Produced by Brendan OConnor, Stephanie Eason, Jonathan
Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
Journals.)
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLX. OCTOBER, 1845. Vol. LVIII.
CONTENTS.
Montesquieu, 389
A Reminiscence of Boyhood. By Delta, 408
De Burtin on Pictures, 413
Manner and Matter, 431
Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman. Conclusion. 439
How we Got Up the Glenmutchkin Railway, 453
The Science of Languages. Kavanagh, 467
Scrambles in Monmouthshire, 474
Neapolitan Sketches, 486
A Meditation, 494
On the Old Year, 495
Corali, _ib._
Biographical Sketch of Frank Abney Hastings, 496
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed_.
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCLX. OCTOBER, 1845. Vol. LVIII.
MONTESQUIEU.
Montesquieu is beyond all doubt the founder of the philosophy of
history. In many of its most important branches, he has carried it to
a degree of perfection which has never since been surpassed. He first
looked on human affairs with the eye of philosophic observation; he
first sought to discover the lasting causes which influence the fate
of mankind; he first traced the general laws which in every age
determine the rise or decline of nations. Some of his conclusions were
hasty; many of his analogies fanciful; but he first turned the human
mind in that direction. It is by repeatedly deviating into error that
it can alone be discovered where truth really lies: there is an
alchemy in the moral, not less than in the material world, in which a
vast amount of genius must be lost before it is discovered that it has
taken the wrong direction. But in Montesquieu, besides such occasional
and unavoidable aberrations, there is an invaluable treasure of
profound views and original thought--of luminous observation and deep
reflection--of philosophic observation and just generalization. His
fame has been long established; it has become European; his sayings
are quoted and repeated from one end of the world to the other; but to
the greater part of English readers, his greatness is known rather
from the distant echo of continental fame, than from any practical
acquaintance with the writings from which it has arisen.
Though Montesquieu, however, is the father of the philosophy of
history, it is due to Tacitus and Machiavel to say, that he is not the
author of political thought. In the first of these writers is to be
found the most profound observations on the working of the human mind,
whether in individuals or bodies of men, that ever were formed by
human sagacity: in the latter, a series of remarks on Roman history,
and the corresponding events in the republics of modern Italy, which,
in point of deep political wisdom and penetration, never were
surpassed. Lord Bacon, too, had in his Essays put forth may maxims of
political truth, with that profound sagacity and unerring wisdom by
which his thoughts were so preeminently distinguished. But still these
men, great as they were, and much as they added to the materials of
the philosophy of history, can hardly be said to have mastered that
philosophy itself. It was not their object to do so; it did not belong
to the age in which they lived to make any such attempt. They gave
incomparable observations upon detached points in human annals, but
they did not take a general view of their tendency. They did not
consider whence the world had come, or whither it was going. They
formed no connected system in regard to the march of human events.
They saw clearly the effects of particular measures or systems of
government at the time, but they did not reflect on the chain of
causes which first raised up, and afterwards undermined it. Aristotle,
the most powerful intellect of the ancient world, was of the same
calibre as a political observer. He considered only the effects of the
various forms of government which he saw established around him. In
that survey he was admirable, but he never went beyond it. Bossuet's
_Universal History_ is little more than a history of the Jews; he
refers every thing to the direct and immediate agency of Providence,
irrespective of the freedom of the human will. Montesquieu first fixed
his eyes upon the rise, progress, and decay of nations, as worked out
by the actions of free agents. The _Grandeur et Decadence des Romains_
is as original as the _Principia_, and laid the foundation of a
science as sublime, and perhaps still more important to man than the
laws of the planetary bodies.
Charles Secondat, Baron de la Brede and Montesquieu, was born at the
chateau of La Brede, near Bourdeaux, on the 18th January 1689. The
estate of La Brede had been long in his family, which was a very
ancient one; it had been erected into a barony in favour of Jacob de
Secondat, his great-great-grandfather, by Henry IV. The office of
President of the Parliament (or Local Court of Justice) of Bourdeaux,
had been acquired by his family in consequence of the marriage of his
father with the daughter of the first president of that tribunal. From
his earliest years young Montesquieu evinced remarkable readiness and
vivacity of mind; a circumstance which determined his father to breed
him up to the "magistracy," as it was termed in France--a profession
midway, as it were, between the career of arms peculiar to the noble,
and the labours of the bar confined to persons of plebeian origin, and
from which many of the greatest men, and nearly all the distinguished
statesmen of France took their rise. Montesquieu entered with the
characteristic ardour of his disposition into the studies suited for
that destination; and at the age of twenty he had already collected
the materials of the _Esprit des Loix_, and evinced the characteristic
turn of his mind for generalization, by an immense digest which he had
made of the civil law. But these dry, though important studies, did
not exclusively occupy his mind; he carried on, at the same time, a
great variety of other pursuits. Like all men of an active and
intellectual turn of mind, his recreation was found not in repose, but
in change of occupation. Books of voyages and travels were collected,
and read with avidity; he devoured rather than read the classical
remains of Greece and Rome. "That antiquity," said he, "enchants me,
and I am always ready to say with Pliny--You are going to Athens; show
respect to the gods."
It was under this feeling of devout gratitude to the master minds of
the ancient world, that he made his first essay in literature, which
came out in a small work in the form of letters, the object of which
was to show, that the idolatry of most Pagans did of itself not merit
eternal damnation. Probably there are few good Christians, from
Fenelon and Tillotson downwards, who will be of an opposite opinion.
Even in that juvenile production are to be found traces of the sound
judgment, correct taste, and general thought which characterised his
later works. But he was soon thrown into the proper labours of his
profession. On the 24th February 1714, he was admitted into the
parliament of Bourdeaux as a councillor; and his paternal uncle, who
held the president's chair, having died two years after, young
Montesquieu was, on the 13th July 1716, appointed to that important
office, though only twenty-seven years of age. Probably his being
thrown thus early in life into the discharge of onerous and important
duties, had an important effect in producing that firmness and
maturity of judgment by which his mind was subsequently distinguished.
Some years afterwards, he gave a convincing proof of his fitness for
the situation, in the vigour with which he remonstrated against the
imposition of a fresh tax on wine, which had the effect of procuring
its removal at the time, though the necessities of government led to
its being reimposed some years after. But his ardent mind was not
confined to professional pursuits. He concurred in the formation of an
academy of sciences at Bourdeaux, and read some papers in it on
natural history; and his attention being in this way turned to
physical science, he wrote and published in the journals, a project
for a "Physical History of the Earth, Ancient and Modern."
But in no human being was more completely exemplified the famous
line--
"The proper study of mankind is man."
Montesquieu's genius was essentially moral and political; it was on
man himself, not the material world with which he was surrounded, that
his thoughts were fixed. This strong bent soon appeared in his
writings. He next read at the academy at Bourdeaux, a "Life of the
Duke of Berwick," and an "Essay on the Policy of the Romans in
Religion," which was the basis of the immortal work which he
afterwards composed on the rise and fall of that extraordinary people.
These desultory essays gave no indication of the first considerable
work which he published, which was the famous _Lettres Persanes_. They
appeared in 1721, when he was thirty-two years of age. Their success
was immediate and prodigious; a certain indication in matters of
thought, that they were not destined to durable fame. They fell in
with the ideas and passions of the time; they were not before it;
thence their early popularity and ultimate oblivion. The work was
published anonymously; for the keen but delicate satire on French
manners and vices which it contained, might have endangered the
author, and as it was he had no small difficulty, when it was known he
was the writer, in escaping from its effects. It consists in a series
of letters from an imaginary character, Usbeck, a Persian traveller,
detailing the vices, manners, and customs of the French metropolis.
The ingenuity, sarcasm, and truth, which that once celebrated
production contains, must not make us shut our eyes to its glaring
defects; the vices of the age, as they mainly contributed to its early
popularity, have been the chief cause of its subsequent decline. It
contains many passages improperly warm and voluptuous, and some which,
under the mask of attacks on the Jesuits, had the appearance, at
least, of being levelled at religion itself. No work, at that period,
could attract attention in France which was not disfigured by these
blemishes. Even the great mind of Montesquieu, in its first essay
before the public, did not escape the contagion of the age.
But, erelong, the genius of this profound thinker was devoted to more
congenial and worthy objects. In 1726, he sold his office of president
of the parliament of Bourdeaux, partly in order to escape from the
toils of legal pursuit and judicial business, which, in that
mercantile and rising community, was attended with great labour;
partly in order to be enabled to travel, and study the institutions
and character of different nations--a pursuit of which he was
passionately fond, and which, without doubt, had a powerful effect in
giving him that vast command of detached facts in political science,
and that liberal view of institutions, habits, and manners, differing
in some degree from his own, by which his philosophical writings are
so eminently distinguished. Here, as in the biography of almost all
other really great men, it is found, that some circumstances
apparently trivial or accidental have given a permanent bent to their
mind; have stored it with the appropriate knowledge, and turned it, as
it were, into the allotted sphere, and contributed to form the
_matrix_ in which original thought was formed, and new truth
communicated by Providence to mankind. In the course of his travels,
which lasted several years, he visited successively Austria, Hungary,
Italy, Switzerland, the Rhine, Flanders, Holland, and England--in the
latter of which he lived two years. During these varied travels, he
made notes on all the countries which he visited, which contributed
largely to the great stock of political information which he
possessed. These notes are still extant; but, unfortunately, not in
such a state of maturity as to admit of publication.
On his return to France, which took place in 1732, he retired to his
native chateau of La Brede, and commenced in good earnest the great
business of his life. The fruit of his studies and reflections
appeared in the _Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de
la Decadence des Romains_, which was published in 1732. Great and
original as this work--the most perfect of all his compositions--was,
it did not give vent to the whole ideas which filled his capacious
mind. Rome, great as it was, was but a single state; it was the
comparison with other states, the development of the general
principles which run through the jurisprudence and institutions of all
nations, which occupied his thoughts. The success which attended his
essay on the institutions and progress of a single people, encouraged
him to enlarge his views and extend his labours. He came to embrace
the whole known world, civilized and uncivilized, in his plan; and
after fourteen years of assiduous labours and toil, the immortal
"Spirit of Laws" appeared.
The history of Montesquieu's mind, during the progress of this great
work, is singularly curious and interesting. At times he wrote to his
friends that his great work advanced "a pas de geant;" at others, he
was depressed by the slow progress which it made, and overwhelmed by
the prodigious mass of materials which required to be worked into its
composition. So distrustful was he of its success, even after the vast
labour he had employed in its composition, that he sent his manuscript
before publication to a friend on whose judgment he could
rely--Helvetius. That friend, notwithstanding all his penetration, was
so mistaken in his reckoning, that he conceived the most serious
disquietude as to the ruin of Montesquieu's reputation by the
publication of such a work. Such was his alarm that he did not venture
to write to the author on the subject, but gave the manuscript to
another critic, Saurin, the author of a work entitled _Spartacus_,
long since extinct, who passed the same judgment upon it. Both
concurred in thinking that the reputation of Montesquieu would be
entirely ruined by the publication of the new manuscript; the
brilliant author of the semi-voluptuous, semi-infidel _Lettres
Persanes_, would sink into a mere Legist, a dull commentator on
pandects and statutes, if he published the _Esprit des Loix_, "That,"
said Helvetius, "is what afflicts me for him, and for humanity, which
he was so well qualified to have served." It was agreed between them
that Helvetius should write to Montesquieu to give him an account of
their joint opinion, that he should not give the work to the world in
its present state. Saurin, with some reason, was afraid that
Montesquieu would be hurt at their communication; but Helvetius wrote
to him--"Be not uneasy; he is not hurt at our advice; he loves
frankness in his friends. He is willing to bear with discussions, but
answers only by sallies, and rarely changes his opinions. I have not
given him ours from any idea that he would either change his conduct
or modify his preconceived ideas, but from a sense of the duty of
sincerity cost what it will, with friends. When the light of truth
shall have dispelled the illusions of self-love, he will at least not
be able to reproach us with having been less indulgent than the
public."
Montesquieu, however, was not discouraged. He sent his manuscript to
the press with hardly any alteration, and took for his motto, _Prolem
sine matre creatam_;[1] in allusion to the originality of his
conception, and the total want of any previous model on which it had
been formed. The work appeared in the month of July 1748; and its
success, so far as the sale went, was prodigious. Before two years had
elapsed, it had gone through twenty-two editions, and been translated
into most of the European languages. This early success, rare in works
of profound and original thought, showed, that though it was in
advance of the age, it was but a little in advance; and that it had
struck a key which was ready to vibrate in the national mind. Like all
distinguished works, if it was much read and admired by some, it was
as keenly criticized and cut to pieces by others. Madame de Deffand
said it was not the _Esprit des Loix_ he had written, but _Esprit sur
les Loix_. This expression made a great noise; it had a certain degree
of truth, just enough, when coupled with epigrammatic brevity, to
make the fortune of the sayer. Encouraged by its success, the enemies
of original genius, ever ready to assail it, united their forces, and
Montesquieu was soon the object of repeated and envenomed attacks. It
was said, that to establish certain favourite theories, he availed
himself of the testimony of travellers obscure and of doubtful credit;
that he leapt too rapidly from particulars to general conclusions;
that he ascribed to the influence of climate and physical laws what
was in fact the result of moral or political causes; that he had split
the same subject into small chapters, so confusedly arranged that
there was no order or system in the work; that it was still
incomplete, and wanted the master-hand which was to put it together;
and that it resembled the detached pieces of a mosaic pavement, each
of which is fair or brilliant in itself, but which have no meaning or
expression till disposed by the taste and skill of the artist. There
was some truth in all these criticisms; it is rare that it is
otherwise with the reproaches made against a work of original thought.
Envy generally discovers a blot to hit. Malignity is seldom at a loss
for some blemish to point out. It is by exaggerating slight defects,
and preserving silence on great merits, that literary jealousy ever
tries to work out its wretched spite. The wisdom of an author is not
to resent or overlook, but in silence to profit by such sallies;
converting thus the industry and envy of his enemies into a source of
advantage to himself.
Montesquieu, in pursuance of these principles, passed over in silence
the malignant attacks of a herd of critics, whose works are now buried
in the charnel-house of time, but who strove with all the fury of envy
and disappointment to extinguish his rising fame. When pressed by some
of his friends to answer some of these attacks, he replied--"It is
unnecessary; I am sufficiently avenged on some by the neglect of the
public, on others by its indignation." The only instance in which he
deviated from this wise resolution was in replying to the attacks of
an anonymous critic, who, in a Journal entitled the _Nouvelles
Ecclesiastiques_, had represented him as an atheist. In his _Lettres
Persanes_, though he had never assailed the great principles of his
religion, he had, in his sallies against the Jesuits, gone far to
warrant the belief that he was inclined to do so; and had already done
enough in the estimation of the tyrannical and bigoted ecclesiastics
who at that period ruled the Church of France, to warrant his being
included in the class of infidel writers. But his mind, chastened by
years, enlightened by travelling and reflection, had come to cast off
these prejudices of his age and country, the necessary result of the
Romish tyranny by which it had been oppressed, but unworthy of an
intellect of such grasp and candour. In the Protestant countries of
Europe, particularly Holland and England, he had seen the working of
Christianity detached from the rigid despotism by which the Church of
Rome fetters belief, and the well-conceived appliances by which it
stimulates imagination, and opens a refuge for frailty. Impressed with
the new ideas thus awakened in his mind, he had in his _Esprit des
Loix_ pronounced a studious and sincere eulogium on Christianity;
recommending it, not only as the most perfect of all systems of
religious belief, but as the only secure basis of social order and
improvement. It was material to correct the impression, partly just,
partly erroneous, which his earlier and more indiscreet writings had
produced; and with this view he wrote and published his _Defence de l'
Esprit des Loix_. This little piece is a model of just and candid
reasoning, accompanied with a refined and delicate vein of ridicule,
which disarmed opposition without giving ground for resentment. He
congratulated himself on the fine satire with which he had overthrown
his enemies.--"What pleases me in my Defence, is not so much," said
he, "to have floored the Ecclesiastics, as to have let them fall so
gently." Posterity will find a more valuable charm in this little
production; it is, that the author in it has unconsciously painted
himself. His contemporaries have recorded, that in reading it they
could believe they heard the writer speak; and this proves that his
talents in conversation had been equal to those he displayed in
writing--a combination very rare in persons of the highest class in
literature.
The fame of Montesquieu, great as it was in his own country, was even
greater in foreign ones. In Great Britain in particular, the _Esprit
des Loix_ early acquired a prodigious reputation. It was read and
admired by all persons of thought and education. This was partly the
consequence of England being so much in advance of France in the
career of liberty--alike in matters civil and ecclesiastical. The new
ideas, hardy thoughts, and original conceptions of the great work met
with a ready reception, and cordial admiration, in the land of freedom
and the Reformation--in the country where meditation had so long been
turned to political subjects, contemplation to religious truth. But
another cause of lasting influence also contributed to the same
effect. Original genius is ever more readily and willingly admired in
foreign states than its own: a prophet has no honour in his own
country. He interferes too much with existing influences or
reputations. To foreigners, he is more remote--more like a dead man.
Human vanity is less hurt by his elevation.
The latter years of Montesquieu's life were spent almost entirely in
retirement at his paternal chateau of La Brede, varied occasionally by
visits to the great world at Paris. He was occupied in agriculture and
gardening--tenacious of his seignorial rights, but indulgent to the
last degree to his tenantry, by whom he was adored. Never was
exemplified in a more remarkable manner the soothing influence of the
recollections of a well-spent life on the felicity of its later years,
or the fountains of happiness which may be opened in the breast itself
from the calm serenity of conscious power and great achievement. He
conversed much, with the farmers and peasants on his estate, whose
houses he frequently entered, and whose convivialities, on occasion of
a marriage or a birth, he seldom failed to attend. He often preferred
their conversation to that of persons their superiors in rank or
information--"for," said he, "they are not learned enough to enter
into argument; they only tell you what they know, which frequently you
do not know yourself." Though he lived with the great when in Paris,
partly from necessity, partly from inclination, yet their society was
noways necessary to his happiness. He flew as soon as he could from
their brilliant assemblies to the retirement of his estate, where he
found with joy, philosophy, books, and repose. Surrounded by the
people of the country in their hours of leisure, after having studied
man in the intercourse of the world and the history of nations, he
studied it in those simple minds which nature alone had taught; and he
found something to learn there. He conversed cheerfully with them;
like Socrates, he drew out their talents and information; he appeared
to take as much pleasure in their conversation as in that of the
brilliant circles by which he was courted in the capital; he
terminated their disputes by his wisdom, assuaged their sufferings by
his beneficence.
