Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners Part 7

I shall not speak here of unwarrantable commands imposed upon survivors, by which they were to carry into effect the sullen and revengeful purposes of unprincipled men, after they had breathed their last; but we meet with continual examples of the desire to keep up the farce (if not the tragedy) of life after we, the performers in it, have quitted the stage, and to have our parts rehea.r.s.ed by proxy. We thus make a caprice immortal, a peculiarity proverbial. Hence we see the number of legacies and fortunes left on condition that the legatee shall take the name and style of the testator, by which device we provide for the continuance of the sounds that formed our names, and endow them with an estate, that they may be repeated with proper respect. In the _Memoirs of an Heiress_ all the difficulties of the plot turn on the necessity imposed by a clause in her uncle's will that her future husband should take the family name of Beverley. Poor Cecilia! What delicate perplexities she was thrown into by this improvident provision; and with what minute, endless, intricate distresses has the fair auth.o.r.ess been enabled to harrow up the reader on this account! There was a Sir Thomas Dyot in the reign of Charles II. who left the whole range of property which forms Dyot Street, in St. Giles's, and the neighbourhood, on the sole and express condition that it should be appropriated entirely to that sort of buildings, and to the reception of that sort of population, which still keeps undisputed, undivided possession of it. The name was changed the other day to George Street as a more genteel appellation, which, I should think, is an indirect forfeiture of the estate. This Sir Thomas Dyot I should be disposed to put upon the list of old English worthies--as humane, liberal, and no flincher from what he took in his head. He was no common-place man in his line. He was the best commentator on that old-fas.h.i.+oned text--'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' We find some that are curious in the mode in which they shall be buried, and others in the place. Lord Camelford had his remains buried under an ash tree that grew on one of the mountains in Switzerland; and Sir Francis Bourgeois had a little mausoleum built for him in the college at Dulwich, where he once spent a pleasant, jovial day with the masters and wardens.(4) It is, no doubt, proper to attend, except for strong reasons to the contrary, to these sort of requests; for by breaking faith with the dead we loosen the confidence of the living. Besides, there is a stronger argument: we sympathise with the dead as well as with the living, and are bound to them by the most sacred of all ties, our own involuntary follow-feeling with others!

Thieves, as a last donation, leave advice to their friends, physicians a nostrum, authors a ma.n.u.script work, rakes a confession of their faith in the virtue of the s.e.x--all, the last drivellings of their egotism and impertinence. One might suppose that if anything could, the approach and contemplation of death might bring men to a sense of reason and self-knowledge. On the contrary, it seems only to deprive them of the little wit they had, and to make them even more the sport of their wilfulness and shortsightedness. Some men think that because they are going to be hanged, they are fully authorised to declare a future state of rewards and punishments. All either indulge their caprices or cling to their prejudices. They make a desperate attempt to escape from reflection by taking hold of any whim or fancy that crosses their minds, or by throwing themselves implicitly on old habits and attachments.

An old man is twice a child: the dying man becomes the property of his family. He has no choice left, and his voluntary power is merged in old saws and prescriptive usages. The property we have derived from our kindred reverts tacitly to them; and not to let it take its course is a sort of violence done to nature as well as custom. The idea of property, of something in common, does not mix cordially with friends.h.i.+p, but is inseparable from near relations.h.i.+p. We owe a return in kind, where we feel no obligation for a favour; and consign our possessions to our next-of-kin as mechanically as we lean our heads on the pillow, and go out of the world in the same state of stupid amazement that we came into it!..._Caetera desunt._

NOTES to ESSAY XII

(1) A poor woman at Plymouth who did not like the formality, or could not afford the expense of a will, thought to leave what little property she had in wearing apparel and household moveables to her friends and relations, _viva voce_, and before Death stopped her breath. She gave and willed away (of her proper authority) her chair and table to one, her bed to another, an old cloak to a third, a night-cap and petticoat to a fourth, and so on. The old crones sat weeping round, and soon after carried off all they could lay their hands upon, and left their benefactress to her fate. They were no sooner gone than she unexpectedly recovered, and sent to have her things back again; but not one of them could she get, and she was left without a rag to her back, or a friend to condole with her.

(2) The law of primogeniture has its origin in the principle here stated, the desire of perpetuating some one palpable and prominent proof of wealth and power.

(3) It is as follows:

'The Will of a Virtuoso.

I, Nicholas Gimcrack, being in sound Health of Mind, but in great Weakness of Body, do by this my Last Will and Testament bequeath my worldly Goods and Chattels in Manner following:--

Imprimis, To my dear Wife, One Box of b.u.t.terflies, One Drawer of Sh.e.l.ls, A Female Skeleton, A Dried c.o.c.katrice.

