Читать книгу A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three - Thomas Frognall Dibdin - Страница 5

Table of Contents

THE ROYAL PALACE. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NEGOTIATION. DANNECKER THE SCULPTOR. ENVIRONS OF STUTTGART.

The morrow is come; and as the morning is too rainy to stir abroad, I sit down to fulfil the promise of last night. This will be done with the greater cheerfulness and alacrity, as the evenings have been comparatively cooler, and my slumbers, in consequence, more sound and refreshing. M. LE BRET--must be the first name mentioned upon this occasion. In other words, the negotiation about the two Virgils, through the zeal and good management of that active Head-Librarian, began quickly to assume a most decided form; and I received an intimation from Mr. Hamilton, our Chargé d'Affaires, that the King expected to see me upon the subject at the "circle"--last Sunday evening.

But before you go with me to court, I must make you acquainted with the place in which the Court is held: in other words, with the ROYAL PALACE of STUTTGART. Take away the gilt cushion and crown at the top of it, and the front façade has really the air of a royal residence. It is built of stone: massive and unpretending in its external decorations, and has two wings running at right angles with the principal front elevation. To my eye, it had, at first view, and still continues to have, more of a Palace-like look than the long but slender structure of the Tuilleries. To the left, on looking at it--or rather behind the left wing is a large, well-trimmed flower-garden, terminating in walks, and a carriage way. Just in front of this garden, before a large bason of water, and fixed upon a sort of parapet wall--is a very pleasing, colossal group of two female statues-- Pomona and Flora, as I conceive--sculptured by Dannecker. Their forms are made to intertwine very gracefully; and they are cut in a coarse, but hard and pleasingly-tinted, stone. For out-of-door figures, they are much superior to the generality of unmeaning allegorical marble statues in the gardens of the Thuilleries.

The interior of the palace has portions, which may be said to verify what we have read, in boyish days, of the wonder-working powers of the lamp of Aladdin. Here are porphyry and granite, and rosewood, and satin-wood, porcelaine, and or-molu ornaments, in all their varieties of unsullied splendor. A magnificent vestibule, and marble staircase; a concert room; an assembly-room; and chamber of audience: each particularly brilliant and appropriate; while, in the latter, you observe a throne, or chair of state, of antique form, but entirely covered with curious gilt carvings--rich, without being gaudy--and striking without being misplaced. You pass on-- room after room--from the ceilings of which, lustres of increasing brilliance depend; but are not disposed to make any halt till you enter a small apartment with a cupola roof--within a niche of which stands the small statue of Cupid; with his head inclined, and one hand raised to feel the supposed-blunted point of a dart which he holds in the other. This is called the Cupid-Room, out of compliment to DANNECKER the sculptor of the figure, who is much patronised by the Queen. A statue or two by Canova, with a tolerable portion of Gobeleine tapestry, form the principal remaining moveable pieces of furniture. A minuter description may not be necessary: the interiors of all palaces being pretty much alike--if we put pictures and statues out of the question.

From the Palace, I must now conduct you to the "circle" or Drawing Room-- which I attended. Mr. Hamilton was so obliging as to convey me thither. The King paid his respects personally to each lady, and was followed by the Queen. The same order was observed with the circle of gentlemen. His Majesty was dressed in what seemed to be an English uniform, and wore the star of the Order of the Bath. His figure is perhaps under the middle size, but compact, well formed, and having a gentlemanly deportment. The Queen was, questionless, the most interesting female in the circle. To an Englishman, her long and popular residence in England, rendered her doubly an object of attraction. She was superbly dressed, and yet the whole had a simple, lady-like, appearance. She wore a magnificent tiara of diamonds, and large circular diamond ear rings: but it was her necklace, composed of the largest and choicest of the same kind of precious stones, which flashed a radiance on the eyes of the beholder, that could scarcely be exceeded even in the court-circles of St. Petersburg. Her hair was quietly and most becomingly dressed; and with a small white fan in her hand, which she occasionally opened and shut, she saluted, and discoursed with, each visitor, as gracefully and as naturally as if she had been accustomed to the ceremony from her earliest youth. Her dark eyes surveyed each figure, quickly, from head to foot--while …

"Favours to none, to all she smiles extends."

Among the gentlemen, I observed a young man of a very prepossessing form and manners--having seven orders, or marks of distinction hanging from his button-holes. Every body seemed anxious to exchange a word with him; and he might be at farthest in his thirtieth year. I could not learn his name, but I learnt that his character was quite in harmony with his person: that he was gay, brave, courteous and polite: that his courage knew no bounds: that he would storm a citadel, traverse a morass, or lead on to a charge, with equal coolness, courage, and intrepidity: that repose and inaction were painful to him--but that humanity to the unfortunate, and the most inflexible attachment to relations and friends, formed, equally, distinctive marks of his character. This intelligence quite won my heart in favour of the stranger, then standing and smiling immediately before me; and I rejoiced that the chivalrous race of the Peterboroughs was not yet extinct, but had taken root, and "borne branch and flower," in the soil of Suabia.

