PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE[10]

Burleigh! thy groves are leafless, thy walls are naked—

‘And dull, cold winter does inhabit here.’

The yellow evening rays gleam through thy fretted Gothic windows; but I only feel the rustling of withered branches strike chill to my breast; it was not so twenty years ago. Thy groves were leafless then as now: it was the middle of winter twice that I visited thee before; but the lark mounted in the sky, and the sun smote my youthful blood with its slant ray, and the ploughman whistled as he drove his team afield; Hope spread out its glad vistas through thy fair domains, oh, Burleigh! Fancy decked thy walls with works of sovereign art, and it was spring, not winter, in my breast. All is still the same, like a petrification of the mind—the same things in the same places; but their effect is not the same upon me. I am twenty years the worse forwear and tear. What is become of the never-ending studious thoughts that brought their own reward or promised good to mankind? of the tears that started welcome and unbidden? of the sighs that whispered future peace? of the smiles that shone, not in my face indeed, but that cheered my heart, and made a sunshine there when all was gloom around? That fairy vision—that invisible glory, by which I was once attended—ushered into life, has left my side, and ‘faded to the light of common day,’ and I now see what is, or has been—not what may lie hid in Time’s bright circle and golden chaplet! Perhaps this is the characteristic difference between youth and a later period of life—that we, by degrees, learn to take things more as we find them, call them more by their right names; that we feel the warmth of summer, but the winter’s cold as well; that we see beauties, but can spy defects in the fairest face; and no longer look at every thing through the genial atmosphere of our own existence. We grow more literal and less credulous every day, lose much enjoyment, and gain some useful, and more useless knowledge. The second time I passed along the road that skirts Burleigh Park, the morning was dank and ‘ways were mire.’ I saw and felt it not: my mind was otherwise engaged. Ah! thought I, there is that fine old head by Rembrandt; there within those cold grey walls, the painter of old age is enshrined, immortalized in some of his inimitable works! The name of Rembrandt lives in the fame of him who stamped it with renown, while the name of Burleigh is kept up by the present owner. Anartist survives in the issue of his brain to all posterity—a lord is nothing without the issue of his body lawfully begotten, and is lost in a long line of illustrious ancestors. So much higher is genius than rank—such is the difference between fame and title! A great name in art lasts for centuries—it requires twenty generations of a noble house to keep alive the memory of the first founder for the same length of time. So I reasoned, and was not a little proud of my discovery.

In this dreaming mood, dreaming of deathless works and deathless names, I went on to Peterborough, passing, as it were, under an arch-way of Fame,

——‘and still walking under,Found some new matter to look up and wonder.’

——‘and still walking under,

Found some new matter to look up and wonder.’

I had business there: I will not say what. I could at this time do nothing. I could not write a line—I could not draw a stroke. ‘I was brutish;’ though not ‘like warlike as the wolf, nor subtle as the fox for prey.’ In words, in looks, in deeds, I was no better than a changeling. Why then do I set so much value on my existence formerly? Oh God! that I could but be for one day, one hour, nay but for an instant, (to feel it in all the plentitude of unconscious bliss, and take one long, last, lingering draught of that full brimming cup of thoughtless freedom,) what then I was—that I might, as in a trance, a waking dream, hear the hoarse murmur of the bargemen, as the Minster tower appeared in the dim twilight, come up from the willowy stream, sounding low and underground like the voice of the bittern—that I might paint that field opposite the window where I lived, and feel that there was a green, dewy moisture in the tone, beyond my pencil’s reach, but thus gaining almost a new sense, and watching the birth of new objects without me—that I might stroll down Peterborough bank, (a winter’s day,) and see the fresh marshes stretching out in endless level perspective, (as if Paul Potter had painted them,) with the cattle, the windmills, and the red-tiled cottages, gleaming in the sun to the very verge of the horizon, and watch the fieldfares in innumerable flocks, gamboling in the air, and sporting in the sun, and racing before the clouds, making summersaults, and dazzling the eye by throwing themselves into a thousand figures and movements—that I might go, as then, a pilgrimage to the town where my mother was born, and visit the poor farm-house where she was brought up, and lean upon the gate where she told me she used to stand when a child of ten years old and look at the setting sun!—I could do all this still; but with different feelings. As our hopes leave us, we lose even our interest and regrets for the past. I had at this time, simple as Iseemed, many resources. I could in some sort ‘play at bowls with the sun and moon;’ or, at any rate, there was no question in metaphysics that I could not bandy to and fro, as one might play at cup-and-ball, for twenty, thirty, forty miles of the great North Road, and at it again, the next day, as fresh as ever. I soon get tired of this now, and wonder how I managed formerly. I knew Tom Jones by heart, and was deep in Peregrine Pickle. I was intimately acquainted with all the heroes and heroines of Richardson’s romances, and could turn from one to the other as I pleased. I could con over that single passage in Pamela about ‘her lumpish heart,’ and never have done admiring the skill of the author and the truth of nature. I had my sports and recreations too, some such as these following:—

‘To see the sun to bed, and to arise,Like some hot amourist, with glowing eyesBursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,With all his fires and travelling glories round him.Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,Like beauty nestling in a young man’s breast,And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keepAdmiring silence while those lovers sleep.Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,Go eddying round and small birds how they fare,When Mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,Filch’d from the careless Amalthea’s horn:And how the woods berries and worms provideWithout their pains, when earth has nought besideTo answer their small wants.To view the graceful deer come tripping by,Then stop and gaze, then turn, they know not why,Like bashful younkers in society.To mark the structure of a plant or tree,And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.’

