Chapter XVII (2)

We are certainly surprised at the opinions given by artists of eminence as to the condition of the Claude, “The Queen of Sheba;” that Mr Stansfield should confirm his opinion of its being uninjured “from the extremities of the trees next the sky, and the foliage generally,” because those very parts have appeared to our eyes so feeble, so washy, as if at some time or other painted on by another hand than Claude’s: we say the same also, somewhat fearlessly, of the edges of the trees in the small upright Claude. The outlining, too, of the cloud in the Queen of Sheba is of the same feeble handling; and the upper and lower tones of the sky are quite out of agreement. Mr Stansfield and others think time will restore the lost tone and harmony: we cannot comprehend this judgment. If time can give that peculiar warm glow of Claude, we should see that time had done this kind or unkind office on the works of other painters, as cold as that picture is now. There were many who avoided this glow, as unsuited to their subjects; we do not see that time has in this respect converted any of them into Claudes. There is Claude’s imitator, Swannevelt, without the glow; but take Ruysdael, who painted upon an opposite principle—we never see that glow thrown over his pictures. His fresh blue and white skies are still free from that yellow toning of time’s fingers. It comes to this—either Claude painted his peculiar glow, or time did for him. If Time did it for him, Time must have been constrained by his office and nature to do the same thing for others. He did not do so for others, or Claude’s would not be a glow peculiar to him—_ergo_, Claude did the work, and not time. But time is also supposed to do this ameliorating work very speedily. Mr Stansfield thinks “we all must allow that the Cuyp has recovered its tone.” Will it be allowed? There is, and was after the cleaning of that picture in 1844, a pink colouring in the sky, which put the whole picture out of harmony, which, if painted by Cuyp, to be like his other works, could only have been an under-tone, and by him gone over with another, which must have been at some time or other removed.

How could so skilful a marine painter as Mr Stansfield look accurately at the water from the foreground to the distance in the Claude and think it uninjured? The very forms of the waves, in the second and third distances, are interrupted and faint. An argument has been brought, that, if the sky had been injured, the ropes would have suffered. Besides that it is merely assumed that they have not suffered, that argument is fallacious. We have the authority of a very experienced picture-cleaner, and one well acquainted with pictures and all processes, which tends to a contrary proof. De Burtin, in his treatise on picture-cleaning, says: “A point of the utmost importance, and which never must be lost sight of, is this, that among the glazings there will be found some which, although very transparent and delicate, it is nevertheless very difficult to injure, because they have been laid on the colour when fresh, and have become thoroughly incorporated and united therewith; and, on the contrary, there will be found others, and sometimes not so transparent and delicate, but which will yet be injured very readily, because they stand separate from, and do not adhere to the colour beneath them, that having been almost dry ere they were put on.” Now, supposing that Claude’s glow were—we say not that it was—an after-glaze, the ropes may have been put in on the wet sky. Does any one think that Claude’s skies were painted at one painting, or even two?

Mr Stansfield had used the words “raw and disagreeable;” but being asked if he thought that picture raw and disagreeable when it left Claude’s easel? replies, No. We must in justice say, that he somewhat modifies the expression. “Perhaps I have used a wrong term in saying ‘raw’ and ‘disagreeable,’ for we all paint for time to have some effect upon our pictures.” Notwithstanding Mr Stansfield’s great experience, we more than doubt this fallacy as to time. We know it to be, and to have been, a favourite maxim of many painters of the English school, that time will remedy rawness, and make their works in mellowness what those of the ancient masters were. We utterly disbelieve it, and for the following reasons: It is out of character with the mind of genius purposely to leave a work incomplete. The idea of perfection being in the mind, the hand cannot resist the operation. Then, has time had that effect upon more modern works? We appeal for evidence to the Vernon Gallery. Are the pictures there better than when they were fresh from the easel? Not one, we verily believe, and _know_ some to be much worse. This was a notion of Constable’s and his followers, and it has infected the minds of too many. He painted as if he would frost his pictures with white—has time finished them to his conceived perfection? Those who trust to time must, we fear, also trust to the picture-cleaner and picture-toner, against whom there is, rather inconsistently, a considerable outcry. This is a point not requiring a test of long ages. Mr Stansfield himself thinks “The Queen of Sheba” will recover its tone in six months, and that from 1846 to the present time the satisfactory change has taken place in the pictures cleaned.

