M. Raczynski's desultory notices touch on architecture, sculpture,
terra-cotta figures, glazed tiles, and many other things besides
painting--that portion of his inquiries to which we have of necessity
confined our remarks. Of the actual condition of this art in the city
of Ulysses, the Academy, instituted in 1780, presents, we fear, no very
hopeful indications, though it has many young students as well as many
old members. "Numerous are the persons," Count Raczynski observes,
"who are enthusiastic in their praise of the Arts in Portugal. But
with the honourable exceptions of the Duke of Palmella and the Count
de Farrobo, not one will expend a sous, not one will take any trouble
for their advancement. It is true, however, that in the actual position
of affairs, it would be no easy matter to know how to set about such
a service to the nation. _The country is in a state of revolution._
These few words explain all; and we have only to accuse modern
constitution-mongers, and the confusion of ideas and the disorderly
spirit that are the consequence of their machinations, here and in
Spain, for more than twenty years."
The worthy diplomatist from Prussia, when he wrote the last quoted
sentence, seems to have had no notion of the force of pestilent
doctrines that were at work on the other side of the Pyrenees, nor how
soon the revolutionary mania was to shake the Transmontane thrones, and
all but annihilate even his own master's.
SOUTHEY.[26]
So good, so estimable, so eminent a man as Southey--one whose moral
character was perhaps as near to perfection as it is given to humanity
to attain, and whose literary works, if not of the very highest order
of genius, fall short only when compared with those few which are of
the very highest--such a man as Southey, it was not likely we should
allow to pass from amongst the living without some tribute bestowed
upon his memory, or some attempt made, to appreciate the value of his
long and illustrious labours. We have been somewhat tardy, it maybe
thought, in fulfilling this duty. But we do not regret the delay. Our
topic is not one of an ephemeral nature, and the delay may perhaps have
instructed us in those points of view in which it is most needful that
our subject should be placed.
[26] _The Life and Correspondence of the late Robert Southey._ Edited
by his Son, the Reverend CHARLES CUTHBERT SOUTHEY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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