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SHELLEY'S NOTES ON SCULPTURES &c.
The issue of this booh is confined to twenty-five copies on Wltat-
tnaris hand-made paper and fifty on ordinary paper. All are
numbered. This is No, /[% .
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME AND
FLORENCE TOGETHER WITH A LU-
CIANIC FRAGMENT AND A CRITI-
CISM OF PEACOCK'S POEM "RHO-
DODAPHNE >> BY PERCY BYSSIIE
SHELLEY EDITED BY HARRY BUX-
TON FORM AN
LONDON PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBU-
TION MDCCCLXXIX
PREFACE.
Of the following Notes on Sculptures in Rome and
Florence, though only eight were given in the Essays &c.
(1840), eleven have already appeared in print. The
rest are from a MS. Note-book, the order of which is
here preserved in preference to that adopted by Med-
win in The Shelley Papers and followed by Mrs. Shelley.
In the preface to the 1840 collection, Mrs. Shelley says
of certain of the Fragments, " Small portions of these and
other Essays were published by Captain Medwin in a
newspaper. Generally speaking, his extracts are incor-
rect and incomplete. I must except the Essay on Love,
and Remarks on some of the Statues of the Gallery of
Florence, however, as they appeared there, from the blame
of these defects." My own impression is that the reason
for this exception was negative, that Mrs. Shelley had
not the original Note-books by her. Medwin was
notoriously incapable of perfect accuracy ; but beyond
the results of that incapacity, we discern in the versions
given by him, and generally adopted implicitly by Mrs.
vi PREFACE.
Shelley, signs of tampering, as any student of Shelley
will judge by noting the variations given in the follow-
ing pages. The variations between The Shelley Papers
and the Essays, in regard to the eight Notes printed in
both, affect only five words and some dozen and a half
stops, as far as I can find ; and only one change is other
than the printer would be likely to make. Med win says
(Shelley Papers, page 55), " Shelley, while at Florence,
passed much of his time in the gallery, where, after his
severe mental labours, his imagination reposed and
luxuriated amid the divine creations of the Greeks. The
Niobe, the Venus Anadyomine, the group of Bacchus and
Ampelus, were the subjects of his inexhaustible and in-
satiable admiration. On these I have heard him expatiate
with all the eloquence of poetic enthusiasm. He had
made ample notes on the wonders of art in this gallery,
from which, on my leaving Pisa, he allowed me to make
extracts, far surpassing in eloquence anything Winkelman
has left on this subject." In his life of Shelley ^Vol. I,
page 351), Med win records that these notes were " thrown
off in the gallery, in a burst of enthusiasm." He does
not say that he made extracts from a similar Note-book
on statues at Eome ; but most likely he did ; and the
two books were probably continuous ; as the Notes at the
opening of the book in my possession are Eoman, and
those on the Arch of Titus and the Laocoon, given by
Medwin, are of course also Eoman. For convenience of
identification, the particular printed sources are indicated
in separate foot-notes in this volume. All the Notes on
Sculptures not so distinguished are from the MS. book.
PREFACE. Vll
Tlie Elysian Fields is printed from a MS. in Shelley's
writing, so headed, in my possession ; I presume it
belongs to about the same period as the Marlow Pam-
phlets. In a letter dated the 20th of January, 1821
(SMley Memorials, page 136), Shelley thus refers to a
paper by Archdeacon Hare in Oilier 's Literary Miscellany :
" I was immeasurably amused by the quotation from
Schlegel, about the way in which the popular faith is
destroyed — first the Devil, then the Holy Ghost, then
God the Father. I had written a Lucianic essay to prove
the same thing." Mr. Rossetti (Poetical Works, 1878,
Vol. I, page 150) thinks the reference is to the Essay on
Devils, withdrawn after being prepared for publication
with the Essays, Letters &c. (1840), and never yet pub-
lished. It does not seem to me certain that Shelley
alludes to that essay ; but I feel pretty confident that
The Elysian Fields is a portion of a Lucianic epistle
— from some Englishman of political eminence, dead
before* 1820, to, perhaps, the Princess Charlotte. The
exposition foreshadowed in the final paragraph might well
have included a view of the decay of popular belief.
Those who are intimately familiar with the political his-
tory and literature of England will probably be able to
identify the person represented. It is not unlikely to
be Charles Fox, judging from the juxtaposition of his
name, in the Address to the Lrish People, with sentiments
much the same as those set forth in the third paragraph
of The Elysian Fields. Compare that paragraph with
the relative passage in the Address as reprinted by Mr.
MacCarthy (Shelley s Early Life, page 198).
Viil PEEFACE.
In writing to Peacock on the 20th of April, 1818,
Shelley says, " You tell me nothing of Khododaphne, a
book from which, I confess, I expected extraordinary
success." Mr. Eossetti (Poetical Works, 1878, Vol. I;
page 150) mentions as a minor work of 1818, " now
perhaps lost/' a criticism by Shelley of that poem ; and
I presume it was written in the early part of the year.
It seems to have been meant for a newspaper or maga-
zine article, and sent to Leigh Hunt, among whose papers
it was found by Mr. Townshend Mayer— not, unfor-
tunately, quite complete. It was either dictated to or
transcribed by Mrs. Shelley ; but the MS., mainly in her
writing, has been carefully revised and interpolated by
Shelley. It is headed, in review fashion, Elwdodaph7ie
or the Thessalian Spell : a Poem — Hookhams* That book
though published anonymously in 1818, is acknowledged
in the Collected Works of Thomas Love Peacock, pub-
lished in 1875, in three volumes, by Messrs. R Bentley
& Sons.
H. Buxton Forman.
38, Marlbohouou Hill,
St. John's Wood, December 1879.
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME
AND FLORENCE.
NOTES ON SCULPTURES IN ROME AND
FLORENCE.
EOME.
THE ARCH OF TITUS. 1
On the inner compartment of the Arch of Titus, is
sculptured, in deep relief, the desolation of a city. On
one side, the walls of the Temple, split by the fury of
conflagrations, hang tottering in the act of ruin. The
accompaniments of a town taken by assault, matrons
and virgins and children and old men gathered into
groups, and the rapine and licence of a barbarous and
enraged soldiery, are imaged in the distance. The
1 The Arch of Titus appealed in this and the Laocoon Note were
The Athmonm for the 29th of Sep- copied by Medwin from a Note-
tember, 1832, and afterwards in book which Shelley used in Rome ;
The Shelley Papers. Mrs. Shelley and they must of course have pre-
reprinted it (Essays &c, 1840, Vol. ceded the three Notes which in the
11, p. 208), as a note to a passage book in my possession precede the
about the same arch in a letter to Florentine series.
Peacock. We may presume that
12 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
foreground is occupied by a procession of the victors,
bearing in their profane hands the holy candlesticks and
the tables of shewbread, and the sacred instruments of
the eternal worship of the Jews. On the opposite side,
the reverse of this sad picture, Titus is represented
standing in a chariot drawn by four horses, crowned with
laurel, and surrounded by the tumultuous numbers of
his triumphant army, and the magistrates, and priests,
and generals, and philosophers, dragged in chains beside
his wheels. Behind him stands a Victory eagle- winged.
The arch is now mouldering into ruins, and the
imagery almost erased by the lapse of fifty generations.
Beyond this obscure monument of Hebrew desolation, is
seen the tomb of the Destroyer's family, now a mountain
of ruins.
The Flavian amphitheatre has become a habitation for
owls and dragons. The power, of whose possession it was
once the type, and of whose departure it is now the
emblem, is become a dream and a memory. Kome is no
more than Jerusalem.
II.
THE LAOCOON. 1
The subject of the Laocoon is a disagreeable one, but
whether we consider the grouping, or the execution,
1 Surely Mrs. Shelley would literally and no more : it will then
have given this Note had the be observed that the excellences
Roman Note-book of her husband dwelt upon are maiuly technical, —
not been lost or mislaid. We are the "execution," the "grouping,"
indebted for it to Med win, who the "anatomical fidelity and
printed it in Vol. I, pp. 352-4 of force." Note the significant quali-
his Life of Shelley. It is essential to fication at p. 34, at the close of the
take Shelley's praises of this group Note on two Statues of Marsyas.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 13
nothing that remains to us of antiquity can surpass it.
it consists of a father and his two sons. Byron thinks
that Laocoon's anguish is absorbed in that of his children,
that a mortal's agony is blending with an immortal's
patience. Not so. Intense physical suffering, against
which he pleads with an upraised countenance of despair,
and appeals with a sense of its injustice, seems the
predominant and overwhelming emotion, and yet there is
a nobleness in the expression, and a majesty that dignifies
torture.
