CHAPTER IV.

CONCLUSION.

§ I. I fear this chapter will be a rambling one, for it must be a kind

of supplement to the preceding pages, and a general recapitulation of

the things I have too imperfectly and feebly said.

The grotesques of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nature

of which we examined in the last chapter, close the career of the

architecture of Europe. They were the last evidences of any feeling

consistent with itself, and capable of directing the efforts of the

builder to the formation of anything worthy the name of a style or

school. From that time to this, no resuscitation of energy has taken

place, nor does any for the present appear possible. How long this

impossibility may last, and in what direction with regard to art in

general, as well as to our lifeless architecture, our immediate efforts

may most profitably be directed, are the questions I would endeavor

briefly to consider in the present chapter.

§ II. That modern science, with all its additions to the comforts of

life, and to the fields of rational contemplation, has placed the

existing races of mankind on a higher platform than any that preceded

them, none can doubt for an instant; and I believe the position in which

we find ourselves is somewhat analogous to that of thoughtful and

laborious youth succeeding a restless and heedless infancy. Not long

ago, it was said to me by one of the masters of modern science: "When

men invented the locomotive, the child was learning to go; when they

invented the telegraph, it was learning to speak." He looked forward to

the manhood of mankind, as assuredly the nobler in proportion to the

slowness of its developement. What might not be expected from the prime

and middle strength of the order of existence whose infancy had lasted

six thousand years? And, indeed, I think this the truest, as well as the

most cheering, view that we can take of the world's history. Little

progress has been made as yet. Base war, lying policy, thoughtless

cruelty, senseless improvidence,--all things which, in nations, are

analogous to the petulance, cunning, impatience, and carelessness of

infancy,--have been, up to this hour, as characteristic of mankind as

they were in the earliest periods; so that we must either be driven to

doubt of human progress at all, or look upon it as in its very earliest

stage. Whether the opportunity is to be permitted us to redeem the hours

that we have lost; whether He, in whose sight a thousand years are as

one day, has appointed us to be tried by the continued possession of the

strange powers with which He has lately endowed us; or whether the

periods of childhood and of probation are to cease together, and the

youth of mankind is to be one which shall prevail over death, and bloom

for ever in the midst of a new heaven and a new earth, are questions

with which we have no concern. It is indeed right that we should look

for, and hasten, so far as in us lies, the coming of the Day of God; but

not that we should check any human efforts by anticipations of its

approach. We shall hasten it best by endeavoring to work out the tasks

that are appointed for us here; and, therefore, reasoning as if the

world were to continue under its existing dispensation, and the powers

which have just been granted to us were to be continued through myriads

of future ages.

§ III. It seems to me, then, that the whole human race, so far as their

own reason can be trusted, may at present be regarded as just emergent

from childhood; and beginning for the first time to feel their strength,

to stretch their limbs, and explore the creation around them. If we

consider that, till within the last fifty years, the nature of the

ground we tread on, of the air we breathe, and of the light by which we

see, were not so much as conjecturally conceived by us; that the

duration of the globe, and the races of animal life by which it was

inhabited, are just beginning to be apprehended; and that the scope of

the magnificent science which has revealed them, is as yet so little

received by the public mind, that presumption and ignorance are still

permitted to raise their voices against it unrebuked; that perfect

veracity in the representation of general nature by art has never been

attempted until the present day, and has in the present day been

resisted with all the energy of the popular voice;[46] that the simplest

problems of social science are yet so little understood, as that

doctrines of liberty and equality can be openly preached, and so

successfully as to affect the whole body of the civilized world with

apparently incurable disease; that the first principles of commerce were

acknowledged by the English Parliament only a few months ago, in its

free trade measures, and are still so little understood by the million,

that no nation dares to abolish its custom-houses;[47] that the simplest

principles of policy are still not so much as stated, far less received,

and that civilized nations persist in the belief that the subtlety and

dishonesty which they know to be ruinous in dealings between man and

man, are serviceable in dealings between multitude and multitude;

finally, that the scope of the Christian religion, which we have been

taught for two thousand years, is still so little conceived by us, that

we suppose the laws of charity and of self-sacrifice bear upon

individuals in all their social relations, and yet do not bear upon

nations in any of their political relations;--when, I say, we thus

review the depth of simplicity in which the human race are still

plunged with respect to all that it most profoundly concerns them to

know, and which might, by them, with most ease have been ascertained, we

can hardly determine how far back on the narrow path of human progress

we ought to place the generation to which we belong, how far the

swaddling clothes are unwound from us, and childish things beginning to

be put away.

On the other hand, a power of obtaining veracity in the representation

of material and tangible things, which, within certain limits and

conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been placed in the hands of all

men,[48] almost without labor. The foundation of every natural science

is now at last firmly laid, not a day passing without some addition of

buttress and pinnacle to their already magnificent fabric. Social

theorems, if fiercely agitated, are therefore the more likely to be at

last determined, so that they never can be matters of question more.

Human life has been in some sense prolonged by the increased powers of

locomotion, and an almost limitless power of converse. Finally, there is

hardly any serious mind in Europe but is occupied, more or less, in the

investigation of the questions which have so long paralyzed the strength

of religious feeling, and shortened the dominion of religious faith. And

we may therefore at least look upon ourselves as so far in a definite

state of progress, as to justify our caution in guarding against the

dangers incident to every period of change, and especially to that from

childhood into youth.

§ IV. Those dangers appear, in the main, to be twofold; consisting

partly in the pride of vain knowledge, partly in the pursuit of vain

pleasure. A few points are still to be noticed with respect to each of

these heads.

Enough, it might be thought, had been said already, touching the pride

of knowledge; but I have not yet applied the principles, at which we

arrived in the third chapter, to the practical questions of modern art.

And I think those principles, together with what were deduced from the

consideration of the nature of Gothic in the second volume, so necessary

and vital, not only with respect to the progress of art, but even to the

happiness of society, that I will rather run the risk of tediousness

than of deficiency, in their illustration and enforcement.

In examining the nature of Gothic, we concluded that one of the chief

elements of power in that, and in _all good_ architecture, was the

acceptance of uncultivated and rude energy in the workman. In examining

the nature of Renaissance, we concluded that its chief element of

weakness was that pride of knowledge which not only prevented all

rudeness in expression, but gradually quenched all energy which could

only be rudely expressed; nor only so, but, for the motive and matter of

the work itself, preferred science to emotion, and experience to

perception.

§ V. The modern mind differs from the Renaissance mind in that its

learning is more substantial and extended, and its temper more humble;

but its errors, with respect to the cultivation of art, are precisely

the same,--nay, as far as regards execution, even more aggravated. We

require, at present, from our general workmen, more perfect finish than

was demanded in the most skilful Renaissance periods, except in their

very finest productions; and our leading principles in teaching, and in

the patronage which necessarily gives tone to teaching, are, that the

goodness of work consists primarily in firmness of handling and accuracy

of science, that is to say, in hand-work and head-work; whereas

heart-work, which is the _one_ work we want, is not only independent of

both, but often, in great degree, inconsistent with either.

§ VI. Here, therefore, let me finally and firmly enunciate the great

principle to which all that has hitherto been stated is

subservient:--that art is valuable or otherwise, only as it expresses

the personality, activity, and living perception of a good and great

human soul; that it may express and contain this with little help from

execution, and less from science; and that if it have not this, if it

show not the vigor, perception, and invention of a mighty human spirit,

it is worthless. Worthless, I mean, as _art_; it may be precious in some

other way, but, as art, it is nugatory. Once let this be well understood

among us, and magnificent consequences will soon follow. Let me repeat

it in other terms, so that I may not be misunderstood. All art is great,

and good, and true, only so far as it is distinctively the work of

_manhood_ in its entire and highest sense; that is to say, not the work

of limbs and fingers, but of the soul, aided, according to her

necessities, by the inferior powers; and therefore distinguished in

essence from all products of those inferior powers unhelped by the soul.

For as a photograph is not a work of art, though it requires certain

delicate manipulations of paper and acid, and subtle calculations of

time, in order to bring out a good result; so, neither would a drawing

_like_ a photograph, made directly from nature, be a work of art,

although it would imply many delicate manipulations of the pencil and

subtle calculations of effects of color and shade. It is no more art[49]

to manipulate a camel's hair pencil, than to manipulate a china tray and

a glass vial. It is no more art to lay on color delicately, than to lay

on acid delicately. It is no more art to use the cornea and retina for

the reception of an image, than to use a lens and a piece of silvered

paper. But the moment that inner part of the man, or rather that entire

and only being of the man, of which cornea and retina, fingers and

hands, pencils and colors, are all the mere servants and

instruments;[50] that manhood which has light in itself, though the

eyeball be sightless, and can gain in strength when the hand and the

foot are hewn off and cast into the fire; the moment this part of the

man stands forth with its solemn "Behold, it is I," then the work

becomes art indeed, perfect in honor, priceless in value, boundless in

power.

§ VII. Yet observe, I do not mean to speak of the body and soul as

separable. The man is made up of both: they are to be raised and

glorified together, and all art is an expression of the one, by and

through the other. All that I would insist upon is, the necessity of the

whole man being in his work; the body _must_ be in it. Hands and habits

must be in it, whether we will or not; but the nobler part of the man

may often not be in it. And that nobler part acts principally in love,

reverence, and admiration, together with those conditions of thought

which arise out of them. For we usually fall into much error by

considering the intellectual powers as having dignity in themselves, and

separable from the heart; whereas the truth is, that the intellect

becomes noble and ignoble according to the food we give it, and the kind

of subjects with which it is conversant. It is not the reasoning power

which, of itself, is noble, but the reasoning power occupied with its

proper objects. Half of the mistakes of metaphysicians have arisen from

their not observing this; namely, that the intellect, going through the

same processes, is yet mean or noble according to the matter it deals

with, and wastes itself away in mere rotatory motion, if it be set to

grind straws and dust. If we reason only respecting words, or lines, or

any trifling and finite things, the reason becomes a contemptible

faculty; but reason employed on holy and infinite things, becomes

herself holy and infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I mean the

reader always to understand the work of the entire immortal creature,

proceeding from a quick, perceptive, and eager heart, perfected by the

intellect, and finally dealt with by the hands, under the direct

guidance of these higher powers.

§ VIII. And now observe, the first important consequence of our fully

understanding this preëminence of the soul, will be the due

understanding of that subordination of knowledge respecting which so

much has already been said. For it must be felt at once, that the

increase of knowledge, merely as such, does not make the soul larger or

smaller; that, in the sight of God, all the knowledge man can gain is as

nothing: but that the soul, for which the great scheme of redemption was

laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is all in all; and in the activity,

strength, health, and well-being of this soul, lies the main difference,

in His sight, between one man and another. And that which is all in all

in God's estimate is also, be assured, all in all in man's labor; and to

have the heart open, and the eyes clear, and the emotions and thoughts

warm and quick, and not the knowing of this or the other fact, is the

state needed for all mighty doing in this world. And therefore finally,

for this, the weightiest of all reasons, let us take no pride in our

knowledge. We may, in a certain sense, be proud of being immortal; we

may be proud of being God's children; we may be proud of loving,

thinking, seeing, and of all that we are by no human teaching: but not

of what we have been taught by rote; not of the ballast and freight of

the ship of the spirit, but only of its pilotage, without which all the

freight will only sink it faster, and strew the sea more richly with

its ruin. There is not at this moment a youth of twenty, having received

what we moderns ridiculously call education, but he knows more of

everything, except the soul, than Plato or St. Paul did; but he is not

for that reason a greater man, or fitter for his work, or more fit to be

heard by others, than Plato or St. Paul. There is not at this moment a

junior student in our schools of painting, who does not know fifty times

as much about the art as Giotto did; but he is not for that reason

greater than Giotto; no, nor his work better, nor fitter for our

beholding. Let him go on to know all that the human intellect can

discover and contain in the term of a long life, and he will not be one

inch, one line, nearer to Giotto's feet. But let him leave his academy

benches, and, innocently, as one knowing nothing, go out into the

highways and hedges, and there rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep

with them that weep; and in the next world, among the companies of the

great and good, Giotto will give his hand to him, and lead him into

their white circle, and say, "This is our brother."

