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THE BIOGRAPHY OP A MUSEUM. The Louvre ; ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Passing From Magazines To Reviews, Wo Fi...
{ bow **** a ** * equaHrted Troth ¦ Spwoza awd the Litera * twe trf tbe rabtjeet ^ 31 appreciate the full extent of such praise . Speaking of the Nature of JByii , th * wxiter 6 ays : —• If Calvinism be pressed to its logical < : oneequencee , it either becomes an intolerable falsehood , or it resolves itself iato- the philosophy ofjSpinoza , It it monstrous to call erfl a po » i 1 ave thing , and to assert that God has predetermined it , —to tell us that he hag ordained -what he hates , and hates what he has ordained . It is incredible that -we should he without power to obey him except through his free grace , and yet be held rtsponsifele for our failures wh < sn that grace has been withheld . And it is idle to call a-philosopher sacrilegious who has but systematized the faith which so many believe , and cleared it of its most hideous features . _
Hie essavist himself eludes the difficulty , by declaring that Logic has no business with such questions ; which is true in the sense of Logic having no sphere eo extensive as to include the real data . He says that the anBwer to such questions lies in the conscience , and not in the intellect—that it is practical merely , and not speculative . But one may then ask : whose conscience ? Is tny conscience to be arbiter , or yours ? or both ? We agree with brm that " Life is too serious to be wasted with impunity over speculations in which certainty is impossible ; " and this cuts the metaphysical tree at its roots . Yet if the intellect has no answer for such insoluble questions as the origin and nature of Evil , we must be content to leave them unanswered , the answer of Conscience will not help us fer .
" International Immorality " is a serious political essay , excellent in temper and in thought . " Self-Education" is a feeble essay , full of current commonplaces and judicious remarks , the publication of which was quite unnecessary and quite unprovoked . In " The Physiological Errors of Teetotalism " the writer undertakes to prove that alcohol is food , and not poison , as the teetotallers maintain ; and that taken in moderation its effects are beneficial , although taken in excess its effects are fatal . " The Decline of Party Government 1 ' is a luminous comment on this theme : —
England has learned some rude lessons in the last twelvemonth . They are lessons 8 he can afford to learn , for it is in her power to repair her errors , and to profit by her experience . Nothing like vital disease has been revealed ; all is sound -witb . ro , but the circulation is faint at tbe extremities . The wish to apply the necessary remedies is deep and general ; unfortunately , the malady is of a nature to make it very puzzling where and how to begin . The Military system , we are told , is in fault , and the Civil system is at fault . Our systems , generally , are at fault . But we cannot Cut out a bad system all at once . For these systems are part of the whole framework of society ; they are the growth of centuries : the men that work them are the most respectable people we know , and are the near relations of thousands of other people equally respectable . Directly we set ourselves to inquire whom and what we are to blame , we find each head of our inquiry linked with some other head , and we lose ourselves in the vast range of thought which begins with a pilfering purveyor and ends with the British Constitution .-
The writer surveys the history of the rise * and decline of Party from Charles II . to our own day , when a crisis and a transition have produced the confusion every one deplores . " The Earth and Man" is an agreeable article of popular science , which opens with a sentence meant to startle , but Startling only in its inaccuracy : " Nothing in the material world that comes under the cognisance of our senses is ever at rest . " He means , " is ever permanently at rest ; " for if there were no rest there could be no motion . the next article is on the important and now much agitated topic , " The foreign Policy of the United States . " It is succeeded by the seven articles on " Con tern porary Literature , " which preserve the old l iterary element , while admitting elsewhere the essay element , which of late years has , with questionable result , so completely engrossed the pages of all our Reviews . Altogether this is a solid and attractive number of the Westminster , although entertainment has been less studied than we think politic .
The Uritish Quarterly , the London Quarterly , the Journal of Psycological Medicine , and the new claimant on public attention , the National Review , HHlflt beleit till next week : we have already outrun our limits .
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The Biography Op A Museum. The Louvre ; ...
