1898 296 REMBRANDT XXXVII Butler brought home with him the Catalogue of the Aet. 62 Rembrandt Exhibition, and I have given it to the British Museum. It contains the pencil notes he made at the time, one to each of the 124 pictures. Sometimes he only says "very fine," "all very well," "admirable," "lovely," "I don't want it," and so on. Some of the pictures are marked X, which means that he would frequently look at them if he possessed them; others not so marked he admired in many cases very cordially but did not want them. When in doubt he put X? Those that he would rather not have he marked O. I give a few of the more detailed notes: 52. Het corporaalschap van Frans Banning Cocq, gezegd de "Nachtwacht "If I knew what to say about this picture I would say something, but I do not know. All I know is that I find it too much for me in every way, and would not live with it in my house. But the mutilation of the picture in 1715 has made it impossible to judge it fairly. It is more full of vigorous life and motion, more able to take the beholder in as an actual solid scene, more convincingly characteristic of the time, place and circumstances, in a word, more effective than any picture that I can call to mind; but it overpowers me and, though I should be glad if we had it at the National Gallery, I don't want it in my own house. 65. Nicholas Berchem (the property of the Duke of Westminster, Grosvenor House, London)-There is nothing in the Exhibition much finer than this and 66 [i.e. the companion picture, the wife of Nicholas Berchem]. 68. Jan Six aan het venster, studie voor die ets (Léon Bonnat, Paris) An exquisite little gem; one of the most delightful in the whole exhibition. 75. Studie naar Rembrandts broeder met een helm op het hoofd. (Keizer Frederik Museums Vereeniging, Berlijn)-I never saw such painting of a helmet. One would swear it was real. I admit it and admire it but do not want it. On second thoughts I think I do. 94. Portret van een Poolsch ruiter in de dracht van het regiment van Lysowsky, in een landschap (the property of Graaf Tarnowski, Dzikow, Galicia)—A very curious subject for Rembrandt to have had to paint. 110. Portret van een heer (Prins Joesoepof St. Petersburg)— Wonderful. I am not sure that this and 111 are not finer than the Nicholas Berchem and his wife. They are among the very finest work he ever did. XXXVII "SPLENDID SLOGGING" 297 III. Portret van een dame met een struisveder in de hand 1898 (Prins Joesoepof St. Petersburg)-Wonderful. I cannot make Aet. 62 out which of the two I prefer, this or the preceding. It is impossible to believe that painting can do more. These two pictures kept growing upon me all the time I was here. 116. De Staalmeesters-If I had Jones and Gogin and Ballard with me, one after the other, and had plenty of time to think them all over I might know better what to think. The residuary impression produced upon me so far is "that the picture would have been better if the painter had taken more pains." I admit it and most respectfully admire it, but am vexed with myself for not finding it kindle all the enthusiasm that I should like it to do. Perhaps it is that I find the arrangements of light, shade, colour and composition more carefully studied than the individualities of the drapers. Three of the heads are very characterless and none of them carry full conviction. 117. Homerus-Rubbish, but he does not seem to have made Homer blind. 123. Esther, Haman, and Ahasuerus (the property of Z. M. de Koning van Roemenie, Sinaïa)-Everything subordinated to splendid slogging of a yellow dress. Composition disregarded; arrangement of light and shade disregarded; figures without interest or individuality; nothing in the picture to attract, except the splendid slogging of a yellow dress and its cloak with ermine lining. In reality it is a magnificent piece of still-life painting, but as this it says the last word that can be said about the painting of yellow satin and a gold brocaded cloak. Hans Faesch came from Switzerland to London about this time to complete his arrangements before returning to the East. He was accompanied by Peter Hauff, a Norwegian with whom he had gone into partnership, and they went to Vien-tiane in the Shan States with the intention of dealing in rubber. Before they started Butler gave them a farewell dinner at the Hotel d'Italie in Old Compton Street at which Gogin, Alfred and I were also present. On 15th October 1898, we received the first copy of The Iliad of Homer rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. The motto on the titlepage is from a letter from Baron Merian to Dr. Butler: "I entirely agree with you after due rumination. Homer and Shakespeare are the only two poets in the wide world." 