No! I
Cannot Describe These Things, I Can Only Feel Them; I Throw Down The Pen
And Call Upon Expressive Silence To Muse Their Praise.
Of the Picture Gallery too what can I say that can possibly give you an
idea of its variety and extent?
Here are the finest works of the Italian,
Flemish, and French schools, and you are as much embarrassed to single out
the favourite object, as the Grand Signor would be, among six or seven
hundred of the most beautiful women in the world, to make his choice. The
only fault I find in this collection is that there were rather too many
Scripture pieces, Crucifixions, Martyrdoms and allegorical pictures, and
too few from historical or mythological subjects. Yet perhaps I am wrong in
classing the Scripture pieces with Martyrdoms, Crucifixions, Grillings of
Saints and Madonnas; there are very many beautiful episodes in the
Scriptures which would furnish admirable subjects for painters. Why then
have they chosen disgusting subjects such as Judith sawing off Holofernes'
head, Siserah's head nailed to the bedpost, John the Baptist's on a
trencher, etc.? But the pictures representing Martyrdoms are too revolting
to the eye and should not be placed in this Museum.
It is reported that the Allies mean to strip this Museum [of sculpture and
painting]. No! it cannot be, they never surely can be guilty of such an act
of Vandalism and contemptible spite. I am aware that there is a great
clamour amongst a certain description of English for restoring these
statues and pictures to the countries from whence they came, and that it is
the fashion to term the translation of them to Paris a revolutionary
robbery; but let us bring these gentlemen to a calm reasoning on the
subject.
The statues and paintings in question belonged either to Governments at war
with France, or to individuals inhabiting those countries; now, with
respect to individuals, I will venture to affirm, on the best authority,
that the property of no individual was taken from him without an
equivalent. Those who had statues and pictures of value and wished to sell
them, received their full value from the French Government, but there was
no force used on the occasion; in fact, many who were in want of money were
rejoiced at the opportunity of selling, as they could never have otherwise
disposed of those valuable articles to individuals at the same price that
the French Government gave. I recollect a day or two ago being in
conversation with a Milanese on this subject and others connected with the
occupation of Italy by the French. I happened to mention that the conquest
of Italy by the Republican armies must have been attended with confiscation
of property; he assured me that no such thing as confiscation of property
took place; that so far from being the losers by the French invasion and
the establishment of their system, they had on the contrary been
considerable gainers, for that the country flourished under their
domination in a manner before unknown, and that one of the greatest
advantages attendant on the occupation was the establishment of an equality
of weight and measures, the decimal division of the coin, the introduction
of an admirable code of laws free'd from all barbarisms - legal, political
and theological - and intelligible to all classes, so that there was no
occasion to cite old authors and go back for three or four hundred years to
hunt out authorities and precedents for what men of sense could determine
at once by following the dictates of their own judgment.
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