its ring, charm him only because they speak of full weight in the gold. And so it is with the treacherous, the cruel, the sly, and the crafty; their selfish and corrupt passions unfit them for the tranquil enjoyment of the arts, which are in their nature social, kindly, and purifying, inclining those who are much engaged in them to refined studies, to a generous frankness, a free imparting to others of the pleasures enjoyed.

The study of the fine arts having then an elevating and softening influence, a tendency to render man less sensual, more benevolent, more alive to the beauties of nature and truth, should be as generally cultivated as possible.

The following work is intended to diffuse a taste for such studies, by gathering into a small compass, and making accessible to all, that information which before was scattered through many voluminous and expensive publications. It is a comprehensive glance at the whole history of art, especially as exhibited in the lives of its most eminent professors, in all ages, and in every departWhile it embraces so wide a field, it is at the same time clear, concise, and richly attractive in its details. By its simple and natural arrangement, its completeness in all its parts, and by the ease with which any class of art, era, or individual artist, may be referred to,

ment.

the work is rendered admirable for popular use. For the same reason it might be introduced, with great advantage, as a text-book, into the higher schools and academies.

At the present time, and in our own country, almost every one has some acquaintance with art; and numbers will be glad to possess a book which presents such an amount of information on the subject which interests them; so well arranged, so varied, lively, and picturesque, in the matter, and couched in a style which evinces an earnest enthusiasm for the arts, and an extended knowl edge of their masterpieces. It is the fruit of the leisure hours of a lady, who, while employed upon it, was practically engaged with the palette and colours. It needs no argument to persuade us, that one who is actually conversant with the progress of an artist's studies, should be the best able to describe them; that one who has passed through the lessons of the studio, traced the careful outline, touched in the first faint shades, and then the deep and powerful relief, and brought out the living character and expression, by colours vivid and truthful-who is, in a word, an artist, should be able to spread before us with the greatest charm and force, the incidents of artistic life, and the varied effects their works have produced on the mind,

The work makes no pretension to entire originality; much of the labour has been that of careful compilation, and the patient investigation, and delicate, discriminating taste, by means of which so great an amount of confused material has been adapted and arranged into one complete whole, without marring its interest, but rather heightening it, is worthy of all praise.

D. H.

A General View of the Fine Arts.

ORIGIN OF THE FINE ARTS.

THE word art, derived from the Latin artes, skill with the hand, used in its higher acceptation, is applied to the creations of the imagination, by which nature is reproduced in new forms and combinations, and refers rather to the emanations of the mind and heart, than to the mechanical dexterity of the hand.

Ornamental Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Poetry, and Music, in distinction from the merely useful arts, are called fine, or beautiful arts. Their prime object is the creation and development of beauty in all its subtle forms and evanescent hues. The vast cathedral, the pencilling of a rose-leaf, the peal of the organ, and the spirit harmonies of verse, alike come within their scope. They are addressed through the eye and the ear to that fine inner sense, which can seize the meaning of the artist from his inanimate handiwork, and sympathize with the offspring of his imagination as if they were living realities,

Art enduring.-First practisers.-Grecian apologue.

The idea of their enduringness, also binds us by an indefinite sympathy with all who ever have, or who ever will, ponder with delight the same visions of beauty, and gratifies

"That instinct of our kind,

To link in common with our own

The universal mind."

Although the sources of the fine arts are to be traced to primal faculties of the mind, as certainly as mathematical and logical sciences, it may not be uninteresting to endeavour to trace their first developments, and to glance at the myths of the ancients, in regard to their origin. "Opinions have differed, as to what people first practised the fine arts; but it is an unneces sary inquiry, as the love of the beautiful is innate with all. Love, celebrated by the mythologists as the governor of nature, was the parent of the arts; and music after their system was his firstborn. According to a Grecian apologue, a young girl was the first artist, who, perceiving the profile of her lover cast on the wall by the strong light of a lamp, drew the first recorded outline from this cherished object of her affections. From such a slight beginning, according to the fable, arose those arts whose softening and humanizing qualities have moderated the barbarism of man, and alleviated the disastrous effects of vice; those arts by which an inspired musician appeased, with the tones of his harp, the ragings of a barbarous prince; by which a poet, by an ingenious apologue, recalled a mob to truth and reason; by which the sculptor and the painter, under the veil of pathetic allegory, presented to the depraved the forgotten traits of virtue."

There is a simple story which ascribes the origin of the Corinthian capital to Callimachus. A votive basket of flowers was