invitation.

Veronese is said to have been a man of kindly spirit, generous and
devout. In painting for churches and convents, he would consent to
receive the smallest remuneration, sometimes not more than the price of
his colours and canvas. For his fine picture now in the Louvre, the
'Marriage of Cana,' he is believed not to have had more than forty
pounds in our money. He died when he was but fifty-eight years of age,
in 1588. He had married and left sons who were painters, and worked with
their father. He had a brother, Benedotto, who was also a painter, and
who is thought to have painted many of the architectural backgrounds to
Veronese's pictures.

Veronese's portrait, which he has left us, gives the idea of a more
earnest and impressionable man than Tintoret. A man in middle age,
bald-headed, with a furrowed brow, cheeks a little hollowed, head
slightly thrown back, and a somewhat anxious as well as intent
expression of face; what of the dress is seen, being a plain doublet
with turned-over collar, and a cloak arranged in a fold across the
breast, and hanging over the right shoulder like a shepherd's 'maud' or
plaid. Looking at the engraving, and hearing of Paul Veronese's
amiability and piety, one has little difficulty in thinking of the
magnificent painter, as a single-hearted, simple-minded man, neither
vain nor boastful, nor masterful save by the gift of genius.

I have called Paul Veronese a magnificent painter, and magnificence is
the great attribute of his style; but before going farther into his
merits and defects, I should like to quote to you a passage from Mr
Ruskin, the most eloquent and dogmatic of art critics, prefacing the
passage with the statement that the true lesson which it teaches is
particularly needful for women, who, if they love art at all, are apt to
regard it chiefly for its sentiment, and to undervalue such proper
painter's work, such breadth and affluence and glory of handling, as are
to be met with on the canvases of painters like Veronese and Rubens.
'But I perceive a tendency among some of the more thoughtful critics of
the day to forget the business of a painter is _to paint_, and so
altogether to despise those men, Veronese and Rubens for instance, who
were painters, _par excellence_, and in whom the expressional qualities
are subordinate. Now it is well, when we have strong moral or poetical
feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the best part of the
work; but it is