UC-NRLF 157 11,7 3HES ;'OOb;v BBBN LIBRARY i iF TIFF. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Jteceired- Accessions No. 2- .188 Shelf No. . SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. BY MRS. JAMESON, AUTHOR OF " THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN," BTC, BOSTON: TIOKNOR AND FIELDS. M DCCC LVIII. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. J 25. ORIGINAL PREFACE. THE AUTHOR TO THE READER. IT seems a foolish thing to send into the world a book requiring a preface of apologies; and yet more absurd to presume that any deprecation on the part of the author could possibly win indul- gence for what should be in itself worthless. For this reason, and with a very deep feeling of the kindness I have already experienced from the public, I should now abandon these little volumes to their destiny without one word of preface or re- mark, but that a certain portion of their contents seems to require a little explanation. It was the wish and request of my friends, many months ago, that I should collect various literary trifles which were scattered about in print or man- uscript, and allow them to be published together. My departure for the Continent set aside this in- tention for the time. I had other and particular objects in view, which still keep full possession of my mind, and which have been suspended not without reluctance, in order to prepare these vol- umes for the press : neither had I, while travelling in Germany, the slightest idea of writing any thing VI ORIGINAL PREFACE. of that country : so far from it, that except during the last few weeks at Munich, I kept no regular notes ; but finding, on my return to England, that many particulars which had strongly excited my interest with regard to the relative state of art and social existence in the two countries appeared new to those with whom I conversed, after some hesi- tation, I was induced to throw into form the few memoranda I had made on the spot. They are now given to the public in the first volume of this little collection with a very sincere feeling of their many imperfections, and much anxiety with regard to the reception they are likely to meet with ; yet in the earnest hope that what has been written in perfect simplicity of heart, mav be perused both by my English and German friends, particularly the artists, with indulgence ; that those who read and doubt may be awakened to inquiry, and those who read and believe may be led to reflection ; and that those who differ from, and those who agree with, the writer, may both find some interest and amusement in the literal truth of the facts and im- pressions she has ventured to record. It was difficult to give sketches of art, literature, and character, without making now and then some personal allusions ; but though I have often sketched from the life, I have adhered throughout to this principle never to give publicity to any name not already before the public, and in a manner publtc property. ORIGINAL PKEFACE. VD While writing this preface, I learn that the sub- ject of the little sketch at the end of the first vol- ume is expected to return to England before she has finally quitted her profession. The first im- pulse was, of course, to cancel those pages which were written long ago, and under a far different impression, feeling that their purport might expose either the gifted person alluded to, or the author to misconstruction. But it has been found impossible to do so without causing not only a great expense, but also injury to my publishers, from the con- sequent delay. The allusion to her immediate retirement from the stage is the only error I am aware of; and that is only a truth deferred for a short period : for the rest I have no shield against folly and malignity, neither has she " Une femme une flenr, s'effeuille sans defence." Under all the circumstances I would rather the sketch had been omitted ; but as this could not be done except by an obvious injustice, after some struggle with my own wishes and feelings, I have suffered the whole to stand as originally written ; and it is trusted to the best and kindest interpreta- tion of the public. A. J. May, 1834. NOTE. The original Edition was published in two vol dines. CONTENTS. FA81 SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER, PABT I. In three Dialogues. I. A Scene in a Steamboat ...................... 16 A Singular Character ......................... 26 Gallery at Ghent ............................. 28 The Prince of Orange's Pictures ............... 31 A Female Gambler ........................... 38 Cologne The Medusa ........................ 42 Professor Wallraf ............................. 47 Schlegel and Madame de Stael ................ 49 Story of Archbishop Gerard ........ , ......... 56 Heidelberg Elizabeth Stuart. . .............. 62 An English Farmer's Idea of the Picturesque. . . 71 Q. Frankfort .................................... 73 The Theatre, Madame Haitsinger .............. 76 The Versorgung Haus ........................ 80 The Stadel Museum .......................... 83 Dannecker, Memoir of his Life and Works ..... 85 German Sculpture Rauch, Tieck, Schwanthaler 113 til, Goethe and his Daughter-in-law .............. 124 The German Women .......................... 128 German Authoresses .......................... 132 German Domestic Life and Manners ........... 140 German Coquetterie and German Romance ..... 148 [lie Story of a Devoted Sister ..... , ........... 164 : CONTENTS. SKETCHES OP ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER, PART IL Memoranda at Munich, Nuremberg, and Dresden. PAGI I. MUNICH 179 The Theatre Representation of " Egmont ".. . . 180 Leo von Klenze 185 The Glyptothek Its General Arrangement Egina Marbles Account of the Frescos of Cornelius Canova's Paris and Thorwaldson's Adonis 187-202 The Opera at Munich, the Kapel Meister Stuntz 204 The Poems of the King of Bavaria 207 A Public Day at the New Palace 209 Thoughts on Female Singers Their Condition and Destiny 211 The Munich Gallery Thoughts on Pictures Their Moral Influence 213 Rubens and the Flemish Masters 216 The Gallery of Schleissheim 225 The Boissere"e Gallery The old German School of Painting Its Effects on the Modern German School of Art 227 Representation of the Braut von Messina 230 The Hofgarten at Munich 232 The King's Passion for Building The New Pal- ace The Beauty of its Decorations Partic- ular Account of the Modern Paintings on the Walls 234-249 The Frescos of Julius Schnorr from the Nibe- lungen-Lied 250 The Frescos in the Royal Chapel 262 The Opera Madame Scheckner 265 The Kunstverein 268 Karl von Holtei 27C FSte of the Obelisk. , . 271 CONTENTS. JO PACJ1 The Gallery Pictures and Painters 278 Madame de Freyberg A Visit to Thalkirchen. . 281 Tomb of Eugene Beauharnais 284 The Sculpture in the Glyptothek 289 Plan of the Pinakothek or National Gallery 292 The Revival of Fresco Painting 301 Bavarian Sculptors 303 The Valhalla 304 Stieler, the Portrait Painter 308 Gallery of the Due de Leuchtenberg 309 Society at Munich 312 The Liederkranz 315 II. NUREMBERG 320 The Old Fortress 324 Albert Durer 325 Hans Sachs and Peter Vischer 327 The Cemetery 330 Travelling in Germany 333 m. DRESDEN 335 The Opera Madame Schroder Devrient in the " Capelletti " 339 Ludwig Tieck 342 The Dresden Gallery and the Italian School 347 Rosalba Violante Siries Henrietta Walters Maria von Osterwyck Elizabeth Sirani The Sofonisba 360 Thoughts on Female Artists Louisa and Eliza Sharpe The Countess Julie von Egloffstein . . 363 Moritz Retzsch 368 English and German Art 378 Catalogue of German Artists 381 CONTENTS. PAGE A Visit to Hardwicke 387 . A Visit to Althorpe '425 Sketch of Mrs. Siddons 448 Sketch of Fanny Kemble 476 SKETCHES OF AKT, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. PART I. IN THKEE DIALOGIJE8 SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. MEDON. And so we are to have no "Sentimen- tal Travels in Germany" on hot-pressed paper, Lustrated. with ALDA. No. MEDON. You have unloaded Time of his wallet only to deal out his k< scraps of things past," his shreds of remembrance, in beggarly, indolent fash- ion, over your own fireside ? You are afraid of being termed an egotist ; you, who within these ten minutes have assured me that not any opinion of any human being should prevent you from doing, saying, writing any thing ALDA. Finish the sentence any thing,/or truth's sake. But how is the cause of truth to be advanced by the insolent publication of a mass of crude thoughts and hasty observations picked up here and there, u as pigeons pick up pease," and which MOW lie safe within the clnsps of those little great 16 SKETCHES OF ART, books ? You need not look at them ; they do not contain another Diary of an Ennuyee, thank Heav- en ! nor do I feel much inclined to play the Enni*- yeuse in public. MEDON. " Take any form but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble ; " but with eyes to see, a heart to feel, a mind to observe, and a pen to record those observations, I do not perceive why you should not contribute one drop to that great ocean of thought which is weltering round the world ! ALDA. If I could. MEDON. There are people, who when they trav- el open their eyes and their ears, (aye, and their mouths to some purpose,) and shut up their hearts and souls. I have heard such persons make it their boast, that they have returned to old England with all their old prejudices thick upon them ; they have come back, to use their own phrase, " with no for- eign ideas -just the same as they went : " they are much to be congratulated ! I hope you are not one of these ? ALDA. I hope not; it is this cold imperviou? pride which is the perdition of us English and of England. I remember, that in one of my several excursions on the Rhine, we had on board the steamboat an English family of high rank. There was the lordly papa, plain and shy, who never spoke to any one except his own family, and then only in the lowest whisper. There was the lady mamma, so truly lady-like, with fine-cut patrician LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. ] 7 features, and in her countenance a kind of passive haicteur, softened by an appearance of suffering, and ill-health. There were two daughters, proud, pale, fine-looking girls, dressed a ravir, with that indescribable air of high pretension, so elegantly impassive so self-possessed which some people call Vair distingue, but which, as extremes meet, I would rather call the refinement of vulgarity the polish we see bestowed on debased material the plating over the steel the stucco over the brick work ! MED ON. Good ; you can be severe then ! ALDA. I spoke generally : bear witness to the general truth of the picture, for it will fit others as well as the personages I have brought before you, who are, indeed, but specimens of a species. This group, then, had designedly or instinctively in- trenched themselves in a corner to the right of the steersman, within a fortification of tables and benches, so arranged as to forbid all approach within two or three yards; the young ladies had each their sketch-book, and wielded pencil and Indian rubber, I know not with what effect, but I know that I never saw either countenance once relax or brighten in the midst of the divine scenery through which we glided. Two female attendants, seated on the outer fortifications, formed a kind of piquet guard ; and two footmen at the other end kept watch over the well-appointed carriages, and came and went as their attendance was required. No one else ventured to approach this aristocratic 18 SKETCHES OF ART, Olympus; the celestials within its precincts, though not exactly seated " on golden stools at golden tables," like the divinities in the song of the Parcae,* phowed as supreme, as godlike an indifference to the throng of mortals in the nether sphere : no word was exchanged during the whole day with any of the fifty or sixty human beings who were round them ; nay, when the rain drove us down to the pavilion, even there, amid twelve or fourteen others, they contrived to keep themselves alooi from contact and conversation. In this fashion they probably pursued their tour, exchanging the interior of their travelling carriage for the interior of an hotel ; and everywhere associating only with those of their own caste. What do they see of all that is to be seen ? What can they know of what is to be known ? What do they endure of what is to be endured ? I can speak from experience I have travelled in that same style. As they went, so they return ; happily, or rather pitifully, uncon- scious of the narrow circle in which move their factitious enjoyments, their confined experience, their half-awakened sympathies ! And I should tell you, that in the same steamboat were two German girls, under the care of an elderly relative, I think an aunt, and a brother, who was a celebrated juris- cor.sulte and judge : their rank was equal to that of my country-women ; their blood, perhaps, more purely noble, that is, older by some centuries; and * In Goethe's Iphigenia LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. tLeir family more illustrious, by God many quarterings ; moreover, their minister of state. Both these girls were beautiful ; fair, and fair-haired, with complexions on which " the rose stood ready with a blush ; " and one, the youngest sister, was exquisitely lovely in truth, she might have sat for one of Guido's angels. They walked up and down the deck, neither seeking nor avoiding the proximity of others. They accepted the telescopes which the gentlemen, particularly some young Englishmen, pressed on them when any distant or remarkable object came in view, and repaid the courtesy with a bright kindly smile ; they were natural and easy, and did not deem it necessary to mount guard over their own dignity. Do you think I did not observe and feel the cor:- trast ? MEDON. If nations begin at last to understand each other's true interests, morally and politically, it will be through the agency of gifted men ; but if ever they learn to love and sympathize with each other, it will be through the medium of you women. You smile, and shake your head ; but in spite of a late example, which might seem to controvert this idea, I still think so : our prejudices are stronger and bitterer than yours, because they are those which perverted reason builds up on a foundation of pride ; but yours, which are generally those of fancy and association, soon melt away before your own kindly affections. More mobile, more impres- sible, more easily yielding to external circum- 20 SKETCHES OF ART, stances, more easily lending yourselves to different manners and habits, more quick to perceive, more gentle to judge ; yes, it is to you we must look, to break down the outworks of prejudice you r the advanced guard of humanity and civilization ! " The gentle race and dear, By whom alone the world is glorified ! " Every feeling, well educated, generous, and truly refined woman who travels is as a dove sent out on a mission of peace ; and should bring back at least an olive-leaf in her hand, if she bring nothing else. It is her part to soften the intercourse between rougher and stronger natures ; to aid in the inter- fusion of the gentler sympathies ; to speed the in- terchange of art and literature from pole to pole : not to pervert wit, and talent, and eloquence, and abuse the privileges of her sex, to sow the seeds of hatred where she might plant those of love to im- bitter national discord and aversion, and dissemi- nate individual prejudice and error. ALDA. Thank you ! I need not say how entirely t agree with you. MEDOX. Then tell me, what have you brought home V if but an olive-leaf, let us have it ; come, unpack your budget. Have you collected store ol anecdotes, private, literary, scandalous, abundantly interspersed with proper names of grand-dukes and little dukes, counts, barons, ministers, poets, authors, actors, and opera- dancers ? AiDA. I ! LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 21 MEDON. Cry you mercy ! I did but jest, so do not look so indignant ! But have you then traced the cause and consequences of that under-current of opinion which is slowly but surely sapping the foundations of empires ? Have you heard the low booming of that mighty ocean which approaches, wave after wave, to break up the dikes and boun- daries of ancient power ? ALDA. I ! no ; how should I skimming over the surface of society with perpetual sunshine and favoring airs how should I sound the gulfs and shoals which lie below ? MEDON. Have you, then, analyzed that odd combination of poetry, metaphysics, and politics, which, like the three primeval colors, tinge in va- rious tints and shades, simple and complex, all liter- ature, morals, art, and even conversation, through Germany ? ALDA. No, indeed ! MEDON. Have you decided between the dif- ferent systems of Jacobi and Schelling? ALDA. You know I am a poor philosopher ; but when Schelling was introduced to me at Munich, I remember I looked up at him with inexpressible admiration, as one whose giant arm had cut through an isthmus, and whose giant mind had new-model- led the opinions of minds as gigantic as his own. MEDON. Then you are of this new school, which reveals the union of faith and philosophy ? ALDA. If I am, it is by instinct. MEDOX. Well, to descend to your own poculiai 22 SKETCHES OF ART, sphere, ha ve you satisfied yourself as to the moral and social position of the women in Germany ? ALDA. No, indeed ! at least, not yet. MEDOX. Have you examined and noted down the routine of the domestic education of their chil- dren ? (we know something of the public and na- tional systems.) Can you give some accurate no- lion of the ideas which generally prevail on this subject ? ALDA. O no ! you have mentioned things which would require a life to study. Merely to have thought upon them, to have glanced at them, gives me no right to discuss them, unless I could bring my observations to some tangible form, and derive from them some useful result. MEDOX. Yet in this last journey you had an object a purpose? ALDA. I had a purpose which has long been revolving in my mind an object never lost sight of; but give me time ! time ! MEDOX. I see ; but are you prepared for con- sequences ? Can you task your sensitive mind to stand reproach and ridicule ? Remember your own story of Runckten the traveller, who, when about to commence his expedition into the desarts of Africa, prepared himself, by learning beforehand to digest poisons ; to swallow without disgust rep- tiles, spiders, vermin ALDA. " Thou hast the most unsavory similes ! * MKDOX. Take a proverb then " Bisogna co- prirsi bene il viso innanzi di struzzicare il vespaio. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 23 AI.DA. I will not hide my face ; nor can I an- swer you in this jesting vein, for to me it is a serious thought. There is in the kindly feelings, the spon- taneous sympathy of the public towards me, some- thing which fills me with gratitude and respect, and tells me to respect myself; which I would not ex- change for the greater eclat which hangs round greater names; which I will not forfeit by writing one line from an unworthy motive ; nor flatter, nor invite, by withholding one thought, opinion, or sen- timent which I believe to be true, and to which I can put the seal of my heart's conviction. MEDON. Good ! I love a little enthusiasm now and then ; so like Britomart in the enchanter's palace, the motto is, " Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold. " ALDA. I should rather say, be gentle, be gentle, everywhere be gentle ; and then we cannot be too bold* MEDON. Well, then, I return once more to the charge. Have you been rambling about the world for these six months, yet learned nothing ? ALDA. On the contrary. MEDON. Then what, in Heaven's name, have you learned ? ALDA. Not much ; but I have learned to sweep my mind of some ill-conditioned cobwebs. I have learned to consider my own acquired knowledge * Over another iron door was writt, Be not too bold. FAERT QUEEN, Book in Canto rf. 4 SKETCHES OF ART, but as a torch flung into an abyss, making the darkness visible, and showing me the extent of my own ignorance. ME DON. Then give us give me, at least the benefit of your ignorance ; only let it be all your own. I honor a profession of ignorance if only for its rarity in these all-knowing times. Let me tell you, the ignorance of a candid and not uncul- tivated mind is better than the second-hand wisdom of those who take all things for granted ; who are the echoes of others' opinions, the utterers of others words ; who think they know, and who think they think : I am sick of them all. Come, refresh me with a little ignorance and be serious. ALDA. You make me smile ; after all, 'tis only going over old ground, and I know not what pleas- ure, what interest it can impart, beyond half an hour's amusement. MEDOX. Sceptic ! is that nothing ? In this harsh, cold, working-day world, is half an hour's amuse- ment nothing ? Old ground ! as if you did not know the pleasure of going over old ground with a new companion to refresh half-faded recollections to compare impressions to correct old ideas and acquire new ones ! O I can suck knowledge out of ignorance, as a weazel sucks eggs ! Begin. ALDA. Where shall I begin ? MEDOX. Where, but at the beginning ! and then diverge as you will. Your first journey was one of mere amusement ? AI.DA. Merely, and it answered its purpose ; we LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 25 travelled a la milor Anglais a partie carree a barouche hung on the most approved principle double-cushioned luxurious rising and sinking on its springs like a swan on the wave the pockets stuffed with new publications maps and guides ad infinitum; English servants for comfort, foreign servants for use ; a chessboard, backgammon tables in short, surrounded with all that could render us entirely independent of the amusements we had come to seek, and of the people among whom we had come to visit. MEDON. Admirable and English ! ALDA. Yes, and pleasant. 1 thought, not with- out gratitude, of the contrasts between present feelings and those of a former journey. To aban- don one's self to the quickening influence of new objects without care or thought of to-morrow, with a mind awake in all its strength; with restored health and cheerfulness ; with sensibility tamed, not dead ; possessing one's soul in quiet ; not seek- ing, nor yet shrinking from excitement ; not self- engrossed, nor yet pining for sympathy ; was not this much ? Not so interesting, perhaps, as playing the ennuyee ; but, oh ! you know not how sad it is to look upon the lovely through tearful eyes, and walk among the loving and the kind wrapped as m a death-shroud ; to carry into the midst of the most glorious scenes of nature, and the divinest creations of art, perceptions dimmed and troubled with sickness and anguish : to move in the morn- ing with aching and reluctance to faint in the 26 SKETCHES OF ART, evening with weariness and pain ; to feel all change, all motion, a torment to the dying heart ; all rest, all delay, a burden to the impatient spirit ; to shiver in the presence of joy, like a ghost in the sunshine, yet have no sympathy to spare for suf- fering. How could I remember that all this had been- and not bless the miracle-worker Time? And apropos to the miracles of time I had on this first journey one source of amusement, which I am sorry I cannot share with you at full length ; it was the near contemplation of a very singular character, of which I can only afford you a sketch. Our CHEF de voyage, for so we chose to entitle him who was the planner and director of our excursion, was one of the most accomplished and most eccentric of human beings : even courtesy might have termed him old, at seventy ; but old age and he were many miles asunder, and it seemed as though he had made some compact with Time, like that of Faust with the devil, and was not to surrender to his in- evitable adversary till the very last moment. Years could not quench his vivacity, nor " stale his infinite variety." He had been one of the prince's wild companions in the days of Sheridan and Fox, and could play alternately blackguard and gentleman, and both in perfection ; but the high-born gentle- man ever prevailed. He had been heir to an enormous income, most of which had slipped through his fingers unknoivnst, as the Irish say, and had stood in the way of a coronet, which, somehow or other, had passed over his head to light on that LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 27 nf his eldest son. He had lived a life which would have ruined twenty iron constitutions, and had suffered what might well have broken twenty hearts of common stuff; but his self-complacency was invulnerable, his animal spirits inexhaustible, his activity indefatigable. The eccentricities of this singular man have been matter of celebrity ; but against each of these stories it would be easy to place some act of benevolence, some trait of lofty, gentle- manly feeling, which would at least neutralize their effect. He often told me that he had early in life selected three models, after which to form his own conduct and character ; namely, De Grammont, Hotspur, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury ; and he certainly did unite, in a greater degree than he knew himself, the characteristics of all three. Such was our CHEF, and thus led, thus appointed, away we posted, from land to land, from city to city MEDON. Stay stay ! this is galloping on at the rate of Lenora and her phantom lover " Tramp, tramp across the land we go, Splash, splash across the sea! " Take me with you, and a little more leisurely. ALDA. I think Bruges was the first place which interested me, perhaps from its historical associa- tions. Bruges, where monarchs kissed the hand to merchants, now emptied of its former splendor, re- minded me of the improvident steward in Scrip- ture, Avho could not dig, and to beg was ashamed. It had an air of grave idleness and threadbare 28 SKETCHES OF ART, dignity ; and its listless, thinly scattered inhabitants looked as if they had gone astray among the wide streets and huge tenantless edifices. There is one thing here which you must see the tomb of Charles the Bold, and his daughter Mary of Burgundy. The tomb is of the most exquisite workmanship, com- posed of polished brass and enamelled escutcheons ; and there the fiery father and the gentle daughter lie, side by side, in sculptured bronze, equally still, cold, and silent. I remember that I stood long gazing on the inscription, which made me smile, and made me think. There was no mention of defeat and massacre, disgraceful flight, or obscure death. " But," says the epitaph, after enumerating his titles, his exploits, and his virtues, " Fortune, who had hitherto been his good lady, ungently turned her back upon him, on such a day of such a year, and oppressed him," an amusing instance of mingled courtesy and naivete. Ghent was our next resting-place. The aspect of Ghent, so fa- miliarized to us of late by our travelled artists, made a strong impression upon me, and I used to walk about for hours together, looking at the strange picturesque old buildings coeval with the Spanish dominion, with their ornamented fronts and peaked roofs. There is much trade here, many flourishing manufactories, and the canals and quays often exhibited a lively scene of bustle, of which the form, at least, was new to us. The first ex- position, or exhibition, of the newly-founded Royal Academy of the Netherlands was at this season LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 29 open. You will allow it was a fair opportunity of judging of the present state of painting, in the Belf-same land where she had once found, if not a temple, at least a home. MED ON. And learned to be homely but the result ? ALDA. I can scarcely express the surprise I felt at the time, though it has since diminished on reflection. All the attempts at historical painting were bad, without exception. There was the usual assortment of Virgins, St. Cecilias, Cupids and Psyches, Zephyrs and Floras; but such incom- parable atrocities ! There were some cabinet pic- tures in the same style in which their Flemish ancestors excelled such as small interior con- versation pieces, battle pieces, and flowers and fruit ; some of these were really excellent, but the proportion of bad to good was certainly fifty to one. MEDON. Something like bur own Royal Acad- emy. ALDA. No ; because with much which was quite as bad, quite as insipid, as coarse in taste, as stupidly presumptuous in attempt, and ridiculous in failure, as ever shocked me on the walls of Som- erset House, there was nothing to be compared to the best pictures I have seen there. As I looked and listened to the remarks of the crowd around me, I perceived that the taste for art is even as low in the Netherlands as it is here and else* where. SO SKETCHES OF ART, MEDON, And, surely, not from the want of models, nor from the want of facility in the meausi of studying them. You visited, of course, Sehamp'u collection ? ALDA. Surely; there were miracles of art crowded together like goods in a counting-house, with wondrous economy of space, and more la- mentable economy of light. Some were nailed against doors, inside and out, or suspended from screens and window-shutters. Here I saw Rubens' picture of Father Rutseli, the confessor of Albert and Isabella : one of those heads more suited to the crown than to the cowl grand, sagacious, in- tellectual, with such a world of meaning in the eye that one almost shrunk away from the expression. Here, too, I found that remarkable picture of Charles the First, painted by Lely during the king's imprisonment at Windsor the only one for which he sat between his dethronement and hig death : he is still melancholy and gentlemanlike, but not quite so dignified as on the canvas of Vandyke. This is the very picture that Horace Walpole mentions as lost or abstracted from the collection at Windsor. How it came into Schamp'a collection I could not learn. A very small head of an Italian girl by Correggio, or in his manner, hung close beside a Dutch girl by Mieris : equally exquisite as paintings, they gave me an opportunity of contrasting two styles, both founded in nature but the nature, how different ! the one all life, the ather life and soul. Schamp's collection is liberally LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 31 open to the public, as well as many others ; if art- ists fail, it is not for want of models. MEDON. Perhaps for want of patronage ? Yet I hear that the late king of the Netherlands sent several young artists to Italy at his own expense, and that the Prince of Orange was liberal and even munificent in his purchases particularly of the old masters. ALDA. When I went to see the collection of the Prince of Orange at Brussels, I stepped from the room in which hung the glorious Vandykes, per- haps unequalled in the world, into the adjoining apartment, in which were two unfinished portraits disposed upon easels. They represented members of the prince's family; and were painted by a native artist of fashionable fame, and royally pat- ronised. These were pointed out to my admiration as universally approved. What shall I say of them ? Believe me, that they were contemptible beyond all terms of contempt ! Can you tell me why the Prince of Orange should have sufficient taste to select and appropriate the finest specimens of art, and yet purchase and patronise the vilest daubs ever perpetrated by imbecility and pre- sumption ? MEDON. I know not, unless it be that in the former case he made use of others' eyes and judg- ment, and in the latter of his own. ALDA. I might have anticipated the answer; uut be that as it may, of all the galleries I saw in fche Netherlands, the small but invaluable collection 52 SKETCHES OF ART, he had formed in his palace pleased me most. 1 remember a portrait of Sir Thomas More, by Holbein. A female head, bj Leonardo da Vinci, said to be one of the mistresses of Francis I., but this is doubtful; that most magnificent group, Christ delivering the keys to St. Peter, by Rubens, once in England; about eight or ten Vandykes, masterpieces for instance, Philip IV. and his min- ister Olivarez ; and a Chevalier le Roy and his wife, all that you can imagine of chivalrous dignity and lady-like grace. But there was one picture, a family group, by Gonsalez, which struck me more than all the rest put together. I had never seen any production of this painter, whose works are scarcely known out of Spain ; and I looked upon this with equal astonishment and admiration. There was also a small but most curious collection of pictures, of the ancient Flemish and German schools, which it is now the fashion to admire, and, what is worse, to imitate. The word fashion does not express the national enthusiasm on this subject which prevails in Germany. I can understand that these pictures are often most interesting as historic documents, and often admirable for their literal transcripts of nature and expression, but they can only possess comparative excellence and relative value ; and where the feeling of ideal beauty and classic grace has been highly cultivated, the eye shrinks involuntarily from these hard, grotesque, and glaring productions of an age when genius was blindly groping amid the darkness of ignorance. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 38 To confess the truth, I was sometimes annoyed, and sometimes amused, by the cant I heard in Germany about those schools of painting which preceded Albert Durer. Perhaps I should not say cant it is a vile expression ; and in German affectation there is something so very peculiar so poetical, so so natural, if I might say so, that I would give it another name if I could find one. In this worship of their old painters I really could sympathize sometimes, even when it most provoked me. Retzsch, whom I had the delight of knowing at Dresden, showed me a sketch, in which he had ridiculed this mania with the most exquisite humor: it represented the torso of an antique Apollo, (em- blematical of ideal grace,) mutilated and half- buried in the earth, and subject to every species of profanation ; it serves as a stool for a German student, who, with his shirt collar turned down, and his hair dishevelled, and his cap stuck on one side a la Rafaelle, is intently copying a stiff, hard, sour-looking old Madonna, while Ignorance looks on, gaping with admiration. No one knows better than Retzsch the value of these ancient masters no one has a more genuine feeling for all that is admirable in them ; but no one feels more sensibly the gross perversion and exaggeration of the wor- ship paid to them. I wish he would publish this good-humored little bit of satire, which is too just and too graceful to be called a caricature. - I must tell you, however, that there were two most curious old pictures in the Orange Gallery 34 SKETCHES OF ART, I which arrested my attention, and of which 1 have retained a very distinct and vivid recollection ; and that is more than I can say of many better pictures. They tell, in a striking manner, a very interesting story : the circumstances are said to have occurred about the year 985, but I cannot say that they rest on any very credible authority. Of these two pictures, each exhibits two scenes. A certain nobleman, a favorite of the Emperor Otho, is condemned to death by his master on the false testimony of the empress, (a sort of Potiphar's wife,) who has accused him of having tempted her to break her marriage vow. In the background wo see the unfortunate man ]ed to judgment; he is in his shirt, bare-footed and bare-headed. His wife walks at his side, to whom he appears to be speak- ing earnestly, and endeavoring to persuade her of his innocence. A friar precedes them, and a crowd of people follow after. On the walls of the city stand the emperor and his wicked empress, looking down on the melancholy procession. In the foreground, we have the de*ad body of the victim, stretched upon the earth, and the execu- tioner is in the act of delivering the head to hit wife, who looks grim with despair. The severed head and ilowing blood are painted with such a horrid and literal fidelity to nature, that it has been found advisable to cover this portion of the picture. In the foreground of the second picture, the Emperor Otho is represented on his throne, siuv LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 35 rounded by his counsellor? and courtiers. Before him kneels the widow of the count : she has the ghastly head of her husband in her lap, and in her left hand she holds firmly and unhurt the red-hot iron, the fiery ordeal by which she proves to the satisfaction of all present the innocence of her murdered lord. The emperor looks thunderstruck; the empress stands convicted, and is condemned to death ; and in the background, we have the catas- trophe. She is bound to a stake, the fire is kindled, and she suffers the terrible penalty of her crime. These pictures, in subject and execution, might be termed tragico-comico-historical ; but in spite of the harshness of the drawing, and the thousand defects of style and taste, they fix the attention by th CHARACTER. 5? was excommunicated and degraded, of course ; but he insisted on his right to retain his secular domin* ions and privileges, and refused to resign the elec- torate, which the emperor, meantime, had awarded to Ernest of Bavaria, Bishop of Liege. The con- test became desperate. The whole of that beauti- ful and fertile plain, from the walls of Cologne to the Godesberg, grew "familiar with bloodshed as the morn with dew ; " and Gerard displayed quali- ties which showed him more fitted to win and wear a bride than to do honor to any priestly vows of sanctity and temperance. Attacked on all sides, by his subjects, who had learned to detest him as an apostate, by the infuriated clergy, and by the Duke of Bavaria, who had brought an army to enforce his brother's claims, he carried on the struggle for five years, and at last, reduced to ex- tremity, threw himself, with a few faithful friends, into the castle of Godesberg. After a brave de- fence, the castle was stormed and taken by the Bavarians, who left it nearly in the state we now see it a heap of ruins. Gerard escaped with his wife, and fled to Hol- land, where Maurice, Prince of Orange, granted bim an asylum. Thence he sent his beautiful and vlevoted wife to the court of Queen Elizabeth, to claim a former promise of protection, and suppli- cate her aid, as the great support of the Protestant cause, for the recovery of his rights. He could Hot have chosen a more luckless ambassadress ; for Agnes, though her beauty was somewhat impaired 58 SKETCHES OF ART, by the persecutions and anxieties which had fol lowed her ill-fated union, was yet most lovely and stately, in all the pride of womanhood ; and her misfortunes and her charms, as well as the peculiar circumstances of her marriage, excited the enthu- siasm of all the English chivalry. Unhappily, the Earl of Essex was among the first to espouse her cause with all the generous warmth of his charac- ter ; and his visits to her were so frequent, and his admiration so indiscreet, that Elizabeth's jealousy was excited even to fury. Agnes was first driven from the court, and then ordered to quit the king- dom. She took refuge in the Netherlands, where she died soon afterward ; and Gerard, who never recovered his dominions, retired to Strasbourg, where he died. So ends this sad eventful history, which, methinks, would make a very pretty ro- mance. The tower of Godesberg, lasting as their love and ruined as their fortunes, still remains one of the most striking monuments in that land, where almost every hill is crowned with its castle, and every castle has its tale of terror or of love.* Another beautiful picture, which, merely as a picture, has dwelt on my remembrance, was the city of Coblentz and the fort of Ehrenbreitsteiri, as viewed from the bridge of boats under a cloud- less moon. The city, with its fantastic steeples and masses of building, relieved against the clear deep * For the story of Archbishop Gebhard and Agnes de Mansfield. ix Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War, and Coxe's His- tory of the House of Austrir LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 59 blue of the summer sky the lights which sparkled in the windows reflected in the broad river, and the various forms and tall masts of the craft an- chored above and opposite the huge hill, with its tiara of fortifications, which, in the sunshine and in the broad day, had disappointed me by its formality, now seen under the soft moonlight, as its long lines of architecture and abrupt angles were projected in brightness or receded in shadow, had altogether a most sublime eifect. But apropos to moonlight and pictures of all the enchanted and enchanting scenes ever lighted by the full round moon, give me Heidelberg ! Not the Colosseum of Rome neither in itself, nor yet in Lord Byron's descrip- tion, and I have both by heart can be more grand; and in moral interest, in poetical associa- tions, in varying and wondrous beauty, the castle of Heidelberg has the advantage. In the course of many visits, Heidelberg became to me familiar as the face of a friend, and its remembrance still " haunts me as a passion." I have known it under every changeful aspect which the seasons, and the hours, and the changeful moods of my own mind could lend it. I have seen it when the SUM, rising over the Geisberg, first kindled the vapors as they floated away from the old towers, and when tho ivy and the wreathed verdure on the walls sparkled with dewy .light : and I have seen it when its huge black masses stood against the flaming sunset ; and its enormous shadow, flung down the chasm be- neath, made it night there, while daylight lingered 80 SKETCHES OF ART, around and above. I have seen it when mantled in all the bloom and foliage of summer, and when the dead leaves were heaped on the paths, and choked the entrance to many a favorite nook. I have seen it when crowds of gay visitors flitted along its ruined terraces,* and music sounded near ; and with friends, whose presence endeared every pleasure ; and I have walked alone round its deso- late precincts, with no companions but my own sad and troubled thoughts. I have seen it when clothed in calm and glorious moonlight. I have seen it when the winds rushed shrieking through its sculptured halls, and when gray clouds came rolling down the mountains, folding it in their am- ple skirts from the view of the city below. And what have I seen to liken to it by night or by day, in storm or in calm, in summer or in winter ! Then its historical and poetical associations MEDON. There now! will you not leave the picture, perfect as it is, and not forever seek in every object something more than is there ? ALDA. I do not seek it I find it. You will say I have heard you say that Heidelberg wants no beauty unborrowed of the eye ; but if history had not clothed it in recollections, fancy must have invested it in its own dreams. It is true, that it is a mere modern edifice compared with all the clas- sic, and most of the gothic ruins ; yet over Heidel- * The gardens anJ plantations round the castle are a favorite promenade of the citizens of Heidelberg, and there are in summet bands of music, &c. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 61 berg there hangs a terror and a mystery peeuliai to itself: for the mind which acquiesces in decay recoils from destruction. Here ruin and desola- tion make mocks with luxurious art and gay mag- nificence. Here it is not the equal, gradual power of time, adorning and endearing what yet it spares not, which has wrought this devastation, but savage war and elemental rage. Twice blasted by the thunderbolt, three times consumed by fire, ten times ravaged, plundered, desecrated by foes, and at last dismantled and abandoned by its own princes, it is still strong to endure and mighty to resist all that time, and war, and the elements may do against it and, mutilated rather than decayed, may still defy centuries. The very anomalies of architecture and fantastic incongruities of this fortress-palace are to me a fascination. Here are startling and terrific contrasts. That huge round tower the tower of Frederic the Victorious now " deep trenched with thunder fires," looks as if built by the Titans or the Huns ; and those delicate sculptures in the palace of Otho-Henry, as if the genius of RaiTaelle or Correggio had breathed on the stone. What flowing grace of outline ! what /uxuriant life ! what endless variety and invention in those half-defaced fragments ! These are the work of Italian artists, whose very names have per- ished ; all traces of their existence and of their destinies so utterly lost, that one might almost believe, with the peasantry, that these exquisite remains are not the work of mortal hands, but of 62 SKETCHES OF ART, fairies and spirits of air, evoked to do the will of an enchanter. The old palatines, the lords of Heidel- berg, were a magnificent and magnanimous race. Louis III., Frederic the Victorious, Frederic II., Otho-Henry, were all men who had stepped in ad- vance of their age. They could think as well as fight, in days when fighting, not thinking, was the established fashion among potentates and people. A liberal and enlightened spirit, and a love of all the arts that humanize mankind, seem to have been hereditary in this princely family. Frederic I. lay under the suspicion of heresy and sorcery, in consequence of his tolerant opinions, and his love of mathematics and astronomy. His personal prowess, and the circumstance of his never having been vanquished in battle, gave rise to the report that he was assisted by evil demons ; and for years, both before and after his accession, he was under the ban of the secret tribunal. Heidel- berg was the scene of some of the mysterious attacks on his life, but they were constantly 'frus- trated by the fidelity of his friends, and the watch- ful lov- 1 , of his wife. It was at Heidelberg this prince celebrated a festival, renowned in German history ; and for the age in which it occurred, most extraordinary. He invited to a banquet all the factious barons whom he had vanquished at Seckingen, and who hat? previously ravaged and laid waste great part of the palatinate. Among them were the Bishop of Metz and the Margrave of Baden. The repast was LITERATURE, AND CHAR ACTEB. 63 plentiful and luxurious, but there was no bread. The warrior guests looked round with surprise and inquiry. " Do you ask for bread ? " said Frederic, sternly ; " you, who have wasted the fruits of the earth, and destroyed those whose industry culti- vates it ? There is no bread. Eat, and be satis- fied ; and learn henceforth mercy to those who put the bread into your mouths." A singular lesson from the lips of an iron-clad warrior of the middle ages. It was Frederic II. and his nephew Otho-Henry, who enriched the library, then the first in Europe next to the Vatican, with treasures of learning, and who invited painters and sculptors from Italy to adorn their noble palace with the treasures of art. In less than one hundred years those beauti- ful creations were defaced or utterly destroyed, and all the memorials and records of their authors are supposed to have perished at the time when the ruthless Tilly stormed the castle ; and the archives and part of the library of precious MSS. were taken to litter his dragoons' horses, during a tran- aent scarcity of straw.* You groan ! MEDON. The anecdote is not new to me ; but 1 was thinking, at the moment, of a pretty phrase in tlw letters of the Prince de Ligne, " la guerre * When Gustavus Adolphus took Mayence, during the same war, he presented the whole of the valuable library to his chan- cellor, Oxenstiern; the chancellor sent it to Sweden, intending to bestow it on one of the < olleges ; but the vessel in which it was embarked foundered in the Baltic Sea, and the whole went V> the bottom. U I SKETCHES OF AR1, c'est un malheur mais c'est le plus beau des mi 1- heurs." ALDA. O, if there be any thing more terrifL ; more disgusting, than war and its consequences, i t is that perversion of all human intellect that de pravation of all human feeling that contempt o: misconception of every Christian precept, which has permitted the great, and the good, and the tender-hearted, to admire war as a splendid game a part of the poetry of life and to defend it as a glorious evil, which the very nature and passions of man have ever rendered, and will ever render, necessary and inevitable! Perhaps the idea of human suffering though when we think of it in detail it makes the blood curdle is not so bad as the general loss to humanity, the interruption to the progress of thought in the destruction of the works of wisdom or genius. Listen to this magnif- icent sentence out of the volume now lying open beiore me " Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. Many a man lives a burthen to the earth, but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treas- ured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss : and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse ; therefore we should be wary how we spill the seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books." LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 65 MEDON. " Methinks we do know the fine Roman hand." Milton, is it not V ALDA. Yes ; and after this, think of Milton's Areopagitica, or his Paradise Lost, under the hoofs of Tilly's dragoon horses, or feeding the fishes in the Baltic ! It might have happened had he written in Germany instead of England. MEDON. Do you forget that the cause of the thirty years' war was a woman ? ALDA. A woman and religion ; the two best or worst things in the world, according as they are understood and felt, used and abused. You allude to Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was to Heidelberg what Helen was to Troy ? One of the most interesting monuments of Hei- delberg, at least to an English traveller, is the ele- gant triumphal arch raised by the Palatine Fred- eric V. in honor of his bride this very Elizabeth Stuart. I well remember with what self-compla- cency and enthusiasm our Chef walked about in a heavy rain, examining, dwelling upon every trace of this celebrated and unhappy woman. She had been educated at his country-seat, and one of the avenues of his magnificent park yet bears her name. On her fell a double portion of the miseries of her fated family. She had the beauty and the wit, the gay spirits, the elegant tastes, the kindly disposition of her grandmother, Mary of Scotland. Her very virtues as a wife and a woman, not less than her pride and feminine prejudices, ruined her- self, her husband, and her people. When Frederic 5 &6 SKETCHES OF AR1, hesitated to accept the crown of Bohemia, hearted wile exclaimed " Let me rather eat dry bread at a king's table than feast at the board of ao elector ; " and it seemed as if some avenging demor hovered in the air, to take her literally at her word, for she and her family lived to eat dry bread ay, and to beg it before they ate it; but she would be a queen. Blest as she was in love, in all good gifts of nature and fortune, in all means of hap- piness, a kingly crown was wanting to complete her felicity, and it was cemented to her brow with the blood of two millions of men. And who was to blame ? Was not her mode of thinking the fashion of her time, the effect of her education ? Who had " Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame Of golden sovereignty?" For how many ages will you men exclaim against the mischiefs and miseries caused by the influence of women ; thus allowing the influence, yet taking no thought how to make that influence a means of good, instead of an instrument of evil ! Elizabeth had brought with her from England some luxurious tastes, as yet unknown in the pala- tinate ; she had been familiarized with the dramas of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and she had figured in the masques of Ben Jonson. - To gratify her, Frederic added to the castle of Heidelberg the theatre and banqueting-room, and all that beauti- ^il group of buildings at the western angle, the LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 6? tuins of which are still called the English palace She had inherited from her grandmother, or had early imbibed from education, a love of nature and of amusements in the open air, and a passion for gardening ; and it was to please her, and under her auspices, that Frederic planned those magnif- icent gardens, which were intended to unite within their bounds, all that nature could contribute or art devise ; had they been completed, they would have rendered Heidelberg a pleasure-palace, fit for fairy- land. Nor were those designs unworthy of a pros- perous and pacific sovereign, whose treasury was full, whose sway was just and mild, whose people had long enjoyed in tranquillity the fruits of their own industry. When I had the pleasure of spend- ing a few days with the Schlossers, at their beauti- ful seat on the Necker, (Stift Neuburg,) I went over the ground with Madame de Schlosser, who had seen and studied the original plans. Her description of the magnitude and the sumptuous taste of these unfinished designs, while we stood together amid a wilderness of ruins, was a com- mentary on the vicissitudes of this world, worth filly moral treatises, and as many sermons. " For in the wreck of is and WAS, Things incomplete and purposes betray'd, Make sadder transits o'er Truth's mystic glass, Than noblest objects utterly decay'd." Close to the ruins of poor Elizabeth's palace, there where the effigies of he* handsome husband, and $ SKETCHES OK ART, his bearded ancestor Louis V. look down from the ivy-mantled wall, you remember the beautiful ter- race towards the west? It is still, after four cen- turies of changes, of disasters, of desolation, the garden of Clara. When Frederic the Victorious assumed the sovereignty, in a moment of danger and faction, he took, at the same time, a solemn vo\v never to marry, that the rights of his infant nephew, the son of the late palatine, should not be prejudiced, nor the peace of the country endan- gered by a disputed succession. He kept his oath religiously, but at that very time he loved Clara Dettin de Wertheim, a young girl of plebeian origin, and a native of Augsburg, whose musica* talents and melody of voice had raised her to a high situation in the court of the late princess pala- tine. Frederic, with the consent of his nephew, was united to Clara by a left-hand marriage, an expedient still in use in Germany, and, I believe r peculiar to its constitution ; such a marriage is valid before God and man, yet the wife has no acknowledged rights, and the offspring no supposed existence. Clara is celebrated by the poets and chroniclers of her time, and appears to have been a very extraordinary, being in her way. In that age of ignorance, she had devoted herself to study she could sympathize in her husband's pursuits, and share the toils of government she collected aro ind her the wisest and most learned men of the time she continued to cultivate the beautiful voice which had won the heart of Frederic, and hei LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 9 long and her lute were always ready to soothe his cares. Tradition points out the spot where it it, said she loved to meditate, and, looking down upon the little hamlet, on the declivity of the hill, to re- call her own humble origin ; that little hamlet, em- bowered in foliage, and the remembrance of Clara, have survived the glories of Heidelberg. Her descendants became princes of the empire, and still exist in the family of Lowenstein. Then, for those who love the marvellous, there iS the wild legend of the witch Jetta, who still flits among the ruins, and bathes her golden tresses in the Wolfsbrunnen ; but why should I tell you of these tales you, whose head is a sort of black- letter library ? MEDON. True ; but it is pleasant to have one's old recollections taken down from their shelves and dusted, and placed in a new light; only do not require, even if I again visit Heidelberg, that I should see it as you have beheld it, with your quick spirit of association, and clothed in the hues of your own individual mind. While you speak, it is not so much the places and objects you describe, as their reflection in your own fancy, which I see before me ; and every different mind will reflect them under a different aspect. Then, where is truth? you say. If we want information as to mere facts the situation of a town the measure- ment of a church, the date of a ruin, the catalogue of a gallery we can go to our dictionaries and our guides des ?yageurs. But h\ besides form and 70 SKETCHES OP ART, outline, we must have coloring too, we should re membei that every individual mind will paint the hcene with its own proper hues ; and if we judge of the mind and the objects it represents relatively to each other, we may come at the truth, not otherwise. I would ask nothing of a traveller, but accuracy and sincerity in the expression of liia opinions and feelings. I have then a page out of the great book of human nature the portrait of a particular mind ; when that is fairly before me I have a standard by which to judge : I can draw my own inferences. Will you not allow that it is pos- sible to visit Heidelberg, and to derive the most intense pleasure from its picturesque beauty, with- out dreaming over witches and warriors, palatines and princes ? Can we not admire and appreciate the sculpture in the palace of Otho-Henry, without losing ourselves in vague, wondering reveries over the destinies of the sculptors ? ALDA. Yes ; but it is amusing, and not less in- structive, to observe the manner in which the indi- vidual character and pursuits shall modify the impressions of external things ; only we should be prepared for this, as the pilot makes allowance for the variation of the needle, and directs hig course accordingly. It is a mistake to suppose that hose who cannot see the imaginative aspect of things, see, therefore, the only true aspect ; they only see one aspect of the truth. Vous etes orfecre^ Monsieur Josse, is as applicable to travellers as tc every other species of egotist. LITERATURE, AJND CHARACTER. 