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PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY. VOLUME I. jfjwtetj. To a Canary Bird. Each morn as the brightsun peeps over the trees, Thy sweet songisheard as it floats on thebreezc; And long as he tarries to brighten the day, So long may bo heard thy melodious lay. If darkness or gloom in my spirit should dwell, Thy lay in its sweetness would sever the spell; 0! who could be sad, when thy silvery note Is flung to the zephyrs that over us float. Then sing, sweet canary! not only forme, I know of another that listens to thee; _ Another, whose voice is so much like thine own, Little fellow, I know where you learned that tone. Then sing, pretty bird, carol forth thy sweet lay! Let it float through the air, and gladden the day; And oft as I hear it, in innocent glee, I’ll think of anothei that listens to thee. _Columbia (Mo.) Stciteiman. CLIMBINC THE HEICHTS. ATHENS, CIA., MARCH 5,1870. girt IJepttwimt LAOCOON. BY PROP. F. A. LIPSCOMB. 1 The following extract is taken from the German of “ Lessing's Laocoon.” This work is so widely known to students of German Literature, that a lengthy analysis—even if our space permitted—would bo gratituous. But, as all students are not Ger man students, and as the Laocoon, though regarded by Germans as the basis of their modern Schools of Art, has been rarely introduced into America, perhaps a few remarks con cerning the nature and object of the jVork will not be unappreciated by the readers of the Collegian. The Laocoon in its broadest scope, Itreats of the relative boundaries of the Plastic Arts; discusses the points which they possess in common, and those which are peculiar to individu al arts, It is not, as its name would imply, simply a criticism on the Group of the Laocoon, though this llutter is taken as the subject of the * Every one is familiar with the stof ry as told by Virgil, of that unfortu nate Prince and Priest of Troy, Le.o coon, who, together with his sons, fell a victim to the unrelenting anger of Minerva, and was destroyed by sea-serpents for pleading with priest ly earnestness against the introduc duction of the wooden-horse within the walls of Troy. But this story, beautiful as it is, is not the only tri bute that commemorates the myth. In the Cortile of the Vatican, side by side, in worthy companionship with that marvel of art, the Apollo Belvi dere, stands a no less wonderful tri umph of Grecian genius, the Group of Laocoon —consisting of the father and two sons, writhing in the fatal coils of the serpents. The authors were Agesander, Po lydorus and Athenodurus, natives of Ehodes, as appears from the inscrip tions. The date of its execution has been a disputed point. Winkelman places it at the time of Alexander the Great, when Grecian art was in the noon of its splendor. Others, among whom is Lessing, attribute it to a much later date, and maintain that the Group was finished by these mas ters during the reign of Titus. Facts that give ferce to this last supposi tion are, first, that the Group was found in the palace of Titus; and se condly, that each of the early Empe rors vied with others in affecting or encouraging a taste for arts, and struggled to surpass his predecessor by bringing artists from Greece and employing them to fit up and embel lish their palaces and gardens. An other bone of contention among cri tics has been, whether the Poet serv ed as a model for the Sculptors, or tho Sculptors for the Poet, or wheth er each, independent of the other, drew from some common source.— There have been advocates for each theory, and objections against all. The variations in the treatment are so striking, that critics could not ea sily decide which was copy, and which was model. Virgil’s Laocoon is clad in priestly robes; the Sculp tors’naked, and undistinguished The Poet’s Priest shrieks out in his agony j the Sculptor’s Prince utters no cry, and disfigures himself by no contortions. The former is a mo tionless sufferer, whose hands are fast bound by the serpents’ folds, and over whose head their hissing fangs project; th<N|ft?tbr, with hessr and .hands unfettered, "wrestlesliHifa god with his fate ; every netve ana mus cleehiQnent in their agony, yet silent W*: • -IY t is different in the two arts, the sub ject treated c is the same in all of its particulars; for both Poet and Sculp tor represent father and two sons as being strangled together and at the same time, by the serpents. This is manifestly different from all of the old Greek legends, which state that the sons alone were destroyed, and the father struck with blindness. Whence comes then, this agreement of Grecian Sculptor with Roman Po et? Whence this departure of both from the old established myths ? While critics were wrangling over such points as these, Lessing enters the field, and with one stroke cuts the knot, and establishes the fundamen tal principle, that Imitative Arts, though alike in the effects they pro duce, are not, and cannot be alike in the means by which their ends are reached. He explains, not only in what respects the Poet's description differs from the Sculptors’ group, but why they were'compelled to differ. Thence be passes on to a full and mi nute discussion of tho philosophy of Art, and sends it out to the world as the third immortal wreath around the name of Laocoon. “LESSING’S LAOCOON.” ii. Whether it bo fable or history that Love made the first attempt in the plastic arts, so much is certain, it nev- TERMS--$2.50 PER ANNUM. NUMBER 2. or grew weary of guiding the hands of the grand old masters. For, tho’ painting is now defined in its broad est compasß as “the art which imi tates bodies upon surface,” yet the wise Greek prescribed to it much narrower boundaries, and confined it exclusively to the imitation of beau tiful objects. His artists painted nothing bat beauty; even common beauty, the beauty of lower orders was only his incidental subject, his exercise, his relaxation. In his work, the perfec tion of the object alone must consti tute its charm ; he was too great to ask his spectators to content them selves merely with that cold pleasure which arises from striking resem blance, or from consideration of the artist’s ability.. In his art nothing appeared nobler to him than its final aim. “ Who would be willing to paint you when nobody will look at you,” said an old Epigrammatist to an ex ceedingly deformed person. Many modern artists would say: “ You may be deformed as you please, I’ll paint even if no will they look with pleasure on my picture, not because it is your like ness, but because it is proof of my art, which knows how to represent so faithfully such a monster.” It is true, this propensity to exces sive boasting, united to abilities of a second rate order, but unennobled by the dignity of their subject, is too natural for even the Greeks not to have had their Pauson and their Py* reicus. They had them; but they meted out to them strict justice.— Pauson who confined himself to an order of beauty even below that of common nature, whose vulgar taste delighted to portray only what was most ugly and most defective in the human forra,-lived in the most abject poverty. And Pyreicus, who paints ed, with all the industry of a Ncth erland artist, barber-shops, dirty work shops, asses and pot herbs—as if such things possessed so many charms in nature, and were so rarely to be seen—received the surname of Rhyparographen) the “ Filth paint er”—although the voluptuous rich man paid for his works with their weight in gold, in order by this ima ginative value to redeem their utter worthlessness. The State itself did not consider it unworthy of its atten tion to confine the artist within his true sphere by the exercise of autho rity. That law of the Thebans which enjoined upon him the use of lmita**