Yet I like far better than any
of these pictures of Rubens a work of that old Dutch master, Peter
Porbus, which hangs, though almost out of sight indeed, in our church
at home. The patron saints, simple, and standing firmly on either side,
present two homely old people to Our Lady enthroned in the midst, with
the look and attitude of one for whom, amid her "glories" (depicted in
dim little circular pictures, set in the openings of a chaplet of pale
flowers around her) all feelings are over, except a great pitifulness.
Her robe of shadowy blue suits my eyes better far than the hot
flesh-tints of the Medicean ladies of the great Peter Paul, in spite of
that amplitude and royal ease of action under their stiff court
costumes, at which Antony Watteau declares himself in dismay.

August 1705.

I am just returned from early Mass. I lingered long after the office
was ended, watching, pondering how in the world one could help a small
bird which had flown into the church but could find no way out again. I
suspect it will remain there, fluttering round and round distractedly,
far up under the arched roof till it dies exhausted. I seem to have
heard of a writer who likened man's life to a bird passing just once
only, on some winter night, from window to window, across a
cheerfully-lighted hall. The bird, taken captive by the ill-luck of a
moment, re-tracing its issueless circle till it expires within the
close vaulting of that great stone church:--human life may be like that
bird too!

Antony Watteau returned to Paris yesterday. Yes!--Certainly, great
heights of achievement would seem to lie before him; access to regions
whither one may find it increasingly hard to follow him even in
imagination, and figure to one's self after what manner his life moves
therein.

January 1709.

Antony Watteau has competed for what is called the Prix de Rome,
desiring greatly to profit by the grand establishment founded at Rome
by Lewis the Fourteenth, for the encouragement of French artists. He
obtained only the second place, but does not renounce his desire to
make the journey to Italy. Could I save enough by careful economies for
that purpose? It might be conveyed to him in some indirect way that
would not offend.

February 1712.

We read, with much pleasure for all of us, in the Gazette to-day, among
other events of the world, that Antony Watteau had been elected to the
Academy of Painting under the new title of Peintre des Fet