Item, To my Daughter Elizabeth, My Receipt for preserving dead Caterpillars, As also my Preparations of Winter May-Dew, and Embrio Pickle.

Item, to my little Daughter f.a.n.n.y, Three Crocodiles' Eggs.

And upon the Birth of her first Child, if she marries with her Mother's Consent, The Nest of a Humming Bird.

Item, To my eldest Brother, as an acknowledgment for the Lands he has vested in my Son Charles, I bequeath My last Year's Collection of Gra.s.shoppers.

Item, To his Daughter Susanna, being his only Child, I bequeath my English Weeds pasted on Royal Paper, With my large Folio of Indian Cabbage.

Having fully provided for my Nephew Isaac, by making over to him some years since A horned Searaboeus, The Skin of a Rattle-Snake, and The Mummy of an Egyptian King, I make no further Provision for him in this my Will.

I My eldest Son John having spoken disrespectfully of his little Sister, whom I keep by me in Spirits of Wine, and in many other Instances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any Part of this my Personal Estate, by giving him a single c.o.c.kle-Sh.e.l.l.

To my Second Son Charles, I give and bequeath all my Flowers, Plants, Minerals, Mosses, Sh.e.l.ls, Pebbles, Fossils, Beetles, b.u.t.terflies, Caterpillars, Gra.s.shoppers, and Vermin, not above specified: As also my Monsters, both wet and dry, making the said Charles whole and sole Executor of this my Last Will and Testament, he paying or causing to be paid the aforesaid Legacies within the s.p.a.ce of Six Months after my Decease. And I do hereby revoke all other Wills whatsoever by me formerly made.'--_Tatler,_ vol. iv. No. 216.

(4) Kellerman lately left his heart to be buried in the field of Valmy, where the first great battle was fought in the year 1792, in which the Allies were repulsed. Oh! might that heart prove the root from which the tree of Liberty may spring up and flourish once more, as the basil tree grew and grew from the cherished head of Isabella's lover!

ESSAY XIII. ON CERTAIN INCONSISTENCIES IN SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES

The two chief points which Sir Joshua aims at in his _Discourses_ are to show that excellence in the Fine Arts is the result of pains and study rather than of genius, and that all beauty, grace, and grandeur are to be found, not in actual nature, but in an idea existing in the mind.

On both these points he appears to have fallen into considerable inconsistencies or very great lat.i.tude of expression, so as to make it difficult to know what conclusion to draw from his various reasonings.

I shall attempt little more in this Essay than to bring together several pa.s.sages that, from their contradictory import, seem to imply some radical defect in Sir Joshua's theory, and a doubt as to the possibility of placing an implicit reliance on his authority.

To begin with the first of these subjects, the question of original genius. In the Second Discourse, 'On the Method of Study,' Sir Joshua observes towards the end:

'There is one precept, however, in which I shall only be opposed by the vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I shall repeat it too often. You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter into metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of genius, I will venture to a.s.sert that a.s.siduity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those which some call the result of _natural powers.'_

The only tendency of the maxim here laid down seems to be to lure those students on with the hopes of excellence who have no chance of succeeding, and to deter those who have from relying on the only prop and source of real excellence--the strong bent and impulse of their natural powers. Industry alone can only produce mediocrity; but mediocrity in art is not worth the trouble of industry. Genius, great natural powers, will give industry and ardour in the pursuit of their proper object, but not if you divert them from that object into the trammels of common-place mechanical labour. By this method you neutralise all distinction of character--make a pedant of the blockhead and a drudge of the man of genius. What, for instance, would have been the effect of persuading Hogarth or Rembrandt to place no dependence on their own genius, and to apply themselves to the general study of the different branches of the art and of every sort of excellence, with a confidence of success proportioned to their misguided efforts, but to destroy both those great artists? 'You take my house when you do take the prop that doth sustain my house!' You undermine the superstructure of art when you strike at its main pillar and support, confidence and faith in nature. We might as well advise a person who had discovered a silver or a lead mine on his estate to close it up, or the common farmer to plough up every acre he rents in the hope of discovering hidden treasure, as advise the man of original genius to neglect his particular vein for the study of rules and the imitation of others, or try to persuade the man of no strong natural powers that he can supply their deficiency by laborious application. Sir Joshua soon after, in the Third Discourse, alluding to the terms, _inspiration, genius, gusto,_ applied by critics and orators to painting, proceeds:

'Such is the warmth with which both the Ancients and Moderns speak of this divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed, enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by such praise may have his attention roused and a desire excited of running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said to excite may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which, he is told, so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach of human industry.'

Yet presently after he adds:

'It is not easy to define in what this great style consists; nor to describe by words the proper means of acquiring it, _if the mind of the student should be at all capable of such an acquisition._ Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.'