With regard to Claude’s general yellow tone, there remains yet a question to be asked—Did he take it from nature, or did he add it with a view of improving nature? Quite aware that the question will shock the Naturalists, we still venture it. In the first place, be it observed—and we have noticed it elsewhere in the pages of this Magazine—nature will bear great liberties with regard to colour, without losing her characteristics. Colour may be said, in this sense, to be the poetical language of nature. It is astonishing that any can doubt whether or not this view of nature was taken by the Ancient Masters. It is unfashionable now. To apply this to Claude: In Sir David Brewster’s evidence, we find mention made of “Claude glasses,” some of which he produced. He considered that, looking through these, the tone would be much restored to the eye. “I conceive,” he says, “this (the yellow tone) is proved by the glasses, which I have produced, having got the name of Claude Lorraine glasses from their giving that general tone to nature that characterises all his pictures.” This leads to a slight discussion on the subject of the glasses. Mr B. Wall asks Sir David, “Are you not aware that, about forty-five years ago, those Claude Lorraine glasses were introduced and sold, three, or four, or five together, and they were very much used by tourists who used to see the English Lakes?—were they not of different colours—blue, pink, green, and almost every shade?” “No such name was given to such glasses as you refer to in your question.” Mr B. Wall: “I venture to differ from your high authority, and to think that the glass which you call a Claude Lorraine glass is not the only glass that went by that name; and therefore that the inference which you have drawn, that the yellow one was the proper one to use when you looked at Claude’s pictures, was not correct.” Mr Stirling asks if there is not another thing called a Claude Lorraine glass, “a piece of coloured glass which is used to reduce the landscape, and reflect it like the surface of a mirror?” Sir David says, he never saw it done with coloured glass. The difference between the glass spoken of by Sir David, and that by Mr B. Wall, does not seem very important,—it being that one admits other colours more freely than the other. Mr Wall is not, however, quite correct in limiting the invention to forty-five years ago. We have one in our possession which we know to have been in existence very near a century, and it has always been called a Claude glass. I believe it has been in use, as was the black glass, in the days of the Old Masters. The effect on the natural landscape is curious, and worth recording. The yellow glass is very extraordinary: it wondrously heightens the lights, so that a sky, for instance, in which scarcely an illuminated cloud is seen, looked at through this glass, exhibits great variety of parts. Shadows are deepened, and light strengthened; real colours not lost, but as it were covered with a glaze. We have always been of opinion that Rembrandt used it, his pictures are so like nature seen through that medium. It mostly reduces the blue, making it greenish. There was a little picture of Rembrandt exhibited some years ago at the Institution in Pall-Mall, which presented exactly the effect we speak of. It was a most simple subject—a hilly ground, on the undulating summit of which, on one side, was a village church among trees, on the other a few scattered houses, all dark, against the sky; from the division of the hill, a road very indistinct came down to the foreground, which, to the right, melted off into a dark brook, going into deep shade, where it was lost. The sky was exceedingly luminous—a cloud rising over the village, such as would “drop fatness,” and the whole tone of that greenish-grey, with rich-toned illuminations, which the Claude glass constantly presents to the eye. In a paper of this Magazine of 1847, in which we had occasion to speak of colour, and the habit of the Old Masters in deviating from the common, obvious colouring of nature, we alluded to this Claude Lorraine glass. “This may be exemplified by a dark mirror—and, better still, by a Claude glass, as it is called, by which we look at nature through coloured glasses. We do not the less recognise nature—nay, it is impossible not to be charmed with the difference, and yet not for a moment question the truth. We are not here discussing the propriety of using such glasses—it may be right, or it may be wrong, according to the purpose the painter may have. We only mean to assert, that nature will bear the changes and not offend any sense. The absolute naturalness, then, of the colours of nature, in its strictest and most limited sense, local and aërial, is not so necessary as that the eye cannot be gratified without it. And it follows, that agreeability of colour does not depend upon this strict naturalness.”

We learn from Mrs Merrifield, that Signor A. showed her a black mirror, which had belonged to Bamboccio (Peter Van Laer). “This mirror was bequeathed by Bamboccio to Gaspar Poussin; by the latter to some other painter, until it ultimately came into the hands of Signor A.” It is admitted by Mr Seguier himself, as by other witnesses, that Claude painted thinly, semi-opaque over dark, but this is called “scumbling.” It is, however, in fact, if done with a free hot dry brush, a glaze, and he may have thus toned his pictures. That tone once removed, as in the case of the Sheba, we believe irrecoverable but by such a master-hand as put it on, and possessed of the same pure medium. We fancy we discover in the working that a great deal of the detail of his pictures was painted in this method. To expect that time only will restore that fine glow is worthy the philosopher of Laputa, and his resolution to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Poor Claude! Professors of the art of painting are far worse off than professors of literature, whose tormentors are but the printer’s devil and the compositor. The poor painter has an endless generation of tormentors. The “Quidlibet audendi” is not his motto; his genius will never be half so daring as the hands of his scrubbers. Let him sit at his easel, and, in his enthusiasm, throw sunshine from his brush, and dream fondly that it will be eternal; a host of cleaners are looking over his shoulder, or lurking in secret, to catch the treasure, and smudge his dream and his work out for ever. And when they have visibly, too visibly, done their worst, old Time, that used to be represented as the “Edax rerum,” the general destroyer, is introduced as a newly-dubbed professor of the art of cleaning and restoring by dirt.

