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 THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE- GALLERIES 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
Printed by T. Green, 76, Fleet-»treet, 
 
SKETCHES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRINCIPAL 
 
 PICTURE-GALLERIES 
 
 IN 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 CRITICISM ON " MARRIAGE A LA-MODE." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, 
 
 93, FLEET-STREET, 
 AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. 
 
 1824. 
 
 N 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 It is the object of the following little work 
 to give an account of the principal Picture- 
 Galleries in this country, and to describe 
 the feelings which they naturally excite in 
 the mind of a lover of art. Almost all those 
 of any importance have been regularly gone 
 through. One or two, that still remain un- 
 noticed, may be added to our catalogue rai- 
 sonnee at a future opportunity. It may not 
 be improper to mention here that Mr. An- 
 A 3 
 
11 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 gerstein's pictures have been lately pur- 
 chased for the commencement of a National 
 Gallery, but are still to be seen in their old 
 places on the walls of his house. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Mr. Angerstein's Collection l 
 
 Dulwich Gallery ----- 23 
 
 The Marquis of Stafford's Gallery - - - -19 
 
 Pictures at Windsor Castle - - - 73 
 
 Pictures at Hampton Court - - - 89 
 
 Lord Grosvenor's Collection ... 107 
 
 Pictures at Wilton and Stourhead - 125 
 
 Pictures at Burleigh House - - - - 143 
 
 Pictures at Oxford and Blenheim - 1C1 
 
 4 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Criticism on Marriage a-la-Mode - - 181 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S 
 COLLECTION OF PICTURES. 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 OH! Art, lovely Art ! " Balm of hurt minds, 
 chief nourisher in life's feast, great Nature's se- 
 cond course !" Time's treasurer, the unsullied 
 mirror of the mind of man ! Thee we invoke, 
 and not in vain, for we find thee here retired 
 in thy plentitnde and thy power! The walls 
 are dark with beauty; they frown severest grace. 
 The eye is not caught by glitter and varnish; 
 we see the pictures by their own internal light. 
 This is not a bazaar, a raree-show of art, a 
 Noah's ark of all the Schools, marching out in 
 endless procession ; but a sanctuary, a holy of 
 holies, collected by taste, sacred to fame, en- 
 riched by the rarest products of genius. For 
 the number of pictures, Mr. Angerstein's is 
 the finest gallery, perhaps, in the world. We 
 feel no sense of littleness : the attention is never 
 b2 
 
4 MR. angerstein's collection. 
 
 distracted for a moment, but concentrated on a 
 few pictures of first-rate excellence. Many of 
 these chef -d' centres might occupy the spectator 
 for a whole morning ; yet they do not interfere 
 with the pleasure derived from each other — so 
 much consistency of style is there in the midst 
 of variety ! 
 
 We know of no greater treat than to be ad- 
 mitted freely to a Collection of this sort, where 
 the mind reposes with full confidence in its feel- 
 ings of admiration, and finds that idea and love 
 of conceivable beauty, which it has cherished 
 perhaps for a whole life, reflected from every 
 object around it. It is a cure (for the time at 
 least) for low-thoughted cares and uneasy pas- 
 sions. We are abstracted to another sphere : 
 we breathe empyrean air ; we enter into the minds 
 of Raphael, of Titian, of Poussin, of the Caracci, 
 and look at nature with their eyes ; we live in 
 time past, and seem identified with the perma- 
 nent forms of things. The business of the world 
 at large, and even its pleasures, appear like a 
 vanity and an impertinence. What signify the 
 hubbub, the shifting scenery, the fantoccini fi- 
 gures, the folly, the idle fashions without, when 
 compared with the solitude, the silence, the 
 speaking looks, the unfading forms within ? — 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 5 
 
 Here is the mind's true home. The contempla - 
 tion of truth and beauty is the proper object for 
 which we were created, which calls forth the 
 most intense desires of the soul, and of which it 
 never tires. A capital print-shop (Molteno's or 
 Colnaghi's) is a point to aim at in a morning's 
 walk — a relief and satisfaction in the motley con- 
 fusion, the littleness, the vulgarity of common 
 life : but a print-shop has but a mean, cold, 
 meagre, petty appearance after coming out of a 
 fine Collection of Pictures. We want the size 
 of life, the marble flesh, the rich tones of nature, 
 the diviner expanded expression. Good prints 
 are no doubt, better than bad pictures ; or prints, 
 generally speaking, are better than pictures ; for 
 we have more prints of good pictures than of bad 
 ones : yet they are for the most part but hints, 
 loose memorandums, outlines in little of what 
 the painter has done. How often, in turning 
 over a number of choice engravings, do we tan- 
 talise ourselves by thinking " what a head that 
 must be," — in wondering what colour a piece of 
 drapery is of, green or black, — in wishing, in 
 vain, to know the exact tone of the sky in a par- 
 ticular corner of the picture ! Throw open the 
 folding-doors of a fine Collection, and you see 
 all you have desired realised at a blow — the 
 . B 3 
 
6 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 bright originals starting up in their own proper 
 shape, clad with flesh and blood, and teeming 
 with the first conceptions of the painter's mind \ 
 The disadvantage of pictures is, that they can- 
 not be multiplied to any exteut, like books or 
 prints ; but this, in another point of view, ope- 
 rates probably as an advantage, by making the 
 sight of a fine original picture an event so much 
 the more memorable, and the impression so 
 much the deeper. A visit to a genuine Col- 
 lection is like going a pilgrimage — it is an act of 
 devotion performed at the shrine of Art ! It is 
 as if there were but one copy of a book in the 
 world, locked np in some curious casket, which, 
 by special favour, we had been permitted to open, 
 and peruse (as we must) with unaccustomed re- 
 lish. The words would in that case leave stings 
 in the mind of the reader, and every letter ap- 
 pear of gold. The ancients, before the invention 
 of printing, were nearly in the same situation 
 with respect to books, that we are with regard 
 to pictures ; and at the revival of letters, we find 
 the same unmingled satisfaction, or fervid enthu - 
 siasm, manifested in the pursuit or the discovery 
 of an old manuscript", that connoisseurs still feel 
 in t he purchase and possession of an antique ca- 
 meo, or a fine specimen of the Italian school of 
 
MK. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 7 
 
 painting. Literature was not then cheap and 
 vulgar, nor was there what is called a reading 
 public ; and the pride of intellect, like the pride 
 of art, or the pride of birth, was confined to the 
 privileged few ! 
 
 We sometimes, in viewing a celebrated Col- 
 lection, meet with an old favourite, a Jirst love 
 in such matters, that we have not seen for many 
 years, which greatly enhances the delight. We 
 have, perhaps, pampered our imaginations with 
 it all that time ; its charms have sunk deep into 
 our minds ; we wish to see it once more, that 
 we may confirm our judgment, and renew our 
 vows. The Susannah and the Elders at Mr. 
 Angerstein's was one of those that came upon 
 us under these circumstances. We had seen 
 it formerly, among other visions of our youth, 
 in the Orleans Collection, — where we used to 
 go and look at it by the hour together, till 
 our hearts thrilled with its beauty, and our 
 eyes were filled with tears. How often had we 
 thought of it since, how often spoken of it ! — 
 There it was still, the same lovely phantom as 
 ever — not as when Rousseau met Madame de 
 Warens, after a lapse of twenty years, who was 
 grown old and wrinkled — but as if the young- 
 Jewish Beauty had been just surprised in that 
 
8 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 unguarded spot — crouching down in one corner 
 of the picture, the face turned back with a mingled 
 expression of terror, shame, and unconquerable 
 sweetness, and the whole figure (with the arms 
 crossed) shrinking into itself with bewitching 
 grace and modesty ! It is by Ludovico Caracci, 
 and is worthy of his name, from its truth and 
 purity of design, its expression and its mellow 
 depth of tone. Of the Elders, one is repre- 
 sented in the attitude of advancing towards her, 
 while the other beckons her to rise. We know 
 of no painter who could have improved upon the 
 Susannah, except Correggio, who, with all his ca- 
 pricious blandishments, and wreathed angelic 
 smiles, would hardly have given the same natu- 
 ral unaffected grace, the same perfect woman- 
 hood. 
 
 There is but one other picture in the Collec- 
 tion, that strikes us, as a matter of taste or fan- 
 cy, like this ; and that is the Silenus teaching a 
 Young Apollo to play on the pipe — a small ob- 
 long picture, executed in distemper, by Annibal 
 Caracci. The old preceptor is very fine, with a 
 jolly, leering, pampered look of approbation, 
 half inclining to the brute, half conscious of the 
 God ; but it is the Apollo that constitates the 
 charm of the picture, and is indeed divine. The 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 9 
 
 whole figure is full of simple careless grace, laugh- 
 ing in youth and beauty ; he holds the Pan's-pipe 
 in both hands, looking up with timid wonder ; and 
 the expression of delight and surprise at the 
 sounds he produces is not to be surpassed. The 
 only image we would venture to compare with it 
 for innocent artless voluptuousness, is that of the 
 shepherd -boy in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, 
 " piping as though he should never be old ! " 
 A comparison of this sort, we believe, may be 
 made, in spite of the proverb, without injustice 
 to the painter or the poet. Both gain by it. 
 The idea conveyed by the one, perhaps, receives 
 an additional grace and lustre, while a more 
 beautiful moral sentiment hovers round the other, 
 from thinking of them in this casual connection. 
 If again it be asked, Which is the most admira- 
 ble ? — we should answer — Both are equally ex- 
 quisite in their way, and yield the imagination 
 all the pleasure it is capable of — and should 
 decline giving an invidious preference to either. 
 The cup can only be full. The young shepherd in 
 the Arcadia wants no outward grace to recom- 
 mend him ; the stripling God no hidden charm 
 of expression. The language of painting and 
 poetry is intelligible enough to mortals ; the 
 spirit of both is divine, and far too good for him 3 
 
10 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 who, instead of enjoying to the utmost height, 
 would find an unwelcome flaw in either. The 
 Silenus and Apollo has something of a Raf- 
 faellesque air, with a mixture of Correggio's arch 
 sensibility — there is nothing of Titian in the co- 
 louring—yet Annibal Carracci was in theory a 
 deserter from the first to the two last of these 
 masters ; and swore with an oath, in a letter to 
 his uncle Ludovico, that "they were the only 
 true painters ! " 
 
 We should nearly have exhausted our stock of 
 enthusiasm in descanting on these two composi- 
 tions, in almost any other case ; but there is no 
 danger of this in the present instance. If we 
 were at any loss in this respect, we should only 
 have to turn to the large picture of the Raising 
 of Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo ; 
 
 ■ and still walking under, 
 
 Find some new mailer to look up and wonder. 
 
 We might dwell on the masterly strength of the 
 drawing, the gracefulness of the principal female 
 figures, the high-wrought execution, the deep, 
 rich, mosaic colouring, the massiness and bustle 
 of the back-ground. We think this one of the best 
 pictures on so large a scale that we are any- 
 where acquainted with. The whole manage- 
 
MR. ANGERSTEINS COLLECTION. 11 
 
 ment of the design has a very noble and impos- 
 ing effect, and each part severally will bear the 
 closest scrutiny. It is a magnificent structure 
 built of solid and valuable materials. The artist 
 has not relied merely on the extent of his canvas, 
 or the importance of his subject, for producing 
 a striking result— the effect is made out by an 
 aggregate of excellent parts. The hands, the 
 feet, the drapery, the heads, the features, are 
 all fine. There is some satisfaction in looking 
 at a large historical picture, such as this : for 
 you really gain in quantity, without losing in 
 quality ; and have a studious imitation of indi- 
 vidual nature, combined with masculine inven- 
 tion, and the comprehensive arrangement of an 
 interesting story. The Lazarus is very fine and 
 bold. The flesh is well-baked, dingy, and ready 
 to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated 
 from its dread confinement to have life and mo- 
 tion impressed on it again. He seems impatient 
 of restraint, gazes eagerly about him, and looks 
 out from his shrouded prison on this new world 
 with hurried amazement, as if Death had scarce- 
 ly yet resigned his power over the senses. We 
 would wish our artists to look at the legs and 
 feet of this figure, and see how correctness of 
 finishing and a greatness of gusto W design are 
 
12 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 compatible with, and set off each other. The 
 attendant female figures have a peculiar grace 
 and becoming dignity, both of expression and 
 attitude. They are in a style something between 
 Michael Angelo and Parmegiano. They take a 
 deep interest in the scene, but it is with the air 
 of composure proper to the sex, who are accus- 
 tomed by nature and duty to works of charity 
 and compassion. The head of the old man, 
 kneeling behind Christ, is an admirable study of 
 drawing, execution, and character. The Christ 
 himself is grave and earnest, with a noble and 
 impressive countenance ; but the figure wants 
 that commanding air which ought to belong to 
 one .possessed of preternatural power, and in 
 the act of displaying it. Too much praise can- 
 not be given to the back-ground— the green and 
 white draperies of some old people at a distance, 
 which are as airy as they are distinct— the build- 
 ings like tombs— and the different groups, and 
 processions of figures, which seem to make life 
 almost as grave and solemn a business as death 
 itself. This picture is said by some to have been 
 designed by Michael Angelo, and painted by 
 Sebastian del Piombo, in rivalship of some of 
 Raphael's works. It was in the Orleans Gallery. 
 Near this large historical composition stands 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 13 
 
 (or is suspended in a case) a single head, by 
 Raphael, of Pope Julius II. It is in itself a Col- 
 lection — a world of thought and character. 
 There is a prodigious weight and gravity of look, 
 combined with calm self-possession, and easiness 
 of temper. It has the cast of an En glish counte- 
 nance, which Raphael's portraits often have, 
 Titian's never. In Raphael's the mind, or the 
 body, frequently prevails ; in Titian's you always 
 see the soul — faces " which pale passion loves." 
 Look at the Music-piece by Titian, close by in 
 this Collection — it is " all ear," — the expression 
 is evanescent as the sounds — the features are 
 seen in a sort of dim chiaro scuro, as if the con- 
 fused impressions of another sense intervened — 
 and you might easily suppose some of the per- 
 formers to have been engaged the night before in 
 
 Mask or midnight serenade, 
 Which the starved lover to his mistress sings, 
 Best quitted with disdain.* 
 
 The ruddy, bronzed colouring of Raphael ge- 
 nerally takes off from any appearance of noc- 
 
 * We like this picture of a Concert the best of the three 
 by Titian in the same room. The other two are a Ganyniede, 
 and a Venus and Adonis ; the last does not appear to us from 
 the hand of Titian. 
 
14 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 turnal watching and languid hectic passion ! 
 The portrait of Julius II. is finished to a great 
 nicety. The hairs of the beard, the fringe on 
 the cap, are done by minute and careful touches 
 of the pencil. In seeing the labour, the consci- 
 entious and modest pains, which this great paint- 
 er bestowed upon his smallest works, we cannot 
 help being struck with the number and magni- 
 tude of those he left behind him. When we 
 have a single portrait placed before us, that 
 might seem to have taken half a year to com- 
 plete it, we wonder how the same painter could 
 find time to execute his Cartoons, the compart- 
 ments of the Vatican, and a thousand other 
 matchless works. The same account serves for 
 both. The more we do, the more we can do. 
 Our leisure (though it may seem a paradox) is 
 in proportion to our industry. The same habit 
 of intense application, which led our artist to 
 bestow as much pains and attention on the study 
 of a single head, as if his whole reputation had 
 depended on it, enabled him to set about the 
 greatest works with alacrity, and to finish them 
 with ease. If he had done .any thing he under- 
 took to do, in a slovenly disreputable manner, he 
 would (upon the same principle) have lain idle 
 half his time. Zeal and diligence, in this view, 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 15 
 
 make life, short as it is, long. — Neither did 
 Raphael, it should seem, found his historical 
 pretensions on his incapacity to paint a good 
 portrait. On the contrary, the latter here looks 
 very much like the corner-stone of the historical 
 edifice. Nature did not put him out. He was 
 not too great a genius to copy what he saw. He 
 probably thought that a deference to nature is 
 the beginning of art, and that the highest emi- 
 nence is scaled by single steps ! 
 
 On the same stand as the portrait of Julius II. 
 is the much vaunted Correggio — the Christ in 
 the Garden. We would not give a farthing for 
 it. The drapery of the Christ is highly finished 
 in a silver and azure tone — but high finishing is 
 not all we ask from Correggio, It is more wor- 
 thy of Carlo Dolce. — Lest we should forget it, 
 we may mention here, that the admired por- 
 trait of Govarcius was gone to be copied at 
 Somerset-house. The Academy have then, at 
 length, fallen into the method pursued at the 
 British Gallery, of recommending the students 
 to copy from the Old Masters. Well — better 
 late than never ! This same portrait is not, we 
 think, the truest specimen of Vandyke. It has 
 not his mild, pensive, somewhat effeminate cast 
 of colour and expression. His best portraits 
 
16 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 have an air of faded gentility about them. The 
 Govarcius has too many streaks of blood-co- 
 lour, too many marks of the pencil, to convey an 
 exact idea of Vandyke's characteristic excel- 
 lence ; though it is a fine imitation of Rubens's 
 florid manner. Vandyke's most striking por- 
 traits are those which look just like a gentleman 
 or lady seen in a looking-glass, and neither 
 more nor less. 
 
 Of the Claudes, we prefer the St. Ursula — 
 the Embarking of the Five Thousand Virgins — 
 to the others. The water is exquisite ; and the 
 sails of the vessels glittering in the morning sun, 
 and the blue flags placed against the trees, 
 which seem like an opening into the sky behind 
 — so sparkling is the effect of this ambiguity in 
 colouring — are in Claude's most perfect manner. 
 The Altieri Claude is one of his noblest and 
 most classical compositions, with towers, and 
 trees, and streams, and flocks, and herds, and 
 distant sunny vales, 
 
 ■Where universal Pan, 
 Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, 
 Leads on the eternal spring : — 
 
 but the effect of the execution has been dead- 
 ened and rendered flat by time or ill-usage. 
 There is a dull, formal appearance, as if the 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN's COLLECTION. 17 
 
 different masses of sky, of water, &c, were 
 laid on with plates of tin or lead. This is not 
 a general defect in Claude : his landscapes have 
 the greatest quantity of inflection, the most de- 
 licate brilliancy, of all others. A lady had been 
 making a good copy of the Seaport, which is a 
 companion to the one we have described. We 
 do not think these Claudes, famous as they are, 
 equal to Lord Egremont's Jacob and Laban ; to 
 the Enchanted Castle ; to a green vernal Land- 
 scape, which was in Walsh Porter's Collection, 
 and which was the very finest we ever saw ; nor 
 to some others that have appeared from time to 
 time in the British Institution. We are sorry to 
 make this, which may be thought an ill-natuied, 
 remark : but, though we have a great respect 
 for Mr. Angerstein's taste, we have a greater 
 for Claude Lorraine's reputation. Let any per- 
 sons admire these specimens of his art as much 
 as they will (and the more they admire them, 
 the more we shall be gratified), and then we 
 will tell them, he could do far finer things than 
 these ! 
 
 There is one Rembrandt, and one N. Poussin. 
 The Rembrandt (the Woman taken in Adultery J is 
 prodigious in colouring, in light, and shade, in pen- 
 cilling, in solemn effect; but that is nearly all— 
 
18 MR. AN GERSTE1 N S COLLECTION. 
 
 Of outward show 
 Elaborate, of inward less exact. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is worth any money. The 
 Christ has considerable seriousness and dignity 
 of aspect. The marble pavement, of which the 
 light is even dazzling; the figures of the two 
 Rabbis to the right, radiant with crimson, green, 
 and azure ; the back-ground, which seems like 
 some rich oil-colour smeared over a ground of 
 gold, and where the eye staggers on from one 
 abyss of obscurity to another, — place this pic- 
 ture in the first rank cf Rembrandt's wonderful 
 performances. If this extraordinary genius was 
 the most literal and vulgar of draughtsmen, he 
 was the most ideal of colourists. When Annibal 
 Caracci vowed to God, that Titian and Correg- 
 gio were the only true painters, he had not seen 
 Rembrandt; — if he had, he would have added 
 him to the list. The Poussin is a Dance of 
 Bacchanals : theirs are not " pious orgies." It 
 is, however, one of this master's finest pictures, 
 both in the spirit of the execution, and the in- 
 genuity and equivoque of the invention. If the 
 purity of the drawing will make amends for the 
 impurity of the design, it may pass : assuredly 
 the same subject, badly executed, would not be 
 endured ; but the life of mind, the dexterity of 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN's COLLECTION. 19 
 
 combination displayed in it, supply the want of 
 decorum. The old adage, that " Vice, by los - 
 ing all its grossness, loses half its evil," seems 
 chiefly applicable to pictures. Thus a naked 
 figure, that has nothing but its nakedness to re- 
 commend it, is not fit to be hung up in decent 
 apartments. If it is a Nymph by Titian, Cor- 
 reggio's 16, we no longer think of its being 
 naked ; but merely of its sweetness, its beauty, 
 its naturalness. So far art, as it is intellectual, 
 has a refinement and extreme unction of its 
 own. Indifferent pictures, like dull people, 
 must absolutely be moral ! We suggest this as 
 a hint to those persons of more gallantry than 
 discretion, who think that to have an indecent 
 daub hanging up in one corner of the room, is 
 proof of a liberality of gusto, and a considera- 
 ble progress in virtu. Tout au contraire. 
 
 We have a clear, brown, woody Landscape 
 by Gaspar Poussin, in his fine determined style 
 of pencilling, which gives to earth its solidity, 
 and to the air its proper attributes. There are 
 perhaps, no landscapes that excel his in this 
 fresh, healthy look of nature. One might say, 
 that wherever his pencil loves to haunt, " the 
 air is delicate." We forgot to notice a St. John 
 in the Wilderness, by A. Caracci, which has 
 c2 
 
20 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 much of the autumnal tone, the " sear and yel- 
 low leaf," of Titian's landscape-compositions. 
 A Rape of the Sabines, in the inner room, by 
 Rubens, is, we think, the most tasteless picture 
 in the Collection : to see plump, florid viragos 
 struggling with bearded ruffians, and tricked 
 out in the flounces, furbelows, and finery of the 
 court of Louis XIV. is preposterous. But there 
 is another Rubens in the outer room, which, 
 though fantastical and quaint, has qualities to 
 redeem all faults. It is an allegory of himself 
 and his three wives, as a St. George and Holy 
 Family, with his children as Christ and St. John, 
 playing with a lamb ; in which he has contrived to 
 bring together all that is rich in antique dresses, 
 (black as jet, and shining like diamonds,) trans- 
 parent in flesh-colour, agreeable in landscape, 
 unfettered in composition. The light streams 
 from rosy clouds ; the breeze curls the branches 
 of the trees in the back-ground, and plays on 
 the clear complexions of the various scattered 
 group. It is one of this painter's most splendid, 
 and, at the same time, most solid and sharply 
 finished productions. 
 
 Mr. Wilkie's Alehouse Door is here, and de- 
 serves to be here. Still it is not his best; though 
 there are some very pleasing rustic figures, 
 
MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 21 
 
 and some touching passages in it. As in his 
 Blind-Man' s-buff, the groups are too straggling, 
 and spread over too large a surface of bare fore- 
 ground, which Mr. Wilkie does not paint well 
 It looks more like putty than earth or clay. The 
 artist has a better eye for the individual details, 
 than for the general tone of objects. Mr. Lis- 
 ton's face in this " flock of drunkards" is a 
 smiling failure. 
 
 A portrait of Hogarth, by himself, and Sir 
 Joshua's half-length of Lord Heathfield, hang 
 in the same room. The last of these is certainly 
 a fine picture, well composed, richly coloured, 
 with considerable character, and a look of nature. 
 Nevertheless, our artist's pictures, seen among 
 standard works, have (to speak it plainly) some- 
 thing old-womanish about them. By their obso- 
 lete and affected air, they remind one of anti- 
 quated ladies of quality, and are a kind of 
 Duchess-Dowagers in the art — somewhere be- 
 tween the living and the dead. 
 
 Hogarth's series of the Marriage a-la-Mode* 
 (the most delicately painted of all his pictures, 
 and admirably they certainly are painted) con- 
 cludes the Catalogue Raisonnee of this Col- 
 
 * The Reader, if he pleases, may turn to an Essay on 
 this subject in the Round Table. 
 
22 MR. ANGERSTEIN'S COLLECTION. 
 
 lection. — A study of Heads, by Correggio, and 
 some of Mr. Fuseli's stupendous figures from 
 his Milton Gallery, are on the staircase. 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 It was on the 5th of November that we went 
 to see this Gallery. The morning was mild, 
 calm, pleasant : it was a day to ruminate on the 
 object we had in view. It was the time of year 
 
 When yellow leaves, or few or none, do hang 
 Upon the branches ; 
 
 their scattered gold was strongly contrasted 
 with the dark green spiral shoots of the cedar 
 trees that skirt the road ; the sun shone faint 
 and watery, as if smiling his last ; Winter gently 
 let go the hand of Summer, and the green fields, 
 wet with the mist, anticipated the return of 
 Spring. At the end of a beautiful little village, 
 Dulwich College appeared in view, with modest 
 state, yet mindful of the olden time ; and the name 
 of Allen and his compeers rushed full upon the 
 memory ! How many races of school-boys have 
 
26 
 
 THE DULW1CH GALLERY. 
 
 played within its walls, or stammered out a les- 
 son, or sauntered away their vacant hours in its 
 shade : yet, not one Shakspeare is there to be 
 found among them all ! The boy is clothed and 
 fed and gets through his accidence : but no trace 
 of his youthful learning, any more than of his 
 saffron livery, is to be met with in the man. Ge- 
 nius is not to be " constrained by mastery." — 
 Nothing comes of these endowments and foun- 
 dations for learning, — you might as well make 
 dirt-pies, or build houses with cards. Yet 
 something does come of them too — a retreat fur 
 age, a dream in youth — a feeling in the air 
 around them, the memory of the past, the hope 
 of what will never be. Sweet are the studies of 
 the school-boy, delicious his idle hours ! Fresh 
 and gladsome is his waking, balmy are his slum- 
 bers, book -pillowed ! He wears a green and 
 yellow livery perhaps ; but "green and yellow 
 melancholy" comes not near him, or if it does, 
 is tempered with youth and innocence ! To 
 thumb his Eutropius, or to knuckle down at 
 taw, are to him equally delightful; for whatever 
 stirs the blood, or inspires thought in him, 
 quickens the pulse of life and joy. He has only 
 to feel, in order to be happy ; pain turns smil- 
 ing from him, and sorrow is only a softer kind 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 2? 
 
 of pleasure. Each sensation is but an unfolding 
 of his new being ; care, age, sickness, are idle 
 words; the musty records of antiquity look 
 glossy in his sparkling eye, and he clasps im- 
 mortality as his future bride ! The coming years 
 hurt him not — he hears their sound afar off, 
 and is glad. See him there, the urchin, seated 
 in the sun, with a book in his hand, and the wall 
 at his back. He has a thicker wall before him 
 — the wall that parts him from the future. He 
 sees not the archers taking aim at his peace ; 
 he knows not the hands that are to mangle his 
 bosom. He stirs not, he still pores upon his 
 book, and, as he reads, a slight hectic flush 
 passes over his cheek, for he sees the letters 
 that compose the word Fame glitter on the 
 page, and his eyes swim, and he thinks that he 
 will one day write a book, and have his name 
 repeated by thousands of readers, and assume 
 a certain signature, and write Essays and Criti- 
 cisms in a London Magazine, as a consum- 
 mation of felicity scarcely to be believed. Come 
 hither, thou poor little fellow, and let us change 
 places with thee if thou wilt ; here, take the 
 pen and finish this article, and sign what name 
 you please to it ; so that we may but change our 
 dress for yours, and sit shivering in the sun, 
 
-« THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 and con over our little task, and feed poor, 
 and lie hard, and be contented and happy, and 
 think what a fine thing it is to be an author, and 
 dream of immortality, and sleep o'nights ! 
 
 There is something affecting and monastic in 
 the sight of this little nursery of learning, sim- 
 ple and retired as it stands, just on the verge of 
 the metropolis, and in the midst of modern im- 
 provements. There is a chapel, containing a copy 
 of Raphaels Transfiguration, by Julio Romano; 
 but the great attraction to curiosity at present 
 is the Collection of pictures left to the College 
 by the late Sir Francis Bourgeois, who is buried 
 in a mausoleum close by. He once (it is said) 
 spent an agreeable day here in company with 
 the Masters of the College and some other 
 triends ; and he determined, in consequence, 
 upon this singular mode of testifying his grati- 
 tude and his respect. Perhaps, also, some such 
 idle thoughts as we have here recorded might 
 have mingled with this resolution. The contem- 
 plation and the approach of death might have 
 been softened to his mind by being associated 
 with the hopes of childhood ; and he might wish 
 that his remains should repose, in monumental 
 state, amidst "the innocence and simplicity of 
 poor Charity Boys /" Might it not have been so ? 
 
THE DULW1CH GALLERY. 29 
 
 The pictures are 356 in number, and are hung 
 on the walls of a large gallery, built for the pur- 
 pose, and divided into five compartments. They 
 certainly looked better in their old places, at 
 the house of Mr. Desenfans (the original col- 
 lector) ,where they were distributed into a num- 
 ber of small rooms, and seen separately and 
 close to the eye. They are mostly cabinet -pic- 
 tures ; and not only does the height, at which 
 many of them are necessarily hung to cover 
 a large space, lessen the effect, but the num- 
 ber distracts and deadens the attention. Be- 
 sides, the sky-lights are so contrived as to 
 " shed a dim," though not a " religious 
 light" upon them. At our entrance, we were 
 first struck by our old friends the Cuyps; and 
 just beyond, caught a glimpse of that fine 
 female head by Carlo Maratti, giving us a 
 welcome with cordial glances. May we not 
 exclaim — 
 
 What a delicious breath painting sends fortli ! 
 The violet-bed's not sweeter. 
 
 A fine gallery of pictures is a sort of illustra- 
 tion of Berkeley's Theory of Matter and Spirit. 
 It is like a palace of thought — another universe, 
 built of air, of shadows, of colours. Every 
 thing seems "palpable to feeling as to sight," 
 
80 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 Substances turn to shadows by the painter's 
 arch-chemic touch ; shadows harden into sub- 
 stances. ''The eye is made the fool of the other 
 senses, or else worth all the rest." The material 
 is in some sense embodied in the immaterial, or, 
 at least,we see all things in a sort of intellectual 
 mirror. The world of art is an enchanting decep- 
 tion. We discover distance in a glazed surface ; a 
 province is contained in a foot of canvass ; a thin 
 evanescent tint gives the form and pressure of 
 rocks and trees; an inert shape has life and 
 motion in it. Time stands still, and the dead 
 re-appear, by means of this " so potent art !" 
 Look at the Cuyp next the door (No. 3). It is 
 woven of etherial hues. A soft mist is on it, a 
 veil of subtle air. The tender green of the vallies 
 beyond the gleaming lake, the purple light of the 
 hills, have an effect like the down on an unripe 
 nectarine. You may lay your finger on the 
 canvass; but miles of dewy vapour and sunshine 
 arc between you and the objects you survey. It 
 is almost needless to point out that the cattle 
 and figures in the fore-ground, like dark, trans- 
 parent spots, give an immense relief to the 
 perspective. This is, we think, the finest Cuyp, 
 perhaps, in the world. The landscape opposite 
 to it (in the same room) by Albert Cuyp, has 
 
THE DULWJOII GALLERY. 
 
 31 
 
 a richer colouring and a stronger contrast of 
 light and shade, but it has not that tender 
 bloom of a spring morning (so delicate, yet so 
 powerful in its effect) which the other possesses. 
 Two Horses, by Cuyp (No. 74), is another 
 admirable specimen of this excellent painter. It 
 is hard to say, which is most true to nature — the 
 sleek, well-fed look of the bay horse, or the 
 bone and spirit of the dappled iron-grey one, or 
 the face of the man who is busy fastening a girth. 
 Nature is scarcely more faithful to itself, than 
 this delightfully unmannered, unaffected picture 
 is to it. In the same room there are several 
 good Tenierses, and a small Head of an old 
 Maw, by Rembrandt, which is as smoothly fi- 
 nished as a miniature. No 10, Interior of an 
 Ale-house, by Adrian Brouwer, almost gives 
 one a sick head-ache ; particularly, the face and 
 figure of the man leaning against the door, over- 
 come with " potations pottle deep." Brouwer 
 united the depth and richness of Ostade to the 
 spirit and felicity of Tenters. No. 12, Sfeepiwg 
 Nymph and Satyr, and 59, Nymph and Satyr, 
 by Polemberg, are not pictures to our taste. 
 Why should any one make it a rule never to 
 paint any thing but this one subject? Was it 
 to please himself or others ? The one shows 
 
32 
 
 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 bad taste, the other wrong judgment. The 
 grossness of the selection is hardly more offen- 
 sive than the finicalness of the execution. No. 
 49, a Mater Dolorosa, by Carlo Dolce, is a 
 very good specimen of this master ; but the ex- 
 pression has too great a mixture of piety and 
 pauperism in it. It is not altogether spiritual. 
 No 51. A School with Girls at work, by Crespi, 
 is a most rubbishly performance, and has the 
 look of a modern picture. It was, no doubt, 
 painted in the fashion of the time, and is now 
 old-fashioned. Every thing has this modern, or 
 rather uncouth and obsolete look, which, besides 
 the temporary and local circumstances, has not 
 the free look of nature. Dress a figure in what 
 costume you please (however fantastic, however 
 barbarous), but add the expression which is 
 common to all faces, the properties that are 
 common to all drapery in its elementary princi - 
 ples, and the picture will belong to all times 
 and places. It is not the addition of individual 
 circumstances, but the omission of general truth, 
 that makes the little, the deformed, and the 
 short-lived in art. No. 183, Religion in the 
 Desart, a sketch by Sir Francis Bourgeois, is a 
 proof of this remark. There are no details, nor 
 is there any appearance of permanence or sta- 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 33 
 
 seems to have been painted yesterday, and to 
 labour under premature decay. It has a look of 
 being half done, and you have no wish to see it 
 finished. No. 52, Interior of a Cathedral, by 
 Sanadram, is curious and fine. From one end 
 of the perspective to the other— and back again 
 — would make a morning's walk. 
 
 In the Second Room, No. 90, a Sea Storm, 
 by Backhuysen, and No. 93, A Calm, by W. 
 Vandervelde, are equally excellent, the one for 
 its gloomy turbulence, and the other for its 
 glassy smoothness. 92, Landscape with Cattle 
 and Figures, is by Both, who is, we confess, no 
 great favourite of ours. We do not like his 
 straggling branches of trees without masses of 
 foliage, continually running up into the sky, 
 merely to let in the landscape beyond. No. 96, 
 Blowing Hot and Cold, by Jordaens, is as fine 
 a picture as need be painted. It is full of cha- 
 racter, of life, and pleasing colour. It is rich 
 and not gross. 98, Portrait of a Lady, said 
 in the printed Catalogue to be by Andrea Sac- 
 chi, is surely by Carlo Maratti, to whom it used 
 to be given. It has great beauty, great elegance, 
 great expression, and great brilliancy of execu- 
 tion ; but every thing in it belongs to a more 
 polished style of art than Andrea Sacchi. Be 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 this as it may, it is one of the most perfect pie 
 tures. in the collection. Of the portraits of 
 known individuals in this room, we wish to say 
 but little, for we can say nothing good. That 
 of Mr. Kemble, by Beechey, is perhaps the 
 most direct and manly. In this room is Rubens's 
 Sampson and Dalilak, a coarse daub — at least, 
 it looks so between two pictures by Vandyke, 
 Charity, and a Madonna and Infant Christ. 
 That painter probably never produced any thing 
 more complete than these two compositions. 
 They have the softness of air, the solidity of 
 marble : the pencil appears to float and glide 
 over the features of the face, the folds of the 
 drapery, with easy volubility, but to mark every 
 thing with a precision, a force, a grace inde- 
 scribable. Truth seems to hold the pencil, and 
 elegance to guide it. The attitudes are exquisite, 
 and the expression all but divine. It is not like 
 Raphael's, it is true — but whose else was ? Van - 
 dyke was born in Holland, and lived most of his 
 time in England ! — There are several capital 
 pictures of horses, &c. by Wouvermans, in the 
 same room, particularly the one with a hay-cart 
 loading on the top of a rising ground. The 
 composition is as striking and pleasing as the 
 execution is delicate. There is immense know- 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 35 
 
 ledge and character in Wouverman's horses — an 
 ear, an eye turned round, a cropped tail, give you 
 their history and thoughts — but from the want of 
 a little arrangement, his figures look too often 
 like spots on a dark ground. When they are 
 properly relieved and disentangled from the rest 
 of the composition, there is an appearance of 
 great life and bustle in his pictures. His horses, 
 however, have too much of the manege in them 
 — he seldom gets beyond the camp or the riding 
 school. — This room is rich in master-pieces. 
 Here is the Jacob's Dream, by Reraorandt, with 
 that sleeping figure, thrown like a bundle of 
 clothes in one corner of the picture, by the side 
 of some stunted bushes, and with those winged 
 shapes, not human, nor angelical, but bird-like, 
 dream-like, treading on clouds, ascending, de- 
 scending through the realms of endless light, 
 that loses itself in infinite space ! No one else 
 could ever grapple with this subject, or stamp 
 it on the willing canvass in its gorgeous obscu- 
 rity but Rembrandt ! Here also is the St. 
 Barbara, of Rubens, fleeing from her persecu- 
 tors ; a noble design, as if she were scaling the 
 steps of some high overhanging turret, moving 
 majestically on, with Fear before her, Death 
 behind her, and Martyrdom crowning her : — and 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 here is an eloquent landscape by the same mas- 
 ter-hand, the subject of which is, a shepherd 
 piping his flock homewards through a narrow 
 defile, with a graceful group of autumnal trees 
 waving on the edge of the declivity above, and 
 the rosy evening light streaming through the 
 clouds on the green moist landscape in the still 
 lengthening distance. Here (to pass from one 
 kind of excellence to another with kindly in- 
 terchange) is a clear sparkling Waterfall, by 
 Ruysdael, and Hobbima's Water-Mill, with the 
 wheels in motion, and the ducks paddling in the 
 restless stream. Is not this a sad anti-climax 
 from Jacob's Dream to a picture of a Water- 
 Mill? We do not know; and we should care as 
 little, could we but paint either of the pictures. 
 
 Entire affection scorneth nicer hands. 
 
 If a picture is admirable in its kind, we do not 
 give ourselves much trouble about the subject. 
 Could we paint as well as Hobbima, we should 
 not envy Rembrandt : nay, even as it is, while 
 we can relish both, we envy neither ! 
 
 The Centre Room commences with a Girl 
 at a Window, by Rembrandt. The picture is 
 known by the print of it, and is one of the most 
 remarkable and pleasing in the Collection. For 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 37 
 
 clearness, for breadth, for a lively, ruddy look 
 of healthy nature, it cannot be surpassed. The 
 execution of the drapery is masterly. There is 
 a story told of its being his servant-maid looking 
 out of a window, but it is evidently the portrait 
 of a mere child. — A Farrier shoeing an Ass, by 
 Berchem, is in his usual manner. There is truth 
 of character and delicate finishing ; but the fault 
 of all Berchem's pictures is, that he continues 
 to finish after he has done looking at nature, 
 and his last touches are different from hers. 
 Hence comes that resemblance to tea-board 
 painting, which even his best works are charge- 
 able with. We find here one or two small 
 Claudes of no great value ; and two very clever 
 specimens of the court-painter, Watteau, the 
 Gainsborough of France. They are marked as 
 Nos. 184 and 194, F6te Champetre, and Le Bal 
 Champetre. There is something exceedingly 
 light, agreeable, and characteristic in this art- 
 ist's productions. He might almost be said to 
 breathe his figures and his flowers on the can- 
 vas — so fragile is their texture, so evanescent 
 is his touch. He unites the court and the coun- 
 try at a sort of salient point — you may fancy 
 yourself with Count Grammont and the beauties 
 of Charles II. in their gay retreat at Tunbridge 
 D 3 
 
0 
 
 38 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 Wells. His trees have a drawing-room air with 
 them, an appearance of gentility and etiquette, 
 and nod gracefully over-head ; while the figures 
 below, thin as air, and vegetably clad, in the 
 midst of all their affectation and grimace, seem 
 to have just sprung out of the ground, or to be 
 the fairy inhabitants of the scene in masquerade. 
 They are the Oreads and Dryads of the Luxem- 
 bourg ! Quaint association, happily effected by 
 the pencil of Watteau ! In the Bal Champetre 
 we see Louis XIV. himself dancing, looking so 
 like an old beau, his face flushed aud puckered 
 up with gay anxiety ; but then the satin of his 
 slashed doublet is made of the softest leaves of 
 the water-lily; Zephyr plays wanton with the 
 curls of his wig ! We have nobody who could 
 produce a companion to this picture now : nor 
 do we very devoutly wish it. The Louis the 
 Fourteenths are extinct, and we suspect their 
 revival would hardly be compensated even by the 
 re-appearance of a Watteau. — No. 187, the 
 Death of Cardinal Beaufort, by Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, is a very indifferent and rather un- 
 pleasant sketch of a very fine picture. One of 
 the most delightful things in this delightful 
 collection is the Portrait (195) of the Prince of 
 the Austurias, by Velasquez. The easy lightness 
 
THE DULW1CH GALLERY. 
 
