the above
colors; and if on a gold ground, the more "Catholic" your art is. Dress
your apostles like priests before the altar; and remember to have a good
commodity of crosiers, censers, and other such gimcracks, as you may
see in the Catholic chapels, in Sutton Street and elsewhere. Deal in
Virgins, and dress them like a burgomaster's wife by Cranach or Van
Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their gowns, and proper
angular draperies. Place all their heads on one side, with the eyes
shut, and the proper solemn simper. At the back of the head, draw,
and gild with gold-leaf, a halo or glory, of the exact shape of a
cart-wheel: and you have the thing done. It is Catholic art tout crache,
as Louis Philippe says. We have it still in England, handed down to us
for four centuries, in the pictures on the cards, as the redoubtable
king and queen of clubs. Look at them: you will see that the costumes
and attitudes are precisely similar to those which figure in the
catholicities of the school of Overbeck and Cornelius.

Before you take your cane at the door, look for one instant at the
statue-room. Yonder is Jouffley's "Jeune Fille confiant son premier
secret a Venus." Charming, charming! It is from the exhibition of
this year only; and I think the best sculpture in the gallery--pretty,
fanciful, naive; admirable in workmanship and imitation of Nature. I
have seldom seen flesh better represented in marble. Examine, also,
Jaley's "Pudeur," Jacquot's "Nymph," and Rude's "Boy with the Tortoise."
These are not very exalted subjects, or what are called exalted, and do
not go beyond simple, smiling beauty and nature. But what then? Are we
gods, Miltons, Michel Angelos, that can leave earth when we please;
and soar to heights immeasurable? No, my dear MacGilp; but the fools of
academicians would fain make us so. Are you not, and half the painters
in London, panting for an opportunity to show your genius in a great
"historical picture?" O blind race! Have you wings? Not a feather: and
yet you must be ever puffing, sweating up to the tops of rugged hills;
and, arrived there, clapping and shaking your ragged elbows, and making
as if you would fly! Come down, silly Daedalus; come down to the lowly
places in which Nature ordered you to walk. The sweet flowers are
springing there; the fat muttons are waiting there; the pleasant sun
shines there; be content and humble, and take your share of the good
cheer.

While we have been indulgi