TO THE SAME.
London, May 26, 1825.
Chantrey is now engaged for eighty thousand pounds’ worth of sculpture; and if he accepted all the orders which are proposed to him, he would require the life of Methuselah to finish even the small portion of each accomplished by the master. He is now paid two thousand pounds for a single figure. Nothing can be more interesting than his studio. It is Anglo-Grecian; and thus unites what we love the best and what we admire the most. Now that Canova is dead, his reputation seems declining every day; I think the contrary will happen to Chantrey. I hear that the former was all vanity, and certainly the latter is all simplicity. I forget whether I told you of Carew, a rising genius in this line, from Waterford. He has finished a beautiful Arethusa, of considerable elegance, though I think she has the fault supposed peculiar to his countrywomen, and that her ankles are not finely turned. Lord Egremont is to pay six hundred guineas for it, and has offered him more, but from some private motive he will not accept a larger sum. In my eyes, however, this Arethusa resembles a colossal Diana I saw in the Louvre, too much to have claims to perfect originality.
Sept. 8, 1825.—Ségur has given me many interesting hours. I know nothing like it in modern history. He is a poet in his descriptions, and the tale he has to tell possesses many of the essentials of an epic. There is one predominant and effective character, by whom the one great event is brought about; and a variety of subordinate characters shaded off and graduated, so as to give connexion and life to all parts of the narrative. The picture of the entrance into Moscow of the conquering army, who find nothing but the pale and squalid relics of a vanished population, when they expected the fervid hum of an immense city, and all the honours paid to strength and victory, is a fine exemplification of the truth that
‘Our wishes give us not our wish.’
Sept. 28.—I am not capable of writing more to-day, having received from his brother an account of Mr. Haygarth’s hopeless state—a loss to all who have ever known him, irreparable in its degree, according to the measure of their intimacy, and their power of estimating his value. I opened a letter, which I thought was from him, deceived by the similarity of handwriting and the paper he commonly used. When I read, it was as if he had himself walked in with a hood, which, on being removed, showed me a death’s-head.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
Oct. 13, 1825.