Horace Vernet

“ Horace Vernet, whose beautiful daughter Delaroche married, is the king of French battle-painters—an amazingly rapid and dexterous draughtsman, who has Napoleon and all the campaigns by heart, and has painted the Grenadier Français under all sorts of attitudes. His pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. ”

“ Horace Vernet has been blessed with but one child, a daughter, who married Paul Delaroche, a distinguished artist. This only child died in 1846.
In the later revolutions which have passed over France, Vernet has not participated. He has lived only in his profession and among his personal friends. He resided for years at Versailles, where he had a splendid mansion, but he removed to Paris a few years since. He is one of the greatest of modern artists, and is revered as an honor to the nation. ”

“ Horace Vernet is equally inadmissible, since [Pg 120] that martial personage does not comprehend a desert, except with a foreground of blood, smoke, baggy red pantaloons, and mon General on a white horse giving the Legion of Honor to mon enfant on his last legs. But I must wait for some artist with the gayety of Mr. Watteau, the refinement of Mr. Diaz, and the soldierly force of Mr. Vernet, who can perceive the poetry of American caravan-life, and can get the heroine of our picnic at Fort Bridger to give him a sitting. Art is unwise not to perceive the materials it neglects in such scenes. ”

“ With whatever faults he may possess, I doubt if there be any other man that can do so much as Horace Vernet; many may be found who may excel him in the separate objects which he must introduce in a general historical subject, as a landscape, an architectural building, a ship, a horse, etc., might be better executed by such artists as have exclusively studied any one of those subjects, but I do not think there is any painter now living who could [Pg 346] produce the ensemble so well, and manage to give the effect to the composition in the same masterly style as Horace Vernet. ”

“ Horace Vernet was born at the Louvre on the 30th June, 1789, the year of the death of his grandfather, who, as painter to the king, had occupied rooms at the Louvre, where his father also resided; so that Horace not only inherited his art from a race of artist-ancestors, but was born amid the chef d' œuvres of the entire race of painters. Of course, his whole childhood and youth were surrounded with objects of Art; and it was scarcely possible for him not to be impressed in the most lively manner by the unbroken artist-life in which he was necessarily brought up. ”

“ The grandfather of the subject of this sketch—Claude-Joseph Vernet—studied in Rome, and became a distinguished marine painter under the reign of Louis XV., who commissioned him to paint a series of pictures. Carle Vernet, the father of Horace Vernet, was also an artist. When quite young, he fell violently in love with the daughter of an opulent furnisher. The marriage was impossible, and his friends, to wean him from his love, sent him to Italy, where he studied the art of painting, and took a high prize—but he could not forget the woman he had loved. ”

“ Now, as it is the brain—so far, at least, as our present knowledge permits us to dogmatise—which creates thought, thought which controls action and action which produces deeds, we can boldly say that to study character, to examine the execution of works which are the productions of temperament, is to study the brain. We have described Horace Vernet's physical appearance: small, thin, slight, [Pg 484] pleasant to look at, good to listen to, with his unusual hair, his thick eyebrows, his blue eyes, his long nose, his smiling mouth beneath its long moustache, and his beard cut to a point. ”

“ Il fallait un homme de génie pour sortir d'un pareil bourbier et malheureusement je n'ai que du talent." By the "bourbier" he meant his great-grandfather, his two grandfathers, and his father, all of whom were painters and draughtsmen.
Posterity will probably decide whether Horace Vernet was a genius or merely a painter of great talent, but it will scarcely convey an approximate idea of the charm of the man himself. There was only one other of his contemporaries who exercised the same spell on his companions—Alexandre Dumas père. ”

“ Perhaps no painter of landscapes or sea-pieces has ever made the human figure so completely a part of the scene depicted or so important a factor in his design. “Others may know better,” he said, with just pride, “how to paint the sky, the earth, the ocean; no one knows better than I how to paint a picture.” For twenty years Vernet lived on in Rome, producing views of seaports, storms, calms, moon- lights, &c, when he was recalled (1753) to Paris, and executed, by royal command, the remarkable series of the seaports of France (Louvre) by which he is best known. ”

