On their way to Tivoli, they passed the ruins of Adrian's palace, and the immense garden that surrounded it. Here were collected the rarest productions of the realms conquered by Rome. There are still seen the scattered stones called Egypt, India, and Asia. Further off is the retreat where Zenobia ended her days. The queen of Palmyra sustained not, in adversity, the greatness of her doom: she knew neither how to die for glory, like a man; nor how, like a woman, to die rather than betray her friend. At last they beheld Tivoli, once the abode of Brutus, Augustus, Mæcenas, Catullus, but, above all, Horace, whose verses have immortalized these scenes. Corinne's villa stood near the loud cascade of Teverone. On the top of the hill, facing her garden, was the Sibyl's temple. The ancients, by building these fanes on heights like this, suggested the due superiority of religion over all other pursuits. They bid you "look from nature up to nature's God," and tell of the gratitude that successive generations have paid to Heaven. The landscape, seen from whatever point, includes this its central ornament. Such ruins remind one not of the work of man. They harmonize with the fair trees and lonely torrent, that emblem of the years which have made them what they are. The most beauteous land, that awoke no memory of great events, were uninteresting, compared with every spot that history sanctifies. What place could more appropriately have been selected as the home of Corinne than that consecrated to the Sibyl, a woman divinely inspired? The house was charming; decked in all the elegance of modern taste, yet evidently by a classic hand. You saw that its mistress understood felicity in its highest signification; that which implies all that can ennoble, while it excites our minds. A sighing melody now stole on Oswald's ear, as if the nodding flowers and waving shrubs thus lent a voice to nature. Corinne informed him that it proceeded from the Eolian harps, which she had hung in her grottos, adding music to the perfume of the air. Her lover was entranced. "Corinne," he cried, throwing himself at her feet, "till to-day I have censured mine own bliss beside thee; but now I feel as if the prayers of mine offended parent had won me all this favor; the chaste repose I here enjoy tells me that I am pardoned. Fearlessly, then, unite thy fate with mine; there is no danger now!"—"Well," she replied, "let us not disturb this peace by naming Fate. Why strive to gain more than she ever grants? Why seek for change while we are happy?" He was hurt by this reply. He thought she should have understood his readiness to confide, to promise, all. This evasion, then, offended and afflicted him: he appreciated not the delicacy which forbade Corinne to profit by his weakness. Where we really love, we often dread more than we desire the solemn moment that exchanges hope for certainty. Oswald, however, concluded that, much as she loved him, she preferred her independence, and therefore shunned an indissoluble tie. Irritated by this mistake, he followed her to the gallery in frigid silence. She guessed his mood, but knew his pride too well to tell him so; yet, with a vague design of soothing him, she lent even to general and indifferent topics the softest tones of affection.
Her gallery was composed of historical, poetic, religious subjects, and landscapes. None of them contained any great number of figures. Crowded pictures are, doubtless, arduous tasks; but their beauties are mostly either too confused or too detailed. Unity of interest, that vital principle of art, as of all things, is necessarily frittered away. The first picture represented Brutus, sitting lost in thought, at the foot of the statue of Rome, while slaves bore by the dead bodies of the sons he had condemned; on the other side, their mother and sisters stood in frantic despair, fortunately excused, by their sex, from that courage which sacrifices the affections. The situation of Brutus beneath the statue of Rome tells all. But how, without explanation, can we know that this is Brutus, or that, those are his children, whom he himself has sentenced? and yet the event cannot be better set forth by any painting. Rome fills its background, as yet unornamented as a city, grand only as the country that could inspire such heroism. "Once hear the name," said Corrine, "and doubtless your whole soul is given up to it; otherwise might not uncertainty have converted a pleasure which ought to be so plain and so easy into an abstruse enigma? I chose the subject, as recalling the most terrible deed a patriot ever dared. The next is Marius, taken by one of the Cimbri, who cannot resolve to kill so great a man. Marius, indeed, is an imposing figure; the costume and physiognomy of the Cimbri leader extremely picturesque; it marks the second era of Rome, when laws were no more, but when