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But when she told this to Olive, the young paintress was of a different opinion. She had heard the name of Lord Arundale, and recognised it as that of a nobleman on whom his love of Art and science shed more honour than his title. That was why Mr. Vanbrugh showed him respect, she knew. "Certainly, certainly!" said Meliora, a little ashamed.
If the old painter of Woodford Cottage was an ascetic and a misanthrope never was the "milk of human kindness" so redundant in any human heart as in that of his excellent little sister, Miss Meliora Vanbrugh.
Congreve's will was absurd and capricious; but Wycherley's last actions appear to have been prompted by obdurate malignity. Here, at least for the present, we must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left ourselves space to do them justice. By Leigh Hunt. 8vo. London: 1840. Mr.
Vanbrugh shared the enthusiasm of the day for classical work, as understood and developed, whether well or ill, by the Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but with characteristic disregard of law, he thought to combine classical severity with the fancifulness natural in a northerner and a playwright.
Vanbrugh, with his good-humoured smile and military bearing, talks in a fatherly way to the daughter, is deeply impressed with her many attractions, and is not sorry to learn that her ambition is all for comedy. He promises to use his good offices with Mr.
Olive experienced as she often did when brought into contact with this man's enthusiasm a delight almost like terror; for it made her shudder and tremble as though within her own poor frame was that Pythian effluence, felt, not understood the spirit of Genius. Vanbrugh came back, and continued his painting, talking all the while.
It is he who raised the famous Castle of Blenheim, a ponderous and lasting monument of our unfortunate Battle of Hochstet. Were the apartments but as spacious as the walls are thick, this castle would be commodious enough. Some wag, in an epitaph he made on Sir John Vanbrugh, has these lines: "Earth lie light on him, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee."
And each year, when the carriages rolled away, and the visitants admiration remained nothing but admiration, she consoled herself with the thought that Michael Vanbrugh was "a man before his age," but that his time for appreciation would surely come. So she hoped on till the next April. Happy Meliora!
"Perhaps," she said, her thoughts taking their colour from the general weariness of her spirits, "perhaps Miss Vanbrugh was right, and I might have had the picture returned. It cannot be very good, or it would not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never toils all comes by inspiration.
Returning to the High Street, the Free Library and the Town Hall attract attention. The latter is nearly on the site of the old free schools, which were built by Sir John Vanbrugh with all the solidity characteristic of his style; and Leigh Hunt opined, if suffered to remain, they would probably outlast the whole of Kensington.
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