St. Paul's I must and did visit. The most striking addition since I was
there is the massive monument to the Duke of Wellington. The great
temple looked rather bare and unsympathetic. Poor Dr. Johnson, sitting
in semi-nude exposure, looked to me as unhappy as our own half-naked
Washington at the national capital. The Judas of Matthew Arnold's poem
would have cast his cloak over those marble shoulders, if he had found
himself in St. Paul's, and have earned another respite. We brought away
little, I fear, except the grand effect of the dome as we looked up at
it. It gives us a greater idea of height than the sky itself, which we
have become used to looking upon.
A second visit to the National Gallery was made in company with A----.
It was the repetition of an attempt at a draught from the Cup of
Tantalus. I was glad of a sight of the Botticellis, of which I had heard
so much, and others of the more recently acquired paintings of the great
masters; of a sweeping glance at the Turners; of a look at the
well-remembered Hogarths and the memorable portraits by Sir Joshua. I
carried away a confused mass of impressions, much as the soldiers that
sack a city go off with all the precious things they can snatch up,
huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr.
Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through
the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing
general effect, out of which emerges from time to time some single
distinct image.
In the same way we passed through the exhibition of paintings at the
Royal Academy. I noticed that A---- paid special attention to the
portraits of young ladies by John Sargent and by Collier, while I was
more particularly struck with the startling portrait of an ancient
personage in a full suit of wrinkles, such as Rembrandt used to bring
out with wonderful effect. Hunting in couples is curious and
instructive; the scent for this or that kind of game is sure to be very
different in the two individuals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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