ete of
Edinburgh, has expressed in a still more moving and penetrating fashion
the impression produced upon his mind by the sight of this primitive
painting. "The Madonna of Margaritone," says the revered MacSilly,
"attains the transcendent end of art. It inspires its beholders with
feelings of innocence and purity; it makes them like little children.
And so true is this, that at the age of sixty-six, after having had the
joy of contemplating it closely for three hours, I felt myself suddenly
transformed into a little child. While my cab was taking me through
Trafalgar Square I kept laughing and prattling and shaking my
spectacle-case as if it were a rattle. And when the maid in my
boarding-house had served my meal I kept pouring spoonfuls of soup into
my ear with all the artlessness of childhood."

"It is by such results," adds MacSilly, "that the excellence of a work
of art is proved."

Margaritone, according to Vasari, died at the age of seventy-seven,
"regretting that he had lived to see a new form of art arising and the
new artists crowned with fame."

These lines, which I translate literally, have inspired Sir James
Tuckett with what are perhaps the finest pages in his work. They form
part of his "Breviary for Aesthetes"; all the Pre-Raphaelites know them
by heart. I place them here as the most precious ornament of this book.
You will agree that nothing more sublime has been written since the days
of the Hebrew prophets.

MARGARITONE'S VISION

Margaritone, full of years and labours, went one day to visit the studio
of a young painter who had lately settled in the town. He noticed in
the studio a freshly painted Madonna, which, although severe and rigid,
nevertheless, by a certain exactness in the proportions and a devilish
mingling of light and shade, assumed an appearance of relief and life.
At this sight the artless and sublime worker of Arezzo perceived with
horror what the future of painting would be. With his brow clasped in
his hands he exclaimed:

"What things of shame does not this figure show forth! I discern in it
the end of that Christian art which paints the soul and inspires the
beholder with an ardent desire for heaven. Future painters will not
restrain themselves as does this one to portraying on the side of a wall
or on a wooden panel the cursed matter of which our bodies are formed;
they will celebrate and glorify it. They will clothe their figures with
dangerous appearances of flesh, and