“ It has been before stated that Vernet's father intended him for an historical painter, but nature formed his genius to imitate her sweetest, as well as most terrible aspect. When he was on his way to Marseilles, he met with so many charming prospects, that he induced his companion to halt so often while he sketched them, that it took them a much longer time to reach that port than it would otherwise have done. ”

“ Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves were faintly discolored by his blood. ”

“ But the Revolution drew on, and Carle Vernet's career for awhile seemed to end in the anguish of his sister's death on the scaffold. When he again began to produce, it was as the man of another era: his drawings of the Italian campaign brought him fresh laurels ”

“ It was not what Vernon would do that fired the imagination of his fellows, but what they dimly conceived that he already was. I remember my first sight of him about that time, a tall young man in the corner of a club smoking-room, with a head like Apollo's and eyes which received much but gave nothing. I guessed at once that he had foreign blood in him, not from any oddness of colouring or feature but from his silken reserve. We of the North are angular in our silences; we have not learned the art of gracious reticence. ”

“ It would require a good-sized volume to relate the causes which had changed the once happy Vernon into the most woful mourner that ever clung to the outer trappings of grief, as slight though cherished symbols of the wretchedness within. Henry was the only child of Sir Peter Vernon, and as much spoiled by his father’s idolatry as the old baronet’s violent and tyrannical temper would permit. A young orphan was educated in his father’s house, who in the same way was treated with generosity and kindness, and yet who lived in deep awe of Sir Peter’s authority, who was a widower ”

“ Vernon."
"Sunset is never attractive to me," said he, "nor Autumn. Give me sunrise, and Spring."
"Ah, yes," said Lady St. Craye, "you only like beginnings. Even Summer—"
"Even Summer, as you say," he answered equably. "The sketch is always so much better than the picture."
"I believe that is your philosophy of life," said Temple.
"This man," Vernon explained, "spends his days in doing ripping etchings and black and white stuff and looking for my philosophy of life." ”

“ Lionel rose, Lucy rose; Lord Garle and Decima came forward, and Sibylla sprang towards him with a cry. Lady Verner was the only one who retained entire calmness.
"Papa! it cannot be you! When did you come?"
Dr. West kissed her, and turned to Lady Verner with some courtly words. Dr. West was an adept at such. Not the courtly words that spring genuinely from a kindly and refined nature; but those that are put on to hide a false one. All people, true-hearted ones, too, cannot distinguish between them; the false and the real. Next, the doctor grasped the hand of Lionel. ”

“ Verner?" responded Sir Henry doubtingly.
"Not Mr. Verner. I'm only Jan. You must have forgotten me long ago, Sir Henry."
Sir Henry Tempest held out his hand, "I have not forgotten what you were as a boy; but I should not have known you as a man. And yet—it is the same face."
"Of course it is," said Jan, "Ugly faces, such as mine, don't alter. I will walk with you to my mother's: it is close by. Have you any luggage?"
"Only a portmanteau. My servant is looking after it. Here he is."
A very dark man came up—an Indian—nearly as old as his master. Jan recognised him. ”

“ Spoiled her rest! Ay, for many a day and night to come. Lionel disinherited! Verner's Pride gone from them for ever! A cry went forth from Lady Verner's heart. It had been the moment of hope which she had looked forward to for years; and, now that it was come, what had it brought?
"My own troubles make me selfish," said Lionel, turning back when he was half out at the door. "I forgot to tell you that Jan and Decima inherit five hundred pounds each."
"Five hundred pounds!" slightingly returned Lady Verner. "It is but of at piece with the rest." ”

“ Later impressions, few but firm, were so to enhance one's tenderness for Vernon's own image, the most interesting surely in all the troop of our young kinsmen early baffled and gathered, that he glances at me out of the Paris period, fresh-coloured, just blond-bearded, always smiling and catching his breath a little as from a mixture of eagerness and shyness, with such an appeal to the right idealisation, or to belated justice, as makes of mere evocation a sort of exercise of loyalty. ”

“ And I say, Vernon, you've no idea what a delightful evening I spent after I'd tuck'd you in for the night. I never in my life met so entertaining a man before—a mere glimpse of his good-natured face is sufficient to drive away a very legion of blue-devils, although, by the by, those are fiends that never haunt me ”

“ My brother, the doctor, makes a sight of money, and I can get what I want from him," was the candid confession.
Lionel smiled. "These rich brothers in reserve are a terrible drag upon self-exertion. Here we are!" he added, as they turned in at the gates. "This is Verner's Pride."
"What a fine place!" exclaimed Captain Cannonby, bringing his steps to a halt as he gazed at it.
"Yes, it is. Not a pleasant prospect, was it, to contemplate the being turned out of it by a dead man."
"A dead—You do not mean to say that Frederick Massingbird—if in life—would be the owner of Verner's Pride?" ”

“ Vernon; but though wholly without that nameless distinction which sometimes characterizes those conscious of pure race and habituated to the atmosphere of courts, he had at least Nature's stamp of aristocracy in a form eminently noble, and features of manly, but surpassing beauty, which were not rendered less engaging by an expression of modest timidity. He seemed to be listening with thoughtful respect to his companion, a young female by his side, who was speaking to him with an earnestness visible in her gestures and her animated countenance. ”

“ West. "Could we persuade him that the codicil has turned up?—or something of that? It would be very desirable for Sibylla."
"If I go back to Verner's Pride at all, sir, I go back by right; neither by purchase nor by stratagem," was the reply of Lionel. "Rely upon it, things set about in an underhand manner never prosper."
"I might get John Massingbird to give it up to you," continued the doctor, nodding his head thoughtfully, as if he had some scheme afloat in it. "I might get him to resign it to you, rents and residence and all, and betake himself off. You would give me a per centage?" ”

“ Tynn shook his head.
"It's to be feared it was not, sir. There was a dreadful quarrel heard, it seems, near to the pond, just before it happened. My master is inquiring into it now, sir, in his study. Mr. Bitterworth and some more are there."
Giving his hat to the butler, Lionel Verner opened the study door, and entered. It was at that precise moment when John Massingbird had gone out for Mrs. Roy; so that, as may be said, there was a lull in the proceedings.
Mr. Verner looked glad when Lionel appeared. The ageing man, enfeebled with sickness, had grown to lean on the strong young intellect. ”

“ It was mainly through his influence that Vernet was invited to Paris in 1752, and commissioned to paint the sea-ports of France. No one could have been found better fitted for the ungrateful task, which, though offering so few resources, required so much knowledge. ”

“ There it is! The inference would be that he was coming to Verner's Pride; being on its direct way and nearly close upon it. But, the only tall men (as the boy describes) at Verner's Pride, are you three and Bennet. Bennet was at home, therefore he is exempt; and you were scattered in different directions—Lionel at Mr. Bitterworth's, John at the Royal Oak—I wonder you like to make yourself familiar with those tap-rooms, John!—and Frederick coming in from Poynton's to his dinner. ”

“ Roy!"
Decima came up, asking what private matter they were discussing, and Lionel and Lucy went over the ground again, acquainting her with what had been seen. They stood together in a group, conversing in an undertone. By and by, Mrs. Verner passed, moving from one part of the room to another, on the arm of Sir Rufus Hautley.
"Quite a family conclave," she exclaimed, with a laugh. "Decima, however much you may wish for attention, it is scarcely fair to monopolise that of Mr. Verner in his own house. If he forgets that he has guests present, you should not help him in the forgetfulness." ”