the choicest chronicles that will be quoted from our own in the new centuries. After the publication of his narrative of the Santa Fe Expedition, Mr. Kendall resumed his more immediate services in the Picayane-always, it may be said without injustice to his associates, most attractive under his personal supervision; and in the angry and war-tending controversies with Mexico which filled the public mind in the succeeding years, he was one of the calmest as well as wisest of our journalists. When at length the conflict came on, he attended the victorious Taylor as a member of his staff along the mountains and valleys which that great commander marked with the names of immortal victories, and had more than satisfaction for all griefs of his own in seeing the flag of his country planted in every scene in which his country had been insulted in his own person. Upon the conclusion of the war, Mr. Kendall commenced the preparation of the magnificent work which has lately been published in this city by the Appletons, under the title of The War between the United States and Mexico, by George W. Kendall, illustrated by pictorial drawings by Carl Nebel. Mr. Nebel may be regarded as one of the best battle-painters living. He accompanied Mr. Kendall during the war, and made his sketches while on the several fields where he had witnessed the movements of the contending armies; and in all the accessories of scenery, costume, and general effect, he has unquestionably been as successful as the actors in the drama admit him to have been in giving a vivid and just impression of the distinguishing characteristics of each conflict. The subjects of the plates are the Bombardment of Vera Cruz, the Battle of Cerro Gordo, the Storming of Chepultepec, the Assault on Contreras, the Battle of Cherubusco, the Attack on Molino del Rey, General Scott's Entrance into Mexico, the Battle of Buena Vista. the Battle of Palo Alto, and the Capture of Monterey. In some cases, there are two representations of the same scene, taken from different points of view. These have all been reproduced in colored litho graphy by the best artists of Paris. The literary part of the work, comprising very careful and particular accounts of these events, is excellently written so compactly and perspicuously, with so thorough a knowledge and so pure a taste, as to be deserving of applause among models in military history. Mr. Kendall passed about two years in Europe for the purpose of superintending its publication, and its success must have amply satisfied the most sanguine anticipations with which he entered upon its composition. New England is largely represented among the leading editors of the South and West, and it is a little remarkable that the two papers most conspicuous as representatives of the idiosyncrasies which most obtain in their respective states-the Picayune and George D. Prentice's Louisville Journal-are conducted by men from sections most antagonistical in interest and feeling, men who have carried with them to their new homes and who still cherish there all the reciprocated affections by which they were connected with the North. When George W. Kendall leaves New Orleans for his summer wandering in our more comfortable and safe latitudes, an ovation of editors awaits him at every town along the Mississippi, and, crossing the mountains, he is the most popular member of the craft in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New-York, or Boston-an evidence that the strifes of party may exist without any personal ill-feeling, if the editor never forgets in his own person to sustain the character of a gentleman. WASHINGTON. T is a truth, illustrated in daily experience, and concerns the appreciation of personal character or ability, the instinctive impressions of a community are quicker in their action, more profoundly appre ciant, and more reliable, than the intellectual perceptions of the ablest men in the community. Upon all those subjects that are of moral appre hension, society seems to possess an intelligence of its own, infinitely sensitive in its delicacy, and almost conclusive in the certainty of its determinations; indirect, and unconscious in its operation, yet unshunnable in sagacity, and as strong and confident as nature itself. The highest and finest qualities of human judgment seem to be in commission among the nation, or the race. It is by such a process, that whenever a true hero appears among mankind, the recognition of his character, by the general sense of humanity, is instant and certain: the belief of the chief priests and rulers of mind follows later, or comes not at all. The perceptions of a public are as subtly-sighted as its passions are blind. It sees, and feels, and knows the excellence, which it can neither understand, nor explain, nor vindicate. These involuntary opinions of people at large explain themselves, and are vindicated by events, and form at last the constants of human understanding. A character of the first order of greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and courses of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectuul judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind-the logical faculty-comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere; if it finds but a faint analogy of form or substance, its decision is embarrassed. But this other instinct seems to become subtler, and more rapid, and more absolute in conviction, at the line where reason begins to falter. Take the case of Shakspeare. His