or the marble to the printed page. Art and literature, it is true, rest upon the same essential principles of taste, upon the same deep and everlasting foundations of nature. But they differ in methods and materials. The artist has the great advantage of addressing himself to the mind and heart through the senses; of presenting to the spectator forms, that all but live, and move, and breathe; that speak in feature, look, and action, of the passions which their author meant to impress upon them. The poet, and the novelist, on the contrary, have to trust to the more vague and uncertain medium of words, phrases, sounds. To affect a reader, is a subtler and perhaps more difficult process, than to move the feelings of a spectator. The impressions made by words must, from the very nature of the case, be less defined and distinct, than those made by forms, attitudes, action, color. But then the writer has an excellent set-off to this superiority of the artist, in the interest of continued narrative. He can gradually excite our sympathy, by putting forward, in a striking light, event after event, distress after distress, and perplexity after perplexity. He can work us up to an agony of hope or fear, by the skilful arrangement of a thousand details scattered along a succession of passionate and agitating moments; and he can round off the fictitious life he has created, by letting the passions sink to repose in the consciousness that poetic justice has been dealt among those whose joys and woes, whose virtues and crimes, have by turns soothed and roused the reader's mind.

In the conduct of his story, we think we see that Mr. Allston has been true to the artist's character. And though, as we have said before, hints and intimations are sufficiently thrown in to guide the careful reader to the right conclusion, yet the intervals between the great moments are not sufficiently filled out for a novel. We have no doubt this passionate story exists in his mind in the form of a series of pictures; at least it would afford half a dozen glorious subjects for his pencil. It is not necessary, at this time, to give an analysis of the plot. Most readers are familiar with it long before this. A few remarks of a general nature, and some illustrative extracts, will embrace all that is requisite to be said at present. We perceive the artist, not only in the respects we have above alluded to, but in the able delineation and skilful contrast of characters. The two leading personages, Maldura and

Monaldi, are of equal excellence, and are brought out with the greater effect by being set off against each other with such admirable judgment. They are traced from the first traits and impulses of schoolboy days, to the finished characters of the matured men; and we cannot help admiring the delicate and subtile manner in which the diverging motives and influences, under which the two are gradually formed to such perfect opposites, are from time to time brought to light. How nobly is the mind of the true artist drawn in the generous Monaldi. Unconsciously the writer sketched the lovely picture from himself. In all, except the whirlwind passions roused by a villain's arts, we recognise the well-known and venerated genius, whose presence among us is a benediction. With what vigor are the fearful consequences of boundless and irregular literary ambition portrayed in the gloomy character and horrible destiny of Maldura. The lesson is a startling but a necessary one. Literary ambition, the desire, not to excel for the sake of excellence, and through an unmixed and unselfish love of letters, is one of the most baneful- passions that can agitate the breast of man. What envyings and backbitings, what uncharitable construction of motives, and what malice of disparaging innuendo, have in all ages disgraced the conversations of literary men, too morbidly alive to what they are pleased to call their literary fame, to bear with patience the praises bestowed upon another, or to enjoy freely and heartily the intellectual delights which literary intercourse lays open before them. The lesson was never more forcibly taught than by the promising youth ending in the blasted manhood; the great abilities turned to the most wretched purposes; the apparent friendship sinking into the most revolting crime, and then into bitter but unavailing repentance, —that mark the unhappy career of Maldura.

The sensual villain, Count Fialto, is a remarkable and welldrawn figure, necessary to the purposes of the plot, and strongly contrasting with the intellectual profligacy of his employer. But the character which sheds a divine charm over the dark picture, and harmonizes all its terrible elements into a serene and heavenly beauty, is that of Rosalia Landi. The delineation of a perfect woman with natural traits, without exaggeration; the blending of all these ingredients of character in just proportion; the gentleness without weakness, and the firmness free from masculine hardness; the soft com

pliance joined to unbending love of truth and honor; which make up the admirable woman in real life; this portraiture is, we are inclined to think, the rarest and most difficult achievement of the writer's art. But rare and difficult as it is, Mr. Allston has achieved the task in his Rosalia Landi. From the dawning conception to the last touches of execution, all is beautiful, attractive, and harmonious in this most lovely creation; and we feel at the close, that the author's pencil would be fitly employed to illustrate this triumph of his pen.

We have often before pored over Allston's pages to admire the grace and delicacy of his English poetical style. This book is equally remarkable for its rich and harmonious prose. The nice selection of epithets, the faultless arrangement of the members of the sentences, and the rhythmical cadence to which thought and expression seem to move united, combine to make it one of the most finished works in American literature. We fall here and there upon a most delicately wrought picture of some natural scene, which betrays the artist's eye and hand; then a deep moral reflection, speaking a varied experience and observation of life, arrests our attention and awakens a train of solemn thought; then a maxim of art, worthy to be laid up among the treasures of memory, is modestly put forth, but bears under its simple expression the wisdom of studious and thoughtful years. Such, in our judgment, is the character of this little volume by our great artist; it is a work of high genius, of rare beauty, and of a moral purity and religious elevation, which distinguish it from. most literary works of the age. We shall now illustrate our remarks by a few short extracts. We begin with the following sketch of Monaldi.

