ing simplicity and
innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance. We
do not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin, we certainly
would not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen, and one
only. He did not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo
was dead! And then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful
ignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort of
satisfaction that he is gone and out of his troubles!

No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivation
for himself. The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitude
and variety of its misstatements, and the convincing confidence with
which they are made. And yet it is a text-book in the schools of
America.

The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the Old
Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge,
which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a
traveled man to be able to display. But what is the manner of his study?
And what is the progress he achieves? To what extent does he
familiarize himself with the great pictures of Italy, and what degree of
appreciation does he arrive at? Read:

"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,
we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know
that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking
tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without
other baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that
he always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see other
monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, we
always ask who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to
learn."

He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these several
pictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed simplicity that he
feels encouraged to believe that when he has seen "Some More" of each,
and had a larger experience, he will eventually "begin to take an
absorbing interest in them"--the vulgar boor.

That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one will
deny. That is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the confiding
and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book is a
deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind,