missed, And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer aid. was airing its broad back and sides of padded While through that public organ of report chintz. Over the mantel-piece hung a por- He hails the clergy; and, defying shame, trait of the doctor, painted by Bonnemaisson Announces to the world his own and theirs! and such a portrait! You saw at a glance He teaches those to read, whom schools disthat the original must be the occupant of the chair, which could not be filled by a person of less voluminous proportions. Beneath a broad but not high forehead gleamed an eye which nothing escaped, cool, clear, and calculating; a nose, which in a face of average dimensions would have appeared large, cast its projecting shadow upon a mouth of firm, resolute, and voluptuous mould; the upper lip, thin, large, and slightly curled, rested evenly upon the full, round, red, lower one, and the expression of both was that of resolusion and enjoyment. But it was the chin, or rather chins for if I remember right there were three of them- that struck me most, I mustered up my resolution, however, and by their amplitude and dignified contour. I replied to the doctor's questions to his perfect had certainly never seen such a chin or series satisfaction. After allowing me half-an-hour of chins upon the human countenance, and to look at the pictures in the room and the was beginning to speculate in my own mind landscape out of windows, I was invited to whether this redundance of feature were pecu- take my seat at the table-pens, ink, and liar to authorship, when the sound of footsteps paper were introduced, and we proceeded to and of certain deep cavernous ejaculations of the transaction of the momentous business of a bronchial character, made me aware of the the day. Having carefully renovated a few approach of the great man in propria persona. pens which, like the legs of Witherington, Alas, how different from the portrait over the had done battle on their stumps, I declared mantel-piece was the bodily presence of the myself ready to write, and sat waiting the doctor himself! If the picture went beyond enunciations of the oracle, quill in hand. The my beau ideal of an author, the original fell reader may imagine the doctor in his eightyas far short of it. I had not taken into ac- fourth year, swaddled in his portentous armcount that the portrait was twenty or thirty chair on one side of the fire-place, and me, a years old, and that the years which had mel- chubby-faced boy of thirteen, perched on a lowed its tints and improved its color, had dealt less tenderly with the original, whom it was plain, they had remorselessly shifted" into the lean and slippered pantaloon." It was not without a deal of puffing, gasping, and hard breathing, that the literary veteran was at length successfully established in his easy chair by the fire-side. Then, and not before, he honored me with a look, and in a deep bass voice which harmonized with his treble chin he bade me approach. My heart almost failed me as I obeyed his command. My father, who was well read in books and men, had already made me aware that I was about to officiate as amanuensis to the very man whom near half-a-century before Cowper had held up, in " The Task," to public reprobation; and indeed he had that very morning, at our humble breakfast table, read aloud for my edification, the following passage from his favorite poet, written in reference to the very individual before whom now stood abashed: But hark-the doctor's voice! fast wedged be tween I Two empirics he stands, and with swoln cheeks DXXXVIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 32 high stool, on the other. The scene is as fresh in my recollection as though it were not a day old. After I had waited in anxious expectancy for a quarter-of-an-hour or twenty minutes, the doctor asked, in a kind of guttural sotto voce, "Are you ready?" "Then write "with that, elevating his voice to its natural pitch, he pronounced the following words: I did as I was commanded, and then the This proverb alludes to a whimsical tale: affair stood thus: Here's Alderman Gobble, Through fever and gout. The doctor expressed his satisfaction at this amendment, and leaning back in his chair, remained silent for the best part of half-anhour. Of course I remained silent too, fearing to disturb the cogitations of the poet, and prevent the successful issue of the quatrain. At length, after sundry attempts at articulation, and the bestowal of a look of gracious patronage upon me, the doctor rose erect in his chair, and in a clear self-satisfied and sonorous voice, delivered himself of the corresponding couplet, thus: muse. Scarce able to hobble And waddle about. Some devils abroad, and imperfectly hearing That wool was obtained from beasts of short tail, Wanting wool, meeting swine, they set about shearing. Whatever this verse may lack in sentiment is more than made up in signification; and, indeed, it was a characteristic of the doctor's muse, that she flew straight to the point, and did not go beating about the bush. Of tropes, metaphors, figures, symbols, or similes, I do not think the whole volume contained a single one. The good man probably thought that there was imagination sufficient in the numer ous designs of the artist, and that his mission was rather to furnish the several legends, each with a moral tagged to its tail, than to emulate the vagaries of your fanciful poets. Pleasant indeed was my occupation for the few weeks of the summer of 1818 that it lastIt was with no small triumph that I penned ed. It was not every day that the muses were the completion of the stanza, for I had sym- propitious, and it often happened that at the pathized deeply in the pangs of its birth, and very moment when, had they listened to the had almost despaired of a safe delivery. The