In society he was uniformly affable, cheerful, and considerate. His
conversation was light, agreeable, and instructive, abounding with
anecdotes of the great number of eminent men with whom he had lived.
Like his style in writing, it was brief, _tranchant_, and
epigrammatic, full of wit and observation, but without a particle of
bitterness or satire. In common with all men of the highest class of
intellect, he was totally devoid of envy or jealousy. None more
readily applauded genius or merit in others, or was more desirous on
all occasions to bring it forward, and give it the due reward. No one
recounted anecdotes with more vivacity, a happier effect, or less
tedium. He knew that the close of all such narratives contains in
general all that is pleasing in them; and therefore he hastened to
arrive at it before the patience of his hearers could be exhausted. He
had a perfect horror at long stories. He was frequently absent, and
remained in society for some time wrapt in thought, without speaking;
but never failed, on such occasions, to make amends by some unexpected
remark or anecdote, which revived the languishing conversation. His
mind was full: no subject could be mentioned on which he was not
informed; but he never brought his knowledge ostentatiously forward,
and sought rather to draw out those around him, and lead the
conversation so as to make others shine, than to do so himself.
He was regular and methodical in his life; and this arose not merely
from his character and disposition, but the order he had prescribed to
himself in his studies. Though capable of long-continued effort and
profound meditation, he never exhausted his strength; he uniformly
changed the subject of his labour, or book, to some recreation, before
feeling the sensation of fatigue. Temperate in his habits, serene and
unruffled in his mind, he enjoyed a much larger share of happiness
than falls to the lot of most men. He was fortunately married; had
affectionate children, whose kindness and attentions solaced his
declining years; and his remarkable prudence and economy not only
preserved him from those pecuniary embarrassments so common to men of
genius, but enabled him frequently to indulge the benevolence of his
disposition by splendid acts of generosity. He frequently said that he
had never experienced a chagrin in life which an hour's reading did
not dissipate. In his later years, when his eyesight was affected he
depended chiefly on listening to reading aloud, which was done
alternately by his secretary and one of his daughters. He had every
thing which could make life happy; an ample fortune, affectionate
family, fame never contested, the consciousness of great powers nobly
applied--"I have never through life," said he in his old age, "had a
chagrin, still less an hour of ennui. I waken in the morning with a
secret pleasure at beholding the light. I gaze upon it with species of
ravishment. All the day I am content. In the evening when I retire to
rest, I fall into a sort of reverie which prevents the effort of
thought, and I pass the night without once waking."
No man ever possessed a higher sense of the dignity of intellectual
power, of its great and glorious mission, of its superiority to all
the world calls great, and of the consequent jealousy and aversion
with which it is sure to be regarded by the depositaries of political
authority. He was neglected by them; he knew it, and expected it; it
never gave him a moment's chagrin. "He was not insensible," says
D'Alembert, "to glory; but he had no desire to win but by deserving
it. Never did he attempt to enhance his reputation by the underhand
devices and secret machinations by which second-rate men so often
strive to sustain their literary fortunes. Worthy of every eloge and
of every recompense, he asked nothing, and was noways surprised at
being forgot. But he had courage enough in critical circumstances to
solicit the protection at court of men of letters persecuted and
unfortunate, and he obtained their restoration to favour." What a
picture of the first man of his age, living in retirement, asking
nothing, noways surprised at being forgot! He knew human nature well
who acted thus after writing the _Esprit des Loix_. Power loves talent
as long as it serves itself, when it is useful but manageable; it
hates it when it becomes its instructor. Self-love is gratified by the
subservience of genius in the first case; it is mortified by its
superiority in the last.
But this honoured and happy life was drawing to a close. Shortly after
the publication of the _Esprit des Loix_, the strength of Montesquieu
rapidly declined; it seemed as if nature had been exhausted by that
great production. "I had intended," said he in his journal, "to give
more extent and depth to some parts of the _Esprit des Loix_, but I
have become incapable of it. Reading has weakened my eyes; and it
seems as if the little light that still remains to them, is but the
dawn of the day when they will close for ever." His anticipations were
not long of being carried into effect. In February 1755, he was seized
with an inflammatory fever when on a visit at Paris. The utmost care
and attention was bestowed on him by a number of friends especially
the Duc de Nivernois and the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, two of his oldest
friends; but he sunk under the malady at the end of thirteen days. The
sweetness of his temper and serenity of his disposition never deserted
him during this illness. From the first he was aware of its dangerous
nature, but not a groan, a complaint, or a murmur ever escaped his
lips. The Jesuits made strenuous endeavours to get possession of him
during his last moments; but, though strongly impressed with
religions principle, he resisted all their efforts to extract from him
a declaration in favour of their peculiar tenets. "I have always
respected religion," said he; "the morality of the Gospel is the
noblest gift ever bestowed by God on man." The Jesuits strenuously
urged him to put into their hands a corrected copy of the _Lettres
Persanes_, in which he had expunged the passages having an irreligious
tendency, but he refused to give it to them; but he gave the copy to
the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, and Madame Dupre de St Maur, who were in the
apartment, with instructions for its publication, saying, "I will
sacrifice every thing to religion, but nothing to the Jesuits."
Shortly after he received extreme unction from the hands of the cure
of the parish. "Sir," said the priest, "you now feel how great is
God." "Yes," he replied, "and how little man." These were his last
words. He died on the 10th of February 1755.
Montesquieu left a great number of manuscripts and notes; but they
were in so incomplete a state, that a few detached fragments only have
been deemed fit for publication. He had written a journal of his
travels, and in particular a set of "Notes on England," which would
have been of much value had they been worked up to a mature form; but
death interrupted him when he was only in the commencement of that
great undertaking. He had begun a history of France under Louis XI.,
which is still extant, though very little progress was made in the
work. The introduction, containing a sketch of the state of Europe at
that period, is said to equal the most brilliant picture left by his
immortal hand. It is written in the terse, epigrammatic style which is
so characteristic of its author; and a few striking expressions
preserved by those who have had access to the manuscript, will convey
an idea of what the work would have been. "He saw only," said he, "in
the commencement of his reign, the commencement of vengeance."
Terminating a parallel of Louis XI. and Richelieu, which he drew much
to the advantage of the latter, he observed, "He made the monarch play
the second part in the monarchy, but the first in Europe--he lowered
the king, but he raised the Kingdom." These and similar expressions
are in Montesquieu's peculiar and nervous style, and they prove that
the work would have contained, if completed, many brilliant passages;
but they do not warrant the conclusion that the history itself would
have been of much value. There is nothing more dangerous to an
historian than great powers of epigrammatic expression; it almost
inevitably leads to the sacrifice of truth and candour to point and
antithesis. It is well for Tacitus that we have not the other side of
his story recounted by a writer of equal power, but less party spirit
and force of expression. In truth, it is probable the world has not
lost much by Montesquieu's numerous unpublished manuscripts having
been left in an incomplete state. There is no end to the writing of
romances, or the annals of human events, but there is a very early
limit to the production of original ideas, even to the greatest
intellects; to Plato, Bacon, Newton, Smith, or Montesquieu, they are
given only in a limited number. Hence their frequent repetition of the
same thoughts, when their writings become voluminous. Montesquieu has
done enough; his mission to man has been amply fulfilled.
In common with other men whose thoughts have made a great and
wide-spread impression on mankind, the originality and value of
Montesquieu's conceptions cannot be rightly appreciated by subsequent
ages. That is the consequence of their very originality and
importance. They have sunk so deep, and spread so far among mankind,
that they have become common and almost trite. Like the expressions of
Shakspeare, Gray, or Milton, they have become household words; on
reading his works, we are astonished to find how vast a proportion of
our habitual thoughts and expressions have sprung from that source.
This, however, far from being a reproach to an author, is his highest
commendation; it demonstrates at once the impression his thoughts have
made on mankind. If we would discover the step a great man has made,
we must recur to the authors in the same line who have preceded him,
and then the change appears great indeed. The highest praise which can
be bestowed on an author of original thought, is to say, that his
ideas were unknown to the authors who preceded, trite with those who
followed him.
The great characteristic of Montesquieu's thoughts, is the tracing the
operation of general and lasting causes on human affairs. Before his
time, the march of political or social events was ascribed by divines
to the immediate and direct agency of the Deity guiding human actions,
as a general moves an army; by men of the world, to chance, or the
mastering influence of individual energy and talent. Bossuet may be
considered as the most eminent of the former class. Voltaire brought
the doctrines of the latter to their highest perfection. In opposition
to both, Montesquieu strenuously asserted the operation of general
laws, emanating doubtless originally from the institutions of the
Deity, and the adaptation of the human mind to the circumstances in
which man is placed in society, but acting at subsequent periods
through the instrumentality of free agents, and of permanent and
lasting operation in all ages of the world. Machiavel had frequently
got sight of this sublime theory in his political writings; and in his
_Discorsi_ on Roman History, many of the most profound observations
ever made by man on the working of the human mind under free
institutions, and of the corresponding effects of similar principles
of action in the republics of antiquity, and of those of Italy in
modern times, are to be found. But it was Montesquieu who first
carried out the doctrine to its full extent, and traced its operation
through an infinity of historical events and political institutions.
It is to the success with which he has done this, and the combined
philosophical depth and grasp of details which his writings exhibit,
that his colossal reputation has been owing. He had prodigious
acquaintance with individual facts, united to the power of classifying
them under their proper heads, and deducing from them their general
and common principles. Like the steam-engine, he could, by turns, turn
a thread round a spindle, and elevate a seventy-four in the air. He
was the Kepler of science; like the immortal German, he had made
eighty thousand observations in the social world; but, like him, he
could deduce the few laws of national advance or decline from the
regular irregularity of their motion.
The expression, _Esprit des Loix_, selected as the title of
Montesquieu's great work, was not happily chosen. What he meant was
not the _Spirit of Laws_, but the causes from which laws have arisen;
the "_Leges Legum_," as Cicero said, to which they were owing, and
from which they had sprung. He ascribed very little influence to human
institutions in moulding the character or determining the felicity of
man. On the contrary, he thought that these institutions were in
general an effect, not a cause. He conceived that they arose, in every
country, from something peculiar in the race from which the nature
descended, or the climate, employments, or mode of earning subsistence
to which it was chained in subsequent times by the physical
circumstance in which it was placed. A certain type or character was
imprinted on every people, either by the ineradicable influence of
blood, which descends to the remotest generations, or the not less
irremovable effect of external and physical circumstances which
attaches to them through all ages. It was this blood and those
circumstances which formed the national character, and through it, in
the course of generations, moulded the national customs and
institutions. Such customs and institutions were those which, having
been framed by necessity, or the dictates of expedience, according to
the circumstances in which each people were placed, were best adapted
to their temper and situation. True wisdom consisted not in altering
but following out the spirit of existing laws and customs; and, in his
own words--"No nation ever yet rose to lasting greatness but from
institutions in conformity to its spirit." No calamities were so great
or irremediable as those which arose from disregarding the separate
characters stamped on the different races and nations of men by the
hand of the Almighty, or seeking to force upon one people or one race
the institutions which have arisen among, and are adapted to, another.
Such are the fundamental principles which run through Montesquieu's
writings, and to the elucidation of which he devoted the fifteen best
years of his life. It will readily be perceived that they are entirely
at variance with the whole doctrines of the French philosophers of the
latter part of the eighteenth century, and which were practically
enforced and carried into effect in their great Revolution. With them
institutions were every thing; national character, descent,
employment, or physical circumstances, nothing. All mankind would be
the same if they only enjoyed the same liberty, laws, and
institutions. The differences observable among them were entirely the
result of the different governments forced upon men, in various stages
of their progress, by the tyranny of kings, the force of conquest, or
the machinations of priests. One frame of institutions, one code of
laws, one set of government maxims, were adapted for all the world,
and if practically acted upon would every where produce the same pure
and upright character in the people. Vice and wickedness were the
hateful effect of aristocratic pride, kingly lusts, or sacerdotal
delusion; the human heart was naturally innocent, and bent only upon
virtue; when the debasing influence of these corrupters of men was
removed, it would universally resume its natural direction. Hence the
maxim of Robespierre--"Le peuple est _toujours bon_, le magistrat
toujours corruptible." Hence the readiness with which the
constitution-mongers at Paris set themselves to prepare skeletons of
government for all nations, and their universal identity with that
originally cast during the fervour of the Revolution for the Great
Nation. Hence also, it may be added, their experienced evils, short
duration, and universal sweeping away, within a few years, before the
accumulated suffering and aroused indignation of mankind.
It was owing to this fundamental variance between the doctrines of
Montesquieu and those of the greater part of his contemporaries, and
nearly the whole generation which succeeded him, that the comparative
obscurity of his fame after his death, and the neglect which his
writings for long experienced in France, are to be ascribed. When we
contemplate the profound nature of his thoughts, the happy terseness
and epigrammatic force of his expressions, and the great early fame
which his writings acquired, nothing appears more extraordinary than
the subsequent neglect into which, for above half a century after his
death, he fell.[2] Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Condorcet, Turgot,
and the Encyclopedists, were then at the acme of their reputation; and
their doctrines as to the natural innocence of man, and the universal
moulding of human character by political institutions, not of
political institutions by human character, were too much at variance
with Montesquieu's deductions and conclusions to admit of their
coexisting together. The experience of the Revolution, both abroad and
at home, however, erelong spread a doubt among many thinking men,
whether these doctrines were in reality as well founded as they were
universally represented to be by the philosophers of the preceding
age. Napoleon, who was thoroughly convinced of their erroneous nature,
had a high admiration for Montesquieu, and frequently quoted his
sentiments. But still the opposite set of opinions, diffused over the
world with the tricolor flag, maintain their ground with the great
majority even of well-informed men, at least in all republican states
and constitutional monarchies. The policy of England in encouraging
the revolutions of Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and the South American
republics, has, for the last thirty years, been mainly founded on the
principle, that institutions similar to those of Britain may with
safety be transferred to other states, and that it is among them alone
that we are to look for durable alliances or cordial support. The
wretched fate of all the countries, strangers to the Anglo-Saxon
blood, who have been cursed with these alien constitutions, whether in
the Spanish or Italian Peninsulas, or the South American states--the
jealous spirit and frequent undisguised hostility of America--the
total failure of English institutions in Ireland, have had no effect
with the great majority of men in this country, in rooting out these
fatal errors. More than one generation, it is apparent, must descend
to their graves before they are fairly expelled from general thought
by experience and suffering. So obstinately do men cling to doctrines,
which are flattering to human vanity, in opposition alike to the
dictates of wisdom and the lessons of experience; and so true in all
ages is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, that pride is the
last sin which can be conquered in the human heart.
One remarkable instance will illustrate the manner in which
Montesquieu supported the opposite principles, that institutions are
moulded by the character and circumstances of nations, not the
moulders of them. It is well known that primogeniture, though neither
the law of succession in the Roman empire, nor originally of the
nations of Northern Europe, in whom the _allodial_ customs at first
generally prevailed, came to be universally introduced with the feudal
system, and the thorough establishment of a military aristocracy in
every country of Europe. But, strange to say, there are some places
where the rule is just the reverse, and the _youngest_ son succeeds to
the whole movable estate of the father, as is still the custom of some
boroughs in England.[3] Montesquieu ascribes, and apparently with
reason, these opposite rules of succession to a similar feeling of
expedience and necessity in the different circumstances in which the
same race of Northmen were placed in different periods of their
progress. The succession of the youngest son to the father's estate
was the bequest of the patriarchal ages, when the youngest son
generally remained last at home with his aged parent, his elder
brothers having previously hived off with their herds and flocks. He
therefore naturally succeeded to the movables of which he was alone in
possession, jointly with his father, at the latter's death.
On the other hand, the descent of the whole landed estate to the
eldest son, to the exclusion of his younger brothers and sisters, was
naturally suggested by the settlement of a brave and martial race of
conquerors in extensive districts gained by their valour, and which
could be maintained only in the lands they had won by the sword. To
divide the estate in such circumstances of peril, was to expose it to
certain destruction; unity of operation in all its forms, one head,
one castle, was as indispensable as one general to an army, or one
sovereign to a kingdom. The old maxim, "divide et impera," was
universally felt to be of fearful application. Empires, duchies,
principalities, earldoms, baronies, private estates, could alone be
preserved entire, amidst the general hostility with which all were
surrounded, by descending to a single occupant. That occupant was
naturally the eldest son, the first-born of the family, the first who
arrived at man's estate, and the most capable on that account to
render the necessary protection to its various members and dependants.
Hence the general establishment of the law of primogeniture in all the
countries of Europe. And for a similar reason, when the necessity
which at first occasioned this general deviation from the feelings of
equal affection to offspring was removed by the establishment of
regular government, and general security, and the spread of commerce,
with the necessity of capital to fit out sons and daughters, had been
generally felt, this custom was silently abrogated at least in the
commercial and middle classes, and a division of the succession,
whether in land or money, into nearly equal parts, very generally took
place.
It may readily be inferred from these observations, that the doctrines
of Montesquieu, as to the moulding of institutions by external
circumstances, and the character of nations, not of the character of
nations by institutions and forms of government, is one of the very
highest importance, not merely to speculative philosophers, but
practical statesmen. In truth, it is the question of questions; the
one thing needful to be understood both by the leaders of thought and
the rulers of men. Unless correct and rational views are entertained
on this subject, internal legislation will be perpetually at fault,
external policy in a false direction. Reform will degenerate into
revolution, conquest into desolation. The greatest calamities, both
social and foreign, recorded in the history of the last half century,
have arisen from a neglect of the maxims of Montesquieu, as to the
indelible influence of race and external circumstances on human
character, and the adoption in their stead of the doctrines of
Voltaire and Rousseau, on the paramount influence of political
institutions and general education on human felicity. Our policy, both
social and foreign, is still mainly founded on the latter basis. If
Montesquieu's principles as to no nation ever arriving at durable
greatness but by institutions in harmony with its spirit and origin,
had been generally adopted, the French Revolution, which originated in
the Anglo and American mania, and the desire to transplant English
institutions into the soil of France, would never have taken place.