71 Once, in an excursion to the north, I fell into conversation with a Sussex farmer, one of that race of sturdy, rich, and independent English yeomen, of which I am afraid few specimens remain : he was quite a Character in his way. I must sketch him for you : but only Miss Mitford could do him justice. His coat was of the finest broad-cloth ; his shirt-frill, in which was stuck a huge agate pin, and his neck- cloth were both white as the snow ; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss, and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch-chain ; his voice was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing, though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He had made up his mind about the Reform Bill the Catholic Question the Corn Laws and about things in general, and things in particular ; he had doubts about nothing : it was evident that he was accustomed to lay down the law in his own village that he was the tyrant of his own fireside that his wife was " his horse, his OT, his ass, his any thing," while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano. \London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours a receptacle of thieves, cut-throats, and profligates a place in which no sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets, would willingly set his foot ; he thanked God that he never spent but two nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years : the first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire T2 SKETCHES OF ART, ETC. and vermin ; and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he did not know, was to him not worth knowing; and the word French, which comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both recently travelled; my farmer was enthu- siastic in his admiration of the country. "A fine country, madam a beautiful country a splendid country ! " " Do you call it a fine country ? " said I, ab- sently, my head full of the Alps and Apennines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po. " To be sure I do ; and where would you see a finer ? " " I did not see any thing very picturesque," said I. " Picturesque ! " he repeated with some con- tempt ; " I don't know what you call picturesque ; but 1 say, give me a soil, that when you turn it up you have something for you: pains ; the fine soil makes the fine country, madam ! " SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. II. MEDON. I OBSERVED the other evening, that in making a sort of imaginative bound from Coblentz to Heidelberg, you either skipped over Frankfort, or left it on one side. ALDA. Did I ? if I had done either, in my heart or my memory, I had been most ungrateful; but I thought you knew Frankfort well. ME DON. I was there for two days, on my way to Switzerland, and it rained the whole time from morning till night. I have a vision in my mind of dirty streets, chilly houses, dull shops, dingy-looking Jews, dripping umbrellas, luxurious hotels, and exorbitant charges, and this is all I can recollect of Frankfort. ALDA. Indeed ! I pity you. To me it was associated only with pleasant feelings, and, in truth, it is a pleasant place. Life, there, appears in a very attractive costume : not in a half-holiday, half-beggarly garb, as at Rome and Naples ; nor in a thin undress of superficial decency, as at Berlin ; 74 SKETCHES OF ART, nor in a court domino, hiding, we know not what as at Vienna and Munich ; nor half motley, half military , as at Paris ; nor in rags and embroidery as in London ; but at Frankfort all the outside ai least is fair, substantial, and consistent. The shop? vie in splendor with those of London and Paris ; the principal streets are clean, the houses spacious and airy, and there is a general appearance of cheer- fulness and tranquillity, mingled with the luxurr of wealth and the bustle of business, which, aftei the misery, and murmuring, and bitterness of fac- tion, we had left in London, was really a relief to the spirits. It is true, that during my last two visits, this apparent tranquillity concealed a good deal of political ferment. The prisons were filled frith those unfortunate wretches who had endeav- ored to excite a popular tumult against the Prus- sian and Austrian governments. The trials were going forward every day, but not a syllable of the result transpired beyond the walls of the Rdmei Saal. Although the most reasonable and liberal of the citizens agreed in condemning the rashness and folly of these young men, the tide of feeling was evidently in their favor : for instance, it was not the fashion to invite the Prussian officers, and I well remember that when Goethe's Egmont was announced at the theatre, it was forbidden by the magistracy, from a fear that certain scenes and passages in that play might call forth some open and decided expression of the public feeling; in fact, only a few evenings before, some passages I'D LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 75 tee MassanieUo had been applied and applauded by the audience, in a manner so ill-bred, that the wife of the Prussian minister rose and left her box, followed by some other old women, male and female. The theatre is rather commodious than splendid; the established company, both for the opera and the regular drama, excellent, and often varied by temporary visits of great actors and singers from the other theatres of Germany. On my first visit to Frankfort, which was during the fair of 1829, Paganini, then in the zenith of his glory, was giving a series of concerts ; but do not ask me any thing about him, for it is a worn-out subject, and you know I am not one of the enthu- siastic, or even the orthodox, with regard to his merits. MEDON. You do not mean you will not tell me that with all your love of music, you were insensible to the miraculous powers of that man ? ALDA. I suppose they were miraculous, as I heard every one say so round me ; but I listened to him as to any other musician, for the sake of the pleasure to be derived from music, not for the sake of wondering at difficulties overcome, and impossibilities made possible they might have re- mained impossibilities for me. But insensible I was not to the wondrous charm of his tone and expression. I was thrilled, melted, excited, at the moment, but it left no relish on the palatt?, if I may use the expression. To throw me into such con- vulsions of enthusiasm as I saw this man exci* T6 SKETCHES OF ART, here and on ths continent, I must have the orchestra with all its various mingling world of sound, or the divine human voice breathing music and passion together; but this is a matter of feel- ing, habit, education, like all other tastes in art, I think it was during our third visit to Frankfori that Madame Haitsinger-Xeumann was playing the gast-rolles, for so they courteously denominate the parts filled by occasional visitors, to whom, as guests, the precedence is always given. Madame Haitsinger is the wife of Haitsinger, the tenor singer, who was in London, and sung in the Fidelio, with Madame Devrient-Schrceder. She is one of the most celebrated actresses in Germany for light comedy, if any comedy in Germany can be called light, in comparison with the same style of acting in France or England. Her figure is rather large MEDOX. Like most of the German actresses for I never yet saw one who had attained to celeb- rity, who was not much too embonpoint for our ideas of a youthful or sentimental heroine ALDA. Not Devrient-Schrceder ? MEDON. Devrient is all impassioned grace ; but I think that in time even she will be in danger ol becoming a little how shall I express it with suf- ficient delicacy ? a little too substantial. ALDA. No, not if a soul of music and fire, in forming a feverish, excitable temperament, which is to the mantling spirit within, what the high-pitched instrument is to the breeze which sweeps over its L/TKrtA TUREi, AND CHARACTER. 77 chords, not if these can avert the catastrophe; but what if you had seen Mademoiselle Lindner, with a figure like Mrs. Listen's all but spherical enacting Fenella and Cliirchen ': MEDON. I should have said, that only a German imagination could stand it ! It is one of Madame de StaeTs clever aphorisms, that on the stage, " II faut menager les caprices des yeux avec le plus grand scrupule, car ils peuvent detruire, sans appel tout effet serieux ; " but the Germans do not ap- pear to be subject to these caprices des yeux ; and have not these fastidious scruples about corporeal grace ; for them sentiment, however clumsy, is still sentiment. Perhaps they are in the right. ALDA. And Mademoiselle Lindner has senti- ment ; she must have been a fine actress, and is evidently a favorite with the audience. But to re- turn to Madame Haitsinger ; she is handsome, with a fair complexion, and no very striking ex- pression ; but there is a heart and soul, and mel- lowness in her acting, which is delicious. I could not give you an idea of her manner by a compari- son with any of our English actresses, for she is essentially German ; she never aimed at making points; she was never broadly arch or comic, but the general effect was as rich as it was true to na- ture. I saw her in some of her favorite parts : in the comedy of 4V Stille Wasser sind tiefe ; " (our Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, admirably adapted to the German stage by Schroeder;) in the "Mi- "andolina," (the famous Locandiera of Goldoni,) 78 SKETCHES OF AKT, and in the pretty lively vaudeville composed for her by Holtei, " Die Wiener in Berlin," in which the popular waltzes and airs, sung in the genuine national spirit, and enjoyed by the audience with a true national zest, delighted us foreigners. Herr Becher is an excellent actor in tra^edv and hi^b <3 J & comedy. Of their singers I could not say so much there were none I should account first-rate, ex- cept Dobler, whom you may remember in Eng land. One of the most delightful peculiarities of Frank- fort, one that most struck my fancy, is the public garden, planted on the site of the ramparts ; a gir- dle of verdure and shade of trees and flowers circling the whole city ; accessible to all and on every side, the promenade of the rich, the solace of the poor. Fifty men are employed to keep it in order, and it is forbidden to steal the flowers, or to kill the singing birds which haunt the shrub- beries. MEDOX. And does this prohibition avail much in a population of sixty thousand persons ? ALDA. It does generally. A short time before we arrived some mischievous wretch had shot a nightingale, and was caught in the fact. His pun- ishment, was characteristic ; his hands were tied behind him, and a label setting forth his crime was fixed on his breast : in this guise, with a police offi- cer on each side, he was marched all round the gardens, and made the circuit of the city, pursued by the hisses of the populace and the abhorren LITERATURE, AND CHARACTKI looks of the upper classes ; lie was not othei* punished, but he never again made his appearancj within the walls of the city. This was the culy instance which I could learn of the infraction of a law which might seem at least nugatory. Of the spacious, magnificent, well-arranged cem- etery, its admirable apparatus for restoring sus- pended animation, and all its beautiful accompani- ments and memorials of the dead, there was a long account published in London, at the time that a cemetery was planned for this great overgrown city ; and in truth I know not where we could find a better model than the one at Frankfort ; it ap- peared to me perfection. The institutions at Frankfort, both for charity and education, are numerous, as becomes a rich and free city ; and those I had an opportunity o* examining appeared to me admirably managed. Besides the orphan schools, arid the Burger schule, and the school for female education, established and maintained by the wives of the citizens, there are several infant schools, where children of a year old and upwards are nursed, and fed, and kept out of mischief and harm, while their parents are at work. These are also maintained by subscription among the ladies, who take upon them in turns the task of daily superintendence ; and I shall not easi- ly forget the gentle-looking, elegant, well-dressed girl, who, defended from the encroachments of dirty little paws by a large apron, sat in the midst of a swarm of thirty or forty babies, (the eldest not four 80 SKETCHES OF ART, years old,) the very personification of feminine charity ! But the hospital for the infirm poor Das Versorgung Haus pleased me particularly; 'tis true, that the cost was not a third what do I say ? not a sixth of the expense of some of our in- stitutions for the same purpose. There was no luxury of architecture, no huge gates shutting in wretchedness, and shutting out hope ; nor grated windows ; nor were the arrangements on so large a scale as in that splendid edifice, the Hopital des Vieillards, at Brussels ; a house for the poor need not be either a prison or a palace. But here, I recollect, the door opened with a latch ; we entered unannounced, as unexpected. Here there was per- fect neatness, abundance of space, of air, of light, of water, and also of occupation. I found that, besides the inmates of the place, many poor old creatures, who could not have the facilities or ma- terials for work in their own dwellings, or whose relatives were busied in the daytime, might find here employment of any kind suited to their strength or capacity, for which, observe, they were paid ; thus leaving them to the last possible moment the feeling of independence and useful- ness. I observed that many of those who seemed in the last stage of decrepitude, had hung round their beds sundry little prints and pictures, and slips of paper, on which were written legibly texts from scripture, moral sentences, and scraps of poe- try. The ward of the superannuated and the sick was at a distance from the working and eating LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 81 rooms , and all breathed around that peace and quiet which should accompany old age, instead of that " life-consuming din " I have heard in such places. On the pillow of one bed there was laid by some chance a bouquet of flowers. In this ward there was an old man nearly blind and lethargic ; another old man was reading to him. I remarked a poor bed-ridden woman, utter- ly helpless, but not old, and with good and even refined features ; and another poor woman, seated by her, was employed in keeping the flies from set- tling on her face. To one old woman, whose coun- tenance struck me, I said a few words in English I could speak no German, unluckily. She took my hand, kissed it, and turning away, burst into tears. No one asked for any thing even by a look, nor apparently wanted any thing ; and I felt that from the unaffected good-nature of the lady who accom- panied us, we had not so much the appearance of coming to look at the poor inmates as of paying them a kind visit ; and this was as it should be. The mild, open countenances of the two persons who managed the establishment pleased me partic- ularly ; and the manner of the matron superintend- ent, as she led us over the rooms, was so simple and kind, that I was quite at ease : I experienced none of that awkward shyness and reluctance I have felt when ostentatiously led over such places in England, feeling ashamed to stare upon the mise- ry I could not cwre. In such cases I have probably attributed to the suiferers a delicacv or a sensibility, 82 SKETCHES OF ART, long blunted, if ever possessed ; but I was in pada for them and for myself. One thing more : there was a neat chapel ; and we were shown with some pride the only piece of splendor in the establishment. The communion plate of massy silver was the gift of two brothel's, who had married on the same day two sisters ; ar n these two sisters had died nearly at (lie same time I believe it was actually on the same day. The widowed husbands presented this plate in memory of their loss and the virtues of their wives ; and 1 am sorry I did not copy the simple and affecting inscription in which this is attested. There was also a silver vase, which had been presented as an offering by a poor miller whom an unexpected leg- acy had raised to independence. I might give you similar sketches of other insti- tutions, here and elsewhere, but T did not bestow sufficient attention on the practical details, and the comparative merits of the different methods adopt- ed, to render my observations useful. Though deeply interested, as any feeling, thinking being must be on such subjects, I have not studied them sufficiently. There are others, however, who are doing this better than I could ; blessings be on them, and eternal praise ! My general impression was, pleasure from the benevolence and simplicity of heart with which these institutions were conduct- ed and superintended, and wonder not to be ex- pressed at their extreme cheapness. The day preceding my visit to the Versorgung LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 83 Hans, I had been in a lever of indignation at the fate of poor li , one of the conspirators, who had become insane from the severity of his confine- ment. I had descanted with great complacency on our open tribunals, and our trials by jury, and yet I could not help thinking to myself, " Well, if we have not their state-prisons, neither have they our poor-houses ! " MEDON. It is plain that the rich, charitable, worldly prosperous, self-seeking Frankfort, would be your chosen residence after all ! ALDA. No as a fixed residence I should not prefer Frankfort. There is a little too much of the pride of purse too much of the aristocracy of wealth too much dressing and dinnering and society is too much broken up into sets and circles to please me ; besides, it must be confessed, that the arts do not flourish in this free imperial city. The Stadel Museum was opened just before our last visit to Frankfort. A rich banker of that name bequeathed, in 1816, his collection of prints and pictures, and nearly a million and a half of florins, for the commencement and maintenance of this in- stitution, and they have certainly begun on a splendid scale. The edifice in which the collection is ar- ranged is spacious, fitted up with great cost, and generally with great taste, except the ceilings, which, being the glory and admiration of the good people of Frankfort, I must endeavor to describe to you particularly. The elaborate beauty of the 84 SKETCHES OF ART, arabesque ornaments, their endless variety, and the vivid coloring and gilding, reminded me of some of the illuminated manuscripts ; but I was rather amused than pleased, and rather surprised to sefc art and ornament so misplaced invention, labor, money, time, lavished to so little purpose. No ef- fect was 1 aimed at none produced. The strained and wearied eye wandered amid a profusion of un- meaning forms and of gorgeous colors, which never harmonized into a whole ; and after I had halt- broken my neck by looking up at them through ail opera glass, in order to perceive the elegant inter- lacing of the minute patterns and exquisite finish of the workmanship, I turned away laughing and provoked, and wondering at such a strange perver- sion, or rather sacrifice, of taste. MEDON. But the collection itself? ALDA. It is not very interesting. It contains some curious old German pictures : Stadel having been, like others, smitten with the mania of buying Van Eyks, and Hemlings, and Schoreels. Here, however, these old masters, as part of a school or history of art, are well placed. There are a few fine Flemish paintings and, in particular, a wondrous portrait by Flinck, which you must see. It Is a lady in black, on the left side of the door of J forget which room but you cannot miss it : those ,40ft eyes will look out at you, till you will feel in- clined to ask her name, and wonder the lips do not unclose to answer you. Of first-rate pictures there are none I mean none of the historical and Italic LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 8$ ichools . the collection of casts from the antique ia gplendid and well selected. MEDON. But Bethmann, the banker, had already set an example of munificent patronage of art : when he shamed kings, for instance, by purchas- ing Danrecker's Ariadne one of the chief liora of Frankibrt, if fame says true. ALDA. How ! have you not seen it ? MEDON. No unhappily. The weather, as I have told you, was dreadful. I was discouraged I procrastinated. That flippant observation I had read in some English traveller, that " Dannecker's Ariadne looked as if it had been cut out of old Stilton cheese," was floating in my mind. In short, I was careless, as we often are, when the means of gratifying curiosity appear secure, and within our reach. 1 repent me now. I wish I had settled to niy own satisfaction, and with mine own eyes, the disputed merits of this famous statue ; but I will trust to you. It ought to be something admirable. I do not know much of Dannecker, or his works, but by all accounts he has not to complain of the want of patronage. To him cannot be applied the pathetic common-place, so familiar in the mouths of our young artists, about "chill penury," the struggle to live, the cares that " freeze the genial current of the soul," the efforts of unassisted genius, and so forth. Want never came to him since he devoted himself to an. He appears to have had leisure and freedom to give full scope to his powers, Mid to work out his own creations. 86 SKETCHES OF ART, AID A. Had he? Had he, indeed ? His own Btory would be different, I fancy. Dannecker, like every patronized artist I ever met with, would execrate patronage, if he dared. Good old man The thought of what he might have done, and could have done, breaks out sometimes in the midst of all his self-complacent naive exultation ovei what he has done. I will endeavor to give you a correct idea of the Ariadne, and then I will tell you something of Dannecker himself. His history is a good commentary upon royal patronage. I had heard so much of this statue, that my curiosity was strongly excited. A part of its fame may be owing to its situation, and the number of travellers who go to visit Bethmann's Museum, as a matter of course. I used to observe that all travel- lers, who were on the road to Italy, praised it ; and all who were on their way home, criticized it. As I ascended the steps of the pavilion in which it is placed, the enthusiasm of expectation faded away from my mind : I said to myself, " I shall be disap- pointed ! " Yet I was not disappointed. The Ariadne occupied the centre of a cabinet, hung with a dark gray color, and illuminated by a high lateral window, so that the light and shade, and the relief of the figure were perfectly well managed and effective. Dannecker has not rep- resented Ariadne in her more poetical and pictur- esque character, as, when betrayed and forsaken by Theseus, she stood alone on the wild shore of Naxos, ;t her hair blown by the wind 4 ?, and *i LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 87 about her expressing desolation." It is Ariadne, immortal and triumphant, as the bride of Bacchus. The figure is larger than life. She is seated, or rather reclined, on the back of a panther. The right arm is carelessly extended : the left arm rests on the head of the animal, and the hand supports the drapery, which appears to have just dropped from her limbs. The head is turned a little up- wards, as if she already anticipated her starry home ; and her tresses are braided with the vine leaves. The grace and ease of the attitude, so firm, and yet so light ; the flowing beauty of the form, and the position of the head, enchanted me. Perhaps the features are not sufficiently Greek: for, though I am not one of those who think all beauty comprised in the antique models, and that nothing can be orthodox but the straight nose and short upper lip, still to Ariadne the pure classical ideal of beauty, both in form and face, are properly in character. A cast from that divine head, the Greek Ariadne, is placed in the same cabinet, and I confess to you that the contrast being immediately brought before the eye, Dannecker's Ariadne seemed to want refinement, in comparison. It is true, that the moment chosen by the German sculptor required an expression altogether differ- ent. In the Greek bust, though already circled by the viny crown, and though all heaven seems to repose on the noble arch of that expanded brow, yet the head is declined, and a tender melancholy angers round the all-perfect mouth, as if the re 88 SKETCHES OF ART, inembrance of a mortal love a mortal sorrow yet shaded her celestial bridal hours, and made pale her immortality. But Dannecker's Ariadne is the flushed Queen of the Bacchante, and in the clash of the cymbals and the mantling cup, she has already forgotten Theseus. There is a look of life, an individual truth in the beauty of the form, which distinguishes it from the long-limbed vapid pieces of elegance called nymphs and Venuses, which * Stretch their white arms, and bend their marble necks," m the galleries of our modern sculptors. One ob- jection struck me, but not till after a second or third view of the statue. The panther seemed to me rather too bulky and ferocious. It is true, it is not a natural, but a mythological panther, such as we see in the antique basso-relievos and the arabesques of Herculaneum ; yet, methinks, if he appeared a little more conscious of his lovely bur- then, more tamed by the influence of beauty, it would have been better. However, the sculptor may have had a design, a feeling, in this very point, which has escaped me : I regret now that I did not ask him. One thing is certain, that the extreme massiveness of the panther's limbs serves to give a firmness to the support of the figure, and sets off to advantage its lightness and delicacy. It is equally certain that if the head of the animal had been ever so slightly turned, the pose of the right-arm, and with it the whole attitude, mus> fcave been altered LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 8b The window of the cabinet is so contrived^ that Dy drawing up a blind of stained glass, a soft crim* eon tint is shed over the figure, as if the marble blushed. This did not please me : partly from a dislike to all trickery in art ; partly because, to my taste, the pale, colorless purity of the marble is one of the beauties of a fine statue. It is true that Dannecker has been unfortunate in his material. The block from which he cut his figure is imperfect and streaky ; but how it could possibly have suggested the idea of Stilton cheese I am at a loss to conceive. It is not worse than Ca- nova's Venus, in the Pitti palace, who has a ter- rible black streak across her bosom. M. Pass- avant, * who was standing by when I paid my last visit to the Ariadne, assured me, that when the gtatue was placed on its pedestal, about sixteen years ago, these black specks were scarcely visible, and that they seemed to multiply and grow darker with time. This is a lamentable, and, to me, an unaccountable fact. MEDON. And, I am afraid, past cure : but now tell me something of the sculptor himself. After looking on a grand work of art, we naturally turn to look into the mind which conceived and created it. ALDA. Dannecker, like all the great modern * M. Passavant is a landscape-painter of Frankfort, an intel Vgent, accomplished man, and one of the few German artist* *ho had a tolerably correct idea of the state of art in EngUmd. Bo ia the author of " Kunstreise durch England und Belgium. 1 SKETCHES OF ART, sculptors, sprung from the people. Thorwaldsou* Flaxraan, Chantrey, Canova, Schadow, Ranch i believe we may go farther back, to Celiini, Bandi- nelli, Bernini, Pigalle all I can at this moment recollect, were of plebeian origin. When I was at Dresden, I was told of a young count, of noble family, who had adopted sculpture as a profession , This, I think, is a solitary instance of any person of noble birth devoting himself to this noblest of the arts. MEDOX. Do you forget Mrs. Darner and Lady Dacre ? ALDA. No ; but I do not think that either the exquisite modelling of Lady Dacre, or the merito- rious attempts of Mrs. Darner, come under the head of sculpture in its grand sense. By-the-by, .when Horace Walpole said that Mrs. Darner was the first female sculptor who had attained any celebrity, he forgot the Greek girl, Lala,* and the Properzia Rossi of modern times. Dannecker was born at Stuttgard in 1758. On him descended no hereditary mantle of genius ; i* was the immediate gift of Heaven, and apparently heaven-directed. His father was a groom in the duke's stable, and appears to have been merely an ill-tempered, thick-headed boor. How young Dan- necker picked up the rudiments of reading and * She was contemporary with Cleopatra, (B.C. 83,) and was par tlcularly celebrated for her busts ia ivory. The Romans raised % statue to her honor, which was ia the Guistiniani collection. V. PLDTX. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 91 writing, he does not himself remember; nor by what circumstances the bent of his fancy and genius was directed to the fine arts. Like other great men, who have been led to trace the progress of their own minds, he attributed to his mother the first promptings to the fair and good, the first soft- ening and elevating influences which his mind ac- knowledged. He had neither paper nor pencils ; but next door to his father there lived a stone- cutter, whose blocks of marble and free-stone were every day scrawled over with rude imitations of natural objects in chalk or charcoal the first es- says of the infant Dannecker. When he was beaten by his father for this proof of idleness, his mother interfered to protect or to encourage him. As soon as he was old enough, he assisted his father in the stable ; and while running about the pre- cincts of the palace, ragged and bare-foot, he ap- pears to have attracted, by his vivacity and alert- ness, the occasional notice of the duke himself. Duke Charles, the grandfather of the present king of Wurtemburg, had founded a military school, called the Karl Schiile, (Charles' School,) annexed to the Hunting Palace of the Solitude. At this academy, music and drawing were taught as well as military tactics. One day, when Dannecker was about thirteen, his father returned home in a very ill-humor, and informed his family that the duke intended to admit the children of his domes- tics into his new military school. The boy, with joyful eagerness, declared his intention of going 92 SKETCHES OF ART t immediately to present himself as a candidate The father, with a stare of astonishment, desired him to remain at home, and mind his business, on his persisting, he resorted to blows, and ended by locking him up. The boy escaped by jumping out of the window ; and, collecting severaJ of his comrades, he made them a long harangue in praise of the duke's beneficence, then placing himself at their head, marched them up to the palace, where the whole court was assembled for * the Easter fes- tivities. On being asked their business, Dannecker replied, as spokesman, " Tell his highness the duke we want to go to the Karl Schiile." One of the attendants, amused, perhaps, with this juvenile ardor, went and informed the duke, who had just risen from table. He came out himself and mus- tered the little troop before him. He first darted a rapid, scrutinizing glance along the line, then se- lecting one from the number, placed him on his right hand ; then another, and another, till only young Dannecker and two others remained on his left. Dannecker has since acknowledged that he suffer- ed for a few moments such exquisite pain and shame at the idea of being rejected, that his first impulse was to run away and hide himself; and that hia surprise and joy, when he found that he and his two companions were the accepted candidates, had nearly overpowered him. The duke ordered then to go the next morning to the Solitude, and then dismissed them. When Dannecker returned home, 'iis father, enraged at losing the services of his son. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 93 turned him out of the house, and forbade him ever more to enter it; but his mother (mother-like) packed up his little bundle of necessaries, accompa- nied him for some distance on his road, and parted from him with blessings and tears, and words of en- couragement and love. At the Karl Schiile Dannecker made but little progress in his studies. Nothing could be worse managed than this royal establishment. The in- ferior teachers were accustomed to employ the poorer boys in the most servile offices, and in this so called academy he was actually obliged to learn by stealth : but here he formed a friendship with Schiller, who, like himself, was an ardent genius pining and writhing under a chilling system ; and the two boys, thrown upon one another for con- solation, became friends for life. Dannecker must have been about fifteen when the Karl Schiile was removed from the Solitude to Stuttgard. He was then placed under the tuition of Grubel, a profes- sor of sculpture, and in the following year he pro- duced his first original composition. It was a Milo of Crotona, modelled in clay, and was judged worthy of the first prize. Dannecker was at this time so unfriended and little known, that the duke, who appears to have forgotten him, learned with astonishment that this nameless boy^ the son of his groom, had carried off the highest honors of the school from all his competitors. For a few years He was employed in the duke's service in carving cornices, Cupids, and caryatides, to ornament the 34 SKETCHES OF ART, Dew palaces at Stuttgard and Hohenhe'im; thi task-work, over which he often sighed, may possi- bly have assisted in giving him that certainty and mechanical dexterity in the use of his tools for which he is remarkable. About ten years were thus passed ; he then obtained permission to travel for his improvement, with an allowance of three hundred florins a year from the duke. With these slender means Dannecker set off for Paris on foot. There, for the first time, he had opportunities of studying the living model. His enthusiasm for his art enabled him to endure extraordinary privations of every kind, for out of his little pension of twenty-three pounds a year he had not only to feed and clothe himself, but to purchase all the ma- terials for his art, and the means of instruction ; and this in an expensive capital, surrounded with temptations which an artist and an enthusiastic young man finds it difficult to withstand. He told me himself, that day after day he has studied in the Louvre dinnerless, and dressed in a garb which scarce retained even the appearance of decency He left Paris, after a two years' residence, as sim pie in mind and heart as when he entered it, and considerably improved in his knowledge of anat- omy and in the technical part of his profession The treasures of the Louvre, though far inferior to what they now are, had let in a flood of ideas upon his mind, among which (as he described his own feelings) he groped as one bewildered and intoxi- cated, amazed rather than enlightened. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 95 ME DON. But Dannecker must have been poor in spirit as in pocket simple indeed, if he did not profit by the opportunities which Paris 'afforded of studying human nature, noting the passions and their physiognomy, and gaining other experiences most useful to an artist. ALDA. There I differ from you. Would you send a young artist more particularly a young sculptor to study the human nature of London or Paris ? to seek the ideal among shop-girls and opera-dancers ? Or the sublime and beautiful among the frivolous and degraded of one sex, the money-making or the brutalized of the other ? Is it from the man who has steeped his youthful prime in vulgar dissipation, by way of " seeing life," as it is called, who has courted patronage at the convivial board, that you shall require that union of lofty enthusiasm and patient industry, which are necessary, first to conceive the grand and the poetical, and then consume long years in shaping out his creation in the everlasting marble ? MEDON. But how is the sculptor himself to live during those long years ? It must needs be a hard struggle. I have heard young artists say, that thuy have been forced on a dissipated life merely as a means of " getting on in the world," as the phrase is. ALDA. So have I. It is so base a plea, that when I hear it, I generally regard it as the excuse for dispositions already perverted. The men who talk thus are doomed; they will either creep through life in mediocrity and dependence to their 96 SKETCHES OF ART, grave ; or, at the best, if they have parts, as well as cunning and assurance, they may make then>- selves the fashion, and make their fortune ; they may be clever portrait-painters and bust-makers, but when they attempt to soar into the historical and ideal department of their art, they move the laugh- ter of gods and men ; to them the higher, holier fountains of inspiration are thenceforth sealed. MEDON. But think of the temptations of so- ciety ! ALDA. I think of those who have overcome them. " Great men have been among us," though they be rare. Have we not had a Flaxman ? but the artist must choose where he will worship. He cannot serve God and Mammon. That man of genius who thinks he can tamper with his glorious gifts, and for a season indulge in social excesses, stoop from his high calling to the dregs of earth, abandon himself to the stream of common life, and trust to his native powers to bring him up again ; O, believe it, he plays a desperate game! one that in nearly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is fatal. MEDON. I begin to see your drift; but you would find it difficult to prove that the men who executed those works, on which we now look with wonder and despair, lived like anchorites, or were Unexceptionable moral characters. ALDA. Will you not allow that they worked in a different spirit ? Or do you suppose that it was by the possession of some sleight-of-hand that these LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. S'7 things were performed? that it was by some knack of chiselling, some secret of coloring now lost, that a Phidias or a Correggio still remains un- approached, and, as people will tell you, unap- proachable ? MEDON. They had a different nature to work from. ALDA. A different modification of nature, but not a different nature. Nature and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love. I do maintain that, in these latter times, we have artists, who in genius, in the power of looking at nature, and in manual skill, are not beneath the great ancients, but their works are found wanting in comparison; they have fallen short of the models their early ambition set before them ; and why ? because, having genius, they want the moral grandeur that should accompany it, and have neglected the training of their own minds from necessity, or from dissipation, or from pride, so that, having imagination and skill, they have yet wanted the materials out of which to work. Recollect that the great artists of old were not mere painters, or mere sculptors, who were nothing except with the pencil or the chisel in their hand. They were philosophers, scholars, poets, musicians, noble beings whose eyes were not ever on them- selves, but who looked above, before, and after. Our modern artists turn coxcombs, and then fancy themselves like Rafaelle ; or they are greedy of present praise, or greedy of gain ; or they will not 98 SKETCHES OF ART, pay the price for immortality ; or the y have sold their glorious birthright of fame for a mess of pot- tage. Poor Danneeker found his mess of pottage bitter now and then, as you shall hear. He set off for Italy, in 1783, with his pension raised to four ht udred florins a year, that is, about thirty pounds. He reached Rome on foot, and he told me that, for some months after his arrival, he suffered from a terrible depression of spirits, and a painful sense of loneliness ; like Thorwaldson, when he too visited'that city some years afterwards a friendless youth, he was often home-sick and heart-sick. At this time he used to wander about among the ruins and relics of almighty Rome, lost in the sense of their grandeur, depressed by his own vague aspira- tions ignorant, and without courage to apply him- self. Luckily for him, Herder and Goethe were then residing at Rome ; he became known to them, and their conversation directed him to higher sources of inspiration in his art than he had yet contemplated to the very well-heads and mother- streams of poetry. They showed him the distinc- tion between the spirit and the form of ancient art. Danneeker felt, and afterwards applied some of the grand revelations of these men, who were at once profound critics and inspired poets. He might have grasped at more, but that his early nurture was here against him, and his subsequent destinies as a court sculptor seldom left him suffi- cient freedom of thought or action to follow ouj , AND CHARACTER. CO his owti conceptions. While at Rome he also be came acquainted with Canova, who, although only one year older than himself, had already achieved great things. He was now at work on the monu- ment of the Pope Ganganelli. The courteous, kind-hearted Italian would sometimes visit the poor German in his studio, and cheer him by his remarks and encouragement. Dannecker remained five years at Rome ; he was then ordered to return to Stuttgard. As he had already greatly distinguished himself, the Duke of Wurtemberg received him with much kindness, and promised him his protection. Now, the pro- tection and the patronage which a sovereign ac- cords to an artist generally amounts to this : he begins by carving or painting the portrait of his patron, and of some of the various members of bis patron's family. If these are approved of, he is allowed to stick a ribbon in his button-hole, and is appointed professor of fine arts, with a certain stipend, and thenceforth his time, his labor, and his genius belong as entirely to his master as those of a hired servant ; his path is marked out for him. It was thus with Dannecker ; he received a pen- sion of eight hundred florins a year and his pro fessorship ; and upon the strength of this he married Henrietta Rapp. From this period his life haa passed in a course of tranquil and uninterrupted occupation, yet, though constantly employed, his works are not numerous; almost every moment being taken up with the duties of his professorship, l(K SKETCHES OF ART, in trying to teach what no man of genius can teacL, and in making drawings and designs after the fan- cies of the grand duke. He was required to com- pose a basso-relievo for the duke's private cabinet. The subject which he chose was as appropriate as it was beautifully treated Alexander pressing his seal upon the lips of Parmenio. He modelled this in bas-relief, and the best judges pronounced it ex- quisite ; but it did not please the duke, and, in- stead of receiving an order to finish it in marble, he was obliged to throw it aside, and to execute some design dictated by his master. The original model remained for many years in his studio ; but a short time before my last visit to him he had pre- sented it as a birthday gift to a friend. The first great work which gave him celebrity as a sculptor was the mausoleum of Count Zeppelin, the duke's favorite, in which the figure of Friendship has much simplicity and grace ; this is now at Louis- berg. While he was modelling this beautiful figure, the first idea of the Ariadne was suggested to his fancy, but some years elapsed before it came into form. At this time he was much employed in exe- cuting busts, for which his fine eye for living nature and manly simplicity of taste peculiarly fitted him. In this particular department of his art he has neither equal nor rival, except our Chantrey. The best I have seen are those of Schiller, Gluck, and Lavater. Never are the fine arts, never are great artists, better employed, than when they serve to illustrate and to immortalize each other ! Abou/ LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 101 the year 1808, Dannecker was considered, beyonrt dispute, the first sc ulptor in Germany ; for as yet ; Rauch, Tieck, and Schwanthaler had not worked their way up to their present high celebrity. He received, in 1811, an intimation, that if he would enter the service of the King of Bavaria, he should be placed at the head of the school of sculpture at Munich, with a salary three times the amount of that which he at present enjoyed. MEDON. Which Dannecker declined ? ALDA. He did. MEDON. I could have sworn to it extempore ! What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons ! Not to go back to the days of Horace and Mecaenas, nor even to those of Ariosto and Tasso and the family of Este, or Cellini and the Duke of Florence, or Lucas Kra- nach and the Elector John Frederic * do you re- member Mozart's exclamation, when he was offered the most magnificent remuneration if he would quit the service of Joseph II. for that of the Elector of Saxony " Shall I leave my good Emperor V " In the same manner Metastasio rejected every in- ducement to quit the service of Maria Theresa ALDA. Add Goethe and the Duke of Weimar, and a hundred other instances. The difficult); * Lucas Kranach (1472) was one of the most celebrated of tht old German painters; from a principle of gratitude and attach* ment, he shared the imprisonment of the eler*>r John Frederia turing five years. 102 SKETCHES OF ART, would be to find one, in which the patronage of the great has not been repaid ten thousand fold in gratitude and fame. Dannecker's love for his na- tive rity, and his native princes, prevailed over his self-interest; his decision was honorable to his heart ; but it is not less certain thai at Munich he would have found more enlightened patronage, and a wider scope for his talents. Frederic, the late King of Wurtemberg, who had married our princess-royal, was a man of a coarse mind and profligate habits. Napoleon had gratified his vul- gar ambition by making him a king, and thereupon he stuck a huge, tawdry gilt crown on the top of his palace, the impudent sign of his subservient majesty. I never looked at it without thinking of an overgrown child and its new toy ; he also, to commemorate the acquisition of his kingly titles, instituted the order of the Wurtemburg crown, and Dannecker was gratified by this new order of merit, and a bit of ribbon in his button-hole. But in the mean time the model of the Ariadne remained in his studio, and it was not till the year 1809 that he could afford to purchase a block of marble, and begin the statue on speculation. It occupied him for seven years, but in the interval he completed other beautiful works. The king ordered him to execute a Cupid in marble, for which he gave him the design. It was a design which displeased the pure mind and high taste of Dan necker; he would not so desecrate his divine art a c'etait travailler pour le diable ! " said he to mo LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 103 in telling the story. He therefore only half ful filled his commission: and, changing the purpose and sentiment of the figure, he represented the Greek Cupid at the moment that he is waked by the drop of burning oil from Psyche's lamp. An English general, I believe Sir John Murray, saw this charming statue, in 1814, and immediately com- manded a work from the sculptor's hands : he wished, but did not absolutely require, a duplicate of the statue he so admired. Dannecker, instead of repeating himself, produced his Psyche, whom he has represented not as the Greek allegorical Psyche, the bride of Cupid, "with lucent fans, fluttering" but as the abstract personification of the human soul ; or, to use Dannecker's own words, " Ein rein, sittlich, sinniges Wesen," a pure, moral, intellectual being. As he had an idea that Love had become moral and sentimental after he had been waked by the drop of burning oil, so I could not help asking him whether this was Psyche, grown reasonable after she had beheld the wings of Love ? He has not in this beautiful statue quite accom- plished his own idea. It has much girlish grace and simplicity- but it wants elevation ; it is not suffi- ciently ideal, and will not stand a comparison either with the Psyche of Westmacott or that of Canova. The Ariadne was finished in 1816, but the sculp- tor was disappointed in his hope that this, hia "qiasterpiece, would adorn his native city. The king showed no desire to possess it, and it was purchased by M. Bethmann, of Frankfort, for a sum equal to J04 SKETCHES OF ART, about one thousand pounds. Soon after the Ariadne was finished, Dannecker conceived, in a moment of pious enthusiasm, his famous statue of the Re- d 3emer, which has caused a great deal of discussion in Germany. This was standing in his work-room when we paid our first visit to him. He told me what I had often heard, that the figure had visited him in a dream three several times ; and the good old man firmly believed that he had been divinely inspired, and predestined to the work. While the visionary image was fresh in his imagination, ho first executed a small clay model, and placed it be- fore a child of five or six years old ; there were none of the usual emblematical accompaniments no cross no crown of thorns to assist the fancy nothing but the simple figure roughly modelled; yet the child immediately exclaimed, " The Re- deemer ! " and Dannecker was confirmed in his de- sign. Gradually the completion of this statue be- came the one engrossing idea of his enthusiastic mind : for eight years it was his dream by night, his thought by day ; all things else, all the affairs and duties of life, merged into this. He told me that he frequently felt as if pursued, excited by some strong, irresistible power, which would even visit him in sleep, and impel him to rise from his bed and work. He explained to me some of the difficulties he encountered, and which he was per- suaded that he had perfectly overcome only through divine aid, and the constant study of the Scrip- tures. They were not few nor trifling. Physical LITER AT UK K, AND CHARACTEK. lOo power, majesty, and beauty, formed no part of th& character of the Saviour of the world : the glory that was around him was not of this earth, nor visible to the eye ; " there was nothing in him that he should be desired ; " therefore to throw into the impersonation of exceeding humility and benignity a superhuman grace, and from material elements work out a manifestation of abstract moral gran- deur this was surely not only a new and difficult, but a bold and sublime enterprise. You remember Michael Angelo's statue of Christ in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome? MEDON. Perfectly ; and I never looked at it without thinking of Neptune and his trident. ALDA. The same thought occurred to me, and must inevitably have occurred to others. Dan- necker is not certainly so great a man as Michael Angelo, but here he has surpassed him. Instead of emulating the antique models, he has worked \n the antique spirit the spirit of faith and en- thusiasm. He has taken a new form in which to clothe a grand poetical conception. Whether the being he has represented be a fit subject for the plastic art, has been disputed ; but it appears to me that Dannecker has more nearly approached the Christian ideal than any of his predecessors ; there is nothing to be compare** to it, except Ti- tian's Christo della Moneta, and that is a head merely. The sentiment chosen by the sculptor is expressed in the inscription on the pedes tai 106 SKETCHES OF ART, u Through me, to the Father." The proportions, of the figure are exceedingly slender and delicate the attitude a little drooping ; one hand is pressed on the bosom, the other extended ; the lips are unclosed, as in the act to speak. In the head and facial line, by carefully throwing out every indica- tion of the animal propensities, and giving added importance and development to all that indicates the moral and intellectual faculties, he has suc- ceeded in irnbodying a species of ideal, of which there is no other example in art. I have heard (not from Dannecker himself) that, when the head of the Jupiter Tonans was placed beside the Christ, the merely physical grandeur of the former, compared with the purely intellectual expression of the latter, reminded every one present of a lion's head erect and humanized. MEDON. But what were your own impressions ? After all this eulogium, which I believe to be just, tell me frankly, were you satisfied yourself? ALDA. No not quite. The expression of the mouth in the last finished statue (he has repeated the subject three times) is not so fine as in the model, and the simplicity of the whole bordered on meagreness. This, I think, is a general fault in all Dannecker's works. He has, of course, avoided nudity, but the flowing robe, which completely en- velopes the figure, is so managed as to disclose the exact form of the limbs. One little circumstance will give you an idea of the attention and accuracy with which he seized and imbodied every touch of LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 107 individual character conveyed in holy writ. In the original model he had made the beard rather full and thick, and a little curled, expressing the prime of manhood ; but recollecting that in the gospel the Saviour is represented as sinking under the weight of the cross, which the first man they met accidentally was able to carry, he immediately altered his first conception, and gave to the beard that soft, flowing, downy texture which is supposed to indicate a feeble and delicate temperament. I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old man, as, leaning on the ped- estal, with his cap in his hand, and his long gray hair waving round his face, he looked up at his work with a mixture of reverence and exultation, saying, in his imperfect and scarce intelligible French, " Oui, quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la terre ! " meaning, I suppose, that this statue had insured his immortality on earth. He added, " They ask me often where are the models after which I worked ? and I answer, here and here :" laying his hand first on his head, then on his heart. I remember that when we first entered his room he was at work on one of the figures for the tomb of the late Queen Catherine of Wurtemburg. You perhaps recollect her in England when only Duchess of Oldenburg? MEDON. Yes; I remember, as a youngster, joining the mob who shouted before the windows of the Pulteney-hotel and hailed her and her 108 SKETCHES OF ART, brother Alexander as if they had been a descended Jupiter and Juno ! O verily, times are changed ! ALDA. But in that woman there were the ele- ments of a fine nature. She had the talents, the strength of mind, and far-reaching ambition of her grandmother, Catherine of Russia, but was not so perverted. During her short reign as Queen of Wurtemburg, the influence of her active mind was felt through the whole government. She founded, among other institutions, a school for the daughters of the nobility connected with the court, in plain English, a charity-school for the nobility of Wur- temburg, who are among the most indigent and most ignorant of Germany. There are a few, very few brilliant exceptions. One lady of rank said to me, " As to an English governess, that is an ad- vantage I can never hope to have for my daughters. The princesses have an English governess, but we cannot dream of such a thing." The late queen really deserved the regrets of her people. The king, whose sluggish mind she ruled or stimulated, is now devoted to his stables and hunting. He has married another wife, but he has erected to the honor of Catherine a splendid mausoleum, on the peak of a high hill, which can be seen from almost every part of the city ; and on the summer even- ings when the red sunset falls upon its white col- umns, it is a beautiful object. The figure on which Dannecker was occupied, represented prayer or what he called, " La triomphe de la Priere ; " it LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 109 recalled to my mind Flaxrnan's lovely statue of the same subject, the " Our Father which art in Heaven," but suffered by the involuntary compari- son. On the rough base of the statue he had tried to spell the name of Chantrey, but not very success- fully. I took up a bit of chalk and wrote under- neath in distinct characters, FRANCIS CHANTREY. " I grow old," said he, looking from his work to the bust of the late queen, which stood op- posite. " I have carved the effigies of three generations of poets, and as many of princes. Twenty years ago I was at work on the tomb of the Duke of Oldenburg, and now I am at work dpon hers who gave me that order. All die away : soon I shall be left alone. Of my early friends none remain but Goethe. I shall die before him, and perhaps he will write my epitaph." He spoke with a smile, not foreseeing that he would be the survivor. Three years after * I again paid Dannecker a visit, but a change had come over him ; his feeble, tremb- ling hand could no longer grasp the mallet or guide he chisel ; his eyes were dim ; his fine benevolent countenance wore a childish, vacant smile, now and then crossed by a gleam of awakened memory 01 thought and yet he seemed so perfectly happy ! He walked backwards and forwards, from his Christ t- with interest and respect. Soon afterwards came the mistress of the inn, (who had never deigned to notice me, for it is not the fashion in Germany ;) she came with an offer of particular services, and from the conversation I gathered, to my astonish- ment, that this young creature she seemed not more than two or three and twenty was on her way home, alone and unprotected, from can you imagine ? even from the wilds of Siberia ! But then what had brought her there ? I listened, in hopes of discovering, but they all spoke so fast that I could make out nothing more. Afterwards, I had occasion to go over to a little shop to make some purchase. On my return, I found her crying bit- terly, and my maid, also in tears, was comforting her with great volubility. Now, though my having in German, like Orlando's beard, was not consider- able, and my heroine spoke still less French, I could not help assisting in the task of consolation never, certainly, were my curiosity and interest more strongly excited ! Subsequently we met at Frankfort, where she was lodged in the same hotel, and I was enabled to offer her a seat in my vehicle to Mayence. Thus, I had opportunities of hearing her whole history related at different times, and in parts and parcels ; and I will now endeavor to give it to you in a connected form. I may possibly make some mistake with regard to the order of events, but I promise you faithfully, that where my recol' lection of names, or dates, or circumstances, ma^ LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 157 fail me, I will not, like Mademoiselle de Montpen- sier, make use of my imagination to supply the de- fects of my memory. You shall have, if not the whole truth, at least as much of it as I can remem- ber, and with no fictitious interpolations and im- provements. Of the animation of voice and man- ner, the vivid eloquence, the graphic spirit, the quick transitions of feeling, and the grace and vivacity of gesture and action with which the rela- tion was made to me by this fine untutored child of nature, 1 can give you no idea it was altogether a study ol character, I shall never forget. My heroine truly and in every sense does she deserve the name was the daughter of a rich brewer and wine merchant of Deuxponts.* She was one of five children, two much older and two much younger than herself. Her eldest brother was called Henri : he had early displayed such uncommon talents, and such a decided inclination for study, that his father was determined to give him all the advantages of a learned education, and sent him to the university of Elangau, in Bavaria, whence he returned to his family with the highest testimonies of his talents and good conduct. His father now destined him for the clerical profession, with which his own wishes accorded. His sister fondly dwelt upon his praises, and described him, perhaps with all a sister's partiality, as being not *In the German maps, Zweibriicken ; the capital cf thoi provinces of the kingdom of Bavaria, which Ite on the loft bank -f the Rhine. 