Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859

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I never thought he would come to good, when I heard him attempting to
sneer at an unoffending city so respectable as Boston. After a man
begins to attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the
Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of him. Poor Edgar
Poe died in the hospital soon after he got into this way of talking;
and so sure as you find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass, you
had better begin praying for him, and stop lending him money, for he is
on his last legs. Remember poor Edgar! He is dead and gone; but the
State-House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond has got a
fountain that squirts up a hundred feet into the air and glorifies that
humble sheet with a fine display of provincial rainbows.

--I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I expected to gratify your
curiosity, if you have become at all interested in these puzzles,
doubts, fancies, whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine.
Next month you shall hear all about it.

--It was evening, and I was going to the sick-chamber. As I paused at
the door before entering, I heard a sweet voice singing. It was not the
wild melody I had sometimes heard at midnight:--no, this was the voice
of Iris, and I could distinguish every word. I had seen the verses in
her book; the melody was new to me. Let me finish my page with them.

HYMN OF TRUST.

O Love Divine, that stooped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,
On Thee we cast each earthborn care,
We smile at pain while Thou art near!

Though long the weary way we tread,
And sorrow crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near!

When drooping pleasure turns to grief,
And trembling faith is changed to fear,
The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf
Shall softly tell us, Thou art near!

On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
O Love Divine, forever dear,
Content to suffer, while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near!

* * * * *

ART.

PICTURES AT SEVILLE AND MADRID.

_Seville, January, 1859_.

I do not know whether I ought not to take you to the Museo on so bright
a morning, although I should like better to stroll with you on the
Paseo by the pretty river across which I look to the faintly seen hills
of Ronda, with the rich palm-trees in the foreground, and a great stone
pine in the middle distance, which would recall to us the Campagna and
Italy. Many people have said to me, "You cannot judge of Murillo till
you see him at Seville,"--they, of course, having been at Seville. This
is so far true, that his best picture is undoubtedly in the Cathedral
here; but in all other ways, Murillo is perfectly to be seen in other
cities. _You_ know, therefore, just what the pictures and the Museo
have to say to you. They speak of a most clever artist, who evidently
consulted Nature conscientiously, and who perceived and understood very
often many phases of her grace and beauty. The most masterly of his
fifteen or twenty pictures in the gallery is the one of Saint Thomas of
Villanueva giving Alms to the Poor; and it is, certainly, charmingly
arranged, with great breadth of effect and clever drawing,--on a cool
scale of color throughout. The Saint is in a black robe, relieved
against a light background of gray wall. The beggar who is receiving
alms is capitally understood, and carries the light broadly through the
picture. A charming little boy leans against his mother in the
left-hand corner, in half shadow, and shows her the coin in his hand. A
few other heads fill up the right-hand of the picture behind the Saint.
A red drapery, of a dull color, and a touch of brown-red here and
there, warm the agreeable grayness of the rest of the canvas. I like
much, also, a "Conception," in many respects like the usual picture
which Murillo repeated so often; but the Virgin in this one is
represented as very young,--about twelve or fourteen years old,--and
the whole effect is most silvery and delicate.

But the Saint Antonio in the Cathedral is, I should say, his great
picture. It is very simple, and full of feeling. The Saint, half
kneeling, stretches forward to the vision of the Christ-Child, which
descends in a glory of cherubim toward him. The great mass of light
falls directly upon the kneeling figure and the upturned face, and
throws strong shadows on the ground. One is reminded, in some of the
angel-figures, of the brilliant light and shadow on the little flying
cherubs in the "Assumption," at Venice. Here all is silvery, where in
Titian all burns with the glory of a Venetian sunset. But this picture
of Murillo seems to me what one must call an eminently "happy" picture.
It gives one the idea that the painter enjoyed painting it, for the
expressive movement of the Saint is most admirably given, and the
extreme simplicity of every part of the picture is most agreeable; so
that we are ready to give great praise to Murillo for what he did, and
to say that he was earnest and tried to represent what he really felt.
And when we say that, we say a great deal; do we not? But we cannot,
for a moment, compare him to the great Venetians. He did not attempt
what they did, because he did not feel it at all; and, as a painter, he
is not comparable to them. One sees that he executed with rapidity and
a sort of dash, as it were. The Venetian concealed his execution, as
Nature does, and attempted to render the most subtile things which he
knew his art alone _could_ give, in their full force and beauty. As a
painter, therefore, he cannot be compared with men who wrought from so
different a principle. And when we think of the lovely elevation and
noble thought in the great Venetians, we must quietly rest grateful for
those great blessings,--grateful and happy that they exist, and that
we, in some measure at least, understand and appreciate their meaning.
Is it not delightful to think of them and know them in their precious
old corners and over their dear old altars?

