Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862

In addition to these characters, wandering musicians find their way into the café, jugglers, peddlers of Roman mosaics and jewelry, plaster-casts and sponges, perfumery and paint-brushes. Or a peripatetic shoemaker, with one pair of shoes, which he recklessly offers for sale to giant or dwarf. One morning he found a purchaser—a French artist—who put them on, and threw away his old shoes. Fatal mistake. Two hours afterward, the buyer was back in the Greco, with both big toes sticking out of the ends of his new shoes, looking for that cochon of a shoemaker.

To those who read men like books, the Greco offers a valuable circulating library. The advantage, too, of these artistical works is, that one needs not be a Mezzofanti to read the Russian, Spanish, German, French, Italian, English, and other faces that pass before one panoramically. There sits a relation of a hospodar, drinking Russian tea; he pours into a large cup a small glass of brandy, throws in a slice of lemon, fills up with hot tea. Do you think of the miles he has traveled, in a telega , over snow-covered steppes, and the smoking samovar of tea that awaited him, his journey for the day ended? Had he lived when painting and sculpture were in their ripe prime, what a fiery life he would have thrown into his works! As it is, he drinks cognac, hunts wild-boars in the Pontine marshes—and paints Samson and Delilah, after models.

The Spanish artist, over a cup of chocolate, has lovely dreams, of burnt umber hue, and despises the neglected treasures left him by the Moors, while he seeks gold in—castles in the air.

The German, with feet in Italy and head far away in the Fatherland, frequents the German-club in preference to the Greco; for at the club is there not lager beer?.... In imperial Rome, there are lager beer breweries! He has the profundities of the esthetical in art at his finger-ends; it is deep-sea fishing, and he occasionally lands a whale, as Kaulbach has done; or very nearly catches a mermaid with Cornelius. Let us respect the man—he works .

The French artist, over a cup of black coffee, with perhaps a small glass of cognac, is the lightning to the German thunder. If he were asked to paint the portrait of a potato, he would make eyes about it, and then give you a little picture fit to adorn a boudoir. He does every thing with a flourish. If he has never painted Nero performing that celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow. He reads nature, and translates her, without understanding her. He will prove to you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea cattle-show. He blows up grand facts in the science of art with gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans bore for them. He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never mentions his discovery to the English. He is more dangerous with the fleurette than many a trooper with broadsword. Every thing that he appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nationality. The English race-horse at Chantilly has an air of curl-papers about his mane and tail.

The Italian artist—the night-season is for sleep.

The English artist—hearken to Ruskin on Turner! When one has hit the bull's-eye, there is nothing left but to lay down the gun, and go and have—a whitebait dinner.

The American artist—there is danger of the youthful giant kicking out the end of the Cradle of Art, and 'scatterlophisticating rampageously' over all the nursery.

'I'd jest give a hun-dred dol-lars t'morrow, ef I could find out a way to cut stat-tures by steam,' said Chapin, the sculptor.

'I can't see why a country with great rivers, great mountains, and great institutions generally, can not produce great sculptors and painters,' said Caper sharply, one day to Rocjean.

'It is this very greatness,' answered Rocjean, 'that prevents it. The aim of the people runs not in the narrow channel of mountain-stream, but with the broad tide of the ocean. In the hands of Providence, other lands in other times have taken up painting and sculpture with their whole might, and have wielded them to advance civilization. They have played—are playing their part, these civilizers; but they are no longer chief actors, least of all in America. Painting and sculpture may take the character of subjects there; but their rôle as king is—played out.'

'Much as you know about it,' answered Caper, 'you are all theory!'

'That maybe,' quoth Rocjean; 'you know what ΘΕΟΣ means in Greek, don't you?'

There came to Rome, in the autumn, along with the other travelers, a caravan of wild beasts, ostensibly under charge of Monsieur Charles, the celebrated Tamer, rendered illustrious and illustrated by Nadar and Gustave Doré, in the Journal pour Rire . They were exhibited under a canvas tent in the Piazza Popolo, and a very cold time they had of it during the winter. Evidently, Monsieur Charles believed the climate of Italy belonged to the temperance society of climates. He erred, and suffered with his ' superbe et manufique ÉLLLLLÉPHANT!' 'and when we reflec', ladies and gentlemen, that there are persons, forty and even fifty years old, who have never seen the Ellllephant!!!… and who DARE TO SAY so!!!…' Monsieur Charles made his explanations with teeth chattering.

Caper, anxious to make a sketch of a very fine Bengal tiger in the collection, easily purchased permission to make studies of the animals during the hours when the exhibition was closed to the public; and as he went at every thing vigorously, he was before long in possession of several fine sketches of the tiger and other beasts, besides several secrets only known to the initiated, who act as keepers.

The royal Bengal tiger was one of the finest beasts Caper had ever seen, and what he particularly admired was the jet-black lustre of the stripes on his tawny sides and the vivid lustre of his eyes. The lion curiously seemed laboring under a heavy sleep at the very time when he should have been awake; but then his mane was kept in admirable order. The hair round his face stood out like the bristles of a shoe-brush, and there was a curl in the knob of hair at the end of his tail that amply compensated for his inactivity. The hyenas looked sleek and happy, and their teeth were remarkably white; but the elephant was the constant wonder of all beholders. Instead of the tawny, blue-gray color of most of his species, he was black, and glistened like a patent-leather boot; while his tusks were as white as—ivory; yea, more so.

'I don't understand what makes your animals look so bright,' said Caper one day to one of the keepers.

'Come here to-morrow morning early, when we make their toilettes, and you'll see,' replied the man, laughing. 'Why, there's that old hog of a lion, he's as savage and snaptious before he has his medicine as a corporal; and looks as old as Methusaleh, until we arrange his beard and get him up for the day. As for the ellllephant … ugh!'

Caper's curiosity was aroused, and the next morning, early, he was in the menagerie. The first sight that struck his eye was the elephant, keeled over on one side, and weaving his trunk about, evidently as a signal of distress; while his keeper and another man were—blacking-pot and shoe-brushes in hand—going all over him from stem to stern.

'Good day,' said the keeper to him, 'here's a pair of boots for you! put outside the door to be blacked every morning, for five francs a day. It's the dearest job I ever undertook…and the boots are ungrateful! Here, Pierre,' he continued to the man who helped him, 'he shines enough; take away the breshes, and bring me the sand-paper to rub up his tusks. Talk about polished beasts! I believe, myself, that we beat all other shows to pieces on this 'ere point. Some beasts are more knowing than others; for example, them monkeys in that cage there. Give that big fool of a shimpanzy that bresh, Pierre, and let the gentleman see him operate on tother monkeys.'