# Vivian Grey/Volume 3/Chapter 5.2

CHAPTER II.
Vivian pulled up his horse as he ascended through the fine beech wood, which leads immediately to the city of Frankfort, from the Darmstadt road. The crowd seemed to increase every moment, but as they were all hastening the same way, his progress was not much impeded. It was Frankfort fair; and all countenances were expressive of that excitement which we always experience at great meetings of our fellow creatures; whether the assemblies be for slaughter, pleasure, or profit, and whether or not we ourselves join in the banquet, the battle, or the fair. At the top of the hill is an old Roman tower, and from this point the flourishing city of Frankfort, with its pic​turesque Cathedral, its numerous villas, and beautiful gardens in the middle of the fertile valley of the Maine, burst upon Vivian's sight. On crossing the bridge over the river, the crowd became almost impassable, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Vivian steered his way through the old narrow winding streets, full of tall ancient houses, with heavy casements and notched gable ends. These structures did not, however, at the present moment, greet the traveller with their usual sombre and antique appearance: their outside walls were in most instances, entirely covered with pieces of broad cloth of the most showy colours; red, blue, and yellow predominating. These standards of trade were not merely used for the purpose of exhibiting the quality of the articles sold in the interior; but, also, of informing the curious traveller, the name and nation of their adventurous owners. Inscriptions in German, French, Russian, English, Italian, and even Hebrew, appeared in striking characters on each woollen specimen; and, as if these were not sufficient to attract the attention of the passenger, an active apprentice, or aassistant, commented in ​eloquent terms on the peculiar fairness and honesty of his master. The public squares, and other open spaces, and indeed every spot which was secure from the hurrying wheels of the heavy old-fashioned coaches of the Frankfort aristocracy, and the spirited pawings of their sleek and long-tailed coach horses, were covered with large and showy booths, which groaned under the accumulated treasures of all countries: French silks, and French clocks, rivalled Manchester cottons, and Sheffield cutlery; and assisted to attract, or entrap the gazer, in company with Venetian chains, Neapolitan coral, and Vienna pipeheads: here was the booth of a great bookseller, who looked to the approaching Leipsic fair for some consolation for his slow sale, and the bad taste of the people of Frankfort; and there was a dealer in Bologna sausages, who felt quite convinced that in some things the taste of the Frankfort public was by no means to be lightly spoken of. All was bustle, bargaining, and business: there were quarrels, and conversation in all languages; and Vivian Grey, although he had no chance either of winning or losing money, was amused.
​At last, Vivian gained the High street; and here, though the crowd was not less, the space was greater; and so in time he arrived at the grand hotel of "the Roman Emperor," where he stopped. It was a long time before he could be informed whether Baron Julius von Konigstein at present honoured that respectable establishment with his presence; for, although Vivian did sometimes succeed in obtaining an audience of a hurrying waiter, that animal, when in a hurry, has a peculiar habit of never attending to a question which a traveller addresses to him. In this dilemma Vivian was saluted by a stately-looking personage above the common height. He was dressed in a very splendid uniform of green and gold, covered with embroidery, and glittering with frogs. He wore a cocked hat, adorned with a flowing party-coloured plume, and from his broad golden belt was suspended a weapon of singular shape, and costly workmanship. This personage was as stiff and stately, as he was magnificent. His eyes were studiously preserved from the profanation of meeting the ground, and his well ​supported neck seldom condescended to move from its perpendicular position. His coat was buttoned to the chin and over the breast, with the exception of one small aperture, which was elegantly filled up by a delicate white cambric handkerchief, very redolent of rich perfumes. This gorgeous gentleman, who might have been mistaken for an elector of the German empire, had the German empire been in existence, or the governor of the city at the least, turned out to be the chasseur of the Baron von Konigstein; and with his courtly assistance, Vivian soon found himself ascending the staircase of the Roman Emperor.
Vivian was ushered into an apartment, in which he found three or four individuals at breakfast. A middle-aged man of very elegant appearance, in a most outré morning gown of Parisian chintz, sprung up from a many-cushioned easy-chair of scarlet morocco, and seized his hand as he was announced.
