GENIUS AND FASHION 89 



that the expression of the dog in that picture, " The 

 Shepherd^s Chief Mourner," and of the two little 

 King Charles spaniels lying on the cavalier's hat, 

 are quite perfect things. Even in that great paint- 

 ing of Diogenes and Alexander — removed. Heaven 

 knows why, and to my lasting grief, from the 

 National Gallery — though here there is an inten- 

 tional humanising, yet it is wonderful how close 

 Landseer has kept to civilised canine expression — 

 though one would vainly seek for even the shadows 

 of such looks in the dogs of savages. As for 

 Diogenes, the blending of reality with symbolical 

 suggestion is simply marvellous. Never, I believe, 

 will any human Diogenes, on canvas, approach to 

 this animal one. Yet this masterpiece has been 

 basely spirited away from its right and only worthy 

 place — its true home — in our national collection, 

 to make room, possibly, for some mushroom 

 monstrosity of the time, some green-sick Euph- 

 rosyne or melancholy, snub-nosed Venus (the 

 modem-'?inc\tnt Greek type has often a snub nose). 

 However, no one seems to mind. 



I think some law ought to be enacted to protect 

 great works against the changes of fashion. Has 

 not the view that succeeding ages judge better than 

 that in which a poet or artist lived, been pressed a 

 great deal too far, or, rather, has it not for too long 

 gone unchallenged ^ If something must be gained 

 by time in the power of forming a correct estimate, 

 much also may be lost through its agency. It is 

 true that the slighter merit — that dependent on 

 changing things — dies in our regard, whilst the 

 greater, which is independent of these, lives on in it 



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