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made him the brightest poet of his age, had not the follies and vices of Athens compelled him to become its severest comic satirist. I learned from my communicative statue, that this was Aristophanes, watching both Socrates and the sophists, that he might burlesque them in his comedy of the Clouds; and that his two companions were Eupolis and Cratinus, the comic poets; who, in their calumnious wantonness, scrupled not to affirm that Phidias received female visitors in his house, under pretext of exhibiting his sculptures, but with the real intention of affording a cover for intrigues, and acting as a pander to Pericles. Pyrilampes was also pointed out to me; who, because he had a collection of curious birds, particularly peacocks, was reported, upon the same scandalous authority, to purchase them, merely that they might be bestowed as presents upon those women who granted their favours to Pericles.

And who is that handsome youth, said I, whose splendid armour, sparkling with steel and gold, is fashioned with such exquisite taste, and so happily adapted to display the symmetry of his fine figure? "That is Alcibiades," was the reply; "he has visited the Palæstra this morning, merely as an excuse for appearing here in all the graces of his military costume; but the perfumes with which he is scented, and the affected lisp, which affords him an excuse for disclosing his white teeth, show that he has been contemplating other conquests than those which are to be achieved by arms. And yet in war no one more dauntless and hardy, as he fully proved at the battle of Delium, where he saved the life of Socrates, as Socrates had saved his at the fight of Potidæa.

At some distance from this Athenian Exquisite, stood Critias, and a party of rival sculptors and statuaries, endeavouring not to see the most obvious merits in the works before them, and shrugging up their shoulders at the infatuation of Pericles, in patronising an artist guilty of such gross blunders as they had already detected. In

fact, they had discovered that the wheel of Minerva's car wanted a linch-pin, while there were no marks for nails in one of the horse's shoes!

Three figures now approached me, whom I found to be Agatharchus, Parrhasius, and Zeuxis, the painters, the former of whom was vaunting the celerity and ease with which he finished his pieces. "If I boast," replied Zeuxis, "it shall be of the slowness with which I finish mine." Discovering, from their conversation, that they were all employed in decorating the walls of the Parthenon, I could not help reflecting upon the nobler destiny of the sculptor, whose immortal productions can be sent down unimpaired to the lowest posterity; while the most exquisite painters cannot hope to leave any evidence of their skill after the lapse of a very few centuries, and must content themselves, like the artists before me, with the shadowy perpetuation of a name.

Seated upon a stool, in front of the principal group, I observed two venerable-looking men, each resting his chin upon a staff, while his hands were concealed by an ample beard. These were Sophocles and Euripides, the tragic writers, who agreed in pronouncing the composi tion before them defective, because it did not contain the Fates or the Furies, whose presence they had been accustomed to consider indispensable in their own productions. "Look attentively," said my marble communicant," at that broad-shouldered figure, in the philosopher's robes, conversing with two young men. It is Plato; and his companions are Xenophon and Thucydides, the historians, names which require no illustration, as they are assuredly destined to immortality."

Apart from the rest of the visitants, I distinguished a man of peculiarly sly expression, surveying the whole scene from the corners of his eyes, yet apparently wishing to assume an appearance of unconcern and indifference. This I found to be Damon, the deepest politician of Athens, the bosom-friend and counsellor of Pericles;

who, in order to avoid the jealousy of the turbulent democracy, concealed his interference in state affairs, under the cloak of a professor of music. In this capacity, he had procured the Odeum to be built, where prizes were annually distributed to the best musical performers. He was conversing with Ictinus and Callicrates, the builders of the Parthenon, the latter of whom had just declared that it had already cost a thousand talents, and that he hoped the gold mines of Lauzium would hold out until it was completed,-when a dislocation occurred in my ideas, which, without dissipating my reverie altogether, transferred it to modern times, and to the mutilated Theseus of the British Museum. As I gazed with intense admiration upon its back—that back, the sight of which Canova declared to be well worth a journey from Rome-I could not help exclaiming, “ With what delight must the ancients, with their exquisite relish for sculpture, have pored upon this chef-d'œuvre of Phidias!"

"Alas!" replied the figure," you forget that, although now the noblest fragment left, I then occupied, as a deified hero, but a very subordinate station among the deities of his majestic group. My recumbent posture was destined to fill up the angle of one pediment, as the Ilissus did of the other; and there was nothing but the celebrated horse's head between my figure and the extremity of the building. This back, over which sculptors and anatomists now hang enraptured, might as well have been an unchiselled block; it was turned to the wall of the building, never meant to be seen; and, in fact, no human eyes rested upon it for more than twenty-two centuries, when violence tore it from its position, and exhibited it to the applauses of the world. It was thus elaborately wrought, because it would have been held sacrilege to dedicate any thing imperfect to the gods; and because, in the exuberant opulence of his art, Phidias could afford to be extravagant, and throw away a masterpiece upon a blind wall. Judge, hence, of the superior majesty, of the more celes

tial grace and sublimity, by which the central figures were made glorious to the eyes; but judge not, even from them, of the pinnacle to which Phidias could exalt his art. All these were fashioned for exposure to the injuries of the weather, and, from the great height at which they were to be viewed, were meant to excite admiration by the grandeur of general effect, rather than the exquisiteness of minute detail. Imagine the awful beauty of the statues within the temple, where both were to be combined! Conceive the stupendous symmetry of the Minerva, thirty-nine feet high-the still more majestic proportions of the Olympian Jupiter, executed for the Eleans!"

How long this enumeration might have continued, it is impossible to say; but it was rudely broken, and the whole fabric of my reverie demolished, by the voice of the Museum porter," Sir, you're the only gemman left, and we always locks the doors at six." Once more I surveyed the marble upon which the living eyes of all the illustrious persons I have mentioned had been formerly fixed, as well as those of Cicero, Pliny, Pausanias, and Plutarch, who have recorded their visits to the Parthenon; and then, with slow steps, I quitted the building. reaching the street, I still doubted whether I was in the Acropolis, the Agora, or before the theatre of Bacchus, when a lamplighter, scampering by me, skipped up his ladder, and, by the light of his link, I discovered, printed on a black board, "GREAT RUSSELL-STREET, BLOOMSBURY!"

A LITTLE CONSEQUENCE;

OR,

A small Difference in Right to Quarters.

On

A CERTAIN little gentleman attached to the army of Lord Wellington, while on the march in Portugal, once took up his quarters in the best house he could find, and having seen his horses well put up in the rear of it,

retired to the best apartment to indulge himself in a cup of coffee; which luxury, with many others, he was, from the nature of his situation, enabled to carry with him, while others, his superiors, were obliged to put up with what they could procure en passant. Scarcely had his rapaz drawn off his boots and re-covered his feet with slippers, when it was announced to him, that an officer was below examining the stables, and had ordered his horses to be put up in them-that the officer's baggage was already unloading at the door of the house—and that the officer himself had selected the quarters in preference to any other in the village.

The slippered possessor, in all the consequence of his grade, immediately determined that no man should turn him out of his quarters, unless he could establish fully a claim to a rank superior to his own-and that too pretty clearly in which resolution he began to stride across the chamber with becoming dignity. At this moment, the officer in question entered the apartment, and proceeded to inspect its conveniences without observing the occupier, who, with three formidable strides, approached the intruder, and demanded what he wanted? which question was answered by the officer's saying, that he wished to have the quarters in which he then stood.

"You shall not have them, Sir," replied the little gentleman. (He was about four feet four inches in height; but a very respectable and dapper member of the army.) "You shall not have them, Sir, I am determined on that."

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Pray, Sir," demanded the stranger with astonishment, may I be permitted to inquire what is your rank in the army ?"

"My rank, Sir," replied the little disputant, considerably irritated; " my rank, Sir!"-At this moment he put his two hands into his side-pockets in a style that perfectly astonished the listener." I am, Sir-since you must know my rank-I am, Sir, MR. LEWIS, APOTHECARY TO THE FORCES!"

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