To move the heart, whether by painting, poetry, or eloquence, requires the same mind. The means by which the effect is to be produced are not different. The one works, indeed, with the pencil, the other with the pen; the one composes in verse, the other in prose—but what then? These are the means to the end, they are not the end itself. There are many avenues to the human heart, but the inner doors in them all are to be opened only by one key, and that key is never denied to the suit of genius.
It is in his lesser pieces that the exquisite taste and divine conceptions of Raphael are chiefly to be seen. His greater paintings, the Transfiguration, the frescoes in the Vatican, the cartoons, are invaluable to the artist as studies, and specimens of the utmost power of drawing and energy of conception; but it is not there that the divine Raphael appears. In the larger ones his object was to cover space and display talent; and in the prosecution of these objects he never has been exceeded; but it is in his groups of two or three figures that his exquisite conceptions appear. It is there that he has given free scope to his exquisite conception, intended to represent in the maternal, and therefore universally felt affection, the divine spirit and parental tenderness of the gospel. "My son, give me thy heart," was what he always aimed at. "God is love," the idea which he ever strove to represent, as embodying the essence of the Christian faith. The Madonna della Seggiola at Florence, the Assumption of the Virgin at Dresden, the Madonna di Foligno in the Vatican, the Holy Family at Naples, St John in the Desert in the Tribune at Florence, the small Holy Family in the Louvre, the large Holy Family, with the flowers, brought from Fontainbleau, also in the Louvre, St Mark at Munich, and several of the lesser pieces of Raphael in the same rich collection in that city, are so many gems of art, embodying this conception, which to the end of the world, even when preserved only in the shadowy imitation of engraving, will improve the heart and refine the mind, as well as fascinate the imagination. It may be doubted if they ever will be equalled: excelled they can never be.
Whoever will study those inimitable productions, even when standing to gaze at the engravings from them in a print-shop window, will have no difficulty in feeling the justice of Cicero's remark, that all the arts which relate to humanity have a certain common bond, a species of consanguinity between them. The emotion produced by the highest excellence in them all is the same. So intense is this emotion, so burning the delight which it occasions, that it cannot be borne for any length of time: the mind's eye is averted from it as the eyeball is from the line of "insufferable brightness," as Gray calls it, which often precedes the setting of the sun. It is difficult to say in which this burning charm consists. Like genius or beauty, its presence is felt by all, but can be described by none. It would seem to be an emanation of Heaven—a chink, as it were, opened, which lets us feel for a few seconds the ethereal joys of a superior state of existence. But it is needless to seek to define what, all who have felt it must acknowledge, passes all understanding.
It is a common saying, even among persons of cultivated taste, that it is hopeless to attempt to advance any thing new on the beauties of ancient authors; that every thing that can be said on the subject has already been exhausted, and that it is in the more recent fields of modern literature that it is alone possible to avoid repetition. We are decidedly of opinion that this idea is erroneous, and that its diffusion has done more than any thing else to degrade criticism to the low station which, with some honourable exceptions, it has so long held in the world of letters. But when ancient excellence is contemplated with a generous eye, even when the mind that sees is but slenderly gifted, who will say that nothing new will occur? When it meets kindred genius, when it is elevated by a congenial spirit, what a noble art does criticism become? What has it proved in the hands of Dryden and Pope, of Wilson and Macaulay? It is in the contemplation of ancient greatness, and its comparison with the parallel efforts of modern genius, that the highest flights of these gifted spirits have been attained, and the native generosity of real intellectual power most strikingly evinced. Criticism of words will soon come to an end; the notes of scholiasts and annotators are easily made, as apothecaries make drugs by pouring from one phial into another. But criticism of things, of ideas, of characters, of conceptions, can never come to an end; for every successive age is bringing forth fresh comparisons to make, and fresh combinations to exhibit. It is the outpouring of a heart overburdened with admiration which must be delivered, and will ever discover a new mode of deliverance.
