Nihil in orbe sinus
Bails praelucet amenis.’
HOBACE.
The story of the
Cumaan sibyl is like that of Tithonus, changing the sexes of the mortal
and immortal. The name of this unfortunately-gifted
sibyl was Deiphobe, and in her youth she was beloved Apollo, who, at her
request, granted her a life of as many years as she held grains of sand
in her hand. Unhappily, she did not ask for perpetual youth,
and she wasted away until only her
voice was left, which one is profanely tempted to think a vanishing
power only equalled by the famous Cheshire cat
in “Alice in Wonderland,” that vanishes
till nothing but the grin is left. The i.e. beauty of the scene in which she lived was, we
trust, an alleviation to her very lifelong misery, Certainly Turner
seldom if ever painted a more lovely view than this, which is lovely
still, despite some sad ravages of time. The excessive and almost
confusing richness of detail in this picture is, according to Ruskin,
the main fault of the composition. “There is,” he says, “a surfeit of
material. No composition whatever could render such a quantity digestible; nay, the very goodness
of the composition is harmful, for everything so leads into everything else that we are
dragged through arch after arch and round tower after tower. never
getting leave to breathe until we are jaded.” We confess we wish that a
few more of our living artists erred in, the same fashions |
