264 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



pleasantly did in that day, you remember Goldsmith's weak- 

 ness on the point wear coats of tints of dark red, blue, or 

 violet. There are some thirty gentlemen in the room, and 

 perhaps seven or eight different tints of subdued claret-colour 

 in their coats ; and yet every coat is kept so distinctly of its 

 own proper claret -colour, that each gentleman's servant would 

 know his master's. 



Yet the whole canvas is so grey and quiet, that as I now 

 hold it by this Dutch landscape, with the vermilion jacket, 

 you would fancy Hogarth's had no colour in it at all, and that 

 the Dutchman was half-way to becoming a Titian ; whereas 

 Hogarth's is a consummate piece of the most perfect colourist 

 school, which Titian could not beat, in its way ; and the Dutch- 

 man could no more paint half an inch of it than he could sum- 

 mon a rainbow into the clouds. 



32. Here then, you see, are, altogether, five works, all of 

 the absolutely pure colour school : 



1. One, Indian, Religious Art ; 



2. One, Florentine, Religious Art ; 



3. One, English, from Painted Chamber, Westminster, 



Ethic Art ; 



4. One, English, Hogarth, Naturalistic Art ; 



5. One, English, to-day sold in the High Street, Carica- 



turist Art. 



And of these, the Florentine and old English are divine work, 

 God-inspired ; full, indeed, of faults and innocencies, but di- 

 vine, as good children are. 



Then this by Hogarth is entirely wise and right ; but 

 worldly-wise, not divine. 



While the old Indian, and this, with which we feed our chil- 

 dren at this hour, are entirely damnable art ; every bit of it 

 done by the direct inspiration of the devil, feeble, ridiculous, 

 yet mortally poisonous to every noble quality in body and 

 soul. 



33. I have now, I hope, guarded you sufficiently from the 

 danger either of confusing the inferior school of chiaroscuro 

 with that of colour, or of imagining that a work must neces- 

 sarily be good, on the sole ground of its belonging to the 