_Madrid, March, 1859_.

You see that we have at last left Andalusia, and are here in what is
like a bit of Paris,--shops, dress, carriages, and now and then the
smell of asphalt pavement being renewed. Still, mantillas are the
coverings for the female head, and peasants in costumes drive mules and
donkeys through the crowds in the busy streets, and one is still in
Spain. We came, you know, for the gallery, and the first glimpse of it
showed us that we have enough to do to see that, during our proposed
stay of a month. I must tell you just a few things about the pictures,
and give you a peep at Madrid through my eyes, since you are not here
to use your own.

Murillo is here the same as everywhere else. I very much prefer his
pictures in Seville. Velasquez, however, is to be really seen nowhere
so well as here. I do not know how many pictures there are here by him,
but a great quantity, it seems to me: Philips without number, in
childhood, youth, and age; Dons with curled moustaches; Queens with
large hoops and disfigured heads; an actor, full of life and character,
one of his very best. But his greatest picture, and really a wonder, is
his portrait of himself painting the little Infanta, who is in the
foreground of the picture with two young girls, her court ladies, her
dwarf, and a diminutive page. It is quite like a photograph, in clear,
broad effect of light and dark. From the other side of the room, full
of truth and vigor,--as you approach it, you find it is dashed in with
a surety of touch and a breadth truly extraordinary,--no details, no
substance even; painted with one huge brush, it would almost seem, all
is vigorous, dashing, clever, the triumph of _chic_, as shown by a
master hand. The dog in the immediate foreground is capital, the page
pushing him playfully with his foot. The dwarf stands next, full of a
sort of quaint truth, with her big head and heavy chin. The mass of
light falls on the Infanta, who takes a cup of something, chocolate, I
suppose, from one of the kneeling girls, while the other makes a
reverence on the other side. Beyond are a nun and a _guarda-damas_, and
in the mirror at the other end of the room are most cleverly indicated
the portraits of Philip and his wife. Velasquez stands on the left of
the picture, behind the Infanta, painting, with his canvas turned back
toward us as we look into the room. The black figure of an attendant
has passed out of the apartment and is going up a stair against a clear
white wall. The skilful way in which you are led into the picture is
astonishing, and the whole thing is quite by itself as a piece of
painting. There is no attempt at anything subtile or even delicate in
the treatment, speaking from the point of view of a result achieved by
paint on canvas,--no texture, no difference of handling, no imitation;
all is _paint_, admirably put on, for the effect across the room. I
think we must set Velasquez quite by himself as a truthful and surely
most gifted portrait-master. With a peculiar gift,--genius, I think we
might say,--certainly he is like no one else, and nobody else is like
him. Then there is his equestrian portrait of Philip IV., of which you
may remember the sketch in the Pitti Gallery,--also one of the Duke of
Olivarez, fresh, dashing, and spirited. But I prefer the portrait of
--some actor, I am sure,--full of character, against a gray wall
background,--one of those faces one is sure one has seen somewhere in
Spain, and he is declaiming evidently with the most capital action.--So
much for Velasquez.

