The first picture in the Fourth Room is the Prophet Samuel, by Sir Joshua. It is not the Prophet Samuel, but a very charming picture of a little child saying its prayers. The second is, The Education of Bacchus, by Nicholas Poussin. This picture makes one thirsty to look at it—the colouring even is dry and adust. It is true history in the technical phrase, that is to say, true poetry in the vulgate. The figure of the infant Bacchus seems as if he would drink up a vintage—he drinks with his mouth, his hands, his belly, and his whole body. Gargantua was nothing to him. In the Education of Jupiter, in like manner, we are thrown back into the infancy of mythologic lore. The little Jupiter, suckled by a she-goat, is beautifully conceived and expressed; and the dignity and ascendancy given to these animals in the picture is wonderfully happy. They have a very imposing air of gravity indeed, and seem to be by prescription ‘grand caterers and wet-nurses of the state’ of Heaven! Apollo giving a Poet a Cup of Water to drink is elegant and classical; and The Flight into Egypt instantly takes the tone of Scripture-history. This is strange, but so it is. All things are possible to a high imagination. All things, about which we have a feeling, may be expressed by true genius. A dark landscape (by the same hand) in a corner of the room is a proof of this. There are trees in the fore-ground, with a paved road and buildings in the distance. The Genius of antiquity might wander here, and feel itself at home.—The large leaves are wet and heavy with dew, and the eye dwells ‘under the shade of melancholy boughs.’ In the old collection (in Mr. Desenfans’ time) the Poussins occupied a separated room by themselves, and it was (we confess) a very favourite room with us.—No. 226, is a Landscape, by Salvator Rosa. It is one of his very best—rough, grotesque, wild—Pan has struck it with his hoof—the trees, the rocks, the fore-ground, are of a piece, and the figures are subordinate to the landscape. The same dull sky lowers upon the scene, and the bleak air chills the crisp surface of the water. It is a consolation to us to meet with a fine Salvator. His is one of the great names in art, and it is among our sources of regret that we cannot always admire his works as we would do, from our respect to his reputation and our love of the man. Poor Salvator! he was unhappy in his life-time; and it vexes us to think that we cannot make him amends by fancying him so great a painter as some others, whose fame was not their only inheritance!—227, Venus and Cupid, is a delightful copy after Correggio. We have no such regrets or qualms of conscience with respect to him. ‘He has had his reward.’ The weight of his renown balances the weight of barbarous coin that sunk him to the earth. Could he live now, and know what others think of him, his misfortunes would seem as dross compared with his lasting glory, and his heart would melt within him at the thought, with a sweetness that only his own pencil could express. 233, The Virgin, Infant Christ, and St. John, by Andrea del Sarto, is exceedingly good.—290, Another Holy Family, by the same, is an admirable picture, and only inferior to Raphael. It has delicacy, force, thought, and feeling. ‘What lacks it then,’ to be equal to Raphael? We hardly know, unless it be a certain firmness and freedom, and glowing animation. The execution is more timid and laboured. It looks like a picture (an exquisite one, indeed), but Raphael’s look like the divine reality itself!—No. 234, Cocles defending the Bridge, is by Le Brun. We do not like this picture, nor 271, The Massacre of the Innocents, by the same artist. One reason is that they are French, and another that they are not good. They have great merit, it is true, but their merits are only splendid sins. They are mechanical, mannered, colourless, and unfeeling.—No. 237, is Murillo’s Spanish Girl with Flowers. The sun tinted the young gipsey’s complexion, and not the painter.—No. 240, is The Casatella and Villa of Mæcenas, near Tivoli, by Wilson, with his own portrait in the fore-ground. It is an imperfect sketch; but there is a curious anecdote relating to it, that he was so delighted with the waterfall itself, that he cried out, while painting it: ‘Well done, water, by G—d!’—No. 243, Saint Cecilia, by Guercino, is a very pleasing picture, in his least gaudy manner.—No. 251, Venus and Adonis, by Titian. We see so many of these Venuses and Adonises, that we should like to know which is the true one. This is one of the best we have seen. We have two Francesco Molas in this room, the Rape of Proserpine, and a Landscape with a Holy Family. This artist dipped his pencil so thoroughly in Titian’s palette, that his works cannot fail to have that rich, mellow look, which is always delightful.—No. 303, Portrait of Philip the Fourth of Spain, by Velasquez, is purity and truth itself. We used to like the Sleeping Nymph, by Titian, when we saw it formerly in the little entrance-room at Desenfans’, but we cannot say much in its praise here.
