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906 T HE LEADER. [Saturday ~ — — - • ' I...
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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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Buskin In Venice. The Stones Of Venice. ...
their shores , all the richness and refinement of the Venetian architecture must have been exchanged for the walls and bulwarks of an ordinary sea-porfc . Had there been no ' tide , as in other parts of the Mediterranean , the narrow canals of the city would have become noisome , and the marsh in which it was built pestiferous . Had the tide been only a foot or eighteen inches higher in its rise , the water-access to the doors of the palaces-would , have been impossible : even as it is , there is sometimes a little difficulty , at the ebb , in landing without setting foot upon the lower and slippery steps ; and the highest tides sometimes enter the courtyards , and overflow the entrance halls . Eighteen inches more of difference between the level of the flood and ebb would have rendered the doorsteps of every palace , at low water , a treacherous mass of weeds and limpets , and the entire system of water-carriage for the higher classes , in their easy and daily intercourse , must have been done away with . The streets of the city would have been widened , its network of canals filled up , and all the peculiar character of the place and the people destroyed . " 1
We must own , that after reading such grand writingas that , we felfc an unpleasant revulsion at finding ourselves , in the succeeding sentences , plunged into the platitudes of vulgar theology . Ruslrin is fond—somewhat too fond—of dragging in theological views as condiments ; sometimes they are elevated—religious ; sometimes they are distressingly commonplace , as in this instance : — " The reader may perhaps have felt some pain in the contrast between this faithful view of the site of the Venetian Throne , and the romantic conception of it which we ordinarily form ; but this pain , if he have felt it , ought to be more than counterbalanced by the value of the instance thus afforded to us at once of the inscrutableness and the wisdom of the ways of God . "
Now , the idea of a reader congratulating himself on having " an instance of the inscrutableness , " as well as of the " wisdom of God" —as if instances were rare , and as if such an instance were peculiarly luminous and convincing!—is an idea we do not wonder at , on meeting it in a sermon , or amid the droning platitudes of a theological dissertation ; but in a writer of Kuskin ' s power and novelty it is singularly discordant . Does he doubt the inscrutableness or the wisdom , that he deems it necessary to bring forward such evidence ? Let us quit this subject ; the atmosphere is hot with the breath of not very wholesome chapels ! we will get outside once more , and breathe that of Nature . Here , for instance , is a small paragraph , winding up a description of the fallen splendour of a once famous spot : —
" Yet the power of Nature cannot be shortened by the folly , nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery , of man . The broad tides still ebb and Aow brightly about the island of tlie dead , and the linked conclave of the Alps know no decline from their old pre-eminence , nor stoop from their golden thrones in the circle of the horizon . So lovely is the scene still , in spite of all its injuries , that we shall find ourselves drawn there again and again at evening out of the narrow canals and streets of the city , to watch the wreaths of the sea-mists weaving themselves like mourning veils around the mountains far away , and listen to the green waves as they fret and sigh along the cemetery shore . " It is a little poem ! Now , let us accompany him , and enter St . Mark ' s : —
" We will push fast through them into the shadow of the pillars at the end of tho ? Bocca di Piazza , ' and then we forget them all ; for between those pillars there opens a great light , and , in the midst of it , as we advance slowly , the vast tower of St . Mark . seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of chequered stones ; and , on each side , the countless arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry , as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck hack into sudden obedience and lovely order , and all their rude casements and broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly sculpture , and fluted shafts of delicate stone .
