THE SLEEPING VENUS.
Quoth he: In all my life till now,
I ne’er saw so profane a show.—BUTLER.
THE library of Crotchet Castle was a large and well-furnished apartment,
opening on one side into an ante-room, on the other into a music-room.
It had several tables stationed at convenient distances; one consecrated
to the novelties of literature, another to the novelties of
embellishment; others unoccupied, and at the disposal of the company.
The walls were covered with a copious collection of ancient and modern
books; the ancient having been selected and arranged by the Reverend
Doctor Folliott. In the ante-room were card-tables; in the music-room
were various instruments, all popular operas, and all fashionable music.
In this suite of apartments, and not in the drawing-room, were the
evenings of Crotchet Castle usually passed.
The young ladies were in the music-room; Miss Crotchet at the piano, Lady
Clarinda at the harp, playing and occasionally singing, at the suggestion
of Mr. Trillo, portions of _Matilde di Shabran_. Lord Bossnowl was
turning over the leaves for Miss Crotchet; the Captain was performing the
same office for Lady Clarinda, but with so much more attention to the
lady than the book, that he often made sad work with the harmony, by
turnover of two leaves together. On these occasions Miss Crotchet paused,
Lady Clarinda laughed, Mr. Trillo scolded, Lord Bossnowl yawned, the
Captain apologised, and the performance proceeded.
In the library Mr. Mac Quedy was expounding political economy to the
Reverend Doctor Folliott, who was _pro more_ demolishing its doctrines
_seriatim_.
Mr. Chainmail was in hot dispute with Mr. Skionar, touching the physical
and moral well-being of man. Mr. Skionar was enforcing his friend Mr.
Shantsee’s views of moral discipline; maintaining that the sole thing
needful for man in this world was loyal and pious education; the giving
men good books to read, and enough of the hornbook to read them; with a
judicious interspersion of the lessons of Old Restraint, which was his
poetic name for the parish stocks. Mr. Chainmail, on the other hand,
stood up for the exclusive necessity of beef and ale, lodging and
raiment, wife and children, courage to fight for them all, and armour
wherewith to do so.
Mr. Henbane had got his face scratched, and his finger bitten, by the
cat, in trying to catch her for a second experiment in killing and
bringing to life; and Doctor Morbific was comforting him with a
disquisition to prove that there were only four animals having the power
to communicate hydrophobia, of which the cat was one; and that it was not
necessary that the animal should be in a rabid state, the nature of the
wound being everything, and the idea of contagion a delusion. Mr.
Henbane was listening very lugubriously to this dissertation.
Mr. Philpot had seized on Mr. Firedamp, and pinned him down to a map of
Africa, on which he was tracing imaginary courses of mighty inland
rivers, terminating in lakes and marshes, where they were finally
evaporated by the heat of the sun; and Mr. Firedamp’s hair was standing
on end at the bare imagination of the mass of malaria that must be
engendered by the operation. Mr. Toogood had begun explaining his
diagrams to Sir Simon Steeltrap; but Sir Simon grew testy, and told Mr.
Toogood that the promulgators of such doctrines ought to be consigned to
the treadmill. The philanthropist walked off from the country gentleman,
and proceeded to hold forth to young Crotchet, who stood silent, as one
who listens, but in reality without hearing a syllable. Mr. Crotchet,
senior, as the master of the house, was left to entertain himself with
his own meditations, till the Reverend Doctor Folliott tore himself from
Mr. Mac Quedy, and proceeded to expostulate with Mr. Crotchet on a
delicate topic.
There was an Italian painter, who obtained the name of _Il Bragatore_, by
the superinduction of inexpressibles on the naked Apollos and Bacchuses
of his betters. The fame of this worthy remained one and indivisible,
till a set of heads, which had been, by a too common mistake of Nature’s
journeymen, stuck upon magisterial shoulders, as the Corinthian capitals
of “fair round bellies with fat capon lined,” but which Nature herself
had intended for the noddles of porcelain mandarins, promulgated
simultaneously from the east and the west of London, an order that no
plaster-of-Paris Venus should appear in the streets without petticoats.
Mr. Crotchet, on reading this order in the evening paper, which, by the
postman’s early arrival, was always laid on his breakfast-table,
determined to fill his house with Venuses of all sizes and kinds. In
pursuance of this resolution, came packages by water-carriage, containing
an infinite variety of Venuses. There were the Medicean Venus, and the
Bathing Venus; the Uranian Venus, and the Pandemian Venus; the Crouching
Venus, and the Sleeping Venus; the Venus rising from the sea, the Venus
with the apple of Paris, and the Venus with the armour of Mars.
