The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 23, 1858.

1034

not its fast friends, yet from various motives are not pre-
pared to concur in its removal. Some, because they think
it a better Government than the one which preceded it.
Others, because they think it abetter Government than any
which is likely to follow. Others again, because, though
in mental vislon they forecast some form of Liberal re-
abmation, yet they know the time is not come. Others,
because they think the Minister, who took office t' meet
a real public emergency, ought to have fair play. And all
these are taught by their common sense that they ought
not to distress a Government which they are not prepared
to remove. Thus it comes about that with four fifths of
the House of Commons the Administration is strong for
every practical purpose ; that it can rely on its allies as
well as on its native troops ; that its m►litia sometimes
rival its regulars.

The favourable disposition thus induced in a
large majority of the House of Commons towards
an Administration which it might under other
circumstances have regarded as obnoxious, was
not long in being strengthened by the conduct
of the new Ministers, and that in reference to
matters of great importance in which Lord Pal-
merston had most signally failed. This point is
so well put by the reviewer that we must once
more let him state the case in his own words :
The late Ministry stood in the main upon its foreign
policy. It was once said to be a policy of vigour tempered
with conciliation : it is now see❑ to have been a policy of
arrogance, dashed and variegated with timidity. When the
notorious Conspiracy Bill was produced, when the
Walewski despatch met the light of day, England had to
yawn and wink and stretch, to pass through all the stages
of discomfort that lie intermediate between sleeping and
waking, before she could understand what was really the
matter, and learn the amount of shame she had suffered
in the hands of what will perhaps after all he chiefly re-
membered as the braggart or Bobadil administration.
When the facts wt re sufficiently verified and understood,
it still seemed incredible that so quarrelsome a Government
could have been dastardly otherwise than by accident.
The surrender of our honour was therefore compassionately
riewed as au isolated error committed in a moment of for-
getfulness. But this theory was almost still-born; for
before it could gain currency, the case of Naples and the
two imprisoned enginemen, \Vat t and Park, came full into
the public gaze. For six or eight lung and dreary months had
these unfortunate persons been learning by experience how
justice is understood and administered in the kingdom of
the Two Sicilies, and what was the value in those latitudes
of English citizenship. This too they learnt while that
very statesman was First Minister of the Crown, who, iu
1840, had vaunted, in defiance alike of prudence, of decency,
and of public law, that he would empower the Englishman
to clrry with him throughout the world the exceptional
and domineering privileges of the citizen of Imperial
Rome. But scarcely hal Lord !levity assumed the reins of
power when IYatt and Park were set free, and their liber-
ation has since been followed up by the grant of the large
sum of 3,000/. in compensation for their sufferings. Nor
was the Sardinian portion of the case forgotten by the
Administration. The Cagliari has long ago returned to
Genoa. She is probably now again employed upon the
errands of peaceful commerce, and the claim for an
indemnity in respect of the detention of the shin and crew
has been put in course of adjudication. This train of
events has reflected a glare of dismal light upon the fo-eioi
policy of the late Goveru.nent. It has now apo, ared that
to such a condition of impotence and isolation were we re
dnced, by the practice of premature demonstrations and
imprudent menaces never meant to take effect, that, even
for the most ordinary use, our resourcite had at last become
paralyzed in our hands, and that the King of Naples could
safely set England at defiance so long as England was
content to be represented by the Palmer-ton Administra-
tion. The Case of the Cagliari, before February last,
seemed to offer no choice, except on the one hand the
humiliation of onr country, and, on the other, an Euro-
pean dilemma. Yet it required nothing in the world for
its solution, except only the removal of that Government
from offi e, which had miscalculated the relation between
the cowardice of the Sovereign of Naples and its own.

We regret that our limits will not permit us to
follow the writer into his account of that memo-
rable episode of the history of last session, when a
desperate attempt was made to dislodge the new
Ministry before they should have time to establish
themselves firmly in their position, and to place
Lord Palmerston once more at the head of affairs.
Happily, as the reviewer observes with great
truth, " the recoil upon Lord Palmerston and
" his friends was far heavier than even the oni-
" ginal downfall of February, while the effect
" upon the assailed Administration was to draw
" forth its spirit in self-defence, to hearten its
" friends, to attract independent public sympathy
" to its side, to renew and consolidate its title to
64 office, and, in a word, to send it on its way
" rejoicing."

How long that " rejoicing " may last, is another
question ; one which., we agree with our writer
in thinking, cannot fail to " suggest many sub-
" jects of grave and anxious reflection." To call
attention to these is not an unfriendly act, nor is
it, we need scarcely add, so intended either by the
reviewer or by ourselves. It is, on the contrary, one
of the most valuable services that can be rendered
to Lord Derby's Government by its supporters, to
direct the attention of Conservatives to the fact

that there are " breakers ahead," and to induce,
on the part of the public generally, a calm and
careful consideration of the difficulties which, not
Lord Derby's Government in particular, but any
Government, of whomsoever composed, and by
whomsoever led, will have to encounter at no
distant day, in the present aspect of the British
empire and of the world at large. We shall take
them in the order in which they are discussed in
the article before us, without pledging ourselves
to all the opinions incidentally put forward by the
reviewer, from some of which we decidedly dissent
on what, did our limits admit of it, we could easily
show to be valid grounds.
First, there is the political condition of the
great majority of the States on the continent of
Europe. The severe repression which followed
the frantic but ineffectual outbreaks in 1848, is,
there is too much reason to fear, preparing the
way for a renewal of similar spasmodic efforts for
the attainment of liberty, and these, it is easy to
foresee, can only end in anarchy. Even the
case of France, where the system of repression
has taken the most rational form, and has even
succeeded in establishing itself upon a quasi-
popular basis, forms no exception from the state
of uneasiness and insecurity which must ever
attend on the substitution of force for the power
of law, of despotism for freedom, in the govern-
ment of nations. Another and most serious
feature in the present aspect of the European
continent, and of France especially, is, that the
recession of liberty is accompanied by the steady
advance of Ultramontanism,—the Papacy, in
alliance with the despotic Governments, having
revived pretensions which, it had been thought,
had long been snuffed out, even at the Vatican
itself. How far this is from being the case, we
need not, indeed, cross the Channel to convince
ourselves. We have, from this and other
kindred causes, domestic dangers to apprehend
which, though passed over in silence by the
reviewer, are anything but visionary or insigni-
ficant. We have, moreover—and on this point
he dwells strongly and with good reason—serious
elements, if not of danger, at least of difficulty, in
our national finances, which, while they require
adjustment on various points, do not, at present,
hold out many facilities for dealing with them to
the Minister put in charge of the public Exche-
quer. Ominously connected with the question
of national finance, is the new phase into which
the Government of India has entered, at a
juncture singularly inauspicious. The war has,
notwithstanding the vainglorious effusions in-
dulged in on this subject by some of our con-
temporaries, not yet been brought to a termina-
tion ; nor is it easy to say how long it may con-
tinue to demand from us fresh supplies of blood
and treasure. Under these circumstances it is cer-
tainly not beyond the range of possibility that,
" while continuing to call ourselves masters of
" India, we should have to become in one pars-
" mount particular its slaves, by undertaking to
" defend it at the charge of the British people."
Next comes the question of Parliamentary
Reform, which, in whatever way it may be
eventually settled, will assuredly not be settled
without considerable difficulty; were it only
because there are parties who, while affecting to
be most anxious for its settlement, do not in
reality wish to see it settled, being naturally un-
willing to lose their political stock-in-trade.
Lastly, the reviewer dwells, with great force,
on the ugliest of all our prospective difficulties,
the Turkish difficulty. On this subject we trans-
cribe the following remarks, embodying some
useful truths not as generally understood as
they deserve to be :

It would be impossible adequately to describe within the
space at our command the dangers of the Ottoman Empire.
Suffice it to say that for the present, perhaps even for the
future, Russian ambition, formidable as it is, nevertheless
must be reckoned among the least of them. Unwieldy
size, ill-defined and disputable relations to her own
members, administration radically corrupt, finances long
embarrassed and rapidly moving towards exhaustion,
classes widely severed from, anti hopelessly exasperated
with one another, the disproportionate distribution of the
elements of power; all these would deserve a full consider-
ation. But greater, perhaps, than any of V.:ern is the risk
which the Ottoman Power now runs of seeing arrayed
against it the whole mass of smonldering Mahometan
fanaticism. The so-called reforms, little es they hare
done towards conciliating the Christians, have produced in
the Mahometan mind a widely-spread conviction that the
race of the Sultans is false to the Prophet and to his
mission. Of this estrangement, and of the hatred arising
out of it, twee may be found in the late proceedings in
Arabia, where it is probable that actual want of power
restrained the Turkish authorities from the prpmpt per.

formance of their duty. Their hold on the country
nominal : wife it otherwise, Our 0111 occupation of Men
could not be justified for a moment. Mecca is the great
focus of Mahometan enthusiasm : and it would take little
to excite such a revulsion in the Peninsula as would at once
put an end to the shadow of Turkish rule by which it is at
present overhung.

It would be easy to add to this formidable cata-
logue of prospective difficulties. One of the most
serious of them, not noted by our writer, is the
impending conflict of religious opinions ; the
concessions already made with the view of avert-
ing it having only added fresh fuel to the fire,
while the principle—thoroughly unsound and
fallacious—of banishing religious opinions alto-
gether from the sphere of politics, has introduced
an additional element of discord. But on this
topic we will not now dwell.

Our object in the foregoing remarks has been
simply to call attention to what is, on the whole,
a masterly outline of the new complexion
given to British politics at home and abroad
by the downfall of Lord Palmerston and the
accession to power of Lord Derby ; and we,
therefore, pass on, at once, to another article of
the Review, from no less able a pen, on a subject
which, in its turn, though on grounds widely
different, has a strong claim upon public atten-
tion—the state and prospects of high art in this
country.

The circumstance which appears to have sug-
gested this valuable paper, on an important branch
of national education in the highest sense of the
term, is the proposed publication, by the Arundel
Society, of " a series of copies in colour of the
most important frescoes of Italy, as comprising
" the greatest works of the greatest masters
" nursed in that cradle of Christian art, and
" more especially as illustrating the highest
" object and aim af painting, when forming, as
" in its best period, an essential part of architec-
" tural decoration." With a view to induce, on
the part of the public, a due appreciation of the
service which the Society is thus about to render,
the writer of an essay on " Fresco-painting" gives
a brief but comprehensive and withal highly-
interesting sketch of the history of that noble art
from its first rise in the thirteenth to its decline
in the sixteenth century, interspersed with
notices of some of the most valuable remains of
the works of the great masters, of their present
condition, and of the measures taken for the pre-
servation of such as have survived, wholly or in
part, the Vandalism of modern times. Nothing,
indeed, could afford a stronger or a more lament-
able proof of the degradation into which Italy
has sunk, as well as of the extinction of all
high religious feeling, under the withering in-
fluence of the roped= than the barbarous
neglect with which these glorious monuments of
national greatness and of Christian art are treated.
The progress of this simultaneous decadence of
religion and taste is thus graphically portrayed
by the writer:—
When the deep religious feeling of the middle ages, that
union of child-like faith with an earnest impatience of the
vices anal power of priestcraft—the Dantesque of Catho-
licism—gave way to an uninquiring pietism and a cowardly
resignation to priestly authority, the nimble brush of the
academies swept over the solemn, heartfelt outpourings of
the early masters, leaving in their stead theatrical groups
of muscular apostles and anatomic saints, happily, fur.the
most part, invisible in varnish and chiaroscuro. Neat
succeeded the age of whitewash, when a large portion of
mankind seem suddenly to have been seized with the one
idea that all that is not white is dirt. Then the " operaio "
of the south, like his fellow the churchwarden of the north,
with the lime-pail in one hand and a broom in the other,
restored the walls disfigured by old pictures and "rubs di
Giotto," in which popes, monks, and kings were not always
treated with the highest respect and consideration, to a
virgin purity more befitting the morals and taste of the
times. Lastly, the foreign invader and occupier of Italy
still quarters his soldiery and stables his horses in the de-
secrated church and convent. wantoning in the destruction
of what little may remain of their priceless monuments.
A few noble old frescoes, that, by their almost divine
beauty, may have stayed the hand of even the Italian de-
stroyer, gradually yielded to the ladder and nails of the
sacristan and the carpenter. Who that has wandered in
the highways and byways of Italy has not watched the
preparation for a " feats "? Garlands of flowers and green
boughs stretching across the street, and the perfume of
bay leaves, trampled under the feet of a listless crowd, in-
vite you through the curtained doorway of a neighbouring
church. The solemn chant of evening vespers, rising
from the dark choir Lehind the high altar, is well nigh
lost in the clatter of the hammer. The rays of the falling
sun stream through the jewelled windows upon gorge"'
hangings of crimson silk embroidered with gold, trailing
upon the filthy pavement. Workmen hurry oboe with
tinkling chandeliers, &nil acolytes with lags of fragrant
lilies and roses. The ponderous ladders are raised 'Pm"
tb• painted aisles, and huge nails are driven in with re.
asorseless hinds. Flakes of yielding Pilleter" 12 111"ers

to the ground, and things that have cost years of earnest
thought and loving labour are gone for ever! On the
following day, the fumes of incense and the smoke of a
thousand tapers roll up from the altars, and, uniting with
the fetid exhalations of an Italian crowd, cutdle over the

walls.
Talk of London smoke ! why, Italian neglect, in
difference, and ignorance have done more to deprive the
world drogue of its noblest and moat precious monuments
of art than could be accomplished by the atmospheres of
ten Lontlons ! The able and careful editors of the last
edition of " Vuari's Lives' have indicated in font-notes
the fate of the works mentioned by the biographer as
existing in his day. The extent to which the work
of devastation has been carried is amazing. Half, if
not more than half, of the great frescoes of the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries are hopelessly and curtly
described as " sono periti,"" "appena rimane qualche ves
tigio," " dato di bianco," la chiesa fu disfetta."
Some years ago a few zealous men who felt a due re-
verence for these records of their country's glory protested
against their barbarous treatment. Intelligent travellers in-
dignantly exposed it. At last the Italian Governments and
the heads of churches and convents, finding that a few pence
might be gained by the preservation ofobjects which attracted
the curiosity of strangers, suddenly appreciated their im-
portance. But they let loose upon the devoted monuments
a plague more terrible than any that had as yet swept over
them. An army of restorers was raised in every city of
Italy, and recruited by every dauber who had interest or
means to obtain the privilege of earning a miserable pit-
tance by repainting and repairing. Their work has proved
more mischievous than even that of time and neglect.
In the one case the life of the old painter was taken away ;
but a pleasant tradition of his worthiness still remained : in
the other, his fame, the thing which had been dearest to
hint, and for which he had worked so earnestly and so well,
was destroyed for ever. Ignorant men and so-called con-
noisseurs held hint responsible for bad drawing, bad
colouring, and bad sentiment, and the name of many a
great 16 aster has thus become a bye-word.
Of the spirit and the style in which these restora-
tions were often executed, the writer, who is
evidently one personally conversant with the
subject, tells some curious anecdotes. Among
the treasures of mediaeval art concealed beneath
coats of modern whitewash, it was suspected that
:a portrait of the immortal Dante, by Giotto, might
:be discovered on the walls of the chapel of the
I'edesta (subsequently divided into prison cells)
in Bargello at Florence. The perseverance
of as enthusiastic admirer of both poet and
limner—Mr. Kirkup, an Englishman—succeeded
in overcoming the insouciance of the Tuscan
authorities, and bringing to light the precious
relic, of which we have this further account :

The recovered portrait confirmed in moat respects the
tr►ditional representations of the poet. When it was
painted Dante was still in the middle of the pathway of
his life. His delicate but strongly marked features bad
not yet been impressed with that sternness and melan-
choly which his country's ingratitude and hopeless exile
afterwards wrote upon them. They are calm, sweet, and
dignified, becoming the man whom Giotto hal placed
among the blessed. The subsequent history of the portrait
—lf we can trust the story which has been related to us—
illustrates the fate of such works in Italy. A nail had
been driven ivto the eye before the whitewash was
removed; it was carelessly pulled out, bringing with it
the surrounding plaster. Every one who visited the
painting put a finger, of course, into the hole, which at
'hist became so large that it threatened to consume the
,enure head. The restorer was then called in to make a
fresh eye • the new feature did not agree with the rest of
the face, which was accordingly altered to match it. The
poet's dress being of three colours—green, white, and red,
the symbol of Italian liberalism —was offensive to the
Government ; it was changed by order, and Dante was
hued with more loyal garments. The published tracing
of the head was made after these alterations. The autho-
rities, with that narrow-minded jealousy which charac-
terizes the modern rulers of Italy, bail previously refused
permission to any one to e spy or trace the original except
the r'-starer. Fortunately, Mr. Kirkup had bribed a jailer
to lock hint up fair the night in the prison before the fresco
had been restored, and thus succeeded in obtaining a fac-
simile of the head as painted .uy Giotto.

In the Church of S. Francesco, in Arazzo, the
legend of " the invention of the true cross" was
Portrayed by one of the most eminent fresco-
painters of the fifteenth century, Pietro della
rancesca. Distinguished by beauty and artistic
effect, among the groups illustrative of the story,
was a sleeping Constantine, with his wakeful
page seated by his side :

Three years ago the " operajo," or churchwarden, of
8. Francesco gave orders to enlarge the window of the
choir containing these frescoes. Parts of the wall upon
which they were painted were knocked away ; into other
Parts iron bands were inserted to strengthen the masonry.
Fragments of brick and plaster as they fell destroyed or
injured the paintings beneath, which were left altogether
unprotected. Amongst the things destroyed was the head
of the watching page. An Englishman who chanced to be
present, warmly remonstrated against this disgraceful act
Vandalism. The authorities, somewhat roused by
the indignant protest of the foreigner, appealed to the
restorer.—" Bah !" said he, shrugging up his shoulders,
it is a thing of no importance ; I will put in another
head!"