Part 18

We have the highest respect for the arts and for artists; we are perfectly aware of the numerous qualifications requisite for a painter--we know and feel the difficulty, and duly consider the quantity of talent necessary to the painting even of a bad picture. The years of probationary labour expended before even the palette comes into use, the days and nights of watching, and toil after it is assumed, and the variety of chemical, mechanical, and scientific knowledge which must be brought to bear upon a subject before the idea of the painter can be transferred to the canvas.

These feelings, and this respect for the art, and professors of painting, make us slow to censure; and, although we have long had our eyes upon some of the public exhibitions of the season, we have refrained from commenting upon them till the common curiosity of the town had repaid, in some measure, the care and anxiety of those in whose studies they had their origin.

Mr. Haydon, a sonnet-writing Cockney, ranking high in the administration of the smoky kingdom of Cockaigne, distinguished himself last year, by exhibiting a picture of the "Entry into Jerusalem," which, like Tom Thumb's Cow, was "larger than the largest size." Elated with the success of this immense performance, (of which one group only was at all finished,) Mr. Haydon, this year, put forth a work representing "the Agony in the Garden:" the divine subject saved the silly artist, and we were upon that account silent; else, for Mr. Haydon, who wears his shirt collars open, and curls his hair in long ringlets, because Rafaele did so, and who, if it did not provokingly turn down over his mouth, would turn up his nose at the Royal Academy, indeed we should have felt very little tenderness.

But with respect to Mr. Ward's allegorical picture of Waterloo, we had different feelings--the picture had good principle about it, and the weeks, months, and years which have been bestowed upon it demanded some recompense; the idlers of Piccadilly did not feel the occasional disbursement of a shilling. In pleasant society Ward's exhibition-room was as good a place wherein to "laugh a sultry hour away" as any other; and anxious that Mr. Ward, after having expended so much time, canvas, and colour, should get something by it, we have patiently let him draw his reward from the pockets of those good easy folks, who read newspaper puffs and believe them; and who go and vow all over London that a picture is wonderful and sublime, merely because the painter, at the trifling charge of seven shillings and sixpence, has thought proper to tell them that it is so, in the public journals.

But when we find that this picture was painted for the directors of the British Institution, founded "for the express purpose of encouraging the Fine Arts," and is about to be engraved and disseminated throughout the country, as a specimen of the works taken under the especial care of that Institution; it really becomes a duty to save the nation from a charge of bad taste so heavy as must arise out of the patronage of such a ludicrous daub.

This may be a picture painted for the Institution at their desire, and the execution of it is no proof of their want of judgment, because they desired to have such a picture, and they have got it, and we have thereby no proof of their approbation; but since they have got themselves into a scrape, they certainly should not allow a print to be made from it, even if they suffer the painting to remain in existence.

If it be possible to imagine one thing upon earth more irresistibly ridiculous than another, it is the composition of this enormous thing--the size of it is thirty-five feet by twenty-one--in the centre appears the Duke of Wellington in a pearl car--under his feet are legs and arms, and heads in glorious confusion--before him rides a pretty little naked boy upon a lion--over him in the clouds are a group of young gentlemen with wings, representing the Duke's victories, who look like Mrs. Wilkinson's Preparatory Academy turned out for a bathe; and amongst these pretty little dears are Peace and Plenty, and a great angel overshadowing the whole party.

But this very absurd jumble (at which, through a little hole, Blucher and Platoff are looking with some surprise,) is by no means the most ludicrous part of the affair--in the clouds are two persons, called by Mr. Ward, Ignorance and Error, (one of whom has a dirty handkerchief tied over his eyes,) beneath whom are dogs' heads with wings--a tipsy-looking cock-eyed owl trampling a heavy stone Osiris into the earth--a little calf without a head--a red night-cap--a watchman's rattle--an old crow--Paine's "Rights of Man"--Voltaire's works, a sick harpy--a devil sucking his fingers--a hobby-horse's head, and a heap of chains--here is the allegory--all of which we shall attempt to explain in Mr. Ward's own words, for he is an author as well as a painter, and, absurd as are the productions of his pencil, the nonsense of his pen is, of the two, the most exquisite.

