hows exactly
the same power and feeling as Turner's. If with Turner I were to rank
the historical painters as landscapists, estimating rather the power
they show, than the actual value of the landscape they produced, I
should class those, whose landscapes I have studied, in some such order
as this at the side of the page:--associating with the landscape of
Perugino that of Francia and Angelico, and the other severe painters of
religious subjects. I have put Turner and Tintoret side by side, not
knowing which is, in landscape, the greater; I had nearly associated in
the same manner the noble names of John Bellini and Albert Durer; but
Bellini must be put first, for his profound religious peace yet not
separated from the other, if but that we might remember his kindness to
him in Venice; and it is well we should take note of it here, for it
furnishes us with a most interesting confirmation of what was said in
the text respecting the position of Bellini as the last of the religious
painters of Venice. The following passage is quoted in Jackson's "Essay
on Wood-engraving," from Albert Durer's Diary:

"I have many good friends among the Italians who warn me not to eat or
drink with their painters, of whom several are my enemies, and copy my
picture in the church, and others of mine, wherever they can find them,
and yet they blame them, _and say they are not according to ancient art,
and therefore not good_. Giovanni Bellini, however, has praised me
highly to several gentlemen, and wishes to have something of my doing:
he called on me himself, and requested that I would paint a picture for
him, for which, he said, he would pay me well. People are all surprised
that I should be so much thought of by a person of his reputation: he is
very old, but is still the best painter of them all."

A choice little piece of description this, of the Renaissance painters,
side by side with the good old Venetian, who was soon to leave them to
their own ways. The Renaissance men are seen in perfection, envying,
stealing, and lying, but without wit enough to lie to purpose.

12. ROMANIST MODERN ART.

It is of the highest importance, in these days, that Romanism should be
deprived of the miserable influence which its pomp and picturesqueness
have given it over the weak sentimentalism of the English people; I call
it a miserable influence, for of all motives to sympathy with the Church
of Rome, this I unhesitatingly class as the basest: I