CONVERSATION THE SEVENTEENTH
N.—I sometimes get into scrapes that way by contradicting people before I have well considered the subject, and I often wonder how I get out of them so well as I do. I remember once meeting with Sir — —, who was talking about Milton; and as I have a natural aversion to a coxcomb, I differed from what he said, without being at all prepared with any arguments in support of my opinion.
H.—But you had time enough to think of them afterwards.
N.—I got through with it somehow or other. It is the very risk you run in such cases that puts you on the alert and gives you spirit to extricate yourself from it. If you had full leisure to deliberate and to make out your defence beforehand, you perhaps could not do it so well as on the spur of the occasion. The surprise and flutter of the animal spirits gives the alarm to any little wit we possess, and puts it into a state of immediate requisition.
H.—Besides, it is always easiest to defend a paradox or an opinion you don’t care seriously about. I would sooner (as a matter of choice) take the wrong side than the right in any argument. If you have a thorough conviction on any point and good grounds for it, you have studied it long, and the real reasons have sunk into the mind; so that what you can recal of them at a suddenpinch, seems unsatisfactory and disproportionate to the confidence of your belief and to the magisterial tone you are disposed to assume. Even truth is a matter of habit and professorship. Reason and knowledge, when at their height, return into a kind of instinct. We understand the grammar of a foreign language best, though we do not speak it so well. But if you take up an opinion at a venture, then you lay hold of whatever excuse comes within your reach, instead of searching about for and bewildering yourself with the true reasons; and the odds are that the arguments thus got up are as good as those opposed to them. In fact, the more sophistical and superficial an objection to a received or well-considered opinion is, the more we are staggered and teazed by it; and the next thing is to lose our temper, when we become an easy prey to a cool and disingenuous adversary. I would much rather (as the safest side) insist on Milton’s pedantry than on his sublimity, supposing I were not in the company of very good judges. A single stiff or obscure line would outweigh a whole book of solemn grandeur in the mere flippant encounter of the wits, and, in general, the truth and justice of the cause you espouse is rather an incumbrance than an assistance;or it is like heavy armour which few have strength to wield. Any thing short of complete triumph on the right side is defeat: any hole picked or flaw detected in an argument which we are holding earnestly and conscientiously, is sufficient to raise the laugh against us. This is the greatest advantage which folly and knavery have. We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong; and as all the world would be thought to have some reason on their side, they are glad of any loop-hole or pretext to escape from the dogmatism and tyranny we would set up over them. Absolute submission requires absolute proofs. Without some such drawback, the world might become too wise and too good, at least according to every man’s private prescription. In this senseridicule is the test of truth; that is, the levity and indifference on one side balances the formality and presumption on the other.
N.—Horne Tooke used to play with his antagonists in the way you speak of. He constantly threw Fuseli into a rage and made him a laughing-stock, by asking him to explain the commonest things, and often what Fuseli understood much better than he did. But in general, I think it is less an indifference to truth than the fear of finding yourself in the wrong, that carries you through when you take up any opinion from caprice or the spirit of contradiction. Danger almost always produces courage and presence of mind. The faculties are called forth with the occasion. You see men of very ordinary characters, placed in extraordinary circumstances, act like men of capacity. The late King of France was thought weak and imbecile, till he was thrown into the most trying situations; and then he shewed sense and even eloquence which no one had ever suspected. Events supplied the want of genius and energy; the external impressions were so strong, that the dullest or most indolent must have been roused by them. Indeed the wise man is perhaps more liable to err in such extreme cases by setting up his own preconceptions and self-will against circumstances, than thecommon-placecharacter who yields to necessity and is passive under existing exigencies. It is this which makes kings and ministers equal to their situations. They may be very poor creatures in themselves; but the importance of the part they have to act and the magnitude of their responsibility inspire them with a factitious andofficialelevation of view. Few people are found totally unfit for high station, and it is lucky that it is so. Perhaps men of genius and imagination are the least adapted to get into the state go-cart; Buonaparte, we see, with all his talent, only drove to the devil. When RichardII.was quite a youth, and he went to suppress the rebellion of Wat Tyler in Smithfield, and the latter was killed, his followers drew their bowsand were about to take vengeance on the young king, when he stepped forward and said that ‘now as their leader was dead, he would be their leader.’ This instantly disarmed their rage, and they received him with acclamations. He had no other course left; the peril he was in made him see his place of safety. Courage has a wonderful effect: this makes mad people so terrible, that they have no fear. Even wild beasts or a mob (which is much the same thing) will hardly dare to attack you if you show no fear of them. I have heard Lord Exmouth (Sir Edward Pellew) say that once when he was out with his ship at sea and there was a mutiny on board and no chance of escape, he learned (from a spy he had among them) the moment when the ring-leaders were assembled and about to execute their design of putting the captain and all the officers to death, when taking a pistol in each hand, he went down into the cock-pit into the midst of them; and threatening to shoot the first man that stirred, took them every one prisoners. If he had betrayed the least fear or any of them had raised a hand, he must have been instantly sacrificed. But he was bolder than any individual in the group, and by this circumstance had the ascendancy over the whole put together. A similar act of courage is related of Peter the Great, who singly entered the haunt of some conspirators, and striking down the leader with a blow on the face, spread consternation amongst the assassins, who were terrified by his fearlessness.
(A book of prints was brought in, containing Views of Edinburgh.)
(A book of prints was brought in, containing Views of Edinburgh.)
(A book of prints was brought in, containing Views of Edinburgh.)
(A book of prints was brought in, containing Views of Edinburgh.)
N.—It is curious to what perfection these things are brought, and how cheap they are. It is that which makes them sell and ensures the fortune of those who publish them. Great fortunes are made out of small profits, which allow all the world to become purchasers. That is the reason the Colosseum will hardly answer. There never was an example of an exhibition in England answering at a crown a-piece. People look twice at their money before they will part with it, if it be more than they are accustomed to pay. It becomes a question, and perhaps a few stragglers go; whereas they ought to go in a stream and as a matter of course. If people have to pay a little more than usual, though a mere trifle, they consider it in the light of an imposition, and resent it as such; if the price be a little under the mark, they think they have saved so much money, and snap at it as a bargain. The publishers of the work on Edinburgh are the same who brought out theViews of London; and it is said, the success of that undertaking enabled them to buy up Lackington’s business. E— the architect, I am told, suggestedthe plan, but declined a share that was offered him in it, because he said nothing that he had been engaged in had ever succeeded. The event would not belie the notion of his own ill-luck. It is singular on what slight turns good or ill fortune depends. Lackington (I understood from the person who brought theEdinburgh Viewshere) died worth near half a million: nobody could tell how he had made it. At thirty he was not worth a shilling. The great difficulty is in the first hundred pounds.
H.—It is sympathy with the mass of mankind, and finding out from yourself what is they want and must have.
N.—It seems a good deal owing to the most minute circumstances. A difference of sixpence in the price will make all the difference in the sale of a book. Sometimes a work lies on the shelf for a time, and then runs like wild-fire. There wasDrelincourt on Death, which is a fortune in itself; it hung on hand;nobodyread it, till Defoe put a ghost-story into it, and it has been a stock-book ever since. It is the same in prints. A catching subject or name will make one thing an universal favourite, while another of ten times the merit is never noticed. I have known this happen to myself in more than one instance. This is the provoking part in W—l and some other painters, who, taking advantage of the externals and accidents of their art, have run away with nearly all the popularity of their time. Jack T— was here the other day to say that W— and his friends complained bitterly of the things I said about him. I replied that I had only spoken of him as an artist, which I was at liberty to do; and that if he were offended, I would recommend to him to read the story of Charles II. and the Duchess of Cleveland, who came to the king with a complaint, that whenever she met Nell Gwyn in the street, the latter put her head out of the coach and made mouths at her. ‘Well then,’says Charles II. ‘the next time you meet Nelly and she repeats the offence, do you make mouths at her again!’ So if Mr. W—l is hurt at my saying things of him, all he has to do is to say things of me in return.
H.—I confess, I never liked W—1. It was one of the errors of my youth that I did not think him equal to Raphael and Rubens united, as Payne Knight contended: and I have fought many a battle with numbers (if not odds) against me on that point.
N.—Then you must have the satisfaction of seeing a change of opinion at present.
H.—Pardon me, I have not that satisfaction; I have only a double annoyance from it. It is no consolation to me that an individual was overrated by the folly of the public formerly, and that he suffers from their injustice and fickleness at present. It is nosatisfaction to me that poor I—g is reduced to his primitive congregation, and that the stream of coronet-coaches no longer rolls down Holborn or Oxford-street to his chapel. They ought never to have done so, or they ought to continue to do so. The world (whatever in their petulance and profligacy they may think) have no right to intoxicate poor human nature with the full tide of popular applause, and then to drive it to despair for the want of it. There are no words to express the cruelty, the weakness, the shamelessness of such conduct, which resembles that of the little girl who dresses up her doll in the most extravagant finery, and then in mere wantonness strips it naked to its wool and bits of wood again—with this difference that the doll has no feeling, whereas the world’s idols are wholly sensitive.
(Of some one who preferred appearances to realities.)
(Of some one who preferred appearances to realities.)
(Of some one who preferred appearances to realities.)
(Of some one who preferred appearances to realities.)
N.—I can understand the character, because it is exactly the reverse of what I should do and feel. It is like dressing out of one’s sphere, or any other species of affectation and imposture. I cannot bear to be taken for any thing but what I am. It is like what the country-people call ‘havinga halfpenny head and a farthing tail.’ That is what makes me mad when people sometimes come and pay their court to me by saying—‘Bless me! how sagacious you look! What a penetrating countenance! ‘No, I say, that is but the title-page—what is there in the book? Your dwelling so much on the exterior seems to imply that the inside does not correspond to it. Don’t let me look wise and be foolish, but let me be wise though I am taken for a fool! Any thing else is quackery: it is as if there was no real excellence in the world, but in opinion. I used to blame Sir Joshua for this: he sometimes wanted to getCollins’s earth, but did not like to have it known. Then there were certain oils that he made a greatfussand mystery about. I have said to myself, surely there is something deeper and nobler in the art that does not depend on all this trick and handicraft. Give Titian and a common painter the same materials and tools to work with, and then see the difference between them. This is all that is worth contending for. If Sir Joshua had had no other advantage than the usingCollins’s earthand some particular sort ofmegilp, we should not now have been talking about him. When W— was here the other day, he asked about Mengs and his school; and when I told him what I thought, he said, ‘Is that your own opinion, or did you take it from Sir Joshua?’ I answered, that if I admired Sir Joshua, it was because there was something congenial in our tastes, and not because I was his pupil. I saw his faults, and differed with him often enough. If I have anybias, it is the other way, to take fancies into my head and run into singularity and cavils. In what I said to you about Ramsay’s picture of the Queen, for instance, I don’t know that any one ever thought so before, or that any one else would agree with me. It might be set down as mere whim and caprice; but I can’t help it, if it is so. All I know is, that such is my feeling about it, which I can no more part with than I can part with my own existence. It is the same in other things, as in music. There was an awkward composer at the Opera many years ago, of the name of Boccarelli; what he did was stupid enough in general, but I remember he sung an air one day at Cosway’s, which they said Shield had transferred into theFlitch of Bacon. I cannot describe the effect it had upon me—it seemed as if it wound into my very soul—I would give any thing to hear it sung again. So I could have listened to Dignum’s singing the lines out of Shakspeare—‘Come unto these yellow sands, and then take hands’—a hundred times over. But I am not sure that others would be affected in the same manner by it: there may be some quaint association of ideas in the case. But at least, if I am wrong, the folly is my own.
H.—There is no danger of the sort, except from affectation, which I am sure is not your case. All the real taste and feeling in the world is made up of what peopletake in their headsin this manner. Even if you were right only once in five times in these hazardous experiments and shrewd guesses, that would be a fifth part of the truth; whereas, if you merely repeated after others by rote or waited to have all the world on your side, there could be absolutely nothing gained at all. If any one had come in and had expressed the same idea of Ramsay’s portrait of the Queen, this would doubtless be a confirmation of your opinion, like two persons finding out a likeness; but suppose W— had gone away with your opinion in his pocket, and had spread it about everywhere what a fine painter Ramsay was, I do not see how this would have strengthened your conclusion; nay, perhaps the people whom he got as converts would entirely mistake the meaning, and come to you with the very reverse of what you had said as a prodigious discovery. This is the way in which these unanimous verdicts are commonly obtained. You might say that Ramsay was not a fine painter, but a man of real genius. The world, not comprehending the distinction, would merely come to the gross conclusion, that he was both one and the other. Thus even truth is vulgarly debased intocommon-placeand nonsense. So that it is not simply as Mr. Locke observed—‘That there are not so many wrong opinions in the world as is generally imagined, for most people have no opinion at all, but takeup with those of others or with mere hearsay and echoes;’ but these echoes are often false ones and no more like the original idea than the rhyming echoes in Hudibras or than Slender’s Mum and Budget.
N.—But don’t you think the contrary extreme would be just as bad, if every one set up to judge for himself and every question was split into an endless variety of opinions?
H.—I do not see that this would follow. If persons who are sincere and free to inquire differ widely on any subject, it is because it is beyond their reach, and there is no satisfactory evidence one way or the other. Supposing a thing to be doubtful, why should it not be left so? But men’s passions and interests, when brought into play, are most tenacious on these points where their understandings afford them least light. Those doctrines areestablishedwhich need propping up, as men place beams against falling houses. It does not require an act of parliament to persuade mathematicians to agree with Euclid, or painters to admire Raphael.
N.—And don’t you think this the best rule for the rest of the world to go by?
H.—Yes; but not if the doctors themselves differed: then it would be necessary toclench the nailwith a few smart strokes of bigotry and intolerance. What admits of proof, men agree in, if they have no interest to the contrary; what they differ about in spite of all that can be said, is matter of taste or conjecture.
N.—Opie, I remember, used to argue, that there were as many different sorts of taste as genius. He said, ‘If I am engaged in a picture, and endeavour to do it according to the suggestions of my employers, I do not understand exactly what they want, nor they what I can do, and I please no one: but if I do it according to my own notions, I belong to a class, and if I am able to satisfy myself, I please that class.’ You did not know Opie? You would have admired him greatly. I do not speak of him as an artist, but as a man of sense and observation. He paid me the compliment of saying, ‘that we should have been the best friends in the world, if we had not been rivals.’ I think he had more of this feeling than I had; perhaps, because I had most vanity. We sometimes got into foolish altercations. I recollect once in particular, at a banker’s in the city, we took up the whole of dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton and Shakspeare; I am sure we neither of us had theleast notion which was right—and when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen who was present, added to my confusion by saying—‘Lord! What would I give to hear two such men as you talk every day!’ This quite humbled me: I was ready to sink with vexation: I could have resolved never to open my mouth again. But I can’t help thinking W— was wrong in supposing I borrow every thing from others. It is not my character. I never could learn my lesson at school. My copy was hardly legible; but if there was a prize to be obtained or my father was to see it, then I could write a very fine hand with all the usual flourishes. What I know of history (and something about heraldry) has been gathered up when I had to enquire into the subject for a picture: if it had been set me as a task, I should have forgotten it immediately. In the same way, when Boydell came and proposed a subject for a picture to me, and pointed out the capabilities, I always said I could make nothing of it: but as soon as he was gone and I was left to myself, the whole then seemed to unfold itself naturally. I never could study the rules of composition or make sketches and drawings beforehand; in this, probably running into the opposite error to that of the modern Italian painters, whom Fuseli reproaches with spending their whole lives in preparation. I must begin at once or I can do nothing. When I set about the ‘Wat Tyler,’ I was frightened at it: it was the largest work I had ever undertaken: there were to be horses and armour and buildings and several groups in it: when I looked at it, the canvas seemed ready to fall upon me. But I had committed myself and could not escape; disgrace was behind me—and every step I made in advance, was so much positively gained. If I had staid to make a number of designs and try different experiments, I never should have had the courage to go on. Half the things that people do not succeed in, are through fear of making the attempt. Like the recruit in Farquhar’s comedy, you grow wondrous bold, when you have once taken ‘list-money.’ When youmustdo a thing, you feel in some measure that youcando it. You have only to commit yourself beyond retreat. It is like the soldier going into battle or a player first appearing on the stage—the worst is over when they arrive upon the scene of action.
