Pro gratia universis Anglis et ipsi
Carolus Rester germanus.
Gallis merentibus, Britannia juncta Germanis felix Auspicium semper semperque erit." (Are these two last lines elegiacs?—Ed.)
He arrived at Bois le Duc early in March 1816, and after an illness there of seven weeks, writes to Cockerell to beg his assistance to get him over to England, that he might be the better able to sponge upon him there. I never heard what became of him afterwards.
Cockerell then was in Rome, and here he first began to enjoy the harvest of his labours. He says there were no English there at the time except Lady Westmoreland, mother of the British minister at Florence, but there was a large society of foreign artists, into which he threw himself. There were the brothers Riepenhausen, painters; Schadow, a sculptor from Berlin; Ingres, who drew his portrait;[49] Cornelius of Munich, and others of his school; Knoering, a Russian; Mazois, author of "Le Palais de Scaurus" and an itinerary of Pompeii; Catel, a French architect; Thorwaldsen, Overbeck, Vogel, portrait painter; Bartholdy, Prussian consul-general; Hess, a painter from Vienna; Canova, and Checcarini, who did the Neptune and Tritons in the Piazza del Popolo at the bottom of the drive up to the Pincio. The air of Rome was steeped in classicism. In this company every event was described in classical figures: their café was the Café Greco, which still exists; the front half was called the Pronaos. There all the artistic world collected and made acquaintance.
"If I were a little more vain I should be out of my wits at the attention paid me here. I have a daily levee of savants, artists and amateurs come to see my drawings; envoys and ambassadors beg to know when it will be convenient for me to show them some sketches; Prince Poniatowski and the Prince of Saxe-Gotha beg to be permitted to see them. I say they are slight, and in truth poor things, but at any rate they were done on the spot, and they, 'C'est la Grèce enfin, c'est là le véritable pays. Ah, Monsieur, que vous êtes heureux d'avoir parcouru ce beau pays!' Then I explain to them some constructions or beauties which they don't understand. 'Ah, que c'est merveilleux, mais vous les publierez, vous nous donnerez le bonheur de les posséder, mais ce sont des choses fort intéressantes, enfin c'est de la Grèce.' And in truth publishers and readers have been so long restricted to the Roman antiquities, which have been published and read over and over again a thousand times, that the avidity for novelty is beyond measure, and Greece is the fashion here as everywhere else.
There is not a single English artist here and only a few passengers. Lady Westmoreland is one. She is a very clever, well-bred, agreeable chatterer, who has been very civil to me, and made me lose several hours which might have been better employed. Fortunately she is going away. I have several letters for the Roman nobles, but I have not presented them that I may have my time to myself.
So Canova is gone to England. I hope it is not to execute the paltry monument of Lord Nelson which he has published here. It would be a disgrace to us all. Fancy the great Nelson as a Roman in petticoats! I do trust whenever a monument is erected to him it may be as original, national, and characteristic as was the man and the great nation he sprang from. Every age hitherto has had ingenuity enough to make its costume interesting in sculpture; we are the first who have shown such poverty of ideas as to despise our age and our dress.
I hope he will not be made too much of in England. It is true that nobody ever worked the marble as he does, and it is this finish of his which has deceived and captivated the world, but it is nothing but artificiality, and there is no nature about it. When he attempts the sublime he is ludicrous. In seeking grace he is more successful; but, after all, his Terpsichore was conceived in the Palais Royal, and her headdress is exactly the latest hairdressers' fashion. It is exasperating to think of his success when Flaxman, as far his superior as Hyperion to a satyr, an artist looked up to by the schools of the Continent as a great and extraordinary genius, is neglected by us because he is not a foreigner.
It is exceedingly gratifying to me to find everything in my portfolio turning to account. I had the pleasure of showing to Colonel Catinelli, who lately fortified Genoa, my fortifications of Syracuse, and the sketches I made of that subject in Greece. He assures me that they are invaluable notices new to modern warfare, and that they prove that, compared to the ancients, we who imagine ourselves so well informed on the matter, know nothing at all.