We now come to his children. 1 Their features and
attitudes indicate the excess of the filial love and
devotion that animates them, and swallows up all other
feelings. In the elder of the two, this is particularly
observable. His eyes are fixedly bent on Laocoon- — his
whole soul is with — is a part of that of his father. His
arm extended towards him, not for protection, but from
a wish as if instinctively to afford it, absolutely speaks.
Nothing can be more exquisite than the contour of his
form and face, and the moulding of his lips, that are
half open, as if in the act of — not uttering any unbe-
coming complaint, or prayer or lamentation, which he is
conscious are alike useless — but addressing words of
consolatory tenderness to his unfortunate parent. The
intensity of his bodily torments is only expressed by the
uplifting of his right foot, which he is vainly and
impotently attempting to extricate from the grasp of the
mighty folds in which it is entangled.
In the younger child, surprise, pain, and grief seem to
contend for mastery. He is not yet arrived at an age
' This mode of transition seems suspiciously unlike Shelley.
14 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
when his mind has sufficient self-possession, or fixedness
of reason, to analyse the calamity that is overwhelming
himself and all that is dear to him. He is sick with
pain and horror. We almost seem to hear his shrieks.
His left hand is on the head of the snake, that is burying
its fangs in his side, and the vain and fruitless attempt
he is making to disengage it, increases the effect. Every
limb, every muscle, every vein of Laocoon expresses, with
the fidelity of life, the working of the poison, and the
strained girding round of the inextricable folds, whose
tangling sinuosities are too numerous and complicated to
be followed. No chisel has ever displayed with such
anatomical fidelity and force, the projecting muscles of
the arm, whose hand clenches the neck of the reptile,
almost to strangulation, and the mouth of the enormous
asp, and his terrible fangs widely displayed, in a moment
to penetrate and meet within its victim's heart, make
the spectator of this miracle of sculpture turn away
with shuddering and awe, and doubt the reality of what
he sees.
III.
VASA BORGHESE A PARIGI.
A Bronze cast of the Bas relief — a bacchanalian subject
— a beautiful reference to Unity. Bacchus with a counte-
nance of calm and majestic beauty surrounded by the
tumultuous figures whom the whirlwinds of his Deity
are tossing into all attitudes, like the sun in the midst
of his planets ; power calm amid confusion. — He leans on
a Woman with a lyre within her arms, on whom he looks
with grand yet gentle love. On one side is a Silenus
who has let fall the cup and hangs heavily his vine-
crowned head, supported by another Bacchanal. The
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 15
contrast between the flowing robe which wraps the lower
part of his form, and the soft but more defined outline of
the leg of the Bacchanal who supports him, is in the true
harmony of Art.
IV.
A BRONZE.
A child riding on a swan with a dart in his hand.
V.
A BACCHANAL
in a state of priapism, holding a lion's skin in one
hand, and a flaming torch in the other, with his muscles
starting through his skin, and his hair dishevelled.
VI.
AN ACCOUCHEMENT ; A BAS RELIEF. 1
[PROBABLY THE SIDES OF A SARCOPHAGUS.]
The lady is lying on a rouch, supported by a young
woman, and looking extremely exhausted and thin ; her
hair is flowing* 2 about her shoulders, and she is half-
covered with drapery which falls over the couch.
Her tunic is exactly like a shift, only the sleeves are
longer, coming half way down the upper part of the arm.
An old wrinkled woman, with a cloak over her head, and
an enormously sagacious look, has a most professional
1 So headed in the MS. note- 22nd of September, 1832 ; and it
book. Medwin and Mrs. Shelley was re-printed in The Shelley Papers
headed it "A Bas-relief probably and the Essays, Letters &c.
the Sides of a Sarcophagus"; and a In previous editions, extremely
Medwin added a remark that " this exhausted; her dishevelled hair is
bas-relief is not antique. It is of floating; in the next line on for
the Cinquecento." He first gave orcr; and in the next but one
this Note in The Athenosum for the chemise for shift.
16 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
appearance, and is taking hold of her arm gently with
one hand, and with the other is supporting it. I think
she is feeling her pulse. At the side of the couch sits a
woman as in grief, holding her head in her hands. At
the bottom of the bed is another old woman 1 tearing her
hair, and in the act of screaming out most violently,
which she seems, however, by the rest of her gestures, to
do with the utmost deliberation, as having come to the
conclusion 2 that it was a correct thing to do. Behind is
another old woman of the most ludicrous ugliness, crying
I suppose, with her hands crossed upon her neck. There
is a young woman also lamenting. To the left of the
couch a woman 3 is sitting on the ground, nursing the child,
which is swaddled. 4 Behind her is a woman 5 who
appears to be in the act of rushing in, with dishevelled
hair and violent gestures, and in one hand either 6 a whip
or a thunderbolt. She is probably some emblematic
person, whose 7 personification would be a key to the
whole. What they are all wailing at, I don't 8 know ;
whether the lady is dying, or the father has ordered 9 the
child to be exposed : but if the mother be not dead,
such a tumult would kill a woman in the straw in
these days.
The other compartment or 10 second scene of the drama
' In previous editions, matron. 5 Med win and Mrs. Shelley read
2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read, female.
resolution that it was a correct thing 6 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read
to do so. Behind her is a gossip, of brandishing instead of either,
the most ludicrous ugliness, crying, 7 In previous editions, This h
I suppose, or praying, for her arms probably some emblematic person, the
are crossed upon her neck. There is messenger of death, or a fury, whose
also a fifth setting up a wail. &c.
3 In previous editions, nurse. 8 In former editions, I know not.
4 In previous editions, dandling 9 We read directed for ordered in
the child in her arms, and wholly other editions.
occupied in so doing. The infant is l0 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley printed
swaddled. in the instead of or.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 17
tells the story of the presentation of the child to its
father. An old nurse has it in her 1 arms, and with pro-
fessional and mysterious officiousness is holding it out to
the father. 2 The father, a middle-aged and very
respectable-looking man, perhaps not married above nine
months, is looking with the wonder of a bachelor upon
the strange little being which once was himself ; his
hands are clasped, and his brow wrinkled up with a kind
of inexperienced wonder, and he has gathered up between
his arms the folds of his cloke, an emblem of the
gathering up of all his faculties to understand so unusual
a circumstance.
An old man is standing behind 3 him, probably his
own father, with some curiosity and much tenderness
in his looks, and around are collected a host of his
relations, of whom the youngest seem the most uncon-
cerned. 4 It is altogether an admirable piece quite in
the spirit of the comedies of Terence, 5 though I confess
I am totally at a loss to comprehend the cause of all
that tumult visible in the first scene.
VII.
A MERCURY.
A bronze Mercury standing on the wind.
1 In previous editions An old clasped, and he is gathering up be-
man has it in his. tween his arms the folds of his
2 The rest of this paragraph varies cloak ; an emblem of his gathering
considerably from the chastened up all his faculties to understand
text of Med win : "The father, a the tale the gossip is bringing."
middle-aged and very respectable- 3 In former editions beside.
looking man, perhaps not long 4 Med win and Mrs. Shelley here
married, is looking with the ad- read of whom the youngest, a ho ml -
miration of a bachelor on his first some girl, seems the least concerned.
child, and perhaps thinking, that 5 In previous editions the final
he was once such a strange little confession is wanting,
creature himself. His hands are
18 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
VIII.
AN OX.
A most admirable ox in bronze. 1
IX.
AN URN.
An urn whose ansae are formed of the horned faces of
Ammonian Jove, and oversculptured with labyrinth work
of leaves and flowers and buds and strange looking
insects, and a tablet with this inscription
TGN ArAGQN H MNHMH AEI 0AAHS.
" The memory of the good is ever green."
And art thou then forgotten?
X.
VIEW FROM THE PITTI GARDENS. 2
You see below, Florence a smokeless city, its domes
and spires occupying the vale ; and beyond to the right
the Apennines, whose base extends even to the walls, 3
and whose summits were intersected with ashen-coloured
clouds. The green vallies of these mountains which
gently unfold themselves upon the plain, and the interven-
1 This note is followed in the this sketch (Life of Shelley, Vol.
MS. Note-book by one on the I, p. 314). His transcript appears
Demon of Socrates — a memoran- to have been at least as careless as
dum of a thought which would usual. I have only noted the more
seem to have occurred to Shelley significant variations.
while in the Gallery among the 3 Medwin omits the rest of this
statues. sentence, to clouds, and, further
2 Not from the Boboli Gardens, on, the words now full with the
as stated by Medwin in introducing winter rains.
