back from. The proof-reader must have nodded oftener than Homer to let such blunders pass. They would hardly be excusable in a less important book, and are grossly careless in one which, like this, by all nicety of paper, print, and illustration, claims to be an admirable specimen of book-making. It is to be regretted that the first American work on Art, which challenges comparison for elegance with English publications of the same class, should be disfigured with mistakes which a little painstaking might have saved. If we sympathized any less with the animus of it, or were any less ready to commend it as a whole, we should hardly have a word to say about the disagreeable qualities and frequent absurdities in its style. But we must think that its reception will be hindered and its influence jeoparded by such foolish affectations as "avid of fame," "graphically fecund," "dynamic view," "interiorly and exteriorly," "moultered," and the like, which, as the author himself might quote in some of his high flights of inconsequence, are scattered through the pages "thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa." The pure well must be somewhat stirred up to send out such defiled and muddy English. It is not perhaps too much to say, that "festered passions" and "putridities of civilization are a little strong. - Hamlet's query seems pat: "And smelt so? pah!"-The vile phrase "superior sentiments" occurs again and again; and each time we could not help thinking of the good lady who held her small triumph over her clever marketing in these terms: "I assure you it was really a superior lobster." Figures are frequent, but somewhat mixed. Sympathy with an artist's sentiment in the motif of a picture is, we are told with reason, a sure guide to truth; but this further explanation of it is added, as "a delicate chord, which, fastening itself upon the surface of things, penetrates their interiors and illumines them with the light of sympathetic understanding." We fear" their interiors" must suffer by the process, and do not find that the illuminating chord throws much light on the meaning. It must have been a queer physico-moral condition when "sin coursed through every vein and salivated every nerve," and sad intellectual emptiness when "truths fell vacuous upon the masses." But VOL. LXXI. 5TH S. VOL. IX. NO. I. 8 - this is ungracious work. Enough to say that Mr. Jarves's style has constantly reminded us of a sarcasm of Landor, who, writing to a friend, says of some author lately dead: "He wrote good English, a language now unfortunately nearly obsolete." If the style is the man, then is he somehow two men. The reader finds himself puzzled and disturbed between him and his double, at one moment enjoying simplicity and directness in the style, at the next page displeased with the confusion and pretence of it. It is clear and good, as in the narrative and biographical sketches; again, when some æsthetical fury seizes it, it equals oracles in dubiousness, but not in brevity. The author ought to get rid of this awkward double of his, with such a liking for fustian and rhetorical stuff and nonsense, or put him under strict editorial guardianship. His ambition of fine writing and vanity of subtile philosophizing take a good deal from the reader's interest and pleasure, and must prevent the substantial worth of the book from a quick and hearty recognition. The spirit of the book is too wise and honest to be touched by any follies or pretence in the style. A genuine love of Art is manifest, and an earnest patriotic wish that this country may do its duty in regard to it, and invite the benefits which will result from a better allowance of its claims and encouragement of its practice. We sympathize with this wish, and praise this faith in the good service which true Art always renders to a people. We believe in the worth of all art studies which go to confirm and spread this faith, and make this desire contagious. They are important everywhere. The attention given to them abroad shows how wide the estimate of their worth is in Europe. The time and talent used upon them there are wisely employed; and the works which are the fruit of them are of a value hardly to be counted. But these studies should be held as of capital use where they are not common, and the worth of them not generally felt or allowed. Our long-headed, utilitarian, anxiously busy people are slow to appreciate them in their proper importance. Dilettante is among us a final reproach; and justly so where it fits the trifler who goes with the fashion of his time and city, and is enthusiastic about Art simply by the prompting of the demon who whispers, "Have a taste." But it is apt to be visited on any one interested in Art, however in earnest he be and untouched by the vanity and superficialness of mere dilettanteism. The real student of Art is not the pamperer of his tastes and luxurious seeker of his own pleasure. He is of manlier nerve than to become the soft devotee of the lust of the eye. He who realizes what inspiration of intellectual strength and beauty flows out of that matchless Greek art to one who diligently studies it, and who draws in any of the inspiration of holiness and religion undefiled which flows from early Italian Art to him who communes with its wisdom of simple truthfulness, is not likely to be frivolous and selfish. The still air of his delightful studies is not the climate most favorable to egotism. The noble lives and works which he contemplates there offer no plea for softness, or persuasion to wantonness, or encouragement to any niggard keeping to himself the pleasure and instruction they afford. His study is truly most responsive to the love and pains he gives to it, with the keenest and amplest delights. A sure and enduring satisfaction always is waiting upon him from it. But it is full of lofty