ch dramatists of Elizabeth's reign, neither was there the
unmistakable preponderance of such a mighty genius as that of
Shakespeare granted to the first decade, still the distinction was the
same in kind.[1]

I wish you, my readers, to note it in the very commencement, and to
learn, like the thoughtful students of painting, to put aside any
half-childish over-estimate of the absurdity of a blue stroke
transfixing a huge flounder-like fish as a likeness of a sea, (which you
have been accustomed to see translucid, in breakers and foam, in modern
marine pictures,) or your quick sense of the ugliness of straight
figures with long hands, wooden feet, and clinging draperies, while your
eyes have been familiar with well-modelled frames and limbs and flowing
lines. But we must look deeper if we would not be slaves to superficial
prettiness, or even superficial correctness; we must try to go into the
spirit of a painting and value it more in proportion as it teaches art's
noblest lesson--the divinity of the divine, the serenity of utmost
strength, the single-heartedness of passion.

I have only space to tell you of three or four of the famous works of
Giotto. First, his allegories in the great church, in honour of St
Francis, at Assisi, in relation to which, writing of its German
architect, an author says: 'He built boldly against the mountain, piling
one church upon another; the upper vast, lofty, and admitting through
its broad windows the bright rays of the sun: the lower as if in the
bowels of the earth--low, solemn, and almost shutting out the light of
day. Around the lofty edifice grew the convent, a vast building, resting
upon a long line of arches clinging to the hill-sides. As the evening
draws nigh, casting its deep shadows across the valley, the traveller
beneath gazes upwards with feelings of wonder and delight at this
graceful arcade supporting the massy convent; the ancient towers and
walls of the silent town gathering around, and the purple rocks rising
high above--all still glowing in the lingering sunbeams--a scene
scarcely to be surpassed in any clime for its sublime beauty.' The
upper church contains frescoes wonderfully fresh, by Cimabue, of
Scriptural subjects, and frescoes of scenes from the life vowed to
poverty of St Francis. In the lower church, over the tomb of St Francis,
are the four masterpieces with which we have to do. These are the three
vows of the order figuratively represented. Mark the fitnes