no doubt, and not to be dispensed with, but
so much the more requiring the accompaniment
of nobler perceptions to hinder us from
concluding that man was made to live by
bread alone; that is to say, by the satisfaction
of his material, as opposed to his spiritual
wants. So little was that the conclusion of
the good emperor and philosopher, Marcus
Antoninus, that, with the uncontemptuous
eye of a sage, and with a curious familiar
anticipation of that sense of the picturesque
which has been thought by some peculiar to
modern times, he directs our attention to the
outside of a loaf itself, as possessing
something graceful and attractive in its ruggedness,
or what an artist would call the "freedom
of its forms." The whole passage in his
Meditations is itself so beautiful, and in spite of
his want of thorough artistic perceptions as
to form and line, expands into such a
comprehensive and noble sense of what has been
termed the art of nature, that although, we
have already kept the reader standing much
longer than we intended at the steps of Gore
House with this prefatory digression on such
matters, we are sure he will be pleased at
having it laid before him.

"Such things as ensue upon what is well constituted
by Nature, have something graceful and
attractive. Thus, some parts of a well-baked loaf
will crack and become rugged. What is thus cleft
beyond the design of the baker looks well and invites
the appetite. So when figs are at the ripest, they
begin to crack. Thus, in full ripe olives their
approach to putrefaction gives the proper beauty to
the fruit. Thus, the ladened ear of corn hanging
down, the stern brow of the lion, and the foam
flowing from the mouth of the boar, and many other
things, considered apart, have nothing comely; yet
because of their connexion with things natural, they
adorn them, and delight the spectator. Thus, to
one who has a deep affection of soul, and penetration
into the constitution of the whole, scarce anything
connected with Nature will fail to recommend itself
agreeably to him. Thus, the real vast jaws of savage
beasts will please him, no less than the imitations of
them by painters or statuaries. With like pleasure
will his chaste eyes behold the maturity and grace of
old age in man or woman, and the inviting charms
of youth. Many such things will he experience,
not credible to all, but only to those who have the
genuine affection of soul to Nature and her works."

Yes, most excellent Emperor. And the
same might have been said by thee, and
probably was said, of the commonest objects
of Art round about thee, in thy home and thy
goods and chattels, thy cabinets and caskets
and chairs: for Art is nature's doing also,
being the work of her workmanship; man,
and all forms and graces, being referable to
her suggestion. The chair, as well as the
plant, has its straight and its flowing lines;
the casket and the cabinet its ornaments of
fruit and foliage, its efflorescence in metal or
precious stone; some their figures of men,
beasts, and birds; and all, more or less, their
colours, proportions, and uses. Shall we not
then observe, and as much as possible,
spiritualize them accordingly, giving them
the grace and beauty which nature suggests,
and so rendering them assistants of our best
perceptions against our worst? For effeminacy,
the danger of delight, is not a consequence
of enjoyments founded in truth and
in the spirit of things, but of grovellings in
the false and the gross; not a consequence
therefore of good art, but of bad; of art
lulling to sleep on the chair for the mere
body's sake, and not of art awakening us to
intellectual perceptions, and thus dividing
the empire of body with that of mind. Luther
was not the less prepared to hazard martyrdom,
because he was a player on the organ.
Socrates was not the less an actual martyr,
and one of the greatest of men, because he
had been a sculptor, and wrought figures of
the Graces.

The collection at Gore House, besides
tapestry, mirrors, and a few other things,
consists of cabinet work in oak, walnut, ebony,
&c., carved, sculptured, inlaid, sometimes
with pictures, oftener in the Buhl style of
ornamentation; in short, presenting all the
reigning styles of treatment from the latter
part of the fifteenth century to the close or
the eighteenth. There are cabinets, coffers,
commodes, buffets, chairs, tables, clocks,
drawers, presses, couches, flower-stands, fire-
screens, and even pairs of bellows. The rooms
in fact are not big enough to hold them;
so that the visitors are crowded; and as the
materials are chiefly dark and ponderous, the
general effect, notwithstanding occasional
gorgeousness, is heavy, and even somewhat
gloomy. You might imagine that the
fortunes of half a dozen ancient houses had been
suddenly ruined, and their goods and chattels
despatched in haste to an auctioneer's, to be
sold. Better justice would have been done
to the individual objects, had there been
space enough to shew them; for all productions
of Art have so much to do with proportion,
that the proportions even of the spaces
round about them become of importance to
their display. Perhaps, however, it was not
easy to refuse offers from contributors:
variety too was a temptation; and a liberal
abundance is welcome after all, even at the
expense of inconvenience.

The Government Commissioners, with
great judgment, have drawn attention to
these curiosities, not as models for indiscriminate
imitation, but as illustrations of the
taste of successive periods; as samples of
merit on particular points, especially
ornamentation; and in several instances as
warnings against inconsistencies and bad taste.
Foreigners, they say, can teach the English
workman nothing in point of mechanical
fitness and completion, but he may learn much
from them in the art of decoration. This, no
doubt, is true; and we hope and believe that
foreigners and natives will benefit one another
by these exhibitions; the Englishman learning
to make his cabinets elegant, and the