The comparative feebleness of art is further apparent when we consider, in the greatest works of art, how few the beauties, how many the faults; how seldom we find a picture that is good in more than one department of the art! The great colorist is deficient in composition; one wonderful in conception and composition, may have no idea of color: while the master of chiaroscurso is a novice in everything else; suggesting the fact, that only the union of the talents of several artists, supposing that possible, could secure a full, truthful rendering of nature. Each of these important departments has had its respective master, but where is the magician who, uniting their varied excellencies in one production, can conjure up before us the entire spirit and sentiment of nature, and reveal to us the whole mystery of creation?

Besides, from nature comes every element of art; within her sphere lies all the inspiration of genius. An abstract idea of beauty, it is true, exists in the mind, transcribed from no individual object or creature. But, as Pope asks, from what can we reason but from what we know? so, we may inquire, what can we conceive and image to ourselves, but from what we have seen? The first part of genius is a strong susceptibility to the influence of beauty in nature. And the Muses were rightly conceived as the daughters of memory: the great ideas which the Raphaels and Titians have sought to embody, however gradual their growth, have been indebted to nature for every stage of their advancement.

Architecture, as we have seen, in common with all the fine arts, derives its principle of beauty from nature; but unlike the rest, it is indebted to nature for something else, closely allied to, and in some measure interwoven with the other, viz: constructive principle. Structure is an important element of architecture, and fortunately for us, the affinity between it and nature extends also to construction. Of this fact many illustrations could be given, and of the use made of it by architects. The constructive principle of St. Bride's Church steeple at London, with its spiral staircase and newal,it is well known was derived by Sir G. Wren from a common form of spiral shell. The dome of the Cathedral of Florence owes its origin to the structure of the human skull, the peculiarity of which is its combining strength with lightness. The naval architect has obtained valuable hints for ship-building from the structure of shells. The figure of the duck originally suggested the form of the ship, and certainly the finest models, the best for contending with winds and waves, are those that most resemble their original, as the Dutch galliot will attest.

But, as in art, so in science, we cannot directly compete with nature; we cannot reach her wonderful mathematical skill. - the nice balance of forces. - resistance, and strain; we must waste our material, and, after all, be behind in that certainty which characterises her engineering enterprises, which is visible in her most ordinary productions.

Let us glance for a moment oyer the empire of art, with an eye to this analogy with nature. In music's various moods and instruments we recognise the various hymns of nature. - the murmuring stream, the melody of birds, the wind upon the shore in "vocal reed," which are music's acknowledged types. Many oft-used expressions, as "a tide of harmony," "floods of melody," "gush of song," are confessions of this analogy. Campbell speaks of the "stormy music of the drum;" Shakespeare makes music the food of love, and compares its dying fall to a gentle wind stealing oyer violets; and Mil"Sang hallelujah as the sound of seas

In the department of architecture we shall find equal interest. The "twilight grove" is seen in the temple colonnade, or "dim religious aisle." The "awe-inspiring dome" speaks of the canopy of the skies - the celestial hemisphere - which has in some instances been its model. The beautiful carves of the -capitals and shafts of the antique columns are at least suggested by lines in nature. The earliest Egyptian column was a stalk of the lotus, capped by its caiix; and its base was, in all probability, the foot of the same plant, where it issues from the root.

All descriptions of design are varied pictures or reflections of nature. Whether a single edifice, or group of edifices, or picturesque avenue, be the object of our admiration as a work of art, one source of our pleasure must be a recognition of principles dictated by nature, and a recollection of corresponding effects in her wide domain.

Every true style has its types in nature, every shade of character its corresponding ex-pression there. The principles of design have been learnt in her school. In the decoration of architecture we shall find nearly the whole of the vegetable kingdom, which, though not literally copied, are yet the most easily traced. No department of creation seems better adapted for decoration in the arts of architecture, sculpture, etc., than this: plants, their foliage, flowers, fruits, have accordingly been more extensively employed, as the basis of ornamentation, than any other objects. In some Gothic buildings the abundance of floral decorations renders them rivals, in point of luxuriance, of Nature herself. Plants were very early thus employed. The almond, pomegranate, and flowers were chosen, even in the wilderness, by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; and, down to the present time, the ivy, lotus, acanthus, palm, vine, oak, and other beautiful objects of the vegetable creation have been the subjects of the chisel, and have given life and expression to architecture and the arts of decoration.

The types of art are in nature, but art, as before shown, cannot be entirely referred to that source. The soul of man has had part, and through that part may, generally, be read much that is interesting of the character and history of the times that produced it. The monuments of art are always the true representatives of the physical, moral, and intellectual state of man. They are the exponents of his religious and political position, and indicate the exact character of his mental development at the corresponding periods of his annals. Nations have written the records of their history in stone. The temples, the palaces, the monuments of Germany, France, and England are so many pertrified poems. The Vatican, the Escurial, the Alhambra, each unfold to us more than many volumes could have done, of all that is interesting to man, of all those absorbing and fascinating subjects on which we would question the past. Catholicism has written its history, and more than is ordinarily understood by history, in the monasteries, cathedrals, and monuments of the middle ages; and, whatever be its subsequent fate, the memory, at least, of its worship will need no other shrine. Liberty, commerce, and industry have recorded their enterprise, also, in the same characters.