Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 425, March, 1851

"There is a point at present between us. There can be no doubt that you are the cause of Mrs Herne's death – innocently, you will say; but still the cause. Now, I shouldn't like it to be known that I went up and down the country with a pal who was the cause of my mother-in-law's death – that's to say, unless he gave me satisfaction. Now, if I and my pal have a tussle, he gives me satisfaction; and if he knocks my eyes out – which I know you can't do – it makes no difference at all; he gives me satisfaction: and he who says to the contrary knows nothing of gipsy law, and is a dinelo into the bargain."

So, there being no other mode of adjustment, a stand-up fight took place, in which it would appear that Lavengro received the largest share of pepper. Petulengro at last declared himself satisfied, and the affiliated couple set forward as if nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of the afternoon. When they separate, Lavengro takes his way in a secluded dingle, five miles distant from the nearest village, and there encamps, makes horse-shoes, and has a fit of the horrors. Just as he is recovering from this attack, who should appear in the dingle but the Flying Tinman, with Grey Moll, and the amazon whom Slingsby had mentioned – "an exceedingly tall woman, or rather girl, for she could scarcely have been above eighteen." The Tinman himself was no beauty.

"I do not remember ever to have seen a more ruffianly-looking fellow. He was about six feet high, with an immensely athletic frame; his face was black and bluff, and sported an immense pair of whiskers, but with here and there a grey hair; for his age could not be much under fifty. He wore a faded blue frock-coat, corduroys, and high-lows; on his black head was a kind of red nightcap, round his bull-neck a Barcelona handkerchief. I did not like the look of the man at all."

Two bulls are as likely to be amicable on one pasture as two tinkers on the same beat. There is some surly chaffing. Lavengro tries to conciliate the big girl by telling her that she is like Ingeborg, Queen of Norway – which must have been an exceedingly intelligible compliment – and then by pouring into her ear the following Orphean strain: —

"As I was jawing to the gav yeck divvers,I met on the drom miro Rommany chi."

The minstrel's reward was a thundering douse on the chops. Then stood forth the Tinman in his ire, and a battle-royal commenced. Belle – for such was the name of the big girl – was, however, an admirer of fair play, and though she had been the first to strike him, volunteered her services as Lavengro's second – Grey Moll doing the needful for her spouse. After several sharp rounds, the Tinman misses a blow, smashes himself against a tree, and goes down like a ninepin, insensible to the call of time. There is honour among the tinkers, as there was law among the cutters. The defeated warrior retires with his mort, leaving Belle, whom he now abandons, to the protection of the victorious Lavengro.

And what follows? No sniggering, young gentleman, if you please. You never were more entirely mistaken in your life. It is true that Belle – or to give her her proper title – Miss Isopel Berners, was a young lady of doubtful origin, who had been educated in the workhouse. Why not? The only three noble names in the county were to be found there. "Mine was one, the other two were Devereux and Bohun." And she was independent as she was strong. Being apprenticed out at fourteen years of age to a small farmer and his wife, she knocked down her mistress for ill-using her, and, at sixteen, knocked down her master for taking improper liberties. Shortly afterwards, having taken service with a lady who travelled the country selling silks and linen, Belle thrashed two sailors who wanted to rob the cart; so that, upon the whole, she was by no means the Neæra with the tangles of whose hair it was safe to play, unless with her entire consent. Therefore the twain tarried in all amity and honour together in the dingle, making themselves, upon the whole, remarkably comfortable. An occasional visit to an alehouse, where politics and polemics were discussed, relieved Lavengro from the vapours; and of an evening in the dingle, he occupied himself by adding to the stock of accomplishments possessed by Miss Isopel Berners. The reader will naturally be anxious to know the nature of the lessons. Did he teach her ciphering, or French, or cross-stitch, or cooking according to the method of Mrs Glass, or philosophy, divinity, or calisthenics? Nothing of the kind. Lavengro gave her "lessons in Armenian!"