But I hardly dare attempt to tell you of the glory of the great Titian,
who seems almost newly revealed, in many _perfect_ works. Nothing can
equal the superb style of a portrait of Alfonso of Ferrara; it is like
nothing but Nature,--a splendid, dark, manly face and figure, standing
and looking thoughtfully at you, or rather, beyond you, caressing in an
absent way a little silky dog who puts his paw up to attract his
master's notice. The glowing flesh, the superbly painted dress of deep
blue with fine arabesques of gold,--the delicate hand lying on the
soft, silky hair of the dog, with its turquoise ring on the second
joint of one of the fingers,--you can imagine it, can you not? Next him
stands Philip II., pale, elegant, and repulsive, in gorgeous armor worn
over festal, glittering white satin. Charles V. is on the other side;
and I hardly know which of these portraits is the finest as a work of
Art, for all are _perfect_. Charles is standing, with a noble dog
leaning up against his hand; there is something _simpatica_ in his gray
eyes, his worn face, and even in his protruding jaw, it is so admirably
rendered, and gives such a firm character to the face. His costume is
_elegantisimo_, white satin and gold,--with a tissue-of-gold doublet,
and a cassock of silver-damask, with great black fur collar and lining,
against which is relieved the under-dress; he wears his velvet cap and
plume, and a deep emerald satin curtain hangs on his right hand. These
portraits are just about as wonderful as any you may remember,--in his
best style and in capital condition. But I know you would say that the
great portrait of Charles on horseback is more grand. It is a sort of
heroic poem; he looks like Sir Galahad, or Chivalry itself, going forth
to conquer wrong and violence. His eager, worn face looks out from the
helmet so calmly and so steadily, the flash of his armor, which gleams
like real metal, the coal-black horse, which comes forward out of the
landscape shaking his head-piece of blood-red plumes against the golden
sunset sky and champing the golden bit, the grasp of the lance by the
noble rider: well, painting can do no more than that. It is history,
poetry, and the beauty of Nature recreated by the grand master. An
entirely different phase of his character is seen in his Ariadne Asleep
surrounded by the Bacchanals. This is full of antique Grecian feeling;
and such a subtile, delicious piece of painting! Ariadne is in the
foreground, full of warm, breathing life, her arm thrown over her
lovely head, and her golden hair falling over the vase of gold and onyx
on which she rests; a river of red wine runs through the emerald grass;
two beautiful girls have just put by their music and instruments, and
one turns her exquisite face toward us to speak to the other reclining
on the grass. The one who turns to us is the beauty of the Louvre, or
some one very like her, in full Venetian loveliness. In her bosom are
one or two violets and a paper with _Titianus_ written on it. The bit
of music on the grass has Greek letters. Dancing figures are in the
middle of the picture. The fauns stagger under the dark trees, carrying
great sumptuous vases of agate and gold. Silenus is asleep on a sunny
hill at a distance, and the white sails of the ship with Theseus gleam
on the deep-blue sea. There is another called an Offering to Fecundity.
It is a crowd of most lovely baby boys, wonderfully painted, frolicking
on the green among flowers and fruits. A figure full of action and
passion holds up a glass to the statue of the goddess in one corner.
The children are kissing each other and carrying about baskets of
fruit; these baskets are hung with rich pearls and rubies and gems of
all kinds. The green, fresh trees wave against a summer sky, and the
work is full of tender, sensitive elegance and love. It shows to me an
entirely new side of Titian in its extreme delicacy and sweetness.
Nobody can ever speak of a "want of refinement" in Titian, if they
thought so before, after seeing these pictures. Then there is the
Herodias, the same as the girl in Dresden who holds up the
casket,--wonderfully delicate and beautiful; and several other
portraits and pictures, which I cannot tell you of, even if you are not
already tired. I ought, however, to say that Paul Veronese has a very
fine Venus and Adonis here, full of sunlight and summer beauty, and
Christ Teaching the Doctors, nobly serious in character and admirable
in treatment; also two sketches of Cain and of Vice and Virtue, very
full of feeling for his subject. The Cain has his back toward you. His
wife and child look up at him entreatingly. There is a fine, solemn
horizon with a gleam of twilight. There are several Tintorets, but no
favorable specimens,--a portrait is the best. There is also a Giovanni
Bellini, which brings back the Venetian altar-pieces, quiet and lovely;
and a Giorgione, like the large one in the Louvre, in many ways; a
Madonna and Infant, with a fine female Saint and a noble Saint George.

These are some of the glorious treasures which the Spaniards own. If we
could only have some of these! or if, while we or our country are
committing the sin of coveting the Spanish possessions, we would only
covet something worth the having! I confess, I should delight to take
away one or two fine jewels of pictures that nobody here would miss.

I had almost forgotten to mention the great Raphael, the "Spasimo." It
is in his Roman style, with much that is, to me, forced in the action
and expression. The head of Christ, however, is beautiful, and
exquisitely drawn. Beside the Spasimo, there is a little picture of the
Virgin and Child, with Saint Joseph, in Raphael's early manner, very
lovely, and reminding one of the "Staffa" Madonna, at Perugia. It is
faint in color, and most charming in careful execution.

