But I have just returned from a visit to one of Sir Christopher Wren's masterpieces, which has greatly disturbed my equanimity, and obliges me to modify my opinion. It is a church back of the Mansion House; and is the original of Godefroy's Unitarian church at Baltimore, beyond all question: the dome rests on arches, and springs into the air, as if buoyed up and aspiring of itself. Bad for the music, however. Here I find West's picture of the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, with a figure which he has repeated in "Christ Healing the Sick," and a woman,—or young man, you do not feel certain which,—weeping upon the hand of the martyr, precisely as in a painting in Baltimore Cathedral by Renou, who must have borrowed or stolen it from West, if West did not borrow or steal it from him.
Drawings.—I have just returned from visiting a collection of drawings by the old masters,—Raphael, Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, Titian, &c., &c. Wonderful, to be sure! There is a pen-and-ink drawing by Munro, of uncommon merit; another from a capital old engraving by Tiffen, hardly to be distinguished from an elaborate line engraving, full of good faces and straight lines, with nothing picturesque. A moonlight and cottage by Gainsborough, very fine. Jackson's and Robinson's miniatures, and sketches in water-colors,—charming. Leslie's designs, with Stothard's on the same subject, are delightfully contrasted: Leslie's, neatly finished and full of individuality; Stothard's, a beautiful, free generalization, without finish. (But the engraver understands him, and finishes for him, adding the hands and feet in his own way.) It is a representation of Jeanie Deans's interview with the Queen. Leslie's figure is standing; Stothard's, kneeling: yet both are expressive and helpful to our conceptions. Here, too, I saw Rembrandt's celebrated "Battle of Death," with a skeleton blowing a horn, and helmeted and plumed, and having a thigh-bone for a battle-axe,—shadows on the shoulders of horsemen, and skeleton feet;—on the whole, a monstrous nightmare, such as you might expect from Fuseli after a supper on raw beef, but never from such a painter as Rembrandt.
Phrenology.—There must be something in this new science,—for they persist in calling it a science,—though I cannot say how much. Just returned from a visit to De Ville, in the Strand, in company with Chester Harding, Robert M. Sully, the painter, and Humphries, the engraver,—each differing from the others in character and purpose; yet, after manipulating our crania, this man says of each what all the rest acknowledge to be true, and what, said of any but the particular person described, would be preposterous. Why are the busts of Socrates and Solon what they should be, according to this theory of Gall and Spurzheim? Were they modelled from life, or from characters resembling them? Compared the head of a Greek boy with that of a young Hottentot. One was largely developed in the intellectual region, the other in the animal region, and the latter cries whenever his home or his mother is mentioned. Both are at school here. Thurtell's head is a great confirmation, which anybody can judge of. I must find time for a thorough investigation.
P. S.—I have kept my promise, and am thoroughly satisfied. Phrenology deserves to be called a science, and one of the greatest and best of sciences, notwithstanding all the quackery and self-delusion that I find among the professors. I have now studied it and experimented upon it for more than thirty years, and have no longer any misgivings upon the subject, so far as the great leading principles are involved.
Manners.—If we do not record our first impressions they soon disappear; and the greatest novelties are overlooked or forgotten. Already I begin to see women with heavily-laden wheel-barrows, without surprise. I have now learned, I hope, that a postman's rap is one, two, and no more; a servant's, one; while a footman gives from four to twenty, as hard as he can bang, so as to startle the whole neighborhood and make everybody run to the windows. Eating fish with a knife said to be fatal. Great personages give you a finger to shake. I did not know this when I took the forefinger of a cast-off mistress, the original of Washington Irving's Lady Sillicraft, a painted and withered old vixen, who meant to signify her liking for me, as I had reason to believe. Moles are reckoned such a positive beauty here that my attention has been called to them, as to fine eyes or a queenly bearing. A fine woman here means a large woman, tall, dignified, and showy, like a fine horse or a fine bullock.
Never shall I forget the looks and tones of a bashful friend, in describing his embarrassment. He was at Holkham, the seat of Mr. Coke, our Revolutionary champion, who, being in Parliament at the time, moved, session after session, the acknowledgment of our independence,—am I right here?—and actually gave the health of George Washington at a large dinner-party while the Revolutionary fires were raging. There was a large company at dinner, but for his life my friend did not know what to do with the ladies nor with his hands. Goes through room after room to get his dinner; is called upon to serve a dish he has never seen before, and knows not how to manage. Asked to take wine, and wants to ask somebody else, but cannot recall the name of a single person within reach, and whispers to the servant for relief, while his eye travels up and down both sides of the long table; is reminded of the guest who said to himself, loud enough to be overheard by the waiter behind his chair, "I wish I had some bread," to which the waiter replied without moving, "I wish you had." Durst not offer his arm to a lady, lest he should violate some of the multitudinous every-day usages of society, and so, instead of enjoying his dinner, just nibbled and choked and watched how others ate of the dishes he had never seen before. Yet this man was no fool, he was not even a blockhead; but he was frightened out of all propriety nevertheless. Poor fellow! Soon after this he went to Paris, and, having picked up a few French sentences, undertook to pass off one upon a servant who took his cloak as he entered the hotel of a French celebrity in a violent rainstorm. He flung the phrase off with an air, saying, "Mauvais temps," whereupon the word was passed up from mouth to mouth, and, to his unutterable horror, he was introduced to the company as M. Mauvais Temps.