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matron are “not in it” in comparison with this.
Here is a bit of criticism also curiously characteristic of a time when the “old masters” were so much less known, and criticism perhaps more free than it would venture to be now. Mr Redgrave is conversing with Leslie, R.A., to whose opinion he very much deferred:—
“On some reference beine made to Francia’s pictures, he spoke lightly of them, and said he had looked at them in company with Ruskin, and had asked him to explain what he had admired so much in them. Ruskin replied that there was nothing sensual in them. This, said Leslie, was only negative praise. He then admired the sky, and those little lumps of sky which represent clouds. I asked him why he thought so much of them. He said they were so thoroughly serene, there was not a dream of a storm in them. ‘I told him,’ said Leslie, ‘that this was quite possible, since they were totally unlike clouds; but there,’ pointing to a Claude, ‘is a sky equally serene and beautifully true, and yet you do not like the works of that painter. Francia might have put such a sky to his figures.’”
It is delightfully characteristic to see what short work the Academician makes here of a critic not gencrally believed to have so little to say for himself. Our own arguments seem always so convincing, no matter (it appears) who is on the other side. Mr Ruskin, however, we are afraid, though he is treated here so cavalierly, and seems to take his setting down with such unlikely meekness, has had reason of his adversary. Most people would shudder nowadays to hear any audacious painter speak lightly of the divine light and clearness of Francia’s skies.
We will wind up with one, or rather two charming bits of sheer nonsense. The first is from old Samuel Rogers, banker and poet:
“Rogers said to him, ‘I have been walking to-day in the Champs Elysées, and I was met by an old lady who stopped and looked fixedly at me, and said, “Sir, isn’t your name Rogers!” Pausing a moment he was interrupted by his friend, who said, ‘Well, and was it?’ This reminded Charles Landseer of a like incident. ‘A few nights ago,’ he said, ‘I was in the pit of the theatre, and the Duke and Duchess of Wellington came into a box. Some persons—evidently country sightseers in town for a few davs only—were sitting next to me, so I said to them, “That is the Duke of Wellington who has just entered the box.” “Indeed, sir!” they simultaneously said, “the present duke?”’”
These anecdotes are, we fear, the best of Mr Redgrave’s contribution to the history of his time. We are so easily satisfied as to the qualities of books nowadays that they will make this quite inoffensive volume pass muster—happy for us that it is but one! We are grateful for the forbearance of the editor who did not make it two, as it is, heaven knows! with so many loose scraps of material about the world, quite easy to do.
Sir Walter Scott says somewhere in his journsal on the occasion of a visit to London, that he finds his own learned brethren of the bar and bench to beat the professional wits in respect to amusing and sparkling conversation, but that for wit and fun the bishops beat even the judges. Certainly, for interest of a human kind, not to speak of public importance and the weight of many great questions, the bishop in this little group of books is far in advance of either painter or poet.