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they commonly speak of this treasure of natural infinity. Let us take our patience to us for an instant, and hear one of them, not among the least intelligent:-

“It is not true that all natural forms are beautiful. We may hardly be able to detect this in Nature herself; but when the forms are separated from the things, and exhibited alone (by sculpture or carving), we then see that they are not all fitted for ornamental purposes; and indeed that very few, perhaps none, are so fitted without correction. Yes, I say correction, for though it is the highest aim of every art to imitate Nature, this is not to be done by imitating any natural form, but by criticising and correcting it,-criticising it by Nature’s rules gathered from all her works, but never completely carried out by her in any one work; correcting it, by rendering it more natural, i.e., more conformable to the general tendency of Nature, according to that noble maxim recorded of Raffaelle, ‘that the artist’s object was to make things not as Nature makes them, but as she WOULD make them;’ as she ever tries to make them, but never succeeds, though her aim may be deduced from a comparison of her efforts; just as if a number of archers had aimed unsuccessfully at a mark upon a wall, and this mark were then removed, we could by the examination of their arrow-marks point out the most probable position of the spot aimed at, with a certainty of being nearer to it than any of their shots.”*

§ 3. I had thought that, by this time, we had done with that stale, second-hand, one-sided, and misunderstood saying of Raffaelle’s; or that at least, in these days of purer Christian light, men might have begun to get some insight into the meaning of it: Raffaelle was a painter of humanity, and assuredly there is something the matter with humanity, and few dovrebbe’s more or less, wanting in it.¹ We have most of us heard of original sin, and may perhaps, in our modest moments, conjecture that we are not quite what God, or Nature, would have us to be. Raffaelle had something to mend in Humanity: I should have liked to have seen him mending a daisy!-or a pease-blossom, or a month, or a mustard-seed, or any other of God’s slightest works. If he had accomplished that, one might have found for him more

* Garbett on Design, p. 74.

¹ [The saying of Raphael, about the painter following the “should have been” of nature (cited by Zucchero in his Lettera a’ Prencipe et Signori Amatori del dissegno, 1605) is: “Soleva dire Raffaello che il pittore ha obligo di fare le cose non come le fa la natura ma come ella le dovrebbe fare.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]