‘To see the sun to bed, and to arise,

Like some hot amourist, with glowing eyes

Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,

With all his fires and travelling glories round him.

Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,

Like beauty nestling in a young man’s breast,

And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep

Admiring silence while those lovers sleep.

Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,

Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,

To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,

Go eddying round and small birds how they fare,

When Mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,

Filch’d from the careless Amalthea’s horn:

And how the woods berries and worms provide

Without their pains, when earth has nought beside

To answer their small wants.

To view the graceful deer come tripping by,

Then stop and gaze, then turn, they know not why,

Like bashful younkers in society.

To mark the structure of a plant or tree,

And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.’

I have wandered far enough from Burleigh House; but I had some associations about it which I could not well get rid of, without troubling the reader with them.

TheRembrandtsdisappointed me quite. I could hardly find a trace of the impression which had been inlaid in my imagination. I might as well

‘Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.’

Instead of broken wrinkles and indented flesh, I saw hard lines and stained canvas. I had seen better Rembrandts since, and had learnedto see nature better. Was it a disadvantage, then, that for twenty years I had carried this fine idea in my brain, enriching it from time to time from my observations of nature or art, and raising it as they were raised; or did it much signify that it was disturbed at last? Neither. The picture was nothing to me: it was the idea it had suggested. The one hung on the wall at Burleigh; the other was an heir-loom in my mind. Was it destroyed, because the picture, after long absence, did not answer to it? No. There were other pictures in the world that did, and objects in nature still more perfect. This is the melancholy privilege of art; it exists chiefly in idea, and is not liable to serious reverses. If we are disappointed in the character of one we love, it breaks the illusion altogether; for we drew certain consequences from a face. If an old friendship is broken up, we cannot tell how to replace it, without the aid of habit and a length of time. But a picture is nothing but a face; it interests us only in idea. Hence we need never be afraid of raising our standard of taste too high; for the mind rises with it, exalted and refined, and can never be much injured by finding out its casual mistakes. Like the possessor of a splendid collection, who is indifferent to or turns away from common pictures, we have a selector gallery in our own minds. In this sense, the knowledge of art isits own exceeding great reward. But is there not danger that we may become too fastidious, and have nothing left to admire? None: for the conceptions of the human soul cannot rise superior to the power of art; or if they do, then we have surely every reason to be satisfied with them. The mind, in what depends upon itself alone, ‘soon rises from defeat unhurt,’ though its pride may be for a moment ‘humbled by such rebuke,’

‘And in its liquid texture mortal woundReceives no more than can the fluid air.’

‘And in its liquid texture mortal wound

Receives no more than can the fluid air.’

As an illustration of the same thing, there are two Claudes at Burleigh, which certainly do not come up to the celebrity of the artist’s name. They did not please me formerly: the sky, the water, the trees seemed all too blue, too much of the colour of indigo. But I believed, and wondered. I could no longer admire these specimens of the artist at present, but assuredly my admiration of the artist himself was not less than before; for since then, I had seen other works by the same hand,

——‘inimitable on earthBy model or by shading pencil drawn,’—

——‘inimitable on earth

By model or by shading pencil drawn,’—

surpassing every idea that the mind could form of art, except by having seen them. I remember one in particular that Walsh Porterhad (a bow-shot beyond all others)—a vernal landscape, an ‘Hesperian fable true,’ with a blue unclouded sky, and green trees and grey turrets and an unruffled sea beyond. But never was there sky so soft or trees so clad with spring, such air-drawn towers or such halcyon seas: Zephyr seemed to fan the air, and Nature looked on and smiled. The name of Claude has alone something in it that softens and harmonises the mind. It touches a magic chord. Oh! matchless scenes, oh! orient skies, bright with purple and gold; ye opening glades and distant sunny vales, glittering with fleecy flocks, pour all your enchantment into my soul, let it reflect your chastened image, and forget all meaner things! Perhaps the most affecting tribute to the memory of this great artist is the character drawn of him by an eminent master, in hisDream of a Painter.