§ IX. And the second important consequence of our feeling the soul's

preëminence will be our understanding the soul's language, however

broken, or low, or feeble, or obscure in its words; and chiefly that

great symbolic language of past ages, which has now so long been

unspoken. It is strange that the same cold and formal spirit which the

Renaissance teaching has raised amongst us, should be equally dead to

the languages of imitation and of symbolism; and should at once disdain

the faithful rendering of real nature by the modern school of the

Pre-Raphaelites, and the symbolic rendering of imagined nature in the

work of the thirteenth century. But so it is; and we find the same body

of modern artists rejecting Pre-Raphaelitism because it is not ideal!

and thirteenth century work, because it is not real!--their own practice

being at once false and un-ideal, and therefore equally opposed to both.

§ X. It is therefore, at this juncture, of much importance to mark for

the reader the exact relation of healthy symbolism and of healthy

imitation; and, in order to do so, let us return to one of our Venetian

examples of symbolic art, to the central cupola of St. Mark's. On that

cupola, as has been already stated, there is a mosaic representing the

Apostles on the Mount of Olives, with an olive-tree separating each from

the other; and we shall easily arrive at our purpose, by comparing the

means which would have been adopted by a modern artist bred in the

Renaissance schools,--that is to say, under the influence of Claude and

Poussin, and of the common teaching of the present day,--with those

adopted by the Byzantine mosaicist to express the nature of these trees.

§ XI. The reader is doubtless aware that the olive is one of the most

characteristic and beautiful features of all Southern scenery. On the

slopes of the northern Apennines, olives are the usual forest timber;

the whole of the Val d'Arno is wooded with them, every one of its

gardens is filled with them, and they grow in orchard-like ranks out of

its fields of maize, or corn, or vine; so that it is physically

impossible, in most parts of the neighborhood of Florence, Pistoja,

Lucca, or Pisa, to choose any site of landscape which shall not owe its

leading character to the foliage of these trees. What the elm and oak

are to England, the olive is to Italy; nay, more than this, its presence

is so constant, that, in the case of at least four fifths of the

drawings made by any artist in North Italy, he must have been somewhat

impeded by branches of olive coming between him and the landscape. Its

classical associations double its importance in Greece; and in the Holy

Land the remembrances connected with it are of course more touching than

can ever belong to any other tree of the field. Now, for many years

back, at least one third out of all the landscapes painted by English

artists have been chosen from Italian scenery; sketches in Greece and in

the Holy Land have become as common as sketches on Hampstead Heath; our

galleries also are full of sacred subjects, in which, if any background

be introduced at all, the foliage of the olive ought to have been a

prominent feature.

And here I challenge the untravelled English reader to tell me what an

olive-tree is like?

§ XII. I know he cannot answer my challenge. He has no more idea of an

olive-tree than if olives grew only in the fixed stars. Let him meditate

a little on this one fact, and consider its strangeness, and what a

wilful and constant closing of the eyes to the most important truths it

indicates on the part of the modern artist. Observe, a want of

perception, not of science. I do not want painters to tell me any

scientific facts about olive-trees. But it had been well for them to

have felt and seen the olive-tree; to have loved it for Christ's sake,

partly also for the helmed Wisdom's sake which was to the heathen in

some sort as that nobler Wisdom which stood at God's right hand, when He

founded the earth and established the heavens. To have loved it, even to

the hoary dimness of its delicate foliage, subdued and faint of hue, as

if the ashes of the Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for ever; and

to have traced, line by line, the gnarled writhing of its intricate

branches, and the pointed fretwork of its light and narrow leaves,

inlaid on the blue field of the sky, and the small rosy-white stars of

its spring blossoming, and the beads of sable fruit scattered by autumn

along its topmost boughs--the right, in Israel, of the stranger, the

fatherless, and the widow,--and, more than all, the softness of the

mantle, silver grey, and tender like the down on a bird's breast, with

which, far away, it veils the undulation of the mountains;--these it had

been well for them to have seen and drawn, whatever they had left

unstudied in the gallery.

§ XIII. And if the reader would know the reason why this has not been

done (it is one instance only out of the myriads which might be given of

sightlessness in modern art), and will ask the artists themselves, he

will be informed of another of the marvellous contradictions and

inconsistencies in the base Renaissance art; for it will be answered

him, that it is not right, nor according to law, to draw trees so that

one should be known from another, but that trees ought to be generalized

into a universal idea of a tree: that is to say, that the very school

which carries its science in the representation of man down to the

dissection of the most minute muscle, refuses so much science to the

drawing of a tree as shall distinguish one species from another; and

also, while it attends to logic, and rhetoric, and perspective, and

atmosphere, and every other circumstance which is trivial, verbal,

external, or accidental, in what it either says or sees, it will _not_

attend to what is essential and substantial,--being intensely

solicitous, for instance, if it draws two trees, one behind the other,

that the farthest off shall be as much smaller as mathematics show that

it should be, but totally unsolicitous to show, what to the spectator is

a far more important matter, whether it is an apple or an orange tree.

§ XIV. This, however, is not to our immediate purpose. Let it be granted

that an idea of an olive-tree is indeed to be given us in a special

manner; how, and by what language, this idea is to be conveyed, are

questions on which we shall find the world of artists again divided; and

it was this division which I wished especially to illustrate by

reference to the mosaics of St. Mark's.

Now the main characteristics of an olive-tree are these. It has sharp

and slender leaves of a greyish green, nearly grey on the under surface,

and resembling, but somewhat smaller than, those of our common willow.

Its fruit, when ripe, is black and lustrous; but of course so small,

that, unless in great quantity, it is not conspicuous upon the tree. Its

trunk and branches are peculiarly fantastic in their twisting, showing

their fibres at every turn; and the trunk is often hollow, and even rent

into many divisions like separate stems, but the extremities are

exquisitely graceful, especially in the setting on of the leaves; and

the notable and characteristic effect of the tree in the distance is of

a rounded and soft mass or ball of downy foliage.

§ XV. Supposing a modern artist to address himself to the rendering of

this tree with his best skill: he will probably draw accurately the

twisting of the branches, but yet this will hardly distinguish the tree

from an oak: he will also render the color and intricacy of the foliage,

but this will only confuse the idea of an oak with that of a willow. The

fruit, and the peculiar grace of the leaves at the extremities, and the

fibrous structure of the stems, will all be too minute to be rendered

consistently with his artistical feeling of breadth, or with the amount

of labor which he considers it dexterous and legitimate to bestow upon

the work: but, above all, the rounded and monotonous form of the head of

the tree will be at variance with his ideas of "composition;" he will

assuredly disguise or break it, and the main points of the olive-tree

will all at last remain untold.

§ XVI. Now observe, the old Byzantine mosaicist begins his work at

enormous disadvantage. It is to be some one hundred and fifty feet above

the eye, in a dark cupola; executed not with free touches of the pencil,

but with square pieces of glass; not by his own hand, but by various

workmen under his superintendence; finally, not with a principal purpose

of drawing olive-trees, but mainly as a decoration of the cupola. There

is to be an olive-tree beside each apostle, and their stems are to be

the chief lines which divide the dome. He therefore at once gives up the

irregular twisting of the boughs hither and thither, but he will not

give up their fibres. Other trees have irregular and fantastic branches,

but the knitted cordage of fibres is the olive's own. Again, were he to

draw the leaves of their natural size, they would be so small that their

forms would be invisible in the darkness; and were he to draw them so

large as that their shape might be seen, they would look like laurel

instead of olive. So he arranges them in small clusters of five each,

nearly of the shape which the Byzantines give to the petals of the lily,

but elongated so as to give the idea of leafage upon a spray; and these

clusters,--his object always, be it remembered, being _decoration_ not

less than _representation_,--he arranges symmetrically on each side of

his branches, laying the whole on a dark ground most truly suggestive of

the heavy rounded mass of the tree, which, in its turn, is relieved

against the gold of the cupola. Lastly, comes the question respecting

the fruit. The whole power and honor of the olive is in its fruit; and,

unless that be represented, nothing is represented. But if the berries

were colored black or green, they would be totally invisible; if of

any other color, utterly unnatural, and violence would be done to the

whole conception. There is but one conceivable means of showing them,

namely to represent them as golden. For the idea of golden fruit of

various kinds was already familiar to the mind, as in the apples of the

Hesperides, without any violence to the distinctive conception of the

fruit itself.[51] So the mosaicist introduced small round golden berries

into the dark ground between each leaf, and his work was done.

[Illustration: Plate IV.

Mosaics of Olive-tree and Flowers.]

§ XVII. On the opposite plate, the uppermost figure on the left is a

tolerably faithful representation of the general effect of one of these

decorative olive-trees; the figure on the right is the head of the tree

alone, showing the leaf clusters, berries, and _interlacing_ of the

boughs as they leave the stem. Each bough is connected with a separate

line of fibre in the trunk, and the junctions of the arms and stem are

indicated, down to the very root of the tree, with a truth in structure

which may well put to shame the tree anatomy of modern times.

§ XVIII. The white branching figures upon the serpentine band below are

two of the clusters of flowers which form the foreground of a mosaic in

the atrium. I have printed the whole plate in blue, because that color

approaches more nearly than black to the distant effect of the mosaics,

of which the darker portions are generally composed of blue, in greater

quantity than any other color. But the waved background in this

instance, is of various shades of blue and green alternately, with one

narrow black band to give it force; the whole being intended to

represent the distant effect and color of deep grass, and the wavy line

to _express its bending motion_, just as the same symbol is used to

represent the waves of water. Then the two white clusters are

representative of the distinctly visible herbage close to the

spectator, having buds and flowers of two kinds, springing in one case

out of the midst of twisted grass, and in the other out of their own

proper leaves; the clusters being kept each so distinctly symmetrical,

as to form, when set side by side, an ornamental border of perfect

architectural severity; and yet each cluster different from the next,

and every flower, and bud, and knot of grass, varied in form and

thought. The way the mosaic tesseræ are arranged, so as to give the

writhing of the grass blades round the stalks of the flowers, is

exceedingly fine.

The tree circles below are examples of still more severely conventional

forms, adopted, on principle, when the decoration is to be in white and

gold, instead of color; these ornaments being cut in white marble on the

outside of the church, and the ground laid in with gold, though

necessarily here represented, like the rest of the plate, in blue. And

it is exceedingly interesting to see how the noble workman, the moment

he is restricted to more conventional materials, retires into more

conventional forms, and reduces his various leafage into symmetry, now

nearly perfect; yet observe, in the central figure, where the symbolic

meaning of the vegetation beside the cross required it to be more

distinctly indicated, he has given it life and growth by throwing it

into unequal curves on the opposite sides.

§ XIX. I believe the reader will now see, that in these mosaics, which

the careless traveller is in the habit of passing by with contempt,

there is a depth of feeling and of meaning greater than in most of the

best sketches from nature of modern times; and, without entering into

any question whether these conventional representations are as good as,

under the required limitations, it was possible to render them, they are

at all events good enough completely to illustrate that mode of

symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought, and in no

wise trusts to realization. And little as, in the present state of our

schools, such an assertion is likely to be believed, the fact is that

this kind of expression is the _only one allowable in noble art_.

§ XX. I pray the reader to have patience with me for a few moments. I do

not mean that no art is noble but Byzantine mosaic; but no art is noble

which in any wise depends upon direct imitation for its effect upon the

mind. This was asserted in the opening chapters of "Modern Painters,"

but not upon the highest grounds; the results at which we have now

arrived in our investigation of early art, will enable me to place it on

a loftier and firmer foundation.

