GRIMM, HERMAN, a German critic and biographer, was born at Cassel, January 6, 1826. He is a son of the celebrated philologist Wilhelm Grimm. He was educated at Berlin and at Bonn; and from 1850 to 1853 he lived at Rome. In 1872 he became professor of the history of art at the University of Berlin. He is the founder of the review Ueber Kunstleben und Kunstwerke; and has written, besides a vast number of minor essays, Goethe in Italien (1850); Essays (1850–1875); Armin (1851); Demetrius (1854); Unüberwindliche Mächte (The Unconquerable Powers, 1859); Das Leben Michelangelo (1870): Das Leben Rafaels (1872); Funfzehn Essays (1874); Vorlesungen über Goethe (1877); and a collection of stories entitled Novellen. His most important work is generally considered to be his Life of Michelangelo, of which there is a fine translation by Miss Bunnètt.

MICHELANGELO AS AN APPRENTICE.

One day, when the masters had gone away, he drew the scaffolding with all that belonged to it, and with those working on it, so perfectly correctly, that Domenico, when he saw the paper, exclaimed, full of astonishment: "He understands more than I do myself!" His progress soon appeared so great, that admiration was turned into envy. Grillandajo became anxious. That jealousy seized him which has appeared on too many similar occasions to excite surprise in this instance.

Michelangelo painted his first picture. From the constant intercourse of the Florentines with Germany, it was natural that German pictures and engravings should have reached Italy. A plate of Martin Schöngauer's, representing the temptation of St. Antony, was copied and painted by Michelangelo on an enlarged scale. This picture is said to be still extant in the gallery of the Bianconi family at Bologna. According to the report of others, it is in possession of the sculptor, M. de Triqueti, at Paris, without its being said how it came into his hands. Schöngauer's plate is wellknown. Considered as a composition, it is at all events his most important work, and is designed with an imagination which matches the wildest Netherland works of a similar kind. A band of distorted monsters have carried St. Antony into the air. We see nothing of the earth but a bit of rocky stone below, in the corner of the picture. Eight devils have taken the poor anchorite, and torment him. One pulls his hair; a second pulls his garment in front; a third seizes the book hanging from a pocket buttoned to his girdle; a fourth snatches the stick from his hand; a fifth helps the fourth; the others pinch and teaze wherever there is space to seize him and at the same time the strange rabble roll and turn him over, against him, and under him, in the most impossible writhings. The entire animal kingdom is ransacked to compose the figures. Claws, scales, horns, tails, talons-whatever belongs to animals-is exhibited in these eight devils. The fishy nature, however, predominates; and, that he might not. err here, Michelangelo eagerly studied the goods exposed to view in the fish-market. He thus accomplished an excellent picture. Grillandajo called it, however, one produced in his atelier; or even named himself as the designer of it as he was authorized to do according to the custom of the time. On the other hand, however, Michelangelo now most plainly showed that he understood more than his master. From Life of Michelangelo. Translated by FANNY E. BUNNÈTT.

VOL. XII.-6

GRISWOLD, RUFUS WILMOT, an American editor and critic, born at Benson, Rutland County, Vt., February 15, 1815; died in New York City, August 27, 1857. He learned the printing trade, at which he worked for some years; afterward he became a Baptist clergyman, and subsequently engaged in literary pursuits. At various times. he edited periodicals in New York and Philadelphia. In 1841 he published a volume of Sermons, and an anonymous volume of Poems. He wrote the Curiosities of American Literature; prepared, in conjunction with W. G. Simms and others, Washington, and the Generals of the Revolution; and, in conjunction with H. B. Wallace, Napoleon and the Marshals of the Empire. He undertook the editing of a Dictionary of Biography, but the publishers threw up the work after about one thousand large pages had been stereotyped; these were destroyed, and no part of the work was ever published. His latest work was The Republican Court: or, American Society in the Days of Washington (1854). He is best known by his various Collections, with Biographical Sketches, all of which have been several times reprinted. These are: Poets and Poetry of America (1842); Prose Writers of America (1846); Female Poets of America (1849); Sacred Poets of England and America (1849); Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century (1850).

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

I need not dwell upon the necessity of Literature and Art to a people's glory and happiness. History, with all her voices, joins in one judgment upon this subject. Our legislators, indeed, choose to consider them of no consequence, and while the States are convulsed by claims from the loom and the furnace for protection, the demands of the parents of freedom, the preservers of arts, the dispensers of civility, are treated with silence. But authors and artists have existed, and do exist here in spite of such outlawry. And notwithstanding. the obstacles in our condition, and the discouragements of neglect, the Anglo-Saxon race in the United States have done as much in the fields of investigation, reflection, imagination, and taste, in the present century, as any other twelve millions of people-about our average number for this period-in the world.

Doubtless there are obstacles-great obstacles to the successful cultivation of letters here; but they are not so many nor so important as is generally supposed. The chief difficulty is a want of patriotism. We have had no confidence in ourselves, and men who lack self-reliance are rarely successful. We have not looked into our own hearts. We have not inquired into our own necessities. When we have written, instead of giving a free voice to the spirit within us, we have endeavored to write after some foreign model. We have been so fearful of nothing else as of an Americanism in thought or expression. He has been deemed greatest who has copied some transatlantic author with most successful servility. And if one of our countrymen wins some reputation among his fellows, it is generally because he has been. first praised abroad.

The commonly urged barriers to literary advancement supposed to exist in our form of government, the nature of our institutions, the restless and turbulent movements of our democracy, and the want of a wealthy and privileged class among us, deserve little consideration. Tumult and strife, the clashing of great

interests and high excitements, are to be regarded rather as aids than as obstacles to intellectual progress. From Athens came the choicest literature and the finest art her philosophers, so calm and profound, her poets, the dulcet strains of whose lyres still charm the ears of succeeding ages, wrote amid continual upturnings and overthrows. The best authors of Rome also were senators and soldiers. Miltonthe greatest of the prose-writers as well as the greatest of the poets of England-lived in the Commonwealth, and participated in all its political and religious controversies. And what repose had blind Mæonides, or Camoens, or Dante, or Tasso? In the literature of Germany and France, too, the noblest works have been produced amid the shocks of contending elements. Nor is the absence of a wealthy class, with leisure for such tranquil pursuits, to be much lamented. The privileged classes of all ages have been drones.

To say truth, most of the circumstances usually set down as barriers to æsthetical cultivation here, are directly or indirectly advantageous. The real obstacles are generally of a transient kind. Many of them are silently disappearing; and the rest would soon be unknown if we had a more enlightened love of country, and the making of our laws were not so commonly confided to men whose intellects are too mean, or whose principles are too wicked, to admit of their seeing or doing what is just and needful in the premises. . Nevertheless, much has been accomplished; great advancement has been made against the wind and tide ; and at this time [1842] the aspects and prospects of our affairs are auspicious of scarcely anything more than of the successful cultivation of National Literature and National Art.-Curiosities of American Literature.

PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS.

This "daughter of the Murky Senegal," as she is styled by an admiring contemporary critic, we suppose may be considered as an American, since she was but six years of age when brought to Boston and sold in the slave-market of that city, in 1761. If not so great