If St. Paul's were to be burnt again (having already been bunt
and risen three or four times since the sixth century), I wonder whether
it would ever be rebuilt in the same spot! I doubt whether the city and
the nation are so religious as to consecrate their midmost heart for the
site of a church, where land would be so valuable by the square inch.
Coming from the cathedral, we went through Paternoster Row, and saw Ave
Mary Lane; all this locality appearing to have got its nomenclature from
monkish personages. We now took a cab for the British Museum, but found
this to be one of the days on which strangers are not admitted; so we
slowly walked into Oxford Street, and then strolled homeward, till,
coming to a sort of bazaar, we went in and found a gallery of pictures.
This bazaar proved to be the Pantheon, and the first picture we saw in
the gallery was Haydon's Resurrection of Lazarus,--a great height and
breadth of canvas, right before you as you ascend the stairs. The face
of Lazarus is very awful, and not to be forgotten; it is as true as if
the painter had seen it, or had been himself the resurrected man and felt
it; but the rest of the picture signified nothing, and is vulgar and
disagreeable besides. There are several other pictures by Haydon in this
collection,--the Banishment of Aristides, Nero with his Harp, and the
Conflagration of Rome; but the last is perfectly ridiculous, and all of
them are exceedingly unpleasant.
Pages:
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359