§ XXI. We have just seen that all great art is the work of the whole

living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul. But it is not

only _the work_ of the whole creature, it likewise _addresses_ the whole

creature. That in which the perfect being speaks, must also have the

perfect being to listen. I am not to spend my utmost spirit, and give

all my strength and life to my work, while you, spectator or hearer,

will give me only the attention of half your soul. You must be all mine,

as I am all yours; it is the only condition on which we can meet each

other. All your faculties, all that is in you of greatest and best, must

be awake in you, or I have no reward. The painter is not to cast the

entire treasure of his human nature into his labor, merely to please a

part of the beholder: not merely to delight his senses, not merely to

amuse his fancy, not merely to beguile him into emotion, not merely to

lead him into thought, but to do _all_ this. Senses, fancy, feeling,

reason, the whole of the beholding spirit, must be stilled in attention

or stirred with delight; else the laboring spirit has not done its work

well. For observe, it is not merely its _right_ to be thus met, face to

face, heart to heart; but it is its _duty_ to evoke its answering of the

other soul; its trumpet call must be so clear, that though the challenge

may by dulness or indolence be unanswered, there shall be no error as to

the meaning of the appeal; there must be a summons in the work, which it

shall be our own fault if we do not obey. We require this of it, we

beseech this of it. Most men do not know what is in them, till they

receive this summons from their fellows: their hearts die within them,

sleep settles upon them, the lethargy of the world's miasmata; there is

nothing for which they are so thankful as for that cry, "Awake, thou

that sleepest." And this cry must be most loudly uttered to their

noblest faculties; first of all to the imagination, for that is the most

tender, and the soonest struck into numbness by the poisoned air; so

that one of the main functions of art in its service to man, is to

arouse the imagination from its palsy, like the angel troubling the

Bethesda pool; and the art which does not do this is false to its duty,

and degraded in its nature. It is not enough that it be well imagined,

it must task the beholder also to imagine well; and this so

imperatively, that if he does not choose to rouse himself to meet the

work, he shall not taste it, nor enjoy it in any wise. Once that he is

well awake, the guidance which the artist gives him should be full and

authoritative: the beholder's imagination must not be suffered to take

its own way, or wander hither and thither; but neither must it be left

at rest; and the right point of realization, for any given work of art,

is that which will enable the spectator to complete it for himself, in

the exact way the artist would have him, but not that which will save

him the trouble of effecting the completion. So soon as the idea is

entirely conveyed, the artist's labor should cease; and every touch

which he adds beyond the point when, with the help of the beholder's

imagination, the story ought to have been told, is a degradation to his

work. So that the art is wrong, which either realizes its subject

completely, or fails in giving such definite aid as shall enable it to

be realized by the beholding imagination.

§ XXII. It follows, therefore, that the quantity of finish or detail

which may rightly be bestowed upon any work, depends on the number and

kind of ideas which the artist wishes to convey, much more than on the

amount of realization necessary to enable the imagination to grasp them.

It is true that the differences of judgment formed by one or another

observer are in great degree dependent on their unequal imaginative

powers, as well as their unequal efforts in following the artist's

intention; and it constantly happens that the drawing which appears

clear to the painter in whose mind the thought is formed, is slightly

inadequate to suggest it to the spectator. These causes of false

judgment, or imperfect achievement, must always exist, but they are of

no importance. For, in nearly every mind, the imaginative power, however

unable to act independently, is so easily helped and so brightly

animated by the most obscure suggestion, that there is no form of

artistical language which will not readily be seized by it, if once it

set itself intelligently to the task; and even without such effort there

are few hieroglyphics of which, once understanding that it is to take

them as hieroglyphics, it cannot make itself a pleasant picture.

§ XXIII. Thus, in the case of all sketches, etchings, unfinished

engravings, &c., no one ever supposes them to be imitations. Black

outlines on white paper cannot produce a deceptive resemblance of

anything; and the mind, understanding at once that it is to depend on

its own powers for great part of its pleasure, sets itself so actively

to the task that it can completely enjoy the rudest outline in which

meaning exists. Now, when it is once in this temper, the artist is

infinitely to be blamed who insults it by putting anything into his work

which is not suggestive: having summoned the imaginative power, he must

turn it to account and keep it employed, or it will run against him in

indignation. Whatever he does merely to realize and substantiate an idea

is impertinent; he is like a dull story-teller, dwelling on points which

the hearer anticipates or disregards. The imagination will say to him:

"I knew all that before; I don't want to be told that. Go on; or be

silent, and let me go on in my own way. I can tell the story better than

you."

Observe, then, whenever finish is given for the sake of realization, it

is wrong; whenever it is given for the sake of adding ideas it is right.

All true finish consists in the addition of ideas, that is to say, in

giving the imagination more food; for once well awaked, it is ravenous

for food: but the painter who finishes in order to substantiate takes

the food out of its mouth, and it will turn and rend him.

§ XXIV. Let us go back, for instance, to our olive grove,--or, lest the

reader should be tired of olives, let it be an oak copse,--and consider

the difference between the substantiating and the imaginative methods of

finish in such a subject. A few strokes of the pencil, or dashes of

color, will be enough to enable the imagination to conceive a tree; and

in those dashes of color Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rested, and

would have suffered the imagination to paint what more it liked for

itself, and grow oaks, or olives, or apples, out of the few dashes of

color at its leisure. On the other hand, Hobbima, one of the worst of

the realists, smites the imagination on the mouth, and bids it be

silent, while he sets to work to paint his oak of the right green, and

fill up its foliage laboriously with jagged touches, and furrow the bark

all over its branches, so as, if possible, to deceive us into supposing

that we are looking at a real oak; which, indeed, we had much better do

at once, without giving any one the trouble to deceive us in the matter.

§ XXV. Now, the truly great artist neither leaves the imagination to

itself, like Sir Joshua, nor insults it by realization, like Hobbima,

but finds it continual employment of the happiest kind. Having summoned

it by his vigorous first touches, he says to it: "Here is a tree for

you, and it is to be an oak. Now I know that you can make it green and

intricate for yourself, but that is not enough: an oak is not only green

and intricate, but its leaves have most beautiful and fantastic forms

which I am very sure you are not quite able to complete without help; so

I will draw a cluster or two perfectly for you, and then you can go on

and do all the other clusters. So far so good: but the leaves are not

enough; the oak is to be full of acorns, and you may not be quite able

to imagine the way they grow, nor the pretty contrast of their glossy

almond-shaped nuts with the chasing of their cups; so I will draw a

bunch or two of acorns for you, and you can fill up the oak with others

like them. Good: but that is not enough; it is to be a bright day in

summer, and all the outside leaves are to be glittering in the sunshine

as if their edges were of gold: I cannot paint this, but you can; so I

will really gild some of the edges nearest you,[52] and you can turn

the gold into sunshine, and cover the tree with it. Well done: but still

this is not enough; the tree is so full foliaged and so old that the

wood birds come in crowds to build there; they are singing, two or three

under the shadow of every bough. I cannot show you them all; but here is

a large one on the outside spray, and you can fancy the others inside."

§ XXVI. In this way the calls upon the imagination are multiplied as a

great painter finishes; and from these larger incidents he may proceed

into the most minute particulars, and lead the companion imagination to

the veins in the leaves and the mosses on the trunk, and the shadows of

the dead leaves upon the grass, but always multiplying thoughts, or

subjects of thought, never working for the sake of realization; the

amount of realization actually reached depending on his space, his

materials, and the nature of the thoughts he wishes to suggest. In the

sculpture of an oak-tree, introduced above an Adoration of the Magi on

the tomb of the Doge Marco Dolfino (fourteenth century), the sculptor

has been content with a few leaves, a single acorn, and a bird; while,

on the other hand, Millais' willow-tree with the robin, in the

background of his "Ophelia," or the foreground of Hunt's "Two Gentlemen

of Verona," carries the appeal to the imagination into particulars so

multiplied and minute, that the work nearly reaches realization. But it

does not matter how near realization the work may approach in its

fulness, or how far off it may remain in its slightness, so long as

realization is not the end proposed, but the informing one spirit of the

thoughts of another. And in this greatness and simplicity of purpose all

noble art is alike, however slight its means, or however perfect, from

the rudest mosaics of St. Mark's to the most tender finishing of the

"Huguenot" or the "Ophelia."

§ XXVII. Only observe, in this matter, that a greater degree of

realization is often allowed, for the sake of color, than would be right

without it. For there is not any distinction between the artists of the

inferior and the nobler schools more definite than this; that the first

_color for the sake of realization_, and the second _realize for the

sake of color_. I hope that, in the fifth chapter, enough has been said

to show the nobility of color, though it is a subject on which I would

fain enlarge whenever I approach it: for there is none that needs more

to be insisted upon, chiefly on account of the opposition of the persons

who have no eye for color, and who, being therefore unable to understand

that it is just as divine and distinct in its power as music (only

infinitely more varied in its harmonies), talk of it as if it were

inferior and servile with respect to the other powers of art;[53]

whereas it is so far from being this, that wherever it enters it must

take the mastery, and, whatever else is sacrificed for its sake, _it_,

at least, must be right. This is partly the case even with music: it is

at our choice, whether we will accompany a poem with music, or not; but,

if we do, the music _must_ be right, and neither discordant nor

inexpressive. The goodness and sweetness of the poem cannot save it, if

the music be harsh or false; but, if the music be right, the poem may be

insipid or inharmonious, and still saved by the notes to which it is

wedded. But this is far more true of color. If that be wrong, all is

wrong. No amount of expression or invention can redeem an ill-colored

picture; while, on the other hand, if the color be right, there is

nothing it will not raise or redeem; and, therefore, wherever color

enters at all, anything _may_ be sacrificed to it, and, rather than it

should be false or feeble, everything _must_ be sacrificed to it: so

that, when an artist touches color, it is the same thing as when a poet

takes up a musical instrument; he implies, in so doing, that he is a

master, up to a certain point, of that instrument, and can produce sweet

sound from it, and is able to fit the course and measure of his words to

its tones, which, if he be not able to do, he had better not have

touched it. In like manner, to add color to a drawing is to undertake

for the perfection of a visible music, which, if it be false, will

utterly and assuredly mar the whole work; if true, proportionately

elevate it, according to its power and sweetness. But, in no case ought

the color to be added in order to increase the realization. The drawing

or engraving is all that the imagination needs. To "paint" the subject

merely to make it more real, is only to insult the imaginative power and

to vulgarize the whole. Hence the common, though little understood

feeling, among men of ordinary cultivation, that an inferior sketch is

always better than a bad painting; although, in the latter, there may

verily be more skill than in the former. For the painter who has

presumed to touch color without perfectly understanding it, not for the

color's sake, nor because he loves it, but for the sake of completion

merely, has committed two sins against us; he has dulled the imagination

by not trusting it far enough, and then, in this languid state, he

oppresses it with base and false color; for all color that is not

lovely, is discordant; there is no mediate condition. So, therefore,

when it is permitted to enter at all, it must be with the

predetermination that, cost what it will, the color shall be right and

lovely: and I only wish that, in general, it were better understood that

a _painter's_ business is _to paint_, primarily; and that all

expression, and grouping, and conceiving, and what else goes to

constitute design, _are of less importance than color, in a colored

work_. And so they were always considered in the noble periods; and

sometimes all resemblance to nature whatever (as in painted windows,

illuminated manuscripts, and such other work) is sacrificed to the

brilliancy of color; sometimes distinctness of form to its richness, as

by Titian, Turner, and Reynolds; and, which is the point on which we are

at present insisting, sometimes, in the pursuit of its utmost

refinements on the surfaces of objects, an amount of realization becomes

consistent with noble art, which would otherwise be altogether

inadmissible, that is to say, which no great mind could otherwise have

either produced or enjoyed. The extreme finish given by the

Pre-Raphaelites is rendered noble chiefly by their love of color.

§ XXVIII. So then, whatever may be the means, or whatever the more

immediate end of any kind of art, all of it that is good agrees in this,

that it is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is

precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it. And

consider what mighty consequences follow from our acceptance of this

truth! what a key we have herein given us for the interpretation of the

art of all time! For, as long as we held art to consist in any high

manual skill, or successful imitation of natural objects, or any

scientific and legalized manner of performance whatever, it was

necessary for us to limit our admiration to narrow periods and to few

men. According to our own knowledge and sympathies, the period chosen

might be different, and our rest might be in Greek statues, or Dutch

landscapes, or Italian Madonnas; but, whatever our choice, we were

therein captive, barred from all reverence but of our favorite masters,

and habitually using the language of contempt towards the whole of the

human race to whom it had not pleased Heaven to reveal the arcana of the

particular craftsmanship we admired, and who, it might be, had lived

their term of seventy years upon the earth, and fitted themselves

therein for the eternal world, without any clear understanding,

sometimes even with an insolent disregard, of the laws of perspective

and chiaroscuro.

But let us once comprehend the holier nature of the art of man, and

begin to look for the meaning of the spirit, however syllabled, and the

scene is changed; and we are changed also. Those small and dexterous

creatures whom once we worshipped, those fur-capped divinities with

sceptres of camel's hair, peering and poring in their one-windowed

chambers over the minute preciousness of the labored canvas; how are

they swept away and crushed into unnoticeable darkness! And in their

stead, as the walls of the dismal rooms that enclosed them, and us, are

struck by the four winds of Heaven, and rent away, and as the world

opens to our sight, lo! far back into all the depths of time, and forth

from all the fields that have been sown with human life, how the harvest

of the dragon's teeth is springing! how the companies of the gods are

ascending out of the earth! The dark stones that have so long been the

sepulchres of the thoughts of nations, and the forgotten ruins wherein

their faith lay charnelled, give up the dead that were in them; and

beneath the Egyptian ranks of sultry and silent rock, and amidst the dim

golden lights of the Byzantine dome, and out of the confused and cold

shadows of the Northern cloister, behold, the multitudinous souls come

forth with singing, gazing on us with the soft eyes of newly

comprehended sympathy, and stretching their white arms to us across the

grave, in the solemn gladness of everlasting brotherhood.

