In Gray's "Elegy" is there an image more striking than his "shapeless sculpture"? Of sculpture in general, it may be observed that it is more poetical than nature itself, inasmuch as it represents and bodies forth that ideal beauty and sublimity which is never to be found in actual nature. This, at least, is the general opinion. But, always excepting the Venus dei Medici, I differ from that opinion, at least as far as regards female beauty; for the head of Lady Claremont (when I first saw her nine years ago) seemed to possess all that sculpture could require for its ideal. I recollect seeing something of the same kind in the head of an Albanian girl, who was actually employed in mending a road in the mountains, and in some Greek, and one or two Italian faces. But of sublimity I have never seen anything in human nature at all to approach the expression of sculpture, either in the Apollo, in the Moses, or other of the sterner works of ancient or modern art.
Let us examine a little further this "babble of green fields" and of bare nature in general as superior to artificial imagery, for the poetical purposes of the fine arts. In landscape painting the great artist does not give you a literal copy of a country, but he invents and composes one. Nature, in her natural aspect, does not furnish him with such existing scenes as he requires. Everywhere he presents you with some famous city, or celebrated scene from mountain or other nature; it must be taken from some particular point of view, and with such light, and shade, and distance, etc., as serve not only to heighten its beauties, but to shadow its deformities. The poetry of nature alone, exactly as she appears, is not sufficient to bear him out. The very sky of his painting is not the portrait of the sky of nature; it is a composition of different skies, observed at different times, and not the whole copied from any particular day. And why? Because nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care and gathered with difficulty....
Art is not inferior to nature for poetical purposes. What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements. A Highlander's plaid, a Mussulman's turban, and a Roman toga are more poetical than the tattooed or untattooed New Sandwich savages, altho they were described by William Wordsworth himself like the "idiot in his glory."
I have seen as many mountains as most men, and more fleets than the generality of landsmen; and, to my mind, a large convoy with a few sail of the line to conduct them is as noble and as poetical a prospect as all that inanimate nature can produce. I prefer the "mast of some great admiral," with all its tackle, to the Scotch fir or the Alpine tarnen, and think that more poetry has been made out of it. In what does the infinite superiority of Falconer's "Shipwreck" over all other shipwrecks consist? In his admirable application of the terms of his art; in a poet sailor's description of the sailor's fate. These very terms, by his application, make the strength and reality of his poem. Why? because he was a poet, and in the hands of a poet art will not be found less ornamental than nature. It is precisely in general nature, and in stepping out of his element, that Falconer fails; where he digresses to speak of ancient Greece, and "such branches of learning."
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Letter to his half-sister, Augusta, dated "Harrow, Saturday, 11th November, 1804." Byron was then in his seventeenth year. Byron's sister, seven days after receiving this letter, wrote to Hanson, his solicitor, a letter which resulted in Byron's spending his Christmas holidays with Hanson instead of with his mother. Augusta told Hanson she had talked with Lord Carlisle, a relative of Byron's, and by his advice had requested Hanson to receive her brother as his guest. Of the trouble between her brother and his mother she said: "As they can not agree, they had better be separated, for such eternal scenes of wrangling are enough to spoil the very best temper and disposition in the universe."
[30] Sic. The name was formerly spelled this way and the last syllable pronounced rone.
[31] Letter dated "Pisa, November 17, 1821," five years after the separation, and addrest "To the care of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh [his sister], London." After he went abroad in 1816, Byron and his wife never met again; nor did he ever return to England, except when dead, for burial.
[32] Letter dated "Pisa, Jan. 12, 1822."
[33] Byron's "Cain" was inscribed to Scott.