portrait-making came in: every body wrote every body’s portrait. Two of
the best portraits extant are those of Cardinal de Retz, by his old enemy
and late friend, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and that of Madame de
Sévigné, by Madame de la Fayette. “_La grande princesse_,” Mademoiselle
de Montpensier, in her coarse, vulgar, but natural way, has given a
number of cotemporary portraits, through her amusing memoirs. All her
sketches of Charles II., in his youthful days, when he was paying his
addresses to her, are admirable; though very unlike the frank, generous,
and devoted cavalier who figures as the royal hero in one of Sir W.
Scott’s novels. His utter ignorance of his own affairs—his passion for
dogs and horses, and his spending all his time in learning to dance the
_triolet_[60]—which, with his declining a dish of ortolans, and throwing
himself on a piece of beef and a shoulder of mutton,[61] finally decided
her to refuse him—are admirable touches both of character and manner,
and make up a more faithful portrait of the worthless, profligate, and
“mutton-eating king,” than any on record. The reason is, that it was
drawn from the life, without any reference to party or posterity.
In the reign of the Regent Orleans, a work, called _Galerie des
Peintres_, collected all the “portraits” of the time, without any mercy
to the originals, and consequently had a considerable vogue. One of the
prettiest and best-natured works of this description I know, is still,
I believe, in MS. It is by the celebrated Madame Albrizzi, of Venice,
whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at Padua, and who speaks
in pictures, and may well write them—a charming and rare art! The
Albrizzi Gallery is enriched with the most eminent characters of the last
half century. Her friend, and once devoted admirer, Denon, has found a
conspicuous place in it, _bien encadré_. He, in return, has engraved a
picture of Madame Albrizzi, extremely like, and worthy of its fair model.
He sent me a copy, a few weeks before his death, with one of his own.
Lady C. L—— was accused of painting the portrait of Lord Byron in
Glenarvon, though not _en beau_. One day, at a dinner party at Copet,
Madame de Staël, addressing Lord Byron across the table, asked, in her
_sans façon_ way, “Is it true, my lord, that you are the original of
Glenarvon?” “It may be so,” he replied, “but I never sat for it.”
Every body, who writes novels, now labours under the imputation of
putting forth their friends and enemies “in their books.” No “kindred or
propinquity” excludes the suspicion. No one is thus accused more than I
am; and no one is more innocent of the charge. Except in the instances
of a few public characters, which are fair game, all my sketches have
been of the species or genus, and never of the individual. Still I
think I could draw a character from the life, if I should set about it.
_Voyons_—“My dear friend Mrs. —— is one of those who—” But no; I’ll keep
my dear friend as sportsmen keep bag foxes; to let her loose on a future
and more favourable occasion for shewing sport.
HUMAN ANIMALITY.
“His intellect is not replenished—he is only an animal, only
sensible in the duller parts.”
SHAKSPEARE.
The chances of my visiting list brought to my boudoir this morning two
such pretty creatures, male and female, so brilliant and so bird-like,
that I thought they had escaped from a group of tropical specimens that
stood in a corner of the room, and which they very much resembled. There
was the bill, and the beak, and the bright plumage, and elegant form;
and not one sound of melody in their discordant voices—not one idea in
their vacant heads: and so they chirped, and chattered, without ceasing,
with all the emulative noise and volubility of bores and birds. They had
neither of them met before; and, mutually excited and mutually pleased,
they so ruffled and fluttered their feathers at each other, that I really
longed to catch both, to shut them up together in the same cage, and add
them to my collection of curiosities, natural, and unnatural.
These two creatures can never have any conduct, for they are evidently
and organically deficient in their judgment; those bird-shaped heads,
with their disproportioned beaks, and falling-in of the lower part of
the facial structure, always produce self willed folly—the obstinacy
which arises from the inability to receive an impression. One of my
pretty visitors has recently and strongly evinced this species of
imperturbability. Persons who resemble brute animals, are generally
deficient in intellect. Men who have the low shallow forehead of the
bull-dog will prefer Mendoza to Coke upon Littleton; and send them as you
may to the bar or to the pulpit, they will live and die prize-fighters—if
not in the ring at Hockley, at least in the circle of their friends and
acquaintance, to whom their pugnacity will be a perpetual annoyance.
