Chapter II: Appendix: Criticism on Marriage a-la-Mode 75 (1)

PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND

MR. ANGERSTEIN’S COLLECTION

Oh! Art, lovely Art! ‘Balm of hurt minds, chief nourisher in life’s feast, great Nature’s second 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 plentitude 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, enriched 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 distracted for a moment, but concentrated on a few pictures of first-rate excellence. Many of these _chef-d’œuvres_ 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 admitted freely to a Collection of this sort, where the mind reposes with full confidence in its feelings 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 passions. 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 permanent 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 figures, the folly, the idle fashions without, when compared with the solitude, the silence, the speaking looks, the unfading forms within?—Here is the mind’s true home. The contemplation 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 confusion, 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 tantalise 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 particular 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 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 cannot be multiplied to any extent, like books or prints; but this, in another point of view, operates 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 Collection 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 up in some curious casket, which, by special favour, we had been permitted to open, and peruse (as we must) with unaccustomed relish. The words would in that case leave stings in the mind of the reader, and every letter appear 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 enthusiasm, manifested in the pursuit or the discovery of an old manuscript, that connoisseurs still feel in the purchase and possession of an antique cameo, or a fine specimen of the Italian school of 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 Collection, meet with an old favourite, a _first 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 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 represented 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 capricious blandishments, and wreathed angelic smiles, would hardly have given the same natural unaffected grace, the same perfect womanhood.

There is but one other picture in the Collection, that strikes us, as a matter of taste or fancy, like this; and that is the _Silenus teaching a Young Apollo to play on the pipe_—a small oblong 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 constitutes the charm of the picture, and is indeed divine. The whole figure is full of simple careless grace, laughing 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 admirable?_—we should answer—Both are equally exquisite 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 recommend 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, who, instead of enjoying to the utmost height, would find an unwelcome flaw in either. The _Silenus and Apollo_ has something of a Raffaellesque air, with a mixture of Correggio’s arch sensibility—there is nothing of Titian in the colouring—yet Annibal Caracci 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 compositions, 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 matter 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 anywhere acquainted with. The whole management of the design has a very noble and imposing 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 individual nature, combined with masculine invention, 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 motion 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 scarcely 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_ in design are 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 accustomed 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 cannot 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 buildings 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 (or is suspended in a case) a single head, by Raphael, of Pope Julius II. It is in itself a Collection—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 English countenance, 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 confused impressions of another sense intervened—and you might easily suppose some of the performers to have been engaged the night before in

‘Mask or midnight serenade,
Which the starved lover to his mistress sings,
Best quitted with disdain.’[1]

The ruddy, _bronzed_ colouring of Raphael generally takes off from any appearance of nocturnal 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 conscientious and modest pains, which this great painter bestowed upon his smallest works, we cannot help being struck with the number and magnitude 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 complete it, we wonder how the same painter could find time to execute his Cartoons, the compartments 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 undertook 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, 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 eminence 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 worthy of Carlo Dolce.—Lest we should forget it, we may mention here, that the admired portrait 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 have an air of faded gentility about them. The Govarcius has too many streaks of blood-colour, too many marks of the pencil, to convey an exact idea of Vandyke’s characteristic excellence; though it is a fine imitation of Rubens’s florid manner. Vandyke’s most striking portraits 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 deadened and rendered flat by time or ill-usage. There is a dull, formal appearance, as if the 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 delicate 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 Landscape, 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-natured, remark: but, though we have a great respect for Mr. Angerstein’s taste, we have a greater for Claude Lorraine’s reputation. Let any persons 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_) is prodigious in colouring, in light and shade, in pencilling, in solemn effect; but that is nearly all—

‘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 picture in the first rank of 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 Correggio 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 ingenuity 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 combination displayed in it, supply the want of decorum. The old adage, that ‘Vice, by losing all its grossness, loses half its evil,’ seems chiefly applicable to pictures. Thus a naked figure, that has nothing but its nakedness to recommend it, is not fit to be hung up in decent apartments. If it is a Nymph by Titian, Correggio’s Iö, 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 considerable progress in _virtù_. _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 much of the autumnal tone, the ‘sear and yellow 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,) transparent 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 deserves to be here. Still it is not his best; though there are some very pleasing rustic figures, 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 foreground, 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. Liston’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) something old-womanish about them. By their obsolete and affected air, they remind one of antiquated ladies of quality, and are a kind of Duchess-Dowagers in the art—somewhere between the living and the dead.

