The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844

J. T. Harris, A., has two pictures, and both portraits. No. 19 is the best. It exhibits a broad, free touch, and correct drawing, and is withal an excellent likeness. But we never look at Mr. Harris’ works without being impressed with the idea that they are not finished. They seem to us, to borrow an artistical expression, as if they were in a capital state for ‘glazing and toning up.’ Otherwise, they are above the ordinary run of portraits.

G. P. A. Healy, H.—Mr. Healy is a resident of Paris, but an American. He is a favorite at the French court, and has by this means a reputation to which his works generally do not entitle him. We are bound in justice to say of his present effort, however, that it is an exceedingly fine picture. It is boldly and masterly executed; forcibly drawn, honestly colored, and well expressed. There is too about it a freedom from all the usual tricks of the profession, such as a red chair, velvet collar, and fantastic back-ground, which we particularly recommend to the attention of young artists.

Thomas Hicks, A., has eight pictures in the collection, but none, excepting his portraits, which equal his former productions. No. 264, ‘The Mother’s Grave,’ is an oft-repeated subject, and should not be attempted unless the artist is able to treat it with entire originality. There are good points about it, but none sufficiently attractive to warrant particular notice.

Ingham, N. A., as usual has a fine collection of female portraits, all excellent for their careful drawing, lady-like expression, and high finish. The drapery and accessories of Mr. Ingham’s portraits are always wonderfully exact to nature; and this greatly enhances the value of portraits of this description; for aside from their merit as likenesses, they will always be valuable as pictures. His male portrait, No. 113, of T. S. Cummings, Esq., is a most admirable likeness, as well as a highly-wrought and masterly-painted picture. No. 239, ‘Portrait of a Lady,’ with a fan in her hand, is our favorite among his female heads. There is a sweetness and modesty in the expression, not only in the countenance but in the whole figure, which makes it peculiarly attractive.

H. Inman, N. A.—No. 62, ‘Portrait of the late Bishop Moore, of Virginia,’ is the admiration of all who behold it. In color it surpasses any thing of Mr. Inman’s we have seen in many a day. Clear and luminous, with great breadth of light, and a mild, pleasing expression. We of course mean this to apply to the head. The hand and part of the drapery are not, in our judgment, so well done. No. 104, ‘Lady with a Mask,’ we do not altogether like; yet it is remarkable for being foreshortened in every part, and possesses that singular charm of light and shadow, and accidental effect, which are the characteristics of our artist’s pencil. No. 314, a Landscape, although small, is delicately handled, and ‘touched in’ with great neatness and accuracy. In effect it is attractive, and in color pleasing. The figure in the fore-ground equals in care and minuteness of finish the manner of Wouvermans.

N. Jocelyn.—No. 57, ‘Portrait of Professor Silliman,’ a faithful likeness, and carefully-painted portrait of a distinguished individual. No. 2, ‘Portrait of a Child,’ is another finished picture by this artist; clear and pearly in color and infantile in expression.

Alfred Jones.—No. 301, an engraving from Mount’s picture of ‘Nooning,’ for the American Art-Union, is one of the largest line-engravings ever published in this country, and a work of high order. This style of engraving has heretofore received so little encouragement, that until the Art-Union started it, no one except Mr. Durand had ever before dared to attempt it. This effort of Mr. Jones does him great credit.

M. Livingstone, A., has several works in the exhibition, but we cannot rank them among the higher class of landscapes. They lack the poetry of landscape-painting; but as amateur productions, they are very good.

E. D. Marchant, A.—All portraits, but none of high merit. Mr. Marchant is a persevering artist, who paints good likenesses and pleasing pictures; and so far, is doubtless popular with those who employ him.

John Megarey has two portraits, and those far surpassing his former works. They are carefully painted, without an effort at any thing beyond the subject before the artist.

We shall resume and conclude our remarks upon the exhibition in our next number.