H.—I found nearly the same thing that you describe when I first began to write for the newspapers. I had not till then been in the habit of writing at all, or had been a long time about it; but I perceived that with the necessity, the fluency came. Something I did,took; and I was called upon to do a number of things all at once. I was in the middle of the stream, and must sink or swim. I had, for instance, often a theatrical criticism to write after midnight, whichappeared the next morning. There was no fault found with it—at least, it was as good as if I had had to do it for a weekly paper. I only did it at once, and recollected all I had to say on the spot, because I could not put it off for three days, when perhaps I should have forgotten the best part of it. Besides, when one is pressed for time, one saves it. I might set down nearly all I had to say in my mind, while the play was going on. I know I did not feel at a loss for matter—the difficulty was to compress and write it out fast enough. When you are tied to time, you can come to time. I conceive in like manner more wonder is expressed atextemporespeaking, than it is entitled to. Not to mention that the same well-known topics continually recur, and that the speakers may con theirextemporespeeches over beforehand and merely watch their opportunity to slide them in dexterously into the grand procession of the debate: a man when once on his legsmust say something, and this is the utmost that a public speaker generally says. If he has any thing good to say, he can recollect it just as well at once as in a week’s literary leisure, as well standing up as sitting down, except from habit. We are not surprised at a man’s telling us his thoughts across a table: why should we be so at his doing the same thing, when mounted on one? But he excites more attention:thatgives him a double motive. A man’s getting up to make a speech in public will not give him a command of words or thoughts if he is without them; but he may be delivered of all the brilliancy or wisdom he actually possesses, in a longer or a shorter space, according to the occasion. The circumstance of the time is optional; necessity, if it be not the mother of invention, supplies us with the memory of all we know.
N.—(after a pause)—There is no end of the bigotry and prejudice in the world; one can only shrug one’s shoulders and submit to it. Have you seen the copies they have got down at the club-house in Pall-mall of the groups of horses from the Elgin marbles? Lord! how inferior they are to Rubens’s! So stiff, and poor, and dry, compared to his magnificent spirit and bold luxuriance! I should not know them to be horses; they are as much like any thing else. I was at Somerset-house the other day. They talk of the Dutch painters; why, there are pictures there of interiors and other subjects of familiar life, that throw all the boastedchef-d’œuvresof the Dutch school to an immeasurable distance. I do not speak of history, which has not been fairly tried; but in all for which there has been encouragement, no nation can go beyond us. We have resources and a richness of capacity equal to any undertaking.
H.—Do you recollect any in particular that you admired at the Exhibition?
N.—No, I do not remember the names; but it was a general sense of excellence and truth of imitation of natural objects. As to lofty history, our religion scarcely allows it. The Italians had no more genius for painting nor a greater love of pictures than we; but thechurchwas the foster-mother of the fine arts; being the most politic and powerful establishment in the world, they laid their hands on all that could allure and impress the minds of the people—music, painting, architecture, ceremonies; and this produced a succession of great artists and noble works, till the churches were filled, and then they ceased. The genius of Italian art was nothing but the genius of Popery. God forbid we should purchase success at the same price! Every thing at Rome is like a picture—is calculated for show. I remember walking through one of the bye-streets near the Vatican, where I met some procession in which the Pope was; and all at once I saw a number of the most beautiful Arabian horses curvetting and throwing out their long tails, like a vision or a part of a romance. We should here get one or two at most. All our holiday pageants, even the Coronation, are low Bartlemy-fair exhibitions compared with what you see at Rome. And then to see the Pope give the benediction at St. Peter’s, raising himself up and spreading out his hands in the form of a cross, with an energy and dignity as if he was giving a blessing to the whole world! No, it is not enough toseePopery in order to hate it—it must be felt too. A poor man going through one of the narrow streets where a similar procession was passing, was fiercely attacked by a soldier of the Swiss Guards, and ordered to stand back. The man said he could retire no further, for he was close against the wall. ‘Get back, you and the wall too!’ was the answer of haughty servility and mild despotism. It is this spirit peeping out that makes one dread the fairest outside appearances; and with this spirit, and the power and determination it implies to delude and lead the multitude blindfold with every lure to their imagination and their senses, I will answer for the production of finer historical and scripture-pieces in this country (let us be as far north as we will) than we have yet seen.
