Various

“ It has already been taught them by a genius which France cannot despise, and to whose oracular voice she is now forced to listen, because it issues from his fresh grave! "Legitimacy is the very life of France. Invent, calculate, combine all sorts of illegitimate governments, you will find nothing else possible as the result, nothing which gives any promise of duration, of tolerable existence during a course of years, or even through several months. Legitimacy is, in Europe, the sanctuary in which alone reposes that sovereignty by which states subsist." ”

“ If we believe genius to be an inspiring spirit, we may contemplate it hereafter as an accusing angel. With such a paradise of subjects before them, why do so many of our painters run to the kennel and the stable, or plunge their pencils into the gaudy hues of meretricious enticement? We do verily believe that the world is waiting for better things. It is taking a greater interest in higher subjects, and those of a pure sentiment. It is that our artists are behind the feeling, and not, as they should be, in the advance. ”

“ Elegant trifles, sportive verses, and playful epigrams were, for many years, the last fruits of that genius which had dictated the Pleasures of Hope, and rejoiced the mariners of England with a ballad worthy of the theme. And yet, so powerful is early association—so universal was the recognition of the transcendant genius of the boy, that when Campbell sank into the grave, there was lamentation as though a great poet had been stricken down in his prime, and all men felt that a brilliant light had gone out among the luminaries of the age. ”

“ A young country has as yet but the instincts of infancy; there is as yet nothing to satisfy but the craving for nourishment, and the demand for large room. But it is not so where nations are full-grown. Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Can France forget that she had once a court and a throne that dazzled the world? No! says every craftsman of the revolution; and therefore our republic, too, must be splendid and imperial! So, instead of going to work as if their new constitution were a reality, there must be a fète of inauguration. ”

“ When, upon a map of the world's eastern hemisphere, we behold, not far from its centre, on the confines of barbarism and civilisation, a spot, black with mountains, and marked "Circassia;" when we contrast this petty nook with the vast territory stretching from the Black Sea to the Northern Ocean, from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, we admire and wonder at the inflexible resolution and determined gallantry that have so long borne up against the aggressive ambition, iron will, and immense resources of a czar. ”

“ On the rugged peaks and in the deep valleys of the Caucasus, her fearless warriors stand, the vedettes of southern Asia, a living barrier to the forward flight of the double eagle.
Matters of pressing interest, nearer home, have diverted public attention from the warlike Circassians, whose independent spirit and unflinching bravery deserves better than even temporary oblivion. Not in our day only have they distinguished themselves in freedom's fight. Surrounded by powerful and encroaching potentates, their history, for the last five hundred years, records constant struggles against oppression. ”

“ With him the "side of freedom" seems to have been the inside of his prison, and his "side of the people" a precipitate flight from contact with them in their liberty—and for his tiara the disguise of a valet. We more than pardon Mrs Jameson—we love the virtue that gives rise to her error; for it is peculiarly the nature of woman to be credulous, and to be deceived. We admire, and more than admire, women equally well, whether they are right or wrong in politics: these are the business of men, for they have to do with the sword, and are out of the tenderer impulses of woman. ”

“ Like the solemnity of mountains is the hereditary majesty of a family, of which the origin is veiled in the twilight of history, but which is always seen above the surface of cotemporary events, a crowned and sceptred thing that never dies, but perpetuates, from generation to generation, a still increasing emotion of sublimity and awe, which all men feel, and none can fully understand. There are many women in England who, for personal qualities and graces, would as well become the throne as she whom you so loyally entitle "Our Sovereign Lady." ”

“ How is it that legitimacy makes itself felt after years of exile and obscurity? Is it not that instinct of loyalty which cannot be duped or diverted, and which detects and detests all shams? Is it not the instinct which constitution-makers have endeavoured to appease by pageants and by names, but which has continually revolted against the emptiness of both? The existence of that instinct has been perpetually exposed by miserable attempts to satisfy its demands with outside show and splendid impositions. The French cannot even go to work, under their present republic, as we do in America. ”

“ Soon it flies about that Monsieur the mayor has presented to his majesty the keys of his good city of Quelquechose, and was the first officer who had the honour to receive him within a garrison of his kingdom. His Majesty—of course—made him a marshal of France on the spot. Oh! enviable brevet! an immortal name, and a scutcheon everlastingly blooming with fleurs-de-lis! The royalist tide fills up every moment, and soon carries all before it. Vive-le-roi! shouts out long-smothered loyalty, overwhelmed with transports: Vive-le-roi! chokes out hypocritical democracy, frantic with terror. ”

“ Everybody knows the reason why not; and that reason shows the reality of legitimacy. Night and day such a shop would be mobbed by friends and foes alike. Go where he might, the parfumeur would be pointed at by fingers, and aimed at by lorgnettes, and bored to death by a rabble of starers, who would insist upon it that he was the hereditary lord of France. Mankind cannot free themselves from such impressions, and, what is more conclusive, princes cannot free themselves from the impressions of mankind, or undertake to live like other men, as if history and genealogy were not facts. ”

“ Even at the first rise of this Christian art, the superiority of the principle which moved the artists was visible through their defect of knowledge of art, as art. The devotional spirit is evident; a sense of purity, that spiritualised humanity with its heavenly brightness, dims the imperfections of style, casting out of observation minor and uncouth parts. Often, in the incongruous presence of things vulgar in detail of habit and manners, an angelic sentiment stands embodied, pure and untouched, as if the artist, when he came to that, felt holy ground, and took his shoes from off his feet. ”

