Part 12 (2/2)

Madas'

mistresses orthy of the name: after her it would be impossible to descend and enter with any decency into the history of the Du Barry

The kings and emperors who have succeeded in France, from that day to this, have been either too virtuous, or too despotic, or too gouty, or too repentant, or too much the paterfamilias, to allow themselves such useless luxuries: at the utes have been observable The race of Kings' reatly interrupted, even if not ended, and Mme de Pompadour stands before our eyes in history as the last as well as the most brilliant of all[19]

_Causeries de Lundi_ (Paris, 1851-57), Vol II

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Here is an exact state to Mme de Pompadour: Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour, born in Paris, Dec 29, 1721 (Saint-Eustache);--neur d'etioles (Saint-Eustache); died April 15, 1764; interred on the 17th at the Capucines de la place Vendome Her parish in Paris was la Madeleine; her hotel, in the Faubourg Saint-Honore, now l'elysee

M Le Roi, librarian of Versailles, has published, after an authentic manuscript the _Releve des depenses de Mme de Pompadour depuis la premiere annee de sa faveur jusqu'a sa mort_ This statement, which mentions the sums and their uses, presents a complete picture of the marquise's varied tastes, and does not try too much to dishonour her memory

THE HAY WAIN

(_CONSTABLE_)

CL BURNS

A little strip of country on the borders of Essex and Suffolk, not tento the casual observer few features land, but hailed with delight by painters for its simple charm, has exercised a wider influence uponthan all the noble scenery of Switzerland or the glories of Italy; for here was nurtured that last and greatest , which made the Eastern Counties falish, it , that he never left his country, and produced his greatest works within the narrow limits of his native valley; in whom love of locality was indeed the very basis of his art

[Illustration: THE HAY WAIN]

Constable, for it was he, like Rembrandt, was the son of awaters were powers in the land, bearing a golden harvest on their health-giving and invisible currents, turning sails upon countless hill-tops, and wheels in every river--before the supplanter, stealed with the busy clatter of wheels, and the whirr of sails, as they sped round before the wind, was the ood h opinion of the solid co, placed his son, at the age of seventeen, in charge of a wind enthusiaslorious but less substantial pursuit of art Alas! how little can we predict the effect of our actions This one, framed to divert his purpose in life, was the verybeauties of the sky, with its matchless combinations of form and colour, and all the subtle differences of atmosphere, which in after-life formed a distinctive feature in his work; and, for a landscape-painter, perhaps no early training could have been better His daily occupation by bringing hi a constant observance of all her changing phenomena, trained his heart and eye to discover her secrets, hidden from the careless, but revealed to all true lovers of her wisdom

The effect upon a temperament so artistic as Constable's was as permanent as it was quickly apparent In less than a year we find his father reluctantly converted to his son's views in the choice of a career, and consenting to his sojourn in London, to learn the principles and technicalities of his profession, which he soon strove to forget and subsequently set at defiance Two years of studio as sufficient to convince him that his school was the open air; and in his own country, amid the scenes of his boyhood, he could shake off the chains of fashi+on, which bound the landscape-painter of that day, and go straight to nature for his inspiration Concerning this he writes: ”For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeing truth at second-hand I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind hich I set out, but have rather tried to make my perforholt, where I shall get a pure and unaffectedthe scenes which may employ me--there is room for a _natural_ painter;”