Men who resemble monkeys (and I know several who do), who have small
close meeting eyes, are generally rogues, or at least extremely cunning;
but it is the cunning which is without wisdom—precisely the species
of intelligence ascribed to the amusing animal they resemble. Men, who
resemble horses, may succeed by force of volition in particular careers,
where will is more requisite, than development of intellect; but the
horse-faced gentleman could never truly answer in the affirmative to
poor Maturin’s habitual question, on a first introduction—“_Are you
intellectual?_”
I believe it is an allowed fact in physics, that the extreme facial
development, which goes to the physiognomy of our horse-faced friends,
is always at the expense of the brain; for the horse is a most stupid
animal, thorough-breed him as you may. Confide in your dog, your cat,
your mule, your ass, (a most misrepresented animal, by the by,) but
beware of your horse! Train, break, educate, and harness him, he is never
to be trusted. If I had the task allotted me of selecting those to whom
the destiny of a nation was to be committed, I should never choose men
who bore an obvious resemblance to any of the race of brute animals: they
must be morally defective somehow or other. The head of a bird is not
only a moral defect, but a positive animal deformity. A horse’s head
is not a deformity, but it is evidently a very inferior organization.
Before the representatives of the people are chosen by the people, who
themselves have been likened, by a great statesman and philosopher,
to pigs, and called a swinish multitude, I would have them examined
by the suffrages of a committee of eminent physiologists, anatomists,
physicians, and surgeons.
Well, all this may be nonsense; but it is _my sense_: _tale, quale_, I
give it as I have it. “A homely thing, Sir, but a thing of my own,” as
Touchstone says; and so, there it is!
MY REVIEWERS.
“Tout ce qui s’attache à la peau des malheureux gens de
lettres.”
FIGARO.
There is nothing so droll as the way in which reviews are sometimes got
up—the manner in which “the charge is prepared,” and sentence of death
pronounced, by the awful “we’s,” against poor authors, like myself, who
have had their little success, not only without the “metaphysical aid” of
reviewers, but in absolute defiance of their fulminations.
The review of “Salvator Rosa” was perpetrated after this fashion. The
great well-known of a great review, in distributing work to the little
unknowns who write under him, transmitted a copy of mine to be cut up
by a certain cockney liberal, the Lycurgus of Bow-bells, and the Solon
of the Poultry. The book, thus marked for cutting by the top-sawyer,
fell into the hands of one who mentioned it to the author. _Pardi!_ it
was “cut and come again!”—all scored, underlined, and marginally-noted
with square and rule canons of criticism—as a guide to the London
journeyman, who knew as much of “Salvator” and the arts, as he did of
the interior of Devonshire-house or the Vatican. But no matter: “_puis
donc qu’il suffisoit en ce tems-là d’avoir la figure d’homme pour
se mêler de critiquer_”—he applied himself to the job, and a long,
inflated, bitter article was done, as per order, full of mis-statements
and misrepresentations; when “one sad doubt arose,” of a much less
conclusive tendency than that of Parnell’s “Hermit,” but on a point of
more immediate personal interest. The reviewer, _à commandement_, was not
only a journeyman sawyer of the great Edinburgh pit, but he was also on
Mr. Colburn’s list of “my authors;” and as the authoress of “Salvator”
was the queen-bee of that gentleman’s authorical hive, there was no
knowing how the matter might be taken, or how far it might offend Mr.
Colburn to attack his queen-bee, and stop the sale of a work upon which
he had expended a considerable price. To set his mind at ease, then, the
_exécuteur des hautes œuvres_ of the literary justiciary of Edinburgh
took his review to New Burlington-street, for inspection: but, just as he
was in the act of shewing his MS., the subject of its vituperations was
announced; who, having _les petites entrées_ of the publisher’s study,
followed the servant sufficiently closely, to catch a glimpse of the long
leg and _ci-devant_ white stocking of the reviewer, in his escape by
another door.
