THE LATE HORACE BINNEY WALLACE.* WE take some shame to ourselves that we have not before directed the attention of our readers to this remarkable volume and its author. It is true our pages have twice referred to it, with brief though admiring comment, but it deserves a more elaborate consideration at our hands. Wallace was one of those accomplished and noble minds, which ought never to be suffered to pass away without a tribute from the grateful hearts of his countrymen, and especially from those who are laboring, as he labored, in the cause of humanity and letters. This recognition is all the more due to him, because he was not of that intellectual and moral constitution which enables the possessor of it to attain a ready and popular acceptance. He had all the ability requisite to a great literary or professional success, and earnestness as well as vivacity of spirit enough to have attached a large share of public regard to whatever he might have chosen to undertake; but his modesty was even greater than his parts. He was ambitious of the scholar's rather than the writer's fame; and being conservative in his habits of thought while he was, by social position, exempt from the necessity of labor, he made fewer public trials of his powers than their unquestionable superiority would have warranted. His earlier works, which he regarded as mere tentatives, were published anonymously; but, had he put his name to them, they would have earned him rank and influence. We do not regret, however, that, in an age when the temptations to a hasty and premature invasion of the public eye are so many, he should have preferred to husband and mature his resources. A single book, like the one before us, the result of years of careful study and thought, even if there are no others among his manuscripts, would be a rich repayment of his reticence. Mr. Wallace was born at Philadelphia in the year 1817, and died at Paris in 1852. He was, consequently, only thirty-five years of age at the time of his death. His father, who was a gentleman of property and culture, had carefully superintended his education in his earlier years, particularly in the Greek and Latin classics, and, long before the usual age at which boys are received in college, he was thoroughly grounded in the preparatory branches. The atmosphere of social and religious refinement which surrounded him in the home of his parents, noted alike for their cheerful tempers and their high endowments, developed the better qualities of his heart along with those of the mind. In his fifteenth year he was matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania, where he attached himself particularly to mathematical pursuits, in which he attained a wonderful proficiency; but, after two years' study, he was removed to Nassau Hall, at Princeton. It was at this place that we made his acquaintance, and we can speak, from personal knowledge, of his extraordinary attainments and capacity at that time. He was, however, extremely reclusive in his habits, which begat among his fellow-students a suspicion of hauteur and aristocratic feeling, not at all favorable to his general popularity, though his accurate and extensive scholarship was, we believe, universally conceded. In the higher departments of the mathematics he stood almost without a rival, while his familiarity with the languages was scarcely less remarkable. But he paid little regard to the routine of college duties and exercises, seeming to have already anticipated the greater part of the regular studies, and, in consequence of this departure from discipline, was not graduated with as high honors as he otherwise might have achieved. Having left college in 1835, he passed a short time in attendance upon the medical and chemical lectures at Philadelphia, when he commenced the study of the law, first in the office of his father, and, afterward, in that of the late Charles Chauncey, a distinguished practitioner. He studied it with characteristic avidity, not as a system of Art, Scenery, and Philosophy in Europe. Being Fragments from the Portfolio of the late HORACE BINNEY WALLACE, Esq., of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Herman Hooker, 1855. details for the regulation of practice, but as a profound and philosophic science, mastering especially the theory of tenures and estates, which lies at the foundation of so much collateral learning, and storing his mind with the broad, general principles of every subject. Yet, in the midst of his intense and varied professional labors, he was not so unwise as to relinquish, as too many lawyers do, the practice of literary composition. It is said, by his biographer, that if the essays and larger works, which he published from his seventeenth year to the time of his death, generally under assumed names, were collected, they would form no less than sixteen duodecimo volumes, of two or three hundred pages each. This is a grand example of industry for his professional successors. Among those works to which Mr. Wallace put his name, were several of a legal character, such as the notes to Smith's leading cases in Law, White and Tudor's leading cases in Equity, and on American leading cases, of which the highest authority of the American bar said, "there is not a remark in the whole body which does not show the mind of a lawyer, imbued with the spirit of the science, instinctively perceiving and observing all its limitations, its harmonies, its modulations, its discords, as a cultivated musical ear perceives, without an effort, what is congruous or incongruous in the harmonies of sounds." The Boston Law