His Death of Queen
Elizabeth is a strong Walter Scott picture; so are his Execution of
Strafford, and his Charles I., which I saw in England.
As to Horace Vernet, I do not think he is like either Scott or
Shakspeare. In him this French capability for rendering the outward is
wrought to the highest point; and it is outwardness as pure from any
touch of inspiration or sentiment as I ever remember to have seen. He
is graphic to the utmost extreme. His horses and his men stand from
the canvas to the astonishment of all beholders. All is vivacity,
bustle, dazzle, and show. I think him as perfect, of his kind, as
possible; though it is a _kind_ of art with which I do not
sympathize.
The picture of the Decadence de Rome indicates to my mind a painter
who has studied and understood the classical forms; vitalizing them,
by the reproductive force of his own mind, so as to give them the
living power of new creations. In this picture is a most grand and
melancholy moral lesson. The classical forms are evidently not
introduced because they are classic, but in subservience to the
expression of the moral. In the orgies of the sensualists here
represented he gives all the grace and beauty of sensuality without
its sensualizing effect.
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