“Who have I frightened away?” asked “the lively little lady,” as the
Quarterly calls her, when it does not call her an “odious worm!”
“Only the reviewer of ‘Salvator Rosa’ in the forthcoming Edinburgh,”
replied the bibliopolist.
“And what does he say?”
“Why, it is, on the whole, rather bitter—it is indeed!”
“May I look at it? for there it lies, I know upon instinct.”
“I think you had better not. Besides, it is a point of honour—indeed it
is out of the question.”
“Oh! honour among thieves! Will you let him publish it? for I take it for
granted he is one of your Johnny Raws.”
“Why, indeed—that is, I do not think it can do any harm. The attack on
‘France’ sold two editions, you know.”
“Oh! if it is to serve _your_ sale, _laissez faire_!”
“The book has already done its business; but if your ladyship object—”
“I! Oh dear, no; let the man earn his money. By the by, who is he?”
“Who is he? Oh, I cannot—that is—upon my honour, I cannot tell you.
Clever man, though—a popular author—he is indeed!”
“You won’t tell me his name?”
“I cannot, indeed—it is quite out of the question, Lady M——.”
“Well, I’ll tell you!”
_Le fermier de mon talent_ opened his eyes! “Indeed, Lady M——, you cannot
even guess who it is. Besides, you really—that is, I should not tell you,
if you did.”
“It is Mr. ——!” and I announced the name of my Zoilus.
“Dear me!—well, now, really, you are so odd; but you are mistaken—you
are, indeed!”
I was not mistaken; nor do I know any just cause or impediment why
I should not denounce my critical executioner, who has shewn me so
little mercy, so little justice! There is something so revolting in
hired misrepresentation—something so mutually degrading, in a task thus
given, and thus performed—it belongs so peculiarly to the _canaille_
of literature, who stab for pay, like bolder (and honester) assassins,
that the soul sickens when talent, and supposed liberality, desert
the standard of independent opinion, to enlist in the _bande noire_
of organized vituperators, or enrol in the troop of well paid puffers
and party panegyrists! It is, therefore, perhaps, for the interests of
literature and morality that an exposure of such literary _girouettism_
should be made; and yet I cannot seriously denounce even a public enemy.
Though I may have “stirred up with a long pole”[62] the deathless
vengeance of the Literary Gazette, or have _rompu la paille_ with the
higher powers of the Quarterly, in return for the seven deadly sins, for
which they have excommunicated me in their Index Expurgatorius, still
I have always rather fenced with my foes in fun, than sparred with
them in spite—I have never been the first to announce, nor denounce,
the names of the calumniators who have endeavoured to blacken and to
slander mine; and even now, leaving my Bow-bell Reviewer to public
detection, as I have done others of my critical assailants, whom I have
trotted out for public amusement (nor failed in the intention,) I thus
give my wrongs to the wind, and his name, in a whisper, to the safe
ears of our mutual publisher. For his article on Salvator, I leave it
untouched and unanswered, to mark an epoch of _décadence_ in that great
periodical, which, in the better energy of its pristine vigour, was wont
to consecrate its severity by the general justice of its attacks, and the
brilliant talent with which they were executed.
And now, instead of gratifying my revenge, I will do what is so much more
gracious, and so much more consonant to my sex, character, and country—I
will gratify my vanity, by recording the opinion of one on the subject
of Salvator Rosa, in every way qualified to judge of all in which the
arts are concerned; of one who has, in his own exquisite works, left
proofs of a finer tact in literature, than all the critical acumen from
Aristotle to the Aristarchus of Modern Athens included—I mean the author
of Egypt, the _Directeur du Musée Français_, the Baron Denon. I have the
less scruple in recording the opinions of this illustrious writer and
artist, on the subject of my Life of Salvator, because it is the very
reverse of indiscriminate approbation.