Hogarth’s series of the _Marriage a-la-Mode_[2] (the most delicately painted of all his pictures, and admirably they certainly are painted) concludes the _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of this Collection.—A study of Heads, by Correggio, and some of Mr. Fuseli’s stupendous figures from his Milton Gallery, are on the staircase.

A CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES IN THE ANGERSTEIN GALLERY

1. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 1. _Hogarth._

2. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 2. _Ditto._

3. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 3. _Ditto._

4. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 4. _Ditto._

5. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 5. _Ditto._

6. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 6. _Ditto._

7. Portrait of Lord Heathfield, the Defender of _Sir Joshua
Gibraltar. Reynolds._

8. His own Portrait, with his Dog. _Hogarth._

9. The Village Festival. _Wilkie._

10. The Portrait of Rubens. (Formerly in the Collection _Vandyck._
of Sir Joshua Reynolds.)

11. The Woman taken in Adultery. Painted for the _Rembrandt._
Burgomaster Six.

12. A Landscape; Evening; with Horses, Cattle, and _Cuyp._
Figures. (From the Collection of Sir Laurence Dundas.)

13. Christ praying in the Garden. _Correggio._

14. The Adoration of the Shepherds. _Rembrandt._

15. A Land Storm. (From the Lansdown Collection.) _Gaspar
Poussin._

16. Portrait of Pope Julius the Second. (From the _Raphael._
Lancillotti Palace.)

17. The Emperor Theodosius refused admittance into the _Vandyck._
Church by St. Ambrose.

18. A Landscape, with Figures; representing Abraham _Gaspar
preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac. (From the Poussin._
Colonna Palace.)

19. Portrait of Govartius. _Vandyck._

20. Pan teaching Apollo the use of the Pipe. _Annibal
Caracci._

21. A Sea-Port at Sunset, in which is represented the _Claude._
Legend of the Embarkation of St. Ursula. (Formerly in
the Barberini Palace.)

22. Erminia discovering the Shepherds: From Tasso’s _Domenichino._
‘Jerusalem Delivered.’

23. Philip the Fourth and his Queen. _Velasquez._

24. Venus and Adonis. (From the Colonna Palace.) _Titian._

25. St. John in the Wilderness. (From the Orleans _Annibal
Collection.) Caracci._

26. A Landscape, with Figures. _Claude._

27. Christ raising Lazarus. (From the Orleans _Sebastian del
Collection.) Piombo._

28. A Concert. _Titian._

29. An Italian Sea-Port at Sunset, with Figures. _Claude._

30. The Rape of Ganymede. (From the Colonna Palace.) _Titian._

31. A Sea-Port, in which is represented the Embarkation _Claude._
of the Queen of Sheba on her visit to Solomon. (From
the Collection of the Duke de Bouillon.)

32. A Study of Heads. (From the Orleans Collection.) _Correggio._

33. A Study of Heads. (From the same Collection.) _Correggio._

34. The Rape of the Sabine Women. _Rubens._

35. The Holy Family, with St. George, a Female Saint, _Rubens._
and Angels.

36. A Landscape, with Figures; representing the Marriage _Claude._
of Rebecca. (From the Collection of the Duke de
Bouillon.)