Then there are the finest Hemmlings I have ever seen,--finer than those
at Munich: lovely Madonnas, meek and saintly; superb adoring Kings, all
glowing with cloth-of-gold and velvets and splendid jewels; beautiful
quiet landscapes, seen through the arches of the stable; and angels,
with wings of dazzling green and crimson. The real love with which
these wonderful pictures are caressed by the careful, thoughtful artist
makes them most precious. Every little flower is delicately and
artistically done, and everything is invested with a sort of sacred
reverence by this earnest Pre-Raphaelite. One or two Van Eycks have the
same splendor and depth of feeling. These pictures look as if they were
painted yesterday, so clear and brilliant are their colors.

It is a pleasant circumstance, that some of the great Venetian pictures
in the gallery here were gained for Spain by the judgment and taste of
Velasquez. When he went to Italy with a commission from Philip IV.,
which it must have delighted him to execute, "to buy whatever pictures
were for sale that he thought worth purchasing," he spent some time in
Venice, and there bought, among other things, the Venus and Adonis of
Paul Veronese, and several of the works of Tintoretto. The Titians had
come to Spain before, and it was from the study of them, perhaps, that
Velasquez learned to paint so well. At any rate, we know what he
thought of Titian; for Mr. Sterling gives an extract from a poem by a
Venetian, Marco Boschini, which was published not long after
Velasquez's journey to Italy, in which part of a conversation is given
between him and Salvator Rosa, who asked him what he thought of
Raphael. You will like to see it, if you have not Sterling by you.

"Lu storse el cao cirimoniosamente,
E disse: 'Rafael (a dirve el vero,
Piasendome esser libero e sinciero)
Stago per dir che nol me piase niente.'

"'Tanto che,' repliche quela persona,
'Co' no ve piase questo gran Pitor,
In Italia nissun ve da in l' umor,
Perche nu ghe donemo la corona.'

"Don Diego repliche con tal maniera:
'A Venetia se trova el bon e 'l belo;
Mi dago el primo luogo a quel penelo;
Tician xe quel che porta la bandiera.'"

Here is a translation:--

The master, with a ceremonious air,
Bowed, and then said, "Raphael, truth to tell,
For to be free and honest suits me well,
Pleases me not at all, I must declare."

"Since, then," replied the other, "you so frown
On this great painter, in Italy is none
By whom, indeed, your favor can be won;
For upon him we all bestow the crown."

Don Diego thereupon to him replies,
"At Venice may be found the good and fair;
I give the first place to the pencil there;
Titian is he who carries off the prize."

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

1. _Dictionary of Americanisms_. A Glossary of Words and Phrases
usually regarded as peculiar to the United States. By JOHN RUSSELL
BARTLETT. Second Edition, greatly improved and enlarged. Boston:
Little, Brown, & Company, 1859. pp. xxxii., 524.

2. _A Glossarial Index to the Printed English Literature of the
Thirteenth Century_. By HERBERT COLERIDGE. London: Truebner & Company.
1859. pp. iv., 104.

3. _Outlines of the History of the English Language_, for the Use of
the Junior Classes in Colleges and the Higher Classes in Schools. By
GEORGE L. CRAIK, Professor of History and of English Literature in
Queen's College, Belfast. Third Edition, revised and improved. London:
Chapman & Hall. 1859. pp. xii., 148.

4. _The Vulgar Tongue_. A Glossary of Slang, Cant, and Flash Phrases,
used in London from 1839 to 1859; Flash Songs, Essays on Flash, and a
Bibliography of Canting and Slang Literature. By DUCANGE ANGLICUS.
Second Edition, improved and much enlarged. London: Bernard Quaritch.
1859. pp. 80.

5. _A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words_, etc., etc.
By a London Antiquary. London: John Camden Holten. 1859. pp. lxxxviii.,
160.

6. _On the English Language, Past and Present_. By RICHARD CHENEVIX
TRENCH, D.D. New Edition, revised and enlarged. New York: Blakeman &
Mason. 1859. pp. 238.

7. _A Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in Senses
different from their present_. By RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D. New
York: Redfield. 1859. pp. xi., 218.

8. _Rambles among Words; their Poetry, History, Wisdom_. By WILLIAM
SWINTON. New York. Scribner. 1859. pp. 302.