Had the same views prevailed in the British Cabinet, the iniquitous
support of the revolt of the South American colonies in 1821 and 1822,
and the insidious encouragement of the ruinous revolutions of Spain
and Portugal during the Carlist war, would not have stained the honour
of England, and ruined the prospects of the Peninsula. Had they
pervaded the British community, the two fatal mistakes of policy in
our time, the sudden emancipation of the negro slaves in the West
Indies, and the unloosing all the bonds of government in Ireland, by
the transplantation of Anglo-Saxon institutions, and the tempered
freedom of England, into the midst of the Celtic blood and
semi-barbarous passions of Ireland, would never have been committed.
The great question at issue, in short, between Montesquieu and the
Encyclopedists, as to whether man is moulded by institutions, or
institutions by man, is the fundamental question, not only
speculative, but practical, of the age; and without correct ideas on
which, internal legislation and external policy are equally certain to
be precipitated into error, and benevolence itself to become the
parent of unbounded calamities.
And yet, if the matter be considered dispassionately, and without the
disturbing influence of human pride and democratic ambition, which
have obscured the visions of three generations of the ablest men in
Europe, it seems extraordinary how any doubt could ever have been
entertained on the subject. What are laws and institutions but the
work of men, the concentration of the national will in times past, or
at the present moment? If so, how _could_ they have arisen but from
the will of the people? It is only removing the difficulty a step
further back to say, as has so often been done, that they were
imposed, not by the will of the nation, but by the power of the
tyrants who had oppressed, or the priests who had deluded it. For who
were these tyrants or these priests? Not one in twenty thousand to the
whole community. If they were empowered and enabled to impose
arbitrary or debasing institutions, it must have been because the
immense majority devolved to them the task; because, conscious of
inability to govern themselves, or wanting the inclination to do so,
they willingly resigned themselves to the guidance and direction of
others. The Czar at St. Petersburg, the Sultaun at Constantinople, the
Emperor at Pekin, reign just as much by the national will, and in a
manner just as conformable to the national wish, as the Consuls of
Rome, the Committee of Public Salvation at Paris, or the present
constitutional Monarchs of France or England. The proof of this is,
that when the people are dissatisfied with their administration, or
displeased with the sovereign, they have no difficulty in dispatching
him. The twisting of a sash round the neck in Russia, the bowstring in
Constantinople or Ispahan, are very effectual monitors--fully as much
so as a hostile Parliamentary majority in the house of Commons or
Chamber of Deputies. In a word, government in every country being
conducted by the few over the many by the hundreds over the hundred
thousands, it is altogether impossible that the administration or
institutions can be, for any length of time, at variance with the
general will; because, if it was, it would not be submitted to. It may
be, indeed, despotic and tyrannical in the highest degree, but that is
no indication that it is contrary to the general will; it is only an
indication that the general will is to be slaves--no unusual
occurrence among men.
This fundamental principle of Montesquieu as to the perpetual and
ineradicable influence of race, climate, and physical circumstances,
in forming national character, and moulding national institutions, is
unquestionably the true doctrine on the subject, though probably
several generations must pass away, and an incalculable amount of
suffering be endured by mankind, before it is generally admitted.
Coupled with the cardinal point of the Christian faith, the inherent
and _universal_ corruption of the human heart, it forms the only
foundation of a salutary or durable government. Decisive proof of this
may be found in the fact, that the revolutionary party, all the world
over, maintain directly the reverse; viz. that free political
institutions, and general education, are all in all; and that, if
established, the native virtue of the human heart affords a sufficient
guarantee for general happiness. Montesquieu's principles lead to the
conclusion that all reform and amelioration of existing institutions,
to be either durable or beneficial, must be moulded on the old
precedents, and deviate as little as may be, and that only from
obvious necessity or expedience, from them. They utterly repudiate all
transplantation of constitutions, or forcing upon one people the
institutions or privileges of another. They point to experience as the
great and only sure guide in social or political change, and for the
obvious reason, that it alone can tell what has been found to be
suitable to the circumstances, and adapted to the character and wants,
of the nation among whom it has taken place. It is not that our
ancestors were in the least wiser than we are; doubtless they did many
foolish things, as we do. It is that time has consigned their foolish
things, whether laws or measures, to the grave; and nothing has
descended to our time but those institutions which have been found to
be beneficial in their tendency. The portions of our present
legislation which are suitable to the country, will in like manner
descend to posterity, and the folly and absurdity will in a few
generations be heard of no more.
It has been already remarked, that the _Grandeur et Decadence des
Romains_ is a more complete, and in some respects profound work, than
the _Esprit des Loix_. A few quotations will justify, it is thought,
this high eulogium--
"The circumstance of all others which contributed most to the
_ultimate_ greatness of Rome, was the long-continued wars in
which its people were early involved. The Italian people had no
machines for conducting sieges; and in addition to this, as the
soldiers every where served without pay, it was impossible to
retain them long before a fortified town; thus few of their wars
were decisive. They fought for the pillage of a camp, or the
booty of the fields, after which victors and vanquished retired
alike into their respective cities. It was this circumstance
which occasioned the long resistance of the Italian cities, and,
at the same time, the obstinacy of the Romans in their endeavours
to subjugate them; it was that which gave them victories which
did not enervate, and conquests which left them their poverty.
Had they rapidly conquered the neighbouring cities, they would
have arrived at their decline before the days of Pyrrhus, of the
Gauls, and of Hannibal; and, following the destiny of all the
nations in the world, they would _too quickly_ have gone through
the transition from poverty to riches, and from riches to
corruption."--C. 1.
What a subject for reflection is presented in this single paragraph!
Rome, without any knowledge of siege equipage, thrown in the midst of
the Italian states bristling with strongholds; and slowly learning,
during centuries of indecisive, and often calamitous contests, that
military art by which she was afterwards to subdue the world! It was
in like manner, in the long, bloody, and nearly balanced contests of
the Grecian republics with each other, that the discipline was
learned which gave Alexander and the Macedonian phalanx the empire of
Asia; and in the protracted struggles of the Anglo-Saxons, first with
each other in the Heptarchy, and then with the Danes and Normans in
defence of their coasts, that the foundation was laid of the energy
and perseverance which have given the British race their present
eminence and dominion among men.
"It has been often observed," says Montesquieu, "that our armies
generally melt away under the fatigue of the soldiers, while
those of the Romans never failed to preserve their health by it.
The reason is, that their fatigues were _continued_; whereas our
soldiers are destroyed by passing from a life of almost total
inactivity to one of vehement exertion--the thing of all others
most destructive to health. Not only were the Roman soldiers
accustomed, during war, to incessant marching, and fortifying of
the camps, but in peace they were daily trained to the same
active habits. They were all habituated to the military step,
that is, to go twenty miles, and sometimes twenty-four, in five
hours. They did this bearing burdens of sixty pounds. They were
daily trained to run and leap with their whole equipment on; in
their ordinary drills the swords, javelins, and arrows were of a
weight double of that used in war, and the exercises were
continued."--C. 2.
There can be no doubt that this passage both explains much of the
astonishing conquests of the Roman legions, and furnishes ample
subject for reflection to a modern observer. The constant employment
of these troops in the construction of great public works, as
highways, bridges, harbours, or the like, was at once the best
security for the health of the soldiers and the circumstance, of all
others, which rendered their maintenance tolerable to the people. If
we examine the inscriptions found in all parts of the world, where
Roman remains are to be met with, we shall find that they were raised
by the hands of the legions. It was their persevering and incessant
toil which formed the magnificent highways, which, emanating from the
Roman Forum, extended to the furthest extremity of the empire. The
prodigious labour required for these great undertakings; the vast
bridges and viaducts which required to be constructed; the mountains
to be levelled; morasses and valleys to be filled up, habituated the
legionary soldiers to such an amount of daily labour, that their
engaging in the fatigues of a campaign was felt rather as a recreation
than a burden. Hence, the dreadful sickness which in modern armies
invariably attends the commencement of a campaign, and in general
halves its numerical strength before a sword has been drawn, was for
the most part unknown, and hence, too, the extraordinary achievements
performed by small bodies of these iron veterans. How great the
difference in modern times, where the naval and military forces are
every where kept up during peace in almost total idleness; and the
consequence is, that they are at once an eyesore to the citizens whose
substance they consume in what is deemed useless ostentation, and are
deprived of half their numerical strength, and more than half their
efficiency, on first engaging in the fatigues of real warfare.
No province hails the arrival of a modern division of troops, no
seaport longs for the presence of a man-of-war, as the signal for the
commencement of great and beneficent pacific undertakings, as was the
case in the Roman empire. Of what incalculable use might the British
navy be, if even a part of it was employed in transporting the hundred
thousand colonists who annually seek in our distant possessions, or in
the American States, that profitable market for their industry, which
they cannot find amidst our crowded manufactories at home? And this is
an instance of the manner in which the reflections of Montesquieu,
though made in reference only to the Roman empire, are in truth
applicable to all ages and countries; as the parables in the Gospels,
though delivered only to the fishermen of Judea, contain the rules of
conduct for the human race to the end of the world.
Regarding the comparative causes of corruption in a military and
commercial state, Montesquieu makes the following observation. Let him
that feels it not applicable to this nation and ourselves, throw the
first stone:--
"Carthage having become richer than Rome, was also more
corrupted. For this reason, while at Rome public employments
were chiefly awarded to ability and virtue, and conferred no
advantage, but a greater share of fatigues to be endured, and
dangers incurred, every thing which the public had to bestow was
sold at Carthage, and every service rendered by individuals was
paid by the state. The tyranny of a prince does not bring a
despotic state nearer its ruin than indifference to the public
good does a republic. The advantage of a free state consists in
this, that its revenues are in general better administered; and
even where this is not the case, it has at first the advantage of
not being governed by court favourites. But, on the other hand,
the corrupting power in a democracy, when once brought into
action, erelong becomes more dissolving than in a despotism; for
instead of paying court merely to the friends and relations of
the prince, it becomes necessary to provide for the friends and
relations of the multitude who have a share in political power.
All is then lost. The laws are eluded in a more dangerous manner
than by the violence of a despot; for they are so by the
interests of the changing many, not the passions of one, whose
position at the head of the state being fixed and unchangeable,
gives him a lasting interest in its preservation."--C. 4.
How many reflections does this passage, written in France above a
century ago, awaken in the breast of a British citizen at this
time!--"Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice!" So true it is, that real
political truth belongs to no age or locality--"non alia Romae, alia
Athenis;" it is of eternal application, and is destined to receive
confirmation from the experience of men, and the lessons of history,
to the end of the world.
"Powers," says Montesquieu, "which owe their greatness to
commerce, may exist long in mediocrity, but their grandeur can
never be of long duration. The reason is, that they rise to
greatness by little and little, without any one being aware of
their growth, as they have done nothing which attracts attention,
awakens alarm, or indicates their power. But when it has risen to
that point, that no one can avoid seeing it, all the surrounding
nations secretly endeavour to deprive the great commercial state
of advantages which they all envy, and which have taken them, as
it were, by surprise."--C. 4.
Few persons who contemplate the present state of the British empire,
its astonishing rise to greatness in the space of less than a
century--the general, it may be said universal jealousy with which it
is regarded, and the perilous pinnacle on which it now stands, will
deny the justice of this observation. May the remark, as to the short
duration of power founded on such a basis, not receive an additional,
and even more memorable confirmation in ourselves! But one thing is
perfectly clear. This remark indicates the impossibility of
conciliating the adjoining and poorer states while our commercial
superiority continues, and thus strikes at the very foundation of the
reciprocity system, on which our whole commercial policy for the last
quarter of a century has been founded. That system proceeds on the
principle, that by opening to the adjoining states a fair
communication of advantages, it is in the power of a great commercial
state, not only to conciliate their good-will, but obtain with them a
great and mutually beneficial mercantile intercourse. Montesquieu's
observation points to the undying and universal jealousy by its
neighbours with which such a power is ever surrounded, and the
futility of all attempts, while its superiority exists, to avert their
mercantile hostility, or preserve with them any considerable
commercial traffic. Which is the better option, let the hedge of
hostile tariffs with which, after boundless concessions to purchase
commercial good-will, we are surrounded in every direction, give the
answer.
On the comparative value of infantry and cavalry in war, Montesquieu,
though no professional soldier, makes the following observation, on
which those who are so, would do well to ponder:--
"The Carthaginian cavalry was superior to that of the Romans, for
two reasons. One was, that the Numidian and Spanish horses were
better than those of Italy; the other, that the Roman cavalry was
ill armed; for Polybius tells us, that it was not till they had
carried on war in Greece, that they changed their manner of
equipping that limb of military strength. In the first Punic
war, Regulus was beat as soon as the Carthaginians made choice of
plains for combat, where their cavalry could act to advantage; in
the second, Hannibal owed to the Numidian horse his principal
victories. It was not till whole corps of them began to go over
to the Romans in Italy, that the latter began to breathe. Scipio
having conquered Spain, and contracted an alliance with
Masinissa, deprived the Carthaginians of that advantage. He did
more, he gained it for himself. It was the Numidian cavalry which
gained the battle of Zama, and terminated the war in favour of
the Romans."--C. 4.
It is impossible to read the admirable account of Hannibal's campaign
in the last volume of Arnold's _History of Rome_, without perceiving
that this observation, as to the decisive effect of the Numidian
cavalry upon the fortunes of the war, in first giving victory to the
Carthaginians when they were entirely on their side, and gradually,
and at length decisively restoring it to that of the Romans, when they
were won over to their eagles, is entirely well-founded. Napoleon was
of the same opinion, and has repeatedly expressed it in various parts
of his works. "Give me," said that great man, "the French infantry and
the Mameluke horse, and I will conquer the world." It was his constant
affirmation that cavalry, equally brave and skillfully led, should
always, other things being equal, overthrow infantry; and that the
contrary opinion which generally prevails, was owing to horse,
considered as the sole strength of war during the feudal ages, having
been unduly decried since the invention of fire-arms. All the world
knows the immense use he made of his heavy cavalry in all his
campaigns; how often, in circumstances the most critical, it chained
victory to his standards; how nearly it re-established his affairs,
and replaced the imperial crown upon his head on the field of
Waterloo. How striking a proof of human sagacity that the philosophic
sage, in the early part of the seventeenth century, should have
divined a truth which the researches of the historian and the exploits
of the conqueror were to confirm in the middle of the eighteenth!
"Those who are governed by a king," says Montesquieu, "are less
tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an
hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his
subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them
that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the
nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all,
and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are
made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the people
detest their senators, though they frequently love their king.
Republics, where birth confers no title to power, are in that
respect in a better situation than aristocracies; for the people
feel less jealousy of an authority which they give to whom they
please, and take from whom they incline."--C. 8.
How many confirmations of this remark have the history of France
during the Revolution, and of England during the Reform mania
afforded! And this affords an illustration of a truth, which, the more
history is studied, will be rendered more apparent, viz., that the
principles which lie at the bottom of the greatest changes in the
political world, and produce the most devastating evils to society,
are in reality the same which we see acting every day around us in
common life. In the jealousies of the tea-table, the animosities of
the market-place, the envy of trade, we may see the passions working,
which, infused into a whole people, tear society in pieces. It is only
supposing the same malevolent or selfish desires working in every
breast, directed against one object, and rendered irresistible from
that very multiplication, and we have the envy of the coterie
transformed into the fury of revolution. Whoever will closely observe
the working of that mainspring of human actions--selfishness--on the
society, whether in a village, a city, a country, or a metropolis in
which he resides, will have no difficulty in discerning the real but
secret, and therefore unobserved spring of the greatest changes that
ever occur in the political and social world. Voltaire said the
factions at Geneva were storms in a teacup; if any man will study the
motion of water in a teacup, he will be at no loss to understand the
hurricanes of the Atlantic.
On the division of the Roman people into centuries and tribes, which
was the cardinal point of their constitution, Montesquieu makes the
following important observation:--
"Servius Tullius was the author of the famous division of the
people into centuries, which Livy and Dionysius Halicarnassus
have so well described. He distributed an hundred and
ninety-three centuries into six classes, and put the whole lower
people into the last century, which singly formed the sixth
class. It is easy to see that that arrangement virtually excluded
the lower classes from the suffrage, not _de jure_, but _de
facto_. Subsequently it was agreed, that except in some
particular cases they should, in voting, follow the division into
tribes. There were thirty-five of these tribes who gave each
their vote: _four were from the city, thirty-one from the
country_. The principal citizens, being all rural proprietors,
were naturally classed in the country tribes: the lower people
were all massed together in the four urban ones. This
circumstance was regarded, and with reason, as the salvation of
the republic. Appius Claudius had distributed the lower people
among the whole tribes, but Fabius classed then again in the four
urban ones, and thence acquired the surname of 'Maximus.' The
Censors very five years took a survey of the citizens, and
distributed the people in the tribes to which they legally
belonged; so that the ambitious could not render themselves
masters of their suffrages, nor the people abuse their own
power."--C. 8.
The Romans had good reason for styling Fabius "Maximus," who
discovered this way of preventing the lower classes, by their number,
from acquiring an overwhelming superiority in the government of the
state. He achieved as great a good for his country by so doing, as by
baffling Hannibal after the battle of Cannae. But for that circumstance
the Roman constitution would have become, after the change of Appius
Claudius, a mere prototype of the American democracy; a government
constantly swayed by a numerical majority of the lowest class of
citizens. There can be no doubt that the matter at issue, in this
question, is the most material which can engage the attention of
political philosophers and statesmen in a free country, and that, on
its determination, its ultimate fate is entirely dependant. So great
is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent
community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property
and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the
elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the
votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical
majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible.
Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in
ancient, which has destroyed Poland in modern times, and is fast
undermining the foundations of the social union in America. The Roman
method of giving every citizen a vote, but classifying them in such a
way that the paramount influence of a mere numerical majority was
prevented, and the practical direction of affairs was thrown into the
hands of the better class of citizens, though not free from objection,
is the most perfect method of combining universal suffrage in the
citizens, with the real direction of affairs by those fitted to
conduct them, which the wit of man has ever divined.
In truth, it deserves consideration by those who think on human
affairs, and the probable form of government which may be expected to
prevail in future among men, whether _universal_ suffrage is the real
evil to be dreaded; and whether _equality_ of suffrage is not the real
poison which destroys society. Abstractly considered, there is much
justice in the plea so constantly advanced by the working-classes,
that being members of the community, and contributing to its support
or opulence by their labour, they are entitled to a certain voice in
the direction of its affairs. If no one has a voice at all but the
sovereign, as in a despotism, or no one except a few magnates, as in
an aristocracy, the humbler classes cannot complain at least of
inconsistency, whatever they may of injustice, if they are excluded.
