International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

REV. CHARLES ELLIOT, D.D. of Cincinnati, has published, through the Methodist printing house of that city, an important work on Slavery, in two duodecimo volumes. Dr. Ellliot has declined the acceptance of the Biblical Professorship in McKendree College, on the ground that he is busily engaged in preparing works for the press, including a thorough investigation of the Biblical argument in defense of slavery.

* * * * *

A NEW edition of a Lexicon of the Dakota language (of an Indian tribe near Lake Superior,) has just been completed by the missionaries. It contains upward of fifteen thousand words. Near thirteen years or more of labor have been expended upon it.

* * * * *

JUDGE SYDNEY BREESE, late U.S. Senator, at the commencement of Knox College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois history.

* * * * *

MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved on the walls.

* * * * *

MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions of the Hindus. The translation of the Rig-Veda-Sonhita is valuable for the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and important of the Vedas contains.

* * * * *

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.

* * * * *

The Fine Arts.

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if we may credit a writer in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. This critic is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed. He supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for their living. Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought of. It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures by the square foot. The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much may also be expected. The daguerreotypes taken here may be compared with the best of Voightländer of Vienna and Williams of Liverpool. The talbotypes of this country are better than all others. Lithographing is done mostly by French and Germans; wood-cutting and steel-engraving by Englishmen and Americans. The products of the latter two resemble perfectly those of the same arts in England. Dramatic and musical art are in a feeble condition. The theaters in the great cities have been visited by the writer, and nothing admirable found in them. They are all private enterprises, and no great things are to be expected in that line without the aid of a government. The theaters are built and furnished in the most elegant and even luxurious style. The Italian Opera in New York is supplied by European artists whose best days are over. The actors never rise to any commendable excellence, and the pieces they perform are well adapted to their talents. Hardly ever is anything classical produced upon the stage.

The German drama in the United States is spoken of as being in a condition of even more desperate degradation. The writer's remarks on that subject will not specially interest our readers; but we trust that what we have given above from his strictures will be edifying to all whom it may concern.

* * * * *

FROM ROME we hear of an extensive undertaking about to be commenced in the way of Catholic Art. The plan is this: Overbeck, whose designs from Scripture history are familiar to all lovers of Art who have not overlooked one of the most remarkable geniuses of the times, is now employed upon fourteen compositions representing the fourteen Stations or pauses of the Lord on his way to the cross. Part of them are already done, and to judge from them the series will surpass all previous works of this great master. These designs are to be multiplied to the greatest extent and put within the means of churches, convents and even the poorest classes of the people. They will appear of the size of the original in colored lithography, which will probably be executed in Germany. Engravings of half size on copper are to be executed by the eminent engraver Bartoccini, who is familiar with Overbeck's manner, and who has worked under him in Germany. Indeed Bartoccini is already best known from the engravings of Overbeck's designs to the New Testament, the best of which were from his burin. In addition there are to be editions of these compositions in middling and small sizes as well as in wood engravings. The object is to provide something which has real artistic merit in place of the wretched pictures which are offered for the devotion of the faithful in so many churches and in Catholic prayer-books. The Pope himself, to whom the first colored drawings have been shown, takes a lively interest in the enterprise, and will probably recommend it in a special circular to all the bishops.

* * * * *

CHARLES MULLER, a German sculptor, whose group, "The Singer's Curse," Received the second prize at the Exposition of 1849, at Paris, has arrived in this country, where he proposes to take up his residence. The Tribune states that "The Singer's Curse" will soon be exhibited to the public in this city. It was suggested by one of the finest of Uhland's works.

* * * * *

The city of Paris is about to erect along the grand avenue of the Champs Elysées three hundred statues, in marble, of Parisians distinguished in the administration of the city, in letters, in science, the fine arts or commerce. The statues will alternate with beautiful little fountains, and will form rows on each side of the avenue.

* * * * *

POWER'S STATUE OF EVE is now-having been rescued from the waters off the coast of Spain—on the way to New York, and it will soon be here. The Prince Demidoff has purchased the figure of the Greek Slave, originally commenced for Mr. Robb of New Orleans, for £700, being £100 more than Mr. Robb was to have given for it. The Prince has placed it in a room by itself, in his palace at St. Donato, near Florence. He is one of the finest critics of art now living, and his collection of masterpieces constitutes to the man of taste one of the chief attractions of Italy. From a letter of Powers now before us, we learn that the model of his "America" was finished, and on the first of August the marble was about to be commenced, in the same size. This the sculptor and his friends think will be his greatest work. We are happy in being able to mention a fact eminently honorable to a distinguished American gentleman, in this connection. When the statue of Eve was lost, Powers wrote to the underwriters to pay the insurance ($6000) to Mr. J.S. Preston of South Carolina, upon whom the loss was to fall; but Mr. Preston instantly upon hearing the circumstance directed that every cent of the money should be sent to the artist, expressing only a regret that the country suffered the loss of a performance so admirable. Mr. Powers had not at this time heard of the loss of the statue of Mr. Calhoun. This great work has not yet been recovered, but Mr. Kellogg has still hopes of its being rescued in perfect safety.