"My dear Mr. Grey! and so you are really kind enough to call upon me—I was so fearful lest you should not come—Eugene was so de​sirous that we should meet, and has said so many things of you, that I should have been mortified beyond expression if we had missed. I have left notes for you at all the principal hotels in the city. And how is Eugene? his, is wild blood for a young student, but a good heart, an excellent heart—and you have been so kind to him!—he feels under such particular obligations to you—under very particular obligations I assure you—and will you breakfast?—Ah! I see you smile at my supposing a horseman unbreakfasted. And have you ridden here from Heidelburg this morning? impossible! Only from Darmstadt! I thought so! You were at the Opera then last night. And how is the little Signora? We are to gain her though! trust the good people of Frankfort for that! Pray be seated—but really I'm forgetting the commonest rules of breeding. Next to the pleasure of having friends, is that of introducing them to each other—Prince, you will have great pleasure in being introduced to my friend Mr. Grey—Mr. Grey!—Prince Salvinski! my particular friend, Prince Salvinski. The Count ​von Altenburgh! Mr. Grey! my very particular friend, the Count von Altenburgh—and the Chevalier de Bœffleurs! Mr. Grey! my most particular friend, the Chevalier de Bœffleurs."
After this most hospitable reception from a man he had never seen before, Vivian Grey sat down. Baron Julius von Konigstein was minister to the Diet of Frankfort, from what is termed a "first rate" German power. In person he was short, but most delicately formed; his head was a little bald, but as he was only five-and-thirty, this could scarcely be from age; and his remaining hair, black, glossy, and curling, proved that their companion ringlets had not been long lost. His features were small, but not otherwise remarkable; except a pair of luscious-looking, liquid black eyes, of great size, which would have hardly become a stoic, and which gleamed with great meaning, and perpetual animation.
"I understand, Mr. Grey, that you 're a regular philosopher. Pray who is the favourite master? Kant or Fichte? or is there any other ​new star who has discovered the origin of our essence, and proved the non-necessity of eating! Count, let me help you to a little more of these saucisses aux choux. I 'm afraid, from Eugene's account, that you 're almost past redemption; and I 'm sorry to say, that although I 'm very desirous of being your physician and effecting your cure, Frankfort will supply me with very few drugs to work your recovery. If you could but get me an appointment once again to your delightful London, I might indeed produce some effect; or were I even at Berlin, or at your delicious Vienna, Count Altenburgh! (the Count bowed); or at that Paradise of women, Warsaw, Prince Salvinski!! (the Prince bowed); or at Paris!!! Chevalier (the Chevalier bowed); why then, indeed, you should have some difficulty in finding an excuse for being in low spirits with Julius von Konigstein! But, Frankfort, my dear fellow, is really the most horrible of all human places! perfectly provincial—eh! de Bœffleurs?"
"Oh! perfectly provincial," sighed the French Chevalier, who was also attached to a ​mission in this very city, and who was thinking of his own gay Boulevards, and his brilliant Tuileries.
"And the men, such brutes! mere citizens!"' continued the Baron, taking a long pinch of snuff,—"mere citizens! Do you take snuff? I merely keep this box for my friends;" and here he extended to Vivian a magnificent gold snuff-box, covered with the portrait of a crowned head, surrounded with diamonds: "A present from the King of Sardinia, when I negociated the marriage of the Duke of and his niece, and settled the long agitated controversy about the right of anchovy fishing on the left bank of the Mediterranean: I merely keep it for my friends; my own snuff is here." And the Baron pointed very significantly to his waistcoat-pocket, cased with tin.
"But the women," continued the Baron, "the women—that is a different thing.—There 's some amusement among the little bourgeoises, who are glad enough to get rid of their commercial beaus; whose small talk, after a waltz, is about bills of exchange, mixed up with a little ​patriotism about their free city, and some chatter about what they call—'the fine arts;' their horrid collections of 'the Dutch school:'—School forsooth! a cabbage, by Gerard Dow! and a candlestick, by Mieris!—And now will you take a basin of soup, and warm yourself, while his Highness continues his account of being frozen to death this spring at the top of Mont-Blanc: how was it, Prince?"
