London, May, 1811.
I have guttered about through the rain, shut up in a long shawl and thick veil, and have seen West’s picture. Beautiful it certainly is, though we are perhaps a little too national if we prefer it to the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ and the ‘Transfiguration.’ Our Saviour’s face disappointed me extremely; it is not nature, and it does not strike me as sufficiently noble for Divinity. But we cannot too much admire his figure, drapery, and hands. As a composition, it seems to be admirable; and its clearness and distinctness, those great charms to an unlearned eye, do not seem to injure its effect as a whole. The expression of sensibility in the principal female faces is beautiful, and does not disturb the harmony of their countenances; but they are all three too much alike.
The —— always leave me in doubt by their manner, whether I have not done something to offend them, and really have an expression between distracted and distrait, that one knows not how to comprehend. In general, it is a great misfortune to be rich without being well educated. People expect from fortune they know not what, and are angry if it does not command all the different kinds of respect and attention, which are due to such a variety of circumstances. In a small circle it will have its weight; but when people step into general society, the effect of mere money is immediately neutralized, and ‘Nabob’ or ‘Nay, Bob’ comes to much the same thing.
I am glad Mrs. C. is so cross, as I like you should now and then see that the innocents who never have seen the world, nor heard a civil thing, are worse than us poor decayed toasts, against whom you wise ones so often declaim as unfit for domestic life. A race-horse draws as well in the family coach as if he had never been on the turf.
TO THE SAME.
London, May, 1811.
I heard excellent music last night, and the last public notes of the sweetest singer I have ever heard, or probably shall ever hear—I mean combined with so much power; for I have heard many moderately strong voices still sweeter, according to the usual equalization of Heaven’s gifts. Mrs. Billington professedly sang for the last time; but as I saw Mara’s resurrection about six different times in ten years, I am not without hope of hearing her again. Her last Italian air was that which Tarchi taught me, Sarah’s Lamentation; it was marked MS., and everyone is wishing for it. Harrison, Catalani, a delightful ballad singer, Mrs. Ashe, and almost everything else that was good, sang there. Harrison’s singing was like a lover’s whisper by moonlight.
Mr. A—— has inflicted on me the task of reading his Journey through France—on lazy me, who would not read the admired poem of Psyche, because it was in manuscript. I catch a word now and then about a ‘church and altarpiece,’ a ‘capital picture,’ ‘charges moderate in the extreme’ (is not that a bull?), ‘the lively chit-chat of a beautiful petite brunette,’ &c. &c., and so I hope to persuade myself I have read it. Mr. Hastings, in a note which accompanied the book, gets out of the scrape of giving an opinion with admirable dexterity; for he says it ‘is as interesting from the authority from which it proceeds, as from its own intrinsic merit.’ There are not so many froms in his phrase, but this is the idea.... I have finished Mr. A——’s book. He talks of the mildness of the present French Government, and is enchanted with everything Parisian; makes Mad. Frémont a fourth Grace; the Hôtel du Cercle the Palace of Armida; and, finally, he makes me sick.