_ In a year or two more came Waterloo and the European peace. Then Mr
George Pontifex went abroad more than once. I remember seeing at
Battersby in after years the diary which he kept on the first of
these occasions. It is a characteristic document. I felt as I read
it that the author before starting had made up his mind to admire
only what he thought it would be creditable in him to admire, to
look at nature and art only through the spectacles that had been
handed down to him by generation after generation of prigs and
impostors. The first glimpse of Mont Blanc threw Mr Pontifex into a
conventional ecstasy. "My feelings I cannot express. I gasped, yet
hardly dared to breathe, as I viewed for the first time the monarch
of the mountains. I seemed to fancy the genius seated on his
stupendous throne far above his aspiring brethren and in his
solitary might defying the universe. I was so overcome by my
feelings that I was almost bereft of my faculties, and would not for
worlds have spoken after my first exclamation till I found some
relief in a gush of tears. With pain I tore myself from
contemplating for the first time 'at distance dimly seen' (though I
felt as if I had sent my soul and eyes after it), this sublime
spectacle." After a nearer view of the Alps from above Geneva he
walked nine out of the twelve miles of the descent: "My mind and
heart were too full to sit still, and I found some relief by
exhausting my feelings through exercise." In the course of time he
reached Chamonix and went on a Sunday to the Montanvert to see the
Mer de Glace. There he wrote the following verses for the visitors'
book, which he considered, so he says, "suitable to the day and
scene":-
Lord, while these wonders of thy hand I see,
My soul in holy reverence bends to thee.
These awful solitudes, this dread repose,
Yon pyramid sublime of spotless snows,
These spiry pinnacles, those smiling plains,
This sea where one eternal winter reigns,
These are thy works, and while on them I gaze
I hear a silent tongue that speaks thy praise.
Some poets always begin to get groggy about the knees after running
for seven or eight lines. Mr Pontifex's last couplet gave him a lot
of trouble, and nearly every word has been erased and rewritten once
at least. In the visitors' book at the Montanvert, however, he must
have been obliged to commit himself definitely to one reading or
another. Taking the verses all round, I should say that Mr Pontifex
was right in considering them suitable to the day; I don't like
being too hard even on the Mer de Glace, so will give no opinion as
to whether they are suitable to the scene also.
Mr Pontifex went on to the Great St Bernard and there he wrote some
more verses, this time I am afraid in Latin. He also took good care
to be properly impressed by the Hospice and its situation. "The
whole of this most extraordinary journey seemed like a dream, its
conclusion especially, in gentlemanly society, with every comfort
and accommodation amidst the rudest rocks and in the region of
perpetual snow. The thought that I was sleeping in a convent and
occupied the bed of no less a person than Napoleon, that I was in
the highest inhabited spot in the old world and in a place
celebrated in every part of it, kept me awake some time." As a
contrast to this, I may quote here an extract from a letter written
to me last year by his grandson Ernest, of whom the reader will hear
more presently. The passage runs: "I went up to the Great St
Bernard and saw the dogs." In due course Mr Pontifex found his way
into Italy, where the pictures and other works of art--those, at
least, which were fashionable at that time--threw him into genteel
paroxysms of admiration. Of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence he
writes: "I have spent three hours this morning in the gallery and I
have made up my mind that if of all the treasures I have seen in
Italy I were to choose one room it would be the Tribune of this
gallery. It contains the Venus de' Medici, the Explorator, the
Pancratist, the Dancing Faun and a fine Apollo. These more than
outweigh the Laocoon and the Belvedere Apollo at Rome. It contains,
besides, the St John of Raphael and many other chefs-d'oeuvre of the
greatest masters in the world." It is interesting to compare Mr
Pontifex's effusions with the rhapsodies of critics in our own
times. Not long ago a much esteemed writer informed the world that
he felt "disposed to cry out with delight" before a figure by
Michael Angelo. I wonder whether he would feel disposed to cry out
before a real Michael Angelo, if the critics had decided that it was
not genuine, or before a reputed Michael Angelo which was really by
someone else. But I suppose that a prig with more money than brains
was much the same sixty or seventy years ago as he is now.
Look at Mendelssohn again about this same Tribune on which Mr
Pontifex felt so safe in staking his reputation as a man of taste
and culture. He feels no less safe and writes, "I then went to the
Tribune. This room is so delightfully small you can traverse it in
fifteen paces, yet it contains a world of art. I again sought out
my favourite arm chair which stands under the statue of the 'Slave
whetting his knife' (L'Arrotino), and taking possession of it I
enjoyed myself for a couple of hours; for here at one glance I had
the 'Madonna del Cardellino,' Pope Julius II., a female portrait by
Raphael, and above it a lovely Holy Family by Perugino; and so close
to me that I could have touched it with my hand the Venus de'
Medici; beyond, that of Titian . . . The space between is occupied
by other pictures of Raphael's, a portrait by Titian, a Domenichino,
etc., etc., all these within the circumference of a small semi-
circle no larger than one of your own rooms. This is a spot where a
man feels his own insignificance and may well learn to be humble."
The Tribune is a slippery place for people like Mendelssohn to study
humility in. They generally take two steps away from it for one
they take towards it. I wonder how many chalks Mendelssohn gave
himself for having sat two hours on that chair. I wonder how often
he looked at his watch to see if his two hours were up. I wonder
how often he told himself that he was quite as big a gun, if the
truth were known, as any of the men whose works he saw before him,
how often he wondered whether any of the visitors were recognizing
him and admiring him for sitting such a long time in the same chair,
and how often he was vexed at seeing them pass him by and take no
notice of him. But perhaps if the truth were known his two hours
was not quite two hours.
Returning to Mr Pontifex, whether he liked what he believed to be
the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art or no he brought back some
copies by Italian artists, which I have no doubt he satisfied
himself would bear the strictest examination with the originals.
Two of these copies fell to Theobald's share on the division of his
father's furniture, and I have often seen them at Battersby on my
visits to Theobald and his wife. The one was a Madonna by
Sassoferrato with a blue hood over her head which threw it half into
shadow. The other was a Magdalen by Carlo Dolci with a very fine
head of hair and a marble vase in her hands. When I was a young man
I used to think these pictures were beautiful, but with each
successive visit to Battersby I got to dislike them more and more
and to see "George Pontifex" written all over both of them. In the
end I ventured after a tentative fashion to blow on them a little,
but Theobald and his wife were up in arms at once. They did not
like their father and father-in-law, but there could be no question
about his power and general ability, nor about his having been a man
of consummate taste both in literature and art--indeed the diary he
kept during his foreign tour was enough to prove this. With one
more short extract I will leave this diary and proceed with my
story. During his stay in Florence Mr Pontifex wrote: "I have just
seen the Grand Duke and his family pass by in two carriages and six,
but little more notice is taken of them than if I, who am utterly
unknown here, were to pass by." I don't think that he half believed
in his being utterly unknown in Florence or anywhere else! _