ork of one who first attended lectures by
a professor in an academy, learnt the usual tricks in an art school, and
then, not wanting to do, gloried in the display of his technical skill.
That is to say, it was done in the right spirit. The result of doing
things in this way will sometimes appear incompetent; this never
embarrassed Butler, provided that he could detect the sincerity; for
where sincerity is incompetence may be forgiven; but the incompetence
must not be so great as to obscure the artist's meaning. At Rossura the
sincerity is obvious, and the building is so perfect an adaptation of the
means to the end that there is no suggestion of incompetence.

Rossura porch was thus an illustration of what he says in _Alps and
Sanctuaries_ in the chapter "Considerations on the Decline of Italian
Art." It was more than merely a piece of architecture. When Butler
contemplated it he saw also the chapel with its altar and the people
standing in the meadow during the plague; he saw the same people, after
the pestilence had been stayed, kneeling on the steps in the dimness, the
sky bright through the arch beyond them and the distant mountains blue
and snowy, while the music floated out through the open church door; he
saw through the windows the gleaming slopes about Cornone and Dalpe, and,
hanging on the wall between them, the picture of austere old S. Carlo
with his hands joined in prayer. All these things could be written about
in _Alps and Sanctuaries_, but they could not be brought into the
illustrations apart from the text; and anyone who looks at Butler's
sketches of Rossura may be disappointed. If he does not bear these
things in mind he will not understand what Butler meant by saying that he
knew of few things more touching in their way than the porch of Rossura
church. He will be like a man listening to programme-music and knowing
nothing of the programme.

40. Pencil sketch inscribed: "Handel when a boy. Pencil sketch from an
old picture sold at Puttick and Simpson's and sketched by me while on
view. Dec. 15th, 1879. S.B."

On the same mount with the sketch-portrait of Robert Doncaster, no. 56.

41. Water-colour: Otford, Kent; from inside the church looking out
through the porch. 1879.

42. Drawing in pencil and ink: Edgeware. 1880.

43. Oil Painting: Rimella, Val Mastallone; up the Valley from Varallo-
Sesia.

44. Oil Painting: Eynsford, Kent.

45. Oil Painting: On the S. Bernardino Pass