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however, had the glory of restoring it suddenly to a state of elevation which rivalled the perfection of the very best age of the art. His genius was supported by the abilities of West, Barry, Wilson, Gainsborough, Opie, and Fuseli. Mr. Phillips speaks -particularly of Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds alone, alluding, however, in terms of unbounded eulogy to Sir Thomas Lawrence in a note. In his remarks on Reynolds, he does not hesitate to place him, as a portrait painter, above all other competitors in the world with the exception of Titian. The concluding remarks of Mr. Phillips in which he recapitulates the general results intended to be developed by his historical details, contain much that is instructive and practical for the use of students. He says,

'If I have led you to a right understanding of this matter, you know that the great elevation of the art was obtained, only by the most vigorous exertions, the most emulative intelligence, and the most persevering industry, continued through the lapse of nearly three centuries by men of dis tinguished talents; and directed to one end, or nearly so, in each of the schools wherein the art has flourished.

'Can we expect that it shall be maintained, where the like energy, the like exertions, the like elevated views are not upheld? Can we, without such exertions, reasonably hope to follow with success the career of those whose admirable talents have given to the art and its skilful professors a station and a name honourable among men of intellect, and estimable among the cultivated and the tasteful? No! the hope so founded would be vain! Philosophers in morals as in physics have told us, that like causes produce like effects throughout the whole of the operations of

nature.

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Skilful, and active exertion is therefore necessary through the whole course of a painter's life. It is difficult for him to gain a good name in his art, still more difficult to preserve it; and nothing will effect that purpose, so important to him, but maintaining a constant reference in his mind, to its true object and end.

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The main point then wherein you may hope to lay the firm foundation of a good name, and elevate the art in your country to the estimation of the world, is by cultivating your minds, whilst you employ your hands; that you may not be led to zealous or enthusiastic admiration in the cause of error, Exert your whole power in the discovery of the most important point for your attention in every class of art; or in the subject, or object, in the delineation of which you are engaged.

'All the productions of nature, from the highest to the lowest, have intrinsic character; and so have all the scenes and combinations in which they are presented to our view, or may be conceived by our imaginations. When you have attained the knowledge of that character in whatever you are imitating, preserve it, never lose sight of it, but apply the whole means of the art in your possession to its development; rendering it as attractive as you can, by the addition of all the power of beauty, of grace, and of taste, with which your minds may be endowed; but never permitting those adornments, which should give strength to character and to sentiment, to supersede them. It is only when this well-regulated union is obtained,

that the art of painting reaches its acme of perfection; becoming attractive by its beauty, whilst it impresses by its truth.'-pp. 183-186.

Upon the subjects of the succeeding lectures, including design, composition, &c. it would perhaps be altogether unwise for us to enter. This portion of the lectures consists of so many details; these details are interwoven with one another so minutely, and besides the whole is so technical, being addressed to students, that, in order to render justice to Mr. Phillips, we should devote an extract of space to his work, that, however worthy of its merits, would still be inconsistent with our fundamental plan. We feel, also, that we have now placed before the reader such a pro portion of the matter of the work as is entitled to the character of a fair specimen of its merits. We think that we have shown Mr. Phillips to be in possession of the very highest qualifications for either the practice of, or for communicating instruction in the art of painting; that he entertains for that art the genuine and well-directed affection, which bespeaks his sincerity as well as his natu ral power of truly relishing the beauties with which it abounds; and we have failed egregiously in our review of his work, if we have not satisfied our readers that the dignity of the art has suf fered no diminution in the hands of such an advocate. Mr. Phillips appears to have disdained that spirit of self-estimation, which would have led him to any manifestation of false taste in the treatment of his subject. He has clung perseveringly to the task which he was called upon to perform: in the execution of his duties as professor, he forgot that he was a painter by profession; and unaffected by any unworthy considerations, and authentically devoted to the interests of his art, he has left us a series of instructions and admonitions on this great branch of civilizing influences, which reflects the greatest honour on his character as a painter and a member of society.

ART. V.-Tour of the American Lakes, and among the Indians of the North-West Territory, in 1830. Disclosing the charac ter and prospects of the Indian race. By C. Colton. 2 Vols. 12mo. London: Westley & Davies. 1833. WE suppose that, in time, we shall know something about America. That country may now be very fairly represented as constituting the rage of our travelling circle. When this epidemic first made its appearance some twelvemonths ago, we imagined in our simplicity that it might easily be suspended; but we confess to a very fatal precipitancy of judgment in this matter, and now that after a year's experience, we find authors going mad about the United States, and biting numbers of the British public, so as to place them in the same dilemma; under such circumstances, we repeat, we are under the necessity of surrendering our

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notions of propriety, and accommodating ourselves in some respect to the prevailing mania.