Reporter also commends them for their thorough and logical precision, as well as fertility of illustration, evincing the mind of a true legal philosopher, no less than the various accomplishments of the skillful lawyer. In 1849, Mr. Wallace spent a twelvemonth in Europe, in the study of its monuments of art, its science, its natural productions, and its social condition. He passed the time mainly in England and Germany, without, however, neglecting Italy and France. It was in the latter country that his interest in social philosophy led him to form the acquaintance of the eminent speculator Comte, who appears to have conceived the most exalted opinion of his abilities, and to have formed the highest hopes of his usefulness, as a disciple of the positive philosophy, in the propagation of it in this country. But Mr. Wallace was one of those independent disciples who think for themselves, and are not always the most profitable to a master. He adopted Comte's scientific methods, and sympathized in the aims of his instructions, so far as they tended to render all the moral as well as physical sciences inductive, but he adopted them with considerable and even revolutionary departures from Comte's applications. In a brief but well considered letter to Dr. McClintock, of the Methodist Quarterly Review, he has stated to what extent he received the positivist doctrine, approving the beautiful and comprehensive classification of the sciences which Comte has given, qualifying his definition of the "three stages" of humanitary progress, and vehemently protesting against the political and religious errors into which he has fallen. He considers the "Positive Philosophy" as a greater work than the "Positive Politics," and that Comte is, in the former, an oracle, and in the latter a babbler. But in this he scarcely does justice to his author, whose system is in nothing else more remarkable than its logical consistency, so that if you grant its fundamental principles, you are irresistibly led to nearly all its conclusions. Mr. Wallace was saved, by his earnest religious belief, from the more dangerous tendencies of Comte's system, and we regret that he did not live to complete what he had projectedthe application of this scientific method to the history of politics and religion. When Mr. Wallace returned to this country in 1850, he made arrangements with his publishers for the issue of a series of works on commercial and civil law, intending to complete his knowledge of those subjects, by a residence of some years in one of the German universities; but in the spring of 1852, his eyesight failing, and his general health becoming otherwise deranged, he was induced to set out on a tour of foreign travel. He sailed on the 13th of November, reached England in the latter part of the month, and, in December, repaired to Paris. His health was deteriorated, not improved by the change. Traveling exhausted him, and repose brought on fits of extreme depression. He wrote to the only surviving member of his family to come out and take care of him, and, three days after dispatching the letter, “suddenly expired." The news of his demise-so unexpected-gave a stunning shock throughout the circle of his friends and admirers. His immediate acquaintances had never been many; but such as were admitted to his friendship, loved him with warmth and tenderness. His extraordinary accomplishments, too, were making him gradually known: the enthusiastic eulogies of Comte, copied into the journals, had introduced his name to popular respect; and, when it was announced that one so variously endowed, so rich in learning, so vigorous in power of thought, so sincere in the sense of religious duty, and withal so young, was no more, it was felt that death had left a painful void, even by those who knew little of the man or his writings. "His leaf has perished in the green, And, while we breathe beneath the sun, In person Mr. Wallace was slim, but not tall; his face was sharp and of a saturnine expression; and his manners were cold, until intimacy had broken through the outer wall of his reserve, when he became frank, cordial, affable, and talkative. His conversation, illustrated by an immense range of knowledge, was in the highest degree both interesting and instructive. It was so full and yet so accurate, whatever its immediate topic, that you left him with an impression that that topic had been the speciality of his studies. Whether he talked or wrote on law, literature, the fine arts, philosophy, religion, mathematics, the natural sciences, poetry, or even the military art, his reading had been so extensive, his memory was so tenacious, his grasp of principles and details alike so firm, that he seemed to be talking or writing of his favorite theme. Yet, he never paraded his acquisitions, nor infringed the strictest rules of propriety and good taste, by self-display. His accomplishments, like his virtues, were worn with that graceful humility which proceeds from high but symmetrical culture, refined by habitual religious trust. The papers in the book before us were found in Mr. Wallace's port-folio, after his death. They had been written in America, but were still unfinished, "immature buds and blossoms shaken from the tree"-says the biographer"and green fruit, evincing what the harvest might have been;" but only immature in the sense of not being complete. In thought and manner they exhibit a rich autumnal ripeness. Precise in language, and thoroughly informed with thought, they glow, also, with the warmest imagination and feeling. We know of few books which speak so intelligently and yet