‘On a sudden I was surrounded by a thick cloud or mist, and my guide wafted me through the air, till we alighted on a most delicious rural spot. I perceived it was the early hour of the morn, when the sun had not risen above the horizon. We were alone, except that at a little distance a young shepherd played on his flageolet as he walked before his herd, conducting them from the fold to the pasture. The elevated pastoral air he played charmed me by its simplicity, and seemed to animate his obedient flock. The atmosphere was clear and perfectly calm: and now the rising sun gradually illumined the fine landscape, and began to discover to our view the distant country of immense extent. I stood awhile in expectation of what might next present itself of dazzling splendour, when the only object which appeared to fill this natural, grand, and simple scene, was a rustic who entered, not far from the place where we stood, who by his habiliments seemed nothing better than a peasant; he led a poor little ass, which was loaded with all the implements required by a painter in his work. After advancing a few paces he stood still, and with an air of rapture seemed to contemplate the rising sun: he next fell on his knees, directed his eyes towards heaven, crossed himself, and then went on with eager looks, as if to make choice of the most advantageous spot from which to make his studies as a painter. “This,” said my conductor, “is that Claude Gelée of Lorraine, who, nobly disdaining the low employment to which he was originally bred, left it with all its advantages of competence and ease to embrace his present state of poverty, in order to adorn the world with works of most accomplished excellence.”’

There is a little Paul Brill at Burleigh, in the same room with the Rembrandts, that dazzled me many years ago, and delighted me the other day. It looked as sparkling as if the sky came through the frame. I found, or fancied I found, those pictures the best that I remembered before, though they might in the interval have faded a little to my eyes, or lost some of their original brightness. I did not see the small head of Queen Mary by Holbein, which formerly struckme so forcibly; but I have little doubt respecting it, for Holbein was a sure hand; he only wanted effect, and this picture looked through you. One of my old favourites was theHead of an Angel, by Guido, nearly a profile, looking up, and with wings behind the back. It was hung lower than it used to be, and had, I thought, a look less aërial, less heavenly; but there was still a pulpy softness in it, a tender grace, an expression unutterable—which only the pencil,hispencil, could convey! And are we not then beholden to the art for these glimpses of Paradise? Surely, there is a sweetness in Guido’s heads, as there is also a music in his name. If Raphael did more, it was not with the same ease. His heads have more meaning; but Guido’s have a look of youthful innocence, which his are without. As to the boasted picture of Christ by Carlo Dolce, if a well-painted table-cloth and silver-cup are worth three thousand guineas, the picture is so, but not else. Yet one touch of Paul Veronese is worth all this enamelling twice over. The head has a wretched mawkish expression, utterly unbecoming the character it professes to represent. But I will say no more about it. TheBath of Senecais one of Luca Jordano’s best performances, and has considerable interest and effect. Among other historical designs, there is one ofJacob’s Dream, with the angels ascending and descending on a kind of stairs. The conception is very answerable to the subject; but the execution is not in any high degree spirited or graceful. The mind goes away no gainer from the picture. Rembrandt alone perhaps could add any thing to this subject. Of him it might be said, that ‘his light shone in darkness!’—The wreaths of flowers and foliage carved in wood on the wainscots and ceiling of many of the rooms, by the celebrated Grinling Gibbons in Charles the Second’s time, shew a wonderful lightness and facility of hand, and give pleasure to the eye. The other ornaments and curiosities I need not mention, as they are carefully pointed out by the housekeeper to the admiring visitor. There are two heads, however, (one of them happens to have a screen placed before it) which I would by no means wish any one to pass over, who is an artist, or feels the slightest interest in the art. They are, I should suppose unquestionably, the original studies by Raphael of the heads of theVirginandJosephin his famous picture of theMadonna of the Crown. The Virgin is particularly beautiful, and in the finest preservation, as indeed are all his genuine pictures. The canvas is not quite covered in some places; the colours are as fresh as if newly laid on, and the execution is as firm and vigorous as if his hand had just left it. It shews us how this artist wrought. The head is, no doubt, a highly-finished study from nature, done for a particular purpose, and worked up according to the painter’s conception, but still retaining all theforce and truth of individuality. He got all he could from Nature, and gave all he could to her in return. If Raphael had merely sketched this divine face on the canvas from the idea in his own mind, why not stamp it on the larger composition at once? He could work it up and refine upon it there just as well, and it would almost necessarily undergo some alteration in being transferred thither afterwards. But if it was done as a careful copy from Nature in the first instance, the present was the only way in which he could proceed, or indeed by which he could arrive at such consummate excellence. The head of the Joseph (leaning on the hand and looking down) is fine, but neither so fine as the companion to it, nor is it by any means so elaborately worked up in the sketch before us.

