The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.Carr, John, Sir
History
The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.
Carr, John, Sir
France -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
The sun-browned rugged plebeian, whose mind, by the influence of an
unexampled political change, has been long alienated from all the noble
feelings which religion and humanity inspire, is here seen, with his
arms rudely folded over his breast, softening into pity, before the
struggling and sinking sufferers of a deluged world, or silently
imbibing from the divine resigned countenance of the crucified Saviour,
a hope of unperishable bliss, beyond the grave. Who will condemn a
policy by which ignorance becomes enlightened, profligacy penitent, and
which, as by stealth, imparts to the relenting bosom of ferocity the
subdued, and social dispositions of _true_ fraternity?
To amuse, may be necessary to the present government of France, but
surely to supplant the wild abandoned principles of a barbarous
revolution, with _new_ impressions, created by an unreserved display of
the finest and most persuasive images of resigned suffering, heroic
virtue, or elegant beauty, cannot be deemed unworthy of the ruler of a
great people.
At this place, as well as at all the other national exhibitions, no
money for admission is required or expected. No person is admitted with
a stick, and guards attend to preserve the pictures from injury, and the
exhibition from riot. The gallery of the Louvre is at present,
unfortunately, badly lighted throughout, owing to the light issuing
chiefly on one side, from long windows. This inconvenience, however, is
soon to be remedied; by observing the same manner of lighting, as in the
adjoining apartment.
From the museum, we descended into la Salle des Antiques, which contains
all the treasury of grecian and roman statuary. The first object to
which we hastened, was the statue of Laocoon, for so many ages, and by
so many writers admired and celebrated. This superb specimen of grecian
sculpture, is supposed to be the united production of Polydorus,
Athenodorus, and Agesander, but its great antiquity renders its history
somewhat dubious. In the beginning of the sixteenth century it was
discovered at Rome amongst the ruins of the palace of Titus, and
deposited in the Farnese palace, whence it has been removed to Paris, by
the orders of Bonaparte, after the conquest of Italy. It represents
Laocoon, the priest of Apollo and Neptune, and his two sons writhing in
the folds of two hideous serpents. The reader will remember the
beautiful lines of Virgil upon the subject,
"----------------et primum parva duorum
Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implicat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus.
Post, ipsum auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem
Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus: et jam
Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.
Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos--"
Or, in the english habit which Dryden has given them,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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