avoided the difficulty into which that of the present day has fallen, by the introduction of this element of music. The limits of the human in stature, voice, and expression also were broken through, and the divine element was introduced in the conduct of the play. The early English theatre also avoided the same difficulty, in some measure, by leaving the scenes undetermined, or only indicated by the rudest stage furniture. In seeking for a confirmation of the principle of indeterminateness in architecture, we shall find that this depends for its beauty upon form; that color is rendered in it as little marked as may be. It retains, in general, merely the color of its material, as the whiteness of the marble, and the brownness of the freestone, or of the oak darkened by age. But even these are found to be a hinderance to the enjoyment of an architectural work; and when they can retire still farther into the background, it gains in nobleness of expression. It is not a mere idle sentimentality which has led painters and poets, and even inartistic tourists, into such raptures over Melrose Abbey and the Colosseum, as they are seen by moonlight. Every great work of architecture, new or old, so far as the general effect of it is concerned, can be fully enjoyed by moonlight or twilight alone. Then the eye is not prevented by minute or nament from taking in the grand proportions of the whole. It stands a mighty Form without color, and hence in that direction undetermined and immaterial. We can thus understand also, in part, the pleasure which a building in ruins gives us, greater sometimes than that we should have derived from its complete beauty; for this could not equal our vague imaginings. The same effect is attempted in the inte rior of Gothic churches by producing a continual twilight, by means of which all color recedes into the background; and even the rays which fall crimsoned and purpled by the gorgeous staining of the window through which they have passed, as they creep forward with the changing sun, serve only to make the hue of all things more unreal and shadowy. We are here however approaching the precincts of the sublime, one mode of which consists in absolute indeterminateness, as well in form as in color; as, for instance, in the snow-covered moun tain, which is a mighty, unfilled outline, with nothing to help the imagination in the effort to grasp it. It is obvious that a perfect indeterminateness of color can be effected only by the actual presence of all the colors, in such proportions that all are neutralized, and thus perfect whiteness produced; or by the absence of all, the result of which is blackness; or, more generally, by some neutral tint, or its equivalent, of which we have a beautiful example in the polychromatic style of decoration. A Grecian temple, therefore, or any structure built of purely white marble, will gain less by the absence of light than a building formed of a reddish freestone, for instance, and can also dispense more easily with those strivings to represent the limitless in space, and those upward soarings above the bounds of common life, by which the churches of the Middle Age are characterized. We have thus far considered architecture as dependent for its effect upon the proportion of its grand outlines. This is by no means its only, nor perhaps its strongest, appeal to the sense of beauty. A great part, perhaps the greatest part, of its effect is produced by its ornaments. This is a branch of architecture to which, owing to lack of wealth, or more truly, it may be, of taste, little attention has as yet been paid in our own land; but in the architectural master-works of the Old World, the grand proportions of which we have spoken serve only as a background for the paintings and carvings with which they are covered. These decorations naturally separate themselves into the two great divisions which we have named above;-paintings, with which of course are included imitations of them in mosaic, and which are confined to the interior of churches or other buildings; and works of sculpture, from which scarcely any part, whether within or without, is free. The remarks already made in regard to these arts would be equally applicable to them as thus employed. We will simply add in relation to architecture, that its productions enter more into the circle of nature than those of any other art. This results from their massiveness, their durability, and the fact that they form, more than any other works of art, portions of the daily life of a people. It seems almost as if they partook of the vitality of Nature, as if indeed she "Gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date, With Andes and with Ararat." It might seem, therefore, that there was actually less need of this indeterminateness in architecture than in any other art. We find it, however, no less strongly marked. In our investigation we have considered beauty and art merely negatively. The undetermined, the formless, is in itself nothing, and can therefore be productive neither of pleasure nor of pain. It must, of course, be united to a definite and perfect form, the laws of which we have not attempted even to suggest. We ourselves are made up of the same two elements, the limitless and the finite. We, more than any other earthly existences, are partakers of the universal life. The course of our lives also presents the same two great contrasts; behind, it is determined and complete; before, it stretches on into the unknown and boundless. In the common and