confines of that higher world, where ideal glimpses of angelic forms
are sometimes permitted to his sublimated vision. Art may, in truth,
be called the _human world_; for it is so far the work of man,
that his beneficent Creator has especially endowed him with the powers
to construct it; and, if so, surely not for his mere amusement, but
as a part (small though it be) of that mighty plan which the Infinite
Wisdom has ordained for the evolution of the human spirit; whereby is
intended, not alone the enlargement of his sphere of pleasure, but of
his higher capacities of adoration;--as if, in the gift, he had said
unto man, Thou shalt know me by the powers I have given thee. The
calling of an Artist, then, is one of no common responsibility; and it
well becomes him to consider at the threshold, whether he shall assume
it for high and noble purposes, or for the low and licentious.




Form.



The subject proposed for the following discourse is the Human Form; a
subject, perhaps, of all others connected with Art, the most obscured
by vague theories. It is one, at least, of such acknowledged
difficulty as to constrain the writer to confess, that he enters
upon it with more distrust than hope of success. Should he succeed,
however, in disencumbering this perplexed theme of some of its useless
dogmas, it will be quite as much as he has allowed himself to expect.

The object, therefore, of the present attempt will be to show, first,