 38 
 
 of the childish Prince contrasts delightfully with 
 the unwieldly figure of the horse, which has 
 evidently been brought all the way from the Low 
 Countries for the amusement of his rider. Ve- 
 lasquez was (with only two exceptions, Titian 
 and Vandyke) as fine a portrait-painter as ever 
 lived ! In the centre room also is the Meeting 
 of Jacob and Rachel, by Murillo — a sweet picture 
 with a fresh green landscape, and the heart of 
 Love in the midst of it. — There are several heads 
 by Holbein scattered up and down the different 
 compartments. We need hardly observe that 
 they all have character in the extreme, so that 
 we may be said to be acquainted with the peo- 
 ple they represent; but then they give nothing 
 but character, and only one part of that, viz. the 
 dry, the literal, the concrete, and fixed. They 
 want the addition of passion and beauty; but 
 they are the finest caput mortuums of expression 
 that ever were made. Hans Holbein had none 
 of the volatile essence of genius in his composi- 
 tion. If portrait-painting is the prose of the 
 art, his pictures are the prose of portrait-paint- 
 ing. Yet he is "a reverend name" in art, and 
 one of the benefactors of the human mind. He 
 has left faces behind him that we would give 
 the world to have seen, and there they are 
 
40 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 — stamped on his canvass for ever ! Who, hi 
 reading over the names of certain individuals, 
 does not feel a yearning in his breast to know 
 their features and their lineaments? We look 
 through a small frame, and lo ! at the distance 
 of three centuries, we have before us the 
 figures of Anne Boleyn, of the virtuous 
 Cranmer, the bigotted Queen Mary, the noble 
 Surrey — as if we had seen them in their life-time, 
 not perhaps in their best moods or happiest 
 attitudes, but as they sometimes appeard, no 
 doubt. We know at least what sort of looking 
 people they were : our minds are made easy on 
 that score ; the "body and limbs" are there, and 
 we may "add what flourishes" of grace or orna- 
 ment we please. Holbein's heads are to the 
 finest portraits what state-papers are to history. 
 
 The first picture in the Fourth Room is the 
 Prophet Samuel, by Sir Joshua. It is not the 
 Prophet Samuel, but a very charming picture of 
 a little child saying its prayers. The second is, 
 The Education of liacchus, by Nicholas Pous- 
 sin. This picture makes one thirsty to look at 
 t — the colouring even is dry and adust. It is 
 true history in the technical phrase, that is to 
 say, true poetry in the vulgate. The figure of 
 the infant Bacchus seems as if he would drink 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 41 
 
 up a vintage — he drinks with his mouth, his 
 hands, his belly, and his whole body. Gar- 
 gantua was nothing to him. In the Education of 
 Jupiter, in like manner, we are thrown back 
 into the infancy of mythologic lore. The little 
 Jupiter, suckled by a she-goat, is beautifully 
 conceived and expressed ; and the dignity and 
 ascendancy given to these animals in the picture 
 is wonderfully happy. They have a very impos- 
 ing air of gravity indeed, and seem to be by 
 prescription " grand caterers and wet-nurses of 
 the state" of Heaven ! Apollo giving a Poet a 
 Cup of Water to drink is elegant and classical ; 
 and The Flight into Egypt instantly takes the 
 tone of Scripture-history. This is strange, but 
 so it is. All things are possible to a high ima- 
 gination. All things, about which we have a 
 feeling, may be expressed by true genius. A 
 dark landscape (by the same hand) in a corner of 
 the room is a proof of this. There are trees in 
 the fore-ground, with a paved road and build- 
 ings in the distance. The Genius of antiquity 
 might wander here, and feel itself at home. — ■ 
 The iarge leaves are wet and heavy with dew, 
 and the eye dwells " under the shade of melan- 
 choly boughs;" In the old collection (in Mr. 
 Desenfans' time) the Poussins occupied a sepa- 
 
42 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 rated room by themselves, and it Was (we con- 
 fess) a very favourite room with us.— No. 226, 
 is a Landscape, by Salvator Rosa. It is one of 
 his very best— rough, grotesque, wild— Pan has 
 struck it with his hoof— the trees, the rocks, 
 the fore-ground, are of a piece, and the figures 
 are subordinate to the landscape. The same 
 dull sky lowers upon the scene, and the bleak 
 air chills the crisp surface of the water. It is a 
 consolation to us to meet with a fine Salvator. 
 His is one of the great names in art, and it is 
 among our sources of regret that we cannot 
 always admire his works as we would do, from 
 our respect to his reputation and our love of the 
 man. Poor Salvator ! he was unhappy in his 
 life-time ; and it vexes us to think that we can- 
 not make him amends by fancying him so great 
 a painter as some others, whose fame was not 
 their only inheritance '.—227, Venus and Cu- 
 pid, is a delightful copy after Correggio. We 
 have no such regrets or qualms of conscience 
 with respect to him. "He has had his reward." 
 The weight of his renown balances the weight of 
 barbarous coin that sunk him to the earth. 
 Could he live now, and know what others think 
 of him, his misfortunes would seem as dross 
 compared with his lasting glory, and his heart 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 would melt within him at the thought, with 
 a sweetness that only his own pencil could 
 express. 233, The Virgin, Infant Christ, 
 and St. John, by Andrea del Sarto, is exceed- 
 ingly good. — 290, Another Holy Family, by the 
 same, is an admirable picture, and only inferior 
 to Raphael. It has delicacy, force, thought, 
 and feeling. "What lacks it then," to be equal 
 to Raphael? We hardly know, unless it be 
 a certain firmness and freedom, and glowing 
 animation. The execution is more timid and 
 laboured. It looks like a picture (an exquisite 
 one, indeed), but Raphael's look like the divine 
 reality itself ! — No. 234, Codes defending tfie 
 Bridge, is by Le Brun. We do not like this 
 picture, nor 271, The Massacre of the Innocents, 
 by the same artist. One reason is that they 
 are French, and another that they are not good. 
 They have great merit, it is true, but their me- 
 rits are only splendid sins. They are mecha- 
 nical, mannered, colourless, and unfeeling.— 
 No. 237, is Murillo's Spanish Girl with Flowers. 
 The sun tinted the young gipsey's complexion, 
 and not the painter. — No. 240, is The Casatella 
 and Villa of Maecenas, near Tivoli, by Wilson, 
 with his own portrait in the fore-ground. It is 
 an imperfect sketch; but there is a curious 
 
44 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 anecdote relating to it, that he was so delighted 
 with the waterfall itself, that he cried out, while 
 painting it: " Well done, water, by G— dl"~ 
 No. 243, Saint Cecilia, by Guercino, is a very 
 pleasing picture, in his least gaudy manner.— 
 No. 251, Venus and Adonis, by Titian. We see 
 so many of these Venuses and Adonises, that we 
 should like to know which is the true one. This 
 is one of the best we have seen. We have two 
 Francesco Molas in this room, the Rape of Pro- 
 serpine, and a Landscape with a Holy Family. 
 This artist dipped his pencil so thoroughly in 
 Titian's palette, that his works cannot fail to 
 have that rich, mellow look, which is always de- 
 lightful.— No. 303, Portrait of Philip the Fourth 
 of Spain, by Velasquez, is purity and truth 
 itself. We used to like the Sleeping Nymph, by 
 Titian, when we saw it formerly in the little en- 
 trance-room at Desenfans', but we cannot say 
 much in its praise here. 
 
 The Fifth Room is the smallest, but the most 
 precious in its contents. — No. 322, Spanish Beg- 
 gar Boys, by Murillo, is the triumph of this Col- 
 lection, and almost of painting. In the imitation 
 of common life, nothing ever went beyond it, or 
 as far as we can judge, came up to it. A 
 Dutch picture is mechanical, and mere stitl-life 
 
THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 45 
 
 to it. But this is life itself. The boy at play on 
 the ground is miraculous. It is done with a few 
 dragging strokes of the pencil, and with a little 
 tinge of colour ; but the mouth, the nose, the eyes, 
 the chin, are as brimful as they can hold of ex- 
 pression, of arch roguery, of animal spirits, of 
 vigorous, elastic health. The vivid, glowing, 
 cheerful look is such as could only be found be- 
 neath a southern sun. The fens and dykes of 
 Holland (with all our respect for them) could 
 never produce such an epitome of the vital prin • 
 ciplc. The other boy, standing up with the pitch- 
 er in his hand, and a crust of bread in his mouth, 
 is scarcely less excellent. His sulky, phlegmatic 
 indifference speaks for itself. The companion 
 to this picture, 324, is also very fine. Compared 
 with these imitations of nature, as faultless as 
 they are spirited, Miuillo's Virgins and Angels 
 however good in themselves, look vapid, and 
 even vulgar. A Child Sleeping, by the same 
 painter, is a beautiful and masterly study. — No. 
 329, a Musical Party, by Giorgione, is well 
 worthy of the notice of the connoisseur. — No. 
 331, St. John preaching in the Wilderness, by 
 Guido, is an extraordinary picture, and very un- 
 like this painter's usual manner. The colour is 
 as if the flesh had been stained all over with 
 
46 THE DULWICH GALLERY. 
 
 brick -dusi. There is, however, awildness about 
 it which accords well with the subject, and the 
 figure of St. John is full of grace and gusto. — 
 No. 344, The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by 
 the same, is much finer, both as to execution 
 and expression. The face is imbued with deep 
 passion. — No. 345, Portrait of a Man, by L. da 
 Vinci, is truly simple and grand, and at once 
 carries you back to that age. — Boors Merry 
 Making, by Ostade, is fine ; but has no busi- 
 ness where it is. Yet it takes up very little room. 
 —No. 347, Portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the cha- 
 racter of the Tragic Muse, by Sir Joshua, ap- 
 pears to us to resemble neither Mrs. Siddons, 
 nor the Tragic Muse. It is in a bastard style of 
 art. Sir Joshua had an importunate theory of 
 improving upon nature. He might improve upon 
 indifferent nature, but when he had got the 
 finest, he thought to improve upon that too, and 
 only spoiled it. — No. 349, The Virgin and Child, 
 by Correggio, can only be a copy. — No. 332, 
 The Judgment of Paris, by Vanderwerf, is a pic- 
 ture, and by a master, that we hate. He always 
 chooses for his subjects naked figures of women, 
 and tantalises us by making them of coloured 
 ivory. They are like hard-ware toys. — No. 354, 
 a Cardinal blessing a Priest, by P. Veronese, 
 
THE DULW1CH GALLERY. 
 
 47 
 
 is dignified and picturesque in the highest de- 
 gree. — No. 355, The Adoration of the Shepherds, 
 by Annibal Caracci, is an elaborate, but not very 
 successful performance. — No. 356, Christ bear- 
 ing his Cross, by Morales, concludes the list, and 
 is worthy to conclude it. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S 
 GALLERY. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S 
 GALLERY. 
 
 OUR intercourse with the dead is better than 
 our intercourse with the living. There are only 
 three pleasures in life, pure and lasting, and all 
 derived from inanimate things — books, pictures, 
 and the face of nature. What is the world but a 
 heap of ruined friendships, but the grave of love ? 
 All other pleasures are as false and hollow, 
 vanishing from our embrace like smoke, or like 
 a feverish dream. Scarcely can we recollect 
 that they were, or recal without an effort the anx- 
 ious and momentary interest we took in them. — 
 But thou, oh! divine Bath of Diana, with deep 
 azure dyes, with roseate hues, spread by the 
 hand of Titian, art still there upon the wall, ano- 
 E 2 
 
52 THE MAliQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 ther, yet the same that thou wert tive-and-twenty 
 years ago, nor wantest 
 
 Forked mountain or blue promontory 
 
 With Trees upon't that nod unto the world, 
 And mock our eyes with air ! 
 
 And lo ! over the clear lone brow of Tuderley 
 and Norman Court, knit into the web and fibres 
 of our heart, the sighing grove waves in the au- 
 tumnal air, deserted by Love, by Hope, but for- 
 ever haunted by Memory ! And there that fine 
 passage stands in Antony and Cleopatra as we 
 read it long ago with exaulting eyes in Paris, 
 after puzzling over a tragedy of Racine's, and 
 cried aloud : " Our Shakspeare was also a poet !" 
 These feelings are dear to us at the time ; and 
 they come back unimpaired, heightened, mel- 
 lowed, whenever we choose to go back to them. 
 We turn over the leaf and " volume of the brain," 
 and there see them face to faee. — Marina in Pe- 
 ricles complains that 
 
 Life is as a storm hurrying her from her friends ! 
 
 Not so from the friends abovementioned. If we 
 bring but an eye, an understanding, and a heart 
 to them, we find them always with us, always 
 the same. The change, if there is one, is in us, 
 not in them. Oh ! thou then, whoever thou art, 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 53 
 
 that dost seek happiness in thyself, independent 
 on others, not subject to caprice, not mocked 
 by insult, not snatched away by ruthless hands, 
 over which Time has no power, and that Death 
 alone cancels, seek it (if thou art wise) in books, 
 in pictures, and the face of nature, for these 
 alone we may count upon as friends for life! 
 While we are true to ourselves, they will not be 
 faithless to us. While we remember any thing, 
 we cannot forget them. As long as we have a 
 wish for pleasure, we may find it here ; for it 
 depends only on our love for them, and not on 
 theirs for us. The enjoyment is purely ideal, 
 and is refined, unembittered, unfading, for that 
 reason. 
 
 A complaint has been made of the short-lived 
 duration of works of art, and particularly of 
 pictures; and poets more especially are apt to 
 lament and to indulge in an elegiac strain over 
 the fragile beauties of the sister-art. The com- 
 plaint is inconsiderate, if not invidious. They 
 will last our time. Nay, they have lasted cen- 
 turies before us, and will last centuries after us ; 
 and even when they are no more, will leave a 
 shadow and a cloud of glory behind them, through 
 all time. Lord Bacon exclaims triumphantly 
 " Have not the poems of Homer lasted five-and- 
 E 3 
 
54 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 twenty hundred years, and not a syllable of them 
 is lost?" But it might be asked in return, 
 " Have not many of the Greek statues now last- 
 ed almost as long, without losing a particle of 
 their splendour or their meaning, while the Iliad 
 (except to a very few) has become almost a dead 
 letter X " Has not the Venus of Medicis had al- 
 most as many partisans and admirers as the Helen 
 of the old blind bard X Besides, what has Phidias 
 gained in reputation even by the discovery of 
 the Elgin Marbles X Or is not Michael Angelo's 
 the greatest name in modern art, whose works 
 we only know from description and by report X 
 Surely, there is something in a name, in wide- 
 spread reputation, in endless renown, to satisfy 
 the ambition of the mind of man. Who in his 
 works would vie immortality with nature ? An 
 epitaph, an everlasting monument in the dim re- 
 membrance of ages, is enough below the skies. 
 Moreover, the sense of final inevitable decay hu- 
 manises, and gives an affecting character to the 
 triumphs of exalted art. Imperishable works 
 executed by perishable hands are a sort of insult 
 }o our nature, and almost a contradiction in 
 terms. They are ungrateful children, and mock 
 the makers. Neither is the noble idea of antiqui- 
 ty legibly made out without the marks of the pro- 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 55 
 
 gress and lapse of time. That which is as good 
 now as ever it was, seems a thing of yesterday. 
 Nothing is old to the imagination that does not 
 appear to grow old. Ruins are grander and more 
 venerable than any modern structure can be, or 
 than the oldest could be if kept in the most entire 
 preservation. They convey the perspective of 
 time. So the Elgin Marbles are more impres- 
 sive from their mouldering, imperfect state. 
 They transport us to the Parthenon, and old 
 Greece. The Theseus is of the age of Theseus : 
 while the Apollo Belvidere is a modern fine gentle- 
 man ; and we think of this last figure only as an or- 
 nament to the room where it happens to be plac- 
 ed. — We conceive that those are persons of nar- 
 row minds ( who cannot relish an author's style that 
 smacks of time, that has a crust of antiquity over 
 it, like that which gathers upon old wine. These 
 sprinklings of archaisms and obsolete turns of 
 expression (so abhorrent to the fashionable read- 
 er) are intellectual links that connect the genera- 
 tions together, and enlarge our knowledge of 
 language and of nature. Of the two, we prefer 
 black-letter to hot-pressed paper? Does not 
 every language change and wear out 1 Do not 
 the most popular writers become quaint and old- 
 fashioned every fifty or every hundred years I Is 
 
56 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S PICTURES. 
 
 there not a constant conflict of taste and opinion 
 between those who adhere to the established and 
 triter modes of expression, and those who affect 
 glossy innovations, in advance of the age ? It 
 is pride enough for the best authors to have been 
 read. This applies to their own country ; and to 
 all others, they are "a book sealed." But Ru- 
 bens is as good in Holland as he is in Flanders, 
 where he was born, in Italy or in Spain, in Eng- 
 land, or in Scotland — no, there alone he is not un- 
 derstood. The Scotch understand nothing but 
 what is Scotch. What has the dry, husky, econo- 
 mic eye of Scotland to do with the florid hues and 
 luxuriant extravagance of Rubens? Nothing. They 
 like Wilkie's pauper style better. It may be said that 
 translations remedy the want of universality of 
 language : but prints give (at least) as good an idea 
 of pictures as translations do of poems, or of any 
 productions of the press that employ the colour- 
 ing of style and imagination. Gil Bias is translate- 
 able ; Racine and Rousseau are not. The mere 
 English student knows more of the character 
 and spirit of Raphael's pictures in the Vatican, 
 than he does of Ariosto or Tasso from Hoole's 
 Version. There is, however, one exception to 
 the catholic language of painting, which is in 
 French pictures. They are national fixtures, 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 57 
 
 and ought never to be removed from the soil in 
 which they grow. They will not answer any 
 where else, nor are they worth Custom- House 
 Duties. Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, are 
 all good and intelligible in their several ways — 
 we know what they mean — they require no in- 
 terpreter: but the French painters see nature 
 with organs and with minds peculiarly their own. 
 One must be born in France to understand their 
 painting, or their poetry. Their productions 
 in art are either literal, or extravagant — dry, 
 frigid facsimiles, in which they seem to take up 
 nature by pin-points, or else vapid distorted 
 caricatures, out of all rule and compass. They 
 are, in fact, at home only in the light and ele- 
 gant; and whenever they attempt to add force 
 or solidity (as they must do in the severer pro- 
 ductions of the pencil) they are compelled to 
 substitute an excess of minute industry for a 
 comprehension of the whole, or make a despe- 
 rate mechanical effort at extreme expression, 
 instead of giving the true, natural, and powerful 
 workings of passion. Their representations of 
 nature are meagre skeletons, that bear the same 
 relation to the originals that botanical speci- 
 mens, enclosed in a portfolio, flat, dry, hard, 
 and pithless, do to flourishing plants and shrubs. 
 
58 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 Their historical figures are painful outlines, or 
 graduated elevations of the common statues, 
 spiritless, colourless, motionless, which have the 
 form, but none of the power of the antique. 
 What an abortive attempt is the Coronation of 
 Napoleon, by the celebrated David, lately exhi- 
 bited in this country ! It looks like a finished 
 sign-post painting — a sea of frozen outlines. — 
 Could the artist make nothing of " the foremost 
 man in all this world," but a stiff, upright figure ? 
 The figure and attitude of the Empress are, how- 
 ever, pretty and graceful ; and we recollect one 
 face in profile, of an ecclesiastic, to the right, 
 with a sanguine look of health in the complexion, 
 and a large benevolence of soul. It is not Mon- 
 sieur Talleyrand, whom the late Lord Castlereagh 
 characterised as a worthy man and his friend. 
 His Lordship was not a physiognomist ! The 
 whole of the shadowed part of the picture seems 
 to be enveloped in a shower of blue powder. — 
 But to make amends for all that there is or that 
 there is not in the work, David has introduced 
 his wife and his two daughters ; and in the Ca- 
 talogue has given us the places of abode, and 
 the names of the husbands of the latter. This 
 is a little out of place : yet these are the people 
 who laugh at our blunders. We do not mean 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 59 
 
 to extend the above sweeping censure to Claude, 
 or Poussin : of course they are excepted : but 
 even in them the national character lurked 
 amidst unrivalled excellence. If Claude has a 
 fault, it is that he is finical ; and Poussin's fi- 
 gures might be said by a satirist to be antique 
 puppets. To proceed to our task. — 
 
 The first picture that struck us on entering 
 the Marquis of Stafford's Gallery (a little bewil- 
 dered as we were with old recollections, and 
 present objects) was the Meeting of Christ and 
 St. John, one of Raphael's master-pieces. The 
 eager " child-worship" of the young St. John, 
 the modest retirement and dignified sweetness of 
 the Christ, and the graceful, matron-like air of the 
 Virgin bending over them, full and noble, yet 
 feminine and elegant, cannot be surpassed. No 
 words can describe them to those who have not 
 seen the picture : — the attempt is still vainer 
 to those who have. There is, however, a very 
 fine engraving of this picture, which may be 
 had for a trifling sum. — No glory is around the 
 head of the Mother, nor is it needed : but the 
 soul of the painter sheds its influence over it like 
 a dove, and the spirit of love, sanctity, beauty, 
 breathes from the divine group. There are four 
 Raphaels (Holy Families) in this collection, two 
 
60 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 others by the side of this in his early more pre- 
 cise and affected manner, somewhat faded, and 
 a small one of the Virgin, Sleeping Jesus, and 
 St. John, in his finest manner. There is, or 
 there was, a duplicate of this picture (of which 
 the engraving is also common) in the Louvre, 
 which was certainly superior to the one at the 
 Marquis of Stafford's. The colouring of the 
 drapery in that too was cold, and the face of 
 the Virgin thin and poor ; but never was infancy 
 laid asleep more calmly, more sweetly, more 
 soundly, than in the figure of Our Saviour— the 
 little pouting mouth seemed to drink balmy, in- 
 nocent sleep — and the rude expression of won- 
 der and delight in the more robust, sun-burnt, 
 fur-clad figure of St. John was as spirited in 
 itself as it was striking, when contrasted with 
 the meeker beauties of the figure opposed to 
 it- — From these we turn to the Four Ages, by 
 Titian, or Giorgione, as some say. Strange 
 that there should have lived two men in the same 
 age, on the same spot of earth, with respect to 
 whom it should bear a question — which of them 
 painted such a picture ! Barry, we remember, 
 and Collins, the miniature-painter, thought it a 
 Giorgione, and they were considered two of the 
 best judges going, at the time this picture was 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 61 
 
 exhibited, among others, iu the Orleans Gallery. 
 We cannot pretend to decide on such nice mat- 
 ters ex cathedra; but no painter need be asham- 
 ed to own it. The gradations of human life are 
 marked with characteristic felicity, and the land- 
 scape, which is thrown in, adds a pastoral charm 
 and naivete to the whole. To live or to die in 
 
 such a chosen, still retreat must be happy ! 
 