Nor were they altogether without visitors. The priest appears upon the stage, or rather comes to the dingle – a red-haired, squinting Jesuit, who, very unnecessarily, expounds his method for converting England to the faith of Rome, over several tumblers of Hollands-and-water, sweetened with a lump of sugar. It is a curious fact, that he preferred the water cold. Then, during a thunder-storm, a postilion makes his appearance in consequence of a capsize of his postchaise, and relates the history of his travels to Rome, where it appears that he also had known the red-haired Jesuit. The said postilion, by the way, is an accomplished rhetorician, for he divides his discourse into the three parts of exordium, argument, and peroration. And so the book ends; Lavengro and Miss Berners still remaining in the dingle, the latter having evidently conceived a tender interest for her teacher in Armenian lore.

Such are the contents of the book, which, most assuredly, will add but little to Mr Borrow's reputation. That he has seen a great deal of strange vagabond life, is certain; and it is equally plain that he is gifted with adequate powers for depicting it. But he is no artist as respects arrangement, and his anxiety to represent himself, or Lavengro, as a character altogether without a parallel, has led him into the most gross exaggerations and the most absurd positions. We were willing to accept his former works as valuable contributions to philology, and as containing sketches, vivid, if not true, of gipsy life and manners. But this must have a limit somewhere. We are sick of the Petulengros and their jargon, and Mr Borrow ought now to be aware that he has thoroughly exhausted that quarry. He is mistaken if he supposes that he has caught the secret of Defoe, who, like him, introduced the reader to scenes and characters which were not usually selected for portraiture and illustration. Defoe's excellence lies in his extreme truthfulness, his homely manner, and his total freedom from exaggeration; and until Mr Borrow is master of these qualities, he can never hope to succeed in this line of composition. We strongly suspect that, in the course of the composition of this book, which, unless our memory strangely deceives us, was announced more than two years ago, considerable changes have taken place in its plan and disposition. We cannot read the preface in connection with the latter part of the third volume, without thinking that much has been added and interpolated to suit the occasion of the recent Papal aggression; and that we are indebted to that circumstance for the introduction of the Jesuit, and the rhetorical postilion's story, so strangely dragged in as an episode to conclude the narrative. If we are right in this conjecture, a great deal of the incongruity which is apparent throughout the work is explained. But the faults still remain; and, while it is impossible to deny that Lavengro contains some spirited passages and many indications of talent, we cannot pronounce such a general verdict in its favour as would be at all satisfactory either to the author or his admirers.

THE ARTS IN PORTUGAL.23

This portly volume, by the accomplished author of Modern Art in Germany, is not so wise as it looks. Its bulk, like that of Minerva's bird, of much feather and little weight, proves delusive when it comes to be handled. This is not a history of the arts in Portugal, but an accumulation of materials, whereof nine-tenths are either extraneous to the subject or indirectly connected with it. A glance at the contents may give an idea of the incongruity and unmethodical arrangement of the book, in reference to its professed object. It consists of twenty-nine letters. The second and third, occupying seventy-five pages, are extracts from a MS., dated 1549, and chiefly relating to Italian art, by Francisco de Hollanda, an architect and illuminator, a Dutchman by race, but by birth a Portuguese, who resided for some time at Rome. Highly interesting these extracts are; for the writer was intimate with Michael Angelo, and gives a lively though somewhat showy report of conversations with him on painting and sculpture, in the presence of Victoria Colonna. But of the state of art in Portugal, Francisco de Hollanda affords the scantiest information; he complains much, indeed, that art was there disregarded. From his laboured and tedious remonstrance on this neglect, addressed to the young King Sebastian in 1571, Count Raczynski has been over-liberal in citation. Among the reasons urged by the memorialist for royal encouragement of the science of design and colouring, one is that the king might be thereby instructed "how to choose hares, partridges, sporting-dogs, camels, lions, tigers, and other domestic animals." Both MSS. are in the library of the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon. In the fifth letter, an extract from The Lisbon Nosegay, O Ramalhete, introduces us to an old history of the order of Dominic, and to its editor, Frei Luiz de Sousa, a Portuguese classic, who is thus singularly recommended to notice, – "You will perceive that the extracts which I have taken from him do not mention a single fact that can throw light upon the history of the arts in Portugal: not a name, and few interesting particulars."

