The Crown of Wild Olive
buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.
'I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I
must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with
the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six. Our old Cardinal is dead,
and the new one not appointed yet--but the masquing goes on the same.'
(Letter to Murray, 355th in Moore, dated Ravenna, Feb. 7, 1828.) 'A
dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife, except
your neighbour's.'
[185] See quoted _infra_ the mock, by Byron, of himself and all other
modern poets, _Juan_, canto iii. stanza 86, and compare canto xiv.
stanza 8. In reference of future quotations the first numeral will stand
always for canto; the second for stanza; the third, if necessary, for
line.
[186] _Island_, ii. 16, where see context.
[187] _Juan_, viii. 5; but, by your Lordship's quotation, Wordsworth
says 'instrument'--not 'daughter.' Your Lordship had better have said
'Infant' and taken the Woolwich authorities to witness: only Infant
would not have rymed.
[188] _Juan_, viii. 3; compare 14 and 63, with all its lovely context
61--68: then 82, and afterwards slowly and with thorough attention, the
Devil's speech, beginning, 'Yes, Sir, you forget' in scene 2 of _The
Deformed Transformed_: then Sardanapalus's, act i. scene 2, beginning
'he is gone, and on his finger bears my signet,' and finally, the
_Vision of Judgment_, stanzas 3 to 5.
[189] _Island_, iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the 'slings its high
flakes, shivered into sleet' of stanza 7.
[190] A modern editor--of whom I will not use the expressions which
occur to me--finding the 'we' a redundant syllable in the iambic line,
prints 'we're.' It is a little thing--but I do not recollect, in the
forty years of my literary experience, any piece of editor's retouch
quite so base. But I don't read the new editions much; that must be
allowed for.
[191] _Island_, ii. 5. I was going to say, 'Look to the context.' but am
fain to give it here; for the stanza, learned by heart, ought to be our
school-introduction to the literature of the world.
'Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye,
But yields young history all to harmony;
A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,
Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme
For sages' labours or the student's dream;
Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil--
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil.
Such was this rude rhyme--rhyme is of the rude,
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,
Who came and conquer'd; such, wherever rise
Lands which no foes destroy or civilise,
Exist; and what can our accomplish'd art
Of verse do more than reach the a waken'd heart?'
[192] _Shepherd's Calendar._ 'Coronation,' loyal-pastoral for Carnation;
'sops in wine,' jolly-pastoral for double pink; 'paunce,' thoughtless
pastoral for pansy; 'chevisaunce' I don't know, (not in Gerarde);
'flowre-delice'--pronounce dellice--half made up of 'delicate' and
'delicious.'
[193] Herrick, _Dirge for Jephthah's Daughter_.
[194] _Passionate Pilgrim._
[195] In this point, compare the _Curse of Minerva_ with the _Tears of
the Muses_.
[196] 'He,'--Lucifer; (_Vision of Judgment_, 24). It is precisely
because Byron was _not_ his servant, that he could see the gloom. To the
Devil's true servants, their Master's presence brings both cheerfulness
and prosperity;--with a delightful sense of their own wisdom and virtue;
and of the 'progress' of things in general:--in smooth sea and fair
weather,--and with no need either of helm touch, or oar toil: as when
once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom.
[197] _Island_, ii. 4; perfectly orthodox theology, you observe; no
denial of the fall,--nor substitution of Bacterian birth for it. Nay,
nearly Evangelical theology, in contempt for the human heart; but with
deeper than Evangelical humility, acknowledging also what is sordid in
its civilisation.
THE
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
IN
THREE LETTERS TO BEGINNERS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR
PREFACE.
It may perhaps be thought, that in prefacing a Manual of Drawing, I
ought to expatiate on the reasons why drawing should be learned; but
those reasons appear to me so many and so weighty, that I cannot quickly
state or enforce them. With the reader's permission, as this volume is
too large already, I will waive all discussion respecting the importance
of the subject, and touch only on those points which may appear
questionable in the method of its treatment.
In the first place, the book is not calculated for the use of children
under the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think it advisable to
engage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it has
talent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper it
can get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due
praise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in its
efforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost
as soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely daubs the
paper with shapeless stains, the colour-box may be taken away till it
knows better: but as soon as it begins painting red coats on soldiers,
striped flags to ships, etc., it should have colours at command; and,
without restraining its choice of subject in that imaginative and
historical art, of a military tendency, which children delight in,
(generally quite as valuable, by the way, as any historical art
delighted in by their elders,) it should be gently led by the parents to
try to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things it can see
and likes,--birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit. In later
years, the indulgence of using the colour should only be granted as a
reward, after it has shown care and progress in its drawings with
pencil. A limited number of good and amusing prints should always be
within a boy's reach: in these days of cheap illustration he can hardly
possess a volume of nursery tales without good woodcuts in it, and
should be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind; but should
be firmly restricted to a _few_ prints and to a few books. If a child
has many toys, it will get tired of them and break them; if a boy has
many prints he will merely dawdle and scrawl over them; it is by the
limitation of the number of his possessions that his pleasure in them is
perfected, and his attention concentrated. The parents need give
themselves no trouble in instructing him, as far as drawing is
concerned, beyond insisting upon economical and neat habits with his
colours and paper, showing him the best way of holding pencil and rule,
and, so far as they take notice of his work, pointing out where a line
is too short or too long, or too crooked, when compared with the copy;
_accuracy_ being the first and last thing they look for. If the child
shows talent for inventing or grouping figures, the parents should
neither check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or show
pleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure in seeing it
well, or cheerful; but they must not praise it for being clever, any
more than they would praise it for being stout. They should praise it
only for what costs it self-denial, namely attention and hard work;
otherwise they will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly.
The best books to put into its hands are those illustrated by George
Cruikshank or by Richter. (See Appendix.) At about the age of twelve or
fourteen, it is quite time enough to set youth or girl to serious work;
and then this book will, I think, be useful to them; and I have good
hope it may be so, likewise, to persons of more advanced age wishing to
know something of the first principles of art.
Yet observe, that the method of study recommended is not brought forward
as absolutely the best, but only as the best which I can at present
devise for an isolated student. It is very likely that farther
experience in teaching may enable me to modify it with advantage in
several important respects; but I am sure the main principles of it are
sound, and most of the exercises as useful as they can be rendered
without a master's superintendence. The method differs, however, so
materially from that generally adopted by drawing-masters, that a word
or two of explanation may be needed to justify what might otherwise be
thought wilful eccentricity.
The manuals at present published on the subject of drawing are all
directed, as far as I know, to one or other of two objects. Either they
propose to give the student a power of dexterous sketching with pencil
or water-colour, so as to emulate (at considerable distance) the
slighter work of our second-rate artists; or they propose to give him
such accurate command of mathematical forms as may afterwards enable him
to design rapidly and cheaply for manufactures. When drawing is taught
as an accomplishment, the first is the aim usually proposed; while the
second is the object kept chiefly in view at Marlborough House, and in
the branch Government Schools of Design.
Of the fitness of the modes of study adopted in those schools, to the
end specially intended, judgment is hardly yet possible; only, it seems
to me, that we are all too much in the habit of confusing art as
_applied_ to manufacture, with manufacture itself. For instance, the
skill by which an inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup,
is skill of true art; but the skill by which that cup is copied and
afterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manufacture: and the
faculties which enable one workman to design and elaborate his original
piece, are not to be developed by the same system of instruction as
those which enable another to produce a maximum number of approximate
copies of it in a given time. Farther: it is surely inexpedient that any
reference to purposes of manufacture should interfere with the education
of the artist himself. Try first to manufacture a Raphael; then let
Raphael direct your manufacture. He will design you a plate, or cup, or
a house, or a palace, whenever you want it, and design them in the most
convenient and rational way; but do not let your anxiety to reach the
platter and the cup interfere with your education of the Raphael. Obtain
first the best work you can, and the ablest hands, irrespective of any
consideration of economy or facility of production. Then leave your
trained artist to determine how far art can be popularised, or
manufacture ennobled.
Now, I believe that (irrespective of differences in individual temper
and character) the excellence of an artist, as such, depends wholly on
refinement of perception, and that it is this, mainly, which a master or
a school can teach; so that while powers of invention distinguish man
from man, powers of perception distinguish school from school. All great
schools enforce delicacy of drawing and subtlety of sight: and the only
rule which I have, as yet, found to be without exception respecting art,
is that all great art is delicate.
Therefore, the chief aim and bent of the following system is to obtain,
first, a perfectly patient, and, to the utmost of the pupil's power, a