 Certainly, this composition suggests a beautiful 
 moral lesson ; and as to the painting of the group 
 of children in the corner, we suppose, for care- 
 less freedom of pencil, and a certain milky soft- 
 ness of the flesh, it can scarcely be paralleled. 
 Over the three Raphaels is a Danae, byAnnibal 
 Caracci, which we used to adore where it was 
 hung on high in the Orleans Gallery. The face 
 is fine, up-turned, expectant ; and the figure no 
 
 less fine, desirable, ample, worthy of a God. 
 
 The golden shower is just seen descending ; the 
 landscape at a distance has (so fancy might in- 
 terpret) a cold, shuddering aspect. There is 
 another very fine picture of the same hand close 
 by, St. Gregory with Angels. It is difficult to 
 know which to admire most, the resigned and 
 yet earnest expression of the Saint, or the ele- 
 gant forms, the graceful attitudes, and bland, 
 cordial, benignant faces of the attendant angels. 
 
G2 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 The artist in these last has evidently had an eye 
 to Correggio, both in the waving outline, and in 
 the charm of the expression ; and he has suc- 
 ceeded admirably, but not entirely. Something 
 of the extreme unction of Correggio is wanting. 
 The drawing of Annibal's Angels is, perhaps, 
 too firm, too sinewy, too masculine. In Correg- 
 gio, the Angel's spirit seemed to be united to a 
 human body, to imbue, mould, penetrate every 
 part with its sweetness and softness : in Caracci, 
 you would say that a heavenly spirit inhabited, 
 looked out of, moved a goodly human frame, 
 
 And o'er -informed the tenement of clay. 
 
 The composition of this picture is rather forc- 
 ed (it was one of those made to order for the 
 monks) and the colour is somewhat metallic; 
 but it has, notwithstanding, on the whole, 
 a striking and tolerably harmonious effect. — 
 There is still another picture by Caracci (also 
 an old favourite with us, for it was in the Or- 
 leans set) Diana and Nymphs bathing, with the 
 story of Calisto. It is one of his very best, 
 with something of the drawing of the antique, 
 and the landscape-colouring of Titian. The fi- 
 gures are all heroic, handsome, such as might 
 belong to huntresses, or Goddesses: and the 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 63 
 
 coolness and seclusion of the scene, under 
 grey over-hanging cliffs, and brown overshadow- 
 ing trees, with all the richness and truth of na- 
 ture, have the effect of an enchanting reality. — 
 The story and figures are more classical and 
 better managed than those of the Diana and 
 Calisto by Titian ; but there is a charm in that 
 picture and the fellow to it, the Diana and Actceon, 
 (there is no other fellow to it in the world!) 
 which no words can convey. It is the charm 
 thrown over each by the greatest genius for co- 
 louring that the world ever saw. It is difficult, 
 nay, impossible to say which is the finest in this 
 respect : but either one or the other (whichever 
 we turn to, and we can never be satisfied with 
 looking at either — so rich a scene do they un- 
 fold, so serene a harmony do they infuse into 
 the soul) is like a divine piece of music, or rises 
 " like an exhalation of rich distilled perfumes." 
 In the figures, in the landscape, in the water, 
 in the sky, there are tones, colours, scattered 
 with a profuse and unerring hand, gorgeous, 
 but most true, dazzling with their force, but 
 blended, softened, woven together into a woof 
 like that of Iris — tints of flesh colour, as if you 
 saw the blood circling beneath the pearly skin ; 
 clouds empurpled with setting suns ; hills steeped 
 
64 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY, 
 
 in azure skies ; trees turning to a mellow brown ; 
 the cold grey rocks, and the water so translucent, 
 that you see the shadows and the snowy feet of 
 the naked nymphs in it. With all this prodiga- 
 lity of genius, there is the greatest severity and 
 discipline of art. The figures seem grouped for 
 the effect of colour — the most striking contrasts 
 are struck out, and then a third object, a piece 
 of drapery, an uplifted arm, a bow and arrows, 
 a straggling weed, is introduced to make an in- 
 termediate tint, or carry on the harmony. Every 
 colour is melted, impasted into every other, 
 with fine keeping and bold diversity. Look at 
 that indignant, queen-like figure of Diana (more 
 perhaps like an offended mortal princess, than 
 an immortal Goddess, though the immortals 
 could frown and give themselves strange airs), 
 and see the snowy, ermine-like skin ; the pale 
 clear shadows of the delicately formed back; 
 then the brown colour of the slender trees be- 
 hind to set off the shaded flesh ; and last, the 
 dark figure of the Ethiopian girl behind, com- 
 pleting the gradation. Then the bright scarf 
 suspended in the air connects itself with the 
 glowing clouds, and deepens the solemn azure 
 of the sky : Actaeon's bow and arrows fallen on 
 the ground are also red ; and there is a little 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 6i> 
 
 flower on the brink of the Bath which catches 
 and pleases the eye, saturated with this colour. 
 The yellowish grey of the earth purifies the 
 low tone of the figures where they are in half-sha- 
 dow ; and this again is enlivened by the leaden- 
 coloured fountain of the Bath, which is set off (or 
 kept down in its proper place) by the blue vest- 
 ments strown near it. The figure of Actaeon is 
 spirited and natural; it is that of a bold rough 
 hunter in the early ages, struck with surprise, 
 abashed with beauty. The forms of some of the 
 female figures are elegant enough, particularly 
 that of Diana in the story of Calisto ; and there 
 is a very pretty-faced girl mischievously drag- 
 ging the culprit forward ; but it is the texture 
 of the flesh that is throughout delicious, unrival- 
 led, surpassingly fair. The landscape canopies 
 the living- scene with a sort of proud, disdainful 
 consciousness. The trees nod to it, and the 
 hills roll at a distance in a sea of colour. Every 
 where tone, not form, predominates — there is 
 not a distinct line in the picture— but a gusto, 
 a rich taste of colour is left upon the eye 
 as if it were the palate, and the diapason of 
 picturesque harmony is full to overflowing. " Oh 
 Titian and Nature ! whicli of you copied the 
 other ?" f 
 
66 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 We are ashamed of this description, now that 
 we have made it, and heartily wish somebody 
 would make a better. There is another Titian 
 here (which was also in the Orleans Gallery),* 
 Venus rising from the sea. The figure and face 
 are gracefully designed and sweetly expressed : — 
 whether it is the picture of the Goddess of Love, 
 may admit of a question ; that it is the picture 
 of a lovely woman in a lovely attitude, admits 
 of none. The half-shadow in which most of it 
 is painted, is a kind of veil through which the 
 delicate skin shows more transparent and aerial. 
 There is nothing in the picture but this single 
 exquisitely turned figure, and if it were continu- 
 ed downward to a whole-length, it would seem 
 like a copy of a statue of the Goddess carved in 
 ivory or marble; but being only a half-length, 
 it has not this effect at all, but looks like an 
 enchanting study, or a part of^a larger compo- 
 sition, selected a Venvie. The hair, and the 
 arm holding it up, are nearly the same as in the 
 weli-known picture of Titian's Mistress, and 
 
 * Two thirds of the principal pictures in the Orleans 
 Collection are at present at Cleveland-House, one third pur- 
 chased by the Marquis of Stafford, and another third left 
 by the Duke of Bridgewater, another of the purchasers 
 Mr, Ih ian had the remaining third. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 67 
 
 as delicious. The back-ground is beautifully 
 painted. We said before, that there was no ob- 
 ject in the picture detached from the principal 
 figure. Nay, there is the sea, and a sea-shell, 
 but these might be given in sculpture.— Under 
 the Venus, is a portrait by Vandyke, of Thomas 
 Howard, Earl of Arundel, a most gentleman-like 
 performance, mild, clear, intelligent, unassum- 
 ing ; and on the right of the spectator, a Ma- 
 donna, by Guido, with the icy glow of sanctity 
 upon it; and to the left, the Fable of Salmacis, 
 by Albano (saving the ambiguity of the subject), 
 exquisitely painted. Four finer specimens of 
 the art can scarcely be found again in so small 
 a compass. There is in another room a por- 
 trait, said to be by Moroni, and called Titian's 
 School-master, from a vague tradition, that 
 he was in the habit of frequently visiting, in 
 order to study and learn from it. If so, he 
 must have profited by his assiduity; for it 
 looks as if he had painted it. Not knowing 
 any thing of Moroni, if we had been asked 
 who had done it, we should have replied, 
 " Either Titian or the Devil?* It is considera- 
 bly more laboured and minute than Titian ; but 
 
 * " Aut Erasmus aul Diabolus." Sir Thomas More's 
 exclamation on meeting witti the philosopher of Rotterdam, 
 
68 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY, 
 
 the only objection at all staggering is, that it 
 has less fiery animation than is ordinarily to 
 be found in his pictures. Look at the portrait 
 above it, for instance— Clement VII. by the 
 great Venetian ; and you find the eye look- 
 ing at you again, as if it had been observing 
 you all the time : but the eye in Titian's School- 
 master is an mje to look at, not to look with,* or 
 if it looks at you, it does not look through you, 
 which may be almost made a test of Titian's 
 heads. There is not the spirit, the intelligence 
 within, moulding the expression, and giving it 
 intensity of purpose and decision of character. 
 In every other respect but this (and perhaps a 
 certain want of breadth) it is as good as Titian. 
 There is (we understand) a half-length of Clement 
 VII. by Julio Romano, in the Papal Palace at 
 Rome, in which he is represented as seated above 
 the spectator, with the head elevated and the 
 eye looking down like a camel's, with an amazing 
 dignity of aspect. The picture (Mr. Northcote 
 says) is hard and ill-coloured, but, in strength 
 of character and conception, superior to the 
 Titian at the Marquis of Stafford's. Titian, 
 undoubtedly, put a good deal of his own cha.- 
 
 * The late Mr. Ciwran described John Kcinble's eye in 
 thes<j words. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. C9 
 
 racter into his portraits. He was not himself 
 filled with the " milk of human kindness." He 
 got his brother, who promised to rival him in 
 his own art, and of whom he was jealous, sent 
 on a foreign embassy ; and he so frightened 
 Pordenone while he was painting an altar-piece 
 for a church, that he worked with his palette and 
 brushes in his hand, and a sword by his side. 
 
 We meet with one or two admirable portraits, 
 particularly No. 112, by Tintoretto, which is of 
 a fine fleshy tone, and A Doge of Venice, by 
 Palma Vecchio, stamped with an expressive 
 look of official and assumed dignity. There is a 
 Bassan, No. 95, The Circumcision, the colours 
 of which are somewhat dingy with age, and 
 sunk into the canvas ; but as the sun shone 
 upon it while we were looking at it, it glittered 
 all green and gold. Bassan" s execution is as 
 fine as possible, and his colouring has a most 
 striking harmonious effect. — We must not for- 
 get the Muleteers, supposed to be by Correg- 
 gio, in which the figure of the Mule seems 
 actually passing across the picture (you hear 
 his bells) ; nor the little copy of his Marriage 
 of St. Catherine, by L. Caracci, which is all 
 over grace, delicacy, and sweetness. Any one 
 may judge of his progress in a taste for the 
 F 3 
 
70 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 refinements of art, by his liking for this pic- 
 ture. Indeed, Correggio is the very essence 
 of refinement. Among other pictures in the 
 Italian division of the gallery, we would point 
 out the Claudes (particularly Nos. 43 and 50,) 
 which, though inferior to Mr. Angerstein's as 
 compositions, preserve more of the delicacy of 
 execution, (or what Barry used to call " the fine 
 oleaginous touches of Claude" J — two small Gas- 
 par Poussins, in which the landscape seems to 
 have been just washed by a shower, and the 
 storm blown over — the Death of Adonis, by 
 Luca Gambiasi, an Orleans picture, lovely in 
 sorrow, and in speechless agony, and faded 
 like the life that is just expiring in it — a Joseph 
 and Potiphar's Wife, by Alessandro Veronese, a 
 very clever, and sensible, but rigidly painted 
 picture* — an Albert Durer, the Death of the 
 Virgin— & Female head, by Leonardo da Vinci — 
 and the fVoman taken in Adultery, by Pordenone, 
 which last the reader may admire or not, as he 
 pleases. We cannot close this list without re- 
 ferring to the Christ bearing his cross, by Do- 
 menichino, a picture full of interest and skill ; 
 and the little touching allegory of the Infant 
 Christ sleeping on a cross, by Guido. 
 
 * It is said in the catalogue to be painted on touch-stone. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 71 
 
 The Dutch School contains a number of ex- 
 cellent specimens of the best masters. There 
 are two Tenierses, a Fair, and Boors merry- 
 making, unrivalled for a look of the open air, 
 for lively awkward gesture, and variety and gro- 
 tesqueness of grouping and rustic character. 
 There is a little picture, by Le Nain, called the 
 Village Minstrel, with a set of youthful audi- 
 tors, the most incorrigible little mischievous 
 urchins we ever saw, but with admirable ex- 
 ecution and expression. The Metzus are cu- 
 rious and fine — the Ostades admirable. Gerard 
 Douw's own portrait is certainly a gem. We 
 noticed a Ruysdael in one corner of the room 
 (No. 221), a dark, flat, wooded country, but 
 delectable in tone and pencilling. Vandevelde's 
 Sea-pieces are capital — the water is smooth as 
 glass, and the boats and vessels have the buoy- 
 ancy of butterflies on it. The Sea-port, by A. 
 Cuyp, is miraculous for truth, brilliancy, and 
 clearness, almost beyond actual water. These 
 cannot be passed over; but there is a little 
 picture which we beg to commend to the gentle 
 reader, the Vangoyen, at the end of the room, 
 No. 156, which has that yellow-tawny colour 
 in the meads, and that grey chill look in the 
 old convent, that give one the precise feeling 
 
T2 THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD'S GALLERY. 
 
 of a mild day towards the end of winter, in a 
 humid, marshy country. We many years ago 
 copied a Vangoyen, a view of a Canal " with 
 yellow tufted banks and gliding sail," modestly 
 pencilled, truly felt — and have had an affection 
 for him ever since. There is a small inner room 
 with some most respectable modern pictures. 
 Wilkie's Breakfast-table is among them. 
 
 The Sacraments, by N. Poussin, occupy a 
 separate room by themselves;, and have a grand 
 and solemn effect ; but we could hardly see them 
 where they are ; and in general, we prefer his 
 treatment of light aud classical subjects to those 
 of sacred history. He wanted weight for the 
 last; or, if that word is objected to, we will 
 change it, and say force. 
 
 On the whole, the Stafford Gallery is proba- 
 bly the most magnificent Collection this country 
 can boast. The specimens of the different 
 schools are as numerous as they are select ; 
 and they are equally calculated to delight the 
 student by the degree, or to inform the uninitia- 
 ted by the variety of excellence. Yet even this 
 Collection is not complete. It is deficient in 
 Rembrandts, Vandykes, and Rubenses ; except 
 one splendid allegory and fruit-piece by the 
 last. 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR 
 CASTLE. 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 THE palaces of Windsor and Hampton -court 
 contain pictures worthy of the feelings we attach 
 to the names of those places. The first boasts 
 a number of individual pictures of great excel- 
 lence and interest, and the last the Cartoons. 
 
 Windsor Castle is remarkable in- many re- 
 spects. Its tall, grey, square towers, seated on 
 a striking eminence, overlook for many miles 
 the subjacent country, and, eyed in the distance, 
 lead the mind of the solitary traveller to roman- 
 tic musing ; or, approached nearer, give the heart 
 a quicker and stronger pulsation. Windsor, 
 besides its picturesque, commanding situation, 
 and its being the only palace in the kingdom fit 
 for the receptacle of " a line of kings," is the 
 
76 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 scene of many classical associations. Who can 
 pass through Datchet, and the neighbouring 
 greensward paths, and not think of Falstaff, of 
 Ann Page, and the oak of Heme the hunter ? 
 Or if he does not, still he is affected by them as 
 if he did. The tall slim deer glance startled by, 
 in some neglected track of memory, and fairies 
 trip it in the unconscious haunts of the imagi- 
 nation! Pope's lines on Windsor Forest also 
 suggest themselves to the mind in the same 
 way, and make the air about it delicate. Gray 
 has consecrated the same spot by his Ode on 
 a Distant Prospect of Eton College ; and the 
 finest passage in Burke's writings is his com- 
 parison of the British Monarchy to " the proud 
 Keep of Windsor." The walls and massy towers 
 of Windsor Castle are indeed built of solid 
 stone, weather-beaten, time-proof; but the 
 image answering to them in the mind's eye is 
 woven of pure thought and the airy films of the 
 imagination — Arachne's web not finer ! 
 
 The rooms are chill and comfortless at this 
 time of the year,* and gilded ceilings look down 
 on smoky fire-places. The view from the win- 
 dows, too, which is so rich and glowing in the 
 summer-time, is desolate and deformed with the 
 rains overflowing the marshy grounds. As to 
 * Written in February, 1823. 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 77 
 
 physical comfort, one seems to have no more of 
 it in these tapestried halls and on marble floors, 
 than the poor bird driven before the. pelting 
 storm, or the ploughboy seeking shelter from 
 the drizzling sky, in his sheepskin jacket and 
 clouted shoes, beneath the dripping, leafless 
 spray. The palace does not (more than the 
 hovel) always defend us against the winter's 
 cold. The apartments are also filled with too 
 many rubbishly pictures of kings and queens — 
 there are too many of Verrio's paintings, and a 
 whole roomful of West's ; but there are ten or 
 twenty pictures which the eye, having once seen, 
 never loses sight of, and that make Windsor 
 one of the retreats and treasuries of art in this 
 country. These, however, are chiefly pictures 
 which have a personal and individual interest 
 attached to them, as we have already hinted : 
 there are very few historical compositions of 
 any value, and the subjects of the others are 
 so desultory that the young person who shows 
 them, and goes through the names of the paint- 
 ers and portraits very correctly, said she very 
 nearly went out of her mind in the three weeks 
 she was " studying her part." It is a matter of 
 nomenclature : we hope we shall make as few 
 blunders in our report as she did. 
 
78 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 In the first room the stranger is shown into, 
 there are two large landscapes by Zuccarelli. 
 They are clever, well-painted pictures ; but they 
 are worth nothing. The fault of this artist is, 
 that there is nothing absolutely good or bad in 
 his pictures. They are mere handicraft. The 
 whole is done with a certain mechanical ease 
 and indifference; but it is evident no part of 
 the picture gave him any pleasure, and it is im- 
 possible it should give the spectator any. His 
 only ambition was to execute his task so as to 
 save his credit ; and your first impulse is, to 
 turn away from the picture, and save your time. 
 
 In the next room, there are four Vandykes — 
 two of them excellent. One is the Duchess of 
 Richmond, a whole-length, in a white satin dra- 
 pery, with a pet lamb. The expression of her 
 face is a little sullen and capricious. The other, 
 the Countess of Carlisle, has a shrewd, clever, 
 sensible countenance ; and, in a certain archness 
 of look, and the contour of the lower part of the 
 face, resembles the late Mrs. Jordan. — Between 
 these two portraits is a copy after Rembrandt, 
 by Gainsborough, a fine sombre, mellow head, 
 with the hat flapped over the face. 
 