a prediction which was hardly fulfilled in his lifetient lovers of art, his works were rarely understood and never popular, though the appreciative syhtened few kept him from despair But, appreciated or not, he had found his life's work, and henceforth his mission was to depict the scenes around his old home, and to express the love he felt so keenly for ”every stile and stu,” he writes, ”is with , and I associate my careless boyhood with all that lies on the banks of the Stour--those scenes ly he repaid this debt of gratitude to his native valley will be seen by the tender care he bestowed in depicting its beauties; indeed, the strongest iain turning to a study of his works, is the marvellous sense of locality he has embodied in theain the ”sound of water escaping from mill-dams,” and see once more ”the s, the old rotten planks, the slihted in In spite of the fifty years which have elapsed since he laid aside his brush for ever, with all the accidents of time and season, the subjects he painted are still to be easily found, and clearly distinguished by anyone at all acquainted with his works The only exception is in the original of the famous _Cornfield_, now in the National Gallery Here the enemy has been busy, and by the aid of his children Growth and Decay, has succeeded in transfor down the trees on the left, enlarging the group on the right, shutting out the view of Stratford Church, and choking up the brook fro Nor has Tio, was carried to his last resting-place in Bergholt Churchyard, aged sixty-five

It is not, however, in Bergholt village that we must seek for the scenes which made Constable a painter, but down in the quiet hollow a mile and a half to the eastward on the banks of his much-loved Stour, and around the paternal mill of Flatford, not improved as is the one at Dedha much as it was in the artist's day BothConstable, witnessed thereto in the latter, the initials GC, carved in irregular characters deep in the huge ible beneath the dust of a century, as enduring alifted son

A low uneven structure is Flatford Mill, withon an island, thea pool forh the mill, rejoins the main stream a hundred yards below To this spot ca in the strea with his close ally, John Dunthorne, the village plumber, and a lover of nature; their perfor old willy Lott--whose farh his judght not have been so technically sound upon art matters as upon the merits of those hornless Suffolk cattle, said to have been unconsciously introduced by Constable into pictures painted in far distant countries, yet his criticisinality willy cared but little for the outer world and its , any curiosity heahts, separated by long intervals, spent away from his ancestral roof in four-score years That this house of his possessed a peculiar fascination for Constable is evident fro an important feature in two of his best knoorks, the _Hay Wain_ and the _Valley Far in nuround round the oldin him to paint it The lock in the h, busier then than in these days of railways; the bridge above, with the picturesque cottages still standing, all were lingered over, studied, and painted with an affection inspired by the recollection of those golden hours of his boyhood Here, doubtless, was the scene of those stolen intervieith his future wife, following the ecclesiastical ban placed on his suit by the lady's grandfather, Dr

Rhudde, the Rector, whose belief in the preordination of e was tempered in this case by a wise discretion on the subject of settle painter's inability to satisfy this scruple ee duly took place despite the old gentle the re couple by leaving his granddaughter four thousand pounds when he died

The hfare, up which the hay is carted, from the meadows on the opposite bank of the river, a shallow and stony bedded back-waterit at its junction with the main strea the sweet-scented haywains knee deep and axle deep in water, leaving feathery wisps of hay hanging fro to the tall rushes upon either hand, the waggoner bravely astride the leader, while haymakers and children are seated on top of the load, not a little nervous in ling up the deep ascent into the stack-yard

A contrast, indeed, is the bustle of the hay- with the splash of the teams and the ns supre the rest of the year Winding between the long flat meadoay from the traffic of the river it becomes in early summer a veritable e, and the ancient gates, giving access to the adjoining fields, lie lost in crea posts wreathed in sweet forget-me-nots, while sword-like rushes rear their points till they part the grey-greenleaves above The silence would become oppressive were it not for an indistinct round to the prevailing stillness; the distant roar of a train as it rushes on its journey to the palpitating heart of London, the faint sound of amachine in the e moves up to the pri the sense of restfulness froer hurry of Nineteenth Century existence

Constable's countrythe Stour valley, anywhere within walking distance of his hoham, Stratford, and in the opposite direction, Harwich, all having furnished material for his fruitful pencil But, despite much admirable work done in each of these places, it was to the few acres of river and meadow round the oldto the wonders of nature around him To these, his first and truestfor inspiration; and during the life-long battle he waged with all that was untrue, he was certain of finding there encourageazine of Art_ (1891)

THE SURRENDER OF BREDA