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"Sak. The ring was to blame in allowing itself to be lost at the very time when I was anxious to convince my noble husband of the reality of my marriage.

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King. Receive it back, as the beautiful twining plant receives again its blossom in token of its reunion with the spring.

"Sak. Nay; I can never more place confidence in it. Let my husband retain it!"

son with the Sakoontalá.

On both are

its voice was the echo of the ecclesia; and the eloquence which shook the Pnyx was reproduced in the mimic conflict of human passions on the stage, and every where carried with it all Athenian sympathies. But in India thought was chained; and the drama, cut off from reality, became the polished pastime of the court, and Such is this genuine specimen of the languished into an idler's spectacle. The Hindú drama, a little nook of tender mixture of dialects at once removed it beauty and pastoral peace. The other from the pale of popular sympathies, and play, the Vikramorvasi, has been trans-limited its enjoyment to the few; nor, lated by Professor Wilson, in his "Hindú indeed, were the mass of the nation at Drama," and it well deserves a compari- any period refined enough to enter into its delight. Amid the dearth of external incident, we of course know little of India's inner history, the secret life of her millions through the long centuries, before the Mohammedan conquests first lifted the vail; but all that we know assures us, that, if the few were educated and refined, the many were sunk in misery and ignorance. The higher castes had their poetry and philosophy, and, while they We have only cast a passing glance on were true to themselves, enjoyed their the difference between the dramas of refinements and arts; but the mass of the Greece and India; but the subject is one people lived on from age to age hereditary which would amply repay a closer investi-hewers of wood and drawers of water." gation. Their differences are not only on the surface, they reach to the deepest springs of thought, and are interwoven with the wide contrast of their histories. The drama of Athens was nursed in freedom;

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deeply impressed the author's peculiar
genius; yet the two works are
difference;" and if each has traits of re-
semblance which recall the other's features
and character,

"Et similis facies, qualem decet esse sororum,"
each has also its proper charms, and a
definite personality of its own.

Hence a true national drama was impossible; and Poetry, debarred from reality, and confined to a shadowy past, forgot at last the language of energy and life, and could only sing of shadows and dreams.

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centuries, they are not likely to achieve in
the nineteenth. It is all very well to talk
of difficulties educational, etc.; but genius
is repressed by none of these. It works
out its own way to the light; it wants no
artificial aid or stimulus. Women, reply
their champions, have never yet had fair
play. Cramped in every direction-su-
perficially and imperfectly trained
lated from that free and genial communion
with the minds of those who have already
attained high intellectual eminence, which
is so essential to the development of the
faculties, and the formation of the taste

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excluded from all share in lofty and enno- | quiring-unless, like Rosa Bonheur, she

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bling pursuits confined to the narrow though sacred sphere of domestic duties, or engaged in the follies and vanities of fashionable life, and alternating between the cooking of a dinner and the cut of a sleeve-her natural capabilities have been stifled and frittered away without having enjoyed the possibility of attaining their full and legitimate growth. The social and political inferiority in which she has hitherto been held, can not fail, they maintain, to have acted in a depressing manner on her intellectual nature, whatever its original force and vigor. In both these arguments there is a certain degree of plausibility. Perhaps the truth lies between the two.

Remembering the reigns of our own Queen Bess, of Catherine of Russia, of Isabel of Castile, and Maria Theresa of Austria, it really seems rather difficult to deny woman's aptitude for the sphere of political life; while a long list of celebrities, dead and living, attest her claim to no unworthy niche in the temple of literary fame. In art, it must be owned, her success is more questionable. Not only have we no female Raphael, or Michel Angelo, as we have no female Homer, Shakspeare, or Milton, but even the secondary order of genius, if the term be admissible, is somewhat rare. At first sight this may appear extraordinary. The profession of the painter would seem, in many respects, peculiarly fitted for woman. It demands no sacrifice of maiden modesty, or of matronly reserve. It leads her into no scenes of noisy revelry or unseemly license. It does not force her to stand up to be stared at, commented on, clapped or hissed by a crowded and often unmannered audience, who forget the woman in the artist. It leaves her, during a great portion of her time at least, beneath the protecting shelter of her home, beside her own quiet fireside, in the midst of those who love her, and those whom she loves. But, on the other hand, to attain high eminence it demands the entire devotion of a life. It entails a toil and study severe, continuous, and unbroken.