IN HOME AND FLORENCE. 19
ing hills covered with vineyards and olive plantations are
occupied by the villas which are as it were another city;
a Babylon of palaces and gardens. In the midst of the
picture rolls the Arno, now full with the winter rains,
through woods, and bounded by the aerial snow and
summits of the Lucchese Apennines. On the left 1 a
magnificent buttress of lofty craggy hills, overgrown
with wilderness, juts out in many shapes over a lovely
vale, and approaches the walls of the city. Cascini and
Ville 2 occupy the pinnacles and the abutments of those
hills, over which is seen at intervals the a3therial moun-
tain line 3 hoary with snow and intersected by clouds.
The vale below is eovered with cypress groves whose
obeliskine forms of intense green pierce the grey shadow
of the wintry hill that overhangs 4 them. — The cypresses
too of the garden form a magnificent foreground of ac-
cumulated verdure ; pyramids of dark leaves and shining
cones 5 rising out of a mass, beneath which were cut like
caverns recesses which conducted into walks* — The
Cathedral with its grey marble Campanile and the other
domes and spires of Florence were at our feet
XL
VICTORY.
Lips of wisdom and arch yet sublime tenderness, a
simple yet profound expression of . . .
1 In Med win's version, snewy green and omits leaves and shining
heights of the Apennines. On the cones,
right &c. 6 The final sentence is omitted
8 Not Caacini and other villages, in Medwin's version,
as in Medwin's book. 7 Between this Note and the next
3 Med win gives aerial mown,- in the MS. Note-book occur the
tains. following poetic jottings : —
* Not overlooks, as printed by Hi8 love and Byinpathy> his ^jish love
Medwin. His enmity with Life
Med win reads pyramids of dark Hi« admiration of the bidden energies.
B 2
20 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
XII.
A BOY. 1
A graceful boy with the skin of a wild beast hanging
on his shoulders and a bunch of grapes in his hand. He
is crowned with a vine wreath and buds and grapes :
the legs are modern, and the face has not an antique
but it expresses cheerful and earnest . . .
XIII.
A PRIESTESS.
The drapery beautifully expressed, the face bad.
XIV.
AN ATHLETE.
(Curse these fig leaves ; why is a round tin thing more
decent than a cylindrical marble one ?) An exceedingly
fine statue — full of graceful strength; the countenance
full of sweetness and strength. Its attitude with a staff
lifted in one hand and some in the other,
expresses serene dignity and power ; a personification in
the firmness and lightness of its form of that perfection
of manhood when the will can be freely communicated to
every fibre of the body. The muscles are represented
how differently from a statue since anatomy has cor-
rupted it.
XV.
A POMONA.
A woman in the act of lightly advancing — much care
1 The word Staircase is written the statues on the staircase extends,
above this Note in the MS. Note- I do not know,
book : how far the description of
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 21
has been taken to render the effect of the drapery as
thrown back by the wind of her motion.
XVI.
AN ATHLETE
in every respect different from and inferior to the first.
XVII.
AN URANIA
holding a globe in one hand and compasses in the other :
her countenance though not of the highest beauty, is
beautiful : her drapery drawn closely round shews the
conformation of her left side and falls in graceful folds
over the right arm.
XVIII.
A VESTAL.
Probably a portrait. This face, which represented a
real person, denotes an admirable disposition and mind,
and is not beautiful but wise and gentle although with
some mixture of severity. Her office might have contri-
buted to this expression.
XIX.
A VENUS GENITRIX.
Remarkable for the voluptuous effect of her finely pro-
portioned form being seen through the folds of a
drapery, the original of which must have been the
22 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
"woven wind" of Chios. There is a softness in the
attitude and upper part of the statue — the restoration of
the arms and hand truly hideous.
XX.
A CALLIOPE.
Half modern — the drapery rather coarse.
XXI.
A HERCULES ON AN EMBLEMATIC BASE.
The arms probably restored, for the right hand espe-
cially is in villainous proportion.
XXII.
A MUSE.
A statue they call the Muse Polyhymnia — poor Muse —
the head which may be a misapplication is of the family
likeness of those shrewish and evil-minded Eoman women
of rank with the busts of whom the Capitol overflows.
The form otherwise is too thin and spare for the ideal
beauty in which the Muses were clothed. The drapery
is very remarkable and very admirable ; it is arranged
in such large and unrestrained folds as the motions and
the shape of a living form naturally forces a form into.
XXIII.
MERCURY.
Another glorious creature of the Greeks. His coun-
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 23
tenance expresses an imperturbable and god-like self-
possession ; he seems in the enjoyment of delight which
nothing can destroy. His figure nervous yet light, ex-
presses the animation of swiftness emblemed by the
plumes of his sandalled feet. Every muscle and nerve of
his frame has tranquil and energetic life.
XXIV.
A VENUS
with villanous modern arms — this figure is rather too
slight and weak — the body is correctly but feebly ex-
pressed.
XXV.
ANOTHER VENUS.
A very insipid person in the usual insipid attitude of
this lady. The body and hips and where the lines of
the fade into the thighs is exquisitely imagined
and executed.
XXVI.
with his serpent crawling round a trunk of laurel on
which his quiver is suspended. It probably was, when
complete, magnificently beautiful. The restorer of the
head and arms following the indications' 2 of the
muscles of the right side, has lifted the right arm, as if
1 The Note on an Apollo appeared given with the following opening —
in The A thenceum for the 22nd of with serpents twining round a wreath
September, 1832, and was reprinted of laurel on which the quiver is sus-
in The Shelley Papers and in Mrs. pended.
Shelley's volumes of 1840. In all 8 In former editions, indication.
these cases it was unsuspectingly
24 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
in triumph 1 at the success of an arrow ; imagining to
imitate the Lycian Apollo, or that 2 so finely described by
Apollonius Rhodius when the dazzling radiance of his
beautiful limbs suddenly 3 shone over the dark Euxine.
XXVII.
ANOTHER APOLLO.
In every respect a coarse statue, with a goose or swan
who has got the end of his pallium in his bill. Seen on
one side the intense energy and god -like animation of those
limbs, the spirit which seems as if it would not be
contained.
XXVIII.
A CUPID.
Apparently part of a group — as in laughing defiance
of those which are lost. It seeks to express what cannot
be expressed in sculpture — the coarser and more violent
effects of comic feeling cannot be seized by this art.
Tenderness, sensibility, enthusiasm, terror, poetic inspira-
tion the profound, the beautiful, Yes.
XXIX.
BACCHUS AND AMPELUS. 4
Le&b beautiful than that in the royal collection of
1 In former editions, the arm, as the coarse statue with the great
in triumph. work seen beside it.
9 Not in that, as printed by Med- 4 This Note also would hardly
win and Mrs. Shelley. have been omitted by Mrs. Shelloy
3 Med win and Mrs. Shelley omit had it been at hand. Medwin gave
suddenly, and add after Euxine it, not in The Shelley Papers, but
what seems a revised transfer from in the Life (Vol. I, pp. 355-6). His
the next note : The action, energy, version is apparently much mani-
and godlike animation of those pulated. The opening comparison
limbs speak a spirit which seems as if is omitted, and he starts with the
it could not be consumed. The in- improbable form of words, Look!
tcntion was apparently to contrast the figures arc walking &c.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 25
Naples and yet infinitely lovely. The figures are
walking as it were with a sauntering and idle pace, and
talking to each other as they walk, and this is ex-
pressed in the motions of their delicate and flowing 1
forms. One arm of Bacchus rests on the shoulder of
Ampelus, and the other, the fingers being gently curved
as with the burning 2 spirit which animates their flexible
joints, is gracefully thrown forward corresponding with the
advance of the opposite leg. He has sandals and buskins
clasped with two serpent heads, and his leg is cinctured
with their skins. He is crowned with vine leaves laden
with their crude fruit, and the crisp leaves fall as with
the inertness of a lithe and faded leaf over his rich and
over-hanging hair, 3 which gracefully divided on his fore-
head falls in delicate wreaths upon his neck and breast. 4
Ampelus with a beast skin 5 over his shoulder holds a cup
in his right hand, and with his left half embraces the
waist of Bacchus. 6 Just as you may have seen (yet how
seldom from their dissevering and tyrannical institutions
do you see) a younger and an elder boy at school walking
in some remote grassy spot of their play-ground with
that tender friendship towards each other which has so
much of love. 7 — The countenance of Bacchus is sublimely
sweet and lovely, taking a shade of gentle and playful
tenderness from the arch looks of Ampelus, whose cheerful
face turned towards him, expresses the suggestions of
some droll and merry device. It has a divine and
1 Not glowing as in Medwin's the breast.
version. 5 Medwin reads a young lion's or
2 Not living as printed by Med- lynx's skin.
win. 6 Medwin reads encircles Bacchus,
3 Medwiu reads hang with the and omits the interesting paren-
inertness of a fadnl leaf over his thesis just below.
neck and massy, profuse, down-hang- 7 Medwin reads for the other that
ing hair. the age inspires. 1 notice he con-
4 In Medwin's version, wreaths on stantly has that For Shelley's which.
each side his nc<k, and curls upon
26 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
supernatural beauty, as one who walks through the world
untouched by its corruptions, 1 its corrupting cares ; it
looks like one who unconsciously yet with delight
confers pleasure and peace. 2 The flowing fulness and
roundness of the breast and belly, whose lines fading into
each other, are continued with a gentle motion as it were
to the utmost extremity of his limbs. Like some fine
strain of harmony which flows round the soul and enfolds
it, and leaves it in the soft astonishment of a satisfaction,
like the pleasure of love with one whom we most love,
which having taken away desire, leaves pleasure, sweet
pleasure. The countenance of the Ampelus is in every
respect inferior ; it has a rugged and unreproved
appearance ; but the Bacchus is immortal beauty.
