away the strict judgment into a maze of wonder, from which it cannot and would not escape; this impossible, which is made half credible in the dream-like condition it engenders, I would term the magic of ornament; and indeed, in my pleasure, I am almost disposed to retract the distinction I have made between art and design in manufacture; at least, it draws me away further from your view of exact representation. How could you alter it? imagine instead of it a sheep, for it is its opposite, a cow, and if you please, the maid milking it, carved according to most exact life; you might admire the thing, but it would be turned out of this room. NAT. And why, for I really think it would be an alteration for the better? IDE. The why is, that I do not want the fatigue of comparison with the reality, where ornament, not picture, is intended; and while in this room I would shut out the farmyard and all its pigs and sheep, delvers and diggers. NAT. Now you turn from sober argument to wit, and throw an air of vulgarity into the representation, that need not be a part of it. Why not represent things in themselves more elegant; flowers, for instance, and fruit: you know the value of Gibbon's carving? IDE. Gibbon's work is beautiful indeed, and he knew well how to manage his lights and shadows, to give boldness and delicacy too where required: you have brought a giant in that line of art to combat for you; but I will pit the dragonet against him; and in all that ideality, I can fancy that though he cuts off one head, another will peep out from some of the involutions of lines, and soon thrust out the perfect head, and hiss secundem artem. Besides, the whole thing is delightfully fantastic, and the depths and hollows and maziness of the lines are all of ornamental magic, to be converted ad libitum to any magical meaning: and, strange to say, fancy will do what comparison will not, and invest with life, understanding, and meaning, and purpose, those, to your view, unmeaning lines, more readily than the nicer judgment will admit those living qualities in things meant to be exact similitudes. We are ready to deny what is arrogantly assumed. Are those " pictures like the lions?» said the boy to the showman. « Like!» quoth he, "so much so, that you would not know one from the other. Then, said the boy, I will save my money. He had nothing left him to wonder at. Had the dragon been really like any thing, we should never wonder; now, you may look yourself into a maze of wild metamorphosis, and find truth and impossibility linked together to give you pleasure. NAT. You really magnify the ornamental greatly—you surprise me; I should have thought you would have reserved all your ideality for the higher art-picture; but now, I find that, if imagination be the test of genius, there must be more of it in ornamental design. IDE. No, by no means, I do not even intimate so much. Pictures must have distinct, more defined objects; their ideality is of a precise purpose, and must be united at the same time more closely to the exactness of nature, while they have an aim above it. Design in ornamental is best where little is done; in picture, where much. The mind must be in the picture in the other, the mind is in yourself if mind it should be called, rather say fancy, which the character of ornament surely enables you to indulge in. NAT. Now, then, I am glad to find you are coming round to my opinion. In art, then, in picture, you will at least call the artist to a strict account of the natural in his worksyou will make him study nature, and nature alone, in all forms, particularly the human figure, the most beautiful of forms. Let us confine ourselves to picture, I will consider schools of design» for our manufactures at another time. Let us have exact drawing from real things, and exact colouring too, perfect nature in the arts, meaning picture-painting; for where, as you say; there must be a more definite object, there must be nothing but precise truth. ་ IDE. But you forget this was agreed, if you would define precise truth correctly, and thus it is we argue in a circle ; for as I expected, or as such was my meaning, precise truth may be more than the first visible and obvious truth. Exemplify it thus by a truly ideal painter in one respect, and not at all so in another-Rembrandt. Often, in telling his story, his object is mystery, his figures may be ill-drawn, ill-conceived; no matter, he wishes not to draw you to them as to beautiful objects, but they tell as parts to throw into light and shade, and on which to vary his colour, so that you think not of them, but of the mystery-that is his object, he is true to that. His work, therefore, establishes the truth of mystery, to which he has occupied the minor truths- minor with him with regard to his object, though every thing in another painter of another aim. So you will see here, by your precise truth, perhaps you did not mean to include this ideal truth. NAT. But do you not think Rembrandt's pictures