H.—You do not think, then, that we are naturally a dry, sour, Protestant set? Is not the air of Ireland Popish, and that of Scotland Presbyterian?
N.—No: though you may have it so if you please. K— has been wanting my two copies of —, though I do not think he will bid high enough to induce me to part with them. I am in this respect like Opie, who had an original by Sir Joshua that he much valued, and he used to say, ‘I don’t know what I should do in that case, but I hope to G—d nobody will offer me 500l.for it!’ It is curious,this very picture sold for 500l. the other day. So it is that real merit creeps on, and is sure to find its level. The ‘Holy Family’ sold among Lord Gwydir’s pictures for 1,900l.
H.—Is that fine?
N.—Oh yes! it’s certainly fine. It wants the air of history, but it has a rich colour and great simplicity and innocence. It is not equal to the ‘Snake in the Grass,’ which Mr. Peel gave 1,600 guineas for. That was hisforte: nothing is wanting there.
A Stranger.—I thought Sir Joshua’s colours did not stand?
N.—That is true of some of them: he tried experiments, and had no knowledge of chemistry, and bought colours of Jews: but I speak of them as they came from the easel. As he left them and intended them to be, no pictures in the world would stand by the side of them. Colour seemed to exist substantively in his mind. You see this still in those that have not faded—in his latter works especially, which were also his best; and this, with character and a certain sweetness, must always make his works invaluable. You come to this at last—what you find in any one that you can get nowhere else. If you have this about you, you need not be afraid of time. Gainsborough had the saving grace of originality; and you cannot put him down for that reason. With all their faults, and the evident want of an early study and knowledge of the art, his pictures fetch more every time they are brought to the hammer. I don’t know what it was that his ‘View of the Mall in St. James’s Park’ sold for not long ago. I remember Mr. P. H. coming to me, and saying what an exquisite picture Gainsborough had painted of the Park. You would suppose it would be stiff and formal with the straight rows of trees and people sitting on benches—it is all in motion, and in a flutter like a lady’s fan. Watteau is not half so airy. His picture of young lord — was a masterpiece—there was such a look of natural gentility. You must recollect his ‘Girl feeding pigs:’ the expression and truth of nature were never surpassed. Sir Joshua was struck with it, though he said he ought to have made her a beauty.
H.—Perhaps it was as well to make sure of one thing at a time. I remember being once driven by a shower of rain for shelter into a picture dealer’s shop in Oxford-street, where there stood on the floor a copy of Gainsborough’s ‘Shepherd-boy’ with the thunder-storm coming on. What a truth and beauty was there! He stands with his hands clasped, looking up with a mixture of timidity and resignation, eying a magpie chattering over his head, while the wind is rustling in the branches. It was like a vision breathed on the canvas. I have been fond of Gainsborough ever since.
N.—Oh! that was an essence: but it was only a copy you saw? The picture was finer than his ‘Woodman,’ which has a little false glitter and attempt at theatrical effect; but the other is innocence itself. Gainsborough was a natural gentleman; and with all his simplicity he had wit too. An eminent counsellor once attempted to puzzle him on some trial about the originality of a picture by saying, ‘I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, thepainter’s eye; what do you mean by that?’ ‘The painter’s eye,’ answered Gainsborough, ‘is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.’ Sir Joshua was not fond of Wilson, and said at one of the Academy dinners, ‘Yes, Gainsborough is certainly the best landscape-painter of the day.’ ‘No,’ replied Wilson, who overheard him, ‘but he is the best portrait-painter.’ This was a sufficient testimony in Gainsborough’s favour.
H.—He did not make himself agreeable at Buckingham-house, any more than Sir Joshua, who kept a certain distance and wished to appear as a gentleman; they wanted abuffoonwhom they might be familiar with at first, and insult the moment he overstepped the mark, or as soon as they grew tired of him. Their favourites must be likepetlap-dogs or monkeys.
N.—C— went to court the other day after a long absence. He was very graciously received, notwithstanding. The K— held out his hand for him to kiss; he recollected himself in time to perceive the object. He was struck with the manner in which the great people looked towards the King, and the utter insignificance of every thing else; ‘and then,’ said C—, ‘as soon as they are out of the palace, they get into their carriages, and ride over you with all the fierceness and insolence imaginable.’ West used to say you could tell the highest nobility at court by their being the most abject. This was policy, for the most powerful would be most apt to excite jealousy in the sovereign; and by showing an extreme respect, they thought to prevent the possibility of encroachment or insult. Garrick complained that when he went to read before the court, not a look or a murmur testified approbation; there was a profound stillness—every one only watched to see what the King thought. It was like reading to a set of wax-work figures: he who had been accustomed to the applause of thousands, could not bear this assembly of mutes. Marchant went to the late King about a cameo, who was offended at his saying the face must be done in full and not as a profile; ‘then,’ said the patron, ‘I’ll get somebody else to do it.’ Coming out at the door, one of the pages asked the artist, ‘Why do you contradict the K—? He is not used to be contradicted!’ This is intelligible in an absolute despotism, where the will of the sovereign is law, and wherehe can cut off your head if he pleases; but is it not strange in a free country?