158 SKETCHES OF ART, only tLe pride of his family, but of all his fellow- citizens, " tall, and handsome, and good," of a most benevolent enthusiastic temper, and devoted to his studies. When he had been at home for some time, he attracted the notice of one of the princes in the north of Germany, with whom he travelled, I believe, in the capacity of secretary. The name of the prince, and the particulars of this part of his life, have escaped me ; but it appeared that, through the recommendation of this powerful patron, he became professor of theology in a uni- versity of Courland, I think at Riga, or somewhere near it, for the name of this city was continually recurring in her narrative. Henri was at this time about eight-and-twenty. While here, it was his fate to fall passionately in love with the daughter of a rich Jew merchant. His religious zeal mingled with his love ; he was as anxious to convert his mistress as to possess her and, in fact, the first was a necessary preliminary to the second ; the consequences were all in the usual style of such matters. The relations discov- ered the correspondence, and the young Jewess was forbidden to see or to speak to her lover. They met in secret. What arguments he might use to convert this modern Jessica, I know not, but they prevailed. She declared herself convinced, and consented to fly with him beyond the frontiers, into Silesia, to be baptized, and to become his wife. Apparently their plans were not well-arranged, or were betrayed ; for they were pursued by hei LITERATURE. AND CHARACTER. J 59 relations and the police, and overtaken before they reached the frontiers. The young man was ac- cused of carrying off his Jewish love by force, and this, I believe, at Riga, where the Jews are protected, is a capital crime. The affair was brought before th.e tribunal, and the accused de- fended himself by declaring that the girl had fled with him by her own free will; that she was a Christian, and his betrothed bride, as they had exchanged rings, or had gone through some similar ceremony. The father Jew denied this on the part of his daughter, and Henri desired to be con- fronted with the lady who was thus said to have turned his accuser. Her family made many diffi- culties, but by order of the judge she was obliged to appear. She was brought into the court of justice pale, trembling, and supported by her father and others of her kindred. The judge de- manded whether it was by her own will that she had fled with Henri Ambos? She answered in a faint voice, " No." Had then violence been used to carry her off? " Yes." Was she a Christian V "No" Did she regard Henri as her affianced husband ? " No" * On hearing these replies, so different from the truth, from all he could have anticipated, the un- fortunate young man, appeared for a few minutes stupefied ; then, as if seized with a sudden frenzy, he made a desperate effort to rush upon the young Jewess. On being prevented, he drew a knife from his pocket, which he attempted to plunge into 160 SKETCHES OF ART, bis own bosom, but it was wrested from him ; in the scuffle he was wounded in the hands and face, and the young lady swooned away. The sight of his mistress insensible, and his own blood flowing, restored the lover to his senses. He became sul- lenly calm, offered not another word in his own defence, refused to answer any questions, and was immediately conveyed to prison. These particulars came to the knowledge of his family after the lapse of many months, but of his subsequent fate they could learn nothing. Neither his sentence nor his punishment could be ascer- tained ; and although one of his relations went tn Riga, for the purpose of obtaining some informa- tion some redress he returned without having effected either of the purposes of his journej Whether Henri had died of his wounds, or Ian guished in a perpetual dungeon, remained a mystery. Six years thus passed away. His father died : his mother, who persisted in hoping, while all others despaired, lingered on in heart-wearing sus- pense. At length, in the beginning of last year, (1833,) a travelling merchant passed through the city of Deuxponts, and inquired for the family of Ambos. He informed them that in the preceding year he had seen and spoken to a man in rags, with a long beard, who was working in fetters with Other criminals, near the fortress of Barinska, in Siberia ; who described himself as Henri Ambos, a pastor of the Lutheran church, unjustly con- LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 161 demned, and besought him with tears, and the most urgent supplications, to convey some tidings of him to his unhappy parents, and beseech them to use every means to obtain his liberation. You must imagine for I cannot describe as she described the feelings which this intelligence ex- cited. A family council was held, and it was determined at once that application should be made to the police authorities at St. Petersburg, to ascertain beyond a doubt the fate of poor Henri that a petition in his favor must be presented to the Emperor of Russia ; but who was to present it? The second brother offered himself, but he had a wife and two children ; the wife protested that she should die if her husband left her, and would not hear of his going ; besides, he was the only remaining hope of his mother's family. The sister then said that she would undertake the journey, and argued that as a woman she had more chance of success in such an affair than her brother. The mother acquiesced. There was, in truth, no alternative ; and being amply furnished with the means, this generous, affectionate, and strong-minded girl, set off alone, on her long and perilous journey. u When my mother gave me her blessing," said she, " I made a vow to God and my own heart, that I would not return alive with- out the pardon of my brother. I feared nothing ; [ had nothing to live for. I had health and strength, and I had not a doubt of rny own success, becaise I was resolved to succeed ; but ah ! Hebe 11 162 SKETCHES OF AIM', madame ! what a fate was mine ! and how am 1 returning to my mother ! my poor old mother ! * Here she burst into tears, and threw herself back in the carnage ; after a few minutes she resumed her narrative. She reached the city of Riga without mischance. There she collected the necessary documents rela- tive to her brother's character and conduct, with all the circumstances of his trial, and had them properly attested. Furnished with these papers, she proceeded to St. Petersburg, where she ar- rived safely in the beginning of June, 1833. She had been furnished with several letters of recom- mendation and particularly with one to a German ecclesiastic, of whom she spoke with the most grate- ful enthusiasm, by the title of M. le Pasteur. She met with the utmost difficulty in obtaining from the police the official return of her brother's condem- nation, place of exile, punishment, &c. ; but at length, by almost incredible boldness, perseverance, and address, she was in possession of these, and with the assistance of her good friend the pastor, she drew up a petition to the emperor. With this she waited on the minister of the interior, to whom, with great difficulty, and after many applications, she obtained access. He treated her with great haishness, and absolutely refused to deliver the petition. She threw herself on her knees, and added tears to entreaties ; but he was inexorable, and added brutally " Your brother was a mauvais sujet ; he ougty not to be pardoned, and if I were LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 163 Hie emperor I would not pardon him." She rose from her knees, and stretching her arms towards heaven, exclaimed with fervor " I call God to witness that my brother was innocent ! and I thank God that you are not the emperor, for I can still hope ! " The minister, in a rage, said " Do yon dare to speak thus to me ! Do you know who I am ? " " Yes," she replied ; " you are his excellency the minister C ; but what of that ? you are a cruel man ! but I put my trust in God and the emperor ; and then," said she, " I left him, without even a curtsey, though he followed me to the door, speak- ing very loud and very angrily." Her suit being rejected by all the ministers, (for even those who were most gentle, and who allowed the hardship of the case, still refused to interfere, or deliver her petition,) she resolved to do, what she had been dissuaded from attempting in the first instance to appeal to the emperor in person ; bu* it was in vain she lavished hundreds of dollars in bribes to the inferior officers ; in vain she beset the imperial suite, at reviews, at the theatre, on the way to the church : invariably beaten back by the guards, or the attendants, she could not penetrate to the emperor's presence. After spending six weeks in daily ineffectual attempts of this kind, hoping every morning, and almost despairing every evening threatened by the police and spurned by the officials Providence raised ner up a friend in one of her own sex. Among some ladies of rank, who became interested in her stcry, and invited 164 SKETCHES OF ART, her to tlieir houses, was a Countess Elise, something or other, whose name I am sorry I did not write clown. One day, on seeing her young protegee overwhelmed with grief, and almost in despair, she said, with emotion, " I cannot dare to present your petition myself, I might be sent off to Siberia, or at least banished the court ; but all I can do I will. I will lend you my equipage and servants. I will dress you in one of my robes ; you shall drive to the palace the next levee day, and obtain an audience under my name ; when once in the pres- ence of the emperor you must manage for your- self. If I risk thus much, will you venture the rest ? " " And what," said I, " was your answer ? * " Oh ! " she replied, " I could not answer ; but I threw myself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her gown ! " I asked her whether she had not feared to risk the safety of her generous friend ? She re- plied, " That thought did strike me but what would you have ? I cast it from me. I was resolved to have my brother's pardon I would have sacrificed my own life to obtain it and, God forgive me, I thought little of what it might cost another." This plan was soon arranged, and at the time ap- pointed my resolute heroine drove up to the palace in a splendid equipage, preceded by a running footman, with three laced laquais in full dress, mounted behind. She was announced as the Countess Elise , who supplicated a partic- ular audience of his majesty. The doors flew dpen and in a few minutes she was in the presence LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 163 of the emperor, who advanced one or two steps to meet her, with an air of 'gallantry, but suddenly started back Here I could not help asking her, whether in that moment she did not feel her heart sink ? " No," said she firmly ; " on the contrary, I felt my heart beat quicker and higher ! I sprang for- ward and knelt at his feet, exclaiming, with clasped hands * Pardon, imperial majesty ! Pardon ! ' * u Who are you V " said the emperor, astonished r " and what can I do for you ? " He spoke gently, more gently than any of his ministers, and over- come, even by my own hopes, I burst into a flood of tears, and said " May it please your imperial majesty, I am not Countess Elise , I am only the sister of the unfortunate Henri Ambos, who has been condemned on false accusation. O pardon ! pardon ! Here are the papers the proofs. O imperial majesty ! pardon my poor brother ! " I held out the petition and the papers, and at the same time, prostrate on my knees, I seized the skirt of his embroidered coat, and pres- sed it to my lips. The emperor said, "Rise - rise ! " but I would not rise ; I still held out my papers, resolved not to rise till he had taken them. At last the emperor, who seemed much moved, ex- tended one hand towards me, and took the papers with the other, saying " Rise, mademoiselle I command you to rise." I ventured to kiss his hand, and said, with tears, " I pray of your majesty to read that paper." He said, "J vrill read it." I 66 SKETCHES JF ART, then rose from the ground, and stood watching him while he unfolded the petition and read it. His countenance changed, and he exclaimed once or twice, " Is it possible ? This is dreadful ! " When he had finished, he folded the paper, and without any observation, said at once " Mademoiselle Ambos, your brother is pardoned." The words rung in my ears, and I again flung myself at his feet, saying and yet I scarce know what I said 44 Your imperial majesty is a god upon earth ; do you indeed pardon my brother? Your ministers would never suffer me to approach you ; and even yet I fear !" He said, "Fear nothing: you have my promise." He then raised me from the ground, and conducted me himself to the door. I tried to thank and bless him, but could not ; he held out his hand for me to kiss, and then bowed his head as I left the room. " Ach ja ! the emperor ia a good man, ein schoner, feiner, Mann ! but he does not know how cruel his ministers are, and all the evil they do, and all the justice they refuse, in his name ! " I have given you this scene as nearly as possible i pi her own words. She not only related it, but almost acted it over again ; she imitated alternately, her own and the emperor's voice and manner; and such was the vivacity of her description that I seemed to hear and behold both, and was more pro- foundly moved than by any scenic representation 1 can remember. On he~ return she received the congratulation? LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 16 i uf aer benefactress, the Countess Elise, and of her good friend the pastor, but both advised her to keep her audience and the emperor's promise a profound secret. She was the more inclined to this ; be- cause, after the first burst of joyous emotion, her spirits sank. Recollecting the pains that had been taken to shut her from the emperor's presence, she feared some unforeseen obstacle, or even some knavery on the part of the officers of government She described her sufferings during the next few days, as fearful; her agitation, her previous fa- tigues, and the terrible suspense, apparently threw her into a fever, or acted on her excited nerves so as to produce a species of delirium, though, of course, she would not admit this. After assuring me very gravely that she did not believe in ghosts, she told me that one night, after her interview with the emperor, she was reading in bed, being unable to sleep ; and on raising her eyes from her book she saw the figure of her brother, standing at the other end of the room ; she exclaimed, " My God, Henri ! is that you ! " but without making any reply, the form approached nearer and nearer to the bed, keeping its melancholy eyes fixed on hers, till it came quite close to the bedside, and laid a cold heavy hand upon her. MED ON. The night-mare, evidently. ALDA. Without doubt ; but her own impression was as of a reality. The figure, after looking at her sadly for some minutes, during which she had no powr either to move or speak, turned away ; t68 SKETCHES OF ART, ihe then made a desperate effort to call out to the daughter of her hostess, who slept in the next room " Luise ! Luise ! " Luise ran in to her. " Do you not see my brother standing there ? " she ex- claimed with horror, and pointing to the other end of the room, whither the image, conjured up by her excited fancy and fevered nerves, appeared to have receded. The frightened, staring Luise, an- swered, " Yes." " You see," said she, appealing to me " that though I might be cheated by my own senses, I could not doubt those of another. I thought to myself, then, my poor Henri is dead, and God has permitted him to visit me. This idea pur- sued me all that night, and the next day ; but on the following day, which was Monday, just five days after I had seen the Emperor, a laquais, in the imperial livery, came to my lodging, and put into my hands a packet, with the " Emperor's com- pliments to Mademoiselle Ambos." It was the par- don for my brother, with the Emperor's seal and eignature : then I forgot every thing but joy ! " Those mean, official animal?, who had before spurned her, now pressed upon her with offers of service, and even the Minister C offered to ex- pedite the pardon himself to Siberia, in order to save her trouble ; but she would not suffer the precious paper out of her hands : she determined to carry vt herself to be herself the bearer of glad tidings : she had resolved that none but herself should take off those fetters, the very description of whict bad entered her soul ; so, having made her arrange LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 169 men.ts as quickly as possible, she set off for Moscow, where she arrived in three days. According to her description, the town in Siberia, to the governor of which she carried an official recommendation, was nine thousand versts beyond Moscow ; and the fortress to which the wretched malefactors were exiled was at a great distance beyond that. I could not well make out the situation of either, and, unluckily, I had no map with me but a road map of Germany, and it was evident that my hero- ine was no geographer. She told me that, after leaving Moscow, she travelled post seven days and seven nights, only sleeping in the carriage. She then reposed for two days, and then posted on for another seven days and nights. MED ON. Alone ? ALDA. Alone ! and wholly unprotected, except by her own innocence and energy, and a few lines of recommendation, which had been given to her at St. Petersburg. The roads were every where excellent, the post-houses at regular distances, the travelling rapid ; but often, for hundreds of miles, there were no accommodations of any kind scarce a human habitation. She even suffered from hun- ger, not being prepared to travel for so many hours together without meeting with any food she could touch without disgust. She described, with great truth and eloquence, her own sensations as she was whirled rapidly over those wide, silent, solitary, and apparently endless plains. " Sometimes," said she, u my head seemed to turn I could not believe that 170 SKETCHES OF ART, it was a waking reality I could not believe that it was myself. Alone, in a strange land, so many hundred leagues from my own home, and driven along as if through the air, with a rapidity so dif- ferent from any thing I had been used to, that it almost took away my breath." " Did you ever feel fear ? I asked. " Ach ja ! when I waked sometimes in the car- riage, in the middle of the night, wondering at my- self, and unable immediately to collect my thoughts. Never at any other time." I asked her if she had ever met with insult ? She said she had twice met with " wicked men ; " but she had felt no alarm she knew how to protect herself: and as she said this, her countenance as- sumed an expression which showed that it was not a mere boast. Altogether, she described her jour- ney as being grausam, (horrible,) in the highest degree, and, indeed, even the recollection of it made her shudder ; but at the time there" was the anticipation of an unspeakable happiness, which made all fatigues light, and all dangers indifferent. At length, in the beginning of August, she ar- rived at the end of her journey, and was courteously received by the commandant of the fortress. She presented the pardon with a hand which trembled with impatience and joy, too great to be restrained, aim )st to be borne. The officer looked very grave, and took, she thought, a long time to read tho paper, which consisted only of six or eight lines, At last he stammered out, " I am sorry but th$ LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 171 Henri Ambos mentioned in this paper is dead I " Poor girl ! she fell to the earth. When she reached this part of her story she burst into a fresh flood of tears, wrung her hands, and for some time could utter nothing but passion- ate exclamations of grief. " Ach ! liebe Gott ! was fur ein schrecklich shichsal war das meine ! " " What a horrible fate was mine ! I had come thus far to find not my brother nur ein grab I " (only a grave !) she repeated several times, with an ac- cent of despair. The unfortunate man had died a year before. The fetters in which he worked had caused an ulcer in his leg, which he neglected, and, after some weeks of horrid suffering, death released him. The task- work, for nearly five years, of this accomplished, and even learned man, in the prime of his life and mental powers, had been to break stones upon the road, chained hand and foot, and confounded with the lowest malefactors. In giving you thus conscientiously, the mere out- line of this story, I have spared you all comments. I see, by those indignant strides majestical, that you are making comments to yourself; but sit down and be quiet, if you can : I have not much more to tell! She found, on inquiry, that some papers and let- tors, which her unhappy brother had drawn up by stealth, in the hope of being able at some time to convey them to his friends, were in the possession of one of the officers, who readily gave them up to her; and with these she returned, half broken* 172 SKETCHES OF ART, hearted, to St. Petersburg. If her former journey, when hope cheered her on the way, had been so fearful, what must have been her return ? I was not surprised to hear that, on her arrival, she was seized with a dangerous illness, and was for many weeks confined to her bed. Her story excited much commiseration, and a very general interest and curiosity was excited about herself. She told me that a great many per- sons of rank invited her to their houses, and made her rich presents, among which were the splendid shawls and the ring, which had caught my atten- tion, and excited my surprise, in the first instance The Emperor expressed a wish to see her, and very graciously spoke a few words of condolence. " But they could not bring my brother back to life ! " said she, expressively. He even presented her to the Empress. "And what," I asked, " did the Em- press say to you?" "Nothing; but she looked so " drawing herself up. On receiving her brother's pardon from the Em- peror, she had written home to her family; but she confessed that since that time she had not rritten, she had not courage to inflict a blow which might possibly affect her mother's life ; and yet the idea of being obliged to tell what she dared not write, seemed to strike her with terror. But the strangest event of this strange story re- mains to be told ; and I will try to give it in her own simple words. She left Petersburg in October, and proceeded LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 173 to Rio-a, where those who had known her brother O ' received her with interest and kindness, and sym- pathized in her affliction. " But," said she, " there was one thing I had resolved to do which yet remained undone. I was resolved to see the woman who had been the original cause of all my poor brother's misfortunes. I thought if once I could say to her, ' Your falsehood has done this ! ' I should be satisfied ; but my brother's friends dis- suaded me from this idea. They said it was better not ; that it could do my poor Henri no good ; that it was wrong ; that it was unchristian ; and I sub- mitted. I left Riga with a voituirer. I had reached Pojer, on the Prussian frontiers, and there I stopped at the Douane, to have my packages searched. The chief officer looked at the address on my trunk, and exclaimed, with surprise, i Made- moiselle Ambos! Are you any relation of the Professor Henri Ambos ? ' * I am his sister.' * Good God ! I was the intimate friend of your brother! What has become of him?' I then told him all I have now told you, liebe madame ! and when I came to an end, this good man burst into tears, and for some time we wept together. The kutscher, (driver,) who was standing by, heard all this conversation, and when I turned round, he was crying too. My brother's friend pressed on me offers of service and hospitality, but I could not delay ; for, besides that my impa- tience to reach home increased every hour, I had aot much money in my purse. Of thiee thousand 174 SKETCHES OF ART, dollars, which I had taken with me to St. Peters- burg, very little remained, so I bade him farewell, and I proceeded. At the next town, where my kutscher stopped to feed his horses, he came to the door of my caleche, and said, 'You have just missed seeing the Jew lady, whom your brothei was in love with ; that caleche which passed us by just now, and changed horses here, contained Mademoiselle S , her sister, and her sister's husband ! ' Good God ! imagine my surprise ! 1 could not believe my fortune : it seemed that Providence had delivered her into my hands, and I was resolved that she should not escape me. I knew they would be delayed at the custom-house. I ordered the man to turn, and drive back as fast as possible, promising him a reward of a dollar, if he overtook them. On reaching the custom-house, I saw a caleuhe standing at a little distance. I felt myself tremble, and my heart beat so, but not with fear. I went up to the caliche two ladies were sitting in it. I addressed the one who was the most beautiful, and said, 'Are you Mademoi- selle Emilie S ? ' I suppose I must have looked very strange, and wild, and resolute, for she replied, with a frightened manner, ' I am ; who are you, and what do you want with me ? ' I said, * I am the sister of Henri Ambos, whom you mur- dered ! ' She shrieked out ; the men came running -from the house ; but I held fast the carriage-door, I am not come to hurt you, but you are the mur- deress of my brother, Henri Ambos. He loved LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 173 jrou, and ) our falsehood lias killed him. May God punish you for it ! May his ghost pursue you to the end of your life ! ' I remember no more. I was like one mad. I have just a recollection of her ghastly, terrified look, and her eyes wide open, staring at me. I fell into fits ; and they carried me into the house of my brother's friend, and laid me on a bed. When I recovered my senses, the caleche and all were gone. When I reached Berlin, all this appeared to me so miraculous, so like a dream I could not trust to my own recol- lection, and I wrote to the officer of Customs, to beg he would attest that it was really true, and what I had said when I was out of my senses, and what she had said ; and at Leipsic I received his letter, which I will show you." And at Mayence she showed me this letter, and a number of other documents; her brother's pardon, with the em- peror's signature; a letter of the Countess Elise ; a most touching letter from her unfortunate brother ; (over this she wept much ;) and a va- riety of other papers, all proving the truth of her story, even to the minutest particulars. The next morning we were to part. I was going down the Rhine, and she was to proceed to Deuxponts, which she expected to reach in two days. As she had travelled from Berlin almost without rest, ex- cept the night we had spent at Frankfort, she ap- peared to me ready to sink with fatigue ; but she would not bid me farewell that night, although I told her I should be obliged to set off at six the 176 SKETCHES OF ART, ETC. next morning ; but kissing my hand, with many expressions of gratitude, she said she would be awake and visit me in my room to bid me a last adieu. As there was only a very narrow passage between the two rooms, she left her door a little open that she might hear me rise. However, on the following morning she did not appear. When dressed, I went on tiptoe into her room, and found her lying in a deep, calm sleep, her arm over her head. I looked at her for some minutes, and thought I had never seen a finer creature. I then turned, with a whispered blessing and adieu, and went on my way. This is all I can tell you. If at the time I had not been travelling against time, and with a mind most fully and painfully occupied, I believe 1 should have been tempted to accompany my heroine to Deuxponts ; at least, I should have retained her narrative more accurately. Not having made any memoranda till many days after- wards, all the names have escaped my recollec- tion ; but if you have any doubts of the general truth of this story, I will at least give you the means of verifying it. Here is her name, in her own handwriting, on one of the leaves of mj pocket-book you can read the German character torn SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. PART II. MEMORANDA AT MUNICH, NUREMBURG, AOT DRESDEN. SKEiCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. J MEMORANDA AT MUNICH. SEPT. 28. A week at Munich ! and nothing done ! nothing seen ! My first excursions I made to- day from my bed to the sofa from the sofa to the window. Every one told me to be prepared against the caprices of the climate, but I did not imagine that it would take a week or a fortnight to be ac- climatee. What could induce the princes of Bavaria to plant their capital in the midst of these wide, marshy, bleak, barren plains, and upon this rough unmanageable torrent, " the Isar rolling rapidly," when they might have seated themselves by the majestic Danube ? The Tyrolean Alps stretching south and west, either form a barrier against the most genial airs of heaven, or if a stray zephyr find his way from Italy, his poor little wings are frozen to his back among the mountain snows, and he drops shivering among us, wrapt in a misty cloud. I nev^r saw such fogs : they are as dense 180 SKETCHES OF ART, and as white as a fleece, and look and feel too, like rarefied snow ; but as no one else complains, I think it must be indisposition which makes me so peevish and so chilly. Sitting at the window being my best amusement, I do not like to find the only objects which are to give me a foretaste of the splendor of Munich, quite veiled from sight ami shrouded in mist, even for a few morning hours. I am lodged in the Max-Joseph's-Platz, oppo- site to the theatre : a situation at once airy, quiet, and cheerful. The theatre is in itself a beautiful object ; the portico, of the Corinthian order, is supported by eight pillars ; the ascent is by a noble flight of steps, with four gigantic bronze candelabras at the cor- ners ; and nothing, at least to my unlearned eyes, could be more elegant more purely classical and Greek, than the whole, were it not for the .hideous roof upon the roof, one pediment, as it were, rid- ing on the back of the other. Some internal ar- rangement of the theatre may render this deformity necessary, but it is a deformity, and one that an- noys me whenever I look at it. On the right, I have the new palace, which formr one side of the square, : a long range of plain, almost rustic, architecture ; altogether a striking, bui rathe? a pleasing contrast, to the luxuriant grace of the theatre. Just now, when I, looked out, what a beautiful scene ! The full moon rising over the theatre, lights up half the white columns, and half are lost in shade. The performances are just over LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 181 (half-past nine !) crowds of people emerging from the portico into the brilliant moonshine, (many of them military, in glittering accoutrements.) de- scend the steps, and spread themselves through the square, single, or in various groups ; carriages are drawing up and drawing off, and all this gay con- fusion is without the least noise or tumult. Except the occasional low roll of the carnage- wheels over the well-gravelled road, I hear no sound, though within a few yards of the spot. It looks like some lovely optical or scenic illusion ; a moving picture, magnified. Oct. 4. To my great consternation summoned in form before the police, and condemned to pay a fine of ten florins for having omitted to fill up specifically a certain paper which had been placed in my hands on my arrival. In the first place, I did not understand it ; secondly, I never thought about it ; and thirdly, I had been too ill to attend to it. I made a show of resistance, but it was all in vain, of course ; my permission to reside here is limited to six weeks, but may be renewed. Last night I was induced, but only upon great persuasion, to venture over to the theatre. I had been tantalized so long by looking at the exterior I Then it was a pleasant evening broad daylight ; and the whole theatre being heated by stoves to an even regulated warmth according to the season, I was assured that once within the doors there wouxd be no danger of fresh indisposition from draughts or cold. 182 SKETCHES OF ART, Entering the box, my first glance was of course at the stage. The drop-scene, or curtain, a well painted copy of Guido's Aurora, pleased me infi- nitely more than the beautiful drop-curtain atMan- heiui : that was very elegant, but this is more than elegant. It harmonized with the place, and in my own mind it touched certain chords of association, which had long been silent. It was as if the orchestre had suddenly welcomed me with some delicious, often-heard, and well-remembered piece of music : the effect upon the senses was similar nor can I describe it ; but, surprised and charmed, I kept my eyes fixed for some minutes upon the picture : the light being thrown full upon it, while the rest of the theatre was comparatively in deep shade, like all the foreign theatres, rendered it more effective. The rest of the decorations cor- responded in splendor ; the two colossal muses. as Caryatides supporting the king's state box, the noble columns of white and gold, and the Carya- tides on each side of the proscenium, were all in fine taste. The size and proportions of the interior seemed most happily calculated for seeing and hearing. On the whole, I never beheld a theatre which so entirely satisfied me no one more easily pleased, and no one less easily satisfied ! When I looked down on th, parterre, I beheld a motley assemblage in various costumes : there were a great number of the military ; there were jhe well-dressed daughter's of people of some con- dition, in the French fashion of two or three yearp LITERATURE AND CHARACTEK 183 back ; there were girls in the Tyrolean costume, with their scarlet boddices and silver chains ; and the women of Munich, with their odd little two* horned caps of rich gold or silver brocade, form- ing altogether a singular spectacle. As for the scenery, it was very well, but would bear no com- parison to Stanfield's glorious illusions. The inducement held out to me to-night was to see Ferdinand Eslair play the Duke of Alva in " Egmont." Eslair, formerly one of the first actors at Manheim, when Manheim boasted the first theatre in Germany, is esteemed the finest trage- dian here, and the Duke of Alva is one of his best .characters. It appeared to me a superb piece of acting; so quietly stern, so fearfully hard and com* posed : it was a fine conception cast in bronze : in this consisted its beauty and truth as a whole. Some of his silent passages, and his by-play, were admirable. He gave us, in the scene with Egmont, an exact living transcript of Titian's famous picture of the Duke of Alva ; the dress, the attitude, the position of the helmet and the glove on the table beside him, every thing was so well calculated, at once so unobtrusive and so unexpected, that it was like a recognition. Egmont was well played by Racke, but did not strike me so much. Madem- oiselle Scholler, who plays the young heroines here, is a pupil of Madame Schroder, (the German Sjoidr>ns,) and promises well ; but she wants de- velopment; she wants the power, the passion, the s, the energy of Clarchen. Clarchen is 184 SKETCHES OF ART, a plebeian girl, but an impassioned and* devoted woman she is a sort of Flemish Juliet. There is the same truth of nature and passion, the same im- press of intense and luxuriant life but then it is a different life it is a Rubens compared to a Titian and such Clarchen ought to be. Now to give all the internal power and poetry, yet preserve all the external simplicity and home- liness of the character, to give all the abandon, yet preserve all the delicacy, to give the del- icacy, yet keep clear of all super-refinement, and in the concentrated despair of her last scene (where she poisons herself) to be calm without being cold, and profoundly tragic without the usual tragedy airs, must be difficult exceedingly difficult ; in short, to play Clarchen, as I conceive the character ought to be played, would require a young actress, uniting sufficient genius to conceive it aright, with sufficient delicacy and judgment not to color it too highly: there was no danger of the latter mistake with Mademoiselle Scholler, in whose hands Clarchen became a mere pretty affectionate girl. In that lovely scene with Eg- mont in the third act, which might be contrasted with Juliet's balcony scene, as a test of the powers nf a young actress, Mademoiselle Scholler was timid even to feebleness; the change of manner, when Clarchen substitutes the tender familiarity of the second person singular (Du) for the tone of respect in which she before addressed her lover, should have been felt and marked, so as tr LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER, 185 have been felt and remarked : but tliis was not the case. In short, I was disappointed by this scene. The Flemish costumes were correct and beauti- ful. The Prince of Orange, in particular, looked as if he had just walked out of one of Vandyke's pictures. After seeing this fine tragedy surely enough for one evening's amusement I was at home and in bed by half-past ten. They manage these things better here than in England. Friday. Dinner at the French ambassador's five o'clock. I mark this, because extraordinarily late at Munich. The plebeian dinner hour is twelve, or earlier ; the general hour, one : the genteel hour, two ; the fashionable hour, three ; but five is super-elegant in the very extreme of finery like a nine o'clock dinner in London. There were present the Princess Schwartzenburg and her sister the Princess Dietrichstein, the British Secretary of Legation, a young Englishman, Lord If. F., M. de Klenze, and four or five other gentlemen with tstars and ribbons, names unknown. The Princess Schwartzenburg is a famous Austrian beauty, and on any other occasion I might have been sensible of her pretensions, but in the same room with Madame de Vaudreuil this was scarcely possible, BO entirely did the greater glory dim the less. But the person who fixed my attention was Leo von Klenze, tbe celebrated architect, and deservedly a favorite of the king, who has, I believe, bestowed on him the superfluous honors of nobility. Witlj 166 SKETCHES OF ART, the others, I had no sympathies with him 'a thou- sand, though he knew it not. I looked at him with curiosity with interest. I liked his plain, but marked and clever countenance, and his easy man- ners. I fell an unconscious desire to be agreeable, and longed to make him talk ; but I knew that thia was not the place or the moment for us to see each other to the greatest advantage. We had, how- ever, some little conversation a kind of be^innin^. o o He told me at dinner that the Glyptothek (the gallery of sculpture here) was planned and built by the present king, when only prince royal, and the expenses liquidated from his private purse, out of his yearly savings. He spoke with modesty of himself -with gratitude and admiration of the king, of whose talent, vivacity, impatience, and enthu- siasm for art and artists I had already heard some characteristic anecdotes. After coffee, part of the company dispersed to the opera, or elsewhere ; others remained to lounge and converse. After the opera, we reassembled with additions, and then tea, and cards, and talk, till past eleven. Madame de Vaudreuil receives almost every evening, and this seems to be the general routine. Oct. 6. They are now celebrating here the Volksfes', (literally the " people's feast") or annual fair of Munich, and this has been a grand day of festivity. There have been races, a military re- view, &c. ; but, except the race-horses in their embroidered trappings, which were led past my LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 187 window, and a long cavalcade of royal carriages and crowds of people, in gay and grotesque cos- tumes, hurrying by, I have seen nothing, being obliged to keep my room ; so I listened to the firing of the cannon, and the shouts of the populace, and thought # * # Oct. 8, First visit to the Glyptothek just re- turned my imagination, still filled with " the blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry," excited as I never thought it could be again excited after seeing the Vatican ; but this is the Vatican in miniature. Can it be possible that this glorious edifice was planned by a young prince, and erected out of his yearly savings V I am wonder-struck ! I was not prepared for any thing so spacious, so magnificent, so perfect in taste and arrangement. I do not yet know the exact measurement of the building ; but it contains twelve galleries, the small- est about fifty, and the largest about one hundred and thirty feet in length. It consists of a square, built round an open central court, and the ap- proach is by a noble portico of twelve Ionic columns, raised on a flight of steps. As it stands in an open space, a little out of the town, with trees planted on either side, the effect is very im- posing! and beautiful. There are no exterior win dows, they all open into the central court. From the portico we enter a hall, paved with marble. Over the principal door is the name of fche king, and the date of the erection. Two side 188 SKETCHES OF ART, doors lead to the galleries. Over the door on the (eft there is an inscription to the honor of Leo von Klenze, the architect of the building. Over the door on the right, is the name of Peter Cor- nelius, the painter, by whom the frescos were de- signed and chiefly executed. Thus the king, with a noble magnanimity, uniting truth and justice, has associated in his glory those to whom he chiefly owes it and this charmed me. It is in much finer feeling, much higher taste, than those eternal (no, not eternal!) great N's of that imperial egotist, Napoleon, whose vulgar appetite for vulgar fame would allow no participation. I walked slowly through the galleries so excited by the feeling of admiration, that I could niakd no minute or particular observations. The floors are all paved with marbles of various colors the walls, to a certain height, are stuccoed in imitation of gray or dark green marble, so as to throw out the sculpture, and give it the full effect The utmost luxury of ornament has been lavished on the walls and ceilings, some in painting, some in relief; but in each, the subjects and ornaments are appropriate to the situation, and as each gallery has been originally adapted to its destination, every where the effect to be produced has been judi- ciously studied. The light is not too great, nor too generally diffused it is poured in from high semi- circular windows on one side only, so as to throw the sculpture into beautiful relief. Two lofty and spacious halls are richly painted in fresco, with LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 189 subjects from the Greek mythology, and the whole building would contain, I suppose, six times, or ten times, the number of works of art now there ; at the same time all are so arranged that there ap- pears no obvious deficiency. The collection was begun only in 1808, and since that time the king has contrived to make some invaluable acquisitions. I found here many of the most far-famed relics of ancient art, many that I had already seen in Italy ; for instance, the Egina marbles, the Barberini Faun, the Barberini Muse or Apollo, the Leu- cothoe, the Medusa Rondanini, above all, the Ilioneus ; but I cannot now dwell on these. I must go again and again before I can methodize my im- pressions and recollections. Oct. 11. Yesterday and to-day, at the Glyp- tothek, where the cushioned seats, though rather more classical than comfortable, enabled me to lounge away the time, unwearied in body as in mind. The arrangement of the galleries is such as to form not only a splendid exhibition and school of art, but a regular progressive history of the rise and decline of sculpture. Thus we step from the vestibule into the Egyptian gallery, of which the principal treasure is the colossal Antinous of Rosso- antico, with the attributes of Osiris. I admired in this room the exquisite beauty and propriety of the basso-relievo over the door, de- signed and modelled by Schwanthaler. It is of course intended to be symbolical of the birth of art 190 SKETCHES OF ART, among the Egyptians. Isis discovers the body ot her lost husband Osiris, concealed in a sarcopha- gus : she strikes it with the mystic wand, and he stands revealed, arfd restored to her. The imita- tion of the Egyptian style is perfect. From the Egyptian, we step into the Etruscan gallery, of which the ceiling is painted in the mos\ vivid and beautiful colors. The third room con- tains the famous Egina marbles, which I had seen at Rome when Thorwaldson was engaged in re- storing them. To appreciate the classical beauty and propriety of the arrangement of these singular relics, we must call to mind their history, their sub- ject, and their original destination. Thus ^Eacus, the first king of the Island of yEgina was the son of Jupiter, or rather Zeus, (for the Greek designa- tions are infinitely more elegant and expressive than the Roman.) The temple was dedicated to Zeus, and the groups which adorned the pediments represented the history of the two branches of the yEacida?, descended from Telamon and Peleus, sons of JEacus. On two long tables or stands of marble, supported by griffins, imitated from those which originally ornamented the temple, are ranged the two groups of figures : neither group is quite entire. Of that which represents the fight of Telamon and Hercules with Laomedon, King of Troy, there are only five figures remaining ; and qf the other group, the conflict for the body of Patroclus, there are ten figures. Along the walls, on tables of marble, are ranged a variety of frag- LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 1 9] inents from the same temple, which must have been splendidly rich in sculpture, within and without. On the ceiling of this room, the four j^Eacidse, ^Eacus, Peleus, Achilles, and Neoptolemus, are represented in relief, by Schwanthaler. There is also a small model of the western front of the temple restored, and painted as it is proved to have been originally ; (for instance, the field of the Tympanum was of a sky blue.) This model is fixed in the wall opposite to the window. It is extremely curious and interesting, but I thought not well placed as an ornament.* I remember asking W , who has been in every part of the world, what was the most beauti- ful scene he had ever beheld, taking natural beauty and poetical associations together ? He replied, after a little thought, " A sunset from the temple of ^Egina ; " and I can conceive this. Lord Byroa introduces it into his Grecian Sunset but as an object u On old jEgina's steep and Idra's Isle, The god of gladness sheds his parting smile." From the .ZEgina gallery we enter the Hall oi * The entire grouping of these figures is from the design of Mr Robert Cockerell, one of the original discoverers, who in ascer- taining their relative position has been guided in some measure by the situation in which their fragments were found strewed ia front of the temple, and overwhelmed with masses of the frieza and pediment; but has been much more indebted to his awn artist-like feeling, and architectural skill. He is of opinion Uiat fche western pediment contained several other figures besides the len which have been restored. SKETCHES OF ART, Apollo. The ceiling of this room, splendidly deco- rated in white and gold, represents the emblems of the four principal cities of Greece, viz : the Athe- nian owl, the winged-horse of Corinth, the Chimera of Sicyon, and the wolf of Argos. The chief glory of this apartment is that cele- brated colossal statue, once known as the Barbe- rini muse, now considered by antiquarians as an Apollo, and supposed to be the work of Ageladas, the master of Phidias. It is certainly older than the sculptures of the Parthenon. In its severe massy grandeur, there is something of the heavi- ness and formality of the most ancient GreeJ: school, and in point of style it forms a link between the ./Egina marbles and the Elgin marbles. It should seem that the eyes of this statue were once represented by gems the orifices remain, sur- rounded by a ring of bronze. In the same room are those two sublime busts which almost take away one's breath the colossal head of Pallas, resembling that of the Minerva of Velletri, now in the Vatican ; and the Achilles. The next room is the Hall of Bacchus. The ceiling is richly ornamented with all the festive em- blems of the god, in white and gold relief. In the centre we have that wondrous statue, the gigantic Sleeping Satyr, called by some the Barberini Faun. Antiquaries and connoisseurs refer this work either to Scopas or Praxiteles, and, from the situation in which it was discovered, suppose it to have once ornamented the tomb of Adrian. I cannot tell LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 198 how this may be, but here we behold with astonish- ment the grotesque, the elegant, and the sublime mingled together, and each in perfection : how, I know not ; but I feel it is so. I once saw a draw- ing of this statue, which gave me the idea of some* thing coarse and heavy ; whereas, in the original, the delicate beauty of the workmanship, and the inimitable sleepy abandonment of the attitude, soften the effect of the colossal forms. I would place this statue immediately after the Elgin mar- bles ; it is, with all its excellence, a degree lower in style. In this gallery I found the famous head of the laughing faun, called from the greenish stain on the cheek, the fauno colla macchia, and also a sarcoph- agus, representing in the most exquisite sculp- ture, the marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne. The blending of the idea of death with the fulness of life, and even with the most luxuriant and festive associations of life, is common among the Greeks, and, from one or two known instances, appears to have been carried to an extreme which makes one shrink ; still, any thing rather than . our detestable death's head and cross bones ! In nature, and in poetry, death is beautiful. It is the diseases and vices of artificial life which have rendered it la- mentable, terrible, disgusting. Fixed in the wall, opposite to the window, there is a bas relief of amazing beauty the marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite. It is a piece of lyric poetry. 194 SKETCHES OF ART, The Hall of Niobe contains few objects ; but among them some of the most perfect specimens of Grecian art ; and first, the ILIONEUS. It was because the Grecian sculptors were them- selves poets and creators, that " marble grew di- vine " beneath their hands, and became so instinct with the indestructible spirit of life, that their half- defaced ruins retain their immortality : else how should we stand shivering with awe before those tremendous fragments -the sister Fates in the Elgin marbles ! Or, how should I, who am incapa- ble of estimating the technical perfection of art, stand entranced as to-day I stood before the Ilioneus ? It was not merely admiration ; it was the overpowering sentiment of harmonious and pathetic beauty running along every nerve such a feeling as music has sometimes awakened. I sup- pose the Ilioneus stands alone, like the Torso of the Vatican the ne plus ultra of grace, as the latter is of grandeur. The first time I ever saw a cast of this divine statue was in the vestibule of Goethe's house, at Weimar. It immediately fixed my attention. Af- terwards I saw another in Dannecker's studio, and from him I learned its history. It was discovered about ten years ago at Prague, in the possession oi a stone-mason, and is supposed to have formed part of the collection of ancient works of art which the Emperor Rodolph collected in Italy about 1600.* * The character of the Emperor Rodolph would be one of the most interesting speculations in philosophical history. He wa t .LITERATURE, AND CHAR^ClhiK. 195 A certain Dr. Barth purchased it for a trifle, and brought it to Vienna, where Dannecker happened to be at that time, and was called upon with others to pronounce on its merits and value. It was at once attributed to the hand, either of Praxiteles or Scopas, and on farther and minute examination, the style, the proportions, and the evident purport of the figure, have decided that it belongs to the group of Niobe and her children. It has obtained the appellation of Ilioneus, which Ovid gives to the youngest of her sons. It represents a youth kneel- ing. The head and arms are wanting ; but the supplicatory expression of the attitude, the turn of the body, so deprecating, so imploring ; the bloom of adolescence, which seems absolutely shed over the cold marble, the unequalled delicacy and ele- gance of the whole, touched me unspeakably. The King of Bavaria is said to have paid for this exquisite relic 15,000 florins a large sum for a lit- tle potentate ; but for the object itself, its value is not to be computed by money. Its weight in gold were poor in comparison. In the same room is the Medusa Rondanini, the common model of almost all the Medusa heads, but certainly not equal to the sublime colossal mask at Cologne. There is also an antique duplicate of the evidently a fine artist, degraded into a bad sovereign a man ^rhose constructive and imaginative genius was misplaced upon a throne. The melancholy, and incipient madness which hovrend Thetis, and the appearance of the goddess of Discord, with her fatal a'pple. Around this are the twelve gods who were present at the feast, modelled 200 SKETCHES OF ART, in relief by Schwan thaler. Then follow twelve compartments, containing the most striking scenes of the Iliad, divided and adorned by me most rich and fanciful arabesques, combining the exploits or histories of the Grecian heroes, which are not in- cluded in the Iliad. The figures in these compart- ments are the size of life. On the walls we have the three principal incidents of the Trojan war ; first, the wrath of Achilles ; secondly, opposite to the window, the fight for the body of Patrocles, and Achilles shouting to the warriors. There is wonderful energy and movement in this picture : The third is the destruction of Troy. The figure of Hecuba sitting in motionless horror and despair, with her dishevelled gray hair, her daughters cling- ing to her; the beautiful attitudes of Polyxena and Cassandra ; the silent remorse of Helen ; the wild fury of the conqueror?, and the vigor and splendor of the whole painting, render this com position exceedingly striking : I did not quite like the figure of Priam. All these designs are by Cor- nelius, and executed partly by him, and partly under his direction by Zimmermann, Schlotthauer, &nd their pupils. The arabesques are by Eugene \eurather : and there are two admirable and spirited bas-reliefs by Schwanthaler one repre- senting the battle of the ships, and the other the combat of Aclulles with the river gods. The paintings in this hall were finished in 1830. We then enter the range of galleries, devoted to the later Greek, and the Roman sculpture. The LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 201 first, coiTesponding in size and situation with the Hall of ^Niobe, contains nothing peculiarly inter- esting, except the famous figure of the young war- rior anointing himself after the bath, and called the Alexander. The next gallery is the Roman Hall, about one hundred and thirty feet in length, and forms a glorious coup d'oeil. The utmost luxury of archi- tectural decoration has been lavished on the ceil- ings ; and the effect of the marble pavement, with the disposition of the busts, candelabrae, altars, as seen in perspective, is truly and tastefully magni- ficent. I particularly admired the ceiling, which is divided into three domes, adorned with bas- reliefs, taken from the Roman history and man- ners : these were designed by Schwanthaler. I cannot remember any thing remarkable in this gallery ; or rather, there were too many things de- serving of notice, for me to note all. The stand- ing Agrippina has, however, dwelt on my mind ; and an exceeding fine bust of Octavius Csesar, crowned with the oak leaves. A small room contains the sculpture in colored marble, porphyry, and bronze ; and the last is the hall of modern sculpture. In the centre of the ceiling is a phoenix, rising from its ashes, and ground it the heads of four distinguished sculptors Mcolo da Pisa, the restorer of the art in the fourteenth century; Michael Angeio, Cariova, and* Thorwaldson. Twc of the most celebrated productions of mod- 202 SKETCHES OF ART, ern sculpture are here the Paris of Canova, and the Adonis of Thorwaldson. As they are placed near to each other, and the aim is alike in both to exhibit the utmost perfection of youthful and ef- feminate beauty, the merits of the two artists were fairly brought into comparison. Thorwaldson'a statue reminded me of the Antinous ; Canova's re- called the young Apollo. I hardly know which to prefer as a conception ; but the material and work- manship of the Paris pleased me most. The marble of Thorwaldson's statue, though faultless in purity of tint, has a coarse gritty grain, and glitters dis- agreeably in certain lights, as if it were spar or lump-sugar ; whereas the smooth close compa ;t grain of Canova's marble, which is something of a creamy white, seemed to me infinitely preferable to the eye. This, however, is hyper-criticism : in both, tL', feeling is classically and beautifully true. The soft melancholy of the countenance and atti- tude of Adonis, as if anticipative of his early death, and the languid self-sufficiency of Paris, appeared to me equally admirable. There is also in thia room a duplicate by Canova of his Venus, in the Pitti palace,; a girl tying her sandal, by Rodolph Schadow a pendant, I presume, to his charming Filatrice, now at Chatsworth ; and some fine busts. I looked round in vain for a single specimen of English art.- I thought it just possible that some nvork of Flaxman, or Chantrey, or Gibson, might have found its way hither but no ! Oct. 12. Last night to the opera with a pleasant LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 203 party ; but, tired and over-excited with my morning at the Glyptothek, I wanted soothing, and was not in a humor for the noisy florid music of Wilhelm Tell. It is an opera which, as it becomes familiar, tires, and does not attach just like some clever people I have met with. Pellegrini (not the Pel- ligrini we had in England, but a fixture here, and their best male singer a fine basso cantante) acted Tell. I say acted, because he did not merely sing his part he acted it, and well ; so well, that once I felt my eyes moisten. Madame Spitzeder sang in Matilda von Hapsburg tolerably. Their first tenor, Bayer, I do not like ; his intonation is de- fective. The decorations and dresses are beauti- ful. As for the dancing, it is not fair to say any- thing about it. Unfortunately the first bars of the Tyrolienne brought Taglioni before my mind's eye, and who or what could stand the comparison ? How she leapt like a stag ! bounded like a young faun ! floated like the swan-down on the air! Yet even Taglioni, though she makes the nearest ap- proach to it, does not complete my idea of a poeti- cal dancer ; but as she improved upon Herbelet, we may find another to improve upon her. One more such artist I use the word in the general and .German sense, not in the French meaning one more such artist, who should bring modesty, and sense, and feeling, into this lovely and most desecrated art, iiiight do something to retrieve it plight introduce the necessity for dancers having heads as well as heels, and in time revolutionize the whole corps de ballet. 204 \ SKETCHES OF ART, Wednesday. This morning, M. Herman Stunts, the King's chapel-master, called on me. I had heard of him as a fine composer, and also much of his opera, produced for the Scala at Milan, the Costantino il Grande. I was pleased to find him not a musician only, like most musicians, but intel- ligent and enthusiastic on other subjects, and with that childlike simplicity of mind and manner, so often combined with talent. We touched upon every thing from the high sublime to the deep ab- surd ran round the whole circle of art in a sort of touch-and-go style, and his ndiveii and original- ity pleased me more and more. He said some true and delightful things about music ; but would insist that of all languages the English is the most diffi- cult to ally to musical sounds infinitely worse than German. He complained of the shut mouth, the claquement des dents, and the predominance of aspirates in our pronunciation. I objected to the guttural sounds, and the open mouths, and the yaw yaw of the Germans. Then followed an animated discussion on vocal sounds and musical expression, and we parted, I believe, mutually pleased. The father of Stuntz is a Swiss a man of letters, an enthusiast, a philosopher, an artist ; in short, a most extraordinary and eccentric character. He entirely educated his two children, of whom the son, Herman Stuntz, takes a high rank as a composer ; and the daughter is a distinguished female artist, but, being nobly married, she now only paints pictures to give them away, and those who possess LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 205 them &re, with reason, extremely proud of the pos- session. In the evening, Madame Meric, prima-donna aus London, as the play-bills set forth, made her first appearance in the Gazza Ladra. She is en- gaged here for a limited time, and takes the gast- rolles that is, she plays the first parts as a matter of course in short, she is a STAR. The regular prima-donna is Madame Scheckner-Wagen. Meric has talent, voice, style, and unwearied industry ; but she has not genius, neither is her organ first- rate. Comparisons in some cases are unjust as well as odious. Yet was it my fault that I remem- bered in the same part the syren Sontag, and the enchantress Malibran ? Meric, besides being a fine singer, is an amiable woman ; married to an extravagant, dissipated husband, and working to provide for her child a common fate among the women of her profession. * * * Sat up late reading, for the third or fourth time, a chance volume of Madame Roland's works. What a complete French woman ! but then, what a mind ! how large in capacity ! how stored with knowledge ! how strong in conscious truth ! how finely toned ! how soft, and yet how firm ! What wonderful industry united to the quickest talent ! Some things written at eighteen and twenty have most surprised me; some passages in the " Vie prive"e," and the " Appel," have most charmed me. She is not very eloquent, and I should think had 206 SKETCHES OF AIM', not a playful or poetic fancy. There is an almost total want of imagery in her style ; bat great power, unaffected elegance, with a sort of negligence at times, which adds to its beauty. Then, to remem- ber that all I have just read was written in a prison, in daily, hourly expectation of death ! but that excites more interest than surprise, for a situation of strong excitement of mind and passion, with external repose and solitude, must be favorable to this development of the faculties, where there is character as well as talent. Some of her dis- closures are a little too naive. I am amused by the quantity of feminine vanity which is mixed up with all this loftiness of spirit, this real independ- ence of soul. Madame de Stael had not more vanity, whatever they may say ; but it w r as less balanced by self-esteem it required more stm- pathy. Then we have those two admirable women * * and * *. What exquisite feminine vanity is there ! Yet, happily, in both instances how far re- moved from all ill-nature and presumption, and how unconsciously betrayed ! I should think Joanna Baillie, among our great women, must be most exempt from this failing, perhaps, because, of all the five, she has the most profound sense of religion, Lavater said, that " the characteristic of every woman's physiognomy was vanity." A phrenol- ogist would say that it was the characteristic of every woman's head. How far, then, may a woman be vain with a good grace, and betray it without ridicule ? By vanity, I mean now, a great wish LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 207 to please, mingled with a consciousness of the powers of pleasing, and not what Madame Koland describes, " cette ambition constante, ce soin per- petuel d'occuper de soi, et de paraitre autre ou tneilleur que Ton n'est en effet," for this is diseased vanity. * * * Dr. Martius * lent me two pretty little volumes of " Poems, by Louis I. king of Bavaria," the pres- ent king the first royal author we have had, I believe, since Frederic of Prussia the best since James I. of Scotland. These poems are chiefly lyrical, consisting of odes, sonnets, epigrams. Some are addressed to the queen, others to his children, others to different ladies of the court, whom he is said to have particularly admired, and a great number were composed during his tour in Italy in 1817. Of the merit of these poems I cannot judge ; and when I appealed to two different critics, both accomplished men, one assured me they were ad- mirable; the other shrugged up his shoulders "Que voulez vous? c'est un Roi!" The earm.'et feeling and taste in some of these little pcmiiij pleased me exceedingly of that alone I could judge: for instance, there is an address to the German artists, which contains the following beau- tiful lines : he is speaking of art * The celebrated traveller, natural philosopher, and botanist He has the direction of most of ';he scientific institutions *t Munich. 