Among the additions was a very singular old
painting, "The Holy Family," by one of the earliest masters, whose
name I forget, not being familiar with it. I looked long at the
glorious Titian, the "Bacchus and Ariadne," which always reminds me
of--

"Whence come ye, jolly Satyrs, whence come ye?
Like to a moving vintage down they came."

One of the most famous pictures here is "Our Saviour disputing with
the Doctors," by Leonardo da Vinci. I hardly ever receive pleasure
from his pictures; there is a mannerism in all that I have seen
that is positively disagreeable to me. How the later artists lost
the simple secret of earnest vigor of their predecessors, while
gaining in everything that was not that! Grace, finish, refinement,
accuracy of drawing, richness of coloring, all that merely tended
towards perfection and execution, while the simplicity and
single-heartedness of conception died away more and more. All art
seems by degrees to outgrow its strength, and certainly in painting
the archaic cradle touches one's imagination as neither the
graceful youth nor mature manhood do. "Le mieux c'est l'ennemi du
bien" in nothing more than the progress of art after a certain
period of its development, and when its mere mechanism is best
understood, and applied in the most masterly manner. The spirit has
tarried behind, and we have to return to seek it among the earlier
days, when the genius of man was like a giant, rude, naked, and
savage, but vigorous and free--unadorned indeed, but also
untrammeled. Only a certain proportion of excellence is allowed to
our race, but that is granted; and let us stretch it, expand it,
roll and beat it out as we will, it is still but the same square
inch made thin to cover a greater surface. For one good we still
must yield another; we have no gain that is not loss, no
acquisition but surrender, "exchange" which may perhaps be "no
robbery," though quantity does seem a poor substitute for quality
in matters of beauty. I wish I had lived in the times when the ore
lay in the ingot (and had been one of the few who owned a nugget),
instead of in these times of universal gold-leaf, glitter without
weight, and shining shallowness of mere surface. Vigor is better
than refinement, and to create better than to improve, an