the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they mingle into one another are of the highest order of boldness and beauty. It wants as a work of art unity and simplicity; as a representation of the Greek Deity of Bacchus it wants every thing. LVIII. SLEEP. A remarkable figure of Sleep as a winged child supine on a lion's skin, sleeping on its great half unfolded wing of black obsidian stone. One hand is lightly placed on a horn, with which it might be supposed to call together its wandering dreams, the horn of dreams, and in the other a seedy poppy. The hardness of the stone does not permit the arriving at any great expression. LIX. COPY OF THE LAOCOON. An admirable copy of the Laocoon in which is expressed with fidelity the agony of the poison and the straining round of the angry serpents. The left hand child seems sick with agony and horror, and the vain and feeble attempt he makes to disentangle himself from its grasp increases the effect. (See Rome.') This is of course a reference to the missing Note-book from which Medwin seems to have copied the remarks on the Laocoön standing second in this series. See pp. 42 and 44. LX. THE NIOBE.' This figure is probably the most consummate personification of loveliness with regard to its countenance, as that of the Apollo of the Vatican is with regard to its entire form, that remains to us of Greek Antiquity. It is a colossal figure; the size of a work of art rather adds to its beauty, because it allows the spectator the choice of a greater number of points of view, in which to catch a greater number of the infinite modes of expression of which any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily composed, of a mother in the act of sheltering from some divine and inevitable peril, the last, we will imagine, of her surviving children. The child' terrified we may conceive at the strange destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother, and' hiding its head in the folds of her robe and casting up The Note on the Niobe appeared in The Athenaeum for the 15th of September, 1832, and afterwards in The Shelley Papers and Mrs. Shelley's volumes of 1840. It seems to have been very considerably edited by Medwin, the opening being rendered thus: "Of all that remains to us of Greek antiquity, this figure is perhaps the most consummate personification of loveliness, with regard to its countenance, as that of the Venus of the Tribune is with regard to its entire form of woman. It is colossal: the size adds to its value;" and after the words points of view, we read and affords him a more analytical one. Further on there is, in Medwin's text, a period after composed; and a new sentence is begun with the words, It is the figure. In fact we are to read It is a colossal figure of a mother in the act &c., the remarks on size in sculpture being parenthetic. Had Shelley used his rough note for one of the noble letters to Peacock, or for any literary purpose, he would doubtless have made it read more smoothly; but his roughest work never fails to convey a perfectly clear sense, and is of course preferable to Medwin's smoothest. 2 In former editions, may. 3 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley put little creature for child. 4 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley alter the construction by inserting is here. In previous editions, back instead of up. one arm as in a passionate appeal for defence from her,' where it never before could have been sought in vain, seems in the marble to have scarcely suspended the motion of her terror; as though conceived to be yet. in the act of arrival. The child is clothed in a thin tunic of delicatest woof, and her hair is gathered3 on her head into a knot, probably by that mother whose care will never gather it again. Niobe is enveloped in profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand has gathered up and is in the act of extending it over the child in the instinct of defending her from what reason knows to be inevitable. The right as the restorer of it has rightly comprehended, is gathering up her child to her and with a like instinctive gesture is encouraging by its gentle pressure the child to believe that it can give security. The countenance which is the consummation of feminine majesty and loveliness, beyond which the imagination scarcely doubts that it can conceive anything, that master-piece of the poetic harmony of marble, expresses other feelings. There is embodied a sense of the inevitable and rapid destiny which is consummating around her as if it were already over. It seems 1 Former editions omit from her, and the sentence ends with a period at vain, the subtle passage from seems in the marble to arrival being left out. 2 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley have She for The child. 3 In former editions, fastened for gathered, and fasten in the next line instead of gather. As an utterance contemporary with The Cenci this passage is peculiarly interesting. (Compare Act V, Scene IV (Vol. II, p. 131 of my edition): Here, mother, tie My girdle for me, and bind up this hair often Have we done this for one another; now We shall not do it any more. My Lord, We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well. Even the tragic resignation of the close corresponds with Shelley's piercing criticism of this group. 4 In former editions, shielding. 5 This passage is rendered thus by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley: "The right (as the restorer has properly imagined), is drawing up her daughter to her; and with that instinctive gesture, and by its gentle pressure, is encouraging the child to believe that it can give security. The countenance of Niobe is, &c." 6 This is not a fresh sentence as in former editions. if despair and beauty had combined and produced thing but the sublime loveliness' of grief. As the motions the form expressed the instinctive sense of the ossibility of protecting the child, and the accustomed and affectionate assurance that she would find protection2 within her arms, so reason and imagination speak in the countenance the certainty that no mortal defence is of avail. There is no terror in the countenance-only grief— deep grief. There is no anger of what avail is indignation against what is known to be omnipotent? There is no selfish shrinking from personal pain; there is no panic at supernatural agency-there is no adverting to herself as herself the calamity is mightier than to leave scope for such emotion.* Every thing is swallowed up in sorrow. Her countenance in assured expectation of the arrow piercing its victim' in her embrace, is fixed on her omnipotent enemy. The pathetic beauty of the mere expression of her tender and serene despair, which is yet so profound and so incapable of being ever worn away, is beyond any effect of sculpture. As soon as the arrow shall have pierced her I Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read sublimity instead of sublime loveliness. 2 In previous editions, an asylum. 3 The additional word remediless is here inserted in previous editions. 4 Not emotions, as given by Medwin and Mrs. Shelley, who insert after sorrow in the next line, she is all tears. In previous editions, its last victim. This sentence is replaced in The Athenæum and The Shelley Papers by the following: "The pathetic beauty of the expression of her tender, and inexhaustible, and unquenchable despair, is beyond the effect of sculpture." Mrs. Shelley followed this, merely inserting any other before sculpture, -conjecturally, I presume, for the words are not in the Note-book. last child, the fable that she was dissolved into a fountain of tears, will be but a feeble emblem of the sadness of despair, in which the years of her remaining life, we feel, must flow away. It is difficult to speak of the beauty of her countenance, or to make intelligible in words the forms from which such astonishing loveliness results. The head, resting somewhat backward, upon the full and flowing contour of the neck, is in the act of watching an event momently to arrive. The hair is delicately divided on the forehead, and a gentle beauty gleams from the broad and clear forehead, over which its strings are drawn. The face is altogether broad' and the features conceived with the daring harmony of a sense of power. In this respect it resembles the careless majesty which Nature stamps upon those rare master-pieces of her creation, harmonizing them as it were from the harmony of the spirit within. Yet all this not only consists with but is the cause of the subtlest delicacy of that clear and tender beauty which is the expression at once of innocence and sublimity of soul, of purity and strength, of all that which touches the most removed and divine of the strings" of that which makes music within my thoughts, and which In previous editions, shall pierce her last tie upon earth, that fable that she was turned into stone, or dissolved &c. "Medwin and Mrs. Shelley read hopelessness for despair and insert few and evil before years. 3 Previous editions read from what instead of the forms from which. In former editions, of an oval fulness. 5 Medwin and Mrs. Shelley omit the word harmony. 6 Instead of the strings &c. as in the text, former editions have the chords that make music in our thoughts, of that which shakes with astonishment even the most superficial. The final sentence 18 omitted. |