208 SKETCHES OF ART, In der Stille muss es sich gestalten, Wenn es kriiftig wirkend soil ersteh'n; Aus dem Herzen nur kann sich entfalten, Das was wahrhaft wird zum Herzen geh'n. Ja! ihr nehmet es aus reinen Tiefen, Fromm und einfach, wie die Vorwelt war, Weekend die Gefiihle. welche schliefen, Ehrend zeugt's von Euch und immerdar. Sklavisch an das Alte euch zu halten, Eures Strebens Zweck ist dieses nicht, Seyd gefasst von himmlischen Gewalten, Dringet rastlos zu dem hehren Licht!" Which may be thus literally rendered " To rise into vigorous, active influence, it (art) musi spring up and develop itself in secrecy and in silence, out of the heart alone can that unfold itself, which shall truly go to the heart again. '.' Yes ! pious and simple as the old world was, ye draw it (art) from the same pure depths, awakening the feel- ings which slumber! and it shall bear honorable witness of ye and forever ! " Slavishly to cling to antiquity, this is not the end of your labors ! Be ye, therefore, upheld by heavenly power ; press on, and rest not, to the high and holy light! " Methinks this magnificent prince deserves, even more than his ancestor, Maximilian L, to be styled the Lorenzo do' Medici of Bavaria. The power LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 209 to patronize, the sentiment to feel, the genius to celebrate art, are rarely united, even in individuals, He must be a noble being a genius lorn in the vurple, on whose laurels there rests not a blood- stain, perhaps not even a tear ! This is a holiday. I was sitting at my window, translating some of these poems, when I saw a crowd round 4 the doors of the new palace, for it is a day of public admission. Curiosity tempted me to join this crowd ; no sooner thought than done. I had M. de Klenze's general order for admittance in my pocket-book, but wished to see how this was managed, and mingled with the crowd, which was waiting to be admitted en masse. I was at once recognized as a stranger, and every one with simple civility made way for me. Groups of about twenty or thirty people were admitted at a time, at inter- vals of a quarter of an hour, and each group placed under the guidance of one of the workmen as cicerone. He led them through the unfinished apartments, explaining to his open-mouthed audi- tors the destination of each room, the subjects of the pictures on the walls and ceilings, &c. &c There were peasants from the south, in their sin- pilar dresses, mechanics and. girls of Munich, sol- diers, travelling students. 1 was much amused. While the cicerone held forth, some merely won- dered with foolish faces, some admired, some looked intelligent, and asked various questions, which were readily answered all seemed pleased. Every thing was done in order : two groups were never 14 10 SKETCHES O* A.RT, in the same apartment; but as one went out, another entered. Thus many hundreds of these poor people were gratified in the course of the day. It seemed to me a wise as well as benevolent policy in the king thus to appeal to the sympathy, and gratify the pride of his subjects of all classes, by allowing them inviting them, to take an interest in his magnificent undertakings, to consider them national as well as royal. I am informed that these works are carried on without any demands on the Staatskasse, (the public treasury,) and without any additional taxes : so far from it, that the Bavarian House of Representatives curtailed the supplies by 300,000 florins only last year, and refused the king an addition to the civil list, which he had requested for the travelling expenses of two of his sons. The king is said to be economical in the extreme in his domestic expenses, and not very generous in money to those around him unlike his open-hearted, open-handed father, Max- Joseph ; in short, there are grumblers here as elsewhere, but strangers and posterity will not sympathize with them. This is the fourth time I have seen this splendid and truly royal palace, but will make no memo- randa till I have gone over the whole with Leo von Klenze. He has promised to be my cicerone himself, and I feel the full value of the compli- ment. Count Y told m last night, that he (De Klenze) has made for this building alone upwards of seven hundred drawings and designs with his own hand. .LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 211 Oct. 13. Called on my English friends, the C * * s. and found them pleasantly settled in a beautiful furnished lodging near the Hofgarten, for which they pay twenty-four florins (or about, two pounds) a month. We had some conversation about music, (they are all musicians,) and the opera, and Malibran, whom they have lately seen in Italy ; and Pasta, whom they had visited at Como; and they confirmBd what Mr. J. M. Stuntz and M. K. had all told me of her benevolence and excellent cnaracter. I could not find that any new genius had arisen in Italy to share the glory of our three queens of the lyrical drama, Pasta, Mali- bran, and Schroder Devrient. Other singers have more or less talent and feeling, more or less com- pass of voice, facility, or agility ; but these three women possess genius, and stamp on every thing they do their own individual character. Of the three, Pasta is the grandest and most finished artist ; Malibran the most versatile in power and passion ; while Schroder Devrient has that energy of heart and soul that capacity for exciting, and being ex- cited, which gives her such unbounded command over the feelings and senses of her audience.* So far we were agreed ; but as the conversation went on, I was doomed to listen to a torrent of common- place and sarcastic criticism on the private habits * I lemember Madame Devrient, in describing the effect which music had upon herself, pressing her hand upon her bosom, and Baying, with simple but profound feeling, a Ah! ce>a use In 212 SKETCHES OF ART, of these and other women of the same profession : one was accused of vulgarity, another of bad tem- per, and another of violence and caprice : one was suspected of a, penchant for porter, another had been heard to swear, or something very like it. Even pretty lady-like Sontag was reproached with some trifling breach of mere conventional manner, she had used her fingers where she should have taken a spoon, or some such nonsense. My God ! to think of the situation of these women ! and then to look upon those women, who, fenced in from in- fancy by all the restraints, the refinements, the comforts, the precepts of good society, the one arranging a new cap, the other embroidering a purse, the third reading a novel, all satisfied with petty occupations and amusements, " far, far re- moved from want and grief and fear," now sitting in judgment, and passing sentence of excommuni- cation on others of their sex, who have been steeped in excitement from childhood, their nerves forever in a state of tension between severest application and maddening flattery ; cast on the world without chart or compass with energies misdirected, pas- sions uncontrolled, and all the inflammable and imaginative part of their being cultivated into ex- cess ,s a part of their profession of their material 1 O wtsn will there be charity in the world ? When will human beings, women especially, show mercy and justice to each other, and not judge of results, without a reference to causes ? and when will re- flection upon these causes lead to their removal ? LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER: 218 They are evils which press upon few, but are re- flected on many, inasmuch as they degrade art and the pursuit of art ; but all can sneer, and few can think. * . * * * I begin at length to feel my way among the pic- tures here. Hitherto I have been bewildered. 1 have lounged away morning after morning at the gallery of the Hoigarten, at Schleissheim, and at the Due de Leuchtenberg's ; and returned home with dazzled eyes and a mind overflowing, like one u oppressed with wealth, and with abundance sad," unable to recall or to methodize my own impres- sions. Professor Zimmerman n tells me that the king of Bavaria possesses upwards of three thousand pictures ; of these, about seventeen hundred are at Schleissheim ; nine hundred in the Munich gal- lery ; and the rest distributed through various palaces. The national gallery, or Pinakothek, which is now building under the direction of Leo von Klenze, is destined to contain a selection from these multifarious treasures, of which the present arrangement is only temporary. The king of Bavaria unites in his own person the three branches of the House of Wittelsbach : the palatines of the Rhine, the dukes of Deux- ponts, and the electors of Bavaria, all sovereign houses, and descended from Otto von Wittelsbach, who received the investiture of the dukedom of Bavaria in 1180. Thus it is that the celebrated 14 * 8KKTCHES OF ART, galler) once at Dusscldorf, formed under the auspices of the elector John William ; the various collections at Manheim, Deuxponts, and Heidel- berg, are now concentrated at Munich, where, from the days of Duke Albert V. (1550) up to the present time, works of art have been gradually accumulated by successive princes. Somebody calls the gallery at Munich the court of Rubens ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds says that no one should judge of Rubens who had not studied him at Antwerp and Dusseldorf. I begin to feel the truth of this. My devoted worship of the Italian school of art rendered me long I will not say blind to the merits of the Flemish painters for that were to be " sans eyes, sans taste, san* every thing ! " but in truth, without that full feeling of their power which I have since ac- quired. Certainly we have in these days mean ideas about painting mean and false ideas ! It has be- come a mere object of luxury and connoisseur- ship or virtu: unless it be addressed to our per- sonal vanity, or to the puerile taste for ornament, show, furniture, it is nothing. The noble art which was once recognized as the priestess of nature, as a great moral power capable of acting on the senses and the imagination of assembled human beings as such applied by the lawgivers of Greece, and by the clergy of the Roman Catl'.o- lic church, how' is it now vulgarized in its ob- jects ! how narrowed in its application ! And if it LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 215 be said tUat, in the present state of society, in these calculating, money-making, political, intellectual times, we are acted upon by far different in- fluences, rendering us infinitely less sensible to the power of painting, then I think it is not true, and that the cultivated susceptibility to other moral or poetical excitements as politics or literature does not render us less sensible to the moral in- fluence of painting; on the contrary: but she has falJen from her high estate, and there are none to raise her. The public the national spirit, is want- ing ; individual patronage is confined, is misdi- rected, is arbitrary, demanding of the artist any thing rather than the highest and purest intellec- tual application of his art, and affording nor space nor opportunity for him to address himself to the grand universal passions, principles, and interests of human nature ! Suppose a Michael Angelo to be born to us in England : we should not, per- haps, set him to make a statue of snow, but where or how would his gigantic genius, which revelled in the great deeps of passion and imagination, find scope for action ? He would struggle and gasp like a stranded Leviathan ! But this is digressing ; the question is, may not the moral effect of painting be still counted on, if the painter be himself imbued with the right spirit ? * * "A Pexposition de Paris (1822) on a vu tin millier de tableaux representant das sujets de 1'Ecritoire Sainte, peints pas dea peintres qui n'y croient par iu tout: admires et juges pas des 216 SKETCHES OF ART, There is, in the academy at Antwerp, a picture by Rubens, which represents St. Theresa kneeling before Christ, and. interceding for the souls in pur- gatory. The treatment of the subject is exceed- ingly simple; the upper part of the picture is occupied by the Redeemer, with his usual attri- butes, and the saint, habited as a nun. In the lower part of the picture, instead of a confused mob of tormented souls, and flames, and devils with pitchforks, the painter has represented a few heads as if rising from below. I remember those of Adam, Eve, and Mary Magdalene. I remem- ber and never shall forget the expression of each ! The extremity of misery in the counte- nance of Adam ; the averted, disconsolate, repent- ant wretchedness of Eve, who hides her face in her hair; the mixture of agony, supplication, hope, in the face of the Magdalene, while a cherub of pity extends his hand to her, as if to aid her to rise, and at the same time turns an imploring look towards the Saviour. As I gazed upon this pic- ture, a feeling sank deep into my heart, which did not pass away with the tears it made to flow, but has ever since remained there, and has become an abiding principle of action. This is only one in- stance, out of many, of the moral effect which ha? been produced by painting. gens qui n'y croient pas beaucoup, et enfin payes par des gei f Ijui, apparemment, ii'y croient pas, non plus. "L'on ckerche apres cela le pourquoi de la decadence d 'arc ! LITERATURE, AND CHARACTI R. 2)7 To me it is amusing, and it cannot but be inter- ring and instructive to the philosopher and artist, to observe how various people, uninitiated into any of the technicalities of art, unable to appre- ciate the amount of difficulties overcome, are affected by pictures and sculpture. But in form- ing our judgment, our taste in art, it is unsafe to listen to opinions springing from this vague kind of enthusiasm; for in painting, as in music, "just as the soul is pitched, the eye is pleased." I amuse myself in the gallery here with watch- ing the countenances of those who look at the pic- tures. I see that the uneducated eye is caught by subjects in which the individual mind sympathizes, and the educated taste seeks abstract excellence. Which has the most enjoyment? The last, 1 think. Sensibility, imagination, and quick per- ception of form and color, are not alone neces- sary to feel a work of art; there must be the power of association ; the mind trained to habitual sympathy with the beautiful and the good ; the knowledge of the meaning, and the comprehension of the object, of the artist. In the gallery here there are eighty-eight pic- tures of Rubens, some among the very finest he ever painted ; for instance, that splendid picture, Castor and Pollux carrying off the daughters of Leucippus, so full of rich life and movement; the destruction <)f Sennacherib's host ; Rubens and his wife, full lengths, seated in a garden ; that won- derful picture of the defeat of the Amazons ; the 218 SKETCHES OP ART, meeting of Jacob and Laban ; the picture of the P^arl of Arundel and his wife, with other figures, Pull lengths ; * and a series of the designs for the large paintings of the history of Marie de' Medici, now in the Louvre. His group of boys with fruits and flowers, exhibits the richest, loveliest combina- tion of colors ever presented to the eye ; and on that wonderful picture of the fallen (or rather fall" ing) angels, he has lavished such endless variety of form, attitude, and expression, that it would take a day to study it. It is not a large picture : the eye, or rather the imagination, easily takes in the general effect of tumult, horror, destruction, but the understanding dwells on the detail with still increasing astonishment and admiration. These are a few that struck 'me, but it is quite in vain to attempt to particularize. One may begin by disliking Rubens in general, * Of this celebrated picture, Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that it Is miscalled, and certainly does not contain the portraits of the Earl and Countess of Arundel. Perhaps he is mistaken. It appears that the Earl of Arundel, of James the First's time, (the collector of the Arundelian marbles,) with his Countess, sat to Rubens in 1620. and that " Robin the Dwarf" was intro- duced into this picture, which was not painted in England, but at Brussels. Rubens was at this time at the height of his repu- tation, and when requested to paint the portrait of the Coun- tess of Arundel, he replied, "Although I have refused to execute the portraits of mam r princes and noblemen, especially of his lordship's rank, yet from the Earl I am bound to receive the honor he does me in commanding my services, regarding him, as I do, in the light of an evangelist to the world of art >nd the great supporter of our profession." (See Tierney* History and Antiquities oj Vie Castle and Town of Arundel.) LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 219 (.( think I did,) but one must end by standing before him in ecstasy and wonder. It is true, that always luxuriant, he is often gross and sen- sual he can sometimes be brutally so. His bac- chanalian scenes are not like those of Poussin, classical, godlike debauchery, but the abandoned drunken revelry of animals the very sublime of brute licentiousness ; and painted with a breadtn of style, a magnificent luxuriance of color, which renders them more revolting. The physique pre- dominates in all his pictures, and not only to grossness, even to ferocity. His picture here of the slaughter of the Innocents, makes me sick it has absolutely polluted my imagination. Surely, this is not the vocation of high art. And as for his martyrdoms, they are worse than Spagno- letto's. For all this, he is the TITAN of painting : his creations are " of the earth and earthy," but he has called down fire and light from heaven, where- with to animate and to illumine them. Rubens is just such a painter as Dryden is a poet, and dee versa; his women are just like Dry den's women, gross, exaggerated, unrefined animals ; his men, like Dryden's men, grand, thinking, act- ing animals. Like Dryden, he could clothe his genius in thunder, dip his pencil in the lightning and the sunbeams of heaven, and rush fearlessly upon a subject which others had trembled to approach. In both we see a singular and extra- ordinary combination of the plainest, coarsest 220 SKETCHES OF ART, realities of life, with the loftiest imagery, the moyt luxurious tints of poetry. Both had the same pas- sion for allegory, and managed it with equal suc- cess. " The thoughts that breathe and words that burn " of Dryden, may be compared to the living, moving forms, the glowing, melting, dazzling hues of Rubens, under whose pencil " Desires and adorations, Winged persuasions and wild destinies, Splendors, and glooms, and glimmering incarnations Of hopes, and fears, and twilight fantasies, " took form and being, became palpable existences : and yet, with all this inventive power, this love of allegorical fiction, it is life, the spirit of animal life, diffused through and over their works ; it is the blending of the plain reasoning with splendid creative powers ; of wonderful fertility of concep- tion with more wonderful facility of execution ; it is the combination of truth, and grandeur, and masculine vigor, with a general coarseness of taste, which may be said to characterize both these great men. Neither are, or can be, favorites of the women, for the same reasons. There must have been something analogous in the genius of Rubens and Titian. The distinction was of climate and country. They appear to have looked at nature under the same aspect, but it was a different nature, the difference between Flan- ders and Venice. They were both painters of fle c h lind blood : by nature, poets ; by conformation LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 221 colorists ; by temperament and education, mlfoifK.' - cent spirits, scholars, and gentlemen, lovers of pleasure and of fame. The superior sentiment and grace, the refinement and elevation of Titian, he owed to the poetical and chivalrous spirit of his age and country. The delicacy of taste which reigned in the Italian literature of that period in- fluenced the arts of design. As to the coloring we see in the pictures of Rubens the broad day- light effects of a northern climate, and in those of Titian, the burning fervid sun of a southern clime, necessarily modified by shade, before the objects could be seen : hence the difference between the glow of Rubens, and the glow of Titian : the first " i' the colors of the rainbow lived," and the other bathed himself in the evening sky ; the one dazzles, the other warms. I can bring before my fancy at this moment, the Helen Forman of Rubens, and Titian's " La Manto ; " the " man with a hawk " of Rubens, and Titian's " Falconer ; " can any thing in heaven or earth be more opposed ? Yet, in all alike, is it not the intense feeling of life and indi- vidual nature which charms, which fixes us? 1 know not which I admire most ; but I adore Titian his men are all made for power, and his women for love. And Rembrandt kino; of shadows ! Earth-born And sky-engendered son of mysteries t was not he a poet ? He reminds me often of the 222 SKETCHP:S OF ART, Prince Sorcerer, nurtured " in the cave of Dom- daniel, under the roots of the sea." * Such an enchanted " den of darkness " was his mill and its skylight to him; and there, magician -like, he brooded over half-seen forms, and his imagination framed strange spells out of elemental light and shade. Thence he brought his unearthly shadows ; his dreamy splendors ; his supernatural gleams ; his gems flashing and sparkling with internal light ; his lustrous glooms ; his wreaths of flaming and em- bossed gold ; his wicked wizard-like heads tur- baned, wrinkled, seared, dusky ; pale with forbid- den studies solemn with thoughtful pain keen with the hunger of avarice and furrowed with an eternity of years ! I have seen pictures of his in which the shadowy background is absolutely peopled with life. At first, all seems palpable darkness, apparent vacancy ; but figure after figure emerges another and another; they glide into * view, they take shape and color, as if they grew out of the canvas even while we gaze ; we rub our eyes, and wonder whether it be the painter's work or our own fancy ! Of all the great painters Rembrandt is perhaps least understood ; the admiration bestowed on him, the enormous prices given for his pictures, is in general a fashion a mere matter of convention like the price of a diamond. To feel Rembrandt truly, it is not enough to be an artist or an amar * In Southey *s Thalaba. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 228 teur picture-fancier one should be something of a poet too. There are nineteen of his pictures here ; of these, " Jesus teaching the doctors in the temple," though a small picture, impressed me with awe, the por- traits of the painter Flinck and his wife, with wonder. All are ill-hung, with their backs against the light for them the worst possible situation. Van Dyck is here in all his glory : there are thirty-nine of his pictures. The celebrated full- length, " the burgomaster's wife in black," so often engraved, does not equal, in its inexpressible, un- obtrusive elegance, the " Lady Wharton," at De- vonshire House. * Then we have Wallenstein with his ample kingly brow ; fierce Tilly ; the head of Snyders ; the lovely head of the painter's wife, Maria Ruthven, sweet-looking, delicate, golden- haired, and holding the theorbo, (she excelled in music, I believe,) and virgins, holy families, and other scriptural subjects. His famous picture of Susanna does not strike me much. The four apostles of Albert Durer wonderful 1 In expression, in calm religious majesty, in suavity of pencilling, and the grand, pure style of the heads and drapery, quite like Raffaelle. I com- pared, yesterday, the three portraits that of Raf- faelle, by himself; (the famous head once in the Altaviti palace, and engraved by Morghen ;) Al- bert Durer, by himself; and Giorgione, by himself * Now removed with the other Vandykes to Chatsworth. 224 SKETCHES OF ART, Raffaelle is the least handsome, and rather disap- pointed me ; the eyes, in particular, rather project, and have an expression which is not pleasing ; the mouth and the brow are full of power and passion Albert Durer is beautiful, like the old heads of our Saviour ; and the predominant expression is calm, dignified, intellectual, with a tinge of melancholy. This picture was painted at the age of twenty- eight : he was then suffering from that bittei domestic curse, a shrewish, avaricious wife, who finally broke his heart. Giorgione is not hand- some, but it is a sublime head, with such a large intellectual development, such a profound expres- sion of sentiment ! Giorgione died of a faithless mistress, as Albert Durer died of a scolding wife. * By Paris Bordone, of Trevigi, there is a head of a Venetian lady, in a dress of crimson velvet, with dark splendid eyes which tell a whole history. By * See a curious letter of Pirkheimer on the death of Albert Durer, quoted in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 21. " In Albert I have truly lost one of the best friends I had in the whole world, and nothing grieves me deeper than that he should have died so painful a death, which, under God's providence, I can ascribe to nobody but his huswife, who gnawed into his very heart, and so tormented him that he departed hence the sooner; for he was dried up to a fagot, and might nowhere seek him a jovial humor or go to his friends." (After much more, re- flecting on this intolerable woman, he concludes with edifying na'ivete;) " She and her sister are not queans ; they are, I doubt not, in the number of honest, devout, and altogether God-fear- ing women, but a man might better have a quean who was otherwise kindly, than such a gnawing, suspicious., quarrelsome. good woman, with whom he can have no peace r quiet neither bv day nor by nicht." LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 225 Murillo, there are eight pictures not one in his most elevated style, but all perfect miracles of painting and of nature. There are thirty-three pictures of Yander Werff, a number sufficient to make one's blood run cold. One, a Magdalene, is of the size of life ; the only large picture by this elegant, elaborate, soulless painter I ever saw : he is to me detestable. By Joseph Vernet there are two delicious land- scapes, a morning and an evening. I cannot farther particularize ; but there are specimens of almost every known painter ; those, however, of Titian, Correggio, Julio Itamano, and Nicolo Pous- sin, are very few and not of a very high class, while those of the early German painters, and the Dutch, and the Flemish schools, are first-rate. There is one English picture Wilkie's " Open- ing of the Will : " it is very much admired here, and looked upon as a sort of curiosity. I wish the artists of the two countries were better known to each other : both would benefit by such an inter- course. At the palace of Schleissheim * there are nearly two thousand pictures : of these, some hundreds are positively bad : some hundreds are curious and valuable, as illustrating the history and progress * Schleissheim is a country palace of the king of Bavaria, about nix miles from Munich ; it has originally been a beautiful build- ing, but is not now inhabited, and looks forlorn and dilapidated The pictures are distributed, without any atteript at arrange ment, through forty five rooms 22B SKETCHES OF ART, of art ; some few are really and intrinsically ad mirable. But the grand attraction here is the far-famed Boisseree Gallery, which is arranged at Schleiss- heim, until the Pinakothek is ready for its recep- tion. This is the collection about which so many volumes have been written, and which has excitcO such a general enthusiasm throughout Germany. This enthusiasm, as a fashion, a mania, is begin- ning to subside, but the impress it has left upon art, and the tone it has given to the pursuit, the feeling of art, will not so soon pass away. The gallery derives its name from two brothers, Sulpitz and Melchior Boissere'e,* who, with a friend (Bertram) were employed for many years in collecting from various convents, and old churches, and obscure collections of family relics, the productions of the early painters of Germany, from William of Co- logne, called by the Germans " Meister Wilhelin/* down to Albert Durer and Holbein. The productions of the Greek or Byzantine painters found their way into Germany, as into Italy, in the thirteenth century, and Wilhelm of Cologne appeared to have been the Cimabue of the north the founder of that school of painting called the Byzantine-Niederrheinische, or Flemish school, and the precursor of Rubens, as Cimabue *as the precursor of Michael Angel o. Out of this stiff, and rude, and barbarous s*yle * Nati?ee, I believe, of Cologne. LITERATURE, AXi) CHARACTER. 227 of ait, arose and sprea 1 the Alt-Dcutsche or Gothic school of painting, which produced successively, Van Eyck, (1370,) Hemling, Wohlgemuth,* Mar- tin Schoen, Mabuse, Johan Schoreel, Lucas Kra- nach, Kulmbach, Albert Altorffer, Hans Asper, Johan von Mechlem, Behem, Albert Durer, and the two Holbeins. I mention here only those ar- tists whose pictures fixed my attention ; there are many others, and many pictures by unknown aathors. Albert Durer was born exactly one hundred years after Van Eyck. The Boisseree gallery contains about three hun- dred and fifty pictures ; but I did not count them ; and no official catalogue has yet been published. The subjects are generally sacred ; the figures are heads of saints, and scenes from Scripture. A few are portraits ; and there are a few, but very few, subjects from profane history. The painters whose works I at once distinguished from all others, were Van Eyck, Johan Schoreel, Hemling, and Lucas Kranach. I can truly say that the two pictures of Van Eyck, representing St. Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin, and the offering of the three kings ; and that of Johan Schoreel, representing the death of the Virgin Mary, perfectly amazed me. I remember also several wondrous heads by Lucas Kranach ; one by Behem, called, I know Dot why. " Helena : " and a picture of Christ and the little children, differing from all the rest in * Albert Durer was the scholar of AVohlsemuth 228 SKETCHES OF ART, style, with something of the Italian grace of draw- ing, and suavity of color. The artist, Sedlar, had studied in Lombardy, probably under Correggio ; (one of the children certainly might call Correggio father.) The date on this extraordinary produc- tion is 1530. Of the painter I know nothing. The general and striking faults, or rather deficiencies of the old German school of art, are easily enume- rated. The most flagrant violations of taste and costume, * bad drawing of the figure and extrem- ities, faulty perspective ; stiff, hard, meagre compo- sition, negligence or ignorance of all effect of chiaro-scuro. But what, then, is the secret of the interest which these old painters inspire, of the en- thusiasm they excite, even in these cultivated days ? It arises from a perception of the mind they brought to bear upon their subjects, the simplicity and in- tegrity of feeling with which they worked, and the elaborate marvellous beauty of the execution of parts. 1 could give no idea in words of the intense nature and expression in some of the heads, of the grand feeling united to the most finished delicacy in the conception and painting of countenance, of the dazzling splendor of coloring in the draperies, * I particularly recollect a picture, containing many hundred Cguies, all painted with the elaborate finish of a miniature, and representing the victory of Alexander over Darius. All the Per- gians are dressed like Turks, while Alexander and his host are armed to the teeth, in the full costume of chivalry, with heraldic banners, displaying the different devices of the old Germanic aobkie, the cross, the black eagle, &c. &c. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 22S< and the richness' of fancy in the ornaments and accessories. But I do fear that the just admiration excited by this kind of excellence, and a great deal of national enthusiasm, has misled the modern German artists to a false, at least an exaggerated estimate, and an injudicious imitation, of their favorite models. It has produced or encouraged that general hardness of manner, that tendency to violent color, and high glazy finish, which interfere too often with the beauty, and feeling, and effect of their composi- tions, at least in the eyes of those who are ac- customed to the free broad stvle of English art.* * The observations of Mr. Phillips, (Lectures on the History and Principles of Painting.) on Giotto, and the earliest Italian school, apply in a great measure to the early German painters, and I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of quoting them. u As it appears to me, that painting at the present time, is swerving among us from the true point of interest, tending to ornament, to the loss of truth and sentiment, I think I cannot do better than endeavor to restrain the encroachment of so insidious a foe, to prevent, if possible, our advance in so erroneous y the- enthusiastic veneration and affection she iisplays for her hero-consort.* * See Taylor's " Historic Survey of German Poetry." Herman 248 8KE1CHES OF ART, V. Saloon, or drawing-room. The paintings from Wieland, by Eugene Neurather, (already known in England by his beautiful arabesque illus- trations of Goethe's ballads.) The frieze only oi this room, which is from the Oberon, is in progress. VI. The queen's bedroom. The paintings from Goethe, and chiefly by Kaulbach. The ceiling is exquisite, representing in compartments various scenes from Goethe's principal lyrics ; the Herman and Dorothea; Pausias and Glycera, &c., inter- mixed with the most rich and elegant ornaments in relief. VIT. The queen's study, or pri\ 7 ate sitting-room. A small but very beautiful room, with paintings from Schiller, principally by Lindenschmidt of Mayence. On the ceiling are groups from the Wallenstein ; the Maid of Orleans ; the Bride of Corinth ; Wilhelm Tell : and on the walls, in com- partments, mingled with the most elegant orna- ments, scenes from the Fridolin, the Toggenburg, the Dragon of Rhodes, and other of his lyrics. VIII. The queen's library. As the walls will be covered with book-cases, all the splendor of deco ration is lavished on the ceiling, which is inexpres- sibly rich and elegant. The paintings are from the works of Ludwig Tieck from the Octavianus, the Genoneva, Fortunatus, the Puss in Boots, &c., and executed by Von Schwind. The dining-room is magnificently painted with vas afterwards murdered by a band of conspirators, and Thus- ttelda, on learning the fate of her husband, died brokenhearted. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 249 subjects from Anacreon, intermixed with orna- ments and bacchanalian symbols, all in the richest coloring. In the compartments on the ceiling, the figures are the size of life in those round the . walls, half-life size. Nothing can exceed the luxu- riant fancy, the gaiety, the classical elegance, and amenity of some of these groups. They are all by Professor Zimmermann. One of these paintings, a group representing^ I think, Auacreon with the Graces, (it is at the east end of the room,) is usually pointed out as an ex- ample of the perfection to which the encaustic painting has been carried : in fact, it would be dif- ficult to exceed it in the mingled harmony, purity, and brilliance of the coloring. M. Zimmermann told me that when he submitted the cartoons for these paintings to the king's ap- probation, his majesty desired a slight alteration to be made in a group representing a nymph em- braced by a bacchanal; not as being in itself faulty, but " a cause de ses enfans," his eldest daughters be- ing accustomed to dine with himself and the queen. Now it must be remembered that these seven- teen rooms form the domestic apartments of the royal family ; and magnificent as they are, a certain elegance, cheerfulness, and propriety has been more consulted than parade and grandeur : but on the ground-floor there is a suite of state apartments, prepared for the reception of strangers, &c., on great and festive occasions ; and these excited my tdmiration more than all the rest together. 250 SKETCHES OF ART, The pain tings are entirely executed in fresco, on a grand scale, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, certainly one of the greatest living artists of Eu rope : and these four rooms will form, when com- pleted, the very triumph of the romantic school of painting. It is not alone the invention displayed in the composition, nor the largeness, boldness, and freedom of the drawing, nor the vigor and splendor ot the coloring ; it is the enthusiastic sympathy of the painter with his subject ; the genuine spirit of the old heroic, or rather Teutonic ages of Germa- ny, breathed through and over his singular crea- tions, which so peculiarly distinguish them. They are the very antipodes of all our notions of the classical they take us back to the days of Gothic romance, and legendary lore to the " fiery Franks and furious Huns " to the heroes, in short, of the Nibelungen Lied, from which all the subjects are taken. To enable the merely Engb'sh reader to feel, or at least understand, the interest attached to thig grand series of paintings, without which it is im- possible to do justice to the artist, it is necessary to give a slight sketch of the poem which he has thus magnificently illustrated.* . * The notices which follow are abridged from the essay " on Ancient German and Northern Poetry," before mentioned from the Preface to the edition of the Nibelungen Lied, by M. Von der Hageu and the analysis of the poem in the Illustrations of. Northern Antiquities. My own first acquaintance with the Nibelungen Lied, I owed to an accomplished friend, who gave m detailed and lively analysis of the story und characters; and LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 251 national epic, as it is justly termed by M. Von der Hagen, has lately attracted a most unpre- cedented degree of attention in Germany. It now actually forms a part of the philological courses in many of their universities, and it has been hailed with almost as much veneration as the Homeric songs. Some allowance must be made for German enthusiasm, but it cannot be denied that the Nibe- lungen Lied, though a little too bloody and dolor- ous, possesses extraordinary merits." The hero and heroine of this poem are Siegfried, (son of Siegmund, king of Netherland, and of Sighelind his queen,) and Chrimhilde, princess of Burgundy. Siegfried, or Sifrit, the Sigurd of the Scandinavian Sagas, is the favorite hero of the northern parts of Germany. His spear, " a mighty pine beam," was preserved with veneration at Worms ; and there, in the church of St. Cecilia, he is supposed to have been buried. The German romances do not rep- resent him as being of gigantic proportions, but they all agree that he became invulnerable by bathing in the blood of a dragon, which guarded I he treasures of the Nibelungen, and which he overcame and killed ; but it happened that as he bathed, a leaf fell and rested between his shoulders, and consequently, that one little spot, about a hand's breadth, still remained susceptible of injury. Siegfried also possesses the wondrous tarn-cap^ tertainly no child ever hung upon a tale of ogres and fairies ivith more intense interest than I did upon her recital of the ad sec lures of the Nibelung2a. 252 SKETCHES OP ART, which had the power of rendering the wearer in- visible. This formidable champion, after winning the love and the hand of the fair princess Chrimhilde, and performing a thousand valiant deeds, is treach erously murdered by the three brothers of Chrim hilde, Gunther, king of Burgundy, Ghiseler, Gernot, and their uncle Hagen, instigated by queen Brun- hilde, the wife of Gunther. Chrimhilde meditates for years the project of a deep and deadly revenge on the murderers of her husband. This vengeance is in fact the subject of the Nibelungen Lied, as the wrath of Achilles is the subject of the Iliad. The poem opens thus beautifully with a kind of argument of the whole eventful story. M In ancient song and story marvels high are told, Of knights of bold emprize and adventures mani-fold; Of joy and merry feasting, of lamenting, woe, and fear: Of champions' bloody battles many marvels shall ye hear A noble maid and fair, grew up in Burgundy, In all the land about, fairer none might be; She became a queen full high, Chrimhild was she bight, But for her matchless beauty fell many a blade of might For love and for delight was framed that lady gay, Many a champion bold sighed for that gentle May; Beauteous was her form ! beauteous without compare ! The virgin's virtues might adorn many a lady fair. rinree kings of might had the maiden in their care, King Gunther and king Gernot, champions bold they were, And Ghiselar the young, a chosen peerless blade: I he lady was their sister, and much they loved the maid. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 263 Then follows an enumeration of the heroes in attendance on king Gunther : Haghen, the fierce ; Dankwart, the swift ; Volker, the minstrel knight ; and others ; "all champions bold and free ; " and then the poet proceeds to open the argument. " One night the queen Chrimhild dreamt her as she lay, How she had trained and nourished a falcon, wild and gay ; When suddenly two eagles fierce the gentle hawk hare slain Never, in this world felt she such cruel pain ! To her mother, Uta, she told her dream with fear. Full mournfully she answered to what the maid did spier, 1 The falcon, whom you cherished, a gentle knight is he* God take him to his ward ! thou must lose him suddenly.' What speak you of the knight ? dearest mother, say ! Without the love of Champion, to my dying day, Ever thus fair will I remain, nor take a wedded fere To gain such pain and sorrow though the knight were without peer ! ' Speak not thou too rashly ! ' her mother spake again. * If ever in this world, thou heart-felt joy wilt gain, Maiden must thou be no more; Leman must thou have, God will grant thee for thy mate, some gentle knight and brave. * 1 leave thy words, lady mother; speak not of wedded mate, Full many a gentle maiden hath found the truth too late: Still has their fondest love ended with woe and pain : Virgin will I ever be, nor the love of Leman gain.' 254 SKETCHES OF ART, In virtues high and noble that gentle maiden dwelt, Full many a night and day, nor love for Leman felt. To never a knight or champion would she plight her virgin truth, Till she was gained for wedded fere by a right noble youth. That youth, he was the falcon, she in her dream beheld, Who by the two fierce eagles, dead to the ground v/aa fell'd: But since right dreadful vengeance she took upon his foen; For the death of that bold hero, died full many a mother's son." After this exordium the story commences, the first half ending with the assassination of Siegfried. Some years after the murder of Siegfried, Chrirn- hilde gives her hand to Etzel, (or Attila,) king of the Huns, in order that through his power and in- fluence she may be enabled to execute her long- cherished schemes of vengeance. The assassins accordingly, and all their kindred and followers, are induced to visit King Etzel at Vienna, where, by the instigation of Chrimhilde, a deadly feud arises ; iiQ the course of which almost the whole army on both sides are cruelly slaughtered. By the powerful, but reluctant aid of Dietrich of Bern,* Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried, is at last vanquished, and * Dietrich of Bern (i. e. Theodoric of Verona,) is the great hero of South Germany the King Arthur of Teutonic romance, vho figures in all the warlike lays and legends of the middle agen LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 255 brought bound to the feet of the queen, who at once raises the sword of her departed hero, and with her own hand strikes off the head of his en- emy. Hildebrand instantly avenges the atrocious and unhospitable act, by stabbing the queen, who falls exulting on the body of her hated victim. When Gunther's arms, and those of his brothers and champions, are brought to Worms, Brunhilde repents too late of her treachery to Siegfried, and the old queen Uta dies of grief. As to King Etzel, the poet professes himself ignorant, " whether he died in battle, or was taken up to heaven, or fell out of his skin, or was swallowed up by the devil ; " leaving to his reader the choice of these singular catastrophes ; and thus the story ends.* The rivalry between Chrimhilde and her ama- zonian sister-in-law, Brunhilde, forms the most in- teresting and amusing episode in the poem ; and the characters of the two queens the fierce haughty Brunhilde, and the impassioned, devoted, confiding Chrimhilde (whom the very excess of conjugal love converts into a relentless fury,) are admirably discriminated. " The work is divided into thirty-eight books, or adventures ; and besides a liberal allowance of sorcery and wonders, con- tains' a great deal of clear and animated narrative, and innumerable curious and picturesque traits of the manners of the age. The characters of the different warriors, as well as those of the two queens, * See the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 213. 256 SKETCHES OF ART, and iheir heroic consorts, are very naturally and powerfully drawn especially that of Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried, in whom the virtues ol an heroic and chivalrous leader are strangely united with the atrocity and impenitent hardihood of an assassin. " The author of the Lay of the Nibelungen has not been ascertained. In its present form it must have existed between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; this is proved by the language ; but the manners, tone, thoughts, and actions, which are all in perfect keeping, bear testimony to an antiquity far beyond that of the present dress of the poem." Here then was a boundless, an inexhaustible fund of inspiration for such a painter as Julius Schnorr ; and his poetical fancy appears to have absolutely revelled in the grand, the gay, the tragic subjects afforded to his creative pencil. In the first room, immediately over the entrance, he has represented the poet, or presumed author of the Nibelungen ; an inspired figure, attended by two listening genii. On each side, but a little lower down, are two figures looking towards him ; on one side a beautiful female, striking a harp, and attended by a genius crowned with roses repre- sents song or poesy. On the other side a sibyl listening to the voice of Time, represents tradition. The figures are all colossal. Below, on each side of this door, are two beauti- fill groups. That to the right of the spectator re- LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 257 presents Siegfried and Chrimhilde. She is leaning on the shoulder of her warlike husband with an air of the most inimitable and graceful abandon- ment in her whole figure : a falcon sits upon her hand, on which her eyes are turned with the most profound expression of tenderness and melancholy ; she is thinking upon her dream, in which was fore- shadowed the early and terrible doom of her hus- band. It is said at Munich, that the wife of Schnorr, an exquisitely beautiful woman, whom he married under romantic circumstances, was the model of his Chrimhilde, and that one of her spontaneous attitudes furnished the idea of this exquisite group, on which I never look without emotion. The depth and splendor of the coloring adds to the effect. The figures are rather above the size of life. On the opposite side of the door, as a pendant, we have Gunther, and his queen, Brunhilde. He holds one of her hands, with a deprecating ex- pression. She turns from him with an averted countenance, exhibiting in her whole look and attitude, grief, rage, and shame. It is evident that she has just made the fatal discovery of her hus- band's obligations to Siegfried, which urges her to the destruction of the latter. I have heard trav- ellers ignorantly criticize the grand, and somewhat exaggerated forms of Brunhilde, as being " really quite coarse and unfeminine." In the poem she is represented as possessing the strength of twelve men ; and when Hagen sees her throw a spear, 17 258 SKETCHES OF ART, which it required four warriors to lift, he exclaims to her alarmed suitor, King Gunther, " Ay ! how is it, King Gunthur ? here must you tine your life ! The lady you would gain, well might be the devil'a wife!" It is by the secret assistance of Siegfried, and his tarn-cap, that Gunther at length vanquishes and humbles this terrible heroine, and she avenges her humiliation by the murder of Siegfried. Around the room are sixteen full-length por- traits of the other principal personages who figuro in the Nibelungen Lied portraits they may well be called, for their extraordinary spirit, and truth of character. In one group we have the fierce Hagen, the courteous Dankwart, and between them, Volker tuning his viol ; of him it is said Bolder and more knight-like fiddler, never shone the sun upon, and he plays a conspicuous part in the catastrophe of the poem. Opposite to this group, we have queen Uta, the mother of Chrimhilde, between her sons, Gernot and Ghiselar ; in another compartment, Siegmund and Sighelind, the father and mother of Siegfried* Over the window opposite to the entrance, Hagen is consulting the mermaids of the Danube, who foretell the destruction which awaits him at the court of Etzel : and lower down on each side LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 259 of the window, King Etzel with his friend Rudiger, and those faithful companions in arms, old Hilde- braiid and Dietrich of Bern. The power of in- vention, the profound feeling of character, and extraordinary antiquarian knowledge displayed in these figures, should be seen to be understood. Those which most struck me (next to Chrirnhilde and her husband) were the figures of the daring Hagen and the venerable queen Uta. On the ceiling, which is vaulted, and enriched with most gorgeous ornaments, intermixed with heraldic emblazonments, are four small compart- ments in fresco: in which are represented, the marriage of Siegfried and Chrimhilde, the murder of Siegfried, the vengeance of Chrimhilde, and the death of Chrimhilde. These are painted in vivid colors on a black ground. On the whole, on looking round this most splendid and interesting room, I could find but one fault : I could have wished that the orn amenta on the walls and ce'iling (so rich and beautiful to the eye) had been more completely and consistently gothic in style ; they would then have harmonized better with the subjects of the paintings. In the next room the two sides are occupied by two grand frescos, each about five-and-twenty feet in length, and covering the whole wall. In the first, Siegfried brings the kings of Saxony and Denmark prisoners to the court of king Gunther. The second represents the reception of the victo- rious Siegfried by the two queens, Uta and Chrim- 260 SKETCHES OF ART, hilde. This is the first interview of the and furnishes one of the most admired passages in the poem. * And now the beauteous lady, like the rosy morn, Dispersed the misty clouds ; and he who long had borna In his heart the maiden, banish'd pain and care, AB now before his eyes stood the glorious maiden fair. From her embroidered garment, glittered many a gem, And on her lovely cheek, the rosy red did gleam; Whoever in his glowing soul had imaged lady bright, Confessed that fairer maiden never stood before his sight. And as the moon at night, stands high the stars among, And moves the mirky clouds above, with lustre bright and strong; So stood before her maidens, that maid without compare: Higher swelled the courage of many a champion there." Between the two doors there is the marriage of Siegfried and Chrimhilde. The second of these frescos is nearly finished ; of the others I only saw the cartoons, which are magnificent. The third room will contain, arranged in the same manner, three grand frescos, representing 1st. The scene in which the rash curiosity of Chrimhilde prevails over the discretion of her husband, and he gives her the ring and the girdle which he had snatched as tro- phies from the vanquished Brunhilde.* 2dly. * In the altercation between the two queens, Chrimhilde coasts of possessing these trophies, and displays them in triumph to her mortified rival ; for which indiscretion, as she afterwards torn plains, " her husband was in high anger, and beat her black LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 261 The death of Siegfried, assassinated by Hagen, who stabs the hero in the back, as he stoops to drink from the forest-well. And 3dly. The body of Siegfried exposed in the cathedral at Worms, and watched by Chrimhilde, " who wept three days and three nights by the corse of her murdered lord, without food and without sleep." The fourth room will contain the second marriage of Chrimhilde ; her complete and sanguinary ven- geance ; and her death. None of these are yet in progress. But the three cartoons of the death of Siegfried ; the marriage of Siegfried and Chrim- hilde ; and the fatal curiosity of Chrimhilde, I had the pleasure of seeing in Professor Schnorr's studio at the academy ; I saw at the same time his picture of the death of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, which has excited great admiration here, but I con- fess I do not like it ; nor do I think that Schnorr paints as well in oils as in fresco the latter is certainly his forte. Often have I walked up and down these superb rooms, looking up at Schnorr and his assistants, and watching intently the preparation and the pro- cess of the fresco painting and often I though*-, " What would some of our English painters Etty, or Hilton, or Briggs, or Martin- O what would Jiey give to have two or three hundred feet of space before them, to cover at will with grand and nnd blue.'''' This treatment, however, which seems to have been quite a matter of course, does not diminish the fond idolatry of *he wife, rather increases it. JZ62 SKETCHES OF AKT, glorious creations, scenes from Chaucer, or Spen- ser, or Shakspeare, or Milton, proudly conscious that they were painting for their country and posterity, spurred on by the spirit of their art and national enthusiasm, and generously emulating each other ! Alas ! how different ! with us such men as Hilton and Etty illustrate annuals, and the genius of Turner shrinks into a vignette ! Oct. 14. Accompanied by my kind friend, Madame de K , and conducted by Roekel, the painter, I visited the unfinished chapel adjoining the new palace. It is painted (or rather painting) in fresco, on a gold ground, with extraordinary richness and beauty, uniting the old Greek, or rather Byzantine manner, with the old Italian style of decoration. It reminded me, in the general effect, of the interior of St. Mark's at Venice, but, of course, the details are executed in a grander feeling, and in a much higher style of art. The pillars are of the native marble, and the walls will be covered with a kind of Mosaic of various marbles, intermixed with ornaments in relief, in gilding, in colors all combined, and harmonizing together. The ceiling is formed of two large domes or cupolas. In the first is represented the Old Testament : in the very centre, the Greater ; in a tircle round him, the six days' creation. Around this again, in a larger circle, the building of the ark ; the Deluge ; the sacrifice of Noah ; and the 6rst covenant. In the four corners, the colossal figures of the patriai'chs, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 263 Jacob. These are designed in a very grand and severe style. The second cupola is dedicated to the New Testament. In the centre, the Redeemer : around him four groups of cherubs, three in each group. We were on the scaffold erected for the painters near enough to remark the extreme beauty and various expression in these heads, which must, I am afraid, be lost when viewed from below. Around, in a circle, the twelve apostles ; and in the four corners, the four evangelists, cor- responding with the four patriarchs in the other dome. In the arch between the two domes, as con- necting the Old and New Testaments, we have the Nativity and other scenes from the life of the Vir- gin. In the arch at the farthest end will be placed the Crucifixion, as the consummation of all. The painter to whom the direction of the whole work has been entrusted, is Professor Heinrich Hass, (or Hess,) one of the most celebrated of the German historical painters. He was then employed in painting the Nativity ; stretched upon his back on a sort of inclined chair. Notwithstanding the inconvenience and even peril of leaving his work while the plaster was wet, he came down from hia jiddy height to speak to us, and explained the gen- eral design of the whole. I expressed my honest admiration of the genius, and the grand feeling dis- played in many of the figures ; and, in particular, of the group he was then painting, of which the extreme simplicity charmed me ; but as honestly, I expressed my surprise that nothing new in the gen- 264 SKETCHES OF ART, eral styla of the decoration had been attempted' a representation of the Omnipotent Being was merely excusable in more simple and unenlightened times, when the understandings of men could only be addressed through their senses r and merely tolerable, when Michael Angelo gave us that grand personification of Almighty Power moving - on the wings of the wind " to the creation of the first man. But now, in these thinking, reasoning times, it ia not so well to venture into those paths, upon which daring Genius, supported by blind Faith, rushed without fear, because without a doubt. The theory of religion belongs to poetry, and its practice to painting. I was struck by the wonderful stateliness of the ornaments and borders used in decorating these sacred subjects : they are neither Greek, nor gothic, nor arabesque but composed merely of simple forms and straight lines, combined in every possible manner, and in every variety of pure color One might call them Byzantine ; at least, they re- minded me of what I had seen in the old churches at Venice and Pisa. I was pleased by the amiable and open manners of Professor Hess. Much of his life has been spent in Italy, and he speaks Italian well, but no French. In general, the German artists absolutely detest and avoid the language and literature of France, out almost all speak Italian, and many can read, if they do not speak, English. He told me that he had spent two years on the designs and cartoons for this chapel ; he had been painting here dailj LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 265 for the last two years, and expected to be able tw finish the whole in about two years and a half more: thus giving six years and a half, or mor probably seven years, to this grand task. He has four pupils, or assistants, besides those employed in the decorations only. Oct. 15. After dinner we drove through the beautiful English garden a public promenade which is larger and more diversified than Kensing- ton Gardens ; but the trees are not so fine, being of younger growth. A branch of the Isar rolls through this garden, sometimes an absolute torrent, deep and rapid, foaming and leaping along, between its precipitous banks, sometimes a strong but gentle stream, flowing "at its own sweet will" among smooth lawns. Several pretty bridges cross it with " airy span ; " there are seats for repose, and caff es and houses where refreshment may be had, and where, in the summer-time, the artisans and citizens of Munich assemble to dance on the Sunday even- ings; altogether it was a beautiful day, and a delightful drive. In the evening at the opera with the ambassa- dress and a large party. It was the queen's fete, and the whole court was present. The theatre was brilliantly illuminated crowded in every part : in short, it was all very gay and very magnificent ; as to hearing a single note of the opera, (the Figaro,) that was impossible ; so I resigned myself to the conversation around me. " Are you fond of music ? " said I, innocently, to a lady, whose volu 256 SKETCHES OF ART, bility had ceased not from the moment we euterec* the box. " Moi ! si je 1'aime ! mais avec passion I * And then without pause or mercy continued the same incessant flow of spiritud small-talk while Scheckner-Wagen and Meric, now brought for the first time into competition, and emulous of each other, one pouring forth her full sostenuto warble, like a wood-lark, the other trilling and running divisions, like a nightingale were uniting their powers in the " SulP Aria;" but though I could not hear, I could see. I was struck to-night more than ever by the singular dignity of the demeanor of Madame Scheckner-Wagen. She is not remark- able for beauty, nor is there any thing of the com- mon made-up theatrical grace in her deportment- still less does she remind us of queen Medea queen Pasta, I should say the imperial syren whc drowned her own identity and ours together in hei " cup of enchanted sounds ; " no but Scheckner- Wagen treads the stage with the air of a high-bred lady, to whom applause or censure are things in- different and yet with an exceeding modesty. In short, I ne^ver saw an actress who inspired such an immediate and irresistible feeling of respect and interest for the individual woman. I do not say that this is the ne plus ultra of good acting on the contrary ; though it is a mistake to imagine that the moral character of an actress or a singer goes for nothing with an audience but of this more at gome future time. Madame Scheckner's style of singing has the same characteristic simplicity ard LITERATURE, ANL CHARACTER. 