busy hours of life, we content ourselves, with as much grace as may be, with the finite things of earth; but in the contemplation of beauty, which is the high holiday and play-time of the soul, it will, for once, breathe the free air, and see a path open for itself into the pathless. It will stand upon that line of coast where on the one side lies the firm and the actual, and on the other stretches the vague and limitless ocean. Beauty meets this longing; by the union of which we have been speaking, it satisfies the double nature of man, and becomes its counterpart. We sometimes forget that an infinite life pervades nature, and look upon it as wholly material, and destined to satisfy merely our material wants. Art awakens us from this dream, which we call reality. It presents nature to us in such a manner that we cannot degrade or materialize it, but must suffer it to address our higher nature alone. We have thus offered a few thoughts which may assist in solving the questions which Ruskin has so well stated, but not satisfactorily answered. The particular criticisms in the book are worthy of the highest praise and the most careful study; and through the entire volume, while we do not lose sight of the author's idiosyncrasies of opinion and sentiment, we are increasingly impressed with the large scope of his genius, the lofty earnestness of his spirit, and the nobleness of his aim and endeavor. ART. VI. Essays, Biographical and Critical; or, Studies of Character. By HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 1857. 12mo. pp. 475. WHEN We consider the large space which Biography necessarily occupies in literature, engrossing so many of the shelves of our libraries, its always prominent position in the reading of all nations, and of late its rapid extension and encroachment upon History itself; when we look, too, at the obvious dangers and temptations attending its composition, it certainly appears that biography, as an art, defined in its range and exhibitions by critical and moral laws, has received far less attention from the world than the importance of the subject demands. In our own day, particularly, when there are more "Lives" written in proportion to the bulk of literature than ever before, there is less deference to rule, and apparently less sense of responsibility, in their preparation than ever before. Every man fortunate or unhappy enough to come into possession of a trunk full of papers relating to some departed man or woman of eminence, nor is it always necessary that the man or woman should have departed this life, or that the eminence be unquestionable, thinks himself ipso facto qualified to set up as a biographer. In many instances, it would be quite as sufficient a justification for the work, if a simple citizen, uneducated to the calling, were, on falling into possession of a stone quarry, a plantation of timber, and a chest of carpenter's tools, at once to set about the construction, with his own hands, of a church or a state-house. Nay, there would be a much greater probability of success in the case of the extempore carpenter than in that of the unqualified biographer; since the one deals with tangible material agencies, and the - other with metaphysical, spiritual forces, and in the economy of the world a thousand may fittingly use their hands where one is permitted, in this way, profitably to employ his brains. It is time this matter should be a little looked into. More persons have an interest in it than may be at first thought imagined. Genius, talent, high position, are in hourly danger, and alas for the literature of the nineteenth century and the burdens we are imposing upon posterity! low life, mediocrity, dulness itself, these afford no protection from the biographical assassins swarming in all directions. "There are biographers abroad!" as Sydney Smith sounded the alarm at a breakfast with Jeffrey, when Moore announced the misfortune of Sir Thomas Lawrence, "falling into the hands of such a biographer as Campbell." Poor Moore! it was well he did not foresee his own fate in the murderous pages of Russell. There are two comprehensive, indispensable conditions. which we should insist upon, were we laying down the conditions of valuable biographical labor. One is, that the undertaker should be an able literary workman, profoundly skilled in that department of letters; the other is, that he should be not only a good, but a wise man. Under the first requisition, we would place all that relates to the collection of materials and their adjustment. It embraces unwearied diligence, conscientious verification, skill in the disposition of parts, all that can be done by industry and talent. These, however, can go but a very little way without the infusion of a more subtile moral and intellectual element, which includes at once sober judgment and imaginative sympathy, sitting together with consenting counsels on one throne. When we consider how perplexed and tangled is all human motive and action, how "the web of our life," as the great dramatist feelingly reminds us, "is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together," how "our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them out, and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues," how little the most faithful and rigid self-examination teaches us to know of ourselves, and how much less we can possibly know of others, were all that speech could tell or pen reveal communicated to us,when, too, the reverence, the love, the commiseration, due to |