But The French Proved Too
Strong, And Napoleon Was The Cause Of His Disgrace In 1804.
In
that year, by special dispensation from the Pope, he married his
niece, and retired to Palermo, where he died on 12th August
1811.]
Let loose in the Uffizi Gallery Smollett shocked his sensitive
contemporaries by his freedom from those sham ecstasies which
have too often dogged the footsteps of the virtuosi. Like Scott
or Mark Twain at a later date Smollett was perfectly ready to
admire anything he could understand; but he expressly disclaims
pretensions to the nice discernment and delicate sensibility of
the connoisseur. He would never have asked to be left alone with
the Venus de Medicis as a modern art-critic is related to have
asked to be left alone with the Venus of Rokeby. He would have
been at a loss to understand the state of mind of the eminent
actor who thought the situation demanded that he should be
positively bereft of breath at first sight of the Apollo
Belvedere, and panting to regain it, convulsively clutched at the
arm of his companion, with difficulty articulating, "I breathe."
Smollett refused to be hypnotized by the famous Venus discovered
at Hadrian's villa, brought from Tivoli in 1680, and then in the
height of its renown; the form he admired, but condemned the face
and the posture. Personally I disagree with Smollett, though the
balance of cultivated opinion has since come round to his side.
The guilt of Smollett lay in criticizing what was above
criticism, as the contents of the Tribuna were then held to be.
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