We do not, however, wish to speak disrespectfully of picture-cleaners, or picture-varnishers, or picture-dealers. There are many very skilful and very useful, and, of dealers, honourable and liberal. Nor do we say this without knowledge; yet habit creates boldness, and removes caution. Like the medical profession, cleanership, it is to be feared, must kill before it has learned to cure. But the professors sometimes forget the wholesome rule, “Fiat experimentum in corpore vili.” Even the wise Sir David Brewster confesses to having dabbled in destruction. There is not a man of note in it but must have killed his man; and few are so happy as the wonderful Mr Lance, to make a new one so well that none can tell the difference. Indeed, Mr Lance’s magic brush did a great deal more. A cleaner had wiped out of existence whole members—man and horse; sometimes had left half a horse, and scarcely half a man, and sometimes had ironed them all out together. Mr Lance brought all to life again, without having ever seen one of them; and all so like, that their most familiar acquaintances had never missed them, nor known they had ever been defunct. Yet was his modesty equal to his skill. He never boasted of his performance. Man and horse were revivified, and remounted, and caracoled with the utmost grace and precision before himself and the public, with unbounded applause; and the wonderful restorer was contented to sit quietly in a corner, as if unconscious of his own creations, and deaf to the loudest blast of Fame’s trumpet. If we have wearied our readers with too long discussions upon technicalities, we can now make amends by retiring behind the scenes, first introducing Mr Lance himself, who will be as amusing to others as he has been to us. But there is a prologue to every play; we would not usher in so celebrated a performer without one.

Every one acquainted with the National Gallery knows the Velasquez “Boar-hunt.” It was always a celebrated picture, and henceforth will be more celebrated than ever. In the very Index of the Report it occupies more than a whole page. The famous Erymanthian boar never gave half the sport, though it required a Hercules to kill him. But there is a difference: he was killed, and frightened people after he was dead; this boar was killed, and brought to life again, and pleased every one ever after. It had been hunted in many countries, and would have been hunted in many more, had it not received its Apotheosis from the hand of Sir Robert Peel, and found a place in the galaxy of the National Gallery.

This picture was presented to Lord Cowley by the Court of Spain; and from him came into the hands of Mr Farrer, a dealer in pictures. By him it was sent to Holland, having been refused by our Gallery, and offered to the king, who rejected it. On its return from Holland, Mr Farrer left it in its case, in his front shop, with the direction on it to his Majesty the King of Holland—no direction to Mr Farrer appearing. Mr B. Wall, one of the Commissioners, sees the case, and asks what it contains; is told the Velasquez: has the “impression,” but is not quite certain, that Mr Farrer told him it was going to the King of Holland. Mr B. Wall upon this goes to Sir Robert Peel, and both fear the picture may be lost; and, with the sanction and at the desire of Sir R. Peel, it was purchased for the Gallery. Now, Mr B. Wall was not the only person who saw the case in Mr Farrer’s shop. Mr Morris Moore was one, and, as he says, there were many others. He names two—Mr Coningham and Mr Chambers Hall—to all of whom Mr Farrer, according to the evidence of Mr Morris Moore, told the same tale—namely, “that the Trustees were but just in time to save it from exportation to the King of Holland.” This Mr Farrer stoutly denies, and Mr Morris Moore offers to take his oath to the fact. In the denial, Mr Farrer states, that he may have said he was going to send it _abroad_, for that he intended to offer it in Paris; but, after a while, speaks rather uncertainly, not knowing exactly where abroad he should have sent it; but it is possible he may have intended again to send it to Holland, under a kind of conviction that the King of Holland would, after all, have it. Then he asserts that the visit from, and conversation with, Mr Morris Moore upon the subject were before, not after, the picture had gone to Holland. Mr Moore, on the other hand, is positive it was after it had returned, because it was then secured for the National Gallery, and Mr Farrer admits it was not so secured till after its return from Holland. This is, as far as we can make it, a plain statement, in abstract, from the evidence. The Commissioners leave these “discrepancies” where they found them; so do we. It is a common saying that truth lies somewhere between two contradictory statements. Wherever it may appear to lie, there appears but little space, on any intermediate ground, upon which it could, by any possibility, stand upright. This little history has seen the picture lodged in the Gallery. We must beg the reader to imagine it not as yet to have been located, that he may learn a little of its antecedents. Lord Cowley had placed the picture in the hands of Mr Thane to keep, where it remained some years. But Mr Lance shall tell the tale. “After a considerable time, Mr Thane, as I heard afterwards, had been commissioned to clean the picture, and reline it. A colourman was employed to reline the picture, a most skilful man, and, in relining it, I understand, he blistered it with hot irons.... When the picture was returned to Mr Thane in this condition, it naturally distressed him very much; he was a very conscientious man, and he became very deeply distressed about it: he saw the picture passing over his bed in procession. After a certain time, he thought it got worse, and that the figure of it was more attenuated; and at length he fancied he saw a skeleton. In fact, the poor man’s mind was very much injured. It was then proposed that he should employ some painter to restore the picture; and three persons were selected for that purpose. Sir David Wilkie, Sir Edwin Landseer, and myself, were mentioned; but it was supposed that neither Sir David Wilkie nor Sir Edwin Landseer would give their time to it, and that probably I might; and, therefore, the picture was placed with me, with a representation that, if I did not do something to it, serious consequences would follow to the cleaner. I undertook it, though I was very much employed at the time; and, to be as short as possible, I painted on this picture. I generally paint very rapidly, and I painted on that occasion as industriously as I could, and was engaged for six weeks upon it. When it was completed, Lord Cowley saw it, never having been aware of the misfortune that had happened to the picture. It was then in Mr Thane’s possession, and remained with him some time afterwards. From that time I saw no more of the picture until it was exhibited in the British Gallery some time afterwards, where it was a very popular picture, and was very much thought of. Since then, I have heard it was sold to the nation; and twice I have seen it in the National Gallery. I saw it only about a week ago, and I then thought it was not in the same condition (indeed, I am certain it is not) as when it was exhibited in the British Gallery formerly, after I had done it.” This is sufficient evidence that the picture has been damaged in cleaning. Let us pursue the story through question and answer.

