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The Day Book (New York Day-Book; Weekly Day Book, Weekly Account)

NYHS hard copy New York Day-Book, 62 John Street, Despise not the Day of Small Things, by D Francis Bacon, vol 1, two cents (just went up), also motto Principle with Interest

May 25 1848 (afternoon paper, wants to sell by subscription not on the streets)

has Sonnet to Italy, very republican revolutionary, Excelsior dining saloon advert as it does in Mercury

1. 2 Bouck and the Conservatives are now called Old Hunkers; Wright was a barn burner, but they are all the same and under the rule of the slave power. Letter re Washington monument by H complaining that it interferes with the one for NYC. Likes Genl Scott.

John W Orr has big ad for his engraving on Nassau st.

May 26 Thomas Hood poem, p. 2 another letter on GW monument by Beta, defending DC

June 29, 1848 p. 1 circular for the National Monument campaign, listing supporting New Yorkers, include John L Graham, John Inman, Conkling, Talmadge, Frelinghuysen, BF Butler, Wm C Bryant, James Brooks, WF Havemeter et al. Inside prints slam from True Sun agst BF Butler

 

NYPL Misc The Weekly Account D Francis Bacon, 51 Liberty Street, $1/year, “Despise not the day of Small Things.” Bacon and NR Stimosn, editors. This is the weekly version of the Day Book, it seems. vol 1 no 21 Sept 23, 1848

In favor of Taylor, Hamilton Fish and Genl Gaines; Free Soil is a humbug, Clay men are obdurate, thinks True Sun is locofoco, dislike Van Buren. P. 4? “National Destructiveness” desire to injure others’ property is characteristic of Anglo Saxon race, of mbbish mass, at any rate, let anyone throw open a coll of beaut statuary and ptgs, without guards agst wanton mischief, in a few days the statues wld be moseless and earless, fingerless and toeless, the pics would be spotted and perforated by dirty fingers and muddy canes and umbrellas, the frames and pedestals would be cut and carved and variously inscribed with the names and initials and blackguard sentiments of gratuitous visitants.

            Not true in other countries where mass of people venerate art; Puritans no worse than modern visitors to Westminster Abbey, no instinctive native lover of art, but instead, an unaccountable desire to injure and destroy them. Artists should work on cultivating people to a proper respect.

 

Dec 4 1848 notices new issue of Columbian mag. Dec 5 p.1 Liberty by Martin F Tupper. p. 3 ads from auctioneers for sale of oil ptgs of old masters, Lyceum, also Goupil Vibert and Co. abhors and despises Polk. Hated Tyler too. Reviews Ital Opera. Dec 6 p. 1 poem by Wm Leggett. p.2 very critical of his fellow editors for going to Beach’s dinner, names Hallock, Brooks, Raymomnd, Greeley, Inman etc Dec 7, 8 p. 2 attack on postmaster Cave Johnson as an ignoramus cites SFB Morse’s telegraph and reviews his paintings. Notices Phila Art Union. Dec 9 F Bremer on value of trifles. Bunsby a pseud of a letter writer. Dec 11 has a money market column. Dec 12 likes auctioneer Keese Dec 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 theater coverage is just Burton’s (Brougham) and the Ital Opera. supported Greeley’s election? dislikes the Park. Keese again. Campbell’s minstrels puff. Dec 19 Admires Louis Napoleon and new woodcut of Horn the punster, proprietor of Gem Bowling saloon. Wall street lingo explained. 20 TB Read powem To the Stranger on the Sill. suspicious of Geln Taylor. Destruction of the Fine Arts: the Native American monumental Ftn in Bowling Green being demolished. Dec 22 starts a bio of JG Bennett, comes down hard on Webb and Noah. Dec 26 bitter critique of JT Headley’s Sacred Mtns, inaccurate. 27 supports ending slavery in DC, abominable Calhoun, oligarchical slaveholding power 28 poem by Mrs Norton, Seward an agitator, likes Fillmore 29 Mrs Hemans 30 notices Graham’s new issue, Merc lib politics

 

1849 NYHS

Jan 5 Mech Inst—Mirror praises election of Zadoc Pratt as President, giving it a new direction, integrity energy and common sense; Day Book says he has none of these, is a disgrace to the institution, humbuf of the age, ignorant, vain glorious  blockhead. Jan 6 poem on Labor. Seward a demagogue and enemy of Clay; Tallmadge not a real Whig; supports the J Terry Bates ticket for Merc Lib (ticket advertises) Intl Art Union Free Gallery advertises Jan 10 crit of bills for cheap postage. 11 fairly symp account of Bennett 12 Augustus Duganne poem 13, 16 p. 2 puffs Dubufe’s reprise of the ptg Adam and Eve, advertises 17 critical of Judge Oakley who gave verdict agst the Sun in libel trial, Fowler and Wells advertise. Jan 22 Chas MacKay poems 23 says Fuller is an acolyte of the Sun 24, 25 Alice Cary poem 26, 29 Lit World praising NYHS, 30 Taylor is a mean man

Feb 2, Feb 9, 1849 p. 2 notes London papers admire Banvard’s pano of Mississippi, not as a work of art but energy and determination; Townsend of sarsaparilla an advertiser hired noted artist to to do the Hudson—Orr their advertiser, will cost thirty thousand dollars, finest ptg in genre. Feb 13 puffs Wm Cary store, notices The People’s Own weekly. as a doctor, has a lot on cholera. Feb 27 gives long history of his libel case against Webb 28 notes Dana’s talks, advertises

March 1 1849 Walter S Landor poem. Bacon was in Liberia, is critical of them for abetting slave trade. Critical of auctioneers. Mar 3 Inauguration is a humbug. critical of Judge Edmonds. Huge ad for the American Hotel. Mar 5 Mrs Ellet poem. Presidents have been filth since 1829, except Harrison. Hope Taylor will bring dawn of a New Era. Mar 6, 7 disapproves dueling.

 

1850 missing

 

AAS New York Day Book 1851 scattered issues

March 15 1851: Programme for 1851 Stimson and GG Foster, conducted with reference to the wants of the public, and free fr every private or indiv interest; Life in Wall St, without fear or favor, City Life in tyle of Foster’s slices and gas light, crit of lit and art, real value. Dollar Mag advert. Series on Philos of Omnibus Riding

 

March 17: dislikes Hutchinsons. Parisian chronicle, story of Clesinger the sculptor, son in law of Geo Sand

 

Mar 20: John Orr engraver big ad. Hamilton Fish in Senate is abolitionist.

Mar 21: Geo Wilkes convicted of libel in Police Gazette. Laurie Todd twaddle in Home J, Grant Thorburn egotistical

Mar 22: J of Commerce and Herald, indep Union papers have stood by the President fr the start. Fish is under direction of Thurlow Weed and Seward like James Watson Webb

 

April 23 1851:

May 5 1851 LM Child article

May 9 1851 p.1 NAD advert, opened on the 8th. Critical of C&E’s version of moral decline of city, not caused by dram shops

May 17 1851: publish Willis’ card agst Webb,

May 29 NAD still advertising, p. 2 Art Union has trashy copies

 

June 9, 1851, pro adding NY parks for promenades and clearing nuisances from streets; pro John Brougham, pro a public Gallery of the Fine Arts near the Park, rent spaces to people who wish to exhibit, better than detestable free gallery of AU

June 17 1851: bankrupts of Union Square, save their own properties and rob others, middle classes shld underst insolent snobs who lead them by the nose, tyranny of ostentation

June 18 1851; June 21 p.1 illus of fashion costume

 

NYHS copies jump to 1851

Jun 10, 1851, 2 cents, NR Stimson and GG Foster publishers p. 2 article on the Art Union, vulgar oligarchs, flag of revolt raised,old fogies of Academy. DB at end says disagrees re Academy.

 

Boston Public Library mfilm

New York Day Book (filmed by NYPL)

(merchants’ day book) 171 Broadway, $5 to subscribers, NR Stimson ed and publisher, single copies 2 cents.  also sold at Mr. Crosby’s bookstore, Exchange Place and William St, and in other cities

 

Jan 19, 1852, vol 3 no 744

poem by SJ Hale, It snows! plight of the poor vs carefree child

1^st page almost all ads, meds, Brougham’s lyceum, Ital opera, Broadway Tgeater, Burton’s Theatre, National Theater, Bowery Theater, ad for Aztecs on exhib, a spiritualist, steamers esp to Calif, insurance companies, and clothes

 

p.2 editorial supporting Danl Webster for pres.  reviews Aztec children, wonder and astonishment, missing link between man and monkey, curious and striking physiognomy, every abolitionist ought to see them, should like to see what Fowler would say. On Ital opera brilliant season coming, rival at Niblo’s won’t affect it.  some crime and accident items.  notices of Kossuth, but anti-interventionist, unlike Greeley and Raymond, and dislikes freesoilers

 

advert on last page, defends compromise of 1850, impartial and independent, gives a true account of Life in Wall St with sketches from nature of leading men, intrigues, corners, operations amd transactions. called by their true names, and public individuals characterized without fear or favor, also notices of the Fashionable world, letters from the watering places, choicest original fashionable gossip, indispensable for drawing room and parlor, novelettes of society, and sketches of City Life, also general reading, poetry, anecdeotes, varieties, descriptions, extracts and misc, not just romances and sentimental fiction but substantial entertainment, for all ages and tastes, for families, summary of Foreign News

 

joke re Irish servants not underst lang. anti-Seward. advert for Alfred Plunkett auctions/sales, inclu oil ptgs on copper, other ornaments; JW Ott, wood engraver, 75 Nassau

 

gallantries, Jan 22, p. 2, impertinent said of a dag miniature of a lady that it was not so natural as a painted one would be

 

Jan 23 has more nasty blurbs on Aztec kids

ad for Gallagher’s People’s Lectures at the Tabernacle on modern poetry (Emerson to follow on power, will have impact. has a short market report.

 

1852 Feb 9—Webster for pres

1. 2 notice of Hiram Powers, grt Amer sculptor, letter fr Italy, improvememt in modeling, universal mechanical importance, will be patented. disapproves of caricatures in bookstores and print shops, a disgrace, with they are supposed to embody is appreciated only by those whose moral feelings are as distorted and uncouth as the fancy burlesques with which they take delight in insulting their betters. barbarous custom, indecencies.

 

reports on the Forrest decree:  she is free to marry while he is not, he must pay her $3000 yearly and costs.  law of divorce makes the unfaithful one unable to marry again.  too severe.  dislikes Maine law, either need prohibition or nothing, will be disobeyed.