In default of the information wanted, we find, however, an anecdote of Sousa, which might be no mean subject for the pencil. Manuel de Sousa-Coutinho, a nobleman, proud of his talents and jealous of his dignity, having set fire to his residence at Almada, to get rid of importunate visitors from Lisbon during the plague, withdrew into Spain. On his return he rebuilt his house, and married Magdalen, the widow of Don John de Portugal, who had been reported among the slain with Sebastian in Africa. Don Manuel had a daughter by this union, and his domestic content was untroubled for some years, till a stranger presented himself at Almada, and obtained an interview with the Lady Magdalen. "I am a Portuguese," he said, "just returned from captivity in Palestine. At the moment of my departure, one of my countrymen charged me to seek you out, and to inform you that a person who had not forgotten you was still in existence." The alarmed matron demanded a minute description of that person, and the answer strengthened a terrible suspicion. To remove all doubt, she led the stranger to a room where the likeness of her first husband was suspended among many other family portraits. The messenger at once recognised the portrait of Don John of Portugal as that of the individual on whose errand he had come. Manuel de Sousa was no sooner apprised of the fact, than he resolved to take the cowl. He assumed the name of Luiz, and became a friar in the Dominican convent at Bemfica. The lady also retired into a religious house, and never saw him more.24 The story would have been as satisfactory if the captive husband had been ransomed by those who had so unwittingly wronged him.