would be better, if, in addition, there was the beautiful and correct drawing of the figure? inculcating bad taste, no. Perfect music A Venus and Apollo one of Rembrandt's IDE. I fear to incur the charge of but if compelled to decide, I must say may not be without a sacrifice to discord. in their utmost beauty would offend in deep mysteries-they would divide his subject. Where they are, they must have absolute dominion. NAT. Well, there may be something in that-but you are flying from the purpose. I am not of a new opinion - the controversy is an old one, The Caracci first set up the school of naturalists. They saw in nature all that was wanted in art. IDE. In obvious nature, did they? They presumed to do so, but in their better works stepped beyond the limits they professed to confine themselves within; and their predilection has even made their high fame and name of uncertain duration. The fame of the Caracci is not rising. But were not Correggio and Raffaelle naturalists? Certainly they were, and idealists too-the great painter must be both; but I doubt if you do not, in referring to that controversy, somewhat leave your own ground. You widen the discussion. You forget, too, that your Caracci painted tritons, and sea gods, and wood nymphs, dryads and hama-dryads, which they did not find in their academies-and, where they made them too human, they Jacked genius, and where shackled. The fact is, the art is universal; too wide is the field for these limits. We agree perfectly, if you assert that nature should be studied intensely, and with utmost accuracy; but when nature's forms leave you, that is external, shrink not from the ideal daring. Nat. It is not that nature's forms leave you, but you leave them; and the examples you give, though from the naturalists the Caracci, are to my view absurdities. Who ever saw, or in a sane state imagined, tritons and mermaids, and id genus omne?-the impossibility of their existence is shocking. There cannot be, physically, anatomically, such a being as half-man half-fish our actual knowledge rises up against the fabrication, and proclaims the cheat. : Ide. Not so fast-you assume too much; who ever saw is one thing, but who ever, in a sane state, imagined is another thing. I well tell you the sanest who imagined he saw « A mermaid on a dolphin's back. »> Nay, the all-sane Shakspeare not only imagined he saw, but called the testimony of another sense; he heard her « Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, You must not pass over the last line, the idea beyond the So that you perceive that not only did Shakspeare imagine the mermaid, but gave the sea and the stars life, and understanding, and delight to hear her. I see you yield-be sure that, if you bring poetry into the argument, you are lost; for the art is poetry, only for words it uses forms and col ours. NAT. No, not quite the same-words hurry over the absurdities, but painting fixes them. IDE. Painting only fixes what it selects, so that it must bear the blame, or assume the merit. NAT. Even in poetry does not Horace decry the practice of imagining impossible conjunctions ? IDE. Certainly he does not-he only condemns the incongruous in character-the tigers and lambs-not ut placidis coeant immitia. The monster he called his friends to deride, was indeed an absurd jumble of odds and ends, that never could be imagined to be one being. The horse's neck, and the woman's head, and what beside? NAT. You will not defend a Centaur, that worst of impossibilities; would any painter of sense now-a-days perpetrate such a subject? IDE. Why not? I have seen a very beautiful picture, by Rubens, of the Centaur Nessus-the wounded Nessus; nor did Rubens think it a vile perpetration to paint the half-bull halffish monster, rushing from the sea to destroy the chaste Hippolytur; nor do I think you would, upon reflection, disdain the beast; but Centaurs surely are a poetical conception, and of admitted, recognised fable. NAT. Poetry run mad, and painting too, that adopts the fable. Do let me show you the absurdity. Here is a creature with two stomachs, the human and enquine, and one mouth to maintain them both-the one body lives on hay, the other on flesh, and there cannot be, physically speaking, any union or communication between them. Is it possible to look at a picture of a Centaur, and not see and laugh at the folly or ignorance of the artist? IDE. Well, you have put a very strong case-you have put the dissection of your own natural in a very striking, startling way; but if, notwithstanding that, I can make out a case for the Centaurs, the greater will be the triumph of art. NAT. Admitted. We hear a great deal of ignorance-it may be asked if knowledge, too, does not produce its morbid disease; and, be not offended, it may happen that your imagination is infected by it; and as one in the jaundice sees all things of one hue, so one under the knowledge of disease, may see, by too scrutinizing a view, through the beauty-covering to the |