t's
power of broad and spirited treatment, combined with extreme delicacy
and refinement of conception.

Three other pictures at Hertford House are equally delightful examples
of another class of subject, namely groups of figures dressed in the
parts of actors in Italian comedy. From a note in the Catalogue we learn
that a company of Italian comedians were in Paris in the sixteenth
century, but were banished by Louis Quatorze in 1697 for a supposed
affront to Madame de Maintenon. In 1716, however, they were recalled by
the Regent, the Duc d'Orleans, and became once more the delight of
Paris. Several of the figures in the Italian comedy had already passed
into French popular drama, and in Watteau's time there seems to have
been a fluctuating company, according as one actor or actress or another
developed a part, and to Pantalone, Arlecchino, Dottore and Columbina
were now added Pierrot--or Gilles--Mezetin, a sort of double of Pierrot,
Scaramouche and Scapin. The vague web of courtship, dalliance, intrigue
and jealousy called up by these characters attracted Watteau to employ
them in his compositions, and to make them also the medium of the more
sincere sentiments of conjugal love and friendship,--as in _The Music
Lesson_, _Gilles and his Family_ and _Harlequin and Columbine_, at
Hertford House. All of these three were engraved in Watteau's life-time
or shortly after his death, and the verses sub-joined to the engravings
are a charming rendering of the sentiment underlying the pictures.

In _The Music Lesson_ we see the half length figures of a lady, seated,
reading a music book, and of a man playing a lute opposite to her.
Another man looks at the book over the lady's shoulder, and two little
children's faces appear at her knee. The verses are as follows:--

Pour nous prouver que cette belle
Trouve l'hymen un noeud fort doux
Le peintre nous la peint fidelle
A suivre le ton d'un Epoux.

Les enfants qui sont autour d'elle
Sont les fruits de son tendre amour
Dont ce beau joueur de prunelle
Pouvait bien gouter quelque jour.

In _Gilles and his Family_ we have a three-quarter length full-face
portrait of le Sieur de Sirois, a friend of Watteau, with these verses
under the engraving:--

Sous un habit de mezzetin
Ce gros brun au riant visage
Sur la guitarre avec sa main
Fait un aimable badinage.

Par les doux accords de sa voix
Enfants d'une bouche vermeille