And surely if the empire of Rome is actually fled away into air like a
dream, the opulence of Antwerp may well crumble to earth like a clod.
What defies time is genius; and of that, many and glorious proofs are yet
left behind in this place. The composition of a picture painted to adorn
the altar under which lies buried that which was mortal of its artist, is
beyond all meaner praise. The figure of St. George might stand by that
of Corregio, and suffer no diminution of one’s esteem. The descent from
the cross too!--Well! if Daniel de Volterra’s is more elegantly pathetic,
Rubens has put _his_ pathos in a properer place.--The blessed Virgin Mary
ought to be but the second figure certainly in a scene which represents
our almighty Saviour himself completing the redemption of all mankind.
But here is another devotional piece, highly poetical, almost dramatic,
representing Christ descending in anger to consume a guilty world. The
globe at a distance low beneath his feet, his pious mother prostrate
before him, covering part of it with her robe, and deprecating the divine
wrath in a most touching manner. St. Sebastian shewing his wounds with an
air of the tenderest supplication; Carlo Borromæo beseeching in heaven
for those fellow-creatures he ceased not loving or serving while on
earth; and St. Francis in the groupe, but surely ill-chosen; as he who
left the world, and planned only his own salvation by retirement from its
cares and temptations, would be unlikely enough to intreat for its longer
continuance: his dress however, so favourable to painters, was the reason
he was pitched upon I trust, as it affords a particularly happy contrast
to the cardinal’s robes of St. Carlo.
I will finish my reflections upon painting here, and apologize for
their frequency only by confessing my fondness for the art; and my
conviction, that had I said nothing of that art in a journey through
Italy and Germany, where so much of every traveller’s attention is led
to mention it, I should have been justly blamed for affectation; while
being censured for impertinence disgusts me less of the two. What I have
learned from the Italians is a maxim more valuable than all my stock of
connoisseurship: _Che c’è in tutto il suo bene, e il suo male_--that
_there is much of evil and of good in every thing_: and the life of a
traveller evinces the truth of that position perhaps more than any
other. So persuaded, we made a bold endeavour to cross the Scheld; but
the wind was so outrageously high, no boat was willing to venture till
towards night: at that hour “_Unus, et hic audax_[55],” as Leander says,
offered his service to convey us; but the passage of the Rhine had been
so rough before, that I felt by no means disposed to face danger again
just at the close of the battle.
When we find a disposition to talk over our adventures, the great ice
islands driving down _Rhenus ferox_, as Seneca justly calls it, and
threatening to run against and destroy our awkward ill-contrived boat,
may divert care over a winter’s fire, some evening in England, by
recollection of past perils. I thought it a dreadful one at the time; and
have no taste to renew a like scene for the sake of crossing the Scheld,
and arriving a very few moments sooner than returning through Brussels
will bring us--_a la Place de_