But if a vast body of electors, as in Great Britain, are admitted, and
still the great bulk of the working-classes are excluded, it is not
easy to see on what principle the exclusion of some can be rendered
consistent with the admission of others. It deserves consideration
whether the true principle would not be to give every able-bodied
working man, major and not receiving parochial relief, a vote, but a
_vote of much less weight than his superiors in intelligence,
property, or station_. This might be done either as the Romans did, by
making the votes be taken by centuries, and classing all the votes of
the poorer electors in a limited number of centuries, or giving each
man a _personal_ vote, and giving the holders of property, in
addition, more votes for their property; as one for every pound of
direct taxes paid. Louis XVI. proposed a plan of this sort to Turgot
before the Revolution; but that minister, deeply embued with the
principles of democracy, rejected it; and Neckar, following out his
views, practically established universal suffrage. Possibly the plan,
if adopted and honestly carried into execution, might have prevented
the whole calamities of the Revolution.
Of the dangers of such a multiplication of votes, without any
restriction, Roman history affords a memorable example.
"Rome," says Montesquieu, "had conquered the world with the aid
of the Italian cities, and, in return, she had communicated to
them a great variety of privileges. At first they cared little
for these advantages; but when the rights of Roman citizenship
was that of universal empire, when no one was any thing in the
world if he was not a Roman citizen, and with that little he was
every thing, the Italian people resolved to perish or acquire
that envied distinction. Being unable to attain this object by
prayers and remonstrances, they had recourse to arms: the whole
allies on the Eastern coast of the Peninsula revolted, those on
the Western side were about to follow their example. Rome,
obliged to combat as it were the hands by which it had conquered
the world, was lost; it was about to be reduced to its walls,
when it extricated itself from the difficulty by extending the
privilege to the allies who had remained faithful, and shortly
after to the whole.
"From that moment Rome ceased to be a city of which the people
had the same spirit, the same interest, the same love of freedom,
the same reverence for the Senate. The people of Italy having
become citizens, every town brought thither its dispositions, its
separate interests, its dependence on some neighbouring
protector. The city, torn with divisions, formed no longer a
whole; and as the vast majority of the citizens were so only by a
species of fiction, had neither the same magistrates, the same
walls, the same temples, the same gods, nor the same places of
sepulture, Rome was no longer seen with the same eyes; the
undivided love of country was gone; Rome was no more. The
inhabitants of whole provinces and cities were brought up to the
capital to give their suffrages, or compel others to give them;
the popular assemblies degenerated into vast conspiracies, a
troop or seditious band usurped the sacred name of Comitia; the
authority of the people, their laws, even themselves, became a
mere chimera; and the anarchy rose to such a point that it became
impossible to tell whether the people had made an ordinance, or
had not. Writers are never tired of descanting on the divisions
which ruined Rome; but they have not seen that those divisions
always existed, and ever must exist in a free community. It was
solely the greatness of the republic which was the cause of the
evil, by changing popular tumults into civil wars. Faction was
unavoidable in Rome; its warriors, so fierce, so proud, so
terrible abroad, would not be moderate at home. To expect in a
free state men at once bold in war, and timid in peace, is to
look for an impossibility. It may be assumed as a fixed
principle, that wherever you see every one tranquil in a state
which bears the name of a republic, liberty there has been long
since extinct."--C. 9.
The representative system has saved Great Britain and America from
these terrible popular _comitia_, in which, as Montesquieu has truly
said, the mobs of the people became the convulsions of an empire; and
which tore in pieces Poland in modern, as it had done Rome in ancient
times. But does not the real evil exist, despite this liberation from
the actual tumult, in the representative government of a great empire,
as much as in the stormy _comitia_ of an overgrown republic? It is
not the mere strife in the streets, and shedding of blood in civil
warfare, bad as it is, and truly as the "bellum plusquam civile"
exceeds all others in horror, which is the only evil. The separation
of interests, the disregard of common objects in the struggle for
individual elevation, the tyranny of one class by another class, is
the thing which really dissolves the national bonds in every
wide-spread and free community. We see this source of discord
operating with as much force in the divided representation of great
popular states, as in the bloody contests of the Roman forum or the
plain of Volo in Poland. The nullification of South Carolina, the
obnoxious tariff of America, the fierce demands for the repeal of the
union in Ireland, the sacrifice of agricultural and producing, to
commercial and monied interests in Great Britain, prove that these
evils are in full operation among ourselves, as well as our
descendants on the other side of the Atlantic. There is a confusion of
tongues, and separation of mankind from the undue amalgamation of
interests, as well as individuals. Providence has a sure way to punish
the selfishness and presumption of men who seek to build up a Babel of
human construction; and that is to leave them to the consequences of
their own extravagance.
The style of Montesquieu may be judged from the extracts, few and
imperfect as they are, given in the preceding pages. It is not
vehement, eloquent, or forcible; but condensed, nervous, and
epigrammatic. No writer has furnished to succeeding times so many
brilliant passages to quote; but there are many who can be read _en
suite_ with more satisfaction. This is not unfrequently the case with
writers on philosophical subjects of the highest class of intellect;
and it arises from the variety and originality of their ideas. The
mind of the reader is fatigued by following out the multitude of
thoughts which their works engender. At the close of every paragraph
almost, you involuntarily close the book, to reflect on the subjects
of meditation which it has presented. The same peculiarity may be
remarked in the annals of Tacitus, the essays of Bacon, the poetry of
Milton, the _Inferno_ of Dante, the _Discorsi_ of Machiavel. In the
habit of expansion which has arisen in more recent times from the
multiplication of books, the profits made by writing, and the
necessity of satisfying the craving of a voracious public for
something new, is to be found the cause of the remarkable difference
in the modes of composition which has since become prevalent. When men
write for the monthly or quarterly press, there is no time to be
condensed or profound. What has been gained, however, in animation and
fervour, has too often been lost in thought; and it may be doubted
whether, among the many writers of the present day, whether in Great
Britain or the Continent, there is one whose works, a century hence,
will be deemed to contain as much of original and valuable ideas as
even the preceding sketch, imperfect as it is, has presented in
Montesquieu.
A REMINISCENCE OF BOYHOOD.
By Delta.
"Life is a dream, whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
When all the comforts man can share
As wandering as his fancies are:
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away."
Bishop King.
I.
'Twas a blithe morning in the aureate month
Of July, when, in pride of summer power,
The sun enliven'd nature: dew-besprent,
A wilderness of flowers their scent exhaled
Into the soft, warm zephyr; early a-foot,
On public roads, and by each hedge-way path,
From the far North, and from Hybernia's strand,
With vestures many-hued, and ceaseless chat,
The reapers to the coming harvest plied--
Father and mother, stripling and young child,
On back or shoulder borne. I trode again
A scene of youth, bright in its natural lines
Even to a stranger's eyes when first time seen,
But sanctified to mine by many a fond
And faithful recognition. O'er the Esk,
Swoln by nocturnal showers, the hawthorn hung
Its garland of green berries, and the bramble
Trail'd 'mid the camomile its ripening fruit.
Most lovely was the verdure of the hills--
A rich luxuriant green, o'er which the sky
Of blue, translucent, clear without a cloud,
Outspread its arching amplitude serene.
With many a gush of music, from each brake
Sang forth the choral linnets; and the lark,
Ascending from the clover field, by fits
Soar'd as it sang, and dwindled from the sight.
'Mid the tall meadow grass the ox reclined,
Or bent his knee, or from beneath the shade
Of the broad beech, with ruminant mouth, gazed forth.
Rustling with wealth, a tissue of fair fields,
Outstretch'd to left and right in luxury;
And the fir forests on the upland slopes
Contrasted darkly with the golden grain.
II.
Pensively by the river's bank I stray'd--
Now gazing on the corn-fields ripe and rich;
Now listening to the carol of the birds
From bush and brake, that with mellifluous notes
Fill'd the wide air; and now in mournful thought--
That yet was full of pleasure--running through
The mazy past. I know not how it was,
But from the sounds--the season--and the scene--
Soften'd my heart; and, as the swallow wings
In autumn back to softer sunnier climes--
When summer, like a bright fallacious dream,
Hath with its flowers and fragrance pass'd away--
So, from the turmoil of maturer years,
In boyish thoughts my spirit sought relief.
III.
Embathed in beauty pass'd before my sight,
Like blossoms that with sunlight shut and ope,
The half-lost dreams of many a holiday,
In boyhood spent on that blue river side
With those whose names, even now, as alien sounds
Ring in the ear, though then our cordial arms
Enwreathed each other's necks, while on we roam'd,
Singing or silent, pranksome, never at rest,
As life were but a jocund pilgrimage,
Whose pleasant wanderings found a goal in heaven.
But when I reach'd a winding of the stream,
By hazels overarch'd, whose swollen nuts
Hung in rich clusters, from his marginal bank
Of yellow sand, ribb'd by receding waves,
I scared the ousel, that, like elfin sprite,
Amid the water-lilies lithe and green,
Zig-zagg'd from stone to stone; and, turning round
The sudden jut, reveal'd before me stood,
Silent, within that solitary place--
In that green solitude so calm and deep--
An aged angler, plying wistfully,
Amid o'erhanging banks and shelvy rocks,
Far from the bustle and the din of men,
His sinless pastime. Silver were his locks,
His figure lank; his dark eye, like a hawk's,
Glisten'd beneath his hat of whitest straw,
Lightsome of wear, with flies and gut begirt:
The osier creel, athwart his shoulders slung,
Became full well his coat of velveteen,
Square-tail'd, four-pocket'd, and worn for years,
As told by weather stains. His quarter-boots,
Lash'd with stout leather thongs, and ankles bare,
Spoke the adept--and of full many a day,
Through many a changeable and checquer'd year,
By mountain torrent, or smooth meadow stream,
To that calm sport devoted. O'er him spread
A tall, broad sycamore; and, at his feet,
Amid the yellow ragwort, rough and high,
An undisturbing spaniel lay, whose lids,
Half-opening, told his master my approach.
IV.
I turn'd away, I could not bear to gaze
On that grey angler with his rod and line;
I turn'd away--for to my heart the sight
Brought back, from out the twilight labyrinth
Of bypast things, the memory of a day,
So sever'd from the present by the lapse
Of many a motley'd, life-destroying year,
That on my thoughts the recognition came
Faintly at first--as breaks the timid dawn
Above the sea, or evening's earliest star
Through the pavilion of the twilight dim--
Faintly at first--then kindling to the glow
Of that refulgent sunshine, only known
To boyhood's careless and unclouded hours.
V.
Even yet I feel around my heart the flush
Of that calm, windless morning, glorified
With summer sunshine brilliant and intense!
A tiny boy, scarcely ten summers old,
Along blue Esk, under the whispering trees,
And by the crumbling banks, daisy-o'ergrown,
A cloudless, livelong day I trode with one
Whose soul was in his pastime, and whose skill
Upon its shores that day no equal saw:--
O'er my small shoulders was the wicker creel
Slung proudly, and the net whose meshes held
The minnow, from the shallows deftly raised.
Hour after hour augmenting our success,
Turn'd what was pleasure first, to pleasant toil,
Lent languor to my loitering steps, and gave
Red to the cheek, and dew-damp to the brow:
It was a day that cannot be forgot--
A jubilee in childhood's calendar--
A green hill-top seen o'er the billowy waste
Of dim oblivion's flood:--and so it is,
That on my morning couch--what time the sun
Tinges the honeysuckle flowers with gold,
That cluster round the porch--and in the calm
Of evening meditation, when the past
Spontaneously unfolds the treasuries
Of half-forgotten and fragmental things,
To memory's ceaseless roamings--it comes back,
Fragrant and fresh, as if 'twere yesterday.
From morn till noon, his light assiduous toil
The angler plied; and when the mid-day sun
Was high in heaven, under a spreading tree,
(Methinks I hear the hum amid its leaves!)
Upon a couch of wild-flowers, down we sat
With healthful palates to our slight repast
Of biscuits, and of cheese, and bottled milk;
The sward our table, and the boughs our roof:
And oh! in banquet hall, where richest cates
Luxurious woo the pamper'd appetite,
Never did viands proffer such delight,
To Sybarite upon his silken couch,
As did to us our simple fair that day.
VI.
Bright shone the afternoon, say rather burn'd,
In floods of molten gold, with all its rich
Array of blossoms by that river's side--
Wild camomile, and lychnis in whose cups
The bee delights to murmur, harebells blue,
And violets breathing fragrance; nor remote
The aureate furze, that to the west-winds sigh,
Lent its peculiar perfume blandly soft.
At times we near'd the wild-duck and her brood
In the far angle of some dim-seen pool,
Silent and sable, underneath the boughs
Of low hung willow; and, at times, the bleat
Of a stray lamb would bid us raise our eyes
To where it stood above us on the rock,
Knee-deep amid the broom--a sportive elf.
Enshrined in recollection--sleep those hours
So brilliant and so beautiful--the scene
So full of pastoral loveliness--the heart
With pleasure overflowing--and the sky
Pavilion'd over all, an arch of peace--
God with his fair creation reconciled:
And oh! to be forgotten only with
The last fond thoughts of memory, I behold
That grand and gorgeous evening, in whose blaze
Homeward with laden paniers we return'd.
Through the green woods outshot the level rays
Of flooding sunlight, tinging the hoar bark
Of the old pine-trees, and in crimson dyes
Bathing the waste of flowers that sprang beneath;
It was an hour of Paradise restored--
Eden forth mirror'd to the view again,
As yet ere Happiness forsook its bowers,
Or sinless creatures own'd the sway of death.
All was repose--and peace--and harmony;
The flocks upon the soft knolls resting lay,
Or straying nibbled at the pastures green;
Up from its clovery lurking-place, the hare
Arose; the pheasant from the coppice stray'd;
The cony from its hole disporting leapt;
The cattle in the bloomy meadows lay
Ruminant; the shy foal scarcely swerved aside
At our approach from under the tall tree
Of his delight, shaking his forelocks long
In wanton play; while, overhead, his hymn,
As 'twere to herald the approach of night,
With all her gathering stars, the blackbird sang
Melodiously, mellifluously, and Earth
Look'd up, reflecting back the smiles of Heaven!
For Innocence, o'er hill and dale again
Seem'd to have spread her mantle, and the voice
Of all but joy in grove and glade was hush'd.
VII.
Thro' the deep glen of Roslin--where arise
Proud castle and chapelle of high St Clair,
And Scotland's prowess speaking--we had traced
The mazy Esk by cavern'd Hawthornden,
Perch'd like an eagle's nest upon the cliffs,
And eloquent for aye with Drummond's song--
Through Melville's flowery glades--and down the park
Of fair Dalkeith, scaring the antler'd deer
'Neath the huge oaks of Morton and of Monk,
Whispering, as stir their boughs the midnight winds.
These left behind, with purpling evening, now
We stood beside St Michael's holy fane,
With its nine centuries of gravestones girt;
And, from the slopes of Inveresk, gazed down
Upon the Frith of Forth, whose waveless tide
Glow'd like a plain of fire. In majesty,
O'ercanopied with many-vestured clouds,
The mighty sun, low in the farthest west,
With orb dilated, o'er the Grampian chain,
Mountain up-piled on mountain, huge and blue,
Was shedding his last rays, adorn'd the shores
Of Fife, with all its towns, and woods, and fields,
And bathing Ben-Ean and Ben-Ledi's peaks
In hues of amethyst. Ray after ray,
From the twin Lomond's conic heights declined,
And died away the glory; and, at length,
As sank the last, low horizontal beams,
And Twilight drew her azure curtains round,
From out the south, twinkled the Evening star!
VIII.
Since then full often hath the snow-drop shown
Its early flower--hath summer waved its corn--
Hath autumn shed its leaves--and Arctic gales
Brought wintry desolation on their wings!
When Memory ponders on that boyish scene,
Broken seems almost every tie that links
That day to this--and to the child the man:
The world is alter'd quite in all its thoughts--
In all its works and ways--its sights and sounds--
With the same name it is another sphere,
And by another race inhabited.
The old familiar dwellings, with their trees
Coeval, mouldering wall, and dovecot rent--
The old familiar faces from the streets,
One after one, have now all disappear'd,
And sober sires are they who then were sons,
Giddy and gay:--a generation new
Dwells where they dwelt--whose tongues are silent quite--
Whose bodily forms are reminiscences
Fading:--the leaden talisman of Truth
Hath disenchanted of its rainbow hues
The sky, and robb'd the fields of half their bloom.
I start, to conjure from the gulf of death
The myriads that have gone to come no more:--
And where is he, the Angler, by whose side
That livelong day delightedly I roam'd,
While life to both a sunny pastime seem'd?
Ask of the winds that from the Atlantic blow,
When last they stirr'd the wild-flowers on his grave!
DE BURTIN ON PICTURES.
The writings of enthusiasts, however dry the subjects upon which they
employ their pens, have always some power of fascination. Many a one
who has never hooked a fish, has found delight in Isaac Walton. He is
still the pleasant companion by river and brooklet, and the cause why,
"He that has fishing loved should fish the more,
And he should fish who never fish'd before."
But then the subject is the loveliest of arts, Painting--embracing as
it does the beautiful, the great, and the pathetic, whatever charms
the eye and moves the heart--we are sensible of more than common
pleasure, and become soothed into dreams and visions of our own, even
by the gentle garrulity of a connoisseur. Is there any one who
pretends to acquaintance with literature, however uninitiated he may
be in the mysteries of the arts, who has not read the _Discourses_ of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and who has not wished, after reading them, to be
enabled to say, "anche io son pittore?" When we are told of picture
galleries with their thousand works of art, and are warmed by the
descriptions, feeble though they must be, of many of them, we seem to
be suddenly led by a lamp of more magical power than Aladdin's; for
what was his gallery of fruit-trees bearing, precious stones, to a
gallery rich in pictures, the still brighter fruits of genius,
presenting endless variety, each one almost a world in itself, and
all, enticing the imagination into regions unbounded, of charm and
loveliness, suggested, though not made visible, but to the mind's eye?