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A MUSEUM . The Louvre ; or , Biography of a Museum . By Baylo St . John . Chapman and Hall . Vbby often the difficult task of a biographer is to make a great deal out of What Mr . Morgan—faithful attendant of Major Pendennis—called " a little ianraation . " The author of the book before us is entitled to general praise & r the manner in which he has grappled with the less frequent historiognphicol difficulty , an embarrtts dc richesses . The Biography "—as opposed to a merely critical account of the Louvre , fc * ita character of Museum—was a good thought ; especially considering that Pp . St . John professes " a grout objection to the vague generalities ^ under $ rich more classical writers concent and shroud persons and things "—and
itader which , if he will pardon the remark , it i . s his own weakness to shroud ttOt a little of his meaning , whenever he does not happen to have a fact ft % and steadily in view . " Words , " he assures us , " like the atmosphere , IbmetirneB adorn while they dim ; but light shining- through a mist seems to tome from all sides , and not . from a particular source "—an effect of luminosity yhich haa never happened to striko us , in the thickest of metaphysical or jftin osphcric fogs . On tlic contrary , wo have always fancied it far less Pjfficult to perceive the source of a ray pi'iu-trating a murky region than to matinguiish the nctual ciimnntion of u pervading brightness . The glimmer Pf Bonso in the following puHungc , lor instance , appears to us perfectly JwtiJnc t and unmistakable , >» respect nt least to its origin : — -
, / £ ^ fch « w regimes ( than tlio Republican ) liavu their advantages : one gives glory , JWAttor security , another ftub « iHluu < : < . < . 1 'rcedom in ulwayu iwriluiw . A traveller runa 11 § r ohanco of Htumbling thnii a bedridden old lady . Hut tlu « is certain : that lor tnlfobtatioiiH of human ^ niiiH and energy wo muni look—not , it ia true , to mere 6 ilt times , for Asiatic and Negro empire * ar « convulsed daily without producing ,,,, P « om or a now-Blinnod fetish , —but to times when our race , weary ol routine
op-, , _^_^^^^^^^^^ h ^^^^^ preseion , weary a £ stereotyped fsd £ h , Treaty of fettered iadustry , suddenly sights an ideaiof high perfection , and sets tieppovrof StB'vcsaelitawards it . Art and "Literature flourished amidst the furious struggles of the ItaBaw -. republics , aad periled when those struggles ended in slavery : Art and Literature > fhratfiab » din France , *!* 'England in , ( Germany , in Flanders , whilst the . fight for cir ^ or religious dlfcerty wtt ^ corrted on . It is customary to talk of various eras , named from particular -monarchy which are supposed to owe their intellectual glory to the said monarchs . Bttt the-truth is , that all those periods wece contemporary-with ¦ or immediately' succeeded fbe most terrible civil commotions , and owe their splendour entirely to the shock- of Meas that necessarily accompanies the shock of arms—where the prize is not a . bauble , but the dearest interests of the human race . uciurai micicoio Ul LXlts UIIIUIUI raw .
It is remarkable that Mr . St . John , who addresses his coantryxaen ua this superior style of language , and who tells them , moreover , that the object of Art should only be confined by the exhaustion of its means , incidentally furnishes an estimate of popular taste , about as favourable as that given * by Mr . Albert Smith , when he observed that the majority of people who -go to the British Museum would like Memiaon much better if he rolled bi 8 eyes , and gave forth music from an organ concealed in his body . In the real work of this volume Mr . St . John-, we have already said , has acquitted himself -with undeniable success . He has had the advantage of a sympathetic intimacy with M . Jeanron , an artist whose powerful views and decisive energy of action are best knovm in connexion with thevast subject of the Louvre . It was to this gentleman that the ProvisionaTfeovernment applied , on the 24 th of February , 1848 , for a service which p robably no other man alive was so "well qualified to perform . The . Louvre was occupied by the Republican victors of the Tuneries ; and the grim , garrison
had been reinforced by numerous members of a class whose patriotism , on such occasions , being of late growth , labours under the conscious disadvantage of suspicion , and is violently demonstrative on that account . But for the presence of such a man as M . Jeanron , invested with full authority , and able of his own superior nature to enforce it , the art-treasures of the Long Gallery ( which bad been made a sort of barrack ) could not have escaped irreparable damage . " I regret , " says Mr . St . John , " not to remember the names of a good number of the young artists who courageously supported M . Jeanron on this occasion . Two only come to my mindthose of Celestin Nanteuil , so well known by his romantic phantasies and the brilliant lithographs which have made him illustrious in the young school ; and of the regretted Papety , on whom the fatigues of those rough days probably acted sufficiently to contribute to his premature-death , which deprived France of a man created for very high production . " The story of M . Jeanron ' s altercations with the bonnets-rouges makes the chapter in which this passage occurs one of the most interesting in the book .