 

big success for Mrs. Sinclair as Lady Teazle in School for Scandal, long run, at Lyceum. Springfield Republican seems to have converted to spiritualism with a msg from Edgar Poe with an authentic sounding poem

 

Courier & Enquirer in a turn around from 4 yrs ago is supporting Webster, leading people to think the Taylor clique is behind him

 

Feb 12 p.1 “An Artists Strategem” disting artist in Paris, ptd for a society lady, her port for an exhib, lady was 40 but dissimulated and graceful, amiable, ointments, portrait has her splendidly dressed, all advantages, smiling in looking glass, striking likeness, but a mistake whena flattering one was wanted, portrait refused.  Stuck with 3000 franc portrait, he added fake hair in her hand, shows her about to stick them on--calls it a fancy sketch as she said herself it was not her portrait.  She paid.

anti bloomers, fat women jokes

 

Feb 14

lots of stuff alw on Clay. astrology ads.  Lots of praise for Mrs Sinclair.

16 defends North Carolinian beating up anti-slavery Giddings in congress

 

feb 17 p 1 fr Picayune? Art Union contracted for Barnum’s battle series when Showman done with it, set it up into convenient ? and subtitle the lot Scenes from Nature

 

associates friends of Gen Scott’s nomination with the Seward camp

 

Feb 18 p. 2 notes Herald’s quarrel with Aztec proprietor, says kids are humbugs, Notes Forrest’s return to stage is fine.  beaut illus engr of Lord’s Prayer shown by Simon Barjonah, tastefully executed and elegantly devised models, in Ormsby’s best style, owed by Esq deserves praise for liberalit and just appreciation of the arts

 

Feb 19 no poem or editorial material on 1^st page.  can’t force moral improvement on people (maine law)

 

Feb 23 p. 2 old fogies of the Historical Soc won’t give him tickets for Webster’s lecture. praises illus in Godey’s. notices Graham’s mag. Feb 23, 1852: MacDonald Clark better than Kossuth, will be read longer. Dec 8 1852: national demos are hunkers (Dickinson and Schell); van buren led the barnburners, Marcy leader of the dems trying to fuse with the barnburners.

 

Feb 24 p. 2 Cooper memorial with Webster and Wm C Bryant, funds to go to a colossal statue in a city’s public square

Fb 25 p. 1 poem J Pierpont Whistling, a Yankee portrait--he’ll make it go

 

Feb 25 p. 2, a spicy paper. spin off is the New York Unionist, campaign paper for Webster.  enemies of the Mirror, which supported Taylor.  “The Art Unions” the managers of this nuisance have named another day for the drawing o their lottery, a scheduling conflict with Kossoth. new idea to give subscribers any kind of choice, should have been modest enuf to adopt system where prize drawers purchase for themselves.  But haven’t been taught maxims of gmen and don’t relinquish authority, a patronage of $80,000 won’t be given up. petty tyrants.Need radical change in constitution and new managers, these have puffed their trash like quack doctors, and the civilized class are disgusted.  effrontery to nominate their associates and accomplices to vacant places. vulgar display of the lottery wheel.  a humbug and a nuisance, no enlightened friend of art wants continuance

            Kossuth made a free mason.

1. 3 publishes a resistance to fanaticism and oppression, a grand meeting against the Maine Law, Ferris, long list of signees

 

March 1852

2 p. 2 “The Art Union--Fishing for a Puff--CathcingM.” managers sent London Art J their Bulletins, engravings, to get publicity.  Their print of Anne Page by Burt spoken of accurate in outline neat in execution, but lacking harmony of light and shade necessary to unite parts into a whole.  This crit imparts that the print is a work of good mechanism but not a work of art, but the Art Union Bulletin repub with a flourish as great praise and did not include the rest of the notice, but here it is from the November International Magazine:  prospectus includes large engr by Jones fr Woodville’s picture American News, a small etching accompanying the Bulletin.  The composition is clever, but such as this won’t stimulate a feeling for true art among their countrymen. The subject is commonplace, without even a shadow of refinement to elevate its character; it is, we dare say, national, and may therefore be popular…but won’t refine the taste and advance the intelligece.  Mulready, Wilkie and Webster analogous class of works, but humor without vulgarity and truth without affectation. 

            excited quacks dominate AU, use pictures like this to attract subscribers, prostitute art to the gratification of the ?mmest and most depraved tastes.  better to subscribe to the Philadelphia or New England Art Unions,prints have an elevating character, let drawers select for themselves

3 poem by Park Benjamin, very brief reports of the Willis-Forrest trial

lots of mentions of the hypnotist JB Brown, likes the Phreno Joiurnal but not its politics, dislikes fogyism.

6  Call for big Webster Meeting at Metro hall, Geo Griswold pres, Evarts spoke, Tallmadge, Choat, Grinnell.  Sun said hall was empty.

            next lecture in People’s series (Bellows did it too) is Natural History of the Loafer, wit fun and ridicule by Rev Wm Patton of Hartford

            reviews Prof Battler’s Cosmoramas Broadway and Thirteenth, Ooemoramic views of historic interest around the world, taken during travel. urges schools to go, elevate minds and create taste for beautiful.  advert on 1^st page, Sattler sketched and painted them

 

8 p. 2 “The Art Union Again” managers talking of adopting the money prize system of London,due to fall of of subscribers from 19 to 12 thousand.  Not more than one-third of subscribers renewed a second year.. honorary secretaries are really drummers on commission, bad name to advocacy of a liberal art or a liberal institution. Lord Cozzen and his colleagues cling to office, monstrous and complicated instrument of oppression they’ve devised.  Their Bulletin and their advertising patronage are used to regulate and control criticism, and to confer reputation upon their loyal subjects, and to underrate their enemies--and all artists are treated as enemies who do not submit to them.  their publishing of prints is a damage to the print trade and does not suit tastes of subscribers, who often don’t even want prints.

            mere traders, what they ought to do is collect money for art and disburse it usefully and leave selection of works to owners--a gallery could be kept better by others and no need for one that many subscribers don’t see but pay for.  But by standng between artists and lovers of art, tendency is to insult both for no purpose but domineering by ill bred.

 

9 p. 1 Soliloquy of a Loafer--he ends up Senator

p.2 long attack on Raymond.  ok as a penny paper, but not a journal of influence like theHerald or even the Tribune, never ventures an opinion on a topic, either doesn’t have oneor too confused to know aht side to take or afraid, but sneers at everything thenpuffs everything. toady to Seward

            publishes Major Jack Downing, satire on Kossuth in Cinti, likeness of Andrew Jackson fiercely presiding (bank veto mentioned) and K attacking Genl Washington

 

10 p.2 Art-less Art-ifice  AU couldn’t make indictment stand against Herald, as innocent of libel law as rules of art or honor, maidenly innocence and modesty lead to its ruin

 

13 p.2 Times accuses Herald of using its influence over the Recorder to quash the Art Union’s libel suit, over the libel that the AU gave funds to Raymond for his abolitionist paper.  AU pays $325 year for ads two and ahalf columns in length; the Herald said what it thought anyway.  Herald rather than stand trial got AU for illegal lottery.  wants them to open their books. 

 

15 p. 1 poem on Beauty: only exists in mind and heart. long puff for Sattler’s, can imagine in idst of ancient monuments, relaxation, more on Aztec kids

 

17 p. 2 Art Unions Caught in its own Trap.  won’t indict Herald as illegal lottery.  AU a clique of petty tyrants denouncing all those who attempt to interfere with their trade, claiming a monopoly injurious to interests of artists

 

18 critical of Theo Parker’s lecture on Gentleman--abolitionist, mean to Taylor, likes Kossuth, thinks he’s in advance of his age

 

19 copies a story fr Knickerbocker, lots of poems fr southern papers. p. 2  more trouble for the AU, D A (himself a member of the AU) brought a process to confiscate their property, John Vose of NY Picayune will issue Fresh Leaves fr Diary of A Broadway Dandy

            Political Daguerreotypes: describes the Whig presidential candidates without giving them names

 

22^nd--critical of Wall street bankers and cashiers for treating people haughtily

24 p.2 Young America and Old Fogies: comments on a very racy editorial in the Herald with this title, classed the two divisions of the demo party and classed as old America: Houston, Allen, Lane, Wool, Marcy, Cobb and Linn Boyd;  young America and young fogey are Judge Douglas, Hon Mike Walsh and Captain Rynders, Yankee Sullivan and Tom Hyer.  Agrees with Herald that Young America has superior mental endowments and fisticuffs.  Agrees? with Herald that young fogies have ridiculous ideas, he likes Mike Walsh the best

 

“Art Union--To his honor Judge Daly” by JK Fisher

comments n a letter from him in the Trib on the 22^nd, to the President of the AU, and on the editorial intro the Trib gave to the letter.  critical of his position that the state laws were not intended to prohibit operations like the Art Union.  Letter appears written by an artist who appeals to his brother artists who have pictures they can’t sell without this chance method--managers of AU claim monopoly on this mode of selling art.

            -disagrees that subscribers get their $5 worth; Bulletin only worth a dollar, prints only worth a dollar, free gallery a half dollar.

            -managers have intolerably bad taste.  NA an impudent usurping oligarchy little better than the AU has an estab market value for the entertainment it furnishes by its exhibitions

 

Daybook also has a note that Judge Daly resigned as a prominent member of the swindling machine the AU in consequence of the Recorder’s decision, and has written an opinion that the AU is not a lottery; editor urges him to stick with judgments on art

 

Mar 25 has a fanny fern story.  p. 2 “What is a Lottery?”Critical of “Judge Dought” and “Sam Jones” (Sam Jones’ wife will be next) for opinions that AU isnot a lottery, purchasing newspaper space for these opinion with AU money, or Cozzen (ing) it out of them

 

Mar 26 p.2 The AU--How it Spends Money” more on Daly’s apology and justification, published for $62 in a paper of wide circulation and immense influence among those who are green and gullible enough for the Art Union’s uses, albeit the editor is frigidly virtuous, a formidable member of the anti-gambling association and of the opininon that the AU is so illegal and immoral that he cannot aid it by his paper.  Herald on the 30^th of Dec pub’d a heavy and windy defense of the managers that they prob pd $120 for, but editor in next page cut them up cruelly, so they tried to get him indicted for accusing them of misuse of money.  Hired attorney who worked Forrest’s case to win attention to their defense. Hon Samuel Jones in the trib has an opinion costing $20 defending them, that plus gallery expenses (13,000), printing bills (12,000), 2500 for secretaries, 9000 for drummers, 3000 for building fund, so 40,000 of 75,000 collected not going to art

 

recommends new Mutual Times by DM Cole, 111 Nassau st

 

Requisites for a Broadway clerk--Chesterfield.  American Mechanism and Art Against the World: no one can equal us for mechanic arts

 

1. Hoxie an advertiser

April 1852

3 notes Henry Wise, a demo, gives a powerful (tho he mocks it) speech in Virginia praising federalism.  Says the Herald and Spirit of the Times have disclosed a literary representative of the family of our greatest millionaire and flashy aristocracy, Mr Charles A B, alias Carl Benson, Frank Manhattan, etc, in Paris, caught in adultery, his wife thrashed his mistress publicly.  Carl Benson author in London of a volume on the Upper Ten in New York. [really is Charles Astor Bristed, married Laura Brevoort 1847]

Notes pub of UTC, praised for being pervaded with partisan feeling and for it literary merit and true as gospel, despite the improbablilities and inconsistencies, style unfeminine and vulgar, profound ignorance, no originality of conception or refinement of treatment.  Success of such lit is not on merit but on cant, abolitionists not over critical.