No inspiration alone, however brilliant, will constitute the artist. The hand as well as the mind must be trained and exercised; and this requires perpetual and uniform effort. Besides, there is the knowledge of anatomy, whch popular prejudice deprives woman of the means of ac

abdicates for a while the costume and delicate habits of her own sex. Possibly, also, although this admits of question, there may be a want of creative power. Still the names of Elizabeth Sirani, Maria Robusti, Angelica Kauffmann, Lavinia Fontana, and Rosa Bonheur, sufficiently attest that in this domain, as in every other, woman, if she does not rise to the very pinnacle of greatness, may at least attain excellence of no common order.

The little work before us, which has acquired considerable popularity and success in Germany, is not, like most productions of the Teutonic mind, a philosophical disquisition. It makes no pretensions to great depth of thought, or originality of views; but it is valuable to all who are interested in the development and progress of woman in the domain of art; for it brings together every instance of female proficiency and genius the author has been able to collect, and seeks by pointing out the success which women have already achieved, to demonstrate what they may yet accomplish.

Of painting among the Greeks we know but little. Architecture and statuary present sufficient monuments to allow of our forming a tolerably correct estimate of the perfection they had attained. Despite the ravages of time, and of barbarians ancient and modern, enough of the Parthenon remains to hand down the fame of an Ictinus, a Callicratus, and a Phydias, to admiring posterity. But what is left of Apelles and Zeuxis? The few relics of ancient painting which have survived the lapse of ages and the hand of the spoiler, all date from the time of the Roman Empire; and neither the frescoes discovered beneath the baths of Titus, the decorations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, nor even the two or three cabinet pictures found beneath the buried city, can be admitted as fair specimens of Grecian painting in its zenith.

So far, however, as we have any evidence whatever on the subject, it would seem of later growth than sculpture. Pliny tells us that when the latter had reached its culminating point, the former was still in its infancy; that before Appolodorus no artist was worth remembering. But, at the same time, he mentions the productions of the great masters with as much admiration as the Jupiter of Phydias.

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Are we, then, to believe that in painting, as in sculpture, we are still at so vast a distance from the ancients? That the "Last Supper" of Leonardo da Vinci, the "Madonna di San Sisto" of Raphael, the "Virgin" of a Correggio or a Murillo, would sink into nothingness beside the Penelope and Jupiter" of Zeuxis, the "Venus Anadyone" of Apelles, the "Bacchus and Ariadne" of Aristides? Such a deduction appears to us by no means a necessary one. There may be reasons why, in sculpture, we should still remain behind the Greeks, while in the sister art we may excel their happiest efforts. In the former, grace, beauty, symmetry of proportion, form, and feature, are the principal essentials of success; and where are these to be found in such perfection as beneath the glowing skies of Greece-among that people who carried their sense of the beautiful to the highest degree to which it has ever been carried by mortals? But in painting, other elements necessarily mingle-feelings and emotions of an order more complex, more varied love-not in its sensual, but in its purer, holier signification; devotion -such as no Jupiter or Apollo could inspire. These elements were essentially Christian, and therefore it is but reasonable to suppose that Christian art, in its palmy days, may have surpassed that of a land in which they were unknown.

Though the ancient Greeks embodied both sculpture and painting under a fenale form, few women handled either the pencil or the chisel. Indeed, considering the ignorance and seclusion in which all "respectable" women were systematically held, it is not without considerable astonishment that on the very threshold of art we discover a woman's name that of Kora, daughter to one Dibutades, a native of Corinth. Pliny relates that in her fond desire to retain some memorial of her lover, from whom she was about to be parted forever, she sketched his portrait from the shadow thrown by his profile on the wall; that from this, her father modeled it in clay, and thus produced the first portrait in relief that had ever appeared. The story, whether true or false, is at least both graceful and probable. From the days of Kora down to those of Quintus Masys, how often has love been the best instructor!

Besides Kora, Pliny makes mention of Timarata, one of whose pictures he had

himself seen at Ephesus. In the time of Alexander the Great, we find the names of several female artists-Cirene, Aristarité, and Calypso; the latter, who was cele brated as a painter de genre, has been supposed-with how much truth it is dif ficult to say-to be the author of that charming little picture found in Pompeii, and now in the studio of Naples," A Mother Superintending the Toilet of her Daughters." Pliny tells us that the portraits of a well-known dancer, Acisthenes, and of a conjuror, Theodorus, executed by her hand, were much admired.