" And well may they fall back , for beyond those troops of ordered arches thero rises u vision Out of the earth , and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe , that wo may see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes , clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light ; a treasure-heap , it Bcemrf , partly of gold , and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl , hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches , ceiled with fair mosaic , and bese t with sculpture of alabaster , clear us amber and delicate as ivory , —sculpture fantastic and involved , of palm leaves and lilies , and grapes and pomegranates , and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches , all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes ; and , in tho midst of it , the solemn forms of angels , scepteml , and robed to the feet , and leaning to each other across the gates , their fi gures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through tho leaves beside them , interrupted and dim , liko the morning light as it faded back among tho branches of Eden , when fir . ^ t its gates were angel-guarded long ago . And round the walls of the porches thero are set pillars of variegated stones , jasper and porphyry , and deep green
serpentine . spotted with flakes of . snow , and marbles , that half refuse and half yield to tho sunshine , Cleopatra-like , ' their bluest veins to kiss '—the . shadow , as it steals buck from them , revealing line after lino of azure undulation , as a receding tide leaves the waved sand ; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery , rooted knots of herbage , and drilling leaves of acanthus and vine , and mystical signs , all beginning and ending in the Cross ; and above them , in Hie broad nrchivoKs , a coiitinuom chain of language- and of life—angels , and the si ^ ns of heaven , and tho labours of men , each in its appointed season upon the earth ; ami above these , another range of glittering pinnacles , mixed with white arches edj ^ ed with scarlet ( lowers a confusion of delight , amidst which tho breasts of tho ( Jreek horses an * noon blazing in their breadth of golden strength , and tho St . Mark ' n " iiiol » > lifted on a bluo liold covered with . stars , until at last , as if in ecstaey , the erests of tho arches break into n marble foam , and toss themselves fur into the bluo . nit y in Hashes and wreaths of . sculptured spray , us if tho breakers on tho Lido shore hud boon frost-bound before they fell , and the . sea-nymph . s had inlaid them with coral and amethyst .
" Heiweeu that grim cathedral of Kngland and ( . his , what ; an interval ! There in Ji typo of it in tho very birds that haunt them ; for , instead of tho restless crowd lioiirse-voicoil and sable-winged , drifting on the bleak upper air , tho St . Mark's pordms nro full of doves , that nestle among tho inurblo foliage , and mini > lo tho soft iridescence of thoir living plumes , changing at , ovory motion , with the tintu , hardly less lowly , Mint , havo stood unchanged for seven hundred years . " And what ofloofc has this splendour on those who pass beneath il , ? You may walk from sunrise to sunset , to and fro , before tho gateway of St . Murk ' s , and you will not neo an cyo lifted to it , nor a couutcnuueo brightened by it . IViest iindiayinan , soldier and civilian , rich and poor , pas . s by it uliko regardlcssly . Op ( . 0 tho very
r ecesses of the porches , the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters the foundations of its pillars are themselves the seats—nofc ' of them that sell d ^^ for sacrifice , but of the vendors of toys and caricatures . Bound the whole 86 ™*' in front of the . church ¦ there is almost " a continuous line of cafes , where th - ^ e Venetians of the middle classes lounge , and read empty journals ; ' in its centretl Austrian bauds play during the time of Vespers , their martial music jarrino- w'ft the organ notes , —the march drowning the miserere , and the sullen crowd thicken round them , — -a crowd , which , if it had its will , would stiletto every soldier th" ? pipes to it . And in the recesses of the porches , all day long , knots of men of tl lowest classes , unemployed and listless , lie basking- in the sun like lizards- a unregarded children , —every heavy glance of their young eyes full of desperatio and stony depravity , and their thi-oats hoarse with cursing , —gamble , and fi <> i t and snarl , and sleep , hour after hour , clashing their bruised centesimi nnou ° tli ' marble ledges of the church porch . And the images of Christ and His an « -els lo t down upon it continually . " G
INTEKIOK OF ST . MAEK S . " Through the heavy door whose bronze network closes the place of his re t let us enter the church itself . It is lost in still deeper twilight , to which the ev * must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can h traced ; and then there opens before us a vast cave , hewn out into the form of cross , and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars . Round the domes of its roof the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars ; and here and there a ray or two from some far away casement wanders into the darkness and
casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colours along the floor . What else there is of light is from torches or silver lamps , burning ceaselessly in the recesses of the chapels ; the roof sheeted with gold , and the polished walls covered with alabaster , give back at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames ; and the glories round the heads of the sculptured saints flash out upon us as we pass them , and sink ao-ain into the gloom . TJnder foot and over head , a continual succession of crowded imagery one picture passing into another , as in a dream ; forms beautiful and terrible re ixed
together ; dragons and serpents , and ravening- beasts of prey , and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal ; tho passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized together , and the mystery of its redemption ; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at last to the Cross , lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone ; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt round it , sometimes with doves beneath its arms , and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet ; but conspicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar ,
raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse . And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels , when the mist of the incense hangs heavily , we . may see continually a figure traced in faint lines upon their marble , a woman standing with her eyes raised to heaven , and the inscription above her , * Mother of God / she is not here the presiding deity . It is the Cross that is firbt seen , and always , burning in the centre of the temple ; and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it , raised in power , or returning in judgment .
