On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    statue of Henri Quatre , on the Pont Neuf . What would he say , could he rise from his grave and see it floating so proudly and gallantly in the sunshine ? Peace to his manes , and that of his horse ! for we question if he would be so good an instrument in the hands of Freedom , as he is now with her banner in his own .

    Ihe houses opposite seem like a deputation , advancing from the isle Saint Louis , deprecating the mischief worked under the impolicy of its namesake , and about to do homage to the bravelyearned standard , floating on the breezy bridge . Behind them , is old Notre Dame , black and stately , like a cathedral in mourning , and the lofty light dome of the Pantheon ^ like a bride—( men of France become great and die , for the gratitude of the nation is

    waiting to bury you there ;*)—and the towers of St . Sulpice , and innumerable domes and towers in all directions , that keep the eye in a continued maze ; and again you return to the Gallery with a sort of c ah ! whither shall 1 fly ? ' and you ask support for your limbs from one of the crimson benches , and shade for your eyes from one of your hands , and you shut it all out for a while , and wait till you are fitted for a fresh encounter . If you are wise you will consider all this sufficient , and leave the poetry on the

    walls , and ( he exquisite forms and bright colours it chooses for its script , to be read , or be begun to be read , another day ; and another day you come—and ' another , and another still succeeds ; ' and there is no one to stay your entrance , no money to give , no check to take and return , no written order from some man in office—not even your passport , which is equal to an order almost every where . Open all days except one—Monday , and that not one of aristocratic difference , but devoted to artists .

    No staring at a shabby hat , no rejection of a homely gown—free to be enjoyed by all as the light of heaven ( that is to say , where there is no window-tax . ) It is all that a National Gallery ought to be . Watch the people clustered round and being educated by their favourite pictures ; look at their eager intelligent faces ; listen to their doubly happy remarks , reading all they can from a

    picture , too poor to purchase a catalogue , and courteously asking the more fortunate to help them to its subject . Soldiers , too—but they are of the National Guard , not your mere legalized cut-throats ; generals , colonels , and captains , would do well , if true to their profession , to keep all such from picture galleries .

    The arts are meant to refine—their system to brutalize . One fancies that soldiers would choose battle pieces , ( of which be it said there are vastly too many taken as subjects by the French artists—more of that anon . ) Not so ; there is one with his eyes fixed on a picture of Annibal Carracci—the quietest , gentlest , most exquisitely touched 1 It is called * Le Silence , * and you

    * The inscription on the Pantheon is * Aux grands homines la Patrie reconnaissaute . ' As yet it is empty of either monument or record , save four tablets , bearing the namea of the heroeb Tvho fell in July , 1830 , —a uoble exception .

    Untitled Article

    A National Gallery . 841

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1833, page 841, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2628/page/37/