To begin at the beginning , however , Mr . St . John ' s epitome of remote facts and remoter fictions concerning the Louvre is an instance of that peculiar tact which we recognised at the outset of this notice : — Many buildings of far ancienter date still remain erect in various parts of the world , about the origin of which we have much more definite information than about that of the Louvre . It stands there , in the centre of a capital which is rapidly assuming a more modern appearance even than St . Petersburg ; and yet no one knows precisely when it was first founded , and etymologists differ as to the real meaning of its name . At a remote period in the future , if the history of French dynasties be faithfully recorded , there is no doubt that Louvre will be taken to mean a Den of
Wolves . Tradition tells us , that in the time of the famous King Dagobert , who had such peculiar theories on the art of dress , there existed in the midst of the forest near the river , where now the palace stands , a little hunting-seat , from which his majesty used to cross over every evening in a ferry-boat to his residence in Paris ; and it even ventures sometimes to go back a hundred years more , and assign the foundation of the Louvre to Childebert the First , in the beginning of the sixth century . But , in truth , we know more about the early days of the Pyramids and the Parthenon than about the origin of an edifice which is not yet completed whilst I write , which every tourist has visited a hundred times , and along whose galleries the silken flounces of every Mrs . Till have rustled .
It would be pleasant to feel sure that Charlemagne ' s educational movement began in the Louvre , and that Alcuin was lodged here , with many other learned men : — What is known with certainty is , that the Louvre came by degrees to be the home of the monarchy in its feudal character—the head of all the iiefs , sayfc P ^ squier , that immediately depended upon the French crown . At a later period it used to be remarked that the King of France always had three residences in Paris : the Palais , where he was indeed King ; the Louvre , where he was a Crentilhomme ; and the Tournelles , where he was a Bourgeois . . architect and
The Essay of M . Yitet—who is dissatisfied with everything as an satisfied with everything as a courtier—neatly states some of the principal points of the architectural history of this palace ; but more complete details are found m the elaborate work of M . Clarac . By their aid we see the Louvre gradually expanding from a mere shed to a respectable house ; then starting up into the proportions off a feudal fortress ; gradually disappearing once more , but lending its deep foundations to support a more elegant edifice , which by degrees thrust out wings on every side ; and now , at length , occupies , in the centre of a vast metropolis , a space witu wJiictt of old many cities would have been content . I can only notice some of the incidents of this wonderful growth , and shall not attempt to represent by words the various changes in the aspect of the palace or the general effect now produced . A great tower that long frowned threatening over Paris , and served for the purposes of grand receptions and ceremonies , and was naturally accompanied by a dungeon , a treasury , and the Louvre
and a depot of archives , was built in 1204 by Philippe-Auguste ; , exactly na it ia described in the " Romance of the Rose , " remained almost exclusively a feudal fortress for above three hundred years . Under Charles V . a few alterations were made to tit it for a habitation . Ornuments were added j gardens were mmgieu with the towers , wall » , and moots ; and here and there were scattered n » ena K *" i ™" aviaries . There was also a tower apeciallv reserved for the king ' * . library ; and . tnaiw still remain a few inaniiHcrint volumes in the Rue de Richelieu , on which arc "" « a these word * , in letters of th « fourteenth century : — "To bo placed on such a eiicu to wards the river at the Louvre . " It appears certain that this library was JVeo ^ y opened to learned mon-a tradition not long preserved by tlio nK > n " / V , ? r ™ ts covered addition * , combined with the huge conical roof * of the tower * and ^^ f ' ^ ^ with lead or with varnished tiles , and annuounted by S ^ ermg 1 ^_ ° ^ weathercoekH , gave „ strange and almont fantastical aspect to this pafeMforM , which i * well roproHOiiUd in . in old picture formerly found in tho Abboy ^ ot at . Ujr main don P ,-rfB | and now preserved at St . Doni » . Th «»« w f J ! "i * IUv ^ nBult I ? the tlonH of the external ««» £ * of tho Louvro from this time for wanl ™ y ^ g ™* _ °£ National Library the inmionso collection of plan ., elevations , and views , referring to
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 7, 1855, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07071855/page/15/
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