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gSSggSii !^ £ ^^ 1 *^^^ to the Thames'I , ,, AJitefipethea'Tthis ^ volu me of Essa ys must * be reckoned aa worthy a conspicuous pteceon the shelves of every well-assorted library .
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PBEGIPICES AKTD PEASANT LIFE . Modem Painters . Volume IV . " Of Mountain Beauty , By John KusUnt . M . A . Smith , - Elder , ana -Co .
( Third Notice . ) Cbbtaini . t the most remarkable characteristic of Mr . Ruskin ' s work 13 . the love it shows for every natural appearance : the form of waving branches , ihe ripples of- light upon a stream , the varied architecture of clouds , and the manifold charms of mountains * are to be studied in his works by painter -and by poet , for fresh insight when-placed in contact with them in nature . We will not quote any of these passages in which the present volume . abounds * because we desire them to be read in their proper connexions , : and it is their quantity which constitutes their peculiarity . This love often inspires him- with eloquence , which only wants the form to be Wordsworthian poetry . As , for example , when speaking of precipices , which are among the most impressive as well as the most really dangerous , " dark in colour , robed ' with ' everlasting mourning , for ever tottering like a great fortress
shaken by war , fearfuTas much in their weakness as in their strength , aud jret gathered after every fall into darker frowns and unliumiliated threatenings ; for ever incapable of comfort or of healing , from herb or flower , nourisbing , no root in their crevices , touched by no hue of life on buttress or ledge , but to the utmost desolate ; knowing no shaking of leaves in the trind , nor of grass beside the stream , no motion but their own mortal shivering ,, the- dreadful crumbling of atom from atom in their corrupting - stones ; knowing ; no sound of living voice or living tread , cheered neither by the kid' 6 bleat nor the marmot ' s cry ; haunted only by uninterrupted echoes from far off" wandering hither and thither among their walls , unable _ to eseape ,--and' hy the hiss of angry torrents , and sometimes the shriek of a bird that flits near the face of them and sweeps frightened back from under their . shadow into the gulph of air ; and sometimes when the echo has fainted and the wind has carried the sound of the torrent away , and the bird has
vanished , and' the -mouldering stones are still for a little timej a brown moth openingr : an < i shotting its wings upon a grain" of dust may be the only thing that mwves or-feeh ? in all the waste of weary precipice darkening five thousand feet of thte blue depth ? of heaven . " Is there " not a forlorn beauty in thifrsftyle -which ? affectsthe reader somewhat as the scene itself would affect binr ? ' * I cannot myself conceive , " he addSj " any picture more impressive than a faithful rendering s of such a cliff would be , supposing the aim of the artist to be the utmost tone of sad sublime . " But there are difficulties in the way of painting such a scene , and one alone , which he-noticesr would suffice to deter an artist , namely , the difficulty of size . " For the majesty of this kind of clifF depends entirely on its size ; a low range of such rock is as ugjy as it is uninteresting ; and it is only by making the spectator understand the enormous scale of their desolation and the space which the _ shadow of their danger oppresses , that any impression can be made tiport his-mind . And this , scale cannot be expressed by any artifice : the mountain' cannot be made to loofe large by painting it blue or faint , otherwise it loses all its
ghastliness . It must be painted in its own near and solemn colours , black and ashen grey ; and its size must be expressed by thorough drawing of its innumerable details—pure qtiantity—with certain points of comparison explanatory of the whole . " ' Mr . Ruskin objects that painters avoid such really grand and gloomy scenes-and seek a false sublime , " A . portrait is not thought grand unless it has a thundercloud behind it ( as if a hero could not be brave in the sunshine ) , " This strikes us aB . sophistical . No painter doubts the bravery of a sunli ^ hted : h « rov but he wishes by accessories t 6 > suggest cert ain ideas ; "A xuin is not melancholy enough till it is see « by moonlight or twilight , " adds Mr . Ruskin , ami thefact is soy for during the glare of the sun-, the numerous bum of insects , the obtrusive- energy or' present' life takes away from the sense-of loneliness and death ! which a ruin calls up ; and the painter rightly chooses such a moment for the representation of nis object as will best express the -wtiole truth about it . Hut we must not be tempted into questioning Mr . Ruskm ' s dicta , or we
