and in the ideal of our institutions. As the circumstances through which our nation has passed have been in the highest degree grand and imposing, so also has been the development of our national character. The aborigines of our country were a lofty race. The Indian mind was cast in a powerful mould. Its deeds of prowess and of might-of cunning and revenge, were the result of passions strong, through depraved. In all that constitutes physical character, the Indian far excelled the white man. Tall, athletic in appearance, with a hardy frame, and a form moulded in the lineaments of strength-he was the very model of the Grecian artist. It was the exclamation of West on first viewing the Belvidere Apollo ;-" My God! how like a Mohawk warrior!" The incidents connected with the annals of Indian warfare are indeed worthy to be worked into shape, and moulded in the productions of the sculptor. The character of Philipthat stern Narragansett warrior-of Osceola and Black Hawk, renowned chiefs; of Red Jacket, the Demosthenes of the forest, affords lineaments of Sculpture not only powerful but sublime. Persico has indeed laid hold of this subject of aboriginal character in its finer forms of expression, in his portraiture of Columbus and the Indian maiden; the latter shrinking from the presence of the white man, to represent the conquest of the European over the Indian race. The grouping is at once beautful and

unique.

men.

But the character of the aborigines of our country is not the only element which offers material for the labors of the sculptor. The Puritan character has its own claims to scholastic regard. The Puritan mind was cast in stern, lofty, and heroic mould. The founders of our nation were not imperial nobles, but kindly The persecutions which drove them from their native shores did not so much create their character as give scope for its development. They would have been princes, had they not been pilgrims. Robinson and Carver and Winthrop and Standish were models of a nation's founders-gems worthy to be set in an immortal chasing. Such forms, such characters, it is the province of Sculpture to render eternal. In delineating these attributes it does not so much give as receive immortality.

An important design of Sculpture in our country is to perpetuate the memory of great men and great deeds. The influence of

great men, and particularly of good men, on society, is always beneficial; and it is by dwelling on the characters of such men, and by cherishing their memory, that mankind become improved under their influence. So reasoned the Roman youth, who were accustomed, as Sallust informs us, to carry the images of their ancestors before them, that they might be stimulated to the performance of great deeds. As with great men, so with great actions, their memory deserves to be embalmed for the benefit as well as the admiration of posterity. Indeed, it is but a simple act of justice in a State to perpetuate the memory of her great men—an office which it is the province of the historian or biographer to discharge, but which affords peculiar material for the labors of the Sculptor. Those immortal lineaments of thought and feeling those lines graven deep on the countenance expressive of the hero or the patriot,-graven still deeper in Pentelican marble, become thus to after times a model and a monument. In the character of these lineaments-in the moulding of these lines, we behold a striking exemplification of the influence of free institutions. Our youth, with such examples of greatness before them will aspire to be what they behold, and in the midst of statues and monuments commemorative of departed greatness, will emulate a like virtue and fame. It is thus that our sculptors in foreign lands have sought to perpetuate the memory of our great men, moulding their lineaments in enduring marble, and carving them after the model of an immortal grace. Powers has made busts of many of our distinguished statesmen—and, side by side with Persico's group of Columbus and the Indian maid, as the presiding genius of the city called after his name, is Greenough's statue of WASHINGTON.

There is, indeed, one difficulty, which attends the progress American Sculpture, as also of American Art, viz. the want of Government patronage. It is matter of reproof that our Government should be so deficient in lending its aid to the foste ing of such an ins.itution, connected as it is with the true prosperty and glory of the nation-which, if it be not the corner-stone, is yet the Corinthian pillar of the edifice. Patronage is indeed be stowed on other objects, appropriations made to other departments of intellectual effort, yet art as a general thing has been too greatly neglected. The enterprise of building a new rail-road,

of establishing new steam-ships, commands at once the attention and patronage of Congress; but the founding of a national gallery becomes a subject of doubt and reluctance. Unlike other governments, in which it has flourished, supported by the patronage of their institutions, Art in our country has struggled into fortune and into favor. The history of our artists sufficiently attests the reluctance of government thus to bestow its influence on an institution so worthy of its aid. They point to Trumbull, presenting in vain his proposals for the establishment of a gallery of Art, and of Vanderlyn, neglected by the Government which should have honored him: like his own Marius at the Ruins of Carthage, petitioning in vain for a commission-'till, like Moses, his eye was dim, and his natural force abated. Happily, however, this reproach is being fast wiped away, and in the late action of Government, in regard to the subject of establishing a Gallery of Art in the Smithsonian Institute, the commencement of a bright era of artistic glory is cordially anticipated.