37. Susanna and the Elders. (From the Orleans _Ludov.
Collection.) Caracci._

38. A Bacchanalian Scene. _Nich.
Poussin._

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 played within its walls, or stammered out a lesson, 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. Genius is not to be ‘constrained by mastery.’—Nothing comes of these endowments and foundations for learning,—you might as well make dirt-pies, or build houses with cards. Yet something _does_ come of them too—a retreat for 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 slumbers, 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 smiling from him, and sorrow is only a softer kind 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 immortality 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 Criticisms in a LONDON MAGAZINE, as a consummation 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, 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, simple and retired as it stands, just on the verge of the metropolis, and in the midst of modern improvements. There is a chapel, containing a copy of _Raphael’s 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 friends; and he determined, in consequence, upon this singular mode of testifying his gratitude and his respect. Perhaps, also, some such idle thoughts as we have here recorded might have mingled with this resolution. The contemplation 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 pictures are 356 in number, and are hung on the walls of a large gallery, built for the purpose, and divided into five compartments. They certainly looked better in their old places, at the house of Mr. Desenfans (the original collector), where they were distributed into a number of small rooms, and seen separately and close to the eye. They are mostly cabinet-pictures; and not only does the height, at which many of them are necessarily hung to cover a large space, lessen the effect, but the number distracts and deadens the attention. Besides, the skylights 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 forth!
The violet-bed’s not sweeter.’

A fine gallery of pictures is a sort of illustration 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.’ Substances turn to shadows by the painter’s arch-chemic touch; shadows harden into substances. ‘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 deception. 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 are 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, transparent 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 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 Man_, by Rembrandt, which is as smoothly finished 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, overcome with ‘potations pottle deep.’ Brouwer united the depth and richness of Ostade to the spirit and felicity of Teniers. No. 12, _Sleeping 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 bad taste, the other wrong judgment. The grossness of the selection is hardly more offensive than the finicalness of the execution. No. 49, a _Mater Dolorosa_, by Carlo Dolce, is a very good specimen of this master; but the expression 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 principles, 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[bility about it. It] 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. 53, _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 character, 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 Sacchi, is surely by Carlo Maratti, to whom it used to be given. It has great beauty, great elegance, great expression, and great brilliancy of execution; but every thing in it belongs to a more polished style of art than Andrea Sacchi. Be this as it may, it is one of the most perfect pictures 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 Delilah_, 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 indescribable. 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? Vandyke 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 knowledge and character in Wouvermans’ 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 _manège_ 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 Rembrandt, 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, descending 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 obscurity but Rembrandt! Here also is the _St. Barbara_, of Rubens, fleeing from her persecutors; 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 here is an eloquent landscape by the same master-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 interchange) 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 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 chargeable 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, _Fête Champêtre_, and _Le Bal Champêtre_. There is something exceedingly light, agreeable, and characteristic in this artist’s productions. He might almost be said to breathe his figures and his flowers on the canvas—so fragile is their texture, so evanescent is his touch. He unites the court and the country 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 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 Luxembourg! Quaint association, happily effected by the pencil of Watteau! In the _Bal Champêtre_ we see Louis XIV. himself dancing, looking so like an old beau, his face flushed and 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 unpleasant 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 of the childish Prince contrasts delightfully with the unwieldy figure of the horse, which has evidently been brought all the way from the Low Countries for the amusement of his rider. Velasquez 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 people 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 composition. If portrait-painting is the prose of the art, his pictures are the prose of portrait-painting. 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—stamped on his canvass for ever! Who, in 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 bigoted 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 appeared, 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 ornament 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 Bacchus_, by Nicholas Poussin. This picture makes one thirsty to look at it—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 up a vintage—he drinks with his mouth, his hands, his belly, and his whole body. Gargantua 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 imposing 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 imagination. 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 buildings in the distance. The Genius of antiquity might wander here, and feel itself at home.—The large leaves are wet and heavy with dew, and the eye dwells ‘under the shade of melancholy boughs.’ In the old collection (in Mr. Desenfans’ time) the Poussins occupied a separated room by themselves, and it was (we confess) 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 cannot make him amends by fancying him so great a painter as some others, whose fame was not their only inheritance!—227, _Venus and Cupid_, 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 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 exceedingly 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, _Cocles defending the 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 merits are only splendid sins. They are mechanical, 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 Mæcenas, near Tivoli_, by Wilson, with his own portrait in the fore-ground. It is an imperfect sketch; but there is a curious 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—d!’—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 Proserpine_, 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 delightful.—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 entrance-room at Desenfans’, but we cannot say much in its praise here.