| [3] | This seemingly supernatural orb was probably one of those since classed under the catalogue of “Variable Stars,” which disappear for stated periods, and then become visible again, to blaze for a short time with extraordinary lustre. |
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PART II.
There were preparations for a festival in the halls of the “Royal Academy” of London. A distinguished foreign member of the profession was expected to be present, and the first individual not a native on whom the fellowship of the Academy had hitherto been conferred. The king and royal family had promised the honor of their attendance, and the prize medals of the exhibition were to be presented, of which the eminent foreign artist alluded to had carried off the first. The saloons were gorgeously lighted. All the pictures of the exhibition had been removed from the walls, except those few favored masterpieces obtaining the award of the prizes—and one surpassing work of art that hung by itself at the head of the principal saloon, with a delicate wreath of laurel suspended above it, betokening it the first in honor as in place. It consisted of two figures, of which the most conspicuous was that of a shrinking, prostrate female, expressing the highest ideal of loveliness and grace, joined to utter abandonment, contrition and shame; appearing as if the whole soul had imbued itself through every muscle and lineament of the frame, for the delineation of these emotions, that none could mistake that model of penitential sorrow, afterward so celebrated as “The Weeping Magdalene.” The face was completely buried in her hands, but so far from the absence of this most essential tablet of female beauty being felt as a defect, it was rather an adjunct to the effect, inasmuch as it left to the imagination’s heightening conception the modeling of a countenance meet for such a form, and such magic tones of color—burning with blushes—we know it from the roseate tint that almost seemed reflected from it along the pearly edges of the enshrouding hands—and drowned in tears, that fell like liquid diamonds over the snow of the Redeemer’s feet. The accompanying figure was somewhat inferior, yet it expressed that union of majesty and sweetness joined to godlike compassion, in as great a degree as human art has ever been able to embody in its ideas of the Divine man. On the side of the hall opposite the picture was erected a pavilion, emblazoned with the royal arms of England, and surmounted by a crown, under which George the Third had just seated himself, habited in his usual dress of a marshal’s uniform, with the rather vulgar, squat figure of his queen, the German Charlotte, surrounded by their suite, who gazed, with curious though certainly not very connoisseur like eyes, occasionally through their opera glasses at the divine picture suspended in front of them on the opposite wall.
The Academicians had severally arrived in their badges; there were gentlemen in the splendid Windsor uniform—officers glittering in epaulettes and gold lace—collars and grand crosses of knighthood—ladies in coronets and plumes. The music played, and the festival was begun. The élite of England’s ennobled by birth and ennobled by mind were there, and mingled in conversation—some in animated groups round the pictures and statuary—some promenading the halls, when suddenly the buzz of conversation ceased, and an expression of eagerness pervaded the assembly, greater than that which had greeted the entrance of royalty itself, and there entered through the yielding crowds, conducted by a gentlemanly looking person in the badge of the Academy, a young slender girl—a child indeed no more, but still retaining the chestnut ringlets and glorious black eyes of Angelica Kauffmann. Conducting the young Academician, and the first woman ever invested with such a distinction, toward the pavilion, Sir Joshua Reynolds presented her to their majesties; when the peasant girl of the Alps, as she knelt before them, told that high-born and high-bred throng of a grace derived from the sense of the beautiful in the soul, and which the atmosphere of a court could neither add to nor bestow. Raising her hastily, George the Third, after a few words addressed to her, and graciously made in German by his queen, conducted her, leaning on his arm, through the saloons, rendering her the envied of all the envious.
“Such amiable condescension! But his majesty has such a passion for foreigners—beside his patronage of the Fine Arts—quite indeed auspicious of their restoration to the age.”
“It is whispered,” said another, “that she has been commanded to paint the royal family.”
“By no means,” interposed a gentleman in plain clothes. “My information came from an individual who had it from a high quarter, that such a report is incorrect. I understood that this honor was in contemplation for the signora, but no positive orders have been yet issued on the subject.”
It is to be doubted whether the object of these remarks was so highly sensible of these distinctions as a refined education would have taught her; and we have even a suspicion that she might have gone so far as to wish to escape from the gracious condescension of the conversation with which George honored her, as promenading round the hall she found herself obliged to stand answer to the abrupt and sometimes ridiculous questions originating in the royal mind, after the catechumenical method of conversation then in vogue in intercourse with majesty.
But higher honors awaited the young artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President of the Academy, having mounted the chair, proceeded to descant upon the excellencies of the several productions distinguished by the Society’s prizes—but there was one, he said, which he could not pass over without some more especial notice.