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—We are about to enter upon the TWENTY-FOURTH volume of the Knickerbocker, for the advertisement of which, please note the second and third pages of the cover of the present number. We have nothing farther to add, than that ‘what has been, is that which shall be,’ in our onward progress. This Magazine, much the oldest in the United States, has been established, by the ever-unabated favor of the public, upon a basis of unshaken permanence. Its subscription-list fluctuates only in advance; it has the affection of its readers, and all concerned in its production and promulgation, to a degree wholly unexampled; and it is designed not only to maintain, but continually to enhance, its just claims upon the liberal patronage of American readers. The arrangements for the next volume, if they do not ‘preclude competition,’ will be found, it is confidently believed, to preclude any thing like successful rivalry, on the part of any of our contemporaries. On this point, however, we choose as heretofore to be judged by the public. ••• We gave in a recent issue two or three extracts from a lecture on ‘The Inner Life of Man’ delivered by Mr. Charles Hoover, at Newark, New-Jersey. This admirable performance has since been repeated to a highly gratified audience in this city; and from it we derive the following beautiful passage, which we commend to the heart of every lover of his kind: ‘It is a maxim of patriotism never to despair of the republic. Let it be the motto of our philanthropy never to despair of our sinning, sorrowing brother, till his last lingering look upon life has been taken, and all avenues by which angels approach the stricken heart are closed and silent forever. And in such a crisis, let no counsel be taken of narrow, niggard sentiment. When in a sea-storm some human being is seen in the distant surf, clinging to a plank, that is sometimes driven nearer to the shore, and sometimes carried farther off; sometimes buried in the surge, and then rising again, as if itself struggling like the almost hopeless sufferer it supports, who looks sadly to the shore as he rises from every wave, and battling with the billow, mingles his cry for help with the wild, mournful scream of the sea-bird; nature in every bosom on the shore is instinct with anxious pity for his fate, and darts her sympathies to him over the laboring waters. The child drops his play-things, and old age grasps its crutch and hurries to the spot; and the hand that cannot fling a rope is lifted to heaven for help. What though the sufferer be a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy even? Nature in trouble, in consternation, shrieks ‘He is a man!’ and every heart and hand is prompt to the rescue.’ ‘To a high office and ministry, to a life of beneficence, pity and love, each man should deem himself called by a divine vocation, by the appointment of nature; and otherwise living, should judge himself to be an abortion, a mistake, without signification or use in a world like ours. And the beauty, the glory of such a life, is not to be reckoned among ideal things heard out of heaven but never encountered by the eye. This world has had its Christ, its Fenelons, its Howards, as well as its Caligulas and Neros. Love hath been at times a manifestation as well as a principle; and the train of its glory swept far below the stars, and its brightness has fallen in mitigated and mellowed rays from the faces of men. As the ambiguous stranger-star of Bethlehem had its interpreting angel-song to the herdsmen of the plains, so loving men in all ages have given glimpses and interpretations of the love of God, and of the pity that is felt for the miserable and the guilty in the palace and presence-chamber of Jehovah. What glory within the scope of human imitation and attainment is comparable to that of the beneficent, the sympathising lover of his race? What more elevated, pure, and beautiful is possible among the achievements of an endless progression in heaven itself? Milton represents the profoundest emotions of joy and wonder among the celestial hosts as occasioned by the first anticipative disclosures of divine pity toward sinning man; and a greater than Milton assures us that the transport and festival of angelic joy occurs when Pity lifts the penitent from his prostration and forgives his folly.’ ••• Embellishment would seem to be the literary order of the day, in more ways than one. It has come to be the mode to express the most simple thought in the most magniloquent phrase. This propensity to lingual Euphuism has given rise to sundry illustrations, in embellished maxims, which are particularly amusing. They are of the sort so finely satirized by ‘Ollapod,’ on one occasion, two or three examples of which we annex. The common phrase of ‘’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good’ was transformed into ‘That gale is truly diseased which puffeth benefactions to nonentity;’ ‘Let well enough alone,’ into ‘Suffer a healthy sufficiency to remain in solitude;’ and ‘What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,’ into ‘The culinary adornments which suffice for the female of the race Anser, maybe relished also with the masculine adult of the same species.’ Some London wag, in a kindred spirit, has illustrated the cockney song, ‘If I had a donkey as vouldn’t go, do you think I’d wallop him?’ etc., as follows: ‘The herbaceous boon and the bland recommendation to advance, are more operative on the ansinine quadruped than the stern imprecation and the oaken cudgel:

‘Had I an ass averse to speed,
I ne’er would strike him; no indeed!
I’d give him hay, and cry ‘Proceed,’
And ‘Go on Edward!’’

The same species of satire is now and then visited upon the ‘Troubadour Songs,’ which have become so afflictingly common of late years. Some of these we have already given; and we find them on the increase in England. We have before us, from the London press of Tilt and Bogue, ‘Sir Whystleton Mugges, a Metrical Romaunte, in three Fyttes,’ with copious notes. A stanza or two will suffice as a specimen. The knightly hero, it needs only to premise, has been jilted by his fair ‘ladye-love,’ who retires to her boudoir, while the knight walks off in despair:

‘Hys herte beat high and quycke;
Forth to his tygere he did call,
‘Bring me my palfrey from his stall,
For I moste cotte my stycke!’

‘Ye stede was brought, ye knyghte jomped up,
He woulde not even stay to sup,
But swyft he rode away;
Still groanynge as he went along,
And vowing yet to come out stronge,
Upon some future day.

‘Alack for poore Syr Whystleton,
In love and warre so bold!
Ye Ladye Blanche hym browne hath done,
He is completely solde!

