Of
such characters as Gluck, Klopstock and Madame Le Brun, whose ministry of
art has excited a vague delight, we may have formed no very distinct
image; but associated as is the name of Madame Roland with courage,
suffering and affliction, we naturally expect a more dignified and less
vivacious expression than here meets us, until we remember the earlier
development of her rare and sympathetic intelligence. Count Mirabeau has a
look of mildness and _sang froid_ instead of the earnestness we fancied.
Who would have supposed the fair assassin of Marat such a thin, delicate
and spirituelle blonde? The sensuous face of George IV. and the tragic one
of Charles I., in the ever recurring Vandyke, with Sheridan's confident,
handsome and genial physiognomy, seem grouped to make more elevated, by
comparison, the noble abstraction of Flaxman. Talleyrand resembles a keen,
selfish, humorous and gentlemanly man of the world, in an unexceptionable
white wig. Richelieu is piquant and Madame de Stael impassioned and
Amazonian. What decadence even in the warlike notabilities is hinted by
glancing from Soult to Oudinot! I thought of the French fleet in the
memorable storm off Newport, as I recognized the portrait of the Count
d'Estaing; and realized anew the military instinct of the nation in the
preponderance of battle-scenes and heroes, and marked the interest with
which groups of soldiers lingered and talked before them.
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