thrown, and his golden Victories dispersed among kingdoms, once her provinces, but the Apollo, emblem of the creative genius which had replaced the heroism of her youth, had been ravished from her. And she sent him, who of her children she deemed most favored by the God, to redemand him and his associate splendors.

The French would not do themselves the honor of a free acquiescence in this most just demand; the other powers were unwilling to interfere, with the exception of England, who, moved scarce less by respect for the envoy, than sense of the justice of the demand, interposed with such decision, that the Prince of Art was permitted to resume his inheritance. The Duke of Wellington, with a martial frankness and high sense of right, which nobly became him, declared his opinion, afterward published in the Journal des Debats, "that the allied powers should not yield to the wishes of the French King in this matter. That so to do would be impolitic, since they would thus lose the opportunity of giving France a great moral lesson."

Such views of policy might, indeed, convince that the victory of Waterloo came by ministry of Heaven. Had but the Holy Allies kept this thought holy!

England not only assisted Canova with an armed force to take away the objects he desired, but supplied a large sum to restore them to their native soil, and replace them on their former pedestals.

There is something in the conduct of this affair more like the splendid courtesy of chivalrous times, than the filching and pinching common both in court and city at this present time. The generosity of England, the delicacy of Canova, who took upon himself to leave with the French monarch many masterpieces, mindful rather of his feelings, and respect for his position, than of his injustice, (though this injustice was especially unpardonable, since having been long despoiled himself of all he called his own, readiness to restore their dues to others might have been expected at this crisis, even from a Bourbon,) the letters of the Pope and Cardinal Gonsalvi, overflowing no less with gratitude than affection, the Pope thanking Canova for having not only fulfilled his intentions but "understood his heart," (in the delicacy shown towards France,) the recognition on all sides of the honors due to the artist, the splen

did rewards bestowed by the Papal court, which Canova employed wholly for the aid and encouragement of poor or young artists, all this reminds us rather of Fairy Queens, with boundless bounty for the worthy, boundless honor for the honorable, and self-denial alike admirable in rich and poor, rather than modern snuff-box times of St. James or the Tuilleries.

The third and last fair fact in Canova's life was the erection of the temple at Possagno, of which an account is given in the following extract, from the journal of a traveller: :

"At sunset, I found myself on the summit of a ridge of rocks; it was the last of the Alps. Before my feet stretched out the Venetian territory. Between the plain and the peak from which I contemplated it was a beautiful oval valley, leaning on one side against the Alps, on the other elevated like a terrace above the plain, and protected against the sea breeze by a rampart of fertile hills. Directly below me lay a village scattered over the declivity in picturesque disorder. This poor hamlet is crowned with a vast and beautiful temple of marble, perfectly new, shining in virgin whiteness, and seated proudly on the mountain ridge. It had to me an air of personal existence. It seemed to contemplate Italy, unrolled before it like a map, and to command it.

"A man, who was cutting marble on the mountain side, told me that this church of pagan form was the work of Canova, and that the village below was Possagno, his birth place. Canova, added the mountaineer, was the son of a stone-cutter, a poor workman like me.

"The valley of Possagno has the form of a cradle, and is in the proportion of the stature of the man who went out from it. It is worthy to have produced more than one genius; it is conceivable that the height of intellect should be easily developed in a country so beautiful and beneath so pure a heaven. The transparency of the waters, the richness of the soil, the force of vegetation, the beauty of the race in that part of the Alps, and the magnificence of the distant views which the valley commands on all sides, seem made to nourish the highest faculties of the soul, and to excite to the noblest ambition. This kind of terrestrial paradise, where intellectual youth can expand into the fulness of spring; this immense horizon, which seems o invite the steps and the thoughts of the future, are they not two principal conditions necessary to unfold a fair destiny?

"The life of Canova was fertile and generous as his native soil. Sincere and simple as a true mountaineer, he loved always with a tender predilection the village and poor dwelling where he was born. He had it embellished very modestly, and came there in autumn to rest from the labors of the year. He took pleasure at these times in drawing the Herculean forms of the men, and the truly Grecian heads of the young girls. The inhabitants of Possagno say with pride, that the principal models of the rich collection of Canova's works came from their valley. In fact you need only pass through it, to meet at each step the type of that cold beauty which characterizes the statuary of the empire. The principal charm of these peasant women is precisely one which marble could not reproduce, the freshness of coloring and transparence of the skin. To them might without exaggeration be applied the eternal metaphor of lilies and roses. Their liquid eyes have an uncertain tint, at once green and blue, like the stone called Aqua-marine. Canova delighted in the morbidezza of their heavy and abundant locks of fair hair. He used to comb them himself, before copying them, and to arrange their tresses, after the various styles of the Greek marbles.

