It is a poor compliment to pay to a painter to tell him that his figure
stands out of the canvass, or that you start at the likeness of the
portrait. Take almost any daub, cut it out of the canvass, and place the
figure looking into or out of a window, and any one may take it for life.
Or take one of Mrs. Salmon's wax queens or generals, and you will very
sensibly feel the difference between a copy, as they are, and an imitation,
of the human form, as a good portrait ought to be. Look at that flower vase
of Van Huysum, and at these wax or stone peaches and apricots! The last are
likest to their original, but what pleasure do they give? None, except to
children.[1]
Some music is above me; most music is beneath me. I like Beethoven and
Mozart--or else some of the aërial compositions of the elder Italians, as
Palestrina[2] and Carissimi.--And I love Purcell.
The best sort of music is what it should be--sacred; the next best, the
military, has fallen to the lot of the Devil.
Good music never tires me, nor sends me to sleep. I feel physically
refreshed and strengthened by it, as Milton says he did.
I could write as good verses now as ever I did, if I were perfectly free
from vexations, and were in the _ad libitum_ hearing of fine music, which
has a sensible effect in harmonizing my thoughts, and in animating and, as
it were, lubricating my inventive faculty. The reason of my not finishing
Christabel is not, that I don't know how to do it--for I have, as I always
had, the whole plan entire from beginning to end in my mind; but I fear I
could not carry on with equal success the execution of the idea, an
extremely subtle and difficult one.
Besides, after this continuation of Faust, which they tell me is very poor,
who can have courage to attempt[3] a reversal of the judgment of all
criticism against continuations? Let us except Don Quixote, however,
although the second part of that transcendant work is not exactly _uno
flatu_ with the original conception.
[Footnote 1:
This passage, and those following, will evidence, what the readers even of
this little work must have seen, that Mr. Coleridge had an eye, almost
exclusively, for the ideal or universal in painting and music. He knew
nothing of the details of handling in the one, or of rules of composition
in the other. Yet he was, to the best of my knowledge, an unerring judge of
the merits of any serious effort in the fine arts, and detected the leading
thought or feeling of the artist, with a decision which used sometimes to
astonish me. Every picture which I have looked at in company with him,
seems now, to my mind, translated into English. He would sometimes say,
after looking for a minute at a picture, generally a modern one, "There's
no use in stopping at this; for I see the painter had no idea. It is mere
mechanical drawing. Come on; _here_ the artist _meant_ something for the
mind." It was just the same with his knowledge of music. His appetite for
what he thought good was literally inexhaustible. He told me he could
listen to fine music for twelve hours together, and go away _refreshed_.
But he required in music either thought or feeling; mere addresses to the
sensual ear he could not away with; hence his utter distaste for Rossini,
and his reverence for Beethoven and Mozart--ED.]
[Footnote 2:
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born about 1529, and died in 1594. I
believe he may be considered the founder or reformer of the Italian church
music. His masses, motets, and hymns are tolerably well known amongst
lovers of the old composers; but Mr. Coleridge used to speak with delight
of some of Palestrina's madrigals which he heard at Rome.
Giacomo Carissimi composed about the years 1640--1650. His style has been
charged with effeminacy; but Mr. C. thought it very graceful and chaste.
Henry Purcell needs no addition in England.--ED.]
[Footnote 3:
"The thing attempted in Christabel is the most difficult of execution in
the whole field of romance--witchery by daylight--and the success is
complete."--_Quarterly Review_, No. CIII. p. 29.]
_July 8. 1833._