 Among the most delightful and interesting of 
 the pictures in this Collection, is the portrait by 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 79 
 
 Vandyke, of Lady Venetia Digby. It is an alle- 
 gorical composition : but what truth, what pu- 
 rity, what delicacy in the execution ! You are 
 introduced into the presence of a beautiful wo- 
 man of quality of a former age, and it would be 
 next to impossible to perform an unbecoming- 
 action with that portrait hanging in the room. 
 It has an air of nobility about it, a spirit of 
 humanity within it. There is a dove-like in- 
 nocence and softness about the eyes ; in the 
 clear, delicate complexion, health and sorrow 
 contend for the mastery ; the mouth is sweet- 
 ness itself, the nose highly intelligent, and 
 the forehead is one of " clear-spirited thought." 
 But misfortune has touched all this grace and 
 beauty, and left its canker there. This is shown 
 no less by the air that pervades it, than by the 
 accompanying emblems. The children in par- 
 ticular are exquisitely painted, and have an evi- 
 dent reference to those we lately noticed in the 
 Four Ages, by Titian. This portrait, both from 
 the style and subject, reminds one forcibly of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson's admirable Memoirs of her 
 own Life. Both are equally history, and the his- 
 tory of the female heart, (depicted, in the one 
 case, by the pencil, in the other, by the pen) in the 
 finest age of female accomplishment and pious 
 
<80 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 devotion. Look at this portrait, breathing the 
 beauty of virtue, and compare it with the " Beau- 
 ties" of Charles II.'s court, by Lely. They look 
 just like what they were — a set of kept-mis- 
 tresses, painted, tawdry, showing off their 
 theatrical or meretricious airs and graces, with- 
 out one trace of real elegance or refinement, or 
 one spark of sentiment to touch the heart. 
 Lady Grammont is the handsomest of them; and, 
 though the most voluptuous in her attire and 
 attitude, the] most decent. The Duchess of 
 Portsmouth, in her helmet and plumes, looks 
 quite like a heroine of romance or modern Ama- 
 zon ; but for an air of easy assurance, inviting 
 admiration, and alarmed at nothing but being 
 
 thought coy, commend us to my lady above, 
 
 in the sky-blue drapery, thrown carelessly across 
 her shoulders ! As paintings, these celebrated 
 portraits cannot rank very high. They have an 
 affected ease, but a real hardness of manner 
 and execution ; and they have that contortion of 
 attitude and setness of features which we after- 
 wards find carried to so disgusting and insipid 
 an excess in Kneller's portraits. Sir Peter Lely 
 was, however, a better painter than Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller — that is the highest praise that can be 
 accorded to him. He had more spirit, more 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 81 
 
 originality, and was the livelier coxcomb of the 
 two ! Both these painters possessed considera- 
 ble mechanical dexterity, but it is not of a re- 
 fined kind. Neither of them could be ranked 
 among great painters, yet they were thought 
 by their contemporaries and themselves superior 
 to every one. At the distance of a hundred 
 years we see the thing plainly enough. 
 
 In the same room with the portrait of Lady 
 Digby, there is one of Killigrew and Carew, by 
 the same masterly hand. There is spirit and 
 character in the profile of Carew, while the head 
 of Killigrew is surprising from its composure 
 and sedateness of aspect. He was one of the 
 grave wits of the day, who made nonsense a 
 a profound study, and turned trifles into phi- 
 losophy, and philosophy into a jest. The pale, 
 sallow complexion of this head is throughout in 
 wonderful keeping. The beard and face seem 
 nearly of the same colour. We often see this clear 
 uniform colour of the skin in Titian's portraits. 
 But then the dark eyes, beard, and eye-brows, 
 give relief and distinctness. The fair hair and 
 complexions, that Vandyke usually painted, with 
 the almost total absence of shade from his pic- 
 tures, made the task more difficult ; and, indeed, 
 the prominence and effect he pro duces in this 
 
 G 
 
82 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 respect, without any of the usual means, are 
 almost miraculous. 
 
 There are several of his portraits, equestrian 
 and others, of Charles I. in this Collection, some 
 of them good, none of them first-rate. Those 
 of Henrietta (his Queen) are always delightful. 
 The painter has made her the most lady-like 
 of Queens, and of women. 
 
 The family picture of the Children of Charles 
 I. is certainly admirably painted and managed, 
 The large mastiff-dog is inimitably fine and true 
 to nature, and seems as if he was made to be 
 pulled about by a parcel of royal infants from 
 generation to generation. In general, it may be 
 objected to Vandyke's dressed children, that 
 they look like little old men and women. His 
 grown-up people had too much stiffness and 
 formality ; and the same thing must quite over- 
 lay the playfulness of infancy. Yet what a 
 difference between these young princes of the 
 House of Stuart, and two of the princes of the 
 reigning family with their mother, by Ramsay, 
 which are evident likenesses to this hour ! 
 
 We have lost our reckoning as to the order of 
 the pictures and rooms in which they arc placed, 
 and must proceed promiscuously through the 
 remainder of our Catalogue. 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 83 
 
 One of the most noted pictures at Windsor 
 is that of the Misers, by Quintin Matsys. Its 
 name is greater than its merits, like many other 
 pictures which have a lucky or intelligible sub- 
 ject, boldly executed. The conception is good, 
 the colouring bad ; the drawing firm, and the 
 expression coarse and obvious. We are sorry 
 to speak at all disparagingly of .Quintin Matsys; 
 for the story goes that he was originally bred a 
 blacksmith, and turned painter to gain his mast- 
 er's daughter, who would give her hand to no one 
 but on that condition. Happy he who thus gain - 
 ed the object of his iove, though posterity may 
 differ about his merits as an artist ! Yet it is 
 certain, that any romantic incident of this kind, 
 connected with a well-known work, inclines us 
 to regard it with a favourable instead of a cri- 
 tical eye, by enhancing our pleasure in it ; as 
 the eccentric character, the wild subjects, 
 and the sounding name of Salvator Rosa have 
 tended to lift him into the highest rank of fame 
 among painters. 
 
 In the same room with the Misers, by the 
 Blacksmith of Antwerp, is a very different pic- 
 ture by Titian, consisting of two figures also, 
 viz. Himself and a Venetian Senator. It is one 
 of the finest specimens of this master. His own 
 G 2 ' * 
 
84 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE, 
 
 portrait is not much : it has spirit, but is hard, 
 with somewhat of a vulgar, knowing look. But 
 the head of the Senator is as fine as any thing 
 that ever proceeded from the hand of man. The 
 expression is a lambent flame, a soul of fire 
 dimmed, not quenched by age. The flesh is 
 flesh. If Rubens's pencil fed upon roses, Titian's 
 ■was carnivorous. The tone is betwixt a gold 
 and silver hue. The texture and pencilling are 
 marrowy. The dress is a rich crimson, which 
 seems to have been growing deeper ever since 
 it was painted. It is a front view. As far as 
 attitude or action is concerned, it is mere slill- 
 life; but the look is of that kind that goes 
 through you at a single glance. Let any one 
 look well at this portrait, - and if he then sees 
 nothing in it, or in the portraits of this pain- 
 ter in general, let him give up virtu and criti- 
 cism in despair. 
 
 This room is rich in valuable gems, which 
 might serve as a test of a real taste for the art, 
 depending for their value on intrinsic qualities, 
 and not on imposing subjects, or mechanical 
 arrangement or quantity. As where "the still, 
 small voice of reason" is wanting, we judge of 
 actions by noisy success and popularity ; so 
 where there is no true moral sense in art, no- 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 85 
 
 thing goes down but pomp, and bustle, and pre- 
 tension. The eye of taste looks to see if a work 
 has nature's finest image and superscription 
 upon it, and for no other title and passport to 
 fame. There is a Young Man's Head, (we believe 
 in one corner of this room) by Holbein, in which 
 we can read high and heroic thoughts and 
 resolutions, better than in any Continence of 
 Scipio we ever saw, or than in all the Battles 
 of Alexander thrown into a lump. There is a 
 Portrait of Erasmus, by the same, and in the 
 same or an adjoining room, in which we see into 
 the mind of a scholar and of an amiable man, as 
 through a window. There is a Head by Parme- 
 giano, lofty, triumphant, showing the spirit of 
 another age and clime — one by Raphael, studi- 
 ous and self-involved — another, said to be by 
 Leonardo da Vinci (but more like Holbein) 
 grown crabbed with age and thought — and a 
 girl reading, by Correggio, intent on her subject, 
 and not forgetting herself. These are the ma- 
 terials of history ; and if it is not made of them, 
 it is a nickname or a mockery. All that does 
 not lay open the fine net-work of the heart and 
 brain of man, that does not make us see deeper 
 into the soul, is but the apparatus and machi- 
 G 3 
 
86 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 nery of history-painting, and no more to it than 
 the frame is to the picture. 
 
 We noticed a little Mater Dolorosa in one of 
 the rooms, by Carlo Dolci, which is a pale, 
 pleasing, expressive head. There are two large 
 figures of his, a Magdalen and another, which 
 are in the very falsest style of colouring and ex- 
 pression ; and Youth and Age, by Denner, which 
 are in as perfectly bad a taste and style of exe- 
 cution as any thing we ever saw of this artist, 
 who was an adept in that way. 
 
 We are afraid we have forgotten one or two 
 meritorious pictures which we meant to notice. 
 There is one we just recollect, a Portrait of a 
 Youth in black, by Parmegiano. It is in a singu- 
 lar style, but very bold, expressive, and natural. 
 There is (in the same apartment of the palace) 
 a fine picture of the Battle of Norlingen, by 
 Rubens. The size and spirit of the horses in the 
 fore-ground, and the obvious animation of the 
 riders, are finely contrasted with the airy perspec- 
 tive and mechanical grouping of the armies at 
 a distance ; and so as to prevent that confusion 
 and want of positive relief, which usually per- 
 vade Battle-pieces. In the same room (opposite) 
 is Kneller's Chinese converted to Christianity — 
 
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 87 
 
 a portrait of which he was justly proud. It is 
 a fine oil-picture, clear, tawny, without trick 
 or affectation, and full of character. One of 
 Kneller's fine ladies or gentlemen, with their 
 wigs and toupees, would have been mortally of- 
 fended to have been so painted. The Chinese 
 retains the same oily sly look, after his conver- 
 sion as before, and seems just as incapable of a 
 change of religion as a piece of terra cotta. On 
 each side of this performance are two Guidos, 
 the Perseus and Andromeda, and Venus attired 
 by the Graces. We give the preference to the 
 former. The Andromeda is a fine, noble figure, 
 in a striking and even daring position, with an 
 impassioned and highly-wrought expression of 
 features; and the whole scene is in harmony 
 with the subject. The Venus attired by the 
 Graces (though full of beauties, particularly the 
 colouring of the flesh in the frail Goddess) is 
 formal and disjointed in the composition ; and 
 some of the actions are void of grace and even 
 of decorum. We allude particularly to the 
 Maid-in-waiting, who is combing her hair, and 
 to the one tying on her sandals, with her arm 
 crossing Venus's leg at right angles. The Cu- 
 pid in the window is as light and wanton as a but- 
 
88 THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE, 
 
 terfly flying out of it. He may be said to flutter 
 and hover in his own delights. There are 
 two capital engravings of these pictures by 
 Strange. 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON 
 COURT. 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT, 
 
 THIS palace is a very magnificent one, and 
 we think, has been undeservedly neglected. It 
 is Dutch-built, of handsome red brick, and be- 
 longs to a class of houses, the taste for which 
 appears to have been naturalised in this country 
 along with the happy introduction of the Houses 
 of Orange and Hanover. The approach to it 
 through Bushy-Park is delightful, inspiriting at 
 this time of year ; and the gardens about it, with 
 their close-clipped holly hedges and arbours of 
 evergreen, look an artificial summer all the year 
 round. The statues that are interspersed do not 
 freeze in winter, and are cool and classical in 
 the warmer seasons. The Toy-Inn stands op- 
 
92 THR PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 portunely at the entrance, to invite the feet of 
 those who are tired of a straggling walk from 
 Brentford or Kew, or oppressed with thought 
 and wonder after seeing the Cartoons. 
 
 Besides these last, however, there are several 
 fine pictures here. We shall pass over the 
 Knellers, the Verrios, and the different portraits 
 of the Royal Family, and come at once to the 
 Nine Muses, by Tintoret. Or rather, his Nine 
 Muses are summed up in one, the back-figure in 
 the right-hand corner as you look at the picture, 
 which is all grandeur, elegance, and grace.— 
 We should think that in the gusto of form and 
 a noble freedom of outline, Michael Angelo 
 could hardly have surpassed this figure. The 
 face too, which is half turned round, is charm- 
 ingly handsome. The back, the shoulders, the 
 legs, are the perfection of bold delicacy, ex- 
 panded into full-blown luxuriance, and then 
 retiring as it were from their own proud beauty 
 and conscious charms into soft and airy loveli- 
 ness — 
 
 Fine by degrees, and beautifully less. 
 
 Is it a Muse ? Or is it not a figure formed for 
 action more than contemplation ? Perhaps this 
 hypercritical objection may be true ; and it 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 1)3 
 
 might without any change of character or im- 
 propriety he supposed, from its buoyancy, its 
 ease, and sinewy elasticity, to represent the 
 quivered Goddess shaping her bow for the chase. 
 But, at any rate, it is the figure of a Goddess, or 
 of a woman in shape equal to a Goddess. The 
 colour is nearly gone, so that it has almost the 
 tone of a black and white chalk-drawing ; and 
 the effect of form remains pure and unrivalled. 
 There are several other very pleasing and ably- 
 drawn figures in the group, but they are eclipsed 
 in the superior splendour of this one. So far 
 the composition is faulty, for its balance is de- 
 stroyed ; and there are certain critics who could 
 probably maintain that the picture would be 
 better, if this capital excellence in it had been 
 deliberately left out: the picture would, indeed, 
 have been more according to rule, and to the taste 
 of those who judge, feel, and see by rule only ! 
 Among the portraits which are curious, is one of 
 B actio Bandinelli, with his emblems and imple- 
 ments of sculpture about him, said to be by Cor- 
 reggio. We cannot pretend to give an opinion on 
 this point ; but it is a studious, powerful, and 
 elaborately painted head. We find the name of 
 Titian attached to two or three portraits in the 
 Collection. There is one very fine one of a young 
 
94 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 man in black, with a black head of hair, the 
 face saen in a three-quarter view, and the dark 
 piercing eye, full of subtle meaning, looking 
 round at you ; which is probably by Titian, but 
 certainly not (as it is pretended) of himself. It 
 has not the aquiline cast of features by which 
 his own portraits are obviously distinguished. 
 We have seen a print of this picture, in which 
 it is said to be done for Ignatius Loyola. The 
 portrait of a lady with green and white purfled 
 sleeves (like the leaves and flower of the water- 
 lily, and as clear ! ) is admirable. It was in the 
 Pali-Mall exhibition of the Old Masters a short 
 time ago ; and is by Sebastian del Pioinbo. — 
 The care of the painting, the natural ease of the 
 attitude, and the steady, sensible, conversable 
 look of the countenance, place this in a class 
 of pictures, which one feels a wish to have 
 always by one's side, whenever there is a 
 want of thought, or a flaw in the temper, that 
 requires filling up or setting to rights by some 
 agreeable and at the same time not over-exciting 
 object. There are several soi-disant Parmegi- 
 anos ; one or two good Bassans ; a Battle-Piece 
 set down to Julio Romano ; a coloured drawing 
 (in oiie corner of a room) of a Nymph and Satyr 
 is very fine ; and some of Polemberg's little dis 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 95 
 
 agreeable pictures of the same subject, iu which 
 the Satyrs look like paltry bits of painted wood, 
 and the Nymphs like glazed China-ware. We 
 have a prejudice against Polemberg, which is a 
 rare thing with us ! 
 
 The Cartoons occupy a room by themselves — 
 there are not many such rooms in the world 
 All other pictures look like oil and varnish to 
 these — we are stopped and attracted by the co- 
 louring, the pencilling, the finishing, or the want 
 of it, that is, by the instrumentalities of the art 
 —but here the painter seems to have flung his 
 mind upon the canvas ; his thoughts, his great 
 ideas alone prevail; there is nothing between 
 us and the subject ; we look through a frame, 
 and see scripture-histories, and are made actual 
 spectators of miraculous events. Not to speak it 
 profanely, they are a sort of revelation of the 
 subjects, of which they treat ; there is an ease 
 and freedom of manner about them, which 
 brings preternatural characters and situations 
 home to us, with the familiarity of common 
 every-day occurrences; and while the figures 
 fill, raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to 
 have cost the painter nothing. The Cartoons 
 are unique productions in the art. They are 
 mere intellectual, or rather visible abstractions 
 
96 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 of truth and nature. Every where else we see 
 the means; here we arrive at the end apparently 
 without any means. There is a Spirit at work 
 in the divine creation before us. We are uncon- 
 scious of any details, of any steps taken, of any 
 progress made ; we are aware only of compre- 
 hensive results, of whole masses and figures. 
 The sense of power supersedes the appearance 
 of effort. It is like a waking dream, vivid, but 
 undistinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; or 
 it is as if we had ourselves seen the persons and 
 things at some former period of our being, and 
 that the drawing certain dotted lines upon coarse 
 paper, by some unknown spell, brought back 
 the entire and living images, and made them 
 pass before us, palpable to thought, to feeling, 
 and to sight. Perhaps not all is owing to ge- 
 nius : something of this effect may be ascribed 
 to the simplicity of the vehicle employed in em - 
 bodying the story, and something to the decay- 
 ed and dilapidated state of the pictures them- 
 selves They are the more majestic for being 
 in ruin: we are struck chiefly with the truth 
 of proportion, and the range of conception : all 
 the petty, meretricious part of the art is dead in 
 them ; the carnal is made spiritual, the corrupt- 
 ible has put on incorruption , and, amidst the 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 97 
 
 wreck of colour, and the mouldering of material 
 beauty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, 
 or the broad, imminent shadows of " calm 
 contemplation and majestic pains !" 
 
 The first in order is the Death of Ananias ; 
 and it is one of the noblest of these noble de- 
 signs. The effect is striking ; and the contrast 
 between the stedfast, commanding attitude of 
 the Apostles, and the convulsed and prostrate 
 figure of Ananias on the floor, is finely imagin- 
 ed. It is much as if a group of persons on shore 
 stood to witness the wreck of life and hope on 
 the rocks and quicksands beneath them. The 
 abruptness and severity of the transition are, 
 however, broken and relieved by the other hu- 
 man interests in the picture. The Ananias is a 
 masterly, a stupendous figure. The attitude, 
 the drawing, the expression, the ease, the force, 
 are alike wonderful. He falls so naturally, that 
 it seems as if a person could fall in no other 
 way ; and yet of all the ways in which a human 
 figure could fall, it is probably the most ex- 
 pressive of a person overwhelmed by and in the 
 grasp of Divine vengeance. This is in some 
 measure, we apprehend, the secret of Raphael's 
 success. Most painters, in studying an attitude, 
 puzzle themselves to find out what will be pic- 
 H 
 
98 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 turesque, and what will be fine, and never dis- 
 cover it : Raphael only thought how a person 
 would stand or fall naturally in such or such 
 circumstances, and the picturesque and the^?n<? 
 followed as matters of course. Hence the un- 
 affected force and dignity of his style, which are 
 only another name for truth and nature under 
 impressive and momentous circumstances. The 
 distraction of the face, the inclination of the 
 head on one side, are as fine as possible, and 
 the agony is just verging to that point, in which 
 it is relieved by death. The expression of 
 ghastly wonder in the features of the man on 
 the floor next him is also remarkable ; and the 
 mingled beauty, grief, and horror in the female 
 head behind can never be enough admired or 
 extolled. The pain, the sudden and violent 
 contraction of the muscles, is as intense as if a 
 sharp instrument had been driven into the fore- 
 head, and yet the same sweetness triumphs there 
 as ever, the most perfect self-command and 
 dignity of demeanour. We could hazard a 
 conjecture that this is what forms the great 
 distinction between the natural style of Raphael 
 and the natural style of Hogarth. Both are 
 equally intense ; but the one is intense littleness, 
 meanness, vulgarity ; the other is intense gran- 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 99 
 
 deur, refinement, and sublimity. In the one 
 we see common, or sometimes uncommon and 
 painful, circumstances acting with all their force 
 on narrow minds and deformed bodies, and 
 bringing out distorted and violent efforts at ex- 
 pression ; in the other we see noble forms and 
 lofty characters contending with adverse, or co- 
 operating with powerful impressions from with- 
 out, and imparting their own unaltered grace, 
 and habitual composure to them. In Hogarth, 
 generally, the face is excited and torn in pieces 
 by some paltry interest of its own ; in Raphael, 
 on the contrary, it is expanded and ennobled by 
 the contemplation of some event or object highly 
 interesting in itself: that is to say, the passion 
 in the one is intellectual and abstracted ; the 
 passion in the other is petty, selfish, and con- 
 fined. We have not thought it beneath the 
 dignity of the subject to make this comparison 
 between two of the most extraordinary and 
 highly gifted persons that the world ever saw. 
 If Raphael had seen Hogarth's pictures, he 
 would not have despised them. Those only can 
 do it (and they are welcome !) who, wanting all 
 that he had, can do nothing that he could not, 
 or that they themselves pretend to accomplish 
 by affectation and bombast. 
 
