says,

A misura che amo--
Piange i suoi falli!

But this is straying from my subject; as I have embarked in this
fanciful hypothesis, I shall multiply my proofs and examples, as far
as I can, from memory.

In some account I have read of Murillo, he is emphatically styled _an
honest man_: this is all I can remember of his character; and _truth_
and nature prevail through all his pictures. In his Virgins, we can
trace nothing elevated, poetical or heavenly: they have not the
_ideality_ of Raffaelle's, nor the tender sweetness of Correggio's;
nor the glowing loveliness of Titian's; but they have an individual
reality about them, which gives them the air of portraits. That
chef-d'oeuvre, in the Pitti Palace, for instance, call it a
beautiful peasant girl and her baby, and it is faultless: but when I
am told it is the "_Vergine gloriosa, del Re Eterno Madre, Figliuola,
e Sposa_," I look instantly for something far beyond what I see
expressed. All Murillo's Virgins are so different from each other,
that it is plain the artist did not paint from any preconceived idea
of his own mind, but from different originals; they are all impressed
with that general air of truth, nature, and common life, which stamps
upon them a peculiar and distinct character.

Andrea del Sarto, who is in style as in character the very reverse of
Murillo, fascinated me at first by his enchanting colouring, and the
magical aerial depths of his chiaro-oscuro; but on a further
acquaintance with his works, I was struck by the predominance of
external form and colour over mind and feeling. His Virgins look as if
they had been born and bred in the first circles of society, and have
a particular air of elegance, an artificial grace, an attraction,
which may be entirely traced to exterior; to the cast of the features,
the contour of the form, the disposition of the draperies, the
striking attitudes, and, above all, the divine colouring: beauty and
dignity, and powerful effect, we always find in his pictures: but no
_moral_ pathos--no poetry--no sentiment--above all, a strange and
total want of devotional expression, simplicity and humility. His
Virgin with St. Francis and St. John, which hangs behind the Venus in
the Tribunes, is a wonderful picture; and there are two charming
Madonnas in the Borghese Palace at Rome. In the first we are struck by
the grouping and colouring; in the last, by a certain graceful
_lengthiness_ of the limbs and fine anima