How many subjects of critical comparison in this view, hitherto nearly untouched upon, has the literature of Europe, and even of this age, afforded! Æschylus, Shakspeare, and Schiller—Euripides, Alfieri, and Corneille—Sophocles, Metastasio, and Racine—Pindar, Horace, and Gray—Ovid, Ariosto, and Wieland—Lucretius, Darwin, and Campbell—Demosthenes, Cicero, and Burke—Thucydides, Tacitus, and Gibbon—Thomson, Cowper, and Claude Lorraine: such are a few which suggest themselves at first sight to every one who reflects on the rich retrospect of departed genius. It is like looking back to the Alps through the long and rich vista of Italian landscape; the scene continually varies, the features are ever new, the impression is constantly fresh, from the variety of intervening objects, though the glittering pinnacles of the inaccessible mountains ever shine from afar on the azure vault of heaven. Human genius is ever furnishing new proofs of departed excellence. Human magnanimity is ever exhibiting fresh examples of the fidelity of former descriptions, or the grandeur of former conception. What said Hector, drawing his sword, when, betrayed by Minerva in his last conflict with Achilles, he found himself without his lance in presence of his fully-armed and heaven-shielded antagonist? "Not at least inglorious shall I perish, but after doing some great thing that men may be spoken of in ages to come."[2]
PING-KEE'S VIEW OF THE STAGE.
This is not, O Cho-Ling-Kyang! a barbarian land, as in our foolish childhood we were taught; but, contrariwise, great is the wisdom of the English, and great their skill. Yea, I will not conceal the fact, that in some things they are worthy to be imitated by the best and most learned in the flowery land. Three moons have I resided in London, and devoted myself, with all the powers of my mind and body, to fulfil the task which you and the ever-venerated Chang-Feu have laid upon me. Convey to his benignant ear the words of my respect, and tell him that my brow is ever on the outer edge of his footstool. As I understand my office—having pondered over the same ever since the ship left the shore of my beloved country—it is, to give you a report of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of this extraordinary land, and smooth the way for the sending forth of an ambassador from the immaculate emperor to the governor of this nation. I have completely executed your commission, O excellent Cho-Ling-Kyang! and this was the manner of the doing thereof. When I embarked on board of the large ship with the three masts, which had for name the Walter Scott—after a great general who conquered a province called Scotland, and was presented with a blue button as a reward for his magnanimity—I was entirely ignorant of the language spoken by the mariners, with the exception of the short form of prayer which they constantly use when speaking of each others' eyes, and a few phrases not easily translatable into our refined tongue; and I accordingly experienced great difficulty in making myself understood. Notwithstanding, I soon got friendly with the captain, and also with the men—who pulled my back hair whenever I passed them, in the most warm and affectionate manner possible. I took greatly to study when I had overcome the sea-sickness; and although I could not master the pronunciation of their words, I soon arrived at a degree of skill, which enabled me to read their printed books. There was a large library on board of the ship, and all day long—with the aid of Morrison's wonderful dictionary—I toiled in the delightful task of making myself acquainted with the masterpieces of English literature. And this I considered the best preparation for the duty set before me; for without books, how could I furnish my mind with a knowledge of the past?—and without mastering the language, how could I understand the characters and modes of thought of the men who now are? I therefore studied history; but their historians write so much, and differ so greatly from each other, that it was perplexing to know if what they told was true—and I was utterly confused. But, fortunately, there was in the ship a young person, who had been sent out by his friends to a merchant's office in Canton; but had discovered that he was a great poet, and very clever man, and was going back to tell his father he would not hide his talents any more, but be a wonder to all men for his genius and abilities; and this young person was very kind to me. He advised me what to read—which was principally his own writings; and on my telling him I wished to study history, he said nobody cared for it now, and that all the history he knew was in Shakspeare's plays. This Shakspeare was a great writer long ago, who turned all the histories of his country into dramatic scenes; and they are acted on grand occasions before the Queen and her court at this very day. When I enquired of the young person how his countrymen preserved the memory of events which had happened since the death of the great Shakspeare, he said there were other people as clever perhaps as Shakspeare, who embalmed important incidents in immortal verse, but whom a brutal public did not sufficiently appreciate; and he offered to read to me a poem of his own called the Napoleonad, giving an account of a great war that happened some time ago—and which had been published, he said, week after week, in the Bath and Bristol Literary Purveyor. He read it to me, and it was very fine; but I did not gain much information. I read various parts of English history in Shakspeare; but from the specimens he gives of the kings that reigned long ago in England, I fear they were a very cruel and barbarous race of men. One of the name of Lear gave up the kingdom to his three daughters, and two of them treated him very cruelly, turned him out of doors on a stormy night, put out his followers' eyes, and behaved very ill indeed. Another was called John—a bad man. Three Henries—the first two great fighters, and one of them a common highway robber in conjunction with a