XXX.
A BACCHANTE WITH A LYNX.
The effect of the wind partially developing her young
and delicate form upon the light and floating drapery, and
the aerial motion of the lower part of her limbs are finely
imagined. But the inanimate expression of her counte-
nance and the position of her arms are at enmity with
these indications.
XXXI.
APOLLO WITH A SWAN.
The arms restored. The same expression of passionate
1 Medwin omits its corruptions, respects boyish and inferior, that of Bac-
«d «« »Uh Mght in the next lino. ^^SSJS^SS^t^^
2 Instead of the remainder of this men t of a calm delight, that nothing can
Note, Medwin has the following : destroy. His is immortal beauty."
" The countenance of Ampelus is in some
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 27
and enthusiastic tenderness seems to have created the
intense and sickening beauty, by which it is expressed,
the same radiance of beauty, arising from lines only less
soft and more sublimely flowing than
those of Bacchus. This has some resemblance with the
Apollo of the Capitol.
XXXII.
LEDA.
A dull thins,
©■
XXXIII.
VENUS ANADYOMENE. 1
She seems to have just issued from the bath, and yet to
be animated 2 with the enjoyment of it. She seems all soft
and mild enjoyment, and the curved lines of her fine
limbs flow into each other with never-ending continuity 3
of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless yet passive
and innocent voluptuousness without affectation, without
doubt ; 4 it is at once desire and enjoyment and the
pleasure arising from both. — Her lips which are without
the sublimity of lofty and impetuous passion like
or 5 the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination like
the Apollo of the Capitol, or an union 6 of both like the
1 So headed in the Note-book, * Instead of the words without
not On the Venus, called Anadyo- affectation, without doubt, and the
mene as in former editions. This whole of the sentence following,
Note appeared in TheAthenceum for Med win and Mrs. Shelley have
the 22nd of September 1832, before simply free from affectation.
being printed in '1 he Shelley Papers 8 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley dis-
and the Essays, Letters &c. guise the incompleteness by elimi-
2 In former editions has issued nating like and or.
and is animated. 6 Not the union as in previous
3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read editions.
sinuosity.
28 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
Apollo Belvedere, have the tenderness of arch yet pure
and affectionate desire, and the mode in which the ends
are drawn in yet opened by the smile which for ever
circles round them, and the tremulous curve into which
they are wrought by inextinguishable desire, and the
tongue lying against the lower lip as in. the listlessness of
passive joy, express love, still love.
Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure,
and her small forehead fades on botli sides into that
sweet swelling and then 1 declension of the bone over the
eye, and prolongs itself to the cheek in that mode which
expresses simple and tender feelings.
The neck is full and swollen as with the respiration 2 of
delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect
form.
Her form is indeed perfect. She is half sitting on and
half rising from a shell, and the fulness of her limbs,
and their complete roundness and perfection, do not
diminish the vital energy with which they seem to be
embued. 3 The mode in which the lines of the curved
back flow into and around the thighs, and the wrinkled
muscles of the belly, wrinkled by the attitude, is truly
astonishing. The attitude of her arms which are lovely
beyond imagination, is natural, unaffected and unforced. 4
This perhaps is the finest personification of Venus, the
1 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read
thin for then, and, after eye, omit animated for embued, omit the
and prolongs itself to the cheek, sub- whole of the next sentence, down
stituting in the mode for in that to astonishing, and open the sen-
mode. tence after with The position of the
2 Not panting as with the ayrira- arms.
tin a, as in former editions. 4 In previous editions, easy.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 29
Deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her 1
pointed and pear-like bosom ever virgin — the virgin
Mary might have this beauty, but alas ! poor girl, she has
all the pain and none of the pleasure.
THIED DAY. 2
XXXIV.
A STATUE OF MINERVA.
The arm restored. The head is of the very highest
beauty. It has a close helmet, from which the hair
delicately parted on the forehead, half escapes. The face
uplifted 3 gives entire effect to the perfect form of the
neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding of the
lower part of the face and the jaw, 4 which is, in living
beings, the seat of the expression of a simplicity and
integrity of nature. Her face uplifted 5 to Heaven is
animated with a profound, sweet and impassioned melan-
choly, with an earnest, fervid and disinterested pleading
against some vast and inevitable wrong : it is the joy and
the poetry of sorrow, making grief beautiful, and giving to
that nameless feeling which from the imperfection of
language we call pain, but which is not all pain, those
feelings which make 6 not only the possessor but the
1 Instead of this closing sentence 22nd of September, 1832, before
Medwin and Mrs Shelley have its issue in 'I he Shelley Papers and
"Her pointed and pear-like per- the Essays &c.
son, ever virgin, and her attitude 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read
modesty itself.' ' attitude for face uplifted.
2 So in the Note-book, where 4 In previous editions mouth for
however, there is nothing to shew the jaw.
the division between first day and 5 In previous editions, up-rained.
second day. Medwin and Mrs. 6 Not through a feeling which
ShelleyheadthisNote7'Ae3/in«rra makes, as in former edicions : that
and omit Th .e arm restored. The Note must surely be Med win's way of
Appeared in The Atktnamm for the perfecting Shelley's work.
30 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
spectator of it prefer it to what is called pleasure, in
which all is not pleasure. It is difficult to think that
the head, though of the highest ideal beauty, is the head
of Minerva, although the attributes and attitude of the
lower part of the statue, certainly suggest that idea.
The Greeks rarely in their representations of the Divin-
ities 1 (unless we call the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo, a
mortal passion) expressed the disturbance of human feel-
ing ; and here is deep and impassioned grief, animating a
divine countenance. It is indeed divine, as Wisdom which
as Minerva it may be supposed to emblem, pleading 3
earnestly with Power, and invested with the expression
of that grief because it must ever plead so vainly. An
owl is sitting at her feet. 3 The drapery of the statue,
the gentle beauty of the feet and the grace of the atti-
tude are what may be seen in many other statues
belonging to that astonishing era which produced it ; —
such a countenance is seen in few.
This statue happens to be placed on an altar, the sub-
ject of the reliefs of which are 4 in a spirit wholly the
reverse. It was probably an altar to Bacchus, possibly a
funerary urn. It has this inscription : D. M. M.
ULPIUS. TEKPNUS. FECIT. SIBI ET
ULPI^E SECUNDILL.E LIBERTY. B. M. 5
Under the festoons of fruits and flowers at
the corners of the altar with the skulls of goats and in
the middle with an inverted flower suspended from a
1 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have 3 This sentence was not given
instead of Divinities, the words by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley.
characters of their Gods. 4 In previous editions, a pedestal,
2 In former editions we read It the subject of whose reliefs is.
is, indeed, divine. Wisdom {which 5 The sentence with the inscrip-
Minerva may be supposed to em- tion was not given by Medwin and
blem,) is pleading kc. Mrs Shelley.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 31
twisted stem are sculptured in moderate relief four 1
figures of Maenads under the inspiration of the God.
Nothing can be imagined 2 more wild and terrible than
their gestures, touching as they do upon the verge of
distortion, in which their fine limbs and lovely forms are
thrown. There is nothing however that exceeds the
possibility of Nature, although it borders on its utmost
line.
The tremendous spirit of superstition aided by drunken-
ness and producing something beyond insanity, seems to
have caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them
over the earth as the rapid volutions of a tempest bear 3
the ever-changing trunk of a water-spout, as the torrent
of a mountain river whirls the leaves in 4 its full eddies.
Their hair loose and floating seems caught in the tempest
of their own tumultuous motion, their heads are thrown
back leaning with a strange inanity 5 upon their necks,
and looking up to Heaven, while they totter and stumble
even in the energy of their tempestuous dance. One —
perhaps Agave 6 with the head of Pentheus, has a human
head in one hand and in the other a great knife;
another 7 has a spear with its pine cone, which was their
thyrsus ; another dances with mad voluptuousness ; the
fourth is dancing to a kind of tambourine.