I am no teller of stories; but there is one belonging to Burleigh-House, of which I happen to know some of the particulars. The late Earl of Exeter had been divorced from his first wife, a woman of fashion, and of somewhat more gaiety of manners than ‘lords who love their ladies like.’ He determined to seek out a second wife in an humbler sphere of life, and that it should be one who, having no knowledge of his rank, should love him for himself alone. For this purpose, he went and settledincognito(under the name of Mr. Jones) at Hodnet, an obscure village in Shropshire. He made overtures to one or two damsels in the neighbourhood, but they were too knowing to be taken in by him. His manners were not boorish, his mode of life was retired, it was odd how he got his livelihood, and at last, he began to be taken for a highwayman. In this dilemma he turned to Miss Hoggins, the eldest daughter of a small farmer, at whose house he lodged. Miss Hoggins, it might seem, had not been used to romp with the clowns: there was something in the manners of their quiet, but eccentric guest that she liked. As he found that he had inspired her with that kind of regard which he wished for, he made honourable proposals to her, and at the end of some months, they were married, without his letting her know who he was. They set off in a post-chaise from her father’s house, and travelled homewards across the country. In this manner they arrived at Stamford, and passed through the town without stopping, till they came to the entrance of Burleigh-Park, which is on the outside of it. The gates flew open, the chaise entered, and drove down the long avenue of trees that leads up to the front of this fine old mansion. As they drew nearer to it, and she seemed a little surprised where they were going, he said, ‘Well, my dear, this is Burleigh-House; it is the home I have promised to bring you to, and you are the Countess of Exeter!’ It is said, the shock of this discovery was too much for this young creature, and that she never recovered it. It was a sensationworth dying for. The world we live in was worth making, had it been only for this.Ye Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Night’s Entertainment!hide your diminished heads! I never wish to have been a lord, but when I think of this story.

Rome has been called the ‘Sacred City:’—might notourOxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the ‘hill of ages;’ and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze from afar, ‘with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,’ that shine with an internal light as with the lustre of setting suns; and a dream and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought, conscious of the weight of yearnings innumerable after the past, of loftiest aspirations for the future: Isis babbles of the Muse, its waters are from the springs of Helicon, its Christ-Church meadows, classic, Elysian fields!—We could pass our lives in Oxford without having or wanting any other idea—that of the place is enough. We imbibe the air of thought; we stand in the presence of learning. We are admitted into the Temple of Fame, we feel that we are in the sanctuary, on holy ground, and ‘hold high converse with the mighty dead.’ The enlightened and the ignorant are on a level, if they have but faith in the tutelary genius of the place. We may be wise by proxy, and studious by prescription. Time has taken upon himself the labour of thinking; and accumulated libraries leave us leisure to be dull. There is no occasion to examine the buildings, the churches, the colleges, by the rules of architecture, to reckon up the streets, to compare it with Cambridge (Cambridge lies out of the way, on one side of the world)—but woe to him who does not feel in passing through Oxford that he is in ‘no mean city,’ that he is surrounded with the monuments and lordly mansions of the mind of man, outvying in pomp and splendour the courts and palaces of princes, rising like an exhalation in the night of ignorance, and triumphing over barbaric foes, saying, ‘All eyes shall see me, and all knees shall bow to me!’—as the shrine where successive ages came to pay their pious vows, and slake the sacred thirst of knowledge, where youthful hopes (an endless flight) soared to truth and good, and where the retiredand lonely student brooded over the historic or over fancy’s page, imposing high tasks for himself, framing high destinies for the race of man—the lamp, the mine, the well-head from whence the spark of learning was kindled, its stream flowed, its treasures were spread out through the remotest corners of the land and to distant nations. Let him then who is fond of indulging in a dream-like existence go to Oxford and stay there; let him study this magnificent spectacle, the same under all aspects, with its mental twilight tempering the glare of noon, or mellowing the silver moonlight; let him wander in her sylvan suburbs, or linger in her cloistered halls; but let him not catch the din of scholars or teachers, or dine or sup with them, or speak a word to any of the privileged inhabitants; for if he does, the spell will be broken, the poetry and the religion gone, and the palace of enchantment will melt from his embrace into thin air!

The only Collection of Pictures at Oxford is that at the Radcliffe Library; bequeathed by Sir William Guise. It is so far appropriate that it is dingy, solemn, old; and we would gladly leave it to its repose; but where criticism comes, affection ‘clappeth his wings, and straightway he is gone.’ Most of the pictures are either copies, or spoiled, or never were good for any thing. There is, however, aMusic Pieceby Titian, which bears the stamp of his hand, and is ‘majestic, though in ruins.’ It represents three young ladies practising at a harpsichord, with their music-master looking on. One of the girls is tall, with prominent features seen in profile, but exquisitely fair, and with a grave expression; the other is a lively, good-humoured girl, in a front view; and the third leans forward from behind, looking down with a demure, reserved, sentimental cast of countenance, but very pretty, and much like an English face. The teacher has a manly, intelligent countenance, with a certain blended air of courtesy and authority. It is a fascinating picture, to our thinking; and has that marked characteristic look, belonging to each individual and to the subject, which is always to be found in Titian’s groups. We also noticed a dingy, melancholy-looking Head over the window of the farthest room, said to be aPortrait of Vandyke, with something striking in the tone and expression; and a smallAdam and Eve driven out of Paradise, attributed to Giuseppe Ribera, which has considerable merit. The amateur will here find continual copies (of an indifferent class) of many of his old favourite pictures of the Italian school, Titian, Domenichino, Correggio, and others. But the most valuable part of the Collection consists of four undoubted Heads cut out of one of theCartoons, which was destroyed by fire about a hundred years ago: they are here preserved in their pristine integrity. They shew us what the Cartoons were. Theyhave all the spirit and freedom of Raphael’s hand, but without any of the blotches and smearing of those at Hampton Court; with which the damp of outhouses and the dews of heaven have evidently had nearly as much to do as the painter. Two are Heads of men, and two of women; one of the last,Rachel weeping for her Children, and another still finer (both are profiles) in which all the force and boldness of masculine understanding is combined with feminine softness of expression. The large, ox-like eye, a ‘lucid mirror,’ with the eye-lids drooping, and the long eye-lashes distinctly marked, the straight scrutinizing nose, the full, but closed lips, the matronly chin and high forehead, altogether convey a character of matured thought and expansive feeling, such as is seldom to be met with.Rachel weeping for her Childrenhas a sterner and more painful, but a very powerful expression. It is heroic, rather than pathetic. The Heads of the men are spirited and forcible, but they are distinguished chiefly by the firmness of the outline, and the sharpness and mastery of the execution.

