Your reason for liking your Paul Veronese (what an impudence to talk so
to a man who has just purchased a real Titian!) does not quite disprove
my theory. You like the picture because you like the verses you once
made upon it: you associate the picture (naturally enough) with them: and
so shall I in future, because I like the verses too. But then you ask
further, what made you write the verses if you were not moved by the
picture imprimis? Why you know the poetic faculty does wonders, as
Shakespeare tells us, in imagining the forms of things unseen, etc., and
so you made a merit where there was none: and have liked that merit ever
since. But I will not disturb you any further in your enjoyment: if you
have a vision of your own, why should I undo it?
Yesterday I was busily employed in painting over my Opie, which had
suffered by heat, or something of that kind. I borrowed Laurence's
palette and brushes and lay upon the floor two hours patching over and
renovating. The picture is really greatly improved, and I am more
reconciled to it. It has now to be varnished: and then I hope some fool
will be surprised into giving 4 pounds for it, as I did. I have selected
an advantageous position for it in a dealer's shop, just under a rich
window that excludes the light.
On second thoughts I shall not send you down my Twilight: but bring it
with me. I like it much, and do not repent the purchase. As to the
difficulty of bringing down so many pictures, I shall travel by the
steamer; which will bear any quantity. The great new purchase, spoken of
in yesterday's letter, will also go with me: it will be insured at a high
valuation before it is entrusted to the Deep, of whose treasures I don't
at all wish it to become one. My Titian is a great hit: if not by him,
it is as near him as ever was painted. But you would not care six straws
for it. The history of the finest theory of colouring lies in those few
inches of canvas. But Laurence (who has gone for some days into the
country) must see it, and tell me about it. He is so good a judge, that
I ought never to talk till I have first heard his verdict.
I was amused at a passage in Clarissa the other day, which gives one some
idea of what the average state of the arts was among the gentry of a
hundred years ago. Miss Howe, in drawing up a character of her lost
Clarissa, says that among other things she had a fine taste for the
Pencil: had not time to practise it much, but 'was an absolute mistress
of the "should be,"' and then proceeds thus: 'To give a familiar instance
for the sake of young Ladies: she (untaught) observed _when but a child_,
that the Sun, Moon, and Stars, never appeared at once: and were therefore
never to be in one piece: that bears, tygers, lions, were not natives of
an English climate, and should not therefore have a place in an English
landscape: that these ravagers of the forest consorted not with lambs,
kids, or fawns: nor kites, hawks, or vultures, with doves, partridges,
and pheasants.' Such was a prodigy in those days. It is easy to sneer
at this passage: but whoever has read anything of the Masques, etc., of
James's time, will readily recall what absurdities were brought together,
even by the good Scholars of the day: and therefore will not wonder at
the imperfect Natural History that was found in young Ladies' Drawings,
and samplers. I remember now to have seen wonderful combinations of
phenomena in those samplers which are occasionally to be found hung up in
the parlours of Country Inns, and Farm houses.
These letters succeed like the ghosts of Banquo's progeny before the eyes
of Macbeth. Lucky that time itself draws on too close for this letter to
'hold a glass that shews you many more.' You did not answer my question
about the Gainsboroughs. So I won't ask you another.