shall keep the reader many weeks over the volume . Ifc is pleaeonter to wander with him along the valley of the Kh 6 ne , and see with- his eyes , as far up the glen ^ t / " ' as we pause beside the cross , tlieskyis seen , through-the openings in the pines } thin , with excess of light ; and in its clear conmmingjikmte of white space tn > e sunwnwtB-of the rocky mountains ar © gathered into- solemn crowns . and' circlets ; alt'ftashted in that strange ; faint silence of possession by the sunshine which has in ' it so deep a melancholy ; foil of ; power yet as frail as shadows ; lifeless like tlio walls of" a sepulchre , yet"beautiful in tender , fall of crimson folds , like the veil " of some sea spirit ' , that lives and dies as the foam flashes ; fixed on a perpetual throne ,, stern against all strength , lifted above all
eorrowy and jet effaced and melted- utterly into- the air by-that last sunbeam thati has crossed them from between the two golden clouda . " Thie-is > the ppetkiar tbw dbene telling , us- what visions floated before hiseyO ; and as he znuscn onri them be . movaliaMS , Those rocky summits lu » has called high abovftr . all . emnmiP y . but he nw odds ,- " . unwitnesaing to iti The travellttpt owMshftippyJouTn « y ub' his- foot springs from the deep turf and strik ^ A'thw jmbb&s ^ -gftt ]* - ' over the-edge * of the- mountain road , sees with' a rfaW 8 e of'd eli ) gWc l th e clttBt « iw " v nnt-brown cottages that nestle among those eloping orchardls-and ' gtow bcwwiththe boughaof the pines . Here it may Tteil saom td him , if there' We sometimes hardship , there must bo at least innocence , peacey and tteUowshin of the human : eouL with nature . It is not
so . The wild goats that leap along those rocks have , as much passion of joy in all that-fair work of . God as the nxen that toil among them . Perhaps more . EnAeir the street of one of those villages , and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness ; that is > suffered only by torpor or by anguish of soul ; Here-it us torpor , not absolute suffering , not starvation or disease but darkness of calm enduring ; -the spring known- only as the time of the scythe ; and the autumn as-the time of the sickle ; the sun only as a warmth the wind as a chill , and the mountains as a * danger . The } ' do not under ^ stand so much as the name of beauty or of knowledge . They understand dimly that of virtue . ITove , patience , hospitality , faith , —these things they know . To glean their meadows side by side , so happier ; to bear the burden
up the breathless mountain flank unmurmnigly ; to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk ; to see at the foot of their low deathbeds a . pale figure upon a cross , dying also , patiently ; in this they are different from the cattle and the stones ^ but in all this unrewarded as far as concerns their present life . For them their ia-neither hope nor passion of spirit ; for them neither advance nor-exultation . Black-bread , rude- roof dark night , laborious day , weary arm at sunset ; and life ebbs away . No books , no thoughts , no attainments , no rest ; except only sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the church wall as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air ; a pattering of a few prayers not understood , by the altar rails of the dimly gilded chapel , and so back to the sombre home , with the cloud upon them still unbroken . "
This is a" gloomy picture , but'he avers that it is true of the Savoyard peasant , and it leads him into a tirade against opera peasants , and the false delight in them when seen from the pit stalls ; actually suggesting that the vast sums of money spent on the opera should be given to the amelioration of the same peasants ; a suggestion which need not detain us here . Nor indeed must we linger longer over the volume , in spite of the many passages which tempt us . Our discursive remarks and extracts have by no means exhausted the book , but they may serve to indicate the varied pleasure which awaits the reader .
