The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857

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Of the Lippo Lippis, the Lorenzo di Credis, the Ghirlandaios, the
Peruginos, and the other great masters of the fifteenth century, of whom
are many masterpieces in this collection, there shall, for the present, not
a word be said.

There is also a portrait of Savonarola, by Fra Bartolommeo. The face is
neither impressive nor attractive. The head is shorn, except the monastic
coronal, and shows a small organ of benevolence, and a very large one
of self-esteem. The profile is not handsome,--the nose being regularly
aquiline, while the mouth is heavy with a projecting upper lip. A strong,
blue beard, closely shaven, but very visible, darkens and improves the
physiognomy.

IV.

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA.

This church was so beloved by Michel Angelo as to be called his bride. It
must be confessed that the great artist was determined in his choice less
by the external charms than by the interior excellence of his _sposa_;
for although she has now got herself a new front and vamped herself up a
little, thus looking a trifle younger than she must have done three hundred
years ago, still she has any thing but a bridal or virginal aspect.

This church and monastery belong to the earlier German period of Italy,
if such a thing as Italian Gothic can be said to have ever existed. The
truth is, that with the exception of Milan cathedral, which is modern,
exotic, and exceptional, the German, or, to use the common and senseless
expression, the Gothic system of architecture never fairly took root in
Italy. Certainly, the pointed windows and arches of the Florence _duomo_
and its _campanile_ do not constitute it a Gothic church. The square
cornices, vast masses of wall, heavy pilasters, and, in general, the
horizontal outlines and heavy expression of all these churches, have
a character very remote from that of the airy, upspringing, fantastic
German architecture, in which every shaft, arch, vault-girdle, pillar,
window-frame, pinnacle, seems struggling and panting upward with an almost
audible eloquence. This is not the expression of the _duomo_ here. There
is no perpetual _Excelsior_ ringing from point, spire, and turret. On the
contrary, the grave, almost rigid aspect of the ancient _basilica_--the
Roman business-hall, compounded of Greek elements, and transformed into a
Grecian temple--is ever at work repressing that devotional ecstasy which
is the characteristic of the Gothic church. The Italian language in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was like the Italian architecture of
the same period. The different intellectual manifestations, subjected to
the same influences, obeyed one general law. The conquering German mind
of the Dark Ages easily impressed itself where the soil was still virgin.
Throughout _savage_ Europe the dominion was yielded at once to the new
power which succeeded to the decrepit empire of Rome. Gaul, Germany,
Britain, Iberia obeyed instinctively the same impulse. The children born of
that vigorous embrace were of fresh and healthy beauty. The manifestations
of the German mind in the cathedrals of Paris, Cologne, Antwerp are
undimmed and unrivalled. The early German architecture in the actual realms
of Germany is as romantic, energetic, and edifying as its poetry at the
same epoch. A great German cathedral is a religious epic in stone. All the
ornaments, all the episodes, spring from and cluster around one central,
life-giving principle.

In Italy, on the other hand, the architecture of the so-called Gothic
period embodies a constant struggle between the ancient and the new-born
mind,--a contest in which the eventual triumph of the elder is already
foreshadowed, even while the new has apparently gained the ascendency. Why
was this? Because in Italy the German conquerors had invaded the land of
ancient culture, of settled and organized form. The world could not be
created _de novo_, as in the shaggy deserts of Hercynia and Belgica. The
seeds of human speech, planted in those vast wildernesses, sprouted readily
into new and luxuriant languages. English, Flemish, German, French spring
from German roots hidden in Celtic soil. The Latin element, afterwards
engrafted, is exotic, excrescent, and not vital to the organization. In
Italy, where a language, a grammar, a literature already existed in full
force, the German element was almost neutralized. The Goths could only
deface the noble language of Rome. They gave it auxiliary verbs,--that
feeblest form of assistance to human eloquence,--and they took away its
declensions. Architecture presented the same phenomenon. It submitted
to what seemed the German tyranny for a time, but it submitted
under a perpetual and visible protest. [Footnote: Compare Kugler,
_Kunstgeschichte_, pp. 590, 591.] The Gothic details in the _campanile_
and the _duomo_ look altogether extraneous and compulsory; they are not
assimilated into the constitution of the structure. The severe Roman
profile is marked as distinctly as ever, notwithstanding the foreign
ornaments which it has been forced to assume.