inducement. It teaches him to be useful in his day, and serviceable to his generation. He imparts of his enjoyment, and spreads the good learning which he has gained. He passes on to others the pleasure and the profit which he has secured. Addressing at first, perhaps, only the few of like tastes and pursuits, his influence presently descends and moves among the many. He has a wide field of service to enter and possess here. And it is a place of honor which he will fill. What he has already done in American literature merits thankful recognition and praise, and any further issue of his judicious and careful study is sure of hearty welcome. A French reviewer lately said of our writers on Art, that no critics excel them in critical ability, as far as it depends on intellectual faculty and moral and spiritual sympathy, but that any European tyro and pennya-liner could over-crow them in the quickness and confidence which the life-long and daily presence of Art, in all its forms and schools, begets; that by accurate observation, discreet judgment, and fine imaginative power, they interpret justly particular works, and genially enter into their motive and sen timent, but that they are led to make great blunders by their meagre experience, and an art-education so limited that a valet de place might be their teacher in many matters of the learning of Art. If it be so, it is plain that there is ample room and verge enough for the American art-student, but also sufficient encouragement for him to occupy it with the good powers given him, and by his faithful labor. The "Art Studies" now before us are made up of historical and biographical narrative, with æsthetic criticism and philosophy, in about equal parts. The latter is the more strictly original portion, and is of considerable interest and value. The book will be likely to be prized most for the former. It is a compilation in which those familiar with the history of Art and the lives of artists will hardly find much that is new. But old facts are given in a vivid, sprightly, and attractive way, and we have found ourselves reading, with quite the old zest and a renewed pleasure, of Savonarola's Puritanic zeal and Giotto's genial temper and life, of Fra Lippo Lippi's escapades and naturalism and Fra Angelico's saintly piety and spiritualism; how Andrea del Sarto loved, not wisely but too well, Lucrezia Fede, and how the handsome shrew ruined him; how Raphael was the darling of Fortune, and how, under her slights, the sublime genius of Michel Angelo, the greatest spirit in those great times or in any age of Art, was moved to the noblest issues ever reached by painter or by sculptor of the modern time; how Art began to stir out of formalism and tradition with Cimabue, and how with Titian and the rest it wrought out wonders of dignity and grace not possibly, it seems, to be surpassed, if reached. It is a never tiresome story, and told here in a sensible and more than usually agreeable way. They who come freshly to it are sure to be pleased, as well as informed, by this excellent presentation of it. We took less pleasure in the æsthetical parts. The theorizing about Art, and the criticism of artists and their works, not seldom has left a confused and unsatisfactory impression. This may be owing partly to the faulty arrangement, where various things are mixed together without order, and one is forced to go from one to another in a vague sort of way, passing from narrative to criticism, jumping from history to phi losophizing, without much plan, and with considerable distraction. It is just that no-arrangement which always leaves the reader with an uncomfortable sense of confusion and haphazard in the thought, and of hurry and carelessness in the putting together the material. But the want felt in the æsthetics of the book is probably owing more to the fact that it is just here that the style inclines to run wild, and turns to pretence and indistinctness. From whatever cause, this portion, although marked with shrewd comments, bright observation, and ingenious thought, does not leave any clear and certain impression of special power or delicacy of criticism, or of notable originality in æsthetic comprehension and feeling. To many this will be, perhaps, their "first book" in Art. It will genially introduce them to the company of the great masters of painting, and to their works. They may follow it as a safe, clever, and agreeable guide. Mr. Jarves's estimate of Art is a just one, and though his feeling for it, as he suggests in his Preface, may seem an over-enthusiasm, we cannot hold it to be so, and are glad that he does not apologize for it. He ranks the masters in their right order; though we have thought Leonardo's intellectual greatness a little dazzling to his critical discernment, and perhaps blinding him to the absence in that marvellous, many-sided man of the higher inspiration which moved the genius of some of his contemporaries. He states well the peculiar excellence of each, and correctly marks the difference displayed in their powers and their works, between the grades of Art from low to high. His facilities have been unusually large, and his study has been faithful and wisely directed. He is not conventional in his judgments, servilely admiring because others have admired, or blaming where this or that other critic has blamed. He has a mind of his own, which is often very confidently, but not conceitedly, given. But, what is more to the purpose, we do not remember that he ever falls into that deplorable error and silliness into which travellers among the great treasuries of Art sometimes fall, of flouting the established fame of great works by petty criticisms and the vanity of not being taken in by tradition, but looking for themselves. Goethe, to be sure, when he went down into Italy, went, he says, cleared of pre |