indeed from the language of life. In brief, there is more emotion, more passion even, in a lace-frill painted by Velasquez, in a necklet or balustrade of Veronese, in Titian's famous glove, than in all the crucifixions and martyrdoms of the most tragical of the Primitives.

The limitations of the early Italians were, then, inevitable. They were rather the contrivers of great decoration than the painters of great pictures. We shall best understand their works if we regard them as articles de luxe, which have lost something of their effect by transplantation. But if we consider the paintings and bronzes, the coverlets and furniture, the printed books and the drawings, as the work of one nation and two centuries, how shall we sufficiently admire the achievement? As handicraftsmen the Pre-Raphaelites were supreme. The New Gallery is packed with little masterpieces. There is scarce a key or a metal plaque which does not show the benefit of a noble convention and a decorative sense. The printed books are a joy to the eye, while the brocades and embroideries might inspire a long-hoped-for revolution. And if in painting the fourteenth century was but a forerunner, it gave birth to the most serene and classic sculptor since the supremacy of Greece—to the incomparable Donatello, more than one of whose works may be found at the New Gallery. The 'Bronze Bust of a Boy' is as large and simple a sculpture as you could wish to see, and is a strange contrast to the pictures which hang in its neighbourhood. Again, if the early Italians were not masters of the art of painting, they had ever an exquisite touch with the point, and their drawings are completely satisfactory. True, many in the present exhibition are ascribed to Michelangelo, to Raphael, to Lionardo da Vinci, to artists, in fact, who had outgrown their childhood. But even the earliest show a purity of design, a sense of material, a perfect consonance of end and means, which we do not find in Italian painting until its culmination. The Italian genius (before the supremacy of Venice) was expressed in line rather than in colour, and it is in the sculpture of Donatello, in the drawings of the masters, that it reached its highest development. And yet the sterner beauties of marble and line do not always eclipse the softer harmonies of colour. If the most of the pictures are marred by a natural awkwardness, some there are which might live in the neighbourhood of the world's masterpieces. Such, for instance, is Filippo Lippi's 'Virgin and Child with St. Clare and St. Agatha.' This is one of the rare concords in the gallery. In colour it is as rich and sumptuous as if it were painted in Venice, while it would be hard indeed in any school to match its simple and exquisite drawing.

The modern enthusiasm for Italian art has led to not a little

extravagant criticism. To the sober, balanced judgment of Sir Joshua there succeeded the moral indiscretions of Mr. Ruskin, who has made the Madonnas of Italy the text of many a semi-theological

discourse. So much importance does he attach to the subject, to the pervasive spirit of reverent purity, that he might as well be criticising a sermon or a homily. There is much talk of 'conscience' and 'personal virtue.' This painter is 'doing good' to the Christian religion; that one is supporting the 'social order.' Raphael, you are told, 'defended the doctrines of theology with anatomical designs.' Botticelli, we read, 'is the only painter of Italy who understood the thoughts of heathens and Christians equally, and could in a measure paint both Aphrodite and the Madonna.' Would it not be juster to say that Botticelli was a Florentine, who gave such titles to his pictures as seemed him good, and who painted Aphrodite and the Madonna in one and the same spirit? That the painters of Italy sought their motives in the Christian legend was an accident, which had the slenderest influence upon their talent. It is absurd to argue, for instance, that Piero di Cosimo, who gave his pictures mythological titles, was either more or less moral than Raphael (say) who followed the fashion of theology. The artist does not work with his soul, nor is it his first duty to awaken the conscience. And how shall the choice of a religious subject be urged in defence of a painter's piety, when the choice of religious subjects was universal? Would the Ruskinite have us believe that in that most turbulent age the painters alone were spotless? And how should their spotlessness affect our judgment, when their works appeal directly to the eye? Convention ever lays a heavy hand upon the artist, who is great, not because he is fertile in literary resource, but because he interprets the commonplaces of his time in a personal and distinguished spirit. If you admire the piety of the Italian Primitives, why should you not also applaud the Greek tragedians for their choice of subject? And how then, as they were bidden by tradition to drink at the same well, would you distinguish Sophocles from Eschylus, or Euripides from either?

Then, by a whim of irony, came Morelli, and brushed away the Ruskinian heresy. No longer do we hear of reverence and praise. The critics bave left the ancient idol for the new, and refrain from describing the works of the old masters as though they were so many pictures of their year gibbeted at Toynbee Hall. No: if you would be modern, you must measure ears, not souls; you must take the length of hands, not of intentions. The new connoisseur neglects the archives, and deems a general impression the unpardonable sin. He assumes that no painter ever drew more than one hand, than one ear. And thus he wanders Europe over, with foot-rule in hand, changing the names of pictures, and covering himself with glory. His assumption, to be sure, is monstrous. Doubtless certain forms are in a measure characteristic of certain painters. But the largest latitude must be allowed for the idiosyncrasies of models and for an infinite variety of other circumstances. A painter is not always a machine for the

dissemination of clichés, and it is quite conceivable that he may imagine a round ear to-day, an elliptical to-morrow. Besides, does not the pupil of Morelli beg the whole question? Raphael, he argues, affected a round, fleshy ear. Wherefore if in a picture ascribed to Raphael you detect an ear which is neither round nor fleshy, you at once denounce it as spurious. But, on the other hand, suppose the picture to be genuine, it is apparent at once that Raphael did not always paint his ears 'round and fleshy.'