“_Q._ 5124. What was the state of the picture when it came into your hands? There were portions of the picture entirely gone.—_Q._ 5125. What portions? Whole groups of figures, and there was a portion of the foreground entirely gone also.—_Q._ 5126. Do you mean that celebrated group which is so often copied—the man in a red coat? That is original. I think that any man, with any knowledge of art, will see at once that that is original; and I am only surprised that it has not been seen that other parts are original also.—_Q._ 5127. Which portions of these groups did you chiefly restore? You are very near the mark when you speak of the red coat; it is the group on the right hand; the outlines were entirely gone.—_Q._ 5128. Do you mean to say, that the whole of the paint was removed from that part of the picture? Entirely.—_Q._ 5129. Was the canvass laid bare? Entirely.—_Q._ 5130. What guide had you in repainting those groups? Not any.—_Q._ 5131. Did you paint groups that you yourself imagined and designed? Yes.—_Q._ 5132. Did Lord Cowley not distinguish any difference in the groups? Not any.—_Q._ 5133. What was the extent of paint wanting on that group which you say you repainted on the right—was it a portion as large as a sheet of note-paper? Larger, considerably; the figures themselves are larger than that.—_Q._ 5134. Was it as large as a sheet of foolscap? About that size, I should imagine.—_Q._ 5135. There was a piece of the original paint wanting as large as that? Yes, in the foreground.—_Q._ 5136. It was totally wanting, and the canvass to that extent laid bare—is that so? Yes.—_Q._ 5137. And on that bare canvass you painted the groups of figures we see now? Exactly.—_Q._ 5138. Will you have the goodness to describe to the committee any other portions of the picture where the paint was in a similar or in an analogous state? The whole of the centre of the picture was destroyed, with slight indications here and there of men; there were some men without horses, and some horses without men.—_Q._ 5139. That is in the arena? Yes.—_Q._ 5140. You are speaking of the figures on horseback? Yes: some riders had no horses, and some horses had no riders.”

We must curtail the evidence for want of space. It appears that his brush, taking the number of square feet, went over a great deal more than half. He is sorry to say it is now gone back to “Velasquez mutilated.” But are there not infallible judges to discover all this repainting? “I may mention that, many years ago, when the picture was at the British Gallery, I was invited by a member of the Academy to go and look at it; and I went there; Mr Seguier and Mr Barnard (who was also a picture-cleaner) were present. They said, ‘I know what you have come for; you have come to see the magnificent Velasquez.’ I said, ‘Well, I have;’ and, with the greatest simplicity in the world, I said it gave me a notion that some part had been much repaired and painted upon: upon which Mr Barnard, the keeper of the British Institution, said immediately, ‘No, you are wrong there; we never had a picture so free from repair in our lives.’ I did not think it at all desirable to make any statement,” &c. He hopes there is no engraving of the picture, for the group in the foreground, entirely his, would be detected immediately.

So much for Mr Lance’s doings with this celebrated Boar-hunt, which, whatever part of it may be by Mr Lance, we are very glad to see in our National Gallery, and should have been more glad if they had abstained from cleaning it. But Mr Lance has further amusement for us. That account is the serious play in which he was principal actor. We shall see him again in the entertainment. It has a very excellent title—“Diogenes in search of an Honest Man.” The part of Diogenes, Mr Lance; the point being, the vain search for a time, but discovered at last—in whom? In a negro. This was Mr Diogenes Lance’s satirical discovery. There are countries where the scene must not be exhibited. He shall tell the story. “_Q._ 5230. Have you ever restored any other picture in the ordinary course of your professional practice? During the time I was engaged upon that picture at Mr Thane’s, he had a picture belonging to the Archbishop of York, to which rather an amusing thing occurred.—_Q._ 5231. What was the subject of it? It was a picture of Diogenes in search of an Honest Man, by Rembrandt; a portion of it was much injured. Mr Thane said to me, ‘I wish you would help me out in this difficulty.’ He did not paint himself.—_Q._ 5232. Which Archbishop was it? The Archbishop of York. I said, ‘What am I to do? tell me what you want.’ He said, ‘There’s a deficiency here—what is it?’ I said, ‘It appears to me very much as if a cow’s head had been there.’ He said, ‘It cannot be a cow’s head; for how could a cow stand there?’ I said, ‘That is very true; there is no room for her legs.’ I fancied first one thing, then another: at one time, I fancied it was a tree that was wanting; and at length I said, ‘Well, I will tell you what will do—if you will let me put in a black man grinning, that will do very well, and rather help out the subject.’ He said, ‘Could you put in a black man?’ I said, ‘Yes, in a very short time;’ and in about half an hour I painted in a black man’s head, which was said very much to have improved the picture. Shortly afterwards Mr Harcourt came in, and seeing the picture, he said, ‘Dear me, Mr Thane, how beautifully they have got out this picture! my father will be delighted. We never saw this black man before.’ And that is the extent of my picture-repairing.” Mr Lance is a man of humour. When Mr Harcourt came to examine the picture, did what his namesake Launce in the play said occur to the painter? This is “the blackest news that ever thou heard’st.” But no; both Lances were discreet in their humour, and the one thought like the other—“Thou shalt never get a secret from me but by a parable.” The idea of a black man grinning at the folly of Diogenes, in looking for an honest man among the whites, was a most original piece of humour, worthy the concentrated geniuses of all the Launces that ever were.

