MISS ANGEL*
Miss Armin. is not an imaginary character. She is the lady whose name appears so frequently in the diary of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and who gained an extraordinary and far from wholly merited reputation as an artist when Sir Joshua held the post of President of the Royal Academy. It is scarcely necessary to say that he was the first to receive this honour when the Academy was founded in 1768, and in the original list of " R.A.'s " we find Reynolds's friend, the then famous Angelica Kauffmann. She was a woman of rare gifts, beautiful in person, an accomplished musi- cian, a remarkable linguist, and possessing as an artist extra- ordinary facility, and a warmth and brightness of fancy which was mistaken for imaginative genius. Her charms of person and alluring grace of manner may have blinded even Reynolds him- self to her deficiencies as a painter. Her sentimental allegories, her shepherds and shepherdesses, her fanciful portraits, seem to have been generally acceptable. She won wealth and fame, painted great lords and ladies, and might have had a life as happy • MOE Angel. By Miss Thackeray. With Six Illustrations. London: Smith, Elder, and O. 1876. as it was brilliant, had she not been fooled into a marriage with a man who called himself "Count de Horn," and afterwards turned out to be the Count's valet. The rascal had stolen his master's ward- robe and credentials, and was clever enough to deceive the world of London as well as Miss Angel. Her second marriage, to Antonio Zucchi, A.R.A., was, it is to be hoped, more fortunate. Miss Angel's name figures often in the literature of that period. Goldsmith hitches it into a song. Sir Joshua, who painted her portrait twice, mentions it, as we have said, frequently. Klop- stock corresponded with her, so also did Gessner, and Goethe alludes to her with feeling. Her art may be feeble, but the woman, with all her faults, must have been in the highest degree attrac- tive, and the seventeen years she spent in England brought her no slight share of reputation and wealth.
Angelica's romantic career has already attracted the attention of a German novelist, and now Miss Thackeray, a skilled artist in words, undertakes to give us a cabinet picture of this brilliant and accomplished lady. It is needless to say that the representation, all the more acceptable for being on a small scale, is done very cleverly. There are no lack of pretty scenes, and Angelica, the most important figure, is sketched with considerable care. In her touches from nature, the writer is generally true, and often pathetic. She makes nature sympathize with varying moods of mind, with sudden outbursts of joy, or with the monotonous iteration of sorrow, but it may be questioned whether this habit of Miss Thackeray's has not become a mannerism, and whether her extreme minuteness of description does not detract from the interest, as it certainly retards the swift movement of her story. So much is this the case in Miss Angel, that it would seem as if the chief art of the novelist were spent on what is subsidiary. It is a difficult task, moreover, to bring up again the familiar faces and figures of a past age, so as to invest them with a new life, and pleasant though it be to meet with Sir Joshua shifting his trum- pet, or with Dr. Johnson shambling through the streets and touching alternate lamp-posts, and to catch faint glimpses of other well-known men who fluttered round Boswell's hero, they are revived by Miss Thackeray in too shadowy a form to take any strong hold of the imagination. Reynolds, indeed, takes a promi- nent place in the tale, for true to the tradition, the writer makes him fall in love with Miss Angel, and the way in which she rejects his advances in the first place, and afterwards endeavours vainly to win him back, is very happily described. Angelica has a generous, free nature, that craves sympathy and appreciates admiration ; her heart is warm for her friends, but in the excitement and whirl of society she sometimes forgets that she has a heart at all. Antonio Zucchi, the artist, who has known and loved her from childhood, has the habit of uttering blunt truths, and does not fail to tell Angelica his mind when she thus offends. He is very outspoken, too, about her works, and blames that others praise. He will say what he thinks, at the risk even of losing her friendship, which is dearer to him than life. The man has a warm temper and a tender heart, and his honest manliness, his love of children, and his consideration of Angelica's tiresome old father attract the sympathy of the reader. Antonio did not like the Kauffmann's allegories :— “ 'I do not comprehend,' he said, in his slow English, 'why an allegory should be of more value to the world than a truth. I should have im- agined until now that a good likeness, carefully painted, is what one wishes for in remembrance of a friend, not a classical allusion to some- thing else which does not concern anybody in particular.' Miss Angel blushed up Contradiction from Zuechi always roused the secret gipsy in Angelica's character. True friends are sorts of magnifying- glasses. Antonio was a true friend, and saw her perhaps as she really was, with some slight exaggeration. For Antonio alone, perhaps, she was but herself,—no wonder, such as all these people would have declared her to be ; no mighty mistress of her art, but a sweet and impulsive- hearted girl, whose arch, bright looks, half-saucy, half-appealing, went straight to his heart, whose constant self-denying work and application he knew how to appreciate. Perhaps she pursued her way too triumphantly ; perhaps if her pictures had cost her more, they might have been better worth,—the sweet life-time she had given to them, the hours of youth, of gaiety, and natural amusement, and interest sacrificed to these smiling ladies, vaguely waving their arms, or reclining upon im- possible banks. He praised her colouring, and Angel's cheeks would burn in answer. Her sentiment was charming, but her drawing was absurd, and he did not scruple to tell her so."
