skin is as parchment, with- tradiction. A clear, searching intellect is out blood in the veins or life in the tissues; implied in the portraiture of More. Emothat the spirit lies in ambush, concealed be- tional, however, his pictures are not, though hind the outer mask. Such, indeed, is the his colour has gained ardour by contact painter's manner — a manner, perhaps, bet- with the passion of the South. Imagination ter suited to our ancestors than to our con- as yet is not permitted to play across the temporaries, to mediævalism than to mod-canvas; fancy does not obtain out-look ern times. Yet these portraits certainly have permanence in paint and panel, and as chroniclers of the period, the pages of history are not more trustworthy. over tree or field; not even the conventionality of a column, a balcony, or a curtain disturbs the erect stature of figures which emulate the senatorial dignity of Titian. Yet whatever may have been the shortcomings of Antonio More, it may well be questioned whether the whole of Europe in the present day can show so great a portrait painter. The portraits of Antonio More stand in style as a transition between the prosaic German or Flemish school and the large, imaginative manner of the Italian; they occupy a position midway between Van Eyck and Holbein on the one side, and Titian In the history of England there has never and Moroni on the other. More, having been lack of painters of some sort, more or obtained favour of Charles V., was sent to less competent to throw the leading characEngland to paint Queen Mary; the result ters of the times upon canvas. It is indeed is seen in a portrait of rare beauty and ex- a comfort when we consider that few of the cellence at Kensington. That More was noble men whose names we fondly cherish the first portrait painter of his time, that are lost to us wholly in their outward lineahis talents and opportunities won for him a ments; the eye still may rest with affection handsome fortune, no one can wonder who on the forms which in life were loved and had the pleasure of making acquaintance | honoured. Yet it must be confessed that |