1 In previous editions flowers autumnal leaves resistlessly along in
that grace the pedestal, the corners &c.
of which are ornamented with the s Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read
sktdls of goats, are sculptured some delirium instead of inanity,
figures &c. The filling of the blank 6 In previous editions we read,
with grace the pedestal is little cal- One represents Agave with the head
culated to inspire confidence in the of Pentheus, and the words has
genuineness of the text of Medwin. a human head are left out.
2 In former editions, conceived. 7 In former editions, a second ;
: Not have, as given by Medwin in the next line, the Thyrsus ; and
and Mrs. Shelley. in the next but one beating for
4 In former editions, whirls the dancing to.
32 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
This was indeed a monstrous superstition only capable
of existing in Greece because there alone 1 capable of com-
bining ideal beauty and poetical and abstract enthusiasm
with the wild errors from which it sprung. In Eome it
had a more familiar, wicked and dry appearance — it was
not suited to the severe and exact apprehensions of the
Romans, and their strict morals once violated by it, sus-
tained 2 a deep injury little analogous to its effects upon
the Greeks who turned all things, superstition, prejudice,
murder, madness — to Beauty.
XXXV.
A TRIPOD.
Said to be dedicated to Mars — three winged figures with
emblematic instruments.
XXXVI.
A FAUN.
A pretty thing but little remarkable. A lynx is
slily peeping round the stem covered with vines on which
he leans and gnawing the grapes.
XXXVII.
A GANYMEDE.
A statue of surpassing beauty. One of the Eagle's
wings is half-enfolded round him and one of his arms is
1 In previous editions we read, 2 In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's
a monstrous superstition, even in editions, were violated by it, and
Greece, where it was alone, &c. sustained. &o.
IN - ROME AND FLORENCE. 33
placed round the Eagle and his delicate hand lightly
touches the wing ; the other holds what I imagine to be
a representation of the thunder. These hands and fingers
are so delicate and light that it seems as if the spirit of
pleasure, of light, life and beauty that lives in them half
lifted them, and deprived them of the natural weight of
mortal flesh. The roundness and fulness of the flowing
perfection of his form is strange and rare. The attitude
and form of the legs and the relation borne to each other
by his light and delicate feet is peculiarly beautiful. The
calves of the legs almost touching each other, one foot is
placed on the ground, a little advanced before the other
which is raised, the knee being a little bent as those who
are slightly, but slightly fatigued with standing. The
face though innocent and pretty has no ideal beauty. It
expresses inexperience and gentleness and innocent
wonder, such as might be imagined in a rude and lovely
shepherd-boy and no more.
XXXVIII.
A VENUS.
A beautiful Venus, sculptured with great accuracy but
without the feeling and the soft and flowing proportions
of the Anadyomene. It has great perfection and beauty
of form ; it is a most admirable piece of sculpture, but
hard, angular and with little of the lithe suppleness or
light of life.
XXXIX.
A TORSO OF FAUNUS.
(Why I don't know.) The sculpture remarknUy
good.
34 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
XL.
TWO STATUES Of MARSYAS.
Two of those hideous St. Sebastians 1 of Antiquity oppo-
site each other, — Marsyas : one looks as if he had been
flayed, and the other as if he was going to be flayed.
This is one of the few abominations of the Greek religion.
This is as bad as the everlasting damnation and hacking
and hewing between them of Joshua and Jehovah. And
is it possible that there existed in the same imagination
the idea of that tender and sublime and poetic and life-
giving Apollo and of the author of this deed as the
same person ? 2 It would be worse than confounding
Jehovah and Jesus in the same Trinity, which to those
who believe in the divinity of the latter is a pretty piece
of blasphemy in any intelligible sense of the word. As
to the sculpture of these pieces, it is energetic, especially
that of the one already flayed, and moderate. If he knew
as much as the moderns about anatomy, which I hope to
God he did not, he, at least, abstained from taking advan-
tage of his subject for making the same absurd display of
it. These great artists abstained from overstepping in
this particular, except in some cases, as perhaps in the
Laocoon, what Shakespeare calls the modesty of nature.
1 Shelley was not, it would seem, tins case could scarcely be other
as familiar with the history of the than a slip of the pen.
Christian Martyrs as with the 2 Students of mythology will
mythology of the Greeks, or he doubtless answer No. This vari-
would of course have written " Two able and contradictory creation was
of those hideous St. Bartholomews." the offspring of many imagina-
One would think, however, that he tions ; and no single imagination
must have seen so many pictures in worth the name mixed up these
Italy of both martyrdoms that, two particular conceptions as an
even if he did not, as he would article of religious belief,
not, study them much, the slip in
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 35
XLI.
THETIS.
Thetis on a sea-horse — -the face far from idealism seems
to be a real face of much energy and goodness. She sits
on the curved bask of the monster, and holds in one hand
something like a sponge, in the other the ears of the head
of the sharp beast. 1
XLII.
HYGIEIA.
An Hygieia with a serpent. A resemblance of the
famous Dis — a copy. The forms are soft and flowing
but not the most perfect proportion. The head and
countenance is of great beauty. There is the serene
sweetness of expectation, the gathered firm and yet the
calm and gentle lip.
XLIII.
JUPITER.
A Jupiter in every respect of a very ordinary character.
XLIV.
A MINERVA.
Evidently a production of very great antiquity.
: It was doubtless inteuded to erase some words here.
C 2
36 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
XLV.
A JUNO. 1
A statue of great merit. The countenance expresses
a stern and unquestioned severity of dominion, with a
certain sadness. The lips are beautiful — susceptible of
expressing scorn — but not without sweetness in their
beauty. 2 Fine lips are never wholly bad, and never
belong to the expression of emotions completely 3 selfish —
lips being the seat of imagination. The drapery is finely
conceived, and the manner in which the act of throwing
back one leg is expressed in the diverging folds of the
drapery of the left breast, fading in bold yet graduated
lines into a skirt of it which descends from the right 4
shoulder is admirably imagined.
XLVI.
A WOUNDED SOLDIER.
An unknown figure. His arms are folded within his
mantle. — His countenance which may be a portrait is sad
but gentle.
XLVII.
A YOUTH.
A youth playing on a lyre — one arm and leg is a
restoration and there is no appearance of the head or arm
belonging to it. The body and the right leg are of the
most consummate beauty. It may or may not be an Apollo.
1 Medwin first gave this Note in in their beauty, and begin the next
The Athenceum for the 22nd of sentence thus — With fine lips a
September, 1832. Like the others person is.
so given, it was reprinted in The 3 In previous editions, wholly.
Shelley Papers and Assays, Letters 4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read,
&.c. a skirt, as it descends from the left
2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit shoulder.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 37
t
XLVIII.
THE FIGURE OF A YOUTH SAID TO BE APOLLO.
It was difficult to conceive anything more delicately
beautiful than the Ganymede ; but the spirit-like lightness,
the softness, the flowing perfection of these forms, surpass
it. The countenance though exquisite lovely and gentle
is not divine. There is a womanish vivacity of winning
yet passive happiness and yet a boyish inexperience
exceedingly delightful. Through the limbs there seems
to flow a spirit of life which gives them tightness.
Nothing can be more perfectly lovely than the legs and
the union of the feet with the ancles, and the fading
away of the lines of the feet to the delicate extremities.
It is like a spirit even in dreams. The neck is long yet
full and sustains the head with its profuse and knotted
hair as if it needed no sustaining.
XLIX.
AN AESCULAPIUS.
A Statue of iEsculapius — the same as in the Borghese
Gardens in the temple there.
L.
AN ;ESCULAriUS.
A Statue of ^Esculapius far superior. It is leaning
forward upon a knotty staff imbarked and circled by a
viper, — with a bundle of plants in one hand and the
other with the forefinger in an attitude of instruction.
The majestic head, its thick beard and profuse hair bound
38 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
by a fillet leans forward, and the gentle smile of its
benevolent lips seems a commentary on his instructions.
The upper part of the figure with the exception of the
right shoulder is naked, but the rest to the feet is involved
in drapery, whose folds flow from the point where the
staff confines them sustaining the left arm.
LI.
OLINTHUS
(as they call a youth seated). Another of those sweet
and gentle figures of adolescent youth in winch the Greeks
delighted.
LII.
MARCUS AURELIUS.
A Statue of Marcus Aurelius which is rather without
faults than with beauties.
LIII.
BACCHUS AND AMPELUS.
A lovely group.
LIV.
LEDA;
Leda with a very ugly face. I should be a long time
before I should make love with her.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 4V
LV.
