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THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

CONTENTS OF No. XXIX.-JULY 1862.

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CONTENTS OF No. XXX.-OCTOBER 1862.

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THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

JULY 1862.

ART. I.-FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Letters from Italy and Switzerland. By Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Translated from the German by Lady Wallace. London: Longmans. 1862.

Sketch of the Life and Works of the late Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. By Jules Benedict. Second edition. London: John Murray. 1853.

Or all the paths which intellectual greatness can tread, none are more beset with temptation than that of imaginative genius. The statesman, the historian, the thinker, the warrior, the man of science, have each and all their special difficulties, but the common ground between them and the world at large is sufficiently wide to admit of a fair reciprocity of comprehension and sympathy between the individual genius and his contemporaries. Such is scarcely yet the case with art. It stands in a sort of exceptional position; on the one hand touching the inspirations of heaven, on the other allied to the outcasts of earth. And the root of this anomaly lies in the fact that although the Eternal Beauty is as sacred as the Eternal Truth, yet the former is that side of the Divine Life whose pure service is the most trying to mortal frailty. Those who devote themselves to the arts of expression, whether in poetry, painting, or music, must inevitably be exposed to a host of subtle temptations that are inseparable from the artistic temperament. Now and then we meet with a stoical poet like Milton, or Michael Angelo, who can pass through fire and not be scorched; but in these casca the tenderer and lovelier phases of the soul seem to have been less prominently developed. Natures like Mozart's or Byron's come nearer to the representative type. Those very susceptibilities which raise the poet above the comprehension of average

No. XXIX. JULY 1862.

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