The reverence of the papal Romans for their treasures of
either classic or Christian art is well illustrated by Retzsch's
outline, in which a lovely statue of Apollo, broken and half buried,
defiled by dogs and swine, serves as a seat for a loutish herd, who
tries to copy a miserable modern Virgin and Child from a wayside shrine.
Such a temper of mind in an intelligent, high-principled Englishman can
only arise from a moral bias which distorts every view; but the
discussion of these causes and effects would be out of place here, and
we only smile in passing at the charge of "excessive cruelty" in the
suppression of the monastery of San Vivaldo. Mr. Hare's treatment of the
legitimate topics of his book deserves all admiration and praise. His
style is simple, pleasant and picturesque; in future editions a few
careless tricks should be corrected, such as the use of _from_, with
_hence_, _thence_, _whence_, and a muddled sentence here and there, of
which a very slight instance occurs in the pretty extract about Lake
Thrasymene: there is a most confusing one about a girl who refused to
kiss the emperor Otho, which reads as if she would not kiss her own
father. It would be almost a pity to spoil a laugh by particularizing
whether a tree or nut is meant in the story of "S. Vivaldo, who became a
hermit and _lived in a hollow chestnut_, in which he was found dead in
1300."
_Books Received._
The Little, or A, B, C, Book of German; that is, High School Primer;
Child's Story Book and Dictionary.
Pages:
303
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