Art Intelligence.

MR. CRAWFORD is at work, in Rome, on the United States national monument to Washington. It will be the largest monument of the kind existing. Rauch's statue of Frederick the Great, at Berlin, is of considerably less proportions. The base of the Washington monument is a complete circle; on this a star, with six points, is raised, and on this rises the actual base to the equestrian figure. Six eagles surround the steps on the circle, and six colossal statues of eminent Americans surround the pedestal-Henry, Lee, Mason, Marshall, Allen, and Jefferson. The whole is on a gigantic scale, from sixty to seventy feet high. The figures of Jefferson and Henry are completed, and forwarded to Muller's foundry, at Munich,

to be cast in bronze. The artist is raising the figure of Washington's horse-a mound of clay.

Gibson's statue of Sir Robert Peel, to be placed in Westminster Abbey, is in course of execution. It will be finished in three months. The sculp tor is likewise engaged on another work of national interest. It is to be of colossal proportions, representing Queen Victoria seated on the throne, with attendant figures at each side, the one of Clemency, the other of Justice. The statue of the Queen is at present being raised in clay.

An engraving has been made of the Sully portrait of Jackson, in the possession of Francis Preston Blair, taken soon after the close of the Seminole war. It is similar to the large head

of Washington, from Stuart's original portrait;

it is consequently more youthful than the portraits familiar to the public, taken later in life. The habitual energy and vivid qualities of Jackson are well conveyed. It is engraved in an effective mixed line and stipple, by Mr. Welch, who executed the Washington head.

At the recent sale of the gallery of the late Duke of Orleans, at Paris, Ary Scheffer's "Francesca di Rimini," so well known through the fine engraving executed of it, sold for nine thousand francs.

The State Legislature of Pennsylvania has passed a bill, making an appropriation to aid in the erection of a monument in Independencesquare, commemorative of the original thirteen states, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The recent exhibition of photographic pictures at the Society of Arts-the first of its kind in London-has proved eminently attractive. The collection was a very large one, including seven hundred and seventy-four specimens the results of the several processes known as Talbotype or Calotype, Waxed Paper, Albumened Paper, Albumenized Glass, and lodion. They have been contributed by French, German, and English photographers.

which shall cost not less than $50,000, and the association is now in correspondence with several distinguished sculptors in this country and abroad, and have offered $250 for the design which shall be adopted by them.

Professor Koeppen read lately a most interesting and instructive paper before the NewYork Historical Society on the "Monuments of the Acropolis, the discoveries made during the recent excavations, and the restoration of the temples by the direction and at the expense of the government of King Otho." Professor Koeppen was for years a Professor of History, Ancient Geography, and the Languages, at the Military College at Athens.

At a recent meeting of the United States Agricultural Society, at Washington, the erection of a monument to the late unfortunate Mr.

Downing, who perished by the burning of the Henry Clay, was determined upon by the farmSmithsonian grounds, themselves rare memoers and horticulturists, to be located in the rials of his genius and taste.

The Society of Antiquaries of Picardy, in France, announce that, by a decree of the government, they have been authorized to erect a statue in bronze of Peter the Hermit, in one of the public places of Amiens. Their circular states, that although that great event of the Middle Ages, the "holy war," has obtained a place among the recorded "glories," the apostle of the crusades has not yet a monument in his Hermit belongs not to France alone, but to the native city. It states, however, that Peter the

whole Christian world, and that all the "friends of religion" are bound to subscribe something toward the accomplishment of this object, most worthy to be recorded, as the French chroniclers word it, among the Gesta Dei per Francos! This is an emanation of religious madness.

A statue, by Rude, of Joan of Arc, or rather Joan Darc, has recently been erected in the garden of the Luxembourg, in Paris. The sculptor has attempted to reproduce the heroine's likeness from the sole portrait which exists of her-a pen-and-ink sketch, taken down in the margin of the record of her interrogatories by the clerk to the examiners. We also learn that more mural paintings have been discovered in the ancient church of Saint Eustache at Paris. It now appears pretty positive that the entire of the vast edifice was decorated with such paintings, and that they, a century or two after, having fallen partially into decay from damp, were, though of considerable artistic and historic value, barbarously covered with whitewash or plaster.