Here, then, Sir Joshua admits that it is a question whether the student is likely _to be at all capable of such an acquisition_ as the higher excellencies of art, though he had said in the pa.s.sage just quoted above that it is within the reach of constant a.s.siduity and of a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit to effect all that is usually considered as the result of natural powers. Is the theory which our author means to inculcate a mere delusion, a mere arbitrary a.s.sumption? At one moment Sir Joshua attributes the hopelessness of the student to attain perfection to the discouraging influence of certain figurative and overstrained expressions, and in the next doubts his capacity for such an acquisition under any circ.u.mstances. Would he have him hope against hope, then? If he 'examines his own mind and finds nothing there of that divine inspiration with which he is told so many others have been favoured,' but which he has never felt himself; if 'he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications' for the highest efforts of genius and imagination 'than what mere common observation and a plain understanding can confer,' he may as well desist at once from 'ascending the brightest heaven of invention':--if the very idea of the divinity of art deters instead of animating him, if the enthusiasm with which others speak of it damps the flame in his own breast, he had better not enter into a compet.i.tion where he wants the first principle of success, the daring to aspire and the hope to excel. He may be a.s.sured he is not the man. Sir Joshua himself was not struck at first by the sight of the masterpieces of the great style of art, and he seems unconsciously to have adopted this theory to show that he might still have succeeded in it but for want of due application. His hypothesis goes to this--to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the mail of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it.

In speaking of Carlo Maratti, he confesses the inefficiency of this doctrine in a very remarkable manner:--

'Carlo Maratti succeeded better than those I have first named, and I think owes his superiority to the extension of his views: besides his master Andrea Sacchi, he imitated Raffaelle, Guido, and the Caraccis.

It is true, there is nothing very captivating in Carlo Maratti; but this proceeded from a want which cannot be completely supplied; that is, want of strength of parts. _In this certainly men are not equal;_ and a man can bring home wares only in proportion with the capital with which he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the most of what he had; but there was undoubtedly a heaviness about him, which extended itself uniformly to his invention, expression, his drawing, colouring, and the general effect of his pictures. The truth is, he never equalled any of his patterns in any one thing, and he added little of his own.'

Here, then, Reynolds, we see, fairly gives up the argument. Carlo, after all, was a heavy hand; nor could all his diligence and his making the most of what he had make up for the want of 'natural powers.' Sir Joshua's good sense pointed out to him the truth in the individual instance, though he might be led astray by a vague general theory. Such, however, is the effect of a false principle that there is an evident bias in the artist's mind to make genius lean upon others for support, instead of trusting to itself and developing its own incommunicable resources. So in treating in the Twelfth Discourse of the way in which great artists are formed, Sir Joshua reverts very nearly to his first position:

'The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an Artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. There is no other way for him to become great himself. _Serpens, nigi serpentem comederit, non fit draco._ Raffaelle, as appears from what has been said, had carefully studied the works of Masaccio, and indeed there was no other, if we except Michael Angelo (whom he likewise imitated),(1) so worthy of his attention; and though his manner was dry and hard, his compositions formal, and not enough diversified, according to the custom of Painters in that early period, yet his works possess that grandeur and simplicity which accompany, and even sometimes proceed from, regularity and hardness of manner. We must consider the barbarous state of the arts before his time, when skill in drawing was so little understood, that the best of the painters could not even foreshorten the foot, but every figure appeared to stand upon his toes, and what served for drapery had, from the hardness and smallness of the folds, too much the appearance of cords clinging round the body. He first introduced large drapery, flowing in an easy and natural manner; indeed, he appears to be the first who discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the art afterwards arrived, and may therefore be justly considered as one of the Great Fathers of Modern Art.

'Though I have been led on to a longer digression respecting this great painter than I intended, yet I cannot avoid mentioning another excellence which he possessed in a very eminent degree: he was as much distinguished among his contemporaries for his diligence and industry _as he was for the natural faculties of his mind._ We are told that his whole attention was absorbed in the pursuit of his art, and that he acquired the name of Masaccio from his total disregard to his dress, his person, and all the common concerns of life. He is indeed _a signal instance of what well-directed diligence_ will do in a short time: he lived but twenty-seven years, yet in that short s.p.a.ce carried the art so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model for his successors. Vasari gives a long catalogue of painters and sculptors who formed their taste and learned their art by studying his works; among those, he names Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartholomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga.'

Sir Joshua here again halts between two opinions. He tells us the names of the painters who formed themselves upon Masaccio's style: he does not tell us on whom he formed himself. At one time the natural faculties of his mind were as remarkable as his industry; at another he was only a signal instance of what well-directed diligence will do in a short t that leads to every excellence to which the Art afterwards arrived,'

though he is introduced in an argument to show that 'the daily food and nourishment of the mind of the Artist must be found in the works of his predecessors.' There is something surely very wavering and unsatisfactory in all this.