All the world knew Mr Lance’s powers as a painter of still life; he has now doubly established his fame, and notwithstanding that his modesty would look shy upon his performances on the Velasquez “The Boar-hunt,” as nobody else has been startled by them, we sincerely hope they will be allowed to remain—that is, as much of them as the cleaners have spared. We hope, also, that no experimentalists in nostrums will be allowed to reiterate the attempt of the fable, and try to “wash his blackamore white.” Let this be the picture’s motto—“Hic niger est, hunc tu——caveto.”

It is to be feared that picture-cleaning has become a necessary evil, as patients who have been long under the hands of empirics must needs have recourse to regular practitioners to preserve even a sickly life. Empirical nostrums must be got out of the constitution, for by a habit of maintenance, however advantageous they may appear at first, they are sure to side with the disease, and kill the patient. There is the first Mr Seguier’s boiled oil, that terrible black dose—must that be allowed to remain? Then comes the question, by what desperate remedies is it to be eradicated? There is the Gaspar Poussin landscape near the injured Claude “Queen of Sheba,” the “Abraham and Isaac:” we remember it a very beautiful clear picture. It is now all obscured; there are large brown patches in the once lucid sky. As so large a proportion of the pictures in the Gallery are suffering under this oil-disease, and seem to petition for a ticket to the hospital, we offer a suggestion made by De Burtin, that experienced and cautious cleaner, who speaks with utter abhorrence of the oiling system. He says that he tried every secret of his art without success; “continuing always my experiments, however, though with little hope, I have at length had the happiness to find in the application of this same oil itself the means of so softening the old oil, that I have afterwards, with spirit of wine, removed both the oils, new and old together, without at all injuring the picture. Although this plan has succeeded equally well with four pictures on which I had occasion to employ it, yet I must not be understood to hold it out as infallible until, from the number of the cases in which it is tried, and the uniformity of its success, it shall earn for itself that title; but, persuaded that the want of other known means will induce connoisseurs to make trial of this one, I feel desirous to put them in possession of all the information that I myself have in regard to it. My four pictures, all painted on panel, were evidently covered with an oil which gave them an aspect alike sad and monotonous, and which seemed to be of many years’ duration. I gave them a coat of linseed oil during the warmest days of summer, renewing once, and even twice a-day, the places on which it seemed to be absorbed. On the twelfth day the oil on one of the pictures was become so softened that it clung to my finger. I then employed good spirit of wine, without any other admixture whatever, to remove all the oil which I had put upon the picture; and the pleasure I experienced was only equalled by my surprise, when I saw the vivacity of the colours restored under my hands as the spirit of wine removed the old oil along with the new. After a few days’ interval, the other three pictures gave me renewed occasion for congratulation by the same results, and with equal success.”

De Burtin has at least the great merit of having no concealments in his practice. And here the Commissioners have done well in recommending that no varnishes be used, the ingredients of which are kept secret. Mr Farrer thinks he is the only person in this country using gum damas. He is mistaken—we have used it many years, and agree with him that it is far less liable to chill than mastic. The recommendation, also, that, before cleaning a picture, an able chemist should be applied to, is a proper precaution, which would, of course, include varnishing. That pictures may not be subject to secret varnishes, the only one we would have kept secret is that mentioned by Mr Niewenhuys, the experimentalising in which brought the indignation of the court of Lilliput on the unfortunate Gulliver. Picture-scourers have been hitherto a ruthless race—with their corrosives they take the life’s blood out of the flesh of works, like true Vampires, and appropriately enough talk of _vamping_ them up. Few are as conscientious as Mr Thane, to be persecuted with the “processions” of the skeletons they make. There is an amusing story illustrated by Cruikshank. A lover, anxious for the safety of his sick mistress, goes about seeking physicians; he is gifted, for the occasion, to see over the doors of the faculty the ghosts of the patients they had killed. It is within doors we would have the picture possessor go. The outer shop of the cleaner is enchanting—perhaps it may exhibit a face half of which is cleaned, and half dirty, that, according to Mr Ford’s notion of looking better and worse, customers may take their choice of the dingy or the clean. The connoisseur and collector need have some “Diable Boiteux” to take them unseen into the interior laboratories where the ghosts and skeletons lie concealed, while the Medea’s pot is on the fire, whose boiling is to transfer new flesh to the dry bones, that they may be produceable again, as they often are, novelties of a frightful vigour and unnatural sprightliness, to be reduced to an after-sobriety under a regimen of boiled oil and asphaltum. Even Mr Lance’s work, which was believed to be original, has been obscured and otherwise damaged. Salvator Rosa’s “Mercury and the Woodman,” is as if it had been dipped in “the sooty Acheron.” There is little pleasure in looking at pictures in such a state. Altogether, then, to leave pictures “black, dirty, and in a filthy state,” a condition which Mr Stansfield[6] properly abominates, is to mislead the public, whom to instruct is one great object of a National Gallery. But who is to restore the gem-like lustre when once removed? There should be a cleaning, or rather a preservation committee. Philosophers say, that diamonds are but charcoal; none have, however, succeeded in converting the carbon into diamonds; but it may be possible to convert the diamonds of art into charcoal, or into something worse, “black, dingy, and filthy.”