Jared Sparks is defending himself against well put attacks of the Lit World, the Internatl, Eve Post and Ld Mahon re his tamperings with the Washington corrspondence

 

6 p2 but misprint has it as the 10th) has been a supporter of Lola Montes, notes Trib calls her a Scarlet Woman and the Transcript (Boston?) has been abusing her

 

“AU--Injunction Dissolved--Chance for a Drawing” Judge Duer dissolved temp injunction agst the lottery, q of legality of AU is before the Supreme Ct.  Rant agst AU monopoly.  Prosper Wetmore defaulter while he was their president, not gmen and have motive to use position as steppingstone to influence and power in public and private, manipulate the press.

Long essay attacking Raymond, assist to Greeley at the New Yorker, then at Trib did news and misc depts. ColWebb thought him a conserv, co partner in C & E, (writers there included King and Davis), went into politics, parted from whigs.

            Trib democratized the whig party by allying itself with popular feeling and the laboring and productive classes, but it was radical in morals and infidel in religion, and in politics too close to an obnoxious clique.  Raymond thought could do a 5^th avenue version of Trib, but Times is a failure, has circulation but no influence.  in competition with the Sun and the Morning Star. a whiffler etc.

 

Demo Review most piquant periodical of the day, crusade agst Old Fogyism under new management Jan 1851.  Attacked by Breckenridge of KY on behalf of the Fogy general Butler

 

April 8 p.1 Soliloquy of a Pedestrian, walking new york streets in the spring, found in a bottle floating on the sidewalk, 52--mud, no gutters, etc

 

Apr 13, p. 2 Fillmore appears unpop in home state of NY, because two whig parties, the ins and outs, or Clay and antiClay, or Fillmore and Seward.  To beat the demos they unite, and Seward brought I so much agrarianism and availabilityism that more loco focoish than the dmos, so Fillmore/Clay party have opposed their measures and thus lost themselves whig patronage. when Fillmore became pres, didn’t do enough to put his men into position, so politicians don’t like him.  People are indifferent.

            Times supports Genl Scott, the Seward faction candidate

 

The AU: The Long Agony Protracted. AU now in supreme ct, O’Conor for the defense into an affidavit of an engraver to show that the engravings are worth the price of subscription, he’s a gross blockhead and flunkey.  AU trash doesn’t satisfy all tastes, or any taste but the worst. postponed decision til May.

 

Likes Warner and Wide Wide World, also genius of Alice Carey pbu by Redfield, Clvernook equal to Irving’s Sketch Book and Hawthorne. grace and tenderness, skilful disposition of minute particulars in descrioption, refined elegance of style

 

praises Forrest as a tragedian, fails as a sentimentalist, or effeminate histrionic walks.  Critical of WE Robinson’s lecture on the Celts, he’s an assistant to the Tribune, but not a real scientist, as the NY Recorder points out. Says Webster is a Celtic name.  Followed by item “Great Genius Under the Weel:, on the Tribune’s article “Colored Artists” naming Augustus Washington a daguerreotypist of Hartford CT good likenesses and liberal patronage fr white citizens, and if a new Raphael or Murrillo or Canova should be developed among th Afric Americans of our day, who doubts that his genius would be generally recognized.  Day Book asks if a colored “artist” can take aim with a daguerrean camera, of course he can beat Raphael et al all to pieces with the brush and chisel

 

Epes Sargent poem (ed of the New World and Boston Transcriptt in Boston, which gets a promo later.   Provides long document re the authenticity of the Aztec children. Blames Greeley for supporting humbugs.

 

James Brooks, ed of NY Express, now in Congress, opposed by Seward and Greeley; Brooks supports Fillmore

likes Mayor Kingsland

 

missing some issues? (Apr 29-May5)

 

1852 May 6, p.2 AU in Court Again. honorary secretaries who drum up subscribers do so by cracking up the glowing pictures, tell how much they cost, when they know, tho they don’t know how much is paid for those not “star” pictures.”  Not convincingly a liberal institution.

 

8 p.2 Exhibitions of Sculpture: Stuyvesant Inst 2 exhibs of Brackett and Stephenson, Am artists of grt merit, for benefit of talented and enterprising authors, reasonable price, visit those who wish to promote the fine arts.  tired of those exhibs, too numerous at all times, for ostensibly charitable or liberal purposes, and borrow works fr struggling and suffering artists, use them and often damage them and never pay, rarely invite the lenders to enjoy oysters and punch they tempt great men of dollars and editors and other notables, whom the works alone could not attract, to visit puff and speechify for the benefit of the pary at the expense of the unpaid and often cripped artists without even thanks to them.  truly liberal will see works which have much power of pleasing. both cases a fidelity of imitation of nature shows that the first lesson in art is already in a hi degree learned.  If the connoisseur shd find that the poetic treatment and grandeur of style and perfect grace which he finds in Grk sculpt are but partially manfest, no great school of art even a liberal collection of casts yet exists among us to awaken the spirit of art, shd seek to do this.

 

May 11 p.2 Art Union--Further Points of its Defense. Mr O’Conor says the picture of a master has no fixed market price, and is not easily convertible into money. In a pecuniary sense, its value is little else than imaginary, and is generally incapable of realization.” So not much money to be made from an Art Union picture, so love motivates subscribers.  Read a letter from an artist in Ohio, sent to the Art Union, in reply to a rejection, that said should hang anyone disloyal to AU.  DA read a letter that Grey’s Wages of War for which AU pd $1500 was sold by drawer for $300; star pictures not worth price.

            kind of weird critique--poor artists can’t do lottery for own profit, so a public institution can’t either

 

Friends of Fillmore: James Beekman, James Brooks, Joseph Hoxie

 

12^th p.2 C Edwards Lester told Fillmore to his face in Feb 1851 that he had not divorced himself sufficiently from the Seward faction; Fillmore said he hadn’t anything to do with the state party, just the federal govt

            May 19^th--C Edwards Lester is ed of Herald of the Union?  Daybook refuses to attack editors of J of Commerce, Comm Advertiser, NY Observer, but does attack the Independent who are crusading against men’s property

 

spouts the stuff about workers in England being more slaves than any here.  opposes all strikes, but sort of supports the pilots’ strike

 

20^th Bayard Taylor poem (later excerpts his book,says it has many good things--was also pub in Trib), p. 2 woodcut of Kossuth shaking hands with crowd, and of Cusin Jerusha who lives on 5^th Avenue before and after her visit to Fannel Hall by Hayes for 7^th letter fr Maj Jack Downing.  Jerusha had new bonnet and shawl, slick, licked all over, squeezed and pulled and crowded, torn frock jammed hat--went to hear Kossuth

 

inserted Issue of NY Unionist for My 22, adherence to the Constitution and Obedience to the Laws, Webster in the masthead, o. 6 of vol 1, stimson proprietor.  just reprints articles of the week.

 

dislikes women’s rights, every person shd fill the place which nature has capacitated him or her for, has no right to any others

 

May 26 p. 2 AU still in Suspense.  No decision yet. managers work for the pleasure of a large patronage

 

[Stephenson’s, from the World Fair, advert] Statue of the Wounded Indian: very deserving specimen of Am art, worthy an attentive observation, chilsel of no orinary character, can almost read his thoughts as he realizes the arrow’s fatal effect, ideas re short lived enjoyments, leave beloved squaw.  first large statue ever executed in Am marble, chaste design, Stuyvesant.

 

condemns book Isa a Pilgrimage, by a Greeley, atheist and licentiousness, by Miss Chesebro (had earlier seemed to approve it)

 

No ads for NAD

 

June 1852

 running a series by Poor Yorick titled Glimpses at New York, not very satirical, a banker’s son drinks and goes out with a woman from the third tier, a gambler’s wiles. 

 

Has an ad for Rafferty and Leask linen that leads with phrase “The Age of Old Fogyism is Over. Young America must ride triumphant over every opposition until the whole world be imbued with its spirit. so too in trade. the man who is not with the times must be content to be left behind, and be swallowed up in oblivion.  shop employs best men in the trade, journeymen make a decent living, pay a fair remuneration for their work.

            -a later ad adopts something of the tone f the press: “It is really amusing to us to see the efforts of some of our cotemporaries to sustain their waning reputations” e.g.

 

uses headline “Signs of the Times” to give accounts of party candidates and their prospects, e.g. a meeting for Webster.  has ads for and promos The Pick.

 

17 Geo Morris poem Prairie on Fire fr Cooper anecdote.

18 Concurs with Lit World review of Stiles’ account of 1848-9 in Vienna; the abolitionists try to compare ignorant masses attempt to overthrow their rulers to the revolutionary struggles of our forefathers, but Wm B Stiles shows their difference; the 1848ers were a mob and so a failure

 

July 2 p. 1 Geo the ptr finding himself on the Blvd face to face with Roulle the journalist, turned away in order not to salute him.  Roulle accosted, him, why not wish to see me? I frankly own that I am displeased at your proceedings respecting me.  the offense? I heard someone was praising my pictures, when you maintained with great animosity that I had not the least talent. “I swear to you on my honor that there is not one word of truth…I have never heard any one praise your pictures.”