Blenheim is a morning’s walk from Oxford, and is not an unworthy appendage to it—

‘And fast by hanging in a golden chainThis pendent world, in bigness as a starOf smallest magnitude, close by the moon!’

‘And fast by hanging in a golden chain

This pendent world, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon!’

Blenheim is not inferior in waving woods and sloping lawns and smooth waters to Pembroke’s princely domain, or to the grounds of any other park we know of. The building itself is Gothic, capricious, and not imposing—a conglomeration of pigeon-houses—

‘In form resembling a goose pie.’

But as a receptacle for works of art, (with the exception of Cleveland House,) it is unrivalled in this country. There is not a bad picture in it: the interest is sustained by rich and noble performances from first to last. It abounds in Rubens’ works. The old Duchess of Marlborough was fond of the historical pieces of this great painter; she had, during her husband’s wars and negociations in Flanders, a fine opportunity of culling them, ‘as one picks pears, saying, this I like, that I like still better:’ and from the selection she has made, it appears as if she understood the master’s genius well. She has chosen those of his works which were most mellow, and at the same time gorgeous in colouring, most luxuriant in composition, most unctuous in expression. Rubens was the only artist that could have embodied some of our countryman Spenser’s splendid and voluptuousallegories. If a painter among ourselves were to attempt aSpenser Gallery, (perhaps the finest subject for the pencil in the world after Heathen mythology and Scripture History,) he ought to go and study the principles of his design at Blenheim!—TheSilenusand theRape of Proserpinecontain more of the Bacchanalian and lawless spirit of ancient fable than perhaps any two pictures extant. We shall not dispute that Nicolas Poussin could probably give more of the abstract, metaphysical character of his traditional personages, or that Titian could set them off better, so as to ‘leave stings’ in the eye of the spectator, by a prodigiousgustoof colouring, as in hisBacchus and Ariadne: but neither of them gave the same undulating outline, the same humid,pulpytone to the flesh, the same graceful involution to the grouping and the forms, the same animal spirits, the same breathing motion. Let any one look at the figure of theSilenusin the first-mentioned of these compositions, its unwieldy size, its reeling, drunken attitude, its capacity for revelling in gross, sensual enjoyment, and contrast it with the figure of the nymph, so light, so wanton, so fair, that her clear crystal skin and laughing grace spread a ruddy glow, and account for the giddy tumult all around her; and say if any thing finer in this kind was ever executed or imagined. In that sort of licentious fancy, in which a certain grossness of expression bordered on caricature, and where grotesque or enticing form was to be combined with free and rapid movements, or different tones and colours were to be flung over the picture as in sport or in a dance, no one ever surpassed the Flemish painter; and some of the greatest triumphs of his pencil are to be found in the Blenheim Gallery. There are several others of his best pictures on sacred subjects, such as theFlight into Egypt, and the illustration of the text, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ The head and figure and deportment of the Christ, in this last admirable production, are nobly characteristic (beyond what the painter usually accomplished in this department)—the face of a woman holding a young child, pale, pensive, with scarce any shadow, and the head of the child itself (looking as vacant and satisfied as if the nipple had just dropped from its mouth) are actually alive. Those who can look at this picture with indifference, or without astonishment at the truth of nature, and the felicity of execution, may rest assured that they know as little of Rubens as of the Art itself. Vandyke, the scholar and rival of Rubens, holds the next place in this Collection. There is here, as in so many other places, a picture of the famous Lord Strafford, with his Secretary—both speaking heads, and with the characters finely diversified. We were struck also by the delightful family picture of the Duchess of Buckingham and her Children, butnot so much (we confess it) as we expected from our recollection of this picture a few years ago. It had less the effect of a perfect mirror of fashion in ‘the olden time,’ than we fancied to ourselves—the little girl had less exquisite primness and studied gentility, the little boy had not the same chubby, good-humoured look, and the colours in his cheek had faded—nor had the mother the same graceful, matron-like air. Is it we or the picture that has changed? In general our expectations tally pretty well with our after-observations, but there was a falling-off in the present instance. There is a fine whole-length of a lady of quality of that day (we think Lady Cleveland); but the master-piece of Vandyke’s pencil here is hisCharles I. on Horseback. It is the famous cream or fawn-coloured horse, which, of all the creatures that ever were painted, is surely one of the most beautiful.

