Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I. Lever Charles James
the boxes lose few, if any, of their occupants. Night after night the same faces reappear, as regularly as the actors; the same groupings are formed, the selfsame smiles go round; and were it not that no trait of ennui is discernible, you would say that levity had met its own punishment in the dreariness of monotony. These boxes seldom pass out of the same family; from generation to generation they descend with the family mansion, and are as much a part of the domestic property of a house as the rooms of the residence. Furnished and lighted up according to the taste and at the discretion of the owner, they present to eyes only habituated to our theatres the strangest variety, and even discordance, of aspect: some, brilliant in wax-light and gorgeous in decoration, glitter with the jewelled dresses of the gay company; others, mysteriously sombre, shew the shadowy outlines of an almost shrouded group, dimly visible in the distance.
The theatre is the very spirit and essence of life in Italy. To the merchant it is the Bourse; it is the club to the gambler, the café to the lounger, the drawing-room and the boudoir to the lady. But where is the domestic life?
CHAPTER III
Another note from Favancourt, asking me to dine and meet Alfred de Vigny, whose “Cinque Mars” I praised so highly. Be it so; I am curious to see a Frenchman who has preferred the high esteem of the best critics of his country, to the noisy popularity such men as Sue and Dumas write for.
De Vigny is a French Washington Irving, with more genius, higher taste, but not that heartfelt appreciation of tranquil, peaceful life, that the American possesses. As episode, his little’tale, the “Canne de Jonc,” is one of the most affecting I ever read. From the outset you feel that the catastrophe must be sad, yet there is nothing harassing or wearying in the suspense. The cloud of evil, not bigger than a man’s hand at first, spreads gradually till it spans the heavens from east to west, and night falls solemn and dark, but without storm or hurricane.
I scarcely anticipate that such a writer can be a brilliant converser. The best gauge I have ever found of an authors agreeability, is in the amount of dialogue he throws into his books. Wherever narrative, pure narrative, predominates, and the reflective tone prevails, the author will be, perhaps necessarily, more disposed to silence. But he who writes dialogue well, must be himself a talker. Take Scott, for instance; the very character of his dialogue scenes was the type of his own social powers: a strong and nervous common sense; a high chivalry, that brooked nothing low or mean; a profound veneration for antiquity; an innate sense of the humorous, ran through his manner in the world, as they display themselves in his works.
See Sheridan, too, he talked the School for Scandal all his life; whereas Goldsmith was a dull man in company. Taking this criterion, Alfred de Vigny will be quiet, reserved, and thoughtful; pointed, perhaps, but not brilliant. Apropos of this talking talent, what has become of it? French causerie, of which one hears so much, was no more to be compared to the racy flow of English table-talk, some forty years back, than a group of artificial flowers is fit to compete with a bouquet of richly scented dew-spangled buds, freshly plucked from the garden.
Lord Brougham is our best man now, the readiest – a great quality – and, strange as it may sound to those who know him not, the best-natured, with anecdote enough to point a moral, but no storyteller; using his wit as a skilful cook does lemon-juice – to flavour but not to sour the plat.
Painters and anglers, I have remarked, are always silent, thoughtful men. Of course I would not include under this judgment such as portrait and miniature painters, who are about, as a class, the most tiresome and loquacious twaddlers that our unhappy globe suffers under. Wilkie must have been a real blessing to any man sentenced to sit for his picture: he never asked questions, seldom indeed did he answer them; he had nothing of that vulgar trick of calling up an expression in his sitter; provided the man staid awake, he was able always to catch the traits of feature, and, when he needed it, evoke the prevailing character of the individual’s expression by a chance word or two. Lawrence was really agreeable – so, at least, I have always heard, for he was before my day; but I suspect it was that officious agreeability of the artist, the smartness that lies in wait for a smile or the sparkle of the eye, that he may transmit it to the panel.
The great miniature painter of our day is really a specimen of a miniature intelligence – the most incessant little driveller of worse than nothings: the small gossip that is swept down the back-stairs of a palace, the flat commonplaces of great people, are his stock-in-trade: the only value of such contributions to history is, that they must be true. None but kings could be so tiresome! I remember once sitting to this gentleman, when only just recovering from an illness, and when possibly I endured his forced and forty-horse power of small talk with less than ordinary patience. He had painted nearly every crowned head in Europe – kings, kaisers, archdukes, and grand-duchesses in every principality, from the boundless tracts of the Czar’s possessions, to those states which emulate the small green turf deposited in a bird’s cage. Dear me! how wearisome it was to hear him recount the ordinary traits that marked the life of great people, as if the greatest Tory of us all ever thought Kings and Queens were anything but men and women!
I listened, as though in a long distressing dream, to narratives of how the Prince de Joinville, so terribly eager to burn our dockyards and destroy our marine, could be playful as a lamb in his nursery with the children. How Louis Philippe held the little Count de Paris fast in his chair till his portrait was taken. (Will he be able to seat him so securely on the throne of France?) How the Emperor of Austria, with a simplicity of a great mind and a very large head, always thought he could sit behind the artist and watch the progress of his own picture! I listened, I say, till my ears tingled and my head swam, and in that moment there was not a “bounty man” from Kentucky or Ohio that held royalty more cheaply than myself. Just at this very nick my servant came to whisper me, that an agent for Messrs. Lorch, Rath; et Co., the wine-merchants of Frankfort, had called, by my desire, to take an order for some hock. Delighted at the interruption, I ordered he should be admitted, and the next moment a very tall pretentious-looking German, with a tremendously frogged and Brandenburged coat, and the most extensive beard and moustaches, entered, and with all the ceremonial of his native land saluted us both, three times over.
I received him with the most impressive and respectable politeness, and seemed, at least, only to resume my seat after his expressed permission. The artist, who understood nothing of German, watched all our proceedings with a “miniature eye,” and at last whispered gently, “Who is he?”
“Heavens!” said I, in a low tone, “don’t you know? – he is the Crown Prince of Hanover!”
The words were not uttered when my little friend let fall his palette and sprang off his chair, shocked at the very thought of his being seated in such presence. The German turned towards him one of those profoundly austere glances that only a foreign bagman or an American tragedian can compass, and took no further notice of him.
The interview over, I accompanied him to the antechamber, and then took my leave, to the horror of Sir C – , who asked me at least twenty times, “why I did not go down to the door?”
“Oh, we are old friends,” said I; “I knew him at Gottingen a dozen years ago, and we never stand on any ceremony together.” My fiction, miserable as it was, served me from further anecdotes of royalty, since what private history of kings could astonish the man on such terms of familiarity with the Crown Prince of Hanover?
Talking of Hanover, and apropos of “humbugs,” reminds me of a circumstance that amused me at the time it occurred. Soon after the present King of Hanover ascended the throne, the Orangemen of Ireland, who had long been vain of their princely Grand Master, had sufficient influence on the old corporation of Dublin to carry a motion that a deputation should be despatched to Hanover, to convey to the foot of the throne the sincere and respectful gratulations of the mayor, aldermen, and livery of Dublin on the auspicious advent of his Majesty to the crown of that kingdom. The debate was a warm one, but the majority which carried the measure large; and, now, nothing remained but to name the happy individuals who should form the deputation, and then ascertain in what part of the globe Hanover lay, and how it should be come at.
Nothing but the cares of state and the important considerations of duty, could prevent the mayor himself accepting this proud task: the sheriffs, however,