These Notes may be compared with the Essays entitled, Ignoramus on the Fine Arts. They appear to have been written about the same time, and take up the subject where it is left in the last of these lively and characteristic compositions. NOTES ON ALLAN CUNNINGHAM'S LIVES OF HOGARTH AND REYNOLDS. HOGARTH. INTRODUCTION. Page 9." In the background, St. George appears in the air, combating with the dragon, while Cleodelinda kneels in prayer beside a lamb." Is this the legendary name of the heroine whom Spenser has converted into heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb? In the Seven Champions I think she is called Zara. By the way, I see no reason to fancy that the dragon was either the devil or Athanasius, any more than that St. George himself was a Cappadocian bacon-dealer, or the archangel St. Michael. The virgin exposed to the monster was a frequent incident in the Greek romance, witness the tales of Perseus and Andromeda, Hercules and Hesione. The legend-makers of the Church followed. the example of the Greeks and Romans, ascribing to local saints every stray wonder that at all agreed with their accorded characters. Probably a real George had been a military saint, and, in consequence, a fit successor to the forfeited glories of profane fiction. In Popery and Paganism I believe much has been allegorised; but that little was, in its first digestion, either allegorical or symbolical, except the physiological pantheism brought from Egypt and the East. Page 13.-"The blunt rustics and illiterate nobles who composed the torrent which swept away the long-established glories of the papal church, confounded the illuminated volumes of poets and philosophers with the superstitious offspring of the Lady of the Seven Hills." The rustics were blunt destructives enough; the nobles, with a few exceptions, unprincipled plunderers. It may be true that these were the operatives of the Reformation; but they should not be confounded with the reforming divines, who, though not very polite, were certainly not illiterate. The illuminations and the literature which perished might have some historical value, but is probably no great loss in any other respect. There is more good poetry than any body can read as it is; much more school divinity than will ever be read again. But the destruction of the abbeys is really to be regretted, difficult as it seems, under a Protestant establishment, to turn them to any religious purpose. Page 16." In a better informed age, John Evelyn, a gentleman of taste and talents, pronounced the heathen atrocities of Verrio, in Windsor Castle, sublime compositions, and their painter the first of mankind!" And did not Locke consider Blackmore the first of poets? But gentlemen of more taste than Locke, more genius and philosophy than Evelyn, are very uncertain witnesses to the state of art or morals in their times. Their works may be relied on, but their testimony is little worth. I care for no man's judgment of his contemporaries. The effect of a work upon the age, the general heart of the people, is worth any critical judgment. Prophecies of immortality, bodings of oblivion, go for nothing with me. Page 17.-"They were numbered with the common menials of the court; they had their livery suit, their yearly dole, and their weekly wages." That certain painters were numbered with the menials of the court is true; many particulars as to their mode of payment, &c., have been transcribed from the old household books by Collier and others; but neither to be a menial of the court, nor to receive weekly wages, was then derogatory to higher rank than art of itself ever conferred. Besides, I believe the painters in question were not artists but artisans ; their business was to paint coats of arms, and to furnish devices for the court pageants. This was also the proper function of the serjeant painter. Wilkes was not so very far wrong in confounding the office of serjeant and of house-painter. When the palace was to be painted with representations of anything real or imaginary, doubtless the serjeant painter had to superintend the workmen, as well as to draw the design. |