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some other painters ; though in his histo- 

 rical pictures (to use a very common though 

 improper term of distinction ) columns, 

 arches, balustrades, &c. serve as magnifi- 

 cent frames to those back-groimds, which 

 have been models to all succeeding pain- 

 ters. Many of the buildings in his land- 

 scapes are of a peculiar form with long slant- 

 ing roofs, of which I am persuaded seve- 

 ral examples might still be found near his 

 native city of Cador, and other parts of the 

 Venetian terra firma ; for I have observed 

 in the more modern Venetian pictures, 

 many forms of buildings of the same cha- 

 racter with those of Titian, which yet could 

 not have been copied from him, having 

 been painted from nature. Slanting roofs 

 are certainly very far from contributing to 

 grandeur, one great characteristic of Titian's 

 landscapes ; but as every painter at first 

 copies the nature he sees around him, he 

 will have a partiality for the buildings to 

 which his eye had been early accustomed, 

 though they should not be exactly those 

 which his maturer iudoment would have 