invocation of their venerable votary, I should doctor commanded me to read over the verse, have been penning a stanza, I was in reality which I did with a gusto and evident exulta-bobbing for perch in the neighboring canal. tion that raised a smile upon his venerable The old Abigail would sometimes intimate that countenance. Having achieved this happy it would be agreeable to her master if I would commencement, it may be readily imagined call again an hour or two later; and as such that we made light of difficulties which might intimations always implied a holiday for the have checked the flight of a less fortunate time specified, they were perfectly agreeable Indeed we went on swimmingly; the to me. With a wand cut from a willow tree, good old man spurred his Pegasus so effect- and with a yard or two of line of my own ually that we finished the first poem, and had original manufacture, terminating in a halfaccomplished a considerable portion of the penny hackle, upon which, like a cruel boy as second before the hour of dinner. I was (all boys were then cruel), I had imI may mention that the verses were illus- paled a live worm, it was my delight to sit trations of certain homely proverbs, and were upon the edge of an old barge half submerged all written to correspond with and to exem- in the water, and circumvent my pricklyplify a series of wood-engravings by a brother backed friends. Thus commenced a long caof the immortal Bewick, which, if I mistake reer of angling, during which my slaughters not, had been executed by him some years among the finny tribes have been neither few, before. One of these engravings was a very nor, until of late years far between. As a clever and spirited delineation of a singular" contemplative man," with a hook, I can bear scene. A company of devils, designed on the testimony to the pleasures of that silent purorthodox principle of horns, hoofs, and tails, suit, which, upon the banks of the brawling having armed themselves with shears, and set brooks that feed the dark flowing Avon in the forth on their travels in search of wool, had neighborhood of my native place, I have enfallen to work upon a herd of swine, who joyed at all seasons of the year, excepting showed plainly enough by their violent at- only the depth of winter. If the green fields, tempts to escape from their tormentors, that the sandy banks, and craggy water-washed they did not much relish the ceremony of precipices-the "bubbling rummels" leaping shaving. The proverb exemplified in this case noisily through close ravines, dark with the was the well-known one of "Great cry and shade of over-hanging foliage, have haunted little wool," and the opening stanza, which, as me like a passion, it is no less true that the I distinctly remember, cost the doctor consi-sight of a half a score of trout, lugged from derable pains, certainly is a unique specimen their watery retreat, and recumbent in starry of the multum in parvo, and contains as much stillness upon the verdant grass, have added information as could well be crammed into so an interest to the foreground of the landscape small a space. It runs thus:which it would have wanted without them. That sentiment is in some sort connected with doctor provided is found in the fact that they the stomach, and poetry with provender, there sold abundantly, and for more than thirty can be no reasonable doubt-and if any of my readers are sceptical on that subject, they may take my word for it, that a man who angles for a dinner has a keener eye for the beauties of nature, and sees and appreciates far more of her loveliness when the fish bite freely, than he can possibly do when the whole finny fraternity have taken an oath against satisfying his hungry claims upon their carcasses, and refuse his bait accordingly. years yielded a handsome income to their ingenious projector. It is by no means clear that anything can be justly said in derogation of the morality of such a traffic, taking into consideration the circumstances of the time. Addison makes his Sir Roger de Coverley recom mend by his example the very practice which Cowper so indignantly reprobates. Speaking of the clergyman of his parish, Sir Roger says, "At his first sitting with me, I made him But, like a true angler, I have neglected a present of all the good sermons which have the business in hand to run gadding after been printed in English, and only begged of trout. It is time that I should return to the him that every Sunday he would pronounce doctor, of whom but little remains to be said. one of them from the pulpit. Accordingly he With all the interruptions that occurred, the has digested them into such a series that they volume of verses was brought to a happy is- follow one another naturally, and make a consue in something less than three months. In tinual system of practical divinity." Cowper's the course of my intimacy with the great man, idea of the priestly character was very differI was honored with much of his conversation ent from Addison's. If the one would have and friendly notice, and I made some addi- the messenger of peace tions to my little library, of books with which he presented me in return for some careful Simple, grave, sincere; transcriptions made at my leisure from his own In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, manuscripts, which even he found it difficult And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, to decipher. With the good man's second And natural in gesture; much impress'd wife and his daughter by the first I sometimes Himself as conscious of his awful charge, took refreshment. These two ladies, who And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, were both on the verge of threescore, led a quiet in-door life, and employed their whole And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men, time