GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 327 



and may see if you have eyes children in them twenty times 

 prettier than these. A photograph, if it could render them 

 perfectly, and in colour, would far excel the charm of this 

 painting ; for in it, good and clever as it is, there is nothing 

 supernatural, and much that is sub-natural. 



144. Beside this group of, in every sense of the word, ' art- 

 less ' little country girls, I will now set one in the best sense 

 of the word ' artful ' little country girl, a sketch by Gains- 

 borough. 



You never saw her like before. Never will again, now that 

 Gainsborough is dead. No photography, no science, no 

 industry, will touch or reach for an instant this super-natural- 

 ness. You will look vainly through the summer fields for 

 such a child. "Nor up the lawn, nor by the wood," is she. 

 Whence do you think this marvellous charm has come? 

 Alas ! if we knew, would not we all be Gainsboroughs ? This 

 only you may practically ascertain, as surely as that a flower 

 will die if you cut its root away, that you cannot alter a sin- 

 gle touch in Gainsborough's work without injury to the whole. 

 Half a dozen spots, more or less, in the printed gowns of 

 these other children whom I first showed you, will not make 

 the smallest difference to them ; nor a lock or two more or 

 less in their hair, nor a dimple or two more or less in their 

 cheeks. But if you alter one wave of the hair of Gains- 

 borough's girl, the child is gone. Yet the art is so subtle, 

 that I do not expect you to believe this. It looks so instinc- 

 tive, so easy, so ' chanceux,' the French word is better than 

 ours. Yes, and in their more accurate sense, also, ' II a de la 

 chance.' A stronger Designer than he was with him. He 

 could not tell you himself how the thing was done. 



145. I proceed to take a more definite instance this Greek 

 head of the Lacinian Juno. The design or appointing of the 

 forms now entirely prevails over the resemblance to Nature. 

 No real hair could ever be drifted into these wild lines, which 

 mean the wrath of the Adriatic winds round the Cape of 

 Storms. 



And yet, whether this be uglier or prettier than Gains- 

 borough's child (and you know already what / think about 