H.—It is placing an ordinary mortal on the top of a pyramid, and kneeling at the bottom of it to the ‘highest and mightiest.’ It is a trick of human reason surpassing the grossness of the brute.
H.—Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity, and afraid of being overtaken by it. It is a sign the two things are not very far asunder.
N.—Yes; Mr. — used to say, that just before the women in his time left off hoops, they looked like bats. Going on from one affectation to another, they at last wore them close under their arms, so that they resembled wings growing out from their shoulders; and having reached the top of the absurdity, they then threw them aside all at once. If long waists are the fashion one season, they are exploded the next; as soon as the court adopts any particular mode, the city follows the example, and as soon as the city takes it up, the court lays it down. The whole is caricature and masquerade.Nature only is left out; for that is either common, or what is fine in it would not always be found on the fashionable side of the question. It may be the fashion to paint or not to paint; but if it were the fashion to have a fine complexion, many fashionable people must go without one, and many unfashionable ones would be at the height of it. Deformity is as often the fashion as beauty, yet the world in general see no other beauty than fashion, and their vanity or interest or complaisance bribes their understanding to disbelieve even their senses. If cleanliness is the fashion, then cleanliness is admired; if dirt, hair-powder, and pomatum are the fashion, then dirt, hair-powder, and pomatum are admired just as much, if not more, from their being disagreeable.
H.—The secret is, that fashion is imitating in certain things that are in our power and that are nearly indifferent in themselves, those who possess certain other advantages that are not in our power, and which the possessors are as little disposed to part with as they are eager to obtrude them upon the notice of others by every external symbol at their immediate controul. We think the cut of a coat fine, because it is worn by a man with ten thousand a-year, with a fine house, and a fine carriage: as we cannot get the ten thousand a-year, the house, or the carriage, we get what we can—the cut of the fine gentleman’s coat, and thus are in the fashion. But as we get it, hegets rid of it, which shows that he cares nothing about it; but he keeps his ten thousand a-year, his fine house, and his fine carriage. A rich man wears gold-buckles to show that he is rich: a coxcomb gets gilt ones to look like the rich man, and as soon as the gold ones prove nothing, the rich man leaves them off. So it is with all the real advantages that fashionable people possess. Say that they have more grace, good manners, and refinement than the rabble; but these do not change every moment at the nod of fashion. Speaking correctly is not proper to one class more than another: if the fashionable, to distinguish themselves from the vulgar, affect a peculiar tone or set of phrases, this is mereslang. The difference between grace and awkwardness is the same one year after another. This is the meaning ofnatural politeness. It is a perception of and attention to the feelings of others, which is the same thing, whether it is neglected by the Great or practised by the vulgar. The barrier between refinement and grossness cannot be arbitrarily effaced. Nothing changes but what depends on the shallow affectation and assumption of superiority: real excellence can never become vulgar. So Pope says in his elegant way—
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,’Tis just the same to virtue and to me;Dwell in a monk or light upon a king,She’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,’Tis just the same to virtue and to me;Dwell in a monk or light upon a king,She’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,’Tis just the same to virtue and to me;Dwell in a monk or light upon a king,She’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
’Tis just the same to virtue and to me;
Dwell in a monk or light upon a king,
She’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.
Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.
Pope’s verse is not admired, because it was once the fashion: it will be admired, let the fashion change how it will.
N.—When Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to learn what real grace was, he studied it in the attitudes of children, not in the school of the dancing-master, or in the empty strut or mawkish languor of fashion. A young painter asked me the other day whether I thought that Guido was not chargeable with affectation? I told him that I thoughtnot, or in a very trifling degree. I could not deny that Guido sometimes bordered on and reminded me of it; or that there was that which in any body else might be really so, but that in him it seemed only an extreme natural gentility. He puts his figures into attitudes that are a little too courtly and studied, but he probably could not help it.
H.—It was rather the excess of a quality or feeling in his mind, than the aiming to supply the defect of one.
N.—Yes; there is no suspicion of what he is doing. The odious part of affectation is when there is an evident design to impose onyou with counterfeit pretensions. So in another point that might be objected to him, the impropriety of his naked figures, no mortal can steer clearer of it than he does. They may be strictly said to be clothed with their own delicacy and beauty. There is the ‘Venus attired by the Graces:’ what other painter durst attempt it? They are to be all beauties, all naked; yet he has escaped as if by miracle—none but the most vicious can find fault with it—the very beauty, elegance, and grace keep down instead of exciting improper ideas. And then again, the ‘Andromeda chained to the rock’—both are, I believe, in the drawing-room at Windsor: but there is no possible offence to be taken at them, nothing to shock the most timid or innocent, because there was no particle of grossness in the painter’s mind. I have seen pictures by others muffled up to the chin, that had twenty times as much vice in them. It is wonderful how the cause is seen in the effect. So we find it in Richardson.Clarissais a story in the midst of temptation; but he comes clear and triumphant out of that ordeal, because his own imagination is not contaminated by it. If there had been the least hint of an immoral tendency, the slightest indication of a wish to inflame the passions, it would have been all over with him. The intention always will peep out—you do not communicate a disease if you are not infected with it yourself. Albano’s nymphs and goddesses seem waiting for admirers: Guido’s are protected with a veil of innocence and modesty. Titian would have given them an air of Venetian courtesans: Raphael would have made them look something more than mortal: neither would have done what Guido has effected, who has conquered the difficulty by the pure force of feminine softness and delicacy.