surpassing greatness was never acknowledged by the learned, until the nation had ascertained and settled it as a foregone and questionless conclusion. Even now, to the most sagacious mind of this time, the real ground and evidence of its own assurance of Shakspeare's supremacy, is the univer sal, deep, immovable conviction of it in the public feeling. There have been many acute essays upon his minor characteristics; but intellectual criticism has never grappled with Shaksperian ART in its entireness and grandeur, and probably it never will. We know not now wherein his greatness consists. We cannot demonstrate it. There is less indistinctness in the merit of less eminent authors. Those things which are not doubts to our consciousness, are yet mysteries to our mind. And if this is true of literary art, which is so much within the sphere of reflection, it may be expected to find more striking illustration in great practical and public moral characters. These considerations occur naturally to the mind in contemplating the fame of Washington. An attentive examination of the whole subject, and of all that can contribute to the formation of a sound opinion, results in the belief that General Washington's mental abilities illustrate the very highest type of greatness. His mind, probably, was one of the very greatest that was ever given to mortality. Yet it is impossible to establish that position by a direct analysis of his character, or conduct, or productions. When we look at the incidents or the results of that great career-when we contemplate the qualities by which it is marked, from its beginning to its end-the foresight which never was surprised, the judgment which nothing could deceive, the wisdom whose resources were incapable of exhaustion-combined with a spirit as resolute in its official duties as it was moderate in its private pretensions, as indomitable in its public temper as it was gentle in its personal tone-we are left in wonder and reverence. But when we would enter into the recesses of that mind-when we would discriminate upon its construction, and reason upon its operations-when we would tell how it was composed, and why it excelled-we are entirely at fault. The processes of Washington's understanding are entirely hid den from us. What came from it, in counsel or in action, was the life and glory of his country; what went on within it, is shrouded in impenetrable concealment. Such elevation in degree of wisdom, amounts almost to a change of kind, in nature, and detaches his intelligence from the sympathy of ours. We cannot see him as he was, because we are not like him. The tones of the mighty bell were heard with the certainty of Time itself, and with a force that vibrates still upon the air of life, and will vibrate for ever. But the clock-work, by which they were regulated and given forth, we can neither see nor understand. In fact, his intellectual abilities did not exist in an analytical and separated form; but in a combined and concrete state. They "moved altogether when they moved at all." They were in no degree speculative, but only practical. They could not act at all in the region of imagination, but only upon the field of reality. The sympathies of his intelligence dwelt exclusively in the national being and action. Its interests and energies were absorbed in them. He was nothing out of that sphere, because he was every thing there. The extent to which he was identified with the country is unexampled in the relations of individual men to the community. During the whole period of his life he was the thinking part of the nation. He was its mind; it was his image and illustration. If we would classify and measure him, it must be with nations and not with individuals. have caused Great Britain to feel that no great indignity was suffered in admitting the claim to national existence of a people who had such a representative as Washington. What but the This extraordinary nature of Washington's ca- most eminent qualities of mind and feeling-die pacities-this impossibility of analyzing and un-cretion superhuman-readiness of invention, and derstanding the elements and methods of his wis- dexterity of means, equal to the most desperate dom-have led some persons to doubt whether, affairs-endurance, self-control, regulated ardor, intellectually, he was of great superiority; but the restrained passion, caution mingled with boldness, public-the community-never doubted of the and all the contrarieties of moral excellencetranscendent eminence of Washington's abilities. could have expanded the life of an individual into From the first moment of his appearance as the a career such as this? chief, the recognition of him, from one end of the If we compare him with the great men who country to the other, as THE MAN-the leader, the were his contemporaries throughout the nation; counsellor, the infallible in suggestion and in con- in an age of extraordinary personages, Washingduct was immediate and universal. From that ton was unquestionably the first man of the time moment to the close of the scene, the national in ability. Review the correspondence of Genconfidence in his capacity was as spontaneous, as eral Washington—that sublime monument of inenthusiastic, as immovable, as it was in his integ- telligence and integrity-scrutinize the public hisrity. Particular persons, affected by the untoward tory and the public men of that era, and you will course of events, sometimes questioned his suf- find that in all the wisdom that was accomplished