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THE KING OF ROME . History of the Consulate and the Empire ( Histoire du Consulat et de VEinpire ) . By M . Thiers . Vol . XIII . David Nutt . A Napoueon is to be christened at Notre-Dame : a Napoleon was christened at Notre-Dame forty-four- years ago . Arch-Chancellor Cambaceres presided over the first ceremony : a Cambaceres presides over the second ; and , in the spirit of the younger Kean , pores over the archaeology of the Empire . It must be confessed that the drama , so far as it has yet been acted , is a complete restoration of the original Bonaparte programme . Processions , salutes , palatial and ecclesiastical rituals , have been copied with the most exact fidelity , in accordance with the imperial rubric . The second Empire dares not invent a new tableau , or even a new effect . Only in one particular has a modification been introduced into the design of circumstance and pomp , and this was considered essential by Cambaceres Kean . It Jtome
is not possible now to christen the Child of France titular King ot . When a baby was born to the first Empire , Rome had been declared , by an inflated decree , the city next in rank to Paris ; consequently , in imitation of a German precedent , which conferred upon the heir of the Empire the title of King of the Romans , Napoleon gave his son to Italy . That it is not at present in the power of the Tuileries to do ; but in all other respects it is singular how the details of the original ceremony , as now collected and grouped by a real historian , correspond with the dramatic restoration effected by Cambaceres Kean . M . Thiers' last volume appears opportunely in confirmation of the identity which has been already remarked between the attitudes , affectations , decrees , spectacles , and political and religious theatricals of the first and the third Napoleon . We shall have a critical examination to bestow 011 this chapter of a great history verging to its close ; at present , we have to do with the birth and baptism of the King of Rome . The reader may then collate the newspaper reports—allowing for their gaudy verbiage—with the masterly historic descriptions of M . Thiers .
On the 20 th of March , 1811 , the Empress Marie Louise g ; ive birth to Napoleon ' s only legitimate son . It is unnecessary to quote from M . Tliiers his account of the scene in her chamber ; wo might imagine , while reading it , that Louis Napoleon had rehearsed the behaviour ol his uncle ; but , at last , the child was born , around whose head were emblazoned the prophecies of a mighty destiny :- ?—Napoleon took it eagerly in his arms , caressed it tenderly , and , when he knew it was a son , was moved by a consciousness of pride that betrayed itself in liis lace ; it seemed that Providence had given liiin ^ in this important event , a now and conspicuous pledge of her protection . He presented the now-born to laa family ana court , and then consigned it to Madame de Montesquiou , who had been , appointed governoss of the Children of Franco . Immediately afterwards the onrmoii ol the 111-validea announced to the capital the birth of a prince , apparent hoir to tlio throne 01 the greater part of Europe . It had been arranged that , if the child were a gin , twenty-one guns would bo fired ; if a boy , a hundred and one . Thu people , ™ J"i > out of their houses and crowding in the streets , counted with intoiidu curiosity tuo
reports of the cannon when the twenty-first had been fired . Here the parallel ends , for M . Thiers goes on to say : — " The people were inspired with almost as much joy a » dining the mos brilliant period of the Emperor ' s reign . " No brilliant period Iimh yofc umvcu in the history of the second Empire . As to the popular confidence- roloricu to by Ml Thiers , its existence was , as he says , doubtful 111 1814 , and , » 1856 , is only affected by the Moniteur . At all events , the shadows ol ¦ . coming complications were then so dense that , awaiting the reconciliation ol J ' J " powers , Napoleon resolved to delay the christening of his bal > y until " following Juno . Tlio propitious birth was , however , announced >» » , various provinces , and to all friendly courts . Louis Napoleon has w - lowed steadily in his uncle ' s trade . lie circulates the same heraldic lorinuw , and postpones the christening to the same month of June . Extraordinary dorwlon of fortune ! ( writes M . Thiora ) . This child , ho tlc « i > ly « W " eired , ho warmly saluted , dostincd to porpotuuto tho Empire , ia bom ut u . in ? whoii that Empire , though oolousal , hua boon undermined in ull it « jiiwlri , 1 S v
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g ^ , THE LEADED [ No . 326 , Saturday ,,
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Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1856, page 570, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2145/page/18/
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