Santa Maria Novella, then, is as good a German Italian church as can be
found; but, for the reasons stated, it is not particularly interesting as a
piece of architecture. Its wealth is in its frescos. In the quadrangle
of the cloister is a series of pictures by Paolo Uccello, who, by the
introduction of linear perspective, of which he is esteemed the inventor,
made a new epoch in art. In the "chapel of the Spaniards" is a famous
collection of frescos by Giotto's scholars. A large, thoughtful, and
attractive composition is called the Wisdom of the Church. On the opposite
side is a very celebrated painting, entitled the Church Militant and
Triumphant; the militating and triumphing business being principally
confided to the dogs of the Lord,--_videlicet, Domini-canes_. A large
number of this dangerous fraternity is represented as a pack of
hounds, fighting, pulling, biting, and howling most vigorously in a
life-and-death-struggle with the wolves of heresy. In the centre of the
composition are introduced various portraits. These were thought for a
long time to represent Cimabue (in a white night-cap), Petrarch (in long
petticoats), Laura (in short ones), and various other celebrities. Vasari
is the original authority [Footnote: Vite da Vasari, ed. Lemonnier, 1846.
Sim. and Lippo Memmi, p. 90, and notes.] for this opinion, which has ceased
to be entertained by _cognoscenti_. It is also no longer believed that the
pictures are the work of Taddeo Gaddi and Simon Memmi. The _custode_ clings
to both delusions,--the portraits and the painters. Whether red Murray, and
that devoted band of English and Americans who follow his flag, patronize
the Vasari theory or more modern ones, we are at this moment unable to
state.

By what subtile threads are international hearts bound together! Two great
nations have wrangled for a century; but they have a common property in
Shakspeare and Tupper,--and--most precious of all joint-possessions--in the
hand-books of Murray. We feel with one throb upon all aesthetic subjects.
We admire the same great works of art. We drop a tear upon exactly the same
spots, hallowed in ancient or modern history. The fraternity is absolute.

In the Strozzi chapel are an altar-piece and several wall-pictures by
Andrew Orgagna. They are not so grandly conceived as that wondrous
composition of his, the Triumph of Death, in the Pisan Campo Santo; but
they are additional proofs of his intense and Dante-like genius. No doubt
Dante influenced him deeply, as he did all his contemporaries, whose minds
were fertile enough to ripen such seed. The large picture on the left--a
view of paradise--is full of energetic and beautiful figures, combined with
much dramatic effect and great technical skill. The opposite pictures,
representing hell, were not by Andrew, but by Bernard Orgagna, a man of far
inferior calibre. They have, moreover, been entirely revamped.

In the choir are the renowned frescos of Dominic Ghirlandaio,--scenes from
the lives of John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. These, however, are
but names and frames. The great merit of these paintings is that they were
the first, or among the first, to introduce the actual into the world
of conventional and conventual art. They form a series of full-length
portraits,--sometimes of celebrated contemporaries, as Politian, Marsilio
Ficino, and others,--but always of flesh-and-blood people, living, moving,
and having a being. That group of Platonists, with their looks of profound
wisdom and dogmatic eloquence, are lifting their forefingers, pricking up
their ears, opening their mouths, (each obviously interrupting the flow of
the others' rhetoric,) in most lifelike fashion. One almost catches the
winged syllogisms as they fly from lip to lip. We are almost drawn into
the dispute ourselves, and are disposed to ventilate a score of outrageous
paradoxes, for the mere satisfaction of contradicting such wiseacres. These
heads are painted with a vivacity and an energy worthy of the Dutch great
masters of the seventeenth century. In fact, there is something caught, no
doubt, from the early schools of Flanders; for Dominic was the contemporary
of the glorious masters protected by Philip the Good of Burgundy,--the only
good thing he ever did in his life,--the man who opened the road for that
long triumphant procession which for two centuries was to march through the
Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. There is no want, however, of historical
dignity in these compositions. Each one has a stately rhythm, an harmonious
grandeur of conception and execution, which, in connection with the
lifelike fidelity and unaffected beauty of the heads, stamp their creator
as a dramatic genius of a higher order than any of his contemporaries.