267 dignity ; her voice is of a fine full quality, well cul- tivated, well managed. I have known her a little indolent and careless at times, but never forced or affected ; and I am told, that in some of the grand classical German operas, Gluck's Iphigenia, for instance, her acting as well as her singing is admir- able. I wish, if ever we have that charming Devrient- Schroder (and her vocal suite) again in England, they would give us the Iphigenia, or the Armida, or the Idomeneo. She is another who must be heard in her native music to be justly appreciated. Madame Milder was a third, but her reign is past. This extraordinary creature absolutely could not. or would not, sing the modern Italian music ; no one, I believe, ever heard her sing a note of Ros- sini in her life. Madame Yespermann is here, but she sings no more in public. She was formed by Winter, and was a fine classical singer, though no original genius like the Milder; and her voice, if I may judge by what remains of it, could never have been of first-rate quality. Well after the opera while scandal, and tea, and refreshments were served up together I had a long conversation with Count on the politics and statistics of Bavaria, the tone of feeling in the court, the characters and revenues of some of the leading nobles particularly Count d'Armansberg, the former minister, (now in Greece taking care of the young King Otho,) and Prince Wallerstein, Uae present minister of the into.rior. He described 26S SKETCHES OF ART, the king's extremely versatile character, and hia vivacite's, and lamented his present unpopularity with the liberal party in Germany, the disputes between him and the Chambers, and the opinions entertained of the recent conferences between tho king and his brother-in-law, the Emperor of Aus- tria, at Lintz, &c. I learnt much that was new, much that was interesting to me, but do not under- stand these matters sufficiently to say any thing more about them. , The two richest families in Bavaria are the Tour-and-Taxis, and the Arco family. The annual revenue .of the Prince of Tour-and-Taxis amounts to upwards of five millions of florins, and he lays out about a million and a half yearly in land. He seldom or never comes to Munich, but resides chiefly on his enormous estates, or at Ratisbon, which is hi? metropolis, in fact, this rich and powerful noble is little less than a sovereign prince. ***** 16. I went with Madame von A and her daughters to the 2&unstberefn, or " Society of Arts." A similar institution of amateurs and artists, maintained by subscription, exists, I believe, in all the principal cities of Germany. The young artista exhibit their works here, whether pictures, models, or engravings. Some of these are removed and replaced by others almost every day, so that there is a constant variety. As yet, however, I have seen no very striking, though many pleasing pic-- tures ; but I have added several names to my list LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 269 Df Geraian artists. * To-day at the Kunstverein, there was a series of small pictures framed together, the subjects from Victor Hugo's romance of Notre Dame. These attracted general attention, partly as the work of a stranger, partly from their own merit, and the popularity of Victor Hugo. The painter, M. Couder, is a young Frenchman, now on his return from Italy to Paris. I understand that he has obtained leave to paint one of the frescos in the Pinakothek, as a trial of skill. Of the designs from Notre Dame, the central and largest picture is the scene in the garret between Phoebus and Esmeralda, when the former is stabbed by the priest Frollo : one can hardly imagine a more admirable subject for painting, if properly treated; but this is a failure in effect and in char- acter. It fails in effect because the light is too generally diffused : it is daylight, not lamplight. The monk ought to have been thrown completely into shadow, only just visible, terribly, mysteriously visible, to the spectator. It fails in character, be- cause the figure of Esmeralda, instead of the elegant, fragile, almost ethereal creature she is described, rather reminds us of a coarse Italian contadina ; and, for the expression a truly poeti- cal painter would have averted the face, and thrown the whole expression into the attitude. It will hardly be believed that of such a subject, the painter has made a cold picture, merely by EO! * This list will be subjoined at the end of these Sketches 270 SKETCHES OF ART, feeling the bounds within which he ought to have kept. The small pictures are much better, par- ticularly the Sachet embracing her child, and the tumult in front of Notre Dame. There were some other striking pictures by the same artist, particu- larly Chilperic and Fredegonde strangling the young queen Galsuinde, painted with shocking skill and truth. That taste for horrors, which u now the reigning fashion in French art and French literature, speaks ill for French sensibilite a word they are so fond of for that sensibility cannot be great which requires such extravagant stimuli. Painters and authors, all alike ! They remind mo of the sentimental negresses of queen Carathis, in- the Tale of Vathek " qui avaient un gout particu- lier pour les pestilences." Couder, however, has undoubted talent. His portrait of de Klenze, painted since he came here, is all but alive. In the evening at the theatre with M. and Mad. S . We had Karl von Holtei's melo-drama of Lenore, founded on Burger's well-known ballad ; but with the omission of the spectre, which was something like acting Hamlet " with the part of Hamlet left out, by particular desire." Lenore is, however, one of the prettiest and most effective of the petit es pieces I have seen here very tragical and dolorous of course. Madll. Scholler acted Le- nore with more f Deling and power than I thought was in her. There is a mad scene, in which she fancies her lover at her window, calling to her, as the spectre calls in the ballad LITERATURE, AND CHAR ACT 7.P. 271 " Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, LeoiJkxe^ - And which was so fine as a picture, and so well acted, that it quite thrilled me no easy matter. Holtei is one of the first dramatists in Germany for comedies, melo-dramas, farces, and musical pieces. In this particular department he has no rival. He played to-night himself, being for his own benefit, and sung his popular Mantel Lied, or cioulc-sony^ which, like his other songs, may be heard from one end of Germany to the other. 18. A grand military fete. The consecration of the great bronze obelisk, which the king has erected iu the Karoline-Platz, to the g'ioi'y and the memory of the thirty-seven thousand Bavarian conscripts who followed, or rathei weie dragged by, Napoleon to the fatal Russia*! campaign in 1812. Of these, about six thousand returned alive : most of them mutilated, or witk diseases which shortened their existence. Of m attendants and keepers of the gallery are in wait- ing. Thence, to a splendid reception-room, about fifty feet in length : this will contain the full-length portraits of the founders of the gallery of Munich the Palatine John William ; the Elector, Maxi- milian Emanuel of Bavaria ; the Duke Charles of Deuxports; the Palatine Charles Theodore ; Maxi LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. - 295 imlian Joseph I., king of Bavaria ; and his son, (the present monarch,) Louis I. The ceiling and the frieze of this room are splendidly decorated with groups of figures and ornaments in white relief, on a gold ground, and the walls will be hung with crimson damask. Along the south front of the building from east to west runs a gallery or corridor about four hun- dred feet in length, and eighteen in width, lighted on one side by twenty-five lofty arched windows, having on the other side ten doors, opening into the suite of picture galleries, or rather halls. These occupy the centre of the building, and are lighted from above by vast lanterns. They are eight in number, varying in length from fifty to eighty feet, but all forty feet in width and fifty feet in height from the floor to the summit of the lantern. The walls will be hung with silk damask, either of a dark crimson or a dark green according to the style of art for which the room is destined. The ceilings are vaulted, and the decorations are inex- pressibly rich, composed of magnificent arabesques, intermixed with the effigies of celebrated painters, and groups illustrative of the history of art, &c., all moulded in white relief upon a ground of dead gold. Mayer, one of the best sculptors in Munich, has the direction of these, works. Behind these vast galleries, or saloons, there is a rarge of cabinets, twenty-three in number, appro- priated to the smaller pictures of the different schools : these are each about nineteen feet by 296 SKETCHES OF ART, fifteen in size, and lighted from the north, each having one high lateral window. The ceilings and upper part of the walls are painted in fresco, (or distemper, I am not sure which,) with very graceful arabesques of a quiet color; the hangings will also be of silk damask. Of the principal saloons, the first is appropriated to the productions of modern and living artists, and has three cabinets attached to it. The second will contain the old German pictures, including the famous Boisseree gallery, and has four cabinets attached to it. The third, fourth, and fifth saloons (of which the central one, the hall of Rubens, is eighty feet in length) are devoted, with the nine adjoining cabinets, to the Flemish and Dutch schools. The sixth, with four cabinets, will contain the French and Spanish pictures ; and the seventh and eighth, with three cabinets, will contain the Italian school of painting. All these apartments communicate with each other by ample doors ; but from the corridor already mentioned, which opens into the whole suite, the visitor has access to any particular gallery, or school of painting, without passing through the others : an obvious advantage, which will be duly estimated by those who, in visiting a gallery of painting, have felt their eyes dazzled, their heads bewildered, their attention distracted, by too much variety of temptation and attraction, before they have reached tLe particular object or school of art to which their attention was ^special!} directed. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 297 To this beautiful and most convenient corridor, Dr, as it is called here, loggia, we must now return. i have said that it is four hundred feet in lengtn, and lighted by five-and-twenty arched windows. which, by the way, command a splendid prospect, bounded ^v the far-off mountains of the Tyrol. The wall opposite to these windows is divided into twenty-five corresponding compartments, arched, and each surmounted by a dome; these compart- ments are painted in fresco with arabesques, some- thing in the style of Raffaelle's Loggie in the Vati- can; while every arch and cupola contains (also painted in fresco) scenes from the life of some great painter, arranged chronologically: thus, in fact, exhibiting a graphic history of the rise and progress of modern painting from Cimabue down to Rubens. Of this series of frescos, which are now in pro- gress, a few only are finished, from which, however, a very satisfactory idea may be formed of the whole design. The first cupola is painted from a poem of A. W. Schlegel " Der Bund der Kirche mit den Kiinsten," which celebrates the alliance between religion (or rather the church) and the fine arts. The second cupola represents the Crusades, be- cause from these wild expeditions (for so Provi- dence ordained that good should spring from evil) arose the regeneration of art in Europe. With the third cupola commences the series of painters. In the arch, or lunette, is represented the Madonna pretence whatever. In short, though the burlej German postilions do not present the neat compact turn-out of an English post-boy, nor the horses any thing like the speed of " Newman's greys," or the Brighton Age, and though the traveller must now and then submit to arbitrary laws and ind ; - vidual inconvenience; still, the travelling regula- tions all over Germany, more especially in Prussia, are so precise, so admirable, and so strictly enforced, that no where could an unprotected female journey with more complete comfort and security. This I have proved by experience, after having tried every different mode of conveyance in Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Saxony, and Hesse. My road expenses, for myself and an attendant, seldom exceeded a napobon a-day. SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. HI. MEMORANDA AT DRESDEN.* BEAUTIFUL, stately Dresden ! if not the queen, the fine lady of the German cities ! Surrounded with what is most enchanting in nature, and adorned with what is most enchanting in art, she * The description of Dresden and its environs, in Russel's Tour In Germany, is one of the best written passages in that amusing book so admirably graphic and faithful, that nothing can be added to it as a description* therefore I have effaced those notes which it has rendered superfluous. It must, however, be remembered by those who refer to Mr. Russel's work, that a revolution has taken place by which the king, now fallen into absolute dotage, has been removed from the direct administra- tion of the government, and a much more popular and liberal forte prevails in the Estates : the two princes, nephews of tho king, whom Mr. Russel mentions as " persons of whom scarcely any body thinks of speaking at all," have since made themselves extremely conspicuous; Prince Frederic has been declared regent, and is apparently much respected and beloved; and Prince John has distinguished himself as a speaker in the As- sembly of the States, and takes the liberal side on most occasions. A spirit of amelioration is at work in Dresden, as elsewhere, and 536 SKETCHES OF ART, sits by the Elbe like a fair one in romance, wreathing her towery diadem so often scathed by war with the vine and the myrtle, and look- ing on her own beauty imaged in the river flood, which, after rolling an impetuous torrent through the mountain gorges, here seems to pause and spread itself into a lucid mirror to catch the reflec- tion of her airy magnificence. No doubt misery and evil dwell in Dresden, as in all the congre- gated societies of men, but no where are they less obtrusive. The city has all the advantages, and none of the disadvantages, of a capital ; the treasures of art accumulated here the mild gov- ernment, the delightful climate, the beauty of the environs, and the cheerfulness and simplicity of social intercourse, have rendered it a favorite residence for artists and literary characters, and to foreigners one of the most captivating places in the world. Ho\\ often have I stood in the open space in front of the gorgeous Italian church, or on the summit of the flight of steps leading to the public walk, gazing upon the noble bridge which bestrides the majestic Elbe, and connects the new and the old town ; or, pursuing with enchanted eye the winding course of the river to the foot of those Ihe ten or twelve years which have elapsed since Mr. RussePs Visit have not passed away without some salutary changes, While more are evidently at hand. Mr. Russel speaks of the secrecy with which the sittings of the Ohambers were then conducted : they are now public, and the debates are printed in the Gazette at considerable length. I CTEI LITERATURE, ANf> CHARACTER. 387 undulating purple hills, covered with villas and vineyards, till a feeling of quiet grateful enjoyment has stolen over me, like that which Wordsworth describes Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration. Bat it is not only the natural beauties of the scene which strike a stranger; the city itself has this peculiarity in common with Florence, to which it has been so often compared, that instead of being an accident in the landscape a dim, smoky, care- haunted spot upon the all-lovely face of nature a discord in the soothing harmony of that quiet enchanting scene which steals like music over the fancy ; it is rather a charm the more an orna- ment a crowning splendor a fulfilling and com- pleting chord. Its unrivalled elegance and neat- ness, a general air of cheerfulness combined with a certain dignity and tranquillity, the purity and elasticity of the atmosphere, the brilliant shops, the well-dressed women, and the lively looks and good- humored alertness of the people, who, like the Florentines, are more remarkable for their tact and acuteness than for their personal attractions ; all these advantages render Dresden, though cer- tainly one of the smallest, and by no means one of the richest capitals in Europe, one of the most delightful residences on the continent. I am struck, too, by the silver-toned voices of the women, and 22 338 SKETCHES OF ART, the courtesy and vivacity of the men ; for in Ba- varia the intonation is broad and harsh, and the people, though frank, and honest, and good-natured, are rather slow, and not particularly polished in their demeanor. It is the general aspect of Dresden which charms us : it is not distinguished by any vast? or striking architectural decorations, if we except the Italian church, which, with all its thousand faults of style, pleases from its beautiful situation and its exceed- ing richness. This is the only Roman Catholic church in Dresden : for it is curious enough, that while the national religion, or, if I may so use the word, the state religion, is Protestant the court religion is Catholic ; the royal family having been for several generations of that persuasion ; * but this has caused neither intolerance on the one hand, nor jealousy on the other. The Saxons, the first who hailed and embraced the doctrines of Luther, seem quite content to allow their anointed king to go to heaven his own way ; and though the priests who surround him are, of course, mindful to keep ap their own influence, there is no spirit of prose- lytism; and I believe the most perfect equality with regard to religious matters prevails here. The Catholic church is almost always half-full of Protestants, attracted by the delicious music, for all the corps d'opera sing in the choir. High mass begins about the time that the sermon is over in * .Augustus II. abjured the Protestant religion in 1700, iff rder to obtain the crown of Poland LITERATURE, AXD CHARACTER. 339 the other churches, and }ou see the Protestants hurrying from their own service, crowding in at the portals of the Catholic church, and taking their places, the men on one side and the women on the other, with looks of infinite gravity and devotion : the king being always present, it would here be a breach of etiquette to behave as I have often seen the English behave in the Catholic churches pre- cisely as if in a theatre. But if the good old mon- arch imagines that his heretic subjects are to be converted by Cesi's * divine voice, he is wonder- fully mistaken. The people of Dresden have always been dis- tinguished by their love of music ; I was therefore rather surprised to find here a little paltry theatre, ugly without, and mean within ; a new edifice has been for some time in contemplation, therefore to decorate or repair the old one may seem super- fluous. That it is not nearly large enough for the place is its worst fault. I have never been in it that it was not crowded to suffocation. At thia time Bellini's opera, / Capelletti, is the rage at Dresden, or rather Madame Devrient's impersona- tion of the Romeo, has completely turned all heads and melted all hearts that are fusible. Bellini is only one of the thousand and one imitators of Ros- sini ; and the Capelletti only the last of the thousand and one versions of Romeo and Juliet ; and De- vrient is not generally heard to the greatest ad vantage in the modern Italian music ; but her con * The first tenor at Dresden in 1833. 340 SKETCHES OF ART, ception of the part of Romeo is new and belongs to herself; like a woman of feeling and genius she has put her stamp upon it : it is quite distinct from the same character as represented by Pasta and Mdlibran character perhaps I should not say, for in the lyrical drama there is properly no room for any such gradual development of individual senti- ments and motives ; a powerful and graceful sketch, of which the outline is filled up by music, is all that the artist is required to give ; and within this boundary a more beautiful delineation of youthful fervid passion I never beheld: if Devrient must yield to Pasta in grandeur, and to Malibran in versatility of power and liquid flexibility of voice, she yields to neither in pathos, to neither in de- licious modulation, to neither in passion, power, and originality, though in her, in a still greater degree, the talent of the artist is modified by individual temperament. Like other gifted women, who are blessed or cursed with a most excitable nervous system, Devrient is a good deal under the influence of moods of feeling and temper, and in the per- formance of her favorite parts, (as this of Romeo, the Armida, Emmeline in the Sweitzer Familie,) is subject to inequalities, which are not caprices, but arise from an exuberance of soul and power, and only render her performance more interesting. Every night that I have seen her since my arrival here, even in parts which are unworthy of her, as in the " Eagle's Nest," * has incrf/ased my estimate * An opera by Franz Glazer of Berlin. The subject, which if LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 34 i oi her talents ; and last night when I saw her lol the third time in the Romeo, she certainly sur- passed herself. The duet with Juliet, (Madlle. Schneider,) at the end of the first act, threw the whole audience into a tumult of admiration ; they invariably encore this touching and impassioned scene, which is really a positive cruelty, besides being a piece of stupidity ; for though it may be ass well sung the second time, it must suffer in effect from the repetition. The music, though very pretty, is in itself nothing, without the situation and sentiment; and after the senses and imagina- tion have been wound up to the most thrilling ex- citement by tones of melting affection and despair, and Romeo and Juliet have been finally torn asunder by a flinty-hearted stick of a father, with a black cloak and a bass voice selon les regies it is ridiculous to see them come back from opposite sides of the stage, bow to the audience, and then, throwing themselves into each other's arms, pour out the same passionate strains of love and sorrow. *As to Devrient's acting in the last scene, I think even Pasta's Romeo would have seemed colorless beside hers ; and this arises perhaps from the char- acter of the music, from the very different style in which Zingarelli and Bellini have treated their last scene. The former has made Romeo tender the well-known story of the mother who delivers her infant when carried awaf by the eagle, or rather vulture of the Alps. Daight make a good melodrama, but is not fit for an opera and 'he music is trainante and mon^onous. SKETCHES OF ART, and plaintive, and Pasta accordingly subdued her conception to this tone; but Bellini has thrown into the same scene more animation, and more va- rious effect.* Devrient, thus enabled to color more highly, has gone beyond the composer. There was a flush of poetry and passion, a heart-breaking struggle of love and life against an overwhelming destiny, which thrilled me. Never did I hear any one sing so completely from her own soul as this astonishing creature. In certain tones and pas- sages her voice issued from the depths of her bosom as if steeped in tears ; and her countenance, when she hears Juliet sigh from the tomb, was such a sudden and divine gleam of expression as I have never seen on any face but Fanny Kemble's. 1 was not surprised to learn that Madame Devrient is generally ill after her performance, and unable to sing in this part more than once or twice a week. * * * * Tieck is the literary Colossus of Dresden ; per- haps I should say of Germany. There are those who dispute his infallibility as a critic ; there are those who will not walk under the banners of hia philosophy ; but since the death of Goethe, I be- * Zingarelli composed his Romeo e Giulietta in 1797 : Bellini produced the Capelletti at Venice in 1832, for our silver-voiced Caradori and the contr'alto Giudita Grisi, sister of that accom- plished singer, Giulietta Grisi. Thirty-five years are an age in the history of music. Of the two operas, Bellini's is the motrt effective, from the number of the concerted pieces, without con- taining a single air which can be placed in comparison with fiv v six in Zingarelli's opera. LITERATURE, AND CHA.RACTER. 343 * liei e Ludwig Tieck holds undisputed the first rank as an original poet, and powerful writer, and has succeeded, by right divine, to the vacant throne of genius. His house in the Altmarkt, (the tall red house at the southeast corner,) henceforth con- secrated by that power which can " hallow in the core of human hearts even the ruin of a wall," * is the resort of all the enlightened strangers whb flock to Dresden : even those who know nothing of Tieck but his name, deem an introduction to him as indispensable as a visit to the Madonna del Sisto. To the English, he is particularly interest- ing : his knowledge of our language and literature, and especially of our older writers, is profound. Endued with an imagination which luxuriates in the world of marvels, which " dwells delightedly midst fays and talismans," and embraces in its range of power what is highest, deepest, most subtle, most practical gifted with a creative spirit, forever moving and working within the illimitable universe of fancy, Tieck is yet one of the most poignant satirists and profound critics of the age. He has for the last twenty years devoted his time and talents, in conjunction with Schlegel, to the study, translation, and illustration of Shakspeare. The combination of these two minds has done perhaps what no single mind could have effected in devel- oping, elucidating, and clothing in a new language the creations of that mighty and inspired being. * Lord Byron. 544 SKETCHES OF A RT, It is to be hoped that some translator will rise up among us to do justice in return to Tieck. No one tells a fairy tale like him : the earnest simplicity of style and manner is so exquisite that he always gives the idea of one whose hair was on end at his own wonders, who was entangled by the spell of his own enchantments. A few of these lighter productions (his Volksmarchen, or popular Tales,) have been rendered into our language ; but those of his works which have given him the highest estimation among his own countrymen still remain a sealed fountain to English readers.* It was with some trepidation I found myself in the presence of this extraordinary man. Notwith- standing his profound knowledge of our language, * " Tieck," says Carlyle, " is a poet born as well as made. He is no mere observist and compiler, rendering back to us, with additions or subtractions, the beauty which existing things have of themselves presented to him ; but a true Maker, to whom the actual and external is but the excitement for ideal creations, representing and ennobling its effects. His feeling or knowledge, his love or scorn, his gay humor or solemn earnestness; all the fches of his inward world are pervaded and mastered by the iving energy of the soul which possesses them, and their finer essence is wafted to us in his poetry, like Arabian odors, on the wings of the wind. But this may be said of all true poets ; and each is distinguished from all, by his individual characteristics. Among Tieck's, one of the most remarkable is his combination of so many gifts, in such full and simple harmony. His ridicule dpes not obstruct his adoration ; his gay southern fancy lives in union with a northern heart; with the moods of a longing and impassioned spirit, he seems deeply conversant ,> and a stiB imagination, in the highest sense of that word, reigns over ali Ws poetic world." LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 345 he rarely speaks English, and, like Alfieri, he will not speak French. I addressed him in English, and he spoke to me in German. The conversation in my first visit fell very naturally upon Shakspeare, for I had been looking over his admirable new translation of Macbeth, which he had just com- pleted. Macbeth led us to the English theatre and English acting to Mrs. Siddons and the Kembleu, and the actual character and state of our stage. While he spoke I could not help looking at his head, which is wonderfully fine ; the noble breadth and amplitude of his brow, and his quiet, but pene- trating eye, with an expression of latent humor hovering round his lips, formed altogether a strik- ing physiognomy. The numerous prints and por- traits of Tieck which are scattered over Germany- are very defective as resemblances. They have a heavy look ; they give the weight and power of his head, but nothing of thejinesse which lurks in the lower part of his face. His manner is courteous, and his voice particularly sweet and winning. He is apparently fond of the society of women ; or the women are fond of his society, for in the evening his room is generally crowded with fair worshippers. Yet Tieck, like Goethe, is accused of entertaining some unworthy sentiments with regard to the sex ; and is also said, like Goethe, not to have upheld us in his writings, as the true philosopher, to say nothing of the true poet, ought to have done. It is a fact upon which I shall take an opportunity of enlarging, that almost all the greatest men who 346 SKETCHES OF ART, have lived m the world, whether poets, philosophers, artists, or statesmen, have derived their mental and physical organization, more from the mother's than the father's side ; and the same is true, tin- happily, of those who have been in an extraordi- nary degree perverted. And does not this laad us to some awful considerations on the importance of the moral and physical well-being of women, and their present condition in society, as a branch of legislation and politics, which must ere long be modified ? Let our lords and masters reflect, that if an extensive influence for good or for evil be not denied to us, an influence commencing not only with, but before the birth of their children, it is time that the manifold mischiefs and miseries lurk- ing in the bosom of society, and of which woman is at once the wretched instrument and more wretched victim, be looked to. Sometimes I am induced to think that Tieck is misinterpreted or libelled by those who pretend to take the tone from his writings and opinions : it is evident that he delights in being surrounded by a crowd of admir- in"" women, therefore he must in his heart honor o and reverence us as being morally equal with man, for who could suspect the great Tieck of that pal try coxcombry which can be gratified by the adulation of inferior beings ? Tieck's extraordinary talent for reading aloud is m ich and deservedly celebrated : he gives dramatic readings two or three times a week when his health and his avocations allow this exertion ; the com- LIFERA1URE, AND CHARACTER. 347 pany assemble at six, and it is advisable to bj punctual to the moment ; soon afterwards tea is served : he begins to read at seven precisely, when the doors are closed against all intrusion whatever, and he reads through a whole play without pause, rest, omission, or interruption. Thus I heard him read Julius Csesar and the Midsummer Night's Dream, (in the German translation by himself and Schlegel,) and except Mrs. Siddons, I never heard any thing comparable as dramatic reading. Hia voice is rich, an^l capable of great variety of modulation. I observed that the humorous and declamatory passages were rather better than the pathetic and tender passages : he was quite at home amono- the elves and clowns in the Midsummer o Night's Dream, of which he gave the fantastic and comic parts with indescribable humor and effect. As to the translation, I could only judge of ita marvellous fidelity, which enabled me to follow him, word for word, but the Germans themselves are equally enchanted by its vigor, and elegance, and poetical coloring. * # * * The far-famed gallery of Dresden is, of course, the first and grand attraction to a stranger. The regulation of this gallery, and the difficulty of obtaining admission, struck me at first as rather inhospitable and ill-natured. In the summer months t is open to the public two days in the week ; but 3uring the winter months, from September to March, it is closed. Ir. order to obtain admittance, 348 SKETCHES OF ART, Curing this recess, you must pay three dollars to one of the principal keepers on duty, and a gratuity to the porter, in all about half-a-guinea. Having once paid this sum, you are free to enter whenever the gallery has been opened for another party. The ceremony is, to send the laquais-de-place at nine in the morning to inquire whether the gallery will be open in the course of the day; if the answer be in the affirmative, it is advisable to make your appear- ance as early as possible, and I believe you may stay as long as you please ; (at least I did ;) nothing more is afterwards demanded, though something may perhaps be expected if you are a very fre- quent visitor. All this is rather ungracious. It is true that the gallery is not a national, but a royal gallery, that it was founded and enriched by princes for their private recreation ; that Augustus III. purchased the Modena gallery for his kingly pleasure ; that from the original construction of the building it is impossible to heat it with stoves, with- out incurring some risk, and that to oblige the poor professors and attendants to linger benumbed and shivering in the gallery from morning to night is cruel. In fact, it would be difficult to give an idea of the deadly cold which prevails in the inner gal- lery, where the beams of the sun scarcely ever penetrate. And it may happen that only a chance visitor, or one or two strangers, may ask admittance m the course of the day. But poor as Saxony now is, drained, and exhausted, and maimed by luccessive wars, and trampled by successive con- LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 349 querors, this glorious gallery, which Frederic spared, and Napoleon left inviolate, remains the chief attraction to strangers; and it may be doubted whether there is good policy in making admittance to its treasures a matter of difficulty, vexation, and expense. There would be little fear, if all strangers were as obstinate and enthu- siastic as myself, for, to confess the truth, I know not what obstacle, or difficulty, or inconvenience, could have kept me out ; if all legal avenues had been hermetically sealed, I would have prayed, bribed, persevered, till I had attained my purpose, and after travelling three hundred miles to achieve an object, what are a few dollars ? But still it is ungracious, and methinks, in this courteous and liberal capital these regulations ought to be re- formed or modified. On entering the gallery for the first time, I walked straight forward, without pausing, or turn- ing to the right or the left, into the Bafiaelle-room, and looked round for the Madonna del Sisto, literally with a kind of misgiving. Familiar as the form might be to the eye and the fancy, from numerous copies and prints, still the unknown original held a sanctuary in my imagination, like the mystic Isis behind her veil : and it seemed that whatever I beheld of lovely, or perfect, or soul- speaking in art, had an unrevealed rival in my imagination : something was beyond there was a criterion of possible excellence as yet only con- jectured for I had not seen the Madonna del Sisto, 550 SKETCHES OF ART, Now, when I was about to lift my eyes to it, J literally hesitated I drew a long sigh, as if resign- ing myself to disappointment, and looked Yes ! there she was indeed ! that divinest image that ever shaped itself in palpable hues and forms to the liv- ing eye ! What a revelation of ineffable grace, and purity, and truth, and goodness ! There is no use attempting to say any thing about it ; too much has already been said and written and what are words V After gazing on it again and again, day after day, I feel that to attempt to describe the im- pression is like measuring the infinite, and sounding the unfathomable. When I looked up at it to-day it gave me the idea, or rather the feeling, of a vision descending and floating down upon me. The head of the virgin is quite superhuman : to say that it is beautiful, gives no idea of it. Some of Correggio's and Guido's virgins the virgin of Murillo at the Leuchtenberg palace have more beauty, in the common meaning of the word ; but every other female face, however lovely, however majestic, would, I am convinced, appear either trite or exaggerated, if brought into immediate comparison with this divine countenance. There is such a blessed calm in every feature ! and the eyes, beaming with a kind of internal light, look straight out of the picture not at you or me not at any thing belonging to this world, but through and through the universe. The unearthly Child is a sublime vision of power and grandeur, and seems not so much supported as enthroned in her arms. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 351 and what fitter throne for the Divinity than a woman's bosom full of innocence and love ? The expression in the face of St. Barbara, who looks down, has been differently interpreted, to me she seems to be giving a last look at the earth, above which the group is raised as on a hovering cloud. St. Sixtus is evidently pleading in all the combined fervour of faith, hope, and charity, for the congre- gation of sinners, who are supposed to be kneeling before the picture that is, for us to whom he points. Finally, the cherubs below, with their up- ward look of rapture and wonder, blending the most childish innocence with a sublime inspiration, complete the harmonious whole, uniting heaven with earth. While I stood in contemplation of this all-perfect work, I felt the impression of its loveliness in my deepest heart, not only without the power, but with- out the thought or wish to give it voice or words, till some lines of Shelley's lines which were not, but, methinks, ought to have been, inspired by the Madonna came, uncalled, floating through my memory Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be hninan, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman All that is inoupportable in thee, Of light, and love, and immortality! Sweet Benediction in the eternal curse ! Veil'd Glory of this lampless universe! Thou Harmony of Nature's art ! I measure 352 SKETCHES OF ART, The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, And find alas! mine own infirmity! * On the first morning I spent in the gallery, a most benevolent-looking old gentleman came up to me, and half lifting his velvet cap from his gray hairs, courteously saluted me by name. I replied, without knowing at the mom jnt to whom I spoke. It was Bottigar, the most formidable no, not for- midable but the most erudite scholar, critic, anti- quarian, in Germany. Bottigar, I do believe, has read every book that ever was written ; knows every thing that ever was known ; and is ac- quainted with every body, who is any body, in the four quarters of the world. He is not the author of any large work, but his writings, in a variety of form, on art, ancient and modern, on literature, on the classics, on the stage, are known over all Germany ; and in his best days few have exercised so wide an influence over opinion and literature. It is said, that in his latter years his criticism has been too vague, his praise too indis- criminate, to be trusted ; but I know not why this should excite indignation, though it may produce mistrust ; in Bottigar's conformation, benevolence must always have been prominent, and in the de- cline of his life for he is now seventy-eight this natural courtesy combining with a good deal of vanity and imagination, would necessarily produce the result of extreme mildness, a disposition l:c * Vide Shelley's Epipsj-chidioa LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 353 see, or try to see, all en beau. The happier for him, and the pleasanter for others. We were standing together in the room with the Madonna, but I did not allude to it, nor attempt to express by a word the impression it had made on me ; but he seemed to understand my silence ; he after- wards told me that it is ascertained that Raffaelle employed only three months in executing this picture : it was thrown upon his canvas in a glow of inspiration, and is painted very lightly and thinly. When Palmeroli, the Italian restorer, was brought here at an expense of more than three thousand ducats, he ventured to clean and retouch the background and accessories, but dared not touch the figures of the Virgin and the Child, which retain their sombre tint. This has perhaps destroyed the harmony of the general effect, but if the man mistrusted himself he was right: in such a case, however, he had better have let the background alone. In taking down the picture for the purpose of cleaning, it was discovered that a part of the original canvas, about a quarter of a yard, was turned back in order to make it fit the frame. Every one must have observed, that in Miiller's engraving, and all the known copies of this Madonna, the head is too near the top of the picture, so as to mar the just proportion. This is now amended : the veil, or curtain, which appears to have been just drawn aside to disclose the celes- tial vision, does not now reach the boundary of the 23 354 SKETCHES OF ART, picture, as heretofore ; the original effect is restored, and it is infinitely better. As if to produce a surfeit of excellence, the five Correggios hang together in the same room with the KafFaelle.* They are the Madonna di San Georgio ; the Madonna di San Francisco ; the Madonna di Santo Sabastiano ; the famous Na- tivity, called La Notte ; and the small Magdalene reading, of which there exist an incalculable num- ber of copies and prints. I know not that any thing can be added to what has been said a hun- dred times over of these wondrous pieces of poetry. Their excellence and value, as unequalled produc- tions of art, may not perhaps be understood by all, the poetical charm, the something more than meets the eye, is not perhaps equally felt by all, but the sentiment is intelligible to every mind, and goes at once to every heart ; the most unedu- cated eye, the merest tyro in art, gazes with de- light on the Notte; and the Magdalene reading has given perhaps more pleasure than any known picture, it is so quiet, so simple, so touching, in its heavenly beauty ! Those who may not per- fectly understand what artists mean when they dwell with rapture on Correggio's wonderful * Mr. Russel is quite right in his observation that the Cor* reggios are hung too near together : the fact is, that in the Dres- den gallery, the pictures are not well hung, nor well arranged; there is too little light in the inner gallery, and too much in the outer gallery. Lastly, the numbers are so confused that I found the catalogue of little use. A new arrangement and a new cato 'ogue, by Professor Matthai, are in contemplation. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER 355 chiaro-scuro, should look close into thif little pic- turo, which hangs at a convenient height: they will perceive that they can look through the shadows into the substance, as it might be, into the flesh and blood ; the shadows seem acci- dental as if between the eye and the colours, and not incorporated with them ; in this lies the inim- itable excellence of this master. The Magdalene was once surrounded by a rich frame of silver gilt, chased, and adorned with gems, turquoises, and pearls : but some years ago a thief found means to enter at the window, and carried off the picture for the sake of the frame. A reward of two hundred ducats and a pardon were offered for the picture only, and in a fort- night afterwards it was happily restored to the gallery uninjured ; but I did not hear that the frame and jewels were ever recovered. Of Correggio's larger pictures, I think the Ma- donna di San Georgio pleased me most. The Virgin is seated on a throne, holding the sacred Infant, who extends his arms and smiles out upon the world he has come to save. On the right stands St. George, his foot on the dragon's head; behind him St. Peter Martyr; on the left, St. Geminiano and St. John the Baptist. In tho front of the picture two heavenly boys are playing with the sword and helmet of St. George, which he has apparently cast down at the foot of the throne. All in this picture is grand and sublime, m the feeling, the forms, the colouring, the exprea 356 SKETCHES OF ART, won. But what, says a wiseacre of a critic, rulbing up his school chronology, what have St. Francis, and St. George, and St. John the Baptist, to do in the same picture with the Virgin Mary ? Did not St. George live nine hundred years after St. John ? and St. Francis five hundred years after St. George ? and so on. Yet this is properly no anachronism no violation of the proprieties of action, place, or time. These and similar pic- tures, as the St. Jerome at Parma, and Raffaelle'g Madonna, are not to be considered as historical paintings, but as grand pieces of lyrical and sacred poetry. In this particular picture, which was an altarpiece in the church of Our Lady at Parma, we have in St. George the representation of religious magnanimity ; in St. John, religious enthusiasm ; in St. Geminiani, religious munificence ; in St. Peter, Martyr, religious fortitude ; and these are grouped round the most lovely impersonation of innocence, chastity, and heavenly love. Such, as it appears to me, is the true intention and significa- tion of this and similar pictures. But in the " Notte " (the Nativity) the case is different. It is properly an historical picture ; and if Correggio had placed St. George, or St. Francis, w the Magdalene, as spectators, we might then exclaim at the absurdity of the anachronism ; but here Correggio has converted the literal repre- sentation of a circumstance in sacred histoiy into a divine piece of poetry, when he gave us that emanation of supernatural light, streaming from 1ITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 357 the form of the celestial Child, and illuminating the extatic face of the virgin mother, who bends over her infant undazzled ; while another female draws back, veiling her eyes with her hand, as if unable to endure the radiance. Far off, through the gloom of night, we see the morning just break- ing along the eastern horizon emblem of the " day-spring from on high." This is precisely one of those pictures of which no copy or engraving could convey any adequate idea ; the sentiment of maternity (in which Cor- reggio excelled) is so exquisitely tender, and the coloring so inconceivably transparent and delicate. I suppose it is a sort of treason to say that in the Madonna di San Francisco, the face of the virgin is tinctured with affectation ; but such was and is my impression. If I were to plan a new Dresden gallery, the Madonna del Sisto and the " Notte " should each have a sanctuary apart, and be lighted from above ; at present they are ill-placed for effect. When I could move from the Raffaelle room, I took advantage of the presence and attendance of Professor Matthai, (who is himself a painter of eminence here,) and went through a regular course of the Italian schools of painting, beginning with Giotto. The collection is extremely rich in the early Ferarese and Venetian painters, and it was most interesting thus to trace the gradual improve- ment and development of the school of colorista through Squarcione, Mantegna, the Bellini, Gior- 358 SKETCHES OF ART, gione, Paris Bordone, Palma, and Titian; until richness oecame exuberance, and power verged upon excess in Paul Veronese and Tintoretto. Certainly, I feel no inclination to turn my note- book into a catalogue ; but I must mention Titian'a Christo della Moneta : such a head ! so pure from any trace of passion ! so refined, so intel- lectual, so benevolent ! The only head of Christ I ever entirely approved. Here they have Giorgione's master-piece the meeting of Rachel and Jacob; and the three daughters of Palma, half-lengths, in the same pic- ture. The centre one, Violante, is a most lovely head There is here an extraordinary picture by Titian, representing Lucrezia Borgia, presented by her husband to the Madonna. The portraits are the size of life, half-lengths. I looked in vain in the countenance of Lucrezia for some trace, some testimony of the crimes imputed to her ; but $he is a fair, golden-haired, gentle-looking creature, with a feeble and vapid expression. The head of her husband, Alphonso, is fine and full of power. There are, I suppose, not less than fourteen or fifteen pictures by Titian. The Concina family, by Paul Veronese, esteemed his finest production, is in the Dresden gallery, with ten others of the same master. Of Guido, there are ten pictures, particularly that extraordi- nary one, called Ninus and Semiramis, life size, Of the Carracci, at least eight or nine, particularly LITERATURE, A^D CHARACTER. 859 the genius of Fame, which should be compared with that of Guido. There are numerous pictures of Albano and Bibera ; but very few specimens of Salvator Rosa and Domenichino. On the whole, I suppose that no gallery, except that of Florence, can compete with the Dresden gallery in the treasures of Italian art. In all, there are five hundred and thirty-four Italian pictures. I pass over the Flemish, Dutch, and French pictures, which fill the outer gallery : these exceed the Italian school in number, and many of them are of surpassing merit and value, but, having just- come from Munich, where the eye and fancy are both satiated with this class of pictures, I gave my attention principally to the Italian masters. There is one room here entirely filled with the crayon paintings of Rosalba, including a few by Liotard. Among them is a very interesting head of Metastasio, painted when he was young. He has fair hair and blue eyes, with small features, and an expression of mingled sensibility and acute- ness : no power. Rosalba Camera, perhaps the finest crayon painter who ever existed, was a Venetian, born at Chiozza in 1675. She was an admirable creature in every respect, possessing many accomplishments, besides the beautiful art in which she excelled. Several anecdotes are preserved which prove the sweetness of her disposition, and the clear simplicity .}f her mind. Spence, who knew her personally, 360 SKETCHES OF ART, calls her " the most modest of painters ; " yet she nsed to say playfully, " I am charmed with every thing I do, for eight hours after it is done ! " Thia was natural while the excitement of conception was fresh upon the mind. No one, however, could be more fastidious and difficult about their own works than Rosalba. She was not only an ob- server of countenance by profession, but a most acute observer of character, as revealed in all its external indications. She said of Sir Godfrey Kneller, after he had paid her a visit, " I con- cluded he could not be religious, for he has no modesty." The general philosophical truth com- prised in these few words is not less admirable than the acuteness of the remark, as applied to Kneller a professed skeptic, and the most self- sufficient coxcomb of his time. Rosalba was invited at different times to almost all the courts of Europe, and painted most of the distinguished persons of her time at Vienna, Dres- den, Berlin, and Paris ; the lady-like refinements of her mind and manners, which also marked her style of painting, recommended her not less than her talents. She used, after her return to Italy, to say her prayers in German, " because the lan- guage was so expressive." * Rosalba became blind before her death, which occurred in 1757. Her works in the Dresden gallery amo ant to at least one hundred and fifty Spence. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 361 principally portraits but there are also some ex- quisite fancy heads. Thinking of Rosalba, reminds me that there are some pretty stories told of women, who have ex- celled as professed artists. In general the conscious power of maintaining themselves, habits of attention and manual industry, the application of our femi- nine superfluity of sensibility and imagination to a tangible result have produced fine characters. The daughter of Tintoretto, when invited to the courts of Maximilian and Philip II. refused to leave her father. Violante Siries of Florence gave a similar proof of filial affection ; and when the grand duke commanded her to paint her own portrait for the Florentine gallery, where it now hangs, she introduced the portrait of her father, because he had been her first instructor in art. When Henrietta Walters, the famous Dutch minia- ture painter, was invited by Peter the Great and Frederic, to their respective courts, with magnifi- cent promises of favor and patronage, she steadily refused; and when Peter, who had no idea of giving way to obstacles, particularly in the female form, pressed upon her in person the most splendid offers, and demanded the reason of her refusal, she replied, that she was contented with her lot, and could not bear the idea of living out of a free country. Maria von Osterwyck, one of the most admirable flower painters, had a lover, to whom she was a ittle partial, but his idleness and dissipation dis 502 SKETCHES OF ART, tressed her. At length she promised to g've him her hand on condition that during one year he would work regularly ten hours a day, observing that it was only what she had done herself from a very early age. He agreed; and took a house opposite to her that she might witness his industry ; but habit was too strong, his love or his resolution failed, and he broke the compact. She refused to be his wife; and no entreaties could afterwards alter her determination never to accept the man who had shown so little strength of character, and so little real love. She was a wise woman, and, as the event showed, not a heartless one. She died unmarried, though surrounded by suitors. It was the fate of Elizabeth Sirani, one of the most beautiful women, as well as one of the most exquisite painters of her time, to live in the midst of those deadly feuds between the pupils of Guido and those of Domenichino, and she was poisoned at the age of twenty-six. She left behind her one hundred and fifty pictures, an astonishing number if we consider the age at which the world was deprived of this wonderful creature, for they are finished with the utmost care in every part. Ma- donnas and Magdalenes were her favorite subjects. She died in 1526. Her best pictures are at Flor- ence. Sofonisba Angusciola had two sisters, Lucia and Europa, almost as gifted, though not quite so cele- brated as herself: these three " virtuous gentle- women," as Vasari calls them, lived together in LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 363 the most delightful sisterly union. One of Sofo- nisba's most beautiful pictures represents her two sisters playing at chess, attended by the old duenna, who accompanied them every where. When Sofo- nisba was invited to the court of Spain, in 1560, she took her sisters with her in short, thev were inseparable. They were all accomplished women. "We hear," said the pope, in a complimentary letter to Sofonisba, on one of her pictures, " that this your great talent is among the least you possess;" which letter is said by Vasari to be a sufficient proof of the genius of Sofonisba as if the holy Father's infallibility extended to painting ! Luckily we have proofs more undeniable in her own most lovely works glowing with life like those of Titian ; and in the testimony of Vandyke, who said of her in her later years, that " he had learned more from one old blind woman in Italy than from all the masters of his art." It is worth remarking, that almost all the women who have attained celebrity in painting, have ex- celled in portraiture. The characteristic of Rosalba k s an exceeding elegance ; of Angelica Kauffman exceeding grace ; but she wants nerve. Lavinia Fontana threw a look of sensibility into her most masculine heads she died broken-hearted for the loss of an only son, whose portrait is her master- piece.* The Sofonisba had most dignity, and in * Lanzi says, that many of the works of Lavinia, Fontana might easily pass for those of Guido; her bes* works are at Bo gna. She died in 1614. 864 SKETCHES OF ART, her own portrait * a certain dignified simplicity it the air and attitude strikes us immediately. Gen- tileschi has most power : she was a gifted, but a profligate woman. All those whom I have men- tioned were women of undoubted genius ; for they have each a style apart, peculiar, and tinted by their individual character : but all, except Genti- leschi, were feminine painters. They succeeded best in feminine portraits, and when they painted history they were only admirable in that class of subjects which came within the province of their sex; beyond that boundary they became fade, insipid, or exaggerated : thus Elizabeth Sirani's Annunciation is exquisite, and her Crucifixion feeble ; Angelica KauiFman's Nymphs and Madon- nas are lovely ; but her picture of the warrior Herman, returning home after the defeat of the Roman legions, is cold and ineffective. The result of these reflections is, that there is a walk of art in which women may attain perfection, and excel the other sex; as there is another department from which they are excluded. You must change the physical organization of the race of women before we produce a Rubens or a Michael Angelo. Then, on the other hand, I fancy, no man could paint like Louisa Sharpe, any more than write like Mrs. Hemans. Louisa Sharpe, and her sister, are, in painting, just what Mrs. Hemans is in poetry ; we see in their works the same characteristics n * At Althorpe. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 365 feebleness, no littleness of design or manner, nothing vapid, trivial, or affected, and nothing masculine ; all is super-eminently, essentially femi- nine, in subject, style, and sentiment. I wish to combat in every way that oft-repeated, but most false compliment unthinkingly paid to women, that genius is of no sex; there may be equality of power, but in its quality and application there will and must be difference and distinction. If men would but remember this truth, they would cease to treat with ridicule and jealousy the attainments and aspirations of women, knowing that there never could be real competition or rivalry. If women would admit this truth, they would not presume out of their sphere : but then we come to the necessity for some key to the knowledge of ourselves and others some scale for the just esti- mation of our own qualities and powers, compared with those of others the great secret of self- regulation and happiness the beginning, middle, and end of all education. But to return from this tirade. I wish my va- grant pen were less discursive. In the works of art, the presence of a power, felt rather than perceived, and kept subordinate to th'e sentiment of grace, should mark the female mind and hand. This is what I love in Kosalba, in our own Mrs. Carpenter, in Madame de Freyberg, and in Eliza and Louisa Sharpe : in the latter there is a high tone of moral as well as poetical Ceeling. Thus her picture of the young girl coming 363 SKETCHES OF A RT, out of cLmrcli after disturbing the equanimity of a whole congregation by her fine lady airs and her silk attire, is a charming and most graceful satire on the foibles of her sex. The idea, however, is taken from the Spectator. But Louisa Sharpe cai\ also create. Of another lovely picture, that of the young, forsaken, disconsolate, repentant mother, who sits drooping over her child, " with looks bowed down in penetrative shame," while one or two of the rigidly-righteous of her own sex turn from her with a scornful and upbraiding air I believe the subject is original ; but it is obviously one which never could have occurred, except to the most consciously pure as well as the gentlest and kindest heart in the world. Never was a more beautiful and Christian lesson conveyed by woman to woman at once a warning to our weakness, and a rebuke to our pride.* Apropos of female artists : I met here with a lady of noble birth and high rank, the Countess Julie von Egloflfstein, f who, in spite of the prejudices still prevailing in Germany, has devoted herself to * The Miss Sharpes were at Dresden while I was theie, and their names and some of their works were fresh in my mind and eye when I wrote the above ; "but I think it fair to add, that I had not the opportunity I could hare wished of cultivating their acquaintance. These three sisters, all so talented, and so insep- arable, all artists, and bound together in affectionate com- munion of hearts and interests, reminded me of the Sofonisba and her sisters. t She is the * Julie " celebrated in some of Goethe's minor poems. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 367 painting as a profession. Her vocation for the art was early displayed, but combated and discouraged as derogatory to her rank and station ; she was for many years demoiselle d'honneur to the grand -Duchess Luise of Weimar. Under all these cir- cumstances, it required real strength of mind to take the step she has taken ; but a less decided course could not well have emancipated her from trammels, the force of which can hardly be esti- mated out of Germany. A recent journey to Italy, undertaken on account of her health, fixed her determination, and her destiny for life. In looking over her drawings and pictures, I waa particularly struck by one singularity, which yet, on reflection, appears perfectly comprehensible. This high-born and court-bred woman shows a decided predilection for the picturesque m humble life, and seems to have turned to simple nature in perfect simplicity of heart. Being self-taught and self-formed, there is nothing mannered or conven- tional in her style ; and I do hope she will assert the privilege of genius, and, looking only into nature out of her own heart and soul, form and keep a style to herself. I remember one little picture, painted either for the queen of England or the queen of Bavaria, representing a young Neapolitan peasant, seated at her cottage door, contemplating her child, cradled at her feet, while the fishing bark of her husband is sailing away in the distance. In this little bit of natural joetry there was no seeking after effect, no prettiness, no 368 SKETCHES OF ART, pretension ; but a quiet genuine simplicity of feel* ing, which surprised while it pleased me. When 1 have looked at the Countess Julie in her painting- room, surrounded by her drawings, models, casts all the powers of her exuberant enthusiastic mind flowing free in their natural direction, I have felt at once pleasure, and admiration, and respect. It should seem that the energy of spirit and real magnanimity of mind which could trample over social prejudices, not the less strong because mani- festly absurd, united to genius and perseverance, may, if life be granted, safely draw upon futurity both for success and for fame. * * * * I consider my introduction to Moritz Retzsch as one of the most memorable and agreeable incidents of my short sojourn at Dresden. This extraordinary genius, who is almost as popular and interesting in England as in his own country, seems to have received from Nature a double portion of the inventive faculty that rarest of all her good gifts, even to those who are hei especial favorites. As his published works, by which he is principally known in England, (the Outlines to the Faust, to Shakspeare, to Schiller's Song of the Bell, &c.) are illustrations of the ideas of others, few but those who may possess some of his original drawings are aware, that Retzsch is himself a poet of the first order, using his glorious power of graphic delineation to throw into form the concep tions, thoughts, aspirations, of his own glowing LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 369 imagination and fertile fancy. Retzsch was born at Dresden in 1779, and has never, I believe, been far from his native place. From childhood he was a singular being, giving early indications of his imitative power by drawing or carving in wood, resemblances of the objects which struck his atten- tion, without the slightest idea in himself or others of becoming eventually an artist ; and I have even heard that, when he was quite a youth, his enthu- siastic mind, laboring with a power which he felt rather than knew, his love of the wilder aspects of nature, and impatience of the restraints of artificial life, had nearly induced him to become a huntsman or forester (Jager) in the royal service. However, at the age of twenty, his love of art became a de- cided vocation. The little property he had in- herited or accumulated was dissipated during that war, which swept like a whirlwind over all Ger- many, overwhelming prince and peasant, artist, mechanic, in one wide-spreading desolation. Since that time Retzsch has depended on his talents alone content to live poor in a poor country. He has, by the exertion of his talents, achieved for himself a small independence, and contributed to the support of a large family of relations, also ruined by the casualties of war. His usual resi- dence is at his own pretty little farm or vineyard a few miles from Dresden. When in the town, where his duties as professor of the Academy frequently call him, he lodges in a small house in the Neu- stadt, close upon the banks of the Elbe, in a retired 370 SKETCHES OF ART, and beautiful situation. Thither 1 was conducted by our mutual friend, N , whose appreciation of Retzsch's talents, and knowledge of his peculiar- ities, rendered him the best possible intermediator on this occasion. The professor received us in a room which ap- peared to answer many purposes, being obviously a sleeping as well as a sitting-room, but perfectly neat. I saw at once that there was every where a woman's superintending eye and thoughtful care ; but did not know at the moment that he was mar- ried. He received us with open-hearted frankness, at the same time throwing on the stranger one of those quick glances which seemed to look through me : in return, I contemplated him with inexpress- ible interest. His figure is rather larger, and more portly than I had expected ; but I admired his fino Titanic head, so large, and so sublime in its ex- pression ; his light blue eye, wild and wide, which seemed to drink in meaning and flash out light ; hia hair profuse, grizzled, and flowing in masses round his head : and his expanded brow full of poetrv and powei. In his deportment he is a mere child of nature, simple, careless, saying just what he feels and thinks at the moment, without regard to forms ; yet pleasing from the benevolent earnest- ness of his manner, and intuitively polite without being polished. After some conversation, he took us into hia painting room. As a colorist, I believe his style is criticized, and open to criticism ; it is at least sin- LITERATURE, A VD CHARACTER. 371 gular ; but I must confess that while I was looking over his things I was engrossed by the one con- viction ; that while his peculiar merits, and the preference of one manner to another may be a matter of argument or tpste, it is certain, and in- disputable, that no one paints like Retzsch, and that, in the original pcmfr and fertility of con- ception, in the quantity of mind which he brings to boar upon his subject, hp is in his own style un- equalled and inimitable. I. was rather surprised to see in some of his desigrs and pencil drawings, the most elaborate delicacy of touch, and mos finished execution of parts, rorabined with a fanc~ which seems to run wild over h?s paper or his can vas ; but only seems for it must be remarked, thp-, with all this luxuriance of imagination, there is no exaggeration, either of form or feeling; he is peculiar, fantastic, even extravagant Im nsver false in sentiment or expression. The reason is, that in Retzsch's character the moral sentiments are strongly developed ; where they are deficient, let the artist who aims at the highest poetical de- partment of excellence despair ; for no possession of creative talent, nor professional skill, nor con- ventional taste, will supply that main deficiency. I saw in Retzsch's atelier many things novel, beautiful, and interesting ; but will note only a few, which have dwelt upon my memory, as being char- acteristic of the man as well as the artist. There was, on a small panel, the head of an uigel smiling. He said he was often pursued bj 872 SKETCHES OF ART, dark fancies, haunted by melancholy forebodings, desponding over himself and his art, " and he re- solved to create an angel for himself, which should smile upon him out of heaven." So he painted this most lovely head, in which the radiant spirit of joy seems to beam from every feature at once ; and I thought while I looked upon it, that it were enough to exorcise a whole legion of blue devils. It is rarely that we can associate the mirthful Avith the beautiful and the sublime even I could have deemed it next to impossible; but the effulgent cheerfulness of this divine face corrected that idea, which, after all, is not in bright lovely nature, but in the shadow which the mighty spirit of Human- ity casts from his wings, as he hangs brooding ovei her between heaven and earth. Afterwards he placed upon his easel a wondroua face, which made me shrink back not with terror, for it was perfectly beautiful but with awe, for it was unspeakably fearful : the hair streamed back from the pale brow the orbs of sight appeared at first two dark, hollow, unfathomable spaces, like those in a skull; but when I drew nearer, and looked attentively, two lovely living eyes looked at me again out of the depth of shadow, as if from the bottom of an abyss. The mouth was divinely sweet, but sad, and the softest repose rested on every feature. This, he told me, was the ANGEL OF DEATH : it was the original conception of a head for the large picture now at Vienna, repre- senting the Angel of Death bearing aloft twc LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 37S children into the regions of the blessed : the heavens opening above, and the earth and stars sinking beneath his feet. The next thing which struck me was a small pictures-two satyrs butting at each other, while a shepherd carries off the nymph for whom they are contending. This was most admirable for its grotesque power and spirit, and, moreover, ex- tremely well colored. Another in the same style represented a satyr sitting on a wine-skin, out of which he drinks; two arch-looking nymphs are stealing on him from behind, and one of them pierces the wine-skin with her hunting-spear. There was a portrait of himself, but I would not laud it in fact, he has not done himself justice. Only a colossal bust, in the same style, and wrought with the same feeling as Dannecker's bust of Schil- ler, could convey to posterity an adequate idea of the head and countenance of Retzsch. I com- plimented him on the effect which his Hamlet had produced in England ; he told me, that it had been his wish to illustrate the Midsummer Night's Dream, or the Tempest, rather than Macbeth : the former he will still undertake, and, in truth, if any one succeeds in embodying a just idea of a Miranda, a Caliban, a Titania, and the poetical burlesque of the Athenian clowns, it will be Retzsch, whose genius embraces at once the grotesque, the comic, the wild, the wonderful, the fanciful, the elegant ! A few. days afterwards we accepted Retzsch'a invitation to visit him at his campayna for whether 8?4 SKETC&L3 OF ART, it were farm-house, villa, or vineyard, or all together, I could not well decide. The drive was delicious. The road wound along the banks of the magnificent Elbe, the gently-swelling hills, all laid out in vine- yards, rising on our right ; and though it was in November, the air was soft as summer. Ketzsch, who had perceived our approach from his window, came out to meet us took me under his arm as if we had been friends of twenty years' standing, and leading me into his picturesque domicile, intro- duced me to his wife as pretty a piece of domestic poetry as one shall see in a summer's day. She was the daughter of a vine-dresser, whom Retzsch fell in love with while she was yet almost a child, and educated for his wife at least so runs the tale. At the first glance I detected the original of that countenance which, more or less idealized, runs through all his representations of female youth and beauty : here was the model, both in feature and expression ; she smiled upon us a most cordial wel- come, regaled us with delicious coffee and cakes prepared by herself, theu taking up her knitting sat down beside us ; and while I turned over ad miringly the beautiful designs with which her hus- band had decorated her album, the looks of venera- tion and love with which she regarded him, and the expression of kindly, delighted sympathy with which she smiled upon me, I shall not easily forget. As for the album itself, queens might have envied her such homage : and what would not a dilettante Collector have given for such a possession ! LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 375 1 ^member two or three of these designs which must serve to give an idea of the rest : 1st. The good Gonius descending to bless his wife. 2a The birthday of his wife a lovely female infant is asleep under a vine, which is wreathed round the tree of life ; the spirits of the four elements are bringing votive gifts with which they endow her. 3d. The Enigma of Human Life. The Genius of Humanity is reclining on the back of a gigantic sphinx, of which the features are averted, and partly veiled by a cloud; he holds a rose half- withered in his hand, and looks up with a divine expression towards two butterflies which have escaped from the chrysalis state, and are sporting above his head ; at his feet are a dead bird and reptile emblematical of sin and death. 4th. The Genius of Art, represented as a young Apollo, turns, with a melancholy, abstracted air, the handle of a barrel-organ, while Vulgarity, Ignorance, and Folly, Ijsten with approbation ; meantime his lyre and his palette lie neglected at his feet, together with an empty purse and wallet : the mixture of pathos, poetry, and satire, in this little drawing, can hardly be described in words. 5th. Hope, repre- sented .by a lovely group of playful children, who are peeping under a hat for a butterfly, which they fancy they have caught, but which has escaped, and is hovering above their reach. 6th. Tempta- tion presented to youth and 'innocence by an evil spirit, while a good genius warns them to beware. In this drawing, the figures of the boy and girl, 876 SKETCHES OF ART, but more particularly of the latter, appeared to me of the most consummate and touching beauty 7th. His wife walking on a windy day : a number of little sylphs are agitating her drapery, lifting the tresses of her hair, playing with her sash ; while another party have flown off with her hat, and are bearing it away in triumph. After spending three or four hours delightfully, we drove home in silence by the gleaming, mur- muring river, and beneath the light of the silent stars. On a subsequent visit, Retzsch showed me many more of these delicious phantasie, or fancies, as he termed them, or more truly, little pieces of moral and lyrical poetry, thrown into palpable form, speaking in the universal language of the eye to the universal heart of man. I remember, in particular, one of striking and even of appall- ing interest. The Genius of Humanity and the Spirit of Evil are playing at chess for the souls of men : the Genius of Humanity has lost to his in- fernal adversary some of his principal pieces, love, humility, innocence, and lastly, peace of mind ; but he still retains faith, truth, and forti- tude; and is sitting in a contemplative attitude, considering his next move ; his adversary, who opposes him with pride, avarice, irreligion, luxury, and a host of evil passions, looks at him with a Mephistophiles expression, anticipating his devilish triumph. The pawns on the one side are prayers on the other doubts. A little behind stands the Amrel of conscience as arbitrator. In this mos* LITERATURE, A^D CHARACTER. 37T exquisite allegory, so beautifully, so clearly con- veyed to the heart, there lurked a deeper moral than in many a sermon. There was another beautiful little allegory of Love in the character of a Picklock, opening, or trving to open, a variety of albums, lettered, the " Human Heart, No. 1 ; Human Heart, No. 2 ; " while Philosophy lights him with her lantern. There were besides many other designs of equal poetry, beauty, and moral interest I think, a whole portfolio full of them. I endeavored to persuade Retzsch that he could not do better than publish some of these exquisite Fancies, and when I left him he entertained the idea of doing so at some future period. To adopt hig own language, the Genius of Art could not present to the Genius of Humanity a more delightful and a more profitable gift.* * * * * The following list of German painters compre- hends those only whose works I had an opportunity of considering, and who appeared to me to possess decided merit. I might easily have extended this catalogue to thrice its length, had I included all those whose names were given to me as being dis- tinguished and celebrated among their own coun- trymen. From Munich alone I brought a list oi two hundred artists, and from other parts of Ger- many nearly as many more. But in confining my- * Since this \ras written, in November, 1833, Retzsch has seu frer to England a series of these Fancies for publication. 578 SKETCHES OF ART, telf to those whose productions I saw, I adhere to a principle which, after all, seems to be the best viz : never to speak but of what we know ; and then only of the individual impression : it is neces- sary to know so many things before we can give, with confidence, an opinion about any one thing ! While the literary intercourse between England and Germany increases every day, and a mutual esteem and understanding is the natural conse- quence of this approximation of mind, there is a singular and mutual ignorance in all matters apper- taining to art, and consequently, a good deal of in- justice and prejudice on both sides. The Germans were amazed and incredulous, when I informed them that in England there are many admirers ol art, to whom the very names of Schnorr, Over- beck, Rauch, Peter Hess, Wach, Wagenbauer, and ev^n their great Cornelius, are unknown ; and 1 met with very clever, well-informed Germans, who had, by some chance, heard of Sir Thomas Law- rence, and knew something of Wilkie, Turner, and Martin, from the engravings after their works; who thought Sir Joshua Reynolds and his engravei Reynolds one and the same person ; and of Cal- cott, Landseer, Etty, and Hilton, and others of oui shining lights, they knew nothing at all. I must say, however, that they have generally a more jusl idea of English art than we have of German art, and their veneration for Flaxman, like their ven- eration for Shakspeare, is a sort of enthusiasm all over Germany Those who nave contemplated the LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 37& actual state of art, and compared the prevalent tastes and feelings in both countries, will allow that much advantage would result from a better mutual understanding. We English accuse the German artists of mannerism, of a formal, hard, and elab- orate execution, a pedantic style of composition and sundry other sins. The Germans accuse us, in return, of excessive coarseness and carelessness, a loose sketchy style of execution, and a general inattention to truth of character.* " You English have no school of art," was often said to me : 1 could have replied if it had not been a solecism in grammar " You Germans have too much school." The " esprit de secte," which in Germany has broken up their poetry, literature, and philosophy into schisms and schools, descends unhappily to art, and every professor, to use the Highland expres- sion, has his tail. At the same time, we cannot deny to the Ger- mans the merit of great earnestness of feeling, and that characteristic integrity of purpose which they throw into every thing they undertake or perform. Art with them, is oftener held in honor, and pur- sued truly for its own sake, than among us: too many of our English artists consider their lofty ami noble vocation, simply as the means to an end, be that end fame or gain. Generally speaking, too, * We have among us a young German painter, (Theodor von ttolst,) who, uniting the exubei-ant enthusiasm and rich imagi- nation of his country with a just appreciation of the style ol / English art, is likely to achie re great things. 580 SKETCHES OF ART, the German artists are men of superior cultivation, BO that when the creative inspiration falls upon them, the material on which to work is already stored up : " nothing can come of nothing," and the sunbeams descend in vain on the richest soil where the seed has not been sown. It is certain that we have not in England any historical painters who have given evidence of their genius on so grand a scale as some of the historical painters of Germany have recently done. We know that it is not the genius, but the opportunity which has been wanting, but we cannot ask foreign- ers to admit this, they can only judge from results, and they must either suppose us to be without emi- nent men in the higher walks of art, or they must wonder, with their magnificent ideas of the incalculable wealth of our nobles, the prodigal ex- penditure of our rulers, and the grandeur of our public institutions, that painting has not oftener been summoned in aid of her eldest sister archi- tecture. On the other hand, their school of por- traiture and landscape is decidedly inferior to ours. Not only have they no landscape painters who can compare with Calcott and Turner, but they do no' appear to have imagined the kind of excellence achieved by these wonderful artists. I should say, generally, that their most beautiful landscapes want atmosphere. I used to feel while looking at them as if I were in the exhausted receiver of an air- pump. Of their portraits I have already spoken ; the eye which has rested in delight upon one ol LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 381 Wilkie's or Phillips's line manly portraits, (not to mention Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, and Lawrence,) cannot easily be reconciled to the hard, frittered manner of some of the most ad- mired of the German painters ; it is a difference of taste, which I will not call natural but national : the remains of the old gothic school which, as the study of Italian art becomes more diffused, will be modified or pass away. HISTORY. Peter Cornelius, born at Dusseldorf in 1 778, was for a considerable time the director (president) of the academy there, and is now the director of the academy of art at Munich : much of his time, how- ever, is spent in Italy. The Germans esteem him their best historical painter. He has invention, 3xpression, and power, but appears to me rather deficient in the feeling of beauty and tenderness. His grand works are the fresco painting in the Glyptothek at Munich, already described. Friederich Overbeck, born at Lubeck in 1789: he excels in scriptural subjects, which he treats with infinite grandeur and simplicity of feeling Wilhelm Wach, born at Berlin in 1787: first painter to the king of Prussia and professor in the tcademy of Berlin : esteemed one of the best paiit> 582 SKETCHES OF ART, ers and meet accomplished men in Germany. Nol having visited Berlin, where his finest works exist, I have as yet seen but one picture by this painter the head of an angel, at the palace of Peterstein, sublimely conceived, and most admirably painted. in the style of color, in the singular combination ol grand feeling and delicate execution, this picture reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci. Professor Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, born at Leipsig in 1 794. His frescos from the Kibelungen Lied in the new palace at Munich have been already mentioned at length. Professor Heinrich Hesse : the frescos in the Royal Chapel at Munich, already described. Wilhelm Tischbein, born at Heyna in 1751. He is director of the academy at Naples, and highly celebrated. He must not be confounded with hig uncle, a mediocre artist, who was the court painter of Hesse Cassel, and whose pictures swarm in all the palaces there. Philip Veit, of Frankfort fresco painter. Joseph Schlotthauer, professor of historical and fresco painting at Munich. (I believe this artist is dead. He held a high rank.) Clement Zimmermann, now employed in the Pinakothek, and in the new palace at Munich, where he takes a high rank as painter, and is ndt less distinguished by his general information, and bis frank and amiable character. Moritz Retzsch of Dresden. Professor Vogel, of Dresden, principal paintey LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER. 383 to the king of Saxony. He paints in freyco and history, but excels in portraits. Steiler, of Munich, court painter to the king of Bavaria, esteemed one of the test portrait painters in Germany. Goetzenberger, fresco painter. He is employed in painting the University Hall at Bonn. Eduard Bendeman, of Berlin. I saw at the ex- hibition of the Ktmstverein at Dusseldorf, a fine picture by this painter " The Hebrews in Exile/* " By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." The coloring I thought rather hard, but the con- ception and drawing were in a grand style. Wilhelm Schadow, director of the academy at Dusseldorf. Hetzsch of Stuttgardt. The brothers Riepenhausen, of Gbttingen, resi- dent at Rome. They are celebrated for their de- signs of the pictures of Polygnotus, as described by Pausanius. Koehler. He exhibited at the Kunstverein at Dusseldorf a picture of " Rebecca at the well, * very well executed. Ernst Forster, of Altenburg, employed in the palace at Munich. This clever young painter married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter. Gassen, of Coblentz ; Hiltensberger, of Suabia ; Hermann, of Dresden ; Foltz, of Bingen ; Kaul- bach, of Munich ; Eugene Neurather, of Munich ; Wilhehn Rockel, of Schleissheim ; Von Schwind, 384 SKETCHES OF ART, (I believe of Munich ;) Wilhelm Lindenschmid^ of Mayence. All these painters are at present in the service of the king of Bavaria. Julius Hiibner of Breslaw portraits ; Greven, of Cologne portraits. SMALL SUBJECTS AND CONVERSATION PIECES. Peter Hess, of Munich, one of the most eminent painters in Germany. In his choice of subjects he reminded me sometimes of Eastlake, and sometimes of Wilkie, and his style is rather in Wilkie's first manner. His pictures are full of spirit, truth, and character. Dominique Quaglio, of Munich. Interiors, &c He also ranks very high : he reminds me of Fraser. Major General von Heydeck, of Munich, an amateur painter of merited celebrity. In the col- lection of M. de Klenze, and in the Leuchtenberg Gallery, there are some small battle pieces, scenes in Greece and Spain, and other subjects by von Heydeck, very admirably painted. F. Miiller, of Cassel. At the exhibition at Dua- seldorf I saw a picture by this artist, u A rustic bridal procession in the Campagna," painted with a freedom and lightness of pencil not common among the German artists. Pliiddeman, of Colberg. T. B. Sonderland, of Dusseldorf. Fairs and merrymakings. H. Rustige. The same subjects. Both are good artists. LITERATURE, AND CHARACTOS^-J. 385 . vJ^/*% H. Kretzschmar, of Pomerania. His picture of "Little Red Ridinghood," (Rothkappchen,) Kunstverein, at Dusseldorf, had great merit. Adolf Schrotte. Rustic scenes in the Dutch manner. LANDSCAPE. Dahl, a Norwegian settled at Dresden, esteemed one of the best landscape painters in Germany. There is a very fine sea-piece by this artist in the possession of the Countess von Seebach at Dresden, with, however, all the characteristic peculiarities of the German school. T. D. Passavant, of Frankfort. Friedrich, of Dresden, one of the most poetical of the German landscape painters. He is rather a mannerist in color, like Turner, but in the oppo- site excess : his genius revels in gloom, as that of Turner revels in light. Professor von Dillis, of Munich. Max Wagenbauer, of Munich. He is called most deservedly, the German Paul Potter. Jacob Dorner, of Munich. A charming painter ; perhaps a little too minute in his finishing. Catel, of Dusseldorf. Scenes on the Mediterra- nean. This painter resides chiefly in Italy; but in the collection of M. de Klenze I saw some admirable specimens of his works. Rothman, of Heidelberg. I saw some pictures and sketches by this young painter, full of genius *nd feeling. Fries, of Munich, a young painter of great 386 SKETCHES OF ART, ETC. promise. He put an end to his own life^ while 1 was at Munich, in a fit of delirium, caused by fever, and was very generally lamented. Wilhelm Schirmer, of Juliers, an exceedingly fine landscape painter. Andreas Achenbach, of Dusseldorf : he has also great merit. There are several female artists in Germany, of more or less celebrity. The Baroness von Freyberg (born Electrina Stuntz) holds the first rank in original talent. She resides near Munich, but no longer paints professionally. The Countess Julie von EglofFstein has also the rare gift of original and creative genius. Luise Sidlar, of Weimar; Madlle. de Winkel and Madame de Loqueyssie, of .Dresden, are distin- guished in their art. The two latter are exquisite copyists. In architecture, Leo von Klenze and Professor Girtner, of Munich ; and Heideloff of Nuremberg, are deservedly celebrated in Germany. The most distinguished sculptors in Germany are Christian Rauch, and Christian Friedrich Tieck, of Berlin ; Johan Heinrich von Dannecker, of Stuttgardt; Schwanthaler, Eberhardt, Bandel, Kirchmayer, Mayer, all of Munich ; Reitchel, of Dresden ; and Irnhoff, of Cologne. Those of theii works which I had an opportunity of seeing have been mentioned in the course of these sketches. HAKDWICKE. WHO that has exulted over the heroic reign of Dur gorgeous Elizabeth, or wept over the fate of Mary Stuart, but will remember the name of the only woman whose high and haughty spirit outfaced the lion port of one queen, and whose audacity trampled over the sorrows of the other "Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride V " But this is anticipation. If it be so laudable, according to the excellent, oft quoted advice of the giant Moulineau, to begin at the beginning, * what must it be to improve upon the precept? for so, in relating the fallen and fading glories of Hardwicke, do I intend to exceed even " mon ami le Belier," in historic accuracy, and take up our tale at a period ere Hardwicke itself the Hard- wicke that now stands had a beginning. *" Belier! mon ami ! commence par le commencement?" f antes de Hamilton. 589 IIAKDWICKK. Tlicre lived, then, in the days of queen Bess, a woman well worthy to be her majesty's namesake. Elizabeth Hardwicke, more commonly called, in her own country, Bess of Hardwicke, and distin- guished in the page of history as the old Countess of Shrewsbury. She resembled Queen Elizabeth in all her best and worst qualities, and, putting royalty out of the scale, would certainly have been more than a match for that sharp-witted virago, in subtlety of intellect, and intrepidity of temper and manner. She was the only daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke,* and being early left an orphan and an heiress, was married ere she was fourteen to a certain Master Robert Barley, who was about her own age. Death dissolved this premature union within a few months, but her husband's large estates had been settled on her and her heirs ; and at the age of fifteen, dame Elizabeth was a blooming widow, amply dowered with fair and fertile lands, and free to bestow her hand again where she listed. Suitors abounded, of course : but Elizabeth, it should seem, was hard to please. She was beauti- ful, if the annals of her family say true, she had wit, and spirit, and, above all, an infinite love of independence. After taking the management of her property into her own hands, she for some time reigned and revelled (with all decorum be it *A manor situated on the borders of Derbyshire, between Chesterfield and Mansfield. HARDWICKE. 389 nnderstood) in what might be truly termed, a state of single blessedness ; but at length, tired of being lord and lady too "master o'er her vassals," if not exactly " queen o'er 'herself " she thought fit, having reached the discreet age of four-and-twenty, to bestow her hand on Sir William Cavendish. He was a man of substance and power, already enriched by vast grants of abbey lands in the time of Henry VHL, * all which, by the marriage contract, were settled on the lady. After this marriage, they passed some years in retirement, having the wisdom to keep clear of the political storms and factions which intervened between the death of Henry VIII. and the accession of Mary, and yet the sense to profit by them. While Cav- endish, taking advantage of those troublous times, went on adding manor after manor to his vast possessions, dame Elizabeth was busy providing heirs to inherit them ; she became the mother of six hopeful children, who were destined eventually to found two illustrious dukedoms, and mingle blood with the oldest nobility of England nay, with royalty itself. " Moreover," says the family chronicle, "the said dame Elizabeth persuaded her husband, out of the great love he had for her, to sell his estates in the south and purchase lands in her native county of Derby, wherewith to endow her and her children, and at her farther persuasion * The Cavendishes were originally of Suffolk. Whether thii William Cavendish was the same who was gentleman usher and lecretary to Cardinal Wolsey, is, I believe, a disputed point. 390 HARDWICKE. he began to build the noble seat of Chatsworth, but left it to her to complete, he dying about the year 1559." Apparently this second experiment in matri- mony pleased the lady of Hardwick better than the first, for she was not long a widow. We are not in this case informed how long her biographer having discreetly left it to our imagination ; and the Peerages, though not in general famed for dis- cretion on such points, have in this case affected the same delicate uncertainty. However this may be, she gave her hand, after no long courtship, to Sir William St. Loo, captain of Elizabeth's guard, and then chief butler of England a man equally distinguished for his fine person and large posses- sions, but otherwise not superfluously gifted by nature. So well did the lady manage him, that with equal hardihood and rapacity, she contrived to have all his "fair lordships in Gloucestershire and elsewhere " settled on herself and her children, to t^e manifest injury of St. Loo's own brothers, and his daughters by a former union : and he dying not lone* after without any issue by her, she made good her title to his vast estates, added them to her own, and they became the inheritance of the Cavendishes. But three husbands, six children, almost bound- less opulence, did not yet satisfy this extraordinary womaxi for extraordinary she certainly was, not naorc in the wit, subtlety, and unflinching steadi- ness uif purpose with which she amassed wealth HARDWICKE. 391 and acnieved power, but in the manm,r in which she used both. She ruled her husband, her family, her vassals, despotically, needing little aid, suffer* ing no interference, asking no counsel. She man- aged her immense estates, and the local power and political weight which her enormous possessions naturally threw into her hands, with singular ca- pacity and decision. She farmed the lands ; she collected her rents; she built; she planted; she bought and sold; she lent out money on usury; she traded in timber, coals, lead : in short, the ob- ject she had apparently proposed to herself, the aggrandizement of her children by all and any means, she pursued with a wonderful perseverance and good sense. Power so consistently wielded, purposes so indefatigably followed up, and means so successfully adapted to an end, are, in a female, very striking. A slight sprinkling of the softer qualities of her sex, a little more elevation of prin- ciple, would have rendered her as respectable and admirable as she was extraordinary ; but there was in this woman's mind the same " fond de vulgarite " which we see in the character of Queen Elizabeth, and which no height of rank, or power, or estate, could do away with. In this respect the* lady of Hardwicke was much inferior to that splendid crea- ture, Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Cumberland, another masculine spirit in the female form, who had the same propensity for building castles and mansions, the same passion for oower and independence, but with more true 392 HARDWICKE. generosity and magnanimity, and a touch of poetry and genuine nobility about her which the other wanted : in short, it was all the difference between the amazon and the heroine. It is curious enough that the Duke of Devonshire should be the present representative of both these remarkable women. But to return : Bess of Hardwicke was now ap- proaching her fortieth year ; she had achieved all but nobility the one thing yet wanting to crowii her swelling fortunes. About the year 1565 (I cannot find the exact date) she was sought in mar- riage by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. There is no reason to doubt what is asserted, that she had captivated the earl by her wit and her matronly beauty.* He could hardly have married her from motives of interest : he was himself the richest and greatest subject in England ; a fine chivalrous character, with a reputation as un- stained as his rank was splendid, and his descent illustrious. He had a family by a former wife, (Gertrude Manners,) to inherit his titles, and her estates were settled on her children by Cavendish. It should seem, therefore, that mutual inclination alone could have made the match advantageous to either pa"rty ; but Bess of Hardwicke was still Bess of Hardwicke. She took advantage of her power over her husband in the first days of their union. " She induced Shrewsbury by entreaties or threats to sacrifice, in a measure, the fortune, interest, and * Bishop Keunet's memoirs of the family of Cavendish. HARDWICKk. 393 happiness of himself and family to the aggi andize- ment of her and her family." * She contrived in the first place to have a large jointure settled on herself; and she arranged a double union, by which the wealth and interests of the two great families should be amalgamated. She stipulated that her eldest daughter, Mary Cavendish, should marry the earl's son, Lord Talbot ; and that his youngest daughter, Grace Talbot, should marry her eldest son, Henry Cavendish. The French have a proverb worthy of their gallantry " Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut : " but even in the feminine gender we are sometimes re- minded of another proverb equally significant " L'homme propose et Dieu dispose." Now was Bess of Hardwicke queen of the Peak ; she had built her erie so high, it seemed to da^ly with the winds of heaven ; her young eaglets were worthy of their dam, ready plumed to fly at fortune ; she had placed the coronet of the oldest peerage in England on her own brow, she had secured the reversion of it to her daughter, and she had mar- ried a man whose character was indeed opposed to her own, but who, from his chivalrous and confid- ing nature was calculated to make her happy, by leaving her mistress of herself. In 1568 Mary Stuart, flying into England, waa placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and remained under his care for sixteen years, a * Lodge's Illustrations of British History IfAKDWICKE. (ong peiiod of restless misery to the unhappy earl not less than to his wretched captive. In this dangerous and odious charge was involved the sacrifice of his domestic happiness, his peace of mind, his health, and great part of his fortune. His castle was converted into a prison, his servants into guards, his porter into a turnkey, his wife into a spy, and himself into a jailer, to gratify the ever- waking jealousy of Queen Elizabeth." * But the earl's greatest misfortune was the estrangement, and at length enmity, of his violent, high-spirited wife. She beheld the unhappy Mary with a hatred for which there was little excuse, but many in- telligible reasons : she saw her, not as a captive committed to her womanly mercy, but as an in- truder on her rights. Her haughty spirit was con- tinually irritated by the presence of one in whom she was forced to acknowledge a superior, even in that very house and domain where she herself had been used to reign as absolute queen and mistress The enormous expenses which this charge entailed on her household were distracting to her avarice ; and, worse than all, jealousy of the youthful charma and winning manners of the Queen of Scots, and of the constant intercourse between her and her husband, seem at length 'to have driven her half frantic, and degraded her, with all her wit, and sense, and spirit, into the despicable treacherous tool of the more artful and despotic Elizabeth, whf * Scott's Memoir of Sir IL-lpJi Sadler. HARDWICKE. 395 tnew how to turn the angry and jealous passions of the countess to her own purposes. It was not, however, all at once that matters rose to such a height : the fire smouldered for some time ere it burst forth. There is a letter preserved among the Shrewsbury Correspondence* which the countess addressed to her husband from Chats- worth, at a time when the earl was keeping guard over Mary at Sheffield castle. It is a most curious specimen of character. It treats chiefly of house- hold matters, of the price and goodness of malt and hops, iron and timber, and reproaches him for not sending her money which was due to her, adding, " I see out of sight out of mind with you ; " she sarcastically inquires "how his charge and love doth ; " she sends him " some letyss (lettuces) for that he loves them," (this common salad herb was then a rare delicacy;) and she concludes affectionately, " God send my juill helthe." The incipient jealousy betrayed in this letter soon after broke forth openly with a degree of violence towards her husband, and malignity towards his prisoner, which can hardly be believed. There is distinct evidence that Shrewsbury was not only a trustworthy, but a rigorous jailer ; that he detested the office forced upon him ; that he often begged in the most abject terms to be released from it; and that, harassed on every side by the torment- ing jealousy of his wife, the unrelenting severity and mistrust of Elizabeth, and the complaints of * Lodge's " Illustrations." 896 HARDWIGKE. Mary, he was seized with several fits of illness, and once by a mental attack, rr " phrenesie." as Cecil terms it, brought on by the agitation of his mind ; yet the idea of resigning his office, except at the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth, never seems to have entered his imagination. On one occasion Lady Shrewsbury went so far as to accuse her husband openly of intriguing with his prisoner, in every sense of the word ; and shfl at the same time abused Mary in terms which John Knox himself could not have exceeded. Mary, deeply incensed, complained of this outrage : the earl also appealed to Queen Elizabeth, and the countess and her daughter, Lady Talbot, were obliged to declare upon oath, that this accusation was false, scandalous, and malicious, and that they were not the authors of it. This curious affidavit of the mother and daughter is preserved in the Record Office. In a lette^r to Lord Leicester, Shrewsbury calls his wife "his wicked and malicious wife," and accuses her and her " imps," as he irreverently styles the whole brood of Cavendishes, of conspir- ing to sow dissensions between him and his eldest son. These disputes being carried to Elizabeth, she set herself with heartless policy to foment them in every possible way. She deemed that her safety consisted in employing one part of the earl's family as spies on the other. In some signal quar- rel about the property round Chats worth, she com manded the earl to submit to his wife's pleasure HARDWICKE. 397 and though no " tame snake " towards his imperi- ous lady, as St. Loo and Cavendish had been before him, he bowed at once to the mandate of his unfeeling sovereign such was the despotism and such the loyalty of those days. His reply, however, speaks the bitterness of his heart. " Sith that her majesty hath set down this hard sentence against me to my perpetual infamy and dishonour, that I should be ruled and overrunne by my wife, so bad and wicked a woman ; yet her majesty shall see that I will obey her majesty's commandment, though no curse or plague on the earth could be more grievous to me." * * "It is too much," he adds, " to be made my wife's pensioner." Poor Lord Shrewsbury ! Can one help pitying him ? Not the least curious part of this family history is the double dealing of the imperious countess. While employed as a spy on Mary, whom she de- tested, she, from the natural fearlessness and frank- ness of her temper, not unfrequently betrayed Elizabeth, whom she also detested. While in attendance on Mary, she often gratified her own satirical humour, and amused her prisoner by giv- ing her a coarse and bitter portraiture of Elizabeth, her court, her favourites, her miserable temper, her vanity, and her personal defects. Some report of these conversations soon reached the queen, (who is very significantly drawn in one of her portraits in a dress embroidered over with eyes and ears,) and she required from Mary an account of what- ever Lady Shrewsbury had said to her prejudice 398 HARDWICKE. Mary, hating equally the rival who oppressed her and the domestic harpy who daily persecuted her, was nothing loath to indulge her feminine spite against the two, and sent Elizabeth such a circum- stantial list of the most gross and hateful imputa- tions, (all the time politely assuring her good sister that she did not believe a word of them,) that the rage and mortification of the queen must have ex- ceeded all bounds.* She kept the letter secret ; but Lady Shrewsbury never was suffered to appear at court after the death of Mary had rendered her services superfluous. Through all these scenes the Lady of Hardwicke still pursued her settled purpose. Her husband complained that he was " never quiet to satisfy her greedie appetite for money for purchases to set up her children." Her ambition was equally in satiate, and generally successful : but in one memorable instance she overshot her mark. She contrived (unknown to her lord) to marry her favourite daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, to Lord Lennox, the younger brother of the murdered Darnley, and consequently standing in the same degree of rela- tionship to the crown. Queen Elizabeth in the extremity of her rage and consternation, ordered both the dowager Lady Lennox and Lady Shrews- bury to the Tower, where the latter remained for some months ; we may suppose, to the great relief * This celebrated letter is yet preserred, and well known to historians and antiquarians. It is sufficient to say that scare* ny part of it would hear transcribing. HARDWICKK. K99 af her husband. He used, however, all his interest to excuse her delinquency, and at length procured her liberation. But this was not all. Elizabeth Cavendish, the young Lady Lennox, while yet-in all her bridal bloom, died in the arms of her mother, who appears to have suffered that searing, lasting grief which stern hearts sometimes feeL The only issue of this marriage was an infant daughter, that unhappy Arabella Stuart, who was one of the most memorable victims of jealous tyranny which our history has recorded. Her very existence, from her near relationship to the throne, was a crime in the e^es of Elizabeth and James I. There is no evidence that Lady Shrews- bury indulged in any ambitious schemes for this favourite granddaughter, u her dear jewel, Arbell," as she terms her ; * but she did not hesitate to en- force her claims to royal blood by requiring 600/. a year from the treasury for her board and educa- tion as became the queen's kinswoman. Elizabeth allowed her 200/. a year, and this pittance Lady Shrewsbury accepted. Her rent-roll was at this time 60,OOOZ. a year, equal to at least 200,000/. at the present day. The Earl of Shrewsbury died in 1590, at enmity to the last moment with his wife and son ; and the Lady of Hardwicke having survived four husbands, and seeing all her children settled and prosperous, itil/. absolute mistress over her family, resided diuv * See two of her letters in Sir Henry Elite's Collection. 400 HARDWICKE. ing the last seventeen years of her life in great state and plenty at Hardwicke, her birthplace. Here she superintended the education of Arabella Stuart, who, as she grew up to womanhood, was kept by her grandmother in a state of seclusion, amounting almost to imprisonment, lest the jeal- ousy of Elizabeth should rob her of her treasure.* Next to the love of money and power, the chief passion of this magnificent old beldam, was build ing. It is a family tradition, that some prophet had foretold that she should never die as long as she was building, and she died at last, in 1607, dur- ing a hard frost, when her labourers were obliged to suspend their work. She built Chatsworth, Old cotes, and Hardwicke; and Fuller adds in hir quaint style that she left " two sacred (beside? civil) monuments of her memory ; one that I hope will not be taken away (her splendid tomb, erected by herself, f) and one that I am sure cannot be taken away, being registered in the court of heaven, viz : her stately almshouses for twelve poor people at Derby." Of Chatsworth, the hereditary palace of the * See some letters in Ellis's Collection, vol. ii. series 1, which show with what constant jealousy Lady Shrewsbury and her charge were watched by the court. t In All Hallows, in Derby. After leaving Hardwicke, I went, of course, to pay my respects to it. It is a vast and gorgeous shrine of many coloured marbles, covered with painting, gild- ing, emblazonments, and inscriptions, within which the Jadj lies at full length in a golden ruff, and a most sumptuous far- thingale. HARDWICKE. 401. Dukes of Devonshire, all its luxurious grandeur, all its treasures of art, it is not here " my hint to speak." It has been entirely rebuilt since the days of its founder. Oldcotes was once a magnifi- cent place. There is a tradition at Hard wl eke that old Bess, being provoked by a splendid man- sion which the Suttons had lately erected within view of her windows, declared she would build a finer dwelling for the owlets, (hence Owlcots or Oldcotes.) She kept her word, more truly per- haps than she intended, for Oldcotes has since be- come literally a dwelling for the owls ; the chief part of it is in ruins, and the rest converted into a farm-house. Her younger daughter, Frances Cav- endish, married Sir Henry Pierrepoint, of Holme- Pierrepoint, and one of the granddaughters mar- ried another Pierrepoint through one of these marriages, but I know not which, Oldcotes has descended to the present Earl Manvers. The mansion of Hardwicke was commenced about the year 1592, and finished in 1597. It stands about a stone's throw from the old house in which the old countess was born, and which she left standing, as if, says her biographer, she in- tended to construct her bed of state close by her cradle. This fine old ruin remains, gray, shat- tered, and open to all the winds of heaven, almost overgrown with ivy, and threatening to tumble about the ears of the bats and owls which are its sole inhabitants. One majestic room remains en- tire. It is called the " Giant's Chamber," from 402 HARDWICKE. two colossal figures in Roman armour T\hich stand over the huge chimney-piece. This room has long been considered by architects as a perfec specimen of grand and beautiful proportion, and has been copied at Chatsworth and at Blenheim.* It must have been in this old hall, and not in the present edifice, that Mary Stuart resided dur- ing her short stay at Hardwicke. I am sorry to .disturb the fanciful or sentimental tourists and sight-seers ; but so it is, or rather, so it must have been. Yet it is net surprising that the memory of Mary Stuart should now form the principal charm and interest of Hardwicke, and that she should be in a manner the tutelary genius of the place. Chatsworth has been burned and rebuilt. Tut- bury, Sheffield castle, Wingfield, Fotheringay, and the old house of Hardwicke, in short, every place which Mary inhabited during her captivity, all lie in ruins, as if struck with a doleful curse. But Hardwicke Hall exists just as it stood in the reign of Elizabeth. The present Duke of Devonshire, with excellent taste and feeling, keeps up the old costume within and without. The bed and furni- ture which had been used by Mary, the cushions of her oratory, the tapestry wrought by her own hands, have been removed hither, and are carefully preserved. There can be no doubt of the authen- ticity of these relics, and there is enough surely to * As the measurements are interesting from this fact, I too* eare to note them exactly, as follows: length 55 ft. (5 inches, breadth 30 ft. 6 inches ; height 24 ft. 6 inches. HARDWICKE*. 403 consecrate the whole to our imagination, More- over, we have but to go to the window and see thd very spot, the very walls which once enclosed her, the very casements from which she probably gazed with a sigh over the far hills ; and indulge, without one intrusive doubt, in all the romantic and fasci- nating, and mysterious, and sorrowful associations, which hang round the memory of Mary Stuart. With what different eyes may people view the game things ! " We receive but what we give," says the poet ; and all the light, and glory, and beauty, with which certain objects are in a manner suffused to the eye of fancy, must issue from our own souls, and be reflected back to us, else 'tis all in vain. " We may not hope from outward forms to win, The passion and the life, whose fountains are within ! " When Gray, the poet, visited Hardwicke, he fell at once into a very poet-like rapture, and did not stop to criticize pictures, and question authorities. He says in one of his letters to Dr. Wharton, " of all the places I have seen in my return from you, Hardwicke pleased me most. One would think that Mary queen of Scotts was but just walked down into the park with her guard for half an hour : her gallery, her room of audience, her ante- chamber, with -the very canopies, chair of state, footstool, lit de repos, oratory, carpets, hangings, just as she left them, a little tattered indeed, but the more venerable," &c. &c. 404 HARDWICKE. Now let us hear Horace Walpole, antiquarian, virtuoso, dilettante, filosofastro but, in truth, no poet. He is, however, in general so good-natured, so amusing, and so tasteful, that I cannot conceive what put him into such a Smelfungus humor when he visited Hardwicke, with a Cavendish too at his elbow as his cicerone 1 He says, " the duke sent Lord John with me to Hardwicke, where I was again disappointed ; but I will not take relations from others ; they either don't see for themselves, or can't see for me. How I had been promised that I should be charmed with Hardwicke, and told that the Devonshires ought to have established themselves there ! Nev- er was I less charmed in my life. The house is not gothic, but of that betweenity that intervened when Gothic declined, and Palladian was creeping in ; rather, this is totally naked of either. It has vast chambers ay, vast, such as the nobility of that time delighted in, and did not know how to furnish. The great apartment is exactly what it was when the Queen of Scotts was kept there.* Her coun- cil-chamber (the council-chamber of a poor woman who had only two secretaries, a gentleman usher, an apothecary, a confessor, and three maids) is so outrageously spacious that you would take it for King David's, who thought, contrary to all modern experience, that in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. At the upper end is the State^ * Horace Walpole, as an antiquarian, shot d have known that Mary was never kept there. HARDWICKE. 405 with a long table, covered with a sumptuous cloth, embroidered and embossed with gold at least what was gold ; so are all the tables. Round thft top of the chamber runs a monstrous frieze, ten or twelve feet deep, representing a stag-hunt in mis- erable plastered relief.* <(> The next is her dressing-room, hung with patch work on black velvet ; then her state bed-chamber The bed has been rich beyond description, and now hangs in costly golden tatters ; the hangings, part of which they say her majesty w'orked, are composed of figures as large as life, sewed and embroidered on black velvet, white satin, &c., and represent the virtues that were necessary to her, or that she was found to have as patience, tem- perance,f &c. The fire-screens are particular ; pieces of yellow velvet, fringed with gold, hung on a cross-bar of wood, which is fixed on the top of a * It had formerly been richly painted, and must then have had an effect superior to tapestry ; the colors are still visible here and there. t Mary's own account of her occupations displays the natural elegance of her mind. " I asked her grace, since the weather did cut off all exercises abroad, how she passed her time within? She sayd that all day she wrought with her needle, and that the diversitie of the colours made the work appear less tedious, and thai; she continued at it till pain made her to give o'er : and with that laid her hand on her left side, and complayned of an old grief newly increased there. Upon this occasion she, the Scot- tish queen, with the agreeable and lively wit natural tc her, entered into a pretty disputable comparison between carving, painting, and working with the needle, affirming painting, in her opinion, for the most commendable quality." Letter c/ Nicholas While to Cecil. 406 HARDWICKE. single stick that rises from the foot.* The only furniture which has any appearance of taste are the table ana cabinets, which are of oak, richly carved." (I must observe en passant, that I wonder Horace did not go mad about the chairs, which are exactly in the Stiawberry Hill taste, only infinitely finer, crimson velvet, with backs six feet high, and sump- tuously carved.) " There is a private chamber within, where she lay : her artns and style over the door. The arras hangs over all the doors. The gallery is sixty yards in length, covered with bad tapestry and wretched pictures of Mary herself, Elizabeth in a gown of sea-monsters. Lord Darnley, James the Fifth and his queen, (curious,) and a whole history of kings of England hot worth sixpence a-piece." f " There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a lake : nothing else pleased me there." Nothing else ! Monsieur Traveller V certes, this is one way of seeing things ! Yet, perhaps, if I had only visited Hardwicke as a casual object of curiosity had merely walked over the place I * I was as much delighted by these singular fire-screens as Horace himself could have been ; they are about seven feet high. The yellow velvet suspended from the bar is embossed with black telrtt.and intermingled with embroidery of various colors and gold something like a Persian carpet but most dazzling and gorgeous in the effect. I believe there is nothing like them any where. t Now replaced by the family portraits brought from Chat* forth. HARDWICKE. 407 Had left it, like Gray, with some vague impression of pleasure, or like Walpole, with some flippant criticisms, according to the mood of the moment ; or, at the most, I had quitted it as we generally leave show-places, with some confused recollections of state-rooms, and blue-rooms, and yellow-rooms, and storied tapestries, and nameless, or mis-named pictures, floating through the muddled brain ; but it was far otherwise : I was ten days at Hardwicke ten delightful days time enough to get it by heart; ay, and what is more, ten nights; and I am convinced that to feel all the interest of such a place one should sleep in it. There is much, too, in first impressions, and the circumstances under which we approached Hardwicke were sufficiently striking. It was on a gusty, dark autumnal even ing ; and as our carriage wound slowly up the hill, we could but just discern an isolated building, standing above us on the edge of the eminence, a black mass against the darkening sky. No light was to be seen, and when we drove clattering under the old gateway, and up the paved court, the hol- low echoes broke a silence which was almost awful. Then we were ushered into a hall so spacious and lofty that I could not at the moment discern its bounds ; but I had glimpses of huge escutcheons, and antlers of deer, and great carved human arms projecting from the walls, intended to sustain lamps or torches, but looking as if they were stretched out to clutch one. Thence up a stone staircase, 7ast, and grand, arid gloomy leading we knew not 408 HARDWICKE. nrhere, and hung with pictures of we knew not what and conducted into a chamber fitted up as a dining-room, in which the remnants of antique grandeur, the rich carved oak wainscoting, the tapestry above it, the embroidered chairs, the co lossal armorial bearings above the chimney and the huge recessed windows, formed a curious contrast with the comfortable modern sofas and easy chairs, the blazing fire, and table hospitably spread in ex- pectation of our arrival. Then I was sent to repose in a room hung with rich faded tapestry. On on 3 side of my bed I had king David dancing before the ark, and on the other, the judgment of Solo- mon. The executioner in the latter piece, a grisly giant, seven or eight feet high, seemed to me, as the arras stirred with the wind, to wave his sword, and looked as if he were going to eat up the poor child, which he flourished by one leg ; and for some time I lay awake, unable to take my eyes from the figure. At length fatigue overcame this unpleasant fascination, and I fell asleep. The next morning I began to ramble about, and so day after day, till every stately chamber, every haunted nook, every secret door, curtained with heavy arras, and every winding stair, became familiar to me. What a passion our ance&torg must have had for space and light ! and what an ignorance of comfort ! Here are no ottomans of eider down, no spring cushions, no " boudoirs etroits, oti Ton ne boude point," no " demijour ie rendezvous ; " but what vast chambers ' what HARDWICKE. 409 interminable galleries! what huge windows pour- ing in floods of sunshine! what great carved oak-chests, such as lachimo hid himself in ! now stuffed full of rich tattered hangings, tarnished gold fringes, and remnants of embroidered quilts ! what acres not yards of tapestries, once of "sky- tinctured woof," now faded and moth-eaten ! what massy chairs and immovable tables ! what heaps of portraits, the men looking so grim and magnificent, and the women so formal and faded! Before 1 left the place I had them all by heart ; there was not one amono 1 them who would not have bowed or o curtsied to me out of their frames. But there were three rooms in which I especially delighted, and passed most of my time. The first was the council-chamber described by Walpole : it is sixty-five feet in length, by thirty-three in width, and twenty-six feet high. Rich tapestry, repre- senting the story of Ulysses, runs round the room to the height of fifteen or sixteen feet, and above it the stag-hunt in ugly relief. On one side of this room tt ere is a spacious recess, at least eighteen or twenty feet square ; and across this, from side to side, to divide it from the body of the room, was suspended a magnificent piece of tapestry, (real Gobelin's,) of the time of Louis Quatorze, still fresh and even vivid in tint, which from its weight hung in im.mense wavy folds ; above it we could just dis- cern the canopy of a lofty state-bed, with nodding ostrich plumes, which had been placed there out oi flie way. The effect of the whole, as I have seen 410 HARDWICKE. it, when the red western light streamed through the enormous windows, was, in its shadowy beauty and depth of color, that of a realized " Rembrandt * if, indeed, even Rembrandt ever painted any thing at once so elegant, so fanciful, so gorgeous, and so gloomy. From this chamber, by a folding-door, beautifully inlaid with ebony, but opening with a common latch, we pass into the library, as it is called. Here the Duke of Devonshire generally sits when he visits Hardwicke, perhaps on account of the glorious prospect from the windows. It contains a grand piano, a sofa, and a range of book-shelves, on which I found some curious old books. Here I used to sit and read the voluminous works of that dear, half-mad, absurd, but clever and good-natured Duchess of Newcastle,* and yawn and laugh alter- nately ; or pore over Guillim on Heraldry ; fit studies for the place ! In this room are some good pictures, particularly the portrait of Lady Anne Boyle, daughter of the first Earl of Burlington, the Lady Sandwich of Charles the Second's time. This is, without excep- tion, the finest specimen of Sir Peter Lely I ever saw so unlike the usual style of his half-dressed, leering women so full of pensive grace and sim- plicity the hands and arms so exquisitely drawn, and the coloring so rich and so tender, that I wae t once surprised and enchanted. There is also a * Margaret Cavendish, wife ol the first Duke of Newcastle HARDWICKE. 