THE WISE ACRES.

NUMBER ONE.

'WISE above that which is written.' - THE Bible.

THERE is, Mr. EDITOR, a class of subjects, various to an extreme in the detail, yet in their general bearings closely related, on which, with your approval, I am inclined to figure a little in your journal; writing at intervals, as I can find time; smiling occasionally, and perhaps inducing others to smile; aiming at the great interests of truth and virtue, and using all frankness and simplicity, with as much good nature as I can bring into play, in the pursuit of my object.

Like Halleck's FANNY, I have been younger once than I am now, and like almost every body else, I have had my share of disappointments and vexations. Still, if I know my own heart, I am neither so old, nor so soured by misfortune, as to cherish any unnatural resentment toward the world I live in. Let it pass. The time will soon be over; and the world, even while it lasts, is well enough, if those who inhabit it would allow it to be what God, in his benevolence, intended it - his name be praised! It is the follies and vices of mankind that spoil every thing.

All vice is folly; but all follies are not of the same type. There is a folly of mere weakness, of imbecility of mind, the extreme of which is idiocy. This, though often culpable, as resulting more or less from ignorance of what ought to be known, is yet so frequently allied to irretrievable calamity, and so generally associated in our contemplation with a notion of that kind, that we are scarce at liberty to laugh at its blunders, much less to assail it with severe reproof. Another sort of folly shows itself, not in weakness, but phrenzy; not in want of intellectual power, but in some perversion of its aim, or action. The mental machinery is strong, and perhaps of brilliant polish; but a wheel displaced, or a band loosened, has thrown its movements into hopeless perplexity. Here, too, reproach is silent and in place of ridicule, we are struck with consternation; looking at the spectacle as at a wreck in the same sea where we are sailing, and brought about by an inscrutable visitation, which, for aught we know, may next come upon ourselves.

But there is a folly, and a most prevalent one, not within these limits, nor at all entitled to the forbearance they claim. It is a folly of affectation, of pretension, of ambitious eccentricity; a vain folly, that plays the fool on purpose to be seen; a strenuous folly, that presses forward in pure love of itself and its doings; a folly of conceited opinion, holding common example, not to say common sense, in scorn, just because it is common; a folly that piques itself upon all manner of singularities for their own sake; eager for distinction in any form, however trivial, and upon any terms of purchase, however silly or contemptible. Here is a source of living caricature, out of which the world is filled with curiosities, fit in every respect to be laughed at; the legitimate diversion of that strange faculty of our nature called, for lack of a better name, the love of the ludicrous.

Here Wit may let fly his arrows, without the guilt of murder, and Fun exhaust his risibilities in a field, if such there be on earth, of lawful merriment.

Go where we will, there are beings of this kind to be met with. The chance is, that the very critic who remarks upon them, is himself among the number, and liable to be laughed at in turn.

The poison is insidious. Its victim often the last to notice its influence. Some men are total fools, some partial. How they came so, is generally a secret to themselves. With most, folly is an exception, not a rule. There are persons of infinite merit, who have yet a vein of indiscretion, on some fatal topic, which their wisdom never approaches, but at the hazard of being completely upset. This topic is sometimes one of science, sometimes of philosophy, sometimes of religion or morals ; sometimes of art, taste, manners.

As there are monomaniacs, so there are fools of a single subject. If a person lose the just conception of a fact of every-day occurrence, and which is of course necessary to the integrity of his common sense – take for instance the fact of his own identity, or his relationship in society, or the condition he is of — he is so far a deranged man; his intellects have, in that point, lost their moorings. In like manner, let him have the wisdom of Solomon, in general affairs, with a besetting sin of vanity, or other distorting misjudgment, in one solitary matter, and he may as well deserve to be the subject of a jest, as any that ever wore cap and bells.

Indeed, great men are apt to be the most remarkable for their foibles. Dr. Johnson affected the bear; General Hamilton is said to have been vain of his personal appearance; the late venerable Doctor Mason piqued himself too much on intellectual energy, a thing he really had a great deal of. Doctor Channing, a living author of much merit, dives and strains after excessive depth and refinement; while Mr. Van Buren, our people-kissing Absalom, looks rather to the surface of things, and finds the secret of his great strength' in in smiles and placidity of face.

There is no end to these oddities. Miss Martineau is a clever writer ; but let her mount her hobby of the political rights of women, and she is crazy at once. Even Reid, the philosopher, a professed follower of common sense, became blear-eyed and way-lost in the pursuit. Nor have the labors of Stuart, Cousin, and Company, availed to mitigate in the least the general ophthalmia of his school. Scarce a man, who has any thing positive in his character, but he may be followed into some nook of thought or sentiment, where he is beside himself. Hear the French economists prate of possible immortality in this world. Hear Bentham upon codification.

Hear Tooke on etymology. Hear the sectarian doctors, of all time, on what he that runs may read' and understand, in the sunshine of revelation. Hear Wordsworth rave about poetical diction, while his muse, in illustration, sings :

Suck, little babe, oh, suck again !' Hear, finally, Jackson on the law of the constitution; Calhoun and McDuffie on state-rights; Noah Webster on lexicography; and Sir Jonathan Oldbuck on castrametation' and the ‘Kaim of Kinprunes.'

Alas, that it should be so! And yet the cause is often apparent,

What a person is reputed, or imagines himself to excel in, he is sure to regard with a degree of favor dangerous to the balance of his character. A story told successfully, is likely to be told again, and to be followed

up with others, till the performer becomes a story-teller by trade. Poets, painters, orators, are currently made in the same way. The first attempt, in every kind of enterprise, is an adventure. Success, or the near hope of it, leads to repetition. Habit ensues, and the character is stamped. Adepts, especially those of the first grade, in particular arts and sciences, are commonly fancied to be born such. Here is the process of their birth. So long as just bounds of reason are kept, the process is a happy one. Unfortunately, those bounds are too often over-passed, and some ridiculous peculiarity or extravagance mistaken for high attainment.