‘Completely solde alack he is,
Alack and wel-a-day;
Mort Dieu! a bitterre fate is hys
Whose trewe love sayth him nay!’

Thus endeth ‘Fytte ye First.’ We learn from the preface that the ‘Rhime of the Manne whose Mothre did not Know he was Out,’ and ‘Ye Lodgemente of Maistre Fergisoune,’ are also in the editor’s possession, but owing to the imperfect state of the MSS., it is doubtful whether they will ever be published. They have however been submitted to the inspection of ‘The Percy Society!’ ••• We are well pleased to learn that Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, the distinguished author, is soon to visit the United States. That he will be warmly welcomed and cordially received, we cannot doubt; but we have good reason to believe that in the present instance at least our admiration of true genius will be tempered by all proper self-respect. Mr. Bulwer has for many years entertained a desire to visit America. In one of his letters to the late Willis Gaylord Clark, now lying before us, he writes: ‘I have long felt a peculiar admiration for your great and rising country; and it gives me a pleasure far beyond that arising from a vulgar notoriety, to think that I am not unknown to its inhabitants. Some time or other I hope to visit you, and suffer my present prepossessions to be confirmed by actual experience.’ ••• We have received and perused with gratification the last report of the ‘New-York Asylum for Deaf Mutes.’ The institution is in the most flourishing condition, and its usefulness greatly increased. We are sorry to perceive, by the following ‘specimen of composition’ of a pupil in the eighth class, that the ‘Orphic Sayings’ of Mr. A. Bronson Alcott are taken as literary models by the deaf and dumb students. The ensuing is certainly much better, internally, than anything from the transcendental ‘seer;’ but the manner too nearly resembles his, for both to be original. There is the same didactic condensation, the same Orphic ‘oneness,’ which distinguishes all Alcottism proper. It is entitled ‘Story of Hog:’

‘I walked on the road. I stood near the water. I undressed my feet. I went in the water. I stood under the bridge. I sat on the log. I washed my feet with hands. I looked at large water came. I ran in the water. I ran out the water. The large water floated fast. I afraid. I wiped feet with stockings. I dressed my feet with stockings and shoes. I went on the ground. I stood on the ground. I seen at the hog ate grass. The hog seen at me. I went on the ground. I ran. The hog heard. The hog looked at me. It ran and jumped. The hog ran under the fence and got his head under the fence and want to ran out the fence! I caught ears its hog. The hog shout. I pulled the hog out the fence. I struck a hog with hand. I rided on the hog ran and jumped fast. The hog ran fell on near the water. I rided off a hog. I stood. I held one ear its hog. The hog slept lies on near the water. I waited. I leaved. I went from the hog. The hog awoke. It rose. It saw not me. It ran and jumped. The hog went from the water. The hog went in the mud and water. The hog wallowed in the mud and water became very dirty. It slept. I went. I went into the house.’

The Ekkalaeobion is the name given to an establishment opposite the Washington Hotel, in Broadway, where the formation of chickens, ab initio, is ‘practised to a great extent.’ And really, it is in some respects an awful exhibition, to a reflecting mind. It is as it were a visible exposition of the source of life. You see the pulse of existence throbbing in the yet unformed mass, which assumes, day after day, the image of its kind; until at length the little creature knocks for admittance into this breathing world; steps forth from the shell in which it had been so long ‘cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in;’ and straitway walks abroad, ‘regenerated, disenthralled,’ and ready for its ‘grub.’ By all means, reader, go and see this interesting and instructive exhibition. It is provocative of much reflection, aside from the mere contemplation of it as a matter of curiosity. ••• The correspondent who sends us the following, writes upon the envelope containing it: ‘I have endeavored to preserve the measure of the original, and at the same time to present a literal translation.’ It will be conceded, we think, that he has been successful in his endeavor. Perhaps in some lines (as in ‘Pertransivit gladius’) the translation is a little too literal:

STABAT MATER

I

Stabat mater dolorosa,
Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
Dum pendebat filius:
Cujus animam gementem,
Contristantem et dolentem,
Pertransivit gladius.

I

Near the cross the Mother weeping
Stood, her watch in sorrow keeping
While was hanging there her Son:
Through her soul in anguish groaning,
O most sad, His fate bemoaning,
Through and through that sword was run.

II

O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit illa benedicta,
Mater unigeniti:
Quæ mœrebat, et dolebat,
Et tremebat, cum videbat
Nati pœnas inclyti.

II

Oh how sad with woe oppressed,
Was she then, the Mother blessed,
Who the sole-begotten bore:
As she saw his pain and anguish,
She did tremble, she did languish,
Weep her holy Son before.

III

Quis est homo qui non fleret,