We remember in our school days giving Virgil credit for much tact in
endeavouring to make a gentleman of AEneas, and succeeding too for a
while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by
placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and
giving him leisure to contemplate and to criticise, and poetically to
describe to his silent and spiritless lounger-friend many noble and
many touching works. In this passage we also obtain the great Latin
poet's opinion of the ameliorating effect of "collections." The hero
of the AEneid knew immediately he was among an amiable people. The
picture-gallery was the "nova res oblata" which "timorem leniit"--
"Hic primum AEneas sperare salutem
Ausus, et afflictis melius confidere rebus;
Namque"----
It is singular that all the courts of Europe have, for more than two
centuries, been earnestly engaged in forming public galleries, a
national benefit and honour which England had neglected with her great
wealth, and with opportunities singularly favourable, until within a
few years; and even now we are making but very slow progress, and
works of art of the olden and golden time are becoming more rare, and
immensely rising in value. Had we, as a nation, collected even fifty
years ago--speaking of the transactions as a money speculation, in
which view, according to the taste of the day, we must look at every
thing--our purchases would now have been worth treble the first cost
in money. The unhappy fate of Charles I. was most adverse to the arts
here. It not only scattered the collection made by him, but, by the
triumph of Puritanism, plunged the country first into a dislike of,
and, for long subsequent periods, into an indifference for art. We
even doubt if this gross feeling has altogether subsided. We do not
yet take a national pride in works of genius, unless they immediately
bear upon the art of living. No country is so rich as ours in private,
and none so poor in public collections. And if we progress so slowly
in our National Gallery, we can scarcely wonder that public
institutions of the kind have not been dreamed of in the provinces. We
sincerely hope that the movement Mr Ewart is making will be crowned
with success, and that in time "collections" in our cities and towns
will be the result.
The Musee of Paris, in 1844, contained upwards of fifteen hundred
pictures. According to the catalogue compiled in 1781, the Imperial
Gallery of Vienna then contained twelve hundred and thirty-four.
According to the catalogue of 1839, the Dresden gallery contained
eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. At Munich, the present king has
erected a spacious building, into which he has draughted a selection,
from among several thousands, of about fifteen hundred. And what have
we done to improve the national taste? And strange, indeed, does it
appear, that whenever such a subject is brought before the public mind
in Parliament, it is solely with a view to the connexion of art with
manufactures. There must be in the nature of things a certain
connexion; but unnecessarily to bind them in union is to bind then
unnaturally, and to put the shackles upon the higher, which cannot
bear them without degradation. We hail with great pleasure every
publication whose object is to promote a love for the fine arts; and
more particularly those which show a due reverence for the old
masters; for, however unwilling we may be to limit the power of
genius, no one who has any pretensions to taste, and is of a
cultivated mind, will deny that, if their works are not perfection,
they are at least in a right direction. The novelties which more
modern art has sought will pass away, we are persuaded, as not founded
upon true principles, and we shall best advance by properly
appreciating what has been done before us. We will not here enter into
the subject of the _decadence_ of art, nor its causes. We believe that
if adequate national and provincial galleries were formed, more
especially at our universities, the improved public taste would create
a demand which this country would not lack genius to supply. We are
not in the exact condition of Italy at the sudden rise of art there.
The public, in the days of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, had nothing,
or but little _to unlearn_; the previous aim had fortunately not been
very multifarious; the sentiment of art was right, and the direction
true. It remained only to enlarge the sphere; the principles were in
being; they required but confirmation. Grace and power naturally
arose; for there was no counteracting education, nothing positively
bad altogether to lay aside, though there was something to correct.
Now with us, on the contrary, art has run into very strange vagaries;
the enlargement of the boundaries has been unlimited, but it has been
in regions far below the Parnassian Mount. We have talked of the High
Ideal, and practised and encouraged _ad infinitum_ the Low Natural,
and too often have descended to the worse, the Low Unnatural; so that,
upon the whole, we have to unlearn very much before we can be said to
be in the rudiments of Real Art. Let us suppose one born with every
natural endowment, with imagination, and a power of imitation. The
mind, after all, is fed with _realities_; there is in it also process
of digestion, which converts the real into the imaginative. Now, in
early years, how rare it is that the naturally endowed artist is not
ill fed--unhealthy diet of the mind entices him every where. If in the
country, he is sparingly fed--sees little or nothing of Art, little
perhaps beyond the Sign of an Inn--and is scarcely, from other sources
of education, taught to look with the mind's eye, through the
undignified appearance, to the actual dignity even of the nature he
sees:--if he has lived in the city, the Print shops are inevitable
lures to cheat him by little and little out of his natural taste, if
there be one; for at first it can be but a mere germ. The works of
greatness, of goodness, will be the last things that he will see; for
seldom indeed will they be presented to his sight. For the pure, the
sweet, the graceful, the dignified, he will have thrust before his
eyes gaudy, tawdry caricature and grimace; and, worse still, perhaps
wholly vulgar obscenities. Were he in his boyhood given a present in
the pictorial line, it would be of an Opera-dancer or a race-course,
or an abomination of London low life. What "slang" is to the ear, so
would it be to the eye; and such is in nine cases out of ten the first
education of those aspirants in art, who, ere they have unlearned any
thing, set up for themselves--and abuse the old masters. Generally
speaking, they are brought up in an anti-ideal school; the powers,
therefore, that nature has given them, are not only uncultivated, but
led astray; and similar education and similar tastes in the public,
find them a market for very low, very worthless commodities. We have,
in fact, a great deal to unlearn. The first step with us all, is, to
unlearn. Could we see nothing bad it would not be so. That which
would, at first view, be thought the greatest benefit to art,
engraving, has but spread the wider the pestilence of false taste. It
is from all this the earlier and greater painters were free. The evil,
however, having once so spread, is not to be easily corrected. Bad
taste has claimed a perpetuity of copyright. Good taste must proceed
from an opposite source, and work in spite of the bad. It must come
from publications, just criticisms, lives of painters,[4] familiar
treatises on the principles of art; and more especially from national
and other public galleries, to direct attention, and indeed to create
a demand for those other auxiliary works. People will seek to
understand and feel that which is continually put before them. Could
they never see any but fine productions, they would soon have a relish
for them that now is impossible; but by little and little, the sight
of what is good will create a liking, and the liking will soon reach
an adoration, and the unlearning process is imperceptibly going on.
Corrupted as our eyes now are, we would venture to assert, that were
you to offer, either in prints or originals, to boys of fourth and
fifth forms at our public schools, in one hand a vile and gaudy horse
and jockey, and in the other a pure and lovely picture by Raffaelle,
the former would be taken. Here is a lamentable neglect in education;
the ear must suffer the probing and the torture of metres and
verse-making, but the eye is left unguarded, unprotected, to shift for
itself, or to yield to the fascinations the first pander of evil
chooses to offer. The school-boy might be improved at the
universities; but there, too, is the same neglect. In our time, it was
a rare thing to see a "man's" room without many engravings; and that
sufficiently shows how much a school of art is wanted in those places,
and what a hold they would have upon youth. But we cannot say much for
the taste of the productions, that generally we will not say _graced_
the walls. We had hoped that the Taylor bequest would have established
at Oxford, not only a picture gallery, but a professorship of Painting
and Sculpture. A large Building has been erected; and we have heard of
an intention to remove to it some rubbish called pictures. If that
threat be accomplished, we shall despair of seeing them removed to
give place to better things. The majority will be satisfied with
seeing walls covered, and look no further. We have heard likewise that
some very valuable pictures have been offered upon very favourable
terms to the university. If there be amongst any an intention of
forming a gallery, we would urge them to use their best endeavours to
make as soon as may be a beginning. For every succeeding year not only
increases the difficulty in obtaining the concurrence of influential
persons, but the annually rising value of pictures makes delay an
imprudence. Besides, if a beginning were once made--were it once shown
that the universities are in earnest--valuable bequests might greatly
promote the great object. And this is an advantage that admits not of
being put off to the morrow.
We have digressed from our purpose, which was to acknowledge the
pleasure we have received from the pages of M. de Burtin's work; or we
should rather say, from Mr White's translation. We have been some
years acquainted with the original work in French. Its value in its
present form is not lessened by the number of years that have passed
between the original French edition and the translation; for general
remarks on art are of all times, and there is much in the particular
information the volume contains, such as lists of prices, and some
other matters, from which useful comparisons may be now made.
The author very modestly, in his introduction, professes not to write
"for artists nor accomplished connoisseurs;" yet to such, we believe,
the volume, in its compressed form, will be of most value. He has the
honesty to confess that he has learned his connoisseurship at some
cost--that he has been victimized into a knowledge of art. And as this
is generally the case with most collectors in the beginning, and not
unfrequently in the end too, he thinks he may be of some use to others
in showing "how to judge pictures well"--"what is a good picture;" and
not of the least value, how to use it when you have it. His
qualification as teacher cannot be denied; for he has not only
collected, but travelled much, visited all the important collections,
and by comparing picture with picture, and style with style, he has
been enabled to speak with accuracy upon the distinguishing marks of
schools and masters. A universal admiration, a love that will embrace
all schools and all styles, is of very rare attainment, and perhaps
hardly to be desired; for every man of any strength, of any fixed tone
of character, must necessarily have a bias. And besides, one man
naturally receives more powerfully impressions through form, another
through colour. It is not inconsistent that a perfect connoisseur
should be equally affected by both; but the mind is not allowed the
same latitude with regard to subject; the passion will ever be for
that which is congenial; whatever is foreign to it will receive but a
cold and passing admiration. We should collect from the whole contents
of this volume, that the author was never an enthusiastic admirer of
what is termed high Italian art. He seldom dwells upon "the sublime
and beautiful." Gifted rather with a complacent acquiescence in what
is great, than stirred by it to any heat of rapture, it is probable
that at least the sphere of his pleasures was enlarged; and his nice
sense of the beauty, touch, and colour, rendered pictures, of subjects
of little interest, more pleasing to him, than they could be to the
connoisseur of more exclusive taste. His predilection is, however, for
Colour; and we agree with him, "that without the science of colouring,
that so difficult science, about which the exclusive partisans of
ideal beauty trouble themselves so little, their antiques and their
ideal perfection may produce designs, but never can pictures."
Two definitions are laid down, which, as frequent reference is made to
them, we copy. Definition of painting--"The art of applying colours,
without relief, upon a plain surface, so as to imitate any object in
the manner in which it is seen, or may be conceived visible in
nature." "A good picture" he defines to be, "a good choice of subject
well represented." If we knew precisely what is here meant by
"nature," a word used by all writers on art in very various senses,
and commonly very vaguely, we might not find fault with the
definition; but genius, which has
"Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new,"
is not too strictly to be limited to the actualities of external
nature. It is the nature of the mind, under certain impulses and
impressions, to exaggerate, to combine from memory, not from sight,
even to the verge of the impossible; for even this extravagance is the
product of human passion, which by its nature disdains common
boundaries; and this, in painting, is especially the province of
Colour, which may be said to be the poetical language of art, and
admits differences of the same kind as exist between common speech and
poetical and figurative diction.
The painter as well as poet may colour somewhat highly,
"And breathe a browner horror o'er the woods."
Critics too often write of art as if it had only to do with what
actually exists; whereas it is given to it as to poetry "to make," to
create--all that is required is a certain connexion with the real,
sometimes exceedingly slight, which shall be sufficiently delusive
for present purpose. The agile mind can pass over a deep and
formidable chasm upon a slender thread; and when over, is too much
occupied in the new region to turn back and measure the means of
passage. We suspect our author's view of nature is too limited.
Upon _"a good choice of subject"_ are some good remarks. Disgusting
subjects are justly condemned. "It is evident that an animal, flayed
or embowelled, entrails, meat raw or mangled, blood, excrements,
death's-heads, carcasses, and similar objects, if they strike upon the
view too much, will be as disgusting in a picture as they are in
nature; and that grimaces, hideous or monstrous deformities, whether
moral or physical, will be as shocking in the one as the other. Events
which are sufficiently unnatural, barbarous, and cruel, to shake
violently the soul, and cause it to tremble with insurmountable
horror, create an agitation too frightful for it to resist, much less
to be pleased with. Subjects of so bad a choice, (which Horace
severely prohibits from being introduced upon the scene,) do little
honour to the painter. They become even more insupportable in
proportion as they approach nearer to reality by the perfection of
their execution." The translator thinks his "author has stated this
too broadly;" and instances, as pictures of this kind to be admired
for their truth, _The Lesson of Anatomy_, by Rembrandt; _Prometheus
Devoured by the Vulture_, by Salvator Rosa; _Raising of Lazarus_, by
Sebastian del Piombo. Of the two first subjects, we think they are to
be condemned, if, in the _Prometheus_, the enduring mind of Prometheus
be not the subject. But surely the grand picture of Piombo, though it
is all awful, has in it nothing disgusting, or that comes within the
condemned list. The question to be asked in all these cases is, what
is the object, as well as what is the subject. Is it to teach, to
improve, to soften the mind by human love and sympathy, or to excite
it to a just and _hopeful_ indignation, for therein is a source of
pleasure? The rule of tragedy should be applicable here. Undoubtedly,
we receive pleasure from tragic representations. Isolated, barbarism,
cruelty would be intolerably disgusting. But in every good tragedy,
there are always good and lovely characters with whom we can
sympathise. We are bettered by thus uniting ourselves with what is
lovely; and are content to take at second-hand, and thus feel only in
a safe degree, the distresses to which, as human nature ourselves, we
are liable. In pictured representation, however, we have to guard
against the too vivid, and at the same time too permanent, as being a
fixed expression, which, by the art and power of language, we are not
allowed to dwell upon too exclusively; and relief is offered in change
and diversity. There are some very judicious remarks upon disgusting
subjects in "An Essay on the Choice of Subjects in Painting," read, we
believe, some years ago, by Mr Duncan, at the Institution at Bath. We
remember an account in the Essay of a very ridiculous burlesque (it is
not intended so to be) of some of the horrific legends of the Italian
schools. The picture was exhibited in the chapel of Johanna Southcote,
at Newington Butts, near London. St Johanna was represented in a
sky-blue dress, leading the devil with a long chain, like a
dancing-bear, surrounded by adoring angels. Is not this doubtful? "I
add, that, excepting man, that King of Nature, whose head presents to
a painter the subject that is most interesting for character, grace,
dignity, and expression of the whole mind, of which it is the mirror,
no animal, dead or alive, affords, in any one part of its frame,
whatever care may be taken in the execution, more than a subject for a
study, or will by any means form what can be called a picture." This
surely is not quite true. There is a very fine picture of a lioness,
dimly seen at the mouth of her den, in grim repose, that is very
grand. One colour pervades the whole--there is nothing forced; but the
very colour is of the stealthiness of the animal's nature; it is so
dim, that the animal is not strikingly discoverable, but grows out
upon the sight, and we feel the sense of danger with the knowledge of
security. And surely this is the sublime of art. Had the author seen
some of the noble animals, gifted with noble characters by nature, and
by the hand of our Landseer, he would have hesitated ere he
pronounced thus strongly.
The choice of a subject is considered as belonging solely to
invention, irrespective of composition or disposition. "The honour of
inventing truly belongs to him whose imagination creates all, or
almost all, of new." A distinction is made between composition and
design: indeed, according to our author, there are three parts of
invention--composition, disposition, and design. There is a repetition
of the charge of disproportion in objects, brought against Raffaelle,
to which we do not implicitly bow. He is considered as having
"committed two striking faults against nature and lineal perspective,
in his famous picture of the _Transfiguration_, by the ridiculous
smallness of his Mount Tabor, and by the disproportionable size of the
Christ and of the two Prophets." But we question if the mind, in that
state of feeling in which it beholds a miraculous and altogether
overwhelming subject, is not necessarily in a condition to overstep
the actual rules of nature, and to receive a type of things for the
reality, admitting the small to stand for the great. Were it conscious
of very exact formal truth, the power of the subject would be reduced.
Actual perspective would have, in Raffaelle's case, ruined the
picture. There was that boldness of genius which Shakspeare, when the
nature of the subject required it, adopted, which made the one, leap
over time, and the other, space and proportion.
Under the head "disposition of the subject," there is a somewhat
unsatisfactory sentence. "It contributes to the 'goodness' of the
picture," "if it avoid uniformity and positions that are too
symmetrical; if it distribute the light well; if by means of it the
groups _pyramid_ and unite well; and if it give value to all the parts
of the picture by means of each other, in such a manner as that the
result shall be a satisfactory whole." There is much here that is
true; but there is something false. And that which is false in it, has
often strangely misled artists in their arrangement and grouping.
There are some subjects of a perfectly symmetrical character; however
rare they may be, there are some. Raffaelle, in his cartoon of
delivering the keys to Peter, paints, as nearly as may be, all the
apostles' heads in one line. Is not the _character_ of Gothic
architecture symmetrical? Painters of architectural subjects very
commonly overlook this, and by perspective difference destroy this
orderly character. Few make the centre the point of sight; which is,
however, the proper one for representation, as it alone shows the
exact conformity and order, the idea of which it was the purpose of
the architect to present, and which constitutes _the_ beauty. The
"pyramid" rule is manifestly absurd, and seldom has even a tolerably
good effect. It was the quackery of a day.[5] The good masters did not
work upon it. It is, in fact, a little truth taken out of a greater,
and misapplied--a part of that circular character of composition, as
it were a principle of reflection, by which lines close in upon or
recede from each other. We have, in a former paper in this Magazine,
treated of this principle--to dwell on it now would take us far from
our purpose. As to the ability of all persons to judge of the
naturalness of a picture, the translator doubts the correctness of the
affirmative opinion of his author. He remarks, that "it requires
considerable practice and experience to enable one to judge how much
art can do; what is the exact medium between feebleness and
exaggeration, which constitutes the all-surpassing quality of truth,
of which he declares himself a partisan; and in what manner one
painter differs from or excels another in the representation of it."
It may also be observed, that people in general have uncultivated
eyes, and see not the whole beauties of any one object; they are
commonly quite ignorant of ideal and sentimental beauty, almost
wholly arising out of the _power of art_--the representing the
imagination. It is when such persons are called upon to see nature in
a picture, that they show how imperfect their sight has been. Seeing
the representation in a frame, they know it to be a work of art, and
generally object to shadow; whereas, could they see the picture placed
at an open window or some deceiving position, they would be deceived.