The Madonna of Cimabue, which hangs at the end of the south transept,
resembles the one in the Academy. In place of the powerful saints' heads,
is a group of angels of much grace and purity, supporting a shrine. This
picture is considered a bolder and more untrammelled composition than the
other. It is the world-renowned masterpiece of the thirteenth century,
which all Florence turned out in procession to honor when it left the
painter's hands; and which even Charles of Anjou, dripping in blood, and
stalking through the scenes of that great tragedy whose catastrophe was the
Sicilian vespers, paused on his way to admire.

V.

SAN SPIRITO.

In this church, which the admirers of Brunelleschi must study, are two
small, but most exquisite masterpieces of Lippo Lippi. All the works of
this most profligate of friars are tender and holy beyond description.
They have also that distinguishing charm of the Florentine school of the
fifteenth century, _naivete_,--a fresh, gentle, and loving appreciation
of the beautiful and the natural. It is evident that the Fra went through
the world with his eyes open, looking for beauty wherever it was visible;
and in his works, at least, there is no lingering trace of Byzantinism. A
scholar of Masaccio, of a far inferior mind both to Masaccio and Maselino,
and without the force of hand of either, he is still, more than both
together, the founder of the natural school of Florence.

One of his pictures is in this church,--a Madonna with the child on her
lap. The Christ is leaning forward and playing with a cross which the
infant Saint John holds in his hand. Nothing can be more suggestive or
touching than this prophetic infantile movement. Although the color of
the picture is rather feeble and washy, as frequently may be observed of
Lippo's paintings, the whole expression is bathed in purity and piety. Yet
the Fra was such an incorrigible _mauvais sujet_, that when he was employed
to decorate the _palazzo_ of Cosmo Vecchio, the _Pater Patriae_ was obliged
to lock up his artist in the chamber which he was painting. The holy man
was not easily impounded, however; for he cut his bedclothes into strips,
let himself into the street from an upper-story window, and departed on
his usual adventures; so that it was weeks before Cosmo could hear of his
painter again.

[Concluded in the next Number.]

SANTA FILOMENA.

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,--

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened, and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.

On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

SALLY PARSONS'S DUTY.

The sun that shines on eastern Massachusetts, specially on buttercups and
dandelions, and providentially on potatoes, looks down on no greener fields
in these days than it saw in the spring of 1775, fenced in and fenced off
by the zigzag snake-fences of 'Zekiel Parsons's farm.

"About this time," as almanacs say, young orchards were misty with buds,
red maples on the highway shone in the clear light, and a row of bright
tin pans at the shed door of the farm-house testified to a sturdy arm and
skilful hand within,--arm and hand both belonging to no less a person than
Miss Sally, 'Zekiel Parsons's only daughter, and the prettiest girl in
Westbury; a short, sturdy, rosy little maid, with hair like a ripe chestnut
shell, bright blue eyes full of mischief, and such a sunny, healthy,
common-sense character, one is almost afraid to tell of it, it is so out of
date now.

But of what use is it to describe her? How can I impress upon moderns how
enlivening and refreshing was her aspect, as she spun, or scoured pans, in
a linsey-woolsey petticoat and white short gown, wearing her pretty curls
in a crop? George Tucker knew it all without telling; and so did half a
dozen of the Westbury boys, who haunted the picket fence round 'Zekiel's
garden every moonlight night in summer, or scraped their feet by the half
hour together on his door-step in winter evenings. Sally was a belle; she
knew it and liked it, as every honest girl does;--and she would have been
a belle without the aid of her father's wide farm and pine-tree shillings;
for she was fresh and lovely, with a spice of coquetry, but a true woman's
heart beneath it all.

It was very hard to discover whom Sally Parsons favored among her numerous
beaux. Her father seriously inclined to George Tucker; not because he was
rich,--for 'Zekiel had not arrived at fashionable principles,--but because
he was honest, kind-hearted, and reliable; but as yet Sally showed no
decided preference; time and the hour were near, but not in sight.

One Sunday night, early in April, after the nine o'clock bell had scattered
Sally's admirers far and wide, and old 'Zekiel sat by the chimney corner,
watching his sister, Aunt Poll, rake up the rest of the hickory log in the
ashes, while he rubbed away sturdily at his feet, holding in one hand the
blue yarn stockings, "wrought by no hand, as you may guess," but that of
Sally; the talk, that had momentarily died away, began again, and with a
glance at Long Snapps,--a lank, shrewd-faced old sailor, who, to use his
own speech, had "cast anchor 'longside of an old ship-met fur a spell,
bein' bound fur his own cabin up in Lenox,"--'Zekiel spoke after this
wise:--

"I expect, Long, you sailors hev a drefful hard, onsartain time navigatin',
don't ye?"