 

3 black bordered--for Clay?  Day Book now independent, won’t be a locofoco Dem or abolit Whig

 

8 p. 1 Trib piques itself on its statistics, says a ptg by Turner is worth six by any other English artist. has it heard of Edwin Landseer or aware that he receives a thous guineas (over $5000 dollars) for just an engraving of his pictures?  Q Vic once said to a French artist of our acquaintance that Turner made nothing but omelettes--she is an artist herself, but not a jealous one.  Without denying or detracting fr Turner’s merit, his imitators are wretched and slovenly daubers. warmest admirers are a set of transcendental amateurs, glorify what they cannot understand.  joke of the picture hanger at the annual exhib is a standard, upside down, but instead of turning it, gave it a few dashes and declared it all right.  This to the Trib is worth any six by Landseer, Mulready, Leslie, Eastlake, Constable, Etty or Maclise! [from the Journal of Fine Arts]

 

12 Day Book not friendly with the other Webster paper, the Mirror, which thinks it unscrupulous.

            notice that the Prize Statue of the Amzaon by Germ Sculptor, Kiss, which exceeded everything in that line at the World’s Fair, has arrived in town.  Is this the original statue some fifteen feet high or the inferior reduction a quarter its size? both were exhib.

13 takes Willis’s side against John Van Buren, lawyer for Forrest; publishes Willis’s letter; Herald publishes Van Buren’s response

 

14 Daybook accounts for itself as the penny paper for business men (and distanced itself fr Glimpses of NY’s account of Wall st); says Sun, Trib and Times succeed only by taking the part of lower classes agst the business and rich men, while the Day book stood by the merchants.  Circ is as large as the Commercial or Express and twice as large as Eve Post, three times as the Mirror, advert rates lower, why not more ads?

 

15 in summary of the foreign mail, notes late public sale of a small but equisite collection of picts in London, a ptg representing a stag and doe by Landseer brought $7210 and one by Turner of a seaport $3476. refers to Tribune.  (he’s anti-animal; cheerful about dog slaughter, stories about dogs thrown over the falls etc)

notices Demo Rev, agrees with Herald that Scott can’t win. has a WC Bryant poem.  now is a member of the independent Union party still advoc for Webster

 

missing Aug 2

has Alice Cary poem, CD Stuart

17 steamer news: Johannot the painter is dead

18 p.2 The first statue of Canova: rank among the masterpieces ascribed to Grecian antiquities; persevering industry the source of his fortune, son of a mason, first fame came with a butter sculpture of a lion, chateau’s owner educated him

 

Praises TR Whitney’s The Republic, 100 Nassau st tho too severe on immigrants.

quarrels with Scoville of the Pick, who dislikes his publication of Lola Montes’ life.  Notices Alice Carey, Mrs E F Ellet’s Pioneer Women of the West fr Scribner’s, and Homes of Amer Authors by Parke Godwin, Griswold, Howadji Curtis, Tuckerman etc by Putnam; has received recent issues of the National Port Gallery, a popular work, portraits and bios of Thom Jefferson, Hancock, Chas Carrol, W Scott etc

Aug 26 , notes colored waiters tear down their bills in the hotels as they advertise they are agst abolitionism and niggerism. Notes the continued popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the National Theatre, The Mummy being the last piece with TD Rice’s inimitable negro delineator.

Not a fan of Dickens’ Bleak House. favors the copyright, I think.

30 Mrs Taylor poem on the literary husband

 

1852 Aug 31 p. 2 oyster house critics: anomalous breed of newspaper animals, graphic history of the whole race, for accuracy of delineation and truth of portraiture, Audobon’s Ornithology will be entirely left in the shade.  season coming on for artists and actors to make their annual appearance in our metropolis, warned of the charlatans who stand ready at every corner to pounce. Foreign artists are greatly deceived as to the true state of things in the American press. The fact is, that the press of NY, in its critical and artistic departments, is for the most part controlled by a set of foreign vagabonds who, in Europe, would not be permitted to kiss an artist’s great toe, but who here, in these barbarous realms, assume the control and decision of every question relating to art and criticism.  These people are, of course, selfish and mercenary to the last degree.  Utterly devoid of conscience, as they are of all true art, they sell their services, their names and their influence, to the highest bidder, and make a regular traffic of the artists green enough to trust themselves…will expose, by name, every member of this pestiferous class.

 

September 1852

1 sees Gov Hunt, a Whig, as his candidate--Herald and J of Commerce opposing him. gives notice to readers, advertisers, critics, artists and public generally that the Editor alone is responsible for what goes into its columns, fathers all he does not write, except as credited

2 poem translated fr Theophile Gautier, creating a sensation in Paris, Poem de la Femme (posthumous coquety).  Notes that C Edwards Lester in his semi occasional paper is down on Redfield’s Men of the Time in excluding distinguished names--inclu Lester’s.  Does lots of promos of the Metropolitan Hotel, and for Alboni, includes Wallack’s Lyceum opening in Broadway near Broome street, with JW Lester, J Brougham and galaxy of female talent (critical of the Atlas for condemning exposure of female body on stage as cant and hypocrisy)

 

his Webster position makes him anti-party

 

10 p. 1 A Female Sculptor: young woman Harriet Hosmer of Watertown Ma ab 20 years a piece of sculpture in marble evinces talent of a high order and promises to render her prominent as an artist. bust of Hesper, the Evening Star, face of a lovely maiden gently falling asleep with distant music, hair gracefull arranged intertwined with capsules of the poppy. star shines on her forehead, under breast lies the crescent moon.  Conception of the subj of the whole work was her own, men employed only to chop off some of the large pieces of marble as the work was in progress.  exhib inBoston, proposes to visit Rome for a few yrs to become a sculptor by profession

 

1. 2 notes new monthly, Our Times, 100 Nassau st, ed Cora Montgomery, he is supportive, current political monthlies twaddle, fashionable ones are millinery. variety of able pens, substantial

 

approves Bennett’s rebuke of Dana and Godwin for responding to a toast on behalf of the city’s press, critical of them both as disciples of Fourier and bland toadies ofGreeley (along with Ripley and Taylor) and Bryan.

 

critical of Joe Hoxie of Jewett fame for being up and down on the Webster ticket.  ‘Fine Arts’ transparency over Broadway Hse one of largest specimens to be seen in this country, attracts universal admiration of connoisseurs.

 

1852 Sept 14 p.2 Petition of Jenny’s Portrait at Metropolitan Hall, to be taken down in favor of Alboni

15 p. 2 National Music of America: has a real national music, quaint, peculiar to itself and full of spirit and melody, Christy’s Minstrels, race distinct from the original African.  Old Folks at Home worth all the mawkish sentimental ballads about old arm charis and heaven knows what household furniture.  songs peculiar to slave states are all particularly gay and humorous; Uncle Tom’s Cabin false sentimentalities contradicted by slave ditties

 

17 p. 2 Where is the Art Union? 60-70,000 worth of pictures,or pictures which cost that amount of money have disappeared, as well as the property/gallery?  AU is dead of old fogyism, but property ought to be fairly distrib.  What is the difference in morality betw AAU as managed and a mock auction shop?

 

takes a poem fr Sprit of the Times, a Doggerel, by Canis Major, nasty satire on death of the king of the sandwich islands, a praising odd to Thomas H Benton fr the True Demo

 

24 p. 2 cites Whig Review on Dickens, agrees that Dickens is not terribly original, gives example of a passage in Bleak House that resembles a paragraph from Cornelius Mathews, copied in the Westminster Review.

notices Yom Kippur.  Wm Schaus, Esq, so favorably known to artists as the acting manager of the house of Goupil & Co., the great print publishers, is about visiting Euro for purpose of bringing over a large lot of choice pictures, engravings and works of art, and opening business on his own hook.  sure he will do something well worthy of the approbation and applause o the public, know him to possess excellent taste and judgment, and to be devoted to the interests of art

 

28 Thackeray coming, avoid toadyism.  Reprints from a Demo campaign bio illustrations of the marriage betw Scott and Seward, burlesquing vile trash in abolition organs--Seward is the girl, but both men are represented by runaway slave icons

 

30 p.2 licentiousness of the press, blackguardism of the Trib in attacking Isaac C Pray and thru him Bennett.  Pray once a writer for the Herald, but differed in opinions on the Opera, was dismissed.  Trib pubd a silly falsehood that Genl Scott insulted Mrs Bennett at table of one of the hotels of this city, Pray testified this was impossible, but Trib assails him anyway despite their support for Scott.  Pray understood to be a gman of much cultivation and liberal fortune who gratifies a taste for lit and art by writing on congenial subjects.

 

Oct 1852

1 Bayard Taylor one of NP Willis’s sucking poets and inmate of Trib Asylum for Destitute.  We wonder how much excavation it would take to bring so transcendent a genius as BT to the surface of things.  Trib trying to get up another moral war agst Bennett.

has a Dickens tale.  NY Express is swallowing the Whig turn towards Sewardism. C Astor Bristed’s Upper Ten Thousand wrongly condemns the southerners.

has a Mrs. E Oakes Smith poem, thogh has been critical of her in the past

 

6 p.2 Oyster House Critics and the Day Book:  animal of modern origins, not mentioned in the works of any naturalist, some doubt his existence, but personal knowledge of such a species.  annoying fr its disgusting habits and voracious disposition.  seen in streets might be mistaken for an overgrown baboon or an ordinary dandy, both sexes are represented, breeds rapidly.  seen at popular concerts andplaces of public amusement, apish propensities throw them into interesting attitudes, getting into the most prominent place, surveying the audience, puff cigars, cane.  goes to theatrical managers and claims to belong to the press to get free tickets, then blackmails performers, try to get sex fr the female actresses.  Artists come to agreement with them, who go to a newspaper for pay for valuable critiques that will gain notoriety.  Artists should deal directly with editors, advertise and editors won’t let you be unjustly abused.  Announces that nobody has authority to receive compensation for services on the strength of their connection with the Day Book.

            one oysterhouse critic is Col or as Bennett calls him Prince Bobo

 

scolds Chanfrau for spending 10-50 dollars a day posting bills when he’d be better served by advertising in the newspaper,old fashioned system of placarding and more modern system of newsp advertising.  Attn is fixed by the newsp, while the placard is passed by with a hasty glance, except by some idle loiterer in the streets.  It goes into family, seen by thousands who can’t see the placard because don’t parade the streets looking for novelties.

