to find he has been practising all
his life in a wrong direction, when he reads "leave that of woman, for
there are none perfectly proportioned." We are not quite certain, if
some of Mr Etty's stay-spoiled figures are taken for examples, but that
the opinion of the old Italian may be in some credit. We spoke in the
commencement of this paper, of the "Gummi Fornis," which M. Merimee
concluded to be copal. The translator, in a note, offers a conjecture,
not without its probability, that it may have been sandarac, the
"Vernice da Scrivere" of Cennino, and quotes Raffaello Borghini in his
"Reposo." If you would have your varnish brilliant, use much
sandarac--it makes certainly a very hard varnish--it is difficult to
combine it with oil. We suppose it to have been one of the condemned
novelties as a vehicle for painting, from its being included in the
condemned list of trash, as only fit to polish boots, that moved the
satirical pen of Boschini:--

"O de che strazze se fa cavedal!
D'ogio d'avezzo, mastice e sandraca,
E trementina (per no dir triaca)
Robe che ilusterave ogni stival."

MARCO BOSCHINI.

Much has been said of late of "Encaustic Painting." It must have been
discontinued before the time of Giotto, as shown by the experiments of
Lanzi--no wax has been found in pictures painted after the year 1360. We
know that Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently used it, as have some painters
since his day. We cannot suppose that, mixed with oil, it would ever
give pigments their proper hardness.

Dryers are not mentioned by Cennino, excepting _verderame_ (verdigris,)
and that as a mordant. How were the oils made to dry? Will the sun be
sufficient? In the summers in Italy their mixed oils readily dry. But in
Holland, as in England, for at least a great part of the year, they will
not dry of themselves; and it is certain that the longer the pigments
are subjected to the action of the oil, the greater is the change. White
lead is by no means the best drying colour; and if lead, as a dryer, is
so injurious as some will have it to be, to colours in general, why do
we not find it so in white lead? Cennino recommends garlic pounded to a
juice, and cleared, as a mordant. It is supposed that it gives a drying
quality to oil. The practice of the old masters in drying their pictures
in the sun--was it only to effect the drying? We believe exposure to the
atmosphere is most beneficial to newly pai