‘Sure never were seenTwo such beautiful ponies;All others are brutes,But these macaronies.’

‘Sure never were seen

Two such beautiful ponies;

All others are brutes,

But these macaronies.’

Its steps are delicate, as if it moved to some soft measure or courtly strain, or disdained the very ground it trod upon; its form all lightness and elegance: the expression quick and fiery; the colour inimitable; the texture of the skin sensitive and tremblingly alive all over, as if it would shrink from the smallest touch. The portrait of Charles is not equal; but there is a landscape-background, which in breezy freshness seems almost to rival the airy spirit and delicacy of the noble animal. There are also one or two fine Rembrandts (particularly aJacob and Esau)—an early Raphael, theAdorationof some saint, hard and stiff, but carefully designed; and a fine, sensible, graceful head of theFornarina, of which we have a common and well-executed engraving.

‘But did you see the Titian room?’—Yes, we did, and a glorious treat it was; nor do we know why it should not be shewn to every one. There is nothing alarming but the title of the subjects—The Loves of the Gods—just as was the case with Mr. T. Moore’sLoves of the Angels—but oh! how differently treated! What a gusto in the first, compared with the insipidity of the last! What streaks of living blood-colour, so unlike gauze spangles or pink silk-stockings! What union, what symmetry of form, instead of sprawling, flimsy descriptions—what an expression of amorous enjoyment about the mouth, the eyes, and even to the finger-ends, instead of cold conceits, and moonlight similes! This isen passant; so to our task.—It is said these pictures were discovered in an old lumber-room by SirJoshua Reynolds, who set a high value on them, and that they are undoubtedly by Titian, having been originally sent over as a present by the King of Sardinia (for whose ancestor they were painted) to the first Duke of Marlborough. We should (without, however, pretending to set up an opinion) incline, from the internal evidence, to think them from the pencil of the great Venetian, but for two circumstances: the first is the texture of the skin; and secondly, they do not compose well as pictures. They have no back-ground to set them off, but a most ridiculous trellis-work, representing nothing, hung round them; and the flesh looks monotonous and hard, like the rind of fruit. On the other hand, this last objection seems to be answered satisfactorily enough, and without impugning the skill of the artist; for the pictures are actually painted on skins of leather. In all other respects, they might assuredly be by Titian, and we know of no other painter who was capable of achieving their various excellences. The drawing of the female figures is correct and elegant in a high degree, and might be supposed to be borrowed from classic sculpture, but that it is more soft, more feminine, more lovely. The colouring, with the exception already stated, is true, spirited, golden, harmonious. The grouping and attitudes are heroic, the expression in some of the faces divine. We do not mean, of course, that it possesses the elevation or purity that Raphael or Correggio could give, but it is warmer, more thrilling and ecstatic. There is the glow and ripeness of a more genial clime, the purple light of love, crimsoned blushes, looks bathed in rapture, kisses with immortal sweetness in their taste—Nay, then, let the reader go and see the pictures, and no longer lay the blame of this extravagance on us. We may at any rate repeat the subjects. They are eight in number. 1.Mars and Venus.The Venus is well worthy to be called the Queen of Love, for shape, for air, for every thing. Her redoubted lover is a middle-aged, ill-looking gentleman, clad in a buff-jerkin, and somewhat of a formalist in his approaches and mode of address; but there is a Cupid playing on the floor, who might well turn the world upside down. 2.Cupid and Psyche.The Cupid is perhaps rather a gawky, awkward stripling, with eager, open-mouthed wonder: but did ever creature of mortal mould see any thing comparable to the back and limbs of the Psyche, or conceive or read any thing equal to it, but that unique description in the Troilus and Cressida of Chaucer? 3.Apollo and Daphne.Not equal to the rest. 4.Hercules and Dejanira.The female figure in this picture is full of grace and animation, and the arms that are twined round the great son of Jove are elastic as a bended bow. 5.Vulcan and Ceres.6.Pluto and Proserpine.7.Jupiter and Io.Very fine. And finest of all, andlast,Neptune and Amphitrite. In this last work it seems ‘as if increase of appetite did grow with what it fed on.’ What a face is that of Amphitrite for beauty and for sweetness of expression! One thing is remarkable in these groups (with the exception of two) which is that the lovers are all of them old men; but then they retain their beards (according to the custom of the good old times!) and this makes not only a picturesque contrast, but gives a beautiful softness and youthful delicacy to the female faces opposed to them. Upon the whole, this series of historic compositions well deserves the attention of the artist and the connoisseur, and perhaps some light might be thrown upon the subject of their authenticity by turning over some old portfolios. We have heard a hint thrown out that the designs are of a date prior to Titian. But ‘we are ignorance itself in this!’

