ver gazed the
moon upon the waters, or love-sick maiden upon the moon! We take him
perhaps for another Pygmalion? We imagine that it is those parted and
half-breathing lips, those eyes that _seem_ to float in light; the
pictured majesty of suffering virtue, or the tears of repenting
loveliness; the divinity of beauty, or "_the beauty of holiness_,"
which have thus transfixed him? No such thing: it is _fleshiness_ of
the tints, the _vaghezza_ of the colouring, the brilliance of the
carnations, the fold of a robe, or the fore-shortening of a little
finger. O! whip me such connaisseurs! the critic's stop-watch was
nothing to this.

Mere mechanical excellence, and all the tricks of art have their
praise as long as they are subordinate and conduce to the general
effect. In painting as in her sister arts it is necessary

"Che l'arte che tutto fa nulla si scuopre."

Of course I do not speak here of the Dutch school, whose highest aim,
and highest praise, is exquisite mechanical precision in the
representation of common nature and still life: but of those pictures
which are the productions of mind, which address themselves to the
understanding, the fancy, the feelings, and convey either a moral or a
poetical pleasure.

In taking a retrospective view of all the best collections in Italy
and of the Italian school in particular, I have been struck by the
endless multiplication of the same subjects, crucifixions, martyrdoms,
and other scripture horrors;--virgins, saints, and holy families. The
prevalence of the former class of subjects is easily explained, and
has been ingeniously defended; but it is not so easily reconciled to
the imagination. The mind and the eye are shocked and fatigued by the
succession of revolting and sanguinary images which pollute the walls
of every palace, church, gallery, and academy, from Milan to Naples.
The splendour of the execution only adds to their hideousness; we at
once seek for nature, and tremble to find it. It is hateful to see the
loveliest of the arts degraded to such butcher-work. I have often gone
to visit a famed collection with a secret dread of being led through a
sort of intellectual shambles, and returned with the feeling of one
who had supped full of horrors. I do not know how _men_ think, and
feel, though I believe many a man, who with every other feeling
absorbed in overpowering interest, could look unshrinking upon a real
scene of cruelty and blood, would shrink away disg