fat old gentleman who was a great coward, but boasted he killed the chief warrior of the enemy—and the other Henry, a weak old man, who was murdered by another very bad king called Richard. There was another Henry who sent away his wife—a fat, bloated, villanous kind of man; and after that no mention is made of any of the English kings in Shakspeare's history. And when I asked the young person if there had been any kings since, he said he had never heard of any except George the Third, grandfather of the present Queen. I demanded of him if all the plays in England were forced to be histories? and he said, no. And when I further enquired what they represented, and of what use they were, he said they were to hold a mirror up to nature, and to be the abstract and brief chronicle of the time; by which he afterwards explained to me he meant this—that although tragedies and the loftier portions of the drama treated generally of great events, yet that, in England, there were many men of extraordinary talent, who taught great moral lessons by means of the stage, and, above all things, never overstepped the modesty of nature, but in every scene gave a vivid and true imitation of the actual events of life. In short, that the best way of seeing English character was to study the English stage; for all classes of men were more fully, truly, and fairly represented there, than even in the House of Commons itself. The young person, to prove the truth of this, read me a comedy, which he was going to have acted at Covent-Garden Theatre; and it was very amusing, for he laughed excessively at every speech. You will easily believe, O Cho-Ling-Kyang! that I rejoiced greatly at hearing this account of the stage; and unbounded was my satisfaction in finding among the books in the library a large collection of English plays, which I studied deeply and took notes from, for my future guidance in mingling with society. What a blessing it is for a nation to be in possession of so useful an institution, where the actual manners of the time are brought exactly forward, and the people can see the different classes of society with all their different feelings and peculiarities—their modes of thought—their faults and weaknesses—their wishes and vices—as vividly produced as if the performers were in reality the very beings they represent! How it must instruct the boorish in the gracefulness of polished life—how it must reprove the bad by the contemplation of honest simplicity—and what an insight must it give to the foreigners, into all the secrets of the domestic existence of this great and extraordinary people! O Cho-Ling-Kyang! when the young person told me this, I said to my heart—"Be still—beat no more with the pulses of uncertainty—I shall only buy a perpetual ticket to the pit of the theatre, and write home a minute account of all I see and hear." On my arrival in London I took down the names of the theatres, and for three months I have studied character every night. Yet, though I devoted my nights to the stage, I pored all the morning over the many volumes I have collected of the printed dramas; and as they all agree in their descriptions, I think I cannot be deceived, and that you may safely present the subjoined result of my enquiries to the very sparkling eyes of the ever-venerated Chang-Feu. There are many ranks of men in this land, and he of the highest rank is called a lord. When young, a lord is always rich and gay, and a great admirer of the ladies; and it is also the case that many ladies are devotedly attached to him, and make no scruple to confess it to their chambermaids, before they have been acquainted with him half an hour. When the lord is old, he is a stiff stupid man, who generally talks politics, and boasts how eloquent he is in the great national assembly. He is also always very harsh to his children, till they marry against his will, and then he forgives them, and prays for their happiness. The title bestowed on the wife, and sometimes on the daughter of a lord, is lady or ladyship; but this dignity is also possessed by the wives of a class of men very numerous in this country, who are called sirs.
The "ladies," almost without exception, are very disagreeable people, and highly immoral, as they are always in love with some one else besides their husbands,—and are great gamblers at cards, and very malicious in their observations on their friends. The "sirs" are divided into two classes—sometimes they are fat rich old men who have made large fortunes by trade, and have handsome girls either of their own, or left to their charge by deceased relations,—and sometimes they are gay fascinating young men, running away with rich people's daughters, or stupid people's wives; but luckily they always take names that give fair warning of their character, so that they are generally foiled in their infamous attempts. And this is a fine illustration of the openness of the English disposition. A man here seldom conceals his propensities, but assumes a name which reveals all his character at once. Sir Brilliant Fashion, and Sir Bashful Constant, and Sir Harry Lovewit, show at once their respective peculiarities—as do Colonel Tornado, Tempest, Hurricane, Absolute, Rapid, and a thousand others that I have met with in my reading. But the thing which astonished me most of all was, that in this great mercantile nation, a merchant is very little appreciated unless he is in debt or a cheat; but the hero of most of the histories, if he is of a mercantile family, is over head and ears in the books of Jew usurers, and has left the respectable circle of his equals in rank, and spends his time and constitution in the gaieties of the lords and ladies. And that this has long been the case, is proved by old plays and new ones. There is a play in the oldest-looking of the volumes I possess, called, "How to grow Rich," which shows the style of manners in this respect forty or fifty years ago; and I will translate the beginning of it, that you may see a real picture of English society with your own eyes.