AMBITION.

LIGHT of the noble mind! the proud of earth
Have ever breathed to thee their matin song;

And lofty hearts have mingled in the throng
That gazed entranced upon thy brightness. Worth
To thee a minister hath been; and birth

No heritage hath claimed; the student's lore—
The poet's verse—for thee their visions soar !
Thy beams may gild a throne, or peasant's hearth :
Fond worshippers have followed o'er the wave,

And watched thy rays, as mariners the sun:
Danger hath stood upon the battlement
Where rushed thy votary with his banner rent-
Yet pressed he on, till victory's meed was won,
In wreaths upon his brow, or glory on his grave!

P. M. Wetmore.

EXAMPLE AND EMULATION.

PERHAPS it may not be for the advantage of any nation to have the arts imported from their neighbours in too great perfection. This extinguishes emulation, and sinks the ardour of the generous youth. So many models of Italian painting brought to England, instead of exciting our artists, is the cause of their small progress in that noble art. The same, perhaps, was the case of Rome, when it received the arts from Greece.

A man's genius is always, in the beginning of life, as much unknown to himself as to others; and it is only after frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think

himself equal to those undertakings, in which those who have succeeded have fixed the admiration of mankind. If his own nation be already possessed of many models, * * * he naturally compares his own juvenile exercises with these; and being sensible of the great disproportion, is discouraged from any farther attempts, and never aims at a rivalship with those authors whom he so much admires. A noble emulation is the source of every excellence. Admiration and modesty naturally extinguish this emulation. And no one is so liable to an excess of admiration and modesty as a truly great genius. Next to emulation, the greatest encourager of the noble arts is praise and glory. He is animated with new force when he hears the applauses of the world for his former productions; and, being roused by such a motive, he often reaches a pitch of perfection which is equally surprising to himself and others.

Hume.

CONVIVIAL EPITAPH.

HERE Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He's not left a wiser or better behind:

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,

When they judged without skill, he was still hard of

hearing:

When they talked of their Raphaels, Corregio, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.

Goldsmith.

CHANTRY'S WASHINGTON.

TRANSCENDENT form! that from the unconscious stone
Hast risen into being and to fame;

Proud monument of art! which not alone
The Hero's image, but the Artist's name
Perpetuates to gratitude, and swells
The consecrated temple where it dwells.

How glorious thus to cóntemplate a name
Revered by every nation! and to know
That Albion's genius honours thus our fame,

And makes Italia's tribute marble glow;
Nor leaves of Roman art or Grecian spoil
A nobler object on her classic soil.

Already porticoes like Greece, and domes

Like towering Rome, their grace and grandeur lend To endear and decorate our native homes;

And sculpture, tending to its noblest end,
Confined to one immortal object still,
Bestows Canova's, Houdon's, Chantry's skill.*

Let Europe then her choicest labours send!
Such lessons suit Columbia's daring sons,
Whose pencils, emulous of fame, contend
Already in the race that Albion runs :

The Sun of Art which glowed in Rome, may rise
To equal splendour in our Western skies.

* Canova's statue of Washington, in Roman costume, at Raleigh, N. C.; Houdon's, in the continental uniform, at Richmond, Va.; and Chantry's, in civic costume, at Boston, Mass.

Mature in youth, a nation at our birth,

We start where Europe stops, or at her side
Extend our commerce o'er the distant earth,
And press where Science leads inventive pride:
So may our arts advance; to fulness start,
And live enshrined within a people's heart.

R. P.

FACE TO FACE.

WE can scarcely imagine a thing much more pleasant, indeed, to an artist, than to be brought face to face with some famous person, and permitted to examine and scrutinize his features, with that careful and intense curiosity that seems necessary to the perfecting a likeness.

Barry Cornwall.

PORTRAITURE.

THAT the admirers of Portrait painting are many, the annual exhibitions show us; and it is pleasant to read the social and domestic affections of the country in these innumerable productions. In the minds of some they rank with historical compositions; and there can be no doubt that Portraits which give the form and the soul of poets and statesmen and warriors, and of all whose actions or whose thoughts lend lustre to the land, are to be received as illustrations of history. *** The painter who wishes for lasting fame must not lavish his fine colours and choice postures on the rich and titled alone; he must seek to associate his labours with the genius of his country. A. Cunningham.

HUMAN CAPACITY.

ONE Science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Pope.

NOTHING PERFECT.

WHOEVER thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

Pope.

GLASS.

WHO, when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness of heat, melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded with impurities, would have imagined, that in this shapeless lump lay concealed so many conveniences of life, as would in time constitute a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by some such fortuitous liquefaction was mankind taught to procure a body at once in a high degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another with the endless subordination of animal life; and, what is yet of more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed without his own knowledge or expecta