Salvator Rosa, considered as the rival of Poussin, (“the god” of Denon’s
idolatry,) was not viewed with any favourable prepossession by the proud
compatriot of “the Poet of Painters:” for Denon, though long standing at
the head of the cognoscenti of Europe, and revered as their Coryphæus,
had the heroic weakness of nationality, the foible of the patriotic;
and the comparative merits of the two great cotemporaries of THE PINCIO
were too often brought in contrast by the _Romanticists_ of the day, not
to embitter a little the feelings of the elegant classicist, whose love
of the arts, as they existed in the antique world, was confirmed among
the ruins of Rome, and in the gallery of the capitol, where, both as a
minister and an exile, the deepest of his impressions were taken, and the
happiest of his days passed.
_Au reste_—to account for the rather odd appellations of “_Drôle de
corps_,” and “_Vol au vent_,” used in these letters, they were mutually
given and accepted in the gaiety and intimacy of a friendship, by which
I was so much and so long distinguished—the mutual _sobriquets_ passed
into our correspondence, which continued till within a few weeks of his
death. It is from that correspondence, that I now, for the benefit of the
arts, and the gratification of their lovers, as much as in my own defence
against an unjust, misrepresenting, and hired criticism, select and
transcribe two letters[63] on the subject of my publication of the “Life
and Times of Salvator Rosa.”
“_To Lady Morgan, Dublin._
“MON CHER DRÔLE DE CORPS,
“Je viens d’apprendre que la traduction de Salvator Rosa
paroissoit depuis quelques jours. Le premier qui m’en a parlé,
est Monsieur de Ségur,[64] qui m’a dit, qu’il l’avoit dévoré;
que non seulement c’étoit un ouvrage charmant, mais qu’il
étoit d’un mérit très-distingué. D’autres m’en ont parlé avec
enthousiasme. Ces rapports m’ont fait sentir combien je vous
aime; car j’étois tenté de remercier ces messieurs du plaisir
qu’ils avoient eu. J’ai vite envoyé chercher l’ouvrage; et je
vais tâcher de lire avec reflexion, avant de vous en parler.
“J’espère que vous allez de suite vous mettre à écrire le roman
de Drôle de corps et de Vol au vent. N’attendez pas pour le
dénouement, que vous mourriez de douleur de la perte que vous
viendrez à faire de moi. Je crois qu’il vaut mieux que je vous
enlève, que le chevalier furieux cherche nos traces, pour nous
poignarder, et se tuer après, et que nous nous perdions tous
trois dans le désert de Zara. En attendant, je vous envoye mon
portrait, qu’il faut tâcher de dérober à la jalouse fureur du
Chevalier, qui aura, sans doute, anéanti une autre épreuve, que
je vous avois envoyé, et dont vous ne me parlez pas. Dites-lui,
cependant quelques tendresses; car malgré les horreurs qu’il
doit faire dans le roman, je me sens pour lui un sentiment que
je ne saurois définir.
“Notre pauvre Mad. —— est véritablement malade depuis six
mois, et cependant n’est pas changée. Elle veut vous écrire:
mais si je voulois l’attendre, peut-être ma lettre ne vous
arriveroit-elle jamais.
“Monsieur E. vous remettra une notice que je viens de faire,
dont il n’y a que cinquante épreuves, pour lui donner de
la préciosité. Un petit portrait improvisé par le meilleur
lithographe, auquel j’ai ajouté celui du dit lithographe nommé
Mauresse, et ma portière,—celle qui vous introduisoit, à qui
j’avois défendu de dormir, pendant que vous étiez ici, et qui
se repose après votre départ.