* * * * *

The Venice Statuto of the 13th August announces that Venice and Italy have experienced an irreparable loss. The celebrated Barbarigo Gallery, known for ages, comprised amongst other masterpieces seventeen paintings of Titian, the Magdalen, Venus, St. Sebastian; the famous portraits of the Doge Barbarigo, of Philip XIV., &c. After the extinction of the Barbarigo family, Count Nicholas Giustiniani, the brothers Barbaco, and the merchants Benetti, who became proprietors of the collection, presented it to the Government. The Viceroy Raniere offered it for sale in 1847 to the Austrian Government, which refused to buy it. It has been lately purchased by the Court of Russia for five hundred and sixty thousand francs.

* * * * *

PAINTING AND SCULPTURES of the early northern artists from the eighth to the sixteenth century have just been discovered in great numbers in Gothland, by Dr. Marilignis, of the Stockholm Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He was sent to search for them by the Academy, and has spent eighteen months in his mission. A large proportion of the pictures were found in chapels built during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and were covered with thick coats of plaster, which had to be removed with great care. The results of Dr. Marilignis' investigations will be published by the Swedish Government.

* * * * *

THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF LARREY, the famous surgeon of the Imperial army, at the Val-de-Grace, took place in Paris lately. Among the assistants at this solemnity not the least interesting portion was a corps of one hundred invalids upon whom Larrey had operated. The hero of the day was Dupin, who walked in to the flourish of drums and trumpets at the head of the commission of the monument. The statue of bronze, by David, of Angers, was unvailed amid the clang of "sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." Old Dupin, in a fit of happy inspiration, jumped up on the chair from which he presided, and delivered perhaps the best speech he ever made. He drew, in lively touches, the mission of the man whose hospital is the battle-field, of his intrepid coolness and humane devotion. Larrey was wounded, while binding the wounds of others, in Egypt and at Waterloo, in the days of glory and of disaster. The President of the Assembly spoke with much feeling, and when he came down from his chair a general rush was made by his friends to embrace him.

* * * * *

THE STANDISH GALLERY OF PICTURES in the Louvre was decreed by the French courts, a few days before his death, to be the private property of the late Louis Philippe. It was left to the king by Mr. Frank Hall Standish, in 1838. The library of this collection is very valuable. It contains among other rare books the Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, valued alone at $5000. One of the last acts of Louis Philippe was to present it to the French people. He was desirous only of vindicating his rights in the courts. The gallery therefore will not be removed.

* * * * *

THE ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF PICTURES by Düsseldorf artists was opened in that city about the middle of July. Landscapes are rather predominant. In their line the works of Alexander Michelis, August Kossler, Weba and Fischer are the best. Ten pictures of peasant life in Norway by Adolf Tidemond, a Norwegian artist, are said to display very remarkable merit. They were retained in the exhibition only a few days, being destined for the royal chateau of Oskarshall. Of historical pictures there is nothing worth mentioning.

* * * * *

The Brussells Herald states that the artistic value of the works of art contained in the churches of Antwerp, eleven in number, is by the late financial report of the province estimated at 49,763,000 francs-nearly ten millions of dollars.

* * * * *

LEUTZE'S PICTURE of Washington Crossing the Delaware is nearly finished at Düsseldorf, and is much praised by several letter-writers who have seen it.

* * * * *

MR. POWELL, at Paris, expects to finish his picture for the Capitol about the first of February.

* * * * *

EDGAR ALLEN POE

By R.W. GRISWOLD.

The family of EDGAR A. POE was one of the oldest and most reputable in Baltimore. David Poe, his paternal grandfather, was a Quartermaster-General in the Maryland line during the Revolution, and the intimate friend of Lafayette, who, during his last visit to the United States, called personally upon the General's widow, and tendered her acknowledgments for the services rendered to him by her husband. His great-grandfather, John Poe, married in England, Jane, a daughter of Admiral James McBride, noted in British naval history, and claiming Kindred with some of the most illustrious English families. His father, David Poe, jr., the fourth son of the Quartermaster-General, was several years a law student in Baltimore, but becoming enamored of an English actress, named Elizabeth Arnold, whose prettiness and vivacity more than her genius for the stage made her a favorite, he eloped with her, and after a short period, having married her, became himself an actor. They continued six or seven years in the theaters of the principal cities, and finally died, within a few weeks of each other, in Richmond, leaving three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie, in utter destitution.

