I felt at once, before I turned my eyes, that there was the nature and ideal beauty joined, which I had gone about the art longing for, but never finding! I saw at once I was amongst productions such as I had never before witnessed in the art; and that the great author merited the enthusiasm of antiquity, of Socrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Juvenal, of Cicero, of Valerius Maximus, and of Plutarch and Martial.
If such were my convictions on seeing this dilapidated but immortal wrist, what do you think they were on turning round to the Theseus, the horse’s head, and the fighting metope, the frieze, and the Jupiter’s breast?
Oh, may I retain such sensations beyond the grave! I foresaw at once a mighty revolution in the art of the world for ever! I saw that union of nature and ideal perfected in high art, and before this period pronounced by the ablest critics as impossible! I thanked God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my being, that I was ready to comprehend them from dissection. I bowed to the Immortal Spirit, which still hovered near them. I predicted at once their vast effect on the art of the world, and was smiled at for my boyish enthusiasm!
What I asserted in their future influence and enormous superiority, Canova, eight years after, confirmed. On my introduction by Hamilton, (author of Egyptiaca,) I asked Canova what he thought of them? and he instantly replied, with a glistening Italian fire, “Ils renverseront le systême des autres antiques.” Mr. Hamilton replied, “I have always said so, but who believed me? and what was the result of the principles I laid down? Why, many a squeeze of the hand to support me under my infirmities, and many a smile in my face in mercy at my delusion. ‘You are a young man,’ was often said; ‘and your enthusiasm is all very proper.’ ”
“After seeing them myself,” says Haydon, “I took Fuseli to see them; and, being a man of quick sensibility, he was taken entirely by surprise. Never shall I forget his uncompromising enthusiasm; he strode about, thundering out—‘The Greeks were gods!—the Greeks were gods!’ When he got home he wanted to modify his enthusiasm; but I always reminded him of his first impressions, and never let him escape.”
PAINTERS IN SOCIETY.
James Smith says:—“I don’t fancy Painters. General Phipps used to have them much at his table. He once asked me if I liked to meet them. I answered, ‘No; I know nothing in their way, and they know nothing out of it.’ ”