“Vous ne savez peut-être pas, cher Drôle de corps, que votre
Vol au vent a eu l’honneur d’être admis comme membre de votre
académie de Dublin. Je joins ici une lettre de remercîmens à
l’académie, que je vous prie de remettre à Mr. le Président;
je vous prie aussi de renouveler à Monsieur Davis (qui a bien
voulu me donner la première nouvelle de mon admission) toutes
mes actions de grâce. Je lui ai déjà écrit; mais il est fort
possible qu’il n’ait pas reçu ma lettre, attendu que tout ce
que j’écris en Angleterre et en Irlande est régulièrement
retenu;—sans doute, pour le faire imprimer, lorsqu’il y en aura
assez pour former un volume.
“Je vous dirai que votre portrait m’a fait grand plaisir,
quoique le nez soit trop gros. Mais il est gravé avec finesse
et délicatesse; et l’aspect général m’est agréable.
“Je suis bien de votre avis relativement à nos compatriotes.
Cependant il y en a peut-être encore jusqu’à quatre qu’il faut
distinguer de la tourbe regnante.
“Adieu, cher Drôle de corps; je vous aime bien, et suis bien
aise de vous aimer.
“Votre Vol au vent,
“DENON.”
“_Le 19 Mars, 1824._”
“Voici un petit portrait de Salvator Rosa, qu’autrefois j’ai
gravé à la hâte; je vous en envoyerai un autre, sur une boîte,
par la première occasion.”
“_To Lady Morgan, Dublin._
“CHER DRÔLE DE CORPS,
“Je lis avec un plaisir extrême votre Salvator Rosa.
L’introduction est une superbe chose. Ensuite il faut que
vous me permettrez de vous observer, que vous prenez trop
parti dans la guerre des artistes. S. Rosa avoit bec et ongles
pour se défendre, et il en usoit même la plus part du temps
offensivement; c’étoit un habile homme, mais fort mauvais
coucheur. On pouvoit l’admirer, se plaire avec lui; mais il
devoit être très-difficile de l’aimer. Vous le peignez comme
libéral, et vous le laissez voir plus que glorieux, farouche,
fastueux, hautain, despote s’il avoit pu: furieux pendant
toute sa vie d’être regardé comme un peintre de genre, tandis
qu’il n’auroit été que cela, si dans les dernières années de
sa vie, il ne se fut avisé de faire quatre ou cinq tableaux
d’histoire. Après cela, mon cher Drôle de corps, vous l’avez
trop loué comme graveur. Dans ces planches il a écrit ses
compositions, la fougue de ses pensées; mais sa pointe est
lâche et vagabonde: et dans ce genre, il à été ni dessinateur
ni coloriste. Enfin je vais peut-être vous faire sauter en
l’air, quand je vous dirai que la moindre graveur de Rembrandt
est préférable à la plus belle de Salvator Rosa. Du reste,
cher Drôle de corps, vous avez atteint le but principal de
votre ouvrage, qui est de faire connoître le siècle, que vous
avez peint jusqu’à l’illusion, tellement qu’en le lisant je me
croyois de la société de tous ces gens-là.
“Quand vous ferez une seconde édition, souvenez-vous, chère
amie, de mieux traiter le portrait du Poussin, qui étoit
aussi modeste qu’il étoit grand. A la vérité, il ne savoit ni
chanter, ni jouer de farces dans la rue, mais comme peintre
d’histoire, votre enragé petit maître n’est qu’un nain près
de ce Colosse. Quand on vent louer ses amis, il faut bien
se garder de certains rapprochements, et de réveiller des
comparaisons qu’ils ne peuvent soutenir. Songez que le Poussin
fut le créateur du paysage historique, et le maître de son
gendre le Gouaspe; et que les seuls tableaux du Déluge, et
Diogène brisant la tasse, surpassent tout ce que le Salvator
Rosa a fait en paysage, pour la pensée, pour la poësie, et
même pour la couleur. Quant à la composition, à la gravité,
et à la philosophie de l’histoire, le Poussin est peut-être
le premier de tous les peintres. Il faut donc vous dire, mon
cher Drôle de corps, que dans la promenade des deux sociétés
qui se rencontrent, j’étois dans celle de Poussin; et que vous
m’offensez en tournant en ridicule mon patron, et ma juste
admiration pour lui.