In the foreground of the picture is a skeleton evidently afflicted with the head-ache, before whom runs a little wide-mouthed waddling frog with a long tail, and beyond these a group which defies description.

The horses (particularly the near wheeler) have a very droll and cunning expression about the eye; but the four persons leading them, whether considered as to their drawing or colouring, are beneath all criticism: a pupil of six months' standing ought to have been flogged for doing anything so bad.

In short, the whole thing in its kind closely resembles the overgrown transparencies painted to be stuck up at Vauxhall, or the Cumberland Gardens, or for public rejoicings, and ought, as soon as it has answered its purpose like those, be obliterated, and the stuff worked up for something else.

In a book published upon this performance, Mr. Ward modestly says, that he is not ambitious to be considered an author, and adds, that there exists some insuperable objection to his ever being one; but still, he professes to attempt in his own simple style an explanation of his own ideas. He feels quite confident of public favour and indulgence, and then gives us his view of the thing:--as a specimen of this said style, we shall quote his notions about envy--its beauty, we confess, is evident--its simplicity we are afraid is somewhat questionable.

"Where shall we find a safe retreat for envied greatness, from the miry breath or slander's feverish tongue; dark in the bosom of the ocean's fathomless abyss, on the cloud-cleaving Atlas, or at the extremity of east or west. High on the gilded dome, or palace pinnacle, should merit's fairest hard-earned honours shine, once seated there, the sickly eye of speckled Jealousy, or Envy's snaky tribe, with iron nerve, and cold in blood, well scan the mark, and the envenomed javelin cast, with secret but unerring aim, and what is to screen him from the foul attack? The shield of Worth intrinsic, bound about with truth, and conscious innocence, and where that lives, all other covering only tends to hide its blushing beauties from the rising sun, and dim the face of day.

"So the firm oak's deep roots, eccentric, winding through the heaving earth, fast bound and chasmed deep, with many a widening gap, by blazing Sol's mid ray, at summer's sultry noon, opposes strength to strength; or round the impervious rocks, in weighty balance to its broad branch, and highly-lifted head, up to the mountain's summit, shrinks not from the prospect of the blackening storm, and while it sends its sweeping arms around over the circling numerous acres, shadowing under its expanded greatness, fears not the threatening blast, nor for protection looks to man. Too great to need a screen; it were children's play to throw a mantle over its full broad majesty, to try to save its foliage luxuriant from the rude element. The attempt would be as weedy muslin's cobweb insipidity; its flimsy partial covering would only hide its full matured richness; and the first breeze of whirlwind's opening rising tempest, tear from the disdainful surface to streaming raggedness the feeble effort, and open to the eye the golden fruit, freshening by the tempest, and glittering in the storm."

We know very little of human nature, if Mr. Ward, in spite of his disclaiming any wish to be considered as an author, does not think all this very fine. By way of simply explaining his allegory, it is particularly useful;--of Mr. Ward's view of the necessity of such explanation we may assure ourselves by his very apposite allusion to Milton, Walter Scott, Homer, and Burn (as he calls him). This paragraph we must quote:--

"It is contended by some, that a picture should be made up only of such materials as are capable of telling its own story; such confinement would shut out the human mind from a depth of pursuit in every branch of art. Poetry requires prose fully to explain its meaning, and to create an interest; for who would be without the notes in Walter Scott's 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' or a glossary to the poems of Burn, the argument to Milton or Homer? If then it be necessary to make use of language to explain poetry, should not the same medium be used to explain personification? It has been thought necessary on the stage to send a person between the acts as a comment on the past, and a preface to the future, and can we, I ask, understand what is going on even in nature, by dumb show? If we see a crowd of people assembled in the streets, do we expect that the action and expression should inform us the cause of their congregating in an unusual manner? Experience proves more than volumes of argument. We ask 'what does all this mean?'"