Such as we have stated, is the province of American Sculpture. It is indeed a lofty mission, and one worthy of the highest efforts of its votaries. To accomplish this mission—to achieve these grand objects-years of exile and privation, of labor and of toil, are but a small sacrifice compared with the magnitude of the results. The subject makes its appeal to our sculptors, inviting them, with still more earnestness than before, to press on in the high path which they have chosen. Nay, in no other way can the sculptor better employ his talents, and, while he pays that debt which, as Bacon says, every man owes to his profession, secure the immortality of our institutions, than in presenting to the world the sculptured form of Freedom.

It was about four years since that we visited the Dane Hall, Cambridge. As we entered, an appearance of gloom pervaded the apartment. Veiled statues occupied the several niches except one, and around that one all bent, as around Joseph's sheaf bent the sheaves of his brethren. That statue was Story's. We had heard of his fame in jurisprudence-a fame European as well as American. We knew that in this country the public mind bowed to his talents in veneration, but never did we feel such an impression of homage to departed greatness, as in that expressive yet silent obeisance.

WINTER.

BY H. A. RODMAN.

Yes, this is winter! Yonder range of hills,
So brown and bare, the line of vision fills,
Like frame-work to a picture. To the eye
Its clear, bold outline seems to meet the sky,
And many a waving line of beauty trace,
Or clasp the clouds within its cold embrace.
Near to its base, in unrobed beauty, stand
The virgin oaks-the glory of our land ;-
While, through the meadows of the vale below,
A silver streamlet softly seems to flow.
The slant rays of the fast-descending sun
Proclaim the reign of night almost begun ;
While the bright region of the far South-west
Glows like a dream of Araby the Blest.
And gorgeous clouds are resting lovingly
Upon the yielding bosom of the sky,
As if to catch the last expiring ray,—
The dying splendors of the god of day.

But lo, the scene is changed! Yon bank of cloud,
Which rested on the hill-tops, like a shroud,
Already, by the coming tempest driven,

Shuts from the sight the eastern half of heaven.
Again the prospect changes. Morning light
Presents a scene insufferably bright.

The warm rays of the sun, thrown back again
From every portion of the extended plain,
Too dazzling to the unaccustomed eye,
Compels an upward glance towards the sky.
Thus has each season its distinctive charm,
The mind to stimulate, the heart to warm.

Spring clothes the earth with beauty. Summer gives
A feast of joy to every thing that lives.

Ripe Autumn, mother of the plenteous year,

Fills human hearts with thoughts of goodly cheer.

Then Winter, throwing down his silver pall,

Spreads a peculiar glory over all.

CHRISTMAS EVE AT SEA.

THE captain would have it so. His generosity instantly took the form of obstinacy after he had once made up his mind to do any body a favor. I verily believe, that if one should succeed in obtaining a promise of a kindness from him, but should afterwards think it inadvisable to accept it, that the worthy captain would compel the reluctant beneficiary to receive it, if necessary, by a round "dozen," at the foot of the mast. His invariable reply was, when he gave a favorable answer: "Deuce take me, sir, but you shall have it: I tell you, sir, you shall have it, and shiver the rascal who says you sha'n't." This was said with a reddening face, a swelling throat, a shake of the head, and a look of warning cast at every individual within sight at the time. It was a universal defiance to passengers, crew, cabin-boy and cook.

But the captain need not have been in such a putter in the present instance. The young clergyman, who made the request, was a universal favorite on board the ship, and his request was of a nature calculated to please persons worn out with the monotony of a ten days' voyage. The meek, smooth face of the young churchman, resting on a faultless white cravat, and his mild eye, had inspired general regard and sympathy. His sallow skin and deeply crimson lips were marked with an expression of great meekness and resignation. He was bound to the island of Trinidad for the sake of his health, and had improved the time consumed in our voyage in making the acquaintance of every passenger and seaman in our company. The rough tars seemed to like him almost as well as a young Spanish senora, whose large, deeply curtained eyes followed every motion of his. However, I ought to say that she showed off to him none of the languishing coquetry of her race. She seemed rather to shrink from his calm, spiritual manner, when he approached for conversation. She appeared to be relieved the moment he left her, when her glances would instinctively be fixed upon him as if they were never weary of studying his face and motions. He was so unlike her father confessor, who was on board, that his religious character and position seemed to her, without doubt, a mystery un