ction than that of soothing the domestic
affections; and achieved for themselves at last an immortality not the
less noble, because in their lifetime they had concerned themselves less
to claim it than to bestow.

158. Yet, while we acknowledge the discretion and simple-heartedness of
these men, honoring them for both: and the more when we compare their
tranquil powers with the hot egotism and hollow ambition of their
inferiors: we have to remember, on the other hand, that the measure they
thus set to their aims was, if a just, yet a narrow one; that amiable
discretion is not the highest virtue; nor to please the frivolous, the
best success. There is probably some strange weakness in the painter,
and some fatal error in the age, when in thinking over the examples of
their greatest work, for some type of culminating loveliness or
veracity, we remember no expression either of religion or heroism, and
instead of reverently naming a Madonna di San Sisto, can only whisper,
modestly, "Mrs. Pelham feeding chickens."

159. The nature of the fault, so far as it exists in the painters
themselves, may perhaps best be discerned by comparing them with a man
who went not far beyond them in his general range of effort, but who did
all his work in a wholly different temper--Hans Holbein.

The first great difference between them is of course in completeness of
execution. Sir Joshua's and Gainsborough's work, at its best, is only
magnificent sketching; giving indeed, in places, a perfection of result
unattainable by other methods, and possessing always a charm of grace
and power exclusively its own; yet, in its slightness addressing itself,
purposefully, to the casual glance, and common thought--eager to arrest
the passer-by, but careless to detain him; or detaining him, if at all,
by an unexplained enchantment, not by continuance of teaching, or
development of idea. But the work of Holbein is true and thorough;
accomplished, in the highest as the most literal sense, with a calm
entireness of unaffected resolution, which sacrifices nothing, forgets
nothing, and fears nothing.

160. In the portrait of the Hausmann George Gyzen,[25] every accessory
is perfect with a fine perfection: the carnations in the glass vase by
his side--the ball of gold, chased with blue enamel, suspended on the
wall--the books--the steelyard--the papers on the table, the seal-ring,
with its quartered bearings,--all intensely there, and there in beauty
of which