"I think I was at the second attempt?" asked the Pole, collecting himself after this long interruption.—He was, as all Poles are, a great traveller; had seen much, and described more—though a great liar, he was a dull man; and the Baron, who never allowed himself to be outdone in a good story, affected to credit the Prince's, and returned him his thanks in kine, which his Highness, in spite of his habitual mendacity on the point of his own travels, singularly enough, always credited.
"Did your Highness ultimately ascend to the top of Mont Blanc?" asked Vivian.
"No—" said the Prince very slowly, as if he confessed the fact with reluctance: "I did ​not—I certainly did not; although I did reach a much higher point than I contemplated after my repulse; a point, indeed, which would warrant some individuals in asserting that they had even reached the summit; but in matters of science I am scrupulously correct, and I certainly cannot say that I did reach the extreme top. I say so, because, as I believe, I mentioned before, in matters of science I make it a point to be particularly correct. It is singular, but no less true, that after reaching the fifth glacier, I encountered a pyramidal elevation of, I should calculate, fifteen hundred feet in height. This pyramidal elevation was not perpendicular, but had an unhappy inclination forward, of about one inch in eight. It was entirely of solid, green, polished ice. Nature had formed no rut to assist the philosopher.—I paused before this pyramidal elevation of polished, slippery, green ice. I was informed that it was necessary for me to ascend this pyramidal elevation during the night; and this pyramidal elevation of solid, green, polished, slippery ice, Mr. Grey, with an unhappy incli​nation forward, of one inch in eight from the perpendicular, was the top of Mont Blanc. Saussure may say that he ascended it for ever! For my part, when I beheld this pyramidal elevation, gentlemen, I was not surprised that there was some little variance as to the exact height of this mighty mountain, among all those philosophers who profess to have reached its summit." On this head the travelling Pole would have discoursed for ever; but the Baron, with his usual presence of mind, dexterously interfered.
"You were fortunate, Prince; I congratulate you. I've heard of that iceberg before. I remember, my cousin, who ascended the mountain about ten years ago—was it ten years ago?—yes, ten years ago. I remember he slept at the foot of that very pyramidal elevation, in a miserable mountain-hut, intending to climb it in the morning. He was not so well-instructed as your Highness, who, doubtless, avoided the diurnal ascent, from fear of the effect of the sun's rays on the slippery ice. Well, my cousin, as I said before, slept in the mountain​hut; and in the night there came such a fall of snow, that when he awoke, he found the cottage-door utterly blocked up. In fact, the whole building was encrusted in a coating of snow, of above forty feet thick. In this state of affairs, having previously made a nuncupative will, to which the guides were to be witnesses, in case of their escape, he resigned himself to his fate. But Providence interfered; a violent tornado arose. Among other matter, the gigantic snow-ball was lifted up in the air with as much ease as if it were merely a drop of sleet. It bounded from glacier to glacier with the most miraculous rapidity, and at length vaulted on the Mer-de-glace, where it cracked into a thousand pieces. My cousin was taken up by a couple of young English ladies, who were sketching the Montanvert, with three or four of the principal glaciers for a back-ground. The only inconveniences he sustained were a severe cold, and a slight contusion; and he was so enchanted with the manners of the youngest lady, who, by the bye, had a very considerable fortune, that he ​married her the next week." Here the Baron took a very long pinch of snuff.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Polish Prince, who affected French manners.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Austrian Count, who was equally refined.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Frenchman; who, believing his own country superior in every possible particular, was above borrowing even an oath, or an ejaculation, from another land.
"Mr. Grey—I wish that Frankfort could have been honoured by your presence yesterday," said the Baron; "there really was an entertainment at the President's, which was not contemptible, and a fine display of women, a very fine display!—eh, de Bœffleurs?"
"Remarkably so indeed! but what a room!" said the Chevalier, shrugging up his shoulders, and elevating his eye-brows.
"We want the saloon of Wisbaden here," said the Baron; "with that, Frankfort might be endurable. As it is, I really must give up my appointment; I cannot carry on public business in a city with such a saloon as we met in last night."
​"The most imposing room, on the whole, that I ever was in," said Prince Salvinski, "is the chief hall of the seraglio at Constantinople. It's a most magnificent room."
"You have been in the interior of the seraglio then?" asked Vivian.