and assiduities in administering to the comfort of their aged relative. I had the honor of dining with the whole party upon the proud occasion when the work was completed. After dinner, the volume was put into my hands, to be delivered to my employer the printer, and I took my final farewell of the only "live author" I had ever seen. the other looked for "a man of plain sense, of good aspect, clear voice, sociable temper, and, if possible, with some knowledge of backgammon." The doctor might fairly pit these two great authorities against each other, and prosecute his commercial speculation regardless of their differences of opinion. I must not, however, forget to mention the But who was the doctor of whom you have feeling of the doctor in reference to Cowper's angry attack upon him in "The Task." I been gossipping? says some half-satisfied readlearned from indisputable authority that the er. My dear madam, or my good drowsy sir, shafts of the poet's indignant satire never even I am not going to tell you. You must be a person of wounded his feelings, much less roused his re- what delightful Leigh Hunt calls " sentment. The doctor alleged and doubtless very little book-stall" to ask such a question, conceived that in printing written sermons, he and I do not care to answer it. He went to his did no more than save his customers the trou- quiet grave thirty years ago, whither I am ble of committing that innocent forgery them- sorry to add, his works, voluminous as they selves, which he was willing to commit for were, soon followed him—all except one; this them "for a consideration.' At the time one, upon shop-shelf and stall-board, still these sermons in "zigzag manuscript" were keeps a modest place, and greets the eyes of manufactured, the pulpit of this country was the collector in his casual rounds-but it is pccupied by a very different race of divines doomed to die out, like all the others, at no from those of the present day. The clerical very distant date. With it will vanish all the function was then too often confided to igno-literary remains of the author of more than a rance and incapacity, and the persons whose hundred volumes, who figured as poet, noveloffice it was to promote reformation and disse- ist, geographer, historian, physician, moralist, minate instruction, were not unfrequently and divine, and who amidst all his achieve more in need of both than the flocks over ments thought it no stigma to be proclaimed whom they presided. The best proof of the by the gentle Cowper as "Grand caterer and necessity and usefulness of such wares as the dry-nurse of the Church." From Fraser's Magazine. HAYDON'S PICTURE OF "NAPOLEON MUSING." Stette, e dei di che furono Ei ripensò le mobili Ahi! forse a tanto strazio E l'avvio sui floridi THE writer of the critique on the "Life of Haydon," published in a late number of the Quarterly Review, pronounces Haydon's "Napoleon," painted for the late Sir Robert Peel, to be "undoubtedly his best work; and Mr. Taylor, the editor of the artist's autobiography, speaking of the same picture, though by the erroneous description of "Napoleon at St. Helena contemplating the setting sun," says that it is that "with which Haydon's name is more identified than with any other of his works." The celebrity which thus attaches to the work, both from its intrinsic merit, and also by reason of some incidental circumstances connected with it, perhaps justifies the writer of the article in the Quarterly Review in his endeavors to trace the idea to its originIt is impossible to read the first six of the al owner. I am not aware to whom belongs foregoing lines, and not at once perceive the the credit of the bronze statuette, supposing perfect identity of the idea in the poem and it to have been the original source of the idea, the picture. The painter might have comas the reviewer was disposed to consider it in posed his picture from the poet's verse, or the the text of his article; but he appends a note, verses might have been written as an illustrawritten while the critique was in the hands of tion of the picture. For myself I have althe printer, in which he finally awards the ways felt satisfied that one must have copied merit of the original conception to the design- from the other, but I never took the pains of er of a vignette in an edition of Les Messe- inquiring to which the priority in point of nignnes, of Casimir Delavigne, published in time belonged, till the dates given in the Paris in the year 1824, which he is assured by "Life of Haydon" showed that on this ground a gentleman who saw it, represented Napoleon he could establish no claim to originality. I proceed to notice the popular interpretagazing on the sea, exactly resembling Haydon's picture. This description is more correct than tion of the meaning of the picture, to which that of Mr. Taylor, but does not sufficiently I believe Mr. Taylor has given expression express the artist's meaning. If this was the when he describes it as "Napoleon contemfirst visible exhibition of it, it may have been plating the setting sun," for I suspect the popuoriginal in him, but it is more than probable lar notion does not go beyond a vague comthat the idea was taken from one with whom parison between the setting sun, and the deit certainly was original, since his right to it clining period of Napoleon's life, which a may unquestionably be established by priority little reflection will show to be fallacious. No of date; and to vindicate it for the true owner picture of Napoleon could have for its approis the chief object of this communication. It priate motto was not in painting, but in poetry, that the idea was first embodied; and it will be found complete in Manzoni's fine ode on the death of Napoleon, known by the name "Cinque di Maggio" (the day on which Napoleon died), in