Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2180 page)

At first, I had considerable difficulty in inducing Mr. Scumble — - who had a strong feeling for propriety, and a great regard for appearances — -
 
to enter the vehicle which my ingenuity had provided. Both cart and mare were very old — - the first was without springs: the second without eyesight. A board stretched across the cart, and swinging loose from the sides by leathern thongs, was the seat provided for us. As for our coach- man, his “ box “ was an old wooden chair, placed in the cart through the kind attention of the Veuve Duval herself. The mare’s reins were artfully compounded of leather and rope; and she was finely ornamented about the head and neck with rows of bells and tufts of scarlet worsted. I am not disposed to contend that our equipage was elegant; perhaps, it was vulgar — - decidedly low. But it was picturesque; and therefore lovely to the artist’s eye — - it offered a seat: could the wearied philoso- pher require more?

By some such arguments as these I succeeded in prevailing on Mr. Scumble to enter the cart. Our driver, a cheerful, sunburnt fellow, placed himself on his chair in front, shouting to the old mare certain cabalistic syllables, which sounded like, “ Eh ! hopp, hopp ! yopp, yopp, ye-e-ee ! “ and we started at a jog-trot. It was the first sweet triumph of our disastrous day; we turned our backs at last upon St. George Bosherville.

Nothing, I apprehend, but the consciousness that we were escaping from the scene of our many discomfitures, could have enabled us to sus- tain, as we did, the intense misery of riding in our cart. The jolting and jigging never ceased for a moment, even in the smoothest part of the road. If Mr. Scumble and I forgot to keep tight hold of our re- spective sides of the cart, some preternaturally concentric action was sure to rattle us slowly across our wide seat, and then closely jam us together, bobbing and jerking simultaneously, and rasping each other’s shoulders, as if we had been fastened together like the Siamese twins. As for our worthy coachman, his wooden chair being left unconfined, travelled of its own accord backwards and forwards, over the whole area of the front portion of the cart. But no changes of position, how- ever undignified and extraordinary, affected the imperturbable good humour of that heartiest of French peasants. There he sat before us, bobbing up and down on his locomotive chair, until it made one giddy to look at his back. His blouse, filled by the evening air, was so in- flated all round him, that he looked like a human balloon. He never ceased talking the whole way — - sometimes to me, sometimes to my com- panion, sometimes to the old mare, sometimes to himself. He told us his own history, the history of the Veuve Duval, the history of the cart, the history of the mare; he expatiated on the harvest, on the scenery, on the weather; and he never wanted more encouragement to go on than such small answers as an occasional “ Yes,” or “ No “ supplied. This taciturnity on our parts arose from no ill-feeling whatever; the fact is, the cart so jerked and tossed us about, that our teeth chattered as if with extreme cold, and we entertained the liveliest apprehensions  of inadvertently biting our own tongues off, every time we ventured to speak.

The moon had risen, and was shining calmly on the waters of the Seine, as we arrived at length at the outskirts of Rouen. Here Mr. Scumble stopped the cart, and insisted on walking the short remainder of our way back. My own wish was to drive boldly into the court- yard of the hotel, and exhibit to all the citizens (including the vieux sabreur) the best conveyance that Bosherville could provide. But I respected my friend’s prejudices, and, aching in every joint, walked back with him to the inn.

What a day we had passed ! What a subject we afforded for a new poem on the vanity of human wishes ! Our brightest hopes of the morning had ended in famine, indigestion, fatigue; in failing to make the sketches we wanted to make, and to see the church we had expressly set forth to examine. But for all that, did we return disheartened? — -
 
did we grumble and moralise to each other about our accidents and mis- adventures? No ! I am proud to say, we did better; we laughed over our disasters, as I have tried to laugh over them here. We ordered a famous supper, and a steaming bowl of punch; we warmed our hearts with conviviality until we bore not the slightest particle of malice to anybody in the whole world (not even the
vieux sabreur
himself, the prime cause of all our trials); and finally, we wisely determined to avoid the temptation to make any more excursions at Rouen, by going on to Paris the next day.

The morning comes, and we hold to our last night’s resolution over the bowl of punch. A comfortable little open carriage waits us at the door — - we fling our carpet-bags into it, and drive off to the railway- station. On our road we pass the coffee-house of the vieux sabreur. We observe him in his garden, watering the cedar of Lebanon just as usual. He hears us approach, sees our luggage, and drops his watering- pot in astonishment at our sudden departure. We wave our hands to him in token of a last derisive farewell. He is too bewildered to speak at that moment. It is only when we have driven by, that we can just hear him shouting to his wife inside the coffee-house: — -

“
Mille bombes !
the Englishmen are leaving us ! They cannot have seen St. George Bosherville ! “

First published anonymously in
Bentley’s Miscellany
XXIX No. 174, June 1851.

