The first division of this hall contains the finest works of le Brun, many of which are upon an immense scale. L'Hyver ou le Deluge, by Poussin, is truly sublime, but is unfortunately placed in a bad light. There are also some beautiful marine paintings, by Verney. Les Religieuses, by Philipe de Champagne, is justly celebrated for the principal figure of the dying nun. Vue de Chevet d'une eglise, by Emanuel de Witte, is an exquisite little cabinet picture, in which the effect of a ray of light shining through a painted window, upon a column, is inimitable, and the perspective is very fine. There are here also some of the finest works of Wouvermans, and a charming picture by Teniers. La Vierge, l'enfant Jesus, la Madeleine, et St. Jerome, by Antoine Allegri Correge, is considered to be a picture of great beauty and value. There are also some glorious paintings by Reubens. I have thus briefly selected these pictures from the rest, hoping, at the same time, that it will not be inferred that those which I have not named, of which it would be impossible to offer a description without filling a bulky volume, are inferior to the works which I have presumed to mention. The recording pen must rival that matchless pencil, which has thus adorned the walls of the Museum, before it can do justice to such a magnificent collection.
This exhibition is public three days in the week, and at other times is open to students and to strangers, upon their producing their passports. On public days, all descriptions of persons are here to be seen. The contemplation of such a mixture is not altogether uninteresting.
The sun-browned rugged plebeian, whose mind, by the influence of an unexampled political change, has been long alienated from all the noble feelings which religion and humanity inspire, is here seen, with his arms rudely folded over his breast, softening into pity, before the struggling and sinking sufferers of a deluged world, or silently imbibing from the divine resigned countenance of the crucified Saviour, a hope of unperishable bliss, beyond the grave. Who will condemn a policy by which ignorance becomes enlightened, profligacy penitent, and which, as by stealth, imparts to the relenting bosom of ferocity the subdued, and social dispositions of true fraternity?
To amuse, may be necessary to the present government of France, but surely to supplant the wild abandoned principles of a barbarous revolution, with new impressions, created by an unreserved display of the finest and most persuasive images of resigned suffering, heroic virtue, or elegant beauty, cannot be deemed unworthy of the ruler of a great people.
At this place, as well as at all the other national exhibitions, no money for admission is required or expected. No person is admitted with a stick, and guards attend to preserve the pictures from injury, and the exhibition from riot. The gallery of the Louvre is at present, unfortunately, badly lighted throughout, owing to the light issuing chiefly on one side, from long windows. This inconvenience, however, is soon to be remedied; by observing the same manner of lighting, as in the adjoining apartment.
From the museum, we descended into la Salle des Antiques, which contains all the treasury of grecian and roman statuary. The first object to which we hastened, was the statue of Laocoon, for so many ages, and by so many writers admired and celebrated. This superb specimen of grecian sculpture, is supposed to be the united production of Polydorus, Athenodorus, and Agesander, but its great antiquity renders its history somewhat dubious. In the beginning of the sixteenth century it was discovered at Rome amongst the ruins of the palace of Titus, and deposited in the Farnese palace, whence it has been removed to Paris, by the orders of Bonaparte, after the conquest of Italy. It represents Laocoon, the priest of Apollo and Neptune, and his two sons writhing in the folds of two hideous serpents. The reader will remember the beautiful lines of Virgil upon the subject,
"————————et primum parva duorum Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque Implicat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus. Post, ipsum auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus: et jam Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis. Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos—"
Or, in the english habit which Dryden has given them,
"And first around the tender boys they wind, Then with their sharpen'd fangs, their limbs and bodies grind. The wretched father, running to their aid, With pious haste, but vain, they next invade: Twice round his waist the winding volumes roll'd, And twice about his gasping throat they fold. The priest, thus doubly chok'd, their crests divide, And tow'ring o'er his head in triumphs ride. With both his hands he labours at the knots—"
Pliny mentions this statue as the admiration of the age in which he flourished.