OTES.

I.

_On the series of Sibyl engravings attributed to Botticelli._

246. Since I wrote the earlier lectures in this volume, I have been made
more doubtful on several points which were embarrassing enough before,
by seeing some better (so-called) impressions of my favorite plates
containing light and shade which did not improve them.

I do not choose to waste time or space in discussion, till I know more
of the matter; and that more I must leave to my good friend Mr. Reid of
the British Museum to find out for me; for I have no time to take up the
subject myself, but I give, for frontispiece to this Appendix, the
engraving of Joshua referred to in the text, which however beautiful in
thought, is an example of the inferior execution and more elaborate
shade which puzzle me. But whatever is said in the previous pages of the
plates chosen for example, by whomsoever done, is absolutely
trustworthy. Thoroughly fine they are, in their existing state, and
exemplary to all persons and times. And of the rest, in fitting place I
hope to give complete--or at least satisfactory account.

II.

_On the three excellent engravers representative of the first, middle,
and late schools._

[Illustration: XII.

The Coronation in the Garden.]

247. I have given opposite a photograph, slightly reduced from the Duerer
Madonna, alluded to often in the text, as an example of his best
conception of womanhood. It is very curious that Duerer, the least
able of all great artists to represent womanhood, should of late have
been a very principal object of feminine admiration. The last thing a
woman should do is to write about art. They never see anything in
pictures but what they are told, (or resolve to see out of
contradiction,)--or the particular things that fall in with their own
feelings. I saw a curious piece of enthusiastic writing by an Edinburgh
lady, the other day, on the photographs I had taken from the tower of
Giotto. She did not care a straw what Giotto had meant by them, declared
she felt it her duty only to announce what they were to _her_; and wrote
two pages on the bas-relief of Heracles and Antaeus--assuming it to be
the death of Abel.

248. It is not, however, by women only that Duerer has been over-praised.
He stands so alone in his own field, that the people who care much for
him generally lose the power of e