es of travels in Italy; besides a considerable
collection of historical and critical essays. We think that several
of these works would be interesting to the American public, and might
profitably be translated.

Some three or four years ago, M. Taine was appointed Professor in the
ecole des Beaux Arts, and we suppose his journey to Italy must have been
undertaken partly with a view to qualify himself for his new position.
He visited the four cities which may be considered the artistic centres
of Italy,--Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice,--and a large part of his
account of his journey is taken up with descriptions and criticisms of
pictures, statues, and buildings.

This is a department of criticism which, we may as well frankly
acknowledge, is far better appreciated on the continent of Europe than
in England or America. Over the English race there passed, about two
centuries ago, a deluge of Puritanism, which for a time almost drowned
out its artistic tastes and propensities. The Puritan movement, in
proportion to its success, was nearly as destructive to art in the West,
as Mohammedanism had long before been in the East. In its intense and
one-sided regard for morality, Puritanism not only relegated the love
for beauty to an inferior place, but contemned and spat upon it, as
something sinful and degrading. Hence, the utter architectural impotence
which characterizes the Americans and the modern English; and hence the
bewildered ignorant way in which we ordinarily contemplate pictures
and statues. For two centuries we have been removed from an artistic
environment, and consequently can with difficulty enter into the
feelings of those who have all this time been nurtured in love for art,
and belief in art for its own sake. These peculiarities, as Mr. Mill has
ably pointed out, have entered deep into our ethnic character. Even in
pure morals there is a radical difference between the Englishman and
the inhabitant of the continent of Europe. The Englishman follows virtue
from a sense of duty, the Frenchman from an emotional aspiration toward
the beautiful The one admires a noble action because it is right, the
other because it is attractive. And this difference underlies the moral
judgments upon men and events which are to be found respectively in
English and in continental literature. By keeping it constantly in view,
we shall be enabled to understand many things which might otherwise
surprise us in the writings of Fren