H.—I am glad to hear you speak so of Guido. I was beginning, before I went abroad, to have a ‘sneaking contempt’ for him as insipid and monotonous, from seeing the same everlasting repetitions of Cleopatras and Madonnas: but I returned a convert to his merits. I saw many indifferent pictures attributed to great masters; but wherever I saw a Guido, I found elegance and beauty that answered to the ‘silver’ sound of his name. The mind lives on a round of names; and it is a great point gained not to have one of these snatched from us by a sight of their works. As to the display of the naked figure in works of art, the case to me seems clear: it is only when there is nothing but the naked figure that it is offensive. In proportion as the beauty or perfection of the imitation rises, the indecency vanishes. You look at it then with an eye to art, just as the anatomist examines the human figure with a view to science. Other ideas are introduced. J. —, of Edinburgh, had a large,sprawling Danae hanging over the chimney-piece of his office, where he received Scotch parsons and their wives on law-business: he thought it a triumph over Presbyterian prudery and prejudice, and a sort of chivalrous answer to the imputed barbarism of the North. It was certainly a paradox in taste, a breach of manners. He asked me if I objected to it because it was naked? ‘No,’ I said, ‘but because it is ugly: you can only have put it there because it is naked, and that alone shows a felonious intent. Had there been either beauty or expression, it would haveconducted offthe objectionable part. As it is, I don’t see how you can answer it to the kirk-sessions.’
N.—I remember Sir W. W— employed Sir Joshua and Dance, who was a very eminent designer, to ornament a music-room which he had built. Sir Joshua on this occasion painted his St. Cecilia, which he made very fine at first, but afterwards spoiled it; and Dance chose the subject of Orpheus. When I asked Miss Reynolds what she thought of it, she said she had no doubt of its being clever and well done, but that it looked ‘like a naked man.’ This answer was conclusive against it; for if the inspiration of the character had been given, you would have overlooked the want of clothes. The nakedness only strikes and offends the eye in the barrenness of other matter. It is the same in the drama. Mere grossness or ribaldry is intolerable; but you often find in the old comedy that the wit and ingenuity (as well as custom) carry off what otherwise could not be borne. The laughter prevents the blush. So an expression seems gross in one person’s mouth, which in another passes off with perfect innocence. The reason is, there is something in the manner that gives a quite different construction to what is said. Have you seen theAlcides, the two foreigners who perform such prodigious feats of strength at the theatre, but with very little clothing on? They say the people hardly know what to make of it. They should not be too sure that this is any proof of their taste or virtue.
H.—I recollect a remark of Coleridge’s on the conclusion of the story ofPaul and Virginiaby Bernardin St. Pierre. Just before the shipwreck, and when nothing else can save the heroine from perishing, an athletic figure comes forward stripped, but with perfect respect, and offers to swim with her to the shore; but instead of accepting his proposal, she turns away with affected alarm. This, Coleridge said, was a proof of the prevailing tone of French depravity, and not of virgin innocence. A really modest girl in such circumstances would not have thought of any scruple.
N.—It is the want of imagination or of an insight into nature in ordinary writers; they do not know how to place themselves in thesituations they describe. Whatever feeling or passion is uppermost, fills the mind and drives out every other. If you were confined in a vault, and thought you saw a ghost, you would rush out, though a lion was at the entrance. On the other hand, if you were pursued by a lion, you would take refuge in a charnel-house, though it was full of spirits, and would disregard the dead bones and putrid relics about you. Both passions may be equally strong; the question is, which is roused first. But it is few who can get to the fountain-head, the secret springs of Nature. Shakspeare did it always; and Sir Walter Scott frequently. G— says he always was pleased with my conversation, before you broached that opinion; but I do not see how that can be, for he always contradicts and thwarts me. When two people are constantly crossing one another on the road, they cannot be very good company. You agree to what I say, and often explain or add to it, which encourages me to go on.
H.—I believe G— is sincere in what he says, for he has frequently expressed the same opinion to me.
N.—That might be so, though he took great care not to let me know it. People would often more willingly speak well of you behind your back than to your face; they are afraid either of shocking your modesty or gratifying your vanity. That was the case with —. If he ever was struck with any thing I did, he made a point not to let me see it: he treated it lightly, and said it was very well.
H.—I do not think G—’s differing with you was any proof of his opinion. Like most authors, he has something of the schoolmaster about him, and wishes to keep up an air of authority. What you say may be very well for a learner; but he is the oracle. You must not set up for yourself; and to keep you in due subordination, he catechises and contradicts from mere habit.