            -this is an article from the Sun

 

has more Bayard Taylor excerpts. quotes Courier and Enquirer’s very negative review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, makes the exceptional case representative

Geo T Curtis a Webster man

9 Notice p. 2 of death of John Vanderlyn, eminent Amer ptr in Ulster cty NY last week, 76 years old

 

Natl Demo agrees with Day Book that Wm E Burton has depraved and disgraced the comic stage, bodily obscenity

 

14 p.1 poem to Gentle Eva by Mrs R S Nichols, no more sorrow for her who in angel beauty died, followed by “A Remembered Picture” that compares the face to a Madonna, to Parian marble, to ange;ls radiance, not the portrait’s eyes but thine, in a dim old hall childish vision first beheld that picture, from the walls spake the old world’s master spirits, Titian, Raphael, Correggio, Salfator Rosa all were there, and amid all their subjects, one picture lingers still in Memory’s Hall

 

19 p. 1 fr Clayton Courant, fancy and reality, involves a match boy.  has a lot of items with the headlines Women’s Rights which satirize the movement

22 p. 2 The AU: Ct of Appeals decision orig charter legal, but constitution contrary.  Property collected is declared to belong to the subscribers not to public institutions

 

25 black bordered for death of Webster, naturally

26 Day book accused by another paper of being loco foco. p. 2 Portrait of Washington, splendid, issued by TB Welch, most correct likeness ever pubd, fr ptg by Stuart in Atheneum, supervised by Sully. universal favor by leading men and artists, endorsed by Senate and list of Whigs, avail at Wm Terry 113 Nassau (also the pub of Nat Port Gall)

27 p. 2 Seward Whigs want to defeat James Brooks and elect a locofoco instead as Brooks is a Union man (Webster party).  Webb says Brooks and Kingsland made a bargain.  pipe-laying Seward clique that dines at the Astor House has for a body Kingsland and Webb and Jim Bibins for legs

 

Fair of the American Institute: decreasing in popular estimation. no novelty, but still pop with country people.  NY Reveille has good illu, design shows all the papers esp trib and times being thrown at Webster

 

November 1852

1 poem on Fraternity of Man by Harriet Martineau (has been quarreling with Cinti Commercial re using their poetry)

5 p. 2 argues that when James Brooks entered Congress and gave control of the Express to bro Erastus, it changed fr advocacy of compromise to Sewardism, afraid of not being popular

Queer signs: not the signs of the times that are talked of so flippantly, but the genuine street signs, misspelled.

gives Knick Mag high praise, reminds of Yankee boyhood.  John Wheeler is partner in Union Place Hotel, most aristocratic hotel, oppoenent of John Van Buren

advert by JW Thompson and Thompson and Davis for daguerreotype, perfect picture and better likeness, prices 100% less than others, rooms also in Brooklyn and 315 roadway, Everybody who is anybody wants to leave something behind to be remembered by

 

dislikes Harper’s mag, just filled with foreign sources, Raymond in charge of lit..  ad for a panorama of Cuba in the Chinese Bldgs

 

9 p. 2 NY Independent, organ of HW Beecher, hypocritical re Webster

10 p. 2 promo for a full length port of Webster, faithful likeness, engr Andrews & Smith fr port by Chester Harding, in the Senate, sold by agents in NY

praises Home Journal

 

Hiram Fuller puffs everybody and everything that will furnish him a dinner, quarrels with a writer for the Trib and Herald, Squier

 

The Express, Comm Advert and C & E can’t be depended on too tied to party and do not go among the masses, who only read the Trib, Times and Sun.  Need a national whig paper. Doesn’t believe the Cubans are that oppressed or they’d immigrate like the Irish; Times is in favor of taking Cuba Trib isn’t

 

December 1852 (Stimson now sole ed and pub)

1 Charley Abels, colored oyster house proprietor, near Wallack’s and Christy’s, critics and fast boys.  olest and mightiest oyster house critic with opinions in a daily and weekly is there, also the critic for the best Sunday paper in town, bro to wife of a disting editor, fancy men, horses and news in the fire dept, fights

 

critical of the sentimentalism around the poor of the Old Brewery, akin to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Fifth avenue types, can’t eradicate the poor

 

6 Suicide of the AU: protest against spite attempted by oligarchs to show the diff betw the prices the committee paid for the trumpery works and the prices they will bring at auction.  Total won’t pay debts.

11 ad and puff for Banvard’s panorama of Jerusalem, near Metropolitan Hotel, describes but no praise

13 barnburners, Sewards and softshells all really freesoilers

Notes Harper’s is promoting Bulwer’s works, when ed came to NY, thought immoral and unchristian to read them, and have had a serious bad influence on the young.  But now Methodist Harpers scatter them

15 Last fizzle of the AU: subscribers will get some engravings. notes a caricature in the Reveille.

16 Amer Poets and Poetry: puts at top Longfellow, TB Read, Poe, Bryant.  Longfellow too much in Goethe’s heartless style

            p.2 Broadway Saloons: shilling side of Broadway near Broadway theater, all classes of b’hoys, theater itself has a saloon.  George’s ante-room is covered with pictures, as the magnificent barroom, mostly of actors and actresses as well as events in ancient hist and myth degree of classic elegance, boys of engine 21 and 25, some loungers.  The Gem has no such neatness and splendor, Rynders’ hangout.  Gaudiest place, no decent thought or respectable idea, only principle of vulgarity, including its reclining Venus, decorations excite lowest and basest feelings, corrupt and depraved appetites--doesn’t name this place, but it’s on top of a bowling alley.  street of flashy men, elegant b’hoys and fancy sportsmen

 

18 p.2 prints a letter ostensibly to Abraham Cozzens, Ex-Pres of AU: critical of legislature not allowing artists to auction their own works.  Wants them to keep the free gallery open and allow artists to hire the walls.  JK Fisher.

21 p. 2 notices unfavorably Barnum and Beach’s Illus news (so does C&E, as slovenly), as a humbug, Barnum and Sun look, sensationalist trashy cuts (of Webster’s death bed, eg)

            AU: Austin auctioneer of AU.  will pay $3000 a year to an illiterate and tasteless perpetrator of tedious reports, upon matters of which he knows as little as  town crier knows of elocution. follows Fisher’s argument closely to keep the free gallery open.

 

24 Poets series continues, Bryant is the Rogers of America (essay written by an Englishman?), but too derivative of Wordsworth and the English poets. Read is promising, has real feeling if not profound or masculine

very hard on Marcy and Seymour as traitors, freesoilers

 

1853: Weekly Day Book

Mar 26 Tobias Toddlejob’s Panorama of Life. privatize Erie Canal. April 2 Putnam’s Pea Green Humbug. Apr 9 long bit on Bennett’s ugliness, in Dem Rev portrait. striking workers ought to strike to improve women’s pay. Miss Greenfield the Black Swan not as good as white. May 7, 14 liked US Review until it turned on Danl Webster. Aug 6 p2 excerpts on Crystal Palace, calls him perceptive. have hired a critic to do music, drama and fine arts. Aug 13 Tuckerman’s memorial to Greenough excerpt, Sept 3 excerpts Corn Mathews Pen and Ink pano p4 astute critic of Daily times exhib his smartness, “artistic critic” found rejected pics for gallery of Crystal Palace in a corner, made a savage onslaught on them, complete failure—missed the actual artworks. Oct 1,15 notes Capt Andre capture monument, p4 more on Cryst Pal Sculp, Thorvaldsen. Simeon Draper a freesoil and abolition pet, they excuse his failures. p6 more on pics and sculp at Crystal P. Oct 22 p4 school to teach girls design; more on Crystal P Nov 19 Day Book now printed entirely by girls Nov 26 Julia Dean pretty but not a great actress. Pilgrim fathers. Dec 3, 17 doesn’t like Boucicault’s lectures in Hope Chapel 24, 31 has Fanny Fern, lots of Alice Cary, likes Mrs Coe

 

1854: starts with Nov 18, 25 NY Hist Soc, p2 Longworth and Catawba, Bancroft’s system of philos is incoherent, his theory of progress wrong, Dec 16 John Bigelow of the Post is John Brown, the Ferryman. 23 likes Barnum’s auto bio (Mirror didn’t), praises Home J, ad, 30

 

1855: Jan 6, Feb 10, Apr 7 join Sun in approving Wood arresting prostituts May 12, 19 patriotic Douglas of Ill, sickening adulation of Nap May 26, June 9, 16 Barnum’s baby show, shld be naked, not depend on dress 23 Art and Artists, must wait til finish farm fence til we can have great artists rather than husbandmen. June 30. July 7 excerpting Derby books, notices WH Powell of De Soto, Wm Winter poems. July 14,21 Francis D Gage poem 28. Aug 11,25 Rachel a terrible fascination, all art/wound up doll. Sept 1 dislike FW Edmonds personally, p4, columns show he is no friend of ours, gruff manner, cross way, tries to humiliate those who ask for a discount, think he is vindicated tho his aspersions on bank Pres Shepherd Knapp wrong, prefer Knapp’s politeness; all banks and bankers have dulled moral faculties, don’t earn money. Likes Lewis Cass. 15 Eliz B Browning poem and Timrod 29. Oct 6 love ex-gov Seymour 13,27 p3 Portraits of the Pulpit, Rev Chapin, showy style, dislike, but earnest man. Demo Repub ticket includes Tilden, Whiting and Connolly. Nov 3 Lydia Foster writes complaining of hubby GG Foster (in prison?) who is defended by Times and Mirror Nov 19? 17,24. Dec 1 Putnam’s advertises. Horatio Alger poem. Rev Beecher grossly natural. 8,15 p4 Bk publishers and critics, prevailing tendency is tender regard for the poor, improves on French school, standard of judgment shld be perception of truth (the Bible). doesn’t think much puffing goes on. Ripley is Trib critic, influ by being a reader for a publisher? no, but has liberal notions, ed of Harbinger a Fourierist paper, so will have infidel opinions. Dec 22 anti-Baker for killing Wm Poole 29 p4 long puff of Faed pictures at Williams & Stevens gallery, Shakespeare to ideal beauty/gentility, Milton not manly enough

 

microfilm BPL then skips to Jan 21, 1856

p.1 critical of Trib’s book editor, a Unitarian, says TS Arthur’s Good Time Coming is a Swedenborg system when it is biblical. p. 2 praises Derby and Jackson publishers (they advertise)

22 reviews George Sumner’s repeated lecture on Old Europeand Young America, flattering attn and numbers, too much mud flinging

quite in symp now with Demos. still praise Home J., lots of Geo Morris poetry

24 p. 4 advert for Dusseldorf gallery 497 Broadway, near St Nicholas Hotel

 

skips to Mar 1 1856

those working as editors with Stimson are Dr John H Van Evrie and RG Horton.

