e mourns that Leonardo never
wholly escaped that tendency, that he never attained the intelligently
practical. He establishes that the only salutary action of
transcendentalism is an intermittent one, and by epochs; that it is
always critical; that it is necessary to progress; that, abused, it is
disastrous to the mind, and, like sensual excesses upon the body,
produces lassitude and debility. We cordially commend this admirable
chapter to the attention of thinkers and workers. In treating of the
three stages of "all labors, the mechanical or imitative, the
transcendental or reflective, and the _intelligently_ practical," we are
entertained with great, brilliant, and yet mournful illustrations; and
the thoughtful and exact language of our own Emerson is returned to us
from over the seas. And here we may remark, that Emerson is the most
frequently quoted, except Ruskin. Mr. Hamerton seems to have a genuine
appreciation of Mr. Emerson's contributions to a department of
literature which is not occupied, and which represents a mental
condition that has scarcely found expression in English literature since
Wordsworth.

In the course of our remarks we have mentioned Mr. Hamerton's chapter on
"The Painter in his Relation to Society." In that admirable paper Mr.
Hamerton starts with the assumption that society respects nothing but
_power_, or that which leads to power; and because the artist does not
represent power in an obvious sense, therefore he is considered of
little consequence. Mr. Hamerton enforces his statements by
illustrations taken from the works of novelists who have treated of the
artist in his social relations. He makes his chapter interesting and
ingenious by quotations from, or references to, the works of Scott,
Thackeray, Tennyson, Goethe, Balzac, Ponsard, and Edmond About. In the
course of a masterly synopsis and partial analysis of one of Balzac's
novels, he writes,--"Though Balzac shows how much he loves artists by
describing the artistic nature with tenderness and kind feeling, yet he
also plainly declares that people generally cannot understand a painter,
and do not respect him, unless he is famous." Mr. Hamerton also gives us
the saying of Thackeray about Reynolds,--"I think, of all the polite men
of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman." Also Ruskin's
remark about Rubens,--"Rubens was an honorable and entirely
well-intentioned man, earnestly industrious, simple, and temperate in
his habi