To which we most candidly reply, we really do not know.

Mr. Ward then proceeds in the following manner:--

"Wellington has his hand upon the tri-coloured cross, on the shield of Britannia, expressive of the Christian's emblem, and the three colours of which it is composed are the colours answerable to the three principles in Trinity!!!

Red is the first fiery principle in the Godhead; Blue the second in the Saviour, or Mediator; White the third in the Dove of Peace."

This ingenious explanation of the mysteries of the Union Jack must be highly satisfactory to every thinking Englishman: there is, indeed, but one drawback to the holy pleasure we feel at Mr. Ward's sublime discovery, which is, that the Revolutionary flag of France was composed of the same three colours.

The enlightened artist then informs us--speaking of Britannia, "that the twisted lock of hair _laying_ in front upon her bosom, and over the right arm, is emblematic of"--what do you suppose, reader?--"of the spirit of justice."

"Justice, stern and unrelenting, whose sword is forward, and whose plaited hair is answerable to that sword, and makes in the person of Justice the number three, as expressive of the Trinity, or the whole of Godhead manifested in the awful administration of justice. That sword is serpentine, as expressive of flame, Deity in its principle of fire."

This is "finely confused, and very alarming;" but observe:--

"With the other hand she points through the medium of the Trident to the Trinity in Unity, commanding him to look up to Providence as alone able to give success to his efforts."

This puzzles us; pointing through the medium of "the Trident" appears to us to be something like looking at the Sun through the medium of a toasting-fork; but we may be wrong.

Mr. Ward then continues:--

"The cat and broken spear are emblems of rebellion and anarchy."--P. 11.

"The British Lion is majestically observing the effects of his own operations; his countenance shows no symptom of the reign of passion--anger is alone signified by the movement of his tail."

For this illustration of natural history Mr. Ward appears to be indebted to Mathews, who, in his "At Home," told a capital story of a showman and one of the noble beasts in question, in which, while his head is in the lion's mouth, he anxiously inquires of a by-stander, "Doth he wag his tail?" That bit of waggery being indicative (as Mr. Ward has comically painted it) of the ire of lions generally.

Mr. Ward, as matter of information, tells us, page 19, that "the palm-tree grows to the height of five hundred feet, and bears the date and cocoa-nut." What date the trees Mr. Ward alludes to might have borne we cannot say; but certain it is, that modern palms have left off growing to the height of five hundred feet; which, considering it to be about three times the height of the Monument, and one hundred feet more than the height of St. Paul's, is not so very surprising.

The following information, conveyed in page 20, is likely to be very interesting from its importance:--

"Juvenile antagonists in the streets dare not strike an unfair blow, take the other by the hair, or maltreat him when fallen upon the ground. In such case, he not only loses his battle, but also--his character!!!"

At page 22 we have, perhaps, the most finished description of docking a horse that ever was put to paper; it is somewhat lengthy, but it will repay the lover of the sublime for his trouble in reading it:--