We scarcely know where to stop with so large a volume as this Report, with its evidence before us. The questions, with their answers, amount to the astonishing number of 10,410! We necessarily leave much matter untouched, very much interesting matter—We would gladly enlarge upon some of the suggestions thrown out in our article on this subject of December, but adequate space in this Magazine may not be allowed. Yet we will refer to one suggestion, because it is now the very time that public attention should be directed to it; we mean the appointment of Professorships of the Fine Arts at our Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Chancellor of Cambridge shows that great changes are in contemplation. Such professorships would be a graceful offering to the universities, who may have been a little suspicious of the movement of a commission; and we feel sure, that nothing could be more promotive of the fine arts, the real taste of the country, or more beneficial, as leading the educated to pursuits of a high and noble nature. We will not attempt to discuss the “Removal of the Gallery.” The Blue Book affords details, and plans of site. The appendix is full of valuable information; but it contains matter upon which we feel some alarm. We know there is a scheme, under peculiar favour, to make our National Gallery a Chronological Almanac of Art, than which nothing can be more worthless or more beyond the objects for which we should have a National Gallery at all. What we should collect is a large subject, which we may feel disposed to consider more at large in a future article.

The public will now inquire, what is to be the result of this pains-taking Commission? We are aware that the Chairman repudiates the Report. It is one to which he does not give his assent. We know not the particulars in which he differs from the Report as agreed upon. We could have wished, for the sake of the arts, that there had been no difference.

Of this there can be no doubt, that the system, if such it may be called, is most unsatisfactory. If we would have a National Gallery at all, the public have a right to demand that it shall be one befitting the dignity of the country and the objects proposed by such an establishment, none of which, it is manifest from the entire evidence, can be realised unless the trust be thoroughly revised. Evils to be avoided are now laid bare to sight. If it be true,

“They say best men are moulded out of faults,”

there are faults enough to mould them out of. May we not, then, entertain a hope that we shall have a National Gallery?

A GLANCE AT TURKISH HISTORY.

Had history recorded the increase and decrease in the numbers of mankind with the attention it has bestowed in chronicling the names of the worthless dynasties which have devoured the wealth of nations, and annihilated the accumulations of national industry, the history of the Turks would occupy a prominent place in the annals of the human race. No other people has made such extensive conquests. They subdued China before the Moguls, and they formed a considerable part of the armies of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, which subdued Russia and ravaged Syria. Even at the present day, though fallen from their ancient power, they are spread over a considerable portion of Europe and Asia, from the Adriatic and the Danube to the lake Baikal and the sources of the Lena. Their original seats are supposed to lie round the Altaï mountains. The Turkish nations of the present day, besides the descendants of the Seljouks, the Turkomans, and the Othomans, who dwell in the sultan’s dominions, are the Usbeks, the Ugours, the Kirgises, the Baskirs, the tribe called Nogay Tartars, and the so-called Tartars of Astrakan and Kasan. The real Tartars, or Moguls, are a different people, and the Kalmuks on the Volga are of Tartar, not Turkish race.

The only modern European nations which pretend to be mentioned in Scripture, are the Turks and Russians. Historical antiquaries tell us that Togarmah is used for Turk; and they affirm, that the Targhitaos of Herodotus, whom the Scythians called the founder of their nation, and the son of Jupiter, is identical with the Togarmah of Moses and Ezekiel.[7]

The Russians can boast of much more precise notice in Scripture than their enemies the Turks. Though their name is omitted in our translation, it occurs in the Septuagint three times, and under the peculiar ethnic denomination in which it reappears in the Byzantine historians. The word is Ῥὼς, and on this name Gibbon remarks, “Among the Greeks this national appellation has a singular form as an undeclinable word;” but he does not mention that it is found in the Septuagint. The second and third verses of the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, according to the Greek text, read thus: “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of the Russians (ἄρχοντα Ῥὼς), Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, O chief prince of the Russians, Meshech and Tubal.” And again, in the first verse of the thirty-ninth chapter: “Therefore, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of the Russians, Meshech and Tubal.”

The Russians are said also to be noticed in the Koran, though not with the same distinctness, under the name of Al Rass. In the chapter Al Forkan, which is the twenty-fifth of Sale’s translation, it is said, “We have prepared for the unjust a painful torment. Remember Ad and Tamud, and those who dwelt at Al Rass.” In the chapter called the letter Kaf, which is the fiftieth of Sale’s translation, we also find: “The people of Noah, and those who dwelt at Al Rass, and Thamud, and Ad, and Pharaoh, accused the prophets of injustice.”

