ell to study Mr Eastlake's book, if he would have a ground
that might suit his after-work. All grounds made with glues are bad--they
not only crack, but change the colours. M. Merimee accurately examined the
grounds of some of Titian's pictures--and found starch and paste. It is
supposed that grounds in which red-lead and umber have been used darken
all the pigments.

The Venetians usually preferred painting on cloth, and not unfrequently
chose the finest. There was a canvass used in Italy, and chiefly by the
Bolognese school, which gives much richness, its peculiar texture being
seen even through tolerably thick paint--the threads are in squares, and
rather coarse. We are surprised that such is not to be met with in our
shops. We have often endeavoured to obtain it without success. On canvass
of this kind some painters, and among them Guercino, contrived greatly to
raise the lights--so that as seen side-ways they appear to bulge. We are
not aware how this was done.

We take some credit to ourselves for having in the pages of Maga, so long
ago as June 1839--promoted an inquiry into the nature of the vehicles used
by the old masters. And this we did, knowing that we should incur some
odium and contemptuous disapprobation at the hands of artists, too many of
whom were jealous of any supposed superiority in their great predecessors,
and were generally satisfied with the meguilp, (mastic varnish, beat up
with drying oil,) which had, nevertheless, been proved so deceitful from
the first days of its adoption. The readiness with which it was made, the
facility of working which it offered, and its immediate brilliancy, were
temptations too great to be resisted. The too common use of this vehicle,
we confess, led us too far in a contrary direction--to set ourselves
against all varnishes whatever; and we laid, perhaps, too much stress upon
the authority of Tingry, who speaks strongly against the admixture[12] of
varnishes with oil; and, with this bias, we reviewed, in Maga, M.
Merimee's work, in which, certainly with mistranslations of the Latin of
Theophilus, as well as of Italian quotations, he insisted upon the use
principally of copal, though without any distrust of mastic.

The difference between the texture of old paint, that is of the good age,
both Italian and Flemish, and that which modern practice had exhibited,
was too manifest to be overlooked; and we never could bring ourselves to
believe that the meguilp in use, by