Arthur Thomas Malkin

“ Universal homage was paid by his contemporaries to his talents and genius. In the grasp and power of his intellect, and in the extent and completeness of his knowledge, none probably would have ventured to compare him with Bossuet; but in fertility and brilliancy of imagination, in a ready and dexterous use of his materials, and in that quality which his countrymen call esprit, he was supposed to have no superior. Bossuet himself said of him “Il brille d’esprit, il est tout esprit, il en a bien plus que moi.” ”

“ The majesty of grief, expressing itself with Christian meekness, and appealing, as it were from the grave, to the consciences of men, could not be violated without a recoil of angry feeling, ruinous to the effect of any logic, or rhetoric the most persuasive. The affliction of a great prince, his solitude, his rigorous imprisonment, his constancy to some purposes which were not selfish, his dignity of demeanour in the midst of his heavy trials, and his truly Christian fortitude in his final sufferings—these formed a rhetoric which made its way to all hearts. ”

“ Tartuffe, or The Impostor, has occasionally, and even recently, sometimes to the disturbance of the public peace in France, given great offence not only to those who felt the justice, and winced under the severity of the satire; but to others, who suspected that a blow was aimed at religion, under the mask of an attack upon hypocrisy. But its intrinsic merit, the truth of the drawing, and the justness of the colouring, have secured patrons for it among persons of unquestionable sense, virtue, learning, and taste; and it has always triumphed over the violence of opposition. ”

“ But however great may be the merit of this celebrated drama, it cannot boast of entire originality. Machiavelli left behind him three comedies, the fruits of a statesman’s leisure hours. In all three, the author has exhibited the hand of a master; he has painted mankind in the spirit of truth, and unmasked falsehood and hypocrisy in a tone of profound contempt. Two monks, a brother Timothy and a brother Alberico, are represented with too much wit and keenness of sarcasm to have been overlooked by Moliere in his working up of the third specimen. ”

“ The veteran philosopher soon found reason to change his opinion. Davy’s first course of lectures, which was not delivered till the spring of 1802, excited a sensation unequalled before or since. Not only the philosophical but the literary and fashionable world crowded to hear him; and his vivid imagination, fired by enthusiastic love for the science which he professed, gave, to one of the most abstruse of studies, a charm confessed by persons the least likely to feel its influence. ”

“ The mass of Dante’s writings, considering the unfavourable circumstances under which he laboured, is almost as wonderful as the extent of his attainments. The treatise ‘De Monarchia,’ which he composed on the arrival of Henry VII. in Italy, is one of the most ingenious productions that ever appeared, in refutation of the temporal pretensions of the Court of Rome. It was hailed with triumphant joy by the Ghibelines, and loaded with vituperation by the Guelfs. ”

“ The accounts of Michael Angelo’s early life relate so exclusively to his skill and practice as a sculptor, that some wonder may be felt as to the means by which he acquired the technical science and dexterity necessary to the painter. But it was in composition, and as a draughtsman that he excelled, not as a colourist; and the same intimate knowledge of the human figure, and freedom and boldness of hand, which guided his chisel, often, it is said, without a model, will account for the anatomical excellence and energy of his drawings. ”

“ In this respect he offered a remarkable contrast to his rival in fame, Condè, who, celebrated in early life for the headlong valour, even to rashness, of his enterprises, became in old age prudent almost to timidity. Equally calm in success or in defeat, Turenne was always ready to prosecute the one, or to repair the other. And he carried the same temper into private life, where he was distinguished for the dignity with which he avoided quarrels, under circumstances in which lesser men would have found it hard to do so, without incurring the reproach of cowardice. ”

“ These works, omitting several others of inferior value, would have been more than sufficient to place Dante above all his contemporaries; yet, they stand at an immeasurable distance from the ‘Divina Commedia,’ the great poem by which he has recommended his name to the veneration of the remotest posterity. The Divine Comedy is the narrative of a mysterious journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, which he supposes himself to have performed in the year 1300, during the passion week, having Virgil as his guide through the two regions of woe, and Beatrice through that of happiness. ”

“ In his fifteenth year he became a student in the Royal Academy. Here he formed an intimacy with Blake and Stothard, both artists of original talent; but, like their more eminent companion, less favoured by fortune than many not so deserving of patronage and applause.
At the Academy, Flaxman obtained the silver medal, but in the contest for the gold one, he was worsted by Engleheart, a name now entirely forgotten. Flaxman, however, though humbled and mortified, was only stimulated by this defeat to greater exertions and more unwearied application. ”

“ It was not until the spirit of philosophical inquiry was fully awakened, that the church of Rome became sensible how much danger lurked in the new doctrines; and when the struggle began in earnest between the partisans of truth and falsehood, the censures pronounced upon the advocates of the earth’s motion, were in fact aimed through them at all who presumed, even in natural phenomena, to see with other eyes than those of their spiritual advisers. ”

“ What, then, are the qualities by which Poussin has acquired his high reputation? The principal one we conceive to consist in that very simplicity and severity, by which perhaps the eye is at first offended. He appears to feel himself above the necessity of superficial ornament. He is always thoroughly in earnest; his figures perform their business with an emphasis which rivets our attention, we become identified with the subject, and lose all thought of the painter in his performance. This is a result never produced by an inferior artist. ”

“ There appears to be little doubt that the philosopher began to meditate on the ideas which led him to the true knowledge of the constitution of the solar system, at least as early as 1507. Every one, who has heard the name of Copernicus mentioned, is aware that before him the general belief was, that the earth occupies the centre of the universe; that the changes of day and night are produced by the rapid revolution of the heavens, such as our senses erroneously lead us to believe, until more accurate and complicated observation teaches us the contrary ”

“ Lorenzo de Medici has been extolled with immoderate applause as a poet, a patron of learning, and a statesman. His voluminous poetical compositions, embracing subjects of love, rural life, philosophy, religious enthusiasm, and coarse licentiousness, exhibit an uncommon versatility of genius, a rich imagination, and a remarkable purity of language ”

“ The simple and serene beauty of this work is admirably suited for monumental sculpture.
How he profited whilst at Rome by the study of those noble specimens of ancient art, to which modern artists resort as the best school of excellence, is shown in the outline illustrations of Homer, Æschylus, and Dante; works which spread his fame throughout Europe, and at once stamped the character of the English School of Design. ”

“ Perhaps the happiest, and not an inconsiderable, portion of Poussin’s life, was that which intervened between his return to Rome and his death. Experience of the cabals and disquietudes of Paris had no doubt taught him to value the classical serenity of his adopted home. Although in possession of great and undisputed fame, and sufficiently affluent, he continued to labour in his art with unrelaxing diligence, if that may be called labour which constituted his highest gratification. ”

“ At the dawn of the revolution, he felt and spoke as a citizen of the world; but he was the last man alive to have merged patriotism in the vague generalities of universal benevolence. When his own country became implicated in the strife, he no longer felt and spoke as a citizen of the world, but as a British statesman; and endeavoured to persuade his countrymen, not for French interests but for their own, to stand aloof from continental politics, relying, for 109the maintenance of a proud independence and dignified neutrality, on their insular situation and their wooden walls. ”

“ At the end of three years, devoted to the study of the ancients, the injured author avenged the injuries levelled against the Cid by the production of Horace. Although the impetuous poet had not yet subdued his genius to the trammels of just arrangement, unity of action, and the other severe rules of the classic drama, such was the originality of conception, the force of character, and grandeur of sentiment displayed in this performance, that new views of excellence were opened to the astonished audience. ”

“ The French revolution is a topic of such magnitude, that we can only touch upon Mr. Fox’s opinions and conduct with respect to it. After the taking of the Bastille, he describes it as “the greatest, and much the best event that ever happened in the world: all my prepossessions against French connections for this country will be at an end, and indeed most part of my European system of politics will be altered, if this revolution has the consequence that I expect.” But it had not that consequence; and his views were completely changed by the trial and execution of the King and Queen of France. ”

“ This failure was a source of much ill-natured remark to the many whom Davy had offended, or who were jealous of his reputation, and of deep mortification to himself. Indeed he displayed an impatience of censure, and irritability of temper, far from dignified: the spoilt child of fortune, he could not bear the feeling of defeat, still less the triumph of his enemies. This weakness may perhaps be partly ascribed to declining health, which must always more or less overcloud the mind, especially of one whose amusements as well as his employments were of an active and stirring kind. ”

“ For twenty years the name of Kosciusko had not been heard in Poland save as that of an exile; yet it still retained its ancient power over Polish hearts; a power never used but for some good and generous end. ”

“ Its power was not sensibly diminished at any distance at which experiments had been made: might it not then extend to the moon and guide that luminary in her orbit? It was certain that her motion was regulated in the same manner as that of the planets round the sun: if, therefore, the law of the sun’s action could be ascertained, that by which the earth acted would also be found by analogy. Newton, therefore, proceeded to ascertain by calculation from the known elements of the planetary orbits, the law of the sun’s action. ”

“ Moliere’s Man-hater owes his character to the severity of virtue, which can give no quarter to the vices of mankind; to that sincerity which disdains indiscriminate complaisance, and the prostitution of the language of friendship to the flattery of fools and knaves. Wycherley, in his Plain Dealer, has given the French Misantrope an English dress. Manly is a character of humour, speaking and acting from a peculiar bias of temper and inclination; but the coarseness of the plain dealing is not to be tolerated, and what Manly does goes near to counteract the moral effect of what he says. ”

“ To be understood and appreciated as a whole, and in its parts, it requires a store of antiquated knowledge which is now of little use. Even at the period of its publication, when its geography and astronomy were not yet exploded, its philosophy and theology still current, and many of its incidents and personages still fresh in the memory of thousands, it was considered rather as a treasure of moral wisdom, than as a book of amusement. The city of Florence, and several other towns of Italy, soon established professorships for the express purpose of explaining it to the public. ”

“ Müller died at Rome a few years after the birth of Copernicus, and when the latter had reached an age capable of appreciating excellence and nourishing emulation, he found Müller’s works disseminated through every civilized country of Europe, his genius and acquirements the subject of universal admiration, and his premature death still regretted as a public calamity. The feelings to which the contemplation of Müller’s success gave rise, were still more excited by a journey into Italy, which Copernicus undertook about the year 1495. ”

“ Piero pretended to succeed to Cosmo’s authority, as if it had been a part of his patrimony; but the Florentine statesmen, who thought themselves superior to him in age, capacities, and public services, disdained to pay him the same deference they had shown the more eminent abilities of his father. Besides, Cosmo had taken especial care to conciliate the esteem and affection of his countrymen. He had never refused gifts, loans, or credit to any of the citizens, and never raised his manners or his domestic establishment above the simplicity of common life. ”