"All over it, Sir, all over it! The women unfortunately were not there; they were at a summer palace on the Bosphorus, where they are taken regularly every year for an airing in large gold cages."
"And was the furniture of the room you are speaking of very gorgeous?"
'No, by no means; a great deal of gilding and carving, but rude, rude; very much like the exterior carving of a man of war; nothing exquisite. I remember the floor was covered with carpets, which, by the bye, were English. To give you an idea of the size of the room, it might have taken, perhaps, sixty of the largest carpets that you ever saw to cover the floor of it."
"Does your Highness take snuff?" asked the Baron drily.
"Thank you, no; I've left off snuff ever ​since I passed a winter at Baffin's Bay. You've no idea how very awkward an accidental sneeze is near the pole."
"Your Highness, I imagine, has been a great traveller;" said Vivian, to the Baron's great annoyance. Unfortunately Vivian was not so much used to Prince Salvinski as his Excellency.
"I have seen a little of most countries: these things are interesting enough when we are young; but when we get a little more advanced in life, the novelty wears off, and the excitement ceases. I have been in all quarters of the globe. In Europe I have seen every thing except the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe. In Asia I have seen every thing except the ruins of Babylon. In Africa, I have seen every thing but Timbuctoo; and in America, I have seen every thing except Croker's Mountains."
All this time the Austrian had not joined in the conversation; not, however, because his mouth was shut—that is never the fault of an Austrian. Count von Altenburgh had now, ​however, finished his breakfast. Next to eating, music is the business in which an Austrian is most interested. The Count having had the misfortune of destroying, for the present, one great source of his enjoyment, became very anxious to know what chance there existed of his receiving some consolation from the other. Flinging down his knife and fork, as if he estimated those instruments very slightly, now that their services were useless, and pushing his plate briskly from him, he demanded with an anxious air—"Can any gentleman inform me what chance there is of the Signora coming?"
"No news to-day," said the Baron, with a mournful look; "I'm almost in despair;—what you think of the last notes that have been interchanged?"
"Very little chance," said the Chevalier de Bœffleurs, shaking his head; "really these burghers, with all their affected enthusiasm, have managed the business exceedingly bad. No opera can possibly succeed, that is not conducted by a committee of noblemen."
​"Certainly!" said the Baron; "we're sure then to have the best singers, and be in the Gazette the same season."
"Which is much better, I think, Von Konigstein, than paying our bills, and receiving no pleasure."
'But these burghers," continued the Baron "these clumsy burghers, with their affected enthusiasm, as you well observe, who could have contemplated such novices in diplomacy! Whatever may be the issue, I can at least lay my head upon my pillow, and feel that I have done my duty. Did not I, de Bœffleurs, first place the negociation on a basis of acknowledged feasibility and mutual benefit? Who drew the protocol, I should like to know? Who baffled the intrigues of the English Minister, the Lord Amelius Fitz-fudge Boroughby? Who sat up one whole night with the Signora's friend, the Russian Envoy, Baron Squallonoff—and who was it that first arranged about the extra chariot?"—and here the representative of a first rate German Power looked very much ​like a resigned patriot, who feels that he deserves a ribbon.
"No doubt of it, my dear von Konigstein," echoed the French Chargé d'Affaires, "and I think, whatever may be the result, that I too may look back to this negociation with no ungratified feelings. Had the arrangement been left as I had wished, merely to the ministers of the Great Powers, I am confident that the Signora would have been singing this night in our Opera House."
"What is the grand point of difference at present?" asked the Austrian.
"A most terrific one," said the Baron; "the lady demanded six-and-thirty covers, two tables, two carriages, one of which I arranged should be a chariot; that at least the town owes to me; and, let me see, what else? merely a town mansion and establishment. Exerting myself day and night, these terms were, at length, agreed to by the municipality, and the lady was to ride over from Darmstadt to sign and seal. In the course of her ride, she took a cursed fancy to the country villa of a great Jew banker, and since that mo​ment the arrangement has gone off. We have offered her every thing—the commandant's country castle—his lady's country farm—the villa of the director of the Opera—the retreat of our present prima donna—all, all in vain. We have even hinted at a temporary repose in a neighbouring royal residence—but all, all useless. The banker and the Signora are equally intractable, and Frankfort is in despair."
