# The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/The Great Moral Picture

THE GREAT MORAL PICTURE.
[“Resolved that this Board will visit the Academy of Arts, for the purpose of viewing a painting, now on exhibition there, from the pencil of Mr. Rembrandt Peale, and that it be recommended to our fellow-citizens generally to go also.”]
Extract from the Minutes of the Common Council, Dec. 26, 1820.
hen the wild waters from the deluged earth Retired, and Nature woke to second birth, And the first rainbow met the patriarch’s gaze, In the blue west—a pledge of better days; What crowded feelings of delight were his In that bright hour of hope and happiness! What tears of rapture glistened in his eye, His early tears forgot—his life’s long agony!
So did the heart of Mr. Rembrandt Peale, The “moral picture-painter,” beat and feel, When by the Mayor and Aldermen was passed That vote which made his talent known at last, And those wise arbiters of taste and fame Pronounced him worthy of his Christian name.
Long did he linger anxiously, in vain, Beside his painting in the classic fane Of science (where, arranged by Scudder’s hand, The curiosities of every land,
From Babel brickbats, and the Cashmere goat, Down to the famous Knickerbocker boat, Applause and wonder from the gazer seek, Aided by martial music once a week)— Long did he linger there, and but a few Odd shillings his “Great Moral Picture” drew.
In vain the newspapers its beauties told, In vain they swore ’twas worth its weight in gold, In vain invoked each patriotic spirit, And talked of native genius, power, and merit; In vain the artist threatened to lay by His innate hope of immortality, Grow rich by painting merely human faces, Nor longer stay and starve in public places— All would not do—his work remained unseen, Taste, Beauty, Fashion, talked of Mr. Kean; But of the Moral Picture not a word From lips of woman or of man was heard.
The scene has changed, thanks to the Corporation, And Peale has now a city’s approbation. “Resolved,” the Council Records say, “that we Untie the purse-strings of the Treasury, Take out just five-and-twenty cents a head, And by the Mayor in grave procession led, Visit the Academy of Arts, and then, Preceded by the Mayor—walk back again.”
Hide your diminished heads, ye sage Reviewers! Thank Heaven, the day is o’er with you and yours; No longer at your shrines will Genius bow, For mayors and aldermen are critics now. Alike to them the Crichtons of their age, The painter’s canvas, and the poet’s page, From high to low, from law to verse they stoop, Judges of Sessions, Science, Arts, and Soup.
Time was, when Dr. Mitchill’s word was law, When monkeys, monsters, whales, and Esquimaux, Asked but a letter from his ready hand, To be the theme and wonder of the land. That time is past,—henceforth each showman’s doom Must be decided in the Council Room; And there the city’s guardians will decree An artist’s or an author’s destiny, Pronounce the fate of poem, song, or sonnet, And shape the fashion of a lady’s bonnet; Gravely determine when, and how, and where, Bristed shall write, and Saunders shall cut hair, ’Till even the very buttons of a coat Be settled, like assessment laws, by vote.
H.