 
Since the first establishment of the Royal Academy, no one of
 
the annual exhibitions of that institution has, we think, ever been
 
opened on so important an occasion for the fame of British Art, as
 
this exhibition of the year 1851. Among the vast congregation
 
of foreigners assembling in London, by far the greater number
 
have now to learn for the first time what the English School of
 
Painting really is — have now to discover what our English artists
 
really can do. Under such circumstances as these, it must be felt
 
as a matter of the last importance, that the present exhibition in
 
Trafalgar Square should be the best, or at least one of the best, that
 
has ever been opened to the public. We feel sincere gratification
 
in being able to state, that this year’s display on the walls of the
 
Academy is well worthy of the occasion. There may be some un- fortunate instances of comparative failure, or total incapacity, among
 
the works exhibited; but our greatest painters have vindicated
 
their greatness nobly; and their younger brethren, the rising men
 
of the profession, have, with few exceptions, made a marked ad- vance towards a higher degree of excellence than they have hitherto
 
reached. In a word, this eighty-third annual exhibition of the
 
Royal Academy contains an unusually large number of pictures, of
 
which as a nation we may fairly feel proud; and from which our
 
foreign visitors may well learn to appreciate the excellence, the
 
originality, and the cheering onward progress of English Art.

The number of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture
 
exhibited this year amounts to thirteen hundred and eighty-nine — a formidable array even to look through, much more to criticise.
 
As the best method of performing the complicated task before us,
 
we will begin where the numbers begin in the East Room, taking
 
the figure subjects first, then the landscapes, then the portraits; and
 
concluding with a word or two on the sculpture. It must be
 
perfectly obvious to everybody that, within the limits of such a
 
notice as this, it will be impossible to review as much in detail us
 
we could desire many works of considerable merit. We must be
 
content with merely directing the reader’s attention to several
 
pictures, which will amply repay his most careful consideration.

On entering the East Room, and going round it under the
 
guidance of the Catalogue, the first figure-picture which will attract
 
the spectator is Mr. Hart’s “Benvenuto Cellini,” instructing one of
 
his pupils. The design of this work is exceedingly simple; the
 
colour warm and mellow, perhaps rather too much so. Further on,
 
past some portraits and landscapes, appears Mr. Uwins’s “Ulysses
 
in the Island of Calypso.” The upper part of the picture displays
 
much of the painter’s wonted grace and refinement; the lower part
 
is less felicitous — the attitude of Ulysses striking us, especially, as
 
being somewhat unnatural and constrained. Frankly let us own it,
 
we never feel so ready a sympathy with Mr. Uwins’s genius as
 
when he gives us those brilliant and truthful illustrations of Italian
 
life, which first won him his reputation, and which perhaps preju- dice us a little, in spite of ourselves, against even his best efforts in
 
other branches of art.

 
Passing on, we next observe a crowd of spectators gathered before one picture, looking long and attentively at every part of it; and with good reason; for this picture offers a subject which is universal in its interest, and which is treated by one of the most original and most graphic painters of the age. It is “Caxton’s Printing Office,” represented by Maclise. The great and striking
 
characteristic of this noble work is its perfect verisimilitude — the scene looks as if it must really have occurred exactly as we see it painted. In the middle of the composition, Caxton is exhibiting the first proof sheet taken from the first press ever set up in Eng- land, to Edward the Fourth. The Queen and the young princes stand near, looking on with eager curiosity. Each side of the picture is occupied by the workmen in the printing-office. The illuminator, the wood-engraver, the book-binder, the compositor, the pressman, are all placed before us, each with the materials of
 
his craft scattered about him. The astonishing varieties of ex- pression and character exhibited in the different groups must be seen, and, let us add, studied also, to be properly appreciated. We will merely direct attention here to the expression and attitude of the printer’s boy, who is holding up the proof-sheet before the King; to the vacant, wondering countenance of one of the young princes; to the calmness and elevation, the mental anxiety and physical fatigue beautifully developed in the face of Caxton. In these, and in many other instances which we have not space to particu- larize, there are evidences of such masterly adherence to the truth of Nature, combined with striking dramatic power, as Mr Maclise has never surpassed, and we even think, not often equalled, in any former work. In all its multifarious details, the picture is managed with the most consummate skill; firmness and finish are carried to their climax in the painting of the different objects in the printing- office, and the general tone of the colour recals, we are glad to say, much of the power and brilliancy of the best of the artist’s earlier works.

Very different are the impressions we derive from the next pic- ture we see, Mr. Dyce’s “King Lear and the Fool in the Storm!” Who that remembers this artist’s exquisite “Jacob and Rebecca” of last year — and once seen, could any one forget it? — who would imagine such a failure to be possible as he now exhibits? The Fool is represented to us as sprawling on his stomach, kicking up his heels, and poking his little finger into one corner of his mouth. The King sits swinging his arms about in true theatrical frenzy; his beard is blown out stiff and straight in every hair; and his face is
tattoed
with some of the most astonishing light brown wrinkles we ever beheld, even on canvas. Did we dare imagine such a desecration of Shakspeare, as a pantomime called “Harlequin King Lear,” here we should certainly have a correct representation of the manner in which Clown and Pantaloon might be expected to perform the parts of the Fool and the King.

Mr. Herbert exhibits a single figure of Daniel in his boyhood, from a Scripture composition now in progress. The conception of the character is noble, and it has been nobly worked out. Both in the attitude of the figure and the expression of the features, the same grandeur is preserved, without an approach to anything that is meretricious or exaggerated; without any appearance of trickery in colour, or artifice in arrangement, to detract from the simple, solemn, scriptural beauty of the painter’s idea. We earnestly hope, for the sake of the public taste, now rapidly becoming vitiated by the imbecile profanities exhibited in our shop windows as devo- tional prints, that this picture will be engraved; and engraved at such a price as may place it within the reach of the general pur- chaser.