A MUSE.
A most hideous thing they call a Muse — evidently the
production of some barbarian and of a barbarous age.
LVI.
AN OLD CUIRASS
with all the frogs and fringe complete — a fine piece
of antique dandyism.
LVII.
A BACCHUS BY MICHAEL ANGELO.
The countenance of this figure is the most revolting
mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks
drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression
of dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the
figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are
united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly
inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the
idea of the Deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic-
On the other hand, considered merely 2 as a piece of
workmanship, it has great merits. The arms are executed
in the most perfect 3 and manly beauty ; the body is
conceived with great energy, 4 and the lines which describe
1 So headed in the Note-book, editions we read from here as fol-
but Michael Ant/do's Bacchus in lows — and the manner in which
former editions. the lines mingle into each other, of
1 In former editions, only. the highest boldness and truth. It
3 Not in a ttofU of the most perfect, wants unity as a work of art — as a
&c, as in previous editions. representation of Bacchus it u-auts
4 In Medwin's and Mrs. Shelley's everything.
40 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they
mingle into one another are of the highest order of
boldness and beauty. It wants as a work of art unity
and simplicity ; as a representation of the Greek Deity
of Bacchus it wants every thing.
LVIII.
SLEEP.
A remarkable figure of Sleep as a winged child
supine on a lion's skin, sleeping on its great half unfolded
wing of black obsidian stone. One hand is lightly placed
on a horn, with which it might be supposed to call
together its wandering dreams, the horn of dreams, and
in the other a seedy poppy. The hardness of the stone
does not permit the arriving at any great expression.
LIX.
COPY OF THE LAOCOON.
An admirable copy of the Laocoon in which is ex-
pressed with fidelity the agony of the poison and the
straining round of the angry serpents. The left hand
child seems sick with agony and horror, and the vain and
feeble attempt he makes to disentangle himself from its
grasp increases the effect. (See Borne. 1 )
1 This is of course a reference the Note on the Laocoon standing
to the missing Note-book from second in this series. See pp. vi.
which Med win seems to have copied and 12.
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 41
LX.
THE NIOBE. 1
This figure is probably the most consummate personifi-
cation of loveliness with regard to its countenance, as that
of the Apollo of the Vatican is with regard to its entire
form, that remains to us of Greek Antiquity. It is a
colossal figure ; the size of a work of art rather adds to its
beauty, because it allows the spectator the choice of a
greater number of points of view, in which to catch a
greater number of the infinite modes of expression of
which any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily
composed, of a mother in the act of sheltering from some
divine and inevitable peril, the last, we will 2 imagine, of
her surviving children.
The child 3 terrified we may conceive at the strange
destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother, and 4
hiding its head in the folds of her robe and casting up 6
1 TheNote on the Niobe appeared figure. In fact we are to read It
in The Athemeum for the 15th of is a colossal figure ... of a mother in
September, 1832, and afterwards the act &c., the remarks on size in
in The Shelley Papers and Mrs. sculpture being parenthetic. Had
Shelley's volumes of 1840. It Shelley used his rough note for one
seems to have been very consider- of the noble letters to Peacock, or
ably edited by Medwin, the open- for any literary purpose, he would
ing being rendered thus : doubtless have made it read more
•• Of all that remains to us of Greek ami- smoothly ; but his roughest work
quity, this figure is perhaps the moHt con- never fads to convey a perfectly
summate personification of loveliness with clear 8eu8e j ia of course pre .
reyard to its countenance, as that ot the e , , , „'. , . , ., *
Venus of the Tribune is with regard to its lerable to Medwin s smoothest
entire form of woman. It is colossal : a In former editions, viay.
the size adds to its value ; " 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley put
and after the words poin ts of view, little creature for child.
we read and affords him a more 4 M edwin and Mrs. Shelley alter
analytical one. Further on there the construction by inserting is
is, in Medwin' s text, a period after here.
composed ; and a new sentence is 5 In previous editions, back in-
begun with the words, It is the stead of up.
42 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
one arm as in a passionate appeal for defence from her, 1
where it never before could have been sought in vain,-
seems in the marble to have scarcely suspended the
motion of her terror ; as though conceived to be yet
in the act of arrival. The child 2 is clothed in a thin
tunic of delicatest woof, and her hair is gathered 3 on her
head into a knot, probably by that mother whose care
will never gather it again. Mobe is enveloped in
profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand has
gathered up and is in the act of extending it over the child
in the instinct of defending 4 her from what reason knows
to be inevitable. The right 5 — as the restorer of it has
rightly comprehended, is gathering up her child to her
and with a like instinctive gesture is encouraging by its
gentle pressure the child to believe that it can give
security. — The countenance which is the consummation
of feminine majesty and loveliness, beyond which
the imagination scarcely doubts that it can conceive
anything, that 6 master-piece of the poetic harmony of
marble, expresses other feelings. There is embodied a
sense of the inevitable and rapid destiny which is con-
summating around her as if it were already over. It seems
1 Former editions omit from htr, Have we done this for one another; now
j iv« „„„4.^«^^ „„Ac —u.1. r. We shall not do it any more. My Lord,
and the sentence ends with a We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well.
period at vam, the subtle passage
from seems in the marble to arrival, Even the tragic resignation of the
being left out. close corresponds with Shelley's
■ Med win and Mrs. Shelley have piercing criticism of this group.
She for The child. 4 In former editions, shielding.
3 In former editions, fastened for 5 This passage is rendered thus
gathered, and fasten in the next by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley :
line instead of gather. As an ut- „ The ht (m the ^^ hag
terance contemporary with J he imagined), is drawing up her daughter to
Cenci this passage is peculiarly in- her ; and with that instinctive gesture, and
teresting. (Compare Act V, Scene b l&JS*Bti« pressure, is encouraging the
t\t i\-r i tt ioi e j-j.- \ child to believe that it can give security.
IV (\ ol. II, p. 131 of my edition) : lhe coutl teuance of Niobe is* &c"
Here, mother, tie
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair 6 This is not a fresh sentence as
In any simple knot ; aye, that does well. ; n f nrmpr Pr m-i n n«
And yours 1 see is coming down. How in t0rmer edltlons -
often
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 43
as if despair and beauty had combined and produced
nothing but the sublime loveliness 1 of grief. As the motions
of the form expressed the instinctive sense of the
possibility of protecting the child, and the accustomed
and affectionate assurance that she would find protection 2
within her arms, so reason and imagination speak in the
countenance the certainty that no mortal defence is of
avail.
There is no terror in the countenance — only grief —
deep 3 grief. — There is no anger — of what avail is
indignation against what is known to be omnipotent ?
There is no selfish shrinking from personal pain ; there
is no panic at supernatural agency — there is no adverting
to herself as herself — the calamity is mightier than to
leave scope for such emotion. 4
Every thing is swallowed up in sorrow. — Her counte-
nance in assured expectation of the arrow piercing its
victim 5 in her embrace, is fixed on her omnipotent enemy.
The 6 pathetic beauty of the mere expression of her
tender and serene despair, which is yet so profound and
so incapable of being ever worn away, is beyond any effect
of sculpture. — As soon as the arrow shall have pierced her
1 Med win and Mrs. Shelley read 6 This sentence is replaced in
sublimity instead of sublime love- T/te Athenceum and The Shelley
liness. Papers by the following :
2 In previous editions, an asylum. „„,. .. .. , , ...
, rr>u ]jv i J j -j " The pathetio beauty of the expression
3 The additional word remediless f her tender, and inexhaustible, and un-
is here inserted in previous editions. quenchable despair, is beyond the effect of
4 Not emotio7is, as given by Med- sculpture."
win and Mrs. Shelley, who insert Mrs. Shelley followed this, merely
after sorrow in the next line, she is iuserting any other before sculpture,
all tears. — conjecturally, I presume, for the
In previous editions, its last words are not in the Note-book.
victim.
44 NOTES ON SCULPTURES
last child, the fable that she was dissolved 1 into a
fountain of tears, will be but a feeble emblem of the sad-
ness of despair, 2 in which the years of her remaining life,
we feel, must flow away.
It is difficult to speak of the beauty of her coun-
tenance, or to make intelligible in words the forms from
which 3 such astonishing loveliness results. The head,
resting somewhat backward, upon the full and flowing
contour of the neck, is in the act of watching an event
momently to arrive. The hair is delicately divided on
the forehead, and a gentle beauty gleams from the broad
and clear forehead, over which its strings are drawn.