§ XXIX. The other danger to which, it was above said, we were primarily

exposed under our present circumstances of life, is the pursuit of vain

pleasure, that is to say, false pleasure; delight, which is not indeed

delight; as knowledge vainly accumulated, is not indeed knowledge. And

this we are exposed to chiefly in the fact of our ceasing to be

children. For the child does not seek false pleasure; its pleasures are

true, simple, and instinctive: but the youth is apt to abandon his early

and true delight for vanities,--seeking to be like men, and sacrificing

his natural and pure enjoyments to his pride. In like manner, it seems

to me that modern civilization sacrifices much pure and true pleasure to

various forms of ostentation from which it can receive no fruit.

Consider, for a moment, what kind of pleasures are open to human nature,

undiseased. Passing by the consideration of the pleasures of the higher

affections, which lie at the root of everything, and considering the

definite and practical pleasures of daily life, there is, first, the

pleasure of doing good; the greatest of all, only apt to be despised

from not being often enough tasted: and then, I know not in what order

to put them, nor does it matter,--the pleasure of gaining knowledge; the

pleasure of the excitement of imagination and emotion (or poetry and

passion); and, lastly, the gratification of the senses, first of the

eye, then of the ear, and then of the others in their order.

§ XXX. All these we are apt to make subservient to the desire of praise;

nor unwisely, when the praise sought is God's and the conscience's: but

if the sacrifice is made for man's admiration, and knowledge is only

sought for praise, passion repressed or affected for praise, and the

arts practised for praise, we are feeding on the bitterest apples of

Sodom, suffering always ten mortifications for one delight. And it seems

to me, that in the modern civilized world we make such sacrifice doubly:

first, by laboring for merely ambitious purposes; and secondly, which is

the main point in question, by being ashamed of simple pleasures, more

especially of the pleasure in sweet color and form, a pleasure evidently

so necessary to man's perfectness and virtue, that the beauty of color

and form has been given lavishly throughout the whole of creation, so

that it may become the food of all, and with such intricacy and subtlety

that it may deeply employ the thoughts of all. If we refuse to accept

the natural delight which the Deity has thus provided for us, we must

either become ascetics, or we must seek for some base and guilty

pleasures to replace those of Paradise, which we have denied ourselves.

Some years ago, in passing through some of the cells of the Grand

Chartreuse, noticing that the window of each apartment looked across the

little garden of its inhabitant to the wall of the cell opposite, and

commanded no other view, I asked the monk beside me, why the window was

not rather made on the side of the cell whence it would open to the

solemn fields of the Alpine valley. "We do not come here," he replied,

"to look at the mountains."

§ XXXI. The same answer is given, practically, by the men of this

century, to every such question; only the walls with which they enclose

themselves are those of pride, not of prayer. But in the middle ages it

was otherwise. Not, indeed, in landscape itself, but in the art which

can take the place of it, in the noble color and form with which they

illumined, and into which they wrought, every object around them that

was in any wise subjected to their power, they obeyed the laws of their

inner nature, and found its proper food. The splendor and fantasy even

of dress, which in these days we pretend to despise, or in which, if we

even indulge, it is only for the sake of vanity, and therefore to our

infinite harm, were in those early days studied for love of their true

beauty and honorableness, and became one of the main helps to dignity of

character, and courtesy of bearing. Look back to what we have been told

of the dress of the early Venetians, that it was so invented "that in

clothing themselves with it, they might clothe themselves also with

modesty and honor;"[54] consider what nobleness of expression there is

in the dress of any of the portrait figures of the great times, nay,

what perfect beauty, and more than beauty, there is in the folding of

the robe round the imagined form even of the saint or of the angel; and

then consider whether the grace of vesture be indeed a thing to be

despised. We cannot despise it if we would; and in all our highest

poetry and happiest thought we cling to the magnificence which in daily

life we disregard. The essence of modern romance is simply the return of

the heart and fancy to the things in which they naturally take pleasure;

and half the influence of the best romances, of Ivanhoe, or Marmion, or

the Crusaders, or the Lady of the Lake, is completely dependent upon the

accessaries of armor and costume. Nay, more than this, deprive the Iliad

itself of its costume, and consider how much of its power would be lost.

And that delight and reverence which we feel in, and by means of, the

mere imagination of these accessaries, the middle ages had in the vision

of them; the nobleness of dress exercising, as I have said, a perpetual

influence upon character, tending in a thousand ways to increase

dignity and self-respect, and together with grace of gesture, to induce

serenity of thought.

§ XXXII. I do not mean merely in its magnificence; the most splendid

time was not the best time. It was still in the thirteenth

century,--when, as we have seen, simplicity and gorgeousness were justly

mingled, and the "leathern girdle and clasp of bone" were worn, as well

as the embroidered mantle,--that the manner of dress seems to have been

noblest. The chain mail of the knight, flowing and falling over his form

in lapping waves of gloomy strength, was worn under full robes of one

color in the ground, his crest quartered on them, and their borders

enriched with subtle illumination. The women wore first a dress close to

the form in like manner, and then long and flowing robes, veiling them

up to the neck, and delicately embroidered around the hem, the sleeves,

and the girdle. The use of plate armor gradually introduced more

fantastic types; the nobleness of the form was lost beneath the steel;

the gradually increasing luxury and vanity of the age strove for

continual excitement in more quaint and extravagant devices; and in the

fifteenth century, dress reached its point of utmost splendor and fancy,

being in many cases still exquisitely graceful, but now, in its morbid

magnificence, devoid of all wholesome influence on manners. From this

point, like architecture, it was rapidly degraded; and sank through the

buff coat, and lace collar, and jack-boot, to the bag-wig, tailed coat,

and high-heeled shoes; and so to what it is now.

§ XXXIII. Precisely analogous to this destruction of beauty in dress,

has been that of beauty in architecture; its color, and grace, and

fancy, being gradually sacrificed to the base forms of the Renaissance,

exactly as the splendor of chivalry has faded into the paltriness of

fashion. And observe the form in which the necessary reaction has taken

place; necessary, for it was not possible that one of the strongest

instincts of the human race could be deprived altogether of its natural

food. Exactly in the degree that the architect withdrew from his

buildings the sources of delight which in early days they had so richly

possessed, demanding, in accordance with the new principles of taste,

the banishment of all happy color and healthy invention, in that degree

the minds of men began to turn to landscape as their only resource. The

picturesque school of art rose up to address those capacities of

enjoyment for which, in sculpture, architecture, or the higher walks of

painting, there was employment no more; and the shadows of Rembrandt,

and savageness of Salvator, arrested the admiration which was no longer

permitted to be rendered to the gloom or the grotesqueness of the Gothic

aisle. And thus the English school of landscape, culminating in Turner,

is in reality nothing else than a healthy effort to fill the void which

the destruction of Gothic architecture has left.

§ XXXIV. But the void cannot thus be completely filled; no, nor filled

in any considerable degree. The art of landscape-painting will never

become thoroughly interesting or sufficing to the minds of men engaged

in active life, or concerned principally with practical subjects. The

sentiment and imagination necessary to enter fully into the romantic

forms of art are chiefly the characteristics of youth; so that nearly

all men as they advance in years, and some even from their childhood

upwards, must be appealed to, if at all, by a direct and substantial

art, brought before their daily observation and connected with their

daily interests. No form of art answers these conditions so well as

architecture, which, as it can receive help from every character of mind

in the workman, can address every character of mind in the spectator;

forcing itself into notice even in his most languid moments, and

possessing this chief and peculiar advantage, that it is the property of

all men. Pictures and statues may be jealously withdrawn by their

possessors from the public gaze, and to a certain degree their safety

requires them to be so withdrawn; but the outsides of our houses belong

not so much to us as to the passer-by, and whatever cost and pains we

bestow upon them, though too often arising out of ostentation, have at

least the effect of benevolence.

§ XXXV. If, then, considering these things, any of my readers should

determine, according to their means, to set themselves to the revival

of a healthy school of architecture in England, and wish to know in few

words how this may be done, the answer is clear and simple. First, let

us cast out utterly whatever is connected with the Greek, Roman, or

Renaissance architecture, in principle or in form. We have seen above,

that the whole mass of the architecture, founded on Greek and Roman

models, which we have been in the habit of building for the last three

centuries, is utterly devoid of all life, virtue, honorableness, or

power of doing good. It is base, unnatural, unfruitful, unenjoyable, and

impious. Pagan in its origin, proud and unholy in its revival, paralyzed

in its old age, yet making prey in its dotage of all the good and living

things that were springing around it in their youth, as the dying and

desperate king, who had long fenced himself so strongly with the towers

of it, is said to have filled his failing veins with the blood of

children;[55] an architecture invented, as it seems, to make plagiarists

of its architects, slaves of its workmen, and Sybarites of its

inhabitants; an architecture in which intellect is idle, invention

impossible, but in which all luxury is gratified, and all insolence

fortified;--the first thing we have to do is to cast it out, and shake

the dust of it from our feet for ever. Whatever has any connexion with

the five orders, or with any one of the orders,--whatever is Doric, or

Ionic, or Tuscan, or Corinthian, or Composite, or in any way Grecized or

Romanized; whatever betrays the smallest respect for Vitruvian laws, or

conformity with Palladian work,--that we are to endure no more. To

cleanse ourselves of these "cast clouts and rotten rags" is the first

thing to be done in the court of our prison.

§ XXXVI. Then, to turn our prison into a palace is an easy thing. We

have seen above, that exactly in the degree in which Greek and Roman

architecture is lifeless, unprofitable, and unchristian, in that same

degree our own ancient Gothic is animated, serviceable, and faithful. We

have seen that it is flexible to all duty, enduring to all time,

instructive to all hearts, honorable and holy in all offices. It is

capable alike of all lowliness and all dignity, fit alike for cottage

porch or castle gateway; in domestic service familiar, in religious,

sublime; simple, and playful, so that childhood may read it, yet clothed

with a power that can awe the mightiest, and exalt the loftiest of human

spirits: an architecture that kindles every faculty in its workman, and

addresses every emotion in its beholder; which, with every stone that is

laid on its solemn walls, raises some human heart a step nearer heaven,

and which from its birth has been incorporated with the existence, and

in all its form is symbolical of the faith, of Christianity. In this

architecture let us henceforward build, alike the church, the palace,

and the cottage; but chiefly let us use it for our civil and domestic

buildings. These once ennobled, our ecclesiastical work will be exalted

together with them: but churches are not the proper scenes for

experiments in untried architecture, nor for exhibitions of unaccustomed

beauty. It is certain that we must often fail before we can again build

a natural and noble Gothic: let not our temples be the scenes of our

failures. It is certain that we must offend many deep-rooted prejudices,

before ancient Christian architecture[56] can be again received by all

of us: let not religion be the first source of such offence. We shall

meet with difficulties in applying Gothic architecture to churches,

which would in no wise affect the designs of civil buildings, for the

most beautiful forms of Gothic chapels are not those which are best

fitted for Protestant worship. As it was noticed in the second volume,

when speaking of the Cathedral of Torcello it seems not unlikely, that

as we study either the science of sound, or the practice of the early

Christians, we may see reason to place the pulpit generally at the

extremity of the apse or chancel; an arrangement entirely destructive of

the beauty of a Gothic church, as seen in existing examples, and

requiring modifications of its design in other parts with which we

should be unwise at present to embarrass ourselves; besides, that the

effort to introduce the style exclusively for ecclesiastical purposes,

excites against it the strong prejudices of many persons who might

otherwise be easily enlisted among its most ardent advocates. I am quite

sure, for instance, that if such noble architecture as has been employed

for the interior of the church just built in Margaret Street[57] had

been seen in a civil building, it would have decided the question with

many men at once; whereas, at present, it will be looked upon with fear

and suspicion, as the expression of the ecclesiastical principles of a

particular party. But, whether thus regarded or not, this church

assuredly decides one question conclusively, that of our present

capability of Gothic design. It is the first piece of architecture I

have seen, built in modern days, which is free from all signs of

timidity or incapacity. In general proportion of parts, in refinement

and piquancy of mouldings, above all, in force, vitality, and grace of

floral ornament, worked in a broad and masculine manner, it challenges

fearless comparison with the noblest work of any time. Having done this,

we may do anything; there need be no limits to our hope or our

confidence; and I believe it to be possible for us, not only to equal,

but far to surpass, in some respects, any Gothic yet seen in Northern

countries. In the introduction of figure-sculpture, we must, indeed, for

the present, remain utterly inferior, for we have no figures to study

from. No architectural sculpture was ever good for anything which did

not represent the dress and persons of the people living at the time;

and our modern dress will _not_ form decorations for spandrils and

niches. But in floral sculpture we may go far beyond what has yet been

done, as well as in refinement of inlaid work and general execution.