" Nor is this interior without effect on the minds of the people . At every hour of the day there are groups collected before the various shrines , and solitary worshippers scattered through the darker places of the church , evidently in prayer both deep and reverent , and , for the most part , profoundly sorrowful . The devotees at the greater number of the renowned shrines of Romanism may ho seen murmuring their appointed prayers with wandering eyes and unengaged gestures ; but the step of the stranger does not disturb those who kneel on the pavement of St . Mark ' s ; and hardly a moment passes , from early morning to sunset , in which wo may not sec some half-veiled figure enter beneath the Arabian porch , cast itself into long abasement on the floor of the temple , and then rising slowly with more confirmed step , and with a passionate kiss and clasp of the arms given to t he feet of the crucifix , by which the lamps burn always in tho northern aisle , leave the church , as if comforted .
" "But we must not hastily conclude from this that the nobler characters of the building havo at present any influence in fostering a devotional spirit . There is distress enough in Venice to bring many to their knees , without e xcitement from external imagery ; and whatever there may be in tho temper of tho worship offered in St . Mark ' s more than can be accounted for by reference to the unhappy circumstances of the city , is assuredly not owing either to tho beauty of its architecture or to tho impressivencss of the Scripture histories embodied hi its mosaics . That it has a peculiar effect , however slight , on the popular mind , may perhaps he safely conjectured from tho number of worshippers which it attracts , while the churches of St . Paul and the Frari , larger in size and inoro central in position , arc loft 1 : 0 mparntively empty . But this effect is altogether to be ascribed to its richer assemblage of thoso sources of influence which address themselves to the commonest
instincts of tho human mind , and which , in all agoH and countries , have been wonor less employed in the support of superstition . Darkness and mystery ; conHiKW recesses of building ; artificial light employed in small quantity , but maintain' - ' with a constancy which . seems to give it a land of sneredness ; precionsne ^ <> material easily comprehended by the vulgar eye ; doso air loaded with a sweet and peculiar odour associated only with religious ' services , solemn , music , and tan ^ i ' '" idols or images having popular legends attached to them—these , tho stiitfo prop " "" ties of superstition , which havo been from the boginning of the world , and \ mw be to tho end of it , employed by nil nations , whether openly savage or lioninmlly civilized , to produce a false awo in minds incapable of apprehending Lho truo iintun ) of the Deity , are assembled in St . Mark ' s to n degree , as iV . v iw L know , unexa mpled in any othor European church . "
Wo intended nOl , !; o Hpenk of j \ rehiteefuro in this article ; but ffocn "" ' refliHf ; quoting the following pipage , whorein , with great jusLn / 'SH * i »< novelty , hepoints out the JHct , that in < layB whon there was An'h ^ cwri , thero was NO XaFFNUKNOI' : IWJTW . KNN KOOIYKSl AB'I'IO AND DOMKHTM O HTYMOH . " That what , wo now regard with doubt and wonder , as well us with doliff' * was then tho natural continuation , into the principal ediliee of tho city , of « '" # which was familiar to ovory eye throughout all its lanos and streets ; and "' " ^ . ^ architect had often no more idea of producing u peculiarly devotional imp" *''" by tho richest , colouring and tho most ; elaborate carving , than tho builder <> modorn nicoting-houHO lias by his whiles-washed walls and square-ea t ; casement- ^ " I . ot , tho reader fix this great fact well in bin mind , and then <" IlmV J ' , | 0 important corollaries . Wo attach , in modern days , a kind of Hiu ' . rodncrttf to
906 T He Leader. [Saturday ~ — — - • ' I...
906 T HE LEADER . [ Saturday ~ — — - ' I - —¦ ¦ — " ' * " ' " ' ¦ "¦ ¦ ' '" " """ ' ' " ~ " ' " — ' ¦¦ I . — .. ... — ¦ - . I - - ¦ ¦ . - - . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 17, 1853, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17091853/page/18/
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