In Roman annals we discover but one female artist, and she was of Helenic origin-Laya, who lived about one hundred years before Christ-although the comparative liberty allowed to women among the soldier-people might have afforded them, one would think, greater opportunity for the development of their ar tistic powers. But in the first place, we must remember that art was not with the Romans, as with the Greeks, an essential element of existence. During the best and most glorious epochs of the Republic it was neglected or despised, and its cultivation is associated with the decline of that mighty power which had planted its triumphant banners alike on the burning sands of Africa and the rude shores of Britain.

Of Laya's history little has reached us; but from what few details we can gather, it appears that she excelled in female portraits, and may be regarded as the precursor of all miniature-painters of modern times. Pliny, to whom we are indebted for these particulars, adds, that her works were most highly valued, and that devoting herself solely to her art, she lived and died in single blessedness. During the first seven centuries which followed the destruction of the Roman Empire, we hear of no female painter. Art, indeed, was never totally extinct, as is evident from some Byzantine relics, and from the mosaics discovered in the convents and cemeteries of Rome, Venice, and Pisa, many of which date from the fifth century. But not only had its peculiar characteristic of glorious beauty completely disappeared, but that characteristic, associated as it was with the recollection of Paganism, had become abhorrent to Christianity, The heathens had adorned their Joves and their Apollos with every accessory of grace and majesty their glowing and

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and higher forms of art. Yet it was not only in this branch that the monastic orders distinguished themselves. The Frati Humiliati were celebrated for their skill in painting on glass; while the recluses of Mont Casino and their abbot, Bertire, made themselves conspicuous for their superiority in miniature-painting.

poetic fancy could devise. The Saviour of the Narazenes, it was supposed, must therefore be represented devoid of all outward comeliness, according to the literal interpretation of the prophet's memorable description. Gradually, however, as the triumph of the new faith became wider and more secure, these prejudices gave way to that love of the beautiful Disgusted by the corruption which implanted in the human mind. In the gradually crept into monastic institutions, eighth century, a papal bull came to the we are too apt to forget the debt we owe aid of St. Jerome, St. Augustin, and St. them for preserving at least the germ of Ambrose, and decided that the Redeemer thought, amid the deadly blight which should henceforward be arrayed in every had fallen upon it in the rest of the world. attribute of divine beauty with which the In the midst of the deluge of barbarism, hand of the painter could invest him. This the monasteries were the ark of refuge. indeed, was not much. Art had sunk to While peers and princes, knights and the lowest depths of degradation; one squires, were systematically engaged in branch alone, that of miniature-painting fighting, robbing, and plundering, the upon parchment, was cultivated with tol- monks were occupied in inventions, (the erable success. It had flourished among fruit of which we still enjoy ;) in conthe Greeks and Romans, and from the structing those glorious cathedrals, the comparative ease and facility with which pride of our own and other lands; in it was carried on, soon became the pecu- tracing upon canvas some of the masterliar and constant occupation of monks and pieces of art; in copying the works of ananchorites.Manuscripts and religious tiquity, which would otherwise properly works were deemed incomplete unless have been lost forever; and in keeping adorned by illuminations; defective as alive the sacred fire of literature. The they were in many of the essentials of names of Roger Bacon, Padre Alessandro, art, particularly in perspective, these illu- of Angelico da Fiesole, Fra Bartolomeo, minations, or miniatures, are still ex- and so many others, ought surely to extremely beautiful, from the gem-like bril-empt the monks of olden days from the liancy of the coloring, the ever-changing tints, and the exquisite finish-and in these the delicate touch and graceful taste of woman particularly fitted her to excel. Eighty years before the appearance of Cimabue, or even of André del Candia, we find Agnes, abbess of Quedlinberg, celebrated as a miniature-painter; and more than one specimen yet extant attests her patience and her skill.

The cultivators of this charming art were divided into two classes miniaturists, properly so called, and miniature caligraphists. It was the province of the first to color the histories and arabesques, and to lay on the gold and silver orna ments. The second wrote the book, and the initial letters so frequently traced in red, blue, and gold; these were called "Pulchri Scriptores," or fair writers. Painting of this description was peculiarly a religious occupation. It was well suited for the peaceful and secluded life of the convent or the monastery. It required none of the intimate acquaintance with the passions of the human heart, with the busy scenes of life, so essential to other

universal charge of ignorance and laziness so systematically and indiscriminately brought against them. As to the nuns, they, too, were not idle. They were largely employed in illuminating and copying manuscripts and missals. They managed extensive lands belonging to the convent; they tended the sick and the poor; many of them, as we shall see hereafter, excelled in painting; and the recluses of one convent at least that of the Dominican sisters, founded 1292, at Florence-were among the earliest and most zealous encouragers of the art of printing.