Many, knowing the intention is to deceive them, are ready armed with
objections, which, however, they make because they have sought them,
not because they have felt them. What we term local colour, is termed
by M. de Burtin _proper_ colour; local colour he considers as the
colour made variable by space, by locality, air, light, and
surrounding bodies. The distinction may be useful; but _proper_ colour
will itself be difficult to discover, for we never can see it entirely
separated from some foreign influence. In a picture it would be
perhaps best to consider that the _proper_ colour which would be
proper to the half-tone, whether modified by aerial perspective or
not. He considers that _proper_ colour is not shown mostly in objects
in the foreground, for there the light which destroys it is most
powerful; light destroys proper colour, and substitutes its own. "It
is the perfect understanding of this interesting principle, which
renders the works of Rubens, and of his best scholars, so superior for
their magic truth of colour. It is this which explains why they make
the colour of the blood to appear through the fine and transparent
skin of their Flemings, particularly of the women, only in proportion
as the effect of the light is lost in the retiring parts; and why the
red prevails more in these parts in general, which are illuminated
only by a reflected light too feeble to change the natural colour. The
latter may often be even strengthened by the colour of the object from
which the reflected light proceeds, which happens when one flesh part
is reflected upon another, as may be remarked more particularly
towards the extremities."
The following quotation is well worth considering--the observation it
contains is new. "As to the influence of light upon the local colours,
one of the plainest proofs of it is, that the colour of objects seen
in broad day, diminishes in force the more that the sun enlightens the
distant plain on which they are placed. This observation, and many
other analogous ones, convince me that the light in a picture in
general exerts a greater influence upon the local colours than even
the air, although those who have written upon the art seem to
attribute the local colours exclusively to the interposition of the
air and the vapours with which it is charged. The above remark, though
useful to all painters, becomes the more indispensable to those who
have to do with landscape, seeing that without attention to it, the
aerial perspective would render useless, by a false and mannered
representation, the just proportions and the exact contours dictated
by linear perspective. Another remark, not less interesting, is, that
the colour of cast shadows depends, beyond every thing, on that of the
light, and consequently on the state of the atmosphere and the time of
the day, as well as the season of the year." Hence is it that the
brown shadows of art, which are adopted for the sake of warm, are, in
good painters such as Vandyke, always blended with the silvery grey.
"Of the general tone of colour."--This part of the subject is treated
rather with regard to strict observation of nature, than its poetical
applicability to art. For surely there is a distinction; there should
be a tone of colour belonging to the subject, irrespective of the
actual colour of place or time of day, properly belonging to the
action represented. It is well observed, that the argentine or silvery
tone so much admired and sought after by amateurs, "is nothing but the
faithful imitation of the tone assumed by nature in countries where
the rays of the sun are not too perpendicular, every time that the air
is in that state of transparency required to temper to the necessary
degree the too brilliant blue of a pure sky, and itself to receive and
transmit this desirable silvery tone which delights the spectator." By
this it would appear that our artists' dreams of countries, _alio sub
sole_, are not likely to bring beauty of colour to their
pictures--that the fables of Eastern skies are, with regard to art,
fables; and though there is now always an attempt, and that by no mean
powers, to drag the spectators at our exhibitions under the very
chariot of the sun, "sub curru nimium propinqui solis," real beauty of
colour will be found much nearer home.
We are somewhat surprised by, as it would appear from the general
observations of De Burtin, an accidental truth which he has not
elsewhere followed to its consequences. "If pictures offend against
nature, and become cold by the employment of cold colours upon them,
such as black, white, blue, and green, either pure or bluish, and by
the omission of the glazings which the tone of the light requires, or
if they become so from the natural coldness of night and of snow, _not
remedied by art_, the painter ought to correct the fault in the manner
I have previously hinted at." In the following remark, we can see the
great defect in the colouring of Murillo's pictures, especially in his
backgrounds, who appears always to have painted on a wet and dingy
day. "But nothing can correct the cold of a sky concealed by the kind
of clouds last mentioned, or _rendered totally invisible by mist_." He
rescues the clear-obscure from the meaning commonly attached to it as
light and shade. "In the literal sense, this word means nothing but
the obscure which is at the same time clear." It should rather be
defined to be light in shadow; but it will be difficult to establish
any other sense for it than the disposition of the light and shade in
a picture. The inventor of it, for practical use, was Leonardo da
Vinci. Of this _chiaroscuro_ he says: "It is this, in fine, against
which so many renowned Italian masters have sinned, but in which the
immortal Correggio is so eminently distinguished, and which proves
how they err who have named Titian the prince of colourists. For how
much soever he may possess in a supreme degree very many other parts
of colouring, he has so misunderstood this one in his general harmony,
that his grounds are rarely in agreement with the rest of his picture,
and are often all black. His _Venus_, in the Dresden gallery, and his
_Ecce Homo_, in that of Vienna, two of his most renowned pictures but
especially the latter, present striking proofs, among very many
others, of the correctness of my opinion on this great colourist."
Those who object, as some venture to do, to Titian's colour,
especially in his backgrounds, we believe overlook his intention, and
are not aware how much what they consider defects affect the whole.
Objections have been made to the background of the _Peter Martyr_,
without considering how appropriate the colouring is to the subject.
There are some just observations on the necessity of transparency,
which should not be confined to shadows and demi-tints, "which cannot
do without it." It has been said that Titian and Correggio glazed over
every part of the picture, thereby giving even the lights a sort of
transparency. Of harmony of colour, he says, "Under the pencil of an
intelligent artist, local colours, even the least agreeable, and those
which have the least affinity among themselves, may become very
agreeable to the eye, and contribute powerfully to the harmony of the
picture through the interposition of some other colour, as in music
discordant tones are happily united by means of intermediate ones."
The translator appends to this a note in which he quotes from Mengs,
that "The three primary colours being red, blue, and yellow, when any
one of them is prominently used, it should be accompanied by one which
unites the _other two_. Thus, if pure red be used, it should be
accompanied by green, which is a compound of blue and yellow. This
compound colour is called the contrasting colour, and is always used
sparingly. But the harmonizing colour is said to be the compound made
by any one colour itself, along with the next adjoining to it on
either side of the spectrum. Thus red will be harmonized by purple,
the colour produced by compounding it with blue on the one side of it,
and it will also be harmonized by orange, which is the colour produced
by compounding it with the yellow, next to it on the other side of the
spectrum." In treating "of the effect" of a picture, although the
author with a kind of reluctance admits, or "will not condemn
absolutely" factitious effects, he has no predilection for them, and
blames for the extravagant use of them Carravagio and others of the
Italian schools. Unquestionably they afford a power which should be
used with judgment, then most applicable when the supernatural of the
subject overpowers the familiarity of more natural effects. Of the
"_empasto_," so much spoken of by connoisseurs, he is an admirer. He
directs that the "colours which compose the _empasto_" should be
perfectly well ground, and the ground perfectly smoothed. Yet this was
not always the case in the _empasto_ of Paul Veronese, whose _empasto_
was often of a broken and mortary surface; and it would appear, from
an examination of such parts of his pictures, as if he had purposely
used water with his oil-paint, which would have the effect of slightly
separating the particles, and thereby giving brilliancy from the
broken surface of refracting particles. This seems to have escaped the
notice of M. de Burtin in this place. It has been said of Michael
Angelo, that he never painted more than one picture in oil. Like the
relics of saints, that one has wonderfully multiplied. Our author
speaks of one in his own possession, which is certainly not described
as according to the manner we should expect on that great master. "A
truly unique picture, by the great Michael Angelo Buonarroti, in my
possession, proves to what an astonishing degree art can imitate gold,
silver, and stones, without using the originals, by the magic illusion
with which the rare genius has painted them as ornaments. They look as
if _relieved_ on the armour of the two cavaliers, insomuch that one
would believe them to be truly the work of an actual chisel." He
admires the smooth _empasto_; and among the painters who practised it,
laudably mentions Vander Werff. But he blames others less known for
carrying it out to an extreme finish. To our taste, the smooth
_empasto_ of Vander Werff is most displeasing; rendering flesh ivory,
and, in that master, ivory without its true and pleasing colour. This
branch of the subject ends with remarks on touch, which completes the
list of the parts that contribute "to make a good picture." The manner
of a painter is in nothing so distinguished as in his touch. There
must, then, be great variety in the touch of painters. To be a judge
of masters, it is necessary, as the first step to connoisseurship, to
be acquainted with this executive part of their art. "Since it is
correct to say that without a good touch there cannot be a good
picture, one may say likewise, that he is not a good master who has
not a good touch, and _who does not know how to avoid using it too
much_." It is a mark of a defective mind, when the painter is too much
pleased with the dexterity of his hand. Many however, require this
hint; their pictures are so overlaid with touch, that the autographs
supersede the subject.
The incipient connoisseur will do well to read the chapter in this
volume which will tell him "how to judge pictures well." It will tell
him even in what position to see a picture. He disapproves of the use
of the mirror, in which the picture is reflected as giving a softness
and harmony not genuine; but as it was the practice of Giorgione and
Correggio, "in order to learn the effect of the colours, of the
masses, and of the work as a whole," he recommends it to _the
painter_. He expects, however, from the amateur an impartiality almost
impossible to attain, when it is expected to reach such a point that
"all schools, all masters, all manners, and all classes of pictures
will be a matter of indifference to him." We fear that an amateur who
could reach this indifference, would be rather a general admirer than
a good lover. The amateur thus advanced, "will soon be able to weigh
impartially the grounds of the dispute between the partisans of ideal
beauty on the one hand, and the beauty which exists in nature on the
other." But here is a mistake _in initio_; for is not the Ideal, too,
Nature? We should have rather expected a disquisition to elucidate
this point; but our author prefers passing away from the real question
to indulge in a little severity on the admirers of the Ideal, which
Ideal we are persuaded he never understood; for he considers evidently
that the "ideal beauties," with the "magic truth" of the Dutch school
in execution, would be perfection. He would view a work painted under
this union as perfection. To us it would, we feel quite sure, be an
intolerable performance. For this little bit of bad taste he is called
to account by his translator. The author's taste was, after all, we
suspect, rather incomplete; rather the product of an educated eye than
of a mind educated to embrace the Ideal. The fact is, the Ideal in
practice must be the reach of a something which the eye, however
educated, does not altogether find in external nature; but which, from
the data of external nature, the mind creates, partly by combination,
and partly from a power of its own invention altogether. The external
senses in educated man are obedient to this inventive direction of the
mind, and at length receive their greater, perhaps often only,
pleasures from it. It is easy to imagine how the _more evident_ and
real beauties of the inferior schools, for we do not hesitate to speak
of the Italian as the higher, more easily captivate, especially, the
incipient lovers of art. They begin by collecting the Dutch; but as
they advance in taste and knowledge, and acquire the legitimate
feeling for art, they are sure to end with the Italian. The
uninitiated may wonder to be told there is any difficulty in judging
"whether a picture is in good preservation or not." Yet here is a
chapter to teach this "useful knowledge." The "perils that flesh is
heir to," are nothing if compared to the perils that environ the
similitudes of flesh. "_Nos nostraque morti debemur._" Men and
pictures suffer from the doctors as well as from time. Pictures, too,
are often in the "hand of the spoiler," and are subject, with their
owners, to a not very dissimilar quackery of potion and lotion,
undergo as many purifications, nor do they escape the knife and
scarification; are laid upon their backs, rubbed and scrubbed,
skinned, and oftentimes reduced to the very ribs and dead colouring of
what they were. It is surprising how great a number of pictures are
ruined by the cleaners. We are sorry to read this account of
Correggio's celebrated _Notte_. "Even when they do not destroy the
picture entirely, they, at all events, leave the most injurious traces
behind, depriving it of its transparency and harmony, and much of the
effect, rendering it hard, cold, and weak. Of this the admirable
'Night' of Correggio at Dresden presents a very sad example."
We look upon the audacious man who dares to repaint upon an old
picture unnecessarily, and by wholesale, as guilty of a crime. It is
the murder of another man's offspring, and of his name and fame at the
same time. We have heard of a man half a century ago going about the
country to paint new wigs upon the Vandykes. We would have such a
perpetrator bastinadoed on the soles of his feet. "I was present,"
says our author, "at Amsterdam during a dispute between one who had
just sold a landscape for several thousand florins, and the agent who
had made the purchase on commission. The latter required an important
change to be made towards the centre of the picture, which he
contended would be very much improved thereby. It was in vain that the
seller, with whom I agreed in opinion upon the point, persisted in
refusing to repaint a work in such good preservation, and by so great
a master; for the broker closed his lips by protesting, that unless
the demand were complied with, he was instructed to throw up the
bargain." We look with equal horror on buyer and seller. Would not the
latter have sold his father, mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, and
cousins? It has been said that, in compliment to William III., many of
the portraits of the ancestors of the courtiers of the day were
re-painted with aquiline noses. M. de Burtin very justly observes,
that the new touches on old pictures do not preserve their tone, but
he does not give the true reason. He seems to entertain no notion that
pictures were painted with any other vehicle than common oil; and, in
a short discussion upon Van Eyck's discovery, he only shows that he
takes up what others have said, and never himself could have read what
the monk Theophilus really wrote; for, like M. Merimee, he supposes
the monk to say what he never did say. It is only surprising that, in
his numerous cleanings, he did not discover the difference between the
old paint of one date and of another, and how they require different
solvents. There is a chapter upon "the manner of knowing and
appreciating copies," from which the beginner, in collecting, may take
some useful hints. He repeats the well-known anecdote of the copy from
Raffaelle by Andrea del Sarto, which Julio Romano, who had worked upon
the picture, believed to be the original, though assured beforehand by
Vasari that it was a copy. With regard to Rubens, by far the greater
number of pictures said to be by him, are by the hands of his
scholars, to whom he gave the design and outline merely, sometimes
touching up the pictures with his own hand. This has been a common and
a justifiable practice with great painters, both ancient and modern,
or it would have been impossible for any one pair of hands to have
done the works which bear the names of some well-employed painters.
The few pictures entirely by the hand of Rubens confirm the suspicion
as to others, by their superiority. Contemporary copies he considers
in a very different light from more modern, because the modern being
from the old after they had deepened, deepen still more, and in a few
years scarcely resemble in tone the originals. It is from such copies
that an ill name has been given to all copies. We have very little
feeling for amateurs in their annoyances and embarrassments, who
discover that they have only purchased a copy; for they did not judge
according to the merits of the picture, but the name under which it
was admitted.
The sixth chapter, upon "The manner of analysing and describing
pictures," furnishes some good hints to catalogue-makers and
auctioneers. The examples are ingeniously worded, and with no little
precision. The number given is but a selection from about 240 pages.
Whoever will try his hand at a descriptive catalogue, will find it not
so easy a task as he imagined. We should have perhaps entertained a
higher opinion of the author's judgment, though not a higher of his
descriptive power, supposing it to have been exercised as a disciple
of the noted Mr Puff, who took a double first in those arts, had the
translator kindly omitted an outline of a picture by Poelemburg--_The
Adoration of the Shepherds_. It is certainly well described in
generality and detail; but never was any thing more like Mr Puff's
style than the following:--"Poelemburg has here surpassed himself by
the exactness of the design, and the fine form of the figures. He has
carried to the highest degree their gracious and simple expression.
The picture is not less distinguished for the attractive effect of
light well distributed, for harmony and the clear obscure, for the
agreeable and sweet tone of the proper colours, and for that truth,"
&c. &c. &c.--but alas! the outline! "Look on this picture and on
this." It may have been a pretty picture, though the subject is much
above Poelemburg; but--shall we pronounce it?--the design is
wretched--we cannot help it, and would spare it if we could. Strange
are the blunders made in descriptive catalogues. An instance is
given--an amusing specimen from a well-established manufactory. "The
famous picture of Raffaelle, painted for the church of St John at
Bologna, representing St Cecilia holding a musical instrument in her
hands, with others at her feet, affords an example of the errors
alluded to. She listens with rapt attention to a choir of angels borne
on the clouds, and singing. On her right hand are St Paul and St John
the Evangelist, strongly characterized; the one by his sword, the
other by his eagle, and both by the airs of the heads. On her left are
St Magdalene with her cup, and St Augustine with his cross and
pontifical garments." Hitherto all the world had been agreed upon the
justness of the description; but the author of the _Manual of the
French Museum_, printed in 1803, judged it proper to make one of his
own, of which behold the title and the substance--_The Martyrdom of St
Cecilia_.
"Raffaelle would not represent the martyrdom of a young virgin like
the execution of a malefactor. Here Cecilia advances towards the place
where the palm of martyrdom awaits her. Her feet only still belong to
this earth. Her upraised eyes tell that her thoughts are already in
heaven. The man who bears the sword is not an executioner whose stern
ferocity augments that of the spectacle. Here the headsman has an air
of compassion. Behind the saint walks a priest who assists her. His
physiognomy is common, but sweet. He applauds the tranquil resignation
of the victim, who seems already to hear the celestial concert that is
going on above. The angels celebrate her coming before hand! One of
the companions of Cecilia points them out to her with his finger, and
seems to do so as an encouragement to her. A young man follows the
saint. His action is too expressive to suppose it that of a parent or
convert." This is indeed a very fine specimen, both for what is said
and what is unsaid--the surmise is perfectly French, and the pitying
tender familiarity of Cecilia, for commiseration's sake robbed of her
saintship, would be enough to melt an auction-room to tears, were the
picture to be sold and thus described.
The very best auction description of a picture we remember ever to
have heard, was one most fluently given, and with a most winning and
gentlemanly manner, by Mr Christie, the father of the present justly
appreciated Mr Christie, as true and honourable as unerring in his
judgment of pictures. It was many years ago. The picture to be sold
was the celebrated one of the three goddesses, _The Judgment of
Paris_, a large picture. Now the difficulty of the case lay in this,
that it was well known that there were three pictures of the subject,
all claiming to be originals. This was well known and talked about.
