ce of a stone, in by far the plurality of
instances, is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill;
more fantastic in form and incomparably richer in color,--the last
quality being, in fact, so noble in most stones of good birth (that is
to say, fallen from the crystalline mountain-ranges), that I shall be
less able to illustrate this part of my subject satisfactorily by means
of engraving than perhaps any other, except the color of skies. I say,
_shall_ be less able, because the beauty of stone surface is in so great
a degree dependent on the mosses and lichens which root themselves upon
it, that I must place my richest examples in the section on vegetation.
For instance, in the plate opposite, though the mass of rock is large
and somewhat distant, the effect of it is as much owing to the white
spots of silvery lichen in the centre and left, and to the flowing lines
in which the darker mosses, growing in the cranny, have arranged
themselves beyond, as to the character of the rock itself; nor could the
beauty of the whole mass be explained, if we were to approach the least
nearer, without more detailed drawing of this vegetation. For the
present I shall only give a few examples of the drawing of stones
roughly broken, or worn so as not to be materially affected by
vegetation.

[Illustration: 48. Bank of Slaty Crystallines.]

Sec. 8. We have already seen an example of Titian's treatment of mountain
crests as compared with Turner's; here is a parallel instance, from
Titian, of stones in the bed of a torrent (Fig. 108), in many ways good
and right, and expressing in its writhed and variously broken lines far
more of real stone structure than the common water-color dash of the
moderns. Observe, especially, how Titian has understood that the
fracture of the stone more or less depends on the undulating grain of
its crystalline structure, following the cavity of the largest stone in
the middle of the figure, with concentric lines; and compare in Plate
+21+ the top of Turner's largest stones on the left.

[Illustration: FIG. 108.]

Sec. 9. If the reader sees nothing in this drawing (Fig. 108) that he can
like,--although, indeed, I would have him prefer the work of
Turner,--let him be assured that he does not yet understand on what
Titian's reputation is founded. No painter's name is oftener in the
mouth of the ordinary connoisseur, and no painter was ever less
understood. His power of color is indeed perfect, but