1898 298 THE RISK OF HEAVEN XXXVII Butler's notion of the lines on which a translation Aet. 62 should be made are thus stated in the preface: The genius of the language into which a translation is being made is the first thing to be considered; if the original was readable, the translation must be so also, or, however good it may be as a construe, it will not be a translation. It follows that a translation should depart hardly at all from the modes of speech current in the translator's own times, inasmuch as nothing is readable for long which affects any other diction than that of the age in which it was written. We know the charm of the Elizabethan translations, but he who would attempt one that shall vie with these must eschew all Elizabethanisms that are not good Victorianisms also. And so he strove to make his translation readable for those who are accustomed to modern English, and avoided the affectation of larding it with archaisms which would have made it look like a sham ruin. In November he was at Shrewsbury and wrote to me that at Cressage, where he had a farm, he had been told of this dialogue between a parson and one of his parishioners : Parson: Such habits of intemperance not only ruin your character here, but gravely endanger your chances of happiness in a world beyond the grave. Parishioner: Well, Sir, I know my character is not of the best, but as for heaven, I must stand the risk of that as other people do. CHAPTER XXXVIII 1899. 1900-PART I SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECONSIDERED Butler to H. F. Jones. 31st Jan. 1899-I have no particular news. Alfred went 1899 out yesterday, when I was at the Museum, and had three stumps Act. 63 of teeth out one after the other. He did not say a word to me for fear it should disturb my working at the Museum, but he brought all the three stumps to show me; they seem to have come out fairly easily. Sadler called in the afternoon and he showed them to Sadler. Then he took them home and showed them to the children. By this time I suppose he had got tired of them, so he put them with some salt into an envelope and burned them. I am glad he has had them out for they had been plaguing him for some time. Butler to Miss Butler. 4 Jan. 1899-I have been deluged with Italian letters, two of them requiring long troublesome answers. An old Italian Member of Parliament keeps wanting all sorts of details about the London School Board, all of which I have to find out, and it worries me, for it is out of my beat. Then another wants all sorts of questions answered about the Odyssey, let alone the numerous New Year's letters that I have to answer. But this does not nearly exhaust the number of things that were interfering with the writing of his book about the Sonnets of Shakespeare. On 5th March 1899, Giacalone Patti wrote from Trapani that a friend of his had the flag of one of the steamers in which Garibaldi and his Thousand arrived at 300 CONTE PEPOLI XXXVIII 1899 Marsala in 1860. It was a large flag, white and blue Act. 63 stripes with the name of the steamer, Lombardo, across it. The Lombardo was the steamer commanded by Nino Bixio and was sunk in the harbour of Marsala ; Garibaldi himself commanded the Piemonte. Butler was to find some rich Englishman, or some wealthy museum, to buy this historic object. He made inquiries without success, and replied that the flag was not more likely to find a purchaser in London than a flag of the Mahdi, taken in the Soudan, would be to find a purchaser in Sicily. The flag was afterwards bought by Conte Agostino Sieri Pepoli, and is now in the museum in the convent of the Annunziata at Trapani, where the count also placed the large collection of valuable and curious objects which he gave to the town. He died in the spring of 1910, aged 62; the previous autumn I had had a long conversation with him one evening as we sat together outside the Grand Hotel at Trapani. He was staying in Trapani partly to be near his museum, the arrangement of which was the hobby of his declining days, and partly because, as he grew older, life on the Mountain was too full of discomfort. He told me a great deal about his museum; he had put The Authoress of the Odyssey and Butler's letter sending him the book into a special show-case with the autograph MS. of a Ballata by Scarlatti which he had bought at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. There were two Scarlatti-Alessandro, the father, and Domenico, his son. Domenico was a friend of Handel and so devoted to him and his genius that he always crossed himself whenever Handel's name was mentioned in his presence. I reminded the count of this, and said that Butler would have been proud if he could have known that his book and his letter were preserved in the same case with a Ballata by Domenico Scarlatti. He replied that this would not quite do; the Ballata is by Alessandro who was born at Trapani in 1658 or 1659. They sometimes tell one in Trapani that Alessandro was born not at Trapani, but at the village of Paceco, close by, and, if so, he would still pass for a Trapanese, because Paceco is in the Province of Trapani. Domenico was born in |