The earliest authorities, however, who furnish us with an account of the Turkish nation as it now exists, with the distinct nationality and language preserved to the present day, are the Byzantine historians, Menander and Theophylactus Simocalta. The latter historian gives a very interesting account of the condition of the Turks in the sixth century of our era. They were then the sovereigns of a great city called Tavgas; they were the most valiant and populous of nations; they lived under the protection of just laws, and carried on an extensive commerce. Tavgas is supposed to be the name of a Chinese city, which was then one of the seats of the Turkish government, for there is no doubt that somewhat before this period the Turks had conquered a considerable part of the north of China. Indeed, traces of the language of these early conquerors are still preserved, which are identical with the Turkish spoken to-day at Constantinople, for time has effected less change in the Turkish than in any other European language. Collateral evidence concerning the power of the Turks in central Asia during the latter part of the fifth, and early part of the sixth centuries, is afforded by the history of the life and travels of Hiouen-thsang, recently translated by Monsieur Julien, whether that work be really the composition of a Chinese contemporary, or only a Chinese compilation from earlier Arabic authorities.[8] It is certain that about the commencement of the sixth century the Turks ruled all central Asia, as far south as the Hindookoosh, including the ancient Sogdiana and Bactria.

The first political intercourse between the Turks and a European state occurred towards the middle of the sixth century. The great khan of the Turks sent an embassy to Justinian I., to persuade the Roman empire to refuse an asylum to the Avars. The dominions then ruled by the great khan formed the first of the three great Turkish empires which have exercised an important influence on the social condition of the Christian nations, both in Europe and Asia. The second of these empires was that of the Seljouk Turks, which caused the crusades, and ruined the Byzantine empire. And the third was that of the Othoman Turks, which destroyed the Greek empire, and has long been the master, patron, or tyrant, of the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.

The first Turkish empire took its rise from the oppression of the Avars, who were the dominant people in Asia, and who are supposed to have been a mixed race of Mogul and Turkish origin. The oppression of the Avars was submitted to as long as the body of the Turkish people was confined by its circumstances to an agricultural and pastoral life. The population being dispersed in small communities, which lived without much intercommunication, was composed of as many isolated tribes as there are springs in the plains they inhabitated; and these tribes were as incapable of acquiring common motives of action as the population of the islands in the eastern seas. But the scene changed in the fifth century. The Turks who dwelt on Mount Altaï grew rich by mining operations and manufactures. They became the principal traders in iron and steel, and the manufacturers and merchants of the arms and armour required in the Avar empire. But the government soon endeavoured to appropriate the wealth which it saw was created by the industry of its subjects to administrative purposes. Taxation was increased, and monopolies were established, to enable the court of the Avar emperor to display the power of centralisation. Governmental pageantry, court spectacles, and military pomp, consumed the wealth of the people in the unknown capital of this vanished empire; while the Turkish people, now inspired by common feelings, called for an administration that would dig wells, and construct cisterns and caravanserais in the desert. The Turks were now united by the lessons which their trade had disseminated through every province. With improved intercourse they had gained a more enlarged experience, and acquired national feelings. They at last rose in rebellion; and before the middle of the sixth century, the first great Turkish empire was founded by Toumen the blacksmith, the ancestor of Genghis Khan, and Timor the lame. This empire extended from the Caspian sea to the ocean. The great Khan of the Turks, Askel, who sent an embassy to the Roman emperor Justinian I., is supposed to have been the son of Toumen.

In the year 568 another embassy arrived at Constantinople from the great Khan Dizaboulos, with a letter for Justin II., written in the Scythian character, which, whatever it was, was not unknown to the learned interpreters of the Roman foreign office. One great object of Turkish diplomacy had been to get possession of the whole of the silk trade with Europe, but the Turkish ambassadors had been astonished to find that Justinian had already succeeded in introducing the culture of the silk-worm in the Roman empire, and that the imperial court was rich in native silk, manufactured in Asia Minor and the islands. The ambassadors of Dizaboulos, however, concluded the first formal treaty between the Turks and the emperors of Constantinople; the bond of union between the courts of Mount Altaï and Byzantium was hostility to Persia, and very profound and enlightened views concerning the maintenance of the balance of power in the East, while the tie which then connected the interests of the Turks with those of the Romans and Greeks was commerce.