 H2 
 
100 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 Elymas the Sorcerer stands next in order, 
 and is equal in merit. There is a Roman stern- 
 ness and severity in the general look of the 
 scene. The figure of the Apostle, who is in- 
 flicting the punishment of blindness on the im- 
 postor, is grand, commanding, full of ease and 
 dignity : and the figure of Elymas is blind all 
 over, and is muffled up in its clothes from head 
 to foot. A story is told of Mr. Garrickte ob- 
 jecting to the natural effect of the action, in the 
 hearing of the late Mr. West, who, in vindica- 
 tion of the painter, requested the celebrated 
 comedian to close his eyes and walk across the 
 room, when he instantly stretched out his hands, 
 and began to grope his way with the exact at- 
 titude and expression of this noble study. It 
 may be worth remarking here, that this great 
 painter and fine observer of human nature has 
 represented the magician with a hard iron visage, 
 and strong uncouth figure, made up of bones 
 and muscles, as one not troubled with weak 
 nerves, nor to be diverted from his purpose by 
 idle scruples, as one who repelled all sympathy 
 with others, who was not to be moved a jot by 
 their censures or prejudices against him, and 
 who could break with ease through the cobweb 
 snares which he laid for the credulity of man- 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 101 
 
 kind, without being once entangled in his ow n 
 delusions. His outward form betrays the hard, 
 unimaginative, self-willed understanding of the 
 Sorcerer. — There is a head (a profile) coming in 
 on one side of the picture, which we would 
 point out to our readers as one of the most fine- 
 ly relieved, and best preserved, in this series. 
 The face of Elymas, and some others in the pic- 
 ture, have been a good deal hurt by time and 
 ill-treatment. There is a snuffy look under the 
 nose, as if the water-colour had been washed 
 away in some damp lumber-room, or unshelter- 
 ed out-house. The Cartoons have felt " the 
 seasons' difference," being exposed to wind and 
 rain, tossed about from place to place, and cut 
 down by profane hands to fit them to one of 
 their abodes ; so that it is altogether wonderful, 
 that " through their looped and tattered wretch- 
 edness," any traces are seen of their original 
 splendour and beauty. That they are greatly 
 changed from what they were even a hundred years 
 ago, is evident from the heads in the Radcliffe 
 library at Oxford, which were cut out from one of 
 them that was nearly destroyed by some accident, 
 and from the large French engravings of single 
 heads, done about the same time, which are as 
 finished and correct as possible. Even Sir 
 H3 
 
102 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 James Thornhill's copies bear testimony to the 
 same effect. Though without the spirit of the 
 originals, they have fewer blots and blotches 
 in them, from having been better taken care of. 
 A skeleton is barely left of the Cartoons : but 
 their mighty relics, like the bones of the 
 Mammoth,, tell us what the entire and living 
 fabric must have been ! 
 
 In The Gate Beautiful there is a profusion of 
 what is fine, and of imposing contrasts. The 
 twisted pillars have been found fault with ; but 
 there they stand, and will for ever stand to an- 
 swer all cavillers with their wreathed beauty. 
 The St. John in this Cartoon is an instance of 
 what we have above hinted as to the ravages of 
 time on these pictures. In the old French en* 
 graving (half the size of, life) the features are 
 exceedingly well marked and beautiful, whereas 
 they are here in a great measure defaced ; and 
 the hair, which is at present a mere clotted 
 mass, is woven into graceful and waving curls, 
 
 Like to those hanging locks 
 Of young Apollo. 
 
 Great inroads have been made on the delicate 
 utline of the other parts, and the surface has 
 been generally injured. The Beggars are as fine 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 103 
 
 as ever : they ' do not lose by the squalid condi- 
 tion of their garb or features, but remain pa- 
 triarchs of poverty, and mighty in disease and 
 infirmity, as if they crawled and grovelled on th* 
 pavement of Heaven. They are lifted above this 
 world ! The child carrying the doves at his 
 back is an exquisite example of grace, and in- 
 nocence, and buoyant motion ; and the face and 
 figure of the young woman seen directly over him 
 give a glad welcome to the eye in their fresh, 
 unalloyed, and radiant sweetness and joy. This 
 head seeing to have been spared from the unhal- 
 lowed touph of injury, like a little isle or circlet 
 of beauty. It was guarded, we may suppose, by 
 its own heavenly, feminine look of smiling loveli- 
 ness. There is another very fine female head on 
 the opposite side of the picture, of a graver cast, 
 looking down, and nearly in profile. The only 
 part of this Cartoon that we object to, or should 
 be for turning out, is the lubberly naked figure 
 of a boy close to one of the pillars, who seems 
 to have no sort of business there, and is an ob- 
 vious eye-sore. 
 
 The Miraculous Draught of Fishes is admi- 
 rable for the clearness and prominence of the 
 figures, for the vigorous marking of the muscles, 
 for the fine expression of devout emotion in 
 
104 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 the St. Peter, and for the calm dignity in the 
 attitude, and divine benignity in the counte- 
 nance of the Christ. Perhaps this head ex- 
 presses, more than any other that ever was 
 attempted, the blended meekness, benevolence, 
 and sublimity in the character of our Saviour. 
 The whole figure is so still, so easy, it almost 
 floats in air, and seems to sustain the boat by 
 the secret sense of power. We shall not attempt 
 to make a formal reply to the old objection to 
 the diminutive size of the boat, but we confess it 
 appears to us to enhance the value of the mira- 
 cle. Its load swells proportionably in compari- 
 son, and the waves conspire to bear it up. The 
 Storks on the shore are not the least animated 
 or elevated part of the picture ; they exult in 
 the display of divine power, and share in the 
 prodigality of the occasion. 
 
 The Sacrifice at Lystra has the marks of 
 Raphael's hand on every part of it. You see 
 and almost hear what is passing. What a 
 pleasing relief to the confused, busy scene, are 
 the two children piping at the altar ! How finely, 
 how unexpectedly, but naturally, that innocent 
 rustic head of a girl comes in over the grave 
 countenances and weighty, thoughtful heads of 
 the group of attendant priests ! The animals 
 
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 105 
 
 brought to be sacrificed are equally fine in the 
 expression of terror, and the action of resist- 
 ance to the rude force by which they are dragged 
 along. 
 
 A great deal has been said and written on 
 the St. Paul preaching at Athens. The features 
 of excellence in this composition are indeed so 
 bold and striking as hardly to be mistaken. 
 The abrupt figure of St. Paul, his hands raised 
 in that fervent appeal to Him who "dwelleth not 
 in temples made with hands," such as are seen 
 in gorgeous splendour all around, the circle of 
 his auditors, the noble and pointed diversity of 
 heads, the one wrapped in thought and in its 
 cowl, another resting on a crutch and earnestly 
 scanning the face of the Apostle rather than his 
 doctrine, the careless attention of the Epicu- 
 rean philosopher, the fine young heads of the 
 disciples of the Porch or the Academy, the 
 clenched fist and eager curiosity of the man in 
 front as if he was drinking sounds, give this 
 picture a superiority over all the others for 
 popular and intelligible effect. We do not think 
 that it is therefore the best ; but it is the easiest 
 to describe and to remember. 
 
 The Giving of the Keys is the last of them : 
 it is at present at Somerset House. There is no 
 
106 THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 set purpose here, no studied contrast : it is 
 an aggregation of grandeur and high feeling. 
 The disciples gather round Christ, like a flock 
 of sheep listening to some divine shepherd. 
 The figure of their master is sublime : his coun- 
 tenance and attitude "in act to speak." The 
 landscape is also extremely fine and of a sooth- 
 ing character. — Every thing falls into its place 
 in these pictures. The figures seem to stop 
 just where their business and feelings bring 
 them : not a fold in the draperies can be dis- 
 posed of for the better or otherwise than it is. 
 
 It would be in vain to enumerate the particular 
 figures, or to explain the story of works so well 
 known : what we have aimed at has been to shew 
 the spirit that breathes through them, and we 
 shall count ourselves fortunate, if we have not 
 sullied them with our praise. We do not care 
 about some works : but these were sacred 
 to our imaginations, and we should be sorry 
 indeed to have profaned them by description 01 
 criticism. We have hurried through our una- 
 avoidable task with fear, and look back to it 
 with doubt. 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S 
 COLLECTION OF PICTURES. 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S COLLECTION OF 
 PICTURES. 
 
 We seldom quit a mansion like that of which 
 we have here to give some account, and return 
 homewards, but we think of Warton's Sonnet, 
 written after seeing Wilton-house. 
 
 From Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic art 
 
 Decks with a magie hand the dazzling bowers, 
 
 Its living hues where the warm pencil pours, 
 
 And breathing forms from the rude marble start, 
 
 How to life's humbler scenes can I depart ? 
 
 My breast all glowing from those gorgeous tow'rs, 
 
 In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours ? 
 
 Vain the complaint ! For Fancy can impart 
 
 (To Fate superior, and to Fortune's doom) 
 
 Whate'er adorns the stately-storied hall ; 
 
 She, mid the dungeon's solitary gloom, 
 
 Can dress the Graces in their Attic pall : 
 
 Bid the green landscape's vernal beauty bloom , 
 
 And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall, 
 
110 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 Having repeated these lines to ourselves, we 
 sit quietly down in our chairs to con over our 
 task, abstract the idea of exclusive property, and 
 think only of those images of beauty and of 
 grandeur, which we can carry away with us in 
 our minds, and have every where before us. Let 
 us take some of these, and describe them how 
 we can. 
 
 There is one— we see it now — the Man with 
 a Hawk, by Rembrandt. " In our mind's eye, Ho- 
 ratio !" What is the difference between this idea 
 which we have brought away with us, and the 
 picture on the wall % Has it lost any of its tone, 
 its ease, its depth % The head turns round in the 
 same graceful moving attitude, the eye carelessly 
 meets ours, the tufted beard grows to the chin, 
 the hawk flutters and balances himself on his 
 favourite perch, his master's hand ; and a shadow 
 seems passing over the picture, just leaving a 
 light in one corner of it behind, to give a livelier 
 effect to the whole. There is no mark of the 
 pencil, no jagged points or solid masses ; it is all 
 air, and twilight might be supposed to have 
 drawn his veil across it. It is as much an idea 
 on the canvas, as it is in the mind. There are 
 no means employed, as far as you can discover — 
 you see nothing but a simple, grand, and natural 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. Ill 
 
 effect. It is impalpable as a thought, intangible 
 as a sound— nay, the shadows have a breathing 
 harmony, and fling round an undulating echo of 
 themselves, 
 
 At ever}' fall smoothing the raveu down 
 Of darkness till it smiles ! 
 
 In the opposite corner of the room is a Por- 
 trait of a Female (by the same), in which every 
 thing is as clear, and pointed, and brought out 
 into the open day, as in the former it is with- 
 drawn from close and minute inspection. The 
 face glitters with smiles as the ear-rings sparkle 
 with light. The whole is stiff, starched, and 
 formal, has a pearly or metallic look, and you 
 throughout mark the most elaborate and careful 
 finishing. The two pictures make an antithesis, 
 where they are placed ; but this was not pro- 
 bably at all intended : it proceeds simply from 
 the difference in the nature of the subject, ami 
 the truth and appropriate power of the treat- 
 ment of it. — In the middle between these two 
 pictures is a small history, by Rembrandt, of 
 the Salutation of Elizabeth, in which the fi- 
 gures come out straggling, disjointed, quaint, 
 ugly as in a dream, but partake of the mysteri- 
 ous significance of preternatural communication, 
 
112 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 and are seen through the visible gloom, or 
 through the dimmer night of antiquity. Light 
 and shade, not form or feeling, were the ele- 
 ments of which Rembrandt composed the finest 
 poetry, and his imagination brooded only over 
 the medium through which we discern objects, 
 leaving the objects themselves uninspired, un- 
 hallowed, and untouched ! 
 
 We must go through our account of these 
 pictures as they start up in our memory, not 
 according to the order of their arrangement, for 
 want of a proper set of memorandums. Our 
 friend, Mr. Guminow, of Cleveland-house, had 
 a nice little neatly-bound duodecimo Catalogue, 
 of great use as a Fade Mecum to occasional 
 visitants or absent critics — but here we have no 
 such advantage ; and to take notes before com- 
 pany is a thing that we abhor. It has a look 
 of pilfering something from the pictures. While 
 we merely enjoy the sight of the objects of art 
 before us, or sympathise with the approving 
 gaze of the greater beauty around us, it is 
 well; there is a feeling of luxury and refine- 
 ment in the employment ; but take out a pocket- 
 book, and begin to scribble notes in it, the 
 date of the picture, the name, the room, 
 some paltry defect, some pitiful discovery 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 113 
 
 (not worth remembering), the non-essentials, 
 the mechanic common-places of the art, and 
 the sentiment is gone— you shew that you 
 have a further object in view, a job to execute, 
 a feeling foreign to the place, and different 
 from every one else— you become a butt and a 
 mark for ridicule to the rest of the company 
 —and you retire with your pockets full of 
 wisdom from a saloon of art, with as little 
 right as you have to carry off the dessert, (or 
 what you have not been able to consume,) from 
 an inn, or a banquet. Such, at least, is our 
 feeling ; and we had rather make a mistake now 
 and then, as to a numero, or the name of a room 
 in which a picture is placed, than spoil our 
 whole pleasure in looking at a fine Collection, 
 and consequently the pleasure of the reader in 
 learning what we thought of it. 
 
 Among the pictures thatiiaunt our eye in this 
 way is the Adoration of the Angels, by N. Pous- 
 sin. It is one of his finest works— elegant, 
 graceful, full 0 f feeling, happy, enlivening. It 
 is treated rather as a classical than as a sacred 
 subject. The Angels are more like Cupids than 
 Angels. They are, however, beautifully group- 
 ed, with various and expressive attitudes, and 
 
114 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 remind one, by their half antic, half serious 
 homage, of the line — 
 
 Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. 
 
 They are laden with baskets of flowers — the 
 tone of the picture is rosy, florid ; it seems 
 to have been painted at 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing mora, 
 
 and the angels overhead sport and gambol in 
 the air with butterfly-wings, like butterflies. 
 It is one of those rare productions that satisfy 
 the mind, and from which we turn away, not 
 from weariness, but from a fulness of delight.— 
 The Israelites returning Thanks in the Wilder- 
 ness is a fine picture, but inferior to this. Near 
 it is a group of Angels, said to be by Correggio. 
 The expressions are grotesque and fine, but the 
 colouring does not seem to us to be his. The 
 texture of the flesh, as well as the hue, too much 
 resembles the skin of ripe fruit. We meet with 
 several fine landscapes of the two Poussins, 
 (particularly one of a rocky eminence by Gaspar,) 
 in the room before you come to the Rembrandts, 
 in which the mixture of grey rock and green 
 trees and shrubs is beautifully managed, with 
 striking truth and clearness. 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 Among detached and smaller pictures, we 
 would wish to point out to the attention of our 
 readers, an exquisite head of a Child, by Andrea 
 del Sarto, and a fine Salvator in the inner room 
 of all : in the room leading to it, a pleasing, 
 glassy Cuyp, an airy, earthy-looking Teniers, 
 and a Mother and Sleeping Child, by Guido : 
 in the Saloon, a St. Catherine, one of Parme- 
 giano's most graceful pictures ; a St. Agnes, by 
 Domenichino, full of sweetness, thought, and 
 feeling ; and two pictures by Raphael, that have 
 a look as if painted on paper : a Repose in Egypt, 
 and St. Luke painting the Virgin, both admirable 
 for drawing and expression, and a rich, purple, 
 crayon tone of colouring. Wherever Raphael 
 is, there is grace and dignity, and an informing 
 soul. In the last mentioned room, near the en- 
 trance, is also a Conversion of Saint Paul, by 
 Rubens, of infinite spirit, brilliancy, and deli- 
 cacy of execution. 
 
 But it is in the large room to the right, that 
 the splendour and power of Rubens reign tri- 
 umphant and unrivalled, and yet he has here 
 to contend with highest works and names. The 
 four large pictures of ecclesiastical subjects, the 
 Meeting of Abram and Melchisedec, the Ga- 
 thering of Manna, the Evangelists, and the 
 I 2 
 
116; LOUD grosvenojr's pictures. 
 
 Fathers of the Church, have no match ia this 
 country for scenic pomp, and dazzling airy effect. 
 The figures are colossal ; and it might be said, 
 without much extravagance, that the drawing 
 and colouring are so too.* He seems to have 
 painted with a huge sweeping gigantic pencil, 
 and with broad masses of unalloyed colour. The 
 spectator is (as it were) thrown back by the 
 pictures, and surveys them, as if placed at a 
 stupendous height, as well as distance from 
 him. This, indeed, is their history : they were 
 painted to be placed in some Jesuit's church 
 abroad, at an elevation of forty or fifty feet, 
 and Rubens would have started to see them 
 in a drawing-room or on the ground. Had he 
 foreseen such a result, he would perhaps have 
 added something to the correctness of the fea- 
 tures, and taken something from the gorgeous 
 crudeness of the colour. But there is grandeur 
 of composition, involution of form, motion, 
 character in its vast, rude outline, the imposing 
 contrast of sky and flesh, fine grotesque heads 
 of old age, florid youth, and fawn-like beauty ! 
 You see nothing but patriarchs, primeval met) 
 and women, walking among temples, or treading 
 
 * We heard it well said the other day, that " Rubens's 
 pictures were the palette of Titian." 
 
XORD GROSVENOR's PICTURES. 117 
 
 the sky — or the earth, with an " air and gesture 
 proudly eminent," as if they trod the sky- 
 when man first rose from nothing to his native 
 sublimity. We cannot describe these pictures in 
 their details; they are one staggering blow 
 after another of the mighty hand that traced 
 them. All is cast in the same mould, all is 
 filled with the same spirit, all is clad in the 
 same gaudy robe of light. Rubens was at home 
 here ; his forte was the processional, the showy, 
 and the imposing ; he grew almost drunk and 
 wanton with the sense of his power over such 
 subjects ; and he, in fact, left these pictures 
 unfinished in some particulars, that, for the 
 place and object for which they were intended, 
 they might be perfect. They were done (it is 
 said) for tapestries from small designs, and car- 
 ried nearly to their present state of finishing by 
 his scholars. There is a smaller picture in the 
 same room, Txion embracing the false Juno, which 
 points out and defines their style of art and 
 adaptation for remote effect. There is a delicacy 
 in this last picture (which is, however of the size 
 *f life) that makes it look like a miniature in 
 comparison. The flesh of the women is like li- 
 lies, or like milk strewed upon ivory. It is soft 
 and pearly ; but, in the larger pictures, it is 
 I 3 
 
118 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 heightened beyond nature, the veil of air between 
 the spectator and the figures, when placed in 
 the proper position, being supposed to give the 
 last finishing. Near the Ixion is an historical 
 female figure, by Guido, which will not bear 
 any comparison for transparency and delica- 
 cy of tint with the two Junos. — Rubens was 
 undoubtedly the greatest scene-painter in the 
 world, if we except Paul Veronese, and the 
 Fleming was to him flat and insipid. " It is 
 place which lessens and sets off." We once saw 
 two pictures of Rubens' hung by the side of the 
 Marriage of Cana in the Louvre; and they 
 looked nothing. The Paul Veronese nearly oc- 
 cupied the side of a large room (the modern 
 French exhibition-room) and it was like looking 
 through the side of a wall, or at a splendid ban- 
 quet and gallery, full of people, and full of in- 
 terest. The texture of the two Rubenses was 
 woolly, or flowery, or sattiny : it was all alike ; 
 but in the Venetian's great work the pillars were 
 of stone, the floor was marble, the tables were 
 wood, the dresses were various stuffs, the sky 
 was air, the flesh was flesh ; the groups were 
 living men and women. Turks, emperours, 
 ladies, painters, musicians — all was real, daz- 
 zling, profuse, astonishing. It seemed as if the 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 119 
 
 very dogs under the table might get up and bark, 
 or that at the sound of a trumpet the whole 
 assembly might rise and disperse in different 
 directions, in an instant. This picture, how- 
 ever, was considered as the triumph of Paul Ve- 
 ronese, and the two by the Flemish artist that 
 hung beside it were very inferior to some of his, 
 and assuredly to those now exhibited in the 
 Gallery at Lord Grosvenor's. Neither do we 
 wish by this allusion to disparage Rubens ; for 
 we think him on the whole a greater genius, and 
 a greater painter, than the rival we have here 
 opposed to him, as we may attempt to shew 
 when we come to speak of the Collection at 
 Blenheim. 
 
