“Poor Paddy-Land!”—II
I suppose every one expects to find Ireland the land of the unlooked-for. I did, at any rate, but was by no means prepared for several of the surprises which greeted me. For instance, the best arranged, and for its size and scope the most interesting, National Gallery I have ever seen. It is only forty years old (incorporated in 1854), a date since which one would have thought it scarcely possible to get together genuine specimens of all the great schools of art, from the well “picked-over” marts of England and the Continent. But the feat has been accomplished, mainly, I believe, by the entire devotion and fine taste and judgment of the late director, Mr. Henry E. Doyle. His untimely death in the spring of this year has left a blank, social and artistic, which it will be hard to fill; but happily his great work for Irish art was done, and all that his successors will have to do will be to follow his lead faithfully. Irish Art owes much to his family, for he was the son of H. B., and the younger brother of the immortal “Dicky,” while, I believe, Mr. Conan Doyle is his nephew.
But it is not the general collection of pictures, remarkable as that is, which differentiates the Irish from other national galleries known to me. It is the happy arrangement which has set apart a fourth of the whole space for a collection of portraits, and authentic historical pictorial records, comprising not only the portraits of eminent Irishmen and Irishwomen, but also of statesmen and others who were politically or socially connected with Ireland, or whose lives serve in any way to illustrate her history, or throw light on her social or literary or artistic records. I think I may safely venture the assertion—for I spent the greater part of two afternoons in this historical and portrait department—that there is Scarcely a man or woman, from the time of Elizabeth to that of O’Connell and Lord Melbourne, of whom one would be glad to know more, with whom one does not leave it, feeling far better acquainted. And then they are so admirably and often pathetically grouped, e.g. Charles I., Cromwell, and R. Cromwell, on a line, all full of character, and Strafford hard by, with the look of “thorough” on his brow and mouth as no other portrait I have ever seen has given. Then there are “Erin’s High Ormonde,” Sir Walter Raleigh, by Zuccaro, painted between his two imprisonments, and coming down later, Lords Wellesley and Hastings, and groups of great nobles and Lords-Lieutenant. For fighting men, William III. as a boy; Walker, the defender of Derry; the Duke, the Lawrences, Lord Gough, and a score of other gallant Irishmen. The terrible Dean stands out amongst the literary men, and near him Sir R. Steele and Sterne, and (longo intervallo, except on shelves) Tom Moore, Croker, Lever, etc. Then come the “patriots” of all schools: Lord E. Fitzgerald, and Grattan, and E. Hudson, Secretary of the United Irishmen in 1784; Wolfe Tone, and Daniel O’Connell; half a dozen Ponsonbys of different ranks, and several pictures of Burke, one of which especially (said to be by Angelica Kauffmann) is, to my mind, quite invaluable. Burke stands upright, his side-face towards you, sublime, as he looked, I am sure, when he was making his immortal speech at Bristol. By his side, at right angles, so that you get his full face, is Charles Fox, one hand on Burke’s shoulder, the other on a table on which he is leaning. You can hear him saying as plainly as if you were there one hundred years ago, “Now, my dear Edmund, if you say that in the House, you’ll upset the coach.” Fox has evidently dined well, and Burke is fasting from all but indignation. The portraits of women are as interesting, such as Miss Farren, afterwards Lady Derby; Mrs. Norton, by Watts, which is worth a visit to Dublin to see, etc. But I must not run on, and will only note one lesson I carried away. There are two portraits, and three engravings from portraits, by N. Hone, R.A., an Irishman, but one of our original Royal Academicians. You will remember what Peter Pindar says of that painter in his Odes to the Royal Academicians”:—
And as for Mr. Nathan Hone,
In portraits he’s as much alone
As in his landscape stands the unrivalled Claude.
Of pictures I have seen enough,
Vile, tawdry, execrable stuff,