Thomas Campbell to Dr. Beattie-Visit to the Louvre in 1814 with Mrs. Siddons. They seemed to give my mind too dear to call them fanciful. a new sense of the harmony of Art—a new visual power of enjoying beauty. Nor is it mere fancy that makes the difference between the Apollo himself and his plaster casts. The dead whiteness of the stucco copies is glaringly monotonous, whilst the diaphonous surface of the original seems to soften the light which it reflects. Every particular of that hour is written indelibly on my memory. I remember entering the Louvre with a latent suspicion on my mind that a good deal of the rapture expressed at the sight of superlative sculptures was exaggerated or affected; but as we passed through the vestibule of the hall there was a Greek figure, I think that of Pericles, with a chlamys and helmet, which John Kemble desired me to notice; and it instantly struck me with wonder at the gentlemanlike grace which art could give to a human form in so simple a vesture. It was not, however, until we reached the grand saloon that the first sight of the god overawed my incredulity. Every step of approach to his presence added to my sensations; and all recollections of his name in classic poetry swarmed on my mind as spontaneously as the associations that are conjured up by the sweetest music. Engrossed as I was with the Apollo, I could not forget the honor of being before him in the company of so august a worshipper; and it certainly increased my enjoyment to see the first interview between the paragon of Art and that of Nature. Mr3. Siddons was evidently much struck, and remained a long time before the statue; but like a true admirer she was not loquacious. I remember she said: "What a great idea it gives us of God, to think that he has made a human being capable of fashioning so divine a form!" When we walked around to other sculptures Thomas Campbell to Dr. Beattie-Visit to the Louvre in 1814 with Mrs. Siddons. her I observed almost every eye in the hall was fixed upon and followed her; yet I could perceive that she was not known, as I could hear the spectators say, "Who is she? Is she not an Englishwoman?" At this time, though in her fifty-ninth year, her looks were so noble, that she made you proud of English beauty-even in the presence of Grecian sculpture.* * In another place Campbell states that Joanna Baillie has left an almost perfect picture of Mrs. Siddons in the following passage: Page.-Madam, there is a lady in your hall, Who begs to be admitted to your presence. Page. So queenly, so commanding, and so noble, I shrunk at first in awe; but when she smiled Lady. Is she young or old? Page. Neither, if right I guess; but she is fair, For time has laid his hand so gently on her, So stately and so graceful is her form. Page.-I cannot well describe the fashion of it; But seems to me clad in the usual weeds Lady.-Thine eyes deceive thee, boy, It is an apparition thou hast seen. Jane de Montford, Act 2.-S. 1. This description will not seem extravagant to those who read the letters of Dr. Beattie or Washington Irving, recording the impression made upon them by this wonderful woman, when far advanced in life. Dr. Johnson, when asked whether he did not think her finer on the stage, where she was adorned by art, replied, "On the stage art does not adorn her; nature adorns her there, and art glorifies her." Mr. Gray to Mr. West-The Grande Chartreuse. VI. THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE. Mr. Gray to Mr. West. TURIN, NOV. 16, N. S., 1739. After eight days' journey through Greenland, we arrived at Turin-you approach it by a handsome avenue of nine miles long, and quite straight. The entrance is guarded by certain vigilant dragons, called Douaniers, who mumbled us for some time. The city is not large, as being a place of strength, and consequently confined within its fortifications; it has many beauties and some faults; among the first are streets all laid out by the line, regular uniform buildings, fine walks that surround the whole, and in general a good, lively, clean appearance; but the houses are of brick, plastered, which is apt to want repairing; the windows of oiled paper, which is apt to be torn; and every thing very slight, which is apt to tumble down. There is an excellent opera, but it is only in the carnival: balls every night, but only in the carnival: masquerades too, but only in the carnival. This carnival lasts only from Christmas to lent; one-half of the remaining part of the year is past in remembering the last, the other in expecting the future carnival. We cannot well subsist upon such slender diet, no more than upon an execrable Italian comedy, and a puppet show, called Rappresentazione d'un'anima dannata, which, I think, are all the present diversions of the place; except the Marquise de Cavaillac's conversazione, where one goes to see people play at ombre and taroc, a game with 72 cards all painted with suns, and moons, and devils, and monks. Mr. Walpole has been at court; the family are at present at a country palace, called La Venerie. The palace here in town is the very quintessence of gilding and looking glass; inlaid floors, carved Mr. Gray to Mr. West-The Grande Chartreuse. panels, and painting, wherever they could stick a brush. I own I have not, as yet, anywhere met with those grand and simple. works of art, that are to amaze one, and whose sight one is to be the better for; but those of nature have astonished me beyond expression. In our little journey up to the Grande Chartreuse, I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation, that there was no restraining. Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument. One need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits there at noonday. You have death perpetually before your eyes; only so far removed, as to compose the mind without frighting it. I am well persuaded St. Bruno was a man of no common genius, to choose such a situation for his retirement; and perhaps should have been a disciple of his, had I been born in his time. You may believe Abelard and Heloise were not forgot upon this occasion: if I do not mistake, I saw you too every now and then at a distance among the trees; il me semble, que j'ai vu ce chien de visage la quelque part. You seemed to call to me from the other side of the precipice, but the noise of the river below was so great that I really could not distinguish what you said; it seemed to have a cadence like verse. In your next you will be so good as to let me know what it was. The week we have since passed among the Alps has not equalled the single day upon that mountain, because the winter was rather too far advanced, and the weather a little foggy. However, it did not want its beauties; the savage rudeness of the view is inconceivable without seeing it. I reckoned, in one day, thirteen cascades, the least of which was, I dare say, one hundred feet in height. I had Livy in the chaise with me, William Wordsworth to the Earl of Lonsdale-Switzerland. and beheld his "Nives cœlo prope immista, tecta informia imposita rupibus, pecora jumentaque torrida frigore, homines intonsi et inculti, animalia inanimaque omnia rigentia gelu; omnia confragosa, præruptaque." The creatures that inhabit them are, in all respects, below humanity, and most of them, especially women, have the tumidum guttur, which they call goscia. Mont Cenis, I confess, carries the permission mountains have of being frightful rather too far, and its horrors were accompanied with too much danger to give one time to reflect upon their beauties. There is a family of the Alpine monsters I have mentioned, upon its very top, that in the middle of winter calmly lay in their stock of provisions and firing, and so are buried in their hut for a month or two under the snow. When we were down it, and got a little way into Piedmont, we began to find "Apricos quosdam colles, rivosque prope silvas, et jam humano cultu digniora loca." I read Silius Italicus too, for the first time, and wished you, according to custom. We set out for Genoa in two days' time. for VII.-SWITZERLAND. William Wordsworth to the Earl of Lonsdale. LUCERNE, Aug. 19th, 1820. MY LORD: You did me the honor of expressing a wish to hear from me during my continental tour. Accordingly, I have great pleasure in writing from this place, where we arrived three days ago. Our route has lain through Brussels, Namur, along the banks of the Meuse to Liege; thence to Aix la Chapelle, Cologne, and along the Rhine to Mayence, to Frankfort, Heidelburg (a noble situation at the point where the Neckar issues |