 There are some divine Claudes in the same 
 room ; and they too are like looking through a 
 window at a select and conscious landscape. 
 There are five or six, all capital for the compo- 
 sition, and highly preserved. There is a strange 
 and somewhat anomalous one of Christ in the 
 Mount, as if the artist had tried to contradict 
 himself, and yet it is Claude all over. Nobody but 
 he could paint one single atom of it. The Mount 
 is stuck up in the very centre of the picture, 
 against all rule, like a huge dirt-pye : but then 
 what an air breathes round it, what a sea en- 
 
120 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 circles it, what verdure clothes it, what flocks 
 aud herds feed round it, immortal and unchang- 
 ed ! Close by it is the Arch of Constantine ; 
 but this is to us a bitter disappointment. A 
 print of it hung in a little room in the country, 
 where we used to contemplate it by the hour 
 together, and day after day, and " sigh our 
 souls" into the picture. It was the most graceful, 
 the most perfect of all Claude's compositions, 
 The Temple seemed to come forward into the 
 middle of the picture, as in a dance, to show its 
 unrivalled beauty, the Vashti of the scene ! 
 Young trees bent their branches over it with 
 playful tenderness ; and, on the opposite side of a 
 stream, at which cattle stooped to drink, there 
 grew a stately grove, erect, with answering looks 
 of beauty : the distance between retired into air 
 and gleaming shores. Never was there scene 
 so fair, " so absolute, that in itself summ'd all 
 delight." How did we wish to compare it with 
 the picture ! The trees, we thought, must be of 
 vernal green — the sky recalled the mild dawn, or 
 softened evening. No, the branches of the trees 
 are red, the sky burned up, the whole hard and 
 uncomfortable. This is not the picture, the 
 print of which we used to gaze at enamoured — 
 there is another somewhere that we still shall 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 121 
 
 see ! There are finer specimens of the Morning 
 and Evening of the Roman Empire, at Lard 
 Radnor's, in Wiltshire. Those here have a more 
 polished, cleaned look, but we cannot prefer 
 them on that account. In one corner of the 
 room is a St. Bruno, by Andrea Sacchi — a fine 
 study, with pale face and garments, a saint dying, 
 (as it should seem) — but as he dies, conscious 
 of an undying spirit. The old Catholic painters 
 put the soul of religion into their pictures — for 
 they felt it within themselves. 
 
 There are two Titians — the Woman taken in 
 Adultery, and a large mountainous landscape 
 with the story of Jupiter and Antiope. The 
 last is rich and striking, but not equal to his 
 best ; and the former,we think,one of his most ex- 
 ceptionable pictures, both in character, and (we 
 add) colouring. In the last particular, it is tricky, 
 and discovers, instead of concealing its art. 
 The flesh is not transparent, but a transparency ! 
 Let us not forget a fine Snyders, a Boar-hunt, 
 which is highly spirited and natural, as far as 
 the animals are concerned ; but is patchy, and 
 wants the tone and general effect that Rubens 
 would have thrown over it. In the middle of 
 the right-hand side of the room, is the Meeting 
 of Jacob and Lahan, by Murillo. It is a lively. 
 
122 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 out-of-door scene, full of bustle and expression ; 
 but it rather brings us to the tents and faces of 
 two bands of gypsies meeting on a common 
 heath, than carries us back to the remote times, 
 places, and events, treated of. Murillo was the 
 painter of nature, not of the imagination. There 
 is a Sleeping Child by him, over the door of 
 the saloon (an admirable cabinet-picture), and 
 another of a boy, a little spirited rustic, brown, 
 glowing, " of the earth, earthy," the flesh tho- 
 roughly baked, as if he had come out of an oven; 
 and who regards you with a look as if he was 
 afraid you might bind him apprentice to some 
 trade or handicraft, or send him to a Sunday- 
 school ; and so put an end to his short, happy, 
 careless life — to his lessons from that great 
 teacher, the Sun — to his physic, the air — to his 
 bed, the earth— and to the soul of his very 
 being, Liberty ! 
 
 The first room you enter is filled with some 
 very good and some very bad English pictures. 
 There is Hogarth's Distressed Poet— the Death 
 of Wolfe, by West, which is not so good as the 
 print would lead us to expect— an excellent 
 whole-length portrait of a youth, by Gainsbo- 
 rough — A Man with a Hawk, by Northcote, and 
 MYs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, by Sir Joshua. 
 
LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 123 
 
 This portrait Lord Grosvenor bought the other 
 day for £1760. It has risen in price every time 
 it has been sold. Sir Joshua sold it for two or 
 three hundred pounds to a Mr. Calonne. It was 
 then purchased by Mr. Desenfans who parted 
 with it to Mr. William Smith for a larger sum 
 (we believe £500) ; and at the sale of that gen- 
 tleman's pictures, it was bought by Mr. Watson 
 Taylor, the last proprietor, for a thousand gui- 
 neas. While it was in the possession of Mr. 
 Desenfans, a copy of it was taken by a pupil of 
 Sir Joshua's, of the name of Score, which is now 
 in the Dulwich Gallery, and which we always 
 took for an original. The size of the original 
 is larger than the copy. There was a dead 
 child painted at the bottom of it, which Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds afterwards disliked, and he had 
 the canvas doubled upon the frame to hide it. It 
 has been let out again, but we did not observe 
 whether the child was there. We think it had 
 better not be seen. 
 
 We do not wish to draw invidious compari- 
 sons ; yet we may say, in reference to the pic- 
 tures in Lord Grosvenor's Collection, and those 
 at Cleveland-house, that the former are distin- 
 guished most by elegance, brilliancy, and high 
 preservation ; while those belonging to the Mar- 
 
124 LORD GROSVENOR'S PICTURES. 
 
 quis of Stafford look more like old pictures, and 
 have a corresponding tone of richness and mag- 
 nificence. We have endeavoured to do justice 
 to both, but we confess we have fallen very short 
 even of our own hopes and expectations. 
 
PICTURES 
 AT WILTON, STOURHEAD, &c 
 
PICTURES AT WILTON, STOURHEAD, 
 
 &c. 
 
 SALISBURY PLAIN, barren as it is, is rich in 
 collections and monuments of art. There are, 
 within the distance of a few miles, Wilton, Long- 
 ford-Castle, Fonthill- Abbey, Stourhead, and last 
 though not least worthy to be mentioned, Stone- 
 henge, that " huge, dumb heap,' 1 that stands on 
 the blasted heath, and looks like a group of 
 giants, bewildered, not knowing what to do, en- 
 cumbering the earth, and turned to stone, while 
 in the act of warring on Heaven. An attempt 
 has lately been made to give to it an antediluvian 
 origin. Its mystic round is in all probability fated 
 to remain inscrutable, a mighty maze without a 
 plan : but still the imagination, when once cu- 
 
12B 
 
 PICTURES AT WILTON. 
 
 riosity and wonder have taken possession of it, 
 heaves with its restless load, launches conjec- 
 ture farther and farther back beyond the land- 
 marks of time, and strives to bear down all 
 impediments in its course, as the ocean strives 
 to overleap some vast promontory ! 
 
 Fonthill- Abbey, which was formerly hermeti- 
 cally sealed against all intrusion,* is at present 
 open to the whole world ; and Wilton-House, 
 and Longford-Castle, which were formerly open 
 to every one, are at present shut, except to 
 petitioners, and a favoured few. Why is this 
 greater degree of strictness in the latter instances 
 
 * This is not absolutely true. Mr. Banks the younger, 
 and another young gentleman, formed an exception to this 
 rule, and contrived to get into the Abbey- grounds, in spite 
 of warning, just as the recluse proprietor happened to be 
 passing by the spot. Instead, however, of manifesting any 
 displeasure, he gave them a most polite reception, shewed 
 them whatever they expressed a wish to see, asked them to 
 dinner, and after passing the day in the greatest conviviality, 
 dismissed them by saying, " That they might get out as they 
 got in.'' This was certainly a good jest. Our youthful 
 adventurers on forbidden ground, in the midst of their festive 
 security, might have expected some such shrewd turn 
 from the antithetical genius of the author of Vathek, who 
 makes his hero, in a paroxysm of impatience, call out for 
 " the Koran and sugar !'' 
 
PICTURES AT WILTON. 129 
 
 resorted to 1 In proportion as the taste for works 
 of art becomes more general, do these Noble 
 Persons wish to set bounds to and disappoint 
 public curiosity ? Do they think that the admi- 
 ration bestowed on fine pictures or rare sculp- 
 ture lessens their value, or divides the property, 
 as well as the pleasure with the possessor ? Or 
 do they think that setting aside the formality of 
 these new regulations, three persons in the 
 course of a whole year would intrude out of an 
 impertinent curiosity to see their houses and 
 furniture, without having a just value for them 
 as objects of art ? Or is the expence of keeping 
 servants to shew the apartments made the plea 
 of this churlish, narrow system ? The public 
 are ready enough to pay servants for their 
 attendance, and those persons are quite as for- 
 ward to do this who make a pilgrimage to such 
 places on foot as those who approach them in 
 a post-chaise or on horseback with a livery ser- 
 vant, which, it seems, is the prescribed and 
 fashionable etiquette ! Whatever is the cause, 
 we are sorry for it; more particularly as it 
 compels us to speak of these two admired Col- 
 lections from memory only. It is several years 
 since we saw them ; but there are some impres- 
 sions of this sort that are proof against time. 
 
 K 
 
130 PICTURES AT WILTON. 
 
 Lord Radnor has the two famous Clauclts, the 
 Morning and Evening of the Eoman Empire. 
 Though as landscapes they are neither so brilliant, 
 nor finished, nor varied, as some of this Artist's, 
 there is a weight and concentration of historic 
 feeling about them which many of his allegorical 
 productions want. In the first, half-finished 
 buildings and massy columns rise amidst the 
 dawning effulgence that is streaked with rims of 
 inextinguishable light ; and a noble tree in the 
 foreground, ample, luxuriant, hangs and broods 
 over the growing design. There is a'dim mistiness 
 spread over the scene, as in the beginning of 
 things. The Evening, the companion to it, is 
 even finer. It has all the gorgeous pomp that 
 attends the meeting of Night and Day, and 
 a flood of glory still prevails over the coming 
 shadows. In the cool of the evening, some 
 cattle are feeding on the brink of a glassy stream, 
 that reflects a mouldering ruin on one side of 
 the picture; and so precise is the touch, so 
 true, so firm is the pencilling, so classical the 
 outline, that they give one the idea of sculptured 
 cattle, biting the short, green turf, and seem an 
 enchanted herd ! They appear stamped on the 
 canvas to remain there for ever, or as if nothing 
 could root them from the spot. Truth with 
 
PICTURES AT WILTON. 131 
 
 beauty suggests the feeling of immortality. No 
 Dutch picture ever suggested this feeling. The 
 objects are real, it is true ; but not being beau- 
 tiful or impressive, the mind feels no wish to 
 mould them into a permanent reality, to bind 
 them fondly on the heart, or lock them in the 
 imagination as in a sacred recess, safe from the 
 envious canker of time. No one ever felt a longing, 
 a sickness of the heart, to see a Dutch landscape 
 twice ; but those of Claude, after an absence 
 of years, have this effect, and produce a kind 
 of calenture. The reason of the difference is, 
 that in mere literal copies from nature, where 
 the objects are not interesting in themselves, the 
 only attraction is to see the felicity of the exe- 
 cution ; and having once witnessed this, we are 
 satisfied. But there is nothing to stir the 
 fancy, to keep alive the yearnings of passion. 
 We remember one other picture 1 (and but one) 
 in Lord Radnor's Collection, that was of this 
 ideal character. It was a Magdalen by Guido, 
 with streaming hair, and streaming eyes look- 
 ing upwards — full of sentiment and beauty. 
 
 There is but one fine picture at Wilton-house, 
 the Family Vandyke ; with a noble Gallery of an- 
 tique marbles, which we may pronounce to be 
 invaluable to the lover of art or to the student of 
 K 2 
 
132 PICTURES AT WILTON. 
 
 history or human nature. Romau Emperors or 
 Proconsuls, the poets, orators, and almost all 
 the great men of antiquity, are here " ranged in 
 a row," and palpably embodied either in genuine 
 or traditional busts. Some of these indicate an 
 almost preternatural capacity and inspired awful- 
 ness of look, particularly some of the earlier 
 sages and fabulists of Greece, which we appre- 
 hend to be ideal representations ; while other 
 more modern and better authenticated ones of ce- 
 lebrated Romans are distinguished by the strength 
 and simplicity of common English heads of the 
 best class. — The large picture of the Pembroke 
 Family, by Vandyke, is unrivalled in its kind. 
 It is a history of the time. It throws us nearly 
 two centuries back to men and manners that no 
 longer exist. The members of a Noble House 
 ('tis a hundred and sixty years since) are brought 
 together in propria persona, and appear in all 
 the varieties of age, character, and costume. 
 There are the old Lord and Lady Pembroke, who 
 "keep their state" raised somewhat above the 
 other groups ; — the one a lively old gentleman, 
 who seems as if he could once have whispered a 
 flattering tale in a fair lady's ear ; his help-mate 
 looking a little fat and sulky by his side, pro- 
 bably calculating the expence of the picture, 
 
PICTURES AT WILTON. 133 
 
 and not well understanding the event of it — there 
 are the daughters, pretty, well-dressed, elegant 
 girls, but somewhat insipid, sentimental, and 
 vacant — then there are the two eldest sons, that 
 might be said to have walked out of Mr. Burke's 
 description of the age of chivalry ; the one a per- 
 fect courtier, a carpet-knight, smooth-faced, 
 handsome, almost effeminate, trlat seems to have 
 moved all his life to " the mood of lutes and 
 soft recorders," decked in silks and embroidery 
 like the tender flower issuing from its glossy 
 folds; the other the gallant soldier, shrewd, bold, 
 hardy, with spurred heel and tawny buskins, 
 ready to " mount on barbed steeds, and witch 
 the world with noble horsemanship" — down to 
 the untutored, carroty-headed boy, the Goose- 
 Gibbie of the piece, who appears to have been 
 just dragged from the farm-yard to sit for his 
 picture, and stares about him in as great a heat 
 and fright as if he had dropped from the clouds : 
 — all in this admirable, living composition is in 
 its place, in keeping, and bears the stamp of the 
 age and of the master's hand. Even the oak- 
 pannels have an elaborate, antiquated look, and 
 the furniture has an aspect of cumbrous, consci- 
 ous dignity. It should not be omitted that it 
 was here (in the house or the adjoining magni- 
 K 3 
 
134 PICTURES AT WILTON. 
 
 ficent grounds) that Sir Philip Sidney wrote his 
 Arcadia ; and the story of Musidorus and 
 Philoclea, of Mopsa and Dorcas, is quaintly 
 traced on oval pannels in the principal drawing- 
 room. 
 
 It is on this account that we are compelled to 
 find fault with the Collection at Fonthill Abbey, 
 because it exhibits no picture of remarkable emi- 
 nence that can be ranked as an heir-loom of the 
 imagination — which cannot be spoken of but 
 our thoughts take wing and stretch themselves 
 towards it — the very name of which is music to 
 the instructed ear. We would not give a rush 
 to see any Collection that does not contain some 
 single picture at least, that haunts us with an un- 
 easy sense of joy for twenty miles of road, that 
 may cheer us at intervals for twenty years of life 
 to come. Without some such thoughts as these 
 riveted in the brain, the lover and disciple of art 
 would truly be " of all men the most miserable :" 
 but with them hovering round him, and ever 
 and anon shining with their glad lustre into his 
 sleepless soul, he has nothing to fear from fate, 
 or fortune. We look, and lo ! here is one at our 
 side, facing us, though far-distant. It is the 
 Young Man's Head, in the Louvre, by Titian, 
 that is not unlike Jeronymo della Porretta in Sir 
 
PICTURES AT WILTON. 135 
 
 Charles Grandison. What a look is there of 
 calm, unalterable self-possession — 
 
 Above all pain, all passion, and all pride ; 
 
 that draws the evil out of human life, that while 
 we look at it transfers the same sentiment to 
 our own breasts, and makes us feel as if nothing 
 mean or little could ever disturb us again! This 
 is high art ; the rest is mechanical. But there is 
 nothing like this at Fonthill (oh ! no), but every 
 thing which is the very reverse. As this, how- 
 ever, is an extreme opinion of ours, and may be 
 a prejudice, we shall endeavour to support it by 
 facts. There is not then a single Titian in all 
 this boasted and expensive Collection — there is 
 not a Raphael — there is not a Rubens (except 
 one small sketch) — there is not a Guido, nor a 
 Vandyke — there is not a Rembrandt, there is 
 not a Nicolo Poussin, nor a fine Claude. The 
 two Altieri Claudes, which might have redeemed 
 Fonthill, Mr. Beckford sold. What shall we 
 say to a Collection, which uniformly and deli- 
 berately rejects every great work, and every 
 great name in art, to make room for idle rarities 
 and curiosities of mechanical skill? It was 
 hardly necessary to build a cathedral to set up 
 a toy-shop ! Who would paint a miniature-pic- 
 
136 
 
 PICTURES AT WILTON. 
 
 ture to hang it at the top of the Monument ? 
 This huge pile (capable of better things) is cut 
 up into a parcel of little rooms, and those little 
 rooms are stuck full of little pictures, and bijou- 
 terie. Mr. Beckford may talk of his Diamond 
 Berchem, and so on : this is but the language of 
 a petit-maitre in art ; but the author of Vathex 
 (with his leave) is not a petit-maitre . His genius, 
 as a writer, "hath a devil:" his taste in pictures 
 is the quintessence and rectified spirit of still- 
 life. He seems not to be susceptible of the poe- 
 try of painting, or else to set his face against it. 
 It is obviously a first principle with him to ex- 
 clude whatever has feeling or imagination — to 
 polish the surface, and suppress the soul of art 
 — to proscribe, by a sweeping clause or at one 
 fell swoop, every thing approaching to grace, or 
 beauty, or grandeur — to crush the sense of plea- 
 sure or of power in embryo — and to reduce all 
 nature and art, as far as possible, to the texture 
 and level of a China dish — smooth, glittering, 
 cold, and unfeeling ! We do not object so 
 much to the predilection for Teniers, Wouver- 
 mans, or Ostade — we like to see natural ob- 
 jects naturally painted — but we unequivocally 
 hate the affectedly mean, the elaborately little, 
 the ostentatiously perverse and distorted, Po- 
 
PICTURES AT STOURHEAD. 137 
 
 lemberg's walls of amber, Mieris's groups of 
 steel, Vanderwerf's ivory flesh ; — yet these are 
 the chief delights of the late proprietor of Font- 
 hill-abbey ! Is it that his mind is " a volcano 
 burnt out," and that he likes his senses to re- 
 pose and be gratified with Persian carpets and 
 enamelled pictures ? Or are there not traces 
 of the same infirmity of feeling even in the high- 
 souled Vathek, who compliments the complexion 
 of the two pages of Fakreddin as being equal to 
 " the porcelain of Franguestan ? " Alas ! Who 
 would have thought that the Caliph Vathek 
 would have dwindled down into an Emperor of 
 China and King of Japan 1 But so it is. — 
 
 Stourhead, the seat of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 
 did not answer our expectations. But Stourton, 
 the village where it stands, made up for our 
 disappointment. After passing the park-gate, 
 which is a beautiful and venerable relic, you de- 
 scend into Stourton by a sharp-winding declivi- 
 ty, almost like going under-ground, between high 
 hedges of laurel trees, and with an expanse of 
 woods and water spread beneath. It is a sort 
 of rural Herculaneum, a subterranean retreat. 
 The inn is like a modernized guard-house ; the 
 village- church stands on a lawn without any in- 
 closure ; a row of cottages facing it, with their 
 
138 PICTURES AT STOURHEAD. 
 
 white-washed walls and flaunting honey-suckles, 
 are neatness itself. Every thing has an air of 
 elegance, and yet tells a tale of other times. It 
 is a place that might be held sacred to stillness 
 and solitary musing ! — The adjoining mansion 
 of Stourhead commands an extensive view of 
 Salisbury Plain, whose undulating swells shew 
 the earth in its primeval simplicity, bare, with 
 naked breasts, and varied in its appearance only 
 by the shadows of the clouds that pass across 
 it. The view without is pleasing and singular : 
 there is little within-doors to beguile attention. 
 There is one master-piece of colouring by Paul 
 Veronese, a naked child with a dog. The tone 
 of the flesh is perfection itself. On praising 
 this picture (which we always do when we like 
 a thing) we were told it had been criticized by a 
 great judge, Mr. Beckford of Fonthill, who had 
 found fault with the execution as too coarse 
 and muscular. We do not wonder — it is not 
 like his own turnery-ware ! We should also 
 mention an exquisite Holbein, the Head of a 
 Child, and a very pleasing little landscape by 
 Wilson. Besides these, there are some capital 
 pen-and-ink drawings (views in Venice), by Ca- 
 naletti, and three large copies after Guido of the 
 Venus attired by the Graces, the Andromdea, and 
 
PICTURES AT STOURHEAD. 139 
 
 Herodias's Daughter. They breathe the soul 
 of softness and grace, and remind one of those 
 fair, sylph-like forms that sometimes descend 
 upon the earth with fatal, fascinating looks, 
 and that "tempt but to betray." After the 
 cabinet-pictures at Fonthill, even a good copy 
 of a Guido is a luxury and a relief to the mind : 
 it is something to inhale the divine airs that 
 play around his figures, and we are satisfied if 
 we can but " trace his footsteps, and his skirts 
 far-off behold." The rest of this Collection is, 
 for the most part, trash : either Italian pictures 
 painted in the beginning of the last century, or 
 English ones in the beginning of this. It gave 
 us pain to see some of the latter ; and we willing- 
 ly draw a veil over the humiliation of the art, 
 in the age and country that we live in. We 
 ought, however, to mention a portrait of a youth 
 (the present proprietor of Stourhead) by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, which is elegant, brilliant, 
 f< though in ruins ;" and a spirited portrait by 
 Northcote, of a lady talking on her fingers, may, 
 perhaps, challenge an exception for itself to the 
 above general censure. 
 