"The profession which Monaldi had chosen for the future occupation of his life was that of a painter; to which, however, he could not be said to have come wholly unprepared. The slight sketch just given of him will show that the most important part, the mind of a painter, he already possessed; the nature of his amusements (in which, some one has well observed, men are generally most in earnest,) having unconsciously disciplined his mind for this pursuit. He had looked at Nature with the eye of a lover; none of her minutest beauties had escaped him, and all that were stirring to a sensitive heart and a romantic imagination were treasured up in his memory, as themes of delightful musing in her absence and they came to him in those moments with that never-failing

freshness and life which love can best give to the absent. But the skill and the hand of an artist were still to be acquired.

"But perseverance, if not a mark of genius, is at least one of its practical adjuncts; and Monaldi possessed it. Indeed, there is but one mode of making endurable the perpetual craving of any master-passion, the continually laboring to satisfy it. And, so it be innocent, how sweet the reward! giving health to the mind without the sense of toil. This Monaldi enjoyed; for he never felt that he had been toiling, even when the dawn, as it often happened, broke in upon his labors.

Without going more into detail, in a very few years Monaldi was universally acknowledged to be the first painter in Italy. His merit, however, was not merely comparative. He differed from his contemporaries no less in kind than in degree. If he held any thing in common with others, it was with those of ages past, with the mighty dead of the fifteenth century; from them he had learned the language of his art, but his thoughts, and their turn of expression, were his own. His originality, therefore, was felt by all; and his country hailed him as one coming, in the spirit of Raffaelle, to revive by his genius her ancient glory.

"It is not, however, to be supposed, that the claims of the new style were allowed at once, since it required not only the acquisition of a new taste, but the abandoning an old one. In what is called a critical age, which is generally that which follows the age of production, it is rarely that an original author is well received at once. There are two classes of opponents, which he is almost sure to encounter: the one consists of those who, without feeling or imagination, are yet ambitious of the reputation of critics; who set out with some theory, either ready made to their hands and purely traditional, or else reasoned out by themselves from some plausible dogma, which they dignify with the name of philosophy. As these criticize for distinction, every work of art becomes to them, of course, a personal affair, which they accordingly approach either as patrons or enemies; and woe to the poor artist who shall have had the hardihood to think for himself. In the other class is comprised the well-meaning multitude, who, having no pretensions of their own, are easily awed by authority; and, afraid to give way to their natural feeling, receive without distrust the more confident dicta of these self-created arbiters. Perhaps at no time was the effect of this peculiar usurpation more sadly illustrated than in the prescriptive commonplace which distinguished the period of which we speak. The first appearance of Monaldi was consequently met by an opposition proportioned to the degree of his departure from the current opin

ions. But as his good sense had restrained him from venturing before the public until by long and patient study he had felt himself entitled to take the rank of a master, he bore the attacks of his assailants with the equanimity of one who well knew that the ground he stood upon was not the quicksand of self-love. Besides, he had no vanity to be wounded, and the folly of their criticisms he disdained to notice, leaving it to time to establish his claims. Nor was this wise forbearance long unrewarded, for it is the nature of truth, sooner or later, to command recognition; some kindred mind will at last respond to it ; and there is no true response that is not given in love; hence the lover-like enthusiasm with which it is hailed, and dwelt upon, until the echo of like minds spreads it abroad, to be finally received by the many as a matter of faith. It was so with Monaldi." - pp. 24-27.

By way of contrast to the preceding, we give the description of the effect upon Maldura of his first literary disappoint

ment.

"Maldura's heart stiffened within him, but his pride controlled him, and he masked his thoughts with something like composure. Yet he dared not trust himself to speak, but stood looking at Piccini, as if waiting for him to go on. 'I believe that's all,' said the Count, carelessly twirling his hat, and rising to take leave.

"Maldura roused himself, and, making an effort, said, 'No, Sir, there is one person whom you have only named, — Alfieri! what did he say ?'

"Nothing!' Piccini pronounced this word with a graver tone than usual; it was his fiercest bolt, and he knew that a show of feeling would send it home. Then, after pausing a moment, he hurried out of the room.

"Maldura sunk back in his chair, and groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. 'As for the wretches who make a trade of sarcasm, and whose petty self-interest would fatten on the misfortunes of a rival, I can despise them; but Alfieri, the manly, just Alfieri, to see me thus mangled, torn piece-meal before his eyes, and say nothing! Am I then beneath his praise ? Could he not find one little spark of genius in me to kindle up his own, and consume my base assassins? No, he saw them pounce upon and embowel me, and yet said nothing.'

"Maldura closed his eyes to shut out the light of day; but neither their lids, nor the darkness of night could shut out from his mind the hateful forms of his revilers. He saw them in their assemblies, on the Corso, in the coffee-houses, knotted VOL. LIV.-No. 115. 52