i, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese.
And of the later Sienese, there are Sodoma, Matteo da Siena, and
Beccafumi. The list includes, also, Domenichino, Sebastian del Piombo,
Guido, Salvator Rosa, Holbein, Rubens, and Lo Spagna.

The names we have cited will be enough to show those familiar with the
subject the scope of the collection and its value as a consecutive
series, embracing a period which few galleries in any country cover so
completely, since few have been gathered on any historical plan.

The chief question, of course, is as to the authenticity of the
pictures. This cannot be decided till they are exhibited and Mr.
Jarves's proofs are before the public. It is mainly to be decided on
internal evidence, and it is on such evidence that a great part of the
very early pictures in foreign collections have been labelled with the
names of particular artists. The weight of such evidence is to be
determined by the judgment of experts, and we are informed that Mr.
Jarves has a mass of testimony from those best qualified to decide in
such cases,--among it that of Sir Charles Eastlake, M. Rio, and the
directors of the two great public galleries of Florence. After all,
however, this appears to us a matter of secondary consequence. If the
pictures are genuine productions of the periods they are intended to
illustrate, if they are good specimens of their several schools of
Art, the special names of the artists who may have painted them are a
matter of less concern. The money-value of the collection might be
lessened without affecting its worth in other more considerable
respects, as an illustration of the rise and progress of the most
important school of modern Art.

Every year it becomes more difficult to obtain pictures of the class
of which Mr. Jarves's collection is mainly composed. The directors of
European galleries have become alive to their value, and are sparing
no effort to fill the _lacuna_ left by the more strictly _virtuoso_
taste of a former generation. As far as the general public is
concerned, such pictures must, no doubt, create the taste by which
they will be appreciated. The style of the more archaic ones among
them may be easily ridiculed, and the cry of Pre-Raphaelitism may be
turned against them; but we should not forget that these earlier
efforts, however they might fail in grace of treatment and ease of
expression, are sincere and genuine products of their time, and very
different in spirit and character