In 1476, Fra Domenico da Pistoya, and Fra Pietro da Pisa, the spiritual directors of the convent, established a printing-press within its walls-the nuns served as compositors-and many works of considerable value issued from this press between 1476 and 1484, when Bartolomeo da Pistoya dying, the nuns ceased their labors.to

Miniature-painting and illuminating continued to flourish during the whole of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Even celebrated artists did not disdain them. Dante mentions two in par

ticular, who must have enjoyed considerable renown, for he introduces them in his Purgatorio as expiating through suffering their pride and their success on earth. Painters were in the habit of attaching a gradis, or small longitudinal margin, to their pictures, on which they used to paint passages from the lives of the saints who formed the subject of their work. Many may be seen in the exquisite creations of Fra Angelico da Fiesole. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, miniature-painting began to decline. Almost unnoticed, engraving had usurped its place; but the miniatures of this period are superior to all which precede them, combining vigor and correctness of design, and chiaroscuro, with the exquisite expression, the delicate touch, the bright and glowing coloring of former productions. Among the most distinguished names of those with whom its history closed, we again find that of a woman, a Dominican sister, Plautilla Nelli, daughter to a Florentine patrician, and pupil to Fra Bartolomeo. Vasari mentions her in his second edition of Storia di Pittura.

In 1405 we discover in Germany what must be regarded as a rara avis among the female sex-a sculptor, and of no mean eminence, Sabina von Steinbach, daughter to that Erwin von Steinbach who, in the cathedral of Strasbourg, has reared to his memory so glorious and so enduring a monument. From early childhood Sabina displayed considerable talent for modeling, and it was to her that her father intrusted much of the ornamental part of his stupendous undertaking. Few, as they pause before the groups on the portal of the southern aisle, and admire their grace and beauty, as we have so often admired them, imagine that they are the work of a girl of twenty. These groups represent allegorically the Christian and the Jewish Church - in the former, the figures are stately and graceful; the diadem on their brows, the cross in their right hands; in the left, the holy wafer and cup. The latter are bowed down with shame and sorrow, their countenances sad and mournful, holding in their hands a broken arrow, and the shattered relics of the tablets of the law. "In this work," says our author, "all that is beautiful and superhuman in the sculpture of the Middle Ages may be said to be embodied; it seems as though these elements needed a female hand to attain that purity and depth

of feeling which lends this group so peculiar a charm." On one of the scrolls held by the Apostle John are the following lines in Latin :

"May the grace of God fall to thy share, Sabina, Whose hands have formed my image out of this hard stone."

Tradition adds that, by the command of the archbishop, Sabina herself attended to see the statues deposited in their destined niches; that the prelate, followed by all his priests, came forth to meet her, and placed upon her brow a garland of laurel, consecrated by his own hand. That this tradition was long pretty generally believed, is evident from an old painting of no great merit we have ourselves seen at Strasbourg, in which Sabina is represented kneeling at the feet of the archbishop, receiving his blessing and the precious wreath.

The commencement of the fifteenth century, so important in the history of humanity, so peculiarly marked by mental activity, is somewhat barren in female artists, and indeed in female genius altogether, in comparison, at least, with the succeeding ages. The change which had come over the world within the last hundred years had acted no less unfavorably on the intellectual progress of the sex, than on its social position. In the thir teenth and fourteenth centuries, women had been the object of a species of adoration. Their beauty was the chosen theme of minstrel lay, their favor the brightest recompense of knightly valor. Thus sung and worshiped, the women of the higher orders, at least, to whom these remarks more particularly apply, naturally sought to retain and highten the homage laid before their shrine, by cultivating their talents so far as their opportunities permitted. But now Troubadours and Minnesängers had disappeared alike from the olive groves of Provence and the vine-clad hills of the Rhine. The reign of chivalry was over; a thousand new and engrossing interests had sprung up. Men had no longer leisure or inclination to wander, harp in hand, from castle to castle, and bower to bower, pouring forth the praises of their ladye-love; and woman, fallen from the lofty pedestal to which she had been temporarily elevated, sunk to the level of ordinary life, and had to suffer from that reaction which invariably attends

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