 We wish our readers to go to Petworth, the 
 seat of Lord EgremOnt, where they will find the 
 coolest grottos and the finest Vandykes in the 
 
140 PICTURES AT STOURHEAD. 
 
 world. There are eight or ten of the latter that 
 are not to be surpassed by the art of man, and 
 that we have no power either to admire or praise 
 as they deserve. For simplicity, for richness, 
 for truth of nature, for airiness of execution, 
 nothing ever was or can be finer. We will only 
 mention those of the Earl and Countess of Nor- 
 thumberland, Lord Newport, and Lord Goring, 
 Lord Strafford, and Lady Carr, and the Duchess 
 of Devonshire. He who possesses these por- 
 traits is rich indeed, if he has an eye to see, and 
 a heart to feel them. The one of Lord Northum- 
 berland in the Tower is not so good, though it is 
 thought better by the multitude. That is, there is 
 a subject— something to talk about; but in fact, 
 the expression is not that of grief, or thought, or 
 of dignified resignation, but of a man in ill 
 health. Vandyke was a mere portrait-painter, 
 but he was a perfect one. His forte was not 
 the romantic or pathetic; he was " of the court, 
 courtly." He had a patent from the hand of 
 nature to paint lords and ladies in prosperity 
 and quite at their ease. There are some portraits 
 by Sir Joshua Reynolds in this Collection; 
 and there are people who persist in naming 
 him and Vandyke in the same day. The rest of 
 the Collection consists (fer the most part) 
 
PICTURES AT STOURHEAD. 141 
 
 of staircase and family pictures. But there 
 are some admirable statues to be seen here, 
 that it would ask a morning's leisure to study 
 properly. 
 
PICTURES 
 AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE.* 
 
 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 
 
 * From the New Monthly Magazine. 
 
146 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 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 petrifaction 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 for wear 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 chap- 
 let ! 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 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 147 
 
 thing through the genial atmosphere of our own 
 existence. We grow more literal and less credu- 
 lous 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, withiu those 
 cold grey walls, the painter of old age is en- 
 shrined, 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. An artist 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 Peter- 
 l 2 
 
148 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 borough, passing, as it were, under an arch-way 
 of Fame, 
 
 " 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 former- 
 ly ? 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 brim- 
 ming 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 twi- 
 light, come up from the willowy stream, sound- 
 ing low and underground like the voice of the 
 bittern — that 1 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 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 149 
 
 without me — that I might stroll down Peter- 
 borough bank, (a winter's day,) and see the fresh 
 marshes stretching out in endless level perspec- 
 tive, (as if Paul Potter had painted them,) with 
 the cattle, the windmills, and the red-tiled cot- 
 tages, gleaming in the sun to the very verge of 
 the horizon, and watch the fieldfares in innume- 
 rable flocks, gamboling in the air, and sporting 
 in the sun, and racing before the clouds, making 
 summersaults, and dazzling the eye by throw- 
 ing themselves into a thousand figures and 
 movements — that I might go, as then, a pilgrim- 
 age 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 I 
 seemed, 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 
 
150 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 of this now, and wonder how I managed former- 
 ly. 1 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 pas- 
 sage 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 eyes 
 Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him, 
 With all his fires and (ravelling 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. 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 151 
 
 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 trou- 
 bling the reader with them. 
 
 The Rembrandts disappointed 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 learned 
 to see nature better. Was it a disadvan- 
 tage, 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 
 
152 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 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 pri- 
 vilege 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 conse- 
 quences 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 in- 
 terests 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 find- 
 ing out its casual mistakes. Like the possessor 
 of a splendid collection, who is indifferent to 
 or turns away from common pictures, we have 
 a selecter gallery in our own minds. In this 
 sense, the knowledge of art is its own exceeding 
 great reward. But is there not danger that 
 we may become too fastidious, and have no- 
 thing left to admire? None: for the concep- 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 153 
 
 tions 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, 
 <c soon rises from defeat unhurt," though it* 
 pride may be for a moment " humbled by such 
 rebuke," 
 
 " 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 earth 
 
 By model or by shading pencil drawn," — 
 
 surpassing every idea that the mind could form 
 of art, except by having seen them. I remem- 
 ber one in particular that Walsh Porter had 
 (a bow-shot beyond all others) — a vernal land- 
 
154 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 scape, an " Hesperian fable true," with a blue 
 unclouded sky, and green trees and grey turrets 
 and an unruffled sea beyond. But never was 
 Ihere 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 ! match- 
 less scenes, oh ! orient skies, bright with pur- 
 ple 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 his 
 Dream of a Painter. 
 
 " On a sudden I was surrounded by a thick cloud or 
 inist, 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 Dot risen above 
 the horizon. We were alone, except that at a little dis- 
 tance 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 cleur and perfectly calm : and now the 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 155 
 
 rising sua gradually illumined the fine landscape, and began 
 to discover to our view the distant country of immense ex- 
 tent. 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 Gelee 
 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 be- 
 fore, though they might in the interval have 
 faded a little to my eyes, or lost some of their 
 original brightness. 1 did not see the small head 
 
156 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 of Queen Mary by Holbein, which formerly struck 
 me 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 the Head 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 
 aerial, less heavenly ; but there was still a pulpy 
 softness in it, a tender grace, an expression un- 
 utterable — which only the pencil, his pencil, 
 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 pic- 
 ture 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. The 
 Bath of Seneca is one of Luca Jordano's best 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 157 
 
 performances, and has considerable interest and 
 effect. Among other historical designs, there 
 is one of Jacob's Dream, with the angels ascend- 
 ing 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 per- 
 haps 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 cieling 
 of many of the rooms, by the celebrated Grin- 
 ling 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, how- 
 ever, (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 the Virgin 
 and Joseph in his famous picture of the Madonna 
 of the Crown. The Virgin is particularly beau- 
 
158 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 tiful, 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 execu- 
 tion 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 conr 
 ception, but still retaining all the force 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 com- 
 position at once ? He could work it up and re- 
 fine 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. 
 
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 159 
 
 l am no teller of stories ; but there is one be- 
 longing 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 settled incognito 
 (under the name of Mr. Jones) at Hodnet, an 
 obscure village in Shropshire. He made over- 
 tures to one or two damsels in the neighbour- 
 hood, 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 Hog- 
 gins, 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 
 
160 PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 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 re- 
 covered it. It was a sensation worth 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. 
 
PICTURES 
 OXFORD AND BLENHEIM. 
 
 M 
 
PICTURES AT OXFORD AND BLENHEIM. 
 
 Rome has been called the "Sacred City:" — 
 might not our Oxford 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 glis- 
 tering 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 ad- 
 vancing to the eye of memory : its streets 
 are paved with the names of learning that can 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 PICTURES AT OXFORD. 
 
 never wear out : its green quadrangles breathe 
 the silence of thought, conscious of the weight 
 of yearnings innumerable after the past, of lof- 
 tiest 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 Ox- 
 ford 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 libra- 
 ries 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 Cam- 
 bridge (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 
 
PICTURES AT OXFORD. 165 
 
 man, outvying in pomp and splendour the 
 courts and palaces of princes, rising like an 
 exhalation in the night of ignorance, and tri - 
 umphing 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 
 retired and lonely student brooded over the his- 
 toric 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 flow- 
 ed, its treasures were spread out through the re- 
 motest 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 tem- 
 pering the glare of noon, or mellowing the 
 silver moonlight ; let him wander in her syl- 
 van 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 
 M 3 
 
PICTURES AT OXFORD. 
 
 and the religion gone, and the palace of en- 
 chantment 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, a Music Piece by 
 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 pro- 
 file, but exquisitely fair, and with a grave ex- 
 pression; the other is a lively, good- humoured 
 girl, in a front view ; and the third leans for- 
 ward 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 au- 
 thority. It is a fascinating picture, to our 
 thinking; and has that marked characteristic 
 
PICTURES AT OXFORD. 167 
 
 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 a Portrait of Vandyke, with 
 something striking in the tone and expression ; 
 and a small Adam and Eve driven out of Para- 
 dise, 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 Col- 
 lection consists of four undoubted Heads cut 
 out of one of the Cartoons, which was des- 
 troyed by fire about a hundred years ago: 
 they are here preserved in their pristine inte- 
 grity. They shew us what the Cartoons were. 
 They have 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 
 
168 PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 
 
 profiles) in which all the force and boldness of 
 masculine understanding is combined with femi- 
 nine softness of expression. The large, ox-like 
 eye, a " lucid mirror," with the eye-lids droop- 
 ing, and the long eye-lashes distinctly marked, 
 the straight scrutinizing nose, the full, but 
 closed lips, the matronly chin and high fore- 
 head, altogether convey a character of matured 
 thought and expansive feeling, such as is seldom 
 to be met with. Rachel weeping for her Chil- 
 dren has 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 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, 
 
PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 169 
 
 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 un- 
 rivalled 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 hus- 
 band's wars and negociations in Flanders, a fine 
 opportunity of culling them, " as one picks 
 pears, saying, this I like, that I like still bet- 
 ter :" 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 voluptuous 
 allegories. If a painter among ourselves were 
 to attempt a Spencer 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 
 
170 PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 
 
 design at Blenheim ! — The Silenus and the Rape 
 of Proserpine contain 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 prodigious gusto 
 of colouring, as in his Bacchus and Ariadne : but 
 neither of them gave the same undulating outline, 
 the same humid, pulpy tone 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 fi- 
 gure of the Silenus in the first-mentioned of these 
 compositions, its unwieldly 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 
 
PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 171 
 
 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 the Flight into Egypt, and 
 the illustration of the text, " Suffer little chil- 
 dren 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 indiffe- 
 rence, 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 Collec- 
 tion. There is here, as in so many other places, 
 a picture of the famous Lord Strafford, with 
 his Secretary — both speaking heads, and with 
 
172 PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 
 
 the characters finely diversified. We were 
 struck also by the delightful family picture of 
 the Duchess of Buckingham and her Children, 
 but not 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 his Charles I. on 
 Horseback. It is the famous cream or fawn-co- 
 loured horse, which, of all the creatures that 
 ever were painted, is surely one of the most 
 beautiful. 
 
 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 
 
PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 173 
 
 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 fresh- 
 ness seems almost to rival the airy spirit and 
 delicacy of the noble animal. There are also one 
 or two fine Rembrandts (particularly a Jacob 
 and Esau) — an early Raphael, the Adoration of 
 some saint, hard and stiff, but carefully design- 
 ed ; and a fine, sensible, graceful head of the 
 Fornarina, of which we have a common and 
 well-executed engraving. 
 
 " But did you see the Titian room V — 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's Loves ' of the An- 
 gels — 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 
 
174 PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 
 
 sprawling, flimsy descriptions — what an expres- 
 sion of amorous enjoyment about the mouth, 
 the eyes, and even to the finger-ends, instead of 
 cold conceits, and moonlight similes ! This is en 
 passant ; so to our task. — It is said these pictures 
 were discovered in an old lumber-room by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who set a high value on Ihem, 
 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 Ve- 
 netian, 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 satisfacto- 
 rily 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 
 
PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 175 
 
 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 co- 
 louring, with the exception already stated, is 
 true, spirited, golden, harmonious. The group- 
 ing 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 form- 
 alist in his approaches and mode of address ; 
 but there is a Cupid playing on the floor, who 
 
176 PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 
 
 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 Chau- 
 cer ? 3. Apollo and Daphne. Not equal to the 
 rest. 4. Hercules and Dejanira. The female 
 figure in this picture is full of grace and anima- 
 tion, 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 Jo. Very fine. And finest of 
 all, and last, Neptune and Amphitrite. In 
 this last work it seems ** as if increase of appe- 
 tite did grow with what it fed on." What a 
 face is that of Amphitrite for beauty and for 
 sweetness of expression ! One thing is remark - 
 able 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 I) 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, 
 
PICTURES AT BLENHEIM. 177 
 
 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 !" 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 CRITICISM 
 
 ON 
 
 hogarth's marriage a-la-mode. 
 
 N 2 
 
CRITICISM 
 
 ON 
 
 HOGARTH'S " MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE." 
 
 The Criticism on Hogarth's "Marriage a-la- 
 Mode" referred to in the account of Mr. An- 
 gerstein's pictures {page 21), 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 the Marriage 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 
 N 3 
 
182 
 
 CRITICISM ON HOGARTH'S 
 
 they contain so much truth of nature, they pre- 
 sent the objects to the eye under so many as- 
 pects and bearings, admit of so many construc- 
 tions, and are so pregnant with meaning, that 
 the subject is in a manner inexhaustible. 
 
 Boccacio, 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 gross- 
 ness 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 first pic- 
 ture of the Marriage a-la-Mode, the three 
 figures of the young Nobleman, his intended 
 Bride, and her innamorato the 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 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 
 
 183 
 
 Beau sits smiling at the looking-glass, with a 
 reflected simper of self-admiration, and a lan- 
 guishing inclination of the head, while the rest 
 of his body is perked up on his high heels, 
 with a certain air of tip-toe elevation. He is 
 the Narcissus of the reign of George II., whose 
 powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and patches, 
 divide his self-love equally with his own per- 
 son, the true Sir Plume of his day, — 
 
 " 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 whichPope has 
 given to his favourite Belinda, just at the mo- 
 ment 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 un- 
 
184 criticism on hogarth's 
 
 moved, 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 be- 
 hind 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 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 
 
 185 
 
 represented as a victim of fashionable profli- 
 gacy, is unquestionably one of the artist's 
 chef-cToeuvres. 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 hard- 
 ened 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 re- 
 finements 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 Noble- 
 man is not looking straight forward to the 
 Quack, whom he seems to have been threaten- 
 ing with his cane ; but that his eyes are turned 
 up with an ironical leer of triumph to the Pro- 
 curess. The commanding attitude and size of 
 this woman, — the swelling circumference of 
 her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock's fea- 
 thers, — the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate 
 
186 CRITICISM ON HOGARTH'S 
 
 malignity of her countenance, which hardly 
 needs the comment of the clasp-knife to ex- 
 plain her purpose, are all admirable in them- 
 selves, and still more so, as they are opposed 
 to the mute insensibility, the elegant negli- 
 gence of dress, and the childish figure of the 
 girl, who is supposed to be her protegee. As 
 for the Quack, there can be no doubt enter- 
 tained 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 pre- 
 served. The preposterous, overstrained ad- 
 miration of the Lady of Quality ; the sentimen- 
 tal, 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 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 187 
 
 the back of the chair, has been pointed out as 
 one of those instances of alliteration in colour- 
 ing, of which these pictures are everywhere 
 full. The gross, bloated appearance of the 
 Italian Singer is well relieved by the hard fea- 
 tures of the instrumental Performer behind him, 
 which might be carved of wood. The Negro- 
 boy, holding the chocolate, in expression, co- 
 lour, and execution, is a master-piece. The 
 gay, lively derision of the other Negro-boy, play- 
 ing with the Actzeon, 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 in- 
 finite 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 a cheveux-de-fris of horns, which 
 adorn and fortify the lack-lustre 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 impos- 
 
188 criticism on hogarth's 
 
 sible for him to stand, or even to fall. It re- 
 sembles 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, petu- 
 lant self-sufficiency of the Apothecary, whose 
 face and figure are constructed on exact phy- 
 siognomical 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 them- 
 selves. It maybe worth while to consider in 
 what this general distinction consists. 
 
 In the first place they are, in the strictest 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 189 
 
 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 composi- 
 tions 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, arid their 
 characters by varying expression. 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 
 taken en 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, 
 
190 CRITICISM ON HOGARTH'S 
 
 are conveyed in the happiest and most lively 
 manner. His figures are not like the back- 
 ground 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 compo - 
 sitions 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 facsimile 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 ridi- 
 cule affording frequent examples of strange de- 
 formity and peculiarity of features, these have 
 been eagerly seized by another class of artists, 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE* 191 
 
 who, without subjecting themselves to the la- 
 borious drudgery of the Dutch school and their 
 imitators, have produced our popular carica- 
 tures, 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 so- 
 lidity and effect : for his faces go to the very 
 verge of caricature, and yet never (we be- 
 lieve 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, con- 
 sistency, and good sense, with which the whole 
 and every part is made out. They exhibit the 
 most uncommon features with the most uncom- 
 mon expressions, but which are yet as familiar 
 and intelligible as possible; because, with all the 
 boldness, they have all the truth of nature. Ho- 
 garth 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. 
 
192 criticism on hogarth's 
 
 We have, in the present paper, attempted to 
 point put the fund of observation, physical and 
 moral, contained in one set of these pictures, the 
 Marriage 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 ap- 
 pear 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 exqui- 
 site frost-piece of religion and morality, the anti- 
 quated prude, in the picture of Morning ? or that 
 striking commentary on the good 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 the Nooti, are 
 the perfection of flighty affectation and studied 
 grimace; the amiable fraternization of 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 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 193 
 
 only people who are vain, even of being cuck- 
 olded 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 de- 
 vouring 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 quar- 
 relled with her husband, is throwing their Sun- 
 day's dinner out of the window, to complete this 
 chapter of accidents of baked dishes. The hus- 
 band, in the Evening scene, is certainly as meek 
 as any recorded in history ; but we cannot say 
 that we admire this picture, or the Night scene 
 after it. But then in the Taste 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, 
 o 
 
194 criticism on hogarth's 
 
 white- teethed, chuckling favourite ; and with the 
 portrait of Mons. Des Noyers, in the back- 
 ground, dancing in a grand ballet, surrounded 
 by butterflies. And again, in The Election 
 Dinner, is the immortal cobler, surrounded by 
 his peers, who, "frequent and full," — 
 
 " In loud recess and brawling conclave sit :" — 
 
 the Jew, in the second picture, a very Jew in 
 grain — innumerable fine sketches of heads in the 
 Polling for Voles, of which the nobleman, over- 
 looking the caricaturist, is the best; — and then 
 the irresistible, tumultuous display of broad hu- 
 mour in the Chairing the Member, which is, 
 perhaps, of all Hogarth's pictures, the most full 
 of laughable incidents and situations. The yel- 
 low, rusty-faced thresher,with his swinging flail, 
 breaking the head of one of the chairmen ; and 
 his redoubted antagonist, the sailor, with his oak 
 stick, and stumping wooden leg, a supple- 
 mental cudgel — the persevering ecstasy of the 
 hobbling blind fiddler, who, in the fray, appears 
 to have been trod upon by the artificial ex- 
 crescence of the honest tar — Monsieur, the 
 Monkey, with piteous aspect, speculating the 
 impending disaster of the triumphant candidate ; 
 and his brother Bruin, appropriating the paunch 
 
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE. 195 
 
 — the precipitous flight of the pigs, souse over 
 head into the water — the fine lady fainting,\vith 
 vermilion lips — and the two chimney sweepers, 
 satirical young rogues ! We had almost forgot 
 the politician,who is hurning a hole through his 
 hat with a candle, in reading a newspaper ; and 
 the chickens, in The March to Finchley, wan- 
 dering in search of their lost dam, who is 
 found in the pocket of the serjeant. Of the 
 pictures in The Rakes Progress we shall 
 not here say any thing, because we think 
 them, on the whole, inferior to the prints ; and 
 because they have already been criticised by a 
 writer, to whom we could add nothing, in a 
 paper which ought to be read by every lover of 
 Hogarth and of English genius.* 
 
 * See an Essay on the Genius of Hogarth, by C. Lamb. 
 
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