The dispute in fact resembles the ancient argument for, and against, the credibility of miracles. Miracles, said the one side, are contrary to experience and therefore incredible. Admit, objected the other, that miracles have taken place, and they at once become a part of experience, and therefore easy of belief. However, Morelli himself was not only a keen-sighted critic, but a man of excellent humour; so that his books are excellent reading, even if you neglect his conclusions. Seldom, indeed, does he descend into sentimentality, and his destructive criticism is wholesomely violent. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (with the whole German race) are the villains of his piece, and right merrily does he belabour them. He has as little sympathy with the æsthete as with the art historian, whom he justly blames for reliance upon the printed word. Critics there are who cheerfully accept Pliny as an authority upon Greek Art, and place reliance in the chatter of Vasari. But Morelli is not of their school, and, having demolished his enemies, he returns cheerfully to his photographs and his measurements. His method is the anthropometry (so to say) of art criticism; he has applied the Bertillon system to pictures, and a child may practise it after his own fashion. Those to whom art makes no appeal can yet distinguish between a long and short hand, and thus become after the briefest training full-fledged connoisseurs. The results of Morelli's campaign have been indubitably brilliant. He has played havoc with the museums of Europe, and enjoyed the solid satisfaction of seeing the results of his own discovery. And yet did he not always proceed by that first impression which he so sternly condemns in others? And were his measurements of hand and ear anything better than a playful hobby? If indeed they served his purpose, it was because a sure eye and a witty brain controlled and corrected them. Whatever Morelli accomplished was due to himself, not to his method. And in vain will those disciples who lack his talent compare the features of innumerable Madonnas. But strangest of all is the readiness with which Ruskinism has yielded to the first assault. The theological criticism of art-the methodism which would condemn every work that was not obviously designed to do good-has been happily forced down to the lower-middle class; and is replaced by the least sentimental method that human ingenuity has yet invented. But is the new criticism more vital than the old? Is it of the first and last importance that every masterpiece should be rightly

ascribed to its author? Even Morelli, with the cynical frankness which was characteristic of him, acknowledged the fatuity of his pursuit. Taking the highest view,' he wrote, 'it is in fact completely immaterial whether a work of art gives me pleasure or instruction under one name or another; the point is, that it does give me pleasure, that is to say, that it appeals to my sense of enjoyment, or, as the Germans would put it, that it causes the tenderest chords and fibres of my soul to vibrate.' To be sure, that is the point. It matters not a jot, beyond a pleasant curiosity, whose name decorates a frame. The picture is good or bad in spite of its signature, and though it amused Signor Morelli to shuffle the ascriptions of many masterpieces, there is not the smallest reason to believe that his work is permanent. The names are changed only so long as none (with a louder voice) comes to put them back. But the pictures remain unalterable for good or evil, and the rest is a side issue. That the catalogue of the New Gallery would have afforded endless merriment to Morelli is obvious; but the quality of the exhibition is not impaired thereby. And if the committee, which has now shown us Italian Art in the seed, will next year show us Italian Art in the flower, and display the masterpieces of Titian, Veronese and Tintoret, how shall we measure our gratitude? One thing at least is certain: we shall leave our foot-rule at home with our text-books of theology, and give our eyes their full enjoyment.

CHARLES WHIBLEY.

THE GLACIAL THEORY

THE abstracts of 'Recent Science,' by Prince Kropotkin, which have appeared from time to time in this Review are full of interest, and I always read them with much pleasure. But I wish to enter some protest against his account, in the number for this month, of the present condition of Quaternary geology, in respect to what is called the Glacial period. I agree with him that the concentrated attention which is now bestowed on that mysterious epoch has already thrown new and unexpected light upon the complicated phenomena of our superficial surfaces and deposits. But I differ from him entirely when he implies that the extreme glacialists are the observers, whilst the objectors to that extreme theory are only readers. I have lived all my life in a glaciated country—have been observing its facts from day to day for at least forty years-and I remain convinced, and yearly more and more confirmed in my opinion, that no such thing as a great ice-cap ever existed here, in the sense in which that phrase is used by the extreme glacialists, and in the sense in which it is used by Prince Kropotkin. Nor do I think it is true that this extreme theory is gaining ground. On the contrary, I think that in recent years a larger and a larger number of observers have been expressing doubts, and have been advancing more and more convincing arguments against the notion of gigantic and massive sheets of ice having ever 'flowed' over all our surfaces, whether of plain or of mountain, and having ground them down under one gigantic machine which scooped out all our glens, rounded all our hills, and dug out all our lakes.

In the country in which I live the marks of glaciation are indeed abundant. But they all point to conditions of action entirely different from, and are, in my opinion, absolutely incompatible with, the supposed work which is assigned to 'the sheet' or 'the cap.' Prince Kropotkin is entirely mistaken when he assumes that our objections to such a theory have any connection with any doubt of James Forbes's discovery of the plasticity of ice. I have always believed in the truth of that discovery; and one of my principal objections to the universal ice-sheet theory is that an enormous moving mass of plastic ice must have produced effects which are non-existent-' conspicuous by their VOL. XXXV-No. 204 Ꮓ