There were in fact three pictures of the judgment of Paris. After
minutely and most ably describing the picture, Mr Christie came to
this delicate acknowledgment. He admitted there were three; the great
painter, delighted with his subject, enamoured of the beauties he had
created, had, as it were, thrice thrown himself at the feet of each
goddess. The three pictures were an offering and homage to each. None
could determine which was best. The subject was the Judgment of
Paris--it was an enviable opportunity for a happy purchaser "to throw
the golden apple." We do not pretend to give, with any exactness, the
eloquent wording of this address; nor can we describe the perfect
grace with which it was delivered. Every one in the room seemed to
know that he was listening to a scholar and a gentleman, and felt a
confidence. But to return to De Burtin. The chapter on "the general
schools of painting," contains both useful information and judicious
remarks. He mentions the embarrassment the amateur must feel, seeing
that authors are not agreed among themselves in the number and
classification of schools. Some reckon three, some five, some eight,
some extend the number to twelve. Lanzi even makes fourteen of the
Italian schools alone. "In order that the school of a particular city
or country may take its place among the general schools, it is
necessary, in my opinion, that it shall have produced a great many
masters celebrated for their merit, and that these shall have in their
style and manner something common to them all, which particularly
characterizes them, and which is sufficiently remarkable to
distinguish their school from all others. Upon this principle, I
reckon eight schools in all; and these are, the Florentine or Tuscan,
the Roman, the Lombard, the Venetian, the Flemish, the Dutch, the
French, and the German. If it were sufficient to have given to the
world artists renowned for their merit, the Spanish might likewise
claim a place among the general schools, were it only from having
possessed a Morales, a Velasquez, and a Murillo. Naples, too, might
enjoy the same privilege, from the names of Spagnoletto, Calabrese,
Salvator Rosa, and Luca Giordano. Genoa, likewise, from Castiglione,
Strozzi, Castelli, and Cambiasi. But the want of a general distinctive
character prevents their being ranked under the general schools, and
the masters are, for the most part, placed separately in that one or
other of the acknowledged schools to which their manner approaches
most nearly, or to which their master belonged." The distinguishing
marks of the schools are ably laid down. The author confesses that he
feels a difficulty in generalizing the characteristics of the
Florentine school. He adopts the somewhat exaggerated (as he allows)
account of M. Levesque. His characteristics are--fine movement, a
certain sombre austerity, an expression of vigour, which excludes
perhaps that of grace, a character of design, the grandeur of which is
in some sort gigantic. They may be reproached with a kind of
exaggeration; but it cannot be denied that there is in this
exaggeration an ideal majesty, which elevates human nature above the
weak and perishing nature of reality. The Tuscan artists, satisfied
with commanding admiration, seem to disdain seeking to please. The
description of the Roman school we conceive to be not so fortunate.
Its excellence is attributed to the antique, distinguished "by great
beauty in the forms, a composition elegant, although often singular,
and by expressions ideal rather than natural, of which a part is often
sacrificed to the preservation of beauty." If we receive as models of
these two most celebrated schools, Michael Angelo Buonarroti, and
Raffaelle, (though it should be observed, if we look to the actual
genius of these great men, we must not forget the early age at which
Raffaelle died,) such distinction as this may be drawn. That the
Florentine school had for its object the personal, the absolute bodily
power and dignity of man, and such strong intellect and energy as
would be considered in necessary agreement with that perfect condition
of the human form. That there is therefore, in their vigorous
delineations, a great and simple, and, as it were, gigantic rudeness
very perceptible. On the contrary, in the Roman, the subordination of
the person to the cultivated mind is decidedly marked. It is the
delineation of man further off from his ruder state, showing in
aspect, and even in bodily movements, the mental cultivation. The one
school is of an Antediluvian, the other of a Christian race. Hence, in
the latter, under the prerogative of love, grace and a nicer beauty
are assumed; and a delicacy and purity arising from minds educated to
bear, to forbear, chastened by trial, endowed with a new greatness not
inconsistent with gentleness. Yet was simplicity strongly marked in
the Roman school; nor do we think the blame thrown upon their
colouring justly thrown, as it was most consistent with the
characteristic dignified simplicity; nor do we agree with those who
think it inharmonious in itself. Baroccio is praised, in that he added
somewhat of the colouring of Correggio to the study of the antique and
the works of Raffaelle; but it is more than doubtful if the innovation
upon the Roman simplicity be not a deterioration of the school. The
colouring, the chief characteristic of the Venetian school, represents
mankind in a still further onward (we use not the word advanced,
because it may be misunderstood) state, in the state of more
convention, of manners, and of luxury. Hence even most refined
subjects of the Venetian are, with regard to purity, and moral and
intellectual beauty, in a grade of inferiority to the Roman and
Florentine. They are of the age of a civil government rather than of a
religious influence. The countenances indicate the _business_ of the
world; the more varied costume, the more rich covering of the figures,
with less of the _nude_, are marks of merchandise and traffic. This is
perceptible, and possibly somewhat to the disparagement of the full
display of the subject, in the grand picture of Del Piombo, the
_Raising of Lazarus_, though perhaps that picture, bearing such
evidence of the design if not the hand of Michael Angelo, may by some
not be admitted as belonging to the Venetian school. We mean not to
say that the Venetian school did not advance the art by the new power
of colour, the invention of that school; it opened the way to a new
class of subjects, which still admitted much of the grand and the
pathetic. It certainly did more; it showed that there was a grand and
a pathetic in colour alone, a principle of art which, though first
shown, and not in its perfect degree by the Venetians, has never yet
been carried out as a principle. We hear much of its beauty, its
harmony, in a limited sense of its power, but seldom of its sentiment.
The remarks of M. de Burtin upon the _Peter Martyr_ of Titian are
very strange. He must have been much deceived when he saw this
wonderful picture, either by its position or the state of his own
vision. We saw the picture out of its frame, and down against the
wall, and saw no factitious unnatural effect, nor any black and white.
"This picture," he says, "so full of merit in other respects, presents
a striking example of the factitious and unnatural effect produced by
the extraordinary opposition of black and white. I am well aware that
gay and brilliant colouring would not be appropriate to a cruel
action; but a measure is to be observed in every thing, and I cannot
be convinced that there could occur, in broad day, and in the open
air, a scene in which all was obscure and black except the figures."
Obscurity and blackness in Titian's _Peter Martyr_! Our author has
attached the school of Bologne to that of Lombardy, as others have
done, in consideration that the Caracci in forming their school
greatly studied Correggio. Yet undoubtedly Correggio stands quite
apart from the Caracci. The Bologna was in fact a "Composite" school.
If the Venetian school was indicative of business, of the activities
of society as a mass, the Lombard school, as first distinguished by
Correggio, assumed more homely grace, it was domestic, of the
hearth--the cherished love, the sweet familiar grace. This was its
characteristic; it bore a kind of garden luxuriance and richer
embellishment of colour, not the embellishment of civic pomp as seen
in the Venetian, but a coloured richness as of the fruit and flower of
a new Eden. The _Holy Families_ of Correggio are in fragrant repose.
The earth pays the homage of her profusion, and, as conscious of the
presence of him that shall remove her curse, puts on her gorgeous
apparel. The next descent from this grade of art would be to the
pastoral. M. de Burtin objects to the airs of the heads, "graceful and
smiling felt not to be altogether appropriate when the action is sad
or violent." We can imagine that he alludes to the picture of the
_Martyrdom of St Placidus and Flavia_ at Parma. The smiling saint
receiving the sword in her bosom, as a boon in thankfulness or that
coming bliss which is already hers in vision, is perhaps as touching
as any expression ever painted by Correggio. Did our author miss the
meaning of that devotional and more than hopeful smile? This picture,
like some others of Correggio, is very grey, and has probably had much
of its glazing removed. In M. de Burtin's notice of the Flemish
school, we entirely pass over the discussion respecting Van Eyck and
his discovery; enough has been said upon that subject. The partiality
of our author for Rubens is very perceptible. The characteristics of
the Flemish school are confined to Historical painting, and even in
that class there is scarcely more than one example, Rubens. Between
Rubens and Vandyke there is certainly affinity beyond that of
colouring, though in colouring to a limited degree. Between Rubens and
Teniers there is surely a gap of many classes. If there be any
characteristic mark common to both, it must lie in the silvery
lightness of colouring, distinctness and freedom of touch, as if both
had used the same vehicle, and in the same manner, allowance being
made for the size and subjects of their pictures. We are not disposed
to detract from the reputation of Rubens as a colourist; no painter
perhaps better understood theoretically and practically the science of
the harmony of colours, and their application to natural
representation. But he was entirely careless as to sentiment of
colouring. Action even to its utmost superiority was his _forte_, and
for this one expression his colouring, by its vivid power and
contrasts, was certainly very admirable.
The Dutch school is so blended with the Flemish, separating from both
Rubens and Vandyke, and their immediate scholars, that it is difficult
to speak of them as distinct schools. Fascinating as they undoubtedly
are, they utterly abandon the power to teach for the art of pleasing.
They are not for the public; have little to do with _events_ of any
great interest. There is a manifest descent from the high pretensions
of art; the aim is to gratify the mere love of exact imitation, and to
interest by portraiture of manners. "If, then," says our author,
"truth of imitation is the first business of works of art; if,
without that, no picture is in a situation to please; if all that is
visible over the whole face of nature be included in the domain of
painting, how is it that among the exclusive partisans of historical
subjects, there are persons so blind as not to see that the marvellous
productions of this school, and of the Flemish, have filled with
admirable success the immense gaps which their vaunted Italian schools
have left in different parts of art?"
The very first sentence of this passage is of very undefined sense; we
can guess at what is meant by the sneer upon the "_vaunted Italian
schools_." There are not only immense gaps, but great gulfs, over
which there is no legitimate passage. If these schools have "done so
much honour to the art of painting," as M. de Burtin asserts that they
have, it has rather been in their perpetuating it as a practical art,
than by adding to its dignity or importance. If, however, it be
allowable to separate Rubens from the Flemish school, we may with
still greater propriety set apart by himself that extraordinary man
Rembrandt, who, if any, had some insight of the sentiment of colour.
Very little compliment is paid to the French school by De Burtin. He
considers that it has no characteristic but that of the imitation of
all schools. It should be observed in justice to more modern French
painters, that this was written in 1808. The very opposite opinions of
M. Levesque against, and Lairesse in favour of Simon Vouet, the
founder of the school, are quoted. The opinions of neither will weigh
much with modern critics, even though it were certain that those
ascribed to Lairesse were his. Neither Claude nor Nicolas Poussin are
allowed to belong to the French school. We presume De Burtin had but
little taste for landscape, for he does not mention, we believe, in
this whole work, Gaspar Poussin--nor does he dwell much upon Claude.
It is extraordinary that in mentioning the one, he should take no
notice of his great contemporary.
And here we may observe, that writers on art have ever been neglectful
in the extreme with regard to this part of art--we should add, this
delightful part, and so capable of sentiment. They take a vast jump
from the high Italian Historic (of Figures) to the low Flemish and
Dutch, not even in those latter schools discriminating the better
portion of the landscape from the lower.
There is wanting a new classification, one not so much of schools, nor
of styles _per se_, as of subjects--in which the School of Landscape
would require an ample treatment. It is a school which, by the neglect
of critics, has been allowed to descend to its lowest depth; yet is it
one which is daily becoming more the public taste--a taste,
nevertheless, which has as yet given to it but little of its former
elevation, which it had entirely lost before it reached us through the
deterioration of the Dutch and Flemish schools.
The German school, the first in antiquity, was extinguished with its
masters. It was founded by Albert Durer, whose genius was acknowledged
and admired by Raffaelle himself. The modern German school was not in
existence at the date of this publication in 1808.
An entire chapter is given upon "the causes of the characteristics
which distinguish the different schools from each other." There is,
however, nothing new said upon this subject. Undoubtedly there is much
truth in the following passage: "So much did the liberty which the
Dutch had just recovered from the Spaniards, by unheard-of efforts,
become fatal among them to the same class of art, the foundations of
which they sapped by their resolution to banish their priests, and to
substitute a religion that suffers neither pictures nor statues of
saints in their churches. From that time all the views of their
painters were necessarily turned to the other classes of art, more
susceptible of a small form, and therefore more suitable to the
private houses of the Dutch, which, though neat and commodious, are
not sufficiently large for pictures of great size." If the dignity of
art is to be recovered, it will be by national galleries, and we might
yet perhaps hope, by re-opening our churches for the admission of
scriptural pictures.
The chapter upon the division of pictures into classes, is by no means
satisfactory. It is admitted by the translator to be incomplete. At
its conclusion is a quotation from Pliny, which, as it is intended to
justify De Burtin's taste for the low Flemish and Dutch schools, does
not indicate a very high taste in either Pliny or himself. Pliny says
of Pyreicus, that "few artists deserve to be preferred to him. That he
painted, in small, barbers' and shoemakers' stalls, asses, bears, and
such things." He further adds, that his works obtained _larger_ prices
than other artists of nobler subjects obtained, and that he was not
degraded by choosing such low subjects. We beg pardon of Pliny, but we
would not give three farthings for his pictorial judgment. Indeed, had
not Lucian given us some most vivid descriptions of some of the
ancient pictures, we should have had no very high opinion of them. For
the well-known anecdotes speak only in favour of mechanical
excellence. Our author, in his chapter on the art of describing
pictures, might have taken Lucian for his model with great propriety.
There is in this chapter on division into classes, much nonsense about
beauty, Ideal and Physical. De Burtin thinks we have not any
instinctive feeling for physical beauty as of moral beauty; that a
fixed proportion of parts neither in men nor animals, any more than in
architecture, is the foundation of beauty--which is perfectly
ridiculous, and not worth an argument. Ideal beauty he here treats
with great contempt, and points out two truths on this matter
demonstrated by comparative anatomy; "the one of which is, that the
beauty of the antique heads depends chiefly on the facial line in
them, making an angle of 100 degrees with the horizontal line; the
other is, that it is certain that such a head is never found in
nature."
In the tenth chapter he treats of "the causes of the superiority of
the pictures of the 16th and 17th centuries over those of the past
century." He looks upon Rome and the Antique as the chief cause, and
that artists go there before they have established principles of art.
It is not, he asserts, in difference of colours; for "Giorgione and
Titian neither made this themselves, nor brought them from afar, but
bought then uniformly in the shops at Venice." He appears to entertain
no suspicion of loss or deterioration of vehicle; on the contrary,
thinks some artists have been very successful in copies, here rather
contradicting his former remarks upon the difference between old
copies and new; but, above all, he attributes this _decadence_ of art
to the neglect of colour. That, however, is evidently only one part of
the art. We are almost induced to smile either at his flattery or his
simplicity in naming certain exceptions of modern times, whose names
will be little known to, and those known not much in the admiration
of, the English collector, "all of whom have carried their art to a
very high degree of perfection." In his chapter on the "different
manners of the masters," it is observable how little he has to say of
the Italian schools; almost all the subsequent remarks in the volume
are confined to the Flemish and Dutch. He greatly praises Dietrici for
his manner, which to us is not pleasing, and which we should term an
imitating flippancy. He tells an anecdote of Titian, which, if it rest
upon any good authority, tends to prove that Titian's medium must have
been one which admitted the mixture of water with oil. Of Titian he
says, that at the end of his life "he used to daub his best works anew
with red paint, because he thought the colour too feeble. But happily
his pupils had the address to prevent the fatal effects of his
foolishness, _by making up his colours with water only_, or with an
oil that was not of a drying nature." With colours ground, Titian
could not have mixed his pencil in oil alone and unmixed--and he would
himself have immediately discovered the cheat, for it would have dried
as distemper dead, and crumbled away under his hand. He might have so
painted, if oil and water had been combined, and the vehicle rendered
saponaceous, which it probably was. Many artists have been led, he
observes, to change the manner from good to bad. We have a remarkable
instance in our Gainsborough, whose latter scratchy, slovenly manner
is most displeasing; nor had he at any time an imagination to justify
it, or rather to qualify it by the power of his compositions.
It is strange that he attributes slovenliness of manner to Rembrandt,
"from Avarice." Documents have recently been produced showing that
Rembrandt's goods were seized for payment of no very large debt. But
is not M. de Burtin altogether mistaken in this manner of Rembrandt?
Any of his pictures that show this slovenliness, are, we should
suspect, in those parts merely sketched in--a method agreeable to his
practice, which was to work upon and upon, glazing, and heaping
colour--a method which required, in the first instance, a loose and
undefined sketchy manner. Some few years ago there was a picture by
him exhibited at the Institution, Pall-Mall--dead game, wonderfully
painted, and evidently unfinished; a boy in the background was, as we
might term it, daubed in in a very slovenly manner, and with a
greenish colour, evidently for the sake of that colour as an
underground. Under the head "Historical" in this chapter, it is
strange to find but seven names, Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, Lairesse,
Poelemburg, Albert Durer, and Hans Holbein. Even with some of these
names it is too much honour to place Lairesse and Poelemburg.
In reference to the lower classes of subjects, we think justice is
hardly done to Jan Steen, of whom, considering him even as a
colourist, more should have been said, than that he "is distinguished
by the drollery of his subjects, and by the most true and ingeniously
simple expression of the feelings of common life." All this might be
said of many others; the characteristic of Jan Steen is still wanting.
So we think as to Philip Wouverman; no notice is taken of his too
great softness, the evident fault of his manner. Nor are we satisfied
with the description of Backhuysen. It should have been noticed in
what he is distinguished from Vandervelde. His defect in composition
is so striking, as frequently to show a want of perspective in design,
and often he has no principal object in his picture. His vessels are
either too large or too small for the scene; and his execution was
likewise too softened. He winds up this part of the subject with a
quotation from Diderot, that "he cannot be manner'd, either in design
or colouring, who imitates nature scrupulously, and that mannerism
comes of the master of the academy, of the school, and of the
Antique," which we very much doubt, for the mannerism is often in the
mind, the peculiar, the autographic character of the painter, which he
stamps even upon nature. Were a Wynantz, and a Claude or Poussin, put
down before the same scene, how different would be their pictures, how
different the vision in the eye of the three! A Claude would see the
distances, a Gaspar Poussin the middle distances and flowing lines,
and Wynantz the docks and thistles. The chapter "on the signatures of
the Masters," will be found useful to collectors. He says that where
there is a false signature it is removed by spirits of wine, and that
is the proof that it is false. He does not draw the inference, that as
spirits of wine destroy the one vehicle and not the other, the old and
original, they must differ.