ficiency; but the nation never questioned it, nor or was attempted, Washington was before every would allow it to be questioned. Neither misfor-man in his suggestions of the plan, and beyond tune, nor disappointment, nor accidents, nor delay, nor the protracted gloom of years, could avail to disturb the public trust in him. It was apart from circumstances; it was beside the action of caprice; it was beyond all visionary, and above all changeable feelings. It was founded on nothing extraneous; not upon what he had said or done, but upon what he was. They saw something in the man, which gave them assurance of a nature and destiny of the highest elevation-something inexplicable, but which inspired a complete satisfaction. We feel that this reliance was wise and right; but why it was felt, or why it was right, we are as much to seek as those who came under the direct impression of his personal presence. It is not surprising, that the world, recognizing in this man a nature and a greatness which philosophy cannot explain, should revere him almost to religion. every one in the extent to which he contributed to its adoption. In the field, all the able generals acknowledged his superiority, and looked up to him with loyalty, reliance, and reverence; the others, who doubted his ability, or conspired against his sovereignty, illustrated, in their own conduct, their incapacity to be either his judges or his rivals. In the state, Adams, Jay, Rutledge, Pinckney, Morris-these are great names; but there is not one whose wisdom does not vail to his. His superiority was felt by all these persons, and was felt by Washington himself, as a simple matter of fact, as little a subject of ques tion, or a cause of vanity, as the eminence of his personal stature. His appointment as commanderin-chief, was the result of no design on his part, and of no efforts on the part of his friends; it seemed to take place spontaneously. He moved The distance and magnitude of those objects into the position, because there was a vacuum which are too far above us to be estimated direct- which no other could supply: in it, he was not ly—such as stars-are determined by their paral- sustained by government, by a party, nor by conlax. By some process of that kind we may form nections; he sustained himself, and then he sus an approximate notion of Washington's greatness. tained every thing else. He sustained Congress We may measure him against the great events in against the army, and the army against the injus which he moved; and against the great men, tice of Congress. The brightest mind among his among whom, and above whom, his figure stood contemporaries was Hamilton's; a character which like a tower. It is agreed that the war of Ameri- cannot be contemplated without frequent admiracan Independence is one of the most exalted, and tion, and constant affection. His talents took the honorable, and difficult achievements related in form of genius, which Washington's did not. But history. Its force was contributed by many; but active, various, and brilliant, as the faculties of its grandeur was derived from Washington. His Hamilton were, whether viewed in the precocity character and wisdom gave unity, and dignity, of youth, or in the all-accomplished elegance of and effect to the irregular, and often divergent en- maturer life-lightning quick as his intelligence thusiasm of others. His energy combined the was to see through every subject that came be parts; his intelligence guided the whole: his per- fore it, and vigorous as it was in constructing the severance, and fortitude, and resolution, were the argumentation by which other minds were to be inspiration and support of all. In looking back led, as upon a shapely bridge, over the obscure over that period, his presence seems to fill the depths across which his had flashed in a moment whole scene; his influence predominates through--fertile and sound in schemes, ready in action, out; his character is reflected from every thing. Perhaps nothing less than his immense weight of mind could have kept the national system, at home, in that position which it held, immovably, for seven years; perhaps nothing but the august respectability which his demeanor threw around the American cause abroad, would have induced a foreign nation to enter into an equal alliance with us, npon terms that contributed in a most important degree to our final success, or would splendid in display, as he was—nothing is more obvious and certain than that when Mr. Hamilton approached Washington, he came into the presence of one who surpassed him in the extent, in the comprehension, the elevation, the sagacity, the force, and the ponderousness of his mind, as much as he did in the majesty of his aspect, and the grandeur of his step. The genius of Hamilton was a flower, which gratifies, surprises, and enchants; the intelligence of Washington was a stately tree, which in the rarity and true dignity of its beauty may think upon the days when William Hogarth is as superior, as it is in its dimensions. wrought in silver, as the apprentice of Ellis Gamble, in Cranbourne Street, and speculate upon the change of circumstances, wrought by his own exertions, when, as a great painter, in after time, he occupied the house, now known as the Sabloniere Hotel, in Leicester Square. in the Pilgrimages to English Shrines, and we think her article upon visiting his tomb as interesting as any in this popular series: Hogarth's character of mind, evidenced in his works and proved by his biography, is