Then a stillness on his spirit fell, For he knew Valhalla's daughters well, And a sudden-rising breeze "There are songs in Odin's Hall, "Regner! tell thy fair-hair'd bride "Lo! the mighty sun looks forth! There was arming heard on land and wave, And the phantom-forms of the tide-worn cave With the twilight mists were fled.— But at eve, the kingly hand F. H. * When a northern chief fell gloriously in battle, his obsequies were honoured with all possible magnificence. His arms, gold and silver, war-horse, domestic attendants, and whatever else he held most dear, were placed with him on the pile. His dependents and friends frequently made it a point of honour to die with their leader, in order to attend on his shade in the palace of Odin. And lastly, his wife was generally consumed with him on the same pile.-Mallet's Northern Antiquities. BRITISH GALLERIES OF ART.NO. VI. Dulwich College.* THERE are several Teniers' here, and two or three that require particular mention. First, however, as a better opportunity may perhaps not occur, I will state what strikes me as being the distinguishing differences between this extraordinary artist, and his no less extraordinary living rival-Wilkie; for this is not one of those comparisons that are entitled to be ranked as "odious ;"-on the contrary, it can hardly fail to heighten our conception of the merits of both the subjects of it, if (as I think) it is calculated to illustrate those merits, and render them more obvious. It is a mistake to consider either of these artists as comic painters. They are nothing less. I do not recollect a joke in any picture by either of them. They are painters of human lifeat least of a certain class of it; and if the scenes that occur in and distinguish that class are of a smiling character-good: but the artists choose them, not because they bear that character generally-but because they are there. They are painters of truth;-and because such is the truth, they paint it-not because the truth is such. If the truth had been different, their pictures would have been different. Without knowing any thing of the personal character of either, I should judge them both, the one to have been, and the other to be, steady, serious, severe, pains-taking men-almost incapable of enjoying a joke, much less of inventing one. They are painters of facts and of things, not of sentiments, and ideas, and opinions; and as Nature is no joker, so they are none. Not that, if society or circumstances throw a joke in their way, they have any objection to pick it up; but they never think of going out of their way to find one. In fact they are conscientious to a fault; like Mr. Crabbe, the poet. They think that whatever is fit to be done, is fit to be painted; and their choice of subject is confined to a class, and to nothing else. There is, however, this grand difference between Teniers and Wilkie; -that the one is a painter of the real truth, and the other of the ideal: for Wilkie's pictures are as ideal, in the true sense of that term, as the finest of the antiques are ;-that is to say, they are as much founded in the absolute truth of Nature, yet as little to be seen there in point of fact. Every one of Teniers' scenes has happened; but not one of Wilkie's ever did or could happen; though there is no reason to be given why they should not. In short, the scenes of the one are absolutely true to nature, and consistent with it in all their parts; but the other's are nature itself. Perhaps it may still farther illustrate the relative merits of these two extraordinary artists, if I say that, if Wilkie has more individual expression than Teniers, the latter has much more character;-that if the scenes of the former are more entertaining and exciting, those of the latter are more satisfying;—that if Wilkie's affect us more like a capital performance on the stage, Teniers' are felt and remembered more as actual scenes that have passed before us in real life;-that, in fact, Wilkie's are admirable as pictures, but that Teniers' are the things themselves. A foreigner who was acquainted with the works of Teniers * Continued from page 557, vol. v. at the time the Dutch boors were such as he represents them, and who went to visit the country with the remembrance of these works in his mind, must have felt at first as if he had got among a world created by Teniers' pencil, and animated by some strange magic. But this could never happen with respect to Wilkie's pictures. We might chance to fall in with one of Wilkie's figures, for they must all either be or have been in existence; but we may look in vain for one of his pictures, any where but on his canvass-whereas Teniers' pictures might be seen every hour in the day, in every town and village in HolInd. And the reason of this difference is, simply, that the one is laborious and scrupulous to a degree in selecting, and consorting, and combining; while the other did not select at all. This, too, may in some measure account for the extraordinary facility of hand of the one, as compared with that of the other, and also the extraordinary number of his pictures that we meet with; for it might almost be said that, as Wilkie has painted nothing but what he has seen, so Teniers saw nothing but what he painted. As I have no scruple in placing these two extraordinary artists on a general level in point of acquired skill as well as of natural power, I will add, that what Wilkie wants of the freedom and facility of touch of his dead rival, and the exquisite truth, purity, and transparency of colouring, he at least compensates for in his conception and execution of individual expression. The quantity of expression that he is capable of throwing into a face, without in the slightest degree overstepping the "modesty of nature," has never yet been equalled by any artist, living or dead, whose works are at present extant. Apologizing, to those who think it necessary, for this short digression from our immediate subject, I now return to the second room of the Dulwich Gallery, and proceed to notice the remarkable pictures, nearly in the order in which they occur;-first pointing out the Chaff-cutter (156) as perhaps the finest (though not the most striking or ambitious) picture of Teniers in this collection. But all the others may be regarded as excellent examples, in their different ways, of his characteristic qualities, both of handling and of expression.-Nos. 106 and 118 strike me as being two of the very best pictures of Vandyke that I have ever seen, in the ideal style. The delineation of Nature-refined, but yet real nature—was his forte; but still he has painted a few ideal works that are exceedingly fine-and these must be ranked among the number. 118-a Madonna and Child, is the best. It has all the glow of Rubens without his coarseness; or rather all the refinement of Guido without his coldness. The upturned gaze of the mother is intense. She is feeding her mind from above with high and holy thoughts. And the attitude and character of the child express the very nobility of Nature. It seems to have fed from the same fount with its divine mother, but through her medium-to have sucked in its mental as well as bodily life from her breast. There is a repetition of this picture at the Cleveland Gallery; but I think the one before us is the finer of the two. Here are also two other admirable works by the same master;-portraits of the Earl of Pembroke (163), and the Archduke Albert (196); both displaying that look of conventional nobility that no one could give like Vandyke. Immediately over the latter of these hangs a capital picture by Velasquez; full of truth and spirit (195). It represents the little Prince of Asturias, when a child of six or seven years of age, on a great trampling war-horse-sitting as upright as a dart, and as bold as if he felt the future general within him. His little legs scarcely reach half way down the horse's side, and his hands can hardly grasp the reins; and yet you feel that he has a perfect command over the animal he is riding. This is a very singular picture, and is well worth particular attention.-Returning for a moment to the second room, I would point out two pictures that are among the very finest in this collection. One of them (149) is by Rubens, and is (strangely enough) called "Saint Barbara fleeing from her Persecutors." It is very small, and a mere sketch; and it represents a female figure ascending some steps, followed by a man. But what I would particularly point out is the effect of motion which is given to the two figures or which they are, in fact, so contrived as to give to each other. No one could manage this like Rubens, and he has nowhere managed it more finely than in this little sketch-struck off, no doubt, in a few happy moments, and as a mere study or amusement. You may look at this picture till you fairly see the figures move, and expect that they will presently disappear. The other (144) is one of Rembrandt's very finest efforts, and is perhaps the most purely poetical picture he ever produced. The effect that light seemed to produce, not only on the mind but the hand of this painter, is truly astonishing. In all other things he was a common man; but when an extraordinary or even a common effect of light was his subject, he became at once a poet. The picture before us is called Jacob's Dream; and it may be safely stated that the subject, poetical and imaginative as it is, was never before so poetically or imaginatively treated. The picture is quite small, and an upright one; and nearly all over it, except the centre, is spread a thick black gloom-deep as the darkness of night, and yet so transparent that you see, or seem to see, down into it, as if you were looking into deep water. In one corner of this darkness lies Jacob, on the ground, sleeping-his arms stretched above his head, and one knee bent up, in the most inartificial attitude that can be conceived, and altogether representing a rude shepherd-boy. Round about him, and along the front of the foreground, are scratched in a few straggling shrubs, with the wrong end of the pencil: these are merely scratched out of the brown ground while it was wet-not painted in afterwards. In fact the picture consists but of two colours-or rather it has no colours at all, but consists merely of light and shade. All this dark part of the picture is exceedingly fine. There is an admirable keeping and consistency about it, looking at it only with a view to itself, as the immediate scene in which the awful dream takes place. But, as a contrast to heighten the impression we receive from the representation of the dream itself, its effect is prodigious. This representation occupies the centre part of the picture; and as a delineation of super-natural appearances and things, I conceive it to be finer than any thing within the same space in existence. In the upper part of the sky an intense light is bursting forth, and it descends slantwise and widening as it descends, till it reaches the sleeping youth-gradually decreasing in splendour as it recedes from its apparent source; and at different intervals of this road of light, winged figures are seen descending. In the whole circle of art there are not to be pointed out more une quivocal strokes of genius than these figures. They are as purely poetical creations as any thing that ever proceeded even from the pen. They are like nothing that was ever seen or described. All the angels that I have ever before seen depicted or described are but winged mortals; but these angels are no more like mortals than they are like any thing else. They are altogether of the air, airy; and if they must be likened to any thing, it is to birds; though we probably gain this association simply on account of their having wings like birds-for they resemble them in nothing else: they are not flying, but gliding down perpendicularly, as if borne up on the surface of the collected rays of light; and their outspread wings seem used only to keep them in this erect position as they descend. I conceive this picture to be worthy the deepest study and attention, and that the more it is studied the more its extraordinary merit will be discovered and admitted. The first picture calling for particular attention in the centre or third room is 176, A Girl at a Window, by the same artist. This is as purely natural and forcible a head as Rembrandt ever painted. It must have been a study from nature; for there is an absolute truth about it that no memory or invention could have given. It is taken from the lowest class of life; and there is a very particular character about it, which is sometimes observable in that class at an early age; namely, that, judging from the face merely, you can scarcely determine whether it belongs to a male or female. The character of expression depicted in the human face, is so entirely owing to the habits of thought and feeling arising from the circumstances in which we are placed, that, in the very lowest classes of life, and at an early age, before the sexual qualities become developed, you frequently see faces that exhibit no mark of sex whatever; and others (as in the instance before us) in which females, from associating indiscriminately with males, and partaking in the same sports and pursuits, acquire the same expression of countenance. The picture before us might just as well have been called " Boy at a Window," as Girl. Near to the above are two very pleasing and characteristic specimens of Watteau—the gay, the graceful, the genteel, the gallant (not `the gallant) Watteau-(185 and 191), a Bûl champetre, and a Féte champetre. For a natural style of depicting all that is unnatural in manners and appearance, commend me to Watteau. He not only places us in the midst of the affected airs and courtly graces of the times of Louis XIV., but he makes us admire them. To see one of his out-of-door scenes, and not to wish ourselves in the midst of it, is impossible,— though it consist of ladies in hooped petticoats and ostrich-plumed heads, seated on the green grass, beneath green trees, talking to gentlemen with rosettes in their shoes, and flowing perriwigs on their heads -or couples of these respectively, " moving a measure" to the minuet in Ariadne, as if they had the fear of a French dancing-master before their eyes, or had read Mr. Wordsworth's poems, and were therefore cautious not to tread upon the daisies-so mincingly do they move! It is impossible to conceive of any thing less in keeping than the airs and graces of a court thus shewing themselves off in the very presence of that Nature which belies them all, and one breath of which, perfumed with sweet flowers, ought to be able to blow them all away in a moment,― substituting in their place that free, fresh, and unpremeditated gaiety |