“ They anticipate all sorts of civil engineering, butterfly-dissecting, light geology, and a whole Babel of modern languages, to be victoriously let loose on the home where for many a century Wisdom has sat with the scroll of Plato on her knee, and Science has unravelled the wizard lore of fluxion and equation. The senate of Cambridge is egregiously mistaken if it supposes that it will win over to its body the students of these popular branches of knowledge, by following the dictation of the popular taste. Those who want to be civil engineers will not come to a university to learn their art. ”

“ De Maistre himself has instanced the revolutionary follies of Paris, and lashed them with unsparing severity. Whatever is national in England seems to have grown up, like her oaks, from deep and strong roots, and to stand, like them, immovable, They make their own associations, and dignify their own names. Everything is home-born, natural, and real. The Garter, the Wool-sack, Hyde Park, Epsom and Ascot—these things in France would be the Legion of Honour, the Curule-chair, the Elysian fields, the Olympic games! ”

“ If France does not soon come back to reason, we shall be forced to think her given up of God, to become such a country as Germany, or perhaps as miserable as Spain. But we must not be too hasty in coming to conclusions so deplorable. Let the republic have its day. It will work its own cure; for the chastisement of France must be the curse of ancient Judah. "The people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and everyone by his neighbour; the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable." ”

“ The bitter remembrance of the past is constantly revived by the horrors of the present; and the love of revenge, which strongly marks the character of the Montenegrin, makes him insensible to reason or justice, and places the Turks, in his opinion, out of the pale of human beings. He dreams only of vengeance; he cares little for the means employed, and the man who should make any excuse for not persecuting those enemies of his country and his faith, would be treated with ignominy and contempt. ”

“ They have called forth the glory of art; and wonderful were the periods that stamped on earth their statues, as if all men's intellect had been tasked to the work, that they should leave a mark and memorial of beauty than which no age hereafter should show a greater. We acknowledge the perfection in the remains that are left to us. Greek art stills sways the mind of every country—all the world mistrusts every attempt in a contrary direction. The excellence of Greek sculpture is reflected back again upon Greek fable, the heathen mythology from which it was taken ”

“ We wish our own painters were more fully sensible of the power of art to perpetuate, and that it is its province to teach. With us it has been too long disconnected with our religion. It will be a glorious day for art, and for the people that shall witness the reunion.
In taking leave of these two fascinating volumes, we do so with the less regret, knowing that they will be often in our hands, as most valuable for instant reference. No one who wishes to know the subjects and feel the sentiment of the finest works in the world, will think of going abroad without Mrs Jameson's book. ”

“ We must be cautious how we take the excellence of art for the excellence of its subject. The Greeks were formed for art beyond every other people; had their creed been hideous—and indeed it was obscene—they would have adorned it with every beauty of ideal form. And this is worthy of note here, that their poetry in art was infinitely more beautiful than their written poetry. Their sculptors, and perhaps their painters, of whom we are not entitled to speak but by conjecture, and from the opinions formed by no bad judges of their day, did aim at the portraying a kind of divine humanity. ”

“ If you do so, you will greatly wrong your country. The loyalty of England settled in the house of Brunswick, and would have been even less tried if there had been a continuance of the house of Orange; but no French loyalist could ever be reconciled to the dynasty of Orleans. And why? It was not the natural constitution of France, but the mere blunder of a mob, that selected Louis Philippe as the king of the French. It was an election, as the accession of William and Mary was not: it was a choice, and not a necessity—the mere caprice of the hour, and in no sense the rational designation of law. ”

“ But whenever public spirit is professed, and by anything like useful acts attested, our faith, we think, should be more generous. On such occasions, if on any, it is right to waive all speculation upon private motives, and to presume the best—for reasons so well understood in general that they do not need to be explained. But if genius, with a bent to that sort of penetration, must have its freedom, we do demand that some token should appear of a belief in the possibility of the virtue which is denied. ”

“ Look at the sepulchral monuments of Grecian art—the frigid mysteries, the abhorrent ghost, yet too corporeal, shrinking from Lethé; and the dismal boat—the unpromising, unpitying aspect of Charon: then turn to some of the sublime Christian monuments of art, that speak so differently of that death—the Coronation of the Virgin, the Ascension of Saints. The dismal and the doleful earth has vanished—choirs of angels rush to welcome and to support the beatified, the released: death is no more, but life breathing no atmosphere of earth, but all freshness, and all joy, and all music ”

“ So much, then, for the ultima ratio of illegitimate governments—the attempt to satisfy the demand for national dignity by pageants and by names, and to drown the outcries of natural discontent by the sounding of brass and the tinkling of cymbals.
In vain did the sage Piedmontese foretell it all, like a Cassandra. "Man is prohibited," said that admirable Mentor, "from giving great names to things of which he is the author, and which he thinks great; but if he has proceeded legitimately, the vulgar names of things will be rendered illustrious, and become grand." ”

“ For heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England—get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here."
"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian sneeringly, "that you should play the mentor, and correct my ignorance of the world?"
"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something far wiser than they—the instinct of a man's heart, and a gentleman's honour." ”

“ Beauty and music are of and for eternity, and will never die; and in our perception of them we make ourselves a part of all that is undying. These are senses that the spiritualised body will not lose. Their cultivation is a thing for ever; we are now even here the greater for their possession in their human perfection. The wondrous pile so elaborately finished; the choral service, the pealing organ, and the low voice of prayer, and, it may be, angel forms and beatified saints in richly-painted windows:—we do not believe all this to be solely of man's invention, but of inspiration ”

“ We must stay our hand; for we took up the pen to notice the two volumes just published of Mrs Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art. They have excited, in the reading, an enthusiastic pleasure, and led the fancy wandering in the delightful fields sanctified by heavenly sunshine, and trod by sainted feet; and, like a traveller in a desert, having found an oasis, we feel loath to leave it, and would fain linger and drink again of its refreshing springs. ”