411 remarkably fine picture of a youth with a monkey on his shoulder, said to be Jeffrey Hudson, (Queen Henrietta's celebrated dwarf,) and painted by Van- dyke. I doubt both. Over the chimney of this room there is a piece of sculptured bass-relief, in Derbyshire marble, representing Mount Parnassus, with Apollo and the Muses ; in one corner the arms of Queen Eliza- beth, and in the other her cypher, E. R., and the royal crown. I could neither learn the meaning of this nor the name of the artist. Could it have been a gift from Queen Elizabeth ? There is (I think in the next room) another piece of sculpture representing the Marriage of Tobias ; and I re- member a third, representing a group of Charity. The workmanship of all these is surprisingly good for the time, and some of the figures very graceful. I am surprised that they escaped the notice of Horace Walpole, in his remarks on the decorations of Hardwicke. * Richard Stephens, a Flemish sculptor and painter, and Valerio Vicentino, an Italian carver in precious stones, were both em- ployed by the munificent Cavendishes of that time ; and these pieces of sculpture were probably the work of one of these artists. When tired of turning over the old books, a door concealed behind the arras admitted me at once into the great gallery my favorite haunt and daily promenade. It is near one hundred and eighty feet in length, lighted along one side by a range of * Anecdotes of Painting. Reigns of Elizabeth and James I 412 HARDWICKE. stupendous windows, which project outwards from so many angular recesses. In the centre pier is a throne, or couch of state, on a raised platform, unaer a canopy of crimson and. gold, surmounted by plumes of ostrich feathers. The walls are partly tapestried, and covered with some hundreds of family pictures ; none indeed of any superlative merit none that emulate within a thousand degrees the matchless Vandykes and glorious Ti- tians of Devonshire House ; but among many that are positively bad, and more that are lamentably mediocre as works of art, there are several of great interest. At each end of this gallery is a door, and, according to the tradition of the place, every night, at the witching hour of twelve, Queen Eliza- beth enters at one door, and Mary of Scotland at the other ; they advance to the centre, curtsy profoundly, then sit down together under the canopy and converse amicably, till the crowing of the cock breaks up the conference, and sends the two majesties back to their respective hiding- places. Somebody who was asked if he had ever seen a ghost ? replied, gravely, " No ; but I was once very near seeing one ! " In the same manner I was once very near being a witness to one of these ghostly confabs. Late one evening, having left my sketch-book in the gallery, I went to seek it. I made my way up the great stone staircase with considerable intrepid- ity, passed through one end of the council-chamber HARDWICKE. 413 without casting a glance through the palpable ob- gcure, the feeble ray of my wax-light just spreading about a yard around me, and lifting aside the tapestry door, stepped into the gallery. Just as the heavy arras fell behind me, with a dull echoing sound, a sudden gust of wind came rushing by, and extinguished my taper. Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! not that I felt afraid O no ! but just a little what the Scotch call " eerie." A thrill, not altogether unpleasant, came over me: the visionary turn of mind which once united me in fancy " with the world unseen," had long been sobered and reasoned away. I heard no " viewless paces of the dead," nor " airy skirts unseen that rustled by ; " but what I did see and hear was enough. The wind whispering and moaning along the tapestried walls, and every now and then rat- tling twenty or thirty windows at once, with such a crash ! and the pictures around just sufficiently perceptible in the faint light to make me fancy them staring at me. Then immediately behind me was the very recess, or rather abyss, where Queen Elizabeth was at that moment settling her farthin- gale, to sally out upon me ; and before me, but lost in blackest gloom, the spectral door, where Mary not that I should have minded encountering poor Mary, provided always that she had worn her own beautiful head where heaven placed it, and not carried it, as Bertrand de Born carried his " a guisa 4i lanterna." * As to what followed, it is a secret * Dante. Inferno. Canto 28. 414 HAKDWICKE. Suffice it that 'I found myself safe by the fireside in my bedroom, without any very distinct recollection of how I got there. Of all the scenes in which to moralize and medi- tate, a picture gallery is to me the most impressive. With the most intense feeling of the beauty of painting, I cannot help thinking with Dr. Johnson, that as far as regards portraits, -their chief excellence and value consist in the likeness and the authentic- ity,* and not in the merit of the execution. When we can associate a story or a sentiment with every face and form, they almost live to us they do in a manner speak to us. There is speculation in those fixed eyes there is eloquence in those mute lips and, O ! what tales they tell ! One of the first pictures which caught my attention as I entered the gallery was a small head of Ara- bella Stuart, when an infant. The painting is poor enough : ii is a little round rosy face in a child's cap, and she holds an embroidered doll in her hand. Who could look on this picture, and not glance forward through succeeding years, and see the pretty playful infant transformed into the impassioned woman, writing to her husband " In sickness, and in despair, wheresoever thou art, or howsoever I be, it sufficeth me always that thou art mine ! " Arabella Stuart was not clever ; but not * Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 144. Boswell asked, " -Are you of that opinion as to the portraits of ancestors one has never een? " JOHNSON. " It then becomes of still more consequent that they should be like." HARDWICKE 415 fleloise, nor Corinne, nor Madle. De I'Espinass^j ever penned such a dear little morsel of touching eloquence so full of all a woman's tenderness! Her stern grandmother, the lady and foundress of Hardwicke, hangs near. There are three pictures of her : all the faces have an expression of sense and acuteness, but none of them the beauty which is attributed to her. There are also two of her husbands, Cavendish and Shrewsbury. The former a grave, intelligent head ; the latter very striking from the lofty furrowed brow, the ample beard, and regular but careworn features. A little farther on we find his son Gilbert, seventh earl of Shrews- bury, and Mary Cavendish, wife of the latter and daughter of Bess of Hardwicke. She resembled her mother in features as in character. The ex- pression is determined, intelligent, and rather cun- ning. Of her haughty and almost fierce temper, a curious instance is recorded. She had quarrelled with her neighbors, the Stanhopes, and not being able to defy them with sword and buckler, she sent one of her gentlemen, properly attended, with a message to Sir Thomas Stanhope, to be delivered in presence of witnesses, in these words "My lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you : that though you be more wretched, vile, and miser- able than any creature li ving, and for your wicked- ness become more ugly in shape than the vilest toad in the world ; and one to whom none of any reputation would vouchsafe to send any message vet she hath thought good to send thus much tc 416 HARDWICKE. you, that she be contented you should live, (and doth noways wish your death,) but to this end^ that all thi plagues and miseries that may befall any man, may light on such a caitiff as you are," &c- ; (and then a few anathemas, yet more ener- getic, not fit to be transcribed by " pen polite," but ending with hell-fire.) " With many other op- probrious and hateful words which could not be remembered, because the bearer would deliver it but once, as he said he was commanded ; but said, if he had failed in any thing, it was in speaking it more mildly, and not in terms of such disdain as he was commanded." We are not told whethor the gallantry of Stanhope suffered him to throw the herald out of the window, who brought him this gentle missive. As for the termagant countess, his adversary, she was afterwards imprisoned in the Tower for upwards of two years, on account cf Lady Arabella Stuart's stolen match with Lord Seymour. She ought assuredly to have " brought forth men-children only ; " but she left no soil. Her three daughters married the earls of Pembroke, of Arundel, and of Kent The portraits of James V. of Scotland and his Queen, Mary of Guise, are extremely curious. There is something ideal and elegant about the head of James V. the look we might expect to find in a man who died from wounded feeling. His more unhappy daughter, poor Mary, hangs near a full length in a mourning habit, with a vrhite cap, (of her own peculiar fashion,) and a HARDWICKE. 417 veil of white gauze. This, I believe, is the cele- brated picture so often copied and engraved. It is dated 1578, the thirty-sixth of her age, and the tenth of her captivity. The figure is elegant, and the face pensive and sweet.* Beside her, in strong contrast, hangs Elizabeth, in a most preposterous farthingale, and a superabundance of all her usual absurdities and enormities of dress. The petticoat 13 embroidered over with snakes, crocodiles, and all manner of creeping things. We feel almost inclined to ask whether the artist could possibly have intended them as emblems, like the eyes and ealfc in her picture at Hatfield ; but it may have been one of the three thousand gowns, in which Spenser's Gloriana, Raleigh's Venus, loved to array her old wrinkled, crooked carcase. Katherine of Arragon is here a small head in a hood : the face not only harsh, as in all her pictures, but vulgar, a characteristic I never saw in any other. There is that peculiar expression round the mouth, which might be called either decision or obstinacy. And here too is the famous Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, the friend and patroness of Ben Jonson, looking sentimental in a widow's dress, with a white *This picture and the next are said to be by Richard Stevens, tf whom there is some account in Walpole, (Anecdotes of Paint- Ing.) Mary also sat to Hilliard and to Zucchero. The lovely picture by Zucchero is at Chiswick. There is another small head of her at -Hardwicke, said to have been painted in France, in a cap and feather. The turn of the head is airy and graceful. As to the features, they have been so marred by some soi-disant teatorer, it is difficult to say what they may have been originally 418 IIARDWICKE. pocket handkerchief. There is chaiacter enough in the countenance to make us turn with pleasure to Ben Jonson's exquisite eulogium on her. "I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride: I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned and a manly soul I purposed her; that should with even powers The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controul Of destiny, and spin her own free hours! " Farther on is another more celebrated woman, Christian Bruce, the second Countess of Devon- shire, so distinguished in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II. She had all the good qualities of Bess of Hardwicke : her sense, her firmness, her talents for business, her magnificent and inde- pendent spirit, and none of her faults. She was as feminine as she was generous and high-minded ; fond of literature, and a patroness of poets and learned men: altogether a noble creature. She was the mother of that lovely Lady Rich, "the wise, the fair, the virtuous, and the young,"* whose picture by Vandyke is at Devonshire-house, and there are two pictures at Hardwicke of he* handsome, gallant, and accomplished son, Charles Cavendish, who was killed at the battle of Gains- borough. Many fair eyes almost wept themselves blind for his loss, and his mother never recovered the " sore heart-break of his death." * Waller's lines on Lady Rich.. HAKDWICKB. 419 There o,re several pictures of her grandson, the first Duke of Devonshire the patriot, the states- man, the munificent patron of letters, the poet, the man of gallantry, and, to crown all, the handsomest man of his day. He was one of the leaders in the revolution of 1688 for be it remembered that the Cavendishes, from generation to generation, havo, ennobled their nobility by their love of liberty, as well as their love of literature and the arts. One picture of this duke on horseback, en grand costume a la Louis Quatorze, is so embroidered and be- wigged, so plumed, and booted, and spurred, that he is scarcely to be discerned through his accoutre- ments. A cavalier of those days in full dress must have been a ponderous concern; but then the ladies were as formidably vast and aspiring. The petticoats at this time were so discursive, and the head-dresses so ambitious, that I think it must have been to save in canvas what they expended in satin or brocade, that so many of the pretty women of that day were painted en bergere. Apropos to the first Duke of Devonshire : I can- not help remarking the resemblance of the present duke to his illustrious ancestor, as well as to several other portraits, and particularly to a very distant relative the first Countess of Burlington, who was, I believe, the great-grandmother of his grace's grandmother ; in both these instances the likeness ^ so striking as to be recogn ed at once, and not without a smiling exclamation of surprise. Another interesting picture is that of RachaeJ t20 HARDWICKE. Russell, the second Duchess of Devonshire, daughter of that heroine and saint, Lady Russell : the face is very beautiful, and the air elegant and high-bred with rather a pouting expression in the full red lips. Here is also the third duchess, Miss Hoskins, a great city heiress. The painter, I suspect, has flattered her, for she had not in her day the repu- tation of beauty. When I looked at this picture, so full of delicate, and youthful, and smiling love- liness, I could not help recurring to a passage in Horace Walpole's letters, in which he alludes to this sylph-like being, as the " ancient grace," and congratulates himself on finding her in good-humor, But of all the female portraits, the one whicb struck me most was that of Lady Charlotte Boyle, the young Marchioness of Hartington, in a mas- querade habit of purple satin, embroidered with silver; a fanciful little cap and feathers, thrown on one side, and the dark hair escaping in luxu- riant tresses ; she holds a mask in her hand, which she has just taken off, and looks round upon ua in all the consciousness of happy and high-born loveliness. She was the daughter and heiress of Richard Boyle, the last Earl of Burlington and Cork, and Baroness Clifford in her own right. The merits of the Cavendishes were their own, but their riches and power, in several instances, were brought into the family by a softer influence. Through her, f believe, the vast estates of the Boyles and Cliffords in Ireland and the north of HARDWICKE. 421 Fugland, including Chiswick and Bolton Abbey> have descended to her grandson, the present duke.* There are several pictures of her here one play- ing on the harpsichord, and another, small and very elegant, in which she is mounted on a spirited horse. There are two heads of her in crayons, by her mother, Lady Burlington, f ill-executed, but said to be like her. And another picture, repre- senting her and her beautiful but ill-fated sister, Lady Dorothy, who was married very young to Lord Euston, and died six months afterwards, in consequence of the brutal treatment of her hus- band.:]: All the pictures of Lady Hartington have the same marked character of pride, intellect, vivacity, and loveliness. But short was her gay and splendid career ! She died of a decline in the * "William, sixth Duke of Devonshire. t " Lady Dorothy Savile, daughter of the Marquis of Halifax: she had no less attachment to the arts than her husband ; she drew in crayons, and succeeded admirably in likenesses, but working with too much rapidity, did not do justice to hex genius; she had an uncommon talent too for caricature." Anecdotes of Painting. $ He was a monster ; and no wife of the coarsest plebeian profli- gate could have suffered more than did this lovely, amiable being of the highest blood and greatest fortune in England. " She was," says the affecting inscription on her picture at Chiswick, " the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all who knew her angelic temper, and the admiration of all who saw her beauty. She was married October 10, 1741, and delivered by death from misery, May 2, 1742." But how did it happen that from a condition like this v therv leas no release but by death ? See Horace Walpole's Correi>*ud uc to Sir Horace Mann, vol. i. p. 328. t22 HARDWICKE. Bixtli year of her marriage, at the age of four-arid* twenty. Here is also her father, Lord Burlington, cele- brated by Pope, (who has dedicated to him the second of his epistles " on the use of riches,") and styled by Walpole, "the Apollo of the Arts," which he not only patronized, but studied and cultivated; his enthusiasm for architecture waa such, that he not only designed and executed buildings for himself, (the villa at Chiswick, for example,) but contributed great sums to public works ; and at his own expense published an edi- tion of the designs of Palladio and of Inigo Jones. In one picture of Lord Burlington there is a head of his idol, Inigo Jones, in the background. There is also a good picture of Robert Boyle, the philoso- pher, a spare, acute, contemplative, interesting face, in which there is as much sensibility as thought. He is said to have died of grief for the loss of hid favorite sister Lady Ranelagh ; and when we recol- lect who and what she was the sole friend of his solitary heart the partner of his studies, and with qualities which rendered her the object of Milton's enthusiastic admiration, and almost tender regard, we scarce think less of her brother's philosophy, that it afforded him no consolation for the loss of such a sister. On the other side hangs another philosopher Thomas Hobbcs, of Malmsbury, whose bold spec- ulations in politics and metaphysics, and the odium they drew on him, rendered his whole life one con- HARDWICKE. 428 warfare with established prejudices and opinions. He was tutor in the family of the first Earl of Devonshire, in 1607 remained constantly attached to the house of Cavendish and never lost their countenance and patronage in the midst of all the calumnies heaped upon him. He died at Hardwicke under the protection of the first Duke of Devonshire, in 1678. This curious por- trait represents him at the age of ninety-two. The picture is not good as a picture, but striking from the evident truth of the expression uniting the last lingering gleam of thought with the withered, wrinkled, and almost ghastly decrepitude of ex- treme age. It has, I believe, been engraved by Hollar. I looked round for Henry Cavendish, the great chemist and natural philosopher another bright ornament of a family every way ennobled but there is no portrait of him at Hardwicke. I was also disappointed not to find the " limned effigy," as she would call it, of my dear Margaret of New- castle. There are plenty of kings arid queens, truly not worth " sixpence a-piece," as Walpole observes ; but there is one picture I must not forget that of the brave and accomplished Earl of Derby, who was beheaded at Bolton-le-Moor, the husband of the heroic " Lady of Lathom," who figures in Peveril of the Peak. The head has a grand mel- ancholy expression, and I should suppose it to be a copy from Vandyke. 424 HARDWICKE. Besides these, were many others calculated to awaken in the thoughtful mind both sweet and bitter fancies. How often have I walked up and down this noble gallery lost in " commiserating reveries " on the vicissitudes of departed grandeur ! on the nothingness of all that life could give ! on the fate of youthful beauties who lived to be broken-hearted, grow old, and die ! on heroes that once walked the earth in the blaze of their fame, now gone down to dust, and an endless darkness ! on bright faces, " petries de Hs et de roses/' since time-wrinkled! on noble forms since man- gled in the battle-field ! on high-born heads that fell beneath the axe of the executioner ! O ye starred and ribboned ! ye jewelled and em- broidered ! ye wise, rich, great, noble, brave, and beautiful, of all your loves and smiles, your graces and excellencies, your deeds and honors does then a u painted board circumscribe all ? " iLTHORPE A FRAGMENT. IT was on such a day as I have seen in Italy in the month of December, but which, in our chill cli- mate, seemed so unseasonably, so ominously beauti- ful, that it was like the hectic loveliness brighten- ing the eyes and flushing the cheek of consumption, that I found myself in the domains of Althorpe, Autumn, dying in the lap of Winter, looked out with one bright parting smile ; the soft air breathed of Summer ; the withered leaves, heaped on the path, told a different tale. The slant, pale sun shone out with all heaven to himself; not a cloud was there, not a breeze to stir the leafless woods those venerable woods, which Evelyn loved and commemorated : * the fine majestic old oaks, scattered over the park, tossed their huge bare * I was much struck with the inscription on a stone tablet, in a fine old wood near the house : " This wood was planted by Sir William Spencer, Knighte of the Bathe, in the year of out uord 1624 : "on the other side, " Up and bee doing, and God will orosper " 11 is mentioned in Evelyn's " Sylva." 426 ALTHORPE. arms against the blue sky ; a thin hoarfrost, dis- solving as the sun rose higher, left the lawns and hills sparkling and glancing in its ray ; now and then a hare raced across the open glade " And with her feet she from the plashy earth .Raises a mist, which glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run." Nothing disturbed the serene stillness except a pheasant whirring from a neighboring thicket, or at intervals the belling of the deer a sound so peculiar, and so fitted to the scene, that I syio> pathized in the taste of one of the noble pr> genitors of the Spencers, who had built a hunting- lodge in a sequestered spot, that he might heai " the harte bell/' This was a day, an hour, a scene, with all ita associations, its quietness and beauty, " felt in the blood, and felt along the heart." All world !; cares and pains were laid asleep ; while memory fancy, and feeling waked. Althorpe does no< frown upon us in the gloom of remote antiquity; it has not the warlike glories of some of the ba- ronial residences of our old nobility ; it is not built like a watch-tower on a hill, to lord it over feudal vassals; it is not bristled with battlements and turrets. It stands in a valley, with the gradual hills undulating round it, clothed with rich woods- It has altogether a look of compactness and com- fort, without pretension, which, with the pastora 1 ALTHOKPE. 42? beauty of the landscape, and low situation, recall the ancient vocation of the family, whose grandeur was first founded, like that of the patriarchs of old, on the multitude of their flocks and herds.* It was in the reign of Henry the Eighth that Althorpe became the principal seat of the Spencers, and no place of the same date can boast so many delight- ful, romantic, and historical associations. There is Spenser the poet, "high-priest of all the Muses' mysteries," who modestly claimed, as an honor, his relationship to those Spencers who now, with a just pride, boast of him, and deem his Faery Queen " the brightest jewel in their coronet ; " and the beautiful Alice Spencer, countess of Derby, who was celebrated in early youth by her poet-cousin, and for whom Milton, in her old age, wrote his " Arcades." At Althorpe, in 1603, the queen and son of James the First were, on their arrival in England, nobly entertained with a masque, written for the occasion by Ben Jonson, in which the young ladies and nobles of the country enacted nymphs and fairies, satyrs and hunters, and danced to the sound of " excellent soft music," their scenery the natural woods, their stage the green lawn, their canopy the summer sky. What poetical picturesque hospitality ! In these days it would have been a dinner, with French cooks and confectioners ex- press from London to dress it. Here lived Waller's * See the accounts of Sir John Spencer, in Collins's Peerage, *nd prefixed *o Dibdia^i " JEdes Althorpianae." 428 ALTHORPE. famous Sacharissa, the first Lady Suriderland s instigation of the Chevalier de Lorrai:.. 436 ALTHOJIPK. of his productions. It represents William, the first Duke of Bedford, the father of Lord William Russell, when young, and his brother-in-law, the famous (and infamous) Digby, Earl of Bristol. How admirably Vandyke has caught the charac- ters of the two men ! the fine commanding form of the duke as he steps forward, the frank, open countenance, expressive of all that is good and noble, speak him what he was not less than that of Digby, which, though eminently handsome, has not one elevated or amiable trait in the counte- nance ; the drapery, background, and more espec- ially the hands, are magnificently painted. On one side of this superb picture, hangs the present Earl Spencer when a youth ; and on the other, his sister, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, at the age of eighteen, looking all life and high-born love- liness, and reminding one of Coleridge's beautiful lines to her : " Light as a dream your days their circlets ran From all that teaches brotherhood to man, Far, far removed! from want, from grief, from fear! Obedient music lulPd your infant ear; Obedient praises soothed your infant heart Emblazonments and old ancestral crests, With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detain'd your eye from nature. Stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, Rich viands and the pleasurable wine, Were yours unearn'd by toil." And he thus beautifully alludes to her maternal ALTHOKPE. 43 1 character; for this accomplished woman set the example to the highest ranks, of nursing her own children : '* You were a mo;her! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight thought, each nascent feeling read, Which you yourself created." 41as, that such a beginning should have such an fend! Both these are whole-lengths, by Sir Joshua Reynolds : the middle tints are a little flown, else they were perfect; they suffer by being hung near the glowing yet mellowed tints of Vandyke. We have here a whole bevy of the heroines oi De Grammont, delightful to those who have what Walpole used to call the " De Grammont madness " upon them. Here is that beautiful, audacious ter- magant, Castlemaine, very like her picture at Windsor, and with the same characteristic bit of storm gleaming in the background. Lady Den- ham,* the wife of the poet, Sir John Denham, and niece of that Lord Bristol who figures in Vandyke's picture above mentioned a lovely creature, and a sweet picture. Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, who so long ruled the heart and souncils of Charles the Second, in Lely's finest style ; the face has a look of blooming innocence, loon exchanged for coarseness and arrogance. * Elizabeth Brooke, poisoned at the age of twenty 438 ALTHORPE. The indolent, alluring Middleton, looking from under her sleepy eyelids, "trop coquette pour rebuter personne." u La Belle Hamilton," the lovely prize of the volatile De Grammont; very like her portrait at Windsor, with the same finely formed bust and compressed ruby lips, but with an expression more vivacious and saucy, and less elevated. Two portraits of Nell Gwyn, with the fair brown hair and small bright eyes they ought to have ; au rente, with such prim, sanctified mouths, and dressed with such elaborate decency, that instead of reminding us of the " parole sciolte d'ogni freno, risi, vezzi, giuochi " they are more like Beck Marshall, the puritan's daughter, on her good behavior.* Here is that extraordinary woman Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, the fame of whose beauty and gallantries filled all Europe, and once the intended wife of Charles the Second, though she afterwards intrigued in vain for the less (or more) eligible post of maitresse en litre. What an extraordinary, wild, perverted, good-for-nothing, vet interesting set of women, were those four Mancini sisters ! all victims, more or less, to the pride, policy, or avarice, of their cardinal uncle ; all gifted by nature with the fervid Italian blood and the plotting Italian brain ; all really aventu- rie'res, while they figured as duchesses and prin- cesses. They wore their coronets and ermine as *See the scene between Beck Marshall and Nell Gwyn, in IVpys." ALTHORPE. 439 gt rolling players wear their robes of state with a sort of picturesque awkwardness and they proved rather too scanty to cover a multitude of sins. This head of Hortense Mancini, as Cleopatra dissolving the pearl, is the most spirited, but the least beautiful portrait I have seen of her. An appropriate pendant on the opposite side is hex lover, philosopher, and eulogist, the witty St. Evre- mond Grammont's " Caton de Normandie ; " but instead of looking like a good-natured epicurean, a man " who thought as he liked, and liked what he thought,"* his nose is here wrinkled up into an expression of the most supercilious scorn, adding to his native ugliness.f Both these are by Kneller. Farther on, is another of Charles's beauties, whose sagexse has never been disputed Elizabeth Wri- othesley, Countess of Northumberland, the sister of that half saint, half heroine, and all woman Lady Russell. There is also a lovely picture of that magnificent brunette, Miss Bagot. " Elle avait," says Hamilton, " ce teint rembruni qui plait tant quand il plait." She married Berkeley Lord Falmouth, a man who, though unprincipled, seems to have loved her ; at least, was not long enough her husband to forget to be her lover : he was killed, shortly after his * Walpole. t The gay, gallant St. Evremond, besides being naturally ugly, had a wen between his eyebrows. There is a fine picture of him and Hortonse as Vertumnus and Pomona, in the Stafford rallery. 44ft ALTHORPE. marriage, in the battle of Southwold-bay. This is assuredly one of the most splendid pictures Lely ever painted ; and it is, besides, full of character and interest. She holds a cannon-ball in her lap, (only an airy emblematical cannon-ball ; for she poises it like a feather,) and the countenance is touched with a sweet expression of melancholy: hence it is plain that she sat for it soon after the death of her first husband, and before her marriage with the witty Earl of Dorset. Near her hangs another fair piece of witchcraft, "'La Belle Jen- nings," who in her day played with hearts as if they had been billiard balls; and no wonder, considering what things she had to deal with:* there was a great difference between her vivacity and that of her vivacious sister, the Duchess of Marlborough. Old Sarah hangs near her. One would think that Kneller, in spite, had watched the moment to take a characteristic likeness, and catch, not the Cynthia, but the Fury of the minute ; as, for instance, when she cut off her luxuriant tresses, so worshipped by her husband, and flung them in his face ; for so she tosses back hei disdainful head, and curls her lip like an insolent, pouting, spoiled, grown-up baby. The life of this woman is as fine a lesson on the emptiness of all worldly advantages, boundless wealth, power, fame, * The pictures of Miss Jennings are very rare. This one at Althorpe was copied for H. Walpole, and I have heard of anothe? In Ireland. Miss Jennings was afterwards Duchess of Tyrcon- ALTHORPE. 441 beauty, wit, as ever was set forth by moralist or divine. 1 By spirit robb'd. of power by warmth, of friends By wealth, of followers ! without one distress, Sick of herself through very selfishness."* nd yet I suspect that the Duchess of Marlborough has never met with justice. History knows her only as Marlborough's wife, an intriguing dame d'honneur, and a cast-off favorite. Vituperated by Swift, satirized by Pope, ridiculed by Walpole what angel could have stood such bedaubing, and from such pens ? " she has fallen into a pit of inK . " But glorious talents she had, strength of mind, generosity, the power to feel and inspire the strongest attachment, and all these qualities were degraded, or rendered useless, by temper! Her avarice was not the love of money for its own sake, but the love of power ; and her bitter contempt for w knaves and fools " may be excused, if not justified. Imagine such a woman as the Duchess of Marl- borougn out-faced, out-plotted by that crowned c-ypher, that sceptred common-place, queen Anne I Vt should seem that the constant habit of being forced to serve, outwardly, where she really ruled, * Pope. One hates him for taking a thousand pounds to rappress this character of Atossa, and publishing it after all; yet who for a thousand pounds would have lost it? 442 AL THORPE. the consciousness of her own brilliant and pow- erful faculties brought into immediate hourly com- parison with the confined trifling understanding of her mistress, a disdain of her own forced hypocrisy, and a perception of the heartless baseness of the courtiers around her, disgusting to a mind naturally ligh-toned, produced at length that extreme of oitterness and insolence which made her so often " an embodied storm." She was always a terma- gant but of a very different description from the vulgar Castlemaine. Though the picture of Colonel Russell, by Dob- son, is really fine as a portrait, the recollection of the scene between him and Miss Hamilton * his love of dancing, to prove he was not old and asth- matical, and his attachment to his " chapeau point it" make it impossible to look at him without a smile but a good-humored smile, such as his lovely mistress gave him when she rejected him with so much politeness. : Arabella Churchill, the sister of the great Duke of Marlborough, and mistress of the Duke of York, has been better treated by the painter than by Hamilton ; instead of " La grande creature, pale et decharnee," she appears here a very lovely woman. But enough of these equivocal ladies. No before we leave them, there are yet two to be noticed, more equiv- ocal, more interesting, and more extraordinary than all the rest put together Bianca di Capello, * See his declaration of love " Je suis frere du Comte de Bed ford; je commande le regiment des gardes," &c. ALTHORPE. 443 who, from a washerwoman, became Grand Duchesg of Florence, with less beauty than I should have expected, but as much countenance : and the beautiful, but appalling picture of Yenitia Digby, painted after she was dead, by Vandyke : she was found one morning sitting up in her bed, leaning her head on her hand, and lifeless ; and thus she is painted. Notwithstanding the ease and grace of the attitude, and the delicacy of the features, there is no mistaking this for slumber : a heavier hand has pressed upon those eyelids, which will never more open to the light : there is a leaden lifeless- ness about them, too shockingly true and real " It thrills us with mortality, . And curdles to the gazer's heart." Her picture at Windsor is the most perfectly beauti- ful and impressive female portrait I ever saw. How have I longed, when gazing at it, to conjure her out of her frame, and bid her reveal the secret of her mysterious life and death ! Nearly opposite to the dead Yenitia, in strange contrast, hangs her hus- band, who loved her to madness, or was mad before he married her, in the very prime of life and youth. This picture, by Cornelius Jansen, is as fine as any thing of Yandyke's : the character expresses more of intellectual power and physical strength, ^han of that elegance of face and form we should have looked for in such a fanciful being as Sir Kenelui Oigby : he looks more like one of the Athletaa k44 ALTHORPK. than a poet, a metaphysician, and a "squire of dames." There are three pictures of Waller's famed Sacharissa, the first Lady Sunderland : one in a hat, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, gay and blooming ; the second, far more interesting, was painted about the time of her marriage with the young Earl of Sunderland, or shortly after very sweet and lady- like. I should say that the high-breeding of the face and air was more conspicuous than the beauty , the neck and hands exquisite. Both these are Vandyke's. A third picture represents her about the time of her second marriage : the expression wholly changed cold, sad, faded, but pretty still : one might fancy her contemplating, with a "sick heart, the portrait of Lord Sunderland, the lover and husband of her early youth, who hangs on the opposite side of the gallery, in complete armour : he fell in the same battle with Lord Falkland, at the age of three-and-twenty. The brother of Sacha- rissa, the famous Algernon Sidney, is suspended near her ; a fine head, full of contemplation and power. Among the most interesting pictures in the gal- lery is an undoubted original of Lady Jane Grey, After seeing so many hideous, hard, prim-looking pictures and prints of this gentle-spirited heroine, it is consoling to trust in the genuineness of a face which has all the sweetness and dignity we look for, and ought to find. Then, by way of contrast, we have that most curious picture of Diana of ALTHORPE. 445 Poitiers, once in the Crawfurd collection : it is a small half-length ; the features fair and regular ; the hair is elaborately dressed with a profusion of jewels ; but there is no drapery whatever " force pierreries et tres peu de linge," as Madame de Sevigne described the two Mancini. * Round the head is the legend from the 42d Psalm " Comme le cerf braie apres le decours des eaues, ainsi brait mon ame apres toi, O Dieu," which is certainly an extraordinary application. In the days of Diana of Poitiers, the beautiful mistress of Henry the Second of France, it was the court fashion to sing the Psalms of David to dance and song tunes ; f and the courtiers and beauties had each their favorite psalm, which served as a kind of devise : this may explain the very singular inscription on this very singular picture. Here are also the por- traits of Otway and Cowley, and of Montaigne; the last from the Crawfurd collection. I had nearly omitted to mention a magnificent whole-length of the Due de Guise who was stabbed in the closet of Henry the Third whose life con- tains materials for ten romances and a dozen epics, and whose death has furnished subjects for as many tragedies. And not far from him that not less dar- mg, and more successful chief, Oliver Cromwell . a page is tying on his sash. There is a vulgar * The Princess Colonna and the Duchesse de Mazarin. t Clement Marot had composed a version of the Psalms, the j *ery popular. See Bayle, and the Curiosities of Literature 446 ALTHORPE. power and boldness about this head, in fine con- trast with the high-born, fearless, chivalrous-looking Guise. In the library is the splendid picture of Sofonisba Angusciola, by herself: she is touching the harp- sichord, for like many others of her craft, she ex- celled in music. Angelica Kaufiman had nearly been an opera-singer. The instances of great paint- ers being also excellent musicians are numerous ; Salvator Rosa could have led an orchestra, and Vernet could not exist without Pergolesi's piano. But I cannot recollect an instance of a great mu- sician by profession, who has also been a painter : the range of faculties is generally more confined. Rembrandt's large picture of his mother, which is, I think, the most magnificent specimen of this master now in England, hangs over the chimney in the same room with the Sofonisba. The last picture I can distinctly remember is a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, with all his per- fections combined in their perfection. It is that of a beautiful Frenchwoman, an intimate friend of the last Lady Spencer with as much intellect, senti- ment, and depth of feeling as would have furnished out twenty ordinary heads ; all harmony in the Coloring, all grace in the drawing. Here then was food for the eye and for the mem- iry for sweet and bitter fancy for the amateur, and for the connoisseur for antiquary, historian, painter,. and poet. Well might Horace Walpole lay that the gallery at Althorpe was " endeared to ALTHOKPE. 447 tfie pensive spectator." He tells us in his letters, that when here, (about seventy years since,) he surprised the housekeeper by " his intimate ac- quaintance with all the faces in the gallery." I was amused at the thought that we caused a similar sur- prise in our day. I hope his female cicerone was as civil and intelligent as ours ; as worthy to be the keeper of the pictorial treasures of Althorpe. When we lingered and lingered, spell-bound, and apologized for making such unconscionable de- mands on her patience, she replied, " that she was flattered ; that she felt affronted when any visitor hurried through the apartments." Old Horace would have been delighted with her ; and not less with the biblical enthusiasm of a village glazier, whom we found dusting the books in the library, and who had such a sublime reverence for old edi- tions, unique copies, illuminated MSS., and rare bindic gs, that it -was quite edifying. MRS. SIDDONS. [Tins following little sketch was written a few days after the ieath of Mrs. Siddons, aud was called forth by certain para- graphs which appeared in the daily papers. A misapprehension of the real character of this remarkable woman, which I know to exist in the minds of many who admired and venerated her tal- ents, has induced me to enlarge the first very slight sketch, into a more finished but still inadequate portrait. I have spared no pains to verify the truth of my own conception by testimony of every kind that was attainable. I have penned every word as if I had been in that great final court where the thoughts of all hearts are manifested; and those who best knew the individual I have attempted to delineate bear witness to the fidelity of the portrait, as far as it goes. I must be permitted to add, that in this and the succeeding sketch I have not only been inspired by the wish to do justice to individual virtue and talent. I wished to impress and illustrate that important truth, that a gifted woman may pursue a public vocation, yet preserve the purity and maintain the dignity of her sex that there is no prejudice which will not shrink away before moral energy, and no profejsio.i which may not be made compatible with the respect due to us as women, the cultivation of every feminine virtue, and the prac- tice of every private duty. I might here multiply examples and exceptions, and discuss causes and results; but it is a considera tion I reserve for another opportunity.] " Implora pace ! " She, who upon earth ruled be souls and senses of men, as the moon rules the MRS. SIDDONS. 445* surge of waters ; the acknowledged and liege em- press of all the realms of illusion ; tho. crowned queen ; the throned muse the sceptred shadow of departed genius, majesty, and beauty, suppli- cates Peace ! What unhallowed work has been going forward in some of the daily papers since this illustrious creature has been laid in her quiet unostentatious grave! ay, even before her poor remains were cold ! What pains have been taken to cater tri- lling scandal for the blind, heartless, gossip-loving vulgar ! and to throw round the memory of a woman, whose private life was as irreproachable as her public career was glorious, some ridiculous or unamiable association which should tend to un- sphere her from her throne in our imagination, and degrade from her towering pride of place, the her- oine of Shakspeare, and the Muse of Tragedy ! That stupid malignity which revels in the mar- tyrdom of fame which rejoices when, by some approximation of the mean and ludicrous with the beautiful and sublime, it can for a moment bring down the rainbow-like glory in which the fancy invests genius, to the drab-colored level of medi- ocrity is always hateful and contemptible ; but hi the present case it is something worse ; it has a peculiar degree of cowardly injustice. If some ele- gant biographer inform us that the same hand which painted the infant Hercules, or Ugolino, or Mis. Sheridan, half seraph and half saint could clutch a umea with satisfaction, or drive a bar- 450 MRS. SIDDOXS. gain with a footman ; if some discreet friend, from the mere love of truth, no doubt, reveal to us the puerile, lamentable frailties of that bright spirit which poured itself forth in torrents of song and passion : what then ? 'tis pitiful, certainly, won drous pitiful ; but there is no great harm done, no irremediable injury inflicted ; for there stand their works : the poet's immortal page, the painter's breathing canvas witness for them. " Death hath had no power yet upon their beauty " over them scandal cannot draw her cold slimy finger ; on them calumny cannot breathe her mildew ; BOF envy wither them with a blast from hell. There they stand forever to confute injustice, to rectify error, to defy malice ; to silence, and long outlive the sneer, the lie, the jest, the reproach. But she who was of painters the model, the wonder, the despair ; she, who realized in her own presence and person the poet's divinest dreams and noblest creations ; she, who has enriched our language with a new epithet, and made the word Siddonian synonymous with all we can imagine of feminine grace and grandeur : she has left nothing behind her, but the memory of a great name : she has be* queathed it to our reverence, our gratitude, our charity, and our sympathy ; and if it is not to be sacred, I know not what is or ever will be. Mrs. Siddons, as an artist, presented a singular example of the union of all the faculties, mental and physical, which constitute excellence in her art, directed to the end for which they seemed ere MRS. SIDDONS. 451 Uted. In any other situation or profession, some one or other of her splendid gifts would have been misplaced or dormant. It was her especial good fortune, and not less that of the time in which she lived, that this wonderful combination of mental powers and external graces, was fully and com- pletely developed by the circumstances in which she was placed.* " With the most commanding beauty of face and form, and varied grace of ac- tion ; with the most noble combination of features, and extensive capability of expression in each of them ; with an unequalled genius for her art, the utmost patience in study, and the strongest ardour of feeling ; there was not a passion which she could not delineate ; not the nicest shade, not the most delicate modification of passion, which she could not seize with philosophical accuracy, and render with such immediate force of nature and truth, as well as precision, that what was the result of pro- found study and unwearied practice, appeared like sudden inspiration. There was not a height of grandeur to which she could not soar, nor a dark- ness of misery to which she could not descend ; not a chord of feeling, from the sternest to the most delicate, which she could not cause to vibrate at her will. She had reached that point of perfec- tion in art, where it ceases to be art, and becomes a second nature. Sh, had studied most profoundly * Some of the sentences which follow (marked by inverted com- mas) are taken from a portrait of Mrs. Siddons, dated 1812, and Attributed to Sir Walter Scott. 452 MRS. SIDDOXS. the powers and capabilities of language ; so that the most critical sagacity could not have suggested a delicacy of emphasis, by which the meaning of the author might be more distinctly conveyed, or a shade of intonation by which the sentiment could be more fully or more faithfully expressed. While other performers of the past or present time hare made approaches to excellence, or attained it now and then, Mrs. Siddons alone was pronounced faultless ; and, in her, the last generation witnessed what we shall not see in ours ; no, nor our chil- dren after us ; that amazing union of splendid intellectual powers, with unequalled charms of per- son, which, in the tragic department of her art, realized the idea of perfection." Such was the magnificent portrait drawn of Mrs. Siddons twenty years ago ; and it will be admitted by those who remember her, and must be believed by those who do not, that in this case, eulogy could not wander into exaggeration, nor enthusiasm be exalted beyond the bounds of truth. I have heard people most unreasonably surprised dT displeased, because this exceeding dignity of de- meanor was not confined to the stage, but was canned into private life. Had it been merely con- ventional, a thing put on and put off, it might have been so ; but the grandeur of her mind, and the light of her glorious beauty, were not as a dia- dem and robe for state occasions only ; hers was not only dignity of manner and person, it was moral and innate, and, I may add, hereditary. Mrs. Sid- MRS. SIDDOXS. 453 w : th all her graces of form and feature, her magnificence of deportment, her deep-toned, meas- ured voice, and impressive enunciation, was in reality a softened reflection of her more stern t stately, majestic mother, whose genuine loftiness of spirit and of bearing, whose rare beauty, and im- perious despotism of character, have often been described to me as absolutely awful, even her children trembled in her presence. " All the Kembles," said Sir Thomas Lawrence, " have historical faces ; " and for several genera- tions their minds seem to have been cast in a poet* ical mould. It has, however, been disputed, whether Mrs. Sid dons possessed genius. AVhether genius be exclusively defined as the creative and inventive faculty of the soul, or taken, in its usual acceptation, as " a mind of large general faculties, accidentally determined to some particular direc- tion," I think she did possess it in both senses. The grand characteristic of her mind was power, but it was power of a very peculiar kind : it was slowly roused slowly developed not easily moved ; her perceptions were not rapid, nor her sensations quick ; she required time for every thing, time to think, time to comprehend, time to speak. There was nothing superficial about her; no vivacity of manner ; to petty gossip she would not descend, and evil-speaking she abhorred ; she cared not to shine in general conversation. Like some majestic " Argosie," bearing freight of precious metal, she was a-ground and cumbroui 154 MRS. SIDDOX3. and motionless among the shallows of common life but set her upon the deep waters of poetry and passion there was her element there was hei reign. Ask her an opinion, she could not give it you till she had looked on the subject, and consid ered it on every side, then you might trust to it without appeal. Her powers, though not easily put in motion, were directed by an incredible energy ; her mind, when called to action, seemed to rear itself up like a great wave of the sea, and roll forwards with an irresistible force. This pro- digious intellectual power was one of her chief characteristics. Another was truth, which in the human mind is generally allied with power. It is, I think, a mistaken idea, that habits of impersona- tion on the stage tend to impair the sincerity or the individuality of a character. If any injury is done in this way, it is by the continual and strong excitement of the vanity, the dependence on ap- plause, which in time may certainly corrode away the integrity of the manner, if not of the mind. It is difficult for an admired actress not to be vain, and difficult for a very vain person to be quite un- affected, on or off the stage ; it is, however, certain that some of the truest, most natural persons I ever met with in my life, were actresses. In the char- acter of Mrs. Siddons, truth, and a reverence for truth, were commensurate with her vast power : Heaven is not farther removed from earth than she was from falsehood. Allied to this conscientious was her love of order. She was extremelv MRS. SIDDONS. 455 punctual in all her arrangements ; methodical and exact in every thing she did ; circumstantial and accurate in all she said. In little and in great things, in the very texture and constitution of her mind, she was integrity itself : "It was," (said one of her most intimate friends,) " a mind far above the average standard, not only in ability, but in moral and religious qualities ; that 'these should have exhausted themselves in the world of fiction, may be regretted in reference to her individual happiness, but she certainly exercised, during her reign , a most powerful moral influence : she ex- cited the nobler feelings and higher faculties of every mind which came in contact with her own. I speak with the deepest sense of personal obliga- tion : it was at a very early age that she repeated to me, in a manner and tone which left an indeli- ble impression, 4 Sincerity, Thou first of virtues ! let no mortal leave Thy onward path,' &c. and I never knew her to omit an opportunity of making her fine genius minister to piety and virtue." Now what are the bravos of a whole theatre, " When all the thundsr of the pit ascends," compared to such praise as this ? " Her mind " (again I am enabled to give the very words of one who knew her well) " was a ^erfect mirror of the sublime and beautiful ; like 456 MRS. SIDDONS. a lake that leflected only the heavens above. 01 the summits of the mountains around ; nothing below a certain level could appear in it. The ideal was her vital air. She breathed with diffi- culty in the atmosphere of this ' working-day world/ and withdrew from it as much as possible. Hence her moral principles were seldom brought to bear upon the actual and ordinary concerns of life. She was rather the associate of ' the mighty dead/ than the fellow-creature of the living. To the latter she was known chiefly through others, and often through those who were incapable of re- flecting her qualities faithfully, though impressed with the utmost veneration for her genius. In their very anxiety for what they considered her interests, (and of her worldly interests she took no charge,) they would in her name authorize pru- dential arrangements, which gave rise to the sus- picion of covetousness, whilst she was sitting rapt in heavenly contemplation. Had she given her mind to the consideration and investigation of relative claims, she might on some occasions have acted differently or, rather, she would have acted where in fact others only acted : for never, as I have reason to believe, was a case of distress pre- sented to her without her being ready to give even till her i hand lacked means/ Many of the poor in her neighborhood were pensioned by her " She was credulous simple to an extraor* iinary degree. Profession had, therefore, too much weight with her. She was accustomed to mam MRS. SIDDONS. 457 gestations of the sentiments she excited, and in leeking the demonstration sometimes overlooked the silent reality ; this was a consequence of her profession. " She was not only exact in the performance of her religious duties ; her religion was a pervading sentiment, influencing her to the strictest obser- vance of truth and charity I mean charity in judging others: the very active and excursive benevolence which 4 Seeks the duty, nay, prevents the need,' would have been incompatible with her toilsome engrossing avocations and with the visionary ten- dencies of her character. But the visionary has his own sphere of action, and can often touch the master-springs of other minds, so as to give the first impulse to the good deeds flowing from them. There are some who can trace back to the sympa- thies which Mrs. Siddons awakened, their devoted- ness to the cause of the suffering and oppressed. Faithfully did she perform the part in life which she believed allotted to her; and who may pre- sume to judge that she did not choose the better part ? " The idea that she was a cold woman is emi- nently false. Her affections, like her intellectual powers, were slow, but tenacious ; they enveloped iii folds, strong as flesh and blood, those whom she tad found worthy and taken to her heart ; and her happiness was more entwined with them than those <58 MRS. &IDDONS. tvho knew her only in her professional character could have supposed ; she would return home from the theatre, every nerve thrilling with the excite- ment of sympathy, and applause, and admiration, and a cold look or word from her husband has sent her to bed in tears. She had that sure indication of a good heart and a fine mind, an exceeding love for children, and a power to attract and amuse them. It was remarked that her voice always Boftened in addressing a child. I remember a letter of hers relative to a young mother and her infant, in which, among other tender and playful things, she says, " I wonder whether Lady N i? as good a talker of baby-nonsense as I flatter my- self I am ! " A lady who was intimate with her. happening to enter her bedroom early one morn ing, found her with two of her little grandchildren romping on her bed, and playing with the tresses of her long dark hair, which she had let down foi their amusement. Her own children adored her; her surviving friends refer to her with tenderness, with gratitude, even with tears. I speak here of what I know. I have seldom been more touched to the heart than by the perusal of some of hei most private letters and notes, which for tender- ness of sentiment, genuine feeling, and simple yet forcible expression, could not be surpassed.* * I am permitted to give the following little extract as farth >i Ulusttating that tenderness of nature which I have only touched Upon. " I owe a letter, but I don't know how it if now that I am arrived a that time of life wheu I supposed 1 MRS. SIDDONS. 459 Actress though she was, she had no idea of doing any thing for the sake of appearances, or of court- ing popularity by any means but excellence in her art. She loved the elegances and refinements of life enjoyed, and freely shared what she had toiled to obtain and in the earlier part of her career was the frequent victim of her own kind and careless nature. She has been known to give generously, nobly, to sympathize warmly ; but did she deny to greedy selfishness or spendthrift vanity the twentieth demand on her purse or her benevolence? Was she, while absorbed in her poetical, ideal existence, the dupe of exterior shows in judging of character ? Or did she, from total ignorance of, or indifference to, the common- place prejudices, or customary forms of society, unconsciously wound the amour-propre of some shallow flatterer or critic, or by bringing the gravity and glory of her histrionic impersonations into the frivolities and hard realities of this our world, render herself obnoxious to vulgar ridicule ? then was she made to feel what it is to live in should be able to sit down and indulge my natural indolence, I find the business of it thickens and increases around me ; and I am now as much occupied about the affairs of others as I have been about my own. I am just now expecting my son George's two babies from India The ship which took them from their parents, I thank heaven, is safely arrived: Oh! that they could fo ow it ! For the present I shall have them near me. There is a school between my little hut and the church, where they ^l have delicious air, and I shaL be able to see the poor dear* avery day." 460 MRS. SIDDONS. the public eye ; then flew round the malig lant glander, the vengeful lie, the base sneer, the im- pertinent misinterpretation of what few could understand and fewer feel ! Reach her these libels could not but sometimes they reached those whose affectionate reverence fenced her round from the rude contact of real life. In some things Mrs. Siddons was like a child. I have heard anecdotes of her extreme simplicity, which by the force of contrast made me smile at them, not at her : who could have laughed at Mrs. Siddons ? I should as soon have thought of laughing at the Delphic Sibyl. As an artist, her genius appears to have been slowly developed. She did not, as it has bee\ naid of her niece, " spring at once into the chair of the tragic muse ; " but toiled her way up to glory and excellence in her profession, through length of time, difficulties, and obstacles innumerable., She was exclusively professional ; and all her at- tainments, and all her powers, seem to have been directed to one end and aim. Yet I suppose no one would have said of Mrs. Siddons, that she was a " mere actress," as it was usually said of Garrick, that he was a " mere player ; " the most admirable wid versatile actor that ever existed ; but still the mere player ; nothing more nothing better. He does not appear to have had a tincture of that high gentlemanly feeling, that native elevation of cha: acter, and general literary taste which strike us in John Kemble and his brother Charles ; nor any MRS. SIDDONS. 