The face is altogether broad 4 and the features conceived
with the daring harmony 5 of a sense of power. In this
respect it resembles the careless majesty which Nature
stamps upon those rare master-pieces of her creation,
harmonizing them as it were from the harmony of the
spirit within. Yet all this not only consists with but is
the cause of the subtlest delicacy of that clear and
tender beauty which is the expression at once of innocence
and sublimity of soul, of purity and strength, of all that
which touches the most removed and divine of the strings 6
of that which makes music within my thoughts, and which
1 In previous editions, shall fulness.
pierce her last tie upon earth, that 5 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit
fable (hat she was turned into stone, the word harmony.
or dissolved &c. 6 Instead of the strings &c. as in
2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read the text, former editions have the
hopelessness for despair and insert chords that make music in our
few and evil before years. thoughts, of that which shakes with
3 Previous editions read from astonishment even the most super-
what instead of the forms from ficial. The final sentence is
which. omitted.
4 In former editions, of an oval
IN ROME AND FLORENCE. 45
shakes with astonishment my most superficial faculties.
Compare for this effect the countenance as seen in
front and as seen from under the left arm, moving to
the right and towards the statue, until the line of the
forehead shall coincide with that of the wrist.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS,
A LUCIANIC FRAGMENT.
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
I am not forgetful in this dreary scene of the country
which whilst I lived in the upper air, it was my
whole aim to illustrate and render happy. Indeed,
although immortal, we are not exempted from the enjoy-
ments and the sufferings of mortality. We sympathize in
all the proceedings of mankind, and we experience joy or
grief in all intelligence from them, according to our
various opinions and views. Nor do we resign those
opinions, even those which the grave 1 has utterly refuted.
Frederic of Prussia has lately arrived amongst us, and
persists in maintaining that " death is an eternal sleep,"
to the great discomfiture of Philip the Second of Spain ;
who on the furies refusing to apply the torture, expects
the roof of Tartarus to fall upon his head, and laments
that at least in his particular instance the doctrine should
be false. — Religion is more frequently the subject of dis-
cussion among the departed dead, than any other topic,
for we know as little which mode of faith is true as you
do. Every one maintains the doctrine he maintained on
» Cancelled reading, even when the grave.
50 THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.
Earth, and accommodates the appearances which surround .
us to his peculiar tenets. —
I am one of those who esteeming political science
capable of certain conclusions, have ever preferred it to
these airy speculations, which when they assume an
empire over the passions of mankind render them so mis-
chievous and unextinguishable, that they subsist even
among the dead. The art of employing the power en-
trusted to you for the benefit of those who entrust it, is
something more definite, and subject as all its details
must ever be to innumerable limitations and exceptions
arising out of the change in the habits, opinions of
mankind, is the noblest, and the greatest, and the most
universal of all. It is not as a queen, but as a human
being that this science must be learned ; the same disci-
pline which contributes to domestic happiness and indi-
vidual distinction secures true welfare and genuine glory
to a nation. —
You will start, I do not doubt, to hear the language of
philosophy. You will have been informed that those
who approach sovereigns with warnings that they have
duties to perform, that they are elevated above the rest
. of mankind simply to prevent their tearing one another to
pieces, and for the purpose of putting into effect all
practical equality and justice, are insidious traitors who
devise their ruin. But if the character which I bore on
earth should not reassure you, 1 it would be well to
recollect the circumstances under which you will ascend
the throne of England, and what is the spirit of the times.
1 After reassure you there is a dices of the age have not deprived you
cancelled reading in the MS — you of all that learning,
recollect yourself, & if the preju-
THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 51
There are better examples to emulate than those who
have only refrained from depraving or tyrannizing over
their subjects, because they remembered the fates of
Pisistratus 1 and Tarquin. If 2 generosity and virtue should
have dominion over your actions, my lessons can hardly
be needed ; but if the discipline 3 of a narrow education
may have extinguished all thirst of genuine excellence,
all desire of becoming illustrious for the sake of the
illustriousness of the actions which I would incite you to
perform. Should you be thus — and no pains have been
spared to make you so — make your account with holding
your crown on this condition : of deserving it alone.
And that this may be evident 4 I will expose to you the
state in which the nation will be found at your accession,
for the very dead know more than the counsellors by
whom you will be surrounded.
The English nation does not, as has been imagined,
inherit freedom from its ancestors. Public opinion rather
than positive institution maintains it 5 in whatever portion
it may now possess, which is 6 in truth the acquirement
of their own incessant struggles. As yet the gradations
by which this freedom has advanced have been contested
step by step.
1 Pisistratus is probably a slip for 4 Cancelled reading, evident to
the son* of Pisistratus. you.
2 Cancelled reading, But if these 5 In the MS. them is struck out
motive*. in favour of it.
■ Cancelled readings, lessons for G Cancelled readings, and th is has
discipline; and is to prevent for been, and in the same line conquest
may have extinguished in the next for acquirement.
line.
D 2
ON PEACOCK'S " RHODODAPHNE."
ON " RHODODAPHNE,
OR
THE THESSALIAN SPELL,"
A POEM BY THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.
Rhododaphne is a poem of the most remarkable
character, and the nature of the subject no less than the
spirit in which it is written forbid us to range it under
any of the classes of modern literature. 1 It is a Greek
and Pagan poem. In sentiment and scenery it is essen-
tially antique. There is a strong religio loci throughout
which almost compels us to believe that the author wrote
from the dictation of a voice heard from some Pythian
cavern in the solitudes where Delphi stood. We are
transported to the banks of the Peneus and linger under
the crags of Tempe, and see the water lilies floating on
1 Shelley is not the only poet who By living streams, in sylvan shades,
i in , fVionrrht. wpII of Rhnrlnrtnnhns Where wind and wave symphonious make
has tnougtit; wen 01 Ktioaoaaptinc. Rich melod the ths ' and maida
Edgar Allan Poe in his Marginalia No more with choral music wake
(Mr. J. H. Ingram's edition, Edin- Lone echo from her tangled brake."
burgh, 1874-5, Vol. Ill, p. 443) In these lines, the opening of Canto
has this laconic criticism : — III, the right reading is vrinds and
"'Rhododaphne' (who wrote it?) is ««*« in line % *** Sweet for *W
brimful of music —e.g. in hue 3.
56 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL."
the stream. We sit with Plato by old Ilissus under the
sacred Plane tree among the sweet scent of flowering
sallows ; and above there is the nightingale of Sophocles
in the ivy of the pine, who is watching the sunset so
that it may dare to sing ; it is the radiant evening of a
burning day, and the smooth hollow whirlpools of the
river are overflowing with the aerial gold of the level
sunlight. "We stand in the marble temples of the Gods,
and see their sculptured forms gazing and almost breath-
ing around. We are led forth from the frequent pomp
of sacrifice into the solitude of mountains and forests
where Pan, " the life, the intellectual soul of grove and
stream," 1 yet lives and yet is worshipped. We visit the
solitudes of Thessalian magic, and tremble with new
wonder to hear statues speak and move and to see the
shaggy changelings minister to their witch queen with
the shape of beasts and the reason of men, and move
among the animated statues 2 who people her inchanted
palaces and gardens. That wonderful overflowing of
fancy the Syria Dea of Lucian, and the impassioned and
elegant pantomime of Apuleius, have contributed to this
portion of the poem. There is here, as in the songs of
ancient times, music and dancing and the luxury of volup-
tuous delight. The Bacchanalians toss on high their
leaf -inwoven hair, and the tumult and fervour of the
chase is depicted ; we hear its clamour gathering among
the woods, and she who impels it is so graceful and so fear-
less that we are charmed — and it needs no feeble spell
to see nothing of the agony and blood of that royal sport.
•These words are quoted, not Of vale, and grove, and stream, has fled
quite accurately, from Cauto III of ^Z^StSSU^U^.
tihododaphne, pp. 48 — ;): „ „ .. ,,,,-, ,. , r
r * x z Cancelled Mb. reading, forms lor
The streams no sedge-crowned Genii roll etntnp*
From bounteous urn \ great Pan is dead bmt l(/tb -
The life, the intellectual soul
ON " RIIODODAPIINE, OR THE TIIKSSALIAN SPELL." 57
This it is to be a scholar ; this it is to have read Homer
and Sophocles and Plato.
Such is the scenery and the spirit of the tale. The
story itself presents a more modern aspect, being made
up of combinations of human passion which seem to have
been developed since the Pagan system has been out-
worn. The poem opens in a strain of elegant but less
powerful versification than that which follows. It is
descriptive of the annual festival of Love 1 at his temple
in Thespia. Anthemion is among the crowd of votaries ;
a youth from the banks of Arcadian Ladon :
The flower of all Arcadia's youth
Was he : such form and face, in truth,
As thoughts of gentlest maidens seek
In their day-dreams : soft glossy hair
Shadowed his forehead, snowy-fair,
With many a hyacinthine cluster :
Lips, that in silence seemed to speak,
Were his, and eyes of mild blue lustre :
And even the paleness of his cheek,
The passing trace of tender care,
Still shewed how beautiful it were
If its own natural bloom were there. — Canto I, p. 11.