The Fifth Room is the smallest, but the most precious in its contents.—No. 322, Spanish Beggar Boys, by Murillo, is the triumph of this Collection, and almost of painting. In the imitation of common life, nothing ever went beyond it, or as far as we can judge, came up to it. A Dutch picture is mechanical, and mere still-life to it. But this is life itself. The boy at play on the ground is miraculous. It is done with a few dragging strokes of the pencil, and with a little tinge of colour; but the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the chin, are as brimful as they can hold of expression, of arch roguery, of animal spirits, of vigorous, elastic health. The vivid, glowing, cheerful look is such as could only be found beneath a southern sun. The fens and dykes of Holland (with all our respect for them) could never produce such an epitome of the vital principle. The other boy, standing up with the pitcher in his hand, and a crust of bread in his mouth, is scarcely less excellent. His sulky, phlegmatic indifference speaks for itself. The companion to this picture, 324, is also very fine. Compared with these imitations of nature, as faultless as they are spirited, Murillo’s Virgins and Angels however good in themselves, look vapid, and even vulgar. A Child Sleeping, by the same painter, is a beautiful and masterly study.—No. 329, a Musical Party, by Giorgione, is well worthy of the notice of the connoisseur. No. 331, St. John Preaching in the Wilderness, by Guido, is an extraordinary picture, and very unlike this painter’s usual manner. The colour is as if the flesh had been stained all over with brick-dust. There is, however, a wildness about it which accords well with the subject, and the figure of St. John is full of grace and gusto.—No. 344, The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by the same, is much finer, both as to execution and expression. The face is imbued with deep passion.—No. 345, Portrait of a Man, by L. da Vinci, is truly simple and grand, and at once carries you back to that age.—Boors Merry Making, by Ostade, is fine; but has no business where it is. Yet it takes up very little room.—No. 347, Portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the character of the Tragic Muse, by Sir Joshua, appears to us to resemble neither Mrs. Siddons, nor the Tragic Muse. It is in a bastard style of art. Sir Joshua had an importunate theory of improving upon nature. He might improve upon indifferent nature, but when he had got the finest, he thought to improve upon that too, and only spoiled it.—No. 349, The Virgin and Child, by Correggio, can only be a copy.—No. 332, The Judgment of Paris, by Vanderwerf, is a picture, and by a master, that we hate. He always chooses for his subjects naked figures of women, and tantalises us by making them of coloured ivory. They are like hard-ware toys.—No. 354, a Cardinal Blessing a Priest, by P. Veronese, is dignified and picturesque in the highest degree.—No. 355, The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Annibal Caracci, is an elaborate, but not very successful performance.—No. 356, Christ bearing his Cross, by Morales, concludes the list, and is worthy to conclude it.
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD’S GALLERY
Our intercourse with the dead is better than our intercourse with the living. There are only three pleasures in life, pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things—books, pictures, and the face of nature. What is the world but a heap of ruined friendships, but the grave of love? All other pleasures are as false and hollow, vanishing from our embrace like smoke, or like a feverish dream. Scarcely can we recollect that they were, or recall without an effort the anxious and momentary interest we took in them.—But thou, oh! divine Bath of Diana, with deep azure eyes, with roseate hues, spread by the hand of Titian, art still there upon the wall, another, yet the same that thou wert five-and-twenty years ago, nor wantest
——‘Forked mountain or blue promontory
With Trees upon’t that nod unto the world,
And mock our eyes with air!’
And lo! over the clear lone brow of Tuderley and Norman Court, knit into the web and fibres of our heart, the sighing grove waves in the autumnal air, deserted by Love, by Hope, but forever haunted by Memory! And there that fine passage stands in Antony and Cleopatra as we read it long ago with exalting eyes in Paris, after puzzling over a tragedy of Racine’s, and cried aloud: ‘Our Shakspeare was also a poet!’ These feelings are dear to us at the time; and they come back unimpaired, heightened, mellowed, whenever we choose to go back to them. We turn over the leaf and ‘volume of the brain,’ and there see them face to face.—Marina in Pericles complains that
‘Life is as a storm hurrying her from her friends!’
Not so from the friends above-mentioned. If we bring but an eye, an understanding, and a heart to them, we find them always with us, always the same. The change, if there is one, is in us, not in them. Oh! thou then, whoever thou art, that dost seek happiness in thyself, independent on others, not subject to caprice, not mocked by insult, not snatched away by ruthless hands, over which Time has no power, and that Death alone cancels, seek it (if thou art wise) in books, in pictures, and the face of nature, for these alone we may count upon as friends for life! While we are true to ourselves, they will not be faithless to us. While we remember any thing, we cannot forget them. As long as we have a wish for pleasure, we may find it here; for it depends only on our love for them, and not on theirs for us. The enjoyment is purely ideal, and is refined, unembittered, unfading, for that reason.