            p.2 mentions in a description of Florence that Powers and many other Americans are at work there.  notes Know Nothing meeting

Central Park Fund stock advertises. has excerpt fr Putnam’s Mag

11 p. 2 notice of NAD opening in old Dusseldorf Gallery rooms, 548 Broadway, only institu in NY devoted to advancement and interests of art

 

14 p. 1 review favorably of Wm G Simms, and Derby and Jackson’s tale of Southern life. p. 2 essay defining the Anglo Saxon race--folly and nonsense to imagine such a thing, only Caucasians, free white men

15 praises acting at Wallack’s and now praises Burton, but not many women able to play genteel comedy, Laura Keene may be the best tho she has mannerisms

            notice in the Cinti Enquirer that HW Derby of that city purchased the Cinti Times

 

17 p. 2 Acad of Des: exhib already attracted consid attn fr lovers of good picts; rooms are mean and unsuitable, so fewer can be shown. fr cursory glance ptgs themselves unequal to ordinary average at these ehibs. 1 or 2 fine ones struck our eye, the absence of the ordinary crowd of ports was also grateful to the weary attendant at picture galleries, but the picts generally seemed not remarkable.  gem and a really fine work of art in conception and execution is Durand’s “symbol,” presenting many of the salient beauties of his style, yet free fr his mannerisms and delightful fr fact that its beauties are not exclusively of the material sort, as those are which ordinarily characterize the President.  We shall have more to say of this..Mr Gray seems to have devoted himself to portraits, tho these are admirably done. Kensett a fine lscape, Huntingdon repres but not so well as on former occasions, other familiar names.

 

18 covers Barnum trial in detail

20 Fitz Green Halleck poem.  Geo M Stimson now proprietor, tho NR is still publisher. 19 Ann st

Wm Dunnell, an engraver of portraits and other things, advert, but I don’t see NAD.

1856 Mar 26 p. 2 NAD: dearth among us of institu devoted to art, Goethe’s saying take care of the beaut so applicable to Amer, hesitant to censure the doings of native artists or severely criticizing their productions.  truest way to care is to see that nothing shall underfalse pretences usurp the place of the beaut, point out errors committed so future management may avoid them.

            this society the only one in NY, professional or lay, that pretends to foster the arts of design.  Others ephemeral, if not entirely useless, others senior, but no rival now.  It has sometimes provoked the wrath of an artist, or institutions that should have been friendly, always been looked upon coldly by the general public, but has outlived if not lived down indifference and enmity and is well to do in the world.  some leaven of excellence in the aims or management.

            miserable rooms. 2-3 yrs ago Acad boast of retired, large, well lighted and agreeable apts in central part of town, few pictures that can be received now are huddled and not properly hung, scarcely standing rm for the persevering hunter of picts to inspect those in a good light.  Acad has means and cld extend them by fine ehibs, not disgrace art and stuck in corners as if ashamed of it.

            most of the picts in pres exhib are such a the artists ought to be ashamed of, but still gallery offers him little encouragement when so difficult to see.  artists feel but little interest in the association.

            finest pic is the only one by the Pres,AB Durand, well hung as it ought to be, his position as pres and merits of work entitle him to this, but others besides officers of the Acad should have some chance, the present disposition cannot but seem inficious.  “Symbol” ilust lines of Goldsmith: some tall cliff lifts its awful form…eternal sunshine settles on its head”.  Remarkable as Durand’s picts generally are for quiet beauty, warm coloring and exquisite fidelity to nature, so like ea other in conception and execution has been accused of mannerism and repetition.  This resemblance is more than a family likeness or a fault, won’t inquire.  present work not destitute of the beautieswhich distinguish all his picts is yet sufficiently individualized and distinct to satisfy any.  It is peculiarly suggestive and approaches more to the ideal than any picts by the same artist that we have ever met.  Most of his ptgs are delightful glimpses of the country.  all look like a warm morning in June, when the foliage is fresh and the atmosphere hazy; there is alw a beaut brook with cattle drinking and a walk into the woods that tempts one wonderfully to a stroll. picts are cheerful and soothing. defy anyone susceptible to gentle influences to remain ill-humored with one of them in the room.  But they all belong to the school of the real.

            has deviated fr the beaten path, Symbol is a landscape described in verse fr the Deserted Village but more than a mere transcript of nature: it has a sublet meaning, and is the expression of more than eternal beauty.  not risen to the splendid suggestiveness which crowds the canvass of some artists, but must not quarrel with a man because his character is his own and not another’s , he is Durand and not Allston. The Symbolis sufficiently signif for an illus of Goldsmith, resemblance betw the genius of these two poets, for such both are, is apparent to any one familiar with their works. Durand is the Goldsmith of American art--quiet, subdued, finished, genial sunshiny, he cannot ever paint a storm without giving us bits of light breaking thru the clouds.  viewi n this instance of the lower lscape and its effect as seen thru the storm are partic fine, the river and valley are both uncommonly well done, the beetling cliff and higher clouds are not so much in the President’s line and are not so full of beauty.  Students of picts however will be immediately attracted by this production amid the mass of crude and undigested works, some without any evidence of thought, and more absolutely bare of beauty, that disfigure the walls, and after gazing at the awkward figures and blazing columns around, really refreshing to rest one’s eye with the careful tone and sober but masterly treatment of Durand.

            One or two other picts merit attn, among them Kenset’s lscape, the portraits of Gray and an ambitious scriptural piece by Huntington.

 

says ed of Sunday Atlas is unscrupulous, bribery, corruption, assault of a female in New England village

 

27 Harris, a printer, pub Broadway Belle, suppressed by police, then Weekly Wag sold by ragged imps, arrested again

31 Derby and Jackson publish account of War in Kansas fr G Douglas Brewerton, correspondent of NY Herald

 

April 1856

1 rejects Know Nothingism and abolitionism. p. 4 gives a puff to Keller Troupe at the Broadway Theater, 27 in number under Louis Keller, Phanor and Azemas, an allegorical drama, with 6 or 7 tableaux, embodiments of the masterpieces of the great ancient school of art, some are copies of celeb pictures, others original.  groups on a revolving platform, like the revolving statues of the Ravels some years ago.  Did Triumph of Galatea, Golden Shower, Famine, Battle of Amazons, etc. the most entertaining was the Golden Shower, audience well pleased. control of limbs. very beaut.

3 James Redpath writes him

approves Burton’s theater, which is holding a Boucicault play

 

8 p. 2 NAD No. 2

Crit for general reader shd be general, not technical. student of any art masters its secrets and details, but public at large, whatevr degree of interet they may feel, care for it only as it affects them and in its results.  he who discusses art in any of its forms, addresses a ltd audience when he descends to the minutiae when he treats of the means, not the end.  the critic’s function is diff. he is to regard the aim and object of art, not to descant upon the means, to appreciate the beauties of a statue or a picture, to point out its faults, and impartially to discriminate betw the true and false, the beaut and plain, but it’s the province of another to say how the form shd be rounded, how the color shd be laid on. yet many mistake the nature of their vocation, frequently find pages which, to the uninitiated are caviare.  a man may not understand how to compose an opera but shall appreciate its beauties, and tho few can paint better than the artists whose works cover the walls, many are able to discover the faults in the pictures.  criticism then to be intelligible is addressed to the public, not the artist, not with the study, the labor, the practice, the efforts, but with their actual result.

            we premise this, because in what remakres upon the pics and the various aesthetic crits that appear in the Day Book, don’t intend to discourse upon matters which belong to another dept of human labor.  The lesson of devotion to one’s specialty is indeed forcibly inculcated by the present exhib.  There hangs in the smaller rooma sketch of rock and water by John Ruskin whose name attracts the curious visitor, but his drwg only proves that a man may wield an eloquent pen w/o any wondrous talent in his pencil.  The great art critic indignantly declared that the two specimens of his handiwork which found their way into the last exhib were utterly unworthy of himself,and promised that his Amer admierers shd see what he cld do, so we are entitled to say the old adage is applicable.  Ne sator ultra crepidam.

            noticeable feature is the improvement in the ports. proportion is smaller, matter for congratulation, and best artists engaged.  unfortunate for the general interest of the collection, but makes the partic dept more attractive.  Elliott and Grey are generally consid the best, and rightly so, almost the only ones who can seize the individ and characteristic  expr of their subjects and transf it to  canvass.  Perhaps indeed Elliott monopolizes this talent, his are better portraits, Grey’s better pictures.  Elliott happy faculty of seeing beneath or rather through features into character, of catching the absolute exprssion of the man, though that expression may be only occasionally seen, and in this excels any…His faces are therefore natural, speaking, and to those who know their originals intimately, invaluable.  Grey is not so fortunate in detecting the peculiar look which identifies the individ; his talent, however, makes the pict more generally interesting; his power of idealization, of making the partic face the representative of a class, of lifting an ordinary expression into signif, is as marked as Elliott’s ability, tho exactly opposite.

            The warmth of coloring, exquisite tone, flesh-like tints, disting all Grey’s works very apparent in his ports and stamp him the finest colorist Amer art has yet to boast of.  may be some mannerisms about him, may be that he affects the style of the old ptrs, but it is a v g style to affect and hiss mannerisms are beauties compared with the crude and glaring colors of most Amer picts. tho coloring is Grey’s greatest peculiarity and most marked beauty, his picts are generally (not alw) well drawn, accessories in gd tasete, and in every face he paints a degree of character that makes you return to gaze upon it again and again.  In AAU gallery a few yrs ago had a head of Death that absolutely haunted one. can see now as distinctly with our mind’s eye, one or two of his efforts in this exhib, as if we stood before them.  a man must be something of a ptr before this can be true.  pict marked No 31 in catalog combines most of his characteristics.  still this year no marked improvement in his efforts, nothing even equal to some of his other works, and has confined himself to portraits so no variety in his subjects.