For, although the glory of Gothic architecture is to receive the rudest

work, it refuses not the best; and, when once we have been content to

admit the handling of the simplest workman, we shall soon be rewarded by

finding many of our simple workmen become cunning ones: and, with the

help of modern wealth and science, we may do things like Giotto's

campanile, instead of like our own rude cathedrals; but better than

Giotto's campanile, insomuch as we may adopt the pure and perfect forms

of the Northern Gothic, and work them out with the Italian refinement.

It is hardly possible at present to imagine what may be the splendor of

buildings designed in the forms of English and French thirteenth century

_surface_ Gothic, and wrought out with the refinement of Italian art in

the details, and with a deliberate resolution, since we cannot have

figure sculpture, to display in them the beauty of every flower and herb

of the English fields, each by each; doing as much for every tree that

roots itself in our rocks, and every blossom that drinks our summer

rains, as our ancestors did for the oak, the ivy, and the rose. Let this

be the object of our ambition, and let us begin to approach it, not

ambitiously, but in all humility, accepting help from the feeblest

hands; and the London of the nineteenth century may yet become as Venice

without her despotism, and as Florence without her dispeace.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] In the works of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.

[47] Observe, I speak of these various principles as self-evident,

only under the present circumstances of the world, not as if they

had always been so; and I call them now self-evident, not merely

because they seem so to myself, but because they are felt to be so

likewise by all the men in whom I place most trust. But granting

that they are not so, then their very disputability proves the state

of infancy above alleged, as characteristic of the world. For I do

not suppose that any Christian reader will doubt the first great

truth, that whatever facts or laws are important to mankind, God has

made ascertainable by mankind; and that as the decision of all these

questions is of vital importance to the race, that decision must

have been long ago arrived at, unless they were still in a state of

childhood.

[48] I intended to have given a sketch in this place (above referred

to) of the probable results of the daguerreotype and calotype within

the next few years, in modifying the application of the engraver's

art, but I have not had time to complete the experiments necessary

to enable me to speak with certainty. Of one thing, however, I have

little doubt, that an infinite service will soon be done to a large

body of our engravers; namely, the making them draughtsmen (in black

and white) on paper instead of steel.

[49] I mean art in its highest sense. All that men do ingeniously is

art, in one sense. In fact, we want a definition of the word "art"

much more accurate than any in our minds at present. For, strictly

speaking, there is no such thing as "fine" or "high" art. All _art_

is a low and common thing, and what we indeed respect is not art at

all, but _instinct_ or _inspiration_ expressed by the help of art.

[50] "_Socrates_. This, then, was what I asked you; whether that

which puts anything else to service, and the thing which is put to

service by it, are always two different things?

_Alcibiades._ I think so.

_Socrates._ What shall we then say of the leather-cutter? Does he

cut his leather with his instruments only, or with his hands also?

_Alcibiades._ With his hands also.

_Socrates._ Does he not use his eyes as well as his hands?

_Alcibiades._ Yes.

_Socrates._ And we agreed that the thing which uses and the thing

which is used, were different things?

_Alcibiades._ Yes.

_Socrates._ Then the leather-cutter is not the same thing as his

eyes or hands?

_Alcibiades._ So it appears.

_Socrates._ Does not, then, man make use of his whole body?

_Alcibiades._ Assuredly.

_Socrates._ Then the man is not the same thing as his body?

_Alcibiades._ It seems so.

_Socrates._ What, then, _is_ the man?

_Alcibiades._ I know not."

_Plato_, Alcibiades I.

[51] Thus the grapes pressed by Excesse are partly golden (Spenser,

book ii. cant. 12.):

"Which did themselves amongst the leaves enfold,

As lurking from the view of covetous guest,

That the weake boughes, with so rich load opprest

Did bow adowne as overburdened."

[52] The reader must not suppose that the use of gold, in this manner,

is confined to early art. Tintoret, the greatest master of pictorial

effect that ever existed, has gilded the ribs of the fig-leaves in

his "Resurrection," in the Scuola di San Rocco.

[53] Nothing is more wonderful to me than to hear the pleasure of the

eye, in color, spoken of with disdain as "sensual," while people

exalt that of the ear in music. Do they really suppose the eye is a

less noble bodily organ than the ear,--that the organ by which

nearly all our knowledge of the external universe is communicated to

us, and through which we learn the wonder and the love, can be less

exalted in its own peculiar delight than the ear, which is only for

the communication of the ideas which owe to the eye their very

existence? I do not mean to depreciate music: let it be loved and

reverenced as is just; only let the delight of the eye be reverenced

more. The great power of music over the multitude is owing, not to

its being less but _more_ sensual than color; it is so distinctly

and so richly sensual, that it can be idly enjoyed; it is exactly at

the point where the lower and higher pleasures of the senses and

imagination are balanced; so that pure and great minds love it for

its invention and emotion, and lower minds for its sensual power.

[54] Vol. II. Appendix 7.

[55] Louis the Eleventh. "In the month of March, 1481, Louis was

seized with a fit of apoplexy at _St. Bénoit-du-lac-mort_, near

Chinon. He remained speechless and bereft of reason three days; and

then but very imperfectly restored, he languished in a miserable

state.... To cure him," says a contemporary historian, "wonderful

and terrible medicines were compounded. It was reported among the

people that his physicians opened the veins of little children, and

made him drink their blood, to correct the poorness of his

own."--_Bussey's History of France._ London, 1850.

[56] Observe, I call Gothic "Christian" architecture, not

"ecclesiastical." There is a wide difference. I believe it is the

only architecture which Christian men should build, but not at all

an architecture necessarily connected with the services of their

church.

[57] Mr. Hope's Church, in Margaret Street, Portland Place. I do not

altogether like the arrangements of color in the brickwork; but

these will hardly attract the eye, where so much has been already

done with precious and beautiful marble, and is yet to be done in

fresco. Much will depend, however, upon the coloring of this latter

portion. I wish that either Holman Hunt or Millais could be

prevailed upon to do at least some of these smaller frescoes.

APPENDIX.

1. ARCHITECT OF THE DUCAL PALACE.

Popular tradition and a large number of the chroniclers ascribe the

building of the Ducal Palace to that Filippo Calendario who suffered

death for his share in the conspiracy of Faliero. He was certainly one

of the leading architects of the time, and had for several years the

superintendence of the works of the Palace; but it appears, from the

documents collected by the Abbé Cadorin, that the first designer of the

Palace, the man to whom we owe the adaptation of the Frari traceries to

civil architecture, was Pietro Baseggio, who is spoken of expressly as

"formerly the Chief Master of our New Palace,"[58] in the decree of

1361, quoted by Cadorin, and who, at his death, left Calendario his

executor. Other documents collected by Zanotto, in his work on "Venezia

e le sue Lagune," show that Calendario was for a long time at sea, under

the commands of the Signory, returning to Venice only three or four

years before his death; and that therefore the entire management of the

works of the Palace, in the most important period, must have been

entrusted to Baseggio.

It is quite impossible, however, in the present state of the Palace, to

distinguish one architect's work from another in the older parts; and I

have not in the text embarrassed the reader by any attempt at close

definition of epochs before the great junction of the Piazzetta Façade

with the older palace in the fifteenth century. Here, however, it is

necessary that I should briefly state the observations I was able to

make on the relative dates of the earlier portions.

In the description of the Fig-tree angle, given in the eighth chapter of

Vol. II., I said that it seemed to me somewhat earlier than that of the

Vine, and the reader might be surprised at the apparent opposition of

this statement to my supposition that the Palace was built gradually

round from the Rio Façade to the Piazzetta. But in the two great open

arcades there is no succession of work traceable; from the Vine angle to

the junction with the fifteenth century work, above and below, all seems

nearly of the same date, the only question being of the accidental

precedence of workmanship of one capital or another; and I think, from

its style, that the Fig-tree angle must have been first completed. But

in the upper stories of the Palace there are enormous differences of

style. On the Rio Façade, in the upper story, are several series of

massive windows of the third order, corresponding exactly in mouldings

and manner of workmanship to those of the chapter-house of the Frari,

and consequently carrying us back to a very early date in the fourteenth

century: several of the capitals of these windows, and two richly

sculptured string-courses in the wall below, are of Byzantine

workmanship, and in all probability fragments of the Ziani Palace. The

traceried windows on the Rio Façade, and the two eastern windows on the

Sea Façade, are all of the finest early fourteenth century work,

masculine and noble in their capitals and bases to the highest degree,

and evidently contemporary with the very earliest portions of the lower

arcades. But the moment we come to the windows of the Great Council

Chamber the style is debased. The mouldings are the same, but they are

coarsely worked, and the heads set amidst the leafage of the capitals

quite valueless and vile.

I have not the least doubt that these window-jambs and traceries were

restored after the great fire;[59] and various other restorations have

taken place since, beginning with the removal of the traceries from all

the windows except the northern one of the Sala del Scrutinio, behind

the Porta della Carta, where they are still left. I made out four

periods of restoration among these windows, each baser than the

preceding. It is not worth troubling the reader about them, but the

traveller who is interested in the subject may compare two of them in

the same window; the one nearer the sea of the two belonging to the

little room at the top of the Palace on the Piazzetta Façade, between

the Sala del Gran Consiglio and that of the Scrutinio. The seaward jamb

of that window is of the first, and the opposite jamb of the second,

period of these restorations. These are all the points of separation in

date which I could discover by internal evidence. But much more might be

made out by any Venetian antiquary whose time permitted him thoroughly

to examine any existing documents which allude to or describe the parts

of the Palace spoken of in the important decrees of 1340, 1342, and

1344; for the first of these decrees speaks of certain "columns looking

towards the Canal"[60] or sea, as then existing, and I presume these

columns to have been part of the Ziani Palace, corresponding to the part

of that palace on the Piazzetta where were the "red columns" between

which Calendario was executed; and a great deal more might be determined

by any one who would thoroughly unravel the obscure language of those

decrees.

Meantime, in order to complete the evidence respecting the main dates

stated in the text, I have collected here such notices of the building

of the Ducal Palace as appeared to me of most importance in the various

chronicles I examined. I could not give them all in the text, as they

repeat each other, and would have been tedious; but they will be

interesting to the antiquary, and it is to be especially noted in all of

them how the Palazzo _Vecchio_ is invariably distinguished, either

directly or by implication, from the Palazzo Nuovo. I shall first

translate the piece of the Zancarol Chronicle given by Cadorin, which

has chiefly misled the Venetian antiquaries. I wish I could put the rich

old Italian into old English, but must be content to lose its raciness,

as it is necessary that the reader should be fully acquainted with its

facts.

"It was decreed that none should dare to propose to the Signory of

Venice to ruin the _old_ palace and rebuild it new and more richly, and

there was a penalty of one thousand ducats against any one who should

break it. Then the Doge, wishing to set forward the public good, said to

the Signory, ... that they ought to rebuild the façades of the _old_

palace, and that it ought to be restored, to do honor to the nation: and

so soon as he had done speaking, the Avogadori demanded the penalty from

the Doge, for having disobeyed the law; and the Doge with ready mind

paid it, remaining in his opinion that the said fabric ought to be

built. And so, in the year 1422, on the 20th day of September, it was

passed in the Council of the Pregadi that the said new palace should be

begun, and the expense should be borne by the Signori del Sal; and so,

on the 24th day of March, 1424, it was begun to throw down the _old_

palace, and to build it anew."--_Cadorin_, p. 129.