A person turns critic, perhaps. Practice improves him in his work, till he becomes self-confident and imperious; a man of strong sentences and weak conceits the coxcomb of the reviews. Another takes to grammar or rhetoric, and becomes a man of rules; putting usage, and idiom, and nature, to the rack, for his rules' sake. Hence the fool-pedagogue, and the bar or pulpit fool of eloquence. Under like influence, some lady-birds are all • accomplishment,' as it is called ; all music, drawing, French, Italian, dress; just as some of the male-puppets of Broadway are of late all beard, ear-locks, and moustaches. That which, from any cause, engrosses the attention of individuals, grows imperceptibly to an undue importance in their eyes, and makes a gradual conquest of their discretion concerning it. Say what we will of the advantages arising from what is termed the 'division of labor,' in modern life, it has its disadvantages also. Like the one-sided policy of fashionable education, it gains a point or two, at the expense, perhaps, of many others. A character, to be perfect, must be largely and equally developed. To run it out in one direction or another, beyond due proportion, is to distort it. And to this all partial studies and employments have an unavoidable tendency: What is a mere mathematician in science ? — a mere musician in art? a mere dandy among gentlemen ?

Necessity and duty lay us, it is true, under many constraints. We cannot be in all things what we would, nor do exactly our pleasure. But there is one thing we can at least avoid. We can avoid studious

A fool by choice, and on deliberate purpose, is a fool indeed. And whether he be a fool total or partial, it is fair, and may be useful,

a to chide him. If he have great merits, so much the worse the example of his follies. If his follies prevail, and have few or no merits to contrast with, reproof has a less hopeful, but not a less exigent task. In either case, the public must be appealed to.

There are no civil law penalties applicable. Folly is a subject for the justice of public opinion only; a dread tribunal, often imposed upon, but whose decisions are commonly right in the end. Let us bring our griefs into this court; and if we take care that our object be that of all just penal administrations, namely, not to inflict pain, but to prevent the repetition of offences, good may come of it.

error.

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A VETERAN SMOKER.

Here fast asleep, full six feet deep, and seventy summers ripe,
GEORGE Thomas lies, in hopes to rise, and smoke another pipe.

STANZAS.

A SEPTEMBER EVENING ON

THE BANKS OF THE MOSHAS SUCK.

Now to the sessions of sweet, sileut thought,
I suinmon up rem·mbrance of things past.'

SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.

Again the new moon in the west,

Scarce seen upon yon golden sky,
Hangs o'er the mountain's purple crest,

With one pale planet burning nigh;
And beautiful her pearly light,
As when we blessed its beams last night;
But thou art o'er the far blue sea,

And I can only think on thee.
Providence, September 30.

SARAH H. WHITMAN. THE FINE ARTS.

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We are not among those who are very anxious to see an American school of painting. Schools of all kinds are apt to be wedded to particular styles, and are only really excellent in that which they have adopted as their own. We wish to perceive an endeavor on the part of our artists to arrive at the greatest perfection in every department of the art, whether it be after the Roman, Flemish, English, or French schools. Our painters are too apt to think, and the public are too apt to require, that every work produced on this side of the Atlantic should be peculiarly American, in character and execution. This, we think, is carrying national feelings and prejudices a little too far; it is, in fact, too democratic for our notions, and if persisted in, will narrow down the efforts of our artists to a very small compass. The space we cover, in the history of the world, is as yet very limited ; and to confine our painters or sculptors to subjects drawn from this source alone, would produce a monotony, that would be as tedious and chilling, as at length it would be painful and disgusting. Already Indian scenes and Indian subjects have almost surfeited us. Tawny complexions, uncouth drapery, and unvaried expression of figure and countenance, may offer novelty for a while, but a refined mind will soon become wearied with them.

Those who advocate an American school, are constantly crying out to our artists, ' Paint from Nature.' In this sentiment they seem to imagine that all true excellence consists. We certainly would not condemn the notion of always keeping nature before our eyes,

when we attempt to do any thing truly great and original. But there are two ways of looking at Nature. There are those who look at her with a cultivated, and those who look at her with an unculti

To illustrate this, in a familiar manner, we would instance the landscapes recently published in England, of American scenery, and the views of the same scenery, published by some of our artists in this country. In both we find the same attention bestowed upon the drawing, outline, and perspective, but as unlike each other as possible in tone, color, and effect. One draws it as he would a map, with square and compass; the other, preserving the same fidelity, so arranges the light and shade, as to produce a fascinating and glowing picture. The one gives us Nature in ber everyday dress, unvarnished, unadorned, and unattractive; the other seizes her in her happiest moments, when sunshine and gladness clothe her in her richest and most enticing apparel. The power of thus placing nature before us in her happiest moments, is the peculiar prerogative of genius; but of genius cultivated and refined by long study, and an intimate acquaintance with the principles of the picturesque, the sublime, and the beautiful. Intense application to the leading principles of taste, we know is repugnant to the great majority of mankind; and it is on this account that a superficial manner is so universal and alluring: But a superficial manner cannot earn a substantial reputation; and he who aims at popularity by courting momentary applause, will sooner or later find that he has been pursuing a phantom that has led him onward to his ruins. The idea, therefore, of establishing an American school of painting, by an exclusive study of

vated eye.

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