long with
the loving, trusting ones were cold faces, that begun to press on him
and judge him. Such as these would buy and sell his pictures for
garniture and household-stuff. His pictures, so sacred to his soul,
would be the subject of their prate, "This I love, or this I hate,
this likes me more, and this affects me less!" To avoid such sacrilege,
he has chosen his portion. And if his heart sometimes sinks,
while at his monotonous work of painting endless cloisters
and eternal aisles, with the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint,
with the same cold, calm, beautiful regard, at least no merchant
traffics in his heart. Guarded by the sanctuary's gloom,
from vain tongues, his pictures may die, surely, gently die.

"O youth, men praise so,--holds their praise its worth?
Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?"

Andrea del Sarto.

(Called "The Faultless Painter".)

In this monologue, "the faultless painter" (Andrea Senza Errori,
as he was surnamed by the Italians) is the speaker.
He addresses his worthless wife, Lucrezia, upon whom he weakly dotes,
and for whom he has broken faith with his royal patron,
Francis I. of France, in order that he might meet her demands
for money, to be spent upon her pleasures. He laments that he
has fallen below himself as an artist, that he has not realized
the possibilities of his genius, half accusing, from the better side
of his nature, and half excusing, in his uxoriousness,
the woman who has had no sympathy with him in the high ideals which,
with her support, he might have realized, and thus have placed himself
beside Angelo and Rafael. "Had the mouth then urged
`God and the glory! never care for gain. The present by the future,
what is that? Live for fame, side by side with Angelo--
Rafael is waiting. Up to God all three!' I might have done it for you."

In his `Comparative Study of Tennyson and Browning'*,
Professor Edward Dowden, setting forth Browning's doctrines
on the subject of Art, remarks:--

--
* Originally a lecture, delivered in 1868, and published in
`Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art' (Dublin), 5th
series, 1869; afterwards revised, and included in the
author's `Studies in Literature, 1789-1877'. It is one of
the best criticisms of Browning's poetry that have yet been
produced. Every Browning student should make a careful
study of it.
--

"The true glory of art is, that in