'Don't tell me the liberty of abandoning the canon. of frames and pictures,' ejaculated the testy Comedian; ' if I can't be heard by the audience in the frame, I'll walk out of it."" And unquestionably the actor was right. Pictorial effect was no part of his business. The manager was misled by the desire of reducing scenical representations to one constant denomination of extension. His error was the attributing importance to an incongruity which had, certainly, a real existence, but which, on the boards of a theatre, was of no real consequence. Tableaux vivans are the converse of paintings. Their object is to make solidity look like surface, and the real living subject stand for its own resemblance. From what has been said above, it is easy to see that, in order to be successful, they must be conducted with care and good taste; and that any injudicious introduction of accessories, confounding them with stage effect, must be fatal to the illusion. I remember witnessing a charming effect that took place in a tableau quite accidentally. One of two lovely young women who formed the group, fatigued perhaps by the attitude in which she was standing, unconsciously began to move, as if reanimated, like another Hermione, whilst her eyes lightened up, and a smile played about her features, as she gazed upon her motionless companion, as if she were about to address her; and in that instant the curtain was let fall, leaving an impression on the mind more agreeable than any that fancy could have evoked from a bewitching and masterly painting. In the Winter's Tale, the spectacle of Hermione as a painted statue is neither barbarous nor absurd in the representation, taken conjointly with the dialogue and arrangement of the scene. It should be also borne in mind that the old English Dramatists are in the habit of using the words picture and statue as convertible terms.* In the minds of the audience the injured Hermione yet lives; and on the stage even Leontes does not seem quite deceived by the artifice, but to be half addressing his words to her ears, and half to those of the surrounding personages. The manner too in which the harshness of the scene is softened down by Leontes referring to Perdita, and thereby constituting her a link of approximation between the Statue and the other characters present on the stage, together with Perdita's reply, is eminently beautiful: There's magic in thy majesty, which has See Massinger's City Madam, Act v. sc. 3. Perdita. And give me leave; And do not say 'tis superstition, that I kneel, and then implore her blessing. WINTER'S TALE. Act. v. sc. 3. In reading even these few lines we forget the Statue, and see only the wife and mother. In pictures of a high and abstract class, the naked female figure is often seen most fancifully adorned with jewellery and statues, when no deception is intended thereby, may, I think, be allowed to be decorated in a taste which is at first sight false, but which is in truth a shape in which legitimate homage may be conceived to be done to the ideal form embodied in the marble. The golden sandals of the Theseus of the Parthenon may have been ornaments of this description. Thus too, the ears of the Venus de' Medici at Florence are actually bored for earings; so are the ears of the Venus d' Arles at Paris; again, thus does Ovid represent Pygmalion as caressing and adorning the ivory statue he had made: Intereà niveum mirâ feliciter arte Sculpsit ebur, formamque dedit, quâ fœmina nasci Nulla potest; operisque sui concepit amorem. Virginis est veræ facies, quam vivere credas; Et si non obstet reverentia, velle moveri. Et modò blanditias adhibet; modò grata puellis That very extravagance of admiration were rather, methinks, praiseworthy than otherwise, that would suspend a necklace of pearl about the neck of a fine statue, or crown its head with a garland of the earliest and sweetest violets; not without a sensation of pleasure in approaching the verge of incongruity in the very wantonness and pride of a thorough appreciation of the art. But I will not indulge in remarks that may perhaps appear too fanciful. Coloured toys, and china figures of men and animals, being conceived and executed in jest rather than in earnest, are, in their proper places, very pleasing. Deception is no part of their intention. The absolute necessity that exists for generalization in all matters of imitative art, is well illustrated by the signal failure of the Daguerrotype as a means of taking portraits. In these productions, for chemical reasons, the metallic plate is variously affected by images which are necessarily of various intensities, depending upon the complexion of the sitters; and therefore hardly a case occurs of the process being tried, in which some lines and shadows are not unduly exaggerated, and others omitted, so that a portion of the truth, but not the whole truth, is conveyed, thereby in many instances quite falsifying the effect. Moreover, our idea of any individual is not formed from the expression of his countenance, or attitude, at any given moment; but from a general average of all the impressions made upon us by his presence at different times; an effect which a portrait painted in several sittings, which occupy time, may well express, but which the momentary process of the Daguerrotype, except by rare accident, cannot succeed in producing. A machine cannot select, modify, or generalize, and therefore cannot attain to imitation. But copies of pictures and statues, and especially of the latter, made with the Daguerrotype, are by no means amiss. In such copies, though they are instantaneously produced, there is no lack of selection, modification, and generalization; because these have been severally secured by the labours of the artists who have wrought on the originals. Time has already been expended upon them, and the process of copying them by instantaneous methods comes in with its full effect. Similar remarks may be extended to portraits or |