The Belmont chronicle, and farmers, mechanics and manufacturers advocate. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1848-1855, 1854-12-22

tions are leyelled. Life and death are oil
that, for time, we cnn admit into the mind.
AS the sentiment and expression of this
statue are admirable, SO is the mechanical
execution Of the highest merit. The skill
with which the physical effects of death up
on the human frame are represented is most
strongly felt by those whose professional
training and experience make their judgment
on such points The most valuable. The hair
short and crisp tatd matted by the sweat Of
the death-struggle, the wrinked brow, the
dropping lid, the lips distended with pain,
and the sinking languor Of the whole frame,
give proof of a patient eye and skillul
hand. No statue was ever more marked by
simplicity or rore free from any thing like
extravaganza or caricature. Such subject
presents many temptations, and, unless an
artists taste and judgment were equal to his
genius, he weuld hardly have escaped falling
into the weakness OF overriding the tragic ell
ement, and of laying such a weight upon our
sympathes that they would have given way
under the pressure. But here nothing has
been done for effect, no vulgar applause is
! courted, and the decency and dignity Of truth
are scrupulously observed. u.s..
II it be right to Judge Of works Of art sub
jectivey, and not objectivey--that is, exclu-
sively by the effect which they leave upon
the individual who contemplates them-I
should put this work at the head of oil the
statues in the world To me none others
were SO expressive, SO significant, so full of
deep meaning. At each successive visit it
seemed to be new work; to reveal some-
thing whith before had been unspoken; to
awaken echoes which before had been silent.
Though solitary fgdre, taken in and COM
prehe ended by the eye at single glance, it
involves a broad circle Of experience and
suggestion.
Such is ever the case with the creations
which genius gives US when it walks in the
way of truth, and, disdaining the morbid, the
fantastic, and the grotesque, gives shape to
our common visions and reality to the univer-
st dream.
This statue is indissoubly associated with
Byron's immortal stanza, which, familiar as
it is, car no more become hackneyed than
the relations of husband and father in which
it is founded. From lines like these, which
every body re ads and every body remembers
of permanent and general nterest-we learn
how much we owe to the poets. Who that
has ever seen snow falling upon the water
has not had distinct pleasure in the sight,
| from the fine illustration of the brief duration
Of sensual pleasures which Burns has drawn
| from it!
| "Or, like tho snow fall in the river,
| 4 moment white, then lost forever"
Who that has ever beheld a scarlet maple in
our autumn woods has not felt that new
charm was given TO it by tn, lovely image
which it suggested to Bryant!
'Dut meath yon crimson tree
Lover to listening maid might breathe his namo,
Nor mark, within its roscate canopy,
! Her blush OF maiden shame"
So we who look upon the statue since the
stanzas was written see it by finer light
than ever shone upon il before. For us alone
the ride hut by the Danube is reared, aud
thssc young barbarans are sporting upon its
banks. We may form some notion Of our oh
legations by imagining what would have been
the emotions OF man of cultivation and
sensiblity if the poet had suddenly put the
|
before the statue. Would not something like
the miracle Of Pygmalion have taken place
before his eyes! Would not the marble
breast have appeared to heave with emotion
and the d. coping brow to be darkened with
suffering!
No description of this work of art would
be complete without Byron's celebrated
stanza, which are as worid-renswned as the
statue itself. To appreciate perfectly theiI
beauty they should be read while gazing upon
this marbled representation of the dying
gladiator"
see before me the gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand; bis manly brow
Consents to death, but conqucrs agony;
And his drsopI head sinks gradually low,
And through his side the last drops, ebblng slow
From the red cash, fall heavy, one byone
Like the first ofa thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him' he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed tn
wretch who won. .i
lie heard it, but he needed not, his eyes
We're with his heart, and that was far away.
He reckd not of the life he lost. nor prize;
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There were his young barbarians all at play;
There was their Daciun mother he, their sire,
: Butcherd to make Roman holyday.
All this rush'd with his blood Shall he expire,
And unrevengedi Arise, ye Gaths, and glut you
), ire!
: 0eJThe Cleveland Herald, in reply to ,h
: remark of an Indianapolis paper, to the Ell
n feet that Ohiuns. in their present emergen
CIV, will soon be glad to get hold of Indian