so genially of art-which show a more lively sensibility to the influences of nature, and a heartier relish for the great works of man-which combine so much poetic feeling with philosophic discrimination, or keen critical sagacity with tender and lofty religious enthusiasm. In the abstract discussion of the nature and aims of art, in the almost technical description of the mighty cathedrals of Europe, in the impressive scene-painting of the Alps, and in the fine characterizations of the great painters of Italy, he appears equally at home-always familiar with his subject, and with the learning about it; always truthful in tone, always vigorous in thought as well as just and appropriate in style, and not rarely, when the occasion justified it, (as in what is said of the Roman forum,) grandly eloquent. The greater part of Mr. Wallace's work is devoted to art, and the interesting questions involved in it, both as a philosophy and a practice. He has entitled the leading essay "Art, an emanation of Religious Affection:” illustrating the maxim by an elaborate review of its general forms, in their most flourishing periods: a second paper argues that "Art is symbolical, not imitative;" a third discusses the principle of "Beauty in works of Art;" while a fourth relates to "the law of the development of Gothic Architecture." These are followed by studies of special works of art, such as the great cathedrals of the continent, and the master works of painting in Italy. It will thus be seen, that these essays together constitute a treatise on the whole subject of art-its origin or genesis in the human mind-its characteristic property or function-the nature of that beauty which is its object—its historical manifestations, and the qualities, in its best actual works, which move our admiration and delight. The art-creating faculty, he says, is not the same as the rational or scientific capacity, whose office is perception, discrimination, and inference, but is a more sensitive and impassioned faculty-an instinct holding a place between mere emotion and the clear intellect, partaking of the properties of both, and combining them into the unity of its own original character and action. Yet, two-fold as its affinities are, it is a single and peculiar faculty, given to some men and withheld from others, which no process of intellectual cudgeling can create, no theory of education develop, no culture of the sentiments confer, but which, as is the case with the other great gifts of the Spirit, "bloweth where it listeth, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." It is for this reason that men of genius are a mystery to themselves and a perpetual miracle to the world. But history shows that as this artcreating faculty is more active and prolific in certain men than in others, so it is vouchsafed to certain nations in richer measure than to others-and there are certain golden ages, when it blossoms and blooms with a fervid luxuriance and splendor. Nor does it spring up suddenly, in all its completeness, as if it were an arbitrary inspiration, but gradually, from rude beginnings, until it advances to that pitch of excellence which may be called perfection; tinuing in bright and flowing vigor for a limited time, then flickering and going out like a lamp, or drooping and dying like a plant, or breathing and fading away, like a vision-haunted slumber of humanity. That light no efforts can again relume: to that sweet, half-conscious dream of glory, not all the drowsy sirups in the world can medicine once more the faculties of that people." 46 con What, then, is the origin and nature of this artistic activity, and how has it manifested itself? Mr. Wallace answers the first part of the question, by saying that "the art-faculty is nothing else but earnest religious feeling, acting imaginatively, or imagination working under the elevating and kindling influences of religious feeling." There is no instance in history, he avers, of a single manifestation of art-power, except among people and in ages where religious enthusiasm and religiousness of nature were prominent characteristics. He adds, also, in italics, by way of emphasis, that there is no instance of supreme excellence in art having been reached, excepting where "the subject of the artist's thoughts and toils-the type which he brought up to perfectionwas to him an object of worship, or a sacred thing immediately connected with his holiest reverence." Thus, the cause of the special superiority of the Greeks in sculpture was the anthropomorphous character of their theology, which made the human form an image of what they worshipped. Thus, too, the Madonna, which was the inspired and inspiring center of Italian painting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was an image of worship; and the controlling thought of the stupendous and beautiful cathedrals of the middle ages, as well as of the Athenian temples, identified their sacred forms with the residence and glory of the Divinity. As a consequence of this conclusion, and in answer to the second part of the question above, Mr. Wallace confines the great general forms of art to architecture, sculpture, and painting, which, he alleges, are the three matters best adapted to the display of its character. Literature, on one hand, he thinks too intellectual, and music, on the other, too sensuous to exhibit "that fusion of the mental and material, that perfect balance of the sensible and thoughtful, which art requires." It is only in these three departments, in the actual evolutions of art, that we meet an excellence so surpassing and irresistible