"She ought to have signed and sealed at Darmstadt," said the Count very indignantly.
"To be sure!—they should have closed upon her caprice, and taken her when she was in the fancy."
"Talking of Opera girls," commenced the Polish Prince, "I remember the Countess Katszinski—"
"Your Highness has nothing upon your plate," quickly retorted the Baron, who was in no humour for a story.
"Nothing more, I thank you," continued the
"Prince: as I was saying, I remember the Countess Katszinski—"
"Mr. Brinkel!" announced the Chasseur; ​and the entrance of a very singular looking personage saved the company from the Pole's long story.
Mr. Brinkel was a celebrated picture-dealer. He was a man about the middle size, with keen black eyes, a sharp nose rather unduly inclining to his right cheek, and which somewhat singular contortion was, perhaps, occasioned by an habitual and sardonic grin which constantly illuminated his features, and lit up his shining dark brown face, which was of much the same tint as one of his own varnished, "deep-toned" modern antiques. There were odd stories about, respecting Mr. Brinkel, and his "undoubted originals," in which invaluable pieces of property he alone professed to deal. But the Baron von Konigstein was, at any rate, not one of Mr. Brinkel's victims; and his Excellency was among the rare few, whom a picture-dealer knows it is in vain to attempt to take in: he was an amateur who thoroughly understood art, one of the rarest characters in existence. The Baron and Brinkel were, however, great friends; and at the present moment the picture-dealer was as​sisting the diplomatist in the accomplishment of a very crafty and splendid plan. Baron von Konigstein, for various reasons, which shall now be nameless, was generally in want of money. Now the Baron, tired with his perpetual shifts, determined to make a fortune at one great coup. He had been in England, and was perfectly aware of the rising feeling for the arts which at the present moment daily flourishes in this country. The Baron was generous enough to determine materially to assist in the formation of our national taste. He was, himself, forming at a cheap rate a very extensive collection of original pictures, which he intended to sell at an enormous price, to the National Gallery. Brinkel, in order to secure the entrée of the Baron's room, which afforded various opportunities of getting off his "undoubted" originals on English and Russian travellers, was in return assisting the minister in his great operation, and acted as his general agent in the affair, on which he was also to get a respectable commission. This business was, of course, altogether a close secret.
​And now, before Mr. Brinkel opens his mouth, I may, perhaps, be allowed to say a few words upon a subject, in which we are all interested. We are now forming, at great expense, and with greater anxiety, a National Gallery. What is the principal object of such an Institution? Doubtless to elevate the productions of our own school, by affording our artists an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the works of the great masters who have preceded them. Why, then, have we deviated from the course which has been pursued in the formation of all other National Galleries? There we shall see arranged in chronological order, specimens of the art in all ages, from the period in which Cimabue rescued it from the Greek painters, unto the present time. The excellent is doubtless to be conceived in the study of the excellent; but we should always remember, that excellence is relative; and that to the philosopher, the frescos of Masaccio, are perhaps more marvellous than the frescos of the Vatican. Introduce a young and inexperienced painter to the Assumption of Titian, ​the Madonna della Pietà of Guido, the Leo of Raffael, the St. Jerome of Domenichino; and, instead of being incited and inspired, he will leave the chamber in despair. But, before he witnesses these miracles, let him trace on the walls of the gallery, the history of his art. Let him view the first hazardous efforts of the inexperienced, wavering, and timid pencil, depicting mummies, rather than men—sticks, rather than trees: let him view the unrelieved surface—the ill-proportioned extremities—the harsh and unsubdued tints; then let him watch perspective, stealing into the back-ground; let him witness the attenuated forms falling into graceless, but energetic groups; let him admire the first deception of chiaro 'scuro; then bring him to the correct design, the skilful foreshortening, the exact extremities; to the rounded limb—to the breathing mouth—to the kindled eye—to the moving group! Add to these all the magic of colour, and lo! a grand picture. We stand before the work with admiring awe; forgetting the means in the result; the artist, in the creator.