The long wars between the Persian and Roman empires, and the arbitrary measures of the Persians, had stopped all commercial communications between India and Europe through the Persian dominions. The countries on the shores of the Mediterranean had in consequence been compelled to draw their supplies of Indian and Chinese produce, and the productions of the Spice islands, of which there was then an immense consumption, by way of the Red Sea. This trade, even as early as the time of Pliny, was so extensive as to excite the wonder of that aristocratic Roman. In the sixth century it had greatly increased, and both Arabia and Ethiopia were in a most prosperous condition, from the great profits it poured into those countries. In the year 523 the king of Ethiopia was able to collect a fleet of thirteen hundred ships in the Red Sea, and to obtain abundant supplies for a large army on the coast of Arabia, where a single ship and a company of infantry would find it difficult to procure provisions for a week. After the reign of Justinian this commerce rapidly declined. The increase of piracy on the coast near the entrance of the Persian gulf, and the wars of the Ethiopian kings in Arabia, were simultaneous with the poverty, depopulation, and destruction of capital in Africa and Italy, caused by the Vandal and Gothic wars of Justinian. At this crisis, when Alexandria and Rome were rapidly declining, the security which the extent of the Turkish empire and the policy of the great Khan afforded to merchants, turned a great portion of the Eastern trade towards Constantinople. The Indian traders began to prefer the caravan journey through the deserts of central Asia, to the tedious and dangerous navigation of the Red Sea. By sea they could no longer venture to visit the intermediate ports from fear of pirates, while on the land journey they could carry on a profitable trade in slaves, and in exchanging the precious metals, at many stations on their way. The great importance of the slave trade at this time in central Asia is proved by the circumstance that the emperor Tiberius II., A.D. 578–582, formed a corps of fifteen thousand mamlouks, composed entirely of purchased slaves, imported into the Roman empire by the traders engaged in the Indian or the fur trade. Had the supply continued, and had the successors of Tiberius II. pursued the same policy, the Roman empire would in all probability have been overthrown by Turkish mamlouks, as that of the caliphs of Bagdat was by following a similar military system at a later period.

The first Turkish empire was not of long duration. The Khazar kingdom, whose relations with the Roman and Persian empires in the hour of their decline give it an important place in history, arose in its western fragments, and inherited a considerable portion of its power and commercial influence. But the Khazars, though called Turks by the Byzantine historians, Nicephorus the patriarch and Theophanes, are supposed by modern scholars to have been a people of mixed race.

There are several points connected with the history of the rise and fall of the first Turkish empire which are interesting, as marking an era in the progress of civilisation. At no previous period in the history of mankind were greater changes made in the commercial, political, and religious ideas of mankind. Religion was then closely connected with political organisation. Christianity was identified with the Roman government; the religion of Zoroaster with Persian domination. The fact that both Christianity and the religion of Zoroaster were declining in the sixth century is unquestionable. Historians have not clearly explained the causes of a revolution so degrading to human nature. In Arabia, in central Asia, and in Spain, an extensive conversion to Judaism heralded the extraordinary rapidity with which the lizard-eaters of Arabia, led by the followers of Mahomet, exterminated the religion of Zoroaster, and converted the majority of the inhabitants of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Africa to Mohammedanism. It is evident that an internal canker in the social condition of the Christians in the Roman empire, and of the inhabitants of Persia, prepared the way for the desolation of many of the richest provinces of the ancient world.

The second Turkish empire was founded by the Seljouks in the eleventh century. Its power grew up on the political decline of the caliphate of Bagdat and of the Byzantine empire. The dominions of the caliphs had been dismembered, and Bagdat itself had been plundered by Turkish mamlouks, before it was conquered by Togrulbeg with his Seljouks. The Byzantine empire, which, by the creation of a systematic and legal administration, had reinvigorated the expiring energies of the eastern Roman empire, had declined into a pure despotism, and the rulers of Constantinople were rapidly devouring the wealth and diminishing the numbers of their subjects by financial oppression. The exploits of Togrulbeg, Alp Arslan, and Malek Shah, may be read in the pages of Gibbon, which have secured them fame wherever English literature is known. Many traces of their handiwork are visible at the present,—monuments of what is called their glory. When they entered the countries between the Persian Gulf, the Caspian, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, they found them filled with cities, which, though declined in splendour and wealth by the loss of their municipal administrations, in consequence of the rapacious centralisation of the Roman, Byzantine, and Mohammedan empires, were nevertheless still well inhabited, and surrounded by a numerous agricultural population. But with the coming of the Seljouks, “the verdure fled the bloody sod.” They were a nomade people, and their armies were composed of nomadic tribes, who drew their supplies from the flocks and herds which moved with them. The inhabitants of cities were their enemies unless they became their tributaries; and in order to preserve a garrison in the countries they conquered, it was necessary for them to exterminate the cultivators of the soil in the richest and most central plains of their dominions. An encampment of tents could only be secure from surprise by being surrounded to the extent of a day’s journey by untilled pastures. Similar desolation has been effected in agricultural countries for ignobler objects. In England the traveller may still see the effects of an arbitrary act of devastation, perpetrated about the same period, by William the Conquerer, in the New Forest; and in wandering through Asia Minor many of our readers have probably passed over districts as fertile as the plains of Poland and Moldavia, on which wheat never grows, but which the page of history informs us were inhabited by an industrious agricultural population, until the towns were destroyed, and the population exterminated, by Kutulmish the lieutenant of Alp Arslan, and Suleiman his son, the lieutenant of Malek Shah. The Seljouk empire was soon divided into the three secondary kingdoms of Roum or Iconium, of Syria, and of Persia. It was subdued and rent into fragments by the successors of Genghis Khan, and in the fourteenth century the Othoman empire arose amidst its dismembered provinces.