"These girls generally possess that expression of sweetness and naïveté which, reproduced in fairer lineaments and more delicate forms, inspired Canova with his delightful head of Psyche. The men have a colossal head, prominent forehead, thick fair hair, eyes large, animated, and bold, and short square face. Without anything profound or delicate in their physiognomy, there is an expression of frankness and courage which reminds us of an ancient hunter.

"The temple of Canova is an exact copy of the Pantheon at Rome. The material is a beautiful marble, of a white ground, streaked with red,—but rather soft, and already marked by the frost.

"Canova caused the erection of this church with the benevolent object of presenting an attraction to strangers to visit Possagno, and thus giving a little commerce and prosperity to the poor inhabitants of the Mountain. It was his intention to make it a sort of museum for his works. Here were to be deposited the sacred subjects from his hand, and the upper galleries would have contained some of the profane subjects. He died, leaving his plan unfinished, and bequeathed a considerable sum for this object. But although his own brother, the Bishop of Canova, had it in charge to oversee the works, a sordid economy or signal bad faith presided over the execution of the last will of the Sculptor. With the exception of the marble vaisseau, which it was too late to speculate about, the necessary furnishings are all of the meanest kind. Instead of the twelve

colossal marble statues, which were to have occupied the twelve niches of the cupola, you see twelve grotesque giants, executed by a painter, who, they say, knew well enough how to do better, but travestied his work to avenge himself for the sordid shifts of his employers. But few specimens of Canova's work adorn the interior of the monument; a few bas-reliefs of small size, but of pure and elegant design, are incrusted in the walls of the chapels. There are copies also in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Venice, with one of which I was particularly struck. In the same place is the group of Christ at the Tomb, which is certainly the coldest invention of Canova-the bronze cast of this group is in the temple at Possagno, as well as the tomb which encloses the remains of the Sculptor. It is a Grecian Sarcophagus, very simple and beautiful, executed after his designs.

"Another group, of Christ at the threshold, painted in oil, decorates the chief altar. Canova, the most modest of Sculptors, had the ambition to be a painter also. - He retouched this picture from time to time during several years, happily the only offspring of his old age, which affection for his virtues and regard for his fame ought to induce his heirs to keep concealed from every eye."

To this purpose he devoted the riches he had earned by his works. That he should, even with his celebrity and at the end of so laborious a life, possess a fortune adequate to so vast an enterprise was, and is, a matter of wonder, and only to be explained by the severe simplicity of his habits. With deep regret we learn that he died too soon to ensure the fulfilment of his plan. A wish so pure deserved that he should find a worthy executor.

To sum up decisively, if not fully, Canova shines before us in an unblemished purity of morals, tenderness and fidelity toward friends, generosity to rivals, gentleness to all men, a wise and modest estimate of himself, an unfailing adequacy to the occasion, adorned by fineness of breeding in all his acts and words. He is no life-renewing fountain, but we will think of him, with a well assured pleasure, as a green island of pure waters, and graceful trees in the midst of a dark and turbulent stream.

ANACREON.

"Nor has he ceased his charming song, but still that lyre,
Though he is dead, sleeps not in Hades."

Simonides' Epigram on Anacreon.

WE lately met with an old volume from a London bookshop, containing the Greek Minor Poets, and it was a pleasure to read once more only the words,-Orpheus, - Linus, — Musæus - those faint poetic sounds and echoes of a name, dying away on the ears of us modern men; and those hardly more substantial sounds, Mimnermus- Ibycus Alcæus - Stesichorus — Menander. They lived not in vain. We can converse with these bodiless fames, without reserve or personality.

We know of no studies so composing as those of the classical scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems as still and serene as if it were very far off, and we believe it is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more refined society? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by-way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and darkness.

But passing by these rumors of bards, we have chosen to pause for a moment at Anacreon, the Teian poet, and present some specimens of him to our readers.*

* The following, with the odes to the Cicada and to Spring, in the ninth number of the Dial, pp. 23, 24, are, in the opinion of the translator, the best that have come down to us.