Another chapter is devoted to "The famous balance composed by De Piles
for estimating the different degrees of merit in the principal
historical painters." This famous balance is a piece of critical
coxcombry with which we never could have tolerable patience. It is an
absurd assumption of superiority in the critic over all the masters
that ever were; as if he alone were able to conceive perfection, to
which no painter has ever been able to advance; that perfection on
which the critic, or rather De Piles, had his eye, is Number 20; that
no Painter has approached it nearer than nineteen. It commences with a
falsehood in supposition, that the critic is above the Painter, or
Art, or the only one really cognisant of it. The fact being quite the
reverse, for _we know nothing that we have not been absolutely taught
by genius_. It is genius that precedes; it is the maker, the worker,
the inventor, who alone sees the step beyond. Did the critic see this
step he would cease to be the critic, and become the maker. He would
become the genius. In the arts, whether of poetry, painting, or music,
we know nothing but what practical genius tells us, shows us, teaches
us; seldom is it, indeed, that the scholar critic comprehends fully
the lessons taught; but to pretend to go before the _masters_, and to
set up a post with his Number 20 marked upon it, and to bid his master
reach it if he can, is the puerile play of an infantine intellect, or
very conceited mind! And so we give M. De Piles, and all his
followers, a slap in the face, and bid them go packing with Number 20.
We will not condescend to pull to pieces this fantastic scheme, which
is in its distinctions, and weighings and calculations, appreciations
and depreciations, as false as it must necessarily be, arising from a
mind capable of laying down any such scheme at all. The chapter on
prices, and the lists contained, will be consulted with advantage by
collectors. It contains valuable documents, showing the fluctuations
of public taste. There is much useful information upon cleaning
pictures, and on varnishes. Something has been recently said to bring
into practice again the varnishing with white of egg. M. de Burtin is
decidedly against the practice. "As to the varnishes of water,
isinglass, and white of egg, every prudent amateur will attack them
the instant that he discovers such dangerous enemies, and will use
every effort to free his pictures from them." We think him utterly
mistaken in the following passage. "In operating upon a work of art,
whether to clean it or to raise the varnish, it ought to be
remembered, that the colours grow hard only by the lapse of time." If
so, surely a hundred years would be time enough to harden--but the
chemical tests which touch the hard paint, if it be hard, of a century
old, will not be applicable to those of still older date, and of
better time. He had shown this unconsciously in what he had said of
spirits of wine. We have taken some pains in the pages of Maga to
disabuse the public with regard to the imaginary benefit of painting
in varnish--a most pernicious practice; and that it is so, we have
elsewhere given both proof and authorities. We are glad to find our
author on our side. "Besides, no one at the present day (1808) is
ignorant of their absurd method of painting in varnish, which corrupts
the colours, and prevents them ever attaining the requisite hardness."
There is much useful matter upon varnishing, which it will be well
that collectors and keepers of public galleries should read with
attention. We do not say follow, but read; for it is indeed a very
serious matter to recommend a varnish, seeing how many pictures are
totally ruined by bad applications. We have been told that drying oil
mixed with mastic varnish has been, though not very recently, used in
our National Gallery. We hope it is a mistake, and that there has been
no such practice. The effect must be to make them dull and horny, and
to destroy all brilliancy in time. We say no more upon that subject,
believing that our National Gallery is intrusted to good hands, and
that whatever is done, will be done with judgment, and not without
much reflection. A new varnish has appeared, "Bentley's." We believe
it is copal, but rendered removable as mastic. It is certainly very
brilliant, not, or but slightly, subject to chill, and is more
permanent, as well as almost colourless. De Burtin not only denounces
the use of oil in varnishes, but speaks of a more disgusting practice,
common in Italy, of rubbing pictures "with fat, oil, or lard, or other
animal grease.... So destructive a practice comes in process of time
to rot the picture, so that it will not hold together." We should
scarcely have thought it worth while to notice this, had we not seen
pictures so treated in this country. Behold a specimen of folly and
hazardous experiment:--"At that time, I frequented the Dresden gallery
every morning, and got from M. Riedal all the details of his practice.
He informed me that, amongst others, the chief works of Correggio,
Raffaelle, Titian, and Procaccini, after having undergone his
preparatory operations, had got a coat of his 'oil of flowers,' which
he would repeat, until every part became 'perfectly bright.' And on my
remarking, that in the admirable 'Venus' of Titian, the carnations
alone were bright, and all the rest flat, he told me with perfect
coolness, that 'having only as yet given it three coats of his oil,
that it was not astonishing, but that he would put it all in unison by
multiplying the coats.'" The man should have been suffocated in his
"oil of flowers," preserved in them, and hung up in the gallery _in
terrorem_. Could ghosts walk and punish, we would not have been in his
skin, though perfumed with his preservative oil of flowers, under the
visitations of the ghosts of Correggio, Raffaelle, Titian, and
Procaccini. "Such," adds M. de Burtin, "was his threat at the very
moment that I felt overpowered with chagrin, to see the superb
carnations of Titian acquiring a yellowish, sad, and monotonous tone,
through the coats that he had already given to it."
We have noticed, at considerable length, this work, and have been led
on by the interest of the subject. The perusal of this translation
will repay the connoisseur, and we think the artist. The former, in
this country, will be surprised to find names of artists, whose works
will not be found in our collections, at least with their titles. The
artist will find some useful information, and will always find his
flame of enthusiasm fed by reading works upon the subject of art,
though they should be very inferior to the present useful volume. We
recommend it as not unamusing to all who wish to think upon art, and
to acquire the now almost necessary accomplishment of a taste for
pictures.
MANNER AND MATTER.
A TALE.
CHAPTER I.
Along the dusty highway, and underneath a July sun, a man about fifty,
tending somewhat to the corpulent, and dressed in heavy parsonic
black, might have been seen treading slowly--treading with all that
quiet caution which one uses who, conscious of fat, trusts his person
to the influence of a summer sky. Mr Simpson, such was the name of
this worthy pedestrian, passed under the denomination of a
mathematical tutor, though it was now some time since he had been
known to have any pupil. He was now bent from the village of ------ to
the country-seat of Sir John Steventon, which lay in its
neighbourhood. He had received the unusual honour of an invitation to
dinner at the great man's house, and it was evidently necessary that
he should present himself, both his visage and his toilet, in a state
of as much composure as possible. The dust upon his very shining boot,
this a touch from his pocket-handkerchief, before entering the house,
could remove, and so far all traces of the road would be obliterated;
but should this wicked perspiration once fairly break its bounds, he
well knew that nothing but the lapse of time, and the fall of night,
would recover him from this palpable disorder. Therefore it was that
he walked with wonderful placidity, making no one movement of body or
mind that was not absolutely necessary to the task of progression, and
holding himself up, so to speak, _within_ his habiliments as if he and
they, though unavoidably companions on the same journey, were by no
means intimate or willing associates. There was a narrow strip of
shade from the hedge that ran beside the road, and although the shadow
still left the nobler half of his person exposed to the rays of the
sun, he kept carefully within such shelter as it afforded. If he
encountered any one, he stood still and examined the foliage of the
hedge. To dispute the path in any other manner, with the merest urchin
he might meet, was out of the question. It would have caused
excitement. Moreover he was a meek man, and in all doubtful points
yielded to the claim of others. Grocery-boys and barrow-women always
had the wall of him. Our traveller proceeded so tranquilly, that a
sparrow boldly hopped down upon the ground before him; he was so
resolved to enter into conflict with no living creature, that he
paused till it had hopped off again.
Mr Simpson's toilet, though it had been that day a subject of great
anxiety with him, presented, we fear, to the eyes of the world nothing
remarkable. A careless observer, if questioned on the apparition he
had met with, would have replied very briefly, that it was the figure
of an old pedant dressed in a suit of rusty black. Suit of rusty
black! And so he would dismiss the aggregate of all that was choice,
reserved, and precious in the wardrobe of Mr Simpson. Rusty black,
indeed! Why, that dress coat, which had been set apart for years for
high and solemn occasions, had contracted a fresh dignity and
importance from every solemnity with which it had been associated. And
those respectable nether-garments, had they not always been dismissed
from service the moment he re-entered his own dusty apartment? Had
they not been religiously preserved from all abrasion of the surface,
whether from cane-bottomed chair, or that under portion of the library
table which, to students who cross their legs, is found to be so
peculiarly pernicious to the nap of cloth? What _could_ have made them
worse for wear? Would a thoughtless world confound the influence of
the all-embracing atmosphere, with the wear and tear proper to cloth
habiliments? And then his linen--would a careless public refuse to
take notice that not a single button was missing from the shirt,
which, in general, had but one solitary button remaining--just one at
the neck, probably fastened by his own hand? Above all, was it not
noticeable that he was not to-day under the necessity of hiding one
hand behind him under the lappets of his coat, and slipping the other
down his half-open umbrella, to conceal the dilapidated gloves, but
could display both hands with perfect candour to public scrutiny? Were
all these singular merits to pass unacknowledged, to be seen by no
one, or seen only by himself?
It was an excellent wish of Burns'--
"Oh, would some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us!"
But it would be a still more convenient thing if some power would give
the rest of the world the faculty of seeing us as we see ourselves. It
would produce a most comfortable state of public opinion; and on no
subject would it operate more favourably than on that of dress. Could
we spread over beholders the same happy delusion that rests on
ourselves, what a magical change would take place in the external
appearance of society! Mr Simpson is not the only person who might
complain that the world will not regard his several articles of attire
from the same _point of view_ as himself. We know a very charming
lady, who, when she examines her kid gloves, doubles her little fist,
and then pronounces--they will do--forgetful that she is not in the
habit of doubling her pretty fist in the face of every one that she
speaks to--and that, therefore, others will not take exactly the same
point of view as herself.
Notwithstanding the heat of the sun, our mathematician contrived to
deliver himself in a tolerable state of preservation at the mansion of
Sir John Steventon. We pass over the ceremony of dinner, and draw up
the curtain just at that time when the ladies and gentlemen have
re-assembled in the drawing-room.
We look round the well-dressed circle, and it is some time before we
can discover our worthy friend. At length, after a minute research, we
find him standing alone in the remotest corner of the room. He is
apparently engaged in examining the bust of the proprietor of the
mansion, which stands there upon its marble pedestal. He has almost
turned his back upon the company. Any one, from his attitude, might
take him for a connoisseur, perhaps an artist, absorbed in his
critical survey. But so far is he from being at the present moment
drawn away by his admiration of the fine arts, that we question
whether he even _sees_ the bust that is standing upright, face to
face, before him. He has got into that corner, and knows not how to
move from it. He knows not where else to put himself, or what else to
be looking at. The scene in which he finds himself has, from the
solitude of his later years, become strange and embarrassing. The
longer he stands there, the more impossible does it seem for him to
get away, or even to turn round and face the company. The position of
the valorous Schmelzle, who having read upon a board the notice "that
spring guns were set upon the premises," trembled as much to retreat
as to advance, to move a foot backwards or forwards, or in any
direction, but stood gazing at the formidable announcement, was
scarcely more painful than that of Simpson. Although probably not a
single person in the room was taking the least notice of his
movements, he _felt_ that every eye was upon him. The colour was
mounting in his cheek. Every moment his situation was becoming more
intolerable. We are afraid that he would soon have committed something
very absurd--have broken from his moorings with a shout--or dispelled
the sort of nightmare that was stifling him by some violent gesture,
perhaps by dealing a blow at that bust which stood there so placidly
before him, just as the poor youth did at the British Museum, who
threw a stone at the Portland vase, to prove that he also was a man,
and had volition, and was not to be looked into stone by the Gorgon of
society. Fortunately, however, Sir John Steventon himself came to the
rescue.
"Well, Mr Simpson," said the baronet pointing to the bust, "do you
trace a resemblance?"
Mr Simpson was so overjoyed to have at length some one at hand to whom
he might speak, or seem to be speaking, and so connect himself with
the society around him, that to the simple question he made not one
only, but several answers, and very dissimilar ones too. In the same
breath he found it a likeness, yet not very like, and ended with
asking for whom it was intended.
Sir John Steventon smiled, and after one or two indifferent
observations, led Mr Simpson apart into a little study or _sanctum_ of
his own, which communicated with the drawing-room. It will be
naturally concluded that there existed some peculiar reason for the
invitation passed on our humble mathematician, who was not altogether
the person, under ordinary circumstances, to find himself a guest at
rich men's tables. The following conversation will explain this
departure from the usual course of things, and the respectable
conventions of society.
"You were some years," said Sir John, "a tutor in the family of the
late Mr Scott?"
"I was," responded Mr Simpson, "and prepared his son for Cambridge.
Had the young man lived"----
"He would, I am sure," politely interrupted Sir John, "have borne
testimony to the value of your instruction. I am, as you may be aware,
the executor of Mr Scott. That gentleman was so well satisfied with
the exertions you made, and the interest you took in his son, that, on
your quitting him, he presented you, I believe, with an annuity of
fifty pounds, to be enjoyed during your life. This is, if I may be
allowed to say so, the chief source of your income."
"The only one," answered Mr Simpson. "For although I willingly
proclaim myself tutor of mathematics, because a title, no matter what,
is a protection from the idle curiosity of neighbours; yet, if I may
venture to say so, my life is, indeed, devoted to science for the love
of science itself, and with the hope of enrolling my name, although
the very last and humblest, amongst those who have perfected our
knowledge of the mathematics, and extended their application. I have
already conceived, and in part executed a work."
Mr Simpson was launching on the full tide of his favourite subject. He
thought, as good simple creatures always do, that he could not make a
better return for the hospitalities of the rich man, than by pouring
out his whole heart before him. Sad mistake which these simple people
fall into! The rich man cares nothing for their heart, and is very
susceptible to ennui.
"Very good," interrupted Sir John, "very good; but with regard to this
annuity. I have not yet looked over the papers relating to it, and I
hope, for your sake, I shall find it properly secured."
"I have a deed formally drawn up."
"True, true; and I hope all will be found straightforward in this,
and in other affairs of the testator, and that nothing will compel me
to call in the assistance or sanction of the Court of Chancery in
administering the estate. In that case, although your claim might be
ultimately substantiated, yet the payment of your annuity might, for
some years, be suspended."
"I pray God not!" exclaimed our man of science with some trepidation.
"I have lived so much alone, so entirely amongst my figures and
diagrams, that I have not a friend in the world of whom I could borrow
sixpence."
"Well, I trust," resumed Sir John, after a short pause, "that there
will be no occasion for applying to a Court of Chancery. There ought
to be none. There is but one child, Mrs Vincent, whom you have seen
this evening in the drawing-room. The great essential is to keep
prying and meddlesome attorneys from thrusting themselves into the
business. You acted as confidential secretary as well as tutor, while
you were domiciled with Mr Scott."
"I did."
"There was a pecuniary transaction between myself and Mr Scott, to
which I think you were privy."
"A loan of ten thousand pounds, for which you gave your bond."
"Exactly. I see you are informed of that circumstance. You are not,
perhaps, equally well informed that that bond was cancelled; that the
debt, in short, was paid. This happened after you had left Mr Scott.
But although, as I tell you, this debt no longer exists, yet it might
create a great embarrassment to me, and to every person interested in
the estate of the testator, if it were known that such a debt ever had
existed. Mrs Vincent has just returned from India, expecting a very
considerable fortune from her late father. To her, in general terms,
the whole property is left. She will be disappointed. There is much
less than she anticipates. However, not to make a long story of this
matter, all I have to request of you is this, if any one should
question you as to the property of your late patron, and especially as
to this transaction, be you silent--know nothing. You have ever been a
man of books, buried in abstractions, the answer will appear quite
natural. This will save you, be assured, from much vexation,
disquietude, and grievous interruption to your studies, and I shall
rest your debtor for your considerate behaviour. A contrary course
will create embarrassment to all parties, and put in jeopardy your own
annuity, on which, as you say, you depend for subsistence, and the
carrying out of your scientific projects."
As Mr Simpson sat silent during this communication, Sir John continued
some time longer in the same strain. He made no doubt that the simple
mathematician before him was quite under his influence--was completely
in his power. That simple person, however, who lived in obscurity,
almost in penury--to society an object of its wisely directed
ridicule--was a man of honour. Little had he to do with the world;
even its good opinion was scarcely of any importance to him. What to
him was the fastidiousness of virtue--to him whom poverty excluded
from the refined portion of society, and knowledge and education from
the vulgar and illiterate? What could he profit by it? Nothing,
absolutely nothing. And yet there was no power on earth could have
made this man false to his honour. Partly, perhaps, from his very
estrangement from the business of the world, his sense of virtue had
retained its fresh and youthful susceptibility. As is the case with
all such men, he was slow to attribute villany to others. This it was
had kept him silent; he waited to be quite convinced that he
understood Sir John. When the truth stood plainly revealed, when it
became evident to him that this debt of ten thousand pounds was _not_
paid, and that he was brought there to be bribed or intimidated into a
guilty secrecy, his whole soul fired up with indignation.
He had listened, as we say, in silence. When satisfied that he
perfectly comprehended Sir John, he rose from his seat, and briefly
intimating that he should not leave him long in doubt as to the manner
in which he should act, turned, and abruptly left the apartment. Sir
John had no time to arrest him, and could only follow, and be a
witness to his movements. He re-entered the drawing-room. Where were
now all the terrors of that scene? Where the awe which its easy
elegant ceremonial inspired? Gone, utterly gone. He had now a duty to
fulfil. You would have said it was another man. Had he been the
proprietor of the mansion, he could not have entered with a more
assured and unembarrassed air. There was a perfect freedom and dignity
in his demeanour as he stepped across the room. In the centre of the
room, throned, as it were, upon the sofa, sat two ladies, remarkable
above all the others, for the finished elegance of their manner, and
the splendour of their toilet. The one was Lady Steventon, the other
Mrs Vincent. Some minutes ago, not for all the world would he have
stood alone upon that piece of carpet in front of this sofa. No
courtier, assured of the most smiling reception, could have drawn his
chair with more ease to the vacant spot beside Mrs Vincent, than did
now Mr Simpson. He immediately entered into conversation on the
subject that at the moment engrossed all his thoughts; he reminded her
of the confidential intimacy which had subsisted between himself and
her late father; proffered his assistance to aid her in the
arrangement of her affairs; and, in particular, gave a succinct
account of the transaction which Sir John had manifested so great
anxiety to conceal.
The manner in which all this was said, so entirely took Sir John
Steventon by surprise, that he was unable to interfere with a single
word. Mrs Vincent, to whom the information was evidently quite new,
concealed the embarrassment she felt in some general expressions of
thanks to Mr Simpson. He, when he had fulfilled his object, rose, and
making a profound bow to his host and hostess, quitted the house. His
demeanour was such, that his host involuntarily returned his
salutation with one of marked deference and respect.