Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and IncidentsBeckford, William
General
Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents
Beckford, William
Beckford, William, 1760-1844
Having taken my course down one side of the gallery, I turned the angle
and discovered another long perspective, equally stored with prodigies of
bronze and marble; paintings on the walls, on the ceilings, in short,
everywhere. A minute brought me, vast as it was, to the extremity of
this range; then, flying down a third, adorned in the same delightful
manner, I paused under the bust of Jupiter Olympius; and began to reflect
a little more maturely upon the company in which I found myself.
Opposite, appeared the majestic features of Minerva, breathing divinity;
and Cybele, the mother of the gods.
I bowed low to these awful powers, but seeing a black figure just by,
whose attitude seemed to announce the deity of sleep, I made immediately
up to it. You know my fondness for this drowsy personage, and that it is
not the first time I have quitted the most splendid society for him. I
found him, at present, of touchstone, with the countenance of a towardly
brat, sleeping ill through indigestion. The artist had not conceived
such high ideas of the god as live in my bosom, or else he never would
have represented him with so little grace or dignity.
Displeased at finding my favourite subject profaned, I perceived the
lively transports of enthusiasm began in some degree to be dissipated,
and I felt myself calm enough to follow the herd of guides and spectators
from chamber to chamber and cabinet to cabinet, without falling into
errors of rapture and inspiration. We were led slowly and moderately
through the large rooms, containing the portraits of painters, good, bad,
and indifferent, from Raffaelle to Liotard; then into a museum of
bronzes, which would afford both amusement and instruction for years.
To one who can never behold an ancient lamp or tripod without the
associations of those who sacrificed on the one and meditated by the
other, imagine what pleasures such a repository must have communicated.
When I had alarmed, not satisfied, my curiosity by rapidly running over
this multitude of candelabra, urns, and sacred utensils, we entered a
small luminous apartment, surrounded with cases richly decorated, and
filled with the most exquisite models of workmanship in bronze and
various metals, classed in exact order. Here are crowds of diminutive
deities and tutelary lars, to whom the superstition of former days
attributed those midnight murmurs which were believed to presage the
misfortunes of a family. Amongst these now neglected images are
preserved a vast number of talismans, cabalistic amulets, and other
grotesque relics of ancient credulity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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