Antonio, Miss Angel's faithful adorer, leads a hard life of it, whilst she is receiving the applause of London society. He quarrels with her, as well he may, leaves her in a kind of huff, and goes to Italy. Meanwhile, by some infatuation which is not clearly ex- plained, since on one page we read that she could not love him, and on another that she did, Angelica is persuaded by-the im- postor De Horn to marry him in secret. The man is forced to fly immediately, the real Count appearing on the scene, and Angelica, whose faithful nature shrinks from a separation, lives
the life of a virgin-widow until she hears of his death. When .Antonio returns, his grief for her trouble seems to turn against her in its very intensity. To see Miss Angel looking so ill and changed cuts him to the heart :—
" What madness befell you ? ' he cried. Did you forget your father, and all who love you ? Oh! Angelica, what have you done ? " What do you mean by it ? 'he cried again. 'Had you no sense of honour left? no instinct of your own dignity ?' And his eyes brimmed over with tears, and he stooped and took her band and kissed it with a tender respect which belied his words. 'You would have done better if you had married me,' said Antonio, with a sort of groan,--- I, who went away because I thought it hopeless, and fool that I was could not consent to follow in your train, as so many others had done! I had rather you had died. 0 Angelica!' he cried, in a tone of such true sorrowful part in her sorrows that Angel, who had been angry, and cold, and indignant, now suddenly began to cry ; and the tears did them both good, and washed away their bitterness of heart."
This is the mournful side of a tale which is also full of brightly- coloured pictures, and of descriptive passages which mark the hand of a practised artist. On the whole, the painting is, as we have already said, too minute, but it is often very admirable, and imparts the delight afforded by all skilful writing. The first scenes of the story are laid in Italy and in Venice, from whence Angelica, ac- cording to the biography, was brought to England by Lady Went- worth, the wife of the British Ambassador. We do not know whether Miss Thackeray's "Lady W." is a purely imaginary sketch. She is more life-like than attractive, with her love of power, her jealousy of the charms of others, and the ease with which she can frown upon or discard her most cherished favourites. In contrast to "Lady W.," there is a Lady Diana, who lives with her. She will not like Angelica's pictures, and is generally opposed to her, until trouble comes to the artist, when "Lady Di" is ready with sym- pathy and help. Angelica was drawn to her, notwithstanding her brusquerie, by a curious, indescribable sense of truthfulness.
Miss Angel is a charming novelette, but the charm is not so much in the plot as in the literary workmanship. Two or three very brief extracts illustrative of Miss Thackeray's admirable art shall be given here, although it is scarcely just to divide such descriptive passages from the context. In the first scene from which we quote, the " Ambassadress " has taken Miss Angel into her gondola :—
" She is a little shy, but quite composed, as she leans lightly back in her place by the great lady ; her stuff dress looks somewhat out of keep- ing with the splendid equipage, where the carpets are Persian and the cushions are covered with silver damask, and the very awnings are of soft, flame-coloured silk. They have been put up by the Ambassadress's order, in place of the black hood which oppressed her, for she loves light, and air, and liberty. Now they touch palace walls, and with a hollow jar start off once more. Now comes a snatch of a song through an old archway ; here are boats and voices, the gondolier's ear-rings twinkle in the sun, here are vine-wreaths and steps, where the children —those untiring spectators of life—are clustering ; more barges, with heavy fruit and golden treasure, go by. A little brown-faced boy is lying with his brown, legs in the sun on the very edge of a barge, dreaming over into the green water ; he lazily raises his head to look, and falls beak again; now a black boat passes like a ghost, its slender points start upwards in a line with the curve of yonder spire; now out of all this swing of shadow and confusion they cross a sweet breadth of sunlight, and come into the Grand Canal."
One more lovely glimpse of Italian life must be given. Miss Angel is travelling with the Ambassador and his lady England- wards. They stop and change horses at Bordighiera, on the coast of the Mediterranean :—
"Here the sun came out and the clouds disappeared ; a sort of dimmed brightness was everywhere. It lay on the sea, on the village, in a little smiling grove beyond a well, where a small gate swung upon its hinges. Miss Angel went up a little way along an avenue of lemon and of olives, and breathed the sweet morning pastoral silence. She came to an old ivy-grown well as she walked, and sat down, resting upon the margin. The pretty, pensive figure itself was not unsuggestive, looking thoughtfully down into the water. Her heart beat with hope, with a sort of romantic delight and sweet absurdity. Some peasants passed ; a woman carrying a load of leaves and tendrils of vines, and driving a beautiful white cow with long, arched horns. Then came the shepherd, followed by some goats trotting with tinkling bells, and lastly, two little children, with goat-skin coats ; one had her hands full of leaves and olives. The youngest was carrying something held carefully against its little breast. The child looked up with two wild eyes at the pretty lady leaning against the old iron clank of the well. Something in her look invited confidence, and he held up a little dead bird as he passed. What are you going to do with it ?' Angel said, kindly.'—' We are going to dig a grave,' said the child. 'It is dead l'—and the little thing walked on with careful steps."
These are faithfully drawn pictures, and beautiful as they are true. In another direction, Miss Thackeray's descriptive power reminds us of her father's ; as, for example, when she writes of Garrick as actin' g Hamlet "in powder and Court dress, facing the infinite in a periwig, and treading the great globe of life in paste shoe- buckles ;" and of Garrick's faithful adorer, Miss Hannah More, "palpitating in a box by Mrs. Garrick's side." The book, indeed, is fall of happy pasaa.ges, which are far beyond the skill of the ordinary novelist ; but it is quite possible that the ordinary novel- reader who delights in Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Braddon and Mr. Wilkie Collins, will find little to attract him in the delicate workmanship of Miss Thackeray.
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