* ON COLOTTB. Takt T. 



useful instructions. So too the agreement and disagreement 

 of particular colours must depend on the power of perceiving 

 them; and, as in judging of form and proportion, the eye 

 can only be assisted by certain facts which are the result of 

 observation, but which can never be obtained by mere theory. 

 It is hopeless to begin by teaching this through the ear. 

 The harmony of colour must first be learnt through the eye ; 

 and those who teach it must possess the faculty of perceiving 

 it ; but to begin with a theory is writing the grammar of a 

 language before the language is understood. Nor is it, at any 

 time, possible to reduce it to rules, like a language. And yet 

 instances of this precipitation are constantly occurring ; and 

 instead of guiding the eye, which is to be the judge in such 

 matters, there is an attempt to substitute the memory for the 

 perception, and to charge it with rules founded upon some 

 plausible and imaginary data. Because such and such colours 

 stand in a certain relationship to others, or are compounded 

 in a particular manner, it is affirmed that they must there- 

 fore accord or disagree with some other one ; and the ques- 

 tion asked is not whether they do or do not agree, but whether 

 they ought or ought not to agree. 



2. These theories, and the predetermination of what colours 

 should do, put me in mind of a story told me by a Grerman of 

 my acquaintance, who, on his first arrival in London, endea- 

 voured to account for all he saw by explanations formed in 

 his mind before he had time to obtain experience, and who 

 thought, as his countrymen too often do, that everything must 

 be subjected to speculation and made amenable to theory. . 



Happening to go into Portman Square, he saw, conspicuous 

 on the facade of one of the houses, a richly painted hatch- 

 ment. He made a note of it ; while he wondered what it 

 meant. But on going into Grrosvenor and some other squares, 

 where he also saw other hatchments, he at once formed his 

 theory ; and when he entered this among his memoranda : 