In the next letter we find Monsieur Raczynski, catalogue in hand, giving an account of his visit to a triennal exhibition of modern paintings. On those or any other productions of art, even out of their turn, we willingly listen to him; though his opinion only leads us to the conclusion that revolutionary turmoils do not make painters. But we protest against his budget of extravagancies from the Lisbon Diary, and flowery tropes from The Universal Review, which is or was edited by an ingenious poet, A. F. Castilho, who has the misfortune to be blind, and has been so from his youth, and is nevertheless a critic on art, who resents "the presumption of frivolous and impertinent foreigners!" We might have been spared, too, the dull discourse pronounced before their Majesties, by the late venerable Director of the Academy. As a specimen of Senhor Loureiro's oration, in which the glories of the German easel are the main topic of panegyric, take the following compliment to King Ferdinand Saxe Kohary: – "After Louis XIV., who bowed to all the ladies he met on his ride, and after Frederick II., no king nor prince in Europe returns the salute of by-passers, except our much esteemed king, Don Ferdinand, as you all must have often witnessed." This delicate flattery is insinuated à propos of a portrait by Frank, in the Berlin Cabinet, of "Frederick the Great passing on horseback, and lifting his hand to his classical hat, garnished with feathers, to salute the inhabitants of Potsdam, who offer him their tribute of homage." Then follow ten letters, full of capital blunders, for which M. Raczynski is no otherwise responsible than that he has printed them; for these letters are principally made up of communications from respectable but most inaccurate correspondents, and of gatherings from more obscure and not less questionable sources. That such a mass of absurdities, especially those on Gran Vasco – the great name among Portuguese artists – should have been retained is the more remarkable, because the Count, by his laudable diligence, timely discovered that he had been misled on many particulars, and finally tells us so himself. As to Gran Vasco, in search of whose disputed identity his blind guides had led him floundering through a weary morass – now after one will-o'-the wisp, now after another – he at last finds himself on terra firma at Vizeu, whither he had repaired on the sensible advice of Viscount Juromenha, and thus announces his success (Letter 16,) – "Fica revogada toda a legislação em contrario!– that is to say, I retract all that I have said or cited about Gran Vasco, and whatever is contrary to what I am now going to tell you!" From Vizeu we are conducted, by shocking bad roads, to Lamego and Regoa, and hence down the Douro to Oporto. The 20th Letter is a postscript to the 11th, and we are again among objects of art at Lisbon. Here the modesty of the king-consort is put to the blush by one of those awkward compliments which personages of the highest rank are born to suffer, and to which they become callous in time. But the Prince is young, and courtiers should be merciful. We have just heard the president of the Academy proclaiming him as the only mannerly prince in Europe since the days of the Great Frederick of Prussia. M. Raczynski throws the strong light of his admiration on another and a greater excellence in the German husband of Donna Maria da Gloria, though, inferentially, it is no compliment either to Her Faithful Majesty or her subjects, – "The King is, to my knowledge, endowed with more taste than any other person in this country; beyond every other individual, he possesses true feeling for the arts. He is the owner of a pleasing collection of paintings, besides a rich album of drawings and water-colours, pretty pictures in German, French, and English!" The 21st Letter is "the continuation of my letter the 14th," that is, a resumption of the subject of Portuguese architecture. The 22d Letter is a corollary to the 10th, "to serve as a sequel to my 10th letter;" and so, throughout the work the reader is fiddled to and fro, down the middle and up again – now at Coimbra, now at Marseilles, back again to Barcelona and Seville, and other places where he has no business – and at last sits down to cool in a printing-office at Paris. In short, if only what fairly relates to the arts in Portugal had been admitted into this publication, with a due regard to method, five score pages would have served the purpose of above five times that number, and Monsieur Renouard's types would have been more profitably employed – for the reader at least, if not for the printer. Even as it is, however, the book is an improvement on Taborda and Cyrillo, the latter of whom the Portuguese have hitherto been contented to take for their Vasari. There is no reasonable doubt that attempts at the revived art of painting were practised in Portugal as early as in Spain, though so vastly in favour of the latter nation is the balance of pictorial wealth. Rudiments of the art seem faintly discernible in the very infancy of the Portuguese monarchy. There is a tradition of a portrait of Count Henry, who died in 1112. In the Lisbon duplicate of the Livro-preto– the Black-Book of Coimbra cathedral, a collection of ancient documents – there is one dated 1168, setting forth sundry payments to artificers in the church; and in that memorandum, mention is made of an altar-picture, The Annunciation to the Virgin. Among the royal archives at Lisbon is a book of charters, one page of which is wholly occupied by a drawing of our Saviour, coloured in red and blue. This MS. bears date 1277. That Portugal was early rich in illuminated manuscripts, is proved by the existence of many very old bibles, missals, breviaries, books of armorial blazonry, and other gorgeous quaintnesses, on much and long enduring vellum. Garcia de Resende, in his Chronicle of John II., at whose court he was brought up, says that he employed much of his leisure in painting, to the great satisfaction of his royal master, who often suggested subjects for his pencil, and would frequently sit by him watching the progress of his pleasant labours. The Castle of Belem, as it stands at this day, was constructed, in the following reign, from a plan designed by Garcia for John II., in whose time also, as we learn from that chronicler, and from Ruy de Pina – both eye-witnesses – scene-painting was executed on a large scale, for the court pantomimes and spectacles, before a stage for the written drama was known in the kingdom. It was by John II. that the Florentine Andrea Contucci, called Il Sansovino, was invited to Portugal, where he remained nine years – chiefly employed, however, in architecture and wood-sculpture – although his example as a painter is supposed to have had some corrective influence on the rudeness of pictorial notions in this country.

