104 
INGEES. 
Nature and Ait, April 1, 18G7. 
looks all that pheasants and partridges should ; but 
it is flavourless. Truly the feasts of the Barmecides 
are not confined to taverns ! everywhere we have 
all the outward show of literature, drama, art ; but 
we test them — and lo ! they are a mockery. 
And why is it that riches can command every- 
thing but excellence 1 Truly because excellence is 
scarce ; and the thorough appreciation of it almost 
equally so. The nightingale sings in the bush ; and 
if nightingales were to become the rage, they would 
be manufactured by thousands ; but the incessant 
little warbler in the artificial bush in the conserva- 
tory or at the theatre, would be a very different 
thing to the lonely songster at the edge of a moor 
warbling to solitude and a distant listener. Yes! 
everybody wants to make money, in order, as he 
thinks, that he may have everything else. But the 
multitude can only be supplied by manufacture ; 
and nature is still so kind that she gives her setting 
suns, her nightingales, and her balmiest airs to the 
poor ploughman, who “ homeward plods his weary 
way.” It comes all then to this : the millions can 
only be supplied by manufacture ; and noble art, 
— which is but another name for the highest 
excellence, — is only the produce of some one rare 
mind; esteemed by the few of a congenital nature; 
and only gradually and gently disseminated to 
the many. Whether the many can ever be so 
enlarged and so elevated as to at once see and 
approve the highest, cannot be discussed here. 
All that is sought in these desultoiy utterances 
is to show that the present state of the stage grows 
out of circumstances — perhaps out of uncontrollable 
circumstances ; that it is no better and no worse 
off than other branches of art and literature ; 
and that the drama of the present day is as much 
a manufacture as clocks and watches are. There is, 
however, this vast difference, that the stage is more 
at variance with the mind of the age than the 
watch machinist is, because in matters which bear 
the semblance of art, the soul seeks for delight, and 
is not satisfied with utility. 
INGRES. 
F ULL of years and honours the greatest of the 
French painters has gone down to his grave. 
He survived his favourite and most devoted pupil 
scarcely three years ; for Hippolyte Flandrin died, 
it will be remembered, in the spring of 1864. 
The distinction which Ingres had attained and 
the success he had achieved are well known to 
those who are interested, however little, in the 
Art of France. But the struggles of this painter’s 
youth — struggles prolonged, indeed, into middle 
age — the fierce controversies as to his claim 
to honour and fame : these are not so widely 
known. With the mention of his name there 
rises in our minds the image of the great artist, 
incontestably successful ; the artist whom a king of 
the house of Orleans, and an emperor of the house 
of Bonaparte agreed to distinguish ; who was made 
a grand officer of the Legion of Honour and a 
senator of France. But the name of Ingres is not 
less truly associated with the toils of years, and 
with wearisome struggles for recognition, made 
almost alone and in the face of the most powerful 
opposition. Ingres found no royal road to fame 
and fortune : he beat out his own track painfully 
and laboriously, and in the midst of profound dis- 
couragements. He was born at Montauban, on 
the 15tli September, 1781 ; and he showed a taste 
or a talent for painting when he was a very young 
child : but his father had designed that he should 
devote himself to music. The fathers of men of 
genius generally have some cherished plan for 
their sons, which they at last reluctantly abandon : 
and so it was with the father of Ingres. Fearful 
lest his own wish should never be realized, he 
actually forbade his son to draw or to paint. But 
at Toulouse, where the boy was receiving his 
education, he got this prohibition withdrawn ; and, 
later still, the parent consented that young Ingres 
should be a painter, fhe youth went to Paris, and 
placed himself under David, who was then at the 
height of his fame. He was nineteen years old 
when he obtained the second prize from the 
Academie des Beaux Aids ; and not long after- 
wards he took the first prize, through the merits 
of his Embassy to the Tent of Achilles. Such 
early successes may seem to belie the statement 
that his upward course was a course of struggle ; 
but it should be remembered that in those early 
days the school of David was in the ascendant ; 
and the trying days for that school were still to 
come. When the tide began to turn, and a 
different class of painters became popular in 
France, it was urged that M. Ingres — the obscure 
young man from the country — had been too pro- 
fusely rewarded ; and if the decisions of the last 
few years could have been reversed, reversed they 
would have been. In 1808 he painted a portrait 
of Napoleon, which was purchased for the Hotel 
des Invalides ; and when that work was finished he 
left Paris for Borne. It was his intention to 
remain in Rome four or five years ; but that 
period was greatly exceeded, on account of the 
coldness with which the works he sent to France 
were received in his native country. At Rome, in 
1813, he married ; but his worst days were still to 
come. From that time forward, for some years, he 
was dependent for his daily bread upon the sale of 
pencil sketches. Nevertheless, this period saw the 
beginning and completion of some of his best 
pictures. They are known chiefly in Italy; or, at 