"Can any thing be so far from true taste, as to round the ears of a dog, or to cut them off; whatever may be the beauty, breed, or character, to cut off the thumb, or fifth toe, and call it a Dew claw, and consider it of no use! To chop off the tail of a waggon-horse, so necessary and useful to that class of creature; above all, to separate every joint of the tail, with all the misery attending upon it, in order to reverse the order of Nature, and make that turn up which ought to turn down, all equally show the want of taste, as the want of humanity? Who has ever witnessed the operation last alluded to, if not, pause; and in your imagination, behold a nobly-formed, and finely-tempered creature, led from the stable in all the pride of health, and all the playful confidence of being led out, and held by his master and his friend, view the hobbles fastened to his legs, his feet drawn to a point, and himself cast to the earth, so contrary to his expectations and his hopes; observe the commencement, and the lingering process; behold the wreathing of the lovely and as useful animal; how does his heaving breast manifest his astonishment, while his greatly oppressed and labouring heart beats high with resentment, at being thus tampered. His quivering flesh sends through every pore streams of sweat; his open nostrils are bursting with agony of body and spirit, while his strained eye-balls flash as with the fixed glare of expiring nature. Heard you that groan? poor animal. They have began the deed of barbarism! he faintly shrieks, 'tis as the piteous cry of the timid hare, when sinking under the deadly gripe of the fierce, agile, and ravenous greyhound. How he grinds his teeth, and bores his tightly-twitched and twisted lip, and smoking nostril, into the thick litter, or grovelling, rubs his aching forehead into the loose sand; now the sudden and convulsive effort! what a struggle! every nerve, sinew, tendon, stretched to its full bearing, with fearful energy! Oh! that he could now disencumber his fettered limbs, and spring from his tormentors. Those limbs, that would joyfully bound over the broad plain, or patient bear the cumbrous load, nor utter one complaint in the deep toil; or drag with unwearied submission, harnessed, galled, and parched with thirst, the lumbering machine to the very borders of his opening tomb. He groans again, the struggle's over, and he again lays down; while the hoarse breathing and his panting sides, prove that all his energies, his mighty energies, have failed: and the work goes on, still continues, and now another and another gash, and now the iron hook, to tear out from among the separated complicated bones, the tenacious ligament that binds the strong vertebræ; and lastly the burning steel to staunch the streaming blood. Tedious process!--but at length it ceases, and the noble, towering, majestic steed is led back, tottering, trembling, reeling, and dejected, to repose apparently in peace; but ah! another torment, the cord, the weight, the pulley, day o'er day, and week after week, to keep the lips of the gaping, throbbing, aching wounds asunder, to close no more for ever. Enough! enough! our country's shame, for cruelty is not our natural character, our country's vice."

We by no means intend to ridicule Mr. Ward's humanity; but, we confess, as throwing lights upon an allegorical picture of the Duke of Wellington's triumphs, we do not consider the passage quite as much to the purpose as it might be.

At page 29, Mr. Ward states (and with every appearance of believing it) that "Cicero was once a lisping infant, and Sampson, at one period, could not go alone;"--to which assertions we must beg to add, for Mr. Ward's satisfaction, that "Rome was not built in a day."

In his simple style, at page 30, Mr. Ward, speaking of ignorance, says,--

"Loose veins of thought, imaginative intellects, evaporation. As the school-boy's frothy bubble, rising from the turbid elements" soap and water, "its inflated globule exhibits in proud mimicry the Rainbow's gaily painted hues, and calls rude mirth to dance upon its glittering surface, when suddenly it bursts, and all is gone!"

We shall conclude our extracts from this explanatory pamphlet with the following:--

"SHAPELESS FORMS OF DEATH.--Perhaps no part of picturesque representation is so difficult as this. The poet here has much the advantage. Ossian may, by a language all understand, throw the imagination into a delirium, and there leave it bewildered and wandering, in all the confusion of material immateriality; but in painting it is necessary to give a substantial shape to a shapeless form, and substance to a vision. It is not for him to give the ghost of my father as a misty cloud covering a whole mountain, or enlarging itself to the broad expanse of the capacious plain, like the flaky layers of a thick fog, on the opening dawn of a mist-dispersing sunbeam. But the painter must embody disembodied beings, and give 'to airy nothingness a local habitation and a name.' Here the various shapes of blood and carnage are to be contemplated, in the imagery depicted, as cannon-balls, bomb-shells, fiery rockets, swords, spears, and bayonets, with all the horrible effects of their operations; as moving in the conflicted elements; from the head of death's gloomy tribes, the large death-bat, under the arm of the fell monster Death, who is grinning with savage pleasure at the havoc he is making. The monsters are breathing fire, and from their pestiferous dugs dropping streams of blood, as the milk of their nourishment."