genius still exerted a vast control. Next come the days in which glory led but to misfortune and insult. The third picture is Belisarius, bearing his young guide, who had expired while asking alms for him; thus is the blind hero recompensed by his master; and in the world he vanquished hath no better office than that of carrying to the grave the sad remains of yon poor boy, his only faithful friend. Since the old school, I have seen no truer figure than that; the painter, like the poet, has loaded him with all kinds of miseries—too many, it may be, for compassion. But what tells us that it is Belisarius? what fidelity to history is exacted both of artist and spectator! a fidelity, by the way, often ruinous to the beautiful. In Brutus, we look on virtues that resemble crime; in Marius on fame causing but distress; in Belisarius, on services requited by the blackest persecution. Near these I have hung two pictures that console the oppressed spirit by reminding it of the piety that can cheer the broken heart, when all around is bondage. The first is Albano's infant Christ asleep on the cross. Does not that stainless, smiling face convince us that heavenly faith hath naught to fear from grief or death? The following one is Titian's Jesus bending under the weight of the cross. His mother on her knees before him—what a proof of reverence for the undeserved oppressions suffered by her Divine Son! What a look of resignation is his! yet what an air of pain, and therefore sympathy, with us! That is the best of all my pictures; to that I turn my eyes with rapture inexhaustible; and now come my dramatic chefs-d'œuvre, drawn from the works of four great poets. There is the meeting of Dido and Æneas in the Elysian fields; her indignant shade avoids him; rejoicing to be freed from the fond heart which yet would throb at his approach. The vaporous color of the phantoms and the pale scenes around them, contrast the air of life in Æneas, and the Sibyl who conducts him; but in these attempts the bard's description must far transcend all that the pencil reaches; in this, of the dying Clorinda, our tears are claimed by the remembered lines of Tasso, where she pardons the beloved Tancred, who has just dealt her the mortal wound. Painting inevitably sinks beneath poetry, when devoted to themes that great authors have already treated. One glance back at their words effaces all before us. Their favorite situations gain force from impassioned eloquence; while picturesque effect is most favored by moments of repose, worthy to be indefinitely prolonged, and too perfect for the eye ever to weary of their grace. Your terrific Shakspeare, my Lord, afforded the ensuing subject. The invincible Macbeth, about to fight Macduff, learns that the witches have equivocated with him; that Birnam wood is coming to Dunsinane, and that his adversary was not of woman born, but 'untimely ripped' from his dying mother.[1] Macbeth is subdued by his fate, not by his foe; his desperate hand still grasps its glaive, certain that he must fall, yet to the last, opposing human strength against the might of demons. There is a world of fury and of troubled energy in that countenance—but how many of the poet's beauties do we lose! Can we paint Macbeth hurried into crime by the dreams of ambition, conjured up by the powers of sorcery? How express a terror compatible with intrepidity; how characterize the superstition that oppresses him? the ignoble credulity, which, even while he feels such scorn of life, forces on him such horror of death! Doubtless the human face is the grandest of all mysteries; yet fixed on canvas, it can hardly tell of more than one sensation; no struggle, no successive contrasts accessible to dramatic art, can painting give, as neither time nor motion exists for her.
"Racine's Phedra forms the fourth picture. Hippolitus, in all the beauty of youth and innocence, repulses the perfidious accusations of his step-mother. The heroic Theseus still protects his guilty wife, whom his conquering arms surround. Phedra's visage is agitated by impulses that we freeze to look on; and her remorseless nurse encourages her in guilt. Hippolitus is here even more lovely than in Racine; more like to Meleager, as no love for Aricia here seems to mingle with his tameless virtue. But could Phedra have supported her falsehood in such a presence? No, she must have fallen at his feet; a vindictive woman may injure him she loves in absence, but, while she looks on him, that love must triumph. The poet never brings them together after she has slandered him. The painter was obliged to oppose them to each other; but is not the distinction between the picturesque and the poetical proved by the fact, that verses copied from paintings are worth all the paintings that have imitated poetry? Fancy must ever precede reason, as it does in the growth of the human mind."