CRITICISM ON HOGARTH’S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE

The Criticism on Hogarth’s ‘Marriage a-la-Mode,’ referred to in the account of Mr. Angerstein’s pictures (page15), is as follows:—

The superiority of the pictures of Hogarth, which we have seen in the late collection at the British Institution, to the common prints, is confined chiefly to theMarriage a-la-Mode. We shall attempt to illustrate a few of their most striking excellences, more particularly with reference to the expression of character. Their merits are indeed so prominent, and have been so often discussed, that it may be thought difficult to point out any new beauties; but they contain so much truth of nature, they present the objects to the eye under so many aspects and bearings, admit of so many constructions, and are so pregnant with meaning, that the subject is in a manner inexhaustible.

Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental of all the novel-writers, has been stigmatized as a mere inventor of licentious tales, because readers in general have only seized on those things in his works which were suited to their own taste, and have reflected their own grossness back upon the writer. So it has happened that the majority of critics having been most struck with the strong and decided expression in Hogarth, the extreme delicacy and subtle gradations of character in his pictures have almost entirely escaped them. In the firstpicture of theMarriage a-la-Mode, the three figures of the young Nobleman, his intended Bride, and herinnamoratothe Lawyer, shew how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression. They have, however, been less noticed than the other figures, which tell a plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. Nothing can be more finely managed than the differences of character in these delicate personages. The Beau sits smiling at the looking-glass, with a reflected simper of self-admiration, and a languishing inclination of the head, while the rest of his body is perked up on his high heels, with a certain air of tiptoe elevation. He is the Narcissus of the reign of GeorgeII., whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and patches, divide his self-love equally with his own person, the true Sir Plume of his day,—

——‘Of amber snuff-box justly vain,And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.’

——‘Of amber snuff-box justly vain,

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.’

There is the same felicity in the figure and attitude of the Bride, courted by the Lawyer. There is the utmost flexibility, and yielding softness in her whole person, a listless languor and tremulous suspense in the expression of her face. It is the precise look and air which Pope has given to his favourite Belinda, just at the moment of the Rape of the Lock. The heightened glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened soul of love in the same face, in the Assignation-scene before the masquerade, form a fine and instructive contrast to the delicacy, timidity, and coy reluctance expressed in the first. The Lawyer, in both pictures, is much the same—perhaps too much so—though even this unmoved, unaltered appearance may be designed as characteristic. In both cases, he has ‘a person and a smooth dispose, framed to make women false.’ He is full of that easy good-humour, and easy good opinion of himself, with which the sex are delighted. There is not a sharp angle in his face to obstruct his success, or give a hint of doubt or difficulty. His whole aspect is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, happy without the least expense of thought, careless, and inviting; and conveys a perfect idea of the uninterrupted glide and pleasing murmur of the soft periods that flow from his tongue.

The expression of the Bride in the Morning-scene is the most highly seasoned, and at the same time the most vulgar in the series. The figure, face, and attitude of the Husband are inimitable. Hogarth has with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the Husband with the yellow whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece behind him, in such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendour of the view of the inner room in this picture,is probably not exceeded by any of the productions of the Flemish school.

The Young Girl, in the third picture, who is represented as a victim of fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the artist’schef-d’œuvres. The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity and subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her person and the hardened indifference of her character. The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, the premature suppression of youthful sensibility, the doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which seems to have no other feeling but a sickly sense of pain,—shew the deepest insight into human nature, and into the effects of those refinements in depravity, by which it has been good-naturedly asserted, that ‘vice loses half its evil in losing all its grossness.’ The story of this picture is in some parts very obscure and enigmatical. It is certain that the Nobleman is not looking straight forward to the Quack, whom he seems to have been threatening with his cane; but that his eyes are turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to the Procuress. The commanding attitude and size of this woman,—the swelling circumference of her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock’s feathers,—the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, which hardly needs the comment of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose, are all admirable in themselves, and still more so, as they are opposed to the mute insensibility, the elegant negligence of dress, and the childish figure of the girl, who is supposed to be herprotegée. As for the Quack, there can be no doubt entertained about him. His face seems as if it were composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos and confusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impudent empiricism.

The gradations of ridiculous affectation in the Music-scene, are finely imagined and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained admiration of the Lady of Quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient, delight of the Man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the Negro-boy at the rapture of his mistress,—form a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-coloured hair of the female Virtuoso throw an additional light on the character. This is lost in the print. The continuing the red colour of the hair into the back of the chair, has been pointed out as one of those instances of alliteration in colouring, of which these pictures are everywhere full. The gross, bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well relieved bythe hard features of the instrumental Performer behind him, which might be carved of wood. The Negro-boy, holding the chocolate, in expression, colour, and execution, is a master-piece. The gay, lively derision of the other Negro-boy, playing with the Actæon, is an ingenious contrast to the profound amazement of the first. Some account has already been given of the two lovers in this picture. It is curious to observe the infinite activity of mind which the artist displays on every occasion. An instance occurs in the present picture. He has so contrived the papers in the hair of the Bride, as to make them look almost like a wreathe of half-blown flowers; while those which he has placed on the head of the musical Amateur very much resemble acheveux-de-frisof horns, which adorn and fortify the lacklustre expression and mild resignation of the face beneath.

