of Correggio and Guercino took the place, for the time, of epics and philosophy.
Tn the summer of 1839, Boston was still more rightfully adorned with the Alston Gallery; and the sculptures of our compatriots Greenough, and Crawford, and Powers, were brought hither. The following lines were addressed by Margaret to the Orpheus: —
‘CRAWFORD’S ORPHEUS.
‘Each Orpheus must to the abyss descend,
For only thus the poet can be wise, —
Must make the sad Persephone his friend,
And buried love to second life arise;
Again his love must lose, through too much love,
Must lose his life by living life too true;
For what he sought below has passed above,
Already done is all that he would do;
Must tune all being with his single lyre;
Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain;
Must search all nature with his one soul’s fire;
Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain:
If he already sees what he must do,
Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view.’
Margaret's love of art, like that of most cultivated
persons in this country, was not at all technical, but truly
a sympathy with the artist, in the protest which his work
pronounced on the deformity of our daily manners; her
co-perception with him of the eloquence of form; her
aspiration with him to a fairer life. As soon as her
conversation ran into the mysteries of manipulation and
artistic effect, it was less trustworthy. I remember that in
the first times when I chanced to see pictures with her, I