He comes to offer his vows at the shrine for the recovery
of his mistress Calliroe, who is suffering under some
strange, and as we are led to infer, magical disease. As
he presents his wreath of flowers at the altar they are
suddenly withered up. He looks and there is standing
near him a woman of exquisite beauty who gives him
another wreath which lie places on the altar and it does
not wither. She turns to him and bids him wear a
The word Uranian before Love stands cancelled in the MS.
58 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL."
flower which she presents, saying, with other sweet
words —
Some meet for once and part for aye,
Like thee and me, and scarce a day-
Shall each by each remembered be :
But take the flower I give to thee,
And till it fades remember me. — Canto I, p. 22.
As Anthemion passes from the temple among the sports
and dances of the festival " with vacant eye "
the trains
Of youthful dancers round him float,
As the musing bard from his sylvan seat
Looks on the dance of the noontide heat,
Or the play of the watery flowers, that quiver
In the eddies of a lowland river. — Canto II, p. 29.
He there meets an old man who tells him that the
flower he wears is the profane laurel-rose which grows
in Larissa's unholy gardens, that it is impious to wear it
in the temple of Love, and that he, who has suffered evils
which he dares not tell from Thessalian inchantments,
knows that the gift of this flower is a spell only to be
dissolved by invoking his natal genius and casting the
flower into some stream with the caution of not looking
upon it after he has thrown it away. Anthemion obeys
his direction, but so soon as he has . . . - 1
1 A portion of the MS. is here But through the solemn plane-trees past
won+in^r PrrthaV.lv if rnnrninpr] The pinions of a mightier blast,
wanting. Probably it contained A nd in its many-sounding sweep,
little more than an abstract or the Among the foliage broad and deep,
movement of the third and fourth Aerial voices seemed to sigh,
Cantos, illustrated by extracts, as As if the spirits of the grove
Z, ** u > i. v • 4.x Mourned in prophetic sympathy
the next fragment begins with a with some disastrous love.—
quotation from the fifth Canto. It Canto II, pp. 43 — 4.
will be useful to supply here the Canto III shews Anthemion, on his
thread of the story. As soon as way back to Thespia, repelled by
Anthemion has thrown the flower sounds of revelry, and seeking soli-
into the water he hears a sudden ^ude by "Aganippe's fountain-
cry, Calliroe's voice : wave." Musing on Calliroe, he
He turned to plunge into the tide, hears music, prelusive to the ap-
But all again was still: pearance of the " radiant maid "
JXSbffEi IWStaSSPiU. r h ™ **£ met » *» Thes P ian
Half-sunk behind the hill ; temple : he learns that her name is
ON " KHODOD APHKB, OR THE TIIESSALIAN SPELL." 51>
— round his neck
Are closely twined the silken rings
Of Rhododaphne's glittering hair,
And round him her bright arms she flings,
And cinctured thus in loveliest bands
The charmed waves in safety bear
The youth and the enchantress fair
And leave them on the golden sands. —
Canto V, pp. 110-11.
They now find themselves on a lonely moor on which
stands a solitary cottage — ruined and waste ; this scene
is transformed by Thessalian magic to a palace surrounded
by magnificent gardens. Anthemion enters the hall of
the palace where, surrounded by sculptures of divine work-
manship, he sees the earthly image of Uranian Love.
Rhododaphne, and receives her de-
clarations of love. She utters the
words
These lips are mine ; the spells have won
them,
Which round and round thy soul I twine ;
And be the kiss I print upon them
Poison to all lips but mine ! —
Canto III, pp. 66—7.
Stung by the thought of Calliroe,
lie escapes this time from the en-
circling arms of Rhododaphne.
The fourth Canto sets forth that
"magic and mystery" have been
chased away by Reason ; but the
poet adds
Yet deem not so. The Power of Spells
Still lingers on the earth, but dwells
In deeper folds of close disguise,
That baffle Reason's searching eyes :
Nor shall that mystic Power resign
To Truth's cold sway his webs of guile,
Till woman's eyes have ceased to shine,
And woman's lips have ceased to smile,
And woman's voice has ceased to be
The earthly soul of melody. —
Camto IV, pp. 72—3.
This is introductory to the working
of the spell. Seeking Calling 1 , lie
finds her recovered, rejoices with
her one evening, kisses her, and sees
her fade and at once become as one
«k;ul. Fleeing aloug the shore, he
is seized by pirates (Canto V), on
board whoaeahiphe ia wi beside
a maiden similarly snatched away,
who turns out to be Rhododaphne.
By her incantations she raises a
storm ; the boat is wrecked, and
Anthemion is borne to shore by
the magic of Rhododaphne. Such
is the portion of the poem that the
missing leaves of the MS. doubtless
epitomize. Shelley would scarcely
have failed to quote the following
description of Rhododaphne pre-
paring for the storm :
She rose, and loosed her radiant hair,
And raised her golden lyre in air.
The lyre, beneath the breeze's wings,
As if a spirit swept the strings,
Breathed airy music, sweet and strange,
In many a wild phantastic change.
Most like a daughter of the Sun
She stood : her eyes all radiant shone
With beams unutterably bright ;
And her long tresses, loose and light,
As on the playful breeze they rolled,
Flamed with rays of burning gold.—
Canto V, p. 105.
The extract with which the next
leaf of the MS. opens is the conclu-
sion of Canto V; and the para-
graph beginning with Tkeff row
Jind thcmxtii'cs epitomizes Canto VI.
At the opening of the paragraph
there is a cancelled reading, The
•OMM in which they novo Jind thun-
selves is then described.
60 ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR THE THESSALIAN SPELL."
Plato says, with profound allegory, that Love is not itself
beautiful, but seeks the possession of beauty ; this idea
seems embodied in the deformed dwarf who bids, with a
voice as from a trumpet, Anthemion enter. After feast
and music the natural result of the situation of the lovers 1
is related by the poet to have place.
The last Canto relates the enjoyments and occupations
of the lovers ; and we are astonished to discover that any
thing can be added to the gardens of Armida and Alcina,
and the Bower of Bliss : the following description among
many of a Bacchanalian dance is a remarkable instance
of a fertile and elegant imagination. 2
Oft, 'mid those palace-gardens fair,
The beauteous nymph (her radiant hair
With mingled oak and vine-leaves crowned)
Would grasp the thyrsus ivy-bound,
And fold, her festal vest around,
The Bacchic nebris, leading thus
The swift and dizzy thiasus :
And as she moves, in all her charms,
With springing feet and flowing arms,
'Tis strange in one fair shape to see
How many forms of grace can be.
The youths and maids, her beauteous train,
Follow fast in sportive ring,
Some the torch and mystic cane,
Some the vine-bough, brandishing ;
Some, in giddy circlets fleeting,
The Corybantic timbrel beating :
Maids, with silver flasks advancing,
Pour the wine's red-sparkling tide,
Which youths, with heads recumbent dancing,
Catch in goblets as they glide :
1 Cancelled reading, their situa- 2 Cancelled reading, it worthy
tion. remark.
ON " RHODODAPHNE, OR TIIK THESSALIAN SPELL." 01
All upon the odorous air
Lightly toss their leafy hair,
Ever singing, as they move,
— " Io Bacchus ! son of Jove ! " 1 —
Canto VII, pp. 148—50.
1 There must have been another
leaf or two of the MS. The last
leaf I have ends without completing
the extract ; and I have added the
final couplet. Doubtless Shelley
followed his friend's narrative to
the catastrophe, — the slaying of
Rhododaphne by Uranian Love,
who, as he sends his shaft into her
breast, exclaims
With impious spells hast thou profaned
My altars ; and all-ruling Jove,
Though late, yet certain, has unchained
The vengeance of Uranian Love !—
Canto VII, p. 159.
How Anthemion finds himself with
the dead Rhododaphne near Cal-
liroe's door, how Calliroe comes
out, the spell of her trance being
broken, to greet her lover, Shelley
doubtless told in few words, and
perhaps concluded with verses that
must have commended themselves
to him—
But when the roaid Anthemion led
To where her beauteous rival slept
The long last sleep, on earth dispread,
And told her tale, Calliroe wept
Sweot tears for Khododaphne's doom;
For in her heart a voice was heard:
— "Twas for Anthemion's love she
erred !"—
Cahto VII, pp. 165-6.
THE END.
PRINTED I1Y I1AI.I.ANTYNR AND HANSON'
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
42