The Night-scene is inferior to the rest of the series. The attitude of the Husband, who is just killed, is one in which it would be impossible for him to stand, or even to fall. It resembles the loose pasteboard figures they make for children. The characters in the last picture, in which the Wife dies, are all masterly. We would particularly refer to the captious, petulant self-sufficiency of the Apothecary, whose face and figure are constructed on exact physiognomical principles, and to the fine example of passive obedience and non-resistance in the Servant, whom he is taking to task, and whose coat of green and yellow livery is as long and melancholy as his face. The disconsolate look, the haggard eyes, the open mouth, the comb sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped teeth, which, as it were, hitch in an answer—every thing about him denotes the utmost perplexity and dismay. The harmony and gradations of colour in this picture are uniformly preserved with the greatest nicety, and are well worthy the attention of the artist.

It has been observed, that Hogarth’s pictures are exceedingly unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects—that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction consists.

In the first place they are, in the strictest sense, historical pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular developement of fable, manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, in like manner be found to have a higher claim to the title of Epic Pictures, than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varyingexpression. Every thing in his pictures has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas forever. The expression is always takenen passant, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. Besides the excellence of each individual face, the reflection of the expression from face to face, the contrast and struggle of particular motives and feelings in the different actors in the scene, as of anger, contempt, laughter, compassion, are conveyed in the happiest and most lively manner. His figures are not like the background on which they are painted: even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own.—Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth’s heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. This is in fact what distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, that they are equally remote from caricature and from mere still-life. It of course happens in subjects from common life, that the painter can procure real models, and he can get them to sit as long as he pleases. Hence, in general, those attitudes and expressions have been chosen which could be assumed the longest; and in imitating which, the artist, by taking pains and time, might produce almost as complete a fac-simile as he could of a flower or a flower-pot, of a damask curtain, or a china vase. The copy was as perfect and as uninteresting in the one case as in the other. On the contrary, subjects of drollery and ridicule affording frequent examples of strange deformity and peculiarity of features, these have been eagerly seized by another class of artists, who, without subjecting themselves to the laborious drudgery of the Dutch school and their imitators, have produced our popular caricatures, by rudely copying or exaggerating the casual irregularities of the human countenance. Hogarth has equally avoided the faults of both these styles—the insipid tameness of the one, and the gross vulgarity of the other—so as to give to the productions of his pencil equal solidity and effect: for his faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it; they take the very widest latitude, and yet we always see the links which bind them to nature: they bear all the marks, and carry all the conviction of reality with them, as if we had seen the actual faces for the first time, from the precision, consistency, and good sense, with which the whole and every part is made out. They exhibit the most uncommon features with the most uncommon expressions, but which are yet as familiar and intelligible as possible;because, with all the boldness, they have all the truth of nature. Hogarth has left behind him as many of these memorable faces, in their memorable moments, as, perhaps, most of us remember in the course of our lives; and has thus doubled the quantity of our observation.

We have, in the present paper, attempted to point out the fund of observation, physical and moral, contained in one set of these pictures, theMarriage a-la-Mode. The rest would furnish as many topics to descant upon, were the patience of the reader as inexhaustible as the painter’s invention. But as this is not the case, we shall content ourselves with barely referring to some of those figures in the other pictures, which appear the most striking; and which we see, not only while we are looking at them, but which we have before us at all other times.—For instance: who, having seen, can easily forget that exquisite frost-piece of religion and morality, the antiquated prude, in the picture ofMorning? or that striking commentary on thegood old times, the little wretched appendage of a foot-boy, who crawls, half famished and half frozen, behind her? The French man and woman, in theNoon, are the perfection of flighty affectation and studied grimace; the amiablefraternizationof the two old women saluting each other, is not enough to be admired; and in the little master, in the same national group, we see the early promise and personification of that eternal principle of wondrous self-complacency, proof against all circumstances, which makes the French the only people who are vain, even of being cuckolded and being conquered! Or shall we prefer to this, the outrageous distress and unmitigated terrors of the boy who has dropped his dish of meat, and who seems red all over with shame and vexation, and bursting with the noise he makes? Or what can be better than the good housewifery of the girl underneath, who is devouring the lucky fragments? Or than the plump, ripe, florid, luscious look of the servant-wench, embraced by a greasy rascal of an Othello, with her pye-dish tottering like her virtue, and with the most precious part of its contents running over? Just—no, not quite—as good, is the joke of the woman over head, who, having quarrelled with her husband, is throwing their Sunday’s dinner out of the window, to complete this chapter of accidents of baked dishes. The husband, in theEveningscene, is certainly as meek as any recorded in history; but we cannot say that we admire this picture, or theNightscene after it. But then in theTaste in High Life, there is that inimitable pair, differing only in sex, congratulating and delighting one another by ‘all the mutually reflected charities’ of folly and affectation; with the young lady, coloured like a rose, dandling her little, black, pug-faced,white-teethed, chuckling favourite; and with the portrait of Mons. Des Noyers, in the background, dancing in a grand ballet, surrounded by butterflies. And again, inThe Election Dinner, is the immortal cobbler, surrounded by his peers, who ‘frequent and full,’—

Back to Index Next