so perfectly honest, open, home-bred English, that we claim him with pride-as belonging exclusively to England. His originality is of English growth; his satire broad, bold, fair-play English. He was no screened assassin of character, either with pen or pencil; no journalist's hack to stab in secretconcealing his name, or assuming a forged one; no masked caricaturist, responsible to none. His philosophy was of the straightforward, clear-sighted English school; his theories-stern, simple, and unadorned-thoroughly English; his determination-proved in his love as well as in his hate-quite English; there is a firmness of purpose, a rough dignity, a John-Bull look in his broad intelligent face; the very fur round his cap must have been plain English rabbit-skin! No matter what "schools" were in fashion, Hogarth created and followed his own; no matter what was done, or written, ion unflinchingly; he was not to be moved or removed from his resolve. His mind was vigorous and inflexible, and withal, keen and acute; and though the delicacy of his taste in this more refined age may be matter of question, there can be no doubt as to his integrity and uprightness of purpose-in his determination to denounce vice, and by that means cherish virtue. Professor Leslie, in his eloquent and valuable Lectures on Painting, delivered in the spring of the present year to the students of the Royal Academy, has nobly vindicated Hogarth as an artist and a man, in words that all who heard will long remember. 'Hogarth," he said, "it is true, is often gross; but it must be remembered that he painted in a less fastidious age than ours, and that his great object was to expose vice. Debauchery is always made by him detestable, never attractive." Charles Lamb, one of the best of his commentators, who has viewed his labors in a kindred spirit, speaking of one of his most elaborate and varied works, the "Election Entertainment," asks, "What is the result left on the mind? Is it an impression of the vileness and worthlessness of our species? Or is not the general feeling which remains after the individual faces have ceased to act sensibly on the mind, a kindly one in favor of the species?" Leslie speaks of his "high species of humor, pregnant with moral meanings," and no happier choice of phrase could characterize his many works. Lamb, with true discrimination, says: "All laughter is not of a dangerous or soul-hardening tendency. There is the petrifying sneer of a demon, which excludes and kills love, and there is the cordial laughter of a man, which implies and cherishes it." HOGARTH, the great painter-teacher of his age and country, was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, in London, on the 10th of November, 1697, and his trusty and sympathizing biographer, Allan Cunningham, says, "we have the authority of his own manuscripts for believing he was baptized on the 28th of the same month;" but the parish registers have been examined for confirmation with "fruitless solicitude." Cunningham gives December as the month of his birth; this is a mistake; so also is his notice of the painter's introduction of the Virago into his picture of the "Modern Midnight Conversation." No female figure appears in this subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject for vituperation, and loudly condemn Cunningham as a writer who was too idle to examine the works he was describing; pouncing on his minute errors, and forgetting the totality of his generous labors. Much of this spirit infests literature; and merges the kindly exposition of error into the bitterness of personal attack. The fallibility of human nature should teach us charity, and our own faults lead us to "more gently scan our brother man,"-a thing too often unthought of by those who are nothing if not critical, and as frequently nothing when they are. The painter was descended from a Westmoreland family. Sprung from an industrious race of selfhelping yeomen, whose hardy toil brought them health and contentment, Hogarth had an early advantage, derived from his father's love of letters, which eventually drew him away from field and wood to the great London mart. Like thousands of others, he was unsuccessful. Fortunately, in this instance, his want of success in literature stimulated the strong mind of his son to seek occupation of more certain profit; and those who feel interest in the whereabouts of celebrated men, Hogarth's works are before us all; and are lessons as much for to-day as they were for yesterday. We have no intention of scrutinizing their merits or defects; we write only of the influence of a class of art such as he brought courageously before the English public. Every one is acquainted with the "Rake's Progress," and can recall subject after subject, story after story, which he llustrated. Comparatively few can judge of him as a painter, but all can comprehend his moral essays-brave as true! His fearlessness and earnestness are above all price; independent, in their high estate, of all praise. We would send "Marriage à la Mode" into general circulation during the London season, where the market for wives and husbands is presided over by interest rather than affection. The matrimonial mart was as bravely exposed by the great satirist, as the brutal and unmanly cockfight, which at that period was permitted to take place at the Cock-pit Royal, on the south side of St. James's Park. to the grave. Self-educated-that is to say, edu- Allan Cunningham was a better disciplinarian, and less prone to