The day of the month, and the council in which the decree was passed,

are erroneously given by this Chronicle. Cadorin has printed the words

of the decree itself, which passed in the Great Council on the 27th

September: and these words are, fortunately, much to our present

purpose. For as more than one façade is spoken of in the above extract,

the Marchese Selvatico was induced to believe that both the front to the

sea and that to the Piazzetta had been destroyed; whereas, the "façades"

spoken of are evidently those of the Ziani Palace. For the words of the

decree (which are much more trustworthy than those of the Chronicle,

even if there were any inconsistency between them) run thus: "Palatium

nostrum fabricetur et fiat in forma decora et convenienti, quod

respondeat _solemnissimo principio palatii nostri novi_." Thus the new

council chamber and façade to the sea are called the "most venerable

beginning of our _New_ Palace;" and the rest was ordered to be designed

in accordance with these, as was actually the case as far as the Porta

della Carta. But the Renaissance architects who thenceforward proceeded

with the fabric, broke through the design, and built everything else

according to their own humors.

The question may be considered as set at rest by these words of the

decree, even without any internal or any farther documentary evidence.

But rather for the sake of impressing the facts thoroughly on the

reader's mind, than of any additional proof, I shall quote a few more of

the best accredited Chronicles.

The passage given by Bettio, from the Sivos Chronicle, is a very

important parallel with that from the Zancarol above:

"Essendo molto vecchio, e quasi rovinoso el Palazzo sopra la piazza, fo

deliberato di far quella parte tutta da novo, et continuarla com' è

quella della Sala grande, et cosi il Lunedi 27 Marzo 1424 fu dato

principio a ruinare detto Palazzo vecchio dalla parte, ch' è verso

panateria cioè della Giustizia, ch' è nelli occhi di sopra le colonne

fino alla Chiesa et fo fatto anco la porta grande, com' è al presente,

con la sala che si addimanda la Libraria."[61]

We have here all the facts told us in so many words: the "old palace" is

definitely stated to have been "on the piazza," and it is to be rebuilt

"like the part of the great saloon." The very point from which the newer

buildings commenced is told us; but here the chronicler has carried his

attempt at accuracy too far. The point of junction is, as stated above,

at the third pillar beyond the medallion of Venice; and I am much at a

loss to understand what could have been the disposition of these three

pillars where they joined the Ziani Palace, and how they were connected

with the arcade of the inner cortile. But with these difficulties, as

they do not bear on the immediate question, it is of no use to trouble

the reader.

The next passage I shall give is from a Chronicle in the Marcian

Library, bearing title, "Supposta di Zancaruol;" but in which I could

not find the passage given by Cadorin from, I believe, a manuscript of

this Chronicle at Vienna. There occurs instead of it the following thus

headed:--

"Come _la parte nova_ del Palazzo fuo hedificata _novamente_.

"El Palazzo novo de Venesia quella parte che xe verso la Chiesia de S.

Marcho fuo prexo chel se fesse del 1422 e fosse pagado la spexa per li

officiali del sal. E fuo fatto per sovrastante G. Nicolo Barberigo cum

provision de ducati X doro al mexe e fuo fabricado e fatto nobelissimo.

Come fin ancho di el sta e fuo grande honor a la Signoria de Venesia e a

la sua Citta."

This entry, which itself bears no date, but comes between others dated

22nd July and 27th December, is interesting, because it shows the first

transition of the idea of _newness_, from the Grand Council Chamber to

the part built under Foscari. For when Mocenigo's wishes had been

fulfilled, and the old palace of Ziani had been destroyed, and another

built in its stead, the Great Council Chamber, which was "the new

palace" compared with Ziani's, became "the old palace" compared with

Foscari's; and thus we have, in the body of the above extract, the whole

building called "the new palace of Venice;" but in the heading of it, we

have "the new _part_ of the palace" applied to the part built by

Foscari, in contradistinction to the Council Chamber.

The next entry I give is important, because the writing of the MS. in

which it occurs, No. 53 in the Correr Museum, shows it to be probably

not later than the end of the fifteenth century:

"El palazo nuovo de Venixia zoe quella parte che se sora la piazza verso

la giesia di Miss. San Marcho del 1422 fo principiado, el qual fo fato e

finito molto belo, chome al presente se vede nobilissimo, et a la

fabricha de quello fo deputado Miss. Nicolo Barberigo, soprastante con

ducati dieci doro al mexe."

We have here the part built by Foscari distinctly called the Palazzo

Nuovo, as opposed to the Great Council Chamber, which had now completely

taken the position of the Palazzo Vecchio, and is actually so called by

Sansovino. In the copy of the Chronicle of Paolo Morosini, and in the

MSS. numbered respectively 57, 59, 74, and 76 in the Correr Museum, the

passage above given from No. 53 is variously repeated with slight

modifications and curtailments; the entry in the Morosini Chronicle

being headed, "Come fu principiato il palazo che guarda sopra la piaza

grande di S. Marco," and proceeding in the words, "El Palazo Nuovo di

Venetia, cioè quella parte che e sopra la piaza," &c., the writers being

cautious, in all these instances, to _limit their statement_ to the part

facing the Piazza, that no reader might suppose the Council Chamber to

have been built or begun at the same time; though, as long as to the end

of the sixteenth century, we find the Council Chamber still included in

the expression "Palazzo Nuovo." Thus, in the MS. No. 75 in the Correr

Museum, which is about that date, we have "Del 1422, a di 20 Settembre

fu preso nel consegio grando de dover _compir_ el Palazo Novo, e dovesen

fare la spessa li officialli del Sal (61. M. 2. B.)." And, so long as

this is the case, the "Palazzo Vecchio" always means the Ziani Palace.

Thus, in the next page of this same MS. we have "a di 27 Marzo (1424 by

context) fo principia a butar zosso, el _Palazzo Vecchio_ per refarlo da

novo, e poi se he" (and so it is done); and in the MS. No. 81, "Del

1424, fo gittado zoso el _Palazzo Vecchio_ per refarlo de nuovo, a di 27

Marzo." But in the time of Sansovino the Ziani Palace was quite

forgotten; the Council Chamber was then the _old_ palace, and Foscari's

part was the new. His account of the "Palazzo Publico" will now be

perfectly intelligible; but, as the work itself is easily accessible, I

shall not burden the reader with any farther extracts, only noticing

that the chequering of the façade with red and white marbles, which he

ascribes to Foscari, may or may not be of so late a date, as there is

nothing in the style of the work which can be produced as evidence.

2. THEOLOGY OF SPENSER.

The following analysis of the first books of the "Faërie Queen," may be

interesting to readers who have been in the habit of reading the noble

poem too hastily to connect its parts completely together; and may

perhaps induce them to more careful study of the rest of the poem.

The Redcrosse Knight is Holiness,--the "Pietas" of St. Mark's, the

"Devotio" of Orcagna,--meaning, I think, in general, Reverence and Godly

Fear.

This Virtue, in the opening of the book, has Truth (or Una) at its side,

but presently enters the Wandering Wood, and encounters the serpent

Error; that is to say, Error in her universal form, the first enemy of

Reverence and Holiness; and more especially Error as founded on

learning; for when Holiness strangles her,

"Her vomit _full of bookes and papers was_,

With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke."

Having vanquished this first open and palpable form of Error, as

Reverence and Religion must always vanquish it, the Knight encounters

Hypocrisy, or Archimagus; Holiness cannot detect Hypocrisy, but

believes him, and goes home with him; whereupon Hypocrisy succeeds in

separating Holiness from Truth; and the Knight (Holiness) and Lady

(Truth) go forth separately from the house of Archimagus.

Now observe: the moment Godly Fear, or Holiness, is separated from

Truth, he meets Infidelity, or the Knight Sans Foy; Infidelity having

Falsehood, or Duesa, riding behind him. The instant the Redcrosse Knight

is aware of the attack of Infidelity, he

"Gan fairly couch his speare, and towards ride."

He vanquishes and slays Infidelity; but is deceived by his companion,

Falsehood, and takes her for his lady: thus showing the condition of

Religion, when, after being attacked by Doubt, and remaining victorious,

it is nevertheless seduced, by any form of Falsehood, to pay reverence

where it ought not. This, then, is the first fortune of Godly Fear

separated from Truth. The poet then returns to Truth, separated from

Godly Fear. She is immediately attended by a lion, or Violence, which

makes her dreaded wherever she comes; and when she enters the mart of

Superstition, this Lion tears Kirkrapine in pieces: showing how Truth,

separated from Godliness, does indeed put an end to the abuses of

Superstition, but does so violently and desperately. She then meets

again with Hypocrisy, whom she mistakes for her own lord, or Godly Fear,

and travels a little way under his guardianship (Hypocrisy thus not

unfrequently appearing to defend the Truth), until they are both met by

Lawlessness, or the Knight Sans Loy, whom Hypocrisy cannot resist.

Lawlessness overthrows Hypocrisy, and seizes upon Truth, first slaying

her lion attendant: showing that the first aim of licence is to destroy

the force and authority of Truth. Sans Loy then takes Truth captive, and

bears her away. Now this Lawlessness is the "unrighteousness," or

"adikia," of St. Paul; and his bearing Truth away captive, is a type of

those "who hold the truth in unrighteousness,"--that is to say,

generally, of men who, knowing what is true, make the truth give way to

their own purposes, or use it only to forward them, as is the case with

so many of the popular leaders of the present day. Una is then delivered

from Sans Loy by the satyrs, to show that Nature, in the end, must work

out the deliverance of the truth, although, where it has been captive to

Lawlessness, that deliverance can only be obtained through Savageness,

and a return to barbarism. Una is then taken from among the satyrs by

Satyrane, the son of a satyr and a "lady myld, fair Thyamis," (typifying

the early steps of renewed civilization, and its rough and hardy

character "nousled up in life and manners wilde,") who, meeting again

with Sans Loy, enters instantly into rough and prolonged combat with

him: showing how the early organization of a hardy nation must be

wrought out through much discouragement from Lawlessness. This contest

the poet leaving for the time undecided, returns to trace the adventures

of the Redcrosse Knight, or Godly Fear, who, having vanquished

Infidelity, presently is led by Falsehood to the house of Pride: thus

showing how religion, separated from truth, is first tempted by doubts

of God, and then by the pride of life. The description of this house of

Pride is one of the most elaborate and noble pieces in the poem; and

here we begin to get at the proposed system of Virtues and Vices. For

Pride, as queen, has six other vices yoked in her chariot; namely,

first, Idleness, then Gluttony, Lust, Avarice, Envy, and Anger, all

driven on by "Sathan, with a smarting whip in hand." From these lower

vices and their company, Godly Fear, though lodging in the house of

Pride, holds aloof; but he is challenged, and has a hard battle to fight

with Sans Joy, the brother of Sans Foy: showing, that though he has

conquered Infidelity, and does not give himself up to the allurements of

Pride, he is yet exposed, so long as he dwells in her house, to distress

of mind and loss of his accustomed rejoicing before God. He, however,

having partly conquered Despondency, or Sans Joy, Falsehood goes down to

Hades, in order to obtain drugs to maintain the power or life of

Despondency; but, meantime, the Knight leaves the house of Pride:

Falsehood pursues and overtakes him, and finds him by a fountain side,

of which the waters are

"Dull and slow,

And all that drinke thereof do faint and feeble grow."

Of which the meaning is, that Godly Fear, after passing through the

house of Pride, is exposed to drowsiness and feebleness of watch; as,

after Peter's boast, came Peter's sleeping, from weakness of the flesh,

and then, last of all, Peter's fall. And so it follows: for the

Redcrosse Knight, being overcome with faintness by drinking of the

fountain, is thereupon attacked by the giant Orgoglio, overcome and

thrown by him into a dungeon. This Orgoglio is Orgueil, or Carnal Pride;

not the pride of life, spiritual and subtle, but the common and vulgar

pride in the power of this world: and his throwing the Redcrosse Knight

into a dungeon, is a type of the captivity of true religion under the

temporal power of corrupt churches, more especially of the Church of

Rome; and of its gradually wasting away in unknown places, while carnal

pride has the preëminence over all things. That Spenser means,

especially, the pride of the Papacy, is shown by the 16th stanza of the

book; for there the giant Orgoglio is said to have taken Duessa, or

Falsehood, for his "deare," and to have set upon her head a triple

crown, and endowed her with royal majesty, and made her to ride upon a

seven-headed beast.