The Reverend Doctor Folliott had been very much astonished at this
unexpected display. Disposed, as he was, to hold, that whatever had been
in Greece, was right; he was more than doubtful of the propriety of
throwing open the classical _adytum_ to the illiterate profane. Whether,
in his interior mind, he was at all influenced, either by the
consideration that it would be for the credit of his cloth, with some of
his vice-suppressing neighbours, to be able to say that he had
expostulated; or by curiosity, to try what sort of defence his city-bred
friend, who knew the classics only by translations, and whose reason was
always a little ahead of his knowledge, would make for his somewhat
ostentatious display of liberality in matters of taste; is a question on
which the learned may differ: but, after having duly deliberated on two
full-sized casts of the Uranian and Pandemian Venus, in niches on each
side of the chimney, and on three alabaster figures, in glass cases, on
the mantelpiece, he proceeded, peirastically, to open his fire.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—These little alabaster figures on the
mantelpiece, Mr. Crotchet, and those large figures in the niches—may I
take the liberty to ask you what they are intended to represent?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Venus, sir; nothing more, sir; just Venus.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—May I ask you, sir, why they are there?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—To be looked at, sir; just to be looked at: the reasons
for most things in a gentleman’s house being in it at all; from the paper
on the walls, and the drapery of the curtains, even to the books in the
library, of which the most essential part is the appearance of the back.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Very true, sir. As great philosophers hold that
the _esse_ of things is _percipi_, so a gentleman’s furniture exists to
be looked at. Nevertheless, sir, there are some things more fit to be
looked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be
looked at than the outside of a book. It is, as I may say, from repeated
experience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying
before you, and to know that you may open it if you please, and need not
open it unless you please. It is a resource against _ennui_, if _ennui_
should come upon you. To have the resource and not to feel the _ennui_,
to enjoy your bottle in the present, and your book in the indefinite
future, is a delightful condition of human existence. There is no place,
in which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be
otherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle. Touching this matter,
there cannot, I think, be two opinions. But with respect to your Venuses
there can be, and indeed there are, two very distinct opinions. Now,
Sir, that little figure in the centre of the mantelpiece—as a grave
_paterfamilias_, Mr. Crotchet, with a fair nubile daughter, whose eyes
are like the fish-pools of Heshbon—I would ask you if you hold that
figure to be altogether delicate?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—The sleeping Venus, sir? Nothing can be more delicate
than the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the
shoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers. It is altogether a
most delicate morsel.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Why, in that sense, perhaps, it is as delicate
as whitebait in July. But the attitude, sir, the attitude.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Nothing can be more natural, sir.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—That is the very thing, sir. It is too natural:
too natural, sir: it lies for all the world like— I make no doubt, the
pious cheesemonger, who recently broke its plaster facsimile over the
head of the itinerant vendor, was struck by a certain similitude to the
position of his own sleeping beauty, and felt his noble wrath thereby
justly aroused.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Very likely, sir. In my opinion, the cheesemonger was a
fool, and the justice who sided with him was a greater.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Fool, sir, is a harsh term: call not thy brother
a fool.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, neither the cheesemonger nor the justice is a
brother of mine.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, we are all brethren.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Yes, sir, as the hangman is of the thief; the squire of
the poacher; the judge of the libeller; the lawyer of his client; the
statesman of his colleague; the bubble-blower of the bubble-buyer; the
slave-driver of the negro; as these are brethren, so am I and the
worthies in question.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—To be sure, sir, in these instances, and in many
others, the term brother must be taken in its utmost latitude of
interpretation: we are all brothers, nevertheless. But to return to the
point. Now these two large figures, one with drapery on the lower half
of the body, and the other with no drapery at all; upon my word, sir, it
matters not what godfathers and godmothers may have promised and vowed
for the children of this world, touching the devil and other things to be
renounced, if such figures as those are to be put before their eyes.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, the naked figure is the Pandemian Venus, and the
half-draped figure is the Uranian Venus; and I say, sir, that figure
realises the finest imaginings of Plato, and is the personification of
the most refined and exalted feeling of which the human mind is
susceptible; the love of pure, ideal, intellectual beauty.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I am aware, sir, that Plato, in his Symposium,
discourseth very eloquently touching the Uranian and Pandemian Venus: but
you must remember that, in our universities, Plato is held to be little
better than a misleader of youth; and they have shown their contempt for
him, not only by never reading him (a mode of contempt in which they deal
very largely), but even by never printing a complete edition of him;
although they have printed many ancient books, which nobody suspects to
have been ever read on the spot, except by a person attached to the
press, who is, therefore, emphatically called “the reader.”
