Whose weapons we keep ever sharp and new—
Some of whose champions bold we as our chiefs have crowned.
A Noted Impostor.
The Russian note is not to be judged of so much by its contents, as by its envelope—not so much by what it says, as by what it attempts to cover. If the note should prove a failure, the Czar will have reason to regret that he did not show his usual address on the occasion.
OUR TOURIST IN PARIS.—No. 6.
No Englishman can visit the Picture Galleries at the Louvre without thinking of a building in London devoted to the same purpose, which is neither very beautiful nor very convenient; and it is rather tempting to enlarge on the despicable show the Trafalgar Square collection makes beside the principal Continental ones. The equitable temper, however, of your Correspondent leads him to suggest some reflections which will mitigate that censure. The National Gallery was not built by the luxurious sovereign of an impoverished people, or it might have been larger and more splendid. No curse cleaves to its stones. The pictures are not the fruit of rapine and confiscation, or the collection might have been more extensive and valuable. As it is, it contains less rubbish and more priceless gems than any gallery of its size in the world; and no pillaged aristocracy, no humbled province, claims a canvas there. Such considerations consoled him as he paced up the gilded saloon of Apollo to the square chamber which holds the masterpieces of the collection. Raphael, Paul Veronese, Leonardo, and Titian appear in all their glory; but the star of the room and cynosure of neighbouring eyes, is Madame Soult's Murillo—the Assumption of Mary. A crowd of devout admirers cluster always round this great work and the artist who is employed in copying it. It has the effect of a tender strain from one of Mozart's masses, sweet and sensous, yet not low. Ladies cannot but be charmed to see that a saint can be so pretty, and turn with a shudder from dirty anchorites and unshaven martyrs to gaze again and again at those lovely eyes, and silky hair, and those elegant hands crossed so gracefully on her bosom.
Certainly nothing can be more delightful than to sit on the central ottoman (which by the way is a great deal more comfortable than those backless rout seats that we wot of), and, shifting one's position from time to time, study the various marvels of art that clothe the walls of this saloon. Your Correspondent, like every English gentleman, knows (or wishes to be thought to know) something about pictures, but he is not minded to gratify you with the slang that is usually thought necessary for the proper treatment of this subject. Wherefore he will make no allusions to breadth, or chiaro-scuro, or texture, or bits of colour. Paul Veronese's Marriage at Cana is before him, fresh and varied as a bouquet of flowers, and he wishes to enjoy it as he would digest his dinner, without giving technical reasons for the process. He turns to a group of Raphael's (I beg pardon, Rafaelle's), and would not for the world spoil the pleasure they give him by speculating on the Roman School and the artist's three manners, and the influence of Pietro Perugino or Michael Angelo on his style, and so forth. These fine art critics are a cold-blooded set of fellows, and look at a picture as an attorney does at a lease, to see if they cannot pick a hole in it.
All this time the eyes of the enthusiast have been wandering to a corner of the chamber where an artist is copying a small Rembrandt. It is not the Rembrandt he is regarding, but the artist. How excessively nice! The most charming young lady perched on a pair of steps, like a dear little bird in a tree. She bends over her work and draws her head back, and scans the effect on one side and the other with, really, the most irritating picturesqueness. She wears a blue robe just the colour of her eyes, with a little ermine tippet, and when an ancient dragon, who is reading a novel at the foot of the steps, in a cloak and ugly bonnet, speaks to her, she laughs and shakes her blond chevelure, and is so delightful altogether, that it is quite impossible to attend to the pictures. Let us go into the long gallery where the students are not so fascinating. Dirty, long-haired, and bearded men in blouses, and females in seedy crumpled black, look up as we pass by from their easels.