The Hotel de Ville, at Paris, in addition to its

Col-historical importance and architectural beauties, will shortly be one of the most gorgeously and at the same time most tastefully art-decorated monuments in Europe. Several distinguished artists have executed allegorical and historical paintings of great beauty on the walls and ceilings of the principal apartments.

An association has been formed at NewOrleans for the erection of a monument to Henry Clay in one of the public squares of the city. The monument is to be a colossal statue

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

and anniversary poems. In this last item sity, the enthusiasm of poetry, and are not of business he has done more service than impelled by their nature into musical utany other man, reciting more verses and terance. They may call in the aid of oftener, than all our lecturers together, verse to sharpen their effect, but it will Park Benjamin, perhaps, excepted. If never be of any high or inspired order. he has won applause by his lectures, It will be pipe and tabor music, and not and he certainly has, something is due that of the organ or the orchestra. Juveto his nice adaptation of them, and to nal sometimes gives us stately hexamehis voice and manner of speaking. Few ters; but then he was a very serious satirpoets can read well, either their own ist, and worked himself up into a very verses, or those of other people; hence lofty indignation." And yet wit and hutheir want of success in the lecture-room. mor possess one of the great requisites of But both Saxe and Park Benjamin are poetry-fancy: without that vague somefine readers, and, by their reading alone, thing which we call the fanciful, there can can make bad poems seem good ones. In be nothing truly comic. That which leads 1849 Saxe read another satire, entitled the poet to compare, which links together "The Times," before the Boston Mercan- opposites, and creates harmony from seemtile Library Association; in 1850" Carmen ing discord, is that which makes the wit Lætum," an after-dinner poem, before the and humorist in whatever manner he manalumni of Middlebury College; and in 1851, ifests himself. Dickens, in the matter of before the New-York University, a poem comparison, is as fine a poet as Longfelcalled " New-England." This last re- low, only that his comparisons are differmains unprinted, and will for some time to ent, and witty instead of poetical. "Wit," come, the poet being still engaged in re- says Hunt again, "may be defined to be citing it in different parts of the country. the arbitrary juxtaposition of dissimilar Saxe's present residence is at Burlington, ideas, for some lively purpose of assimiVermont. For his personal appearance lation or contrast, or both. It is fancy in we refer to the portrait prefixed to our its most willful, and, strictly speaking, its article we can vouch for its thorough least poetical state; that is to say, wit correctness; but it gives no idea of one does not contemplate its ideas for their peculiarity of Saxe-how indeed could own sakes in any light apart from their it ?-of his height and robust build. In ordinary prosaical one, but solely for the his epistle to the editor of "The Knick- purpose of producing an effect by their erbocker," he thus describes himself :- combination. Poetry may take up the combination, and improve it; but then it divests it of its arbitrary character, and converts it into something better." Humor and fun are more poetical than wit and satire, because there is more breadth and depth about them. They spring from, and affect the heart and soul of man, that part of him which is inherent and everlasting, not the work of colleges and schools, with a due infusion of tailors and perfumers, while satire and wit are in most cases the result of education, and chiefly affect educated minds. The wit of Sheridan and Congreve would be lost upon many a man who would split his sides with laughter at the buffoonery of a mere circusclown.

"I am a man, you must learn,

Less famous for beauty than strength;
And for aught I could ever discern,
Of rather superfluous length.

In truth 't is but seldom one meets
Such a Titan in human abodes,
And when I stalk over the streets
I'm a perfect Colossus of roads!"

The ancestors of Saxe were, we believe, originally Germans, the name "Saxe" being the English of " Sachs," Hans Sachs, the old ballad-writer of Nuremberg.

With the exception of Holmes, and perhaps Lowell, Saxe is the only one of our writers who has cultivated comic poetry with any degree of success. Indeed, they all steer clear of it, and the only thing comic about many of them is their most serious verse. How far the comic element, how far wit and humor in the abstract, can be considered poetry in the abstract, is a matter of endless dispute. "Wit and satire," says Hunt, "and the observation of common life, want, of neces

Judging them by their ideals, and by their effect upon ourselves, Saxe's truest poems are "The Old Chapel Bell" and "The Lady Ann." In the first, the bell speaks to a little boy who sits beside it in a half-dream, relating the incidents which have passed around it in other years, its