The Bulletin of the American Art-Union contains information concerning American Artists which has personal interest:—
Durand has not yet removed from his residence on the Hudson. Kensett and Champney have been sketching among the White Hills of New Hampshire. Cropsey is at his country studio, at Greenwood Lake. Church and Gignoux have returned from the coast of Maine with their portfolios well stocked with sketches. Ranney continues to work upon his picture of Marion, with his Army, crossing the Pedee, which will soon be completed. Matteson, now residing at Sherburne, has nearly finished a picture representing A Trial Scene in the Backwoods, which, it is said, will advance his reputation. Jones, a sculptor who has a high reputation at the West, has removed to New York; he has already modeled busts of General Taylor, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Thomas Corwin, and other notabilities, and is now employed on a spirited head of General Scott, at the order of some friends in Detroit.
Edwin White is diligently pursuing his studies in Paris. Hall, we believe, has also gone to Paris from Düsseldorf. Page has arrived in Florence, which place he intends to make his residence for several months. He has formed a warm intimacy with Powers, whose portrait he is painting. Whitridge and McConkey have lately sent home several pictures which indicate improvement, although they are somewhat tinged with the mannerism of the Düsseldorf school, where these artists have been studying so long. They propose to leave Germany very soon, and after visiting Italy and France, to return home in the spring. Leutze is at work on his great picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware. The size of this painting is the same with that of those in the Rotunda of the Capitol, twelve feet by eighteen feet. It will probably be completed in the spring, when the artist intends to accompany it to this country, from which he has been absent now about ten years. Upjohn, the architect was, by the last accounts, in Venice. Glass has returned to his residence at Kensington, near London, from the neighborhood of Haddon Hall, where he has been assiduously engaged in sketching. He is at work upon a group of paintings, illustrative of scenes in the wars of the Stuarts. He is an artist of decided merit and increasing reputation.
GREAT BRITAIN.
In England very few books of special value or interest have been published or announced. The most important book of the month is the first part of a very able and laborious compilation on Commercial Law by Mr. Leone Levi. The object of the entire undertaking, is to survey the principles and administration of all the various commercial laws of foreign countries, with a view to a direct comparison with the mercantile law of Great Britain. Mr. Levi appears to have been engaged for years, with this object, in correspondence with the merchants of upward of fifty countries remarkable more or less for distinct and separate commercial usages; and to have obtained in every instance the information he sought. His ultimate object, is the establishment of a national and international code of commerce among all civilized countries, rejecting what is inconvenient or unjust in all, and retaining and codifying what is best in each.
A life of Wordsworth, by the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, is announced as in press. Its appearance will be awaited with interest.
M. Mazzini has just republished his letters, orations, and other tracts on Italy, with an eloquent and earnest appeal to the English people, in a small volume entitled Royalty and Republicanism in Italy. M. Mazzini repels in this book the charge so often brought against him of having distracted and divided the forces of his native country, at the time when they ought to have been concentrated on the paramount duty of driving out the Austrians.
A curious incident connected with American History is mentioned in the closing volume of Southey's Life, which has just been published in London. While Jared Sparks was examining the state papers in the public offices of the British Government, so much matter was ferreted out that the government "wished to tell its own story," and Southey adds, that his "pulse was felt," but he declined writing it on the ground that others could perform the task as well, and he had other engagements on hand.
Southey, in 1829, declined a proposal from Fraser to write a popular history of English literature in four volumes. It is to be regretted that he did not write such a work.