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We forget how many times it was in the course of the last season that we landed at New York, and took the steamers, in company with some English friend who was labouring under the general influenza. However this may be, one thing is perfectly clear, that we entertain the most settled repugnance to go over the same scenes even once more, so truly tiresome is the monotony of the way, and so irksome must the results prove to those who would be bound to listen to the details of our journey. The author, therefore, of the present volumes will excuse us if we take the liberty of selecting, according to our own taste, the particular localities in North America where we shall have the pleasure of meeting him; for in addition to the objections which we have stated to an indiscriminate association with him in his journey, there are warnings in the approach of winter which render some cautions only prudent in such a climate as America. Neither the Falls themselves, then, nor even the Whirlpool of Niagara, which occupy the two first chapters of the first of these volumes, shall induce us to follow the author in his excursion to the great cataract; in truth the whole range of the beaten track, now rendered as familiar to us as the street we live in, in North America, shall be set down by us for the present as utterly extirpated from the map, and this we can arrange with the more propriety inasmuch as Mr. Colton has plenty of novelties provided for our entertainment in other places in the same territory, of which, happily, nothing very palpable has already been found out. He ventured to pass beyond the Niagara Falls, usually the boundary at which the romantic ambition of travellers for pleasure falls to zero. It happened that, in August, 1830, a commission from the government of the United States had been ordered to the North-West territory, to kindle a Council-fire, as it is called, and to smoke the pipe, with a public assembly of the Chiefs of the numerous tribes of Indians, in that quarter, for the purpose of settling certain disputes existing among themselves, in their relations to each other, and also some misunderstandings between sundry of their tribes and the general government; the author having leisure, and being a little curious to know more of this race, than he had ever yet seen, conceived, that this extraordinary occasion for the convention of the Chiefs and representatives of the wilder and more remote tribes, would afford a good opportunity for the knowledge and observation he so much coveted. He had seen not a little of the Indians, in their semi-civilized conditions, as they are found insulated here and there, in the midst of the white population of the States; and of course where their manners, habits, character, and very nature have been much modified by their intercourse and intimacies with civilized society.

He succeeded in his wish to form one of the party, which, in

the month of August, 1830, sailed in a steam packet from Detroit, an ancient station some distance from Buffalo, in the northern wilds of America. The destiny of the party was the Upper Lakes; he and the whole of its members amounted to no less than two hundred and fifty, consisting of three companies of troops for the frontier garrisons-several parties of ladies and gentlemen, some in pursuit of pleasure, some of materials for science and literature; some of business; and some to choose a residence. Such a voyage under, such circumstances, gave rise to that feeling which in more civilized countries is denominated a sensation, for Detroit has been always held as the Ultima Thule, the natural limit, beyond which no prudent man would pass. The voyage through the lakes is described by Mr. Colton with all the power of a warm imagination, and we doubt if Italy even affords scenes of more delightful aspect, skies of more romantic blue, or waters more unruffled than the author represents as being provided for the unconscious barbarians of these wilds.

The object of the commission of the United States which wa's accompanied by Mr. Colton was, as has been already stated, to hold a council with the Indians, for the purpose of coming with them to some understanding respecting a disputed point of territory, the site of which was Green Bay. It appears, that, during the presidency of Monroe, a stipulation was entered into between the government of the United States and the New York tribes, the possessors of Green Bay, that the latter should retain this site as their home and sanctuary. In process of time, Monroe not only was removed from the office of president, but was gathered to his fathers. There were Americans in Green Bay who were particularly interested in making it a part of the United States; the succeeding American government agreed in the views of these settlers, and the consequence was, that a determination was come to for disappointing the Indians, and sending them out of Green Bay. Mr. Colton, from the consideration of this history, proceeds into the details of the general conduct both of the United States and Great Britain towards the Aborigines of America, and is by no means fastidious in the choice of the expressions which he employs to declare his feelings. The state of relation in which these tribes stand at present to the civilized inhabitants, forms the subject of some very interesting illustrations by the author. He tells us, that, although there has been generally an ostensible respect paid by Europeans, in their occupancy and gradual encroachments on the territories of North America, to the territorial rights of the aboriginal tribes, by holding public councils with them, and formally negotiating for such of their lands, as have not been acquired by force and conquest;-yet it is a dishonourable truth, not difficult of being made out, that the superior capacity of Europeans, in bargaining and over-reaching, has almost uniformly characterized their pretended and formal VOL. III. (1833) no. iv.

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purchases. The Indians have always been and are now childlike and simple, and from their habitual and total desuetude of the commercial arts, are ever open to commercial impositions. It is well known, that they have been accustomed to resign, by solemn compact, the most valuable and most extensive territories for mere toys or for the most trifling considerations. It may be and is said, that an adequate and fair value rendered would be of no use to them that in many, perhaps in most cases, when money is put to their disposal, it would ever be prejudicial to their moral, and thus to their political interests. And for this assumption there might be some apology, if the parental guardianship, at first arrogated, were well and conscientiously sustained throughout. But the misfortune and the crime is-that a bargain is held as a bargain, with Indians, as with all other nations. The rapid growth and rising prosperity of European colonies in America, and their political and social interests, have operated to induce them to for get their parental and moral obligations to the Aborigines. The fact has uniformly been, that when they have failed to provoke hostilities, and thus to acquire the opportunity of conquest, they have negotiated away the lands of the natives for the most trifling considerations, until only a few and small patches are left, that they can call their own, within the territories settled by the whites; and the ultimate possession of those small tracts is already an ticipated by those who covet them.

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Having reached Green Bay, Mr. Colton had an opportunity of reviving his acquaintance with a school-fellow, of the name of Williams, a clergyman, in whose company he visited many parts of the Indian settlement in that district.

One of the most interesting of these excursions of curiosity was that which brought him up the Fox River, to the settlement which was occupied by what was called the Stockbridge tribe.

This tribe, it seems, originally occupied a place called Stockbridge in Massachusetts, from which they emigrated into a region in America that now forms the heart of the state of New York, but which at the period of their emigration afforded them the same hopes of a retired seclusion, as those which they indulged, when, less than ten years ago, they came to Green Bay. The place of their first retreat was in the neighbourhood of other tribes, where they hoped to enjoy, in perpetuity and without disturbance, their own rights and their peculiar ways of living. But after a generation or two, they found themselves again surrounded and invaded by the whites; and they removed again to the banks of the Fox River, in the North-West Territory.

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The number of their body was, at the time of Mr. Colton's visit, very limited, as it amounted to no more than 350 souls; but then they were persons who had probably made greater attainments in the English language and manners, and in the useful arts of civilized life, and also in the Christian religion, than any other

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