Having given some of Mr. Ward's ideas as they were written, we leave those who have not seen his picture to judge what such ideas must be, upon canvas, with a clumsy hand, and the worst possible taste.

To say that Mr. Ward is mad, is not what we would pretend to say; but coupling his painting with the articles which we have caught and preserved, from his pen, we must believe that there are many very worthy persons at present in Bedlam, who could paint allegories full as well, and describe their meaning afterwards with infinitely more perspicuity.

All we have to do in this affair is to call upon the Directors of the British Institution, if they mean to patronise real merit, or to make their rewards honourable and of value, to disclaim all approbation of the most illustrious and full-sized specimen of pictorial Humbug that ever drew shillings out of the pockets of John Bull.

We have indeed been told that the Institution have (somewhat too late) discovered that they employed an animal painter, to paint them an allegorical picture--they were not aware of their mistake in the outset; but in order to rectify it and induce Mr. Ward to rub out his allegory, they have resolved, it is said, to give him an opportunity of showing his talents in his own line, by sitting to him for their likenesses,--it is added that the portrait of Mr. Richard Payne Knight is already in a high state of forwardness.

LETTER FROM A GOOSE.

TO JOHN BULL.

Farm Yard, Claremont, Friday, Sept. 27, 1822.

SIR,--These are the last words I shall ever have an opportunity of addressing to you; my doom, alas! is fixed. I am sentenced to die this evening; neither Alderman Waithman, nor Mr. Ex-Sheriff Parkins, can save me; I am waiting in the condemned coop, the _coup-de-grace_ of my illustrious master's chicken-butcher.

Probably you anticipate the cause of my death: Sunday is the feast of St. Michael, my blood is required in the mysterious celebration of the ceremonies observed in all well-regulated families on that anniversary. This very day twelve-months my excellent and amiable mother, and my respectable father, perished on the same account.

At this critical juncture, I pick a quill from one of my wings to assure you of that resignation to my fate, which I truly feel:--that it is not unalloyed, Mr. Bull, I must, however, confess. Those who know our family know that we are patriots, that we have souls; and I cannot quit the world without regretting my future destiny. Brought up, sir, as I have been; educated upon the English system in the farm-yard of a Foreign Prince; fattened as I have been at the public expense; I did expect (as all patriots say they do) that the sacrifice of my life might have been of some utility to the country;--but, alas! no: pampered, fed, stuffed as it were by anticipation. What is my doom? Am I to be yielded as a tribute to the nation, whence I have derived my weight and flavour? Am I to gratify the palate of the illustrious Prince, my nominal patron? No; I am to be sold and eaten by some base venal hind in this neighbourhood, who, in these times of wretchedness, cannot dine on Michaelmas-day without me.

What my sensations are at the treatment I have met with you may, perhaps, comprehend. Will you believe it, sir, I have never seen the illustrious Personage in whose service I have wasted my days. I have never beheld the amiable Prince, to whom, for many reasons, I am warmly attached: first, because I am a goose; secondly, because, thanks to the generosity of the nation, I am his Royal Highness's goose; and, thirdly, because I am a goose of high feeling, honour, and, above all, of gratitude.

What a consolation it would have been to have seen his Royal countenance!--what a disgrace to my family to quit the world without having attained to such a favour! It is true I have received a great deal of pleasure in the occasional society of Sir Robert Gardiner, whose attentions have been very much devoted to our comfort and accommodation in our Royal Master's absence. I certainly found him in pens; which, as you know Sir Robert is fond of writing, was no small return for his civilities--civilities, which I begin shrewdly to suspect were, after all, interested, and more insidious than I apprehend at the moment.

I ought to apologise for trespassing at such length upon your patience; but, having been for a considerable time a constant correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_, I am habituated to what are vulgarly called long-winded letters; and when a goose prints his own grievances he is generally somewhat diffuse. My wrongs are now strongest in my recollection, and I am anxious that my family reputation should not suffer in my person, and therefore devote my last moments--my last words to you.