In the meantime, the dwarf, the attendant of the Redcrosse Knight, takes

his arms, and finding Una tells her of the captivity of her lord. Una,

in the midst of her mourning, meets Prince Arthur, in whom, as Spenser

himself tells us, is set forth generally Magnificence; but who, as is

shown by the choice of the hero's name, is more especially the

magnificence, or literally, "great doing" of the kingdom of England.

This power of England, going forth with Truth, attacks Orgoglio, or the

Pride of Papacy, slays him; strips Duessa, or Falsehood, naked; and

liberates the Redcrosse Knight. The magnificent and well-known

description of Despair follows, by whom the Redcrosse Knight is hard

bested, on account of his past errors and captivity, and is only saved

by Truth, who, perceiving him to be still feeble, brings him to the

house of Coelia, called, in the argument of the canto, Holiness, but

properly, Heavenly Grace, the mother of the Virtues. Her "three

daughters, well up-brought," are Faith, Hope, and Charity. Her porter is

Humility; because Humility opens the door of Heavenly Grace. Zeal and

Reverence are her chamberlains, introducing the new comers to her

presence; her groom, or servant, is Obedience; and her physician,

Patience. Under the commands of Charity, the matron Mercy rules over

her hospital, under whose care the Knight is healed of his sickness; and

it is to be especially noticed how much importance Spenser, though never

ceasing to chastise all hypocrisies and mere observances of form,

attaches to true and faithful _penance_ in effecting this cure. Having

his strength restored to him, the Knight is trusted to the guidance of

Mercy, who, leading him forth by a narrow and thorny way, first

instructs him in the seven works of Mercy, and then leads him to the

hill of Heavenly Contemplation; whence, having a sight of the New

Jerusalem, as Christian of the Delectable Mountains, he goes forth to

the final victory over Satan, the old serpent, with which the book

closes.

3. AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT IN ITALY.

I cannot close these volumes without expressing my astonishment and

regret at the facility with which the English allow themselves to be

misled by any representations, however openly groundless or ridiculous,

proceeding from the Italian Liberal party, respecting the present

administration of the Austrian Government. I do not choose here to enter

into any political discussion, or express any political opinion; but it

is due to justice to state the simple facts which came under my notice

during my residence in Italy. I was living at Venice through two entire

winters, and in the habit of familiar association both with Italians and

Austrians, my own antiquarian vocations rendering such association

possible without exciting the distrust of either party. During this

whole period, I never once was able to ascertain, from any liberal

Italian, that he had a single _definite_ ground of complaint against the

Government. There was much general grumbling and vague discontent; but I

never was able to bring one of them to the point, or to discover what it

was that they wanted, or in what way they felt themselves injured; nor

did I ever myself witness an instance of oppression on the part of the

Government, though several of much kindness and consideration. The

indignation of those of my own countrymen and countrywomen whom I

happened to see during their sojourn in Venice was always vivid, but by

no means large in its grounds. English ladies on their first arrival

invariably began the conversation with the same remark: "What a

dreadful thing it was to be ground under the iron heel of despotism!"

Upon closer inquiries it always appeared that being "ground under the

heel of despotism" was a poetical expression for being asked for one's

passport at San Juliano, and required to fetch it from San Lorenzo, full

a mile and a quarter distant. In like manner, travellers, after two or

three days' residence in the city, used to return with pitiful

lamentations over "the misery of the Italian people." Upon inquiring

what instances they had met with of this misery, it invariably turned

out that their gondoliers, after being paid three times their proper

fare, had asked for something to drink, and had attributed the fact of

their being thirsty to the Austrian Government. The misery of the

Italians consists in having three festa days a week, and doing in their

days of exertion about one fourth as much work as an English laborer.

There is, indeed, much true distress occasioned by the measures which

the Government is sometimes compelled to take in order to repress

sedition; but the blame of this lies with those whose occupation is the

excitement of sedition. So also there is much grievous harm done to

works of art by the occupation of the country by so large an army; but

for the mode in which that army is quartered, the Italian municipalities

are answerable, not the Austrians. Whenever I was shocked by finding, as

above-mentioned at Milan, a cloister, or a palace, occupied by soldiery,

I always discovered, on investigation, that the place had been given by

the municipality; and that, beyond requiring that lodging for a certain

number of men should be found in such and such a quarter of the town,

the Austrians had nothing to do with the matter. This does not, however,

make the mischief less: and it is strange, if we think of it, to see

Italy, with all her precious works of art, made a continual

battle-field; as if no other place for settling their disputes could be

found by the European powers, than where every random shot may destroy

what a king's ransom cannot restore.[62] It is exactly as if the

tumults in Paris could he settled no otherwise than by fighting them out

in the Gallery of the Louvre.

4. DATE OF THE PALACES OF THE BYZANTINE RENAISSANCE.

In the sixth article of the Appendix to the first volume, the question

of the date of the Casa Dario and Casa Trevisan was deferred until I

could obtain from my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, to whom the former palace

once belonged, some more distinct data respecting this subject than I

possessed myself.

Speaking first of the Casa Dario, he says: "Fontana dates it from about

the year 1450, and considers it the earliest specimen of the

architecture founded by Pietro Lombardo, and followed by his sons,

Tullio and Antonio. In a Sanuto autograph miscellany, purchased by me

long ago, and which I gave to St. Mark's Library, are two letters from

Giovanni Dario, dated 10th and 11th July, 1485, in the neighborhood of

Adrianople; where the Turkish camp found itself, and Bajazet II.

received presents from the Soldan of Egypt, from the Schah of the Indies

(query Grand Mogul), and from the King of Hungary: of these matters,

Dario's letters give many curious details. Then, in the _printed_

Malipiero Annals, page 136 (which err, I think, by a year), the

Secretary Dario's negotiations at the Porte are alluded to; and in date

of 1484 he is stated to have returned to Venice, having quarrelled with

the Venetian bailiff at Constantinople: the annalist adds, that

'Giovanni Dario was a native of Candia, and that the Republic was so

well satisfied with him for having concluded peace with Bajazet, that he

received, as a gift from his country, an estate at Noventa, in the

Paduan territory, worth 1500 ducats, and 600 ducats in cash for the

dower of one of his daughters.' These largesses probably enabled him to

build his house about the year 1486, and are doubtless hinted at in the

inscription, which I restored A.D. 1837; _it had no date_, and ran thus,

URBIS . GENIO . JOANNES . DARIVS. In the Venetian history of Paolo

Morosini, page 594, it is also mentioned, that Giovanni Dario was,

moreover, the Secretary who concluded the peace between Mahomet, the

conqueror of Constantinople, and Venice, A.D. 1478; but, unless he build

his house by proxy, that date has nothing to do with it; and in my mind,

the fact of the present, and the inscription, warrant one's dating it

1486, and not 1450.

"The Trevisan-Cappello House, in Canonica, was once the property (A.D.

1578) of a Venetian dame, fond of cray-fish, according to a letter of

hers in the archives, whereby she thanks one of her lovers for some

which he had sent her from Treviso to Florence, of which she was then

Grand Duchess. Her name has perhaps found its way into the English

annuals. Did you ever hear of Bianca Cappello? She bought that house of

the Trevisana family, by whom Selva (in Cicognara) and Fontana

(following Selva) say it was ordered of the Lombardi, at the

commencement of the sixteenth century: but the inscription on its

façade, thus,

SOLI | | HONOR. ET

DEO | | GLORIA.

reminding one both of the Dario House, and of the words NON NOBIS DOMINE

inscribed on the façade of the Loredano Vendramin Palace at S. Marcuola

(now the property of the Duchess of Berri), of which Selva found proof

in the Vendramin Archives that it was commenced by Sante Lombardo, A.D.

1481, is in favor of its being classed among the works of the fifteenth

century."

5. RENAISSANCE SIDE OF DUCAL PALACE.

In passing along the Rio del Palazzo the traveller ought especially to

observe the base of the Renaissance building, formed by alternately

depressed and raised pyramids, the depressed portions being _casts_ of

the projecting ones, which are truncated on the summits. The work cannot

be called rustication, for it is cut as sharply and delicately as a

piece of ivory, but it thoroughly answers the end which rustication

proposes, and misses: it gives the base of the building a look of

crystalline hardness, actually resembling, and that very closely, the

appearance presented by the fracture of a piece of cap quartz; while yet

the light and shade of its alternate recesses and projections are so

varied as to produce the utmost possible degree of delight to the eye,

attainable by a geometrical pattern so simple. Yet, with all this high

merit, it is not a base which could be brought into general use. Its

brilliancy and piquancy are here set off with exquisite skill by its

opposition to mouldings, in the upper part of the building, of an almost

effeminate delicacy, and its complexity is rendered delightful by its

contrast with the ruder bases of the other buildings of the city; but it

would look meagre if it were employed to sustain bolder masses above,

and would become wearisome if the eye were once thoroughly familiarized

with it by repetition.

6. CHARACTER OF THE DOGE MICHELE MOROSINI.

The following extracts from the letter of Count Charles Morosini, above

mentioned, appear to set the question at rest.

"It is our unhappy destiny that, during the glory of the Venetian

republic, no one took the care to leave us a faithful and conscientious

history: but I hardly know whether this misfortune should be laid to the

charge of the historians themselves, or of those commentators who have

destroyed their trustworthiness by new accounts of things, invented by

themselves. As for the poor Morosini, we may perhaps save his honor by

assembling a conclave of our historians, in order to receive their

united sentence; for, in this case, he would have the absolute majority

on his side, nearly all the authors bearing testimony to his love for

his country and to the magnanimity of his heart. I must tell you that

the history of Daru is not looked upon with esteem by well-informed men;

and it is said that he seems to have no other object in view than to

obscure the glory of all actions. I know not on what authority the

English writer depends; but he has, perhaps, merely copied the statement

of Daru.... I have consulted an ancient and authentic MS. belonging to

the Venieri family, a MS. well known, and certainly better worthy of

confidence than Daru's history, and it says nothing of M. Morosini but

that he was elected Doge to the delight and joy of all men. Neither do

the Savina or Dolfin Chronicles say a word of the shameful speculation;

and our best informed men say that the reproach cast by some historians

against the Doge perhaps arose from a mistaken interpretation of the

words pronounced by him, and reported by Marin Sanuto, that 'the

speculation would sooner or later have been advantageous to the

country.' But this single consideration is enough to induce us to form a

favorable conclusion respecting the honor of this man, namely, that he

was not elected Doge until after he had been entrusted with many

honorable embassies to the Genoese and Carrarese, as well as to the King

of Hungary and Amadeus of Savoy; and if in these embassies he had not

shown himself a true lover of his country, the republic not only would

not again have entrusted him with offices so honorable, but would never

have rewarded him with the dignity of Doge, therein to succeed such a

man as Andrea Contarini; and the war of Chioggia, during which it is

said that he tripled his fortune by speculations, took place during the

reign of Contarini, 1379, 1380, while Morosini was absent on foreign

embassies."

7. MODERN EDUCATION.

The following fragmentary notes on this subject have been set down at

different times. I have been accidentally prevented from arranging them

properly for publication, but there are one or two truths in them which

it is better to express insufficiently than not at all.

* * * * *

By a large body of the people of England and of Europe a man is called

educated if he can write Latin verses and construe a Greek chorus. By

some few more enlightened persons it is confessed that the construction

of hexameters is not in itself an important end of human existence; but

they say, that the general discipline which a course of classical

reading gives to the intellectual powers, is the final object of our

scholastical institutions.

But it seems to me, there is no small error even in this last and more

philosophical theory. I believe, that what it is most honorable to know,

it is also most profitable to learn; and that the science which it is

the highest power to possess, it is also the best exercise to acquire.

And if this be so, the question as to what should be the materiel of

education, becomes singularly simplified. It might be matter of dispute

what processes have the greatest effect in developing the intellect; but

it can hardly be disputed what facts it is most advisable that a man

entering into life should accurately know.

I believe, in brief, that he ought to know three things:

First. Where he is.

Secondly. Where he is going.

Thirdly. What he had best do, under those circumstances.

First. Where he is.--That is to say, what sort of a world he has got

into; how large it is; what kind of creatures live in it, and how; what

it is made of, and what may be made of it.

Secondly. Where he is going.--That is to say, what chances or reports

there are of any other world besides this; what seems to be the nature

of that other world; and whether, for information respecting it, he had

better consult the Bible, Koran, or Council of Trent.

