Part 2 (1/2)

[9] Count Pa.s.seran was a freethinking n.o.bleman who wrote _A Philosophical Discourse on Death_, in which he defended suicide, though he refrained from resorting to it himself. Pope refers to him in the _Epilogue to the Satires_, Dialogue i. 124:--

If Blount despatch'd himself, he play'd the man, And so may'st thou, ill.u.s.trious Pa.s.seran!

_Nil admirari_ is the motto of the Man of Taste in Building, where he is naturally at home. He can see no symmetry in the Banqueting House, or in St. Paul's Covent Garden, or even in St. Paul's itself.

Sure wretched _Wren_ was taught by bungling _Jones_, To murder mortar, and disfigure stones!

”Substantial” Vanbrugh he likes-=chiefly because his work would make ”such n.o.ble ruins.” Cost is his sole criterion, and here he, too, seems to glance obliquely at Canons:--

_Dorick, Ionick,_ shall not there be found, But it shall cost me threescore thousand pound.

But this was moderate, as the Edgware ”folly” reached 250,000. In Gardening he follows the latest whim for landscape. Here is his burlesque of the principles of Bridgeman and Batty Langley:--

Does it not merit the beholder's praise, What's high to sink? and what is low to raise?

Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house stood, And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood.

Let misers dread the h.o.a.rded gold to waste, Expence and alteration show a _Taste_.

As a connoisseur of Painting this enlightened virtuoso is given over to Hogarth's hated dealers in the Black Masters:--

In curious paintings I'm exceeding nice, And know their several beauties by their _Price_.

_Auctions_ and _Sales_ I constantly attend, But chuse my pictures by a _skilful Friend_, Originals and copies much the same, The picture's value is the _painter's name_.[10]

Of Sculpture he says--

In spite of _Addison_ and ancient _Rome_, Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ is my fav'rite tomb.[11]

How oft have I with admiration stood, To view some City-magistrate in wood?

I gaze with pleasure on a Lord May'r's head Cast with propriety in gilded lead,--

the allusion being obviously to Cheere's manufactory of such popular garden decorations at Hyde Park Corner.

Notes:

[10]: See _post_, ”M. Ronquet on the Arts,” p. 51.

[11]: ”Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ Monument has very often given me great Offence: Instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguis.h.i.+ng Character of that plain, gallant Man, he is represented on his Tomb [in Westminster Abbey] by the Figure of a Beau, dressed in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cus.h.i.+ons under a Canopy of State” (_Spectator_, March 30, 1711).

In Coins and Medals, true to his instinct for liking the worst the best, he prefers the modern to the antique. In Music, with Hogarth's Rake two years later, he is all for that ”Dagon of the n.o.bility and gentry,”

imported song:--

Without _Italian_, or without an ear, To _Bononcini's_ musick I adhere;--

though he confesses to a partiality for the bagpipe on the ground that your true Briton ”loves a grumbling noise,” and he favours organs and the popular oratorios. But his ”top talent is a bill of fare”:--

Sir Loins and rumps of beef offend my eyes,[12]

Pleas'd with frogs frica.s.s[e]ed, and c.o.xcomb-pies.

Dishes I chuse though little, yet genteel, _Snails_[13] the first course, and _Peepers_[14] crown the meal.

Pigs heads with hair on, much my fancy please, I love young colly-flowers if stew'd in cheese, And give ten guineas for a pint of peas!

No tatling servants to my table come, My Grace is _Silence_, and my waiter _Dumb_.