In the reigns of Emanuel and John III., 1495 to 1557, artists both native and foreign were numerous in the land; and hagiologies were ransacked for appropriate subjects of decoration for the churches and monasteries, and other important edifices. Most of those painters are forgotten. Few of their names have been preserved in connection with their works; so that these, of which many are still extant, and might bear honourable testimony to their skill, have incurred the singular fate of being, almost universally attributed to one artist, who was five years old at the decease of John III., and who ought to have lived to more than twice the age of man, and have been a Proteus in varieties of style, to make it possible that he should have completed one-half the number of the works imputed to him. Every Gothic picture of any pretension found in Portugal is called a Gran Vasco. Even that fine painting, The Fountain of Mercy, in the sacristy of the Misericordia at Oporto, has been pronounced a Gran Vasco. It was indeed painted thirty years only before he was born; it has some historical features that pretty nearly fix the date. King Emanuel gave that picture to the brotherhood of the Misericordia at Oporto. It contains portraits of himself, his third wife, several of his children by his second wife, and other personages of his family and court. He died in 1521. Vasco Fernandez, the true Gran Vasco, was baptised at Vizeu in 1552. Senhor J. Berardo has the honour of this discovery. After many a weary research among piles of records in the Vizeu Cathedral, he there detected a document which destroys delusions that had become national, leaves scores of old pictures fatherless, and yet detracts but little, if at all, from the reputation of the great master. In the very church where he was christened, several of the best compositions of Fernandez remain as vouchers for the integrity of his genius. The antiquary of Vizeu, Ribeiro Pereira, whose MS. is dated 1630, and who might have personally known him, and must have well known the principal works executed by him for their native town, specifies the large picture of Calvary, in the Jesus Chapel of the cathedral, as by Gran Vasco. The pictures in the sacristy are by the same hand; and, though the cathedral is of very ancient foundation, this sacristy, in its present form, was not finished till 1574, as we learn from the inscription "Georgius Ataide Episcopus vicensus faciendum curavit MDLXXIIII;" and by the position of the pictures, in regard to the light from the windows, it is evident that they were prepared for the places they occupy. M. Raczynski has not only seen and scrutinised those paintings, but he has examined the baptismal entry above spoken of, and he has likewise inspected a copy of the MS. of the Vizeu antiquary. Of the register of baptism he says, – "M. Berardo has shown me the voucher, which is almost in tatters. Nothing can be more authentic, more incontestable. You have no idea of the vividness of tradition, among all the inhabitants at Vizeu, respecting Gran Vasco. One would say that all the world here has been personally acquainted with him, that every man in the place has had some heritable share in him. For me, the question is decided." On the extract, first communicated to him by the Visconde de Juromenha, from the MS. of the Vizeu antiquary, Vasco's contemporary and fellow-townsman, he observes, after comparing it with the original in the Oporto Library, – "The extract is perfectly accurate. M. Gandra, Librarian of Oporto, has given me a sight of the MS., which is as genuine as the register of Vizeu. In the MS., the painter is once styled 'The Great Vasco Fernandez;' and the second time, 'Vasco Fernandez.'" It is curious that the celebrity of a quiet artist should have been of such speedy growth as to obtain for his name the popular prefix of "Great" during his lifetime. The Count's judgment on the Vizeu paintings is as follows: – "The picture of 'Calvary' is of high merit, but in bad condition. I should have supposed it older; but, in fine, documents are a stronger authority than my impressions. Moreover, the draperies and the architecture in the paintings of Gran Vasco are of a style that well accords with the epoch to which we are now certain they belong. Not only is the large, picture of 'Calvary' of great merit, but as much must be said of those that form the predella," (that is, those on each side of the steps to the altar,) "representing the sufferings of our Lord. The pictures in the sacristy are – The Baptism of Christ, The Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, St Peter, The Martyrdom of St Sebastian, and thirteen smaller pieces, half-length portraits of various saints. Nothing can be more magnificent than the St Peter. Attitude, drapery, composition, drawing, touch, colouring, architecture, accessories, landscape, the small figures in the distance – all are fine, all faultless. I cannot express to you what joy I felt when, on entering the sacristy, I at once beheld, fronting the door, this superb painting of St Peter. The effect on me was decisive; all doubt was over. Every work by Gran Vasco has a solemn and elevated character, which I do not recognise to the same extent in any of the Gothic pictures that I have seen in Portugal. The style of Gran Vasco is not ascribable, as I had imagined it to be, to Italian influence, but, very peremptorily, to that of Albert Durer; and it is plain that this influence had continued to inspire Portuguese artists, though working side by side with the imitators of Gaspar Diaz and Campello," (two of the several Portuguese painters who were sent by King Emanuel to study at Rome,) "who had imported into their country the Italian style and tendencies of the classic era. I will even affirm, that the influence of Flanders and Germany produced better results than that of the classic painting of Italy." This notion of the superior efficacy of Flemish and German over Italian influence on Portuguese art, in the first half of the sixteenth century, is a favourite one with our author; and not unreasonably so, for the palmy days of Emanuel and his successor were also the days of Charles V., the kinsman of those princes. Many Flemish and German subjects of the great emperor found ready access to the court of Portugal, and a favourable reception there; and their manner must have been pretty generally adopted, and very closely imitated too, for in multiplied instances it perplexed connoisseurs to distinguish the native from the northern workmanship of that period.