Sir Joshua, in another part of his work, endeavours to reconcile and prop up these contradictions by a paradoxical sophism which I think turns upon himself. He says: 'I am on the contrary persuaded, that by imitation only' (by which he has just explained himself to mean the study of other masters), 'variety, and even originality of invention is produced. I will go further: even genius, at least, what is so called, is the child of imitation. But as this appears to be contrary to the general opinion, I must explain my position before I enforce it.

'Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies which are out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

'This opinion of the impossibility of acquiring those beauties which stamp the work with the character of genius, supposes that it is something more fixed than in reality it is, and that we always do and ever did agree in opinion with respect to what should be considered as the characteristic of genius. But the truth is, that the _degree_ of excellence which proclaims _Genius_ is different in different times and different places; and what shows it to be so is, that mankind have often changed their opinion upon this matter.

'When the Arts were in their infancy, the power of merely drawing the likeness of any object was considered as one of its greatest efforts.

The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same language even to this day. But when it was found that every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the observance of certain precepts, the name of Genius then s.h.i.+fted its application, and was given only to him who added the peculiar character of the object he represented--to him who had invention, expression, grace, or dignity; in short, those qualities or excellencies, the power of producing which could not _then_ be taught by any known and promulgated rules.

'We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the pa.s.sions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to a work, is at present very much under the dominion of rules. These excellencies were heretofore considered merely as the effects of genius; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation and experience.'

Sir Joshua began with undertaking to show that 'genius was the child of the imitation of others, and now it turns out not to be inspiration indeed, but the effect of close observation and experience.' The whole drift of this argument appears to be contrary to what the writer intended, for the obvious inference is that the essence of genius consists entirely, both in kind and degree, in the single circ.u.mstance of originality. The very same things are or are not genius, according as they proceed from invention or from mere imitation. In so far as a thing is original, as it has never been done before, it acquires and it deserves the appellation of genius: in so far as it is not original, and is borrowed from others or taught by rule, it is not, neither is it called, genius. This does not make much for the supposition that genius is a traditional and second-hand quality. Because, for example, a man without much genius can copy a picture of Michael Angelo's, does it follow that there was no genius in the original design, or that the inventor and copyist are equal? If indeed, as Sir Joshua labours to prove, mere imitation of existing models and attention to established rules could produce results exactly similar to those of natural powers, if the progress of art as a learned profession were a gradual but continual acc.u.mulation of individual excellence, instead of being a sudden and almost miraculous start to the highest beauty and grandeur nearly at first, and a regular declension to mediocrity ever after, then indeed the distinction between genius and imitation would be little worth contending for; the causes might be different, the effects would be the same, or rather skill to avail ourselves of external advantages would be of more importance and efficacy than the most powerful internal resources. But as the case stands, all the great works of art have been the offspring of individual genius, either projecting itself before the general advances of society or striking out a separate path for itself; all the rest is but labour in vain. For every purpose of emulation or instruction we go back to the original inventors, not to those who imitated, and, as it is falsely pretended, improved upon their models: or if those who followed have at any time attained as high a rank or surpa.s.sed their predecessors, it was not from borrowing their excellencies, but by unfolding new and exquisite powers of their own, of which the moving principle lay in the individual mind, and not in the stimulus afforded by previous example and general knowledge. Great faults, it is true, may be avoided, but great excellencies can never be attained in this way. If Sir Joshua's hypothesis of progressive refinement in art was anything more than a verbal fallacy, why does he go back to Michael Angelo as the G.o.d of his idolatry? Why does he find fault with Carlo Maratti for being heavy? Or why does he declare as explicitly as truly, that 'the judgment, after it has been long pa.s.sive, by degrees loses its power of becoming active when exertion is necessary'?--Once more to point out the fluctuation in Sir Joshua's notions on this subject of the advantages of natural genius and artificial study, he says, when recommending the proper objects of ambition to the young artist:

'My advice in a word is this: keep your princ.i.p.al attention fixed upon the higher excellencies. If you compa.s.s them, and compa.s.s nothing more, you are still in the first cla.s.s. We may regret the innumerable beauties which you may want; you may be very imperfect, but still you are an imperfect artist of the highest order.'

This is the Fifth Discourse. In the Seventh our artist seems to waver, and flings a doubt on his former decision, whereby 'it loses some colour.'

'Indeed perfection in an inferior style may be reasonably preferred to mediocrity in the highest walks of art. A landscape of Claude Lorraine _may_(2) be preferred to a history by Luca Giordano: but hence appears the necessity of the connoisseur's knowing in what consists the excellency of each cla.s.s, in order to judge how near it approaches to perfection.'