great contempt, and points out two truths on this matter
demonstrated by comparative anatomy; "the one of which is, that the
beauty of the antique heads depends chiefly on the facial line in
them, making an angle of 100 degrees with the horizontal line; the
other is, that it is certain that such a head is never found in
nature."

In the tenth chapter he treats of "the causes of the superiority of
the pictures of the 16th and 17th centuries over those of the past
century." He looks upon Rome and the Antique as the chief cause, and
that artists go there before they have established principles of art.
It is not, he asserts, in difference of colours; for "Giorgione and
Titian neither made this themselves, nor brought them from afar, but
bought then uniformly in the shops at Venice." He appears to entertain
no suspicion of loss or deterioration of vehicle; on the contrary,
thinks some artists have been very successful in copies, here rather
contradicting his former remarks upon the difference between old
copies and new; but, above all, he attributes this _decadence_ of art
to the neglect of colour. That, however, is evidently only one part of
the art. We are almost induced to smile either at his flattery or his
simplicity in naming certain exceptions of modern times, whose names
will be little known to, and those known not much in the admiration
of, the English collector, "all of whom have carried their art to a
very high degree of perfection." In his chapter on the "different
manners of the masters," it is observable how little he has to say of
the Italian schools; almost all the subsequent remarks in the volume
are confined to the Flemish and Dutch. He greatly praises Dietrici for
his manner, which to us is not pleasing, and which we should term an
imitating flippancy. He tells an anecdote of Titian, which, if it rest
upon any good authority, tends to prove that Titian's medium must have
been one which admitted the mixture of water with oil. Of Titian he
says, that at the end of his life "he used to daub his best works anew
with red paint, because he thought the colour too feeble. But happily
his pupils had the address to prevent the fatal effects of his
foolishness, _by making up his colours with water only_, or with an
oil that was not of a drying nature." With colours ground, Titian
could not have mixed his pencil in oil alone and unmixed--and he would
himself have immediately discovered the cheat, for it would have dr