Thirdly. What he had best do under those circumstances.--That is to say,

what kind of faculties he possesses; what are the present state and

wants of mankind; what is his place in society; and what are the

readiest means in his power of attaining happiness and diffusing it. The

man who knows these things, and who has had his will so subdued in the

learning them, that he is ready to do what he knows he ought, I should

call educated; and the man who knows them not,--uneducated, though he

could talk all the tongues of Babel.

Our present European system of so-called education ignores, or despises,

not one, nor the other, but all the three, of these great branches of

human knowledge.

First: It despises Natural History.--Until within the last year or two,

the instruction in the physical sciences given at Oxford consisted of a

course of twelve or fourteen lectures on the Elements of Mechanics or

Pneumatics, and permission to ride out to Shotover with the Professor of

Geology. I do not know the specialties of the system pursued in the

academies of the Continent; but their practical result is, that unless a

man's natural instincts urge him to the pursuit of the physical sciences

too strongly to be resisted, he enters into life utterly ignorant of

them. I cannot, within my present limits, even so much as count the

various directions in which this ignorance does evil. But the main

mischief of it is, that it leaves the greater number of men without the

natural food which God intended for their intellects. For one man who is

fitted for the study of words, fifty are fitted for the study of things,

and were intended to have a perpetual, simple, and religious delight in

watching the processes, or admiring the creatures, of the natural

universe. Deprived of this source of pleasure, nothing is left to them

but ambition or dissipation; and the vices of the upper classes of

Europe are, I believe, chiefly to be attributed to this single cause.

Secondly: It despises Religion.--I do not say it despises "Theology,"

that is to say, _Talk_ about God. But it despises "Religion;" that is to

say, the "binding" or training to God's service. There is much talk and

much teaching in all our academies, of which the effect is not to bind,

but to loosen, the elements of religious faith. Of the ten or twelve

young men who, at Oxford, were my especial friends, who sat with me

under the same lectures on Divinity, or were punished with me for

missing lecture by being sent to evening prayers,[63] four are now

zealous Romanists,--a large average out of twelve; and while thus our

own universities profess to teach Protestantism, and do not, the

universities on the Continent profess to teach Romanism, and do

not,--sending forth only rebels and infidels. During long residence on

the Continent, I do not remember meeting with above two or three young

men, who either believed in revelation, or had the grace to hesitate in

the assertion of their infidelity.

Whence, it seems to me, we may gather one of two things; either that

there is nothing in any European form of religion so reasonable or

ascertained, as that it can be taught securely to our youth, or fastened

in their minds by any rivets of proof which they shall not be able to

loosen the moment they begin to think; or else, that no means are taken

to train them in such demonstrable creeds.

It seems to me the duty of a rational nation to ascertain (and to be at

some pains in the matter) which of these suppositions is true; and, if

indeed no proof can be given of any supernatural fact, or Divine

doctrine, stronger than a youth just out of his teens can overthrow in

the first stirrings of serious thought, to confess this boldly; to get

rid of the expense of an Establishment, and the hypocrisy of a Liturgy;

to exhibit its cathedrals as curious memorials of a by-gone

superstition, and, abandoning all thoughts of the next world, to set

itself to make the best it can of this.

But if, on the other hand, there _does_ exist any evidence by which the

probability of certain religious facts may be shown, as clearly, even,

as the probabilities of things not absolutely ascertained in

astronomical or geological science, let this evidence be set before all

our youth so distinctly, and the facts for which it appears inculcated

upon them so steadily, that although it may be possible for the evil

conduct of after life to efface, or for its earnest and protracted

meditation to modify, the impressions of early years, it may not be

possible for our young men, the instant they emerge from their

academies, to scatter themselves like a flock of wild fowl risen out of

a marsh, and drift away on every irregular wind of heresy and apostasy.

Lastly: Our system of European education despises Politics.--That is to

say, the science of the relations and duties of men to each other. One

would imagine, indeed, by a glance at the state of the world, that there

was no such science. And, indeed, it is one still in its infancy.

It implies, in its full sense, the knowledge of the operations of the

virtues and vices of men upon themselves and society; the understanding

of the ranks and offices of their intellectual and bodily powers in

their various adaptations to art, science, and industry; the

understanding of the proper offices of art, science, and labor

themselves, as well as of the foundations of jurisprudence, and broad

principles of commerce; all this being coupled with practical knowledge

of the present state and wants of mankind.

What, it will be said, and is all this to be taught to schoolboys? No;

but the first elements of it, all that are necessary to be known by an

individual in order to his acting wisely in any station of life, might

be taught, not only to every schoolboy, but to every peasant. The

impossibility of equality among men; the good which arises from their

inequality; the compensating circumstances in different states and

fortunes; the honorableness of every man who is worthily filling his

appointed place in society, however humble; the proper relations of poor

and rich, governor and governed; the nature of wealth, and mode of its

circulation; the difference between productive and unproductive labor;

the relation of the products of the mind and hand; the true value of

works of the higher arts, and the possible amount of their production;

the meaning of "Civilization," its advantages and dangers; the meaning

of the term "Refinement;" the possibilities of possessing refinement in

a low station, and of losing it in a high one; and, above all, the

significance of almost every act of a man's daily life, in its ultimate

operation upon himself and others;--all this might be, and ought to be,

taught to every boy in the kingdom, so completely, that it should be

just as impossible to introduce an absurd or licentious doctrine among

our adult population, as a new version of the multiplication table. Nor

am I altogether without hope that some day it may enter into the heads

of the tutors of our schools to try whether it is not as easy to make an

Eton boy's mind as sensitive to falseness in policy, as his ear is at

present to falseness in prosody.

I know that this is much to hope. That English ministers of religion

should ever come to desire rather to make a youth acquainted with the

powers of nature and of God, than with the powers of Greek particles;

that they should ever think it more useful to show him how the great

universe rolls upon its course in heaven, than how the syllables are

fitted in a tragic metre; that they should hold it more advisable for

him to be fixed in the principles of religion than in those of syntax;

or, finally, that they should ever come to apprehend that a youth likely

to go straight out of college into parliament, might not unadvisably

know as much of the Peninsular as of the Peloponnesian War, and be as

well acquainted with the state of Modern Italy as of old Etruria;--all

this however unreasonably, I _do_ hope, and mean to work for. For though

I have not yet abandoned all expectation of a better world than this, I

believe this in which we live is not so good as it might be. I know

there are many people who suppose French revolutions, Italian

insurrections, Caffre wars, and such other scenic effects of modern

policy, to be among the normal conditions of humanity. I know there are

many who think the atmosphere of rapine, rebellion, and misery which

wraps the lower orders of Europe more closely every day, is as natural a

phenomenon as a hot summer. But God forbid! There are ills which flesh

is heir to, and troubles to which man is born; but the troubles which he

is born to are as sparks which fly _upward_, not as flames burning to

the nethermost Hell. The Poor we must have with us always, and sorrow is

inseparable from any hour of life; but we may make their poverty such as

shall inherit the earth, and the sorrow, such as shall be hallowed by

the hand of the Comforter, with everlasting comfort. We _can_, if we

will but shake off this lethargy and dreaming that is upon us, and take

the pains to think and act like men, we can, I say, make kingdoms to be

like well-governed households, in which, indeed, while no care or

kindness can prevent occasional heart-burnings, nor any foresight or

piety anticipate all the vicissitudes of fortune, or avert every stroke

of calamity, yet the unity of their affection and fellowship remains

unbroken, and their distress is neither embittered by division,

prolonged by imprudence, nor darkened by dishonor.

* * * * *

The great leading error of modern times is the mistaking erudition for

education. I call it the leading error, for I believe that, with little

difficulty, nearly every other might be shown to have root in it; and,

most assuredly, the worst that are fallen into on the subject of art.

Education then, briefly, is the leading human souls to what is best, and

making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always

attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men

happiest in themselves, also makes them most serviceable to others. True

education, then, has respect, first to the ends which are proposable to

the man, or attainable by him; and, secondly, to the material of which

the man is made. So far as it is able, it chooses the end according to

the material: but it cannot always choose the end, for the position of

many persons in life is fixed by necessity; still less can it choose

the material; and, therefore, all it can do, is to fit the one to the

other as wisely as may be.

But the first point to be understood, is that the material is as various

as the ends; that not only one man is unlike another, but _every_ man is

essentially different from _every_ other, so that no training, no

forming, nor informing, will ever make two persons alike in thought or

in power. Among all men, whether of the upper or lower orders, the

differences are eternal and irreconcilable, between one individual and

another, born under absolutely the same circumstances. One man is made

of agate, another of oak; one of slate, another of clay. The education

of the first is polishing; of the second, seasoning; of the third,

rending; of the fourth, moulding. It is of no use to season the agate;

it is vain to try to polish the slate; but both are fitted, by the

qualities they possess, for services in which they may be honored.

Now the cry for the education of the lower classes, which is heard every

day more widely and loudly, is a wise and a sacred cry, provided it be

extended into one for the education of _all_ classes, with definite

respect to the work each man has to do, and the substance of which he is

made. But it is a foolish and vain cry, if it be understood, as in the

plurality of cases it is meant to be, for the expression of mere craving

after knowledge, irrespective of the simple purposes of the life that

now is, and blessings of that which is to come.

One great fallacy into which men are apt to fall when they are reasoning

on this subject is: that light, as such, is always good; and darkness,

as such, always evil. Far from it. Light untempered would be

annihilation. It is good to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow

of death; but, to those that faint in the wilderness, so also is the

shadow of the great rock in a weary land. If the sunshine is good, so

also the cloud of the latter rain. Light is only beautiful, only

available for life, when it is tempered with shadow; pure light is

fearful, and unendurable by humanity. And it is not less ridiculous to

say that the light, as such, is good in itself, than to say that the

darkness is good in itself. Both are rendered safe, healthy, and useful

by the other; the night by the day, the day by the night; and we could

just as easily live without the dawn as without the sunset, so long as

we are human. Of the celestial city we are told there shall be "no night

there," and then we shall know even as also we are known: but the night

and the mystery have both their service here; and our business is not to

strive to turn the night into day, but to be sure that we are as they

that watch for the morning.

Therefore, in the education either of lower or upper classes, it matters

not the least how much or how little they know, provided they know just

what will fit them to do their work, and to be happy in it. What the sum

or the nature of their knowledge ought to be at a given time or in a

given case, is a totally different question: the main thing to be

understood is, that a man is not educated, in any sense whatsoever,

because he can read Latin, or write English, or can behave well in a

drawingroom; but that he is only educated if he is happy, busy,

beneficent, and effective in the world; that millions of peasants are

therefore at this moment better educated than most of those who call

themselves gentlemen; and that the means taken to "educate" the lower

classes in any other sense may very often be productive of a precisely

opposite result.

Observe: I do not say, nor do I believe, that the lower classes ought

not to be better educated, in millions of ways, than they are. I believe

_every man in a Christian kingdom ought to be equally well educated_.

But I would have it education to purpose; stern, practical,

irresistible, in moral habits, in bodily strength and beauty, in all

faculties of mind capable of being developed under the circumstances of

the individual, and especially in the technical knowledge of his own

business; but yet, infinitely various in its effort, directed to make

one youth humble, and another confident; to tranquillize this mind, to

put some spark of ambition into that; now to urge, and now to restrain:

and in the doing of all this, considering knowledge as one only out of

myriads of means in its hands, or myriads of gifts at its disposal; and

giving it or withholding it as a good husbandman waters his garden,

giving the full shower only to the thirsty plants, and at times when

they are thirsty, whereas at present we pour it upon the heads of our

youth as the snow falls on the Alps, on one and another alike, till they

can bear no more, and then take honor to ourselves because here and

there a river descends from their crests into the valleys, not

observing that we have made the loaded hills themselves barren for ever.

Finally: I hold it for indisputable, that the first duty of a state is

to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed,

and educated, till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the

effecting this, the government must have an authority over the people of

which we now do not so much as dream; and I cannot in this place pursue

the subject farther.

8. EARLY VENETIAN MARRIAGES.

Galliciolli, lib. ii. § 1757, insinuates a doubt of the general custom,

saying "it would be more reasonable to suppose that only twelve maidens

were married in public on St. Mark's day;" and Sandi also speaks of

twelve only. All evidence, however, is clearly in favor of the popular

tradition; the most curious fact connected with the subject being the

mention, by Herodotus, of the mode of marriage practised among the

Illyrian "Veneti" of his time, who presented their maidens for marriage

on one day in each year; and, with the price paid for those who were

beautiful, gave dowries to those who had no personal attractions.