 

9 poem by Alfred B Street.

supports Pierce over Buchanan. notes Irish News, Thom Francis Meagher ed, good looking.  criticizes the Times for going the way of the Herald and Tribune reporting filthy anddisugusting details of scandalous life, trials that blacken our police records and shame our ourts, worst part given greatest prominence, most degrading scenes sketched more than Polize Gazette and Ned Buntline’s Own, as with Forrest and Cox divorce (fr Xtian Intelligencer)

11 approves an actress reading Hiawatha in Hope chapel.  fr NY Courier runs a piece on Morris and Willis and Home J.  Amer Dramatic Fund Assoc Dinner held at Metro Hotel, dais had canopy of flags with portraits of Washington, Shakespeare andGarrick, Meagher, Brooks of Expres, Fuller of Mirror also spoke

12 Ticknor & Fields in Boston poetical purveyors of mental pabulum, dessert intellectual.  Whittier deservedly popular, but prostitutes his pen to abolition seems to approve the filibuster Walker

1856 April 18 p. 2 NAD-No3.

            man who has created greatest sensation in world of art in last quarter of a century is John Ruskin. the Oxford student like Israelite casting down idols in the temple attacked the reputation of maters who were the admiration of a world, but they were too secure in their seats to fear the assaults even of a Titian, their divinity was real and Claude Poussin and Rosa as great names today as they were before Modern Painters was written. unfair to an artist of ordinary talent to mention him in this connexion, but the comp is forced upon our minds of kensett with Claude.  the greatest of lscape painters may have violated probability and what Ruskin calls truth, that is the harsh and barren realism of the pre-Raphaelite school, but the ineffable glory of his sunsets is none the less splendid and the wondrous power of his canvass speaks to every susceptible soul none the less tellingly bcause his picts are fanciful and he mixed heathen temples with Catholic saints, or did not draw a tree with an accuracy the dullest mediocrity can acquire.  dangerous to allow a license to painters generally, which genius seizes whether allowed or not, but still a charm about some picts indefinable but irresistible that the strictest compliance with rules can’t attain.

            same is true in lit, the quarrel betw the realists and idealists is waged in many a field besides those of art.utter an obiter dictum necessary to explain our admiration for Kensett’s picts.  he does not scrupulously copy nature, does sometimes paint impossible trees and skies, as those who choose to decry his works contend, but he pts something which if not a facsimile of any one scene yet answers the higher purpose of awakening the same emotions which the sight of the lscape itself wld inspire.  Hi pict has a unity of effect partic admirable.  attn not distracted by objects incongruous or inappropr, everything is in harmony with the general expression. secluded part of a forest, shaded by thickly overhanging branches fr the glare of outer day, stream whose darkened waters move by unwillingly as if they’d caugtht the spirit of the place, but esp the grey and weather beaten rocks, ahlf covered with moss, stand all around, give pict a cool contemplative look invest it with a charm few Amer artists have succeeded in throwing around their works. glimpse of distant sky heightens the inner shade by contrasting the warmth of sunlight with the still and lonely spot whither the artist has led us for a while.

            Now that there are technically speaking blemishes in this composition, we don’t deny. some have been indicated by a contemporary critic who prefers to pick out faults in the drwg of a stick or astone, to giving himself up to the pleasure of the entire pict. but takena s a whole and judged as all works of art shd be fr their effects, this pict not only equal to any previously ptd by Kensett but one fulfilling many of the requirements of hi art. leaves a distinct impression on the mind, excites feelings even the babble of the gallery cannot drown, it speaks its meaning plainly, it provokes and is as worthy of study as a fair specimen of what our artists are capbel of in the lscape line.  It is in this line only that Am ptrs have yet done anything that wld be universally recognized as few excellent ports have been ptd,m and ambitious historical picts attempted, but only the lscapes possess that power of expressing an idea, of suggesting asentiment, which is what we all look for in art.  A notable inst of the lack of this is seen in Huntingdon’s scriptural piece, Jesus Rebuking Martha.  a man of acknowledged skill in the handling of a pencil, who draws at any rate not badly, who colors better than most Amer ptrs, who has learned the mechanical part of his prof and more than this, who feels the necessity of a spirit, a lie to infuse and quicken his creations.  But alas! no Prometheus he, he has moulded his man tolerably well, but cannot catch a spark of the divine fire to infuse into the clay. His pict hangs dead upon the walls.

            Some artists, groping after expression, do succeed in finding the secret of life, though like Frankenstein they impart it to a grotesque, misshapen thing. But even their ungainly work is at least interesting; tho full of deformity, it moves and breathes and lives.  Huntingdon tho he seems to have striven for the subtle principle has not attaine dit, his pic is pretentious but unsuccessful. Tho warm in color (how really excellent in this regard may be seen by comparing it with the ghastly daubs, or tawdry milliner blocks immediately around it) tho the figs are well placed and not at all awkward, and there is a certain degree of expression in two of the faces, it yet strikes one as a failure.  not a particle of grace or beauty in the lines, no meaning in the attitudes, a lack-lustre in the eyes and a listlessness n the Christ and Mary that extends to the spectator.

            face of Christ where particly the genius of the ptr wld have appeared if he had any is the face ofa  weak, young man with a thin beard, pale and sickly, not raised above human feeling but devoid of it, nothing of the master, nothing of the Christ, none of the calm reproving expression that Christus Remunerator look indicated by the text.  His fig too is entirely uninteresting, while the yellow halo looks like anything but a celestial radiance.  Mary judging fr her face and positin, seems rather mnild and contented and Martha has her sleeves rolled up, all that suggests her being trouble d for many things, but the absolute and holy satisfaction one looks for in the countenance of the woman whom her master declared to have chosen the better part, the uneasy submission to rebuke, perhaps the penitence of her sister, are nowhere indic in these ordinary faces, while the love and dignity and wisdom that shd beam in the countenance of the Divine Master must be imagined by the charitable, they may very likely have been imag by the ptr, but they certainly are not expressed.

 

21 Burton man of the age, Chambers street theater.  City News section mostly crime and fires.  has expanded congressional and foreign coverage.still lots of interest in women who dress as men, as part of their coverage of women’s rights.

24 says Mayor Wood growing popular even with Simeon Draper’s organ of Black Repub, the Courier and Enquirer and Brook’s organ of Know Nothingism, the Express, have started a crusade agst him. Cinti Enquirer changed hands, now pub by an association

 

May 1856

2 long negative crit of actress Mrs Barney Wms. long obit for Hon Ogden Hoffman, ex AG

5 p. 2 Literature: Cole’s Pictures of the Voyage of Life--beaut specimens of Am art now exhib at rms of Wllms and Stevens, In Broadway, property of Rev Gorham D Abbott of Spingler Institute, who has engaged Smilie to eng them in a style suitable to their intrinsic merit.  a circular for support, claim on all interested in progress of art or refinement among us.  such enterprises are rare.  Cole’s picts on pub ehib a few yrs ag in gallery AAU drawn by fortunate shareholder in that praiseworthy lottery, Abbott bought them from, and are conspicuous ornaments on walls of Spingler Institute.  those who haven’t seen them and are curious and those who desire the pleasure their contemplation always inspires, should go early.  people of taste secure prints fr this, one of most admirable works of art yet produced by a Amer.

            proper to state that not less than $20,000 spent to produce prints which shd corresp in point of excellence with the orig, only a ltd number struck, no time to loswe. Rev A R Wolfe has charge of business. Seldon has art devoted itself to so noble in design and so unexceptionable and pure in morals.

1. 4 long praise of Jefferson Davis

 

7 p. 2 I can’t find the ad, but he repeats the promo for the Cole picts, and mentions that there is also to be seen a grt ptg by the first of French masters, Paul de la Roche, of Marie Antoinette before the revolutionary tribunal, and is in every way wrothy of the fame of its artist. public indebted to Goupil for the opportunity of studying this admirable production, ree at their rms in Broadway, a fine line engr by Francois is being taken.  will have a crit.

            May 8 p.2 Goupil has an ad

10 reports at length on Grd Mtg at National Hall with Rynders, support for Walker, etc

12 has custom house advertising (skips to 17, in NYHS copies now)

17 crit of Express and Know Nothing creed. 19 Ann Street where pub, Geo M Stimson publisher

20 pro expansion and Wood22 Wm N Dunnell engraver advertises. 28

 

NYHS Still Geo and NR Stimson. Apr 30 1856, May 6, 7 p2 Art: lovers of gd pics, Cole’s Voyages and Wms & Stephens, also ptg by first of French masters, Paul de la Roche of Marie Antoinette before the revolutionary tribunal, thanks to Goupil free at rms in Broadway, will give readers a crit.  Symp to Gen Walker in Nicaragua. May 8, 9 like Pierce and Douglas. skips to 12,refutes Express, employs Irish, at least a third are foreigners, if they are fit for employment as reporters and editors ona Know Nothing paper, fit for policemen, defends Mayor Wood. then to 17, and then to 20, to 22 annex Cuba, to 28, then to June 19, to 24 reduce price to 6 cents a week til election to 26,27,28,30 loves Burton’s, Geo Morris poem. July 1 1856, 2 Baker & Godwin printers have spirited likeness of Buchanan. 7 letter fr Paulding 8 Wood advertises his office in the Day Book, only Demo paper that advocated his election; abolition Post and Commercial and Know Nothing Express got $2000 ea fr Comptroller. Fremont has an organ, a tool, prostitute Herald, which has been an advocate for southern rights for the last ten years and last three years a warm supporter of Know Nothing, now is friend of abolit candidate for Pres. His friends bought Bennett a hse on 5th ave near 26th; Buchanan declined the Bennetts acquaintance in Europe and Fillmore refused him n Genoa. Demo party fortunate in being rid of him. Empire Club (demos) in the field! 10, 12 praises TF Meagher’s Irish News. to 22, to 24 GB Butler no longer ed of J of Commerce to 28,29 Bennett and Fry after great lawsuit not on same platform, laboring for Fremont 30,31.

August 2 1856 to 6,7 praises Lamartine to 9 likes Charlotte Cushman. Dunnell engr advert. Jumpts to Nov 25 1856 then to Dec 17 , then to 1861.

 

Library of Congress volume starts April 12, 1856, it’s the Weekly Day Book, still NR Stimson, ed., 4 cents, smaller than the Mercury but more pages, 19 Ann st, $2/yr

April 26 1856—pages missing

May 10—increased subscribers, negro slavery is right, extension of it necessary, pro Kansas Nebraska letting people determine it for themselves, expose abolitionist imposture for safety of democratic party.

Admires Genl Quitman and Fernando Wood (as does Sunday Times). Wants Cuba but not Mexico.

 

Pages missing fr June 7. June 14 supports James Buchanan. June 19 Daybook 1856 NYHS has ad for Demo Repub Gel Comm

21 Traces party line strong in talent, wealth, cultivation and social influence, arrayed agst progress of demo ideas andmeasures, Hamilton, Webster, Seward who turns it into sectionalism

Jun 24 NYHS Gives AP Butler’s great speech in response to Sumner, for pres Buchanan and Breckinridge; lower price til election to one cent. NR Stimson. Jun 26, 27, 28, 30 Geo P Morris poem on Land of Washington, still review Burton’s theater

I think he’s also hostile to Know-Nothings.

