332 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



law, nothing of the character of Aaron, nor of the nature of 

 a priesthood, nothing of the meaning of the event which he 

 was endeavouring to represent, of the temper in which it 

 would have been transacted by its agents, or of its relations 

 to modern life. 



153. On the contrary, in the fresco of the earlier scenes in 

 the life of Moses, by Sandro Botticelli, you know not ' in a 

 moment,' for the knowledge of knowledge cannot be so ob- 

 tained ; but in proportion to the discretion of your own read- 

 ing, and to the care you give to the picture, you may know, 

 that here is a sacredly guided and guarded learning ; here a 

 Master indeed, at whose feet you may sit safely, who can teach 

 you, better than in words, the significance of both Moses' law 

 and Aaron's ministry ; and not only these, but, if he chose, 

 could add to this an exposition as complete of the highest 

 philosophies both of the Greek nation, and of his own ; and 

 could as easily have painted, had it been asked of him, Draco, 

 or Numa, or Justinian, as the herdsman of Jethro. 



154. It is rarely that we can point to an opposition between 

 faultful, because insolent, ignorance, and virtuous, because 

 gracious, knowledge, so direct, and in so parallel elements, as 

 in this instance. In general, the analysis is much more com- 

 plex. It is intensely difficult to indicate the mischief of in- 

 voluntary and modest ignorance, calamitous only in a measure ; 

 fruitful in its lower field, yet sorrowfully condemned to that 

 lower field not by sin, but fate. 



When first I introduced you to Bewick, we closed our 

 too partial estimate of his entirely magnificent powers with 

 one sorrowful concession he could draw a pig, but not a 

 Venus. 



Eminently he could so, because which is still more sorrow- 

 fully to be conceded he liked the pig best. I have put now 

 in your educational series a whole galaxy of pigs by him ; 

 but, hunting all the fables through, I find only one Venus, 

 and I think you will all admit that she is an unsatisfactory 

 Venus.* There is honest simplicity here ; but you regret it ; 

 you miss something that you find in Holbein, much more in 

 * Lecture III., p. 57. 