​Thus gradually, I repeat, should our young artist be introduced to the great masters, whom then the wise pride of human nature would incite him to imitate. Then too, he would feel that to become a great artist, he must also become a great student; that no sudden inspiration produced the virgins of Raffael; that, by slow degrees, by painful observation, by diligent comparison, by frequent experiment, by frequent failure, by the experience of many styles, the examination of all schools, the scholar of Perugino won for himself a name, than which no one is more deeply graven on Fame's eternal tablets.
For half the sum that we are giving for a suspicious Corregio, the young English artist would be able to observe all this, and the efforts of the early Germans to boot. I make these observations with no disposition to disparage the management of our gallery; nor in that carping humour, which some think it safe to assume, when any new measure is proposed, or is being carried into execution. I know the difficulties that the Directors have to contend with. ​I know the greater difficulties that await them; and I have made these observations, because I believe here is a due disposition, in the proper quarter, to attend to honest suggestions; and because I feel, that the true interests of the Arts, have, at this present time, in our Monarch, a steady, a sincere, and powerful advocate; one, who in spite of the disheartening opposition of vulgar clamour, and uneducated prejudice, has done more in a short reign for the patronage of the fine Arts, than all the dynasties of all the Medicis, Roman and Florentine, together. And now for Mr. Brinkel.
"My dear Baron!" commenced the picture-dealer; and here seeing strangers he pulled up, in order to take a calm view of the guests, and see whether there were any unpleasant faces among them; any gentleman to whom he had sold a Leonardo da Vinci, or a Salvator Rosa. All looking very strange, and extremely amiable, Mr. Brinkel felt reassured and proceeded.
"My dear Baron! merely a few words."
"Oh, my dear Brinkel!—proceed—proceed."
​"Another time; your Excellency is engaged at present."
"My dear Brinkel! before these gentlemen you may say any thing."
"Your Excellency's so kind!" continued Mr. Brinkel, though with a hesitating voice, as if he thought that when the nature of the communication was known, the Baron might repent his over confidence. "Your Excellency's so kind!"
"My dear little Rembrandt, you may really say any thing."
"Well then," continued he, half hesitating, and half in a whisper; "may it please your Excellency, I merely stepped in to say, that I am secretly, but credibly informed, that there is a man just arrived from Italy, with a marble Pietà of Michel Angelo, stolen from a church in Genoa. The fact is not yet known, even to the police; and long before the Sardinian minister can apply for the acquirer's apprehension, he will be safely stowed in one of my cellars."
​"A marble Pietà! by Michel Angelo," exclaimed the Prince, with great eagerness. The Polish nobleman had a commission from the imperial Viceroy of his country, to make purchases of all exquisite specimens of art that he could meet with; as the Imperial government was very desirous of reforming the taste of the nation in matters of art, which indeed was in a particularly depraved state. Caricatures had been secretly circulated in the highest circles of Warsaw and Wilna, in which the Emperor and his ministers did not look quite as dignified as when shrouded in the sacred sanctuary of the Kremlin; and although the knout, the wheel, and Siberia, suppressed these little intemperances for the moment, still it was imagined by the prime minister, who chanced to be a philosopher, that the only method of permanent prevention was directing the public taste to the study of the beautiful; and that therefore the only mode of saving the Sovereign from being squibbed, was the formation of a national gallery. Ours therefore is not the only infant institute.
​"A marble Pietà, by Michel Angelo!" exclaimed the Prince; "but a great price, I suppose, demanded?"
"Dear—but cheap;" oracularly answered Mr. Brinkel; and the sinistral fore-finger was significantly applied to the left side of his nose.
“I confess I am no extravagant admirer of Michel Angelo," said the Baron. "In the sacred shades of Santa Croce, Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture mourn him as their lost master. Poetry might have been added to the charming Sisters. But in all these glorious arts, though his performances were remarkable, they were not miraculous; and I look in vain for any production of Michel Angelo, which per se stamps him as a master spirit.