The first allusion we know of to an Americanism is that of Gill, in
1621,--"_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur, ut_ MAIZ _et_ KANOA."
Since then, English literature, not without many previous wry faces,
has adopted or taken back many words from this side of the water. The
more the matter is looked into, the more it appears that we have no
peculiar dialect of our own, and that men here, as elsewhere, have
modified language or invented phrases to suit their needs. When Dante
wrote his "De Vulgari Eloquio," he reckoned nearly a thousand distinct
dialects in the Italian peninsula, and, after more than five hundred
years, it is said that by far the greater part survive. In England,
eighty years ago, the county of every member of Parliament was to be
known by his speech; but in "both Englands," as they used to be called,
the tendency is toward uniformity.

In spite of the mingling of races and languages in the United States,
the speech of the people is more uniform than that of any European
nation. This would inevitably follow from our system of common-schools,
and the universal reading of newspapers. This has tended to make the
common language of talk more bookish, and has thus reacted unfavorably
on our literature, giving it sometimes the air of being composed in a
dead tongue rather than written from a living one. It gladdens us, we
confess, to see how goodly a volume of _Americanisms_ Mr. Bartlett has
been enabled to gather, for it shows that our language is alive. It is
only from the roots that a language can be refreshed; a dialect that is
taught grows more and more pedantic, and becomes at last as unfit a
vehicle for living thought as monkish Latin. This is the danger which
our literature has to guard against from the universal Schoolmaster,
who wars upon home-bred phrases, and enslaves the mind and memory of
his victims, as far as may be, to the best models of English
composition,--that is to say, to the writers whose style is faultlessly
correct, but has no blood in it. No language, after it has faded into
_diction_, none that cannot suck up feeding juices from the
mother-earth of a rich common-folk-talk, can bring forth a sound and
lusty book. True vigor of expression does not pass from page to page,
but from man to man, where the brain is kindled and the lips are
limbered by downright living interests and by passions in the very
throe. Language is the soil of thought; and our own especially is a
rich leaf-mould, the slow growth of ages, the shed foliage of feeling,
fancy, and imagination, which has suffered an earth-change, that the
vocal forest, as Howell called it, may clothe itself anew with living
green. There is death in the Dictionary; and where language is limited
by convention, the ground for expression to grow in is straitened also,
and we get a _potted_ literature, Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy
trees.

We are thankful to Mr. Bartlett for the onslaught he makes in his
Introduction upon the _highfaluting_ style so common among us. But we
are rather amused to find him falling so easily into that _Anglo-Saxon_
trap which is the common pitfall of those half-learned men among whom
we should be slow to rank him.[A] He says, "The _unfortunate tendency_
to _favor_ the Latin at the _expense_ of the Saxon _element_ of our
_language_, which _social_ and _educational causes_ have long _tended_
to foster in the mother _country_, has with us _received_ an
_additional_ _impulse_ from the great _admixture_ of _foreigners_ in
our _population_." (p. xxxii.) We have underscored the words of Latin
origin, and find that they include _all_ the nouns, all the adjectives
but two, and three out of five verbs,--one of these last (the auxiliary
_have_) being the same in both Latin and Saxon. Speaking of the
Bostonians, Mr. Bartlett says, "The great _extent_ to which the
_scholars_ of New England have carried the _study_ of the _German
language_ and _literature_ for some years back, _added_ to the _very
general neglect_ of the old _master-pieces_ of English _composition_,
have [has] had the _effect_ of giving to the writings of many of them
an _artificial, unidiomatic character_, which has an _inexpressibly
unpleasant effect_ to those who are not _habituated_ to it." (p. xxv.
We again underscore the un-Saxon words.) Now if there be any short cut
to the Anglo-Saxon, it is through the German; and how far the
Bostonians deserve the reproach of a neglect of old English
masterpieces we do not pretend to say, but the first modern reprint of
the best works of Latimer, More, Sidney, Fuller, Selden, Browne, and
Feltham was made in Boston, under the care of the late Dr. Alexander
Young. We have no wish to defend Boston; we mean only to call Mr.
Bartlett's attention to the folly of asking people to write in a
dialect which no longer exists. No man can write off-hand a page of
Saxon English; no man with pains can write one and hope to be commonly
understood. At least let Mr. Bartlett practise what he preaches. When a
deputation of wig-makers waited on George III. to protest against the
hair-powder-tax, the mob, seeing that one of them wore his own hair,
ducked him forthwith in Tower-Ditch,--a very Anglo-Saxon comment on his
inconsistency. We should not have noticed these passages in Mr.
Bartlett's Introduction, had he not, after eleven years' time to weigh
them in, let them remain as they stood in his former edition, of 1848.

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