The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 4, lB5B.

1198

came in..° the room, ever thought of looking at
the Queen of Sheba's white brocade, with de-
" signs upon it in gold," on which he was en-
gaged. Mr. Ruskin tells just afterwards, that
he- is never satisfied till he has contradicted
" himself at least three times." We should think
that the explanation of the ladies' indifference is
to be sought in the fact that they had been dili-
gently studying "Mode 'n Pointers," and were
not aware that the time had some round for Mr.
Ruskin to contradict himself. "Sharp and
bright-eyed " they might be, but their artistic
perceptions were evidently not pitched in the
same key of recantation. For, observe what is
said in the work to which we have just referred
(vol. i. p. 18) :—" Ideas of imitation are con-
" temptable in the second place, because not only
" do they preclude the spectator from enjoying
" inherent beauty in the subject, but they can
" only be received from mean and paltry subjects,
" because it is impossible to imitate anything
" really great. We can paint a cat or a fiddle
" so that they look as if we could take them up ; '
" but we cannot imitate the ocean or the Alps.
" We can imitate fruit, but not a tree ; flowers,
" but not a parterre ; cut-glass, but not the
" rainbow. All pictures in which deceptive powers
" of imitation are displayed are therefore con-
" temptible ; either of contemptible subjects, or
" have the imitation shown in contemptible parts
of them, hits of dress, jewels. furniture, &c.
We must leave Mr. Ruskin and the bevy of fair
damsels that,

full of the pasture, jumrs along by him
And never stays to greet him.
—to settle their differences with as little loss of
temper as may be.
The contradiction which confessedly figures in
Mr. Ruskin's present argument is, that to have good
Art, we must delight in it—for we cannot do with-
" out the luminous attraction of pleasure" any more
than the earth's orbit without the sun ;—but we
must also restrain our delight, and work with a
stout moral purpose as well. If we do the
former only, we shall share the fate of those
nations which, by the pursuit of Art for the sake
of pleasure only, have become enervated, corrupt.
and finally ruined ; if we omit it, our Art will
be cold and lifeless. To illustrate the two ex-
tremes, of too little and too much—of Art wholly
neglected, and Art pursued for an unworthy end—
Mr. Ruskin contrasts the condition of Switzer-
land, which, though first to assert the liberties
"of Europe, and conceive the idea of equitable
" laws," was in all artistic " sensibilities of the
" human mind utterly deficient,"—with the state
of Italy as shown in the ruined villa of' Cardinal
Maurice of Savoy ; who, though he commis-
sioned the Paul Veroneses which Mr. Ruskin
likes so well, was, with his marriage to his niece
(for whom the villa was built), his Cupid-inous
pictures and other graceful naughtinesses, and his
notions of life in general, by no means a man for
rigid moralists to look up to. In such a spot,
with such associations, such a prospect, and such
a theme, Mr. Ruskin could not fail to moralize
eloquently ; nor is the following passage sur-
passed by many in the whole range of his
works :--

You see, from this spot, the plain of Piedmont, on the
north and south, literally as far as the eye can reach ; so
that the plain Wilmette as the sea does, with a level blue
line, only tufted with woods instead of waves, and crowded
with towers of cities instead of ships. Then, in the lumi-
nions air beyond and behind this blue borizon-line, stand,
as it were, the shadows of mountains, they themselves dark,
for the southern slopes of the Alps of the Lego Maggiore
and llellinzons are all without snow; but the light of the
unseen snow-fields, lying level behind the visible peaks,
is sent up with strange reflection upon the clouds ; an ever•
lasting light of calm Aurora in the north. Then, higher
and higher around the approaching darkness of the plain,
rise the central chains, not as on the Switzer's side, a re-
cognizable group and following of successive and separate
hills, but a willerness of jagged peaks, cast in passionate
and flame profusion along the circumference of heaven;
precipice behind precipice, and gulph beyond gulph, filled
with the flami-g of the sunset, and forming mighty
channels for the flowing.; of the clouds, which roll up
against them out of the vast Italian plain, forced together
by the narrowing crescent, and breaking up at last against
the Alpine wall in twers of spectral sr ray ; or sweeping
up its ravines with long moans of complaining thunder.
Out from between the cloudy pillars, as they pass, emerge
for ever the great battlements of the memorable and per-
petual hills: Viso, with her shepherd-witnesses to ancient
faith ; Rocca-melone, the highest place of Alpine
pilgrimage ; Teem, who shed her burial sheets of snow
about the march of Hannibal ; Cenis, who shone with her
glacier light on the descent of Cherlemain ; Paradiso, who
watched with her opposite crest the stoop of the French
eagle to Moreno; and underneath all these, lying in hersoft

