eat poet unless he wrote a very big poem, the tradition is kept up
among the painters, and we have here a vast number of large canvases,
with figures of the proper heroical length and nakedness. The
anticlassicists did not arise in France until about 1827; and, in
consequence, up to that period, we have here the old classical faith in
full vigor. There is Brutus, having chopped his son's head off, with all
the agony of a father, and then, calling for number two; there is AEneas
carrying off old Anchises; there are Paris and Venus, as naked as two
Hottentots, and many more such choice subjects from Lempriere.

But the chief specimens of the sublime are in the way of murders, with
which the catalogue swarms. Here are a few extracts from it:--

7. Beaume, Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. "The Grand Dauphiness
Dying."

18. Blondel, Chevalier de la, &c. "Zenobia found Dead."

36. Debay, Chevalier. "The Death of Lucretia."

38. Dejuinne. "The Death of Hector."

34. Court, Chevalier de la, &c. "The Death of Caesar."

39, 40, 41. Delacroix, Chevalier. "Dante and Virgil in the
Infernal Lake," "The Massacre of Scio," and "Medea going to
Murder her Children."

43. Delaroche, Chevalier. "Joas taken from among the Dead."

44. "The Death of Queen Elizabeth."

45. "Edward V. and his Brother" (preparing for death).

50. "Hecuba going to be Sacrificed." Drolling, Chevalier.

51. Dubois. "Young Clovis found Dead."

56. Henry, Chevalier. "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew."

75. Guerin, Chevalier. "Cain, after the Death of Abel."

83. Jacquand. "Death of Adelaide de Comminges."

88. "The Death of Eudamidas."

93. "The Death of Hymetto."

103. "The Death of Philip of Austria."--And so on.

You see what woful subjects they take, and how profusely they are
decorated with knighthood. They are like the Black Brunswickers, these
painters, and ought to be called Chevaliers de la Mort. I don't know why
the merriest people in the world should please themselves with such grim
representations and varieties of murder, or why murder itself should be
considered so eminently sublime and poetical. It is good at the end of
a tragedy; but, then, it is good because it is the end, and because,
by the events foregone, the mind is prepared for it. But these men will
have nothing but fifth acts; and seem to skip, as unworthy, all the
circumstances leading to them. This, however, is part of the scheme--the
bloated, unnatural, stilted, s