Edgar Poe, who was born in Baltimore, in January, 1811, was at this period of remarkable beauty, and precocious wit. Mr. John Allan, a merchant of large fortune and liberal disposition, who had been intimate with his parents, having no children of his own, adopted him, and it was generally understood among his acquaintances that he intended to make him the heir of his estate. The proud, nervous irritability of the boy's nature was fostered by his guardian's well-meant but ill-judged indulgence. Nothing was permitted which could "break his spirit." He must be the master of his masters, or not have any. An eminent and most estimable gentleman of Richmond has written to me, that when Poe was only six or seven years of age, he went to a school kept by a widow of excellent character, to whom was committed the instruction of the children of some of the principal families in the city. A portion of the grounds was used for the cultivation of vegetables, and its invasion by her pupils strictly forbidden. A trespasser, if discovered, was commonly made to wear, during school hours, a turnip or carrot, or something, of this sort, attached to his neck as a sign of disgrace. On one occasion Poe, having violated the rules, was decorated with the promised badge, which he wore in sullenness until the dismissal of the boys, when, that the full extent of his wrong might be understood by his patron, of whose sympathy he was confident, he eluded the notice of the schoolmistress, who would have relieved him of his esculent, and made the best of his way home, with it dangling at his neck. Mr. Allan's anger was aroused, and he proceeded instantly to the school-room, and after lecturing the astonished dame upon the enormity of such an insult to his son and to himself, demanded his account, determined that the child should not again be subject to such tyranny. Who can estimate the effect of this puerile triumph upon the growth of that morbid self-esteem which characterized the author in after life?

In 1816, he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Allan to Great Britain, visited the most interesting portions of the country, and afterward passed four or five years in a school kept at Stoke Newington, near London, by the Rev. Dr. Bransby. In his tale, entitled "William Wilson," he has introduced a striking description of this school and of his life here. He says:

"My earliest recollections of a school life are connected with a large, rambling Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each, hour, with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay embedded and asleep. It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure, as I can now in any manner experience to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns. Steeped in misery as I am—misery, alas! only too real—I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognize the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterward so fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember. The house. I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. The prison-like rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a week—once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through some of the neighboring fields—and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy, and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian Laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution! At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation. The extensive inclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed—such as a first advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or Midsummer holidays. But the house!—how quaint an old building was this!—to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its windings—to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult, at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches were innumerable—inconceivable—and so returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty other scholars. The school-room was the largest in the house—I could not help thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square inclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, 'during hours,' of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the 'Dominie,' we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the 'classical' usher, one of the 'English and mathematical.' Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient and time-worn, piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the other.

"Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe that my first mental development had in it much of the uncommon—even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadow—a weak and irregular remembrance—an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as deep; and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals. Yet the fact—in the fact of the world's view-how little was there to remember. The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays and perambulations; the playground, with its broils, its pastimes, its intrigues; these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and spirit-stirring. 'Oh, le bon temps, que se siecle de fer!'"

In 1822, he returned to the United States, and after passing a few months at an academy in Richmond, he entered the University at Charlottesville, where he led a very dissipated life; the manners which then prevailed there were extremely dissolute, and he was known as the wildest and most reckless student of his class; but his unusual opportunities, and the remarkable ease with which he mastered the most difficult studies, kept him all the while in the first rank for scholarship, and he would have graduated with the highest honors, had not his gambling, intemperance, and other vices, induced his expulsion from the university.

At this period he was noted for feats of hardihood, strength, and activity; and on one occasion, in a hot day of June, he swam from Richmond to Warwick, seven miles and a half, against a tide running probably from two to three miles an hour.[1 - This statement was first printed during Mr. Poe's lifetime, and its truth being questioned in some of the journals, the following certificate was published by a distinguished gentleman of Virginia:"I was one of several who witnessed this swimming feat. We accompanied Mr. Poe in boats. Messrs. Robert Stannard, John Lyle, (since dead) Robert Saunders, John Munford, I think, and one or two others, were also of the party. Mr. P. did not seem at all fatigued, and walked back to Richmond immediately after the feat—which was undertaken for a wager."ROBERT G. CABELL."] He was expert at fence, had some skill in drawing, and was a ready and eloquent conversationist and declaimer.

His allowance of money while at Charlottesville had been liberal, but he quitted the place very much in debt; and when Mr. Allan refused to accept some of the drafts with which he had paid losses in gaming, he wrote to him an abusive letter, quitted his house, and soon after left the country with the quixotic intention of joining the Greeks, then in the midst of their struggle with the Turks. He never reached his destination, and we know but little of his adventures in Europe for nearly a year. By the end of this time he had made his way to St. Petersburg, and our Minister in that capital, the late Mr. Henry Middleton, of South Carolina, was ummoned one morning to save him from penalties incurred in a drunken debauch. Through Mr. Middleton's kindness he was set at liberty and enabled to return to this country.