langour, this tender Italy, lapped in dews of sleep, or more
than sleep—one knows not if it is trance, from which morning
shall yet roll the blinding mists away, or if the fair sh'tdows
of her quietude are indeed the shades of purple death.
And lifted a little above this solemn plain,and looking beyond
it to its snowy ramparts, vainly guardian, stands this palace
dedicated to pleasure, the whole legend of Italy's past his-
tory written before it by the finger of God, written as with
an iron pen upon the rock for ever, on all those fronting
walls of reproachful Alp ; blazoned in gold of lighstnit/
upon the clouds tbst still open and close their une
scrolls in heaven ; painted in purple and scarlet upon the
mighty missal pages of sunset after sunset, spread vainly
before a nation's eyes for a nation's prayer. So stands this
palace of pleasure ; desolate as it deserves—desolate in
smooth corridor and glittering chamber—desolate In
pleached walk and planted bower—lesolate iu that worst
and bitterest abandonment which leaves no light of memory.
No ruins are here of walls rent by war, and falling above
their defenders into mounds of graves : no remnants are
here of chapel-altar, or temple-porch, left shattered or silent
by the power of some purer worship : no vestiges are here
of sacred hearth and sweet homestead, left lonely through
vicissitudes of fate and heaven-sent sorrow. Nothing is
here bat the vain apparellings of pride sunk into dishonour ;
and vain appanages of delight now no more delightsome.
The hill-waters, that once flowed and flashed in the garden
fountains, now trickle sadly through the weeds that en.
cumber their basins, with a sound as of tears ; the creeping,
insidious, neglected flowers weave their burning nets about
the white marble of the balustrades, and rend them slowly,
block from block, and stone from stone ; the thin, sweet•
scented leaves tremble along the old masonry joints, as if
with palsy, at every breeze; and the dark lichens, golden
and grey, make the footfall silent in the path's centre.

Such a description as the foregoing,—which is
not merely a catalogue of gleaming snows, blue
skies, and spreading groves, such as any word-
painter in prose will turn you out at five minutes'
notice, but is a picture interpenetrated with the
light of thought and the reflected glow of historic
feeling,—is not to be met with every day.
Writing of this sort would be sufficient to redeem
much more onesidedness and perverseness than
we find in Mr. Ruskin's Address, and, taken
together with the broad views and brilliant sug-
gestiveness by which it is actually pervaded, it
should have the effect of attracting to its pages
all who value artistic appreciation or high lite-
rary excellence.

1. Pleasure. A Poem, in Seven Books. By
Nicholas Michell. London : Tegg and Co.
2. David and Samuel; with Other Poems. By
John Robertson. London : Seeleys.
1. A TONE of' voice, a note of music, a few brief
words, or a perfume, will often conjure up dim,
hazy memories of something in the past, so indis-
tinct, however, that men jestingly allude to it as
having happened in a former incarnation. Very
similar is the sensation one experiences in glancing
through Mr. Michell's poetic tribute to the plea-
sures of Pleasure. We do not accuse him of
downright plagiarisms so much as of startling
coincidences. It would be no arduous task to
select whole columns of epithets and imagery
familiar to us through the effusions of previous
writers. It is not his fault, of course, that these
should have anticipated him, nor is he in any
way to be held answerable for a circumstance so
clearly beyond his control. Nevertheless, it does
accidentally happen that many poets of various
degrees of gemus have appeared on the world's
stage prior to his owu debut, and that they have
availed themselves to a most ungenerous extent of
this fortuitous ad vantage. Very many of Mr.
Michelle most poetic passages are thus unfairly
deprived of the adventitious charm of originality,
and he himself placed in the critical position of
a man who trades on borrowed capital. But,
making due allowance for this chronological mis-
adventure, we are fully justified in speaking in
terms of praise of this well-sustained effort of his
Muse. The time, perhaps, has gone by for
didactic poetry, and here again Mr. Michell is
prejudiced by the unfortunate accident of having
come into the world just one hundred years too
late. His versification, however, is correct and
harmonious, and pleasantly conducive to gentle
slumbers. Five thousand lines, or thereabouts,
flow on in rhythmical monotony, without an eddy
or a ripple, descriptive of the many varieties of
pleasure to be derived from the natural, the in-
tellectual, and the moral world. These pleasures
would be far greater than they are, were not men
such vain, ignorant, conceited pigmies ; but on
this point let us hear Mr. Michell :
Prowl heir of Heaven ! poor insect of an hour !
Mortal, immortal—weak, endued with power,
Behold th' enigma man ! his strange career
Sweeps on in ilarkaess and in sunshine here.