"It was his custom to treat sculpture as his profession, and in his profession he has left scarcely one finished work. The tombs of the Medicis are not completed, and although there is a mysterious and undefinable moral in his "Night and Day," which may attract the contemplative, and interest the poet, yet I imagine few, who have preconceived that monument ​from the written descriptions, have looked on the original without disappointment. His Moses,—and for a moment I will grant that the legislator is as sublime as his warmest admirers maintain,—is only one finished figure of a monument, in which it was to have been not the most remarkable. But what, if this statue be only a kindred personification of the same conception which he has depicted in the brawny prophets of the Sistine chapel, where it would seem that the artist had mistaken contortion for inspiration, and largeness of stature for dilation of soul! His marble Pietàs and Madonnas unfinished, abound in the Italian churches; and though I grant a striking simplicity is often observable in the countenances of his virgins, yet that simplicity is often severe, and sometimes sullen. We look in vain for the subdued loveliness of the mother of God—for that celestial resignation which is not akin to despair. As for the corpse, it might suit the widow's child, or the deceased Lazarus; and if not always absolutely vulgar, the face is at best but that of a young, and not very intellectual Rabbi. If we turn from sacred ​subjects to ancient mythology, I cannot forget that Michel Angelo was the first artist, who dared to conceive a god as less than a man; and in his "Drunken Bacchus," presented us with the sovereign of the grape, as the slave of his own subject, in a position too clumsy for a Faun, and too dull for a Silenus!
"Although sculpture was the profession of Michel Angelo, he is still more esteemed by his admirers as a painter. Notwithstanding Sir Joshua Reynolds ranks him even above Raffael, it seems now pretty well understood that his fame as a painter must depend upon his Roman frescos, and his one oil painting—the Holy Family at Florence. Whether this painting really be in oil is doubtful, but that is of little moment. I will only ask, what mind unprejudiced by the doctrines, and uncontaminated by the babble of schools, has looked upon that boasted treasure of the Tribune, with any other feeling except disgust? Where is the divinity of the boy? Where the inspiration of the mother? Where the proud felicity of the human husband?
​"Of fresco-painting, Michel Angelo was confessedly ignorant, and once threw down the brush in disgust at his own incompetence. The theorist of art still finds some plan, and order, lurking in the inexplicable arrangement of the Sistine ceiling; but while he consoles himself for the absence of the more delightful effects of art, by conjuring up a philosophical arrangement of the prophets, and a solution of the dark mysteries of theocracy, he turns in silence from the walls, gloomy with the frightless purgatory, and the unexhilarating paradise of 'The last Judgment;' where the Gothic conceptions of the middle ages are again served up in the favourite temple of modern Rome, and in a manner in which crude composition seems only to be exceeded by confused arrangement—in which the distracted eye turns to a thousand points, and is satisfied by none—wearied with tints, which though monotonous, are not subdued, and which possessing none of the attractions of colour, seem cursed with all its faults.
"Michel Angelo was not educated as an ​architect; but an Italian, and a man of genius, may become a great architect, even without an education. Let us briefly examine his works. The domestic architecture of Florence is due to him; and if we complain of palaces, which look like prisons, and lament the perpetual presence of rustic bossages, we are told that the plans of Michel Angelo were dictated by the necessities of the times; and that, in his age, it was absolutely requisite that every palace should be prepared to become a fortress. If this be admitted as a valid excuse for the absence of beauty, it is against all principles of logic, that, because in these structures beauty was incompatible with safety, Michel Angelo could therefore have conceived the beautiful. In the chapel of the Medicis, we in vain look for the master;—where is that happy union of the sciences of the harmony of proportion, and the harmony of combination, which mark the great architect! where the harmonious whole consisting of parts beautiful in detail, and unobtrusive in effect! We see only a dungeon, at once clumsy and confined.
​"If we turn from Florence to Rome, who is there to defend the complexities of the Capitoline Galleries, and the absurdities of the Porta Pia? We approach St. Peter's:—although the work of many artists, the design of Michel Angelo has, on the whole, been very faithfully adhered to. That St. Peter's is magnificent, who can deny?—but how could such a mass of stone, and masonry, and architectural embellishment, such a blaze of gilding, marbles, and mosaics, be otherwise than magnificent? We must not be deceived by the first impression of a general effect which could not be avoided. It is acknowledged that this church, which is the largest in Christendom; which required so many years for its erection; which exhausted the Papal treasures, and endangered the Papal dominion; affects the mind of the entering stranger, neither with its sublimity, nor its grandeur; and presents no feature which would lead him to suppose, that he was standing in the most celebrated temple in Europe. All our travellers and writers, who have alike experienced disappointment on entering this famous ​building, have attempted to account for this effect, by attributing the cause to the exactness of the proportions. But this is like excusing a man's ignorance, by assuring you that he has received a regular education. If exactness of proportion produce poverty of effect, exactness of proportion ceases to be a merit; but is this true? What lover of Palladio can deny that it is the business of the great architect to produce striking and chaste effects, from poor and limited materials; and that exactness of proportion satisfying the mind, and not forcing it to ask for more, does in fact make that which is less appear greater, and that which is great, immense.
"But if I mention the faults of Michel Angelo, I am bid to remember the early period of art in which he lived; I am reminded of the mean elevations of those who preceded him—of the tone which he gave to the conceptions of his successors. Yet many celebrated sculptors were his contemporaries, and surely Leonardo da Vinci was not the scholar of his genius. But in painting, especially, he was preceded by Fra Bartolomeo, a miraculous artist;—who, while in his ​meek Madonnas he has only been equalled by Raffael, has produced in his St. Mark—his Job—and his Isaiah—creations which might have entitled him to the panegyrics which Posterity has so liberally bestowed upon the sculptor of Moses, and the painter of the Sistine Chapel.
"In architecture, I will not notice Brunelleschi; but let me mention this astonishing fact:—San Michele was born only nine or ten years after Michel Angelo, and as he died a few years before him, may be considered his exact contemporary. While the chapel of the Medicis was erected at Florence, at Verona, in the chapel of the Pellegrini, San Michele was reproducing ancient beauty, in combinations unknown to the antique. While the barbaric absurdities of the Porta Pia disgraced the capital of the Papal state, San Michele produced in the Porta Stupa a structure worthy of ancient Rome. And while Michel Angelo was raising palaces for his Florentine contemporaries, whose dark and rugged elevations are to be excused, on account of the necessity of their being impregnable to the assaults of popular tumult, the ​streets of Verona, the constant seat of sedition, were filling under the direction of San Michele, with numberless palaces, which, while they defended their owners alike among the dangers of civil broils and foreign invasion, at the same time presented elevations which, for their varied beauty, and classic elegance, have only been equalled by Palladio!"
Nothing is more delightful than to hear the sound of our own voice. The Baron's lecture was rather long, but certainly unlike most other lecturers, he understood his subject. Before Vivian could venture an observation in defence of the great Florentine, the door opened, and Ernstorff handed a dispatch to the Baron, recommending it to his Excellency's particular attention.
"Business, I suppose," said the Plenipotentiary: "it may wait till to morrow."
"From M. Clarionet, your Excellency."
"From M. Clarionet!" eagerly exclaimed the Baron, and tore open the epistle. "Gentlemen! gentlemen! gentlemen! congratulate me—congratulate yourselves—congratulate Frank​fort—such news—it is really too much for me," and the diplomatist, overcome, leant back in his chair.—" She is ours, Salvinski! she is ours, Von Altenburgh! she is ours, my dear de Bœffleurs! Grey, you 're the happiest fellow in Christendom; the Signora has signed and sealed—all is arranged—she sings to-night! What a fine spirited body is this Frankfort municipality! what elevation of soul! what genuine enthusiasm!—eh! de Bœffleurs!"
"Most genuine!" exclaimed the Chevalier, who hated German music with all his heart, and was now humming an air from the Dame Blanche.
"But mind, my dear fellows—this is a secret, a cabinet secret—the municipality are to have the gratification of announcing the event to the city in a public decree—it is but fair. I feel that I have only to hint, to secure your silence."
At this moment, with a thousand protestations of secrecy, the party broke up, each hastening to have the credit of first spreading the joyful intelligence through their circles, and of depriving the Frankfort senate of their hard​earned gratification. The Baron, who was in high spirits, ordered the carriage to drive Vivian round the ramparts, where he was to be introduced to some of the most fashionable beauties, previous to the evening triumph. Mr. Brinkel, disappointed at present of increasing, through the assistance of the Polish Prince, any collection in the North, directed his subtle steps up another flight of the staircase of the Roman Emperor, where lodged an English gentleman, for whom Mr. Brinkel had a very exquisite morçeau; having received the night before from Florence a fresh consignment of Carlo Dolces.