Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is tranquillity,—a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe chastens admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we echo the poet's sentiment,—
"I do feel a mighty calmness creep
Over my heart, which can no longer borrow
Its hues from chance or change,—those children of to-morrow."
It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate, death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial as commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like those in St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked beards, ruffs, and broadswords, accord with the venerable associations of a Mediæval tomb; while marble figures, typifying Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding over the lineaments of the illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral decorations, the most apt and impressive. We remember, after exploring the plain of Ravenna on an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in which the brave young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the scene and story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured form of a recumbent knight in armor, preserved in the academy of the old city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown forever the gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In Cathedral and Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the sequestered parish church or the rural cemetery, what image so accords with the sad reality and the serene hope of humanity, as the adequate marble personification on sarcophagus and beneath shrine, in mausoleum or on turf-mound?
"His palms infolded on his breast,
There is no other thought express'd
But long disquiet merged in rest."
In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is in the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities we add the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of diverse creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it is the statues of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic charm of her history; abstractly, we regard them with the poet:—
"Their gods? what were their gods?
There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules,
Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker
Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns
At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode
Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell
Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief;
Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best;
And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers;
Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer,
Sat in the circle of his starry power
And frowned 'I will!' to all."
Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,—but calm, fair, strong, and immortal. "They seem," wrote Hazlitt, "to have no sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless excellence they appear sufficient to themselves."
In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the most glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by torchlight endears even these poor traditional deities forever.
"On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow,
Auroras beam,
The steeds of Neptune through the waters go,
Or Sibyls dream.
As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved
Illusions wild,
Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved
And Juno smiled.
Aërial Mercuries in bronze upspring,
Dianas fly,
And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling
Without a sigh."
