I. THE ROBIN. 17 



from the trade of his grandfather, and with just so 

 much of his grandfather's trade left in his own dis- 

 position, that being set by Lorenzo Ghiberti to com- 

 plete one of the ornamental festoons of the gates of 

 the Florentine Baptistery, there, (says Vasari) "Antonio 

 produced a quail, which may still be seen, and is so 

 beautiful, nay, so perfect, that it wants nothing but 

 the power of flight." 



14. Here, the morbid tendency was as attractive 

 as it was subtle. Ghiberti himself fell under the 

 influence of it ; allowed the borders of his gates, with 

 their fluttering birds and bossy fruits, to dispute the 

 spectators' favour with the religious subjects they 

 enclosed ; and, from that day forward, minuteness 

 and muscularity were, with curious harmony of evil, 

 delighted in together; and the lancet and the micro- 

 scope, in the hands of fools, were supposed to be 

 complete substitutes for imagination in the souls of 

 wise men : so that even the best artists are gradu- 

 ally compelled, or beguiled, into compliance with 

 the curiosity of their day ; and Francia, in the city 

 of Bologna, is held to be a "kind of god, more 

 particularly " (again I quote Vasari) " after he had 

 painted a set of caparisons for the Duke of Urbino, 

 on which he depicted a great forest all on fire, and 

 whence there rushes forth an immense number of 

 every kind of animal, with several human figures. 



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