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Well, sir?
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Why, sir, to “the reader” aforesaid (supposing
either of our universities to have printed an edition of Plato), or to
any one else who can be supposed to have read Plato, or, indeed, to be
ever likely to do so, I would very willingly show these figures; because
to such they would, I grant you, be the outward and visible signs of
poetical and philosophical ideas: but, to the multitude, the gross,
carnal multitude, they are but two beautiful women, one half undressed,
and the other quite so.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Then, sir, let the multitude look upon them and learn
modesty.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I must say that, if I wished my footman to learn
modesty, I should not dream of sending him to school to a naked Venus.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, ancient sculpture is the true school of modesty.
But where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we
have cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had
anything that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but
cant, cant, cant. And, sir, to show my contempt for cant in all its
shapes, I have adorned my house with the Greek Venus, in all her shapes,
and am ready to fight her battle against all the societies that ever were
instituted for the suppression of truth and beauty.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—My dear sir, I am afraid you are growing warm.
Pray be cool. Nothing contributes so much to good digestion as to be
perfectly cool after dinner.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, the Lacedæmonian virgins wrestled naked with young
men; and they grew up, as the wise Lycurgus had foreseen, into the most
modest of women, and the most exemplary of wives and mothers.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Very likely, sir; but the Athenian virgins did
no such thing, and they grew up into wives who stayed at home—stayed at
home, sir; and looked after their husbands’ dinner—his dinner, sir, you
will please to observe.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—And what was the consequence of that, sir? that they were
such very insipid persons that the husband would not go home to eat his
dinner, but preferred the company of some Aspasia, or Lais.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Two very different persons, sir, give me leave
to remark.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Very likely, sir; but both too good to be married in
Athens.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, Lais was a Corinthian.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Od’s vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and any other Athenian
name of the same sort of person you like—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I do not like the sort of person at all: the
sort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who
stays at home and looks after her husband’s dinner.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians. They
preferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about
sitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in
Italy did to Canova; one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an
English lady, “how she could bear it?” answered, “Very well; there was a
good fire in the room.”
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, the English lady should have asked how the
Italian lady’s husband could bear it. The phials of my wrath would
overflow if poor dear Mrs. Folliott —: sir, in return for your story, I
will tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott. The devil
haunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful
damsel; but all he could get from the exemplary Gilbert was an admonition
to wear a stomacher and longer petticoats.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Sir, your story makes for my side of the question. It
proves that the devil, in the likeness of a fair damsel, with short
petticoats and no stomacher, was almost too much for Gilbert Folliott.
The force of the spell was in the drapery.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Bless my soul, sir!
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Give me leave, sir. Diderot—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Who was he, sir?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Who was he, sir? the sublime philosopher, the father of
the Encyclopædia, of all the encyclopædias that have ever been printed.
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Bless me, sir, a terrible progeny: they belong
to the tribe of Incubi.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—The great philosopher, Diderot—
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, Diderot is not a man after my heart. Keep
to the Greeks, if you please; albeit this Sleeping Venus is not an
antique.
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Well, sir, the Greeks: why do we call the Elgin marbles
inestimable? Simply because they are true to nature. And why are they
so superior in that point to all modern works, with all our greater
knowledge of anatomy? Why, sir, but because the Greeks, having no cant,
had better opportunities of studying models?
_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—Sir, I deny our greater knowledge of anatomy.
But I shall take the liberty to employ, on this occasion, the _argumentum
ad hominem_. Would you have allowed Miss Crotchet to sit for a model to
Canova?
_Mr. Crotchet_.—Yes, sir.
“God bless my soul, sir!” exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott,
throwing himself back into a chair, and flinging up his heels, with the
premeditated design of giving emphasis to his exclamation; but by
miscalculating his impetus, he overbalanced his chair, and laid himself
on the carpet in a right angle, of which his back was the base.