 

July

12 enthus re Empire Club mtg in the Park, James T Brady, John Van Buren. Dislikes Putnam’s. Likes JK Paulding. 19 likes Meagher’s Irish News. 26 supports Wood for gov.

Skipped August. September 1856 I also skipped most of July-August in the NYHS collection of dailies.

Porter’s Spirit of the Times has a big ad. Seems to hate Herald even more than Trib.

October

11 some pages missing. P. 2 Schaus & Co just issued fine litho port of Jessie Fremont. We underst that Messrs Humbug & Co. have alo nearly ready a v excellent mezzotint of the fine bull calf “Young Bullion” which was the first born of one of the 600 cows Col Fremont purchased with Govt money 18 Greeley’s corresp include Hugh Doherty Wilkinson, Charles Lane, HB and WH Fry; Geo Ripley lit editor, Chas A Dana, JS Pike one of its present editors is an infidel

New York Ledger advertises largely.

Skipped Nov and Dec (NYHS Nov 25 1856 p. 1 has review of Noble’s bio of Cole,his life is mournful, often for a man of genius, good taste and judgment; Dec 17 NYHS review Derby & Jackson and HW Derby books; likes Prescott

 

1857

January 24, p. 4 Bayard Taylor a clever young man, wanderer, with what profit to himself or mankind we are not aware, his bks passable compositions without the raciness or brilliancy of Stephens or solid compactness of less noted travelers. Been to see Humboldt, described in Trib in ridiculous sentences, brow hangs over his breast like a ripe ear of corn. Recognize his contributions to science, but his views of Fremont and Buchanan show him to be a real fossil of the primitive era, venerable fogy, his words should not have weight with any Democrat.

31 we have no lit, all our authors are essentially British and monarchical, English ideas control us, Irving intensely British, voted for Fremont, has v little to recommend him to the favor of his countrymen. Hildreth the historian slanders his own country, also British Fremont men are Bryant, Longfellow, Curtis, Emerson, Whittier, Bayard Taylor, Ticknor, Prescott, Epes Sargent, Dana, Godwin, Sprague, Conrad, Briggs etc.

            On other side, have Bancroft, Paulding, Simms, Hawthorne and Mathews, Genl Morris, Saxe, Hosmer, Stoddard and Aldrich only ones with any Demo sympathies.

            Curtis puffed by daily paper aspiring to be principal lit journal, tho his writings are at best v feeble specimens, with a great amount of varnish and veneering over a ricketty frame work. But everyone must support pretensions of this clique of writers or be censored.

            Harper’s new weekly paper in first number insinuated Buchanan a good person to be elected, Tribune, Atlas label it a journal of barbarism; Abolition censors have broken down every paper

 

Skipped Feb, but on the 28th notes that the Herald money editor, Edw W Hudson, and stock market reporter, involved in bubble stock co, Missouri Lead Co, illegally organized, bought land in Missouri, plaintiff in lawsuit agst Hudson is father of another of the editors, John Bonner Jr. Hudson admits he wrote an article to ehlp sell the company’s stock. Herald has denied it is involved in stock market, is shown up.

March 14 Simonton of Times also shown up as involved in stocks.

March 21 lists pro South and abolition merchants. Praises So Lit Messenger ed John R Thompson

April 4 denies being a Pierce organ, or a Wood organ, belongs to no cliques

11 notices Cosmo Art J

May

2 excerpts blurb fr J of Commerce that monument to Washington erecting in front of city Hall, sculpted by Thom many years ago

9 brings up Glentworth scandal, involving S Draper, Blatchford and J ames Bowen, of the Whig Genl Committee, importing voters 16 Professor Mapes is an ass, and the Farmer’s Club a humbug (has his own Farmer’s column) 23 Bonner of Ledger used to work at Mirror 30 running a story called “The Miniature” 30 praises sprightly and sensible Brooklyn Eagle

July 11 seems to have liked Marcy

Skipped the rest of July and August

September 1857

5 sad abt Griswold’s death, Briggs and Redfield among the pallbearers 12 collapse of Putnam’s leaves only Trib openly abolitionist

October 17 v crit of paper money, has caused commercial crisis, drives out specie, critical of banks and firms in fancy bldgs built on credit, critical of A Oakey Hall. 31 notices Redpath’s new paper!

Skipped November and December

 

1858 5 cents, 17 Ann st, Van Evrie, Horton & co, don’t see Stimson’s name any more

January

2 Atlantic Monthly has brilliant contribs, but not successful bcause aims above heads of reading public. 9 should acquire Yucatan 23 Gives Geo Francis Train’s response to a toast to Young America, he praises Morris and Woodman spare that tree, heard it wherever in world he went. Admires Fanny Kemble’s acting; p. 6 The Belmont Pictures: most accomplished critics say it’s the finest collection ever shown, Rosa Bonheur’s Early Morning hunt scene immed attracts attn, woman of genius, refreshing coolness, horses admirably lifelike, types, yet individualized, dogs only second to the horses, so truthful and full of character might be portraits, sportsmen too brisk and lively.

            Chavet’s billiard room consid by many the gem of coll, accurate as a dag, but infinitely more agreeable, lifelike and natural in effect, the perfection of imitation, but nothing more, awakens no thought and conveys no sentiment. Can’t be compared as a work of real art with suggestive little Christus of Delaroche, full of meaning, ptr had an idea he struggled to express, has some poetry and is a beaut thought.

30 really liked Rachel, very hostile to Lucy Stone.

February

Still gives lots of attn to Knickerbocker. Morris has sagacity of a true Demo. 13 praises Lola Montez lecture on beauty. 27 missing pages. Home Journal advertises. Like Jenkins of the Herald, DC corresp

March

13 missing pages

April 3, 1858, last issue in volume, publishes distrib of Cosmo Art Assoc (doesn’t give artists’ names)

 

NYHS picks up Weekly Day Book with April 10, 1858, Van Evrie, Horton & Co, Wm B Williams poem. women’s rights, abolition, free love go together. April 24 now hostile to Louis Napoleon

May 1 has fiction; , moving to 40 Ann st, enlarging. Lots on the Orsini demonstrations. May 15, 22 Henry T Tuckerman poem, has a Farmer’s column. doesn’t accept dogma of a single race. suicide of Henry Wm Herbert, aka Frank Forrester, at Stevens Hse hotel, May 29

skips to June 19, 1858 likes Belmont’s plan for Central Park better than Olmstead’s. June 26 notices Knickerbocker  has new associate editor JO Noyes very able, a favorite, Holmes, Tuckerman Saxe Aldrich, also approves Harper’s. Hates Clayton Bulwer treaty, angry re Brit aggression

July 3 p. 4 notes death of Ary Scheffer, celeb ptr in Paris, chief faults straining after startling effects, founder of Romantic school. p. 7 notices the Calhoun monument at the Citadel. July 10 Repub press is the Disunion press. Jul 17 crit of level of drama in NY, still likes Cushman. Jul 24 Harper’s advertises, as does Lola Montex book. Lincoln a sophist. Jul 31 very critical of the Free Schools, thinks Atlantic Cable will be a bust as does Morse; notes monument to Preston S Brooks in Charleston

Aug 7 purchase of Mt Vernon p.4 Clark Mills statue of GW is great Aug 14, 21 p.1 notes that burning of the City Hall destroyed records and also art, Mayor Duane by Grey et al p. 3 notices beaut port of Orsini, prof Monti at Harvard, ital artist Guerazzi

 

September 1858 (weekly): 4 p4 unreasonable enthusiasm for Atlantic cable celebration, no new discovery, not such a grossly disproportionate affair to its merits since Kossuth humbug (he’s London correspondent for Trib), England our deadly enemy. p6 has review of Herring ptg Village Blacksmith at Wms and Stevens, pic lacks expression, doesn’t compare to Landseer or Bonheur tho carefully finished. Sept 11 SB Morse dinner in Paris; City will purchase Field’s portrait for Governor’s Rm, Belle Brittan’s book a great success 18

 

Jumps to Oct 9 p. 1 notes burning of Crystal Palace and destr of valuable pieces of statuary, Kiss, Thorwaldsen, colossal Webster etc p. 4 Art—F Church and Corso p. 7 Judge Edmonds a Demo apostate

Oct 16 p. 4 notices the Cosmo Art Assoc announcements (CL Derby), flattering auspices, attractive. notices statue of Isaac Newton n England, Rossiter on school of art p. 6

Nov 13 1858:

 

Evening Daybook fr LOC Portfolio (mostly it's the weekly edition)

Breckinridge and Lane for pres.

DayBook 1860 AAS: Van Evrie Horton & Olney. AAS has Jan/Feb, but I started with Feb 18, 25, p1 Inaug of Washington Statue, by Mills, gives details of the ceremony, President spoke too. Commentary on p4 addresses various mishaps of the cermony, says Pres made capital speech. March 10, ad for Thomas S Bocock’s oration on GW at inaug of Mills Statue in Washington, Feb 22 1860,17, 24,31. April 7,14 p4 long obit/tribute to Mrs Anna Jameson, discrim and symp; JK Paulding used to write for them 21. May 5 1860, 12, 19,26. June 2 Vanity Fair advertises June 16, 30 support Breckinridge. July 7 is where I stopped

 

Oct 13 1860—p. 6 sorry J of Commerce has gone for Douglas. Design for Beecher’s new church is terrible, lacks all symmetry and uniformity, a  pig with one ear, won the prize, Cheever’s is only a mild monstrosity in comparison, a copy of an unfinished structure. Striking incongruities  like Beecher.

Sad re death of Remb Peale.

 

NYHS April 13, 1861, Evening Day Book, ?vrie, Horton & Olney, 2 cents per copy, black borders for start of the Civil War, 162 Nassau. likes Saml Woodworth poetry, advertises Bremer’s books in transl, also The Plantation, a Southern Quarterly pub in NY, with a story on Garibaldi

 

DayBook 1861: started with Feb 16, Merwin gun ad, homes in the west ad with illus, Feb 23, Mar 2,9 NY Churchman only northern relig paper (Episcopalian) to endorse southern society. March 16 p1 illustrations of immutable diff betw black and white, outer and inner structurally connected Mar 23, 30, April 6 World is a political hermaphrodite (supports abolition), 13, 20,27 mob visited, said would raise the flag when the other newspapers did. Stopped with May 11, nothing on Church