“_Fidatevi di me_, qui vous parle de sang froid comme ami,
charmé que vous ayez fait un ouvrage qui vous fera à tout
jamais beaucoup d’honneur, et que j’ai lu avec cet intérêt, qui
rende le succès de l’amitié si doux à partager.
“Mille tendres amitiés bien sincères.”
“_Le 14 Avril._”
EXCLAMATIONS.
Cold-blooded nations deal but little in exclamations; they belong to
the petulance of strong impulses, and to ardent temperaments, national
and individual. The Laplanders neither invoke, exclaim, nor imprecate;
the French and Italians are continually doing all three. Quakers, whose
education teaches them to “set a pulse and preach their blood to reason,”
scarcely ever resort to exclamations, to express their feelings. The
English are not exclaimers; their forms for this purpose are few and
foolish; and when they go beyond the _niaiserie_ of “dear me!” “bless
me!” “my stars!” they fall into downright imprecation. The Irish, the
petulant Irish, are great exclaimers. Like the Italians, they borrow
their exclamations from their creed; and when under strong excitement,
pronounce in piety, that which, to the Calvinistical severity of English
protestant ears, would sound very like profanation!
The Italians borrow their exclamations alike from their religion and
the antique faith of their great progenitors; and Per Bacco! Cospetto!
“Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,” come with equal and frequent facility to their
lips. They invoke, exclaim, and apostrophise, upon all occasions, trivial
or important. A fishwoman in the piazza of the Pantheon, will resort
to every vow and invocation of the ancient or modern faith of Rome, to
dispose of her stale fish on the evening of a fast day; and will express
her surprise or indignation at an undervaluing chapman, who rejects her
eels, or resists her turbot, by a volley of “_Madonna Mia’s!_” “_Sacro
Sacramento’s_,” and “_Madre di Dio’s!_” The French have a number of
charming exclamations and apostrophes; they have also many that are
quaint and simple, and extremely effective in low comedy. Molière abounds
in them; and the humour and the à propos of his _ouf!_ and _ouais!_
is quite indefinable. Denon and I got into the habit of ouf-ing and
ouais-ing at each other, until, with me, it became a _tic_, putting my
native Irish “ahs!” and “ochs!” in abeyance; and it is as much as I can
do to resist my interjectory oufs! and ouais! even on paper, and in the
regular way of professed authorship!
IRISH JUDGES.
It is extremely difficult to get the Irish to be grave upon grave
subjects. With a few exceptions in favour of absolute dulness and
mediocrity, all our judges are _drôles de corps_, and the highest the
drollest of any. What was Joe Miller to Judge Norbury, who kept the bar
in a roar for nearly half a century, and rarely passed sentence of death
without making some of his auditors die laughing?
“Here is a fellow, my lord,” (said an attorney, the other day, to one of
our legal chiefs,) “accused of stealing turnips; under what act can he be
attacked?”
“I really don’t know,” said the judge, without taking his eyes from the
paper on which he was writing.
“You don’t know, my lord?”
“No, not immediately, Mr. ——.”
“What does your lordship think of the _timber_ act?”
“Probably—that is, if the turnips were _sticky_!”
AT THE HEAD OF HIS PROFESSION.
Doctor ——, now so celebrated and so wealthy, served a hard probation to
success. I knew him in his obscurity, and thought him then a better and
an abler man, than I think him now. I saw him struggling, through all the
hopeless drudgery of his profession, up to his present eminence: haunting
hospitals, and bowing to Nurse Tenders. For years, he read, wrote, and
lectured, and did every thing but get on—still he laughed, and talked,
and was agreeable: at last he looked solemn, wore black silk stockings
and creaking shoes, walked on tip-toe, and turned methodist: his success
was rapid and complete; and he is now what is called—_at the head of his
profession!_—“_Le savoir faire vaut bien le savoir!_”
THE CHARITABLE BAZAARS OF DUBLIN.