as to render it a nature and existence by itself; it is only in the age of Greek sculpture and architecture, of Italian painting, and the Gothic cathedrals, we can discover the most genuine evidences of artistic inspiration; only there that we encounter works so complete in their beauty, so exalted in significance and so absolute in splendor, as to fill our highest susceptibilities of emotion, and satisfy the loftiest demands of the mind. These "stand in the mystery of an inherent perfection, participating in an apparent divinity in the inscrutableness of their nature, as well as in the overswaying might of their moral power. Through them the mind runs upward, along the viewless chains of spiritual sympathy, till it loses itself in the Infinite." We propose to say a word or two of these important views, less by way of contradiction than of expansion; for, while they are fundamentally correct, they are yet not stated with all the fullness and precision of an adequate philosophy. It is proper to speak of art as an emanation of religious feeling, because of the signal and intimate union which subsists between them, whether we consider their sources in the human mind, or their more concrete manifestations. But we cannot with propriety say that this is an exclusive truth. A great many other influences beside religion are concerned in the production of a vigorous state of the arts. It is also a truth, that the great artist finds, in the object of his labor, an image of worship, or of devout and earnest feeling; but this, again, is not the whole truth, inasmuch as the great artist requires a great deal more than this single qualification. In a certain general sense, all the achievements of the human mind, all the elements and characteristics of the different civilizations, are the products of religious belief. The intellectual apprehension or theory which a nation forms of its relations to the universe, or, in other words, its mythology and doctrine of the gods, is what determines its kind and degree of development. This measures the hight to which it shall rise in the scale of existences, molds its manners and laws, and marks the limits of its moral and practical activity. If that theory be fetishtic, as with the savages; or polytheistic, as among the Greeks; or simply monotheistic, as among the Jews and Mohommedans; or, again, a strictly historical theism, founded upon the actual incarnation of the divine in the human, as in Christianity, we know, with a more or less precise approximation in each case, what its science, its literature, its customs, its government, are likely to be. As religion is the deepest impulse of the soul, overmastering all others, even in the lowest states of human society, as our relations to the invisible world are more profound and vast than all other relations, controlling us, by their hopes and fears, more energetically than any wants of the body, or any ties of affection or interest, so our conception of these relations, or our theology, masters and controls all other conceptions, the forms of art among the rest, and more than the rest, because of its more sensitive and impressible character. Thus, the tragedies of Eschylus are molded upon the ancient idea of a stern and irresistible destiny, which underlies them, like the deep bass of an air, and are what they are because of that idea; and the tragedies of Shakespeare, on the other hand, breathe of a personal God, in whom a living justice, consulting the interests of human freedom, has supplanted a blind fate. But we cannot maintain that the ancient conviction of destiny originated the plays of Eschylus, any more than we can say that Christianity originated those of Shakespeare. They respectively controlled the poets' views of the relation of man to the universe, but they did not create or give birth to the inner life of the poets. For though the artist takes the form of his thought generally from the religion and life of his age, the inspiration of it, that which imbues him with something of a prophetic ken, rising above and looking beyond his age, comes more immediately from God, who endowed him with his peculiar and marvelous organization. Were it an exclusive truth that art emanates from religion, the most religious ages of the world would have been the most artistic, and the most artistic again the most religious. Does it appear, however, that the age of Pericles in Greece, when the arts reached their highest condition, was the age which most earnestly received the Greek mythology? or the age of Leo the Tenth, in Italy, the age in which Christian faith was more active and powerful than it ever had been before? No doubt a serious, heart-felt interest is felt by the artist in the religious sentiment which he embodies; for, without that, there would be no motive in his mind; but a combination of other influences concurred also in the grandest development of art. To the sincere and earnest popular sentiment, whether religious or humanitary, must be added a vigorous national life, stimulating energy and hope, and an access of wealth sufficient to give the repose and culture which the laborious yet peaceful nature of artistic pursuit demands. In short, then, we should say, that the great eras of art have been eras of a universal, intellectual, and moral excitement, when the imagination was kindled by some great sympathy, and the whole soul, not of the artist only, but of the nation, was aroused into an intense and almost preternatural liveliness. For the same reason, in the second place, when it is said that the artist finds an image of worship in the object |