When it came to my turn to be addressed, the king at once asked--"if I had not been much gratified with the books in the Public Library, and particularly with two ancient editions of Virgil?" I merely indicated an assent to the truth of this remark, waiting for the conclusion to be drawn from the premises. "There has been some mention made to me (resumed his Majesty) about a proposed exchange on the part of Lord Spencer, for these two ancient editions, which appear to be wanting in his Lordship's magnificent collection. For my part, I see no objection to the final arrangement of this business--if it can be settled upon terms satisfactory to all parties." This was the very point to which I was so anxious to bring the conference. I replied, coolly and unhesitatingly, "that it was precisely as his Majesty had observed; that his own Collection was strong in Bibles, but comparatively weak in Ancient Classics: and that a diminution of the latter would not be of material consequence, if, in lieu of it, there could be an increase of the former--so as to carry it well nigh towards perfection; that, in whatever way this exchange was effected, whether by money, or by books, in the first instance, it would doubtless be his Majesty's desire to direct the application of the one or the other to the completion of his Theological Collection."

The King replied "he saw no objection whatever to the proposed exchange-- and left the forms of carrying it into execution with his head librarian M. Le Bret." Having gained my point, it only remained to make my bow. The King then passed on to the remainder of the circle, and was quickly followed by the Queen. I heard her Majesty distinctly tell General Allan,20 in the English language, that "she could never forget her reception in England; that the days spent there were among the happiest of her life, and that she hoped, before she died, again to visit our country." She even expressed "gratitude for the cordial manner in which she had been received, and, entertained in it."21

The heat had now become almost insupportable; as, for the reason before assigned, every window and door was shut. However, this inconvenience, if it was severe, was luckily of short duration. A little after nine, their Majesties retired towards the door by which they had entered: and which, as it was reopened, presented, in the background, the attendants waiting to receive them. The King and Queen then saluted the circle, and retired. In ten minutes we had all retreated, and were breathing the pure air of heaven. I preferred walking home, and called upon M. Le Bret in my way. It was about half past nine only, but that philosophical bibliographer was about retiring to rest. He received me, however, with a joyous welcome: re- trimmed his lamp; complimented me upon the success of the negotiation, and told me that I might now depart in peace from Stuttgart--for that "the affair might be considered as settled."22

I have mentioned to you, more than once, the name of DANNECKER the sculptor. It has been my good fortune to visit him, and to converse with him much at large, several times. He is one of the most unaffected of the living Phidias-tribe; resembling much, both in figure and conversation, and more especially in a pleasing simplicity of manners, our celebrated Chantry. Indeed I should call Dannecker, on the score of art as well as of person, rather the Chantry than the Flaxman or Canova of Suabia. He shewed me every part of his study; and every cast of such originals as he had executed, or which he had it in contemplation to execute. Of those that had left him, I was compelled to be satisfied with the plaster of his famous ARIADNE, reclining upon the back of a passant leopard, each of the size of life. The original belongs to a banker at Frankfort, for whom it was executed for the sum of about one thousand pounds sterling. It must be an exquisite production; for if the plaster be thus interesting what must be the effect of the marble? Dannecker told me that the most difficult parts of the group, as to detail, were the interior of the leopard's feet, and the foot and retired drapery of the female figure--which has one leg tucked under the other. The whole composition has an harmonious, joyous effect; while health, animation, and beauty breathe in every limb and lineament of Ariadne.

But it was my good fortune to witness one original of Dannecker's chisel--of transcendent merit. I mean, the colossal head of SCHILLER; who was the intimate friend, and a townsman of this able sculptor. I never stood before so expressive a modern countenance. The forehead is high and wide, and the projections, over the eye-brows, are boldly, but finely and gradually, marked. The eye is rather full, but retired. The cheeks are considerably shrunk. The mouth is full of expression, and the chin somewhat elongated. The hair flows behind in a broad mass, and ends in a wavy curl upon the shoulders: not very unlike the professional wigs of the French barristers which I had seen at Paris. Upon the whole, I prefer this latter--for breadth and harmony--to the eternal conceit of the wig à la grecque. "It was so (said Dannecker) that Schiller wore his hair; and it was precisely with this physiognomical expression that he came out to me, dressed en roquelaure, from his inner apartment, when I saw him for the last time. I thought to myself--on so seeing him--(added the sculptor) that it is thus that I will chisel your bust in marble." Dannecker then requested me to draw my hand gently over the forehead--and to observe by what careful, and almost imperceptible gradations, this boldness of front had been accomplished; I listened to every word that he said about the extraordinary character then, as it were, before me, with an earnestness and pleasure which I can hardly describe; and walked round and round the bust with a gratification approaching to ecstacy. They may say what they please--at Rome or at London--but a finer specimen of art, in its very highest department, and of its particular kind, the chisel of no living Sculptor hath achieved. As a bust, it is perfect. It is the MAN; with all his MIND in his countenance; without the introduction of any sickly airs and graces, which are frequently the result of a predetermination to treat it--as Phidias or Praxiteles would have treated it! It is worth a host of such figures as that of Marshal Saxe at Strasbourg.