To conclude: A spirited series of small views in Venice, by _Guardi_, have been prettily imitated by Mr. Sargeant and Miss Dujardin.
If e'er you have seen an artist sketching The purlicus of this ancient city, I need not tell you how much stretching There is of _truth_, to make things pretty;-- How trees are brought, perforce, together, Where never tree was known to grow: And founts condemned to trickle, whether There's water for said founts or no;-- How ev'n the wonder of the Thane In sketching all its wonder loses, As woods _will_ come to Dunsinane, Or any where the sketcher chooses.
For instance, if an artist see,-- As at romantic Tivoli,-- A water-fall and ancient shrine, Beautiful both, but not so plac'd As that his pencil can combine Their features in one _whole_ with taste,-- What does he do? why, without scruple, He whips the Temple up, as supple As were those angels who (no doubt) Carried the Virgin's House[11] about,-- And lands it plump upon the brink Of the cascade, or whersoever It suits his plaguy taste to think 'Twill look most picturesque and clever!
In short, there's no end to the treacheries Of man or maid who once a sketcher is, The livelier, too, their fancies are, The more they'll falsify each spot; As any dolt can give what's _there_, But men of genius give what's _not_. Then come your travellers, false as they,-- All Piranesis, in their way; Eking out bits of truth with fallacies, And turning pig-stys into palaces. But, worst of all, that wordy tribe, Who sit down, hang them, to _describe_;
Who, if they can but make things fine, Have consciences by no means tender In sinking all that, will not shine, All vulgar facts, that spoil their splendour:-- As Irish country squires they say, Whene'er the Viceroy travels nigh, Compound with beggars, on the way, To be lock'd up, till he goes by; And so send back his Lordship marvelling, That Ireland should be deem'd so starveling.
This cant, for instance,--how profuse 'tis Over the classic page of E----e! Veiling the truth in such fine phrase, That we for poetry might take it, Were it not dull as prose, and praise, And endless elegance can make it.--T. MOORE.
I woke with a singular sense of feebleness and exhaustion, and turning my dizzy eyes---beheld the walls and furniture of my own chamber in London. Asmodeus was seated by my side reading a Sunday newspaper--his favourite reading.