But, leaving the worthy artist’s own interests completely out of the question, and in the cause of science casting aside all party feeling, we submit to Lord Melbourne, to Sir Robert Peel, to Lord Lansdowne, to Sir R. Inglis, and to all who are deservedly distinguished among us as the liberal patrons of the fine arts, that Mr. Catlin’s Indian collection is worthy to be retained in this country as the record of a race of our fellow-creatures whom we shall very shortly have swept from the face of the globe. Before that catastrophe shall have arrived, it is true, a few of our countrymen may occasionally travel among them; but it cannot be expected that any artist of note should again voluntarily reside among them for seven years, as competent as Mr. Catlin, whose slight, active, sinewy frame has peculiarly fitted him for the physical difficulties attendant upon such an exertion.
Considering the melancholy fate which has befallen the Indian race, and which overhangs the remnant of these victims to our power, it would surely be discreditable that the civilized world should, with heartless apathy, decline to preserve and to transmit to posterity Mr. Catlin’s graphic delineation of them; and if any nation on earth should evince a desire to preserve such a lasting monument, there can be no doubt that there exists none better entitled to do so than the British people; for with feelings of melancholy satisfaction, we do not hesitate to assert that throughout our possessions on the continent of America, we have, from the first moment of our acquaintance with them to the present hour, invariably maintained their rights, and at a very great expense have honestly continued to pay them their annual presents, for which we have received from them, in times of war as well as of peace, the most unequivocal marks of their indelible gratitude. Their respect for our flag is unsullied by a reproach—their attachment to our sovereign is second only in their breasts to the veneration with which they regard their “Great Spirit”—while the names of Lord Dalhousie, of Sir Peregrine Maitland, and of Sir John Colborne, who for many years respectively acted towards them as their father and as their friend, will be affectionately repeated by them in our colonies until the Indian heart has ceased to beat there, and until the Red Man’s language has ceased to vibrate in the British “wilderness of this world.” Although European diseases, and the introduction of ardent spirits, have produced the lamentable effects we have described, and although as a nation we are not faultless, yet we may fairly assert and proudly feel that the English government has at least made every possible exertion to do its duty towards the Indians; and that there has existed no colonial secretary of state who has not evinced that anxiety to befriend them which, it is our duty to say, particularly characterized the administration of the amiable and humane Lord Glenelg.
THE LITERARY GAZETTE.
Catlin’s Indian Gallery, Egyptian Hall.—We have now to announce the opening of this exhibition, from visits to which every class of the community, old as well as young, will reap much instruction and gratification. Having recently described, from an American journal, Mr. Catlin’s seven or eight years’ sojourn among the red races of North America, we need now only say that his representation of them, their country, their costumes, their sports, their religious ceremonies, and in short their manners and customs, so as to enable us to form a complete idea of them, is deserving of the utmost praise. There are above 500 subjects in these spacious rooms, from a wigwam to a child’s rattle; and everything belonging to the various Indian tribes are before the spectator in their actual condition and integrity. There are, besides, a multitude of portraits of the leading warriors, &c. &c., and other pictures of dances, ball-play, ambuscading, fighting; and the whole supplying by far the most ample and accurate history of them that has ever been published to the world. No book of travels can approach these realities; and after all we had read of the red men, we confess we are astonished at the many new and important points connected with them which this Gallery impressed upon us. We saw more distinctly the links of resemblance between them and other early and distant people; and we had comparisons suggested of a multitude of matters affecting the progress of mankind all over the earth, and alike illustrated by similitudes and dissimilitudes. Indeed the philosophical inquirer will be delighted with this exhibition, whilst the curious child of seven years of age will enjoy it with present amusement and lasting instruction.
THE ATHENÆUM.
The Indian Gallery.—This is the collection mentioned heretofore by our American correspondent (No. 609), and a most interesting one it is. It contains more than 300 portraits of distinguished Indians, men and women of different tribes, all painted from life; and in many instances the identical dress, weapons, &c. are exhibited which they wore when their portraits were taken; and 200 other paintings, representing Indian customs, games, hunting-scenes, religious ceremonies, dances, villages, and said to contain above 3000 figures: in brief, it is a pictorial history of this interesting and fast-perishing race. It includes, too, a series of views of the Indian country; and we have seen nothing more curious than some of the scenes on the Upper Missouri and Mississippi, the general accuracy of which is beyond question. Mr. Catlin has spent seven years in wandering among the various tribes, for the sole purpose of perfecting this collection. As he observes, “it has been gathered, and every painting has been made from nature, by my own hand; and that, too, when I have been paddling my canoe or leading my packhorse over and through trackless wilds, at the hazard of life. The world will surely be kind and indulgent enough to receive and estimate them as they have been intended, as true and fac-simile traces of individual and historical facts, and forgive me for their present unfinished and unstudied condition as works of art.”
The value of this collection is increased by the fact that the red men are fast perishing, and will probably, before many years have passed, be an extinct race. If proof of this were wanting, we have it in the facts recorded in the catalogue, of the devastation which the smallpox has lately spread among them. Of one tribe, the hospitable and friendly Mandans, as Mr. Catlin calls them, 2000 in number when he visited them and painted their pictures, living in two permanent villages on the Missouri, 1800 miles above its junction with the Mississippi, not one now exists! In 1837 the smallpox broke out among them, and only thirty-five were left alive; these were subsequently destroyed by a hostile tribe, which took possession of their villages: and thus, within a few months, the race became extinct—not a human being is believed to have escaped.