461 tljing of the splendid imagination, the enthusiasm of art, the personal grace and grandeur, which thraw such a glory around Mrs. Siddons. Of John Kemble it might be said,* as Dryden said of Harte in his time, that "kings and princes might have come to him, and taken lessons how to comport themselves with dignity." And with the noble presence of Mrs. Siddons we associated, in public and in private, something absolutely awful. We were accustomed to bring her before our fancy as one habitually elevated above the sphere of familiar life, " Attired in all the majesty of art Crown' d with the rich traditions of a soul That hates to have her dignity profan'd By any relish of an earthly thought." f Who was it ? (I think Northcote the painter,) who said he had seen a group of young ladies of rank, Lady Fannys and Lady Marys, peeping through the half-open door of a room where Mrs. Siddons was sitting, with the same timidity and curiosity as if it had been some preternatural being, much more than if it had been the queen : which I can easily believe. I remember that the first time I found myself in the same room with Mrs. Siddons, (I was then about twenty,) I gazed on her as I should have gazed at one of the Egyptian * I believe it has been said; but, like Madlle. de Montpensier, tny imagination and my memory are sometimes confounded. * Ben Jonson. 462 MRfi. SIDDOXS pyramids nay, with a deeper awe, for what is material and physical immensity, compar3d with moral and poetical grandeur ? I was struck with a sensation which made my heart pause, and ren- dered me dumb for some minutes ; and when I was led into conversation with her, my first words came faltering and thick, which never certainly would have been the case in presence of the autocratrix of all the Russias. The greatest, the noblest in the land approached her with a deference not unmin- gled with a shade of embarrassment, while she stood in regal guise majestic, with the air of one who be- stowed and never received honor.* Nor was this feeling of her power, which was derived, partly from her own peculiar dignity of deportment, partly from her association with all that was grand, poeti- cal, terrible, confined to those who could appreciate the full measure of her endowments. Every mem- ber of that public, whose idol she was, from the greatest down to the meanest, felt it more or less. I knew a poor woman who once went to the house of Mrs. Siddons to be paid by her daughter for some embroidery. Mrs. Siddons happened to be in the room, and the woman perceiving who it was, was so overpowered, that she could not count her money, and scarcely dared to draw her breath. " And when I went away, ma'am," added she, in describing her own sensations, " I walked all the way down the street, feeling myself a great deal * George the Fourth, after conversing with her, said with em Khakis, " She is the only real queen ' " MRS. S1DDONS. 465 taller." This was the same unconscious feeling of the sublime, which made Bouchardon say that, after reading the Iliad, he fancied himself seven feet high. She modelled very beautifully, and in this talent, which was in a manner intuitive, she displayed a creative as well as an imitative power. Might we not say that in the peculiar character of her genius in the combination of the very real with the very ideal, of the demonstrative and the visionary, of vastness and symmetry, of the massive material and the grand unearthly forms into which it shaped it- self there was something analogous to sculpture ? At all events, it is the opinion of many who knew her, that if she had not beon a great actress she would have devoted herself to sculpture. She was never so happy as when occupied with her model- ling tools ; she would stand at her work eight hours together, scarcely turning her head. Music she passionately loved : in her younger days her voice in singing was exquisitely sweet and flexible. She would sometimes compose verses, and sing them to an extemporaneous air ; but I believe she did not perform on any instrument. To complete this sketch I shall add an outline of her professional life. Mrs. Siddons was born in 1755. She might be said, almost without metaphor, to have been " born on the stage." All the family, I believe, for two or three generations, had been players. In her early- life she endured many vicissitudes, and was ac- 404 MRS. SIDDOXS. quainted with misery and hardship in many repul- sive forms. On this subject she had none of the pride of a little mind; but alluded to her former situation with perfect simplicity. The description in Mrs. Inchbald's Memoirs of " Mrs. Siddons sing- ,4g and mending her children's clothes," is from Jhe life, and charming as well as touching, when we consider her peculiar character and her subsequent destinies. She was in her twenty-first year when she made her first attempt in London, (for it was but an attempt,) in the character of Portia. She also appeared as Lady Anne in Richard HI. and in comedy as Mrs. Strickland to Garrick's Ranger. She was not successful : Garrick is said to have been jealous of her rising powers : the public did not discover in her the future tragic muse, and for herself " She felt that she was greater than she knew." She returned to her provincial career ; she spent seven years in patient study, in reflec- tion, in contemplation, and in mastering the practi- cal part of her profession ; and then she returned at the age of twenty-eight, and burst upon the world in the prime of her beauty and transcendent powers, with all the attributes of confirmed and ac- knowledged excellence. It appears that, in her first season, she did not play one of Shakspeare's characters : she performed Isabella, Euphrasia, Jane Shore, Calista, and Zara. In a visit she paid to Dr. Johnson, at the conclu- sion of the season, she informed him that it was her intention, the following year, to bring out some oi MRS. SIDDONS. 465 Shakspeare's heroines, particularly Katherine of Arragon, to which she then gave the preference as a character. Dr. Johnson agreed with her, and added that, when she played Katherine, he would hobble to the theatre himself to see her ; but he did not live to pay her this tribute of admiration. He, however, paid her another not less valuable : describing his visitor after her departure, he said. " she left nothing behind her to be censured or de- spised ; neither praise nor money, those two power- ful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her."* In this interview she seems to have pleased the old critic and moralist, who was also a severe and acute judge of human nature, and not inclined to judge favorably of actresses, by the union of modesty with native dignity which at all times dis- tinguished her ; a rare union ! and most delightful in those who are the objects of the public gaze, and when the popular enthusiasm is still in all its first intoxicating effervescence. The first of Shakspeare's characters which Mrs. Siddons performed was Isabella, in Measure for Measure, (1784,) and the next Constance. In the same year Sir Joshua painted her as the tragic Muse.f AVith what a deep interest shall we now visit this her true apotheosis, now that it has re- ceived its last consecration ! The rest of Shak- speare's characters followed in this order: Lady * In a letter to Mrs. Thrale. t In the Grosvenor gallery. There is a duplicate oi this pk> lure in th<* Dulwich gallery. 466 MRS. SIDDONS. Macbeth in 1785, and, soon afterwards, as if bj way of contrast, Desdemona, Ophelia, Rosalind- In 1786 she played Imogen; in 1788 Kathcrine of Arragon ; and, in 1789, Volumnia; and in the same season she played Juliet, being then in her thirty-fifth year, too old for Juliet ; nor did this ever become one of her popular parts ; she left it to her niece to identify herself forever with the poetry and sensibility, the youthful grace and fervid passion of Shakspeare's Juliet; and we have as little chance of ever seeing such another Juliet as Fanny Kemble, as of ever seeing such another Lady Macbeth as her magnificent aunt. A good critic, who was also a great admirer of Mrs. Siddons, asserts that there must be something in acting which levels all poetical distinctions, since people talked in the same breath of her Lady Mac- beth and Mrs. Beverley as being equally " fine pieces of acting." I think he is mistaken. No one no one at least but the most vulgar part of her audience ever equalized these two characters, even as pieces of acting ; or imagined for a moment that the same degree of talent which sufficed to represent Mrs. Beverley could have grasped the towering grandeur of such a character as Lady Macbeth ; dived into its profound and gloomy depths seized and reflected its wonderful grada- tions displayed its magnificence developed its beauties, and revealed its terrors : no such thing, She might have drawn more tears in Isabella than in Constance thrown more young ladies into hy^ MRS. S1DDONS. 467 terics in Beividera than in Katherine of Arragon \ but all with whom I have conversed on the subject of Mrs. Siddons, are agreed in this ; that her finest characters, as pieces of art, were those which af- forded the fullest scope for her powers, and con- tained in themselves the largest materials in poetry, grandeur, and passion : consequently, that her Constance, Katherine of Arragon, Volumnia, Her- mione, and Lady Macbeth stood preeminent. In playing Jane de Montfort, in Joanna Baillie's tragedy, her audience almost lost the sense of im- personation in the feeling of identity. She was Jane de Montfort the actress, the woman, the character, blended into each other. It is a mistaken idea that she herself preferred the part of Aspasia (in Rowe's Bajazet) to any of these grand imper- sonations. She spoke of it as one in which she had produced the most extraordinary effect on the nerves of her audience ; and this is true. " I rec- ollect," said a gentleman to me, " being present at one of the last representations of Bajazet : and at the moment when the order is given to strangle Moneses, while Aspasia stands immovable in front of the stage, I turned my head, unable to endure more, and to my amazement I beheld the whole pit staring ghastly, with upward faces, dilated eyes, and mouths wide open gasping fascinated. Nor shall I ever forget the strange effect produced by that sea of human faces, all fixed in one simulta- neous expression of stony horror. It realized for a moment the fabled power of the Medusait was 468 MRS. SIDDONS. Of all her great characters, Lord Byron, I be- lieve, preferred Constance, to which she gave the preference herself, and esteemed it the most diffi- cult and the most finished of all her impersonations ; but the general opinion stamps her Lady Macbeth as the grandest effort of her art ; and therefore, as she was the first in her art, as the ne plus ultra of acting. This at least was the opinion of one who admired her with all the fervor of a kindred genius, and could lavish on her praise of such " rich words composed as made the gift more sweet." Of her Lady Macbeth, he says, " nothing could have been imagined grander, it was something above nature ; it seemed almost as if a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power waa seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. In coming on in the sleep- ing scene, her eyes were open, but their sense wa3 shut ; she was like a person bewildered : her lipa moved involuntarily ; all her gestures seemed mechanical she glided on and off the stage like an apparition. To have seen her in that charactei was an event in every one's life never to be lor- gotten." By profound and incessant study she had broughj her conception and representation of this character to such a pitch of perfection that the imagination could conceive of nothing more magnificent or more finished ; and yet she has been heard to say, ifter playing it for thirty years, that she never MRS. SIDDONS. 469 read over tta part without discovering in it some- thing new ; nor ever went on the stage to perform it, without spending the whole morning in studying and meditating it, line by line, as intently as if she were about to act it for the first time. In this character she bid farewell to her profession and the public, (June 29th, 1812.) The audience, on this occasion, paid her a singular and touching tribute of respect. On her going off in the sleeping scene, they commanded the curtain to fall, and would not suffer the play to proceed. * The idea that Mrs. Siddons was quite unmoved by the emotions she portrayed the sorrows and the passions she embodied with such inimitable skill and truth, is altogether false. Fine acting may accidentally be mere impulse ; it never can be wholly mechanical. To a late period of her life she continued to be strongly, sometimes p-ainfully, excited by her own acting ; the part of Constance always affected her powerfully she invariably left the stage, her face streaming with tears ; and after playing Lady Macbeth, she could not sleep : even * She afterwards played Lady Randolph for Mr. Charles Kem ble's benefit, and performed Lady Macbeth at the request of the 1'rincess Charlotte in 1816. This was her final appearance. She was then sixty-one, and her powers unabated. I recollect characteristic passage in one of her letters relating to this cir- cumstance : she says, " The princess honored me with several gracious (not ^aceful) nods; but the newspapers gave ine credit for much more sensibility than I either felt or displayed on the occasion. I was by no means so much overwhelmed by her Royal 3ighness"s Hndness, as they were pleased to represent me." 470 MRS. SIDDONS. after reading the play of Macbeth a feverish, wake t'ul night was generally the consequence. I am not old enough to remember Mrs. Siddons in her best days ; but, judging from my own recol lections, I should say that, to hear her read one of Shakspeare's plays, was a higher, a more complete gratification, and a more astonishing display of her powers, than her performance of any single char- acter. On the stage she was the perfect actress ; when she was reading Shakspeare, her profound enthusiastic admiration of the poet, and deep in- sight into his most hidden beauties, made her almost a poetess, or at least, like a priestess, full of the god of her idolatry. Her whole soul looked out from her regal brow and effulgent eyes ; and then her countenance ! the inconceivable flexibility and musical intonations of hor voice ! there was no got-up illusion here : no scenes no trickery of the stage ; there needed no sceptred pall no sweeping train, nor any of the gorgeous accompaniments of tragedy : SHE was Tragedy ! When in reading Macbeth she said, " give me the daggers ! " they gleamed before our eyes. The witch scenes in the bame play she rendered awfully terrific by the magic of looks arid tones ; she invested the weird sisters with all their own infernal fascinations ; they were the serious, poetical, tragical personages which the poet intended them to be, and the wild gro- tesque horror of thejr enchantments made the blood curdle. When, in King John, she came to the passage beginning MRS. SIDDONS. 471 * If the midnight bell, Did with his iron tongue and brazen note," &c. J remember I felt every drop of blood pause, and then run backwards through my veins with an overpowering awe and horror. No scenic repre- sentation I ever witnessed produced the hundredth part of the effect of her reading Hamlet. This tragedy was the triumph of her art. Hamlet and his mother, Polonius, Ophelia, were all there before us. Those who ever heard her give Ophelia's reply to Hamlet, Hamlet. I loved you not. Ophelia. I was the more deceived ! and tne lines And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, &c. will never forget their exquisite pathos. What a revelation of love and woe was there ! the very heart seemed to break upon the utterance. Lear was another of her grai dest efforts ; but her rare talent was not confined to tragedy ; none could exceed her in the power to conceive and render witty and humorous character. I thought I had never understood or felt the comic force of such parts as Polonius, Lucio, Gratiano, and Shakspeare's clowns, till I heard the dialogue from her lips : and to hear her read the Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, was hardly a less per- fect treat than to hear her read Macbeth. 472 MRS. SIDDOXS. The following short extract from a letter of Mra Joanna Baillie, dated about a year before the death of Mrs. Siddons will, I am persuaded, be read with a double interest, for her sake who penned it, not less than hers who is the subject of it. " The most agreeable thing I have to begin with, is a visit we paid last week to Mrs. Siddons. We had met her at dinner at Mr. Rogers's a few days before, and she kindly asked us, our host and his sister, the Thursday following ; an invita- tion which we gladly accepted, though we ex- pected to see much decay in her powers of ex- pression, and consequently to have our pleasure mingled with pain. Judge then of our delight when we heard her read the best scenes of Hamlet, with expression of countenance, voice, and action, that would have done honor to her best days ! She was before us as an unconquerable creature, over whose astonishing gifts of nature time had no power.* She complained of her voice, which she said was not obedient to her will ; but it appeared to my ear to be peculiarly true to nature, and the more so, because it had lost that deep solemnity of tone which she, perhaps, had considered as an ex- cellence. I thought I could trace in the pity and tenderness, mixed with her awe of the ghost, the " For time hath laid his hand so gently on her As he too had baen awed." DE MOXTFOET. MRS. SIDDONS. 473 natural feelings of one who had lost dear friends, ind expected to go to them soon ; and her reading of that scene, (the noblest which dramatic art ever achieved,) went to my heart as it had never done before. At the end, Mr. Rogers very justly said, * Oh, that we could have assembled a company of ^oung people to witness this, that they might have conveyed the memory of it down to another gener- ition ! ' In short, we left her full of admiration, as well as of gratitude, that she had made such an exertion to gratify so small an audience ; for, ex- clusive of her own family, we were but five." She continued to exercise her power of reading and reciting long after the date of this letter, even till within a few days of her death, although her health had long been in a declining state.* She died at length on the 8th of June, 1831, after a few hours of acute suffering. She had lived nearly seventy-six years, of which forty-six were spent in the constant presence and service of the public. She was an honor to her profession, which was more honored and honorable in her person and " family than it ever was before, or will be hereafter, till the stage becomes something very different from what it now is. And, since it has pleased some writers (who apparently knew as little of her real situation as of her real character) to lament over the misfortune of this celebrated woman, in having survived all * The last play she read aloud was Henry V. only ten days be- fcre she lied 474 MRS. SIDDONS. her children, &c. &c., it may be interesting to add that, a short time before her death, she was seated in a room in her own house, when about thirty of her young relatives, children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, were assembled, and looked on while they were dancing, with great and evi- dent pleasure : and that her surviving daughter, Cecilia Siddons,* who had been, for many years, the inseparable friend and companion of her mother, attended upon her with truly filial devo- tion and reverence to the last moment of existence. Her admirers may, therefore, console themselves with the idea that in " love, obedience, troops of friends," as well as affluence and fame, she had " all that should accompany old age." She died full of years and honors ; having enjoyed, in her long life, as much glory and prosperity as any mor- tal could expect : having imparted more intense and general pleasure than ever mortal did ; and having paid the tribute of mortality in such suffer- ing and sorrow as wait on the Avidowed wife and the bereaved mother. If* with such rare natural gifts were blended some human infirmities ; if the cultivation of the imaginative far above the per- ceptive faculties, hazarded her individual happi- ness ; if in the course of a professional career of unexampled continuance and splendor, the love of praise ever degenerated into the appetite for applause ; if the worshipped actress languished * Now Mrs. George Combe. MRS. SIDDONS. 475 out of her atmosphere of incense, -is this to be made matter of wonder or of ill-natured comment ? Did ever any human being escape more intacte in person and mind from the fiery furnace of popular admiration ? Let us remember the severity of the ordeal to which she was exposed ; the hard lot of those who pass their lives in the full-noon glare of public observation, where every speck is noted 1 What a difference too, between the aspiration after immortality and the pursuit of celebrity ! The noise of distant and future fame is like the sound of the far-off sea, and the mingled roll of its multi- tudinous waves, which, as it swells on the ear, ele- vates the soul with a sublime emotion ; but present and loud applause, flung continually in one's face, is like the noisy dash of the surf upor the rock, and it requires the firmness of the ro^.k tc bear it. SKETCHES OF FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. INTRODUCTION AND NOTES TO MR. JOHN HAYTEB'8 SKETCHES OF FANNY KEMBLE, LN THE CHARACTKB OF JULIET.* " Non place a lei che innumerabil turba Viva in atto di fuor, morta di dentro, Le applauda a caso, e mano a man pereuota; Ne si rallegra se le rozri voci Volgano a lei quelle infiniti lodi Ma la possanza del divino ingegno, Vita di dentro." IT would be doing an injustice to the author of these sketches, and something worse than injustice to her who is the subject of them, should more be expected than the pencil could possibly convey, and more required than the artist ever intended to execute. Their merit consists in their fidelity, as far as they go ; their interest in conveying a lively and distinct idea of some immediate and transient * These sketches, once intended for publication, are now in foe possession of Lord Francis Egerton. The introduction and aotes were written in March, 1830 the conclusion in March, 1834. i tf ANN'S KEMBLE IN JULIET. 47? elfects of grace and expression. They do not assume to be portraits of Miss Kemble ; they are merely a series of rapid outlines, caught from her action, and exhibiting, at the first glance, just so much of the individual and peculiar character she has thrown into her impersonation of Juliet, as at once to be recognized by those who have seen her To them alone these isolated passages linked to- gether in the imagination by all the intervening graces of attitude and sentiment, by the recollec- tion of a countenance where the kindled soul looks out through every feature, and of a voice whose tones tremble into one's very heart will give some faint reflection of the effect produced by the whole of this beautiful piece of acting, or rather of nature, for here " each seems either." It will be allowed, even by the most enthusiastic lover of painting, that the merely imitative arts can do but feeble justice to the powers of a fine actress ; for what graphic skill can fix the evanescent shades of feeling as they melt one into another ? " What fine chisel could ever yet cut breath? " and yet even those who have not witnessed and may never witness Miss Kemble's performance, to whom her name alone can be borne through long intervals of space and time, will not regard these little sketches without curiosity and interest. If any one had thought of transferring to paper a connected series of some of the awe-commanding gestures of Mrs. Siddons in one of her great parts 47fc FANNY" KEMBLE IN JULIET. " caught (flying) some of the inimitable graces of movement and attitude, and sparkling effects oi manner, with which Mrs. Charles Kernble once enchanted the world, with what avidity would they now be sought ! they would have served as jtudies for their successors in art to the end of time. All the fine arts, poetry excepted, possess a limited range of power. Painting and sculpture can convey none of the graces that belong to movement and sound: music can suggest vague sentiments and feelings, but it cannot express inci- dent, or situation, or form, or colour. Poetry alone grasps an unlimited sceptre, rules over the whole visible and intellectual universe, and knows no hounds but those of human genius. And it is here that tragic acting, considered in its perfec- tion, and in its relation to the fine arts, is allied to poetry, or rather is itself living, breathing poetry ; made sensible in a degree to the hardest and dull- est minds, seizing on the dormant sympathies of our nature, and dismissing us again to the cares of this " working-day world," if not very much wiser, or better, or happier, at least enabled to digest with less bitterness the mixture of our good and evil days. But in the midst of the just enthusiasm which a great actor or actress excites, so long as they exist to minister to our delight ; in the midst of that atmosphere of light and life they shed around them, it is a common subject of repining that suci FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 479 glory should be so transient ; that an art requiring in its perfection such a rare combination of mental and external qualities, can leave behind no perma- nent monument of its own excellence, but must de- pend on the other fine arts for all it can claim of immortality : that Garrick, for instance, has be- come a name no more his fame the echo of an echo ! that Mrs. Siddons herself has bequeathed to posterity only a pictured semblance ; that when the voice of Pasta is heard no longer upon earth, the utmost pomp of words can only attest her powers ! The painter and the poet, struggling through obscurity to the heights of fame, and con- suming a life in the pursuit of (perhaps) posthu- mous celebrity, may say to the sublime actress, " Thou in thy generation hast had thy meed ; we have waited patiently for ours : thou art vanished like a lost star from the firmament, into the ' un- comfortable night of nothing'; we have left the light of our souls behind us, and survive to ' bless- ings and eternal praise!'" And why should it not be so ? Were it otherwise, the even-handed distribution of the best gifts of Heaven among fa- vored mortals might with reason be impugned. Shall the young spirit u dampt by the necessity of oblivion " disdain what is attainable because it can not grasp all ? Conceive for a moment the situa tion of a woman, in the prime and bloom of exist ence, with all her youthful enthusiasm, her unworn feelings fresh about her, privileged to step forth for a short space out of the bounds of common life, 480 FANSY KEMBLE IN JULIET. without overstepping the modesty of her feminine nature, permitted to cast off for a while, unre- proved and unrestrained, the conventional tram mels of form and manner; and called upon tc realize in her own presence and person the divin est dreams of poetry and romance ; to send fortL in a word a glance, the electric flash which it/ felt through a thousand bosoms at once, till every heart beats the same measure with her own I Is there nothing in all this to countervail the dangers, the evils, and the vicissitudes attendant on thia splendid and public exercise of talent ? It may possibly become, in time, a thing of habitude ; it may be degraded into a mere besoin de ramour propre a necessary, yet palling excitement : bul in its outset it is surely a triumph far beyond the mere intoxication of personal vanity ; and to the very last, it must be deemed a magnificent and an enviable power. It was difficult to select for graphic delineatioi any particular points from Miss Kemble's repre sentation of Juliet. These drawings may not; perhaps, justify the enthusiasm she excited : but it ought to add to their value rather than detract from it, that the causes. of their imperfection com- prehend the very foundation on which the present and future celebrity of this young actress may 1 said to rest. In the first place, the power by which she seized at once on public admiration and sym- pathy, was not derived from any thing external. It was not founded in the splendor of her hereditary FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 481 pretensions, though in them there was much to fascinate : nor in the departed or fading glories of her race : nor in the remembrance of her mother once the young Euphrosyne of our stage: nor in the name and high talent of her father, with whom, it was once feared the poetical and classical school of acting was destined to perish from the scene : nor in any mere personal advantages, for in these she has been excelled, " Though on her eyelids many graces sit Under the shadow of those even brows:" nor in her extreme youth, and delicacy of figure, which tell so beautifully in the character of Juliet : nor in the acclaim of public favor " To have all eyes Dazzled with admiration, and all tongues Shouting loud praises ; to rob every heart Of love This glory round about her hath thrown beams." But such glory has circled other brows ere now, and left them again " shorn of their beams." No ! her success was founded on a power superior to all these in the power of genius superadded to that moral interest which claimed irresistibly the best sympathies of her audience. The peculiar circumstances and feelings which brought Miss Kemble before the public, contrary (as it is under- stood) to all the previous wishes and intentions of her parents, were such as would have justified &8f 482 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. decided talent, honorable to herself and to hel family. The feeling entertained towards her on this score was really delightful ; it was a species of homage, which, like the quality of mercy, was " twice blessed ; "' blessing those who gave and her who received. It produced a feeling between her- self and the public, which mere admiration on the one hand, and gratified vanity on the other, could not have excited. She strongly felt this, and no change, no reverse, diminished her feeling of the kindness with which she had once been received ; but her own fervid genius and sensibility did as much for her. She was herself a -poetess ; her mind claimed a natural affinity with all that is feeling, passionate, and imaginative ; not her voice only, but her soul and ear were attuned to the harmony of verse ; and hence she gave forth the poetry of such parts as Juliet and Portia with an intense and familiar power, as though every line and sentiment in Shakspeare had been early trans- planted into her heart, had long been brooded over in silence, watered with her tears, to burst forth at last, like the spontaneous and native growth of her own soul. An excellent critic of our own day has said, that " poetical enthusiasm is the rarest faculty among players : " if so, it cannot be too highly valued. Fanny Kemble possessed this rare faculty ; and in it, a power that cannot be taught, or analyzed, or feigned, or put on and off with her tragic drapery ; it pervaded all she was called upon to do. It was this which in the Grecian FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET 488 Daughter made her look and step so like a young Muse , which enabled her, by a single glance a tonea gesture to elevate the character far above the language and exalt the most common-place declamation into power and passion. The indis- putable fact, that she appeared on the stage without any previous study or tuition, ought in justice to her to be generally known ; it is most certain that she was not nineteen when she made her first appearance, and that six weeks before her debut there was no more thought of her becoming an actress, than of her becoming an empress. The assertion must appear superfluous to those who have seen her ; for what teaching, or what artificial aids, could endue her with the advantages just described ? u unless Philosophy could make a Ju- liet ! " or what power of pencil, though it were dipped in the rainbow and tempered in the sun- beams, could convey this bright intelligence, or justify the enthusiasm with which it is hailed by her audience ? There is a second difficulty which the artist has had to contend with, not less honora- ble to the actress ; the charm of her impersonation of Juliet consisted not so much in any particular points, as in the general conception of the whole part, and in the sustained preservation and gradual development of the individual character, from the first scene to the last. Where the merit lies in the beautiful gradations of feeling, succeeding each other like waves of the sea, till the flood of passion Dwells and towers and sweeps away all perceptible 484 FAXNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. distinctions, the pencil must necessarily be at fault for as Madame de Stael says truly, "Vinexprimcibh est precisement ce qu'un grand acteur nous fait connaitre" The first drawing is taken from the scene in which Juliet first appears. The actress has little to do, but to look the character ; that is, to convey the impression of a gentle, graceful girl, whose passions and energies lie folded up within her, like gathered lightning in the summer cloud ; all her affections " soft as dews on roses," which must ere long turn to the fire-shower, and blast her to the earth. The moment chosen is immediately after Juliet's expostulation to her garrulous old nurse " I pr'ythee, peace ! " The second, third, and fourth sketches are all from the masquerade scene. The manner in which Juliet receives the parting salutations of the guests has been justly admired ; nothing is denied to genius and taste, aided by natural grace, else it might have been thought impossible to throw so much meaning and sentiment into so common an action. The first curtsy is to Benvolio. The second, to Mercutio, is distinctly marked, as though in him she recognized the chosen friend of Romeo. In the third, to Romeo himself, the bashful sinking of the whole figure, the conscious drooping of the eyelids, and the hurried, yet graceful recovery of herself as she exclaims 11 Who's he that follows there that would not dance? Go &sk his name! " FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 48.5 fcrhich is the subject of the third sketch; and lastly, the ton**, in which she gave the succeeding lines " If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding-bed ! " which seems, in its deep quiet pathos, to anticipate ** some consequence yet hanging in the stars," form one unbroken series of the most beautiful and heartfelt touches of nature. The fourth sketch is from the conclusion of the same scene, where Juliet, with reluctant steps and many a lingering look back on the portal through which her lover has departed, follows her nurse out of the banquet- room. The two next drawings are from the balcony scene, which has usually been considered the crite- rion of the talent of an actress in this part. The first represents the action which accompanied the line "By whose direction found'st thou out this place?" The second is the first " Good night ! " " Sweet, good night ! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower, when next we meet." Fanny Kemble's conception of character and sentiment in this scene was peculiarly and entirely ner own. Juliet, as she properly felt, is a youo 486 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. impassioned Italian girl, who has flung her heart and soul, and existence upon one cast. " She was not made Thro 1 years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth." In this view, the pretty coyness, the playful coquet- terie, which has sometimes been thrown into the balcony scene, by way of making an effect, is out of place, and false to the poetry and feeling of the part ; but in Fanny Kemble's delineation, the earnest, yet bashful tenderness; the timid, yet growing confidence ; the gradual swelling of emo- tion from the depths of the heart, up to that fine burst of enthusiastic passion " Swear by thy gracious self, That art the god of my idolatry, And I'll believe thee! " were all as true to the situation and sentiment, as they were beautifully and delicately conveyed. The whole of the speech, " Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face," was in truth " like softest music to attending ears," from the exquisite and various modulation of voice with which it was uttered. Perhaps one of the most beautiful and entirely original points in the whole scene, was the accent and gesture with which she gave the lines - FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 487 " Eomeo, doff thy name ; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself! " The grace and abandon in the manner, and the softness of accent, which imparted a new and charming effect to this passage, cannot be expressed in words ; and it was so delicately touched, and so transitory, so dependent, like a beautiful chord in music, on that which prepared and followed it, that it was found impossible to seize and fix it in a drawing. From the first scene with the nurse, two draw- ings have been made. The idea of Juliet discov- ered as the curtain rises, gazing from the window, and watching for the return of her confidante, is perfectly new. The attitude (or more properly, one of her attitudes, for they are various as they are graceful and appropriate,) is given in the seventh sketch, and the artist has conveyed it with peculiar grace and truth. The action chosen for the eighth drawing occurs immediately after Juliet's little moment of petulance, (so justly provoked,) and before she utters in a caressing tone, 4i Come, what says Iloineo ? " The first speech in this scene, " 0, she is lame ! love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, Driving back shadows over low'ring hi'ls: Therefore do nimble-pinion' d doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings,'* and th3 soliloquy in the second scene of the third 188 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. act, " Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds ! " in which there is no particular point of dramatic effect to be made, are instances of that innate sense of poetical harmony, which enabled her to impart the most exquisite pleasure, merely by her feeling, graceful, animated delivery of these beautiful lines. The most musical intonation of voice, the happiest emphasis, and the utmost refinement, as well as the most expressive grace of action, were here com- bined to carry passion and poetry at once and vividly to the heart: but this perfect triumph of illusion is more than painting could convey. The ninth and tenth sketches are from the second scene with the nurse, called in theatrical phrase " the Banishment Scene." One of the grandest and most impressive passages in the whole perform- ance was Juliet's reply to her nurse. " Nurse. Shame come to Eomeo ! Juliet. Blister' d be thy tongue, For such a wish ! he was not born to shame : Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit; For 'tis a throne where honor may be crown' d Sole monarch of the universal earth." The loftiness of look and gesture with which she pronounced the last line, cannot be forgotten : but the effect consisted so much in the action of the arm, as she stepped across the stage, and in the kindling eye and brow, rather than in the attitude only, that it could not well be conveyed in a draw- ing. The first point selected is from the passage, FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 489 " O break, my heart ! poor bankrupt, break at once ! " in which the gesture is full of expressive and pathetic grace. The tenth drawing represents the action which accompanied her exclamation, " Tybalt is dead and Romeo banished ! " The tone of piercing anguish in which she pronounced the last word, banished, and then threw herself into the arms of her nurse, in all the helplessness of utter desolation, formed one of the finest passages in her performance. The scene in which the lovers part, called the Garden Scene, follows; and the passage selected is " Art thou gone so, my love, my lord, my friend? 1 must hear from thee every day i' the hour ! " The subdued and tremulous intonation with which all the speeches in this scene were given, as though the voice were broken and exhausted with exces- sive weeping ; and the manner in which she still, though half insensible in her nurse's arms, signed a last farewell to her husband, were among the most delicate and original beauties of the charac- ter. The two next drawings are from the fifth scene of the third act. The latter part of this scene con- tained many new and beautiful touches of feeling which originated with Miss Kemble herself. It is here that the real character of Juliet is first devel- oped; it is here that, abandoned by the whole world, and left to struggle alone with her fearfuJ 190 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. destiny, the high-souled and devoted woman tako place of the tender, trembling girl. The confiding, helpless anguish with which she at first throws her self upon her nurse (" Some comfort, nurse ! ") the gradual relaxing of her embrace, as the old woman counsels her to forget Romeo and marrj Paris the tone in which she utters the question " Speakest thou from thy heart? Nurse. From my soul too, Or else beshrew them both!" And then the gathering up of herself with all the majesty of offended virtue, as she pronounces that grand " Amen ! " the effect of which was felt in every bosom these were revelations of beauty and feeling which we owed to Fanny Kemble alone. They were points which had never before been felt or conveyed in the same manner. The shrinking up wholly into herself, and the concentrated scorn with which she uttered the lines " Go, counsellor ! Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain !" are very spiritedly given in the fourteenth draw- ing. From the scene with the friar, in the fourth act, the action selected is where she grasps her poniard with the resolution of despair " Give me some present counsel ; or, behold, 'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the umpire! " FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET 4&1 One of the most original effects of feeling and genius in the whole play occurred in the course of this scene ; but, unfortunately, it was not found susceptible of graphic delineation. It was the pe- culiar manner with which she uttered the words " Are you at leisure, holy father, now ? Or shall I come to you at evening mass? " The question in itself is nothing ; but what a vol- ume of misery and dread suspense was in that look with which she turned from Paris to the friar, and the tone in which she uttered those simple words 1 This was beyond the pencil's art to convey, and could but be felt and remembered. The next drawing is therefore from the scene in which she drinks the sleeping potion. The idea of speaking the first part of the soliloquy seated, and with the calmness of one settled and bent up "to act a dis- mal scene alone," until her fixed meditation on the fearful issue, and the horrible images crowding on her mind, work her up to gradual frenzy, was new, and originated with Miss Kemble. The attitude expressed in the drawing " O look, methinks I see my cousin's ghost," was always hailed with an excess of enthusiasm of which I thought many i*ti,rts of her performance far more deserving. The eighteenth sketch is from the sleeping scene ; and the last two drawings are from the tomb scene. The merits of this last scene were chiefly those of ckttitu le, look, and manner ; and the whole were at once so graceful and beautiful, as well as terribly 492 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. impressive, that they afforded some relief from thf horrors of the situation, and the ravings of Romeo The alteration of Shakspeare, in the last act, ia certainly founded on the historical tale of the Giu- lietta : but though the circumstances are borrowed yet the spirit in which they are related by the an- cient novelist, has not been taken into considera- tion by those who manufactured this additional scene of superfluous horror.* In Juliet's death Miss Kemble seized an original idea, and worked it up with the most powerful and beautiful effect ; but this effect consisted not so much in one atti- tude or look, as in a progressive series of action and expression, so true so painfully true, tlut as one of the chief beauties was the rapidity vvlih which the whole passed from the fascinated yet aching sight the artist has relinquished ai*y at- tempt to fix it on paper. # # # Fanny Kemble made her first appearance in the character of Juliet, October 6th, 1829, and bid a last farewell to her London audience in May, 1832 : during these three years she played through a very diversified range of parts, both in tragedy and high comedy.f Sustained by her native genius and good * The alteration and interpolations are bj Garrick, of ,vhom it WAS said and believed, that " he never read through a whole play of Shakspeare's except with some nefarious design of cutting and dangling it." t She played in London the following parts pue^e^ively : Juliet, Belvidera, the Grecian Daughter, Mrs. Bever' , Portia Isabella, Lady Townly, Calista, Bianca, Beatrice, v-.tsttace FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 493 taste, anJ by the kindly feeling of her audience, she could not be said to have failed in any, not even in those which her inexperience and extreme youth rendered premature, to say the least. She never except in one or two instances* had a voice in the selection of her parts, which, I think, was in some cases exceedingly injudicious, as far as her individ- ual powers were concerned. I know that she played in several contrary to her own opinion, taste, and judgment, and from a principle of duty. Not duty only, but a feeling of delicacy, natural to a generous mind, which disdained the appearance of presuming on her real power, rendered her do- cile, in some instances, to a degree which I regret- ted while I loved her for it. She had a perception of some of the traditional absurdities of dress, and ridiculous technical anomalies of theatrical arrange- ments, which she had not power to alter, and which I have seen her endure with wondrous good tem- per. Had she remained on the stage, her fine taste Camiola, Lady Teazle, Donna Sol, (in Lord Francis Egerton's translation of Hernani when played before the queen at Bi '<\ge- water House,) Queen Katherine, Catherine of Oleves, Louk ol Savoy, in Francis I., Lady Macbeth, Julia in the Hunchback. * The only parts which, to my knowledge, she chose for her- self, were Portia, Camiola, and Julia in the Hunchback. She was accused of having declined playing Inez de Castro in Miss Mitiord a tragedy, and I heard her repel that accusation very rndignantly. e>he added-' Setting aside my respect fov Miss Mitford, I never, on principle, have refused a part. It is uiy business to do whatever is, deemed advantageous to the whole concern, to do as much good as I can; not to think of myself If they bid mo acH Scrubb, I would act it ! " 494 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. and original and powerful mind would have carried the public with her in some things which she con- templated : for instance, she had an idea of restor- ing King Lear, as originally written by Shakspeare, and playing the real Cordelia to her father's Lear, When left to her own judgment, she ever thought more of what was worthy and beautiful in itself, &an she calculated on the amount of vulgar ap- plause it might attract, or the sums it might bring to the treasury. Thus, for her first benefit she played Portia, a character which no vain, self-con- fident actress would have selected for such an occa- sion, because, as the play is now performed, the part is comparatively short, is always considered of secondary importance, and affords but few effective points : this was represented to her ; but she per- sisted in her choice : and how she played it out of her own heart and soul ! how she ravelled in the poetry of- the part, with a conscious sense and en- joyment of its beauty, which was communicated to her audience ! Self, after the first tremor, was for- gotten, and vanity lost in her glowing perception of the charm of the character. She lamented over every beautiful line and passage which had been "cut out" by profane hands.* To those which re- * At Dresden and at Frankfort I saw the Merchant of Venice played as it stands in Shakspeare, with all the stately scenes between Portia and her suitors the whole of the character of Jessica the lovely moonlight dialogue between Jessica and Lo- renzo, and the beautiful speeches given to Portia, all which, by tuflferance of an English audience, are omitted on our stage When I confessed to some of the great German critics, that tht FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 495 mained, the rich and mellow tones of her voice gave added power, blending with the music of the verse. It was by her own earnest wish that she played Camiola, in Massinger's Maid of Honor, and this was certainly one of her most exquisite and most finished parts ; but the quiet elegance, the perfect delicacy of the delineation were never ap- preciated. She was aware of this : she said, " The first rows of the pit, and the first few boxes will understand me ; for the rest of that great theatre, I ought to play as they paint the scenes in great splashes of black and white." Bianca, in Mill- man's Fazio, was another of her finest parts, and as it contained more stage effect, it told more with the public, in this character she certainly took even her greatest admirers by surprise. The ex- pression of slumbering passion, and its gradual development, was so fervently portrayed, and yet so nicely shaded; the frenzy of jealousy, and the alienation of intellect, so admirably discriminated, and so powerfully given, that when the first emo- tions had subsided, not admiration only, but wonder seized upon her audience : nor shall I easily forget the pale composure with which she bore this one of her most intoxicating triumphs. Merchant of Venice, Romeo, and Juliet, King Lear, &c. were per- formed in England, not only with important omissions of the text, but with absolute alterations, affecting equally the truth ol character, and the construction of the story, they looked at me, at first, a* if half incredulous, and their perception of the bar- barism, as well as the absurdity, was so forcibly expressed on their countenances, and their contempt so justifiable, that i con fcss I felt ashamed for my countrymen. 496 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. In Constance, in Queen Katherine, in Lady Macbeth, the want of amplitude and maturity of person, of physical weight and power, and a defi- ciency both of experience and self-confidence, were against her ; but her conception of character wag so true, and her personal resemblance to her aunt KO striking, in spite of her comparatively diminutive features and figure, that one of the best and severest of our dramatic critics said, " it was like looking at Mrs. Siddons through the wrong end of an opera-glass." * She had conceived the idea of giving quite a new reading, which undoubtedly would have been the true reading, of the character of Katherine of Arragon, and instead of playing it with the splendid poetical coloring in which Mrs. Siddons had arrayed it, bring it down to the prosaic delineation which Shakspeare really gave, and * The resemblance was in the brow and eye. \Vhen she was sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence, he said, " These are the eyes of Mrs. Siddons." She said, "You mean like those of Mrs. Sid- dons." " No," he replied, " they are the same eyes, the con- struction is the same, and to draw them is the same thing." I have ever been at a loss for a word which should express the peculiar property of an eye like that of Mrs. Siddons, which could not be called piercing or penetrating, or any thing that gives the idea of searching or acute ; but it was an eye which, in its softest look, and, to a late period of her life, went straight into the depths of the soul as a ray of light finds the bottom of the ocean. Once, when I was conversing with the celebrated German critic, Bbttigar, of Dresden, and he was describing the person of Madame Schirmer, after floundering in a sea of Eng- lish epithets, none of which conveyed his meaning, he at last exclaimed with enthusiasm " Madame ! her eye was perforafr '* ' " 1'ANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 49 / history and Holbein have transmitted to us but the experiment was deemed too hazardous ; and it was so. The public at large would never have understood it. The character of the queen mother, in her own tragedy of Francis L, was another part of which the weight seemed to overwhelm her youthful powers and after the first few nights she ceased to play it. While on the English stage, she never became go far the finished artist as to be independent of her own emotions, her own individual sentiments. It was not only necessary that she should under- stand a character, it was necessary that she should feel it. She invariably excelled in those characters in which her sympathies were awakened. In Juliet, in Portia, in Camiola, in Julia,* (perhaps the most popular of all her parts,) and I believe I may add, in Bianca, she will not soon or easily be surpassed. For the same reason, if she could be said to have failed in any part, it was in that of Calista, which she abhorred, and never, I believe, could comprehend. Isabella! was another part which I think she never really felt ; she never could throw her powers into it. The bald style and the prosaic monotonous misery of the first acts, in which her aunt called forth such torrents of tears, wearied her ; though the tragic of the situa- tions in the last act roused her, and was given most effectively. She had not, at the time she took In the Hunchback. t In the Fatal Marriage 9* US FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIE1. leave of us, conquered the mechanical part of he* profession the last, but not the least necessary department of her art, which it had taken her aunt Siddons seven years, and Pasta almost as long, to achieve ; she was too much under the influence of her own nerves and moods of feeling ; the warm "blushes, the hot tears, the sob, the tremor, were at times too real. After playing in Mrs. Beverly, Bianca, and Julia, the physical suffering and ex- citement were sometimes most painful ; and the performance of Constance actually deprived her of her hearing for several hours, and rendered her own voice inaudible to her ; this, it will be allowed, was paying somewhat dear for her laurels, even though she had valued them more than in truth she 3ver did. Fanny Kemble, as one of a gifted race, " the atest born of all Olympus' faded hierarchy," had really a just pride in the professional distinction of her family. She was proud of being a Kemble, and not insensible to the idea of treading in the steps of her aunt. But she had seen the stage desecrated, and never for a moment indulged the thought that she was destined to regenerate it. She felt truly her own position. Her ambition was not professional. She had always the con- sciousness of a power of which she has already given evidence to ensure to herself a higher, a more real immortality than that which the stage San bestow. She had a very high idea, abstractedly of the capabilities of her art ; but the native ele* xN^Ti KEMBLE IN JULIET. 49J gance of ^cr mind, her poetical temperament, her profound sense of the serious ideal, rendered her extremely, and at times painfully sensitive, to the prosaic drawbacks which attended its exercise in public, and her strong understanding showed her its possible evils. She feared for the effect that incessant praise, incessant excitement, might at length produce on her temper. " I am in dismay," said she, (I give her own words,) " when I think that all this may become necessary to me. Could I be sure of retaining my love for higher and better occupations, and my desire for a nobler, though more distant fame, I should not have these apprehensions ; but I am cut off by constant labor from those pursuits which I love and honor, and neither they, nor any of our capabilities, can out- live long neglect and disuse." Thus she felt, and thus she expressed herself at the age of twenty, and even while enjoying her success with a true girlish buoyancy of spirit, the more delightful, the more interesting, inasmuch at it seemed to tremble at itself. I have actually heard her reproached for not being sufficiently elated and excited by the public homage ; but, the truth is, she was grateful for praise, rather than intoxicated by it more pleased with her success than proud of it,* " I r I recollect being present when some one was repeating to ^er a very high-flowu and enthusiastic eulogy, of which she was the subject. She listened very quietly, and then said with in- describable naivete ' Perhaps I ought to blush to have ail these things thus repeated to my face ; but the truth is, I can 500 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. dare not," said she, "feel all I could feel: I nrurt watch myself." And by a more exact attention to her religious duties, and by giving as much time as possible to the cultivation of many resources a ad accomplishments, she endeavored to preserve the command over her own faculties, and the even balance of her mind. I am persuaded that this lofty tone of feeling, this mixture of self-subjection and self-respect, gave to her general deportment on the stage that indescribable charm, quite apar* from any grace of person or action, which all wh have seen her must have felt, and none can hava forgotten. And now, what shall I say more ? If I dared to violate the sacredness of private intercourse, 1 could indeed say much much more. That sh came forward and devoted herself for her family in times of trial and trouble that twice she saved them from ruin that she has achieved two for- tunes, besides a brilliant fame, and by her talents won independence for herself and those she loved, and that she has done all this before the age of five-and-twenty, is known to many ; but few are aware how much more admirable, more respectable, than any of her mental gifts and her well-earned distinction, were the moral strength with which she not. I cannot, by any effort of my own imagination, see my elf as people speak of me. It gives no reflection back to my mind. I cannot fancy myself like this. All I can clear!, understand is, that you and every body are very much I leased Und I am vei^' glad nf >t ! i?ANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. 501 sustained the severest ordeal to which a youthful character could be exposed; the simplicity with jyhich she endured half recoiling the incessant adulation which beset her from morn to night ; * her self-command in success ; her gentle dignity in reverse ; her straightforward integrity, which knew no turning nor shadow of turning ; her noble spirit, which disdained all petty rivalry; her earnest Bense of religion, " to which alone she trusted to keep her right." f Suddenly she became the idol of the public ; suddenly she was transplanted into a sphere of society, where, as long as she could administer excitement to fashionable inanity, she was worshipped. She carried into those circles all the freshness of her vigorous and poetical mind all the unworn feelings of her young heart. So much genuine simplicity, such perfect innocence and modesty, allied to such rare powers, and to an habitual familiarity with the language of poetry and the delineation of passion, was not there under- stood, or rather, was mis-understood and no wonder ! To the blase men, the vapid girls, and * It must be remembered that it was not only fashionable in- cense and public applause ; it was the open enthusiastic admira- tion of such men as Sir Walter Scott, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Moore, Rogers, Campbell, Barry Cornwall, and others of great name, who brought rich flattery in prose and in verse, and laid it at her feet. Just before s&e came on the stage she had spent about a year in Scotland with her excellent relative and friend Mrs. Henry Siddoris, and always referred to this period as he* '* Sabbatical year, granted to her to prepare her mind and princi pies for this great trial." * Her own Words. 502 FANNY KEMBLE IN JULIET. artificial women, who then surrounded her, hei generous feelings, " when the bright soul broke forth on every side," appeared mere acting ; they were indeed constrained to believe it such ; for if for a moment they had deemed it all real, it must have forced on them comparisons by no means favorable to themselves. If, under these circum- stances, her quick sens>bility to pleasurable emotion of all kinds, and her ready sympathy with all the external refinement, splendor, and luxury of aris- tocratic life, conspired for a moment to dazzle her Pagination, she recovered herself immediately, hnd from first to last, her warm and strong affec- tions, the moral texture of her character; the re~ finement, which was as native to her mind, " as fragrance to the rose," remained unimpaired. These a rich dower she is about to carry into the shades of domestic life. Another land will be htr suture home. By another name shall fame speak of her, who was endeared to us as FANNY KEMBLE : and she, who with no steady hand pens this slight tribute to the virtues she loved, bids to fchat name farewell 1 T HIS BOOK '.OO N THE U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES