New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-07-10
THE HISTORIC L P0sTRAIT GALLERY AT
THE SYDENHAM PALACE.

uteS 10 Iiflse IN THESE NHg avenues OF tne ' ran
thecn Of History" We can now in some degree !
imagine what "A Roman patrician must haV.
felt when he walked through the hall OF his
father and saw the waSen images Of his snces
tors on either haad smiling, as his fancy nigh
conceive, 1T his virtues, frowaing at his
vices: gul we can now conceive the feelings
with which nm Egyptian monarch may have be-
held those erl,ans3 hodies of his predecessors,
| which had for Thousand years .:oekrd at cor
rurti9n aud the worm The unit man looks
small amld this great multitude of the chosen
sons III n4'tre-.ot those who, being dead, are yet
| speaking n him from the tomb. We feel as if
We were pacing some silent desert Of purge
torial region. surrounded hy pale, voicelass
faces v'iiei, sotuetBing tells are hut the mere
vanguard Of those shuiuwg legions which mem
| ory can 50 cuicy summon M from their long
sttep to re people ear'h.
Iu this court tie dead painters environ us,
from saotly Giotto and Fra Angelica, to Ra-
pbael. beautiful as an angel, and Rubens, eeur-
/ t,ous 4nd l3rily as the kings whose courts he
4 visited the dead poets hem us in, from Dante.
visionary ard nournful. to Ariosto, gay and
/ chivalrous; arl the dead musicians grid US
round from PaTestrina, with the high sad brow,
to Mozart. lively as the Yiennese who adopted
him; and far without, in very distinct circles OF
Il lower heaven, are crowdng kings snd war
riors, from pous Louis TO the thick Tipped
Bourbon, from heroic Bayard to the mounfe-
bank Murat, and from the falcon-eyed De Folk
to the ill-starred l.annes.
A few glances here, and all modern history
rises before the eye in conflicting images that
obiiterate each otner, and shifts like the colors
in Kaleidoscope As we behold the Austrian
beauty Of the daughter Of Maria Theresa, the
French Revolution g rushes red on the sight,
and ns we turn to look at the calm austerlty OF
the blind Milton, cur own Civil War gives rise
to thoughts of the black scatfold and the red
AK, OF the Whitehall window and the judgment
seat at Westminster. Petrarch, dead i'll his
study, recalls Tasso dying at Rome while the
tie laurel crown was even then wreathing for
him in the Capitol; and Raphael lying in state
before ks own picture of '' The Transfgura-
tion ? reminds us of the sadder scene of Hayden
calling dead and mangled before the unfinished
creation Of his genius. Peace has come at last
to these heroic souls, and, " after life's ftful
fever they sleep we'll" Calico has long age
risen from his knees before the Inquisition, and
in SPITE of Holy Office and red-lagged Cardinals,
the world still moves round the sun. Tasso has
long since lett the madman's narrow dungeon at
Fcrrar4 or the narrower grave, and Dante has
ere this re ei,incd his Beatrice in Paradise. Pos
l,erity has pai,l Correggio what his cotempo-
. rares refused and Miltons poems are no longer
despst
1t does the lo;terer good to look around and
remember how Time works its revepges, and how
Justice denied l,y one age is granted by another
Here is the proud Toregiano, who broke tt
pieces the statue he had wrought for the mig
garrllv hiGals0 that refused him his hire. ant
= who died forgotten in Spanish dungeon, nov
become crowned king among men. Here !
the atfl ,rqudtr Michael Angelo, his fellow
student, wbost tfsse he broke by an angry otoV
: as they wcr. work nE together, modelling al
ANTIQUE s-atue in the prlnGely garden of tn
MediCi-ihnt SaIfle Angelo whom paltry nooI
connected in Il;b south to mould frail statue o