tain misrepresentations. We need scarcely say that Dr. Bushnell is pastor of a church in Hartford, Conn., of what is commonly called the Orthodox denomination, nor that at this day he is one of the brightest ornaments of that denomination itself. He is what may be called a "liberal Christian," holding fast to his own theory, but allowing other men to do the same for themselves. In this book, and in the numerous sermons he has published, we find talents of a high order united with a genuine Christian piety. His style is fresh and vigorous, original, always manly and often eloquent. The appearance of such a man-and he is not alone in his denomination-is a cheering sign of the times. It remains, however, to be shown, whether his denomination will tolerate such freedom of thought and speech as he claims to exercise. To him it is of no consequence how they decide, but of much to themselves.

10.- The Gospel of To-day: a Discourse delivered at the Ordination of T. W. Higginson as Minister of the First Religious Society in Newburyport, Mass., Sept. 15th, 1847, by WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING; together with the Charge, Right-hand of Fellowship, and Address to the People. Boston. 1847. pp. 64.

MR. Channing says, "Infinite love is the primal source of life; oneness with God and good spirits the real immortality; disinterestedness the sufficing joy; goodness the only way to heaven," but still the peculiar signs of the times require a "gospel for today" as well as for ever. All the tendencies of the age converge to one end. The tendencies of Piety are revivalism, naturalism, catholicism; of Philanthropy, social reforms, educational plans, and religious charities; of Politics, liberalism, legitimacy, political economy. "The whole age is sweeping onward towards the era of combined order." And in the very thought of that" of society organized according to divine law-is revealed a prophecy of unspeakable grandeur." All things point towards perfect society. He does not describe perfect society, but announces "four fundamental Truths, the corner-stones of this Temple of Unity;" namely, 'God is Love;' 'Nature is the symbol of the Eternal Being;'Humanity is one-one in its physical, social, spiritual life.' "The Law of order for humanity, among all nations, within each nation, between individuals, is, once and for ever, Love.' The anticipation of perfect society is not visionary; this appears from the character of God, from man's modes of existence-psychical, social, spiritual and his position between nature below and heaven above. All things are leading us onward to "oneness with man, with nature, and with God." The discourse is marked by the well-known characteristics of the distinguished author; by human

ity, piety, by rare and beautiful eloquence. The other addresses are likewise of a high order, and entirely free from bigotry and sectarianism. Mr. Higginson-like his ancestor in 1629, the first minister ordained in New England-was ordained without help or hindrance from any "ecclesiastical council."

11. Modern Painters. Third Edition.

London: Smith,

Elder, & Co. 1846. 2 vols. imp. 8vo. pp. 422 and 217. (The first volume reprinted by Wiley & Putnam. New York. 1847.)

WE hope to be able at some future time to lay before our readers an extended examination of this remarkable book. Meanwhile, a mere passing notice might seem superfluous, as it appears to have already made its own way. Nevertheless, as this work seems to us not less important to the unartistic lover of Nature than to the painter or connoisseur-and as these sheets may perchance fall into the hands of some one who has not heard it praised, - we cannot refrain from making a few extracts.

This book, which at present consists of two volumes, but of which we are promised a third volume, with illustrations, originated, as the preface tells us, "in indignation at the shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works of the great living artist [J. M. W. Turner] to whom it principally refers." Its purpose "is to demonstrate the utter falseness both of the facts and principles, the imperfection of material, and error of arrangement," on which the so-called "ideal" landscapes of the old painters are based; "and to insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an earnest, faithful, living, study of Nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has ever done to alter and modify her." The old landscapists, he thinks, "had neither love of Nature, nor feeling of her beauty; they looked for her coldest and most commonplace effects, because they were easiest to imitate;' "the deception of the senses was the great and first end of all their art." The modern English painters, on the contrary, and particularly Turner, according to him, “have looked at Nature with totally different eyes; seeking not for what is easiest to imitate, but for what is most important to tell."

Whether Mr. Turner and his countrymen deserve the high relative rank here given them, we have in this country few facilities for judging probably few will admit the justice of all he says on this point, and we may trace here, perhaps, some injurious effects of the circumstances under which the book, or at least the first part of it, was written.

But this we conceive to be altogether a minor question. The

main point is, whether there is any thing in Nature capable and worthy of representation, which the old painters did not represent. This question can be discussed as well, perhaps, in this country, as anywhere for, on the one hand, Nature, with all her variety, has but one system, and produces all her effects by the same means; and on the other, though much of the spirit of a picture is lost in a print, yet enough usually remains to show its general character and aim enough, therefore, to enable us to apprehend a fundamental difference of plan, if it exist, though not to judge of its execution. Now, how much soever we may admire Claude's or Ruysdael's landscapes, this, at least, we must admit that they portray something very different from what we know of actual Nature. And this is not merely the superficial difference of scene and climate, but a difference of aim in the painter. Nobody expects to find in the galleries of Rome or Dresden any thing reminding him of New England. Yet we are reminded of New England, and of what might seem the most local and peculiar effects and details of its landscape, on almost every page of our author's first volume, though he treats exclusively of European scenery. The difference, therefore, arises not from any foreignness of the objects represented, but of the sentiment with which they were viewed. This may be higher or lower; it is at least radically different. "I am not speaking," he says, "of the beauty or desirableness of the system of the old masters; it may be sublime, and affecting, and ideal, and intellectual, and a great deal more ; but all I am concerned with at present is, that it is not true." "A man accustomed to the broad, wild sea-shore, with its bright breakers, and free winds, and sounding rocks, and eternal sensation of tameless power, can scarcely but be angered when Claude bids him stand still on some paltry, chipped, and chiselled quay, with porters and wheelbarrows running against him, to watch a weak, rippling, bound, and barriered water, that has not strength enough in one of its waves to upset the flower-pots on the wall, or even fling a jet of spray over the confining stone." "Nor is it only by the professed landscape painters that the great verities of the material world are betrayed. Grand as are the motives of landscape in the works of the earlier and mightier men, there is yet in them nothing approaching to a general view, nor complete rendering of natural phenomena; not that they are to be blamed for this; for they took out of nature that which was fit for their purpose, and their mission was to do no more; but we must be cautious to distinguish that imaginative abstraction of landscape which alone we find in them, from the entire statement of truth which has been attempted by the moderns." "From the window of Titian's house at Venice, the chain of the Tyrolese Alps is seen lifted in spectral power above the tufted plain of Treviso; every dawn that reddens the towers of Murano lights also a line of pyramidal