"Well, skipper! that are depen's on folks. I don't calk'late to hev no sort
of a hard time, ef I don't get riled with it; but these times I doo rile
easy."

"What onsettles ye, Snapps?"

"Well, there's a squall to wind'ard, skipper; 'ta'n't no cat's-paw neither;
good no-no-east, ef it's a flaw. And you landlubbers are a-goin' to
leeward, some on ye."

"You don't say! what be you a hintin' at?"

"Well, there's a reel blow down to Bostin, Zekle; there's no more gettin'
out o' harbour with our old sloop; she's ben an' gone, an' got some 'tarnal
lawyer's job spliced to her bows, an' she's laid up to dry; but that's
a pesky small part o' judgment. Bostin's full o' them Britishers, sech
as scomfishkated the Susan Jane, cos our skipper done suthin' he hedn't
oughter, or didn't do suthin' he hed oughter; and I tell _yew_ the end o'
things is nigh about comin' on here!"

Sally, in the chimney corner, heard Long Snapps with open eyes, and
hitching her wooden chair nearer, inquired solemnly,--

"What do you mean, Mister Snapps? Is the end of the world comin' here?"

"Bless your pooty little figger-head, Sally! I don't know as 'tis, but
suthin' nigh about as bad is a-comin. Them Britishers is sot out for to hev
us under hatches, or else walk the plank; and they're darned mistook, ef
they think men is a-goin' to be steered blind, and can't blow up the cap'en
no rate. There a'n't no man in Ameriky but what's got suthin' to fight for,
afore he'll gin in to sech tyrints; and it'll come to fightin', yet, afore
long!"

"Oh my! oh goody! the land's sakes! yew don't mean ter say that, Long?"
wofully screeched Aunt Poll, whose ideas of war were derived in great
measure from the tattered copy of Josephus extant in the Parsons family;
and who was at present calculating the probable effect of a battering-ram
on their back buttery, and thinking how horrid it would be to eat up Uncle
'Zekiel in case of famine,--even after long courses of rats and dogs.

"Well, I dew, Aunt Poll; there'll be some poppin' an' stickin' done in
these parts, afore long!"

"The Lord deliver us! an' the rest on't!" devoutly ejaculated Poll, whose
piety exceeded her memory; whereat 'Zekiel, pulling on the other blue
stocking that had hung suspended in his fingers, while the sailor
discoursed, exhorted a little himself.

"Well, the Lord don't deliver nobody, without they wriggle for themselves
pretty consider'ble well fust. This a'n't the newest news to me; I've been
expectin' on't a long spell, an' I've talked consider'ble with Westbury
folks about it; and there a'n't nobody much, round about here, but what'll
stand out agin the Britishers, exceptin' Tucker's folks; they're desp'rit
for Church an' King; they tell as ef the Lord gin the king a special
license to set up in a big chair an' rewl creation; an' they think it's
perticular sin to speak as though he could go 'skew anyhow. Now I believe
the Lord lets folks find out what He does, out o' Scriptur; and I han't
found nothin' yet to tell about kings bein' better than their neighbours,
and it don't look as ef this king was so clever as common. I s'pose you
ha'n't heerd what our Colony Congress is a-doin', hev ye, Snapps?"

"Well, no, I ha'n't. They was a-layin' to, last I heerd, so's to settle
their course, I 'xpect they've heaved up an' let go by this, but I han't
seen no signals."

"Dear me!" interrupted Sally, "a real war coming! and I a'n't any thing but
a woman!"

Her cheeks and eyes glowed with fervent feeling, as she said this; and the
old sailor, turning round, surveyed her with a grin of honest admiration.

"Well said, gal! but you're out o' your reckonin', ef you think women a'n't
nothin' in war-time. I tell _yew_, them is the craft that sails afore the
wind, and does the signallin' to all the fleet. When gals is full-rigged
an' tonguey, they're reg'lar press-gangs to twist young fellers round, an'
make 'em sail under the right colors. Stick to the ship, Miss Sally; give
a heave at the windlass now'n then, an' don't let nary one o' them fellers
that comes a buzzin' round you the hull time turn his back on Yankee
Doodle; an' you won't never hanker to be a man, ef 'tis war-time!"

