More on Melville in Cleveland

Cleveland Plain Dealer - January 9, 1858

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) for January 9, 1858; found at GenealogyBank:

HERMAN MELVILLE.-- The public may confidently anticipate a rich intellectual treat in the lecture of this gentleman on Monday evening. He has selected the classic subject of Roman Statuary, and we venture to say he will handle it excellently and brilliantly.  

Cleveland Plain Dealer - January 6, 1858
via GenealogyBank

Melville gave his "Statues in Rome" lecture at Melodeon Hall in Cleveland, Ohio on January 11, 1858. Also via GenealogyBank, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer for January 12, 1858:

Cleveland Plain Dealer - January 12, 1858

MELODEON.-- Mr. Melville's lecture on Roman Statuary last evening did not attract a large audience, but those who listened to it were generally, we believe, very well satisfied.  

As mentioned in a previous post, the reviewer for The Ohio Farmer (January 23, 1858) observed that Melville's "affection for heathenism is profound and sincere. He speaks of the heathenism of Rome as if the world were little indebted to christianity...."

The Cleveland Leader rated Melville's talk on Roman Statuary "one of the most interesting lectures of the season." Genealogy Bank archives currently include files of the Cleveland Leader but not for January-May 1858. Here is the summary in the Annals of Cleveland - 1858, W. P. A. Project 14066 (Cleveland, 1937) page 265:

2029 – L Jan. 12, 1858: 3/2 – Herman Melville's lecture yesterday before the Library association, was one of the most interesting lectures of the season. It was gathered from his lecture that the divinity of art is not a thing of education, that it borrows no radiance from traditional fame, but is inherent and immortal as the spirit of beauty itself. (11)

The favorable Cleveland Leader review of Melville's lecture on Statues in Rome is extensively quoted in Merton M. Sealts, Jr., Melville as Lecturer (Harvard University Press, 1957) at pages 31-34. Texts of Melville's three known lectures, reconstructed from contemporary newspaper reports, are also available in the 1987 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860.

Related posts:

• Melville in Cleveland
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/11/melville-in-cleveland-1858.html

• Can Art not Life make the Ideal?
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-art-not-life-make-ideal-herman.html