The whole world of ancient art is moving toward this great western theatre of its finest and sublimest development. The continental cities contain a few magnificent collections, but the artistic wealth stored in the many private mansions of the British islands transcends all eastern lands. Waagen's four large volumes are not sufficient to enumerate the "Art Treasures in Great Britain." These are more secluded than the public galleries of Rome, Naples, Florence, and Paris, but they are not inferior in respect to particular specimens, and are vastly more diversified in general interest. On English soil we may study the graphic, as well as sculptural and monumental history of all authentic eras, with the assurance that as the mental worth we contemplate is removed, it will probably advance still further west. Not a great sale of literary or artistic collections occurs in Europe, when a strong competition is not ventured upon by Americans. We believe that this country will yet possess the chief treasures of England, as that mighty nation has heretofore gathered to herself the choicest productions of anterior times. Giotto's portrait of Dantè in the Chapel of the Palazzo del Podesta, at Florence, was rescued from under a thick coat of whitewash by our countryman, R.H. Wilde; and the young university at Rochester, N.Y., bought the superb library of Neander entire. Restore and reform is the standing order of the day. Palaces are emptied of useless princes and unproductive aristocrats, in order that remains of antiquity and paragons of beauty may find refuge therein, under the protection of the populace who crowd with reverent enthusiasm to their contemplation. Thus are the common people becoming the true conservators of ancient worth, and the most liberal promoters of modern improvement. At this moment the manufacturers in western England buy more fine pictures, and lend a wiser as well as richer support to art than all the personal patronage in the realm beside, the sovereign included.
Every new enactment of the hereditary few is a fresh concession to the popular demand for free access to whatever is beautiful or sublime. Since Charles I., each great institution, the British Museum for example, has been indebted to a private individual for its origin. The common heart therein reads an impressive commentary on all progress, and is ennobled in its joy. Egypt, Assyria, Greece, ancient Rome, and modern Italy, disinterred and intelligently arranged, pass under the simultaneous view of the masses, and every expression of tint, form, and spirit becomes a fresh element of knowledge, a lever by which is set in motion a vast fabric of creative wonder. Thus the sciences and arts unite in a delightful combination for the good of humanity, and nothing gives so much lustre to a nation as their perfection.
The cultivation of the fine arts greatly contributes to the respect, character, and dignity of every government by which they have been encouraged, and are intimately connected with every thing valuable in national influence. In contemplating the permanent glory to which so small a republic as Athens rose, by the genius and energy of her citizens, exerted in this direction, it is impossible to overlook how transient the memory and fame of extended empires and mighty conquerors are, compared with those who have rendered inconsiderable states eminent, and who have immortalized their own names by these pursuits. Free governments alone afford a soil suitable to the production of native talent, to the full maturing of the human mind, and to the growth of every species of excellence. Therefore no country can be better adapted than our own to afford a final abode for the best specimens of the old world as models to the new, that by these we may first learn to emulate, and ultimately be enabled to excel them.
We are yet a young people, engrossed with all the distracting cares and toils incident to the primary subjugation of a virgin continent. And yet, perhaps nowhere else are the masses more eager to enjoy beautiful art. Private collections are rapidly multiplying, numerous exhibitions are profusely visited, and public monuments are munificently sustained. At a late meeting of the Royal Academy in London, at which the ministers were present, the premier, Lord Aberdeen, said that "as a fact full of hope he remarked that for several years the public, in the appreciation of art, had outstripped the government and the parliament itself." But in the United States the masses, who in this age are everywhere rising in intelligent supremacy, most directly control the resources of their respective States; and we may soon expect to see diversified types of American art produced which will be commensurate with the matchless charms of our climate, the varied richness of our raw materials, and the grandeur of our national domain.
The best writers on art that ever lived are now enriching our language with the most splendid contributions to a new and nobler order of æsthetical criticism. Not only are such works appreciated with great avidity by the common mind of our land, but the numerous art-students from America, whose studios are leading attractions in every foreign metropolis, receive the newest light with least prejudice, and profit by progressive principles with most triumphant success.
The more occidental the stage of human development, and the later the period of its existence, the more scope and capital there will be for the exercise of genius. The last national picture executed for the Rotunda at Washington was by a native artist born beyond the Ohio; and the moving panorama, the most original and instructive, if not the most refined species of art belonging to this age in all the world, was invented by an American, amid the wild splendors of the upper Mississippi. In regions yet beyond, Jubal with the chorded shell, and Tubal-Cain, smelting metals and refining pigments for the use of man, will direct those who congregate in cities, and turn the discoveries of reason, with the embellishments of art to the widest and most ennobling public good. We have every reason to believe that as our nationality shall require an artistic expression, local genius will never be wanting to give it an adequate expression; and that the sublime productions of the West will ultimately be appealed to as the finest test of the supreme rank we shall come to hold among the nations of earth.
CHAPTER III.
SCIENCE.
The swallow travels, and the bee builds now, as these creatures of instinct traveled and built in the days of Moses and Job; but the capabilities and acquisitions of rational man are all progressive, not only, as an individual from infancy to age, but as a species from the beginning to the end of time. This is shown, by every art which man has invented, and in every science he has employed. Let us proceed to open up more specifically this illustrative department of our general theme, and consider the threefold advantages, political, mechanical, and educational which the age of Washington permits us to enjoy.
The science of government as practiced in this country, is undoubtedly constructed on the loftiest principles of common sense, and constitutes the best model and most salutary protection to each subordinate department of productive thought. Here, the division of labor has been carried to the greatest extent, not only in the deliberative but in the executive departments; and progress is steadily pursued, without attempting to anticipate results either by springing forward after crude theories, or backward in attempts to copy extinct forms. Our view of liberty differs essentially from that held by the ancients. By the latter citizenship was regarded as the highest phase of humanity, and man, as a political being, could rise no higher than to membership in a state; therefore it was that Aristotle affirmed the state to be before the individual. But with us the state, and consequently the citizenship only affords the means of obtaining still higher objects, the fullest possible development of human faculties both in this world and in that which is to come.