look for or care for enjoyment, than Hogarth; though we have many pleasant Society always needs such men as William Ho-memories how he truly relished both music and garth-true, stern men -to grapple with and overthrow the vices which spring up the very weeds both of poverty and luxury, the latter filled with the more bitter and subtle poison. Calling to mind the period, we the more honor the great artist's resolution; if the delicacy of our improved times is offended by what may seem deformity upon his canvas, we must remember that we do not shrink from Hogarth's coarseness, but from the coarseness he labored, by exposing, to expel. He painted what Smollett, and Fielding, and Richardson wrote far more offensively; but he surpassed the novelists both in truth and in intention. He painted without sympathizing with his subjects, whom he lashed with unsparing bitterness or humor. He never idealized a vice into a virtue-he never compromised a fact, much less a principle. He has, indeed, written fearful sermons on his canvas; sermons which, however exaggerated they may seem to us in some of their painful details of human sin and human misery, are yet so real, that we never doubt that such things were, and are. No one can suspect Hogarth to have been tainted by the vices he exposed. In this he has the advantage of the novelists of his period: he gives vice no loophole of escape: it is there in its hideous aspect, each step distinctly marked, each character telling its own tale of warning, so that "he who runs may read." conversation. But there was more sentiment in the Scottish poet than in the English painter; and the deep dark eyes of the Scot had more of fervor and less of sarcasm in their brightness. We repeat, Allan, of all writers, could thoroughly appreciate Hogarth; and his biography is written con amore. He says that "all who love the dramatic representations of actual life,-all who have hearts to be gladdened by humor,-all who are pleased with judicious and well-directed satire,— all who are charmed with the ludicrous looks of popular folly, and all who can be moved with the pathos of human suffering, are admirers of Hogarth." But to our thinking, Hogarth had a calling even more elevated than the Scottish poet has given him in this eloquent summing-up of his attributes; he is one of our greatest teachers-a TEACHER to whom is due the highest possible honor; and the more we feel the importance of the teacher, the more we value those who teach well. In grappling with folly and in combating with crimes, he was compelled to reveal the nature of that he proposed to satirize; he was obliged to set up sin in its high place before he could crown it with infamy." The times were full of internal as well as foreign disturbance, and Hogarth's studio was no hermitage to exclude passing events or their promoters. He lived with the living, moving present, his engravings being his pleasures; portraits, as they are now to many a high-hearted man of talent, his means of subsistence: heavy weights of mortality that fetter and clog the ascending spirit. Whoever desires to trace the life of this English artist to note him in his apprenticeship-when he tamed as well as his rough nature would permit, his hand to the delicate graving so cherished by His controversies and encounters with the his master, Ellis Gamble; and when freed from worthless Wilkes,-his defence of his own theohis apprenticeship, he sought art through the stirries,-his determined dislike to the establishment ring scenes of life, saying quaintly enough, that of a Royal Academy-his various other contro"copying other men's works resembled pouring versies-rendered his exciting course very differwine out of one vessel into another; there was ent from that of the lonely artists of the present no increase of quantity, and the flavor of the day, who are but too fond of living in closed vintage was liable to evaporate;"-whoever would studios, " pouring," as Hogarth would have said,— study the great, as well as the small, peculiarities "pouring wine from one vessel into another," of the painter who converted his thumb-nail into pondering over tales and poems for inspiration, a palette, and while transcribing characters and and transcribing the worn-out models of many events both rapidly and faithfully, complained of seasons into attitudes of bounding and varied life! his "constitutional idleness"-whenever, we say, Is it not wonderful, as sad, that the artist will not our readers feel desirous of revelling in the bio- feel his power, will not take his own place, asgraphy of so diligent, so observing, so faithful, so sume his high standing as of old, and demand the brave a spirit, we should send them to our old duty of respect from the world by the just exerfriend Allan Cunningham's most interesting history|cise of his glorious privilege!" Entertainment and of the man. Honest Allan had much in common information are not all the mind requires at the with our great national artist: though of differ- hand of an artist; we wish to be elevated by conent countries, they sprung from the same race-templating what is noble,-to be warmed, by the sturdy yeomen; they were alike lovers of inde-presence of the heroic,-and charmed and made pendence, fighting for the best part of life manfully and faithfully, enjoying the noble scorn of wrong, and battling for the right from the cradle happy by the light of purity and loveliness. We desire to share in the lofty movements of fine minds-to have communion with their image of |