say of feeling, for, as long as they were
true artists, their instinctive feelings must have propelled them in a
very different direction. Gluck, that great dramatist, who was greatest
when least dramatic, thought that music was made for the sake of the
drama, that its greatest glory was to express the difference, as he
himself wrote, between a princess and a waiting-maid between a Spartan
and a Phrygian, to follow the steps of a play as its humble retainer and
commentator. Gluck composed his music for the sake of the dramas; but, O
irony of art! the dramas are recollected only for the sake of his music.
Let the artist be humble, mistrustful of his own art, let him believe
it to be subservient to something outside it, devote it magnanimously
to some purpose of utility, or some expression of fact, sacrifice it
throughout; it will be all in vain; if his work be excellent, it will
subordinate all to itself, it will swallow up every other interest,
throw into the shade every other utility.

One day the Pope's banker, Agostino Chigi, came to Master Rafael of
Urbino, and said to him--"I am building a little pleasure villa in
which to entertain my friends. Baldassare Peruzzi has made the plans,
Sebastiano del Piombo has designed the arabesques, Nanni da Udine will
paint me the garlands of fruit and flowers; it must be perfection. You
shall paint me the walls of the open hall looking out on the Tiber,
that it may be a fit place wherein to sup and make merry with popes
and cardinals and princes." "Very good," answered Rafael.

The object was to obtain a dining-hall, and the fresco was to be there
merely as an ornament; but Rafael painted his Galatea, and behold, the
hall could no longer be used as a dining-room; every one crowded into
it to see the fresco; the hall has now become a gallery, and the real
property, less of its owners, who cannot make use of it, than of the
whole world, who insist on entering it; the room now exists only for the
sake of the fresco, yet the fresco was originally intended to exist only
for it. This is the inevitable course of art; we call in beauty as a
servant, and see, like some strange daemon, it becomes the master; it may
answer our call, but we have to do its bidding.

We have strayed far away from Orpheus and Eurydice, while thus following
the train of ideas suggested by the story of the bas-relief. Yet we may
return to the subject, and use it as an illustration of our last remark.
We have sa