While Corinne spoke thus, she had frequently paused, hoping that Oswald would add his remarks; but, as she made any feeling observation, he would merely sigh and turn away his head, to conceal his present disposition towards sadness. Corinne, at last discouraged by this silence, sat down and hid her face in her hands. Oswald hastily paced the apartment, and was just about to give way to his emotions, when, with a sudden check of pride, he turned towards the pictures, as if expecting her to finish the account of them. She had great hope in the last; and making an effort to compose herself, rose, saying: "My Lord, there remain but three landscapes for me to show you; two possess some interest. I do not like rural scenes that bear no allusion to fable or history; they are insipid as the idols of our poets. I prefer Salvator Rosa's style here, which gives you rocks, torrents, and trees, with not even the wing of a bird visible to remind you of life! The absence of man, in the midst of nature, excites profound reflections. What is this deserted scene, so vainly beautiful, whose mysterious charms address but the eye of their Creator? Here, on the contrary, history and poesy are happily united in a landscape.[2] This represents the moment when Cincinnatus is invited by the consuls to quit his plough, and take command of the Roman armies. All the luxury of the south is seen in this picture—abundant vegetation, burning sky, and an universal air of joy, that pervades even the aspects of the plants. See what a contrast is beside it. The son of Cairbar sleep upon his father's tomb. Three nights he awaited the bard, who comes to honor the dead. His form is beheld afar, he descends the mountain's side. On the cloud floats the shade of the chief. The land is hoary with ice; and the trees, as the rude winds war on their lifeless and withered arms, strew their sear leaves to the gale, and herald the course of the storm." Oswald, till now, had cherished his resentment; but at the sight of this picture, the tomb of his father, the mountains of Scotland rose to his view, and his eyes filled with tears. Corinne took her harp, and sung one of those simple Scotch ballads whose notes seem fit to be borne on the wailing breeze. It was the soldier's farewell to his country and his love, in which recurred that most melodious and expressive of English phrases, "No more."[3] Corinne pronounced it so touchingly, that Oswald could resist no longer; and they wept together. "Ah, Corinne!" he cried, "does then my country affect your heart? Could you go with me to the land peopled by my recollections? Would you there be the worthy partner of my life, as you are here its enchantress?"—"I believe I could," she answered, "for I love you."—"In the name of love and piety then, have no more secrets from me."—"Your will shall be obeyed, Oswald; I promise it on one condition, that you ask not its fulfilment before the termination of our approaching religious solemnities. Is not the support of Heaven more than ever necessary at the moment which must decide my fate?"—"Corinne," he said, "if thy fate depends on me it shall no longer be a sad one."—"You think so," she rejoined; "but I have no such confidence, therefore indulge my weakness." Oswald sighed, without granting or refusing the delay she asked. "Let us return to Rome now," she added. "I should tell you all in this solitude; and if what I have to say must drive you from me—need it be so soon? Come, Oswald; you may revisit this scene when my ashes repose here." Melted and agitated, he obeyed. On their road they scarcely spoke a word, but now and then exchanged looks of affection; yet a heavy melancholy oppressed them both, as they re-entered Rome.
[1] From a journal called "Europe," I have derived many valuable observations on painting—an inexhaustible subject for their author, M. Frederic Schlegel, and for German reasoners in general.
[2] Madame de Staël says: "Macbeth apprend que l'oracle des sorcières s'est accompli; que le forêt de Birnam paraît s'avancer vers Dunsinane; et qu'il se bat avec un homme né depuis la mort de sa mère."
"Ludicrous perversion of the author's meaning!" The points Shakspeare intended to impress were, that "the weird women," "juggling fiends, who palter with us in a double sense," had promised their victim success and life till events which he naturally conceived impossible, but which they knew would occur.—TR.
[3] I presume the "Adieu to Lochaber," though in that it is "nae mair."—TR.