Down in the dust—Oh! woe too sad to see,
Rider and horse fallen dead in heaps all gory;
Leaderless squadrons, one tumultuous sea
Of ruin! Death sole hero of the story.
And such is war—oh sight the heart to rend,
And make our rooted hair to stand on end!
Aquilius.—Your verse shall not disenchant me of my criticism upon this bad habit of seeing his subject, into which so great a painter has fallen. After what has been said, I shall not surprise you by objecting to his “Van Amburgh and his Beasts,” painted for his Grace the Duke of Wellington—the shrinking, retreating, cowed animals, whom one would wish to see in their wilder or nobler natures. And certainly the painter has made a very poor figure of the tamer: you are angry with the lions and tigers for being afraid of him. He should have been less conspicuous. Poor beasts! within bars, no escape from the hot iron! I had rather see a representation of the tamer within the bars, and the beasts out, longing to get at him. There is a very happy subject for a picture of this kind in the hymn to Aphrodite—where the goddess descends on Ida, and all the savage beasts come fawning about her, when, with a motion of her hand, she dismisses them to pair in the forests. Such noble animals, crouching in obeisance and willing servitude to a divinity, to beauty, and to innocence, make a picture of a finer sentiment. This taming reduces the dignity of the brute, without raising the man.
Curate.—The tamed animals are not honoured in their portraiture; nor is it much consolation that the great duke beholds their quailing. Statius attempted a consoling compliment of this kind, upon the occasion of a much admired beast, “Leo Mansuetus,” being killed by the blow of a flying tigress, in the presence of the emperor. After describing the scene, he adds—
“Magna tamen subiti tecum solatia lethi
Victe feres, quod te mœsti, Populusque Patresque,