fires along that colossal ridge; but there is, so far as I know, no evidence in any of the master's works of his ever having beheld, much less felt, the majesty of their burning." "More than this, of that which they loved and rendered, much is rendered conventionally by noble conventionalities, indeed, but such, nevertheless, as would be inexcusable if the landscape became the principal subject instead of an accompaniment." And whether this difference of aim be attributed to inability, or to intentional limitation, the reason is, we think, in either case the same; namely, that there now exists a more profound appreciation of the landscape, by itself, without any adventitious interest, than formerly. The only alternative is to suppose that what we feel in the landscape is beyond the reach of pictorial art; - that the old painters felt it also, but wisely abstained from attempting impossibilities. This opinion is a common one, and is supported by the conservative instinct which everywhere holds by what has been done, and refuses to admit the possibility of any thing better. And so far the feeling is just: we are not called upon to take possibilities

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for facts, or to believe that any thing can be until it is. But it is to be remembered, on the other hand, that every great action, as has been said, is an impossibility until it is done : - and that if we quit our skepticism, and say positively that it is impossible for modern art to excel the ancient, we ought to show some ground for our assertion in the nature of things.

That there are feelings which cannot be thus expressed, all will allow; but that what Nature does every day by means which we can imitate, though at a vast interval, cannot be represented, even at such an interval, by pictorial art — remains to be proved. If authority is to govern, we on our part might well rely on the authority of the "Oxford Graduate." He shows such a profound instinct for principles; such a subtle apprehension and such an unwearied study of detail, in the work before us, as it is utterly impossible to give any adequate idea of by quotations admissible within our limits, but which is in our opinion unapproached in the language. All we knew we find here, and a great deal more. His statements therefore have a great deal of internal evidence in their favor; it is natural to suppose that his standard is as high and his appreciation as just, in Art as in Nature.

But there are independent grounds, we think, in facts acknowledged by all, for believing that landscape by itself, that is, material nature, was less interesting and important to mankind in general, and therefore likely to be less profoundly understood and felt by artists in former times, than now.

In the works of the old painters the interest is less in the landscape itself, than in its connection with or adaptation to man. Trees, rocks, earth, and water were to them mere rubbish, of which they were to make a picture. These commonplace details were

to be elevated and idealized as being accessory to an historical subject; or even where they apparently stand by themselves, they always suppose some spectator present either in or out of the picture, since they are arranged with an evident view to striking at first sight some beholder. In the earlier landscape, the foreground is filled with animals, birds, and even insects and reptiles, which no peasant could pass without observing; later, the object of attention is more elevated, but still something extraneous to the landscape. Even Claude never omits at least the glimpse of a city or castle, nor Ruysdael his distant spire.

In tone, that is, such a gradation of light and color as shall make the picture agreeable and intelligible at first sight, our author allows that the old masters are unequalled, but this effect, according to him, they obtained at the sacrifice of more important truth. They imitated accurately the relation and positive quantity of light and color in certain parts of the landscape, but from the inferiority of the means employed to those of Nature they soon came to the end of their scale, and were obliged "to omit the truths of space in every individual part of their picture, by the thousand. But this they did not care for; it saved them trouble; they reached their grand end, imitative effect; they thrust home just at the places where the common and careless eye looks for imitation, and they attained the broadest and most faithful appearance of truth of tone which art can exhibit."

This so-called idealizing" of landscape, whatever may be thought of it, at all events implies at least the omission, if not the falsification, of a large part of the objects and aspects of Nature. When we select, we must neglect something. Now to idealize ought to mean, to seize the idea common to a variety of details, and, sufficiently expressing it, to neglect what is mere repetition, accident, or imperfection. "The true ideal of landscape," therefore, "is the expression of the specific-not the individual, but the specific characters of every object, in their perfection." Any thing unworthy of being represented, therefore, must be something which does not, in Nature, express any idea.

Now it may be doubted, we think, whether any thing in Nature (as distinct from man) was felt by the old painters to be of itself the expression of an idea. Certain forms and effects of color and tone they admired; and they admired the landscape just so far as it could be made to conform to their preconceived notions. We are inclined to think, with our author, that the idealization of the landscape by the celebrated painters of former times, was too often a mere fanciful distortion of Nature, to suit the whim of the artist. These views are supported by the feeling now common to all lovers of Nature, that the beauty of the landscape is a pervading quality, common to all landscapes: infinitely various, indeed, in degree, yet independent of any special assignable characters. The