the first six lines of the following stanzas. I have added the rest of the description, for the bold lyrical spirit which distinguishes the remaining lines of the first stanza, and the attends on his departure. Napoleon's sun did exquisite transition to the tenderness, and true. pathos of the second, closing with a fine moral not even go down in the awful turmoil of the contrast, compressed into two short lines, with tempest, but sunk half lost in a mist or bank an effect which almost deserves to be called of clouds before it reached the horizon. The sublime: Oh! quante volte al tacito So sinks the day-star in his ocean bed. There is, in fact, no resemblance between the closing period of Napoleon's life, and the dazzling radiance of the setting sun, when he plunges into the ocean with unclouded orb, or the gorgeous state to which his level beams often convert even the train of clouds that popular notion, therefore, attributes to the picture an untruth, of which I believe the painter to have been guiltless, and which may be excused in the multitude who are pleased to indulge their sympathy with fallen greatness, by embracing it, however vaguely, in the "glorious sympathy with the suns that set." a to Despondency, after giving one picture of Or, haply, to his evening thought The ways of men are distant brought, His thoughts to heaven on high, * * * He needs not, he heeds not, description which, for the very course of his meditations, for its tender pathos, its lyrical In Manzoni's ode there is no mention of conciseness, and even somewhat for its metrithe setting sun, neither is any allusion made cal structure, is recalled to mind by the lines to it by the gentleman who saw the Parisian of Manzoni quoted above. Burns, in his ode vignette, and speaks of it as exactly resembling Haydon's picture. He means, of course, as regards the figure of Napoleon, whom he says it represented "gazing on the sea;" and this, as marking the direction of the eyes, is, so far, more correct than speaking of him as contemplating the setting sun, and agrees with the "chinati i rai fulminci" of the poet. But, in fact, Napoleon was no more gazing on the sea than he was contemplating the setting sun,-no present object engaged his sight or suggested his meditations; his whole being was absorbed in the past, or, as the devout poet hoped and believed, was carried on in the spirit of humility by divine compassion, I have been tempted to diverge occasionally from the absorbing past, to the still more ab- in my observations on this subject, but I hope sorbing, and at the same time sustaining vision I have done what I proposed, which was to of a future and better world. The name trace to its rightful owner the idea intended which Haydon himself gave to his work shows to be conveyed by perhaps the most widely plainly enough what was his idea-if it origi- known, most generally favored, and best renated with himself or that he rightly interpreted the idea of the model which he followed, whether it was the bronze statuette, or the Persian vignette, or the lines of Manzoni, to which no doubt all the rest were directly or indirectly indebted. Haydon calls it "Napoleon musing," and it is but just that it should be known and interpreted by his own I will take this opportunity, while speaking designation, and that he should have the credit of the coincidence, or borrowing of ideas in of whatever is to be reasonably understood connection with Manzoni, and having spoken by the name which he chose to express his so much and so highly of that poet, to point own conception of his own work. But if he out one of the most remarkable coincidences took his idea from the poet, and the latter does (for such I think it must be) which I recolnot even allude to the setting sun, and there lect to have met with. In Gleig's Story of is a setting sun in the picture, what did the Waterloo, the author, once a soldier, and, as artist intend by it? The answer, if not ob- his early publications show, fully possessed vious, is not farfetched, he intended to mark with the spirit of the profession, referring to the time of day, to express, indeed, the very the power of Wellington's voice and mode of idea of the poet, as far as painting would per- addressing his soldiers in the moment of conmit; to do for the spectator, by the symbol at flict and danger, speaks of "the short, quick his command, what the poet, by the more ex-word of command which soldiers best love to act and expressive instrument of language, hear, and obey with the greatest promptitude." could convey more fully and unmistakably to It is not likely that he should have borrowed the reader. In this, as in every part of his this from an Italian poet, and yet it is but a ode, every epithet is most appropriate and free translation of suggestive. -al tacito Morir d'un giorno inerte. collected representation of Napoleon, and at the same time to vindicate for the painter the right to interpret his own acknowledged best work, and to secure for it the name chosen by himself. Let us hear no more of Napoleon contemplating the setting sun-let it be call ed by its right name, "Napoleon musing." E il concitato imperio, E il celere obbedir, in the stanza before given on this subject. The hour ever known and felt as most con- But whether it is a translation or a coincigenial to solemn meditation-how constantly dence, it is in the first case a compliment to, recognized as such from the time when "Isaac and in either a proof of, the discrimination went out to meditate in the field at eventide," with which Manzoni, without being a soldier, to the poet who by the single epithet of "even- by a poet's instinct, knew how to select the ing" sheds all its gentle influence over his striking or exciting points of active warfare whole description of the musing "solitary," and actual battle. |