N.—Human nature is always the same. It was so with Johnson and Goldsmith. They would allow no one to have any merit but themselves. The very attempt was a piece of presumption, and a trespass upon their privileged rights. I remember a poem that came out, and that was sent to Sir Joshua: his servant, Ralph, had instructions to bring it in just after dinner. Goldsmith presently got hold of it, and seemed thrown into a rage before he had read a line of it. He then said, ‘What wretched stuff is here! what c—rsed nonsense that is!’ and kept all the while marking the passages with his thumb-nail, as if he would cut them in pieces. At last, Sir Joshua, who was provoked, interfered, and said, ‘Nay, don’t spoil my book, however.’ Dr. Johnson looked down on the rest of the world as pigmies; he smiled at the very idea that any one should set up for a fine writer but himself. They never admitted C— as one of theset; Sir Joshua did not invite him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flown out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying, ‘D—n hisdishcloutface; his plays would never do if it were not for my patching them up and acting in them.’ Another time, he took a poem of C—’s, and read it backwards to turn it into ridicule. Yet some of his pieces keep possession of the stage, so that there must be something in them.
H.—Perhaps he was later than they, and they considered him as an interloper on that account.
N.—No; there was a prejudice against him: he did not somehow fall into the train. It was the same with Vanbrugh in Pope’s time. They made a jest of him, and endeavoured to annoy him in every possible way; he was ablack sheepfor no reason in the world, except that he was cleverer than they; that is, could build houses and write verses at the same time. They laughed at his architecture; yet it is certain that it is quite original, and at least a question whether it is not beautiful as well as new. He was the first who sunk the window-frames within the walls of houses—they projected before: he did it as a beauty, but it has been since adopted by act of parliament to prevent fire. Some gentleman was asking me about the imposing style of architecture with which Vanbrugh had decorated the top of Blenheim-house; he had mistaken the chimneys for an order of architecture, so that what is an eye-sore in all other buildings, Vanbrugh has had the art to convert into an ornament. And then his wit! Think what a comedy is theProvoked Husband! What a scope and comprehension in the display of manners from the highest to the lowest! It was easier to write an epigram onBrother Vanthan such a play as this. I once asked Richards, the scene-painter, who was perfectly used to the stage, and acquainted with all the actors, what he considered as the best play in the language? And he answered, without hesitation,The Journey to London.
H.—Lord Foppingtonis also his, if he wantedsupporters. He was in the same situation as Rousseau with respect to the wits of his time, who traces all his misfortunes and the jealousy that pursued him through life to the success of theDevin du Village. He said Diderot and the rest could have forgiven his popularity as an author, but they could not bear his writing an opera.
N.—If you belong to a set, you must either lead or follow; you cannot maintain your independence. Beattie did very well with the great folks in my time, because he looked up to them, and he excited no uneasy sense of competition. Indeed, he managed so well that Sir Joshua flattered him and his book in return in the most effectual manner. In his allegorical portrait of the doctor, he introduced theangel of truth chasing away the demons of falsehood and impiety, who bore an obvious resemblance to Hume and Voltaire. This brought out Goldsmith’s fine reproof of his friend, who said that ‘Sir Joshua might be ashamed of debasing a genius like Voltaire before a man like Beattie, whose works would be forgotten in a few years, while Voltaire’s fame would last for ever!’ Sir J. R. took the design of this picture from one of a similar subject by Tintoret, now in the Royal Collection in Kensington Palace. He said he had no intention of the sort: Hume was a broad-backed clumsy figure, not very like; but I know he meant Voltaire, for I saw a French medal of him lying about in the room. Mrs. Beattie also came up with her husband to London. I recollect her asking for ‘a littlepaurter’ in her broad Scotch way. It is like Cibber’s seeing Queen Anne at Nottingham when he was a boy, and all he could remember about her was her asking him to give her ‘a glass of wine and water.’ She was an ordinary character, and belonged to the class of good sort of people. So the Margravine of Bareuth describes the Duchess of Kendal, who was mistress to George I. to be a quiet inoffensive character, who would do neither good nor harm to any body. Did you ever read herMemoirs? Lord! what an account she gives of the state of manners at the old court of Prussia, and of the brutal despotism and cruelty of the king! She was his daughter, and he used to strike her, and drag her by the hair of her head, and leave her with her face bleeding, and often senseless, on the floor for the smallest trifles; and he treated her brother, afterwards Frederic II. (and to whom she was much attached) no better. That might in part account for the hardness of his character at a later period.
H.—I suppose Prussia was at that time a mere petty state or sort of bye-court, so that what they did was pretty much done in a corner, and they were not afraid of being talked of by the rest of Europe.
N.—No; it was quite an absolute monarchy with all the pomp and pretensions of sovereignty. Frederick (the father) was going, on some occasion when he was displeased with him, to strike our ambassador; but this conduct was resented and put a stop to. The Queen (sister to GeorgeII.and who was imprisoned so long on a suspicion of conjugal infidelity) appears to have been a violent-spirited woman, and also weak. GeorgeI.could never learn to speak English, and his successor, GeorgeII., spoke it badly, and neither ever felt themselves at home in this country; and they were always going over to Hanover, where they found themselves lords and masters, while here, though they had been raised so much higher, their dignity never sat easy upon them. They did not know what to make of their new situation.
[Northcote here read me a letter I had heard him speak of relative to a distinguished character mentioned in a former Conversation.]
‘A Letter to Mr. Northcote in London from his Brother at Plymouth, giving an account of a Shipwreck.