Sally's eyes burned bluer than before. "Thank you kindly, Mister Snapps.
I'm obleeged to you for putting the good thought into my head. (If I don't
pester George Tucker! the plaguy Tory!)"

This parenthesis was mental, and Sally went off to bed with a busy brain;
but the sleep of youth and health quieted it; and if she dreamed of
George Tucker in regimentals, I am afraid they were of flagrant militia
scarlet;--the buff and blue were not distinctive yet. However, for the next
week Sally heard enough revolutionary doctrine to revive her Sunday-night
enthusiasm; the flame of "successful rebellion" had spread; the country
began to stir and hum ominously; people assembled in groups, on corners,
by church steps, around tavern-doors, with faces full of portent and
expectance; ploughs stood idly in the fields; and the raw-boned horses,
that should of right have dragged the reluctant share through heavy clay
and abounding stones, now, bestridden by breathless couriers, scoured the
country hither and yon, with news, messages, and orders from those who had
taken the right to order out of the hands of sleek and positive officials.

Nor were Westbury people the last to wake up in the general _reveille_.
Everybody in the pretty, tranquil village, tranquil now no more, declared
themselves openly on one side or the other;--Peter Tucker and his son
George for the king, of course; and this open avowal caused a sufficiently
pungent scene in Miss Sally Parsons's keeping-room the very next Sunday
night, when the aforesaid George, in company with several of his peers,
visited the farm-house for the laudable purpose of "sparkin'" Miss Sally.

There were three other youths there, besides George; all stout for the
Continental side of the question, and full of eager but restrained zeal;
ready to take up arms at a moment's notice; equally ready to wait for the
ripened time. Of such men were those armies made up that endured with a
woman's patience and fought with a man's fury, righting a great wrong as
much by moral as by physical strength, and going to death for the right,
when death, pitiless and inevitable, stared them in the face.

Long Snapps had been, in his own phrase, "weather-bound" at Westbury, and
was there still, safe in the chimney-corner, his shrewd face puckered
with thought and care, his steady old heart full of resolute bravery, and
longing for the time to come; flint and steel ready to strike fire on the
slightest collision. On the other side of the hearth from Snapps sat Zekle
in his butternut-colored Sunday suit; the four young men ranged in a grim
row of high-backed wooden chairs; Sally, blooming as the roses on her
chintz gown, occupying one end of the settle, while Aunt Poll filled the
rest of that institution with her ample quilted petticoat and paduasoy
cloak, trying hard to keep her hands still, in their unaccustomed
idleness,--nay, if it must be told, surreptitiously keeping up a knitting
with the fingers, in lieu of the accustomed needles and yarn.

An awful silence reigned after the preliminary bows and scrapes had been
achieved,--first broken by George Tucker, who drew from under his chair a
small basket of red-cheeked apples and handed them to Aunt Poll.

"Well, now, George Tucker!" exclaimed the benign spinster, "you dew beat
all for sass out o' season! Kep 'em down sullar, I expect?"

"Yes'm, our sullar's very dry."

"Well, it hed oughter. What kind be they?"

"English pippins, ma'am."

"Dew tell! be you a-goin to hev one, Sally?"

"No, Aunt Poll! I don't want any thin' English 'round!"

The three young men grinned and chuckled. George Tucker turned red.

"Hooray for you, Sally!" sung out old Snapps. "You're a three-decker, ef
ever there was 'un!"

Again George reddened, fidgeted on his chair, and at last said, in a
disturbed, but quite distinct voice,--

"I think the apples are good, Miss Sally, if the name don't suit you."

"The name's too bad to be good, sir!" retorted Sally, with a decided sniff
and toss of the head. Old Zekle gave a low laugh and interfered.

"You see, George Tucker, these here times is curus! It wakes up the wimmen
folks to hev no tea, nor no prospects of peace an' quiet, so's to make
butter an' set hens."

"Oh, father!" burst out Sally, "do you think that's all that ails women? I
wouldn't care if I eat samp forever, and had nothing but saxifrax tea; but
I can't stand by cool, and see men driven like dumb beasts by another man,
if he has got a crown, and never be let speak for themselves!"

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