

GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRA VING. 331 



the bottom of which were appended, by graceful chains, an 

 altar, and two bunches of grapes. 



Now you know in a moment, by a glance at this 'design ' 

 beautifully struck with free hand, and richly gradated in 

 colour, that the master was familiar with a vast range of art 

 and literature : that he knew all about Egyptian sphinxes, and 

 Greek Gorgons ; about Egyptian obelisks, and Hebrew altars ; 

 about Hermes, and Venus, and Bacchus, and satyrs, and goats, 

 and grapes. 



You know also or ought to know, in an instant, that all 

 this learning has done him no good ; that he had better have 

 known nothing than any of these things, since they were to 

 be used by him only to such purpose ; and that his delight in 

 armless breasts, legless trunks, and obelisks upside-down, has 

 been the last effort of his expiring sensation, in the grasp of 

 corrupt and altogether victorious Death. And you have thus, 

 in Gainsborough as compared with Kaphael, a sweet, sacred, 

 and living simplicity, set against an impure, profane, and para- 

 lyzed knowledge. 



152. But, next, let us consider the reverse conditions. 



Let us take instance of contrast between faultful and 

 treacherous ignorance, and divinely pure and fruitful knowl- 

 edge. 



In the place of honour at the end of one of the rooms of 

 your Koyal Academy years ago stood a picture by an Eng- 

 lish Academician, announced as a representation of Moses sus- 

 tained by Aaron and Hur, during the discomfiture of Amalek. 

 In the entire range of the Pentateuch, there is no other scene 

 (in which the visible agents are mortal only) requiring so 

 much knowledge and thought to reach even a distant approxi- 

 mation to the probabilities of the fact. One saw in a moment 

 that the painter was both powerful and simple, after a sort ; 

 that he had really sought for a vital conception, and had orig- 

 inally and earnestly read his text, and formed his conception. 

 And one saw also in a moment that he had chanced upon this 

 subject, in reading or hearing his Bible, as he might have 

 chanced on a dramatic scene accidentally in the street. That 

 he knew nothing of the character of Moses, nothing of his 



