[The following paper had been sent as a contribution to this
publication scarcely more than a week before its author, Mr. John
Orchard, died. It was written to commence a series of "Dialogues on
Art," which death has rendered for ever incomplete: nevertheless, the
merits of this commencement are such that they seemed to warrant its
publication as a fragment; and in order that the chain of argument
might be preserved, so far as it goes, uninterrupted, the dialogue is
printed entire in the present number, despite its length. Of the
writer, but little can be said. He was an artist; but ill health,
almost amounting to infirmity--his portion from childhood--rendered
him unequal to the bodily labour inseparable from his profession: and
in the course of his short life, whose youth was scarcely
consummated, he exhibited, from time to time, only a very few small
pictures, and these, as regards public recognition, in no way
successfully. In art, however, he gave to the "seeing eye," token of
that ability and earnestness which the "hearing ear" will not fail to
recognize in the dialogue now published; where the vehicle of
expression, being more purely intellectual, was more within his grasp
than was the physical and toilsome embodiment of art.
It is possible that a search among the papers he has left, may bring
to light a few other fugitive pieces, which will, in such event, as
the Poem succeeding this Dialogue, be published in these pages.
To the end that the Author's scheme may be, as far as is now
possible, understood and appreciated, we subjoin, in his own words,
some explanation of his further intent, and of the views and feelings
which guided him in the composition of the dialogue:
"I have adopted the form of dialogue for several, to me, cogent
reasons; 1st, because it gives the writer the power of exhibiting the
question, Art, on all its sides; 2nd, because the great phases of Art
could be represented idiosyncratically; and, to make this clear, I
have named the several speakers accordingly; 3rd, because dialogue
secures the attention; and, that secured, deeper things strike, and
go deeper than otherwise they could be made to; and, 4th and last,
because all my earliest and most delightful pleasures associate
themselves with dialogue,--(the old dramatists, Lucian, Walter Savage
Landor, &c.)
"You will find that I have not made one speaker say a thing on
purpose for another to condemn it; but that I make each one utter his
wisest in the very wisest manner he can, or rather, that I can for
him.
"The further continuation of this 1st dialogue embraces the question
_Nature_, and its processes, invention and imitation,--imitation
chiefly. Kosmon begins by showing, in illustration of the truth of
Christian's concluding sentences, how imperfectly all the Ancients,
excepting the Hebrews, loved, understood, or felt Nature, &c. This is
not an unimportant portion of Art knowledge.
"I must not forget to say that the last speech of Kosmon will be
answered by Christian when they discourse of imitation. It properly
belongs to imitation; and, under that head, it can be most
effectively and perfectly confuted. Somewhat after this idea, the
"verticalism" and "involution" will be shown to be direct from
Nature; the gilding, &c., disposed of on the ground of the old piety
using the most precious materials as the most religious and worthy of
them; and hence, by a very easy and probable transition, they
concluded that that which was most soul-worthy, was also most
natural."]